Reflections in the Nile

by J. Suzanne Frank

  “Aye,” he said heavily. “In order to step through the doorway to the otherworld it says we have to be a priest or priestess of the order of RaEmhetep, on the twenty-third day, natal day twenty-three times three.”

  “We have guessed that means not only the twenty-third day, but also the twenty-third hour and twenty-third minute,” Chloe said, excitement churning her insides.

  “In the course of Ptah in the east,” he murmured. “The depiction above is what the night sky should look like.”

  “Does it tonight?”

  “Exactly,” he said, his voice thick. “The ‘prayerful obeisance in the twenty-third doorway,’ that I do not understand.” “Obeisance?” Chloe said. “I thought it read ‘prayer.’”

  “Nay. This is an older dialect. The symbols are slightly different from those of today.” He squinted up at the ceiling. “This is also a different glyph from those usually used.”

  “Cheftu!” Chloe squealed. “When you were in the chamber, in 1806, did you bow or anything before you crossed through?”

  “Of course not. It was a pagan place, why would I… ?” He fell silent. “Wait There was a piece of silver on the floor….”

  “Did you kneel to get it?”

  “Aye. I put my hand to my heart. It was pounding with the thought of having found something.”

  “That is it!” Chloe crowed. “I tried to keep my backpack from slipping as I knelt!” They both looked at the ceiling, at the stick-figure drawing of a man, kneeling on one knee, his arm crossing his breast, and his left hand outstretched. “That is exactly how I was positioned,” Chloe said breathlessly.

  “As was I.”

  Chloe felt the hah rising on the back of her neck. “So where is the twenty-third doorway?”

  “I need to get closer,” Cheftu said. “The drawing up there has more details on the lintel of the door. Can you boost me?”

  “I'll try,” Chloe said, lacing her fingers together.

  He stepped out of his sandals, and Chloe braced herself in the corner, groaning as his weight pressed down, while she pressed upward as hard as she could. He found a niche for his knee and leaned back to look up, holding the torch above his head. “I cannot hold you much longer,” Chloe said through gritted teeth as she felt her back muscles straining. She groaned in relief when he jumped down. “Anything?”

  “Aye. The doorway has the horns and disk of HatHor and is painted red. I do not know if it is an actual doorway, but maybe there is a wall painted like that around here. Where did Imhotep say he saw the priest change?”

  Chloe thought furiously. “In an underground room, close to the papyrus storage.” She looked at the map, wishing for a red tag reading “You are Here.”

  In his perfect memory Cheftu was already holding the map; he looked at the floor. “The picture shows obeisance. Looking at the floor and reaching for something.” He knelt.

  “A trapdoor?”

  “I am not certain, but it is worth a search.” They scrabbled on the floor, fingers running around the edges of the stones, searching for a ridge. Chloe skimmed her fingertips across one of the stones and then, with a small cry, drew it back.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Just a cut.”

  “From what?”

  “Holy Osiris! I think it is here!” Chloe said. “Hand me the torch!”

  She took the torch in her trembling hands and searched. The metallic gleam was dim. Cheftu rubbed away the dirt; it was a flat lever of thinly hammered electrum, obviously not used for many, many years. “How does it work?” Chloe asked.

  “Let us see,” he said, and pushed it, hard. Nothing happened.

  They waited a moment, and men a great creaking echoed through the room, and Chloe felt the ground begin to shake. She leapt onto another stone and watched as the floor directly underneath the drawing moved back, revealing a stale darkness that made the chamber above seem light. The creaking stopped, and Chloe jumped at Cheftu's touch on her arm. “Shall we?” he said, and they shuffled forward, holding the torch over the edge. They could see the first two steps, spiraling downward. Nothing else.

  Gritting her teem to keep them from chattering with fear, Chloe began to walk downstairs, Cheftu's warm hand on her shoulder, the other holding the torch high above them. “Is it going to stay open if we need to get out?” Chloe asked in a small voice, into the total darkness.

  Cheftu paused. “I have no idea. Maybe you should wait above, while I search down here. That way, we're safe on both accounts.”

  “Nay,” Chloe said firmly. “We do this together or not at all.”

