Stolen Souls

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  "What the hell does that mean?" Suzanne asked.

  "Shhh!" Harriet snapped.

  Sam looked up from the notebook. "Harriet, what do you know about Egyptian numerology?"

  "As much as anyone in my position, I suppose," she shrugged. "Why?"

  "Any significance to the numbers here? I mean, forty-two priests serving seven other priests?"

  She shook her head. "The significance is obvious, but it isn't numerological. There are forty-two gods in the Egyptian pantheon, seven of which are chief deities. It's sort of like the Greeks with their dozens of gods, twelve of whom they called Olympians. From what you've been reading us, it sounds like there were forty-two priests, one for each of the gods, and seven high priests, one for each of the chief gods. I would assume that Sekhemib was the high priest of Anubis, and that one of the other people was simply a priest of Anubis."

  Sam nodded. "Makes sense."

  "Makes sense!" Suzanne laughed. "Are you kidding?! None of this makes the slightest sense to me!"

  Harriet ignored her. "Is there more, Sam?" she asked.

  "Yeah," he replied and returned his attention to the notebook.

  Know that the burning of the bodies of the priests gives the tekenues back their souls, but he who burns the body of the priest brings down upon himself the wrath of Anubis, who will destroy him utterly and his children after him into all the generations of the world.

  I charge you to place the bodies of the seven with my body when I am gathered to my fathers, and to keep them with me, for I know the name of Xepheraxepher, and through his power I can restrain Sekhemib and the drinkers of the souls of the people, even in death. But neither you nor anyone else shall place his hand upon the body of Sekhemib or the six others, neither shall you wear their gold, neither shall you burn their bodies, lest the wrath of the god Anubis fall upon you. These are the words of Ousha Zaphenath paneah, the servant of the great lord Dudimosh, the servant of the great god Xepheraxepher. My words are true. I know the name of the god.

  Sam looked up. "There's more. In the margin of the scroll there's a gloss—"

  "A what?" Suzanne asked.

  "A gloss, a notation in the margin made by someone years after the scroll was written. If you think the scroll is interesting, listen to this." He began to read his translation, but stopped before the first word and added, "It isn't in Proto-Sinaitic, incidentally. It's in biblical Hebrew."

  "Hebrew!" Harriet exclaimed. "But that's from a totally different time period!"

  "So, apparently, is the gloss: some thousand years later than the scroll. Listen."

  The words of Hilkiah, scribe of the Temple of God which was in Jerusalem. Know that in the eleventh year of the reign of King Zedekiah did Nebuchadnezzar the King of the Chaldeans come against us for our sins, and did slay the young men of Judah and burn the Temple of God. The forty-two followers of the dead priest Sekhemib did follow in the path of Nebuchadnezzar and did seek to possess the bodies given into my keeping, as they had been given into the keeping of my fathers before me since the days when Israel sojourned in Egypt. But I, Hilkiah, scribe of the Temple, did remove the seven bodies and did bury them at Shechem. Thus have I obeyed the charge of our father Joseph, who though he worshipped foreign gods was beloved of the Lord. Thus do I charge all who come after me to obey the command of our father, for though the years have passed in great number, yet do the followers of Sekhemib remain from generation to generation, each generation seeking to find the seven priests of the idol that they may escape death. Do thou my son and my son after me preserve the land from the evil of the followers of the idol.

  Sam sat back and grinned. "Incredible, isn't it? I mean, very fanciful, but fascinating."

  Harriet shook her head in wonder. "Unbelievable. Unbefuckinglievable." She was so infrequently heard to utter vulgarities of that sort that both Suzanne and Sam realized how deeply she had been impressed.

  "I feel embarrassed to show my ignorance again," Suzanne said, "but what's the importance of the gloss? Is there new information?"

  "Not per se," Sam replied, "but Hebrew documents of this period, outside of biblical texts, of course, are a bit sparse."

  "And what is the period?"

  "Well, he mentions Zedekiah. He was king of Judah until the Babylonian conquest, which occurred in 586 B.C. So we're talking about a period of time some one thousand years after the scroll itself was written."

