24 Bones (11 page)

“Did you really believe that the Christians would steal the concept of baptism by water, the Egyptian symbol for matter? Or the concept of the Holy Trinity when most Egyptian temples were dedicated to three gods, all aspects of the one God. At Edfu, the temple dedicated to Horus, Horus is depicted slaying a hippopotamus, does that not sound familiar?”

“Saint George slaying the dragon … I know,” David murmured.

“Why would they steal these? Christianity is predicated on resurrection, as is the myth of Osiris. It is one thing to suggest that dates are selected as festival days to coincide with pagan beliefs and certain symbols are retained in order to, as you say, subdue the masses. But it is wholly another to adopt the mainstay of pagan beliefs in order to supplant them, especially since conquerors most often conquered in the name of religion.”

David’s chest tightened with schoolboy exhilaration.

“You said rewrite the Bible?” he asked. It had been proof of this that had brought him here.

“Yes,” Askari said. “Some of the language in the Bible agrees directly with the hieroglyphic-based texts, a language deemed to have been lost until Champillion made his translation of hieroglyphics in the nineteen
th
century. For instance, the
Ba
of a dead Egyptian, represented as a human-headed bird—”

“Angels,” David interrupted.

“Perhaps, but not my point. The
Ba
travels to the Hall of Ma’at, or to judgment. There it gives a negative confession against the commandments. Many of these commandments are similar to those provided to the Christian Moses. The
Ba
then states, reading the Book of the Dead, that he has given bread to the hungry man and water to the thirsty man and clothing to the naked person and a boat to the shipwrecked mariner. He gives answer to all the things that Jesus might ask a Christian at the gate to heaven.”

“If Christianity existed in such a rigid form independent of Egyptian myth, then why does it have such an Egyptian parallel?”

“Because it
is
Egyptian,” Askari concluded. “To a point,” he qualified.

“You said the Egyptians had four centuries of control over the Bible, what happened after that?” David leaned forward. His eyes glistened despite the fatigue and dehydration.

“The Copts broke with the Church. Coptic Christianity was the original bastion of ancient Egyptian thought.”

David recalled the newly completed mosaic in the courtyard before the Hanging Church; he remembered the pope admitting the link between the Copt faith and Egyptian myth. “Egyptian myth is alive and well,” David said
.
It explained why Shagar had helped him, but why did he show such fear of the tablet?

“Alive, but not well,” Askari commented grimly. “Not at its spiritual heart.”

“Then why don’t you tell anyone?” David demanded. “Christian fundamentalists say that theirs is the word of God and that the Bible is to be taken literally.”

“Each time a priest stands and teaches a parable, he promotes our beliefs. Why would we harm the very religion we wish to protect?”

David’s brow pinched together.

“A name is less important than a symbol,” Askari continued, “and facts and dates are less important than the myth.”

A light fired in David’s eyes, but it wasn’t religious understanding. If he could tell this story, if he could bring proof, it would make him a superstar amongst academics.

“So will you join us?” Askari asked.

“Askari, I appreciate this, more than you know. However, a few days ago I was a professor at a university, really happy, I’ve got a girlfriend I need to help, and although this is all enlightening, I don’t see how it affects me.”

Askari leveled his gaze at David and David flushed.

“Doctor Nidaal,” Askari’s mouth barely opened. “It does affect you. They may be trying to kill you because you are the Wedjat of prophecy.”

David rolled his eyes.

“And if we do not succeed, the consequences will reach your university and your happy life.”

“What does it do anyway?” he asked.

“The Spine of Osiris? You do not know?” Askari shook his head. “In the right hands, the chosen prophet will become an aspect of
him
. Osiris. He becomes a god.”

“And in the wrong hands?” David asked, his voice subdued.

“In the wrong hands, the wielder …” Askari looked up to the temple’s ankh in search of an answer. He turned to David with a puzzled expression. “He will become a corrupt reflection of a god, what the Christians call the Antichrist; the Muslims, Najjal.” A falcon called high above. “And I fear his first act will be to prove just how terribly powerful he is.”

Chapter Fifteen

H
aidar stumbled about his cavern home. His grumbles echoed like distant thunder as he collected objects: a waterskin, a knife, a flashlight.

Haidar had spent his sixty-three years in the light of Re. Born of a companion father; his father had instructed him from a young age, and he was baptized as early as was allowed, at age twelve.

Before hair had sprouted on his cheeks, Haidar had committed to protect the Fullness for as long as he lived. In sixty-three years, his greatest challenge had been the hardship of loneliness, the flood of thoughts, wants, and desires, against which he forced ritual, duty, and faith. Now with the tide running far out into black waters, thoughts and logic smashed the dyke of restraint and unleashed the demand for revenge. His father had been the High Priest of Deir Abd-al-Aziz, murdered at ninety-eight, three days past.

