The Totems of Abydos Read Free

subtle, unspoken transmissions within generations, through simple but subtle enculturations, by those ways in which we learn, and are unaware that we have learned, what most deeply shapes us and moves us, are indistinguishable from those of the natural memory, it seems one might speak of “memory.” But these thoughts, Horemheb told himself, are absurd, and what have they to do with the journey, and the string, and the platform? But then who knows what are the deepest and most secret motivations of the heart? It is known they cannot be what they are commonly claimed to be, and are frenziedly and hysterically insisted upon, but what are they?
    Who, Horemheb wondered, are the brethren? And, too, Horemheb wondered upon himself, for he did not know who he was, but only that he, too, was of the brethren. He had never denied that, and never would. He was of the brethren. Without the brethren, outside of the brethren, he was nothing. But, too, he was different. He wanted to know who they were, and who he was, who was one of them. That was not too much, surely. And so it was in search of knowledge, called by the journey, summoned by it, enticed by it, driven, tormented, and lashed by it, eager to seek and fearing what might be found, that Horemheb had once again left the village at sunset, that he had once again sought the string which would take him to the platform.
    Horemheb drew shut the strings on his small sack of meal and, with difficulty, aided by the staff, rose to his feet. He looked up into the moonless sky. On his ancient visage was reflected the dim, yellowish light of the lantern fruit, retaining its recollection of the day’s sun, but Horemheb did not see it, of course, as he was blind. He had not always been blind. Once he had been as sharp-sighted, as quick, as any of the brethren. But long ago, so long ago that there were none amongst the brethren alive now who could remember it, he had sought the platform, the first time that he had done so after sunset. At such a time, of course, not even the string had been tied between the trees. Long before that first nocturnal journey Horemheb, of course, had undertaken his travels, sat at the feet of elders, read his parchments, sought others, conducted his researches, and pondered on the puzzles which had, even from his early youth, intrigued him, and then, as his wisdom increased, begun to frighten him. He was already old, and shivering in his hut, when the images, like furtive presences in the night, like rodents in the darkness, had begun to haunt him, had begun, so to speak, to prowl about his ears, and scamper over his old body at night, as though scornful of any longer concealing their presence from one so weak, from one from whom they had nothing to fear. It was difficult to catch these images in the darkness, for they were quick and elusive, but Horemheb thought they were the shadows of truths, not some blazing, triumphant truth that would vindicate the brethren and himself, that would dispel darkness with light and trumpets, with sunlight and processions, but small truths, not really important in the vastness of the universe, truths more like shadows, more like rodents in the darkness. And these truths, if such they were, for he did not care to welcome them as such, hinted at the greater thing behind them, at the darker thing behind them, the thing which was more vast and terrible than they, at the forces in the heart, at the memory. One night Horemheb had awakened and thought that he had screamed a scream, though it must have been a silent scream for it aroused none of the brethren. Something had come to him in his sleep which had terrified him. This was not, he knew, one of the small truths, which spoke of the diminutiveness of the brethren and himself, so tiny in the framework of things, but a truth which was not of the brethren, but was in its way the brethren, much as one might have a truth which was not about the pebble or the branch, but which was, in some