The Pharaoh Key

37

GARZA STOOD IN the half-light of the wedding tent, staring mutely at the young woman with her back turned toward him. He could tell, from the shaking of her shoulders, that she was quietly crying. He began to advance toward her through the striped shadows, then stopped. Normally, he was a man who acted quickly, without excessive deliberation or self-doubt. But now he felt uncharacteristically at a loss. It was not, he realized, because of the language barrier between them, although that was of course partly the reason. It was more the speed at which his life had changed. So many things had happened, in such quick succession, that he realized he was completely unprepared for the role that had been thrust upon him: a chief-to-be in this strange distant land, comforting his bride of only a few days, who possessed a language he barely spoke and a culture he only remotely comprehended. The engineer in him would have taken one look at this problem; calculated the probability of finding a solution; and then given it a wide berth.

But gazing upon this weeping woman—who had, in her own way, taught him as much or more in just a few days as he’d taught the entire tribe since his arrival—Garza did not feel like an engineer.

He did not know what he felt, exactly—except for pity. Pity, and the certainty he could not let this woman grow dependent on him; after all, he’d be leaving in one week. It was a horrible thing to do to her, but he could see no way out.

But now her shoulders shook more violently and, instinctively, Garza stepped forward and gently put his hands out to still them. Immediately, Jelena turned toward him, kohl-colored tears running in dark rivulets down her cheeks, and buried her face in his chest.

“Malagdaya,” Garza said, slowly and awkwardly. “Malagdaya, samu Jelena pinishti, rak…rak’shona.”

For a while they held each other, and then Jelena slowly disengaged herself from him, collected herself, and dried her tears. She looked gravely into his eyes. Extending her arm, she placed her hand on his chest. “Epourou,” she said quietly, with a commanding dignity. And then she placed the same hand on her own chest and repeated the word—Epourou.

Her meaning was clear.

Gideon tightened the leather belt that held the dagger to his chest as he hurried out of their tent, Imogen at his side. They were late for the funeral ceremony—at least, that’s what he assumed it was. The entire encampment was turning out in their finest: saffron robes edged in bright blue, with necklaces of bronze coins; festooned daggers and spears; hair greased with goat fat. A quarter mile away, at the trailhead for the path leading to the Home of the Dead, a group of bearers stood, supporting a litter that carried the body of the chief, which was covered with a shroud and surrounded by sprigs of fragrant herbs. It was midafternoon, the sunlight filling the valley and glinting off the freshly polished weaponry and jewelry of the gathering crowd.

“A funeral cortege,” said Imogen.

“That was my guess,” said Gideon. “You have to bury them fast in this heat.”

As they hurried down the path, Gideon spied Garza near the head of the assembling throng, next to the litter and surrounded by various tribesmen. He looked troubled. They politely but firmly worked their way through the crowd.

Gideon touched Garza’s arm. “Manuel,” he said, his voice low. “This is an awful development. But you realize what this means—right? I’ve taken advantage of the distraction to get the last of the saddlebags. We just need to finalize a plan—and a backup.”

Garza shook his head. “Can we talk later, please?”

“Like when? We can’t take a chance on—”

“It’s a funeral,” Garza interrupted. “Do you mind?” Somebody was pulling at his sleeve and Garza turned toward the man, then disappeared. Already, it seemed the tribespeople were beginning to treat him with the deference befitting a chief.

Gideon felt Imogen pull him back. “Can’t you see he’s grieving? If not for himself, then for his wife. Give him a little space.”

Her whisper was cut off by a high-pitched chant from the crone, her withered arms raised to the sun. She was flanked by the four priests in white robes, with long, grizzled, forked beards. They were each wearing a curious garment that looked like an apron. Their heads were bowed.

Lillaya spoke something—instructions to the crowd, as far as Gideon could tell—and the people began to fall in line, gathering for a procession to the tomb. Garza reappeared with Jelena and joined the front of the procession. Another singsong cry from the crone started the crowd moving. Several warriors then helped Lillaya into a sedan chair and she joined the slow-moving procession, directly behind the four bearded priests.

Soon a mysterious music rose up. He could hear what sounded like lutes, wooden flutes, rattles, and voices swelling in doleful song, all to the mournful cadence of a drum.

“Those lutes,” whispered Imogen excitedly, glancing back at a group of musicians. “Identical to ones found in King Tut’s tomb. And that sistrum—again, exactly like one in Tut’s tomb. Incredible! This whole scene seems frozen in time from the days of the pharaohs.”

The procession moved forward, at an agonizing shuffle, down the trail into the shadowy ravine leading to the Home of the Dead. The cavalcade strung out along the narrow way, and it took nearly an hour to reach the valley that contained the tomb they had helped build for the dead chief. The litter carrying the body, trailed by Garza, Jelena, Lillaya, and the priests, came to a halt before the peculiar raised table Gideon had noticed on his first visit to the valley. The stone table had long, narrow grooves carved along its edges. Apparently, it was going to serve as the stage for part of the coming ritual.

The crowd encircled the table at a distance. The wizened priests came forward while two workers transferred the dead chief to the table. The priests surrounded the body and began to lay out a series of bronze tools alongside it, many of them resembling crude surgical instruments. Meanwhile, the musicians continued playing, the sound of their ancient music filling the canyon and echoing off the cliffs.

A priest picked up one of the tools and held it toward the sun, his forked beard wagging as he intoned some sort of prayer in time to the dirge-like melody. The tool was a long hook, with a thin, sharp, spatula-like blade at the end. He heard Imogen draw in her breath.

