THE BURIED PYRAMID
A novel by Jerry Dubs
The Buried Pyramid is published by Imhotep Literary LLC.
jerrydubs@imhotepliterary.com
This book is a work of fiction. Although based on historical events and figures, the names, characters, places, and incidents described in the novel are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright 2013 by Gerald B. Dubs
All rights reserved.
Copy editing by Ted Palik
teddpal@hotmail.com
Cover designed by Kyle Mohler
kcmohlerdesign@gmail.com
ISBN 978-0-9846717-3-1
Novels By Jerry Dubs
IMHOTEP NOVELS
Imhotep, published 2010
The Buried Pyramid, published 2013
The Forest of Myrrh, published 2014
The Field of Reeds, published 2015
SUTI THE SCRIBE
Suti and the Broken Staff, published 2016
OTHER FICTION
Kaleidoscope, published 2011
The Earth Is My Witness, published 2011
For Deb
My continued inspiration
Author's note
Welcome.
What follows is both a prequel and a sequel to my novel “Imhotep,” which, chronologically would fit in between sections two and three of this story. When I began to plot this novel, I was planning a sequel only, but earlier events kept tugging at the plot until a prequel emerged.
Which I like.
Having a time-travel novel which wraps around the preceding novel feels right.
There are two succeeding novels about Imhotep. “The Forest of Myrrh” is the third novel in the series. “The Field of Reeds” is the fourth and final novel about Imhotep. In addition, the novel “Suti and the Broken Staff,” continues the story of those characters remaining in ancient Egypt.
I want to thank the more than a thousand readers who took the time to post reviews on the US and UK Amazon pages for “Imhotep.” I am humbled that you were moved enough to post your thoughts. Thank you very much.
Thanks also to the many readers who emailed me directly with suggestions, criticisms and praise. Those are exciting emails to open. Please keep them coming.
Serious thanks to Kyle Mohler for the cover design. He really nailed it.
And thanks to Ted Palik, my awesome copy editor. Given my three-finger typing skills and my love of commas, he has his hands full. I take full credit for every error I was able to slip past him.
Jerry Dubs, April 4, 2013, updated August 5, 2015, updated January 12, 2016, updated December 4, 2016
The Buried
Pyramid
Table of Contents
Novels By Jerry Dubs
Author's note
Table of Contents
In the two lands
Prologue
Wepwawet approaches
Section one
2684 BCE
Hetephernebti and the onion
The Terraces of Turquoise
The Death of Osiris
The Horned Viper
“The General Sent Us”
The Wisdom of Thoth
A wake of vultures
Ma'at Destroyed
Ceaselessly forward
Queen of the two lands
Lettuce and Radishes
In the General's House
Seth the typhon
To the River
Death in the Delta
Section Two
2669 BCE
Horus Returns
Horus Rising
Horus within
Horus revealed
Ptah's command
Hemon the dwarf
Horus at Rest
The Secret Army
Inventories and Visions
Trust and Hope
Stories and Promises
Nebka and Babaef
A Desert Lion
A Vow Fulfilled
Section Three
2638 CBE
The King Is Dead
The Step Pyramid
Horus Released and Reborn
Imhotep
In the Two Lands
The Prince Departs
Banished
Into the Tomb
SECTION FOUR
2027
Saqqara
Helwan University
Time Gone Awry
Searching
Tomb of the Time Traveler
Breakfast in Helwan
Return to the Two Lands
Section Five
2635 BCE
Reunited
An invitation
Neith Goes Forth
The Soul Who Has Appeared
Merneith’s rage
Entombed
Section Six
2022
Resurrected
Crayons and treasures
Trust
Hope in Saqqara
Lunch at Condetti
Prophecies
Brianna
Imhotep Returns
As Time Goes by
A Hill of Beans
An invitation
Reunited
2603 BCE
at home
Fate Fulfilled
2027
Gone
Things that are true
The Forest of Myrrh
Run Away!
