The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
Then for the moment I was nonplussed: but I remembered that eight
men, all named Amenemhat, had been (in their turns) priests of Tanis.
Wherefore I cried again: “I summon none but him who was Amenemhat, the
priest of Tanis, at the time when Ptolemais Ayletes reigned as Pharoah
in Khem.”
And now but one flame-like shape flickered outside the circle; and it
simply sighed, saying: “I am that Amenemhat; and I am here.”
So I commanded him to lie quietly down and lap the emerald liquid in
the trench as a test of his good faith. But I conjured the others to
return to their own places in Amentet, using the _Name Ineffable_ to
compel them, the _Spell_ which may not be spoken save in direst need,
nor written save on virgin papyrus by a priest who knows himself to be
without blemish. And they bowed thrice when I named the _Name_, wailing
wearily. And there was thunder and lightning and a heaving of all
things at their going; and they seemed to melt together into one vast
fiery arrow, which sped (like a bolt shot by the lord of the silver
bow) upward and away into the arcana of the outer immensity.
But Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis, lay prostrate before me, meekly
lapping. And he no longer had the shape of a flame: for, now, the
chariot of Helios Hyperion had emerged from the crocus-hued gate of
dawn. Ashen-grey was Amenemhat, and hard indeed to see: for, being
but an Osirian, he cast no shadow, nor did he obstruct my view of the
columns of the court behind him. And I was in the mind to laugh at
the thought that, after all, so high a priest as he was should have
no more solid shape than a jellyfish, tinted like a rainbow where
the rising sun’s radiance touched him. But I remembered that Death
comes to all, and that rain-born Iris (a divine one of goddesses) is
also thus primarily tinctured; and I hastened to intone the _Spell
of Embodiment_, touching what there was of Amenemhat with the magic
staff, and saying: “_Advance, thou Dweller in the Outer Space, and be
a thing of earth again till I release thee._”
Thus I spoke: but he rose like a brilliant mist, ever thickening
into opacity and taking the form which my lordly mind hurriedly made
for him. Mother-naked, even as I was, he crossed into the mystic
circle which my staff opened to him. I touched his brow with the
crystal orb, and placed his hands in the sacred water of Sihor in the
divination-cup. And vital fluids came back into his veins, so that he
became a thing of earth and fit for reasonable conversation. But I also
gave him the _Heart-touch_, saying: “Receive thy mortal life in lease
from me for a season.”
But he stood at his full height, looking into my eyes; and he said:
“O thou, unknown, who has called me from Amentet, and hast given me
again a mortal body with blood and life-like juices, be ware lest I
shall overcome thee. Thus I warn thee, in accordance with the immutable
law of Osiris where it is written, _He who is summoned shall warn his
summoner_.”
But I was not afraid. And I laid the _Spell of Obedience_ on Amenemhat.
But, when I had thus secured my own safety and also a trusty friend
and familiar who was to instruct me in unmentioned and unthought-of
magic, then, indeed, I took liberty to give way to a human weakness,
having already tolerated enough to slay nineteen ordinary men--to wit,
the agony of the scorching staff, and the long labours under the fiery
moon, and the stifling green vapour, and the horrid vision of the
flickering faces; and I took liberty, I say without shame, to swoon
away into oblivion.
When, at length, the mind in my dear breast awakened, I found my new
familiar faithfully ministering to me, gently holding the thread of
life which bid fair to fray out in my enfeebled grasp. But we two,
having clothed ourselves, returned to my boat, there to live in
tranquillity while I recollected myself.
But there remained much to be done yet by me. I felt that I would have
been quite content to spend the rest of that life as Amenemhat’s pupil,
learning from him the occult and affascinating arts of the hierarchs
of ancient Khem. For we read together in the many rolls of papyrus
which I had collected; and it was easy to know that, whereas I was like
a clever child who early has learned to read, he was a perfect adept
who (by long experience) was able to understand what was read. But,
by chance, the precise method of working a certain inchantment, which
opens the Hall of Double Truth and Right, baffled us both. And it was
of the very gravest import that I should know how to practise this
inchantment: for thereby I could learn the whole secret of a man using
himself Bai and Ka and Khou as might seem good to him: which, for a
miserable mortal is much to be desired, as being uncommon.
But the rede of Amenemhat was that I should repeat the _Spell of
Summons_, summoning a Great One of the Greater Ones, from whom I should
require an instruction. But, for some time, I withstood the priest:
I know not why, unless it be that habit and temper make me prompt to
resist direction that I may steer my course in accordance only with the
mind in my lordly breast.
But there came a night, when we by chance were sitting together on the
deck of my Nile-boat in the clear of a full moon; and great peace came
upon me, so that my soul swelled sweetly within me, letting me know
that I was full of wiles and furnished with inexhaustible reserves of
power. And I said: “At dawn we will go southward; and, at the temple of
Korte, at a moon-birth, I will use my power for summoning a Great One
of The Greater Ones.”
Thus I spoke. But Amenemhat answered me, saying: “Nay, O Summoner, why
toil so far, seeing that there are places nearer where this inchantment
may be worked with equal ease?”