Haidar knelt at a table; the sundisc upon it had been his father’s. His fingers traced the hieroglyphs engraved in the oiled iron. The aten’s rim read:
Shelter is in his Eye. Horus’s victorious strength is in his Eye.
The power of Horus is in his Eye.
The central hole of the aten seemed to accuse him.

“Haidar, are you ready?” Three shadows filled the opening to his dwelling.

“Yes, Damurah, Ahmed, Saba.” The sundisc slipped back into its cracked leather sheath. “Are the others prepared?”

“Yes.”

“Rendezvous at Edfu. Go in pairs. Go now.” The last command echoed in the stark cave.

The dark deepened as he retreated to the shrine of Re, a simple sundisc sketched on the wall, also drawn by his father.

“Father, grant me your light in this battle. Grant me the strength to lead. Guide me to the hand of Re.”

Haidar’s nails dug into his palms, and then his heel ground into the dirt floor as he whirled and strode into the afternoon heat to join a march to war.

“How dare he split our force? Haidar threatens all.” Askari trembled as he paced the small sacred chamber of the deir temple. He had spared a brief moment for his disappointment before he accepted that Haidar was perceived as the greater leader. Then he had shoved his ego aside in favor of a controlled vent.

Fully eighty of the hundred remaining companions had departed with Haidar, taking all of the monastery vehicles and most those of the other deirs. Askari knelt on the floor and hung his head. He closed his eyes. The truth was, Askari wished he were at Haidar’s side.

He might be able to catch them; they could only be headed to one place. But one additional companion against the Temple of Seth would do little. Here Askari could rally the companions left behind and reach out to the others to lend them strength and skill.

He worked his jaw. The Shemsu Hor needed the complete Osiris to prevail. What remained of their portion of the spine was rolled within a piece of lambskin, tucked into his robe. The priority must be to centralize all pieces that remain. And then to attack. Everyone.

His grunt echoed.

“What now?” Faris entered.

Askari’s lips parted in surprise. Faris was like a son to Haidar, and Haidar had not told him. Faris’s eyes were bloodshot and the left one twitched.

“There is much we can still do, Faris. Let us not linger in injury while the scorpion prepares to sting.” Faris turned a tired eye on Askari. “Send Syf to Haidar. Tell him we will be ready when they have need.” Faris smiled weakly and then dashed from the temple, his footsteps light and quick. Askari hoped the high priests would agree to help Haidar, or be too busy embalming the dead to care.

Haidar
stood upon a fallen block of stone. Edfu, the Temple of Horus, was a long ride in the deir’s battered jeep, and it would be another day’s convoy to Cairo, but it was important that his men prepare fully.

Haidar’s eyes, black as onyx, met each of those of the gathered companions. The four-score men packed the narrow corridor at Edfu between its outer wall and the inner sanctum of the Temple of Horus. In ancient times, they would have walked up the eastern steps and wound upward like a falcon rises on thermals. The boat of Horus, called The Boat of a Million Years, would have sailed upon their shoulders, held aloft to catch the sun’s first rays.

Today, the group had paid the fifteen-pound entry fee per person and, after a raised eyebrow evaluation by the guard and a twenty-pound
baksheesh
, were allowed to weave through the tourists to the corner of the temple. Not thirty yards away, a guide addressed his group. Several of the tourists wore shorts baring half-moon buttocks and naked waists.

“This is our duty.” Haidar pointed to an image of Horus, regal upon his solar barque, his spear buried in a hippo. “Horus defeated Seth.” His voice carried and the tour guide flicked him an annoyed glance. “I have brought you here so that Horus may remember our confession in the Halls of Ma’at. We will not have the Book of the Dead to read from in our coffins.”

The companions raised their eyes in prayer.

“I have not committed sin,” they began in unison; “I have not stolen. I have not uttered lies. I have not committed adultery. I have not slandered. I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.” The men tilted their heads toward the sun; it did not penetrate the corridor, but fringed the upper bulwark with fire. “I have not acted with undue haste. I have not slain men and women. I have not cursed God.” They finished but remained staring at the light.

“Thy messengers hasten. Thy runners run. They ascend to heaven. They announce to Re,” Haidar chanted alone.

“Re Riseth,” the men cried.

The tour group stared. Some smiled and others raised cameras and phones.

“Seth. Spit of the wall, vomit of the brick, what comes out of your mouth will be thrown back against yourself,” Haidar yelled.

“Re Riseth,” his men called again.

Syf landed on Haidar’s shoulder, and the tourists gasped delight. His deft fingers plucked the message tied to her talons, and the falcon nipped at Haidar’s knuckles. When the small sheaf was unfurled in his palm, Haidar grinned. A weight fell from his shoulders as he recognized the note’s penmanship.

