Another Pan

by Daniel Nayeri

  “The story?” echoed the professor.

  “Why’s he so out of it?” Wendy asked John. He didn’t respond. He probably thought it was Wendy’s fault — that their dad was worrying about her relationship with Peter.

  “Yeah,” said Marla, ignoring the snickering. “The fourth legend of the Book of Gates.”

  “Ah,” said the professor, “Marcus Praxis, the Nubian god-warrior.”

  Marla sat up in her seat, intrigued. Something told Wendy that these legends were going to make their way into the lyrics of Marla’s psychedelic goth rock band soon. Well, at least she wasn’t making fun of their Marlowe-owned house or flipping twenties at her head anymore. “What did Praxis lose?” asked Marla.

  “Everything,” said the professor.

  “But all of them lost everything,” said Marla. “That’s the point.”

  “Yes,” said the professor, “but they didn’t have everything. Praxis alone collected a fortune, found requited love, and conquered the world.”

  “Cool,” said Marla.

  “Praxis would have been as famous as Alexander the Great.”

  “So he really lost his fame,” said Marla.

  “His place in history,” amended the professor. “His figurative immortality.”

  Wendy glanced again at the windowsill, where moments before she had helped Peter hide to hear clues from Darling’s fourth lecture through the open window. She knew Peter was smirking at that last comment.

  Professor Darling sighed as he glanced at his notes. “I do encourage you all to visit the book in our exhibit and see the sketches that go with each of these stories. Take advantage of these last hours of its stay at Marlowe.”

  “What?” said Wendy, a bit too loudly. She could almost hear Peter panicking outside.

  “What do you mean, last hours?” said John, also alarmed.

  “Well,” said the professor distractedly, “I’m taking it to the gala. I’m presenting the governor with a token from the exhibit. It’s customary.”

  “But you can’t!” said Wendy. Her father flushed at her volume, and a few kids looked up from their doodling. “I mean . . . it belongs to the British Museum, right?”

  “Yes,” said Professor Darling. “I have the proper permissions, of course. It’s on loan to the governor’s offices only for a short time.”

  “The governor’s offices?” said John. “You mean in Albany?”

  Professor Darling chuckled. “Yes, that is still where they keep the capitol.”

  “But I thought . . .” Wendy searched for the right words. “I thought you said this book was the original gate book . . .”

  “Book of Gates. No, I’ve long abandoned that notion. Sometimes, Wendy, the smallest, most inconsequential items are the most important. I’m focusing my research now on the figurine and the small jars. Don’t worry — the book will be in good hands. Simon’s mentioned something about applying for some sort of curator job in Albany, correct?”

  The professor looked at Simon, who nodded solemnly. Wendy wondered if John understood that Simon had engineered this loss, that he was isolating the book for himself. Probably not. He probably thought Simon was protecting a valuable artifact for posterity. Still, it was obvious that John did see one thing: opening the gates without the book — or getting their hands on it once it was sent to the capitol — would be impossible.

  “Now,” said Professor Darling, “back to Marcus Praxis and his great loss.”

  Wendy knew that Peter was fuming on the other side of the windowsill. She could practically hear it as her dad began the fourth legend.

  THE FOURTH LEGEND

  A just reward is a precious thing. If a person is robbed of the rightful credit for his deeds, of the right to be praised or punished according to his own humanity, then he is nothing. If his place in history is obliterated as though he never touched the earth, a bitterness builds inside.

  So goes the story of one family with a curse on its line, of Elan’s dark legacy, full of the cruelest injustices. The house that 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.

  Hundreds of years after the betrayal of Harere by her sister, Nailah, the House of Elan languished in desolation. With each passing generation, the family became more and more entrenched in a legacy of regret. Soon, they were nothing but bandits, floating up and down the fertile Nile, ambushing caravans led to water, and hijacking merchants.

  The Children of Elan were the most feared gang in all of Cairo, roving the City of the Dead, desecrating family tombs for precious objects. Ambitious officials often hired them to assassinate rivals. If they paid extra, a lot extra, Hurkhan the legend, leader of the infamous gang, would personally attend to the matter.

