Marla rolled her eyes and shut her history book with an irritated clap. John ventured a glance her way, but she caught it and glared back. He gulped. Marla was the kind of rich kid who thought she was badass just because she dressed in black clothes and played guitar — never mind that real street kids couldn’t afford to go Goth in cashmere.
“The items in this exhibit came from the British Museum,” said Professor Darling, clapping his hands, “and they’ve included artifacts dating from the late Coptic period all the way back to pre-Antiquity. I’m sure you all know how exciting it is to have the pieces from the world’s largest collection. I mean, we could be looking at undiscovered history here.”
Here we go, thought Wendy. Every time Professor Darling used the phrase undiscovered history, it meant he was about to start waxing poetic about humankind, oral traditions, myths, and the stories we tell one another around the fireplace. He loved the phrase because it was full of mystery. Anything could be discovered and join historical fact. Any impossibility could become possible. “Every fiction,” he’d say, “is a fact that hasn’t been proven yet.”
“I’ll be needing as many volunteers as I can get to help catalog the pieces before the exhibit goes up.”
Someone in the back said, “Oooh, where do I sign up?”
Professor Darling didn’t seem to hear.
“The theme I’ve proposed for the show is the Five Legends. That sounds cool, doesn’t it?”
“Super cool,” said Marla, in a tone so sarcastic that even their father must have noticed.
As always, he ignored it and went on with undiminished enthusiasm. “Some of the pieces we’ve acquired are fascinating. For example, we have in our exhibit several canopic jars used in Egyptian funereal rites. And we have a very old copy of the Book of Gates, which, I should add, could be a set of original bound papyri dating back thousands of years.” The professor’s eyes sparkled and he added, “Of course, that isn’t what the museum community believes, which is why they let us borrow it. . . . You know, the original Book of Gates is said to have magical powers.”
The professor waved his fingers in the air, obviously trying to seem mysterious, or even interesting. He deflated in the silence that followed. “OK, well, no one has really suggested magic, but I’ve presented theories that mystical occurrences have surrounded this lost artifact. Personally, I believe the original book may be the key to unearthing the truth behind the five great legends . . . myths, as they are called by . . . most scholars. The historicity of the stories is doubted by many, but I think anything is possible.”
“Five legends?” John asked.
“Yes, yes, John,” said the professor hurriedly. “The five stories that are told in the Book of Gates. Remember, I showed you an English translation in our library at home?”
John flushed and dropped lower in his seat. Professor Darling was getting excited again, talking with his hands above his head and walking around. Wendy groaned. Her dad’s fairy-tale theories about Egypt had given him a reputation as a kook. No one denied that he was preeminent in the field, but maybe he just believed more than he should have.
“Well, an English translation from our house is one thing . . .” Professor Darling stopped. As soon as the professor said the words our house, someone in the back snickered.
Someone whispered, “We can’t all live in a free house on Marlowe’s dime.”
Someone else responded, “I wonder if our tuition pays for his storybooks.”
Professor Darling reddened but continued, pretending not to hear. “An English copy is one thing, but the long-lost original . . . well, some people say that it can do a lot more than just recount the five stories. It has the power to unlock their mysteries to the world.”
Professor Darling wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. Wendy knew that discussing his less conventional theories with a Marlowe crowd always had this effect on him. He switched to something less risky. “The five legends in the Book of Gates revolve around great loss. Five people — unknown to history, but tied together by a single cursed bloodline — who have suffered injustice on an eternal scale, the life of each becoming a legend in its own right.”
“What do you mean, unknown to history?” asked a soft-voiced girl in the back, a freshman also accelerated into the class along with John. “I mean, you seem to know about them.”
“Ahh,” said Professor Darling. “We know of them through myth, Jenny. But these stories have not made it into conventional Egyptian history, or even mainstream mythology. They are part of a much more obscure, much more secret, lore. A lore that is shunned by scholars and Egyptians. A lore that would tell us that even the death god was something different from what is commonly believed.”
The class was quiet for a moment. The professor went on. “As I was saying, each of the five legends tells the story of a grave injustice. In one story, the injustice may be the loss of a person’s heritage. In another, maybe great love. But in all of them, there is something that caused a great bitterness to grow and fester inside — a bitterness over a life not fully lived. The ancient Egyptians used to say that this bitterness, this desire to take back what was lost, has a life of its own. It lingers in the world of the living. And so, these five characters continued to linger. You see, none of this would matter if the heroes of the five legends had just had a normal death and burial. But that isn’t exactly what happened, now, is it?”
Some of the sleepy students perked up. The professor was pacing the floor with a far-gone look, lecturing wistfully, from memory. Even Marla was interested. “What did happen, then?” she whispered, an almost sadistic look in her black-lined eyes.
Professor Darling shot Marla a smile. “Well, they were mummified, of course! We all know that the Egyptians believed that mummification was the way to transmit a body into the afterlife. But we also know that it was only the pharaohs or the extremely wealthy who could afford to be mummified. These five characters were certainly not historic icons. But legend has it that they were each somehow mummified, which is an astonishing fluke in itself. It was the mummification that preserved the bitterness in their bones.”