  "Interesting references to religion," Harriet observed. "Ousha—or Joseph—seems to speak of Anubis as a real deity, while Hilkiah calls him an idol. Clear transition from henotheism to monotheism."

  "Yes, yes, that's a good point," Sam said. "Also, we have a written admission from the biblical period, in no uncertain terms, that the patriarchs did not worship the Lord God, at least not exclusively."

  "So much for the covenant with Abraham!"

  "Not necessarily," Sam objected. "The covenant is not incompatible with henotheism. It's just our preconceptions which make them seem to be mutually exclusive."

  "I'd ask you what you're talking about again," Suzanne said with irritation,"but I feel stupid enough already."

  Sam and Harriet laughed. "Just a few issues in the study of religious development," Sam explained. "Only of interest to eggheads like the two of us."

  "It's one hell of a find, Sam," Harriet said seriously, "one hell of a find."

  "Yeah, it is that!" he agreed, dropping his notebook down upon the desk. "Its historical value is largely corroborative, but the mythologists will have a field day with it."

  "Largely corroborative!" Harriet exclaimed. "Are you kidding? For one thing, it explains how the mummies ended up in Palestine."

  Sam was momentarily nonplussed. "You mean they really were in Palestine? How do you know?"

  "That's what the ninth Earl of Selwyn said in his letter. They were found there by Ibrahim, the son of Mehemet Ali Pasha, when he invaded Syria in 1831."

  "Really! And that's where the English found them, in Syria?"

  "In Shechem, just like the gloss says. It's fantastic! Genesis tells us that Joseph died and was buried in Egypt. Exodus tells us that when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt they took Joseph's body with them. They must have taken the seven mummies also!"

  "And they were hidden in Shechem by Hilkiah, transferred from Jerusalem when the Babylonians attacked. Fantastic!" Sam shook his head wonderingly.

  "Wait a minute," Suzanne said. "I still don't understand what any of this has to do with the attitude of the ninth Earl. I mean, he was very upset about the mummies, judging from his letter. Do you think that cult was still around in the 1800s? Was he afraid of the curse? Were Karloff or Lugosi involved?"

  This suggestion was greeted with quiet laughter by Roderick and Sam. Harriet did not respond to the jest. Indeed, sitting there with her brow furrowed in thought, she seemed not even to have heard it.

  "I'm sorry," Suzanne laughed. "I'm not making fun of this old story or anything. It's just so—well, so silly. I mean, people who don't die, 'soul drinking,' secret names of gods—it's all so grade B melodrama. You know?" She turned to Roderick for agreement. Ever the amiable gentleman, he agreed with a smile.

  "I know, I know," Sam added, still chuckling. "It's all superstitious nonsense, as I've already said."

  "You think it's nonsense?" Harriet asked sharply.

  Sam looked at her kindly. "Look, Harriet, I'm not ridiculing—"

  "No, no, I just want to make a point. You think the idea of a holy name for a deity, a sacred name not to be spoken lightly, is nonsense?"

  Sam Goldhaber knew exactly where she was heading. "It's not quite the same thing, Harriet."

  "What's not quite the same thing?" Suzanne asked.

  Harriet and Sam ignored her. There was a sudden infusion of tension in the air as Harriet snapped, "Okay, then, say the name."

  "Cut it out, Harriet," Sam said testily.

  "Why? What's the matter? Bast got your tongue?" She grinned, a hint of malice quivering upon h
er lips.

  "What are you two talking about?" Suzanne demanded. "Did you follow that?" she asked Roderick. He smiled and shrugged.

  "It's very simple," Harriet said. "Sam is making fun of this old belief, calling it superstitious, when he and his coreligionists hold the same belief."

  "Harriet," he said with a thinly veiled impatience, "please don't misrepresent things. There is an enormous difference, and you know it."

  Their eyes locked for a long moment of tension, and then she looked down. "I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't mean to be rude. I just hate to hear the ancients spoken of so disrespectfully."

  He reached over and took her hand, all barriers between them suddenly lowered. "I know, boss. I'm sorry if I treated the old beliefs lightly."