“I know,” quoth I, “of no place as free from the risk of disturbance as
the temple of Korte.”
“Thou hast but to command,” he responded, “and I, O Summoner, must
reveal to thee the secret fanes of Khem.”
“Reveal them, thou,” I promptly said.
“There is one at Heliopolis----”
“Too near to noisy Cairo.”
“There is another at Ptolemais, now called Thomis----”
“I saw there a galosh-factory, when last I descended Sihor’s sacred
flood.”
“There are those vast secret halls of Thebes----”
“Ruined.”
“Thebes above ground indeed is ruined, O wise Summoner, but not the
Thebes which lies below.”
“How know’st thou this?” I said.
“From the gods who revealed the fact to me in my former life: for when
I was a priest in Khem, I learned many things which in time would be.
And it was given to me to know how that the temples of Khem should be
desolated and the peoples of Khem destroyed. And it was shewn to me
for how many centuries the secret halls of the three priestly colleges
at Thebes would remain forgotten. But I, also, am ware of an entrance,
well-concealed, very hard to find, which I can shew to thee if thou
desirest to make use of those dim halls as they were wont to be used.”
Thus he spoke. And the mind in my breast exulted. But I said: “Surely
the adits will be blocked with shrubs and fallen masonry?”
“That may not be, O Summoner,” he answered, “for the adit of which I
speak is in the open plain.”
“Then we will go to Thebes; and the thing which has to be done shall be
well-done, there.”
But when, at length, we were come to the ruined capital of the Upper
Land and the Lower, having left some of our baggage at the paltry
village of Luxor, concealing the rest, anon we pursued our way across
the sandy plain thereby, until we reached a certain pebbly strip of
land which was unencumbered, excepting by a low pillar of granite. And
the pillar, being no more than a span in height, would have been quite
unnoticeable had any ruins approximated: as it was, I almost trod upon
it before I perceived its weather-worn surface, deeply graven with
the dead tongues of tombs, and undecypherable for all who have not
(but I have) a knowledge of those tongues from the tongue of one who
himself had used them. Time-worn was that little pillar, as well it
might be: for Amenemhat said that, in his own day, it had been more
venerable than the oldest fanes. Also, he narrated a tradition, which
said that a remote ancestor of Menes found it there, marking the site
where Divine Osiris first placed his foot on the hallowed soil of Khem:
but Amenemhat said (as well) that this tradition rested on no sure
warranty, for that Menes himself had taken the pillar from a temple
builded many ages before Khem was a country, and had it set there to
mark the entrance of the secret halls which he himself was building.
But I instantly put this saying to the proof. For we strove to move the
pillar in its socket, where during nineteen centuries at least it had
been undisturbed. And, when we turned it round, the slab supporting it
sank slowly on a hinge: but sand with many pebbles slid downward on to
the stair which was revealed.
Thus then was manifest the entrance to the Secret Halls of Thebes.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] _Cf._ a similar divine voice, _Iliad_, v. 380-410. A. H.
THE THIRD PAPYRUS
Having lighted lanthorns, I began to descend the stair with my
familiar: but a very noxious vapour drove us back. And, while I chafed
at this delay, Amenemhat reproved me, saying: “Why wait hours for
nature to effect that which thou (with magic art) couldst do in a
moment?”
And this having been the second time when I myself had forgotten the
power which I possessed, till reminded of the same by my familiar, I,
indeed, held a sort of council with myself; and I determined that, in
the future, I no longer would live as men of my own race are wont to
live, in helpless abject obedience to so-called natural laws, seeing
that (for me) such laws did not exist, but that I would be limited
solely by the mind in my lordly breast, willing what I pleased, and
causing its performance by forces amenable to my magic art. And, having
thus determined, I instantly invoked certain airy sprites, yellow as
sunflowers, who, with millions of legs alternately coming and going,
purified the staircase and the edifices to which it led.
The passage having thus been rendered favourable to earth-walking men,
we again descended: but, when we came to certain gates beyond the
forty-ninth antechamber, some mysterious energy barred our progress.
That is to say, when we reached the said gates, my head would have
gone through, but my feet refused to budge--though Amenemhat went
forward without difficulty, whom I, seeing that he was my familiar and
his place behind his lord, recalled. For, if I could not proceed (on
account of some inexplicable impotence on the part of my blameless
feet), neither might he, for a servant may not go before his master in
a case of this kind.
Wherefore, I used my magic art again; and I uttered several spells one
by one, excepting the _Spell of the Name Ineffable_ which I do not deem
fit to say in any need but that which seems extreme. And none of my
spells availed me anything.
But my mind mentioned that Amenemhat’s ability to go forward, and
my inability, might perchance indicate some difference of character
between us two; and I used my wiles for pondering possible differences.
In this manner I perceived that whereas he was a priest according to
the highly respectable rite of Khem, I was no more than a Tonsured
Clerk of the Latin Obedience. For it may as well be known by all men
living that, in my early (or later) life in the kingdom of Victory
queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans, one of the many incredibly
cruel and unspeakably hideous happenings which marred me and soured me
was as follows. The Divine Ones of the Latin Obedience called me to
serve them as flamen sacrificing for the Blessed Dead; and I willingly