City of the Dead by T. L. Higley Read Free Book Online Page B

Aswan granite into place, with thoughts of Mentu crowded behind more immediate crises.
    I was forced to climb the pyramid three times, over twenty courses to the entrance, to inspect the changes to the corridor. Without the casing stones yet placed, the pyramid formed natural steps. But with each course nearly as high as my shoulder, the ramps were necessary to reach the entrance, though they circled round the structure and were crowded with gangs hauling blocks upward.
    Once each day I continued all the way to the top, one hundred cubits above the bedrock, simply to catch a fresh breeze andsurvey the plateau. From the ever-rising platform, I could see the valley temple, harbor, and even the Nile to the east, the village and quarry to the south, and the vast western desert. This day, as the sun rested, heavy and orange on the plateau’s edge, thoughts of disorder returned, along with my earlier desire to seek the gods’ favor in the temple.
    I requisitioned a goat from the village, then crossed the desert to the valley temple that lay at the harbor’s edge. Eventually this temple would be used for the seventy days of purification of Khufu’s body. When completed, a processional up the causeway would escort his body to its hidden chamber in the pyramid where he would begin his journey to the west. But for now, the temple gave those of us laboring on the Horizon a place to honor the gods.
    The sun’s death was complete by the time I reached the temple, and I cursed those who had delayed me. The darkness was like a heavy, forbidding veil about the temple, warning those who approached of the gravity of encountering the gods.
    I climbed the steps to the impressive entrance flanked by two round columns twice the height of a man. Inside, torches and braziers attempted to light the black corners of the temple chambers, but succeeded only in casting ominous shadows upon the walls, each elaborately depicting scenes of the gods from floor to ceiling.
    I breathed deeply, then dragged the reluctant goat inside. The gods demanded purity and exacted justice. I had none of the first, and feared the second. Upon my death, Anubis would weigh my heart against the feather of truth. Should my heart prove lighter than the feather, my soul would be judged worthy to pass into the paradise of afterlife. Yet did any among us truly believe his heart would not outweigh a feather?
    I crossed through the first chamber, anxious to be finished with this necessary task. In the second chamber, a square recess in the wall held the figure of Ra, the sun god. Above it, carved in relief, was a depiction of Ra as a man, the sun disc balanced on his head, traveling in his sky boat through the day, then stepping into his night boat to sail the underworld by night. Beside the recessed figure, a three-legged brazier burned incense at knee height. Though the ceiling was lost in the shadows high above me, the incense seemed to hang just above my head, weighting the warm room with its heavy perfume.
    I shivered, despite the warmth. The goat at my thigh bleated.
    A flicker of shadow was all the warning I had before a silky voice spoke at my elbow. “You have come to offer a sacrifice?”
    I jumped away from the voice, toward the burning incense, and spun. Firelight played across a face, familiar in spite of the years that had passed.
    “Rashidi?”
    The little priest bowed low, bringing his head to the level of my belt. His memorable pointed nose still dominated his features. He stood upright again, a full head shorter than I. “Hemiunu,” he said, his lips thin.
    “It’s been a long time.”
    “I have been serving in the Temple of Ra.”
    I pushed the rope holding the goat to him, though he had no authority here. “I am sorry about the loss of your position in On.”
    His small black eyes rose to meet mine and steadied there. “Are you?”
    I had been careful that Khufu’s dismissal of the priests and moving of the Ra worship would be seen to come from the