Imhotep (6 page)

As
they walked from the unlit parking lot, headlights appeared on the road leading
to Saqqara.  For a moment Tim thought it was the police, that he had been
followed, but then he realized that he was being paranoid.  No one knew he
was planning to illegally enter a closed tomb. 

He and
Musa passed through the door at the entrance wall and entered the southern
courtyard.  Behind them, Tim heard the slam of a car door.

“Hello! 
Marhaba!  Bonjour!” a voice called from the parking lot.

Tim
walked on, ignoring it.  Musa, walking beside him, said, “It is the
guardian of the antiquities.  We did not purchase tickets.”

Tim
shook his head.  He saw the tomb of Kanakht just ahead and didn’t want a
guard to tell him it was off limits again.

“We
couldn’t, Musa.  They weren’t at the ticket booth.”

“No,”
Musa said.  “We are not to be here without them.  Without paying the
fee.”

Tim
kept walking.  “Well, we’re already in here.  We’ll pay them on the
way out.”

Musa
stopped.  “No, I am sorry.  We must pay them first.  If they are
not here, we do not pay them.  But now that they are here we must pay
them.  I must not have the guardian of the antiquities angry.  We
must go back and pay them.”

“Hello,
please!  Min fadlak!  Bonjour!” the voice called again.

Tim
was a few steps past Musa, just a few steps from the tomb.  He turned to
the young driver.  Tim understood that Musa made his living bringing
tourists to the sites, he needed the “guardians of the tomb” to remain his
friends.

”OK,
I’ll wait here.” He took three twenty-dollar bills from his jacket and gave the
money to Musa.  “Here, you buy the tickets, pay the guardians of the tomb,
whatever.  Is this enough?”

Musa
looked at the money, more than triple the admission fee.  It was true what
his brother’s wife had said about the Americans, they were wealthy beyond
belief.  He nodded, took the money and left Tim standing alone by the Tomb
of Kanakht.

As
soon as Musa passed through the entrance door, Tim turned and walked as fast as
he could through the loose sand.  He opened the gate to the Tomb of
Kanakht and stepped onto the iron grating.  He turned and smoothed out the
sand under the gate.  Then he gripped the newel of the spiral staircase
and started climbing down into the tomb.

Once
his head was below ground level, he turned on his flashlight.

He
quickly stepped down a half dozen steps and then stopped to listen.  There
were no sounds from outside.  He took six more steps and then
stopped.  Once he was farther down the staircase, he moved without
stopping until he had reached the bottom.

At the
bottom of the stairs, he turned off his flashlight and listened again.

It
would take Musa and the guard some time to search the above-ground complex
before they would even think of him being in this tomb, he thought.

After
his breathing had slowed from the nervous descent and he still hadn’t heard any
sounds from above, he turned on the flashlight and looked carefully around the
chamber.  Hunters on a reed boat still had their spears raised over a
roaring hippopotamus on one wall.  On another wall, a banquet was in
progress.  Dancing girls arched backward, their hair hanging to the floor.
Kanakht and his wife sat side-by-side holding cups in their hands into which a
servant girl poured wine.  To the left, a table held loaves of bread,
roasted geese and ducks, baskets of grapes and plates of lentils and
chickpeas.  Beneath it stood jars of beer.

Some
of the outlined figures had not been painted.  The other two walls were
bare; the tomb had not been finished.  Tim played the light slowly over
the walls, looking for cracks or any straight lines that would indicate a
man-made opening.  He moved the light over the floor looking for soft
spots or signs of an opening to a shaft.

Finished
in the first chamber, Tim remembered to stoop below the lintel when he walked
through the doorway to the next chamber.  The decorations here were more
formal, stylized paintings of gods and goddesses.  Again the paintings
were unfinished.  And again there were no obvious openings.

He lay
on the floor and used his light to scan across the flat surface.  He saw
footprints in the dust, no doubt some of them from his visit two nights
ago.  Seized by an idea, he stood close to the wall and tried to look at
the surface from a low angle, hoping to highlight handprints, although what
that might tell him, he didn’t know.

“Hello,
Mr. Tim,” Musa’s voice echoed through the outer chamber.  It sounded
distant.  Musa was still above ground.

Tim
pushed away from the wall, his heart racing.

He
walked quickly through the chamber to the doorway that led to the main burial
room with the stone sarcophagus.  Inside he stooped close to the floor and
shined the light around the line where the wall and floor met.

“Mr.
Tim, Mr. Tim,” Musa called from above.

Tim
froze as he heard two sets of footsteps on the iron staircase.

He
abandoned his search in the tomb chamber and hurried to the broken wall.

Leaning
into the opening, he looked across the broken stones to the floor inside. 
As he did, he heard Musa and the guide reach the bottom of the staircase. 
They were arguing in Arabic, but they were talking too fast.  He couldn’t
understand what they were saying.

