The Sleeper in the Sands

by Tom Holland

  ‘Then you should know that what she gives she may also take away’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘That the immortality of the line of Osiris is no more. That those who share in it at last may be granted their repose. That there is no life so eternal that I may not choose to end it.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me. For have you not understood?’ Again he smiled horribly ‘I am become Death myself.’

  ‘No,’ Inen stammered, ‘no, I do not understand.’

  ‘I am hungry for life -- and what is Death, in the end, if not such a hunger?’

  ‘Then you . . .’ Inen recalled the snarl of desperation he had seen on his nephew’s face, the burning, quivering gaze of desire. ‘You were hungry for me? Hungry for my . . .?’

  ‘Taste.’ Akh-en-Aten spoke the word softly; and yet to Inen, the sound seemed to spill throughout the darkness. ‘And so it is, O my Uncle, that you should keep far from me. As before, so now, I would have you live for ever -- for there can be no more terrible nor more truly deathly fate. Yet draw near me, and all the same I will drain you of your life, for it is sweet and golden, and precious to me, and I will no longer fight against the lure which it extends. All life is a temptation to me now, but yours, O my Uncle -- yours especially so.’

  As he said this, his eyes seemed to open upon a darkness that was infinite; and Inen, gazing upon it, sought to break his stare away, lest he be lost within anything so eternal and cold. ‘Why?’ he whispered softly. ‘Why should mine be so precious to you?’

  The darkness in Akh-en-Aten’s eyes seemed to cloud. ‘I am Death,’ he said again. ‘I am not permitted what for mortals is the dearest prize of all - the love of family ... of a mother, a brother, a sister, a child . . .’

  ‘Of a mother?’ Inen whispered.

  ‘Of course.’ Akh-en-Aten smiled. ‘For even more than you, Tyi is life of my life - and she, for that reason, will taste the sweetest of all.’ His smile faded, and for a moment he stood frozen; then it seemed to Inen that he started to flicker, as though he were made of the darkness which lined the wash of the candle flame. ‘Leave me well alone,’ he whispered. ‘Depart Thebes today. For should I ever meet with you again, then I swear it -- you will die.’ His final word lingered as an echo in the air, sounding again and again through Inen’s mind; yet the figure of his nephew seemed already disappeared. Inen stepped forward. ‘Die,’ he heard, ‘die’; yet there was no one there with him. There was no trace, no other sound of Akh-en-Aten at all.

  Quickly Inen gathered his possessions together, then hurried from the temple almost at a run. The single word, strangely echoing, still sounded through his head. He would leave, he decided, that very afternoon. Leave across the deserts. Leave, if it had to be, regrettably, alone. Before departing, however, he sought out his sister, pacing through her quarters and visiting her every favoured haunt and spot, desperate for her son not to have found his mother first. Inen rehearsed what he would say: ‘Come with me,’ he muttered, ‘come with me, let us live with each other and be happy for all time.’ Suddenly the thought that he might not find her, that her son might kill her after all, struck him as a horror too great to be borne; and he remembered, as though understanding them for the first time, the words with which his nephew had sentenced him to life. ‘There can be no more terrible, nor more truly deathly fate.’ ‘No,’ Inen thought to himself, ‘no -- not if my sister, not if Tyi can be found.’

  But it happened, even as Inen was searching through the Palace, that she was already riding with great speed towards the Valley. For King Ay, upon his return to Thebes, had at once sought his sister out and given her the tidings of her son’s return; but Tyi, to the King’s surprise, had displayed no joy but only dread. ‘You were certain,’ she had pressed him, ‘certain it was my son?’; and her mood, as King Ay had nodded, had only darkened all the more. She had risen at once and scuttled from the room, and when King Ay had sought to follow her, she had screamed at him in fury to leave her well alone. So the King had not seen her give orders to the captain of his guards, nor witnessed the gathering in the forecourt of some twenty men, mounted on horses and laden with picks. Nor had he seen her leave the Palace, leading her party along the road towards the Valley; for it was now growing dark, and the sun was near to setting.

