THE HATHOR HOLOCAUST

by Roy Lester Pond

  The grey owl gave a hoot of fury. It grabbed the spearman's arm in its beak. With a flick of its head, it flung Karoy out into the night.

  Had he survived all this only to smash on the ground? Karoy thought, cartwheeling in the dark.

  He hit a canopy of leaves on a bush, breaking his fall. He bounced and slid down the leaves to land miraculously on his feet.

  "Where am I now?" he said dazed, casting around. "I am still in the great green," he decided looking around the expanse of the parkland. But which way was the museum? And now that he had lost his direction, how did he hope to find the home of the curator and his mischievous daughter?

  Karoy broke into a jog.

  The familiar shape of a structure in monumental scale soared in the distance of the moonlit parkland, making a dark triangle in a part of the night sky.

  Could it be?

  A pyramid, here in the parkland!

  He had never seen a view of this section of the parkland from the window of his Egyptian gallery.

  Could this massive memorial mark the site of the keeper's home? He was a man who clearly loved Egypt. He spent his working day surrounded by relics from its past. Did he also go home at night to a world of Egypt?

  Karoy ran closer, slipping between the metal rails of a fence and shoving his way through undergrowth. It grew increasingly dense and lush as he approached the soaring base.

  He ran between the trunks of palm trees, their fronds making dark starbursts in the sky overhead, an encouraging memory of the land of his home.

  He reached the base.

  This was like no other pyramid he remembered. This one had clear sides like the glass display cases in the museum and lights glowed in its heart.

  Karoy had never seen a glass pyramid before, nor ventured into a botanical garden stocked with tropical plants.

  He wiped a patch of evening dew from a pane with his hand and peered inside.

  His eyes met a jungle of plants vying with each other in crazed and eccentric tangle, exotic and gaudy heliconias, bat flowers, orchids, jade plants and many other strange plants, rare rainforest species quite foreign to Egypt and collected from steamy high altitudes and from monsoonal tropical regions in faraway lands.

  The jungle soared up to the roof amid sprays of mist that formed droplets, dripping off leaves. 'A very damp house of eternity for a pharaoh', he thought. Could the curator live in here?

  He had better investigate.

  He scurried along the base of the pyramid and arrived at a clearing and a stone path.

  People.

  Two men were doing work here at night, pushing a trolley loaded up with plants.

  He darted behind a bush to sneak a look at them from between the leaves. A wash of light from garden lamps lit the area. It revealed an open door in the pyramid’s side. The men went inside, wheeling the trolley, passing from view.

  Karoy waited. The men did not come back.

  This did not look promising, but he had better take a quick look inside.

  Karoy left the cover of the bushes and vaulted over stone edging to land on a smooth, stony path. He moved cautiously along it, keeping near the edge to approach the pyramid’s entranceway.

  He paused at the edge of the doorway, looking both ways to make sure the men were out of sight, then he made a dash into the world of greenery.

  The air was different in here, he noticed at once. It wrapped around his painted skin like a warm, damp cloth.

  Wait, they were coming back.

  Karoy darted under an overhang, taking cover beneath some leaves that were as big as the ears of elephants.

  Feet crunched past. The men were going back to the entrance. There was a pause, then a roar and the glass door rammed shut, startling Karoy.

  Karoy came out from under the African Ear plant, shaken.

  The appalling meaning of this event sank in like the moist breath of the plant house air.

  ‘I am trapped in the pyramid.’

  When the shock receded, he looked around.

  This was not a pyramid of death.

  It was a paradise filled with exotic, fragrant plants, bright flowers, even a rushing waterfall, but it was death for his dry and ancient timber limbs.

  He could feel the dampness seeping through his painted skin, invading tiny cracks.

  ‘This pyramid will not preserve my body, but melt me into sawdust,’ he thought. ‘For myself, I do not care. It might as well end here in a mighty pyramid, where I am entombed just like a pharaoh of old, but what of Tiy?