In the
passageway he saw ridges of sand that could be footprints.

He
stepped across the fallen stones, careful not to trip.

“Hello,
Mr. Tim.”

The
acoustics in the tomb made the voice sound as if Musa was at Tim’s
shoulder.  Tim jerked around, expecting to see the driver standing
there.  The chamber was empty, but he saw light shining through the
doorway on the other side of the sarcophagus.

He
walked down the hidden passageway.  He moved the light around the ceiling,
down the walls and across the floor.  The hallway went about five feet and
then stopped.  No one was here and there were no hiding places, no open
holes, no bodies, no other exits.

He
stooped to give himself a low-angled view of the floor.  The sand was
rippled on the floor at his feet and down the passage for another step or
two.  After that it was smooth and undisturbed.

Tim
heard Musa and the guard talking, they sounded closer. 

He
wondered if they could see his light glimmering from this hidden passageway.

He
followed the disturbed sand to the wall and looked closely, placing his cheek
against the wall and shining the light across the wall instead of directly at
it.  Just beyond where the footsteps stopped there was a line running up
the wall, not exactly a crack, but a straight ridge.

Tim
stood in front of the wall where the sand was most uneven.  He stooped and
looked at the floor.  The sand was scraped away in an arc, as if someone
had taken a wide broom and swept it away from the wall in a half circle.

“Hello,
Mr. Tim,” Musa called.  They were in the tomb chamber, just on the other
side of the wall behind him.  He looked desperately at the wall, sure that
it held some secret.

He
turned off his flashlight so that Musa and the guard wouldn’t see the light. He
stood unmoving, willing them to walk away.

A soft
light from the burial chamber filtered through the hole in the wall behind
him.  The deflected light showed shadows that Tim’s harsh direct light had
not.  Two handprints were on the wall, just above his head.  He
leaned forward and reached up to the prints, placing his hands against the
wall.

He
pressed against the wall and waited.  Nothing happened.

“Mr.
Tim, Mr. Tim.”

The
voice was just on the other side of the wall, the lights bobbing closer.

Tim
twisted to look at the opening, shifting his weight against the wall, and it
moved, quietly pivoting to create a doorway.

Part
of the beam from Musa’s light flashed through the hole three feet from Tim.

Tim
slipped through the open doorway.  On the other side he pressed against the
extended edge of the stone door and it silently swung shut.  He leaned
against the stone and listened for Musa’s voice, but the tomb was silent.

A
hmes couldn’t stop talking and Paneb, who
usually had to remind himself to be patient with his adopted son, was as
excited as the eight-year-old boy was.

Earlier,
in the pre-dawn darkness when they had started walking from their home in
Ineb-Hedj, the boy had been quiet, still sleepy.  Now as Re’s sacred barge
emerged from its nightly journey through Khert-Neter there was light for their
walk through the narrow wadi to the entrance of the vizier’s tomb in
Saqqara.  Ahmes skipped eagerly through the sand, sometimes walking
backwards through the shallow gully so he could watch his adored stepfather as
they talked about the gods who had arrived two days ago.

Ahmes
was naked, his head shaved except for a side lock of hair, knotted near the
scalp above his ear and hanging loose to his neck. 

Paneb,
whose head was shaved smooth, wore only a short linen kilt, which he would
remove when they reached the tomb and he started working.  He wore it to
please his wife, Takhaaenbbastet, who had made the bleached white cloth herself
and who thought he should wear it as a sign of his rank.  She said that
only common workers went about without a kilt.

Although
he was chief artist at Saqqara, known even to Netjerikhet Djoser, King of the
Two Lands, Paneb knew who was chief of his household.  So if Taki wanted
him to wear a kilt, then he would.  It was a small matter and it gave her
joy.  But he knew better than to make it dirty. 

“The
netjer was so tall, Father.  Have you ever seen anyone so tall?  And
so strong?” Ahmes stopped his prancing long enough to mimic a spear toss.

Paneb
shook his head.  He had done a lot of head shaking in the two days since
the gods had walked out of the tomb, the god smiling, the goddess squinting in
the light, her skin so pale you could see through it.

T
hat day had promised to be exciting
enough. 

Paneb
and Ahmes were to escort Djefi, high priest of Sobek, the crocodile god, to
inspect Kanakht’s tomb in Saqqara.

Kanakht,
overseer of the Two Lands and adviser to King Djoser, had instructed Paneb to
paint scenes in the tomb entrance showing himself with the crocodile god. 
And now Djefi was arriving at Ineb-Hedj to approve Paneb's sketches.

