The Forest of Myrrh (Imhotep Book 3)

by Jerry Dubs

  As soon as his right arm was extended, he pulled it back and pushed out with his left arm and the head of the staff suddenly whisked through the air. He repeated the motion effortlessly and the staff was now a two-headed club.

  Smiling at the pleasure of the exertion, Bata changed his motion, stabbing the tip of the staff at an invisible foe, then pivoting, he stabbed at another foe, and then another. He moved fluidly and exactly through the form, ending with a shout as he pounded the end of the staff into the ground.

  Akila and Imhotep applauded. The clapping noise startled Meryt and Maya. Imhotep smiled at them and nodded. Not understanding the purpose, Meryt and Maya put down their scraping stones and clapped awkwardly.

  “That was amazing,” Imhotep said.

  Smiling, Bata shrugged and held the staff vertically in both hands. “As a first step, I would tell you to use the staff to block thrusts. Like this.” He swept the bottom of the staff to his left and looked at Imhotep. “Or like this,” he said, sweeping the bottom of the staff the other way.

  Then he bent and placed the heavy staff by Imhotep’s side.

  “I forget that you were once of King Djoser’s elite guards,” Imhotep said, smiling at Bata.

  Rolling his shoulders, Bata bowed his head to Akila. “You truly are a wondrous physician, Akila. I didn’t think of my injuries and once I was moving, I felt no pain.”

  “My heka is strong,” Akila said, smiling at Imhotep.

  Turning to Imhotep, Bata said, “After we have all of these spikes sharpened, I’ll teach you more, Lord Imhotep.”

  Shaking his head, Imhotep said, “I would be happy to learn from you, Bata, but if we need to depend on my fighting skills then we are truly desperate.”

  Meryt, sitting beside Imhotep, laid a hand on his arm. “We have nothing to fear,” she said. “We are in the temple of Khnum, the potter who created us all.”

  - 0 -

  That afternoon, when the sun turned the bare courtyard of the temple into a shimmering bowl of heat, Meryt took a nap while Imhotep and Akila walked the covered portico that linked the rooms to the western wall.

  “I saw you sitting with Meryt during the night,” Imhotep said.

  Akila nodded. “She woke with a coughing fit.”

  “And?” Imhotep asked quietly.

  “There isn’t anything I can do for her, Tim. She has tuberculosis.”

  “I thought there were drugs,” he said.

  “I didn’t bring an entire pharmacy with me, Tim. I didn’t think ... when you sent me that message, I thought you were alone. I thought she had passed.”

  They walked a few more steps in silence and then Imhotep said, “I’m sorry, Akila.”

  She shook her head. “Stop apologizing,” she said gently. “I decided to go through that false door, no one forced me to.”

  Akila paused and touched one of the false doors that lined the wall.

  The left and right jambs and the lintel were inscribed with hieroglyphs. The central panel was smooth, but a cross rail below the panel was also covered in symbols.

  “What do they say?” she asked.

  Looking up to read the lintel Imhotep said, “Sennufer, priest of Khnum, made this for his son. Sennufer,” he said, turning to Akila, “was King Huni’s grandfather. He was a priest here when I arrived in the Two Lands.”

  Stepping closer to the left jamb he read, “An offering which Sennufer, having grown old most perfectly, gives for his son.” Sidestepping to the right jamb, he read, “His eldest son is the knife hand of King Djoser, divine of body, and worthy of the Field of Reeds.”

  Imhotep stepped back and smiled. “Sennufer seems to have slipped a personal message into the temple.”

  “And where did you paint the hieroglyphs for the time portal?” Akila asked.

  Imhotep raised his staff and touched the lintel.

  “Right there, above the doorway,” he said.

  - 0 -

  When Imhotep and Akila returned to the courtyard they found Bata and the soldiers stockpiling fist-sized throwing stones.

  “We saw smoke,” Kewab said without looking up.

  “Smoke?” Imhotep repeated.

  “From campfires,” Kewab said, tilting his head. “From the eastern bank.”

