by Paula Guran
Amun looked out through the eyeholes in the Anubis mask, and felt his heart aching for his friend.
The mask had been a gift from the man who was now stood inside the Ibu, his head lowered, his hands clasped before him. It was a marvelous creation, set with jewels and gold and painted by the finest craftsman in the empire, with ears that rose more than two feet above his own head and teeth that seemed alternately to snarl and smile, depending on the angle they were viewed from. Amun had been Hery Sesheta for less than a year, and had presided over the burials of a dozen men and women in that time; none of them had in any way prepared him for what was asked of him now.
The Pharaoh Ramesses II, the God-King, the Conqueror of Syria, the Scourge of Nubia, raised his head, and Amun was horrified to see tears on his face. Before him, on the same stone table that had held his father, his grandfather, and almost a dozen of his sons, lay the mummified body of Nefertari, his Great Wife. Amun had demanded his priests’ very finest work, and they had delivered; the mummy was a work of art, its lines smooth and elegant, the amulets contained within the wrappings the finest he had seen, the scroll of the Book of the Dead that had been placed in her hands the work of the finest calligrapher in all of Thebes, and the painting of Osiris that covered her chest a glory to the god it depicted. He had dismissed his priests before the pharaoh arrived, despite their desire to discover whether the God-King was pleased with their work. Amun knew that there was nothing inside the Ibu that was going to give Ramesses any pleasure.
“Take off the mask,” said the pharaoh. “I would see your face, Hery Sesheta.”
Amun reached up and lifted the mask clear. His face now wore the lines of middle age, the weathering of a life spent on the edge of the desert. It had been twenty-five years since he had stood beside Ramesses as his father was washed and oiled, a long reign by any standards, a great reign, perhaps the greatest of them all, with no end in sight. But time had taken its toll on the pharaoh too; his once clear skin was now marked and ridged with scars, his eyes were sunken, and his spine was beginning to curve alarmingly, causing him to walk with a stick when not in public.
“I am here, Your Highness,” said Amun.
“Stand by me,” said Ramesses. “As you always have.”
Amun swallowed hard, and walked across the Ibu. He was slower than he had been, far slower than when they had first met, when he had all but skipped across the sand to take his place at the young prince’s side. As soon as he was within reach, Ramesses’ hand shot out and gripped his arm, the knuckles white with effort; it hurt, but Amun gave no sign of it.
“You once asked me about grief,” said Ramesses, his gaze fixed on the remains of his wife. “About sadness. I gave you a foolish answer. Do you remember?”
“I do,” said Amun. “You told me that grieving for the dead was selfish.”
“And it is,” said Ramesses. “By any measure, it is. But I would give anything in the empire, anything in all the worlds and heavens to have her breathe again. Does that make me weak?”
“No,” said Amun, his voice cracking. “It makes you human.”
Ramesses turned to face him, and for a fleeting moment, Amun saw the boy the pharaoh had been: his whole life ahead of him, able to dismiss grief because he had never experienced it, full of the heavy certainty of youth. Then he was gone, replaced by the grown man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Do it,” he said, his voice low and full of pain. “Open her mouth. Let us send her onwards. Perhaps she will wait for me on the other side.”
Prehotep brought the chariot to a halt outside the Ibu, and offered his arm. Amun refused it, and stepped carefully down on to the desert floor on his own.
The vast tent was perched on the western edge of the Valley of the Kings, above the resting places of countless pharaohs and their families. The tomb in which the mortal remains of Ramesses II would lie for all eternity was waiting below, opposite the enormous labyrinth of rooms in which his children and wives, better than five dozen of them, lay in silent rest. The tomb of Nefertari, the grandest and most lavish of them all, was beside Ramesses’ own.
The vizier’s retinue formed a guard, two silent lines of dark robes and lowered eyes. Amun walked through it, his head raised, his mind focused solely on the fulfillment of a vow that was more than half a century old. He carried with him his linen sack, and he walked as steadily as he was able. That he was old was impossible to hide, but the watching soldiers need not know just how infirm he had become. He looked straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the Ibu, and stepped through it.
For a long moment, he couldn’t breathe.
He had prepared himself for this moment, ever since word had begun to spread through the empire that the pharaoh was gone, had believed he had steeled himself further during the journey in the vizier’s chariot. But now that he was here, now that his friend, the man who in many ways had been the great constant of his long life, was actually lying before him, he faltered. His legs threatened to give way beneath him, but Prehotep’s hand was there again, unasked for but not unwelcome, holding Amun gently until he regained his composure.
Arranged along the opposite side of the Ibu were the priests of Anubis, every one of whom had been admitted into the temple during Amun’s time as Hery Sesheta. The majority were watching him with the professional dispassion he expected, but his experienced eyes saw flickers of concern on several of their faces. At the center of the line stood Masud, the priest who it had been Amun’s final act to promote to Hery Sesheta in his place. He was holding his jackal mask in his hands, and looking at Amun with great warmth in his gaze.
