Flesh and Stone
By Jacob D Magnus
Copyright 2011 Jacob D Magnus
We'd just got the block, a thousand tons of limestone, in line with the ramp, so we could shift it up to the base of the pyramid. Snofru was in front of me, and he was starting to wheeze again. "Get your breath," I said, and took his rope along with mine. He patted my shoulder in thanks as he walked back down the ramp along the row of sweating men. The strain made my lungs burn, but we were close to the top, and I was sure we could do it, and then Unis tossed away his lever and sat down on the sand.
"Pick up that lever," I said, and felt the slack leave my rope. We all felt the strain, as the block lost balance, and tried to return to the sands. "Pick it up, Unis!" The block began to slide away from us, and I called, "heave," and we held it for a moment, before the weight overcame us. The massive block slid away from the ramp, and back into the earthen trail we'd made to bring it from the distant quarry.
"Call out," I said, and the men shouted their names, one by one. Anubis had been kind, no one was hurt past a bruise, but may the gods forgive me for what I wished on Unis when I found him sitting in the shade of the stone.
"You fool," I said, brushing gritty dust from the linen cloth about my waist, "you've ruined an hour's work, and you could have cost a man his leg. What were you thinking?"
"You work too hard, Pepi," he said, shading his dark eyes and squinting up at me.
"You slow us all, you son of a biting fly."
"Pharaoh is a god, remember," he said, his eyes and mouth creased with a mocking smirk, "he will not leave the land of men before his stone house is whole."
"You mock at what you don't understand," I said.
The overseer came to us, scratching the hairs on his belly, smelling of beer and onions. "I saw the block on the ramp. I come back, and the block is off the ramp. Who made this?"
"Unis's mind is so dark, he has taken day for night, and lies on the sand to sleep."
"Is it so?"
Unis waved at the overseer. "Pepi thinks only 'pyramid', 'pyramid', 'pyramid', and sleeps not at night for fear the stone house will be swept away by the sandy winds. I lie here to ease his mind, for see," he waved at the unmoving stone, "it rests where it falls."
"You turn your back on gods and men," I said, "overseer, beat wisdom into him."
"It must be so," the overseer said, and he raised his long cedar stick over Unis, "stand," he said, "if I beat you on the ground, you will break."
"If I must be beaten, I may as well be comfortable," said Unis, but he scrambled to his feet. The first blow struck his shoulder, and he bent over, and the second struck his hams, and his leg trembled, and the third his belly, but the overseer was gentle, and it only made him vomit.
"Do not forget," the overseer said, "you are the Pharaoh’s creature. Serve."
Through the retching, Unis's words were copper daggers, "I am...no slave."
...
When I watched the beating of Unis, saw the red welts against his tanned skin, his body flinching before each blow, I felt a sickness, as if the worms were working in my belly. For hours after, I heard the ancient words of King Meri-ka-re, the voice like a drum in my head, "beware of punishing wrongfully," accompanied by the screams of a man.
...
Unis did not learn, and was beaten a second time. I replaced him at the lever, but he found a way to twist the ropes on the right of the block, so the thing swung, slow and grating, back down the ramp. For this, he was beaten a third time, and the marks on his flesh were pitiful.
We ate the midday meal in a large hot tent, and I asked, "Why do you do this?"
He slurped his beer and waved his bread at his bruises. "Why do you do this?"
"It is Pharaoh’s will. You cannot argue with a god."
"Ha! Another stone house, another dead god," he bit off a chunk of bread, and chewed it as he spoke, "as these crumbs on this bit of ground," he sprinkled them between us, "so are all the stone houses in the land of Khem."
"A crumb is here for a moment, then carried off by wind or beetle or bird, but the pyramids stand forever."
"Marks in sand, wiped out by the wind; marks made by thousands for the memory of one who toiled not. Am I an arm, am I a leg? To Pharaoh, this is all I am, and when he sleeps in his great house, where will I sleep? When the sons of my sons come to the plain, beaten by the rod, to build the new stone house, will they look on their father's work and remember? Will they see me in this great stone pile, or will I have blown away, like these crumbs?"
I looked at him with pity. "You have looked, but you have not seen. 'Eternal is the existence yonder. He who makes light of it is a fool.'"
"I see enough, and I have heard enough fine talk from dead kings. I too can quote such talk, 'no man taketh his goods with him...none returneth again that is gone thither.' We are slaves, you and I. Slaves to a mad king, slaves to stone dreams and death."
…
We heaved the block up the ramp. The day was as hot as the last, and the sweat poured from our backs and made us shine like wet gold. It was bone-breaking work, but we were doing it, by the gods, we were moving that block. I felt growing joy, but the rope in my hands felt like a wooden rod. We had it almost halfway up the ramp, and then halfway, and I gave a shout of triumph, and the men around me fell to whooping and yelling, and I called out, "come on Vigorous Gang, we have the strength of mountains today!" They took up the cry, and I grinned through the sweat and the dust, as we shifted the block further.
A groan ran through the ramp. "What was that?" It sounded louder, a creaking, and then a cracking, and the earthen ramp sank beneath our feet. "By the gods," I said, "the ramp is breaking! Get clear, get away from it," and I waited as the men let go their ropes and jumped to the sand on either side. When I was the last one, though I could not hold my rope, I stood at the head of the ramp and looked down. The men had got away, and the block was sinking amid the grinding of stone. The block sank through the cracked earth, the shattered ramp, and stopped, limestone dust billowing out in a choking cloud that clogged my nose and made us all cough and spit.
"Call," I broke off, coughing, "call...out."
They shouted their names, as well as many curses fit to shame the gods, but one man did not call his name. "Unis," I said, "where is Unis?"
The coughing died away as the dust settled into the sand, the coughing died into laughter. He chortled, he whooped, and he howled.
