by Nick Drake
Nakht played for time:
‘One of our number is missing,’ he said eventually, loudly enough so that I could hear. ‘We should wait for Sobek.’
‘I disagree, time is passing, and so we should begin the ceremony without him. Why should the God wait for Sobek?’ called out one of the men, followed by a chorus of agreement. Nakht had no choice but to begin. From my vantage behind the pillar, I watched as Khety’s eyes were bound with a black cloth, so that he could not witness anything. Then a small chest was carried in, and from within that a gold coffer was brought forth. This was opened to reveal a human-shaped pottery dish, and within that was something that looked like a wheat loaf or cake, baked in the rough shape of a human being.
Nakht intoned a hymn over the cake: ‘Homage to thee, Osiris, the lord of eternity, the King of the Gods, thou who hast many names, whose forms of coming forth are holy, whose attributes are hidden…’ and so it went on. Finally, the incantation finished, the cake was raised up and then divided into fourteen parts, and each man ritually ate one of the pieces. I suppose these were the fourteen parts into which Seth, the jealous brother, cut up Osiris’s body after he had murdered him. Now, ritually, the God was reborn in each man. One piece of the cake was left over for Sobek.
The mystery accomplished–and I must confess I was disappointed that it seemed merely to be a symbolic meal–the twelve men gathered around Nakht for the evening’s experiment. He drew forth from his robe a leather pouch, and then spoke at length, partly playing for time, reiterating what he knew of the powers and nature of this food of the Gods, and his hope that it could offer visions of the Gods. Still there was no sign of Sobek.
Finally, realizing that there was no more time left, Nakht opened the pouch, and, on a cosmetic spoon, produced a sample of the powder. The initiates observed it minutely, fascinated by its legendary potency. By now the blindfolded Khety must have been quite concerned, for the moment was approaching for the experiment. But Nakht suddenly said: ‘Let us not waste this marvel on a servant. I myself will eat the food of the Gods.’
The men all nodded enthusiastically. I could imagine Khety’s relief. Nakht must have decided Khety’s acting skills were not going to be adequate, and perhaps, too, he thought he could take up more time with his own performance, just in case Sobek finally appeared.
‘You will be able to describe to us your visions in intellectual detail, which the servant could not,’ said the blue-eyed poet, condescendingly.
‘And we shall be here to record anything you may speak of when you are possessed of the vision.’
‘You may become a living oracle,’ said another, excitedly.
With a great performance of ritual, Nakht mixed a spoonful of the powder into a cup of fresh water, and then drank it in slow, careful sips. The chamber was utterly silent, each man gazing with rapt anticipation at Nakht’s serious face. At first nothing happened. He smiled and shrugged slightly, as if in disappointment. But then, a look of seriousness stole over his face, and became one of intense concentration. Had I not known he was performing, I would almost have been persuaded of the authenticity of the vision myself. Slowly he raised his hands, palms up, and his eyes followed. He seemed now to be caught in a trance, his eyes wide open and unblinking, staring at an airy mirage of something that was not there.
And then what had been an act became real. Between the small, steady lights of the oil lamps, and the greater penumbra of the chamber, a shadow entered. The figure that cast the shadow was all darkness; small, like an animal almost, its shape and features hidden in the wrapped folds of the black cloak that covered it from head to toe. I felt fear like a cloak of ice descend upon me. I drew my knife from its sheath, and grasped the figure from behind and held the blade to its throat.
‘Take three steps forward.’
The figure shuffled ahead like an animal in the market place into the light of the lamps. The faces of the initiates stared incredulously at these unexpected and unacceptable intrusions.
‘Turn around,’ I ordered.
It did so.
‘Remove your hood.’
It did so, slowly slipping the cloth from its head.
The girl was not much older than my own daughter Sekhmet. I had never seen her before. She looked like a girl one would pass on the street, and not notice. She sat on the low bench, a cup of water clenched between her fists, shivering and panting. Nakht carefully placed a linen shawl around her shoulders, and went away, to leave us some privacy, and to try to calm the hubbub of protestation that now rose from his fellow society members.
I lifted her chin, and gently tried to persuade her to look at me.
‘What has happened? Who are you?’
Tears squeezed out from her eyes.
‘Rahotep!’ she managed to say before the intense chattering of her teeth overwhelmed her again.
‘I am Rahotep. Why are you here? Who sent you?’
‘I do not know his name. He said to say: “I am the demon who dispatches messengers to lure the living into the realm of the dead.”’
She stared at us. Khety and I glanced at each other.
‘How did he find you?’
‘He stole me from the street. He says he will kill my family if I do not deliver a message to Rahotep.’
Her eyes filled with tears, and her face contorted again.
‘And what is the message?’
She could barely enunciate the words.
‘You must come to the catacombs. Alone…’
‘Why?’
‘You have something he wants. And he has something you want,’ she replied.
‘What does he have that I want?’ I asked, slowly.
Now she could not look me in the eye. Great convulsions shook her.
‘Your son,’ she whispered.
