The Sphinx Scrolls

by Stewart Ferris

  There was an expectant hush from the crowd as Halford rolled up his sleeves and braced his feet against the special notches in the ground. He motioned as if to push the wheel very hard, then gave it just the gentlest of nudges. I winced, as, I believe, did most other people present. The wheel rolled forward by no more than ten or fifteen degrees. Sotay’s feet buckled between the bottom of the wheel and the marble floor, crushed to little more than the thickness of paper from his toe to the ankle. His scream still rings in my head today. But then he checked himself and started breathing very quickly.

  Halford casually walked around to the front of the rolling stone and faced Sotay.

  ‘That,’ he announced, ‘is for the humiliation you made me experience when I was cast out from the city.’

  There were cheers and applause from the audience as Halford returned to the other side of the stone wheel for another push. Again, he pushed the wheel with minimal effort, crunching Sotay’s bones and muscles up to the knee.

  A sympathetic pain shot through my own legs. Sotay shouted out something incomprehensible, then resumed controlling his breathing. Again, Halford returned to face Sotay, determined to leave him (or rather, me) to suffer for as long as possible.

  ‘That one’s for the hunger, the cold and the desperation of my first nights alone in the forest.’

  I couldn’t understand how the entire crowd seemed to be on his side rather than on the side of the man who was obviously the victim. They cheered and shouted in approval as Halford returned again. Some women held children up to see the spectacle better.

  The next push was a little harder, bringing the wheel up to Sotay’s pelvis and destroying enough internal organs to cause eventual death even if the wheel were to be pushed no further. He could contain the pain no longer and emitted long, low cries of despair. Now it was I who needed to control my breathing, to control my loathing for Halford.

  Sotay was alive and conscious with only half a body.

  ‘What you are experiencing now, Jamel, is the equivalent of the aggregate of all the suffering of all the people who have been victimised by your régime. It’s not pleasant, is it? You have no legs, no manhood, no kidneys, no bowels. Your stomach is squashed tight and will shortly be flattened into a paste. Notice how I never offered you a second chance, just as your government never offered me, or any other of its outcast citizens, a second chance. You may moan all you like, Jamel. It is too late. Your era has ended, and in a few seconds you will be dead, as I am sure you will be relieved to hear. Any final words?’

  I watched Sotay’s face, confident that he would not reveal the truth now that all hope was lost for him. His facial muscles were twitching violently, his complexion already dulling. The crowd hushed. In short gasps he managed to say a few words.

  ‘Halford, you will be defeated.’

  ‘Something tells me you are misguided, half-man. You are in no position to win. Everyone, I welcome you to the new Maya!’

  Sotay grimaced as Halford began the final push of the wheel. There was no need to make this a partial turn, for the slightest movement would be sufficient to asphyxiate what was left of him, and Halford gave it a very hard shove that enabled it to roll completely over Sotay’s chest and head. The wheel only came to a halt when his remains appeared, upside-down, on the other side of it.

  I could not take my eye off this gruesome sight, and neither could anyone else. A former human, my friend, was displayed in the most demeaning form imaginable, mashed across the surface of the stone, fragments of bone and unidentifiable entrails protruding everywhere.

  Halford was strutting around, shaking the hands of virtually everyone in the front rows. He paid no attention to me, and nor, it seemed, did anyone else. Anonymity beckoned. I needed to rebuild my life. There would be no point in trying to fix Maya until I had fixed myself. Within reach, I now realised, was the fulfilment of Sotay’s plan to get me free to the forest. My return to power would be a lengthy and difficult struggle that must begin with my own mental and physical recovery, followed by motivating and training enough supporters to raise an army.

  I took the first step and walked away from the grisly remains of the great Sotay, now out of sight behind the throng of ghoulish voyeurs.

  ‘Sotay – is that you?’

  I turned to the female voice.

  ‘Sotay, come with me. We need your help.’