“So, wait a minute,” said John. “You’re saying that the reason these five made it into the legends and not anyone else was because they had something really bad happen to them and then they were mummified?”
Professor Darling nodded. “There were three commonalities among the five legends that made them unique. One, the grave injustices. Two, the mummification. And three, the fact that they were all in the same family — a shared bloodline. Through the workings of fate,” the professor continued, “these five doomed souls were first born into the same cursed line and then were serendipitously and undeservedly mummified. It is said their lives were trapped in their bones, their souls unable to leave the mortal world. Not while the wrongs against them remained unavenged.”
The professor trailed off, and the children’s expectation hung in the air. The professor was staring off into nothing.
“So?” said Marla finally.
The professor blinked. “So, what?”
“So, what happened? What happened to their bodies? Did they get revenge?”
Professor Darling smiled. “Well, no one knows. Their bodies disappeared. They weren’t alive, but they couldn’t die. Some people say the god of death took them away, knowing what great magic was hidden in their bones. The force of injustice on such a massive scale . . . well, it can’t just disappear. These five mummies are believed to possess within them a substance that treasure seekers and storytellers call bonedust. It is said that the bonedust from the five mummies, when mixed together, can give everlasting life — a real-life fountain of youth, if you will — that it can overcome death and undermine the death god’s greatest power. Bonedust is her greatest enemy.”
“What do you mean, her?” asked Wendy.
Professor Darling’s eyes flashed blue-gray as he leaned on his daughter’s desk. “Well, that, my dear, is one of the most fascinating
parts of the legend. According to five legends lore, the death god is not Anubis, as is believed by historians and Egyptians. It is a woman.” Professor Darling scurried behind his desk and grabbed a stack of notes. “You see, every legend starts and ends the same way. Each one starts by telling us what that hero’s injustice was. And it ends like this. . . .” He began to read from a yellowing page:
“The bitterness of this injustice devoured his soul. And so, he died with his life trapped in his bones. The goddess of death took the mummy and the bonedust with it. She shielded it with her greatest weapons, fearing that someday death might be conquered. The Dark Lady hid the mummy in a place where no one could reach it, a legendary labyrinth of the gates. . . . And so, [our hero] was gone, but he can never fully die . . . his wasted life forever trapped as grains of immortality in his bones.”
“You see?” the professor continued. “The legends say that the death god is a woman. They call her the Dark Lady, but I believe she appears in the fifth legend. . . .” He trailed off, then began again. “This is why most people believe the five legends are rubbish. Because everywhere you go in Egypt, you see statues of the jackal-headed Anubis. You don’t see a female death god. But we have a statue of her in our very own exhibit. I suggest you all go and look at it.”
“So is the bonedust around somewhere?” asked Jenny, the quiet-voiced ninth-grader.
“Most people would say it isn’t anywhere. They’re just myths, remember?”
“But according to this legend?” asked John.
“According to this, the bonedust is hidden in an unidentified labyrinth. And some say that the original Book of Gates is the key to unlocking it.”
“Tell us one of the legends,” said Marla.
Professor Darling didn’t have to be asked twice. He sat on the edge of his desk, looked each rapt student in the eye, picked up a tattered spiral notebook and a smattering of crinkled notes from his desk, and began reading his own meticulous English translation of the first legend.
THE FIRST LEGEND
A legacy is a precious thing. If a man is robbed of his life’s work, of his chance to achieve the basic immortality granted to all who work and raise children, a bitterness builds inside.
This is the story of one family with a curse on their line, a dark legacy full of the cruelest injustices. Tales of their fate have wafted through Egypt for centuries, like smoke clouds that refuse to die. They cannot die. Their stolen lives linger on, still flowing in their bones. Life has been mummified inside them, forming an ever-living bonedust — a new kind of immortality.
Their tombs are hidden, for they bear a great secret. When ground together into dust, the remaining bones of these five mummies give eternal life — a chance to escape death and defy the goddess. Natives have long told ever-fading legends about the secret of the dust. For centuries they have searched and failed, for the family name is buried, their saga hidden. Those who decipher the ancient relics and find their way through the gates meet obstacles that have killed many.
A legacy is a precious thing. So it was for the first father of this wretched family. In the time of the ancient pharaohs, when the people of Israel were slaves in the land of Egypt and little hope of freedom yet existed, Elan worked to save his family. Born in the tribe of Benjamin, Elan was proud of his heritage and of the heritage he would one day create. Every day, he toiled under the taskmaster’s whip. His greatest hope was to have children and to watch them grow up free.
One day, as he hung by his waist from a rope near the top of a half-erected palace — the future home of Akhara, a high official of the pharaoh — Elan received the news that he had become a father. With difficulty he lowered himself to the ground, ready to rush to his wife’s side. But the taskmaster was loitering below. Elan tried to slip away to his wife, freed from all reason by the elation in his heart. But the taskmaster was too quick. When the broad-faced guard raised his whip, Elan did the unthinkable. He reached up and grabbed the man’s hand, bringing the whip down with a slight jerk.
