“Good!” she smiled, and he thought of her accent, so enigmatic. It is not something foreign, he told himself frantically. It is good Egyptian, but Egyptian as it must have been spoken hundreds of years ago. Oh how could I have been so blind!
“Prince Khaemwaset, she went on. “Master physician, master magician, above the laws of the gods in his arrogance. You cannot rid yourself of me now. Is your punishment fitting, do you think?” She paused, not really expecting an answer, and Khaemwaset thought, Yes, my punishment is entirely fitting, entirely pitiless, I have been guilty of an academic arrogance unsurpassed in Egypt. But was that any reason to punish my son also, and my daughter, and my poor, long-suffering wife? Is the judgment of the gods so merciless?
“I am in your heart, your guts, your genitals, and there I stay,” she purred, coming closer so that her obsidian eyes gleamed inches from his own and her charnel breath fell cold on his mouth. “I control you. You allowed me that power every step of the way. You fool!” She lidded her gaze and swung away, and, mesmerized, Khaemwaset watched her go, buttocks flexing, hair flying. “Nenefer-ka-Ptah and Merhu will move in here. Nenefer is my rightful husband. But I presume you have guessed that. Nubnofret has gone. Hori is dead. Sheritra is immured behind her own self-loathing. What a happy family we will be.” She turned on him with a manufactured surprise, her eyebrows raised, her eyes open wide. “Oh, incidentally, I am not pregnant. I told you that to introduce one of the little tests Thoth decreed, another chance to save yourself. But you failed it, Khaemwaset, as you failed all the others. You disinherited your children, and so furthered your moral and spiritual destruction at our hands. Never mind. You and Nenefer can share me. That will be interesting, won’t it? Come.” She opened her arms and gyrated her hips in a slow, seductive movement. “Make love to me anyway. You want to, I can tell. No man could ever resist me, Khaemwaset, in the old days. In the old, old days!” He heard her laughter, and in spite of himself, in spite of the numbing shock, the horror, the disbelief to which he could no longer cling, he was as desperately fired as he had been the first time he saw her. He rose, trembling. Bereaved, crushed, sick, he was compelled to obey.
“Good,” she encouraged him. “Good. I need warming, Khaemwaset. My flesh is so cold. Like the Nile, so cold, so thick in my lungs when I clung to Nenefer and screamed in the hope that we would be saved. And we were saved.” She came to him, running her hands over his head, down his neck, trailing her fingers across his stomach and down to where he was helplessly, involuntarily engorged. “You saved us, Khaemwaset,” she murmured, her mouth to his throat. “You did it. Come inside me, Prince. I want you to make love to me.”
Khaemwaset’s knees gave way and he fell back onto the couch, Tbubui on top of him. Hori, he thought. Hori, Hori … But the name was nothing, the name was inconsequential and he gave himself up to this abomination with a cry.
Afterwards he lay beside her, stiffly, in the grip of a deep horror, his limbs rigid, terrified to touch her as she sighed and moved imperceptibly in whatever dark state passed for her sleep. This is my fate, he thought wildly, to be gradually reduced to two states, helpless lust and an equally catatonic fear, the one alternating with the other as the months turn into years and my life oozes away, to be slowly lost in the shadow world of a living death. Already I am almost paralyzed. My senses obey only her. My faculty of righteous judgment has atrophied to nothing. My ability to love has vanished. I have lost my son, my wife, my daughter, and soon I shall lose what is left of myself. Thoth has made me Tbubui’s creature, and what has been cannot be changed. I will remain her creature until I die, until my own self-loathing kills me, for I do not think that any power on earth can rid me of this burden.
All at once his breath was stilled and he sat up. No power on earth, perhaps, he thought, a seed of hope blooming, but what of magic, of the unseen powers that emanate from the gods? You fool! You are a magician! Now is the time to put forth all your skill, or live in prison forever.
It was still dark when he let himself out of his suite and padded barefoot along the passage towards his office, Ib and Kasa following. He did not think, except to wonder if he was on the verge of insanity, for if he tried to think he immediately faced a chasm in his mind that made him sick, dizzy. He paused at one of the huge jars full of water standing by an exit to the garden and plunged his head deep, gasping at the fresh, wet shock, before going on. At the door to the office he turned to Ib.
