The Acts of Simon Magus, also called Simon the Sorcerer, Father of Heresy and SimonyThe Acts of Simon Magus
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Tomb Invader...and awoke I know not how much later to a pale kind of light that filled the place, so that the walls, festooned with selections from the Aigyptian alphabetical menagerie, were clearly visible. They seemed to be moving before my eyes in a slow dance. I looked around to see the source of the light, which was a man-sized stone box in the centre of the tomb. It was open, so I went over and looked down into the flesh-eater. And there, lying cross-armed on his back in the posture favoured by the body-dressers of this land, was a dead man, wrapped all about in linen strips. And in that, and all through the decaying rags, and in the same pose, the ghost of a middle-aged Aigyptian. His shimmering features formed a translucent mask over the withered leavings of his former face, and little bits of him shone forth from cracks in the winding bandages. He looked so peaceful, especially for a dead man. I felt a little embarrassed at having disturbed his rest and, mumbling apologies, went to leave. But at that moment I heard a voice in my ear, and though I could not take its precise meaning, there was an anguished, pleading tone to it that made me turn and stare again into the flesh-eater. The ghost lay motionless, chained I suppose by the mouldering remains into which its essence was yet inextricably entwined. The spirit sent again. It seemed to want something. But what? And what could it offer in return? I had an idea. "Luni!" I called. "Luni, art there?" He tore himself away from his socialising. "Here, brother, here I am. Art lonely?" "Quite the contrary," I declared. "In fact, I have just met the most fascinating fellow, but I can't for the life of me make out what the Hell he's saying. Canst ask him?" "Sure." Luni floated down over the coffin. "He's not talking," he said. "Wait," I said. A sudden chill scream of black despair blew through my soul. I clutched my ears, but its shrillness shook my bones. My limbs felt wrenched from their sockets, my guts heaved as they never had shipboard. I staggered back shaken, and watched as Luni came closer and reached out to touch the phantom brow. The awful feeling stopped. Luni moved around the thing's head in slow circles, and I could feel it calm down. Again I heard words, spoken slowly. "Well?" I asked. "What's he want?" "He said," said Luni, "he died a long time ago, like ten thousand hundred suns?" "That long?" "Whatever. Anyway, long. He said when they put him here, his stupid son said the words wrong, and now he's stuck." "Like thee." "I guess. Anyway, he said if thou helpest him go, he'll tell thee where there's lots of stuff, like money, jewels, cloth, stuff like that. Thou want’st?" "OK," I said. "What do I do?" "There's a rolled-up thing on the shelf." I went over and groped gingerly among the shadowy objects adorning the stone ledge that circumscribed the room. Most were smooth jars, about the size of a man's head, but the racket they made when I knocked two or three to the pavestone floor filled the darkness far out of proportion to their size. Up close I could make out painted scenes from the man's life, covering every inch of the plastered walls. He had been a stonemaker, his works adorning temple and tomb with the oddly twisted figures favoured by the artisans of this land. Finally I found a rolled-up reed, brought it back and started to unroll it. But it was brittle and crumbled in my fingers, and a psychical moan filled me. Carefully I managed to get it open and, by the dim phantasmic light, squinted to make out its contents. But of course it was in the local lingo. I looked up at the ghost, then at Luni. "I hope he doesn't expect me to read this." "No," Luni said. "We'll give thee the right saying. That's just like--thou knowst, like Dad's cup." "Got it. Can we get started?" Luni arranged himself between us two, and made contact with the dead man and the scroll. And a shimmering blueness passed through him from the entrapped soul to the pages I held, and the thoughts of centuries flowed into me from the ancient manuscript. The page before me came alive; the odd creatures and objects moved in ways that made sense, and I felt that all I had to do was speak, and explain what they were up to. And more, I saw what should have happened on that funeral day so many suns past: the good-willing prayers of the man's family paying the initial fare on the ferryboat plying the celestial Nile; the malevolent guardians and the stern judges, picking him up and weighing his ka against a bit of goose-fluff; the riddle-me-this sessions, to the answering of which he had devoted several hours each day in the last years of his life. He knew every password, the solution to every conundrum, and any stains on his soul from lifely transgressions had been more than scrubbed clean by lavish offerings to Those he expected to meet on his last cruise. No man could have been as ready as he for all that might come, and he would sail through all obstacles in no time. Bad luck. For before my eyes I now saw what had in fact happened on that centuries-past day. I was kneeling at table, surrounded by several generations of Aigyptians, and the body I indwelt--the same, I knew, as that which now occupied this crypt--was shouting angrily at the berobed young man in the guest's seat directly across from me. This one was shave-headed, the stele of Set upon his breast, and he listened quietly with bowed head. I cannot quote his exact phrasings, though the gist was this: the young man, Anuphet by name, had shown himself to be a vile ingrate, worse, a blasphemous animal (I'm not sure what breed), who had in a single breath shamed both the Gods and his long-suffering parents. Anuphet took this harangue in silence, though I sensed that within him he fumed and longed to strike out at his berater. When the old man stopped, he took a moment to reflect before he replied, in words approximating the following: "Beloved father, in what way have I shamed