The Ka - Mary Deal

Paranormal Romance Novel Set In Ancient Egypt

The Ka by Mary Deal

Book excerpt

More loose cloths for the cleaning of footwear lay before the opened double wooden doors of the First Chamber.

“So far, no sign of white ants,” Aaron said.

They dusted their boots and squeezed through the busy engineers glutting the doorway. Bubbling over with excitement, the others welcomed them.

Chione's eyes widened. She could only stare at the splendor, replete with history. Borders of hieroglyphs and a profusion of colorful lotuses framed each wall. Varied delicate scents wafted through the chamber as if a breeze had blown them through. There was no draft and evidently no one else detected the new odors. A mysterious voice lilted again.

“The treatment room.”

The words resounded in her mind. Judging from the unchanged expressions of the others, they had not heard. Chills ran over her body. She had just stepped back in time, like entering a room visited before. She felt utterly empowered as she drank it all in.

Clifford flagged her attention and pointed upward. Others tipped their heads to look. Lighting was redirected exposing a pyramid rising above them. “Carved right into the ceiling stone,” he said.

Four square pillars rose from the floor at each corner to the top edge of the walls. From there, leaning, they met at a point in the center of the vaulted ceiling. Around the top edge of the tall walls, a border had been carved around the room, connecting the lower ends of the leaning beams. Beams of the pyramid structure were painted black.

“The ceiling's Egyptian blue,” Kendra said. “With gold stars. The pyramid form looks like it's been shoved up in there.”

“Carved in,” Clifford said. The realist in him would not let the facts be distorted.

“This isn't an ordinary tomb,” Bebe said.

Chione smiled upward, staring with her mouth agape, again silently validated.

“Where's Randy?” Dr. Withers asked as he counted heads. “I want the whole team in on this.”

“He hasn't been with us since he sped off in the jeep,” Aaron said.

“That figures,” Dr. Withers said, rolling his eyes.

The chamber was small and crowded, roughly fifteen by fifteen feet. Each had to squeeze past one another to move around without touching the artifacts. Dakarai and Masud, who had abandoned their loose gallibayas for denims and cotton shirts, spoke among themselves in Egyptian and inched around the room taking notes and drawing sketches. Long-legged Dakarai stepped over artifacts instead of inching his way around. Something about his actions made Chione wonder about his respect for the items. Masud was more careful. He was shorter and stockier and couldn't have stepped over anything.

“Look at these artifacts!” Chione said. Taweret, the ferocious-looking pregnant hippopotamus and goddess of childbirth, stood in one corner. “To ward off evil during childbirth.”

On an elegantly carved wooden table in another corner lay various size scarabs placed in a circle. A magical knife shaped like a boomerang lay in the middle. It would have been used to draw a line of protection around an area or a person.

“A lion, an Eye of Horus, serpent with a knife and a jackal,” Masud said, studying the carvings on the blade as he stood beside Chione.

“All those creatures gave the knife its power,” she said.

“O Little One,” Masud said. “You know.”

Several of the others laughed at Masud's understatement.

“One of our resident experts,” Bebe said. Her smile was amicable.

In the opposite corner stood another table on which lay a gilt hand mirror, face down, the backside bordered with lotuses delicately etched and one large bloom in the middle. A gilt pyramid about a foot tall and inlaid with stones stood beside the mirror. An enormous faience ankh carved with a dog-headed scepter representing power lay nearby. The scepter was said to be the pillar of the god Osiris and held the power of a god over millions of years. On the floor near each table and between the legs, stood faience vases, jars and containers, some inlaid with gold and jewels. Several draped garlands, though withered and faded, held together and withstood time. Small stone steles with inscriptions leaned against the walls. Fragile papyri bearing more writings lay scattered.

One glorious wall was totally etched with a painted relief of a man and woman sitting facing one another. The female wore a long closely fitted, pleated white skirt. The cloak over her shoulders attached to the front of her skirt between bare breasts. The male wore only a pleated white calf-length kilt. Both sported beautifully braided wigs of differing lengths with perfumed pomade beeswax cones on top. Both faces were etched with broad lines depicting the use of kohl around the eyes, which was a decorative way of deflecting harshness of the sun's rays away from the eyes.

“Look at this,” Chione said. Her excitement brought the group around in front of the giant-sized figures. “The woman wears a sacred menat around her neck.”

“And holds a sistrum,” Bebe said. She carried a pen and notepad everywhere and had an extra pen clipped to her pocket. She began to sketch the image, perhaps to later verify it in some texts.

“Yes,” Chione said, agreeing. “A sacred rattle carried by noblewomen and priestesses.”

“She looks to be counseling the man,” Kendra said. “Could it be we've found the tomb of such an important woman?”

“Let's not speculate,” Dr. Withers said, smiling his well-known witty grin. “Let's take it one day… uh… that's one chamber at a time.”

In the mural, a five-stringed harp stood on the floor beside the woman's chair, colorfully decorated with dancers and lyre and double-flute players.

On the opposite wall, two women faced each other. One, the same woman from the first mural, appeared to be administering to another who looked to be with child. Her face was painted black.

“The black woman, a Nubian, perhaps?” Bebe asked. “A lady from Punt?”

“Not when she's dressed like an Egyptian,” Chione said, studying hieroglyphs bordering the scene. “The rest of her skin is pale.”

“Check the woman's expression,” Bebe said. “She looks committed to what she's doing.”

Chione wanted to offer a bit of information, hesitated, then decided no reason existed to withhold from this group if she had something solid to consider. “The ancients believed the heart was the center of their being. They thought with their hearts.”