  "What the hell are you two talking about?!" Suzanne said angrily. "You want to let us in on this too?"

  "Sorry," Harriet said. "I was trying to make an unfair analogy."

  "Okay, fine," she snapped. "So what was the analogy?"

  "Devout Jews do not speak the name of God," Sam explained.

  Suzanne looked at him as if she doubted his sanity. "Of course they do. You're Jewish, right?"

  "Yes," he nodded.

  "Well, you just said God's name, didn't you?"

  "No," he replied, shaking his head. He laughed at the look she gave him, and he continued. "You don't understand. The ancient Hebrews took quite seriously the injunction handed down to Moses on Sinai not to take God's name in vain. As a result of this, they soon stopped saying the name altogether."

  "But you just—"

  "No," he interrupted her. "The four Hebrew consonants which are written down as God's name are YHWH. Hebrew had no vowels until about two thousand years ago."

  "The name was pronounced 'Yahweh,' according to most modern scholars," Harriet added. "No offense, Sam."

  "None taken. You spoke the name as a scholar." He turned back to Suzanne. "Instead of saying the name of God, the ancient Jews began to say the word adonai whenever they came upon YHWH in reading the Torah. Adonai means 'lord,' or 'master.'"

  "That's why we speak of God as the Lord," Harriet said. "We have perpetuated the ancient Hebrew caution."

  "Precisely," Sam agreed. "During the Middle Ages some well-meaning but not overly intelligent monks combined the vowels from adonai with the consonants from YHWH and came up with the atrocious hybrid, Jehovah. That name is totally nonbiblical, of course."

  "But it's not the same as from the scroll?" Suzanne asked.

  "Oh, no. It was a matter of obedience and respect, not harnessing the power of God. Totally different thing." Sam turned to Harriet and smiled. "Right?"

  "Right," she grinned. "Sorry." Sam squeezed her hand again.

  "So is this—what is the god on the scroll?"

  Sam glanced at his notebook. "Xepheraxepher?"

  "Yeah, him. That's what they used to call the Lord? I mean, the Hebrew god?"

  Sam and Harriet laughed. "Heavens, no!" Sam said. "Scholars are generally agreed that Hebrew monotheism was a much later development than the Bible indicates. Joseph Ousha—and his ancestors worshipped a great variety of gods, and this Xepheraxepher was one of them, apparently. No connection with the god of Moses or later Judaism.".

  "But if this was Joseph, and he—"

  "Suzie, it isn't that simple," Harriet broke in. "Xepheraxepher was probably a Hyksos god, or a Syrian one. Sam's right. No connection with the god of the Jews, the Christians, and the Moslems."

  Suzanne frowned. "Then I don't understand why the ninth Earl wrote such an emotionally charged letter. I would think that he believed in God—I mean, our God—I mean, I don't believe in Him, but—you know what I mean—"

  "Sure, sure, I know what you mean," Harriet said. "What's your point?"

  "Well, what the hell was he afraid of? I mean, he sounded really terrified of something. If it's not a curse, which he couldn't have believed in, or some supernatural bullshit about the mummies, or the involvement of the god he believed in—well, then, what's the big deal? Why didn't he just think, 'Well, I've got a couple of mummies. Jolly good!' You know?"

  Sam shrugged. "Beats me. I haven't read his letter, but from what you folks have told me about it, I have no idea what he was upset about. Do you, Harriet?"

  She did not reply. She was staring out the window, lost in thought.

  CHAPTER 9

  His heart was beating so loudly that its sound seemed to drown out everything, including the voice speaking to him. His eyes were tightly shut and he feared to open them, feared that it all might not be real. He remained motionless upon his knees, his left hand raised palm outward in the ancient gesture of supplication, his right hand grasping tightly the hand which he pressed to his forehead in the ancient gesture of submission. He forced himself to listen to the voice, strained to hear over the thunderous pounding of his heart.

  Ahmed Hadji opened his eyes and raised them. Sekhemib stood towering above him, glaring down at him with eyes which burned with power and anger and perhaps a slight hint of apprehension. Sekhemib spoke to him in the long dead tongue which had been for Hadji merely a ritual language. He had studied it long and hard through the years of his novitiate, yet it sounded somehow alien, strange. He struggled to understand.