Blood Mingled
In the two lands
2684 BCE
IN THE PALACE
King Kha-Sekhemwy, king of the Two Lands
Queen Menathap, his wife
Hetephernebti, their daughter
Ipwet, her servant
Iput, a former servant
Hemka, her husband
Djoser, their son
Nebka, King Kha-Sekhemwy's eldest son
Kanakht, vizier
Wakare, chief scribe
Hesire, palace physician
Kheti, a palace guard
Kawit, his wife
Kebu, a palace guard
Senbi, a palace guard
THE ARMY
Babaef, general of the army
Harkuf, a battalion commander
Sabef, a Nubian archer
Taharqa, a Nubian archer
2669 BCE
AT IUNU
Re-Khu, priest of Re
Hetephernebti, priestess of Re
Inetkawes, daughter of Hetephernebti
Nemaathep, a temple servant
Henutsen, a midwife
Emsaf, a fisherman
DJOSER'S NUBIAN FAMILY:
Kifi, his wife
Kimisi, his daughter
Iry-mat, his brother-in-law
OFFICIALS
Hemon the Dwarf, governor of White Wall
Buneder, his wife
Djeho, his father
Khnunhotep, his son-in-law
Medhu, former governor of the nome called White Wall
Paheri, governor of the nome called Cow's Leg
Kaninisut, governor of the nome called Fish
Sethos, his father
Nefermaat, Queen of the Two Lands
Minkaf, chief tax collector
2638 BCE
IN THE PALACE
Teti, Djoser's son now King Sekhemkhet
Djeseretnebi, his wife
Nebmakhet, his son
Rudamon, palace physician
Khaba, general of the army
PRIESTS
Nimaasted, priest of Thoth
Kagemni, priest of Osiris
Hesy, priest of Sekhmet
Tama, priestess of Ma'at
Hetephernebti, priestess o
f Re
Merneith, priestess of Neith
IMHOTEP'S HOUSEHOLD AND FRIENDS
Meryt, his wife
Tjau, their son
Bata, their servant
Paneb, royal tomb painter
Taki, his wife
Ahmes, his son
Dedi, his eldest daughter
Meres, her husband
Kewab, her youngest child
Hapu, his youngest daughter
Sitre, a neighbor
Tena, a neighbor
Sati, Meryt's closest friend
Sekhmire, her husband
Siptah, their son
Prologue
In the
Court of King Djoser
In the year 2638 BCE in the Two Lands
also known as Kemet, now known as Egypt
Wepwawet approaches
Shape-shifting shadows stalked Imhotep as he paced the stone corridor outside of King Djoser’s bedchamber. He passed two guards, the bronze tips of their spears dancing like flames in the wavering light of wall-mounted torches.
The guards waited until Imhotep passed and then, leaning toward each other, they exchanged nervous whispers. The soft sounds died quickly in the hot night air.
The men, hardened warriors from the king’s personal guard, put their backs to the wall and looked anxiously down the corridor. Imhotep had paused by a mural, but he wasn’t examining the painting. His head, appearing too large atop his small shoulders, was tilted down until his chin nearly touched his chest.
Hope drained from the guards’ hearts; not even the great Imhotep could protect them.
It was the sixth decan of night on the third day of the harvest in the twenty-ninth year of King’s Djoser’s reign and the guards were certain now that Wepwawet was approaching.
Jackal-headed Opener of the Way, the god Wepwawet would soon brush past them, fearlessly and dismissively – their courage and spears and strength meant nothing to him. He would enter the king’s chamber and lay claim to King Djoser, the only ruler the men had ever known.
Nervously the guards shifted their feet and regripped their spears.
Down the hallway Imhotep remained motionless while behind him the swaying torchlight brought the mural to life. Splashing against the wall the light sparkled off the water of the great river Iteru as it flowed past palm trees, bending a forest of papyrus reeds to its current. A crocodile at the river’s edge looked over its shoulder, pausing with one foot in the stream, another raised as it prepared to push off into the water. Overhead the hawk god Horus turned toward the setting sun, pushing himself westward toward the distant Step Pyramid and the more distant Khert-Neter, green land of resurrected immortals.
Yesterday Imhotep had smiled as he admired the freshly painted mural. Standing beside his friend Ahmes, he had praised the young man’s use of perspective which gave the scene a living depth that was so different from the flat tomb murals that Ahmes’ father Paneb had painted all of his life. But now, sweat gathering on his shaved head, his thoughts elsewhere, Imhotep didn’t see the mural.
From the bedchamber came the insistent sound of King Djoser coughing followed by the calming murmur of a woman’s voice. Then silence.
Imhotep paused and, with his head cocked, he listened to the silence.
Narrow-shouldered and small framed, he wore a pleated white kilt, its bottom hem embroidered with the Eye of Horus. A green-beaded necklace supported a menat, a ceramic ankh painted with the image of a vulture. The menat, which hung between his bare shoulder blades, told the world that Imhotep was chief wabau, overseer of all the physicians who attended King Djoser, ruler of the Two Lands.
His thin arms crossed, Imhotep stood unmoving, his head bent in thought. He was not only physician to the king, he was also Djoser’s friend. And the king had been a generous and protective friend.
Imhotep would miss him.
As he raised his head the wavering light caught an underlying expression. Beneath the compassion and sadness Imhotep was afraid. The shadow of fear changed his face and for an instant the flaming light flared to reveal a stranger.
Instead of Imhotep, master architect, court physician and royal scribe, the man standing alone in the stone hallway was suddenly Tim Hope, a misplaced modern man who had pushed through a false door in a hidden tomb fifteen years ago and stepped five thousand years into the past.
An almost imperceptible change in the air chased Imhotep’s thoughts. He turned quickly, half expecting to see Wepwawet approaching down the shadowy hallway, but instead of death’s companion he saw Hetephernebti, sister of King Djoser.
