Cursed Times - What Now?

Chapter 10 - Forbidden Chamber

By now, Metjen knew how the grave robbers must have felt when they desecrated the resting places of their Pharaohs. But like them he simply had to get what he came for even if the penalties for discovery were drastic. Committing the position of the documents in the bowl to memory, he picked up the top one, unrolled it and started reading.

There was not much text, it seemed to have been ripped from a bigger document and he memorised it swiftly, suppressing the questions that exploded in his head when he read the name Imhotep. He put this one aside and unrolled the next which was in a scrawl hard to decipher as well as blotched in places. But otherwise it appeared remarkably intact, and he committed it to memory as well. 

'From Amasis to Iseret. I am the last one left as we spent our blood to seal the access. My powers are fading with my life and I can only pray what I hear is true and I am not making a mistake in calling you. We have passed on the message to our children but if they will succeed I know not. I implore you to come and guard my body so that my ba will not lose its home.' 

The last sentence ended in a line that raced off the page, so vehemently had it once been scratched down.

There was a note in the corner, in Iseret's neat cursive script which was at odds with the chaos in the chamber.

'Shrouded in the Shade of the Eye of Horus, near the Western Hills of Waset. May your ba live on forever.'

With burning cheeks, Metjen rolled up the second papyrus and placed them both back in the bowl exactly how he had found them. He floated his ka through the room and felt no trace of his presence. It would have to do, and he swiftly retreated back outside—where he nearly collided with the solid presence of Khafa who guarded the entrance. Khafa's sister Nefer watched over the door to the ceremonial chamber where most of the others huddled in prayer. Trueth appeared to be pacing the corridor, biting her nails.

'Where is Nebmutef?' Metjen asked.

'Outside,' Khafa said. 'He wanted to warn us if she came back. But she never did.'

'Call him back in,' Metjen said. 'I'll tell only him so that you're not in danger by knowing something you shouldn't. Actually, I'm not convinced this is going to help us much.'

He hurried towards his cubicle at the front, where he was joined by Nebmutef and Trueth, who had staunchly refused to be left out. Metjen waited until his mentor had lowered himself on the single seat cushion next to his treasured scrolls, and then dropped onto his cot. Trueth regarded his personal statue of Ra in the corner with a frown and leaned against the adjoining wall.

'I found two letters, one is from Imhotep in his function as a counsellor to Pharaoh, greetings etcetera, they have built the pylon of hope, all was ready—and there it ended. That papyrus was of a make I have never seen before, certainly not from the Old Kingdom.' Metjen continued to tell him of the content of the second letter and Iseret's comment.

'That is all?' Nebmutef asked.

'That's quite enough, don't you think so?'

Trueth sat down with a thump in the back of the chamber. The priests regarded her quizzically.

'Oh, never mind me,' Trueth said. 'It's just—I think I was right about the ambling mummies. Iseret must be one—why else would she bury people in a city that doesn't exist and get post from Imhotep?   And don't tell me she's not dead yet, it still makes no sense. The possibility alone that a person could be that old and still be running around boggles the mind. At least that would explain the, eh—troubles she seems to be having?'

Nebmutef and Metjen stared past each other and shrugged their shoulders in unison. 

'I'm not sure how old the second papyrus was, it sounded quite modern. My father could get it carbon-dated, but I can't remove it from her chamber. Waset is the old name for Luxor, and she hates anything to do with modern Egypt,' Metjen said. 'And that first papyrus she most likely  got from somewhere else as it was not addressed to her. It was torn off another document,' he added. 

'In any case it doesn't get you any further.' One could trust Trueth to spot the fly in the resin.

'It does! I take her comment to mean she has put a veil on the tomb—a veil I can locate. Once I spot the veil we have the tomb. And I'm fairly sure it will contain more clues.'

Metjen bid farewell to the brothers and sisters, telling them he had discovered information he had to pursue, in his absence Nebmutef would guard the temple. Eventually, he emerged to the surface with Trueth, who threw herself down on her knees to kiss the desert floor and raised her face towards the sun.

'We'll make a priestess out of you yet,' was Metjen's only comment.

He woke up early the next morning after spending a confused night full of nightmares, the aftermath of which was still constricting his bare chest — and made it vibrate. Metjen unglued one eye, wondered why he had bothered and established that he was not haunted by the echoes of his dreams. Instead he faced a contented Mish-Mish who greeted his resurfacing with a wide yawn, blasting fish-breath straight into his face.

Metjen decided it was time to get up.

To say that his parents were not happy about his exploits in Iseret's chamber and the results it had yielded was an understatement of monumental proportions.

'You must have been totally out of your mind and what on Earth possessed Nebmutef to coax you into such lunacy—I always thought he had a brain in that shiny skull of his?' was the more coherent part of the professorial ravings. They were born of concern, so Metjen did not engage.

Mother was more preoccupied with practical aspects. 'Are you sure, dear, that you can locate this tomb at all? And if so, can you do it without attracting attention from Iseret—by the way do you know where she is?'

As to that, yes, he was fairly sure he could find it and enter the same way he had got into Iseret's chamber. It all depended on the strength of the veil she had used to protect the tomb. Otherwise, Iseret was wherever she always was when she left the temple. Whereever that might be. It could not be anywhere near, for it took her days not hours to return. At least he was fairly sure of that.

He prompted a further explosion by mentioning that he would like to take the twins. His announcement that Trueth also was to participate in the expedition seemed to reassure at least his mother. 'Yes, but she sees things,' was the enigmatic comment. That was true—she had a private version of Hollywood in her head, complete with light and sound effects.

When Trueth found out that she was to board another aeroplane to get to Luxor, she was visibly ready to put those effects to good use. Eventually, she accepted the argument that an hour in an airplane was preferable to an extended stay under the Feet of Ptah. For the return journey, they would avail themselves of a Nile boat belonging to a friend of the family.

Amid the entire hubbub Metjen nearly forgot something. He dashed back into the house while their taxi was waiting outside, opened the safe in a hurry and took the scarab ring, which once had belonged to another Amasis. In fact, he was convinced the person writing the letter was also the same who once owned the ring. Otherwise, it would have been too much of a coincidence.

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If you enjoyed this chapter, please do make sure to let me have your feedback - and your votes!

'Forbidden Chamber' was written before I met the fellow author this chapter is dedicated to - but it was so obviously meant for her:@Cinilla, the official scribe of Publius Claudius Pulcher! Her stories are in much better shape than Iseret's chamber, do make sure to check them out!

In case you wondered what happened to the tomb robbers: Death sentences were quite rare in ancient Egypt - but these criminals were either burnt or impaled in the desert. They also risked destruction of their bodies and thereby total annihilation of their ba.