The Mummy or Ramses the Damned (33 page)

Into the temple they walked, past the giant legs of the Pharaoh god. If there were tears in Ramses’ eyes, the wind carried them away, but his sigh she heard. The faint tremor in his warm hand she felt as she cleaved to him.

They walked on, hand in hand, his eyes roving over the great statues still.

“Where did you go,” she whispered, “when your reign had ended? You gave the throne to Meneptah and then you went away.…”

“All over the world. As far as I dared. As far as any mortal man had dared. I saw the great forests of Britannia then. The people wore skins and hid in the trees to shoot their wooden arrows. I went to the Far East; I discovered cities which have now completely vanished. I was just beginning to understand that the elixir worked on my brain as it did on my limbs. The languages I could learn in a matter of days; I could … how do you say … adapt. But inevitably there came … confusion.”

“How do you mean?” she asked. They had stopped. They stood on the hard-packed sand. A great soft light from the starry sky illuminated his face as he looked down at her.

“I was no longer Ramses. I was no longer a King. I had no nation.”

“I understand.”

“I told myself that the world itself was everything. What did I need but to wander, to see? But that was not true. I had to come back to Egypt.”

“And that is when you wanted to die.”

“And I went to the Pharaoh, Ramses the Third, and told him that I had been sent to be his guardian. That is, after I learned that no poison could kill me. Not even fire could kill me. Hurt me, yes, beyond endurance, but kill me, no. I was immortal. One draught of the elixir had done this to me. Immortal!”

“Oh, the cruelty of it,” she sighed. But there were things she still did not understand, and yet she dared not ask him. Patiently she waited for him to tell her.

“There were many others after my brave Ramses the Third. Great Queens as well as Kings. I came when it pleased me. And I was a legend by then—the human phantom who spoke only to the rulers of Egypt. It was seen as a great blessing when I appeared. And of course, I had my secret life. I roamed the streets of Thebes, an ordinary man, seeking companions, women, drinking in the taverns.”

“But no one knew
you
, or your secret?” She shook her head. “I don’t know how you could bear it.”

“Well, I could bear it no more,” he said dejectedly, “when I finally wrote it down in the scrolls your father found in my secret study. But in those early days, I was a braver man. And I was loved, Julie. You must realize this.”

He paused, as if listening to the wind.

“I was worshipped,” he went on. “It was as if I
had
died, and become the very thing I claimed to be. Guardian of the royal house. Protector of the ruler; punisher of the bad. Loyal not to the King, but the kingdom.”

“Don’t even gods get lonely?”

He laughed softly.

“You know the answer. But you don’t understand the full power of the potion that made me what I am. I myself do not fully comprehend. Oh, the folly of those first years, when I experimented with it like a physician.” A look of bitterness
came over his face. “To understand this world, that’s our task, is it not? And even the simple things elude us.”

“Yes, I have no quarrel with that,” she whispered.

“In the hardest moments, I put my faith in change. I understood it, though no one around me did. ‘This too shall pass,’ the old axiom. But finally I was so … weary. So tired.”

He put his arm around her, closing her against him gently, as they turned and made their way out of the temple. The wind had died down. He kept her warm. She shaded her eyes only now and then from the tiny grains of sand in the air. His voice was quiet, slow, as he remembered:

“The Greeks had come into our land. Alexander, the builder of cities, the maker of new gods. I wanted only the deathlike sleep. Yet I was afraid, as any mortal man might be.”

“I know,” she whispered. A shiver went through her.

“I made a coward’s bargain finally. I’d go into the tomb, into the darkness, which I knew by then would mean a gradual weakening and then a deep sleep from which I couldn’t wake. But the priests who served the royal house would know where I lay, and that sunlight could resurrect me. They would give the secret to each new ruler of Egypt with the warning that if I were awakened, it must be to serve the good of Egypt. And woe to anyone rash enough to wake me for curiosity only, or with evil intentions, because then I might take my revenge.”

They passed out of the temple doors, stopping as he looked back and up at the colossal figures seated there. High above, the King’s face was bathed in moonlight.

“Were you conscious at all as you slept?”

