The Buried Pyramid (Imhotep Book 2)

by Jerry Dubs

  “This must be the Sleeping Chamber,” Sabef said from beyond the larger central room.

  Djoser followed Sabef’s voice to a circular chamber with niches cut into the wall, spaced out around the entire room. Rough hides hung from the wall and when Sabef lifted one to examine it, light poured through from behind it. He raised the hide higher and they saw a rough-cut opening in the cave wall that admitted sunlight.

  The additional light showed white ashes in the niches.

  Pointing to the ashes, Djoser asked, “Incense?”

  “Our holy men do this,” Sabef said, looking around the dark chamber. “They enclose themselves in darkness and burn seeds from a plant we call sikran. Then the gods come to them and speak through them.”

  He nodded respectfully at the wall niches. “Very holy.”

  “Do they see the future?” Djoser asked.

  “Yes, the future. They see who will be your wife, they see how to cure someone, they see why the gods are angry and what to do about it. They can see who will be king,” Sabef said.

  “Do you have this sikran?” Djoser asked.

  Sabef shook his head. “I am not a shaman.” He held his bow and smiled at Djoser. “This tells me my future. If I shoot true, I live.” He tossed his head back and laughed.

  “Don’t you want to know your future?” Djoser asked him.

  “No!” Sabef said without hesitation. “If I see something bad, then I will worry. If I see something good, then I will stop working and wait for it. It might not come, then I will worry if I have done something wrong and the gods are angry with me. For me, my Prince, it is better to know where my next step will fall. That is enough.”

  Djoser nodded understanding, but he said softly, “I would like to see beyond that. I would like to talk with the gods.” Or be a god, he thought.

  The Death of Osiris

  Djoser and Sabef spent the rest of the day exploring side trails from the plateau, returning to the Temple of Hathor as Re’s golden barge neared the western mountain tips. They ate cold meat and drank sparingly from their water supply.

  “We’ll head back down tomorrow,” Djoser said. He picked up a loose stone and tossed it over the side of the mountain top.

  Sabef nodded agreement. They had explored the temple and there was little more to do atop the mountain. They couldn’t leave now because there wasn’t enough daylight left for them to climb down the mountain and Sabef knew that Djoser wanted to spend the night in the Sleeping Chamber. Perhaps the gods would visit him.

  While Djoser took another walk around the plateau, pausing at the abrupt edges and looking across the choppy mountain tops, Sabef returned to the cave. He was curious about the niches in the Sleeping Chamber.

  After a few minutes, Djoser heard Sabef shout from inside the temple.

  Djoser ran across the plateau and poked his head inside the cave entrance. He pulled back quickly as Sabef hurried toward him.

  “What is it, Sabef? A snake, a scorpion?”

  The Nubian emerged from the cave smiling and holding a leather pouch.

  “I found this behind a loose stone in the Sleeping Chamber,” he said, loosening the pouch and shaking a mound of small gray seeds into his palm. They were as small as pepper seeds, dried and curled into themselves.

  When Djoser didn’t say anything, Sabef explained, “I thought that if they used the niches in the Sleeping Chamber to burn incense, then they might also store the incense there.”

  “This little seed can summon the gods?” Djoser asked. He reached into Sabef’s huge hand and took one of the seeds. As he started to bring it to his mouth, Sabef reached out and grabbed his wrist.

  “No, my Prince. If they are meant to bring the gods, then they should be burned to release their spirits. That is what they do in my country. We don’t eat the sikran seeds. They are poisonous.”

  “They are so small,” Djoser said, eyeing the seed he held between his fingers.

  Sabef shrugged.

  Djoser popped the seed into his mouth and swallowed. Immediately he clutched his throat and started to choke. Before Sabef could react, Djoser started to laugh.

  The Nubian shook his head. “I hope your gods have a sense of humor,” he said.

  Djoser stopped laughing.

  “I have thought about that, Sabef,” he said. “There are many stories about the gods. They fight, they make mistakes, they teach us, they love. Just as we do. And when we die we are reborn in Khert-Neter and live with them.