  Tyi herself rode well apart from her horsemen, for she could not endure to be stared at by those whose limbs were not like hers, whose bellies were not swollen, and whose skulls were not hideously distended and vast. It had been her habit now for years to swathe herself in black, so that even her eyes were concealed beneath a veil; yet even so, it discomforted her to be abroad upon a public road, and away from the protecting walls of her quarters. Nevertheless, she had no difficulty in outpacing the men behind her: for the more that the stamp of her blood seemed upon her, so the greater she found that her strength had become.

  As she passed between the cliffs which led into the Valley, the last light of the sun disappeared behind the hills. Tyi reined in her horse and glanced behind her. The guards had stopped as well and were busy lighting torches. Tyi smiled. She had no need of flames to illumine her path, since for many years now she had seen better in the dark than in the fullest light of day. She called out impatiently to her men to follow her, then wheeled her horse round and continued along the path. There was not far now to go. She studied the contours of the rocks ahead, and made out her twin destinations with ease. To her left the hurriedly prepared tomb of Smenkh-ka-Re; to her right that of her younger grandson, Tut-ankh-Amen. There was nothing to indicate where either tomb lay, yet Tyi had chosen the spots herself with great care, and she knew exactly where the work of excavation would have to begin. Only the choice of the first tomb to open made her pause; then she smiled and nodded, and turned to the left. ‘Let he who has lain longest be recovered first.’ She clambered up the rocks; then stood above the doorway to the tomb of Smenkh-ka-Re.

  Tyi bent down, scooping up pebbles and dust, then allowing them to slip through her long, curling fingers. She glanced down at her hand, withered and claw-like as it was, with a disgust which she had never quite learned to master, then turned impatiently to look for her men. But all was dark, and of the torches which they had been lighting there was now not a trace. In a fury of disbelief, Tyi cried out to the guards to join her -- but only the echo of her own voice replied. She stood motionless, listening to the sound fade away into the night; and then suddenly she shuddered, and knew that she was not alone after all.

  She turned and gasped, an exclamation of mingled horror, and fury, and dread. ‘You!’ she whispered. He was standing above her on a flat ledge of rock; his face bare and his head uncovered. The marks of his blood, she saw, seemed touched by some other, even stranger stamp.

  ‘Draw near to me,’ he smiled, holding out his arms. ‘For do you not wish, O my Mother, after so long, to embrace me?’

  ‘Ay told me . . .’ she stammered, ‘. . . said you had returned.’

  ‘And so you rode out here to the valley of the tombs?’

  She laughed bitterly. ‘Why should I not?’

  ‘It is an accursed place.’

  ‘Then it is all the more fitting a place for me.’ She fumbled suddenly with the veil across her face, pulling it away and turning back to face her son. ‘See!’ she cried out, ‘how ugly I have grown! I, who was once so beautiful and desired, am become a thing of horror, and people shrink and look away should they ever see my face!’ She swallowed, trying to choke back her sobs, then her misery was consumed by a scorching blast of rage. ‘I must keep to my rooms, I must never walk abroad, I must shroud my face and limbs beneath veils and scarves and robes. It is worse, O my Son, than any Harim -- yet as I escaped the latter, so also I shall escape this prison of disgust.’

  ‘How?’ he whispered.

  ‘You may join me,’ she told him suddenly. ‘Yes,’ she nodded with a furious violence, ‘yes, yes, you must.’

  ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Why’ she
answered, ‘rule with me as King. For as I am immortal now, so soon I shall cease to wither and grow old, and who then would there be who could stand in my way?’

  Akh-en-Aten shook his head slowly. ‘How will you cease to wither and grow old?’

  But Tyi ignored him and spoke on wildly almost as though she were arguing with herself. ‘It had been my intention,’ she muttered, ‘to wait until Ay’s death, for I loved him, I loved him . . . But why should I wait?’ She laughed even as she also began to sob again, her fingers twitching as they plucked at her robes, tearing them away to reveal the withered, distended limbs beneath. ‘When I am King,’ she choked, ‘when I sit upon the throne, there will be no one who will dare to look away from me again. And I shall be loved. And I shall be loved. And all shall be as it was before.’

  But Akh-en-Aten shook his head very slowly once again. ‘How,’ he repeated, ‘will you cease to grow old?’

  She gazed up at him, startled, then gestured with her arms. ‘Here, beneath the sands, there waits a wondrous prize!’

  ‘No,’ said Akh-en-Aten gently. He half-raised his hand as though to reach out for her, even though he still stood high upon the ledge. ‘The bodies of the Kings have been removed, O my Mother. Removed and replaced. Do you not remember? Inen told us so.’

