Wserkaf... Marai tried, but no thought was returned. The four men, Marai, Wserkaf and the men who had helped the sojourner dress left the bath area. The gates to the villa had been pulled open in the quiet early morning. It was still dark outside. No animals came up. It seemed as if the entire estate had gone on a mysterious, silent holiday.
He saw two sedans squatted without bearers in the plaza near the entry gates. Several muscular servants Marai didn’t recognize now approached and positioned themselves, waiting to hoist him and the younger priest. The former shepherd allowed the attendants to loosely bind his hands behind his back and place a dark hood over his head. None of this was meant to actually restrain him. It was meant to remind Marai that he was not to know where he was being taken.
Wserkaf climbed into one sedan chair and drew the drapes.
Marai went in the one behind. With that, the two men were carried from Hordjedtef’s villa.
The sojourner was determined to “play along” with the faked ritual until he saw a way to defeat or expose the old man. He knew the sixteen days training was as meaningless as the simple day and night fast he had just completed. Normally an initiate would undergo several degrees at the temples in Nubt, which lay several days up the river and closer to Nekhen and Khmenu than it was to the city of the King. That Hordjedtef, in all of his brilliance, thought Marai was so simple he would believe the ritual was valid, totally baffled the sojourner. Even stranger was the thought that Wserkaf seemed to be his ally but still apparently supported this travesty. Other men and priest who had been assisting all along must have also been under some kind of spell.
Once the entourage began to move, Marai tried to sense each area through which they were traveling so he might determine a way to escape if he had to break free of these men.. High plaster covered privacy walls continued for quite some time. Turns were made to the right and to the left several times and then out onto a wider area that smelled of inland lakes. He sensed water to each side of him. It was a causeway.
The Pyr Ntr? Marai thought, Or is it the Lion? He wanted to look through the hood, but decided against it..
After a very long time in which Marai felt almost jostled to sleep again, he sensed the footsteps slowing. A new sensation began. The sedan chair tipped forward a little, indicating that the bearers had begun some kind of descent into a narrow, mustier place. They had entered some kind of building. The men were carrying him and the inspector down steps. Behind him, he heard stone doors being grated shut. Intermittent whooshing of air indicated that the group was moving through subterranean colonnades. The scent of burning fat meant the passages were lamp lit.
Marai saw changes in light and dark, even under his hood as he was carried about, but kept himself honest and quiet. After another long time, and a journey along another brackish-smelling canal or underground water source, the jostling pace of the hand carriage stopped... He heard men mumbling and heavy metal doors groaning open in protest.
With great difficulty, the covered sedans were carried down more steps and through several sets of doors, each opened by one of the men as they approached and closed and bolted after everyone had passed through them. He was turned to the right, beyond another door which was closed and then let down.
Marai paused after he removed the hood, sending only a brief and loving thought back up to the his apartment.
Not long now, beloveds, Be strong for me!
The room had a sleep bench a night jar, a burning lamp and nothing else. It was another waiting room. He remembered sitting on the bench.
Again, he was jolted awake by the entrance of the Inspector, whom he recognized, and three more priests he had never seen before. They were coming to get him. He stood, shaking his head dizzily. His hands felt clammy, and fingertips a little cool.
Wserkaf carried a torch and wore the Wepwawet mask. Marai knew that he would symbolically “die” before the re-birthing, thus the Guide of the Dead needed to be present.
Most High One wants to begin. Wserkaf’s thought broke the silence. Answer as you were taught...
Taught? I wasn’t taught a damned thing about this ritual! Just that it’s super secret. You know what I think it is and you know I’m right too, don’t you? Marai’s thoughts answered
Wserkaf’s wolf head wagged “no”
Even that... Wserkaf wasn’t in the discipline of the dead. It was wrong for him to even be portraying the guide.
How long was I asleep? I’m stiffer than block of greystone. Marai realized he must have been asleep for several hours. He sensed the Inspector sighing in a kind of dismay again.
