Chapter seven
I walked for a long time until I was alone deep in the desert, I then summoned a small flying boat I had created, it had a small awning to shade me from Ra.
I climbed in and left the ground for the first time in my life, I flew as high as I dared then sped across the city until I was over the great river.
I had looked at Lunu’s walls, temples, and buildings as they passed below me. They seemed small and insignificant to me now.
I turned my little boat and started to follow the river back to my home.
I soon learned my little boat could fly much faster than the fastest bird, unfortunately it would shake and rattle in the most fearful way. The flimsy awning would also catch the wind like a sail and start to tear.
I slowed down and kept the speed at a manageable level, I was still was moving faster than a sprinting man.
Watching the birds and crocodile’s in the river below me was mesmerizing. I would swoop down to take closer looks and scare the crocodiles.
I felt a bit guilty when the crocodiles would dart into the water out of fear, but at least they would now know how I had felt.
It took only two days for me to travel back to my tiny village, I landed a good distance away and walked in so the villagers wouldn’t be frightened.
I walked back to my parents’ house. I would finally be able to confront my father with what he had done to me.
I walked in the door and saw my eldest brother Geb, he looked much older and had fine lines around his mouth and eyes.
“Oh Kem!” he ran to me and then hugged me so hard it hurt.
“What has happened, where are father and mother?”
Geb looked at me with a sad expression, “It was the pestilence, they are both gone Kem.”
I felt my eyes fill with tears and my body shake with grief, “when?”
“It was a few months after you ran away.”
“Is that what father told you?”
“Yes, but none of us believed him, you were gone and he suddenly had a lot of gold.”
“I bet he just gambled it away,” I said suddenly angry.
“Oh Kem,” Geb hugged me again.
The pestilence had spared all my siblings but had devastated the village, many of my friends were now gone. I thought about using my new found power to resurrect them, but thought better of it.
I had the knowledge to resurrect people but had none of how to cure disease, I did not want them to die again inflicting even more suffering, sorcery was a fickle thing.
I spent the next week with my family but I soon realized that I had outgrown this place. I yearned to travel the land and unravel the mysteries of the world.
I wanted to see the monsters of the great ocean and travel to the edge of the earth.
I had conjured up a small bag of gold previously and chose now to give it to Geb, I told him I would be leaving and would be gone for many months.
“There is something very different about you Kem, I will not ask you where you got the gold but I will keep it hidden and use it with caution.”
I kissed him on the cheek and then left for my little boat.
I took off from the desert and headed west, I had made some repairs to my craft so that it was sturdier and I could increase my speed. I had also written a spell so that if I was to get hopelessly lost I would always be able to find my way home.
I sped across the great desert and its endless shifting dunes, I tried flying as high as I could but found that the winds became so faint and cold that I started to lose my senses.
It was only after a few days that the desert ended and an enormous ocean appeared. It looked endless for even at my great height it still stretched to the horizon. I knew from the scrolls I had read that this must me the great ocean that surrounded the land that we all lived on.
I felt a great deal of trepidation leaving the land behind, even with my newfound skills I still feared the unknown.
I noticed large shapes moving in the waters below me. These must be the monsters I had read about.
I swooped down my heart beating wildly, I had a spell ready in case they tried to jump out of the water to attack me. I knew they would be vicious predators.
As I got closer I could see that they were actually immense fish, they were the length of ten men. I watched as they swam in a very unfish like way, they would skim the surface diving and surfacing.
I watched in amazement as large spouts of water emerged from their backs.
They didn’t notice me as I circled around their little group, I’m sure I wouldn’t have provided much of a meal to them.
I flew back up and pointed my boat back on its course, I was off to the edge of the world.
I soon became an expert in reading the winds on the ocean. I had blithely flown into a tempest and was immediately pelted with stinging raindrops and blinded by enormous streaks of lightning.
The wind had roared around me ripping my awning to shreds and shaking my little boat.
I quickly learned to recognize the clouds and the large ocean swells that accompanied a violent tempest.
I flew on for a few more days becoming cramped and sore in my small boat. I decided I would build a much bigger flying machine when I returned. I knew the edge of the world could not be much further.
I passed over a few small islands and decided to set down one of them. I landed my craft on an achingly beautiful beach covered in pink sand. The ocean water was so clear it was almost invisible.