“I want you to dictate two letters for me,” he said. “One to Nubnofret and one to Pharaoh. Put them in your own words, Ib, for I have no time to do it myself. Tell them that Hori has died and mourning has commenced. Tell Nubnofret …” He fell silent, pondering. “No. Beg Nubnofret in my name to come home.” Ib nodded, tight-lipped, and bowed himself away. Khaemwaset crooked a finger at Kasa. “I am about to perform magic,” he said. “I need you to assist me, but you must not speak. Do you understand?” He opened the door and both men went in.
“Highness,” Kasa said, and Khaemwaset could hear the fear in his voice, “I am not an initiate. I have not been purified. I can only hinder the spell.”
Khaemwaset was already in the inner room, unlocking all the chests and throwing back the lids. “I am not purified either,” he replied. “Do not worry. Now be silent.” Kasa obeyed.
A sly voice whispered in Khaemwaset’s mind. Do you want to do this? At least you have something, proud Prince, and if you destroy them you will have nothing. Besides, Nenefer-ka-Ptah is himself a magician .What if he senses your aim and thwarts you? Do you imagine that the practice of magic has grown more sophisticated since the days when he wielded the power, or are the ancient spells more undiluted? You are sullied and weakened by your own gross sensuality. Can you put forth the spiritual energy you will need? Close the chests. Go back to your couch. Take her in your arms, for the one thing that will never change is your warped, perverse desire for her, and surely it is better to assuage one pain than be engulfed by the many. He moaned under his breath and went on selecting the things he would need, then he carried them back into the office. The Scroll of Thoth and the scrolls Hori had persuaded him to read were on the top. He deposited everything on the desk.
“Listen carefully,” he said to Kasa. “I need a small amount of natron. You can get it from the kitchen, but make sure it is fresh. I need a large bowl of running Nile flood-water. Bring two pieces of linen that have never been worn, a jar of virgin oil and my white sandals. I have incense, a mask and the unguent of myrrh here. Try not to attract attention while you do these things, Kasa, and be as quick as you can. Shall I repeat the list?”
Kasa, shook his head. “No, Highness.”
“Good. And bring a razor. My body must be shaved.”
Kasa backed out quietly and the door clicked shut behind him. Khaemwaset turned to the Scroll of Thoth. He knew now that Hori had not been mad enough to dig out the tomb and take it away. It had simply returned. It was his responsibility now, his doom, and nothing could avert the consequences. Perhaps Nenefer-ka-Ptah had come by it in just such a way. Perhaps its ownership went from corrupt magician to corrupt magician with a trail of terrible consequences in its wake, an inherited curse, Khaemwaset forced himself to unroll it, scan it, enter into its black mystery. Then he set it aside and began to read Antef’s bold script. He wanted to familiarize himself with every detail for which Hori had died. His mind began to wander to his son, but desperately he wrenched it back to the task at hand, for after thought came emotion, and after emotion the maelstrom of insanity.
He had finished reading and was returning the scrolls to their chest when Kasa returned. A young male servant staggered to the desk with a large bowl of water, set it down, bowed and withdrew. Kasa placed the other things beside it and stood waiting inquiringly. Outwardly he was calm, but Khaemwaset sensed the turmoil beneath. Thank the gods for Nubnofret’s training, he thought. Kasa will not break.
“The first thing you will do is shave me,” he said. “All of me, Kasa, from head to
toe. Not one hair must escape. Such purity is important.”
He lay on the hard, tiled floor while his body servant drew the razor in short strokes over his skull, in long sure motions down his body. Khaemwaset fought to settle his mind and bring it to the profound state of concentration he would need. He began the prayers of purification silently as Kasa worked. When the man was finished, he stood. “Now wash me in the flood-water,” he commanded. “Do it with one of the pieces of linen. When my body is clean, repeat the process on my hands, breast and feet. At that point I will open my mouth. Wash inside it as well. I caution you again: Do not speak.”
Kasa did as he was told, his hands moving gently but efficiently over Khaemwaset’s body. Night still gripped the house and there was no presentiment of the dawn that surely could not be far away. Khaemwaset felt that he had lived an age since he had spoken to Antef in the passage, since he had run out of the house and down the water-steps, since he had seen, had seen … He felt Kasa’s linen brush his foot and automatically intoned the accompanying chant. “My feet are washed on a rock at the side of the lake of the god.” He opened his mouth and closed his eyes, his tongue rebelling as Kasa wiped it and then touched the roof and the teeth. “The words that shall emerge from my mouth shall now be pure,” he said as Kasa finished. “Now, Kasa, charge the incense holder and place it in my hand.” The servant did so and soon the office began to fill with the fragrant grey smoke.