you, or anybody? Indeed, I had thought ye might be flattered." "That thou mightst have wished to model thy life after my own? What dost thou think, that I myself had the choice to become what I have become? That anyone has a choice? Before Time began, did not They cast each man's lot on the sempiternal Stars? And thou, Their priest no less, dare sit at my table and tell me thou wouldst it were otherwise." The young man's feelings suddenly spilled over. "Yes! I wish that! As a boy, I always watched as you worked the stone and made it live with only your hands. And I dreamed that one day ye might take me and teach me the secrets ye knew, that I, like you, might do Them honour as ye had done, in images that would stand forever. Don’t ye remember?" I felt the old man's face soften a little. "I remember that little Bast thou showed me once. Not bad at all, I admit." "Not bad? Not bad? You said I showed no talent whatever! A river-blind mudhopper in heat could do better, said you. Then you dashed it to shards. I wept all night." (Poor kid. I knew just how he felt. Something like it happened to me once--I'll tell you sometime./sm) "Of course I did. Thou wert the first son. Thou belonged to Set from thy first breath. Surely ‘twere no kindness to foster hopes in thy heart of what never could be." "And so you took me to His temple, that dark damned place, and left me, not a word of goodbye. Do you know what they do to new boys in there?" The old man shrugged. "It's the same at all the temples. Osiris or Isis, they would have been the same." "But everyone loves them. When I walk the streets, people hiss and make the horns, and cross the other way." "Enough!" cried the old man. "Set did what He did, but He's still a God and a God needs priests. That thou art still here to utter this nonsense shows He has some mercy in Him. Anyway, what's done is done, and I'll hear no more about it." Anuphet sighed. "And so Hothit is your prentice now. How is he working out, by the way?" The old man scooped up a large portion of fish--watch that bone, old fool!--and jammed it in his mouth before continuing. "He is not, as thou knowst full well. It is fortunate thy brother is so lazy, or he might cause real damage. But he is the block They have called me to shape, and I accept Their commission gladly. Unlike thyself, ungrateful..." He never finished that sentence. The imprudently ingested bone had found its way to his windpipe, and he suddenly flailed his arms wildly and gasped like a fish flopping on the deck, and the room turned sideways and the floor came up to meet him with a crack, and all was black. And the scene switched, as in a dream, to this very crypt. I was in darkness, but I knew where I was: laid out in this coffin, his kinsfolk grieving all around, and at my head, looking down at the scroll in his hands with an expression of utmost piety, was Anuphet, reading from it in a droning tone. But what he said was not what he read. The phrasing was subtly twisted in on itself; not enough, to be sure, for the family to notice anything amiss, but just enough to ensure that each step on the old man's final journey could result in only one ultimate destination: a return to the prison of his own corpse. I wanted to cry out, denounce his treachery, but of course could not move. Rites completed, the mourners filed out, leaving Anuphet and his father alone in the dark. He opened the lid and bent down close, baring big yellow teeth in a malevolent grin. "What, father, still here? Should you not by now be standing at the threshold of the Portal of Fire, deftly fielding the riddles of the Three Sphinxes? Better hurry: that Gate opens but once in a deathtime, and if you miss it now..." Something flexed within me, and an organ-jar detached itself from the shelf behind him and hurtled across the room, aimed directly at the treacherous nephew's head. But the rattle of its takeoff alerted him and he turned in time to duck. The jar shattered against the opposite wall, and the recently extracted liver flopped to the floor, and the sweet stink of preserving herbs filled the air. Anuphet spoke jocularly, though obviously a little shaken: "Careful, Ba! You'll be needing that when you arrive--of course now I think on it, you will never arrive, so you might as well smash things up if it will relieve the tedium. May I suggest, though, that you space it out a bit, a jar a century perhaps? After all, you are going to be here for a while. Have a peaceful rest." He turned to leave. A psychic scream burst from me: "For the love of Set, Anuphet...!" Anuphet turned and snarled, "Set rules me no longer, old man. By this act have I sundered the bonds that bound me to He Who was my slavemaster. From this moment, you may look in vain for my fate in the Stars, for I am free--don't you see?--of Them and Their power. While you..." He laughed and left, slamming the door behind him, and from without I could hear him applying the same curse-seal I had broken to gain entry. Then silence reigned, and the centuries rolled forward, and it seemed that I lived (if that is the word) every long, dull moment of them with the dead man. Ra rose, and His rays shone glorious through the roof-vent, and then He set, and darkness fell--how many times? and I lay there, unsleeping, unmoving. One night robbers came, and I heard them shuffling about outside, and felt with the dead man his hope that he might somehow persuade them to set him free. But they stopped, apparently to read the seal, and I could hear them engaged in conversation. What were they saying? I strained to hear, but could only make out a single fragment: "... not to keep us out, but to keep Whatever's in there in!" And then they were gone. This happened several times over the ensuing years, and each time the usually bold ghouls demurred to disturb the rest of whatever foul fiend they imagined dwelt herein. And then one night--Gods, could it be?--I heard that sound I had awaited so long: the accursed seal being smashed, and the stone door flung wide, sandalsteps grating on the sandy floor, and a young man's face peering down curiously...