  "Thou hast said that thou art a priest of Thoth," Sekhemib said. "Thou hast said thy name, but it falls strangely upon mine ears. Who art thou, in truth and upon thy life?"

  "I have told you the truth," Hadji replied, using, of course, the polite form of the pronoun. It was only to be expected that the lord Sekhemib would not address him in the same manner, employing instead the familiar form appropriate for use with inferiors. "My name is indeed called Ahmed Hadji, and I have served the god Thoth for all my life."

  "If thou speakest falsely, I will take from thee thy life."

  "I speak no falsehood, my lord. We have been seeking to find you and the others for many years, and I was sent here to this foreign land to rescue you from the hands of those who know not who you are, who worship not the gods."

  Sekhemib looked down at his enshrouded body. He took his hand off Hadji's forehead and slowly pulled a strip of rotten linen from his chest. It seemed to crumble at his touch and he watched as dusty wisps floated to the floor. He looked down once again at Hadji. "Do Dudimose or his people still rule in the land of Egypt? Thy name comes to mine ear as a Hyksos name. Art thou a Hyksos, a traitor to thy people?"

  "Dudimose has been dust for many years, my lord," he replied.

  "How many years?"

  How should I explain this? Hadji thought. The lord Sekhemib's yesterday was our ancient times. "My lord," he began hesitantly, "we have been taught that the Hyksos allowed you to die and withheld the tekenu from you. Your body has been lost to us, and we have sought it through the long years."

  "How many years!" Sekhemib repeated firmly.

  Hadji licked his lips. "Three thousand five hundred and forty-five years, my lord."

  Sekhemib stared at him coldly. Believe me, Hadji thought, believe me. Sekhemib looked once again at the decaying shroud which he wore, and he nodded slowly. Hadji released the breath which he had been holding in. Sekhemib said, "Art thou Hyksos? Answer me truly, upon thy life!"

  "No, my lord, I am Egyptian. But much has happened in our land since last you saw the light of day. The tongue in which we speak has not been spoken by living men in many years. Our land has known invasion and conquest, foreign rulers and foreign gods, and much tribulation."

  "Who is the king in Egypt?" Sekhemib asked.

  "There is no king, my lord." Sekhemib's expression bespoke disbelief, so Hadji added quickly, "The thousands of years have seen too many changes for me to explain them all to you so quickly."

  Sekhemib continued to stare at him disbelievingly. They stood motionless, a tableau of silence and fear, for a few long moments. Then Sekhemib looked around the room slowly, as if he were examining each and every minute aspect of his environment. "Where is this place?"

  "We
are in the vault of a dwelling, my lord, in a land far from our own."

  "How far? Is this Syria, or Cush? I have seen no dwelling like unto this one, and I have seen the whole world."

  "This land lies far from Syria and Cush, my lord. In your time, the existence of this land was not known to the wise ones or the priests. Far beyond the GreatSea lies an even greater sea, and far beyond that is this land."

  Sekhemib grasped Hadji by the throat and pulled him to his feet. Hadji felt a vise close upon his windpipe as Sekhemib said angrily, "Dost thou make sport with me, Hyksos? Doth Dudimose treat my power as a jest, that he might make sport with me? There is no land beyond the GreatSea! And the priests have all knowledge!"

  "I speak the truth to you, my lord," Hadji sputtered. "My life is forfeit if I lie to you."

  "Thy life is mine to do with what I will, whether thou liest or not," Sekhemib said bitterly. "I am Sekhemib, the first servant of the god Anubis. I will not be mocked."

  "I mock you not, my lord," Hadji said weakly. The grip on his throat had not abated and the room was swimming before his eyes. "Mount the stairs and gaze upon the world, my lord. Believe the testimony of your own eyes, if you believe not my words."

  Sekhemib considered this for another long moment, and :hen relaxed his grip. Hadji drew air into his lungs spasmodically and tried to bring his vision into focus. "But my lord, I beg you not to leave the dwelling. We are both in danger here, and enemies abound."