  It was Katia, the young doctor who had visited us in the cell, and to whom, in a way, I owed my life.

  ‘Katia, I cannot help you. You must forgive me; I have to get away. I’m too traumatised to be an effective surgeon. My hands are shaking, see?’

  Before she could reply we were joined by two men whom she greeted as colleagues.

  ‘Ah, I see you have found the great man,’ said one of them.

  ‘Come, we have work to do,’ said the other.

  There was no attempt to introduce themselves to me, no social pleasantries or enquiries after my obviously poor health. I had to assume that they would have been well known to Sotay, and that his no-nonsense attitude had rubbed off on them during the years they would have spent working together.

  With one of the male doctors on either side of me and Katia leading the way, we jostled our way out of the square onto the streets and walked in the direction of the medical centre.

  * * *

  ‘Would someone please give Ratty a nudge?’ Ruby asked, placing the papers on the table in order to fill a glass of water to assist in the resuscitation of the delicate Earl. It sounded to her more like a hefty slap than a nudge, but Matt’s overly enthusiastic physical contact with Ratty appeared to work.

  ‘Jesus, how do you read all that stuff in your library if you pass out at every mention of blood?’ Matt asked. ‘Do you have a nurse on standby next to your goddamn desk?’

  ‘Bit of a delicate constitution, I’m afraid,’ Ratty replied, sipping the water handed to him sympathetically by Ruby.

  ‘So where are we up to in the scrolls? I think we have that stuff coming up about Jamel at the hospital with those neat descriptions of surgery, severed limbs –’ began Matt mischievously before Ruby covered his mouth with her hand.

  ‘Sorry, Ratty, but I need to read the next part. What happens to Halford’s wife at the hospital is significant to his mental state.’

  * * *

  SPHINX SCROLL # 08 [CONTINUED]

  * * *

  In the hospital, a doctor was tending to patients from his own wheelchair, his leg freshly amputated below the knee. Another in the next ward had his arm in a sling. It appeared that only the fittest doctors had been despatched to find me.

  ‘We have to get you scrubbed up for surgery. Now,’ said Katia, her battered face etched with intensity.

  Katia led me into the washroom and helped to clean my bloodied face and dusty hands. I resisted her help, concerned that if I were too clean my true identity would be obvious. I didn’t know her well enough to trust her with the truth. Perhaps I would have been justified in killing her and making my escape right then. But such an act would have reduced me to Halford’s level, and that was a level of degradation to which I was not prepared to sink.

  Katia was keen to patch my eye socket in order to prevent infection. I kept moving my head around so that she couldn’t get to it or see it clearly.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Katia?’

  ‘What do you mean? I want you to be telling us what to do. Once we get to surgery it’s your domain. We’re following the major incident plan you put in place, Doctor, but we need you to direct it. You have the most experience.’

  This was a huge responsibility, but at least it didn’t seem to involve any actual surgery. Yet I was being scrubbed up, and I couldn’t understand how I could be expected to manage the crisis at the hospital at the same time as patching up its patients.

  I finished cleaning my face on my own, and kept my head turned away from her. From that position I was able to put on the surgical mask, and then I felt sufficiently confid
ent to let her come close with her swab and bandage. It felt comforting finally to receive treatment for the eye socket. Then Katia declared me ready for work.

  I chose not to ask any questions in case she found me suspiciously stupid. We walked along a wide corridor lined with patients lying on the floor, many in a deplorable condition, only hanging on to life. Nurses attended frantically, trying to keep the worst cases alive until their turn arrived for surgery.

  The air was putrid with the stench of disinfectant, excrement and vomit. The faces of those slumped on the floor as I walked by were pitiful. They all looked at me with hope in their eyes, hoping their prognoses were not so poor that mummification would be unavoidable.

  As we drew close to the operating theatre, the injuries of the patients became more horrific and urgent. A man sat with his severed arm on his lap. The person next to him, of indeterminable sex and age, was flat on the floor palpitating violently, stained with blood as if it had been sprayed over him or her.