  “I don’t understand,” Akila said.

  “The rebel army is just across the river,” Bata said softly. “They have reached the end of the Two Lands. Perhaps they will turn around and march home. But they might cross the river to see if there are any treasures worth looting here in the temple.”

  “Couldn’t we hide?” Akila said.

  Kewab shook his head. “The island isn’t that large.”

  “But if they are only interested in looting the temple ... ” Akila argued.

  “Then we might be safe. But if they hear us or see us or just decide to look for firewood or goats, they will find us in an unprotected area,” Kewab said.

  “Then we have to leave,” Akila said.

  She turned to Imhotep and grabbed his arm. “We can paint the hieroglyphs above a false door and go to some other point in time. Right? We don’t have to stay here and die.”

  - 0 -

  After checking on Meryt and Maya, Imhotep and Akila began to search the temple for jars of paint.

  “If we have to, we can make some, I think I saw some bees’ wax earlier,” Imhotep said as they searched a storage room. “We can scrape soot from the ceilings, especially in the inner temple, or char some wood. And I’m sure there are jars of oil here.”

  “You do remember the symbols, right?” Akila asked.

  Imhotep nodded. “I’ll paint them on papyrus; that way you can paint some of the doors while I paint others.”

  She shrugged. “Why?”

  “I thought about this a lot when I was in the modern world. You know the temples in Karnak? Most of them are reconstructed. They had been knocked over and buried in the desert. There are ruins everywhere, but they are ruins. So if we, here in this time, paint the symbols above a false door, but that door doesn’t exist in the future, then it won’t work. I mean, how could it?”

  “So if none of the doorways in the hall survive, then we’re stuck?” she asked.

  Imhotep nodded.

  “Can’t we change it? Shoot for a different date?”

  “I don’t know,” Imhotep answered. “I mean, there aren’t dials or numbers. The symbols just call for the door to open after a hundred lifetimes. But when I first took Maya into the future, when I first met you, it took me to a different time than I expected. Remember?

  “I calculated that it was about fifty years for a lifetime. But not exactly. I mean we don’t really know exactly when Djoser was king. Archaeologists have a range of dates, but not an exact date. We could end up anywhere, I mean, any time.”

  Akila slapped her hand against the stone wall of the store room. “Isn’t that better than staying here?”

  “We don’t know that we are in danger,” Imhotep said.

  “Threshen whipped Bata and planned to kill him when he was tired of torturing him. He loosed hyenas on you. He is leading a rebellion against the king, who will have him killed if he finds out that Threshen killed Hetephernebti and you and Bata are the only ones who would tell the king that,” she said in a rapid burst of English.

  Imhotep stared at her a moment and then, nodding in concession, he turned toward the doorway. “I’ll go search the inner rooms for papyrus and paint the symbols for you.”

  Departure

  Hapu and Bata carried a small stone bench and set it on the floor in front of the first of the eight false doors that lined the corridor. Then they helped Imhotep step up onto the bench where he steadied himself with his left hand pressed against the wall until a small wave of vertigo passed.

  Holding a torch beside them, Akila watched Imhotep’s hesitation without speaking.

  Once Imhotep signaled his readiness, Bata picked up the small pot of black paint Imhotep and Akila had found. He held it up to
Imhotep who picked out the brush and then reached up to begin painting.

  “It would be better if we plastered over these inscriptions,” Imhotep muttered as the first dabs of paint slid into the crevices of the carvings.

  In triage mode, Akila asked, “Do we have plaster? If not, can we make some? Do we have time?”

  “Can you slide over this way,” Imhotep said, knowing she had asked the questions to underline the urgency of their attempt to open a time portal. “There that’s better,” he said as the flickering light danced over the wall. He finished the first hieroglyph and leaned back to study it. He decided that despite the uneven contours of the lintel, the symbol looked right.

  “I think this will work,” he said.

  “You mean the inscription?” Bata asked.