  ‘Then he lied.’ Tyi bent down suddenly, scrabbling with her hands and scratching at the pebbles piled upon the rocks. ‘He lied!’ She laughed again, gazing up and beckoning to her son, only to find that he was already coming, descending from the ledge, walking with a measured step down the face of the slope. Some four paces from her he tensed, then stopped once again; and Tyi saw suddenly that his eyes seemed like bright points of fire.

  She gazed down at the dust in her hands, then scattered it and slowly rose to her feet again. She had been ready to tell him, she realised suddenly, ready to betray her most precious secret; but now, gazing upon his face, there seemed the hint of such a danger that it froze her dumb with shock. How pinched his cheeks appeared, how parted his lips, how mobile, and restless, and hungry his stare! ‘What is it?’ she whispered, rediscovering her voice. ‘O my Son, tell me what has happened to you, for I have never seen such a strange look in anyone before.’

  Akh-en-Aten breathed in deeply. He did not reply.

  Enraptured and appalled, Tyi still gazed into his eyes. She thought of the tomb below her. It would have been so easy, she thought in a sudden fury of regret, to unplaster the stonework, and to dismember the body of the still-living King -- laid out as it had been upon the floor of the tomb, while the corpse of another had been placed within the shrine. Neither Ay nor the priests had ever discovered the subterfuge, and those servants who had accomplished it she had then ordered slain -- so as to be certain that the body would still be easy to retrieve. And as with Smenkh-ka-Re, so also with Tut-ankh-Amen: it would be a simple matter for both bodies to be seized and born secretly away.

  Desperately, Tyi broke from the gleam of her son’s eyes. She gazed about her again, searching for any sign of torches, for any hint that her men might not all have fled. But darkness was everywhere; and once again Tyi felt a surge of frustration and rage. To be so near, she thought, to the long-awaited prize, to be so near -- and now for her son, of all men, to have arrived . . .

  She glanced once again very briefly at her feet. ‘It may be,’ she said slowly, ‘that there is still magic flesh to be found beneath the rocks.’

  ‘No,’ whispered Akh-en-Aten, as gently as before. ‘All, O my Mother, all, all is gone, and of the magic line of Osiris -- only you remain.’

  ‘Yet it may be we should look.’ She gazed at him eagerly. ‘Yes - you and I.’

  He did not answer for a long while, but Tyi saw that his eyes blazed as brightly as before, and at last he shook his head. ‘Why’ he asked her, ‘have you forgotten the All-High, the God of your father -- the God of your son?’

  ‘Has He not forgotten me?’

  ‘He forgets nothing.’

  ‘Then look upon me!’

  ‘I do.’ Akh-en-Aten nodded, parting his lips. ‘I do.’

  Both stood in silence a moment; then Akh-en-Aten smiled, so sadly and yet with such a radiance of love that it seemed to Tyi, gazing upon him, that the marks of the curse upon his face were no more, and that she was gazing again upon the small boy she remembered - her beloved son, her beauteous child. He held out his arms as he had done before, and this time, enraptured, she stepped forward to meet them. She felt him hold her; felt the softest touch of his lips upon her brow; and then suddenly she gasped, for she felt his fingers on her throat.

  ‘What will you do?’ she whispered, briefly attempting to escape from his hold; and then she could speak no more, for her neck seemed muffled by a warm tide of moistness, and she felt all her strength draining softly away. She sought to twist and observe her son’s face, but in vain, for it was buried deep within the wound which he had gashed across her neck. Her head lolled back; for the briefest moment, in the sky she saw the blaze of the stars; and then they faded, and their light was utterly extinguished. ‘Can this be death?’ Tyi wondered in astonishment; and she moaned, both with fear and exultation. She thought briefly of the tomb and its contents below her, and she wanted to speak, to warn her son of the secret. But already the darkness she had glimpsed within the sky was rolling down upon her, and as it had extinguished the stars so it bore across her thoughts. She barely felt the touch of the sand upon her back as gently, very gently, she was laid on the ground; and she barely felt her son’s final parting kiss upon her brow. Yet she knew what he had done; and her last thought, her last feeling, was remembrance of her son.