If you don’t know by the school, then answer from your heart...All I can say...Wserkaf suggested.
“Educated one...Marai son of Ahu of the land of Sin-Ai: Do you truly embrace truth, balance and wisdom?” The inspector priest intoned in a voice at once so hale and powerful that it sent shivers of excitement through the former shepherd’s entire heart, soul, and body.
Marai felt his own voice growing timid, catching in his throat and coming out of his mouth in the shy whisper of a young boy. He had always been shy. Now, for some unknown reason, even though he had been bold and confident through the entire “training” time, he was terrified.
“I do, Lord”
“Above all else, unto death?” The inspector continued. “You have prepared yourself to come with us.”
“I do...and I will” Marai watched the bobbling light of the torches grow as another group turned the corner and entered the hall outside the room where Marai had been during his second vigil. He knew that in some cases he was supposed to have up to seven vigils.
The two men who had dressed him went into another alcove and returned with glowing, incense-coated coals in special swinging censers. They moved to the head of the procession so that choking amounts of smoke billowed behind them, clouding their way.
The sojourner trembled in even more nervous awe as four men in white brought Hordjedtef’s ebony and gold litter into the procession. The elder was fully attired in a dark cloak with a stiffened high collar and amethyst caplet, a mask and a diadem with the horned moon at his brow. A long white skirt-like shendyt encased his legs. A leopard skin was slung over his shoulder. The silver pectoral of Djehuti gleamed on his ancient, bare chest. In his right hand, he held the winged staff entwined with something that at first looked like the serpents he had imagined in the elder’s walking sticks. These had become intertwined bands of light crossing at varies points the same colors as the lotus point colors Wserkaf had taught about: red at the lower all the way up through the rainbow to silver in the wings and upper ball. The effect stunned him momentarily. He sensed a crackle of lightning, fire and air energy emanating from the ball at the top of the that staff. The aroma of incense filled the halls. As they held their breath, Marai sensed the initiates would allow their fear and anticipation to be revealed.
Wserkaf placed Marai in line behind the Great One’s litter and went to the front for a moment to repeat the formalized chanting of Marai’s name and his desire for knowledge. The parade of men moved on through the sweet fog for what seemed hours. His sense of time was getting badly distorted. The mysterious incense never ran out, the hall turned right, and left so often in that fog that Marai was now certain he would lose his way if he even thought of escaping.
They entered a taller and wider hall that continued to slope downward at a very slight angle. The walls in this hall swam with painted themes of great mystical importance, but Marai wasn’t being given time to study them. The sojourner turned candidate tried to think of their meanings as the procession passed each one.
As he was hustled by each theme, the feeling of hurt that Hordjedtef hadn’t even tried to see past his own prejudices increased. The elder didn’t want to know what the Children of Stone had written through him. He had simply decided to get what he needed another way. He wouldn’t be able to read Marai’s writing without his inspector’s help and he could never risk Wserkaf discovering the limits
of his own ability. That mean Wserkaf would endanger himself too.
Wserkaf...Marai kept repeating to himself as they trudged along. He knew he had heard the translation of that name in a dream before they met. It was at Houra’s tent. It meant “His soul is strong”. Hadn’t he heard another phrase that rang out some universal truth when the inspector told him not to pry? Accomplish the truth ...Iri-maat...Iri... Wseriri...“strong in what is right”. How could that be, if this inspector was letting this travesty proceed?
This is someone new...
The Children’s whisper ascended through him like pink morning mist.
What of it? A lot of good that does me now... He muttered to himself, trying to walk slower to see if he could read a secret message from the paintings on the walls.