I stayed on the beach for a few days recovering from my cramped journey. I had never been alone for so long at any time in my life and it was both unsettling and exhilarating.
I became too impatient to wait any longer and took off once again, the earth’s edge being so close.
It was not even before half the morning had passed that I came upon a large land mass, it was covered with a dense forest.
I spent a whole week exploring it to see if was just a large island, all I was able to discern was that it was a thin long strip of land connecting two immense land masses.
I saw that the land was inhabited with dark haired men and women with broad faces and almond shaped eyes. I was not brave enough to land and meet them for the men appeared to be fearsome warriors, my flyer would just frighten them away anyway.
I again turned west and headed for the earths edge.
This time the ocean seemed endless, it was many times the size of the ocean I had just crossed, thankfully there where many small uninhabited islands along the way.
I was always careful to pick islands with little vegetation for some of the islands were occupied with the almond eyed people.
I passed a chain of islands that had tall mountains that spewed fire and smoke, I came as close as I dared. The immense rumbling sound and explosions of fire and smoke convinced me that it was very dangerous.
I knew now the edge of the earth was close for these mountains were obviously a warning to the foolish.
Again the ocean seemed endless, I flew around a tempest that was so large it took a whole day. I thought it must have been caused by the meeting of the wind and the void.
Exasperated, I started flying over land again, first large islands and archipelagos then a huge peninsula heavily populated with almond eyed people, they looked different though with thinner limbs.
I passed over a small ocean and then over another large land area, this time the people looked very similar to the people of the black land.
I saw many cows and idols of unfamiliar gods, I had a vague memory of a story about such a place, but it had been to the east so I dismissed it.
At last I came to another ocean, this had to be it, I had been voyaging for almost two months the end of the earth could not be any further.
I saw land once again, this time a large sandy desert that looked very similar to the great desert. I flew on.
A strange thought entered my mind. I dismissed it, I was too proud to believe it to be true. I had scoffed at the ki
ng’s vanity but could not admit to my own.
It was only when the great river came into view that I could fool myself no longer. The gods had tricked me. They must have been laughing at me the whole journey, this silly child trying to travel to the worlds end.
I felt tears form in my eyes, I wiped them away and sat up straight in my little flying machine. I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing my disappointment.
It was many years later that I realized that my real vanity had been to think that the gods had any interest in me. That the earth was an immense blue pearl floating in a void so vast and terrifying as to be almost unimaginable was not something I would ever have believed.
“That’s the end of the papyrus,” Charlie said.
“She sure screwed over that Ahmes guy, and how can it be easier to resurrect someone than it is to cure an illness?” Shelley asked.
“I think her captor got off lightly, if it had been me I don’t think I would have been so generous,” said Mohammad.
“It’s all magic, none of it makes sense. Let’s go to bed its getting dark,” Charlie said.
They woke up the next morning in a different room, the wooden floor was the same but the walls were all made of stone.
Shelley was the first to wake as usual and looked to see if Kemamonit’s sarcophagus was still there. It was.
She quickly dressed herself and walked over to the room’s entrance, the wooden door that had blocked it was gone.
“Oh my god!” she said as she looked out.
“What? What’s going on?” Charlie said as he awakened.
“Look!” Shelley pointed emphatically out the entrance.
Charlie walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder.
“Wow.”
He saw a panorama of temples, buildings and statues as far as the eye could see. He could see two large stone pyramids in the distance.
The buildings and statues were of a size and quality that he had never seen before in any of the ancient Egyptian ruins he had visited. The two pyramids looked to be a thousand feet high.
Mohammad woke up and got dressed as well, “what now?” he said.
“Why don’t we walk around? I wonder if there are people?” said Shelley.
“I guess if we stick together it shouldn’t hurt,” said Charlie.
“We better not get lost…” Mohammad was looking out the doorway.
The three of them emerged from a small stone building, behind it the panorama continued. There were roads and walkways constructed of smooth granite stones between the buildings.
They started walking towards a nearby temple constructed of colossal limestone columns that must have been a hundred feet high. They walked between the columns and then through a massive entranceway.
They emerged into a gigantic room with huge lifelike murals on the walls. The floor was smooth marble.
“It’s from one of her dreams,” Shelley blurted out.
“Do you think this whole city is from her dreams?” said Charlie.