“I don’t know. I ask myself this question! Now and then I’d come close to waking, of that I’m sure. And I dreamed, oh, how I dreamed. But whatever I knew, I knew as if in a dream. There was no urgency, no panic. And I could not wake myself, you see. I had no strength to pull the chain that would make the great iron-bound wooden shutter above admit the sunlight. Maybe I knew what had happened in the world outside. Surely it did not surprise me to learn it later. I had become legend—Ramses the Damned; Ramses the Immortal, who slept in the cave waiting for a brave King or Queen of Egypt to wake him. I don’t think they believed it anymore, not really. Until …”

“She came.”

“She was the last Queen to rule Egypt. And the only one to whom I ever told the full truth.”

“But Ramses, did she really refuse the elixir?”

He paused. It was as if he didn’t want to answer. Then:

“In her own way, she refused it. You see, she couldn’t understand finally what it was, the elixir. Later, she begged me to give it to Mark Antony.”

“I see. It’s a wonder I didn’t guess it.”

“Mark Antony was a man who had destroyed his life and hers also. But she didn’t know what she was asking. She didn’t understand. She did not realize what such a thing would have meant—a selfish King and Queen with such power. And the formula, they would have wanted that too. Would Antony not have wanted immortal armies?”

“Good God!” she whispered.

Ramses stopped suddenly and moved away from her. They had come some distance from the temple and he turned back, looking at the giant seated figures again.

“But why did you write the story in the scrolls?” she asked. She couldn’t stop herself.

“Cowardice, my love. Cowardice, and the dream that someone would come who would find me and my strange tale, and take the burden of secrecy from my shoulders! I had failed, my love. My strength was gone. And so I slipped into dreams and left the story there … like an offering to fate. I could be strong no longer.”

She came to him and threw her arms around him. He didn’t look at her. He was looking at the statues still. The tears were in his eyes.

“Maybe I dreamed that someday I’d be awakened again, to a new world. To new and wise beings. Maybe I dreamed of someone who … would take the challenge.” His voice broke. “And I would be the lone wanderer no more. Ramses the Damned would become once again Ramses the Immortal.”

He looked as if his own words had surprised him. Then he looked down at her and, closing his hands tightly on her shoulders, lifted her as he kissed her.

With her whole soul she yielded. She felt his arms gathering her up. She leaned against his chest as he carried her towards the tent, and the flickering firelight. The stars fell down over the distant shadowy hills. The desert was a great tranquil sea stretching out on all sides from this sanctuary of warmth which they now entered.

Incense here; the smell of wax candles. He set her down on
silken pillows, on a carpet of dark woven flowers. The dancing flames of the candles made her close her eyes. Perfume rising from the silk beneath her. A bower he had made, for her, for himself, for this moment.

“I love you, Julie Stratford,” he whispered in her ear. “My English Queen. My timeless beauty.”

His kisses were paralyzing her. She lay back, eyes closed, and let him open her tight lace blouse, let him loosen the hooks of her skirt. Luxuriating in this helplessness, she let him rip away the chemise and the corset, and pull down the long lace undergarments. She lay naked, looking up at him as he knelt over her, peeling off his own garments.

Regal he seemed, his chest gleaming in the light; his sex hard and ready for her. Then she felt his delicious weight come down upon her, crushing her. The tears had sprung to her eyes, tears of relief. A soft moan escaped her lips.

“Batter down the door,” she whispered. “The virgin door. Open it, I am yours forever.”

He went through the seal. Pain; a tiny sputtering pain that burnt itself out in her mounting passion immediately. She was kissing him ravenously; kissing the salt and heat from his neck, his face, his shoulders. He drove hard into her, over and over again, and she arched her back, lifting herself, pressing herself against him.

As the first tide crested she cried out as if she truly would die. She heard the deep growl rise from his throat as he came. But it was only the beginning.

Elliott had watched the dinghy pull away. Through his binoculars he saw the tiny light of the camp far out over the low, hard-packed dunes. He saw the tiny figure of the servant, and the camels.

Then hurrying down the deck, not daring to use his cane for fear of the sound it would make, he turned the knob of Ramses’ door.

Unlocked. He stepped into the darkened stateroom.

