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The air was filled with the smell of blood.
Amunet could taste the metallic essence of it on her tongue, mixed with palm wine, cedar smoke, and incense.
The priestess strode through the large mummification room of Hamunaptra, screams from the Osiris priests echoing through the subterranean chamber as their tongues and organs are ripped out. She wiped away the tears from her face, smearing her makeup.
She could barely focus on the torturous havoc surrounding her. Since arriving in the City of the Dead, she had tunnel vision; only able to see what her target was. The chill of the Eastern desert evening didn't shake her from her thoughts. The sight of the constellations sparkling in the heavens above her didn't distract her like they usually did. Someone could have thrown water on her, and she would have kept walking through the embalming space, her focus on the sight ahead of her unwavering like nothing had happened.
Following her were the only people left she felt she could trust. Guards walked on her heels, the scowls on their faces directed ahead of her. They would stay with her through the whole night, protecting the very air she breathed.
Amunet approached the coffin being tended to in the corner of the room. The priests of Anubis, with their black jackal masks imitating the God, wrapped a large form with wide linen strips. His mouth already covered, the living man moaned in protest.
She held up her hand, golden bracelets jangling on her arms. "Halt," she said to the Anubis priests just before they began to wrap his eyes and ears. She was a terrifying omen in crimson, normally pin-straight locks of hair were inky tendrils from sweat and tears falling over her garbed shoulders. Foreboding shadows from the torchlight and fire pits behind the Hathor priestess cast her in darkness. "I want him to hear me."
Lifting the black Book of the Dead, she reached for the key in a pocket within her robes. She unlocked the book, cradling it in her arm as she turned the thick tablets for the correct set of spells. A curse: the Hom-Dai. She looked straight into the eyes of the man the jackal-headed priests held.
"T'et an nut, qem-nef t'ai," she began. Her voice weighed low and heavy in her throat. "Ba-f aha em meter er-f. Sep-f maa her ma-khait ur. Qem-entu betta-f, het-f arit, sem-f ker re-f nekau t'er un-nef tep ta. Beta-f, seker-f, ker-n. An ertat-f sekem em amenta."
A flurry of emotions stormed within the sinner's eyes. Anger, defiance, fear…
He deserved this. After everything he, and his lover, did, this monster would be cursed for all eternity.
The priests continued wrapping his face, finishing their job as the Amunet continued. "T'etu-a am-f embah neter aa neb tuat." She grew angrier, fire and poison biting into every word as her voice shook. "Khesef-tuf, senar-tuf em amenta…" She continued the enchantments as they laid him in the coffin.
Amunet had never performed this curse before. No one had ever performed it before. And as she read from the pages, she understood more underlying reasons as to why. The fire in the room seemed to flicker and shake, as though an invisible, impossible wind blew through the room and made the shadows crawl along the walls. It made the room seem darker than it was. A deep, low humming reverberated in her ears. It was as though the Gods were trying to drown out her damning, cursed words.
But she refused to stop until the curse was complete. This despicable person needed to pay for what he did.
She stepped back from the open coffin where the subject squirmed, trying in vain to break through his restraints. The priests held out a large jar and removed the lid. She watched as they poured a swarm of chittering, flesh-eating scarabs onto the panicking subject. As the scarabs scuttled over his body, the only things she heard above her enchantments were his muffled screams, then silenced by the laying of the lid over the coffin.
As they chiseled off the sacred spells from the lid of the dark human-shaped coffin, she finished the curse and slammed the book shut. Flicking her crimson robes, she spun on her heels, the guards at her back parting for her as she made her way through the chamber towards the stairs leading to the sands of the desert above.
They stayed by her side as they watched the sarcophagus being carried from below to the base of the Anubis statue watching over the city from the cliff it headed. They aided the Anubis priests in digging a hole deep enough to encase the traitor.
The Chief, Metjen, stood at her side, watching as they dug. Amunet turned and handed him the Book of Anubis along with the closed key.
"Ensure this is hidden away. For good. We cannot risk anyone coming to resurrect him," she said.
Metjen took the book and key from her, searching her eyes. He saw no life in them, no hope, and no joy. Only sorrow, vengeance, and despair in those windows to her soul painted dark amber, speckled with gold. Like tiger's eye gems. Amid all of his interactions with her, he never noticed how vibrant and beautiful they were. How captivating they were, as though they cast enchantments of their own. He finally understood.
He gave her a nod. "Yes, priestess."
Casting one last deathly glance back at the sarcophagus, Amunet's hand snaked up to clutch the turquoise necklace around her neck.
"We have avenged Pakhom, Metjen," she said, her voice breaking. Metjen pretended not to notice. "But our work is far from over."
She turned, heading towards the entrance of the city. Metjen followed at her side.
"What orders from the Pharaoh, priestess?" He asked.
Newly coronated Pharaoh Rameses II, distraught from having his loving father ripped from his life so viciously, had barely spoken to anybody since the gruesome murder. But having grown up with him and experience court life with the prince, he found in Amunet a comforting friend. And in him she found an easily persuaded authority.
Amunet closed her cloak over her body, starting to feel the chill. "As with the tombs of the Pharaohs past, the Medjai will guard the city, and its greatest secret. Rameses orders that his father's fortune and this monster are not to be disturbed. For all eternity. If we must, make the city disappear as though it never existed."
Metjen looked over the city. The gateway to the Underworld had never felt so ominous. While eternal life was only guaranteed to the Pharaohs, the dream of passing into the West to the Field of Reeds was meant to be a comfort. Knowing what would soon rest beneath the sands filled him with dread.
"Should he ever arose, the world will descend into darkness and death," Metjen said, as though he were trying to process the reality of the situation himself.
Amunet's tiger's eye gaze grew cold. "Your job is to ensure that never happens. The Medjai are no longer the protectors of the Pharaohs and the Egyptian people, they are the protectors of all of mankind from certain evil."
She touched his arm, noticing the familiar tattoos. Her heart began to break all over again. "Do it for Pakhom." Her eyes watered with tears upon saying his name. How she wished she could be held in those strong arms one last time. She turned back towards the statue of Anubis, the God's furrowed brow made his gaze seem like a warning. "Imhotep must never rise."
I tried to weave in some actual history here, since the film is a little shabby regarding it. The ancient Egyptian in this chapter are pieces of spells that I pieced together from passages in The Book of the Dead transliterated and translated by E.A. Wallis Budge. They are as accurate as I could possibly make them. Definitions below:
T'et an nut, qem-nef t'ai, qem-nef t'ai: saith he that is in the tomb, he hath been found an evil-doer.
Ba-f aha em meter er-f: his soul standing as a witness.
Sep-f maa her makhait ur: his sentence is right upon the scales great.
Qem-entu betta-f: hath been found wickedness in him.
Het-f arit: hath he done harm in deed.
Sem-f kher re-f nekau t'er un-nef tep ta: hath he let go with his mouth evil things whilst he was upon earth.
Beta-f, sekher-f kher-n: hath he sinner, hath he done evil in respect of us.
An ertat sekhem em amenta: let not be allowed to prevail in the west.
T'etu-a am-f embah neter aa neb tuat: may I speak with it before the god great the lord of the underworld.
Khesef-tuf, senar-tuf em amenta: may he be repulsed, may he be turned back from the west.
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