by Jerry Dubs
He reached into the stiff brown bag that Bata had given him and felt for the flat, amber-colored stone that blazed with light when it was squeezed. Pulling it from the bag he activated it and then set it on the stone floor. A soft yellow white light spread through the corridor.
Ahmes cocked his head. Had he just heard something from the mummy’s mouth?
Reaching to his kilt’s waist strap, he grabbed the handle of his knife and leaned toward the wrapped head.
The sound was as light as wind brushing across sand. But he was sure he heard the words: “Help me.”
“Stay alive, Imhotep,” he pleaded. “Stay alive.” Turning his knife blade sideways, he began to cut away the wrappings from the mummy’s crossed arms.
***
The stench of urine and shit and sweat and fear rose from the wrappings as Ahmes unraveled them.
He began working at the arms where there was less chance of cutting into the living body beneath the linens. Uncovered, Imhotep’s fingers seemed small and shriveled. Ahmes closed his eyes, shutting off thoughts of what Imhotep had endured. His composure regained, he returned to gently tugging at the wrappings until he could get his knife blade under the linen, and then began cutting through the cloth.
He cut and then tugged at layer after layer, struggling to work his blade under the tight wrappings that followed the contours of Imhotep’s arms and chest.
When he reached the innermost layer he found that it was stuck to Imhotep’s shriveling skin. Ahmes raised the water bag and splashed a few drops on the cloth to make it more pliable. It is good that I brought a second skin of water, Ahmes thought, hoarding the water so there would be plenty for Imhotep to drink.
Once Imhotep’s arms were exposed, Ahmes gently raised them and laid them along Imhotep’s side. Bending down, he started carefully unraveling the swathing around Imhotep’s neck. He sensed movement and looking at Imhotep’s fingers, he saw the hands unclench.
Unrestrained at last, Imhotep’s chest expanded, held the air for a moment as if savoring it, and then, with a sound of brittle leaves brushing against stone, Imhotep spoke.
“Help me.”
***
The pile of dirty linen swatches grew, Imhotep’s arms, chest and neck were exposed and half of the layers had been removed from the lower part of his face. Ahmes was sweating from the closeness of the hallway, from his nerves and from the strain of working both quickly and gently.
He saw Imhotep’s jaw muscles flex as he tugged at the cloth that had bound itself to his cheek.
“Sorry, Lord Imhotep,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
As he cut and tugged the last binding from Imhotep’s mouth, Ahmes saw that the exposed lips were shrunken from dehydration.
Changing position to sit cross-legged on the floor, Ahmes gently laid Imhotep’s wrapped head on his lap. Choosing a clean swatch from the pile of wrappings, he moistened it and pressed it against Imhotep’s mouth, squeezing the cloth gently to expel a few drops of water.
“Am I dead?” Imhotep asked in a whisper after a few drops of water had trickled into his mouth.
“All of the Two Lands believes that you are. I’m not sure,” Ahmes answered with tears of relief and joy swelling in his eyes.
“Ahmes?” Imhotep asked, recognizing the voice of his former apprentice.
Unable to speak through his tears, Ahmes nodded. Then he realized that Imhotep’s eyes were still bandaged. “Yes, Lord Imhotep. It is Ahmes.”
Suddenly Ahmes felt weak taps on his arm. Imhotep had raised his hand and was trying to pat Ahmes’ arm. Reaching down, Ahmes took Imhotep’s hand and gently squeezed it, alarmed at how easily the bones in his hand moved together. Then he laid Imhotep’s hand back on the floor and bent back to work.
“I will have your face free in a few minutes, Lord Imhotep.”
“More water,” Imhotep said.
***
As soon as Imhotep was completely unwrapped, Ahmes dragged his limp, naked body away from the dirty linens. He was shocked at how thin Imhotep’s arms were, how the cage of ribs formed deep valleys on his chest, how the joints of his knees and the angled bones of his hips jutted out.
He hadn’t seen Imhotep for the forty days of his captivity and although Rudamon had worried aloud about Imhotep’s declining health, Ahmes still wasn’t prepared for the living skeleton that lay before him.