47
I ran through the shadows of the night. Thoth kept pace with me. Perhaps Khety was following behind. I did not look back. As if from far away I could hear the distant pounding of my sandals upon the dusty ground, and the low hum of the blood in my skull, and the thumping of my heart in the cage of my chest.
A guard had been in place. Khety had ordered Tanefert not to let the children out, under any circumstances, nor to open the door to anyone. The house was to look as if it were closed up. So how had Sobek managed to take him? I imagined Tanefert’s grief and the children’s terror. And I was not there to save them. What if it was a bluff? What if it was not? I ran faster.
He would meet me at the catacombs. I must come alone. If I came with anyone, the boy would die. I was to bring the hallucinogen. If I failed, the boy would die. If I spoke to anyone of this, the boy would die. I was to come alone.
I came to the harbour, tore a reed skiff from its moorings, and began to paddle, demented, across the Great River. I thought nothing this time of crocodiles. The moon was a white stone. The water was black marble. I sailed upon the surface of shadows like a tiny statue of myself on a model boat, accompanied by Thoth, passing over the waters of death to meet Osiris, God of Shadows.
From the western shore I ran on, and the air cooled as I passed the border of the western edge of the cultivation. I was an animal now, all senses alert, and all vengeance. I had a new skin, the colour of rage. My teeth felt sharp as jewels in my jaws. But time was passing too fast, and the distances were too great, and I feared I would be too late.
I only stopped running at the low entrance to the catacombs. I looked down at Thoth, who had kept pace with me. He gazed up, panting hard. His eyes were clear and bright. I slipped the bridle on his muzzle to stop him from barking. He understood. I had not come alone, but he would be silent. Then I took my last breath of open night air, and we passed under the ancient carved lintel, and descended the steps into the darkness beyond darkness.
We came out into a long low-raftered hall. I listened to the monumental silence. It seemed possible in such a holy hush to hear the dead gasping as they crumbled to dust, or sighing to persuade us to join them in the delight
s of the Otherworld. Someone had left a lamp lit in a wall sconce for me. It burned without movement or sound, undisturbed by currents of air or time. I picked it up and walked forward; tunnels disappeared unfathomably in every direction, and off each one of them deep, low-ceilinged chambers were stacked high with clay pots of all shapes and sizes. There must have been millions and millions of them, containing the embalmed remains of ibises, falcons and baboons…Thoth, surrounded by the remains of his own kind, scented the cemetery air, his ears alert, to catch the smallest revealing sounds–a sandal treading on dust, the whisper of linen across living skin–such things as would be inaudible to me but might betray the presence of Sobek and my son to his acute attention.
Then we both heard it: a child’s cry, lost and stricken, calling pitifully from deep within the catacombs. My son’s voice…but where was it coming from? Thoth tugged suddenly on his leash, and we scrambled along the passage to our left, our shadows tracing us along the walls in the sphere of light cast by the lamp. The passage sloped downwards. More passageways led off in different directions into branching infinities of darkness. Where was he? How would I save him?
Then we heard another high, echoing cry, this time from another direction. Thoth turned and tugged on the leash, urging me to follow. I let him lead me down a side passage. At the end, it divided into two. We listened, vigilant, every nerve sharpened, every muscle tense. Another cry came, this time to the right. We hastened along the passage, past still more low chambers crammed with pots, most of them smashed now, with small bones and bits of skull sticking out at odd angles, as if they had been here for a very long time.
Every time the cry came echoing up to us, it led us deeper and deeper into the catacombs. It occurred to me then how impossible it would be, even if I could save my son, to find our way out again. And the thought followed: this was a game. He was trapping me. I stopped. When the next cry came I shouted out: ‘I will go no further. Come to me. Show yourself.’
My voice echoed down the passages, resounding and repeating throughout the labyrinth, before fading to nothing. Thoth and I waited in the vast obscurity, in our small circle of weak, propitiatory light. At first, there was nothing. But then the faintest glow glimmered in the darkness. Impossible to gauge how close or how far away it was, this tiny point of light. But we watched it bud and flower, as it lit up the sides of the passageway, I saw within it: a shadow, walking.
48
He wore the black mask of Anubis, the jackal, Guardian of the Necropolis. His painted teeth were white in the dark. I saw a ceremonial gold collar around his neck.
‘You have brought your baboon,’ he said, in his low, grey voice.
‘He insisted on meeting you.’
‘He is Thoth, Recorder of the Dead. Perhaps he deserves a place at this gathering,’ he replied.
‘Take off that mask, Sobek, and look me in the eye,’ I said.
The great catacombs, with their labyrinth of darkness and silence, seemed like the vast, echoey ear of the Gods. Were they listening to every word? Slowly he removed the mask. We faced each other. I stared with hatred into his stone-grey eyes.
‘You have my son, and I want him back. Where is he?’ I said.
‘He is here, hidden. I will return him to you. But first, you must give me something.’
‘I have it but I will not give it to you until my son is safe, with me.’
‘Show it to me.’
I held up the leather bag so he could see it in the lamplight. He gazed at it hungrily.
