Four Days To Go
Four days. Four days. Four days until SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB is published on January 12th, 2016.
I’ve always loved Ancient Egypt. I’ve visiting the remains of the civilization in modern Egypt. I love books and novels and short stories about it. I love watching documentaries. So it’s no wonder that Ancient Egypt is one of the influences on the Ancient Martian civilization in SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB.
Ancient Egypt was a wonderful, rich, and varied civilization, and though it was only an influence in SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB, it was the setting for my fantasy story, The Land of Reeds, that was published in Realms of Fantasy in February 2006, a story of revenge, ghosts, and the path to the afterlife.
With just four days to go, I thought I’d offer the pure Egyptian (fantasy) experience up for free. Enjoy!
The Land of Reeds
The dead, he had discovered, had mouths and could speak, but they could not be heard.
Or, they could not be heard by the living: the dead talked among themselves with voices of sand and dust. Amenemhet did not wish to talk to the dead. A man who has been murdered wishes to speak to those still living, to lay testament before them, to give warning.
The dead, in their crowded voices, said that Re no longer travelled through the underworld each night. They said that his face was now no more than a ball of fire in the sky. There were no more demons in the underworld, no Apep the serpent, no Amemet the great devourer, no gates, no judges, no scales. There was no Land of Reeds.
The dead said Amun-Re died on the day the Macedonian usurper sat upon the throne of the two lands and proclaimed himself Pharaoh, for Alexander was no true son of Re, no true son of Osiris and so no god.
Perhaps, Amenemhet thought, they were right. All his life, he had studied the map that showed the path through the underworld and learned the words of the Chapter of Renewing the Gates in the House of Osiris which is in Sekhet-Aanru. After his murder, Amenemhet had watched through the eyes of his ka as the sem priest prepared his body and performed the sacrifices and as the kher-het priest read the prayers and instructions. All had been in order, and Amenemhet had felt his ka slip free.
But when night came, his ka had not entered duat. It had remained in the desert sand, and Amenemhet had become aware of the press of the dead around him and the whispers of their dry voices like the desert wind. “Re no longer travels the underworld at night,” they whispered. “His face is but a ball of fire…”
* * *
He left the tombs and the dead behind him and walked down into the town. The narrow streets were busy with the living. Amenemhet passed easily through them, his ka as insubstantial on their skins as his words were on their ears. Other kas of the dead also moved through the streets. They stared at him with drawn, grey eyes. Amenemhet stepped around the dead, sometimes stepping through the whitewashed, mud-brick walls of the houses that lined the tight streets to do so.
Once, in the market, he shouted furiously at the living: “Rep-a Djau has murdered me. He slipped a blade into my throat and left me to bleed to death.” But the living kept on their way, chattering and laughing. Amenemhet spat emptily onto the ground.
“They can’t hear you, you know.”
Amenemhet looked around. The ka of a child was standing behind him. She could not have been more than eight years old when she died. She scarcely came up to Amenemhet’s waist.
“I know,” he said. “Go away.”
Her ka held ghosts of colours. Specks of precious gold swam in her eyes. Most of the kas he had seen had been grey.
“We could help each other,” she said, scampering after him as he strode through the crowd. “I was poor and young. I never saw the maps of the underworld. I never learnt the words to speak at the gates.”
“Go away,” Amenemhet said. “Those things are as dead as Amun-Re. The Land of Reeds is no more. And what could you offer me?”
Amenemhet’s house was on the southern edge of the town, a mile from the rich flow of the Nile, set among the estates of the wealthy. Amenemhet had been hety-a of the town, and all had been pleased to pay him court and to seek his wisdom. Now those same people saw him not and heard him not. The only one who paid him court was the ka of the wretched urchin who dogged his heels like a loose bandage.
“Something,” the child said. “I have been dead for a long time. I know the world of the dead among the living. I know things.”
“Go away,” Amenemhet repeated.
A golden chariot stood outside the gate of his house. The sight of it plunged Amenemhet’s ka into coldness. Rep-a Djau was here. With a roar of rage that did not even stir the dust in the air, Amenemhet plunged through the outer wall.
The murderer was not in the square court, but the door in the north portico stood open, and Amenemhet heard voices from within.