He helped Imhotep drink more water and than began using some of the linens to clean his mentor. Imhotep had waived a weak arm at him. “No, Ahmes, I can clean myself.”
Ahmes ignored him and wiped away the caked dung and dried urine from Imhotep’s legs.
“Where are we?” Imhotep asked, trying to direct attention away from the work Ahmes was doing.
“In King Sekhemkhet’s tomb. I painted the symbols over one of the false doorways. You and I passed through it.”
“Oh,” Imhotep answered, his mind overwhelmed by the idea that he was still alive.
He was lying on his side as Ahmes cleaned him. Raising his head from the stone floor, he said, “I don’t understand.”
“Bata found the stiff brown bag with my name on it that was hidden in your room.”
The envelope Akila had given me, Imhotep realized.
“There were many things in it, I don’t know what they all are. One was this light,” he said as he lifted the small, gel lamp. Imhotep shook his head, he had never seen anything like it.
“There was a letter that you wrote to me.” Ahmes' voice grew quiet and worshipful. “You foretold all of this, Lord Imhotep. Everything!”
A chill went through Imhotep as he remembered the feeling when he was in the modern world and Akila had given him the two envelopes. She had refused to tell him who had given them to her, swearing only that the mysterious person had meant him no harm.
“No,” he said to Ahmes. “I didn’t know any of this would happen.”
“But you did, Lord Imhotep, you did. I have the letter here.” Ahmes twisted to his left and retrieved the letter. He held it in front of Imhotep who leaned toward the paper to read it.
When he was able to focus on it, he gasped. Written on stationery with Helwan University’s name across the top, the neat rows of hieroglyphs were drawn in his own, precise hand.
As he leaned forward to read the letter, Ahmes brought the light closer, the worry on his face relaxing as he saw the fierce focus in Imhotep’s eyes.
Reading in the yellow light, Imhotep realized immediately that he must have written the note when he was Tim Hope. While part of his mind tried to figure out when he could have written the letter, he read:
Ahmes, my apprentice whom I love as a son, I beg your help.
Nimaasted will be asked to prepare me for burial while I am alive. Tell him that he must do it. To do otherwise will only cause him harm. However, beg him, upon our years of friendship, to do me one last favor. Remind him, if you must, how I intervened when his master, Wadj-Hur, was implicated in the attempt to kill King Djoser.
I ask that after I am wrapped, he should place me in King Sekhemkhet’s alabaster sarcophagus and place the king’s body in my simple wooden coffin. The king’s heart is light and he will reach Khert-Neter without the alabaster sarcophagus, while that glowing vessel will serve as Re’s golden boat to see me to safety.
After the burial, wait three days and then enter the tomb. Tell the guards that there are unfinished paintings that must be completed to aid King Sekhemkhet’s journey. Pull me from the alabaster sarcophagus and paint the symbols, you know the ones I mean, over the false doorway on the north side of the burial chamber.
Unwrap me and then open the time portal and place me on the far side with the rest of the things in this package. Then reseal the alabaster sarcophagus in case Merneith should deign to visit the tomb.
As for Meryt and Maya. I have friends in Ta-Seti, the land where King Djoser had been exiled when he was young. Bata knows them. Ask Bata to journey to Ta-Seti to find them and make arrangements for M
eryt and Maya to find sanctuary there.
Lastly, visit Lord Sekhmire. He must know that Tjau would never harm the king, and Lord Sekhmire loves Meryt as his own sister. Beg him to talk to his son, to persuade Siptah to help Meryt and Maya escape to Ta-Seti.
Please tell Meryt that Tjau did not kill the king. He died trying to save Teti. No matter how they treated Tjau’s body, his ka will await us in Khert-Neter. Tell her that I swear that it is true, and she knows that I do not make an oath lightly. It is true. Persuade her, Ahmes.
Oh, and ask Rudamon to give me a draught of mandrake before I am wrapped. Enough to help me sleep, but not to kill me. Make a joke of it, but let him know that I am serious. I cannot survive entombment without his help.
Then, dear Ahmes, destroy the papyrus on which you have recorded the symbols. Truly destroy it this time. Burn it and scatter its ashes.