  I have vowed to rescue her. I cannot give up.

  Karoy cast around for an answer. Was there another doorway? Unlikely.

  All sign of the men had gone. They had locked up and left him trapped.

  What a fool he had been. The curator did not live here. Nobody lived here.

  Only plants.

  The competing mass of trunks, vines and foliage took on a predatory look now that he was shut in here alone. There was a sweet, rotting smell and some of the flowers looked sinister, their petals open like devouring jaws.

  He had proof of that a moment later. A tiny insect flew to inspect a plant and a pair of green and spiny jaws slammed shut.

  Karoy jumped. A flesh devourer. What kind of nightmarish tomb was this!

  Think, soggy brain.

  How do you escape from a glass pyramid? Break the glass? No. The glass looked thick and far too hard for a wooden soldier to smash.

  Then what? Out of the fog and mist a new thought came to him. Maybe he was asking the wrong question. Maybe the question was not ‘how do you escape from a glass pyramid? Maybe he should ask instead, how do you escape from any pyramid? Then he remembered something. The pyramids all had shafts in their sides, built to allow the pharaoh’s soul to fly through and to reach the imperishable stars. Did this place have shafts? Karoy moved into a clearing and craned his head up at the roof. He was rewarded at that moment by a whine of machinery high above in the eastern face.

  A series of motorized, louvred air intakes, operated on a rack and pinion drive mechanism, ground open to reveal narrow black slits of sky.

  Hope flooded through Karoy. It was time to find the tallest tree and start climbing. ‘I am coming, Tiye,’ he whispered. Not even a pyramid can contain me.”

  His acacia heart gave an extra skip when later he glimpsed another familiar form from ancient Egypt piercing the belly of the night sky - this time it was an obelisk that speared above the trees, a pillar of stone capped with a pyramid shaped point.

  He quickened his pace. An obelisk meant a temple and a temple meant a building where the keeper may well have taken up residence.

  But when he reached a clearing in the moonlight, he found the obelisk standing alone with no sign of a temple building.

  What was this?

  Karoy had never seen a war memorial before and he squinted at inscriptions of the war dead carved in the base, little knowing that these hieroglyphs were lists of fallen soldiers.

  Lists of offerings for Ra, the sun god, he guessed.

  But again, no museum keeper's house.

  He was no closer. Was this a night without end?

  Do not give up. Even though you are on your own and your comrades are somewhere out there in the dark. Try a different direction.

  But keep running.

  At the opposite side of the park, after a brisk jog that dried his painted skin, Karoy came to a row of bushes that screened some kind of a clamour beyond.

  He pushed his nose through, blinking in surprise to see a brightly lit street and a river of people moving hurriedly along it. The river of people spilled off the street and funnelled down some steps, passing from view.

  Karoy had never seen a city train underground before and it appeared to him like the mouth of an underworld, swallowing the flitting shadows of the dead.

  What was this?

  Where were they all going?

  Is this where the curator went each day after work and where the child had gon
e with his precious Tiy?

  It was like an entranceway that seemed to swallow up all of humanity.

  If that is where Tiy has gone, then I’ll go too, he vowed. Not even the gates of the underworld will stop me.

  But how did he get to the entrance without being seen by the people?

  He puzzled on this as he watched the stream of commuters join the procession, some of the men carrying cases and the women handbags, the women clicking on the pavement in shoes with stalky heels.

  A man at the corner handed them broad scrolls of paper from a stack he kept in a cart.

  Guides to the underworld, he wondered

  Suddenly he drew back startled. A wall of flying shapes roared and rumbled past, cars and a blue bus. Karoy had seen gleaming metal chariots like these before on his exhibition trip around the country, but never this close and their din made him cower.

  Now a woman came along, dragging a bag on wheels behind her - a shopping trolley filled with groceries.

  She stopped at the edge of a street and pushed a button on a pole.