  I dreaded to see what horrendous injuries would have befallen the people at the very front of the queue and inside the theatre itself. Katia paid little attention to the long production line of gruesome sights at her side. She was concerned only with getting into the theatre to relieve two of the doctors inside. They had been working for more than fourteen hours without a break, she told me. Surely they didn’t expect me to match that? Fourteen seconds would be enough to demonstrate my ineptitude.

  The first patient in the queue outside the door of the theatre seemed hardly injured at all. She sat still on a chair, holding her hands over a gash in her leg. That she would be treated next seemed a huge injustice. There was an uninjured Halford soldier nearby in the corridor, though how he was of any help to wounded or dying people was unclear. For this woman to be at the head of the queue she must have had his protection from angry doctors and patients. Either she was a doctor who had to be treated as a priority to get back to work, or she had some seniority in the Halford régime. The idea that a prominent Halford supporter would receive preferential treatment sickened me.

  The woman was helped onto a bed and her wound laid bare. I winced at the sight of so much exposed muscle tissue and stepped back to allow Katia to treat her.

  ‘Make sure you do a good job,’ barked the woman on the bed. ‘I don’t want any scars.’

  ‘Madam, that may be impossible. This gash runs deep. It will need stitching,’ said Katia.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ asked the woman, curling her lip in distaste at the girl who was trying to help her.

  I didn’t have a clue. All I knew was that she was getting preferential treatment and didn’t deserve it.

  ‘I know,’ said Katia. ‘You are the new First Lady.’

  ‘That’s right. Halford will be here shortly. Don’t give me cause to complain about you.’

  There was a great deal I wanted to say, but I was feeling queasy about the woman’s ripped open leg and didn’t want to start any trouble.

  ‘You will get the best treatment currently available, rest assured,’ said Katia.

  ‘I’m sure you will soon have better resources than in the old days. Halford assures me that the medical services will get more funding than under Jamel. That is why it was a good thing that he died. Good riddance to the bastard.’

  ‘I need to check on the other departments,’ I bluffed. ‘You take care of this one and the next few, and I’ll be back before you know it.’

  Katia looked at me, baffled. She said nothing and commenced treating the patient, while I shuffled off through the door. Once outside I walked briskly past the injured and dying, feeling like a coward, but knowing that these people stood a better chance without my intervention. I ripped off my surgical attire and flung it on the ground. Soon I found myself on the street, my injuries passing unnoticed amid the confused, battle-scarred people.

  I took the shortest route out of the city and stopped at the western gate. A glass cabinet, just a couple of inches thick, but taller and wider than a man, was being hoisted up onto a display frame, from where everyone entering or leaving the city could see it. At first it was difficult to make out its contents, but as I drew closer the truth became horribly apparent: it was what was left of Sotay, squashed flat and wide, now undergoing the final indignity of public display. Yet to everyone else, that was me up there. It was vile, but it set me free.

  I found a reserve of energy and ran. The city had always seemed large, a place of life and vigour surrounded by insignificant jungle. Now it was the reverse. I was leaving behind a claustrophobic urban island and entering an infinite vibrant forest of real life, and real hope. As I stepped down from the trading plaza onto the grass beyond the city limits, no one paid any attention to me. For the first time in my life I was truly anonymous.

  * * *

  SPHINX SCROLL # 09

  * * *

  ‘Who are you?’

  It was an inevitable question, the answer to which I had yet to resolve. The face of the questioner looked too innocent to pollute with the convoluted story of who I really was, so I parried with an echo of her enquiry.

  ‘I asked first,’ she insisted.

  Could I use my real identity? Was I ready even to admit who I was and to take on the inevitable responsibility and potential for conflict that could ensue?

  I was not ready. I was an exhausted, broken outcast. My head still reeled from the events of the past days. I needed time to find myself and calculate a plan. I gave her a false name.