  It was said, only in the quietest corners of the city, that Hurkhan had a taste for killing. He was an abomination to Elan’s bloodline, to Egypt, and to humanity. He had used the blacksmith’s sharpening wheel to grind his own teeth into a jagged bracket of razors. His smile was grotesque. No one would speak of Hurkhan and everyone prayed that he would not speak of them. But this legend is not of Hurkhan the bloodthirsty. It was someone else who bore the weight of Elan’s heritage. . . .

  Hurkhan had spent much time sharpening his skills with the Nubian tribes, using his fearsome reputation and grotesque acts of violence to frighten the elders into allowing him to stay among them when he needed to hide. There, he had fathered a son with one of the Nubian princesses. When Hurkhan’s son was born, no one could deny that he was beautiful. Somehow, by the gods, he had taken the best of his parents’ odd coupling. He was strong, shrewd, and courageous, like his father. He was also kind, just, and generous, like his mother. His skin was a dark bronze.

  When the boy came of age, Hurkhan returned to the village to claim his son. In the alleys of the City of the Dead, the underground began to whisper. The Children of Elan had arisen with a new son. But no one had seen this new street prince. No one had seen him because Hurkhan had other plans.

  Lately, Hurkhan had been uninformed of the goings-on within Cairo and the pharaoh’s palace. He needed a new spy in the royal house. As it happened, his son was the same age as the new pharoah, Amun-Ra, who was a petty and jealous young man.

  No one would suspect that the Nubian boy was the rumored son of Hurkhan. But his tribal name was not suitable for the sly affairs of courtesans. Hurkhan gave him the name Marcus Praxis, knowing the young pharaoh’s fascination with the Roman clans.

  Marcus Praxis did not know he was a spy. He only went to the court of Amun-Ra to find a friend. Hurkhan lived, as always, in the shadows, watching the two boys grow as close as two brothers, waiting for his chance to use Marcus for his purposes.

  Amun was not nimble, like Marcus. Nonetheless, all the courtiers let the frail pharaoh win at games. He could not win chariot races, as Marcus did, but the courtiers pulled back their horses to let him pass. Marcus was the only one who would soundly defeat Amun at every game they played.

  Amun-Ra grew envious, and even though Marcus Praxis was his best friend, somewhere, deep down, the pharaoh hated him — especially in the presence of Layla, the daughter of a minister. To young Amun-Ra and Marcus Praxis, Layla was the ocean. Her splendor outshone Alexandria’s lighthouse. She was famous for her fiery nature. People called her fierce, an unstoppable force: a windstorm.

  Over the years, Marcus became a great soldier, courageous in battle, and the commander of the most elite warriors. When it seemed as if the wars would tear all of Egypt apart, his spear shone and struck fear and regret in his enemies. He was given credit for saving the empire from ruin, and he rode into the city to a hero’s welcome.

  “Amun-Ra is pharaoh. Marcus Praxis is pharaoh builder!”

  “Amun-Ra is god. Marcus Praxis is god maker!”

  What Marcus Praxis had achieved was monumental. Poets wrote songs in his honor. Craftsmen built him statues. Artists painted his
image throughout the kingdom. And most important, Layla chose him as her companion. Word spread that he would become the greatest name among all the peoples of the East. Amun-Ra burned with hatred.

  But soon, Hurkhan showed his wicked face to Marcus once again. In the palace garden, one dusky evening, Hurkhan approached his son, the commander of all Egypt’s armies, with a scheme. He had amassed a horde of barbarian warriors, mercenaries, and thieves, in the desert just outside Giza. Marcus Praxis could purposely lose this battle, letting Hurkhan’s criminal army overrun Cairo. Hurkhan would ascend the throne. But so would Marcus Praxis, after his father’s eventual death. It was a devious plan.

  Marcus could not deny that Amun-Ra was a terrible ruler. His taxes starved the people. His law had become overly severe. But Marcus Praxis would not betray his people to Hurkhan’s army. His father snapped his teeth in frustration, for Marcus was too strong to kill there in the garden. Hurkhan retreated into the shade, and back to his army.