  Here was his answer. He needed a ride, a boat to take him safely and unseen on this river of humanity.

  The trolley trundled across the street, Karoy clinging to its side. It bumped down a step with a bone splintering bang and then down another.

  'Stop,' he thought. "This is enough to jar the paint off my skin!"

  But he hung on.

  Now they were down, running smoothly along an endless tomb passage. He saw images on the walls, tomb frescoes, sliding by his curious gaze.

  Underground metro station posters.

  What did these scenes tell him about the owner of this decorated underworld?

  He would not lack pleasant company in the afterlife, that was certain. The tomb owner had many pretty wives to keep him company, it seemed, each with smiling teeth and shining hair and dressed in a variety of clothes, some quite scandalously brief.

  The dead man had also provided well for his sustenance in the next like, Karoy concluded, spotting piles of offerings, drink and food that would magically sustain him in the next world. He came upon the image of cooked bird. Duck portions or perhaps goose, roasted in honey? he wondered puzzling over a bucket of fried chicken, since chickens were unknown in Egypt.

  Somebody walking beside the trolley brushed close and he shrank to the other side of the trolley.

  The tunnel echoed and rang with footsteps and now the sound of music and singing met his ears.

  He peered around the shopping bag to see ahead.

  A man sat against a wall of the tomb passage, plucking the strings of an instrument to emit thrilling, quavering notes, while he sang a song of lament to the passers by.

  A blind harpist, no doubtKaroy thought, just like the ones of ancient Egypt.

  Karoy could not understand the words, but he guessed by its sadness that it was the song of the harpist:

  'No man may live forever

  in the land of Egypt.

  All must journey to the land

  from which none returns

  to tell us how they fare.

  Eat, drink and be merry

  for tomorrow we die!"

  Most of the procession ignored the musician's warning he noticed, not even turning a glance his way, but others did pause to drop silver pieces on a rug at his feet and he smiled and nodded his head while he sang.

  All must journey to the land

  from which none returns ...

  Was this an omen?

  Would Tiy never return?

  Would he?

  They passed through a barrier manned by a grim-faced tomb guardian dressed in uniform, but the woman dragging the trolley seemed to know the magic passwords to appease him and he allowed her to pass through.

  They trundled along another length of passageway cut deep into the earth and it opened out onto an underground station platform, where people were clustered and motionless, some gathered six deep.

  Karoy flattened himself against the bag. It was a good thing nobody looked down. Most stared ahead into space or stared at a dark mouth of a tunnel at the far end of the platform as if waiting for something to appear.

  He noticed, an angry symbol splattered on a wall and he took this spray of graffiti defacement as a further sign of danger to come.

  It was a jagged shape like lightning and it made him think of the crooked snake wands that Heka had held up high.

  Truly, this was the underworld.

  A ringing voice, that came from the very walls and could only be that of a god, burst upon his ear drums.

  And now a rumble deep beneath the wheels of the shopping cart sent a tremble up Karoy's body.

  It grew louder and more threatening and now more heads turned to face the black mouth of the tunnel.

  Yellow eyes split the darkness and Apophis the Great Serpent of the underworld came scouring out of the tunnel and slowed, measuring it metallic length alongside the platform.

  Why did they not flee?

  Instead the people edged forward.

  The serpent hissed and great panels slid open in its side. People it had swallowed spilled out of its stomach and no sooner had they come out, but the waiting throng eagerly scrambled to take their place.

  Karoy felt the trolley roll and give a bump as it went over the gap between platform and train carriage and he joined the crush.

  The doors hissed and rumbled shut, the serpent gave a bray and slid away.

  The train gathered speed and the sound turned hollow as they went into a tunnel and the lights of the platform disappeared. People jammed close, jostled the bag, threatening to dislodge him. What kind of journey was this inside the belly of the Great Snake?

  Will Tiy be at the end of it?