At its familiar, comforting smell Khaemwaset felt his stomach loosen and relax. I am a priest, he thought. No matter what I have done, I am still able to be purified and to stand with the gods. “Now take the oil and pour it over my head,” he commanded. The sweet, thick liquid trickled past his ears, and finding the slight hollow of his breastbone, ran down his body. The words were coming more easily now in Khaemwaset’s mind, and he was able to remain in the present and not think about what was to come. “Open the unguent,” he said, and when Kasa had done so he anointed himself on the forehead, breast, stomach, hands and feet. “Natron,” he snapped, and it appeared before him, sifted into a little cup from the kitchen. Pinching it between his fingers, Khaemwaset placed it behind his ears and on his tongue. “Now, Kasa, drape me in the linen.” As the dazzling, voluminous square was settled around him, Khaemwaset breathed a sigh. He was completely purified. He was safe. “The sandals,” he said, and Kasa bent to slip them onto his feet. “Now, open the pot of green paint I have set out on the desk, take the brush, and trace the symbol of Ma’at on my tongue.” Kasa’s hand was trembling as he applied the brush. “I am now in the chamber of the two Ma’ats, the two truths of cosmic and human order,” Khaemwaset recited in his head. “I am in balance.”
It was time to begin. Facing the east he began his identification with the gods. “I am a Great One,” he intoned. “I am a seed which is born of a god. I am a great magician, son of a great magician. I have many names and many forms, and my form is in each god..” He went on in the same hypnotic, sing-song chant, aware that he had captured the attention of the gods. They were watching him carefully, curiously, and if his tongue slipped or he forgot a word they would turn away and his growing power over them would be lost.
He had already decided that he would not appeal to Thoth. Thoth had deserted him. He had not been given the slightest chance to rectify his sin. No, it would be Set whom he would bend to his will. Set, who had been as nothing to him, a reminder only of the savage, ancient days when Egypt’s kings were ritually sacrificed under the knives of Set’s priests to impregnate the earth with their blood. Khaemwaset had always abhorred his aloofness, his unpredictable, untameable independence. He knew very well that such an act would place him in Set’s power forever, that he would be beholden to the god he had always despised as a destructive lover of chaos for the rest of his life, would have to sacrifice to him and serve him without reservation. But of the gods, Set alone would have no qualms about the physical and spiritual destruction Khaemwaset had planned for the three he now knew were his enemies.
The process of identification was complete. The gods were held, and he stood with them. He could go on. Taking a deep breath, he shouted, “It is to you I speak, Set the turbulent, Set the bringer of storms, Set of the red hair and wolf’s face! Hear me and pay heed, for I know your secret name!” He paused, and was aware that the room had gone suddenly very still. The flame in the lamp rose absolutely straight and the tiny eddies of air that had played about him were absent. Sweat began to pour down his face and trickle cold along his spine. The god was listening. Khaemwaset chanted the precaution every magician must use before attempting to threaten a god. “It is not I who speaks thus,” he sang, “nor I who repeats that, but the magic force which has come to attack the three with whom I am concerned.”
The silence deepened. It had a disturbing, sentient quality. Khaemwaset could hear Kasa’s rapid, harsh breaths behind him. “If you do not listen to my words,” Khaemwaset went on, fighting to keep his voice rich and strong, “I will decapitate a hippopotamus on the forecourt of your temple, I will make you sit wrapped in a crocodile’s skin, for I know your secret name.” He paused then shouted four times, “Your name is ‘The-day-when-a-woman-gavebirth-to-a-son’!” He was rigidly under control, the linen already sticking to him. He had never used these spells before to do anything but good, and he was almost as afraid as poor Kasa. “I am Set, I am Set, I am Set, I am Set!” he shouted with triumph. “I am he who has divided that which was reunited. I am he who is full of vigour and great in power, Set Set Set!”
The incense, previously hanging against the ceiling in a dim grey cloud, suddenly swirled agitatedly about. The lamp flickered convulsively and a wind with a voice came blowing through the window. It was time to free himself. “Kasa,” he said. “Take the wax from the box on my desk and fashion three figures. They do not have be good likenesses, just give them each a head, a trunk, and limbs. Give two of them male genitals.” Kasa stumbled to obey, his eyes, as he crossed into the light, wide and white-rimmed. Khaemwaset drew forward a leaf of papyrus that had been newly pressed and, taking up a pen, began to write the names Nenefer-ka-Ptah, Ahura, Merhu in green ink. He also wrote the name of Nenefer’s ancestor. He was supposed to have traced Nenefer’s mother and father as well, but he did not know who they were. By the time he had finished, Kasa had the three small wax figurines made. They were crude but recognizably human.