On the stone table lay the mummified remains of Ramesses II, the God-King, the Light of Ra, the Breath of the World. Amun’s professional eye examined the mummy, and concluded that the work was good; the painting of Osiris was perhaps the most beautiful he had seen, in all his long years. On a smaller table lay the cloth and strips of linen that would make the final wrapping; beyond them stood the two coffins that would convey the pharaoh down to his tomb. There, the priests and mourners would share the funeral meal and make offerings of meat, before the rooms were sealed forever. There was a single thing to be done first.
The Opening of the Mouth.
Unless the ritual was performed perfectly, Ramesses would not be able to eat, drink, or speak in the afterlife. It was of vital importance, and Amun had promised that it would not be done by anyone else.
“Hery Sesheta,” said Masud, smiling gently. “It is good to see you. Would you wear my mask?”
“Thank you, Masud,” said Amun. “But I will wear my own, if that does not offend?”
“It does not, Hery Sesheta,” replied Masud, then turned to his priests. “Clear the Ibu.”
The priests turned silently and exited the tent, without a backward glance between them. Amun admired their stoicism; it was as it should be, death treated as ritual and ceremony and work. He had instilled that focus into every priest he had taught, and was heartened to see their resolve hold. His own was another matter.
“The libations and offerings have been made,” said Masud. “The ritual is all but complete. I will leave you to finish it.”
“As will I,” said Prehotep. “When it is done, give word.”
“I will,” said Amun, his gaze still locked on the mummy.
The vizier and the Hery Sesheta both nodded, and left the Ibu. Amun waited until the flap of cloth had swung back into place, then addressed the body of his friend.
“I am here, Your Highness,” he said, his voice low and thick. “You cannot know it, but I am here. We are together in this place a final time.”
He lifted the linen sack on to the stone table and opened it. His Anubis mask gleamed under the flickering light of the torches that stood around the edges of the tent; beside it lay a small ornate axe, its head smooth and sharp, its handle carefully painted with inscriptions from the Book of the Dead.
“I did not believe I would see th
is day,” said Amun. “I held my vow, and nothing would have seen me break it, other than my own death. But I did not truly believe I would stand here, old as I am, with you gone. I am sad, Your Highness, and although I know that would not meet with your approval, you are no longer here to tell me so. I would not bring you back, even if such a thing were possible, as I do not believe you would want me to. Instead I will do all that it remains within my power to do. I will send you onwards, in health, in strength, ready to experience the wonders of the next world. And in time, I will follow you.”
Amun raised the mask of Anubis, his hands trembling slightly, and carefully placed it over his head. It seemed so familiar, so right, that he wondered briefly why he had ever taken it off. Then he ordered himself to focus, to put aside the grief that was flooding through him, and raised the axe.
Gently, taking the utmost care, he touched the sharp head against the lips and eyes of the mummy. Then he placed it down, and began to recite words he had long known by heart.
I have pressed your mouth to your bones for you,
whom Horus did take as his Great in Power,
whom Seth did take as his Great in Power.
She has brought you all gods,
so you may make them live.
You have come into being in your strength,
to select your protection of life,
to guard against his death.
You have come into being as the sustenance of all gods,
and arisen as dual king, with power over all gods.
Oh Osiris, Shu son of Atum, as he lives, you live.
Sharpness is yours. Glory is yours.
Homage is yours.
Power is yours, for he has not died.
Horus has opened your mouth for you.
he opens your eyes for you with the Great-of-Power blade,
with which the mouth of every god is opened.
As he reached the final lines, tears began to spill from Amun’s eyes; they pooled inside the mask, then dripped from the eyeholes and fell on to the smooth face of the mummy, darkening the linen with tiny explosions. When it was done, he removed the mask and bent at the waist, lowering himself unsteadily toward the tablet. His lips brushed the hard, dry surface of the mummy’s forehead.
“Life is a great house,” he whispered. “With many doors. Fare well, my friend.”
Amun straightened up, the muscles and bones in his back creaking, and shuffled toward the Ibu’s entrance, to tell the vizier and his successor that he was done.
About the Authors
Kage Baker’s notable works include “The Company” novel Mendoza in Hollywood, and The Empress of Mars, a 2003 novella that won the Theodore Sturgeon Award and was nominated for a Hugo Award. In 2009, her short story “Caverns of Mystery” and novel House of the Stag were both nominated for World Fantasy Awards. Baker died on 31 January 2010. Later that year, her novella The Women of Nell Gwynne’s was nominated for both Hugo and World Fantasy Awards, and won the Nebula Award. Based on extensive notes left by the author, Baker’s unfinished novel, Nell Gwynne’s On Land and At Sea, was completed by her sister Kathleen Bartholomew and published in 2012.
Gail Carriger writes steampunk comedies of manners mixed with paranormal romance. Her books include the Parasol Protectorate, Custard Protocol, Supernatural Society, and Delightfully Deadly series for adults, and the Finishing School series for young adults. She is published in many languages and has over a dozen New York Times bestsellers via seven different lists (#1 in Manga). She was once an archaeologist and is overly fond of shoes, octopuses, and tea. More: gailcarriger.com.