The guard’s eyes flashed.
Another guard arrived. Then another.
Within minutes, Elan was beaten and dragged to the court of Akhara. There, the high official offered him a bargain. “Build me a tomb worthy of a god, and upon your death, your family will be set free. There is only one condition: from today onward, you will have no tools and no help from your brethren.”
That night, Elan held his son for the first time. He turned Akhara’s bargain over in his mind.
Soon after, Elan had a daughter, and with each passing day, he threw himself more fiercely into his work. He gathered straw from the discarded piles of the other slaves, from the stables and fields. He built his own bricks, one by one. He fashioned his own rods and rope pulleys. He erected the pieces of Akhara’s pyramid little by little, so the very walls were soaked with his sweat.
Through all this, the gods ignored this insignificant man.
For twenty-five years, Elan worked.
Then, one day, when his back was bent with work and his hair had become like wisps of gray cotton, he looked up and saw that he was finished. He had built a five-headed pyramid of clay and stone, with five pointed pillars protruding from the pyramid base. It was painted a golden color since he had no gold of his own, but it was a tomb without equal.
That night, Elan knocked on Akhara’s door with his cane. But he was greeted with silence. He called into the house, but his aging voice did not carry far. He waited until the sun went down, leaning on his cane outside Akhara’s door.
When he returned home, Elan found Akhara’s answer waiting for him. Four guards were holding his wife and children at the point of their spears. Elan rushed toward them but was held back by a leering guard. There, before his eyes, they killed Elan’s only son. Elan fell to his knees, the screams of his wife and daughter fading behind the thundering in his head.
Then, through the blur of tears and aging eyes, past the sandaled feet of the guards, he saw the rich robes of Akhara. “Slaves do not make bargains,” said the high official. “No slave should fancy himself so strong, or he and his sons will be cut down. But you have done good work, and I am a just man. I will marry your daughter as fair compensation.”
Elan and his wife were returned to a life of slavery. His daughter, Jobey, was swept away by the guards, and Elan never saw her again. She might have been his legacy, but she was stripped of his name, of his heritage, and of his God. She was not free, but a slave to a cruel husband.
For years, Elan wallowed in the fact that his life’s work had been for nothing and that he would have no legacy. His children’s children would be swallowed up by Egypt, their blood diluted long after he was dust. To Elan, that was the greatest injustice of all. The bitterness devoured his soul. He died with his life trapped in his bones.
But Elan’s daughter did not forget her father. When he died, she asked her servants to steal his body and take it to the tomb that he had built with his own hands for the thief Akhara. There, she mummified his body, preserving his bones and all the venom they contained. The body of the old man rested in Akhara’s tomb undetected until the story of Elan the builder passed to legend, and the magic that he held with him found its way to the goddess of death.
When Akhara died a few years later, his family finally discovered that the great tomb had been used. They found pieces of Elan’s burial clothes and a few of his remaining belongings, but they could not find his body. Elan’s daughter, too, was shocked to see that her father was gone. For desecrating Akhara’s tomb before his death, Elan’s daughter was put to death, and her children were given to Akhara’s other wives. The women were ordered never to speak of the children’s true heritage. As for Elan, the goddess of death had already taken the old man’s mummy, and the first bonedust with it. She shielded it with her greatest weapons, fearing that someday death might be conquered. The Dark Lady hid the mummy in a place where no one could reach it, a legendary labyrinth of the Gates, guarded by powerful deities tha
t no human could overcome.
And so, Elan was gone, his legacy lost. But he can never fully die. His wasted life is forever trapped as grains of immortality in his bones.
Peter sat alone on the front lawn of Marlowe watching kids in sports gear rushing this way and that, teachers heading home, and that Darling girl playing around with her boyfriend, the lacrosse player. He wondered if she’d ever had any other boyfriends, a pretty girl like that. He wondered what she really wanted — how much effort it would take him to pluck her away.
Soon it was dusk and all the kids cleared out of the school, all the sports ended, and the Darling girl went home, too. Peter sat on the lawn — even after the dark overtook the school and that fearful part of him began to shiver.
The Dark Lady was present. Peter could feel it. She had drawn him here. And now the school would begin to change. It would become like the world below, because now it was linked to that world. The fog would seep into every crevice and slowly infect Marlowe, just as it had done to every other place the book had been. The air would become harder to breathe. The walls would grow moldy and unwelcoming. Everything that was once fresh would become rancid and spoiled. Peter could see it happening now. It would start with just a feeling, and soon not a single happy thought would remain.
Across the lawn, Peter spied a matronly nurse in a blue sweater set walking toward the girls’ dorm. She swept across the lawn lithely, quietly, moving the way his own nanny had all those years ago. The nanny who had first shown him the book, thinking he would just forget about it like any other child. The ageless nanny with the moth-eaten clothes who had tried to corrupt him with her stories but had created a hunger instead. The hateful nanny with the antique metal hook, a gray mist in his mind that chased him for all these years.
Another Pan Page 5