Amenemhet stepped through. Rep-a Djau stood in the centre of the reception room, clad like a pharaoh in his green and gold gown and his bead necklaces. Baketamen, Amenemhet’s wife, sat on an earthenware bench before Rep-a Djau. The two girls, Meryt and Kawit, and his little son, Hori, who was scarcely off his mother’s breast, stood behind Baketamen. Baketamen had obviously been crying, but she had dried her eyes and looked up at Rep-a Djau.
“I have always been a good friend of your husband,” Djau was saying. “He trusted me. Anything I can do for you, I will.”
“Liar,” Amenemhet screamed. “He always envied me you. It wasn’t enough that he was richer than I, that he had the ear of the Tjaty of the two lands. He wanted you. He killed me. Don’t listen to him.”
Baketamen smiled. “You are kind, Rep-a. We will remember your kindness.”
Djau bowed. “You may always call on me.”
Then the murderer turned, and strode out of the house.
When Amenemhet finally thought to look, the ka of the troublesome child had gone.
* * *
The servants did not come the next day. When Amenemhet’s ka searched through the house, he found his wife sweeping the sand from the floor. With every stroke of the brush, a tear fell from her face into the sand to be lost in the water she had sprinkled there. His children, even little Hori, were building a fire from dried dung. When he had been alive, they had burned only wood in this house.
“There is a new haty-a now,” a voice said. “You are dead. Your place is not here. The taxes you once received now go to another.”
The ka of the child stood beside him.
“Go away,” Amenemhet said. “Why do you bother me with things I know?”
* * *
The first creditor came at dawn on the third day. He was a grain trader from Thebes. Amenemhet had met the man only once. The man had stuck to Rep-a Djau’s shoulder like a shadow to a wall. Amenemhet had disliked the man and refused to do business with him. That had angered Rep-a Djau.
“It grieves me to trouble you at such a sad time, Nebet Per,” the trader said to Baketamen, “but your husband owed me money. The debt is long overdue. I would wait longer, but my farmers need payment.”
Outraged, Amenemhet swept through the man. “I have done no business with you. You lie.”
“You are mistaken,” Baketamen said. “I keep the household accounts. I have no record of any debts unpaid. My husband told me of no contract with you.”
The trader bowed his head and passed a rolled papyrus to her. She flattened it. Amenemhet peered past her. The bill of sale was clear. His seal had been pressed firmly onto the papyrus.
Hesitantly, Baketamen said, “It is a large sum.”
“You see my dilemma, Nebet Per.”
“I made no such contract,” Amenemhet shouted. “The bill is false. Rep-a Djau must have stolen my seal when he murdered me.”
Baketamen rolled the papyrus and returned it to the trader. “You will be paid.”
The trader bowed deeper.
“How?” Amenemhet said, but none answered.
* * *
They came like the flow of the Nile, the creditors, each with his papyrus. With every payment, Baketamen’s face became more drawn, her figure more bent. Her eyes grew desperate. She did not sleep.
At last, near the end of the second week, when the latest in the flow of creditors had gone, Baketamen dropped to her knees on a floor mat.
“Amenemhet,” she wailed. “How could you?”
“But I didn’t,” he said.
She did not hear him.
* * *
“We must sell the house,” Baketamen told her children. “That is the only way we can pay your father’s debts. This is a good house. It will bring us enough.”
“Where will we live?” Kawit asked, through tears.
“We will find a small place in the town. It will just be one room, but it will shelter us.”
“We should go to Rep-a Djau,” Meryt said. “He would give us rooms in his palace. He is kind.”
Baketamen shook her head. “Your father would not like that. We still have our pride.”
“Who cares about father?” Meryt shouted, little Meryt with the wide brown eyes and the thick black hair, his jewel. “This is all his fault. I hate him. I wish Rep-a Djau was our father.”
She turned and ran from the room, passing through Amenemhet’s stricken ka.
Amenemhet’s anger lifted him like a feather in the wind from the north. Yet it seemed a distant anger, an anger drained of colour. His ka drifted through the town, across the rich fields, to the desert beyond and the tombs. For a while, he forgot his family and slipped only among the kas by the tombs. They did not revolt him as they once had. He found comfort in their endless, repeated words of despair. Re no longer travels the underworld at night. His face is but a ball of fire in the sky…
Time passed, a scarce-noticed breeze.
One day, a golden chariot drew up before Amenemhet’s tomb. A tall man in green and gold alighted. Disquiet grew in Amenemhet.