  “No, I mean, painting over the underlying carvings. I think the symbols will look right,” Imhotep said as he began painting the second symbol. He paused and looked into the jar. “I hope we don’t have to paint more than two doors,” he said under his breath when he saw how little paint they had.

  Bata, Akila and Hapu watched silently as Imhotep began the next symbol, placing it over the midpoint of the lintel. Pausing, Imhotep wiped sweat from his forehead and dipped his brush into the paint.

  “They do have beer where we are going?” Bata asked to break the tension.

  “Cold beer, Bata.” Imhotep smiled and added in English, “In frosted mugs.” He looked down at Bata and said, “We don’t have words for it here, but I promise that you will enjoy it.”

  He turned back to the wall and finished another symbol. Gently he replaced the brush and nodded to Bata who set the paint pot on the floor. Bata and Hapu helped Imhotep down and he stepped beside Akila and took her free hand.

  Hapu and Bata moved the stone bench and then turned to Imhotep.

  “Are there incantations?” Bata asked.

  Imhotep shook his head. “No.” He stared at the door, wondering what they would find on the other side.

  As he said “Go ahead,” to Bata, Maya’s soft footsteps sounded on the stone.

  “Father,” she said, “where is Mother?”

  “I’ll go,” Bata said quickly and, taking Maya’s hand, he walked with her down the corridor to the room where Meryt and Imhotep slept.

  Akila and Imhotep exchanged a quick glance and then Imhotep stepped to the false door. Holding his breath, he put one hand on the stone and pushed.

  Nothing happened.

  Carefully propping his staff against the wall beside the door, he put both hands on the door and pushed, leaning his weight into it. The stone felt solid and immovable. Closing his eyes and pushing harder, he felt Akila move beside him and then Hapu on the other side.

  Together the three of them pushed against the stone. Then Imhotep instructed them to all push against the left edge and then the right.

  Nothing happened.

  Imhotep picked up his staff and, leaning on it, he thought back to the moment in the Tomb of Kanakht when he had accidentally triggered the time portal.

  After a moment he said, “It should move easily, if it is going to move at all.”

  “Imhotep,” Bata said, jogging up the hallway with Maya in his arms. “Meryt is gone.”

  - 0 -

  “Try another door,” Imhotep, said as he quickly stalked down the hallway.

  The room he and Meryt shared was the first room along the wall, closest to the courtyard and farthest from the false doors. Leaving the circle of light from Akila’s torch, Imhotep had to walk slower, keeping a hand on the wall as he moved.

  “Meryt?” he called as he found the open doorway of their room.

  The room was empty. He backed out of it and walked the few steps to the wider opening that led to the courtyard. As he stepped from the covered portico into the courtyard he was struck with another feeling of déjà vu.

  While searching for Brian and Diane more than twenty years ago, he had stepped out onto the grounds of the Mena House at night and seen silhouetted palms and, in the distance, the sharp outline of the peaks of the pyramids. He remembered feeling transported to a different world. It had felt alien but it had felt right, resonating throughout his body, as he quivered in sympathy with a vibration from the past.

  Standing at the edge of the courtyard now, he saw the moon hanging in the sky just above the walls and above it and around it the sky was filled with stars, millions and millions of bright points. As he watched, they swirled and moved, tracing a season’s movement in a second.

  He leaned against the stone wall and felt a buoyancy that lifted him and frightened him. Fighting off the vertigo, he looked around the open plaza. Kewab was sitting by the open entrance. A small campfire burned a few yards behind him, distant enough that it didn’t affect his night vision.

  Imhotep pushed away from the wall, steadied his step with his staff and headed anxiously across the space.

  “Kewab,” he said, “have you seen Meryt?”

  The soldier nodded and tilted his head toward the entranceway. Then cupping his hands around his mouth, he called, “Weneg! Which way did Meryt go?”

  Following the tilt of Kewab’s head, Imhotep saw a black silhouette atop the roof of a storage room at the western side of the courtyard. The shadow pointed toward the western shore.

  “Why did you let her leave?” Imhotep asked Kewab angrily.