  Marcus returned to his loving wife and their children. It was not long before the Egyptian army heard of Hurkhan’s men. The people of Cairo squirmed under the threat of more war. They called for Marcus Praxis to bring peace once again. Marcus Praxis kissed the beautiful Layla’s tears and promised to return. Then Marcus rode to Giza.

  Deep in the desert, the two armies faced each other. At the head of Egypt’s army stood Marcus Praxis, the legend of the day, his soldiers shouting in perfect unison. Among the roguish horde stood Hurkhan, the myth of the night, his men cackling and cracking their teeth. All the empire stood between them. From the palace balcony, Amun-Ra and the court waited for sounds of battle. Layla would not listen. Amun-Ra grinned, for he knew there was nothing to listen to. . . .

  Marcus Praxis lowered his sword, the signal for his soldiers to attack. He sprinted ahead of them, unafraid of leading the charge. But when the great general reached the middle of the battlefield, he knew that his army had not followed. Hurkhan’s men had also stayed in place. Marcus knew he had been betrayed. His spurned father smiled like a crocodile as he watched his son standing lonely between two armies.

  At the command of Hurkhan, both armies raised their bows, and together they wiped the memory of the great general Marcus Praxis from the earth. Far away at the palace, as the court awaited the sound of war, Amun-Ra returned to his chamber, but not before ordering Layla to be his wife. Hurkhan’s army was allowed to ransack all of Cairo, but would stop short of the palace. For days the city burned. The bandit army took all that they pleased. They had only one command. All statues of Marcus Praxis were to be shattered, all murals scratched out of the stone. His name would be erased from the histories of great men. Marcus Praxis would be no more, and the great achievements of Amun-Ra’s kingdom would be credited to the pharaoh alone. Amun-Ra the brave. Amun-Ra, great warrior. Amun-Ra, savior of his people.

  Before the carnage was done, Hurkhan claimed the body of his son. In a ritual of debasement and desecration, the monster removed his son’s organs and preserved the hollow body as a trophy, a relic of war that he hid in the winding alleys of the City of the Dead. He used sawdust to stuff it and linens to wrap it. And so, in creating his grotesque monument to himself, Hurkhan mummified his son’s remains, trapping in his bones so much more than he knew. It is said, only in the quietest corners of the city, that beautiful Layla, who died soon after her marriage to Amun-Ra, wanders the dead city to this day, searching the intricate maze, looking for a token of her beloved.

  The bitterness of this injustice devoured Marcus’s soul. And so, he died with his life trapped in his bones. The goddess of death took the general’s 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, guarded by powerful deities that no human could overcome.

  And so, Marcus Praxis was gone, his rightful place in history lost. But he can never fully die. His wasted life is forever trapped as grains of immortality in his bones.

  Of course, my father becomes a diplomat. If you are rich and you want to keep your money out of the hands of all the corrupt officials, you have to become one of them. So we move. Overnight. No bars. No cars. No hot Russian boys. No champagne. Just Marlowe and a bunch of boring rich kids who only care about getting into good colleges. Who are these losers? They hear that my father is a diplomat from Belarus and are impressed that he can park anywhere he likes. Then they ask, “Where’s Belarus?”

  Peter tossed and turned, twisting his blanket around himself, sweating through his pillow all the way to the scratchy feathers inside. He was in a barely furnished room, in a strange house that the LBs had found for him — someone’s attic outside Manhattan. The nightmares were unbearable now. His demons would not leave him alone. The night would never end. He had barely slept in days. Still, the desperation for bonedust drove him onward.

  He thrashed in his bed and kicked away his blanket. The book would soon slip away from him. It would be moved to Albany, and he would have to start all over again. It was already so much harder getting close to the exhibit since his firing from Marlowe. Now he would have to move fast. “Don’t worry — I always think of something,” he had said to Wendy only hours ago, when they met in secret. But now that he was alone, he wasn’t so sure his plan would work. Time was running out. And yet the night . . . it was unending.