Sebek waited below a precipice to receive a foolish mortal who wasn’t watching his step. A blindfolded man was suspended and bound upside down in another...that image was called the Gate of Sacrifice. Marai shivered as the last verse/riddle the children had given him replayed in his thoughts. A wonder worker stood before a table with his tools and instruments laid out. The image shifting from man to baboon looked like elder Djedi or Hordjedtef but contained another even darker image beneath it. The goddess Aset gave birth, balanced above two temple columns, as though they were birthing bricks. Was it Aset? Was it Ariennu with her hair become flame, or Deka snarling, panting and moaning like a lion pushing out a cub? Was it Ilara, his wife who suffered and died? Was it the young woman who lived in the lower apartment? Was it all mothers? He looked away, but soon craned his neck to see the image of an older man, bearing the same serpent staff while he clutched a glowing orb under his cloak. It was the image of the Veiled Lamp...the secret evolving into the Hidden...the light which was, in truth, darkness and absence of light. He slowed his pace to read the verse.
On his way
He carries at his breast
The secret wisdom
Which even he may not know.
Son of Earth,
Son of the Stars
If your number is nine
Know that a pebble
In the road can trip up the
King of the World as he passes.
One of the priests carrying the litter cleared his throat and Marai urged himself on. If he saw the old man in the last image as Hordjedtef, he knew the victory over him had already been won. But what if Wserkaf or, even more likely, he himself was the old wanderer? Would he become the ignorant bearer of Djehuti wisdom meandering through the ages both young and healthy, but old beyond his days, barely understanding the magnitude of the messages he carried within himself? The orb... Could that be the Wdjat Wserkaf protectively kept and wore?
Hordjedtef was too wrapped up in his chanting and his perverse sense of accomplishment to pay any attention to Marai’s thoughts as the men made their way down the twisted stairs and ramps to the secret places beneath some great edifice. It was said the ancients, perhaps Djehuti himself, had hidden their workings in a temple in anticipation of some arcane disaster but that wasn’t even supposed to be in Ineb Hedj at all. It should have been in Khmenu where he was chiefly worshipped, or in Per-A-At where Ra reigned. Ineb Hedj was governed by Ptah. Less and less of this ritual made sense. A smell of musty air so putrid the incense couldn’t mask it hushed out of the seldom opened doors.
Marai felt ill, salivating and shaking as if he wanted to vomit, but couldn’t.
What was in that damned tea?! He asked himself. As they passed through them, all sounds: the song, the unseen guards slipping the doors into place behind them, and the risp-rasp of sandals on the smoothly hewn path were sucked up into the gloom. The men surrounding Marai and put the hood on his head again.
Wserkaf Marai tried. I smell death. In a moment the inspector, seemingly unnoticed by his elder, dropped back to walk with the sojourner.
It’s the scent of your rebirth. The inspector’s thoughts suggested. Great One has explained to me we are doing an abbreviated third level, because you have already attained the one by water and by emotion of love through your contemplations on the creative principle the other day.
Just like that? Marai wanted to shout and run for a moment. You know this is a travesty! He has to know he hasn’t fooled either of us.
Shhh... Wserkaf’s thoughts urged. Because you told us you were entombed twice, he will send you on the last level of your journey before illumination.
As Wserkaf led Marai along another winding and twisting path, the elder Hordjedtef began a ritual song that told about a death to all that was mortal and a rebirth to a state of immortality. As he sang and the other priests who had come with them joined in, Wserkaf continued his private explanation.
I am the successor-priest of Djehuti. When either my master or our King goes to his horizon, I am to ascend. I’ve already made an oath upon my life to be faithful to truth through him but, as truth is not being pursued in this sacrilege of sacred ritual, if I see a way to save you without revealing myself to him, I’ ll signal you. If I can’t... Wserkaf seized Marai’s arm, leading him behind Hordjedtef and now six bearers of either the tools or the sedan chair.
The nine men had entered a small, high room with a vaulted ceiling.
When Wserkaf placed the torch he carried in a hollowed niche on the wall, Marai was stunned with the stark simplicity of the place. Though there were no paintings or writings in the room, the interior space vibrated with a weird half-life and floating depth. In the center of the room was an open stone box fitted with padded cushioning.