“Askari wishes that we run with Re and will be ready to channel the Fullness when we have need.”

Haidar turned to the bird on his shoulder and said: “Today is a good day to die.”

“Re Riseth!” the cry rose again.

“Deliver
the tablet and the Spine of Osiris or she dies,”
the note stated.

Askari kneaded a ball of dough. His fist pounded it into the kitchen’s stone table. Behind, a fire burned in the hearth.

“We will send another falcon, David, but do not leave. I cannot spare a man to protect you, and you will not make it alone.”

David’s sunburnt skin from his flight from Cairo cracked with each movement, his blisters oozed, and his flesh burned in the ambient heat of the oven. Between his fingertips, the letter shook. Earlier that morning a one-eyed man named Rabah had delivered the envelope.

Inside was a note accompanied by a picture of Zahara. In the photo, her face twisted in anguish and her hand clutched tight to her breast—her naked breast. But that was not all. David had whipped away the waxen stub that had been Zahara’s thumb and then vomited.

“They kidnapped her because of me. I have to rescue her.” His eyes met Askari’s and held.

“You cannot take the spine, and you do not know where you are going.”

“Oh, they’ll find me, I am sure of that.”

“And then? You will hand over the tablet as a pair of hounds lunge from their handlers? As an ankh blade slips between your ribs?” Askari scoffed.

David paled beneath his burned face. In the photo, another of the weird dwarfs held a long blade over Zahara’s heart. He remembered the hounds well.

“But I must do something.”

“Haidar may well return with your friend, hope remains. In the meantime, join us, you cannot help uninitiated, but it may be that you can be useful unconnected, carrying water or bringing food.”

“I don’t understand. You’re going to pray for them or something?”

“You are not a companion. Untested, you cannot reach the Fullness.”

“What do you mean? I have the brand.” David moved to yank up his sleeve and reveal the folds of leathery skin, but Askari shook his head.

“In this, the way of Horus is unlike Christianity. Baptism doesn’t get you in.” Askari chuckled. “Even so, do you remember much more than your baptism?” David shook his head. “Your father baptized you at the age of eight, not twelve, against the wishes of the deir and against tradition.”

“You knew my father?” David whispered.

“Of course, he wasn’t of my deir, but I knew him from Akhet ceremonies.”

David pondered this revelation.

“Why did he baptize me so young if it was against tradition?”

“No one understood, we suspect his mother was one of the Sisters of Isis and he fell prey to their plans. I’m sure you know that no one can ask him now.” Askari watched David.

“He committed suicide to atone for me.”

Askari started in surprise. “I’m sorry, but that is not true.”

“My grandmama told me so.” Confusion fogged David’s thoughts.

“No, David, your father didn’t commit suicide,” Askari spoke quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“Your father was murdered.” David leaned forward, fingers white against the butcher block. “Your father died in a bed filled with scorpions. Scorpions are poisonous, but it takes a great number of stings to kill. He was murdered.”

“By whom?”

“The Sisters of Isis are known to keep scorpions.”

David squinted.

“I’m sorry, but your baptism was false. You were not old enough, nor were you ready.”

David nodded slightly and jerked back to face Askari.

“What is this Fullness, is it like reaching nirvana?” David asked.

“Life is a cycle, and energy has movement. The Shemsu Hor were once considered demigods because they could connect with this energy and control it.”

David lifted a dubious eyebrow. The
Heru Shesu
, or Shemsu Hor, were a predynastic legend. Most scholars could count the references to them on one hand, the clearest from the walls of the pyramid of Unas and from the Turin Papyrus as part of a funerary ritual. But there was no sign of them in any text that wasn’t a reference to something five thousand years earlier. He couldn’t believe that so much time had passed with such power undocumented.

“Individually we have some strength,” Askari continued. “Together, and with the focus of others, we can wield greater power. This is the power of the Osiris. The Osiris can draw from uninitiated others, primal or human, simply bleeding them of their psychic energy and amplifying that strength, weaving, and binding it.”

David held up both his hands and laughed.

“Follow me.” Askari wheeled and abandoned the dough, leaving it in a dusting of flour as he strode from the kitchen. David slapped his palms on his pants and followed.

“Do you prefer any particular weapon?” Askari asked when David had caught up.

“A bow, I guess.” David shrugged.

“Your father’s choice.” Askari veered toward the temple. When David hesitated at the door, Askari waved him inside. A feeling of peace blanketed David as he crossed the threshold. He couldn’t attribute the balm merely to cool shade. Askari turned to his left and entered a small chamber, its sunk-relief work depicting the familiar battle scenes of Horus and Seth. When Askari grabbed one of the squares of relief, he pulled it from its socket and lowered the slab to the ground. He removed three additional stone panels and revealed a much depleted weapons rack.