Tut (2 page)

“I won't,” Horemheb said. “You'll die, and I'll take the throne like I should have in the first place.”

“You! Ha! You were never worthy of the throne,” I said. “You're nothing but the son of a lowly consort. You're hardly even royal blood.”

I must have struck a nerve, because Horemheb lunged at me with the knife. I jumped to the side. Except my tomb was tiny. There was nowhere to jump to. I fell against the entrance and barely had time to roll out of the way as the outer door to the tomb came crashing down. It made my bad situation worse. I was now going to be stuck in here forever.

“I was doing everything you asked,” I said, trying to distract him, still gripping the sword, preparing to strike back. All I needed was one good shot at him. I'd trained with the best of the palace guard in all types of fighting since I was five years old.

“You were doing nothing.” Horemheb's voice echoed off the hard limestone walls, making it all the more evident it was just him and me, sealed inside tons of rock. “I warned you about a religious revolt, but you refused to listen. And now here it is, Boy King. Welcome to the revolution.”

It couldn't be a revolution. The priests hated me, but the people loved me.

“You're wrong,” I said.

Horemheb laughed with a grating noise that made it sound like sand was stuck in his throat. “Why do you think the guards didn't come save you?”

It was a really good question. They hadn't done anything. And where were they now?

“They will,” I said.

“They won't,” Horemheb said. “Your entire palace guard was killed. And even if you manage to find a way out of this tomb, there's no throne for you to return to. You've officially been relieved of your royal duties.”

“You can't do that!”

“I already did,” he said.

I rushed forward, sword in hand, ready to take off his head. But Horemheb was more nimble than his gawky height led me to believe. He kicked the sword out of my hands. It smacked into a torch on the wall and fell near the tomb door. And then he thrust his knife forward.

I skipped to the side just in time, knocking the only other torch from the wall, and casting the tomb into darkness. Deeper into the tomb I fled, down a passageway, ignoring the shouts from behind me, until I ran smack-dab into a wall. My head spun, but I hurried to my feet … only to trip over a giant pile of walking sticks. There had to be at least two hundred of them. I stood up and immediately fell over a chariot wheel. Great Osiris, this place was loaded with stuff, cast all willy-nilly everywhere. There had to be a weapon around here somewhere.

“There's nowhere to hide, Tutankhamun.” Horemheb's poisonous voice taunted me.

He was right. My tomb was tiny. That had been Horemheb's idea, saying my humility would please the gods. I ran for the burial chamber and squeezed past the sarcophagus. Images of me covered the walls, looking all regal with my long, brown hair flowing in waves behind me. Above the sarcophagus, on a shelf, sat the four Canopic jars that were supposed to contain my stomach, intestines, lungs, and liver. The tomb builders had already painted the sarcophagus with an image of my face. The peaceful look was exactly the opposite of how I felt right now. I had to find a sword.

I dragged my eyes away and came face-to-face with Anubis.

“Holy Amun!” My yell could have woken a mummy. But then I realized Anubis was just a statue. It was the fact that he didn't move and didn't answer that gave it away. Still, his golden jackal eyes followed me as I slipped around him, daring me to invade the treasury he guarded. Which, of course, I did.

Torches lit the treasury room. Shadows bounced off the walls, reflecting light off everything. The treasury was loaded—floor-to-ceiling gold. Not that this impressed me, but for anyone who'd never seen the stuff, it was enough to cause temporary blindness.

“Oh, Great Pharaoh! We thought you would never come.”

I looked down and almost tripped over the army of little men congregated there. There had to be hundreds of them. It looked like they were made of baked clay, and each stood about six inches tall. Some master painter had probably spent the last two years painting each of them differently, varying clothes and hairstyles and even eye color. There were blue ones, golden ones, even solid black ones. They were my shabtis, placed here to be my servants in the afterlife—where I would end up soon if I didn't find a way out of this mess.

“We are here to serve you,” the shabti in front said. Maybe he was their leader; his clothing was painted golden, he towered over the others by at least an inch, and he looked like he might be made of granite. “Give us your command.”