The tall man hitched up his robe and urinated onto Amenemhet’s shrine, befouling the offerings left there.
Amenemhet howled. Rep-a Djau. Fury revived him, and his memories tore back. He chased the speeding chariot towards the town, throwing curses at the rep-a’s back.
Once in the town, he slowed. The streets here were narrow. The rep-a’s chariot could not move swiftly.
Amenemhet surveyed the crowds of the living. How bright they were. He became transfixed, and soon the chariot was gone.
Wailing from one of the low buildings reached Amenemhet. He passed through the wall.
He did not recognise his family at first. These people were strangers to him. They were dirty, bent, sun-darkened, and poorly dressed. Yet when Baketamen looked up, Amenemhet knew her.
Beside her, Meryt and little Hori stood over their prostrate sister. Kawit moaned and twisted on the dirt floor. Her skin was oily with sweat. She seemed very close to Amenemhet, as though her ka wished to slip from her body and begin the journey to the Land of Reeds.
Baketamen brought a rag from a bucket and squeezed water over Kawit’s hot skin. The girl moaned in response.
“Mother,” Meryt said. “Kawit is dying. She will not last another day if we cannot bring a doctor.”
“We have no money for a doctor,” Baketamen said. “It is all gone.”
“Rep-a Djau has money,” Meryt said. “He has his own doctor. He would help us. You know that.”
Baketamen bent her head. Then she straightened. “You are right. We have waited too long. Help me with your sister. We will go to the rep-a.”
* * *
Amenemhet followed his family to the rep-a’s palace. A guard let them through the massive external wall, while another hurried off to fetch servants. Beyond the wall was a garden. Date palms, pomegranate trees, sycamores, and acacias lined the winding paths. The roof of a pagoda jutted from the shrubbery to the left. Blossoming vines trailed over it. Around the edge of the gardens, Amenemhet saw kitchens, workshops, stables, cattle sheds, and a wide granary.
“I never could offer you this,” he said, unheard. “Yet you loved me.”
Servants arrived to carry Kawit on a litter. Baketamen and other children followed a scribe through the gardens. They passed a large rectangular pond from which grew lotus plants, papyrus reeds, and water lilies. Amenemhet saw the thick brown bodies of fish slide through the water.
The enormous house stood on a plinth at the end of the garden. A colonnaded flight of stairs led up to a vestibule. There Rep-a Djau stood, his smile as wide as the river. Amenemhet saw the rep-a take Baketamen’s arm. Then a silent wind took his ka and bore it away.
* * *
Time passed. Dust settled on his eyes. His ka grew gaunt and listless. He found himself drifting through the streets, dragged again and again to the crowds at the tombs. He forgot his name and his purpose.
“You’re becoming like the rest of them,” a small voice observed. “You are fading. Your ka will forget what it knew, and all you will be able to do is repeat the same words all the other kas repeat.”
“Go away,” he said. But there was no force to his words.
The ka of the child continued remorselessly. “You will forget the map of the underworld. You will forget the path to the Land of Reeds. You will forget the words to speak at the gates.”
“Go away. Re no longer travels the underworld at night. His face is but a ball of fire in the sky. There are no demons anymore in the underworld, no Apep, no Amemet, no gates, no judges, no scales. There is no Land of Reeds.”
“Listen to yourself. You just repeat the words. Maybe Amun-Re is dead. Maybe Re no longer travels the underworld. That does not mean there is no Land of Reeds. You know the map, yet you will not follow the path.”
“There is no path,” he said.
“If you help me, I will help you,” the dead child said.
Amenemhet’s ka drifted, caught by a dead wind.
Time passed.
* * *
Something was pulling at him. Amenemhet realised he was at the tombs. Kas pressed tight around him. He could hear words coming from his mouth. “…are no demons anymore in the underworld, no Apep, no Amemet—” He cut off the words.
The ka of the child stared up at him sadly. “Your colours are almost gone. You are near to forgetting.”
“Then let me,” Amenemhet whispered.
“Your daughter is well. She has recovered from the fever. Your family now live in the house of your murderer. He speaks of marriage to your wife. Perhaps…perhaps soon your son will number among the dead. Your murderer resents that your blood flows in your son’s veins. Accidents are easy. I know.”
Already the words wanted to bubble from Amenemhet’s lips. Re no longer travels the underworld at night. His face is but a ball of fire in the sky… Instead, he said, “Help me.”
