| |
The desert air outside the tomb was hot as a furnace. Inside the cooler dark enclosure, a black scorpion edged along the lintel, lost its grip and dropped. It slipped off Randy Bilovna’s hat and down the back of her shirt. The insect’s exquisite sting provoked the archaeologist’s screams. Rolling on the sandy floor, she crushed her tormentor and afterward lay sweating in a trance. She had a terrifying vision.
*
SHE SAW A CREATURE with the body of a well-formed man and the head of a long-eared dog. In back of that figure was a female with the same dog’s head but with a woman’s breasts. The language the male dog spoke was ancient Egyptian, which Bilovna knew well enough to follow its meaning.
“Why have you come here to disturb the souls of the dead?”
“I came seeking wisdom. It is my passion.”
“Death is wisdom. Perhaps death is why you came?”
“Was the scorpion your agent?”
“I don’t know what nonsense you’re talking.”
The female with the dog’s head touched the male’s arm. She said, “Anpu, harvest her soul. She has broken your laws. She is subject to your curse.” She smiled at Bilovna, baring her teeth and running her tongue along her upper incisors as if eager to feast.
“I know nothing of your laws or your curse. I don’t want to die. Maybe I could return where I came from and tell others your story.”
Anpu’s head cocked to one side. “Anput, nothing would be gained by our seizing this mortal’s soul. I’ll tell her about the law and the curse. If she ever returns, we’ll take her soul.”
Anput shook her head in disappointment. She asked, “What specifically do you want to know?”
“I want to know what law I have transgressed?”
Anpu smiled. “Everything is in the Book of the Dead.”
“I know that book well, but in it is nothing about your law.”
“Know that the Book does not reveal everything literally. It is full of secrets that only priests and priestesses can understand. Do you know that the great river of tides divides the land of the living from the land of the dead?”
“I searched Luxor for wisdom, and I know it is the land of the dead.”
“Luxor is so much more. It is the land where mortals go to separate their souls, or ba, from their bodies. They are accorded every honor and trained for the next great step from mortality to immortality.”
“What is the purpose of the four jars?”
Anpu looked at Anput. When he turned back to Bilovna, his eyes were red.
“Those jars are to contain the four organs that once, together, housed the mortal’s soul. They can be reinvested in the mortal’s rib cage in a second life.”
“Not for many centuries has that tradition been practiced.”
“What is a century from the perspective of eternity?”
The woman felt a chill run up and down her spine.
“Has any soul reentered its mortal body after death?”
Anput snarled, “That is for us gods to know.”
Bilovna felt insects dropping on her body from the lintel like a constant rain. When they hit, they crawled on her chest, arms and thighs. One scorpion traced her eyelids, its stinger raised and bobbing back of its head. Bilovna realized the insects were a message extending the conversation by other means. She lay very still and let the creatures play.
“At the end of human life, mortals come to Luxor for rest and reflection on the afterlife.”
“I’ve read they paid enormous funds to the religious community for this privilege.”
“We gods need no payment, but we honor tribute.”
“You are known as Anubis in the small community that studies you.”
“Studies? How can you remain fixed on papyrus scrolls and presume to know what I am?”
Bilovna relaxed took a deep breath. As her chest raised and lowered, the insects adjusted their positions. She decided she would ask the god the questions she had always wondered about.
“When mortals’ souls leave their bodies, where do they go?”
“This is clear from the Book. They are transfigured to the heavens and reside in stars.”
“Are souls happy there?”
“They know no pain, as they did always in life.”
“How do souls return to earth to reclaim their bodies?”
“They come to me and my consort.”
“And how do you judge which to grant passage back to earth from the stars?”
“I grant as I wish. There are no criteria. There are no rules that bind a god.”
The mortal felt a brush along her body. Someone was brushing the insects off. She could not tell what else was happening except by feel since her eyes were fixed on Anpu and his consort.
“What’s happening to my body?”
“You wanted to know the truth. I’m prepared to tutor you. Anput will assist since she understands a mortal woman’s mind.”
She felt Anput’s hand on her forehead and saw the goddess’s red-hot eyes gazing into hers.
“Be calm, mortal. Stand back and witness the procedure. I, Anput, will go with you and return. You needn’t fear.”
Bilovna trembled all over as Anput’s hands felt every inch of her body. She felt many hands lifting her body onto a cold stone slab. Those capable hands removed all her garments and applied ointments that first felt cool and then tingled.
“I feel as if I am lying on a cold, flat stone.”
Anput grinned and nodded. “Can you translate your eyes to a position above my right shoulder? There you may watch what will happen.”
Bilovna strained. Her eyes seemed to pop out of her head and stood above Anput’s right shoulder looking down at an eyeless, naked woman on a slab. The figure was surrounded by muscular slaves, wearing cloths around their waists and sandals on their feet. They used sharp, flint knives to carve the woman’s torso to extract the vital organs. They used special instruments to extract her brain. All the chosen organs, they put in jars and sealed the jars with wax. They lifted the eviscerated body and carried it to a steaming vat.
Bilovna flinched as her body entered the bubbling naphtha. Strangely, she felt no pain. Her eyes watched as the slaves used sticks to press the floating mass of body into the liquid. She saw on a dais above the boiling cauldron the figure Anpu watching every ritual action, apparently willing each in turn.
The woman could not see Anput. Anput, though, seemed to know what she was thinking.
“You won’t see me as long as you’re looking over my shoulder. If you want to see me, just translate your eyes to the painting on the ceiling. There Bilovna saw white stars painted on a dark blue surface representing the heavens.
