Eternal Unrest: A Novel of Mummy Terror

by Dixon, Lorne; Cato, Nick

  The High Priest entered through yet another unseen door, the train of his long gown swishing behind him like a cat’s tail. His face was painted like the night sky, black face, with glittering gem piercings to illustrate the constellations. After a prayer gesture to the gods and the deceased Pharaoh, he turned his attention to Petosiris. “Your men have pleaded for your mercy. Do you understand?”

  From his kneeling position, Petosiris nodded.

  Every soldier, willing or conscripted, priest or parishioner, was permitted by Ra’s will to ask for death at his commanding officer’s hand as early release from their service. A commander was not bound to accept their resignation in this fashion, but it was a sign of respect to do so. Looking at the priests, Petosiris saw they were too far gone to ever return, bodies and spirits crushed beyond repair. If they wanted death, they would have it.

  He owed them that much.

  The High Priest lifted one hand and the guards helped Petosiris to his feet. He didn’t need their help, but continued to act the part of a wounded and malnourished prisoner clinging to life. Swaying on his feet, he accepted the dagger the High Priest offered and stepped up to Siatum.

  The archer’s head turned upward. Gazing down on his destroyed face, Petosiris remembered him as a young recruit hustling through his training, growing physically stronger and spiritually more powerful. He’d built his first bow out of the floorboards of his father’s house after it had burnt during a Sea People raid. Anointed with the holy oils at sixteen, he gave his first sermon that same year. Then war came.

  He drew the blade across Siatum’s throat, sawing through knotted layers of callous scar tissue. His friend and fellow warrior choked but did not stir. When enough blood had drained, he sunk gracefully to the floor.

  Petosiris turned to Ankhhaf. They’d met during the Cycle of Glory, a six-month period of prayer leading up to a solar eclipse. During the darkness, Re would listen to the prayers of men and decide whether to return or to douse the Earth in darkness for all time. Every waking moment was spent in praise of Re and his gifts to man. No other words were permitted. Priests forsook their lives for worship. For those six months in the temple, Petosiris and Ankhhaf said nothing to one another but every day heard the other’s voice. Still, it was as if they knew everything about one another. And, afterward, Ankhhaf joined him.

  Slitting his friend’s throat, he was again denied words. The moment before Ankhhaf slid onto the marble floor and died, the two men exchanged a deep stare. There was peace in his eyes.

  Petosiris knew when the time came, he wouldn’t have the same look in his. Not in this lifetime. But there, exactly there, was the question: had he prayed and suffered enough over the months in the dungeon to be granted another life? Would the dark god inside him allow him another chance at vengeance?

  The High Priest motioned to the guards and they drew the bodies away. Stepping over the bloodstains, the High Priest stood before Petosiris and extended his hand for the blade. Petosiris handed it over.

  “And what of you?” the High Priest asked. “They answered to you, and you were their mercy. You answer to me. I can be your mercy. You only need ask for it.”

  Petosiris stared at the man in his ceremonial gown and painted face. Bending down, he dipped his finger into the blood of his fellow priests and wrote on the marble.

  I serve the Pharaoh.

  The High Priest bristled, read the words aloud, and shook his head.

  “That is fine,” a voice called from behind. Turning as much as the cage around his head allowed, Petosiris saw a phalanx of guards enter through the wide main doors. In their middle, dressed in a flowing white tunic, was Pharaoh Hekamaatresetepenamun Ramesses IV.

  “Remove that thing from his head,” the Pharoah commanded. The guards unfastened the cage and dropped it at his side. Petosiris’s jaw fell open and the long goat’s tongue unfurled from his mouth.

  The guards laughed.

  “As a child, my father threatened me with just such a punishment whenever I crossed his wishes.” The Pharaoh lifted the tongue’s tip between two of his fingers and waved it. Then he dropped it and let the dead animal flesh wag. “My father was a cruel man, a strong and courageous leader, but an awful father. Had I not been his son, I would have adored him. But I was his son. And I hated him.”