  Cheftu was silent above her. “Then wait a moment while I try to rig it so that we are not trapped down there, haii?”

  “Five minutes, Cheftu.” She stood still as he walked up the steps. It was the plague of darkness all over. The stairs had spiraled so that the chamber above was hidden from view. She swallowed, hard. She had a feeling that something was not right. Cheftu had been odd, alternating between affectionate and withdrawn. They had managed too easily to elude Thut's best soldiers. As Cheftu would say, it didn't add up.

  She heard footsteps above her.

  “Chloe?”

  “Still waiting,” she said as he walked down to her, the torch keeping her dark fears at bay. Then his hand was on her shoulder, and they descended. And descended, farther and farther into the darkness. The steps were slippery, with nothing to hold on to, except each other. Then Chloe couldn't go down any farther; they had reached the bottom. A gust of ah extinguished the torch.

  Cheftu stopped next to her and drew her into an embrace, burying his face in her neck. “I love you, ma chèriel” he whispered. She reached around him, feeling the granite muscles that held her tight, the skin that was sticky with cold sweat. Something beyond what she had expected was wrong. In the darkness she could almost hear shuffling.

  He pulled away, glancing over his shoulder at the staircase. “Let us go,” he said, thrusting her behind him as they walked across the chamber. It felt very small. She heard Cheftu fumbling around and then gasped as the torch illuminated the darkness.

  The room was small but exquisite. They had come down the south wall, and to Chloe's right was a wall painted with the night sky, its constellations clearly marked. To the left was a wall covered in hieroglyphic writing, and Cheftu already moved alongside it, his lips moving as he read the message.

  Directly across from Chloe was the doorway.

  In actuality it was a large alcove, the paintings outside it identifying it clearly. She walked toward it, her heart in her mouth, and began to read the signs. It told a story, a story of a priestess who was blessed by an unnamed god who brought her from the otherworld to view his neter power and send her … hmm … somewhere? … to describe what she had seen. The design was typical two-dimensional Egyptian, but Chloe's skin crawled when she saw that the dark-skinned, black-haired priestess had green eyes.

  Peace engulfed her… the same peace that had drawn her here, to be used yes, but as a tool, with every freedom to refuse. Destiny, a voice breathed through her consciousness.

  Cheftu now stood behind her, and she could hear his strangled gasp. “It is you. All of this speaks of you,” he said.

  The goose bumps on her body were the size of peas. “Yes,” she said in English. “I am supposed to return.” She heard it again, the stealthy steps somewhere above them. “Come with me,” she said. “I know you believe you have nothing, but in the twentieth century we can be together. Maybe you have a new destiny!”

  “Non, I cannot go back. Jean-Francois Champollion le jeune faded with me in the nineteenth century.”

  Chloe spun around, choking. “Jean-Francois Champollion!” For a moment she stared incredulously at his bronze features. “That… that… that is not your name, is it? Are you, were you, Jean-François Champollion?”

  “Je suis,” he said with a credible bow. “My brother betrayed me. He discovered the key to the hieroglyphs, as you said.”

  “No!�
�� Chloe screeched. “I told you a Champollion did it! Jean-Francois! He is the father of Egyptology. You!”

  Cheftu's face was gray, even in the blazing torchlight. “It is not possible,” he whispered. “How do you know these things?”

  “I read a book the day before I crossed through! It was about Napoleon's coming to Egypt. It mentioned the older Champollion, and how he brought his little brother,” who was already a linguist in his own right, she recalled Cheftu's own words. “He became very ill on the trip, right; after Karnak. He was sent home with Jean-Jacques, and it was a while before he was healthy again.” Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, the words she had read now scorched into her mind's eye. “After that, everyone who met him said he seemed like an ancient Egyptian, he was so in tune with the culture!” She continued, staring. “He spent his life deciphering the hieroglyphs! He claimed they were not just religious pictures, but that they also represented sounds and an alphabet. He wrote books outlining the pharaohs and: how they lived. He spent his whole life on Egypt”

  Cheftu sagged against the wall. “You are serious? He accomplished this in my name? I did not fade into disgrace?”