  “So, I think the gods are like us. How could they be otherwise? Also, Sabef, I think that the gods clothe themselves in bodies like we put on a kilt or a robe. Sometimes, like Seth when he fought Horus, they might wear the skin of a hippopotamus. Or, like Re, they could become the sun. Thoth, wisest of the gods, might dress like a baboon, but he is not a baboon.

  “Do you see what I mean? This shell,” he waved his hand to indicate his own face and body, “houses my ba, my shadow, my name, my heart and my ka. They will last forever, but my body will grow old and die. So, maybe, Sabef, I am also a god, but today I am dressed as Djoser.”

  Sabef shook his head. “That might be true for you, my Prince. But I am not a god. If I were a god I would have many wives.”

  Djoser smiled. “Osiris had only Isis. Geb has only Nut. Ptah, father of us all, has only Sekhmet. Perhaps the gods believe that one wife is enough.”

  Sabef laughed. “I never said that I was as smart as a god.”

  ***

  Khonsu, a bright crescent sliver tonight, hovered over the eastern horizon as Sabef and Djoser prepared for the night.

  Djoser, showing no ill effects from swallowing the dried seed, planned to spend the night in the Sleeping Chamber waiting for a vision. He had ground half of the dried seeds into a powder which he mixed with the remaining incense that King Kha-Sekhemwy had given him.

  Sabef, reluctant to meet any gods in his sleep, said he would stand guard outside the cave.

  Carrying the stone bowl with the incense and crushed seeds and a small burning branch from their fire, Djoser entered the Sleep Chamber. He had scraped lint from his kilt and arranged the tufts of tinder around the edge of the incense and seed mixture. Sitting cross-legged on the stone floor he composed himself and tried to empty his mind.

  Thoughts of his mother and father flitted through his consciousness and he imagined Hetephernebti’s solemn voice wishing him well. Then bending forward he touched the fire to the tinder. He laid the stick aside and nursed the small flame in the bowl until the incense and seeds were burning. After a moment he placed a flat stone over the bowl and waited until smoke began to issue from around its edges. Removing the stone lid, he blew gently on the embers.

  Holding the bowl with both hands he reverently raised it to his face.

  The spiraling wisp of white smoke smelled sweet, but as Djoser breathed in deeply a knife-edged scent cut through the pleasant aroma of the incense. Resisting the temptation to push the bowl away, he bent his head forward, opened his mouth and pulled the ghostly tendrils deep into his ba.

  He felt the mystical power of the seeds creep into his consciousness like fingers of the river spreading into a welcoming canal. Another deep breath, and then another. He leaned back against the cold stone of the cave wall and he felt himself leave his body.

  ***

  Djoser was standing on the narrow, winding trail that he and Sabef had followed earlier on their climb to the temple. He was beside the void, above the chasm that opened from the mountainside. He leaned forward as he had earlier, but this time he kept moving, giving himself to the emptiness.

  As he fell off the mountain his arms changed to hawk wings and found purchase in the high, thin air. He clenched his shoulders and drove himself upward.

  Now Khonsu glowed more brightly sending his thin light into every valley and cave in the mountain range. As Djoser wheeled in the sky, he saw a sand fox padding across the rocks, its head held high, its ears swiveling as it listened for the scratch of a mouse or the
quieter rustle of a snake.

  Driving himself higher, he twisted to bring himself over the high plateau where Hathor’s Temple sat. He saw Sabef asleep by the rocks at the cave entrance, his antelope-horn bow by his side, a handful of arrows nearby on the ground.

  Djoser pushed his feathered arms harder, gained more altitude, soared higher in the darkness and, one with Horus now, he left the world behind.

  ***

  An hour’s walk north of King Kha-Sekhemwy’s encampment, forty men waited in the dark. Naked, they had removed their white loincloths and laid aside their leather shields. Most of the men carried wooden cudgels, a few carried simple bows and one, their leader, hefted a copper mace in his hand as he waited for the scouts to return.