The woman struggled to shift her perspective. Once on the ceiling she looked out from the brightest star to see the dog-god Anpu and the dog-goddess Anput on either side of the cauldron in which her gutted body had been thrust.
Anpu raised his hands and spoke.
“Now in this place, you look from the stars to the earth to watch what happens to your useless body and organs. Do you feel pain?”
Bilovna thought about what she was feeling. “I am free of pain. I did not feel it when the slaves cut out my organs and placed them in the jars. I did not feel anything when I shifted perspective from earth to the stars. Yet my soul is still in the tomb where it started.”
Anput laughed like a hyena. Anpu frowned at his consort. She became silent and sullen.
“Do you understand the lesson I have taught?”
“The line between the body and the soul can be transitioned without pain or apparent effort.”
“That’s a mortal’s view. How do you feel about shifting perspective to the stars?”
“I’m not sure I gained any greater or more profound understanding from that transition.”
Anpu snapped his fingers, and Bilovna now saw the tomb from the perspective of being above the dog-god’s right shoulder. She heard Anput snarling, as if in jealousy. When Anpu walked up the stone stairs of the tomb and into the harsh desert sunlight, Bilovna’s unlidded eyes burned with the illumination.
On the ground, a family of hyenas was ripping apart the human corpse of Bilovna’s partner Elsa Vulgrada, who was still alive and shrieking. There was nothing Bilovna could do to help her friend. She wondered whether Anpu could assist. He read her mind.
“Yes, I can help, but you must make a promise.”
“Anything. Please. But help.”
Anpu waved his right hand. The hyenas dropped dead. Vulgrada was bloodied and panting but still alive.
“As a mortal, you surely know my power now.”
“What have I given you in return for your having saved my companion’s life?”
“You’ve promised me your soul.”
“What? Now?”
“I can revive the hyenas so they can finish the job they started.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“Are you ready for your next lesson?”
“Will you restore my friend to her former condition?”
“If you accompany me, yes.”
Bilovna felt helpless. She nodded her acquiescence.
Her eyes rose rapidly through the air riding on the shoulders of the god, who did not stop at the end of the earth’s atmosphere but soared to the high heavens beyond the blue orb that surrounded the earth into the star-filled blackness of the sky.
Bilovna now was translated to a star far distant from the earth. She could not tell which star was the sun she had always known. She felt invested by celestial light. Around her were the wonders of the heavens in all imaginable colors. She was at peace, finally. She felt as if she had arrived at her original home.
Bilovna spent what seemed an eternity observing her surroundings. Once she had become accustomed to her position in the heavens, she felt frightened that Anpu may have left her.
“My lesson was to show you what lay in your immortal future. Do you understand?”
“I do understand. Will you take me back to the tomb where we started?”
“Yes. Observe how your perspective changes as we translate across the distance.”
Bilovna was overwhelmed by the swift shift back to the earth. She saw the sun and the planets. Then she saw the Nile River. When she saw Anput’s snarling face, she knew she had returned to the tomb where she had seen herself eviscerated.
Anput flew at Anpu in a rage.
She said, “You’ve broken all your own rules.”
He replied, “You’re jealous that I took another woman on an excursion.”
“I’m jealous you took a mere mortal’s soul prematurely to the stars.”
Anpu shrugged. “Now I’m going to do something you’ll go apoplectic over.”
“Are you going to overturn the natural order where gods hold sway over humans?”
“You know I can’t do that. Rest assured, I’ve exacted a price for what I’ve done.”
“What could possibly be worth it?”
“You’ve endlessly complained you have no priestess left on earth to offer you prayers and sacrifices.”
“Mortals have lost the true religion. But they’ve suffered as a result.”
“Bilovna will reverse all that. She’ll be your priestess and slave until she comes to this very place again for her translation to the stars.”
Anput smiled. She realized the meaning of the priceless gift her husband had given her.
“Bilovna, get back into your organs! Our slaves will reintegrate those with your partially mummified remains. I, Anput, will restore your life.”
The priestess watched as the words of Anput reassembled her mortal self. Her eyes went back into her own head.
*
SHE BLINKED IN THE dim light of the tomb.
On the floor of the tomb Randy felt Elsa tugging at her arm.
“Randy, wake up. Are you all right? It’s getting dark. We should return to our tent. Hyenas come out at night here. If we stay outside, we’ll be eaten. What have you been doing all afternoon?”
“I’ve been stung by a scorpion. I must have lain here since I passed out from the pain.”
“That’s awful. I must have fallen asleep outside. I had the most terrible dream. A family of hyenas were devouring me alive. A great dog came and killed the hyenas. It was a very close thing. Can you imagine what it’s like to be eaten alive?”
Randy let her friend help her up. The two women went up the stone stairs into the desert night.
Back in their tent again, Randy wrote down in her notebook everything she had experienced while she was in her trance. When she finished, she proof-read her work. Then she handed her record to Elsa.
The text was written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Elsa read the account straight through without commenting. When she had read the entirety, she stood and threw her arms around her friend. Tears streamed from both women’s eyes.
“Oh, Randy, what are you going to do now?” Elsa asked.
“I’m going to offer a prayer to the goddess Anput. Will you join me?”
Randy Bilovna sunk to her knees and began to pray in the ancient Egyptian language.
Elsa Vulgrada prayed with Anput’s new priestess while outside the laughter of roving bands of hyenas mocked them in the night.