The Mummy Read Free

Pharaoh’s soldiers and his own priests of Osiris, under the wary gaze of the Med-jai high on surrounding dunes, and read from The Book of Amun Ra, intoning the sacred incantation of damnation over the linen-wrapped body of his beloved . . .
    And the massive metal book held open in Imhotep’s hands began to emanate a golden glow, as if the sun were rising from its pages; like golden lightning it flashed, sending the muscular black slaves to their knees like whimpering children.
    Washed in the golden glow, as if the book in his hands were aflame, Imhotep, his voice a rumbling emotionless baritone, continued the fearsome incantation.
    And now the golden lightning was accompanied by an impossible wind which whipped at the clothing of those gathered around the mummified mistress, and soldiers who had fought in ferocious battles now cringed like frightened children, hiding behind their shields as their skirts fluttered in a wind that caused not a grain of sand to shift.
    Imhotep, unaffected by the lightning and the wind, read on, uttering the ghastly malediction as his faithful priests—holding their white cats in front of them ceremonially—remained as calm and unaffected by the lightning flashes of gold and the lashing wind as their high priest himself seemingly was.
    As Imhotep neared the final words of the incantation, the linen-wrapped mummy began to tremble, as if coming back to life. As gold lightning intermittently flashed, a whirlpool of wind seemed to find the woman’s body and, at first slowly, then with dramatic quickness, raised her into the air. The eyes of the terrified slaves, the frightened soldiers, the calm priests, followed her ascent, watching mesmerized as the mummified woman floated there, eerily, Imhotep’s deep voice rumbling through the concluding passage.
    Then, in one last all-pervasive golden flash, and a blast of wind that should have (but did not) created a sandstorm, the mummy fell back to earth, where Anck-su-namun’s remains suddenly revealed themselves as no longer shapely, but shriveled, twisted, and grotesque, as if even the final few vestiges of beauty had been siphoned from her.
    Silence draped the desert like a suffocating cloak. No wind. No one spoke as the priests of Osiris gathered up the gnarled mummy and deposited it in the wooden coffin; the canopic jars were placed within the box as well before the lid was shut. The Nubians carted the coffin to the grave and dropped it in, then began shoveling sand in on top of it with their hands. On the surrounding dunes, many of the Med-jai turned and drifted away into the night, satisfied, apparently, that their late master had been avenged. Anck-su-namun would soon be in the underworld, her soul devoured.
    When the sand had been smoothed over, the grave disappearing into the desert floor, the Nubian slaves looked toward Imhotep for their next order. But the next order Imhotep issued was not for the slaves . . .
    The high priest nodded to the soldiers, who raised their spears and hurled them at the Nubians, whose cries of pain and surprise broke the unearthly silence. Within seconds the area was littered with the dead, sand stained dark with blood.
    The soldiers, now unarmed, looked toward Imhotep for permission to retrieve their spears. Instead, Imhotep nodded again, and the priests of Osiris—their cats deposited on the ground, where they looked on with bland indifference—descended upon the soldiers with daggers, hacking at the startled men in a darkness relieved only by the flickering of torchlight and, shortly, the blood of dead men was again seeping into the sand.
    A few Med-jai remained, watching from the dunes; they knew they were in no danger, for they—like the priests of Osiris—were holy men. Only common people—slaves, soldiers—had to be killed; no unholy person could ever know the exact location of the burial site.
    And the handful of Med-jai who had stayed to watch the inevitable slaughter now slipped away into the