Another Pan (44 page)

The treasury was plundered by the pharaoh’s greedy ministers, each of whom guided the pharaoh’s hand as he approved their many requests. Seti himself did nothing but feast, laugh, and play, shirking his responsibilities to the people
.

His seal was placed on a great many decrees in which he had no part
.

He passed a great many laws of which he had no knowledge
.

Soon, Seti’s mother discovered the abuses and excessive privileges of her son’s so-called helpers. She tried to step in and rule the nation in his place, claiming that since she was a member of the royal family, she could wield the pharaoh’s seal on his behalf. Seti openly agreed to this plan, for he loved his mother and took her counsel above any other. He was happy to be free from the responsibilities of government
.

Only a day later, Seti’s mother was murdered in the night. Seti, too simple to suspect his own ministers or nursemaid, mourned for many days. That is when Neferat placed
her favorite
in the sight of the pharaoh. Having been his nursemaid since his birth, Neferat was loved and trusted by Seti. He did not question Neferat’s motives when she told him to allow the girl to take his mother’s place in his heart
.

When Neferat engineered a union, the ministers did nothing to keep her favorite from becoming queen. Egypt was shocked by the strange marriage. People talked of Neferat’s influence over the couple. Soon, rumors of the supernatural began to surround the new queen. Neferat had taught her special ways — of thinking, of behaving, and of keeping her people loyal. The queen did not shy away from Neferat’s experiments in the mystical world
.

One night, the queen was spotted in a private moment by her personal guards, who whispered rumors to their own families. When the queen’s servants and handmaids left her chambers, satisfied that she had retired for the day, she made her way to her hidden pyramid, a secret hiding place that her mother had built. Here, she knelt like a common pauper and dug her hidden treasures out of the ground, dozens of vials of colorful liquid. Here, in this dark, damp pyramid, in a hole dug in the dirt, she mixed together a bubbling, writhing bath the color of blood. She lowered herself into this pit without ceremony, forgetting that she was royalty, that she was wallowing in dirt and excrement like a street urchin. This dark world required no fanfare. And so she closed her eyes, determined to bear the pain of the bath, a solution whose cleansing sting she craved daily now. A potion that blinded and mesmerized her people, bound them to her like opium, and made them forget their most fervent objections
.

At the same time, Neferat walked the streets of Egypt, whispering in every ear, stirring up restlessness among the masses. She instilled in the people a hatred for Seti and hopes of a new kingdom. And so, before long, Neferat had an army of supporters. We know not their reasons for hating Seti. Perhaps they disagreed with his policies. Perhaps he had grown too arrogant. Or, most likely, they thought him stupid and ineffective. But soon, their love of Seti’s new wife grew in proportion to their hatred for Seti. They imagined themselves prospering under her rule
.

A great battle was waged, a battle unrecorded in the history of men, for in this battle, women’s tricks played no small part. Some say it was a long and bloody battle between the armies of the pharaoh and the new queen, a takeover that should have made the history books. Others say it was quiet and that Seti was cut down with little fanfare, because he was sickly, nearly mute, and lacking wisdom
.

For reasons lost in the fog of time, Seti’s dethroning was not hard-won. The king himself put up little fight, dying quickly at the hands of his ruthless new wife. With Neferat’s help and the support of the people, the new queen brought Seti down forever, naming herself pharaoh. History never recorded the coup, for the queen ruled under the king’s name. Except the queen was not the equal of the king. She did not have his potential for greatness. She did not have Seti’s good heart
.

“Why isn’t it here?” Peter spat. He had ransacked the women’s living quarters, going through each of the ragged rooms one by one, tearing apart the ancient curtains and the porous, tattered wall tapestries. He had found mummies in each one, and yet none of them was Seti. He had desecrated half a dozen kings in half an hour, pulling apart sarcophagi twice as big as himself. Once, he had been so sure he had found it that he’d let out an involuntary cheer. It was a mummy propped up on a makeshift throne. Next to it reclined the bust of a nameless queen with a bitter expression. The golden face on the mummy’s sarcophagus was hulking and imposing like a king. This had to be the one: Seti next to a bust of the traitorous queen who had stolen his throne. But in the end, Peter had been wrong. There was no magic in those withered bones.