Khaemwaset reached to the far side of the desk and grasped his knife. It was of ivory made only for him at his final initiation, for his use alone, and on its blade was carved the likeness of Thoth, his patron. Patron no longer, he thought grimly. Thoth was Nenefer’s lord also, but Set is stronger, Set is wilder, Set will chew them up in his sharp white fangs and spit them out like so much offal.
With the point of the knife he carved their names into the heads of the dolls, one name for each. “Bind them separately with that black thread,” he ordered, and Kasa did so. Placing them on the papyrus, Khaemwaset stood back.
“A spell for having power over the fate of Nenefer-ka-Ptah, Ahura and Merhu, in this world and the next,” he chanted, paying intense attention to the rhythm and pitch of his words. Four times he repeated them, then he began. “I am a Great One, the son of a Great One, I am a flame, the son of a flame, to whom was given his head after it had been cut off. But the heads of these, my enemies, shall be cut off forever. They shall not be knit together, for I am Set, Lord of their suffering.” He paused for the next onslaught, and as he did so his concentration became total. Power slid to his tongue and confidence to his body. “They shall become corrupt, they shall have worms, they shall be distended, they shall stink. They will decay, they will become putrid. They will not exist, they will not be strong, their viscera will be destroyed, their eyes will rot, their ears will not hear, their tongues will not speak, their hair will be cut off. Their corpses are not permanent. They will perish in this land forever, for I am Set, Lord of the gods.”
Now they were tangled in the web of magic, the three
of them. Still living, yet no longer able, even if they wished, to struggle away from the fate awaiting them. But destroying their bodies was not enough. Khaemwaset knew that as long as there was a chance that their kas survived he was not safe. He must obliterate them entirely, and the only way to do that was to change their names. A name was a sacred thing. If a name survived the gods could find you, recognize you, welcome you into their eternal presence, and perhaps even grant you the gift of a return to your body. Sternly, Khaemwaset repressed the shudder that thought had caused. He must not falter now. He must not think, he must not imagine, and above all, he must not fear.
He tipped back his head and closed his eyes. “I am Set, whose vengeance is just,” he croaked. “From the name Nenefer-ka-Ptah I remove the name of the god Ptah, creator of the world, so that his power may not imbue this enemy with strength. From the name Ahura I remove the name of the god Ra, glorious sun, so that his power may not imbue this enemy with strength. From the name Merhu I remove the name of the god Hu, the Divine Utterance and the Tongue of Ptah, so that his power may not imbue this enemy with strength. Now I will change the names, thus. Ptahhates-him, Ra-will-burn-her, Hu-will-lay-a-curse. The positive has become the negative, and the negative will become annihilation. Die the second death! Die die die!” He approached the figures and the papyrus on the table, but at that moment there came a soft knocking on the door.
“Khaemwaset, I know you are in there. What are you doing?” It was Tbubui.
Khaemwaset froze, and Kasa gave a little cry. Khaemwaset rounded on him fiercely, grimacing him into silence, terrified that he would break the spell now, at this crucial moment. Kasa gulped and nodded.
“You are trying to weave a spell, aren’t you, my dearest?” her voice came, muffled by the wood. Khaemwaset heard her fingernails scrape across the door. “Give it up. Give me a chance to make you even happier. I can satisfy you as can no other woman, Khaemwaset. Will it be so bad? I only want to live, I only want what everyone wants. Am I to be blamed for that?” Her voice had risen and Khaemwaset, listening in a sudden agony, recognized the beginnings of hysteria. He did not move. “I knew what you were doing the moment I opened my eyes and you were gone,” she went on loudly. “I sensed it. I could feel it. You are trying to get rid of us. Oh, cruel Khaemwaset! But your efforts will be fruitless. Thoth has abandoned you. Your words will have no power. Thoth …” Her sound trailed away and both men watched the door, hearing her furtive movements as she tried the lock. All at once they ceased. Khaemwaset could almost see her thinking on the other side, her sleeping robe flung loosely about her, her hair dishevelled, her body crouched. “Not Thoth,” she resumed faintly. “Of course not. It is Set, isn’t it? Set, your father’s totem. Set, whose red hair runs in your family. O gods.” All at once there was a flurry of blows against the door and she began to scream. “Khaemwaset! I love you! I adore you! Do not do this, please! I am terrified. Let me live!”
Scroll of Saqqara Page 54