“I know one thing, what she’s done with limestone is not physically possible. Limestone isn’t strong enough to build something in this way,” Mohammad said.
Shelley looked around the huge room,”ya it does have an unreal feeling about it.”
“There’s so much light in here too, but no windows,” said Charlie.
A cacophony of popping sounds started echoing through the room startling the three of them. They all turned towards the origin of the sound and saw a snowstorm of small colored pottery shards floating down from the ceiling. Some of the shards had pieces of colored string or linen attached to them.
Shelley put out her hand and caught one of the shards, she turned it around examining it. It had an eye painted on it similar to ones see had seen on the faces in tomb paintings.
The shard suddenly flew out of her hand and she watched as it and the other shards started to arrange themselves into distinct forms.
They saw the shapes of four young women standing in front of them. The shards with the bits of string had formed their hair, the ones with linen their skirts.
Each of the women had faces made of shards with painted eyes, a nose and a mouth.
A strange and unfamiliar music filled the room, it had a heavy percussive beat. The pottery women started to move in a complicated synchronized dance.
They started to jump and spin around them moving their arms and legs in sync with the music. They seemed to be aware of the three of them for they danced around them whenever they came close.
Mohammad took out his cell phone and used the camera to film them.
“They’re beautiful, they look almost alive,” Shelley whispered.
The music’s tempo started to increase and the women danced faster and faster until they were almost a blur. The shards then coalesced forming a small whirlwind in the center of the room, it disappeared the instant the music stopped.
The three were again standing in an empty room.
“That was interesting, “said Charlie.
They left the temple and walked to another building, it was also made of stone but looked more utilitarian, it resembled an aircraft hangar.
The entrance was many feet wide as they walked through they could see numerous wooden boat like structures of many different sizes.
They walked towards the closest boat, it was about a hundred feet long and had a gangplank leading to its deck. They carefully walked up the plank and soon stood on the large wooden deck.
They saw a wooden entranceway with a stair leading to the cabins below deck. They walked down the stairs and soon stood in a corridor with many rooms branching off from it.
Each room had a large stone heating grill similar to the one they had used to cook their meals. There was also a large opening covered in crosshatched wooden dowels there was a lever beside it. They could not see behind the dowels as it was dark.
Shelley moved the lever and a steady blast of air emerged.
“It’s a spaceship, or her attempt to build one,” Mohammad blurted out.
“Huh?’ said Shelley.
“She doesn’t know air is a gas or what a vacuum is, so she’s trying to compensate for the cold and the low pressure using these devices.”
“It wouldn’t have worked, a hard vacuum is a pretty nasty thing,” said Charlie.
“That’s probably why there are so many ships here, she kept trying new designs.”
They disembarked down the gangplank and boarded the next ship, it looked more sophisticated, with large sections made of bronze and the wooden planks fitted together with great precision.
The next ship was almost entirely bronze, there were many complicated unrecognizable devices made of wood stone and bronze in the cabins. The walls had small windows in them at regular intervals that looked to be made by using sliced naturally occurring transparent quartz rock.
“It’s like ancient Egyptian steampunk,” Shelley said.
“It still wouldn’t have worked, the seals on the doors aren’t good enough, and I wouldn’t trust windows with big fractures in them.” Mohammad said.
They exited the ship.
Shelley pointed to a ship that seemed to be made of mirrors, “look at that one.”
They walked over to a ship that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Hollywood movie. It was curved like a symmetrical jelly bean and had a large window in the front.
The skin was perfectly reflective, as good as any mirror they had ever seen. Charlie touched the ship with his finger.
“Weird, it feels like I’m touching my own finger,” he said.
Shelley touched it as well,”ya you’re right.”
There was a small set of wooden stairs in front of a wood framed entrance, the craft was hovering about two feet above the floor. They walked up the stairs and into the ship, they emerged into a large room crammed with ancient furniture and decorations. The interior was made of the same reflective material as the exterior.
Kem h
ad done her best to cover the floors with carpets and hang paintings on the walls to give it a homier feel. Unfortunately the walls could not hold pegs so she had used wooden hat rack like apparatus’s to hang the pictures.
Shelley walked up to one of the windows and touched it, it felt exactly like the force field in Kem’s sarcophagus.