I guess if I really had been mummified and in the tomb, an army of servants—one for every day of the year—would have been convenient. But now wasn't the time. I had bigger things to worry about than stepping on small clay men.

“Thanks for offering, but I'm kind of busy right now.”

They all fell to the ground. Only the leader dared lift his head to speak. “How have we offended you, Great Pharaoh? Shall we take our lives? We only wish to serve.”

I shook my head. Really, timing was everything. “No, it's nothing you did.”

The leader's face didn't move.

“I swear. I just need to find a way to kill Horemheb. A knife or something.”

At this the leader's head perked up. “A weapon! Great Pharaoh would like a weapon.” He snapped his granite fingers, and three battalions of ten shabtis ran off into the piles of treasures. It wasn't ten seconds later before they returned, loaded down with twenty different knives and swords and things. Now I was beginning to see why the priests put these little guys in tombs after all.

“Will any of these do?” the leader asked.

“Submitting to Set is the only way, Tutankhamun.” Horemheb's voice sounded like it was just on the other side of the sarcophagus. He let out a laugh that chilled every follicle on my skin. “As a favor, I'll make sure you are properly mummified.”

I figured I better hurry if I wanted to keep my guts out of Canopic jars. I bent down to examine the weapons. Like the sword, they were mine—things I used on a regular basis. Part of me wanted to grab them all and shove them into my tunic, but I didn't figure that would help. So I grabbed the longest, pointiest knife of the bunch.

“And this, Great Master,” the shabti leader said.

Two shabtis stepped forward, holding a golden box over their heads. They flipped it open, and inside I saw the scrolls of the
Book of the Dead
. It was the single most powerful religious object in Egypt. The priests swore that spells from the
Book of the Dead
actually worked. That the spells summoned the power of the gods. But I'd never seen the magic or the power of the gods. All I'd seen so far was death.

I took the scrolls. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Use a spell, Great Pharaoh,” the leader said. “‘The Judgment of the Dead.'”

“The spells don't work.” Amun knows, I'd tried enough times.

“They will,” the shabti leader said. “You must have faith in the gods.”

Since I had nothing else, I figured I might as well give faith a shot. If the spell actually worked, it would give Horemheb a one-way ticket to the afterworld. And when his dead heart was judged by the gods by placing it on a scale and weighing it, there was no way he'd pass on to the Fields of the Blessed. He'd be eaten by the crocodile goddess, Ammut. I, on the other hand, would be free to find a way out of this tomb and figure out what I was going to do about Egypt.

“Faith in the gods,” I said. “I'll give it a try. May you live your days in the Fields of the Blessed.” I wasn't sure if shabtis went to the Fields of the Blessed, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

“We are here to serve you, Great Pharaoh,” the leader said. “Give us your next command.”

“Nothing now.” Unless the shabtis could disembowel Horemheb and magically transport me out of here, I needed to do it myself.

I ran into the burial chamber and set the box on the sarcophagus, flipping it open. I uncurled the scrolls, found the right spell, and started chanting the words, making sure I pronounced each word correctly. I wanted to give the gods every chance to help me.

Nothing happened.

“You understand that I had to do it, don't you, Tut?” Horemheb sauntered into the room, acting like he was already pharaoh in my place.

I wasn't sure what he was talking about: killing my family, ousting me from the throne, or destroying every bit of trust I had in the world. I started the spell again. I chanted faster.

“When my son died, I was lost,” Horemheb went on. “But the gods found me. Set found me. He saved me from my despair. He showed me the future. I fought him at first, telling him it wasn't right. That your father shouldn't die. But Set insisted. Just as he insists I kill you now.”

I kept chanting even though at this point, the chance of the spell working was about the same as the sphinx coming to life. Horemheb lunged for me, grabbing me and pushing me against the sarcophagus. The scrolls fell from my hand. The lid of the sarcophagus slid open, and I just had time to look in at the golden coffin before Horemheb was on me, pressing me against the mummy case. The aroma of perfume mixed with incense crept up my nose until I forced myself not to breathe.