  The Pharaoh was no more than a boy, younger than the conscripted soldiers he’d sent to capture Petosiris on the Nile. The new ruler had the same injured eyes Petosiris had seen in young body servants new to employment. Suddenly he understood the rage and hatred inside Hekamaatresetepenamun’s heart. But that did not excuse Chione’s murder.

  “The assassins freed my wrists from my father’s shackles. They were brave men, priests, as brave as you and every bit as devoted to our kingdom. You hunted them down and killed them. And their families. You burnt down the towns they knew as home. All for what? Killing a cruel old man? I wept for all those dead men and women and children who died at your hand. But weeping was not enough. Tomorrow begins a new day for Egypt. The memories of the past must be erased. You are an artifact of an era that needs to be buried under the sands and forgotten.”

  Petosiris flexed his muscles and tightened his hands into fists. He could feel his revenge in sight. He would only need one quick strike to snap the child Pharaoh’s neck. The guards’ hands on his shoulders felt weak, no match for his growing strength.

  The Pharaoh opened his tunic. In the center of his hairless chest the flesh swelled into a stout, perfectly round plateau. “I sent men to find your woman’s grave. You hid her well, but not well enough, nor deep enough. Do you see?”

  He ran a finger over the bump’s edge. “It has healed nicely, don’t you agree? Khafre is capable of delicate work. He assures me that this will not even leave a scar. I had Khafre submerge the ring you placed on her finger over my heart. I did this as a reminder of evil of men like you.”

  Rage shot up in Petosiris, swelling in his chest, and he surged up, breaking out of the guards’ grasp. The Pharaoh, gasping, stumbled back as Petosiris’s clutching hand closed in on his chest. The guards reached for his arms but he twisted, kicking with his left leg and thrusting out with his right fist. The guards both took bone-crushing blows and fell away. Petosiris kicked the head cage away and stepped forward as his hand snatched a flap of the Pharaoh’s tunic and jerked the ruler back.

  Guards rushed in. They would be too late. He would make this quick. He wouldn’t need to savor the young Pharaoh’s agony—no, he’d have an eternity in the afterlife to enjoy the succulent suffering.

  Four blades struck him low, dragging across his abdomen and digging deeper as they traveled. His burst of energy abating and his grasp on the tunic loosening, he stared down and saw that Khaemweset had swung in low and now knelt below him. His former brother-in-arms pulled the four blades of his war glove out, twisting, wrapping coils of intestine in his hand.

  Petosiris’s lungs released their air. He collapsed to the black marble floor. Khaemweset leaped to his feet, wrapped his free hand around the thickest tube of intestine hanging from his glove, and yanked. The rest of Petosiris’s abdominal wall broke and the remainder of his digestive tract spilled out.

  His body went numb. The High Priest and the Pharaoh joined Khaemweset and stood over him as he bled out. The High Priest flicked a hand over him and dusted the air with soil from the tombs of the ancient Pharaohs. “Your heart will be carved into two and each half will be fed to a mongrel dog. Your soul will be split, your power halved. You will be buried outside the Kingdom, in barren lands where our gods do not wander.”

  Khaemweset flipped his glove back, tearing the organs and freeing the blades. Kneeling down, he whispered into the dying priest’s ear, “I was born in Ra’s Shadow.”

  Petosiris thought of the last Great Eclipse and the tense moments of darkness before Re returned light to the sky. For a few moments, chaos had ruled the empire as the common folk feared that their gods had abandoned them. He wondered if the people
of Ra’s Shadow, now all dead, had even noticed the blackened sky. Hiding behind the mountains, out of Ra’s sight, the lawless town on the edge of the empire had birthed men who would kill the rightful Pharaoh. Khaemweset had managed to hide his birthplace from him. No, he corrected, it was my own failure. I trusted too willingly.

  Never again.

  “It grows dark now, does it not, Priest?” the Pharaoh asked.