Kiss your mother and father for me. They were my first and greatest friends.
Imhotep
***
“What do we do now?” Ahmes asked when Imhotep had finished reading.
Imhotep, who had taken the letter in a weak hand, laid the letter aside and looked at his young friend. “You aren’t supposed to be here, Ahmes,” he said sadly.
Ahmes smiled in answer. “You were weak, Lord Imhotep. You would have lain on the stone floor and died. Bata wanted to come in my place. Rudamon offered to accompany you. He argued that he was a physician and would be more helpful. But I had nowhere to go. I can’t return to Zau or Merneith. Not after what she did to you and Tjau. So I stayed with you.
“It will be an adventure!” he said with enthusiasm.
Imhotep suddenly remembered the mural he had seen in Helwan. It had been Ahmes' work, he realized. It was and so it will be, he thought. My actions haven’t changed the future, they’ve simply made it possible.
Rolling onto his side, Imhotep tried to get on his hands and knees and then to his feet. Instead his arms crumpled under his weight and he pitched forward, turning his head at the last moment so that his nose wouldn’t crunch into the stone floor.
With the side of his head firmly planted on the floor, he watched Ahmes scramble to his side.
“How long was I in the tomb?” Imhotep asked, shocked at his weakness.
Ahmes lowered his eyes. “A week,” he said. “The first three times we tried to enter the tomb we were turned away. Finally, Siptah intervened and we were allowed entry.”
Imhotep shivered at the realization that he had been a living corpse for a week, unable to move or breathe deeply, unable to see or hear. Part of him wanted to weep at what he had been through, part was delirious with relief that he had survived.
Peering at Ahmes he tried to nod, but too much of his body weight remained on his head and he couldn’t move it. He laughed to himself and said, “Help me.”
***
With a heavy bag hanging over his back, Ahmes pulled Imhotep to his feet and then helped him place an arm over Ahmes' shoulders. Dragging Imhotep, Ahmes sidestepped down the stone hallway.
After just a few minutes he stopped.
Above him were stars, not the dead weight of the stone cap of the burial chamber. The wall to his left was gone. Desert sand stretched away in the starlight past a low wall of crumbling stone.
“Good,” Imhotep said, his voice a little stronger. “Put me down, please, Ahmes.”
Ahmes helped him to sit on the ground and lean against a wide stone. Then he squatted beside Imhotep in case he started to fall.
“Is there food?” Imhotep asked, nodding to the sack. “And clothing. We will need clothing.”
Ahmes rolled the bag off his shoulder and, digging into it, retrieved a round loaf of bread. He tore off a chunk and handed it to Imhotep.
As Imhotep ate, Ahmes pulled the blue-striped galabia from the bag. Imhotep almost choked in laughter at the sight of the robe. “I have one, too,” Ahmes said, pulling another roll of linen from the bag. “Mine has green stripes,” he said, unfurling the galabia.
“Perfect,” Imhotep said. The bread, its taste and texture more than any actual nourishment, was working wonders on him. He breathed deeply and looked at the stars overhead, a sight he had never expected to see again.
He felt weak, tired beyond imagining, but he was alive. Fresh air was in his lungs, rough grained bread in his mouth, and his eyes were observing a living, changing world, not the eternal darkness of the inside of a tomb.
“Oh, I have a map,’ Ahmes said. “It was in the package you left for me.”
He pulled a folded map of modern Saqqara from the bag. He unfolded it easily and stood beside Imhotep to show him the map.
Pointing to the Step Pyramid complex, Ahmes said, “We are here. You have drawn a circle around this place.” He pointed to a small rectangle just an inch away from the funeral complex.
Each passing moment reaffirmed Imhotep’s growing realization that he truly had survived entombment. Each new, unexpected breath gave him hope and strength. He turned his head to look at Ahmes whose eyes were aglow with excitement. It was an adventure for his friend.
“You’ve opened and refolded this map before,” he said.
“Every hour since we found it, trying to understand it,” Ahmes said.
Imhotep turned his attention back to the map. Beside the circle his future self had written in English, “Blue Lotus Guesthouse, Bakr Fahmy.”