There was a large podium like device made of wood and bronze in front of the window. It was covered in levers labeled with mostly unfamiliar writing. One of the levers had door written in hieroglyphic under it.
Charlie pushed the lever watching the entrance way. The wood framed opening disappeared and was replaced with a new mirrored section.
“This ship would have worked,” Charlie said.
“She abandoned material altogether and just used magic,” Mohammad said looking at the ships control panel.
“I wonder what she did with it?”
“I smell a faint odor of vomit so I suspect she might have gone into orbit,” Charlie said.
“Why vomit?” replied Shelley.
“Being weightless probably caused her to have motion sickness, plus if she wanted to go somewhere like the moon she would have had to withstand some pretty high g-forces which would have been almost as bad.”
“She sure was fearless.”
Charlie moved the door lever back to its original position and the wood framed opening reappeared. They exited the ship and then the hangar. They walked to another large building of similar shape and size.
The entrance to this building was much smaller about the size of a double set of doors. As they walked in they could see an aisle lined by on each side by wooden shelves.
They soon discovered the whole building was filled with thousands of different objects. There were numerous stone blocks in every conceivable shape, size, and material.
Charlie found an aisle with hundreds of plants and small trees all preserved in the same kind of stasis field that was in Kem’s sarcophagus.
There were chests, musical instruments, furniture, gemstones, weird mechanical contraptions, the shelves seemed endless.
“This is like a time capsule,” Shelley said.
“We have to stop this,” Mohammad suddenly blurted out.
“Stop what?”
“Exploring the city, it’s endless we could spend a lifetime here, we should finish reading the papyri first.”
Charlie had a thoughtful look on his face, “Mohammad’s right, we’re wasting time.”
“What if there’s a library?” Shelley said excitedly.
“I’m sure there is, but there are miles of huge buildings, we would never find it.”
The three of them left the warehouse and reluctantly walked back to the little building that held Kemamonit’s body.
They found a small park like space close to the building, it had a stone table surrounded by three stone benches. There was a large statue of Sobek made of some sort of dark rock close by.
Charlie had retrieved the next papyrus, he now unrolled it on the table weighted down the corners and started to read.
I circled above the great river for many hours thinking about what I would do next.
I had been foiled in my attempt to find the edge of the earth and the great sea monsters that I had seen were interesting but had not been the fire breathing fierce brutes I had expected.
I did not want to go back to Lunu, I feared that my disdain for Ahmes and the King might turn into something worse. If I saw either one I worried I would lash out in an instance of anger then do something I would regret and weigh down my Ka.
I realized that I was still not a very good sorcerer. The temple magician had described a rival to me once when I had assisted him.
“He does the grand illusions well, but they are easy, the audience is far away and they are only able to see from one angle. It is the close-up sleights of hand that show the true professional.”
This description fit me perfectly, I relied on simple brute force rather than finesse.
I decided I would build a secret place in a different cosmos and become a master at my new craft.
“What does that mean, different cosmos?” Shelley interrupted Charlie.
“I have never seen this word, that’s my best guess.”
This is where you are now, mysterious guests. This great city is the creation of nine years of practice and experimentation.
I learned many things here. I consulted wise men and women from all over the earth learning to speak many languages.
I traveled into the windless void trying to reach the moon, almost dying. I learned of the endless distances the gods had put the stars and planets making them unreachable.
I traveled the entire world finally realizing how stupid I had been thinking that the gods had somehow fooled me.
The world was like a child’s ball and the top and bottom were covered in vast fields of snow and ice.
I had only seen small pellets of ice fall from the sky a few times in my life and had thought the desert at night in the winter was an unbearable cold.
I laugh now as I think of the brutal and harsh lands I had visited that could kill a man in minutes.
I became a great sorcerer, but I could not overcome the one thing that had killed more men and women then any war or vain brutal King.
A vile pestilence struck me in my twenty fifth year, it manifested itself with a sudden violent pain in my abdomen, soon I was with fever and unable to keep any food in my stomach.
Sobek had been wrong, I would not be his last worshipper.
I was no different than my countrymen when it came to my imminent demise. I had already prepared my tomb and the spells to preserve my body as so many had before.
So now you see me, mysterious strangers, waiting for Anubis to weigh my heart.
Oh great lord Anubis opener of the ways,
If it is you who has read my story
My spells can be circumvented with the help of Sobek
My heart awaits your scale