I was back in me again, and the scroll but a scroll once more. Ra's rays shone through the vent; my vision had apparently lasted all night, and when I tried to move them, my limbs were stiff and numb, as if they had not stirred in aeons. I slapped my arms, and jumped up and down, and the feeling returned, painfully. "Fascinating," I said. "Now can we get on with this?" "Just read," said Luni, and I did, unscrolling the reed carefully as the age-old writing continued. At one point, it split right in two, and a psychic scream rattled my bones. "Be careful, thou stupid," said Luni in the old man's voice. "Shall I stop right here?" I snapped. "No! Please, go on!" So I did, and as I approached the end, the light from the flesh-eater glowed brighter and brighter, and I had to avert my eyes to avoid being blinded. I could feel the ghost's excitement rise to fever pitch, as he began anticipating his long-delayed ecstatic release. Just before the final spell, however, I stopped and lowered the scroll. A cry of protest arose from the flesh-eater, and again the phantom spoke through Luni. "Read it!" "Of course. But you would not wish to leave before keeping your end of our bargain. You mentioned certain precious objects?" "Your brother knows where they are. Just finish, damn thee!" "Is that true, Luni?" "He showed me the place." "Show me." "All right," he said, and I was at the mouth of a cave on a rocky mountainside. I passed into the cave and through the wall at the back (obviously a secret door), and there strewn before me was what to my innocent eyes was treasure beyond compare: gold and bejeweled objects of all shapes and sizes surrounded a flesh-eater similar in size to the one I stood before in the tomb, but far exceeding it in splendour and value. "All right," I said. I was back in the crypt. Voice trembling, I spoke the final phrase, and the ghost disappeared like a puffed-out candle Not a very spectacular ending, but on reflection I was just as glad. I looked down into the coffin. The dried-out husk he had worn in life stared blankly back at me. Well, he wouldn't be needing that any more. I picked him up and heaved him onto the floor, then clambered in, arranged my pack as a pillow, and fell fast asleep.
I awoke and leapt to my feet. I was rich! Or soon would be - the mummy's treasure shone before my mind's eyes, and I saw myself rolling in gold, bedraped in purple... "Luni!" I cried. There was no answer. "Luni! Where the Hell art thou? Let's go get that stuff." Luni appeared in the air above the flesh-eater, fluttering in excitement. "You bet! It's really pretty, Shim. Thou shouldst see it." "I did. So where is it?" "In a cave. On a mountain." "I know that. But what direction? Is it far?" He seemed surprised. "How do I know?" "What? But he showed thee." "Yeah, but..." "Canst take me there?" "I don't know places here, you know that. I only know where thou art. Go there, then I'll know." "But... but..." I was almost speechless with disappointment and frustration. "...wouldst at least know it if thou saw it?" "I don't think so. It was a big mountain, lots of caves. Lots of mountains around there too. They all kind of looked the same..." "Oh, shut up!" That was not all I said, and I fear that poor Luni got more than an earful. He disappeared in a huff, though I continued cursing for quite some time before I felt, if not satisfied, at least tired out. It looks like I'll have to go to Academy after all... Shit! From what Nathan told me, Tutor registration has already begun. I'd better hurry if I'm going to get a place with anyone halfway decent... | |||