  Her mind fumbled to believe this. “Dead serious,” she said. “The boy you saw … you must have changed places, and he … well, was Champollion.” She stared at her husband. “He must have been, because you look only vaguely like Champollion's picture.”

  “Mon Dieu,” Cheftu said, sinking to the floor.

  She knelt beside him. “Champollion?” she whispered, laying an icy hand on the knees she knew so well. “I don't know what to say,” she said. “It's odd to discover your husband? is a … a historical figure!”

  “Aii, history,” he said, his cold hand over hers. Sounds came to them, muffled but definite. “Haii, mon Dieu, what have I done?” he whispered as he looked toward the stairs.

  “What?” Chloe asked, suddenly aware that Cheftu was listening for someone.

  “Go into the doorway, beloved,” Cheftu said, rising and pushing her forward. “You must leave.”

  Chloe walked over and stood in the alcove, her knees knocking. “I cannot leave without you,” she said.

  “Go with God, beloved,” he replied, his voice cracking.

  She swallowed as soldiers stepped out of the darkness, their bows trained on Cheftu. “What is this?” she cried.

  “Go!” cheftu yelled.

  “Aye, kheft,” Thut said, stepping forward. “Leave before more evils are heaped on Egypt. Do not cheapen the gift of life your lover has bought you.”

  Chloe looked at Cheftu, stunned. “Bought me?”

  Cheftu stared at her, his eyes bright with tears.

  “Once you leave,” Thut said, “which was the former erpaha 's request, this room will be dismantled. Then Cheftu will lead me to the golden glory that woman stole. With the gold she took from Egypt I will rebuild, and become the greatest pharaoh Egypt has ever known. Then I shall conquer. After I have finished reclaiming Egypt's resources, I shall eradicate memory of her dishonorable rule. Not even one cartouche of her shall remain!”

  “Why?” Chloe asked, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why now? She is beyond you.”

  “Someone must take the blame for the Apiru god's works!” he hissed. “Someone must have bloodied hands from the death of thousands! It will not be me! Since those things happened, technically, while she was on the throne, her accepting blame for them is natural, and we can purge Egypt. This destruction was due to the unnatural state of affairs: a woman on the throne. I will erase her name from the King's List, and it will be a lesson to not interfere with the laws of Ma'at.”

  Chloe looked at Cheftu. His face was like parchment, tears streaking his kohl into black-and-gray stripes down his face. He dropped to one knee, as if too weak to stand. Soldiers moved around him, and Chloe cried aloud when she saw the spears pressing red points into his neck and chest. Cheftu reached up, holding one away from his jugular.

  In the end there was no time for tears, no last words, no lingering touch. She knelt, her eyes fixed on his, not speaking, just chinking in the last sight of him, her ka. Already a wind whipped around her. She crossed her breast with a trembling hand, and they stretched left hands toward each other as Cheftu closed his eyes in anguish. There is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend…. The words floated through her brain.

  Time snapped.

  Cheftu's agonized cry faded into the roar of jumbled sound, tearing, separating, dividing her soul and body. Painful currents leapt through her scrambled senses until, at last, blissful, peaceful darkness enveloped her, warming, comforting… like a beloved embrace.

  EPILOGUE

  Thutmosis, Egypt's Mighty Bull of Ma'at, Lord of the Two Lands, Lord of the Horizon, Horus Hakarty, Men-kheper-Ra Tehuti-mes III, Ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt, Beloved of Buto, Son of the Sun, Living Forever! Life! Health! Prosperity! stormed through his chambers, restless in the hours of night. When he slept, dreams came to him—dreams based on reality yet tinged with horrors from the Book of the Dead. He stepped onto his balcony, inhaling the fresh air and listening to the chink of chisel and hammer that floated up on every breeze in these days. The removal of Hatshepsut was almost complete. The council had finally declared her dead after he had ruled in her name for five Inundations. The rekkit were no longer fearful of the gods’ wrath; his enemies inside Egypt were dead or gone.