Paul Cornell—a writer of science fiction and fantasy in prose, comics, and TV—is one of only two people to be Hugo Award-nominated for all three media. He’s written Doctor Who episodes for the BBC, Action Comics for DC, and Wolverine for Marvel. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his television work. His modern fantasy novella The Lost Child of Lychford is out now Tor. He lives in Gloucestershire with his wife and son.
Carole Nelson Douglas is the award-winning author of sixty-some novels—mystery, thriller, fantasy, science fiction, mainstream women’s fiction, and romance. She launched the first series to feature a Sherlockian woman protagonist, Irene Adler, and the first Holmes spin-off series written by a woman, with the New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Good Night, Mr. Holmes. Douglas has two bestselling series set in a Las Vegas worlds apart: the contemporary Midnight Louie feline PI mysteries and the Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator, noir urban fantasies set in a post-monster apocalypse Vegas. The twenty-eighth Midnight Louie novel, Cat in an Alphabet Endgame, ended the series in 2016. (But he shall return!) In addition to ancient Egypt, Louie has had “past life” adventures in an all-cat Maltese Falcon world, Edgar Allan Poe’s 1795 lighthouse, and Sherlock Holmes’s Victorian London. More: carolenelsondouglas.com.
Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror, and author of the multi-award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga. His horror collections are Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (International Horror Guild Award winner), Aurealis Award-winning An Intimate Knowledge of the Night, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated Blackwater Days. His most recent books are Amberjack: Tales of Fear & Wonder and his debut novel, Clowns at Midnight, which London’s Guardian called “an exceptional work that bears comparison to John Fowles’s The Magus.” More: terrydowling.com.
Noreen Doyle is a freelance writer, editor, photographer, and consultant. A longtime resident of Maine, Doyle moved to Arizona a few years ago to work for the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and the University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition. She’s earned graduate degrees in nautical archaeology (Texas A&M University) and Egyptology (University of Liverpool) and is the author of many articles on Egyptian, archaeological, and historical subjects. Her fiction has appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Century, Weird Tales, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and several anthologies, including Fantasy: The Best of the Year. As an anthologist, she edited Otherworldly Maine and co-edited the World Fantasy Award-nominee The First Heroes: New Tales of the Bronze Age.
Steve Duffy has written/co-authored four collections of weird short stories. Tragic Life Stories, The Five Quarters, The Night Comes On (all from Ash-Tree Press), and his most recent, The Moment of Panic (PS Publishing). His work also appears in a number of anthologies published in the UK and the US. He won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Short Story, and has been shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award twice.
Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and three short story collections. Her most recent novel, winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, is We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Novel The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s short-story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and seven grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California.
Will Hill is the bestselling author of the Department 19 series, a contributor to various award-winning and award-nominated anthologies, and a former judge of the Kitschies Awards. He lives in London.
Stephen Graham Jones is the author of sixteen novels and six collections so far. Most recent is novel Mongrels (William Morrow). As a kid, Jones spent a lot of time devouring everything he could that had anything to do with the Valley of the Kings. He lives in Boulder, Colorado. Find him @SGJ72.
John Langan is the author of two collections of short fiction: The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies (Hippocampus, 2013) and Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters (Prime, 2008); a third, Sefira and Other Betrayals, is forthcoming. He has written a novel, House of Windows (Night Shade, 2009), and with Paul Tremblay, has co-edited Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters (Prime,
2011). He lives in upstate New York with his wife and younger son.
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. In addition to “Bubba Ho-Tep,” his story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” also became a film. His mystery classic Cold in July inspired the recent major motion picture of the same name. His Hap and Leonard series of novels and stories became the basis for the current Sundance TV series. The Bottoms will also soon be a film. His literary works have received numerous recognitions, including the Edgar, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, American Mystery Award, the International Horror Award, British Fantasy Award, and many others. His most recent works are collection Dead on the Bones: Pulp on Fire, mosaic novel Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade, novel Rusted Puppy, and novella Coco Butternut, a Hap and Leonard adventure featuring the mummified corpse of a beloved prize-winning dachshund.
Helen Marshall is a critically acclaimed author, editor, and doctor of medieval studies. Her debut collection of short stories, Hair Side, Flesh Side (ChiZine Publications, 2012), won the 2013 British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer. Her second collection, Gifts for the One Who Comes After (ChiZine Publications, 2014), was nominated for several awards. She lives in Oxford, England where she spends her time staring at old books.
Kim Newman is a novelist, critic, and broadcaster. His fiction includes the four Anno Dracula novels, and novels An English Ghost Story, The Secrets of Drearcliffe Grange, and Angels of Music under his own name and The Vampire Genevieve and Orgy of the Blood Parasites as Jack Yeovil. A fifth Anno Dracula novel is forthcoming. The author of nine non-fiction books and a contributing editor for magazines Sight & Sound and Empire (where he writes the popular “Video Dungeon” column), Newman has also scripted radio and television documentaries, stage and radio plays, and (with Maura McHugh) the comic book mini-series Witchfinder: The Mysteries of Unland (Dark Horse), illustrated by Tyler Crook. More: johnnyalucard.com and @AnnoDracula.