CHAPTER ELEVEN
Give me a mouth. I want to talk. Give me my severed legs and I'll walk. Give me hands and arms and fists and I'll shout and curse. I'll crush the skull of the snake. Throw open the door of heaven. Perhaps Ra has two jawbones to give me. He'll open my blind eyes, straighten my bent feet. He'll give me legs and I'll rise. I'll rise. By heaven I'll walk. I know my heart. It stirs within me. It throbs in my right hand. Blood quickens beneath my skin.
Give me my heart. Let it pump again life's power in me, infuse my hands and feet with spirit. Give me my heart. Let me rise and walk. I am quickened. No more sleep. No more dream. No more death.
--Excerpt from "Giving a Heart to Osiris", Egyptian Book of the Dead, as translated by Normandi Ellis
The wind howled through the corridors of the pyramid, racing towards the center, racing towards the altar, racing towards her. Eliana spun around, grabbing for the spear, when she saw that the star at the end of the shaft was glowing, bathed in a soft, glowing whiteness. No external source illuminated the star—the light emanating from it was internal, a gentle, radiant glow that grew and brightened, and began to dance and flicker like something alive. No heat came from it, but it looked warm, and as it brightened to an almost blinding intensity, Eliana had to shade her eyes and turn away.
Through eyes narrowed to slits, peering through her fingers, Eliana watched as light from the star began to gather in upon itself, becoming narrower and narrower in focus, until all that was left was a thin, laser-like beam of pure, white energy, still as bright as the original light had been, but now channeled and targeted outwards—towards the floor, and towards a seal there, a seal that no one had yet noticed, a seal bearing the name of the great god, Amun-Re. As the light struck the seal, the sound of the wind died away for a moment, and the pyramid was cloaked in a hushed, waiting silence.
With no warning, a clap of thunder reverberated through the entire structure, shaking it to its foundation, and the wind came rushing towards the temple sanctuary again, howling and screaming with even more force than before. The sound was terrifying, as though a thousand banshees had been released from the pits of hell. Leaving the spear behind, Eliana made a dash down the steps and gathered the robe and her flashlight, looking around frantically to find somewhere, anywhere to take cover. But it was too late.
The gale-force wind howled down through the tunnel, and into the room, knocking the flashlight from her hand and plunging the room into darkness. Clutching for a handhold somewhere, anywhere, she staggered towards the wall of the chamber as the wind continued to rush past her, the sound of it screaming through the room like the roar of a million freight trains. Unbelievably, the torrent gained even more force, and Eliana was knocked off her feet, rolling across the floor, still clutching the robe with one hand, but the other hand scrabbling madly to find some handhold, something to hang onto to stop her insane flight. Her tumble was cut short when her left temple struck the pedestal of a statue of Anubis, and her body crumpled to rest at the feet of the god, the ebony robe still cradled in her arms, the world going black around her.
Gathering force, the wind somehow began to coalesce into a swirling column above the black, empty pit that surrounded the island of the altar. The tornado swirled faster and faster, the howling gathering more and more intensity as the gyration continued. At the base of the column of wind, a red dot began to glow, widening and spreading forth throughout the pit like a bloody stain. A rift in the very fabric of space and time, the red ooze spread like gangrene on diseased flesh. Disembodied screams emanated from the murky ooze, and to an observant eye, what almost looked like human hands and bodies began to appear in the evil glow, writhing and twisting in the grips of some infernal torment. Demons, too, appeared, fangs and claws pulling and tearing at the tormented prisoners.
Yet even as the stain of this hellish vision spread, the white light that extended from the spear to the seal on the floor bounced up and hit the column of whirling air dead center, and where it hit, a glowing ball of pure, healing energy began to take shape within the column of wind and extend downwards towards the living hell, bathing the writhing demons in a clean, bright sunlight that they shrank back from as if touching a living flame. Screaming in agony, cursing in vicious rage, the demons backed away from the light, ceasing for a moment to care about tormenting the human forms within their midst.
As they loosened their grip on their victims, the white light coalesced around one of the forms, cradling it almost lovingly and surrounding it with an impenetrable barrier of pure brightness. Finally, the demons realized what was happening, and they shrieked with impotent rage. Fear cast aside, they swept in a fury towards the light and the still form within it—surely the enemy was not within their midst, stealing one of their own! This was beyond anything they had experienced before—it was unheard of, it was unspeakable, it went against every law—natural or supernatural, the laws of man or of gods. These imps from hell were to be unfettered, unrestrained, unstoppable in the torment they heaped upon their prisoners. But now, one was being carried off, taken away, removed from their reach, and they were enraged.
Mindless with fury, they hurled their deformed shapes against the light, screaming in impotent rage when they were hurled back yet again by the wind, falling with terrible finality into the pit. With its prize securely enfolded in its protective barrier, the light began to gather itself in again, retracting back from the pit and rising into the whirling column of air. As the light became centered once again in the whirlwind, another resounding clap of thunder echoed through the chamber, and the connection between the two dimensions was severed. Like water going down a drain, the evil red glow swirled around the vortex, in ever narrowing circles, until at last it winked out of sight, leaving nothing behind but a faint trace of sulfur in the air.
Secure at last from the clutches of the pit, and its hellish inhabitants, the human form, still enfolded in the light, was borne up into the whirlwind and carried to the altar. Building in intensity now, the light began to gather around and over the figure, surrounding it and almost permeating it with its glow. Its purpose fulfilled, the whirlwind subsided and the howling wind died down to a gentle breeze, fading once again to still air. The form on the altar jerked once, twice, and then lay still, as the light became a radiant glow that surrounded and hid the body from sight, but continued to bathe it in healing, loving warmth.
And after three thousand years, Imhotep, cursed high priest of Osiris, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, outcast and damned by the same society that had once worshipped him almost as a god himself, finally knew peace.