  The Great Eclipse was coming again, dousing his world in darkness. He turned his faltering gaze upward and focused on the ring buried under Hekamaatresetepenamun’s skin, as lost as the blocked sun, and surrendered himself to the evil god inside him as the darkness became absolute.

  Chapter 36

  Bouncing over roads that were no more than flat pathways over hardened sand, the flatbed truck groaned and kicked. Its efficient military construction was intended for transporting supplies over short distances, not cross-country travel, especially with a bent frame and wheels in dire need of alignment. The unmanned steering wheel rattled as the road’s slants and divots attempted to sway the vehicle out into the wild desert. Priscilla watched with fascination as the wheel spun with each turn in the road. It was as if a ghost was sitting on her lap and steering.

  The mummy sat perfectly still in the passenger’s seat, ruined visage facing the roadway. Without eyes, she wondered if there was any purpose for the creature’s position.

  My eyes are gone, it answered without her asking, but yours function very well.

  She wondered what it would do if she shut her eyes and refused to open them. Could it somehow force her eyelids back and her pupils to lock and face straight forward? Thinking of the battlefield four hours behind them, she didn’t doubt it could.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, the words sounding alien and strange, and for a moment she wondered if the creature had forced her to say it, but then she realized what had happened: accepting that the mummy could read her mind, she’d abandoned the gap between thought and speech. It was easier for her if she could believe it was hearing her words rather than siphoning them from her mind.

  You want to know? it asked.

  She didn’t pause. “Yes.”

  It turned and offered her its palm. Here she hesitated, remembering Mason’s bruised chest, but then brought her hand up and pressed it against the creature’s gray flesh. Her hand seemed like a child’s, half its size, her fingers tiny and short.

  You are ready? it asked.

  She didn’t answer, not verbally, but her answer was yes and the creature understood. A subtle pulse began to push against the center of her palm. It grew stronger, until it felt like an electrical discharge, and then stronger still, a painful pattern of sparks and pins-and-needles against her skin. It was the vibrations that ran under the Limpkin’s decks, she realized, but so much closer to the source, more primal and urgent.

  And then the world exploded.

  At first, colors flashed and sounds popped, too vibrant and loud to be processed, but growing more distinct and lasting, snippets of images and voices, landscapes and religious songs. Other senses joined them, though at first baring no correlation to the images and sounds: natural scents, textures, and tastes. Finally, she felt a rush of emotion, a deep, lulling sadness and indomitable rage.

  Petosiris pulled his hand from hers.

  Yes, Petosiris. The name came to her as clearly as her own, as if it was knowledge she’d always carried in the back of her mind. There was more, too—the wars he fought, the injuries he’d sustained, the training, the worship. These were things that felt as if she’d lived them herself— sights in her eyes, sounds in her ears, textures under her own fingertips.

  She blinked and discovered that the images of his life waited for her behind her eyelids, a flash of color and sound and motion, gone too quickly to come into focus. She wondered how much she would see if she shut her eyes for a couple minutes, an hour, or a night’s sleep.

  Petosiris was gone. Instead, her father sat in the passenger’s seat, his body mirroring the mummy’s posture. He opened his mouth and a tiny spider crawled out, climbing over his top lip and racing up one cheek, over a staring eyeball, and disappearing into the shoots of his receding gray hairline.

  “Hello, Priscilla,” he said. His voice, so long absent from her ears, brought shivers. His eyes, too.

  Priscilla shook her head. “You’re not my father.”

  “Of course not,” he answered.

  “You’ve taken my memories,” she hissed.

  He grinned. She knew the grin too well. Once, in Africa, he’d fooled a tribal leader into handing over priceless holy relics in exchange for a wide-brimmed straw hat. When the native turned away, his father had flashed that same evil grin. “No, dear, I didn’t have to do that. Your father and I … are already acquainted.”

  Confusion blossomed in her mind. How?

  “The British Museum discovered a small burial chamber in Syria, two mummified bodies that appeared to be Egyptian, though it was unclear why these bodies would have been buried so far from the temples of Egypt,” her father said in a professorial voice. “They needed a specialist, an archeologist who was familiar with a wide variety of Middle Eastern burial customs. They contacted me.”