  He cast an eye to the sky. It would be better if Khonsu was resting, but at least there was only a wink of moonlight.

  But more darkness would be better, he thought.

  The king's camp will have a night fire and will give off the smell of roasting meat.

  They will be easy to track without light.

  Although he was expecting them, he was momentarily startled when the two scouts materialized from the darkness.

  His squad had been told that they could not speak tonight. And so the scouts merely nodded their success and pointed south along the mountain range. The commander held his hand in the air and made a circle.

  The forty warriors exhaled, some shook their arms to shed the tension of waiting.

  Without words they began to follow the scouts, breaking into a jog as they followed the edge of the mountains toward King Kha-Sekhemwy’s hunting party.

  ***

  Djoser fell through the night air. Below him torches were burning and a line of young girls clapped their hands and sang. Beside them a woman played the harp, the notes seeming to trip from her fingers as an otherworldly melody danced through the air.

  A long table held baskets of bread and jars of beer, platters of roasted duck and goat, and bowls of figs and honey. The men were strong and handsome, the women were willowy and beautiful. Djoser realized they were gods.

  On a low platform at the end of the table sat a beautiful box, the width and depth of a man. It was painted with scenes from Khert-Neter: a man hunting from a boat, a man being served by his daughters, a man sitting beside his wife. Adorned with turquoise and gold, the box sparkled and glistened. The lid of the box was open and Djoser could see that the inside of the box was shaped like a man and it was painted as well.

  As he watched, one of the gods said he would give the beautiful cabinet to whoever would fit inside it best. The guests quickly approached the box and took turns getting inside of it. Some were too wide at the shoulders, others too long or too short. But one of them fit it exactly and with a tremor of recognition, Djoser knew what he was witnessing.

  Osiris, god and king of all Kemet; Osiris, who had taught man how to plant and harvest wheat, how to build towns and how to rule themselves; Osiris, first born of Geb and Nut, had climbed into the gilded chest.

  Immediately his envious brother Seth closed the lid. Quickly he hammered it shut. Quickly he poured lead into the seam to seal it. Quickly he and his seventy-two conspirators carried the sealed casket to the river and threw Osiris into the water to drown.

  Djoser screamed in anger and soared above the silent, black river.

  ***

  When the glow of King Kha-Sekhemwy’s campfires appeared, the warriors slowed to a walk. Silently their leader held up both hands with the fingers extended: Ten men. Pointing to the camp, he moved his arms to describe half an arc. The men left to skirt around the camp. He sent ten more to the east, ten to the west. Then he began to walk toward the near side of the encampment, ten assassins at his back.

  As they walked, the archers nocked arrows into place. The others rolled their fingers on their clubs.

  When the men were close enough to smell the aroma of roasted meat, they dropped to a crouch and waited, their fingertips resting on the desert sand.

  When their leader judged that the other three groups were in place, he rose and walked toward the camp.

  ***

  The night air felt damp as Djoser circled through a layer of clouds.

  As he descended he could smell water and soon he saw the sparkle of moonlight on cresting waves. He was over the Great Green below the delta. He spotted a lone boat sailing through the night.

  He knew it was Isis, traveling to Byblos as she searched for the body of her husband Osiris, entombed in a floating sarcophagus.

  Djoser knew the story well. Faithful Isis would find the wooden casket swallowed by a tree that had been harvested and which now served as a pillar in a palace. She would turn herself into a sparrow and resurrect the ka of Osiris so he would become king of the after world. Djoser knew that Isis would take the chest containing her husband’s body back to the delta.

  Knowing what happened next, Djoser closed his eyes to the fates of the gods and wheeled away into the night sky

  When he opened his eyes he was over the delta, flying close to the treetops. Below him he saw flickering torches, the hunting party of Seth. Cawing his frustration, Djoser flew ahead to warn Isis that her hiding place had been discovered, but even as he knifed through the darkness Djoser knew that his effort was futile.

  The gods could not be diverted from their destiny.

