Secrets of the Sands
The Lost Scroll of the Physician
Copyright © Alisha Sevigny, 2020
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All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Publisher and acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Jess Shulman
Cover designer: Laura Boyle
Cover illustration: Queenie Chan
Printer: Webcom, a division of Marquis Book Printing Inc.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The lost scroll of the physician / Alisha Sevigny.
Names: Sevigny, Alisha, author.
Description: Series statement: Secrets of the sands ; 1
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190117079 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190117087 | ISBN 9781459744295 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459744301 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459744318 (EPUB)
Classification: LCC PS8637.E897 L67 2020 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23
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CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Ancient Egypt:
The Second Intermediate Period …
1
THE COBRA HISSES IN STRIKE POSITION, forked tongue flickering, hood flared wide. Its icy, flat stare remains unbroken except for the vertical blink of its eyes. My fingers move up and down the long wooden reed, covering some holes and releasing others, as the notes float up and up. Gaze locked with mine, the snake slowly undulates from side to side and my body relaxes a fraction as our spirits entwine. A crowd has formed.
This is what I want.
Vendors walk toward the spectacle, attention drawn. People point and laugh, momentarily distracted from the oppressive heat of midday as they move in closer for the show. My eyes don’t leave the snake’s, but I know Ky is weaving through the carts, lifting a plum here, palming a fig there, taking whatever is most easily on offer. Hopefully he’ll find some bread, maybe some nuts and fruits, though there hasn’t been much variety of late. My ears strain for shouts, an exclamation of “thief!” over a rumbling stomach, but the crowd is as mesmerized as the serpent.
Snake charming is not common knowledge here. My father taught me the art, just as he taught me to read and write, also not so common — especially for a girl. But he believed that learning and knowledge bestow power on their possessor. Unfortunately, all his knowledge and power were not enough to keep him and my mother from being killed.
Pain blooms raw and fresh, as if the cobra has struck my heart. Has it only been one moon since they were stolen from us?
Focus.
I need to focus or the snake’s Ka will break with mine. Then I will not be so safe. Though safety is mostly an illusion, I think.
Higher and higher, the snake rises in the air, out of the basket woven with grasses picked from the banks of the Nile by my own hands. Ky’s and mine. His are much faster. I pray to Amun they are fast now and try not to think what will happen if they are not. A fruit vendor, bald and fat, clothes stained with the juices of his wares, thrusts a finger in my direction and jeers.
“The snake is drugged. See how slow it moves.”
I do not stop playing to tell him the snake is moving slow because it is entranced. Also, the heat of this day would make any creature sluggish. My heckler himself is sweating, a hairy, meaty arm coming across his dripping brow. Others begin to murmur, debating the state of the cobra’s consciousness, attention wavering.
This is dangerous.
I move the reed in dizzying circles, notes coming faster. The snake follows the instrument, not taking its eyes from the wand, regarding it as a predator. It does not matter what tune I play, as the reptile can sense the sounds but not the individual notes. Those are for the audience, and so I try to make them as pleasing as possible. Unlike the fat man, I do not want my clothes splattered with rotten fruit.
There is a noise at the back of the crowd. My body tenses. A dog barks, then barks again. Time slows as the fat man turns, upper body twisting as he cranes neck over shoulder, double chin coming last, pointing in the direction of the commotion.
Please don’t let it be Ky, please don’t let it be Ky.
But Amun must be sleeping because there is my brother, scrawny arm held tight in the grip of an angry woman, dark hair frizzing around her shoulders like pregnant storm clouds. She is yelling and my brother’s face is pinched and scared.
My foot shoots out, kicking the basket over. Screams erupt from the crowd as Apep goes slithering off in search of cooler and calmer surroundings. The flash of regret at the hours of now-wasted training is quickly replaced by an intense fear that my brother could possibly lose the arm the woman is clutching.
Or worse.
Running through the panicked crowd, Ky and the screeching woman disappear in the churning masses. Frantic, I whirl in all directions, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the pair.
A dog barks again and I look in its direction, eyes landing on the fat man.
“Don’t let him go!” he shouts, enraged. Following his gaze, I see the woman with my brother.
“If you were not so lazy and distracted, thieves could not steal so easily!” she yells back. I realize she is my heckler’s wife. He thunders toward them, one hand on the large knife at his side, sun glinting off the deadly blade. For a fat man he is quick as a crocodile, with a grin twice as evil. I dart under arms and around unwashed bodies, coughing on dust kicked up by sweaty feet.
“Sesha,” Ky cries, catching sight of me.