  “Gone,” he said out loud. His mind moved back, involuntarily, to the Nophite chamber. He'd been so glib, so certain he had the key in his hand. Not only would he get all that Hat had secreted away, but he would have the satisfaction of a broken and willing Cheftu. Vengeance on the man who had sworn fealty and then broken it would be restorative. Cheftu had been held tightly, a dare to move toward the woman in the alcove.

  Then, in a shorter time than an eyeblink, they were gone. The torches were extinguished as if a mighty, rushing wind had blown through. Both were gone. Even as the soldiers dismantled the room, finding a dozen secret passageways, not a clue to their whereabouts had ever shown up. Still, a guard stood watch, waiting, hopelessly, Thut thought, for RaEm and Cheftu to resurface.

  He stepped inside and lay on his couch. He needed to rest. Before dawn he and the new might of Egypt would set forth across the desert, purging the sands of those who did not worship Egyptian gods or follow Egyptian customs. A tribe would either assimilate or die. In their dying, Egypt would take their gold and spices, and gain. He would build an empire, a mighty empire that stretched far beyond the Egypt of his forefathers. Thut knew without a doubt that from this moment on he would be successful in all he did. He smiled grimly, thinking of the Presence that gave him such confidence. He had served his time as a tool of the Unknowable and was now free to live as he would.

  He closed his eyes as exhaustion shook him.

  Tomorrow would begin a new life for the land of Egypt.

  DARKNESS ENGULFED ME. It was pitch, like night. I sat up slowly, my hand to my pounding head where it felt slightly disconnected. My sense of direction was shot; I had no clue as to where I might be. The silence was consuming as the last images from the temple played back in my mind… and with their viewing came searing pain. Haii, Cheftu! Oh, God, Cheftu!

  Then I froze as the ghost of a voice echoed, rich and velvety, in the blackness around me.

  “Chloe?”

  GLOSSARY

  ab—ancient Egyptian for heart

  ankh—the Egyptian key of life; a loop-headed cross

  AnkhemNesrt—name of the goddess of the eighth hour of night; HatHor priestess eight o'clock

  anu—a wanderer

  Apiru—the enslaved races in Egypt, Israelites among them

  Apis—a sacred bull

  atmu—twilight

  ba—the psyche and soul of a person

  bukra—tomorrow

  calèche—a horse-drawn carriage

  cartouche—the ring surrounding and protecting a pharaoh's name

  Chaos—creation


  corvée—slaves or serfs attached to the land

  crook—a symbol of Pharaoh's power in the shape of a shepherd's crook

  cubit—measurement from elbow to fingers, approximately eighteen to twenty-two inches

  decans—the twenty-four designations of night and day; charted by the stars

  Deir El-Bahri—Arabic name for Hatshepsut's mortuary temple; called the-Most-Splendid in her reign

  djellaba—a traditional Egyptian garment

  electrum—a blend of gold and silver, used for plating statuary and walls

  Elohim—Hebrew word for Lord

  emmer—a cheaper grade of grain

  erpa-ha—a hereditary title in ancient Egypt

  fellahin—Arabic for common workers

  felucca—a Nile boat

  Gerchet—a personification of the night; HatHor priestess ten o'clock

  hemu neter—first physician-priest

  henhet crown—one of Pharaoh's crowns, covering the head and ears

  henti—Egyptian measurement of distance

  Herit-tchatcha-ah—name of the goddess of the seventh hour of night; HatHor priestess seven o'clock

  Hyksos—the conquerors of Egypt in the Middle Kingdom; vanquished at the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty

  hypostyle—the Greek term for a hall of columns

  Inshallah—Arabic for “As God wills it”

  inundation—the annual flooding of the Nile valley; used to count the years

  jinn(s)—Arabic for demon(s)

  ka—a person's individual and spiritual power

  khaibit—a bloodsucking shadow

  khamsim—a killing windstorm from the desert that brings extreme heat and sometimes sand tornadoes

  kheft—enemy, opponent

  khetu—an Egyptian measurement of water weight

  magus, magi—magician(s)

  Meret Seger—name of the mountain at the mouth of the Valley of the Kings

  natron—natural salt; main ingredient in mummification

  nome—the districts that Egypt was divided into

  neter—a priest

  Neter—the beginning, the creator, the unknown