  ***

  At the dark edge of King Kha-Sekhemwy’s camp, the forty assassins stood at the sound of their leader’s soft whistle.

  Arrows flew from the archers’s bows. Clubs raised over their heads, the foot soldiers charged into the sleeping encampment and began to bludgeon every sleeping shape. Their clubs cracked mercilessly against the heads and ribs and arms and backs of King Kha-Sekhemwy’s hunting party.

  A few of the men woke quickly enough to raise their arms to ward off the brunt of the first blow. A few rolled away from one attacker only to be cudgeled by another. One after another King Kha-Sekhemwy’s companions died.

  One of the older men who had gotten awake to relieve himself was on his feet when the assassins came. Shouting an alarm, he charged toward King Kha-Sekhemwy’s sleeping place and cut down two of the attackers before being clubbed from behind.

  Alerted, King Kha-Sekhemwy got to his feet before the assassins reached him. Drawing his knife, he kicked the first man away. Then a second attacker’s club hit King Kha-Sekhemwy’s shoulder. He reeled from the blow, grabbed a handful of sand and tossed it in the man’s face, and followed the movement with a knife thrust, but as his arm was extended a third man swung his club.

  Stunned, King Kha-Sekhemwy sank to his knees, his consciousness narrowing to a blurry, black point. The assassins dropped back as their leader pushed through. He raised his copper mace and King Kha-Sekhemwy died.

  ***

  Pain filling his heart, Djoser flew through the delta night searching for Isis and the chest that contained Osiris.

  He heard a shout and wheeled higher in the air.

  The torches had stopped moving. As he flew toward the flickering light, he heard a scream. He reached Seth’s hunting party and saw Isis being restrained as Seth pried open the chest. Seth pulled Osiris’ body from the chest and hacked it into fourteen pieces.

  Isis wept.

  And as she cried, her face changed from the face of the goddess into the familiar face of Djoser’s mother Menathap. Understanding filled Djoser and he screamed and took flight.

  The air around him grew dry and he knew that he was back in the desert. Hurrying now, locked in a nightmare vision that was creeping into his consciousness, he put all of his strength into each push of his powerful wings. Fearing what he would find, Djoser flew along the edge of the mountains following the path that his father had taken.

  He reached the silent encampment, saw the bodies and the blood and, landing, found himself changed back into a man.

  His father’s body was slumped against a tree, two dead men at his side.

  Djoser knelt beside his dying f
ather and cradled his bloody head.

  King Kha-Sekhemwy opened his mouth and whispered, “What is the noblest thing that a man can do?”

  Djoser knew the answer, he knew what Horus said when he had learned of his father’s death and now, in his vision, in a nightmare that Djoser knew was real, he leaned close to his dead father and answered, “Avenge his father for evil done to him.”

  ***

  In the Sleeping Chamber of Hathor, Djoser woke. His heart was filled with pain, but as he sat in the dark and wept at the strength of the vision, a steely resolve began to fill his ba.

  The Horned Viper

  “Hurry, Sabef!” Djoser called from the trailhead atop the plateau.

  “It is still dark, my prince. We cannot climb down this mountain in the dark. We aren’t goats,” Sabef answered from the mouth of the cave temple, but he picked up his bow, gathered his loose arrows and lifted the water skin to his shoulder.

  “No, we are men. And I am my father’s son,” Djoser shouted as he disappeared around a boulder and vanished into the night.

  Sabef paused to glance at the camp fire. Thinking of the heat waves he had seen when he and Djoser had started their climb yesterday, he took a moment to scuff sand over the fire. There was no reason to broadcast their presence.

  He held his eyes shut for a moment to erase the glow of the fire from his night vision and then jogged toward the trail.

  He knew that if Djoser would only wait a few hours until the sun rose, they would be able to travel faster and would make up most of the time they had spent waiting. But the young prince had emerged from the cave and announced that they had to leave immediately.

  Sabef, who had been dreaming of being king in his own land with a harem of dark, beautiful women, tried to hold onto the dream, but Djoser had knelt beside him and shaken his shoulders.