“Release him,” I say. The woman sneers at me in perfect imitation of her husband, who is only seconds from reaching us.
“I don’t think so.” Her lips twist in a cruel smile as her nails dig deeper into Ky’s arm, making him cry out. “He is going to pay for what he took.”
“He has nothing.” I pray she will not lift his tunic where the cloth sack is tied around his skinny waist. The fat man is almost upon us, knife gripped low. My mind races for a way out and comes up with nothing. I cannot leave Ky.
Then the dog is there, growling deep in its throat. It stares menacingly at the woman.
She takes a step back, unsure, pulling Ky with her. “Call off your dog.”
“He is not mine to call.”
“Liar.”
And then the man is also there, lunging for me. I go boneless like Apep, and slip through his hands. He lets out a roar, rotten breath enveloping me as he fumbles for the knife. Reaching my brother, I grab his arm and pull with all my strength in the opposite direction. The man is on his knees, scrambling for his knife in the dirt. Tugging harder, I yell again at the woman to let go. She will not. She is too strong.
The dog lunges forward, jumping up on her front, teeth snapping. She screams, hands coming up to protect her face, releasing Ky so suddenly that I stumble backward and we fall hard to the ground. But only for a second.
Jumping to his feet, Ky extends a crescent-marked arm to help me up. We race through the market, dodging around stalls and people too preoccupied with their own lives and the possibility of a snake underfoot to pay much attention.
I hear both the man and the woman shout behind us, but we are lightning, darting into shadows that even the sun’s rays cannot dispel. When at last we are sure of our safety, we stop, hands on knees, breath coming fast and hard, tracks of sweat running down our dusty faces. It is several minutes before we speak.
“I’m sorry, Sesha,” Ky says, distress in his dark brown eyes. “My hunger made me careless.”
“Do not apologize for being hungry, little brother.” I ruffle his brown hair, curly like our father’s was. He brightens.
“Look.” Untying the cloth satchel at his waist, he lets the tattered sack fall to the ground. Out rolls a fig, some grapes, a few berries, and one overripe plum, conjuring with it the smell of the man’s decaying teeth. My stomach turns.
“Well done.” I gesture to the food. “Eat. I am not hungry.”
“Are you sure?” Picking up the fig, he has it in his mouth before I can nod. He needs it more than I. Noting the dark circles under his eyes and the pallor of his face under skin coloured by the sun, I gesture to him to sit as we lean back against a pitted wall behind one of the temples.
“Apep?” he says between ravenous bites, juice dribbling down his chin.
“Gone,” I say, and he lowers his eyes. “Back to the riverbank where she’ll be much happier.”
“But … all the time we spent with her …” There’s a slight tremor in his voice.
“I can find another snake.” I pat his back and smile to let him know I’m not upset. “Another brother may not prove to be so easy.”
He holds out some bruised grapes. “Have some, Sesha, they are delicious.”
I oblige, knowing he will not relent until I eat something. We finish the food together, leaving only the mushy plum, which Ky pockets. A rustling sound to our left has us on our feet, heads swivelling in its direction. The dog from the market trots around the corner and we relax, slumping back against the wall. It walks up to Ky and licks his face, making him giggle. It nudges me next with a wet nose and I scratch its pointy ears. There’s a chunk missing from the left one, an old injury leaving the skin soft and smooth.
“Do you know this dog?” I ask, curious as to where it came from.
“He saved us,” my brother says, laying his head on the lean torso. “He is ours now.”
“Just what we need.” I sigh. “Another mouth to feed.” The dog barks and a hind leg comes up to scratch vigorously behind his torn ear. “And fleas.”
2
“DO YOU THINK PHARAOH knows we’re alive?” Ky asks for the dozenth time, leaning back against crumbling sunbaked brick, tossing the plum high up in the air then catching it, over and over again.
“I imagine he might have come to that conclusion,” I say, adding a few twigs to our small fire, “seeing as how our bodies were never found.”
We have made our way back to our nightly refuge: an abandoned storage hut, thatched roof half fallen in, three decrepit walls. We face the missing fourth, which — while breezy — allows for a wondrous view of the palace rising up in the night. It feels like a life ago that we were once free to roam its halls. I was a different person then.
“And you really think he ordered Father to be killed?” His voice catches, tripping over far too much anguish for a boy his age. He misses the plum and it falls to the earth with a splat. The dog looks up.
“I’m not sure,” I say, permanently filled with despair at the thought of my father’s friend being capable of such betrayal. But how else to explain what I saw that night? Guards fleeing from the house, right after the blaze broke out. Guards bearing the pharaoh’s personal crest. Shuddering, I shake my head to rid myself of the awful memories. “It may have been just a terrible coincidence.”