  “She is the wife of the vizier,” Kewab said. “She does as she pleases.” He held up a hand to forestall Imhotep’s anger. “Lord Imhotep, I spent several weeks with Meryt as we came up the river. I have never met anyone like her. She could walk among a pride of lions without fear, she could bathe with crocodiles without harm. The gods walk with her.”

  “Whether or not the gods walk with her, she is a woman and there is an enemy army out there,” Imhotp said, forcing himself to not shout.

  “Lord Imhotep,” Kewab said gently, “You must know that Meryt is near death. Her ka is beginning to tear free and Meryt has the grace to let it. She will soon be gone from this world and I tell you, I believe she has no fear of death.” He shook his head in admiration.

  Not trusting his voice, Imhotep clenched his jaws and stalked through the entrance to find Meryt.

  - 0 -

  “Should I follow him?” Hapu asked Akila a few minutes after Imhotep had gone and it was apparent that he was not immediately returning.

  “No,” Akila said. “Let’s find a way out of here, then we’ll get Imhotep and Meryt if they haven’t returned.” She picked up the papyrus on which Imhotep had painted the hieroglyphs. “Let’s try the next door,” she said, nodding to the next false door in the hallway.

  “What are you doing?” Maya asked, waking as Bata set her on the floor.

  “We’re trying to fix one of these doors so we can go somewhere nice,” Hapu said as she bent over the stone bench.

  “Where?” Maya asked. She looked up at Akila. “Are we going to your home?”

  Bata and Hapu settled the bench beside the wall and Bata reached to take the torch from Akila. “Do you remember my home?” Akila asked as she stepped up onto the bench.

  “No,” Maya said. “But Mother said it must be wonderful.”

  “It is,” Akila said. Then as Hapu held the paint jar, she held the papyrus in one hand and began to copy the symbols onto the lintel.

  - 0 -

  Muted moonlight painted the grass and weeds with a hazy brush giving Imhotep the impression that he was walking into a dream. There were small trees off to his right, toward the center of the island, their outlines visible against the starry sky.

  I should have asked how long ago she left, he thought as he stared into the distance hoping to see her small body moving ahead of him. He thought about shouting her name, but he didn’t know what animals were about at night. Snakes would be sleeping and the noise would frighten them away but he didn’t know what else was prowling the night.

  Including enemy soldiers, he thought. He walked on, focusing on his feet a
nd stopping every few steps to listen.

  She is fearless, he thought.

  And she is growing weaker.

  He walked faster, leaning heavily on his staff when his knee felt weak, but determined to outpace Meryt. The path grew wider as it reached the gravelly western edge of the island. He stopped and listened to the sound of the water sliding past, and then he saw the uneven skyline created by trees on a small island across the channel.

  Suddenly he knew where she must be going.

  Twenty years ago they had walked this path hand in hand, seeking solitude during his stay on the island with King Djoser. They had been falling in love and left the temple as often as they could.

  He turned right and followed the island’s shore, headed for the sandy point at the northern end of the island where they had spent so many happy hours.

  - 0 -

  Akila had no sense of time passing; she was focused on replicating the symbols exactly and on conserving as much paint as possible in case they had to try another doorway.

  It reminded her of surgeries she had observed, where precision was constrained by the need to rush.

  “Hold the torch by the painting Imhotep did,” she asked Bata. He moved the torch and she stared at the symbols above the adjacent false door, comparing them to what was on the papyrus. Nodding, she said, “OK, now back on these, please.”

  She compared her work to the papyrus. There was a small run from the bottom of the second symbol. Keeping her eye on it, she held out her hand and said, “Hapu, can you hand me a scrap of linen?”

  In a moment she felt cloth in her hand. She wiped the errant line away. Comparing the papyrus and the lintel again, she nodded and smiled. “OK,” she said, stepping off the bench, “Let’s open this door.”

  - 0 -

  Meryt was kneeling on the beach, her huddled form so small that Imhotep would have overlooked her if he hadn’t been expecting to see her. He stood for a moment watching her, remembering her, already missing her.