‘We have an impasse. I will not tell you where the boy is, until I have the bag. And you will ensure I do not gain possession of the bag unless you have the child. So let us be intelligent, and think about this in another way,’ he said.
‘And what is that?’
‘The price of your child’s life is nothing more than a little conversation with me. I have long thought of you as an honoured colleague. We are very like each other, after all.’
‘We have nothing to discuss. I am nothing like you. All I want is my son. Alive. Now. If you have hurt him, if you have hurt any particle of him—’
‘Then to get him you must be patient, or I will tell you nothing,’ he replied coldly. ‘I have waited for this moment. Think, Seeker of Mysteries. You, too, have questions. Perhaps I have answers.’
I hesitated. Like all murderers of his kind, he was lonely. He desired to be understood.
‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘Let us talk about death. For this is what fascinates us both. Death is the greatest of gifts, for it alone offers transcendence and perfection from this hopeless and banal place of blood and dust,’ he said.
‘Death is not a gift. It is a loss,’ I replied.
‘No, Rahotep. You feel most alive when closest to death. I know you do, despite the sweet little world of your family. All those dear children, and your loving wife…But mortals are mere bags of blood and bone and vile tissue. The heart, the famous heart of which our poets and lovers speak, is nothing but meat. All shall rot.’
‘It is called the human condition. We make the best of it. What you do is also very banal. You kill helpless, drugged boys and girls, and small animals. You skin them, you break their bones, and you pluck out their eyes. So what? That is nothing special. In fact, it is pathetic. You are no more than a schoolboy torturing insects and cats. I have seen much worse. I don’t care why you killed them in the way you did. It doesn’t matter. It was some kind of freak show of death done for your own benefit. You speak of transcendence, and yet here you are, deep in the catacombs, a lonely, frustrated little man, despised, a failure; and desperate for what is contained in this little leather bag.’
He was breathing faster now. I needed to goad him.
‘Did you know that one of the boys did not die? He is alive. He described you. He can identify you,’ I continued.
He shook his head.
‘A witness with no eyes? No, Rahotep, it is you who are desperate. It is you who are the failure. The King is dead, your career is finished, your son is in my power.’
I struggled not to slam him up against the wall of the catacomb and smash his face with the lamp. But I must not, for how then would I find Amenmose? And I still needed answers.
‘As for those absurd objects you left for the King; your strange little gifts. Did you really think they would frighten him?’
He scowled.
‘I know they caused him terror. They showed him, and that girl, everything they feared; all I had to do was to hold up a mirror to their terror of death. Fear is the greatest power. Fear of the dark, of decay, destruction and doom…and above all, fear of death; the fear that drives all men. The fear that underlies everything that we have made, and everything we do. Fear is a glorious power, and I used it well!’ Sobek’s voice was tighter now.
I moved closer to him.
‘You are a pathetic, sad, twisted old man. You were sacked by Ay, and in revenge you found a way to make yourself feel important again.’
‘Ay was a fool. He did not see what he had before him. He dismissed me. He betrayed my care! But now he regrets it. Everything that has come to pass, all the chaos and the fear, has been caused to happen by me! Even you, the famous Rahotep, Seeker of Mysteries, could not stop me. Do you still not see? I called to you. I laid a path for you, from the beginning, to this moment. And you have followed like a dog, fascinated by the stink of corruption and death.’
I had known this, and denied it to myself. He saw it.
‘Yes. Now you understand. Now fear touches you. The fear of failure.’
I kept moving to ward off that fear.
‘But why did you hate Tutankhamun? Why did you begin to attack him?’
‘He was the seed of a declining and deteriorating dynasty. He was not fit. He was not virile. His mind was weak and his body imperfect. His fertility was blighted, and offered only a progeny of twisted, useless things. He had no prowess. I could not permit him to become King. That had to be
stopped. Once, in the time of wisdom, before this time of fools, there was a sacred custom of killing the king when his failures jeopardized the health and power of the land. I have restored that noble ritual. I have followed the old rites. His bones were broken, his face was cast away, his eyes were cast out, his death mask was composed of rotting things, so that the Gods will never recognize him in the Otherworld. I have renewed the kingship. Horemheb will be King. He has power and virility. He will be Horus, King of Life. And as for the boy King, he will vanish into the obscurity of oblivion. His name will never be spoken again.’
At last, he had mentioned the general. I pushed on.
‘Why Horemheb?’
‘This is a land of lamentation. Our borders are harassed; our treasuries and granaries are empty; whores and thieves and fantasists govern our temples and palaces. Only Horemheb has the authority to restore the Two Lands to glory. I am he who has power over the living. I am he who sees the Gods. I am the dark sun. I am Anubis. I am the shadow!’ he shouted.
‘And so everything you did was on Horemheb’s orders? The objects, the carving in the Colonnade Hall, the murder of Mutnodjmet? And in return he promised you glory and power?’
‘I do not take orders! Horemheb recognized my gifts and he commissioned my acts. But he is a soldier. He has no comprehension of the greater truths. He does not yet know the extent of my work, for it goes far beyond the power and politics of this world. What use is this world if the Otherworld too is not within our grasp?’