“Do you like what you see, little Tut? Are you ready to take your proper place inside?” Horemheb had me pinned like a scorpion under a knife.

Great Osiris, please don't let him mummify me. Anything but mummification.

“What's wrong?” Horemheb asked. “Don't you want to join your father in the afterlife?” He pressed his knife into my side.

“Don't you dare talk about my father.” I managed to get the words out even though my throat had constricted to about the width of a grain of sand.

A drop of Horemheb's disgusting sweat fell into my eye. I tried not to blink. That knife could be in my side faster than a cobra.

“Akhenaton was a fool to anger the gods the way he did. He brought about his own end.” Horemheb twisted the knife into my tunic.

“I told you not to talk about him. You're unworthy to utter his name.”

The
Book of the Dead
had failed me. The gods had failed me. I only had one option. I fumbled until I found the handle of my own knife, and I prepared to strike.

But Horemheb struck first, tearing his knife into my side.

My body reacted before my mind. I raised my knife and struck back.

 

2

WHERE I TALK TO THE GODS

I fell to the ground, vaguely aware of Horemheb falling to the ground across from me. The world slowed down. Giant drops of blood fell onto the scrolls of the
Book of the Dead
.

This was it. I was too late. I was going to die, and my only consolation was that Horemheb was going to die also. As I stared up at the painted ceiling, black mist filled the air, and words from the
Book of the Dead
twisted around in my mind. Days passed in that moment. Years. Time had no meaning. My body separated from reality and drifted.

The god Osiris glided up to me. I knew it was him because his skin was dark green and he had a funny pointed hat with some ostrich feathers perched on his head. The two harvesting tools he was always holding were tucked under one arm. At his feet, palm fronds and flowers sprouted from the ground, and insects trailed after him by the thousands. They swarmed me just as he reached down with one hand and pulled me to my feet.

“I can't be dead,” I said. Horemheb was back in my tomb. What if he wasn't dead? He'd rule Egypt and get away with his crimes. “You have to send me back.”

“You assume I can,” Osiris said.

“You're a god. Can't you do that?”

“You tell me, Tutankhamun. Do you think I have the power?”

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't been the most reverent pharaoh. The gods had done nothing for me so far in life except take away my family. But here was Osiris in front of me. And if there was a chance that he was real, I had to take it.

“I think you have the power,” I said.

Osiris grinned, so I figured it was the right answer.

“I knew you believed in me,” Osiris said. “Horus always said you were a good kid. Said there was something special about you.”

I highly doubted the gods were spending much time discussing me. I nodded so Osiris wouldn't think I was being rude and so he would get on with making me alive again.

“Are you ready for your future?” Osiris asked, waving his crook and flail in the air in front of him like some sort of witch doctor.

“I'm ready.”

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Osiris began chanting. A glowing orb appeared on his palm. It pulsed light like the beating of a heart. I couldn't stop staring at it, not even when he thrust his hands forward and shoved the object deep inside my chest.

I snapped back to reality. I was in the tomb, on the floor. Light poured from my chest, illuminating the ceiling above me. Energy filled me. The pain where Horemheb had stabbed me was gone. I touched my stomach, but the blood was gone, too. There was no wound. Osiris had healed me. He'd put the glowing object inside me.

I jumped to my feet. Horemheb was still on his back, and black mist pooled in the air above him. But the place where I'd stabbed him was gone, too. And just like me, there was a light coming from his chest. Maybe Osiris had healed me, but Set must have healed Horemheb also.

The black mist grew and filled the air, making the light coming from my chest bounce around everywhere. Horemheb got to his feet.

I ran for him, knife back in my hand, but this time, when my knife cut into his flesh, it healed over instantly. Horemheb started laughing. And then he took his knife and retaliated. My chest pounded, but not on the left where I usually felt my heart beating after running. This was in the center, where Osiris had put the glowing object. I pushed Horemheb away. Not only was there no pain in my side, I healed as quickly as Horemheb had. That stopped Horemheb's laughter.