At first the sojourner didn’t notice it, but as he looked up, he saw the lid for this box poised at an angle slanting from the head of the box and upward. It was held aloft by rope. The reek of old meat and terror deepened even though there was nothing visible that could have created such a stench. Marai shuddered, almost retching with the memory of the corpses of the thieves he slew so many years earlier bloating in the early morning sun.
This is the Chamber of the Tomb.... Marai rubbed his arms to smooth the gooseflesh, then hung his head, trying to calm himself. He had suspected this would be the ritual, because his face was made green like Asar. It was the second to last of the scrutinies.
Hordjedtef paused in his exhoration as his litter was lowered. Standing and sniffing the air like a hound, as if he sensed Marai’s growing fear, he grinned and leveled a reddemon stare at him.
“Come questor,” He began again, the warble of his ancient voice dissipated in the hollow of the echoless room. “Sit here, on the edge of your horizon.” Marai sat on the edge of a solid diorite box, noticing its sides were thicker than his hand was wide.
The Well... He thought of the well in the Kina-Ahna neighborhood where the women drew fresher water each morning. He thought of Deka struggling with herself and with her fears before he left. He thought of the water and the way the amulet could glide on it allowing those who held it to see far. He thought of the beauty and the singing of the Children when Naibe first took him into her arms. That had been a well. He thought of an image of a well that could be a bottomless pit or a void that launched him into the stars at the same time. As above...so below...As within so without...Now he struggled with a surfacing, previously unrealized fear.
The elder prince was counting on that. Although he persuaded his protege, Wserkaf to believe the “Children” had initiated Marai during his rejuvenation sleeps, he knew that Marai had never faced his deepest fears. The old man sensed that fear rising and smiled inwardly
This is like being perched over a bottomless, black well... Marai stroked the smooth, high gloss of the dark stone. A well... Someone is going to die. But not here...A place like this, one day. he shook his head, suddenly dismayed. Little sparkles of light, evidence of the crystalline structures composing the rock had begun to glitter in the torchlight like stars.
Oh look...It’s the children. he thought internally, feeling comforted. They’re here with me. The horizon is split for a weeping warrior. He knew he would not esca
pe. They knew it too and came to him the way pets come to their master if danger or death is sensed. He wouldn’t be able to burst from this chamber over so many corpses the way he had defeated the brigands in the wilderness. To escape Hordjedtef, he would have to walk throught the realm of death and come out on the other side. He would have to die.
“It has been long decreed that all who seek the enlightenment of those vessels of god in their putting on the cloak of immortality.” Hordjedtef explained. “You, as many have done for ages even before the crafting of this box, will lie in it or in another like it as we have all done. You will cast your spirit into the land where time is not for three nights and days. Mark well the things you see. When you have returned, you will understand the secrets given you and be able to impart them to us in accord with your benefactors’ wishes and the wishes of our gods, to whom they have sworn eternal fealty. You have the right to refuse now, and go from us at this point, if you wish.” Hordjedtef’s voice eerily assured itself, prepared for any answer his subject might give. He looked down, as if he was thinking about an answer.
Wserkaf silently gestured to take this offer as permission to leave; that there was no shame in refusing the initiation at this point, since the priests of Kemet had not been the ones who administered the first three parts. Marai knew the younger priest still believed his master had a shred of honor left.
The overall plan Hordjedtef had in mind, was his death. If Marai ran, he knew he wouldn’t even have time to collect his wives. The kings’ special retainers would track them and murder them as soon as they slept. Menkaure, he’d discovered in his short stay here, was much more calm, wise and just than ruthless Kaphre and Khufu had been, but twice as given to the interpretations of dreams. He was deeply troubled by Djedi’s ancient predictions as well as his own vision that he would be the last significant ruler to come from his family and that his reign was to end soon. Words that Marai was a usurper and a sorcerer bound to threaten the way of life established in Kemet was enough of an excuse to mount an unquestioning campaign against him. Although he had beaten nearly thirty men at one time, Marai knew that eventually enough men could be sent to rout and vanquish him.
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