“Where are you hiding?” he said as he ran down another set of crumbling steps. He was distracted but he remained agile. Anyone else would have fallen into the enormous cavern that had grown beneath his feet, extending down from the ground floor into the unknown below. To Peter, it was like an invitation. A challenge from his nemesis. The Dark Lady herself was calling for Peter to come, to take a step into the abyss, and to dare claim the final prize.

On the day of Seti’s fall, the young pharaoh surveyed her kingdom — its fertile soil, its mountains of riches, the endless Nile. She was only a girl, yet she had managed to become a god-queen, feared and loved at the same time. She had supreme power, complete control. Yet barely a day passed when someone, some traitorous soul, wasn’t put to death for questioning her reign
.

The despot queen ruled for many decades. She was a famous pharaoh, known by Seti’s name, her path to power opened for her through Neferat’s trickery. She was cruel and menacing, ruling Egypt with a fiery rage that swallowed up the nation and made them a fearful people. Her first act as queen was to kill all the king’s ministers. She spent money zealously and brought the kingdom to the edge of financial ruin and war. By the end of her reign, the Nile was red with the blood of her victims
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She was a pharaoh that never should have been, an injustice, though unknown, that burned in the hearts of all of Egypt
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In the dark, hidden places of the cities, a rumor began to form . . . that the true king, the one that should have been, would have been good and kind. Fortune-tellers and sorcerers of the age said that they read it in the very air, in the sand, and in the sky. They claimed that if events had unfolded the way they should have, Egypt’s fortunes would be very different. They recounted tales of Neferat, words she had spoken that seemed so innocent at the time
. Ripples,
she had said
. That is what I like. That is what I look for.
Had she known all along the evil that lay dormant in her protégée’s soul? Stories of sorcery and witchcraft resurfaced, and soon people knew where to place the blame. It was the nursemaid, they whispered. She carried the dark spirit of the god of death. But by then, Neferat was long gone. With the taste of power on her lips, she was off to conquer other kings, to manipulate other great leaders with her bewitching devil eye
.

And so, Egypt nursed a bitterness in its heart
.

As for this legendary line, they came to the very brink of greatness, a greatness that would have freed them all. Yet, instead of having Seti’s redeeming goodness, their line ended without fanfare, their stories falling into legend. Seti died childless. Neferat, the last descendant of Hurkhan, disappeared, leaving no children behind
.

Though his rule hardly ever materialized, Seti’s body was mummified and entombed in the Valley of the Kings, as is customary for pharaohs. He received no ceremony, no riches to take to the afterlife, and few knew of the manner or precise day of his death
.

Peter climbed down into the abyss. He could feel the presence around him. He knew how close he was to having everything he’d ever wanted. He smelled the air. She was definitely close — he knew his old nanny’s smell. The space around him was growing narrower, and Peter knew that it was leading him to the tip of the upside-down pyramid, the very lowest point in the underworld. That would be where he would face his nemesis.

He took a moment to think about that prospect. Facing her. For all Peter’s bragging, he had never actually seen her — not since the days of his own Nanny Neferat. Since then, he had seen shadows and heard whispers. He had felt dread the likes of which he might never experience again. But he had never
seen
the Dark Lady inside the labyrinth. Did she really have the jackal head that Egyptians attributed to the death god? Not likely. Egyptian mythology was full of animal-headed things. Maybe it was just symbolism.

Peter had long ago considered that perhaps the foe he would meet in the end would not be a seven-foot-tall jackal monster from conventional Egypt books. The other four mummies had all been protected by people from their own stories. As Peter climbed deeper and deeper into the putrid hole, his mind couldn’t let go of the idea that maybe he was on his way not to the death god’s lair but to Neferat’s sinister playhouse.

The bitterness of so many wrongs — injustices to himself, his family, and his country — devoured Seti’s soul. And so he died with his life trapped in his bones. The goddess of death took the mummy of the true king and with it the most powerful bonedust of all — the one that would complete the others, opening the way to immortality. She shielded it with her greatest weapons, fearing that someday death might be conquered. The Dark Lady hid the mummy in a place where no one could reach it, a legendary labyrinth of the gates, guarded by powerful deities that no human could overcome
.

And so Seti was gone, his kingdom lost, taking with it Egypt’s chance at a good and just king. So many lives that might have been happy. So many needless deaths. A family that might have been redeemed. He can never fully die. His wasted life is forever trapped as grains of immortality in his bones
.