Ah, this thing has made me a sneak and a thief, he thought. But he didn’t stop. He did not know how long he would have. And now, with only the moon through the portal to light his way, he searched the wardrobe full of neatly hung clothes, the bureau drawers of shirts and other such things; the trunk which
contained nothing. No secret formula in this room. Unless it was well hidden.

Finally he gave up. He stood over the desk, staring down at the biology books spread open there. And then something black and ugly, glimpsed from the corner of his eye, frightened him. But it was only the mummy’s hand, curled there on the blotter.

How foolish he felt. How ashamed. Yet he stood there staring at the thing, his heart knocking dangerously in his chest, and then he felt the burning pain that always followed such shocks and the numbness in his arm. He stood quite still, breathing very slowly.

Finally he went out and closed the door behind him.

A sneak and a thief, he thought. And leaning on his silver cane, he walked slowly back to the saloon.

It was almost dawn. They had left the warmth of the tent hours ago and come here into the deserted temple, with only the loose silk sheets around them. They had made love in the sand, over and over. And then he had lain in the dark, looking up at the stars, the King who had built this house.

No words now. Only the warmth of his naked body against hers, as he cradled her in his left arm. Only the smooth sheet wound tightly around her.

Just before sunrise. Elliott dozed in the chair. He heard the little boat come alongside; the lapping; the sound of the ropes creaking as the two lovers came back on board. He heard their furtive quick steps on the deck. Silence again.

When he opened his eyes, his son was there in the shadows. Dishevelled, as if he had not undressed to go to bed, his face unshaven. He watched as his son took a cigarette from the ivory box on the table and lighted it.

Then Alex saw him. For a moment, neither said a word, and then Alex smiled the familiar congenial smile.

“Well, Father,” he said slowly. “It will be good to get back to Cairo and a little civilization.”

“You’re a good man, my son,” Elliott said softly.

They must have all known, she realized. She lay beside Ramses beneath the warm blankets of her bed, the little steamer moving north again, towards Cairo.

Yet they were being discreet. He came and went only when
no one was about. There were no displays of affection. Yet they revelled in the freedom they had stolen; until dawn they made love, tumbling, struggling, coupling in the dark as the engines of the ship carried them ever onward.

Too much to wish for anything more. Yet she did. She wished to be rid of those she loved, save for him; she wished to be his bride or to be among those who questioned nothing. She knew when they reached Cairo, she would make her decision. And she would not see England again, for a long time, unless Ramses wanted it.

Four o’clock. Ramses stood by the bed. She was lovely beyond all reckoning in her sleep, her brown hair a great shadow beneath her against the white pillow. Carefully he covered her, lest she get cold.

He picked up his moneybelt from the tangle of his coat and pants, and feeling the four vials safely taped against the fabric, he put it around his waist again, buckled it and then dressed quickly.

No one on the deck. The light burned in the saloon, however. And when he peered through the wooden blinds, he saw Elliott fast asleep in the leather wing chair, a book open on his knee, a half-filled glass of red wine beside him.

No one else about.

He went into his room, locked the door and closed the little wooden blinds on the window. Then he went to his desk, turned on the green shaded lamp, sat down in the wooden chair and stared at the mummy’s hand which lay there, fingers curled almost to the palm, nails yellowed like bits of ivory.

Did he have the stomach for what he meant to do? In ages past, had he not done enough of these ghastly experiments? But he had to know. He had to know just how powerful it was. He told himself he should wait for laboratories, equipment, wait until he’d mastered the chemistry texts; had listened to the learned physicians.

But he wanted to know now. It had come into his mind like an evil light in the Valley of the Kings when he had seen the hand, the leathery, shrivelled hand. No fake. He knew that. He’d known it the minute he’d examined the bit of bone protruding from the severed wrist, the moment he’d seen the black flesh cleaving to it.

Ancient as he was.

He shoved the biology books aside. He placed the thing directly under the lamp, and slowly he unwrapped the linen. There, very faintly, he could see the stamp of the embalmer—the words in Egyptian which told him the thing was from a dynasty before his time. Ah, poor dead soul, who had believed in the gods, and the makers of linen wrappings.