"Great Pharaoh," he said, "your mortal tools are weak. Set your magic hand upon the stone, and raise it up yourself," he had turned from common speech to a singing chant, as if he were at prayer, "yes, mortal men are crumbs and dust; only you are like stone. You love stone, but you love not men. I curse you! I curse you and all your kin-" He broke off in a choking scream. The overseer had come upon him as he sang out his hateful prayer, and struck him in the weak place above the hip, so he fell to the sands. "Blasphemer," the overseer roared, and raised his stick again. I saw how it would end, and my heart was not content with weeping.
"No," I said, and jumped off the broken ramp, running to stand between the overseer and the fallen man, "no, chief, overseer, do not beat him."
"He has blasphemed against the living god, and he must be beaten," he tried to push me aside, but I covered Unis with my body.
"Beat me instead," I said, "when he slows us down, beat me. When he curses the gods, beat me. Beat me."
The overseer frowned. "I do not understand you," he said, "you are a good worker. He is bad, weak like rotten wood. I must beat him so the others do not go rotten."
"No, chief, you must beat me," I pleaded with my face, "beat me instead."
"If you will have it so, I will beat you both."
I nodded. He shook his head, and then
he struck me in the side. The pain made me gasp, and my eyes wept. He struck me in the leg, and it crumpled under me, so I fell upon the sand. Grains of dust came into my eyes and nose, and I coughed, and my body went hot and cold as if I were tossed by gods between the sun and the Nile.
I could not see it, but I heard him beating Unis, who moaned with each fall of the rod. I heard the overseer call on the men, "repair the ramp, and you and you, tend to these men." The pain was great, and the darkness soothing. I slipped into the night.
...
"Why did you do that?"
We sat alone in the shade of the eating tent. The sun was lower in the sky, and a cool breeze made the cloth walls ripple. From outside, I heard the men singing as they worked.
"Why did you do that?" Unis was a huddle of bruised limbs. His face was swollen where a livid bruise ran from temple to jaw.
Words came into my mind, of Amenhotep and Meri-ka-re, and the other great ones. 'Steer that we may ferry the wicked man across...lift him up, give him thy hand...' My head hurt as I shook it. "You would not understand, blasphemer."
...
The next day, he let his rope rub against the edge of the block until it frayed and split. It halted work for an hour. I stood before the overseer and took his punishment blow for blow.
In the tent, we were silent, but his eyes questioned me without cease.
...
The day after, Unis watched me from dawn to dusk, but he did not slow up the work, and I thought he had learned something. But after we had moved to the next massive stone, and he was planting wedges to shift it onto the ramp, he used a weak wedge, and it broke under the hammer. Laughing, he called for Pharaoh to restore the wedge, and said he would sit until the living god did. So the overseer came with his rod, and I stood before him, begging to take the blows in his place. The overseer was hot with anger, and he beat us with all his strength, so the men had to carry us into the shade of the tent.
...
"Why, Pepi," he whispered through cracked, swollen lips, "why?"
"I pray you will understand, mocker of gods."
"I mock at men's folly," he said, "but not at you, Pepi. Tell me why."
"You were born with a sneering lip and an eye for scorn."
"I was born a man," he looked at the ground, "and taken as a slave by a creature who calls himself a god. You are a man, Pepi. How can you accept a life of rope and rod?"
In my mind, I saw Khufu's house, and the golden cap of it, flaming red in the morning sun, shining silver under the moon and stars.
"How, Pepi? And why? Why do you take my pain into your body? Why do you take Pharaoh’s labour upon your shoulders?"
"You have looked on the stone houses, Unis," I said, "but you have not seen."
"I have seen with clear eyes," he spoke as the whispering of the night wind, "they are tombs. They are great signs, posts standing high over the desert, telling all with eyes to see that death is the end of man. Life is brief, our greatest labour futile. Only death is eternal."
"Eyes of scorn. The stone houses will stand forever, as Khufu's house has stood for generations, and every one built by ten thousand hands, our sweat, our strength, our blood in every stone."
"Ten or a hundred thousand, more breaking of men, more death."
"More life. In this house, a god will sleep. But this house was built by men, our hearts, our souls, all together, all in one. We are not slaves, Unis," I ground my hand into the sand and held it up before him, "each block is built of this, countless grains of sand. Every stone house is built of us, countless lives of men, come together in one eternal life. You do not see the glory of the land of Khem; the stone house is not for any man, though he sit upon a throne, but for all men. We are one flesh, one life, together, for all time."
He sat staring deep into the sand, as if with his eyes he could dig through it to the land beyond. "All these grains of sand..."
"All these men," I said, and held out my hand to him, "together."
He stared at my hand, and I could see the gods working in him, as if his double soul felt their touch for the first time. At first he fought it, and the sneer crossed his face, but it was followed by the puzzled frown, and the questioning turn of his lips. The sun moved across the sky and still he sat there in silent effort, and still I sat there, my hand extended, my palm stained with the sand. At length the dying sun was reborn behind his eyes. Tears grew to moisten his face, and I wept as well to see his heart open like a desert flower.
He took my hand, and clasped it to his chest, and he spoke just one more time. "Together."
...
Snofru was wheezing again, and this time I couldn't get back to help him. He'd carry on by himself, a martyr to his demon, and I began to see pictures of the stone block slipping once more, perhaps to crush some poor boy.
I needn't have worried. "Give me that rope, Snofru," said Unis, "and catch your breath. And while you're about it, go see a priest, and get that bad air cast out."
I looked over my shoulder at Unis, and he winked. Then he set his back into the work, and I bent to my task.
***
About the Author
Jacob Magnus lives in South Korea with his girlfriend’s dog. He enjoys travel, and practises the Korean sword art of Gumdo. His favourite game is Deus Ex.