  People began to stir around him. Someone was trying to shove their way past others to make for the doors.

  Karoy saw a giant pair of black paws appear. He looked up into the jaws of a monster, hovering over his head.

  Anubis, the dog god, come to devour me? Mercy!

  A droplet of saliva fell on Karoy’s head. The black labrador, wagged its tail, bending its broad head as its tongue lolled from its mouth. But the tiny spearman did not notice the friendly intelligence in the animal’s expression.

  “Slaver over me, will you, Hound of the Underworld?”

  Karoy saw that the creature came tethered on leashes, held by the hand of a man who wore dark windows on his eyes. Karoy did not know about Guide dogs for the blind and in his panic he abandoned the shopping cart and dropped to the floor of the carriage.

  He scurried between the shifting forest of feet and legs, taking cover under the shadow of a seat.

  But now as the serpent slowed its headlong rush.

  The train stopped.

  People were getting out.

  This was the end of the serpent's journey.

  People clustered at the doorway.

  They were getting out.

  He could not find a gap. A dense clump of shoes and legs hemmed him in.

  Let me by.

  He struggled forward. A raised foot knocked him down. The sole of a large boot raised itself like dark sky over his head. He rolled sideways, just missing the spear of a woman's heel.

  He sprang to his feet, but now another tide of people swept him back as new people boarded the train.

  "Let me out! I must get the lady Tiy!"

  In his panic he forgot about hiding and yelled out in alarm, but the hissing doors drowned out his voice.

  The train jolted and began to move.

  My chance, gone! It was over. He was trapped on a journey for all eternity inside the belly of serpent Apophis.

  Fate has swallowed me up, and all my hopes.

  Karoy felt numbed.

  He edged back under the shadows of a seat and slumped to the carriage floor.

  The serpent stopped again and then again, endlessly. People got off and people got on.

  'I no longer know what to do,' Karoy thought. "I do not
know whether I am coming or going. I am sorry, Lady Tiy, I tried.

  The night ground on.

  'I seem to be going around in circles,' he thought.

  The train stopped yet again. The stream of passengers had thinned. Karoy, sheltering behind a suitcase on wheel, decided to accept his fate and abandon himself to some unknown passage of the underworld.

  The doors hissed and slid open.

  He noticed an angry symbol splattered on a wall of the platform.

  It was a jagged shape like lightning and it made him think of the crooked snake wands that Heka had held up high.

  He was back where he had started.

  He had been going around in circles.

  But then Karoy had never heard of a City Circle line before.

  He jumped aboard the suitcase on wheels and took a ride to the surface.

  He followed the edge of the park and on a quiet side rose a row of small buildings with a house squeezed in between, a house with twin green gables and ivy covered walls and an attic window aglow.

  It could have been any house, but it stopped Karoy in his tracks.

  Two small stone sphinxes stood like guardians at the entrance.

  Someone up there must like me Karoy thought, awed by his stroke of luck - the god Ptah, the High God himself, or perhaps some great Museum Keeper in the Sky.

  Now Karoy knew where he was.

  Surely this was the sign of a museum keeper's house.

  "Hold on Lady Tiy, I am near!" What about the others? Had they turned back now that their leader was gone? Karoy felt utterly alone as he stood on a lawn in moonlight under the window of the house.

  "Then I will save the Lady Tiy alone," he had said to Heka.

  His vow was coming true.

  He guessed that the upstairs bedchamber belonged to the little girl. He could see some kind of painted doll sitting at the window below a partly lowered blind. He also noticed that the window was ajar and that the ivy that climbed up the side of the house stretched fingers out to reach the window.

  It was time to climb up vegetation for the second time that night.

  He must go up there to reach the bedchamber and rescue the Lady Tiy.

  Karoy grabbed hold of an ivy stem and began to climb. This proved to be the easiest part of the night. The challenge came when he reached the window and stepped inside, below the partly lowered blind.