“No kidding,” Ginny said. She listened and spoke, all the while doing what she did best. The camera eye was seldom more than an inch or so away from her eye, if not pressed against it.

“It's my guess ancient Egyptians were a very emotional people,” Chione said, “by the look on this woman's face.”

Ginny had great curiosity and learned a lot during her shoots. She had worked all over the world until Dr. Withers nabbed her for the Institute. Though she, at times, dressed like a man and was husky, the sparkly earrings she wore, a diamond-studded pinkie ring, and her dainty perfume told a different story. Still, she was wondered about. She could shoulder a heavy camera like any man and compete with the strongest of them.

Wadjets, Eyes of Horus the Hawk God, occupied both reliefs. Bowls, vases, winged scarabs, and other amulets filled the spaces. The spell caster also carried a long incense burner with a head of the Hawk God on one end.

“Listen,” Chione said. “I'm not going to interpret every glyph right now, but I'll give a few English interpretations, okay?” All nodded eagerly. She began by pointing to a cluster of glyphs. Bebe stepped up beside her, ready to write. Having studied ancient pronunciation, Chione sounded out a few glyphs phonetically in the old language and then pointed as she translated.

Blacken your face

with Hapi's mud

like farmer's fields

new life will bud

“A spell!” Kendra said.

Chione's better judgment told her not to describe the thick earthy odor of Hapi's mud she just inhaled.

“But wait,” Ginny said as she relaxed the camera on her shoulder and pointed. “Why did you begin reading from the right? The next row, you read from the left.”

“See this?” Chione asked, pointing to a bird figure. “When any figure of life faces left, you begin reading from the left. Facing right, begin right and read left. Up or down, whichever way the live figure faces, start from that direction.”

“I knew that,” Ginny said, teasing to hide embarrassment.

“What the spell implies,” Clifford said. “Is that the tomb's occupant believed in the magic of the times, such as it was.”

In both murals, a sun disk with long beaming rays and hands at the ends holding ankhs pointed toward the woman's face. “This tomb is from Akhenaten's era,” Chione said. “The main god is Aten!”

“Would you look at that,” Dr. Withers said. He had a playful way of acting surprised at times, though he had probably already seen the symbols, having been in the chamber a while. He never missed much.

“God Aten, as opposed to…?” a technician asked.

“You can answer that, Bebe,” Chione said, gesturing for her to speak.

“Thank you, Chione,” she said, turning to address the group. “When Akhenaten became Pharaoh, he banished all other gods, especially Amon-Ra. Amon was divine protector, principal god of Upper Egypt, Thebes, and toward Africa. Ra was the sun god of Lower Egypt toward the Mediterranean.”

“Amon by itself stood for the midnight sun, the hidden mysteries,” Clifford said. “Ra represented the sun's life-giving rays.”

“Aten represented the sun itself as a disk in the heavens,” Bebe said, motioning upward to the brilliant golden orb in the murals. “This is the Aten symbol!”

“Go-o-od, good, good, good!” Dr. Withers said, dancing around. “If this is Akhenaten era—”

“And worship of the Aten was banished during the reign of Tutankhamon,” Bebe said and waited.

“Then we've narrowed down our time frame,” Dr. Withers said with joy. “Let's review our information.”

Bebe agreed. “Tutankh-Amon's name was first Tutankh-Aten.”

“I remember reading that,” a technician said.

“If I may, O Teacher,” Masud said to Dr. Withers and nodded to the others. He paused for any objections to him speaking. Everyone waited so he continued. “King Tutankhamon's full name was first Neb-Kheperu-Ra Tutankh-Aten,” he said with a heavy accent. “He married a niece, maybe half-sister, named Ankhesenpa-Aten. Older than him, she was believed to be the third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.”

“I remember,” Aaron said. “It's not known for sure if Tutankhamon was Akhenaten's youngest brother or a son by Akhenaten and his minor queen Kiya.”

“They sure knew how to complicate their lives, didn't they?” Ginny asked.

“Actually, they simplified it,” Clifford said. “Or tried to. Intermarriage assured the kingship would remain a family matter.”

“How does this narrow down our time frame?” Another technician asked.

“Speculation has it,” Chione said. “Though reared in the Aten tradition, King Tut changed his name to Amon, restored Amon worship, and wiped out the religious dogma established by Akhenaten.”

“Why would he wipe out his father's traditions?” Someone asked. Everyone had become enthused. “Or a brother's, if that's what he was?”

“That's what I've always asked,” Bebe said. “I speculate that since King Tut assumed the throne at age nine, he was presumably advised by Aye, Nefertiti's father, and who could have been Tut's grandfather. It was Aye who forced Tut to change his name and restore Amon.”

“Tut, being a child, had no real choice,” Dr. Withers said thoughtfully.

“King Tut was reputedly deposed,” Clifford said.

“That's only theory, O Professor,” Rashad's cameraman said, stepping close. “His mummy does have a hole in the side of his skull from some sort of blow perhaps. The resultant bone fragment lies deeper inside. There are also bruises on his temple. Close up pictures and x-rays are on file at Madu Museum.”

Chione hugged herself listening to the conversation. At the mention of the blow to King Tut's head, she moaned quietly, then heard…

“All must change. It's the new order.”

The warning echoed through her mind as if she had heard it many times. A feeling of urgency overtook her as if so little time remained, but for what? Again, she looked at the others. They had not heard. No one heard the words or saw the pictures that appeared inside her mind.

“The theory of murder is only speculation,” Dr. Withers said, reminding everyone to remain open-minded.

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: Mary Deal

BOOK TITLE: The Ka

GENRE: Romance

SUBGENRE: Paranormal Romance

PAGE COUNT: 480

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