  Peter buried his face in his scratchy pillow and turned his thoughts to Wendy. He smirked at the thought of Connor trying to beat him up over her, the memory of Tina fuming with jealousy when she saw them together. He liked being with Wendy, especially now that her father had expressly forbidden it. Then he remembered how Wendy had hesitated, how she had shown no trace of happiness, when he had offered her the world. . . .

  Professor Darling had researched the Book of Gates and its surrounding mythology for years. He had read books, written books, given speeches, and been laughed out of half the lecture halls in Europe and the U.S. for trying to further his theories on the veracity of “the five myths.” The fact that this formerly legendary, now defunct professor had gotten his hands on such an important collection of ancient artifacts did not escape the attention of the academic world. Yes, Darling was still perusing the items for clues about five absurd myths. Yes, his motives were still frivolous and questionable. But no one could deny that his exhibit was an achievement for the community. So, of course, they wanted to recognize him for his efforts — even if only to give the governor a photo op.

  Shortly after the unveiling of the exhibit, Professor Darling had received phone calls from Egyptologists all over New York. One of them had come to see the exhibit for himself. Others had simply sent their regards and moved on. A small news piece had been written about the exhibit, followed by another about Darling’s career. When the article had reached the hands of the alumni association at Darling’s alma mater and was published in the alumni magazine, it gained a much more privileged readership, including New York’s governor, who had attended the college some years after Professor Darling and whose current education-focused campaign was sorely in need of a media boost. Professor Darling was informed that he would be given a gubernatorial prize at a special gala in honor of his contributions to the education of New York’s youth.

  Professor Darling hated to say good-bye to the Book of Gates. But the old man knew when it was time to let go. And by now, he was convinced that it was no more than a copy. Since the exhibit had come to Marlowe, Professor Darling had gone to work trying to figure out which item could possibly unlock the mysteries of the legends. Could it be the almost female death god statue — so lifelike, so intrinsically tied to the underworld narrative? Could it be one of the several canopic jars — built to hold human remains and therefore the natural vessels for the mythic remains of the cursed family? Or, he had often asked himself, could it be the Book of Gates itself? Professor Darling, though he was a seasoned scholar, had lost the vigor and patience o
f the youthful researcher. He didn’t read every footnote. He didn’t follow every lead. He didn’t dig in the back rows of the obscurest libraries or bother with the giant creaking wheel that moves the stacks back and forth to reveal the most rarely touched volumes. So, by the time Peter and the kids had found three of the bones, Professor Darling was still grappling with the question of what form this unlocking of secrets would take. Was the underworld a metaphor for a place on earth? Were the mummies in another country? Would the key to finding them be a map of some kind? Early on, he focused his research on the statue labeled Neferat — the strange female figure that could be the death goddess from the legends — deciding after many perusals that there was nothing to be found in the book, which was, at best, an ancient copy of the legendary original.

  In this mistaken notion, Simon played no small part. He subtly encouraged all of Professor Darling’s false assumptions.

  “Yeah, that book came to us at the British Museum a couple of years ago. I think from Rome,” he said one day, keeping a very casual tone as he flipped through the pages, his heart pounding with greed. “Or was it a Spanish copy? Yes, it was the Prado in Madrid.”

  Then, on another occasion he remarked, as he placed a small cracked bowl behind a placard, “The book was marked for permanent storage a few months ago. It was spared because the papyrus is in pretty good condition.”

  “Oh, is that old thing still here?” he said one afternoon as they were wrapping up for the day. “I read a paper in the Cairo Museum archives about the original being tracked to somewhere outside Alexandria.”

  Each time Simon made one of these comments, Darling would sigh and resign himself to the fact that his mission was proving to be a failure.

  And yet Professor Darling’s mind was troubled by more than just a failed theory. He had noticed a strange aura all around Marlowe. A weird presence seemed to inhabit the school, lingering just around his exhibit — possibly even making people sick. Maybe it was asbestos or dust or lead, but the new nurse was practically tubercular. She should really quit. And yesterday, as he was packing up for the day, he thought he heard a raspy groan, a muffled murmur, coming from one of the locked classrooms. . . .