Yet something whispers in my ear that it was not. Still. I have no evidence, no proof, and even if I did, what can I do? All I can do is keep my brother safe and out of Pharaoh’s vast reach, on the chance that he did have something to do with that night’s events. Not an easy task.
“Why would anyone want Father dead? He helped so many people.” Ky pets the dog, who has wandered over to sniff at the flattened plum. He has taken to calling him Anubis. I’m not sure if the jackal-headed god will be honoured or offended by his mangy namesake.
“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself,” I admit. “There is just one thing that stands out in the months leading up to the fire. That big project he was working on.”
“The scroll?” Anubis, seeming to dislike overripe plums as much as I do, leaves the fruit and lies down. He rolls over, offering his belly for Ky to scratch.
“Yes.” Our father, consumed with the transcription of a very important document, would not go into detail of its contents, only that it would have great implications for Egypt, and the rest of the world. All those late nights at the temple and the secrecy surrounding the papyrus have stirred up my suspicions, like desert winds to the sand.
More and more I am coming to think that his and Mother’s deaths were not an accident. Her sweet voice and translucent honey eyes come to me now, as water fills my matching amber ones. I blink it back as the dog gets up and trots over to me, his own moist eyes, one brown one blue, examining mine. His expression is so human that I wonder if there is not a bit of the god in him.
The growing desire to find out exactly what happened to my parents swells now, bursting over the banks of my heart and flooding my body like the great river after the rains. I vow to Ra to discover the truth. This last moon I have been focused only on surviving and caring for Ky, while grieving Father and Mother. But I will find out. For their sakes and for mine.
Anubis cocks his head and blinks, as if to approve my decision, then goes to lie beside my yawning brother, who, exhausted by the day’s events, curls into a ball on the sand, just as Ra’s golden vessel finishes its journey across the sky. Removing the cloth wrapped around my shoulders, I lean over, covering Ky with it. And for his sake, most of all. For though I do not know much about the papyrus my father was working on, I do know it has the power to save my brother’s life.
A noise has me starting awake, bolting to an upright position. My heart beats fast, shooting energy through my body. Anubis is also awake, alert and standing, looking into the night as though expecting something or someone. Ky has come uncovered and is shivering. Pulling the cloth up over his small shoulders, I sit back, no longer tired. Anubis comes to sit beside me, perched on his haunches, still vigilant. Scratching behind his ear and staring into dying coals, I recall Father, a few moons before the fire, talking excitedly to Mother about the scroll. From my bed, I remember pulling down the blanket, sleepily eavesdropping.
“Incredible discovery … the Great Imhotep … only surviv
ing copy … save our Ky …” I see him clearly in the night, both then and now. Back to me, hands animated, he picks up my mother and spins her, his kiss making her giggle like a young girl. The fire crackles and her laugh floats away on the wind.
I need to find out more about the papyrus. If it is as important as Father deemed, it could be a clue to what happened to my parents. And if he felt it could help Ky, then all the more reason, for every day my brother grows more ill. Looking at him, face gaunt in the shadows, I am struck by a fist of guilt. Am I doing the right thing keeping us hidden from the pharaoh? We could be in the palace right now, warm, bellies full. Ky would be playing with his friend Tutan, one of the young princes. I could resume my studies. But if Father was keeping the scroll quiet, then there must have been a reason. Perhaps there was someone he did not trust at court or at temple? Anubis stiffens, cocks his head, and whines.
“Peace, Anubis. Dinner was hours ago and it is only the discontentment of an empty belly that has me thinking such thoughts.” But the dog bristles again and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck lift in response. This past month has taught me to trust my instincts. I look around, wincing at how exposed the fire makes us. But I’d wanted Ky to be warm. Never mind that, now. We need to get out of here.
“Ky, wake up.” I shake my brother gently. “We have to go.” He murmurs and turns over and I shake his shoulders more vigorously. “Ky, wake up, we need to leave this —”
“And what is it we have here?” A harsh voice, jarring in the night, has me leaping to my feet and Anubis growling. Ky is awake, rubbing bleary eyes that blink at the three figures now blocking our view of the palace, closing in on us.
The guards step closer. “We heard there were thieves in the market today, causing a disturbance,” the biggest one says, voice rough and full of malice. “Seems like someone’s been upsettin’ the vendors these past weeks. Takin’ things that don’t belong to ’em.”
“What in Amun’s name are you talking about?” I say in my boldest tone, glaring at the three soldiers. “My brother and I have done nothing wrong.”
The Lost Scroll of the Physician Page 1