He thought about this strange circle of time that was allowing some older, surviving Tim Hope to guide him through this ordeal. Apparently he had used this Blue Lotus Guesthouse and survived long enough to prepare an envelope to give to Akila to pass along to the younger Imhotep when he had brought Maya here for help.
So Akila had already met me, he thought. That’s how she knew Maya’s name. I wonder if she knows the ending to my story.
“Lord Imhotep?” Ahmes said with concern.
Imhotep nodded his head, returning from his thoughts. “This place,” he said, pointing to the circle on the map, “is where we must go. It is less than a decan’s walk from here.” He looked to the east and saw the sky was still dark, its blackness slightly softened by the distant lights of the city of Helwan. “Do you think you can carry me that far?”
Ahmes nodded excitedly. “I’ll be like your friend, the god Ipy, when he carried the injured man back from the antelope hunt.”
Imhotep smiled sadly at the reference to one of the miracles attributed to Brian, the American who had wandered into ancient Egypt and died there.
“Yes,” Imhotep agreed. “But, Ahmes, from now on, you must call me Tim Hope, not Lord Imhotep. It is the name I use here.” Although he spoke with confidence, Tim distrusted the time portal. When, he wondered, are we?
***
The Blue Lotus Guesthouse was a low-slung stretch of small rooms along the narrow road that cut through the farm land that shouldered up to the desert by the Step Pyramid. The adobe entranceway, sitting behind a sandy gravel-strewn parking lot, was sheltered by low palm trees and a pair of water gardens.
Ahmes, carrying Tim in both arms like an infant, paused just in front of the entrance, an arched doorway flanked by arched windows.
“Let me try to stand,” Tim said.
Ahmes lowered him and, keeping a supporting arm around Tim’s waist, waited to see if he could catch his balance and stand. They had tried to let Tim stand several times and each time he seemed to gather more strength.
Now he leaned against Ahmes and said cheerfully, “Look, Ahmes! I’m standing. In a day or two we’ll be having races.”
“As long as they are very short ones, Tim,” Ahmes said, trying out the strange name.
“Insult me all you want,” Tim said happily, exhilarated to be alive, “no one will understand you, Ahmes. They speak Arabic and English, perhaps French, maybe a little German. You’ll need to learn English or Arabic. Arabic would probably be better.”
Ahmes shrugged in answer. He would do what he needed to do. He had pulled a living mummy from its tomb,
unwrapped it and carried it across the desert. He didn’t think learning another language would be as difficult.
Tim tried to step toward the wooden doorway in front of him. As he lifted his right leg, the knee of his left buckled and he sagged against Ahmes. “We might need to put off the race for a few days,” he said with a trace of disappointment.
“Only a few, Lord Imhotep,” Ahmes answered, reverting to the ancient Egyptian name as he pulled more of Tim’s weight to his own arm.
As they struggled to obtain balance, the door opened.
A small man, his curly black hair disheveled, stood there with a smile beneath a strong, arched nose and thick gray moustache. The smile quickly disappeared when he saw Tim.
“English?” Tim said quickly, the word sounding strange to his ears.
“Yes, I speak English,” the man said with a curious accent that combined the clipped hardness of central Europe and the slow urgency of Arabic. “Are you injured?”
Tim shook his head. “No, just ill. Have you a room?”
The man studied Tim and Ahmes for a moment. He stepped forward and asked softly. “You aren’t dissidents, are you?”
“No,” Tim said. “We aren’t political. We just need a room. And food. Please?”
The man studied them a long moment and then, making a decision, he nodded. “I am Bakr Fahmy, welcome to the Blue Lotus.” He stepped forward to the other side of Tim. “Let me help you with your father,” he said to Ahmes.
Ahmes looked at Tim, who nodded. “OK,” Ahmes, answered, exhausting his English vocabulary.
“What is the date?” Tim asked as they helped him into the lobby.
“August first,” Bakr answered.
“No, I mean what year.”
Sure now that his guest was a dissident who had been detained by the secret police, Bakr said, “Twenty-twenty-two.” He decided that, although all but one of the guest rooms was empty, he would place this poor man and his son in the room most distant from the office, away from curious eyes.