Now the priest approached the corpse and gently propped its head on a wooden cradle. Another apron-clad priest came up beside him with an alabaster jar and knelt down. With a ritualistic motion, the first priest inserted the hook into the dead chief’s nose, sliding it in until it encountered resistance, and then—with a sharp blow—he jammed it through the cribriform plate and deep into the brain. He gave it several deft twists. As the kneeling man held the jar below the corpse’s nose, the priest withdrew the hook, making additional twisting motions that caused a portion of the corpse’s brain to gush out in semi-liquid form, which the second priest neatly caught in the jar.

“Nice,” Gideon murmured.

“Shh,” said Imogen, watching with fixed attention.

With several additional insertions of the hook, the priest scraped out the rest of the brain into the jar, and it was set aside with a protective lid.

Now the priest picked up a curved bronze knife and made a deep cut along the left side of the chief’s abdomen. A dark liquid immediately began to flow out, running down the grooves of the table and into a catchment basin below. The priest reached deep into the body cavity, knife in one hand, and much to Gideon’s disgust he appeared to rummage about inside, making a series of cuts as he did so. Finally, he withdrew his gory arms, cradling the chief’s heart in his hands, and carefully placed it on the stone table. He then removed the other internal organs—the stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, spleen—which he meticulously arrayed around the body.

The haunting music and the endless booming of the drum continued unabated.

When the body cavity was empty, two long-robed women approached the table, each carrying a tall clay amphora. One poured a dark liquid from her amphora into the cavity—Gideon caught the scent of wine—and the priests used linen cloths soaked in the same perfumed liquid to wash out the inside of the corpse. With more rolls of white linen, they carefully dried the body cavity, then proceeded to cleanse and wash the corpse with scented water from the second jar. The two women removed the amphorae, then returned with a series of bowls heaped with dried, ground spices of various bright colors, which the priests used to dust the inside of the body.

They then performed the same process on the heart, washing it with wine and carefully covering it with spices.

A priest now held the heart skyward; the music ceased; and in the resulting silence the priest intoned a prayer. He wrapped the heart in a linen sheet and placed it back in the chest cavity. Two men carrying long, coffin-like boxes came over and set the boxes down on either side of the corpse.

As the music swelled once again, all four priests removed the box lids to expose a white, crystallized substance. Using brass trowels, they first shoveled the loose material into the corpse, packing it well, then piled it over and around the body, heaping it up and pressing it firmly in place until the dead chief was entirely covered with a snowy heap of crystals.

Finally, with great deliberation, the four priests went around the table, washing the internal organs with wine and packing them in more of the white crystals. The music died away, the head priest offered another long prayer, and the ceremony came to an end just as the sun sank below the surrounding cliffs.

Imogen leaned toward Gideon. “What you just saw,” she said, her voice trembling with excitement, “was the ancient Egyptian ritual of mummification. That white stuff is natron. What an incredible thing to witness in the twenty-first century.”

In that moment a harsh voice from above split the air. The entire crowd looked toward it. Gideon frowned; this interruption was clearly not part of the ceremony. There, standing on top of the ridge at the head of the valley, flanked by a band of heavily armed warriors, was Mugdol, astride a camel. He made his way slowly down the path, his warriors following, and came to a stop on a small rise about twenty feet from the assembly. Lillaya spoke sharply, but he overrode her with a gesture and a sneer of disrespect. There was a murmur of displeasure from the assembled multitudes, but Blackbeard’s forces stepped forward, raising their spears and daggers menacingly, and the voices subsided.

Mugdol opened his powerful arms wide, as if to embrace the tribe, and silence fell. He began to speak, slowly, distinctly, in a powerful voice that echoed the length of the valley, shaking his weapons as he did so.

“What’s he saying?” Gideon asked Imogen.

“I think he’s telling them he’s the rightful chief; that Garza’s a usurper, an outsider.”

“Uh-oh.”

Mugdol continued to speak and gesture, finally pointing a powerful arm at Garza, accusatory finger trembling with rage. The crone shouted again and a restlessness gripped the crowd. Now Jelena cried out sharply to Garza, and the cry was taken up by some—but not all—of the assembly.

“Jelena is urging Garza to stand up to Mugdol on her father’s behalf,” said Imogen. “Most of the villagers want him to as well. But a few…seem to agree with Mugdol.”

Gideon looked at Garza. He was still standing in the forefront of the procession, Jelena at his side, confusion and anger on his face.

More shouts as those near Garza surged around him protectively. Blackbeard dismounted, drew his dagger, and came forward menacingly.

“He’s announcing that he’s the chief now,” Imogen explained to Gideon.

The hubbub grew. Some people drew their daggers as if to block Blackbeard’s path. Garza seemed paralyzed, as if uncertain how to respond to this development. Some in the crowd, led by Lillaya and Jelena, were now calling to Garza, clearly urging him to meet the challenge.

But Gideon knew that Mugdol and his men were too heavily armed. It would be suicide. He caught Garza’s eye and shook his head. No, no, no.

That did it. Garza brusquely turned away and made a backhanded gesture of dismissal at everyone, Blackbeard and the villagers alike. He strode away, the crowd parting, and climbed the trail out of the valley.

With a great laugh of contempt, Mugdol waved his dagger at Garza’s retreating form, shouting insults. His warriors followed suit, shaking their spears and jeering. Garza ignored it and vanished over the ridge. His sudden disappearance seemed to demoralize the assembled multitudes. Voices were raised in surprise and bewilderment. Jelena looked stricken.

Mugdol raised his hands again. “Ti saji pinishti en ouroh! Empear moshi alla heamsi!”

“I am now the Father,” Imogen translated. “Death to the coward usurper.”

As Mugdol continued the harangue, his warriors fanned out to contain the restless crowd. It was looking ugly—very ugly.

“I’ve seen enough,” said Gideon, grasping Imogen by the arm and hurrying her along through the seething crowd. “We need to find Garza and get the hell out of here—before our heads really do end up on spikes.”