As always, her face was serene and confident. She was, after all, high priestess of Re, whose prominence among the gods had grown until now the sun god was as beloved as faithful Isis and as feared as vengeful Horus.
Although taller than her younger brother, Hetephernebti was slight where Djoser was broad and robust. Her hands were long and elegant, Djoser’s muscled and thick-fingered. Her chest was small, almost girlish; Djoser’s wide chest, even at the age of fifty-nine, was muscled and powerful.
Hetephernebti seemed to float rather than walk up the corridor and Imhotep was reminded of the first time he had seen her, appearing to walk on water during a celebration to Re at the delta city of Iunu.
As she drew near, Hetephernebti saw the question in Imhotep’s eyes. She shook her head, the dark strands of her formal wig sliding across her bare shoulders.
She seemed unaffected by the heat, by the late hour or by the approaching death of her brother. The green kohl shadowing her eyes was not smeared by tears, the dark eyebrows carefully drawn above her brown eyes were clean and unwavering, her lips, parted in a gentle smile, were highlighted by a smooth patina of red ochre. Although she had spent the last three hours sitting with her dying brother, Hetephernebti’s translucent linen gown hung unwrinkled and spotless. Her face was composed, glowing with the same ethereal light that Imhotep had seen on it when she led celebrations of Re.
“He has not passed to Khert-Neter, Imhotep,” she reassured him. “Oh, do not look so melancholy. It is unbecoming and it reminds me that you were once an outsider,” she scolded him gently.
“You have been here long enough to know that death is not something we fear. It is a transition, nothing more. My brother’s ka is eager to be released. Soon we will prepare his body and lay him beneath the magnificent tomb that you built for him and then he will be able to dine with his wife and hunt with his father. You, of all people, know that he has planned for this rebirth for his entire life.”
She laid a hand on his arm and Imhotep nodded reluctant agreement.
Many things were different in ancient Egypt. Most of the changes he embraced and loved, they were the reason he had chosen to stay here. But he had never learned to celebrate death the way the ancient Egyptians did.
When he didn’t answer her, Hetephernebti leaned closer and asked softly, “Do you see something, Imhotep?”
He shook his head. “No, Hetephernebti, I can tell you things that will happen in five thousand years. I know who will win the first Super Bowl and when Kennedy will be assassinated. I know what Armstrong will say when he steps onto the moon, but of this,” he angled his head toward King Djoser’s bedchamber, “I have no knowledge.”
Hetephernebti withdrew her hand from Imhotep’s arm. Although she had known him since his arrival in the Two Lands, he remained a mystery to her. His words were sometimes filled with unerring prophecy, but sometimes, as now, they were filled with meaning that she couldn’t penetrate.
“When you came here you foretold the flood, you said with certainty that my brother would not be killed by Sobek. You healed Teti, you saved our Meryt. But now, as King Djoser lies dying, you see nothing?”
“No, I am sorry, Hetephernebti.”
Suddenly she grabbed his arm. He felt her fingers tighten on him in anger or in fear, he couldn’t tell. But he had never seen her composure waver before and it
frightened him.
“You need to see more clearly now than ever before, Imhotep. Not the future or the past. You need to see the Two Lands as it stands now!”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
She pulled him toward her. Turning, she led him to a small alcove a short distance from the guards who stood outside King Djoser’s chamber.
“Teti will become king,” she said urgently.
Imhotep nodded. He assumed King Djoser’s son, a man now, thirty years old, would become king. His father had given him command of the army and he had celebrated Teti’s successes in Sinai and in Nubia. Of course Teti would become King of the Two Lands.
Hetephernebti continued, “The people respect his strength. They celebrate it. But he does not have the understanding that my brother had.”
As she lowered herself to a stone bench, Imhotep noted that she was already referring to the king in the past tense. The implacable approach of Djoser’s death pierced him again and he sighed.
“Djoser was a great general, as Teti has become, but my brother was much more,” Hetephernebti said. “He understood the Two Lands. He nurtured the land, the river, the people, the gods, even the desert itself. He brought ma’at to the land.
“He worshipped the gods, he gave the governors autonomy and respect, he kept the land in balance. He made sure the people were fed and he brought the floods. He protected the Two Lands from outsiders and he kept the hyenas within at bay.”
She motioned for Imhotep to join her on the stone bench. When he was settled she turned to him and took his hands in hers. Her eyes, unflinching and unafraid, assessed him as she said, “The people will look to you, Imhotep, to provide ma’at. Once my brother has joined our ancestors, it will be you, not Teti, that the people will blame if the floods fail. The governors will complain to you if they feel the taxes are too high. The priests will beseech you to attend and honor their festivals. You, Imhotep, you are the one the people of the Two Lands will look to every day. They will cheer Teti’s victories but they are afraid of him. He has spent his life leading his soldiers, not the Two Lands.”