  She walked up to me and stood so close that her bare breasts touched my stomach.

  Something inside me was telling me to run away. It was the voice of myself as the noble leader of the nation, the hidden me who would one day return and must remain pure and perfect as a man. My head filled with questions about my reputation while my body filled with adrenaline and wonderful surging feelings. I thought of Sotay’s great strength and of my own weakness as I gave into the desires of this stranger.

  Thus began many months of animal lustfulness in the untamed and lawless world of the trees. I know the sexual acts were harmless in themselves, but the distraction they provided me from my great cause of liberating Maya was inexcusable.

  If I could have that time again, I would be stronger and would resist the many temptations. I would have taken steps much sooner to undermine Halford’s régime before he could make his great mistakes and put us in the precarious situation in which we now find ourselves. Halford’s grip on the people was growing, and it would get increasingly difficult to mobilise an effective opposition. And this made me even weaker, for it gave me an excuse not to bother.

  Occasional passing travellers would bring news from the city, and it was from one such man that I learned the horrific story of the death of the First Lady and its repercussions. Her leg wound had become infected, and she had been mummified shortly before she would have died. In his rage, Halford had ordered the execution of the entire medical team responsible for treating her. This had, in turn, caused a general strike amongst the profession, and thousands had died as a result. He tightened his military grip on his people, with summary execution for any political dissension.

  Everyone, it seemed, had stopped regarding Halford as their saviour. They now saw him as the man I’d known him to be all along: a power-hungry madman who would cause great damage to Maya and to the world.

  Halford was preparing to do battle with the Atlantans, building Mayan forces and weaponry up to a devastating level. I knew what I had to do, and that was to leave the country and visit Atlantis at statesman level to try to persuade them to negotiate peace with Maya. And yet something inside stopped me. My mind was in turmoil, making it easy prey to the new-found apathy that now controlled me. I would spend hours merely staring up at the trees, flat on my back, justifying my inactivity. I was officially dead, I reminded myself. That would make it difficult for me to be accepted into the company of the Atlantan leadership. I was no longer the leader of this country; it was someone else’s
responsibility. Always the arguments were the same, and always the memory of Sotay left me feeling wretched and feeble.

  One evening I learned from a traveller that the secretive Atlantan space programme had been wound up. There was a rumour regarding the loss of an entire pioneering crew on Mars. The mission doctor had been unable to cope. They were too weak to wait for their return launch window. They had perished, alone, on an alien world.

  Most countries, including Maya, had put satellites and men into space for short periods. Even our own little space programme had run experiments to find ways to conquer the muscle-wasting effects of weightlessness and problems of long-term hardware reliability. We had also made progress on the challenge of how to preserve and reanimate astronauts during automated interstellar journeys. This was the key to the doomed Project Quetzalcoatl.

  The science of astronaut preservation evolved directly from our medicine. Sotay invested a great deal of time and resources into developing techniques for preserving those who were dying. His assumption was that, based on historical indications, future medicine would far outshine the current state of knowledge, and that if a body could be preserved indefinitely prior to its decay then that person might at some future date be saved. His ultimate goal was to ensure that no Mayan citizens would ever fear death. He experimented at first with cryonics, but a controlled, chilled environment required either a power supply or regular topping up of liquid coolants, and no one could guarantee such things over centuries and millennia.

  That is why he developed his mummification system. It was entirely self-perpetuating, requiring no electricity or other external energy source. The intricacies of the science are beyond my comprehension, but the subject is fed certain fluids intravenously, then wrapped tightly in bandages laced with a chemical substance, then placed in a sealed container full of a chemical compound. The effect of the compound is to halt the biological processes within the body, pausing cellular activity without inducing decay or corruption. A reversal of the process with the appropriate liquid compounds should reanimate the individual. The theoretical limit for the preservation of a body under this system is fifteen thousand years, at which point it would no longer be possible to get their organs to function.