The priest had not said a word since handing Khufu the scepter, as was law in Egypt — no one spoke until the Pharaoh addressed them.
“Asim.”
“Yes, lord?”
“What awaits us?” Khufu didn’t stop as he spoke, heading deeper into the Earth, his slippers making a slight hissing noise as they passed over the smooth stone.
Asim’s voice was harsh and low. “These are the Roads of Rostau, built by the Gods themselves in the First Age, before the rule of the Shadows of the Gods, and before the rule of Pharaoh. It is written there are six duats down here. I would say, lord, that we are going to one of those.”
“You have not been in all these duats?”
“No, my lord. I have only gone where my duties have required me to.”
Khufu suppressed the wave of irritation he felt with priests and their mysterious ways. “And in the duat we go to now?”
“That, my lord, is unknown, as I have not been to this one. The Hall of Records is said to be in one of the duats— the history of the time before the history we have recorded. This was the time when the Gods ruled beyond the horizon, before even the First Age of Egypt. The Old Kingdom of the Gods beyond the Great Sea.”
Khufu wasn’t interested in history or the Gods but thefuture. “It is said there is also a hall that holds the Grail, which contains the gift of eternal life.”
Asim nodded. “That is so, my lord.”
“But you don’t think that is where we are headed?”
“It is possible, my lord. It has been passed down that we will be given the Grail when the Gods come again and we will join them. Perhaps by building the Great Pyramid and finally at long last completing the plan handed down from the First Age we have earned the honor of the Gods. However, I have not yet laid eyes upon the Hall of Records or the Grail.”
“Maybe you haven’t been looking closely enough,” Khufu muttered. Building the Pyramid had certainly been a feat worthy of some reward from the Gods, he mused. Even with the Gods’ drawings, his engineer priests had been fearful they could not do it. Others had tried on a smaller scale in other places, testing the design, and none had succeeded, such as the one that had collapsed on itself at Saqqara. Using the practical knowledge learned from those attempts over the centuries and the Gods’ plan, Khufu had felt confident he could succeed — and he had.
They reached a junction. The path to the right was level. To the other side, the path curved left and down. Khufu had been taught the directions, even though, as far as he knew, no one in his line of Pharaohs had ever actually been down there. The Pharaohs ruled above, but the Gods ruled there.
He turned left. It was cool in the tunnel but Khufu was sweating. He had watched ten thousand put to death in one day on his orders after a battle and felt nothing. He who held absolute rule over the lives of his people felt fear for the first time in his life. But burning through the fear was hope, for he kept reminding himself what his father had told him — that inside the Roads of Rostau, hidden under the Earth, there was indeed the key to immortality, the golden Grail of the Gods that had been promised. And that there would be a day when the Gods would grant that to the chosen. Was today the day, and was he the chosen one? After all, as Asim had noted, he had completed the Great Pyramid this season after twenty years of labor, a marvel indeed, exactly according to the plans left behind by the Gods. And he had put the red capstone up there, a thing that had come out of one of the duats down here, dragged to the surface by Asim and his priests under the cover of darkness.
The tunnel ended at a stone wall. Asim used the medallion around his neck, placing it against a slight depression in the center of the stone. The outline of a door appeared, then the rock slid up. Asim stepped aside and motioned for the Pharaoh to enter. Khufu stepped through, into a small, circular cavern, about twenty feet wide. In the very center was a tall, narrow red crystal, three feet high and six inches in diameter, the multifaceted surface glinting. Set in the top of the crystal was the handle of a sword. Khufu walked forward, drawn irresistibly toward the crystal. Asim was at his side now. An ornate sheath could be seen buried deep inside the crystal. The Pharaoh had never seen such crystal or metal worked so finely.
“What is it?”
“It is called Excalibur,” Asim said. “Take hold of the sword, my Pharaoh. Remove it from the crystal.”
Khufu reached down and grabbed the handle of the sword. The sword, still covered by the sheath, slid smoothly out of the crystal.
“Now free the blade, my lord.”
Khufu hesitated. “Why?”
“My Pharaoh, it will free the red capstone we just put on top of the pyramid to act outside of itself.”
“That makes no sense. What can the capstone do?”
“I am telling you only what I was instructed, my lord. It is important.”
Khufu began to draw back the blade. A shock coursed out of the handle through his hand and into his body as he pulled it out of the sheath.
Khufu staggered back as a golden glow filled the entire chamber. Khufu blinked as the smoothly cut walls flickered and then came to life. A flurry of images flashed across them, so quickly he could barely note them: a massive golden palace that dwarfed the pyramid he had just built, set on a hill above a beautiful city of white stone surrounded by seven moats of water; a wave-battered island with three volcanic mountains in each corner sitting alone in an endless ocean; a rocky uninhabited desert with mountains surrounding a dry lake bed; a desolate land swept by snow and ice; a strange land where the sand was red and a massive mountain dominated the horizon, and other images flashing by faster and faster so that he lost track.
Suddenly the walls went black, then a new image appeared, of a field of stars, so many Khufu could not even begin to count, and the stars were moving rapidly, wheeling across the walls.
Then blank again, before revealing a view of the surface above but from a perspective he didn’t recognize at first. He could see the Sphinx and the Nile beyond as if from a great height, and he then realized that in some manner the walls in this deep cavern were reflecting the view from the top of the Great Pyramid. The red capstone was now glowing as if lit from within.
He started as a seven-foot-high red line appeared between him and the vision on the walls. The line wavered, then widened until a figure appeared, a twin to the statue above. Yet Khufu could see through the figure, to the display on the wall.
He was trying to take all this in, when the figure began speaking. The language was singsong, one the Pharaoh had never heard.
“Do you understand the words?” he asked Asim, his voice a whisper, as if the image could hear.
“It is the language of the Gods, my lord. I was taught as much of the language as has been passed down and remembered among the high priests.”
Khufu waited impatiently for the priest to translate.
“It was hoped the Great Pyramid would bring more of the Gods,” Asim finally said, his head cocked to one side, his single eye closed as he listened closely and tried to understand. “That was the design.” Asim’s thin tongue snaked around his lips as he listened further. “It has not worked that way. Instead an enemy comes.” Asim’s good arm slowly raised until it pointed upward. “From the sky above.”
Khufu looked at the ceiling of the chamber. He could see the sky displayed. It was clear, not a cloud or bird visible.
“What kind of enemy?” Khufu asked, but Asim was again listening and didn’t respond right away.