Paneb
and Ahmes had watched Djefi’s boat approach the pier used by officials of The
Two Lands.  There was a mast in the center of the boat, but no sail was
unfurled.  Paneb explained to Ahmes that sails were used when traveling up
the River Iteru, because the winds blew that way, always against the current of
the river.  On trips down river, the flow of the River Iteru and oars
provided the speed.

The
cedar wood boat slid silently along the wooden pier.  Water dripped from
the glistening oars as the ten rowers pulled them up onto the boat.  One
of the boatmen jumped off to secure the vessel.

The
messenger who arranged the visit had told Paneb to prepare a sedan chair for
Djefi and to have four strong men to carry it.  He had emphasized the word
strong.

The
carriers stood beside Paneb and Ahmes waiting to see how heavy their burden
would be today.

With
the boat tied off at prow and stern, a crewman placed a wide gangplank from the
boat to the dock.  Two young men steadied an immensely fat man dressed in
a white robe with a leopard skin, the sign of a priest, draped over his wide,
round shoulders, as he stepped onto the plank.  Paneb saw that the plank
was wide enough for the escorts to stay beside the priest as he stepped
awkwardly from the bobbing boat.

From
his right, he heard one of the chair carriers sigh at the sight of the heavy
priest and another wondered aloud if his pole was strong enough.  “That’s
what your wife wonders every night, isn’t it, eh, Marhu?” another carrier
asked.  The others laughed quietly.

Paneb
pretended he hadn't heard them. 

P
aneb had never met Djefi, but he had heard
about him.  Although high priest, Djefi was young enough to be mistaken
for an acolyte.  But he was said to be as savage as the crocodile god he
worshiped.  There were rumors of accidents that happened to those who
stood in his way, including the man who had been high priest before him.

It was
hard to reconcile that fearsome reputation with the man who was already
sweating and panting after walking from the boat to the sedan chair. 
Wobbling flesh hung from his arms.  Three layers of chins rolled back from
his flushed face and buried a silver strand that held an amulet around his neck. 
Folds of fat pushed against the front of his linen robe.  Even though his
eyes were heavily lined with green kohl, they looked small, pushed back into
his heavy cheeks. 

The
young bodyguards lowered him into the chair. Then they ran back to the boat and
retrieved short ceremonial spears.

Djefi
sat breathing heavily and looking around as if he were confused.

Paneb
went to the sedan and knelt so he would not be looking down at Djefi when he
talked to him.  “First Prophet of the Great Netjer Sobek, I am Paneb, chief
artist of Saqqara.”

Djefi’s
head turned slowly to him.  He held a linen cloth in his left hand and
dabbed at his face with it as he studied Paneb for a full minute.

When
he spoke, his voice was high pitched and squeaky, as if a small boy was being
held captive inside his great quivering bulk.  “Good for you, Paneb. 
Why am I still sitting beside this boiling river when I have tomb scrawlings to
inspect?”

“Forgive
me, First Prophet,” Paneb said.  He stood and backed away from the sedan
chair and nodded to the carriers. 

Paneb
and Ahmes walked quickly to the street to lead the way for the carriers. 
They waited until the young guards returned to the sedan.  Then the
carriers silently counted together before hoisting Djefi off the ground and
then, after another count, smoothly up to their shoulders.

The
guards took their position in front of the sedan and the procession moved into
the shady streets of Ineb-Hedj.

In a
few minutes they reached the edge of the city and passed beyond the white walls
that gave it its name.  They walked briskly through the green fields that
surrounded the city and then, abruptly, the desert began.

Paneb
could see that Ahmes was trying hard to maintain decorum, but the boy’s eyes
were full of questions.  The carriers started to breathe deeper and louder
as they carried Djefi through the soft sand.  One of them broke wind
loudly and Ahmes almost laughed out loud, but a stern look from Paneb stopped
him.

The
priest had covered his face with the sweaty linen cloth.

As
they neared the tomb, the wadi narrowed at a sharp bend and there was no room
for the sedan to be carried safely through the rock-strewn gully.  The
carriers stopped and waited for instructions.

“Are
we there?” Djefi asked, raising the damp cloth from his face.

Paneb
returned to the sedan.

“No,
First Prophet.  But the wadi is too narrow for the men to carry you
farther.  The tomb is just ahead, around this narrow bend.”

“Am I
to walk?”

“It is
just a few paces.”

“Why
hasn’t the path been widened?  Do you expect King Djoser to soil his feet
if he visits Kanakht’s eternal home?”

Paneb
wasn’t sure how to respond.  He was chief artist, responsible for the tomb
drawings and paintings, not the engineer who directed the digging of the tomb.

“Kanakht,
you will pay for this,” Djefi said quietly, his eyes raised in the distance as
he thought of the absent vizier.  Then he turned his attention to the
carriers. “Am I supposed to leap from the sedan?  Lower me!” he commanded
in his high-pitched voice.

