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| Mysterious Ptah, British Museum |
They all
joined in a search of the walls and floors, as they hunted for hidden levers or
mechanisms that might open the doors, pressing individual blocks of stone,
running fingers between cracks.
Sound
above their heads put a stop to their efforts. Something was happening in the
ceiling. Anson listened. Hissing sounds. Small apertures had opened in the
roof. Red streams ran softly into the chamber.
"Blood!"
"Not
blood, after three thousand years." Daniel bent and scooped up a handful.
He sniffed it. "Clay dust," he muttered.
It wasn't
blood, but it could kill them just as surely as any liquid.
"It's
symbolic blood, dry red clay from Elephantine,” Anson said. “The red is
haematite, iron oxide. In ancient legends red clay often took the place of
blood when mixed with wine or water. I think this dust represents the blood of
Osiris."
"If
we don't get out of here soon, it will choke us," Kalila said, giving
voice to their fears.
They
redoubled their efforts to find a lever. They ran their hands like nervous
spiders over the walls.
The
powder-blood flowing into the heart gathered in piles around their feet. The
streams were running faster.
Kalila coughed.
Fine dust filled the air. It would suffocate them long before it covered their
heads.
"Keep
looking!" Daniel urged them.
"There’s
nothing," Kalila said.
"It
is a mechanical trap," he insisted. "There must be something that
will open it again."
Were they
going to die, choking in blood? Anson looked up. Was it possible to climb out
of here? He searched for a beam or projection, something they could use to hang
a rope from the ceiling? Nothing.
Anson went
on watching the streams of red dust particles falling from the ceiling. Then
the world brightened as an idea floated down to him.
“As light
as a feather?” he said. “What human being is so innocent? That’s it. No human
being is that light. We have to change ourselves, take on the forms of the
gods. Before the dead can go on to take their place in the realm of Osiris,
they had to say a spell that would change the parts of their bodies into the
parts of gods.”
His eyes
swept around the walls at the carved reliefs of the gods and goddesses, the
torch beam turning the dust into clouds of blood.
Red dust
piled up around their ankles. Anson felt the dust tickling his lungs. Daniel
covered his mouth with his shirtsleeve, spluttering.
“What were
the parts that must change?” Anson said.
He banged
his forehead with the palm of her hand, trying to jolt his memory.
“Think,
brain. Think. The Chapter of Coming forth by Day. The Papyrus of Ani...”
The red
dust turned the air into a blood storm, as if blood had already filled the
chamber to its roof.
“There’s
no way to open that door,” Daniel said.
“Then
we’ll all die, unless we can think of a way,” Kalila said.
“I’ve got
it, I think. We’re going to need a bit of divine help,” Anson said. The powder
blood billowed up into their faces and seeped into their clothes. He waded
through it, sinking up to his ankles.
“Am I
right?” he said, with a rasp of dust in his throat.” Is there an order to
this?” He reached the wall. “ The dead must take on the parts of the gods.
Which gods and in which order?”
The powder
was in their lungs and it tasted metallic like blood.
Anson
recalled the prayer of the papyrus of Ani.
“My eyes must become the eyes of Hathor...” he
said.
Hathor
stood with a crown of cow horns and a solar disc between them, her lithe form
rippling in the blocks of stone. He reached up to Hathor’s face and pressed the
eye. A block grated back into the wall.
He
twisted, face alight with relief. “I haven’t lost my touch. We’ve got to choose
the parts of the gods and so change ourselves. Each part of a human body has to
become a part of a god... The eyes of the dead must become the eyes of Hathor,
his face the face of Ra, his cheeks the cheeks of Isis, the backbone that of
Seth, the buttocks of Horus, the phallus of Osiris, the thighs of Nut, the feet
of Ptah...”
Each part
had to change into a god...
(Excerpt, The Smiting Texts, first in the series.)