  Yet Akh-en-Aten knew nothing of that; and when at last he was certain that his mother was dead, and that the curse of her immortality had indeed been banished by his thirst, he could not endure to gaze upon her face again. He dug a trench, very rough and ready, and buried the corpse as rapidly as he could; then he rose, and departed, and left the Valley behind. And where he went, and what he became, there is no man who can say; and that is the Tale of Pharaoh and the Temple of Amen, and as I have told you it, so it truly occurred.

  And when Leila had concluded her tale, she fell silent and smiled to behold my astonishment and wonder. ‘By the holy name of Allah,’ I exclaimed, my eyes as wide as the fullest moon, ‘this Tale of Pharaoh and the Temple of Amen which you have related to me is indeed a remarkable and a terrible one! Much which was dark now stands illumined, and much which was secret now stands revealed. Yet I could almost wish, O Mighty Jinni, that I had never listened to your tale, for I dread now to learn what it is you wish to grant me.’

  But Leila smiled and reached out to stroke my cheek. ‘How can you doubt that, O my Beloved?’ she whispered. ‘For did you not, as Akh-en-Aten did, overthrow my sacred statue? And did you not, as Akh-en-Aten did, keep me as your wife? And did you not, as Akh-en-Aten did, break your solemn vow, and yet seek me out again once I had melted from your embrace, as I had promised I would do? You know what I gave him, and the price which he paid. Dare you, O my Husband’ - she smiled -- ‘pay the same?’

  ‘May Allah have mercy upon me, I cannot!’ And even as I said this, O Prince, I was thinking of Haidee, my daughter, and imagining what it might mean never to be with her again, never to watch her grow into womanhood, lest I be drawn to slay her and feed upon her flesh. For in all this wide world, with its many riches and beauties and wonders, still there is nothing more precious to me than my child -- my only, sweetest, beloved child. As Allah is great, I thought to myself, never shall I throw such a peerless joy away! But then suddenly, O Caliph, I remembered your threat, how Haidee’s life would be forfeit should I fail to meet with your command, and return without the mastery of the powers of life and death. And all at once I imagined that I saw before me, as though conjured up by the sorcery of the shrine, a vision of my daughter slain upon your word. So vivid she appeared that I cried out in sorrow and rose up from my seat, for I longed to take and cradle her in my arms. Bu
t the vision at once began to melt and change before me, and I imagined that, where before my daughter had been, I saw an image of the sleeper released from his tomb, that man who once, I knew, had been a Pharaoh of Egypt and had borne the name of Smenkh-ka-Re, but was now the monstrous father of an army of the udar. I saw him raise his bloodied mace in triumph; and all at once I saw the vision start to change, and there stretched before me a view of Cairo, Mother of the World, fairest of fair cities and jewel amongst jewels. Everywhere, though, appeared silent and still; and then I marked how in the streets, and the markets and the mosques, bodies lay piled to be the food of flies and dogs, and corpses were bobbing upon the waters of the Nile. And then I understood, O Caliph, that all the world might be in peril, for the danger unleashed from the tomb would surely spread, unless something were done, some marvel achieved; and then I thought to myself how Allah alone can see all things for the best. I rubbed my eyes and the visions faded, and I turned back to Leila, and she took me by the hands. And although I said nothing, I felt her presence in my thoughts; and I did not break away when her lips touched my own. And at once, like a sweet and wondrous sleep, I felt a darkness; and the darkness filled me, and I saw nothing more.

  When I awoke I found I was alone save for Isis, my dog, who lay sleeping by my feet; and I imagined, for a moment, that I had passed through nothing but a dream. But then I arose; and I realised that I was changed, and I saw all about me the marks of Leila’s power. The temple, it was true, was as ruined as before, its bare abandoned pillars half-sunk beneath the sands; but all about them, piled against the giant blocks of stone, were the bodies of the udar, the ghools bred from the tomb, and of all that vast number, the army I had seen, massed before the wall which I had built across the temple, not one remained alive. In wonder I passed through the ruins of the temple, and beyond their shadow, gathered by the Nile I saw the villagers bowed low in praise of the All-High. Then, as I approached them, they all turned and rose to greet me, proclaiming me a magician of unparalleled power; but even as they thanked me, I saw that their wonder seemed touched by something almost like fear, and I wondered if the mark of my transformation were very plain.