The
bodyguards hurried to his side and pulled him to his feet.

He
shook them away and looked crossly around the wadi.  “Well?” he asked.

Paneb
bowed and turned to lead the priest to the tomb.

Djefi
was panting heavily before they got through the narrow section of the
gully.  To Paneb he looked like any other overly successful merchant, but
only a man who would happily cheat you in a trade, not a man who would happily
feed you to a crocodile.

His
two bodyguards carried their short spears casually by their sides.  Aside
from the remote threat of a jackal or a desert lion attacking there was little
to fear in Kemet.  There was no civil unrest and the borders of Kemet had
been secured by Kha-sekhemwy, father of Netjerikhet Djoser, King of the Two
Lands.

Djefi
was too busy panting to complain as they walked to the tomb.  Paneb
thought the priest seemed distracted and withdrawn.  The guards walked a
few steps behind Djefi, talking quietly to each other.

The
wadi twisted left and ended against a sand bank where a limestone outcropping
marked the edge of a high table.  A tunnel had been dug into the
stone.  It angled down for a few paces and then leveled out, moving deep
under the stone, which rose higher in the distance to form a plateau.

Paneb
stopped by a wooden frame his workers had erected outside the tomb.  The
top of the frame held palm branches, creating a shaded rest area.  Three
rough wooden stools were half buried in the sand under the canopy.

Paneb
moved the stools to the side to make room for Djefi to stand in the
shade.  Then he gave two polished brass disks to Ahmes.  The boy
hurried off to position the mirrors outside the tunnel entrance to reflect
sunlight inside.  As Ahmes carried the reflectors to the tunnel, Paneb
turned to Djefi to explain what he would see inside the tomb.

But
before he began to speak, he heard Ahmes shout in alarm.

“Father,
someone is in the tomb!” The boy ran through the sand to Paneb’s side.

Djefi
looked curiously at the tomb entrance.  The guards looked more attentive,
but not alarmed.  The tomb was empty; there was nothing to steal. 
More than likely, someone had used the tunnel as a shelter for the night.

Paneb
was responsible for the tomb until it was given over to Kanakht, and so he
touched Ahmes’ shoulder and said, “Wait here, son.”

He
glanced at Djefi to see if the priest was angry, but it seemed that Djefi was
still preoccupied by whatever had been on his mind earlier.  His guards
raised their eyebrows in question.  Paneb smiled back reassuringly and
turned to walk to the tomb.

Before
he had taken a step, they emerged.

The
god was tall, taller even than Nubian slaves Paneb had seen two years ago when
the priest of Khmunu had brought the black giants with him on his way to Iunu
for Re’s festival.  The goddess had hair the color of a dying fire. 
Her skin was as white as Taki’s linen.

The
god’s chest was painted with bright yellow and red flowers.  His feet were
red and black.  She wore straw matted on her head.  Her legs were
covered with blue cloth and a large cat was painted on her white chest.

Whatever
had been on Djefi’s mind earlier vanished when he saw them.

B
rian stood at the tunnel’s exit, his hands
on his hips, twisting his shoulders to loosen them after walking hunched over
through the low passage.  Diane held a hand up to the brim of her straw
hat, shielding her eyes as she looked at the men a few yards away.

“Brian,
who are those people?”

He
stopped twisting and started to roll his tight shoulders.  “Don’t know,
babe.  Welcoming committee?  Tour guides?  Farmers?  Ticket
takers?  Somebody selling souvenirs?”

She
shook her head.  “I don’t think so, Brian.  Two of them have spears.”

“Huh,”
he grunted. 

“Maybe
they’re javelins and it’s some kind of track meet.  Maybe I could get in
it.  I used to be pretty good with the discus.”

She
looked at him sharply.  Even after a year with him, she still got quickly
annoyed when he made jokes at inappropriate moments, and being confronted by
armed savages was an inappropriate time for humor.

“Let’s
go back inside and go back to the hotel.  We have a flight to catch tonight. 
We shouldn’t have sneaked away from the cab driver.  Let’s go back.”

Brian
dropped his chin toward his left shoulder, making the vertebrae crackle. 
“No,” he half grunted, “It was a Frisbee.  I was good with the
Frisbee.  The discus wasn’t as much fun.  Too much spinning before
you throw it.  Although getting dizzy was fun.” He dropped his head the
other way and more vertebrae popped.  “Ahhh, that feels good.”

“Brian,”
Diane said quietly, talking out the side of her mouth.

Djefi’s
bodyguards started to edge forward in front of the priest, but he extended his
arms to keep them behind him.  He took a step forward leaving the shade of
the canopy and bowed his head slightly, keeping his eyes on the two gods.