the hieroglyphic bands covering the area of the hidden doorway, a task that occupied them far into the night—and would have taken far longer but for Khefri’s native facility with rendering the old symbols.
The next day they were back at work before sunrise. The more skilled workers were detailed to chisel away the plasterwork covering the doorway to the hidden chamber—but only after Thomas was satisfied he had matched every symbol against the rendering copied the night before. “I will save these to decipher at my leisure,” he explained, rolling up the last long scroll of paper. He gave a nod to Khalid, who commanded the workmen to ply the hammer and chisel to the wall.
“Do you know how to read them?” wondered Kit, watching as the first blow of the hammer erased a line or two of ancient pictorial text.
“It is devilishly difficult at best,” allowed Young, “but we are making progress. Each new discovery adds to our store of words, and the knowledge of the ancient text increases. There are some here I have never seen before, but I can foresee the day when we will be able to read the old script as easily as the daily newspaper.”
“The ones you have deciphered,” prompted Kit, “what do they say?”
“They seem to be prayers of a sort, addressed to various gods—invocations of protection for the tomb and for the Ka, that is, the soul of the deceased. Others seem to be petitions for guidance on the journey to the afterlife. Some of the writings I have seen undoubtedly show incidents from the life of the deceased—lists of properties and assets, descriptions of family members, notable events, and that sort of thing. Because we are beginning to see certain collections of symbols repeated in the tombs and on sarcophagi we surmise that the prayers seem to follow what we believe is a rote formula.”
Kit nodded. What little he knew about Egypt, he had learned in school visits to the British Museum. “From the Book of the Dead, perhaps,” he volunteered. A large chunk of plaster tumbled to the floor and smashed into pieces, disclosing bare stonework behind.
“Ah! You have heard of it. But of course you would. In your time, it must be very well known. Tell me, is Egyptology a well-studied discipline in your world?”
“It is very popular,” Kit allowed, thinking primarily of mummies and movies about mummies. “Archaeology is big business in the home world.”
“And do its practitioners solve the many riddles posed by hieroglyphic writing?”
“Well, I would say—” began Kit.
“No! Do not tell me. I should not know. It was wrong of me to ask. I have already pressed you far enough.” He smiled nervously. “Please, excuse my impetuosity. I sometimes forget myself.”
“No harm done,” replied Kit amiably. “What’s a little professional curiosity between friends?”
“All the same, professional curiosity could lead to some very unfortunate consequences. A single word might put time out of joint—if you see what I mean.”
“I might say something that would reveal too much of the future,” Kit surmised.
“And that could cause irreparable harm,” the doctor concluded.
“Or good.”
“I am not prepared to take that risk. Are you?” His gaze became intense.
“I suppose not,” replied Kit, realising he had been revealing whole reams of knowledge about the future from the moment he showed up. “Getting back to the Book of the Dead,” he suggested by way of changing the subject.
“In actual fact, its title is The Book of Coming Forth by Day. As I was about to say, we have yet to recover the whole text, but we have retrieved many portions and fragments.” The doctor paused a moment and collected his thoughts, then recited a verse from memory:
I wake in the dark to the stirring of birds,
a murmur in the trees, a flutter of wings.
It is the morning of my birth, the first of many.
The past lies knotted in its sheets asleep.
Winds blow, making flags above the temple ripple.
Out of darkness the earth spins towards light.
I feel a change coming.
My thoughts flicker, glow a moment and catch fire.
I come forth by day singing.
“That’s very good,” said Kit appreciatively. “I like that.”
“It is not about death, you see, but about rising to eternal life. For the ancients, death was simply an emergence—a coming forth—from darkness into the glorious light of a new and better day. They were fascinated by immortality—obsessed with it. As a civilisation, they turned vast resources to furthering their understanding of the afterlife in the hope of eradicating death entirely.”