  Priscilla felt her heart shrink.

  “But your mother was too sick to travel. Or even be left home. It was the chance of a lifetime, an offer to play a key role in a major discovery. I was forced to decline. I stayed home and lectured at colleges. I cataloged the collections and authenticated period artifacts. I wanted so badly to return to the field, to make discoveries, to set foot in temples and tombs where no man had been in thousands of years. But your mother’s ill health kept me at home.

  “When the British Museum contacted me again, I was sure I would need to refuse like before. They had found a document which intimated a third body had been buried in the Syrian sands, deeper than the others. They were mounting a second expedition in a few months and wanted me along. It felt as if fate was handing me another chance. But still … your mother.”

  Priscilla’s hands curled into fists.

  “I didn’t decide to do it all at once. No, at first I would just replace a few pills with aspirin to see how she would react. And she did react. Badly. But then my conscience would nag me and I would resume her medicine regime. As the date of the expedition grew closer, I became more desperate. I knew she would never recover. It was all now a matter of whether two lives would be squandered … or just one.”

  She blinked again and Ancient Egypt was waiting for her, a quick shuddering glimpse of a great battle on the Nile, arrows raining down on warships.

  Her father was gone, replaced by a bearded man in his forties. His features were familiar, but not immediately recognizable, a face she knew but could not place. Then it came to her. It was a young Maurice Teasdale. “I wasn’t always the Curator of Special Exhibits. I was a field archeologist for most of my life. My work for the British Museum used to be more about brushing through soil than filing index cards, but my knees and my heart …

  “When my team finally unlocked the buried tomb in Syria, we all felt it. A vibration ran through the place, came right up through the rock floor. We worried that maybe the tomb rested on a fault line and that the Earth was gearing up to bury us all in that little rock cube. I remember placing my hands on the floor between the two bodies, right over the spot where I thought the vibration was strongest. There was a little jolt, as if a bolt of electricity had run through me, and then the vibration just stopped.

  “Later, when we were putting the second exhibition together, I thought of your father. We’d met in passing years earlier at a conference in France. I don’t know why I set my heart on his participation, but I was certain he was the man to spearhead the dig. It was as if something inside me needed it to be him.

  “I met him for the second time on an airfield in Syria, a hundred miles from the dig site. As he stepped down off the small plane, I felt that vibration return. I swore
under my breath, thinking I was developing a nervous condition or some exotic illness. But the moment I shook your father’s hand it disappeared.

  “The sensation returned only one more time,” he said. His face was older now and he resembled the man she’d met only days before. “The bombing started and the government decided to ferry our exhibits to America. For some reason, I thought of you. Your father had shown me a photo in Syria so many years before. And maybe I had heard that you had taken his position at the Smithsonian, or maybe not, but I knew that I wanted you to be the one to shepherd our relics.”

  “That’s when you felt the vibrations?” she asked, addressing the creature in the passenger seat as if it was really Curator Teasdale.

  “No,” he answered, “I felt it right before I first shook your hand. And, just like your father, it dissipated the moment I did.”

  The truck hit a deep gouge in the road. A tremor ran down the length of its chassis, vibrating the dashboard, the windows, and the gearshift. When her blurring vision stabilized, Teasdale was gone and Petosiris was back.

  “You used them,” she said.

  To bring you to me, he clarified.

  “Why?”

  Petosiris turned back toward the open road. Don’t you remember the first thing you heard me say? “You’re mine.”

  An image fluttered into vividness in her mind, a beautiful young girl on a small boat. Her name came with the image—Chione—as well as all the sensations of their lovemaking, and the feel of their clasped hands, and the sound of their voices mixing in song.

  “I’m not her,” Priscilla said, pushing herself against the driver’s side door. A sickening thought ran through her mind, powerful enough to block out the ancient images, and she turned away and could not face him as she imagined that she could have ever loved such a vile, vicious man in any lifetime.

  It laughed. No, you’re not her.