“Come, then,” the ka of the child said. “I will take you to one who can speak with the dead.”
* * *
The child led him down towards the river, where the poorest lived. Sometimes, in the inundation, these rough houses were swept away by the river. When living, Amenemhet had not come this way. The narrow streets stank of human waste.
The hut the child took him to had partially collapsed in an inundation. One wall was gone. The roof dipped towards the floor. Amenemhet dipped so he could see within.
“Come,” the child said. “To the living, she is deaf and blind.”
Amenemhet stepped into the dark.
“I see you, oh dead,” a voice said. “I smell your dust and I hear your pale breath.”
Amenemhet bent towards the sound. A crone sat huddled among rags.
“Who are you?” he said.
“No one you would know, oh grand hety-a.” She cackled. “So grand to come so low.”
“I was murdered,” Amenemhet said. “Rep-a Djau slid a blade into my throat and left me to bleed to death. You must tell everyone. They must know the truth.”
The crone rocked back and cackled again. “Who will listen to the words of an old woman against the word of the rep-a? They would throw stones at me.”
Amenemhet fell to his knees. “I was always a loyal servant of Ptolemy Philopator. Once, he touched my hand.”
“Go,” she said. “The kas of the dead have no place with the living. Go to the Land of Reeds or go to fade. I do not care which. You know the map of the underworld, and the child is a true child of Re. Between you, you can reopen the path once more.”
“I do not know where the path begins,” Amenemhet said.
“It begins where it has always begun,” the crone said. “It begins where life meets death, where they combine, and where life fails.”
Amenemhet stood. “I will not go while the rep-a lives. Justice must be done.”
“Then fade,” the crone said, “but bother my rest no more.”
* * *
The town was filled with celebration. Curious, Amenemhet followed the crowds.
Rep-a Djau’s house was surrounded by flags. Amenemhet heard music within. He passed through the wall. The child followed behind.
His wife stood on the top of the steps leading to the rep-a’s house. Beside her, Rep-a Djau stood, garbed in a wedding robe.
“He has married her,” Amenemhet said. He swept forward, his ka buoyed by rage. He pummelled his fists through Rep-a Djau. They had no effect.
He felt the dead wind try to lift him back towards the tombs.
The rep-a lent towards Baketamen. “Tonight,” he said, “you are mine.”
Amenemhet saw his wife shiver and a tear lay its trail down her cheek.
He drew back. His ka grew cold.
The ka of the child gazed up at him, her face sad.
Amenemhet looked up at Rep-a Djau. “I know where the path begins,” he said.
* * *
The dead were easy to lead. Their kas had become grey. They had lost their will. They could only repeat words. Amenemhet became his own dead wind. He passed through them, drove them, tugged them. And he taught them new words to repeat.
Slowly, the kas began to drift from the tombs.
A cold wind passed through the town, and even the living moved aside.
It reached the walls of Rep-a Djau’s palace and passed through them. The guests grew silent.
At the high table, Rep-a Djau stood, his forehead lining, his mouth growing tight.
The cold wind reached him. The dead reached him.
“Follow,” Amenemhet said. Behind him, the dead whispered their new words.
Amenemhet flowed up into Rep-a Djau’s heart. There the ka of the dead met Rep-a Djau’s living ka.
Grey dust fell from Amenemhet’s ka and drifted down onto the rep-a’s heart. Amenemhet’s colours grew. Ahead of him, he saw the path.
The ka of the child came next. Rep-a Djau clutched his chest as the cold touched his heart.
Then the river of the dead swept through him.
Amenemhet saw the grey dust fall from their kas. As each of them passed through Djau, they spoke the words Amenemhet had taught them: “I am Rep-a Djau. I am a murderer and a liar. The gods judge me. I have murdered hety-a Amenemhet.”
Rep-a Djau’s lips twitched. Sweat sprang from his pale face.
Still the dead came. Still they spoke the words.
Rep-a Djau stiffened. His head tipped back and the words poured from him in a scream: “I am Rep-a Djau. I am a murderer and a liar. The gods judge me. I have murdered hety-a Amenemhet.”
Then he fell.
The last ka to pass onto the path was the ka of Rep-a Djau.
Amenemhet took the hand of the child who had helped him. The map that showed the way was clear before him. The words to speak at the gates sat on his tongue.
“Come,” he said. “Together we will find the Land of Reeds.”
-The End-