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“What a horrible dream,” thought
Melissa. She sat up from among
the collection of cushions that served as her place of
rest. Her body was covered with
sweat. “I need a bath,”
she murmured. Rising from her
bed she headed over to the cool pool of
water. Already the heat of the
day was making the room uncomfortably
warm. Slowly she slid into the
bath, but strangely the water did not cool her
down. “Must be the
pregnancy,” she thought.
“I just can’t get
comfortable.” She looked
around for her attendants. Where
were they? She was used to being
waited on twenty-four hours a day.
She opened her mouth to call for them, but no words came
out.
She tried again, raising her fingers to her
mouth, or rather she tried to, but her arms would not
move. Some invisible force was
holding them tight. Panicking
she attempted to move from the room, but something was holding her
legs. Her eyes went wide as she
saw – blackness.
She panicked, wrenching her body desperately
in an effort to break free from the invisible bonds that bound
her. She screamed in terror,
but no words came out. Something
was clamped over her mouth. She
couldn’t breathe. Thrashing
violently she slammed her head into an immovable
object. It was the stunning force
of the blow that brought her back to
reality. Dazed, she remembered
what had happened. It hadn’t
been a dream. She was trapped
in a coffin and slowly dying. She
knew she was dying by the number of strange dreams she had been
having. Although the dreams were
all different they all had a common theme; she was free and living in
luxury. Sometimes she was back
home with her parents. Sometimes
she was with the pharaoh making love.
And sometimes she was with Larra – that was the strangest of
all, because she was making love in that dream as well.
She sipped through the reed that provided
the water that kept her alive. She
got only air. With a feeling
of complete hopelessness she realized that she must have jerked the straw
loose or broken it when she had
struggled. She was now without
water.
She shrugged
mentally. It really did not
matter. She was slowly starving
to death as Isetnofret had planned.
That was the reason for the strange dreams and the
hallucinations. How long had
she been without food? She had
no idea how long she had been lying helpless in the
dark. There was no way of keeping
track of time. She didn’t
even know if it was day or night.
Some time ago she had fouled
herself. She had held off as
long as she had been able, but she could only fight her own body for so
long. Now she was lying in her
own filth. At least she didn’t
need to worry about doing it more than
once. She hadn’t eaten since
before her abduction.
To make matters worse, she could smell
food. Although she couldn’t
hear anything through the heavy stone of the sarcophagus she knew that there
was food close by. Or perhaps
it was just another hallucination.
She had been doing that a lot
lately. Sometimes she had the
strangest dreams… Mentally
she shook her head. Hadn’t
she just had those thoughts?
Madness.
Madness. She closed her
eyes and drifted off to sleep again.
She awoke to the stench of urine and her own
fecal matter. The lower part
of her body was soaked through. How
long had she slept this time? God
her vagina hurt! If she could
only move enough to remove the dildo that was
there. She was used to the pain
by now, but that didn’t mean it was any the less
agonizing. As a matter of fact
she was sure that it hurt worse now than when it had first been
inserted. But there was no way
of getting it out. Whatever that
bitch Isetnofret had put on it had plagued her endlessly.
At first it had only
hurt. That was to be expected
of a dildo that size. But Isetnofret
had smeared the brutal instrument with more than just
lubricant. It burned and itched
at the same time. Again and again
she had tried to scratch herself, but of course that was
impossible. Nevertheless, her
muscles tightened as she reached involuntarily for that burning
itch.
Her hand had
moved! How could that be; she
was too tightly bound? But her
hand was moving. Somehow the
bindings had loosened. And then
she knew what it was. It was
her body. She was dying of starvation
and was no longer the well padded female she had been only a few days
before. Bindings that had been
intended to hold a woman weighing 135 pounds would not fit snugly on a girl
that now weighed much less than that.
Slowly she struggled against the layers and
layers of gauze. She was very
weak and had to stop frequently to rest, but after what seemed like an age
she worked her right hand free. The
first thing she did was to go to work on the bandages covering her mound
of Venus. The pain and irritation
of the dildo was now close to driving her
insane. With a groan she managed
to extract the monstrous phallus.
It was followed by a gush of blood and
fluid. “Not a good sign,”
Melissa thought. Then suddenly
she was hit by an terrible spasm of pain as her uterus
contracted.
“Oh god no,”
she cried.
“No, no,
no!” But she could do nothing to stop the
process. Weeping in frustration,
Melissa could do nothing but clamp her hands over her abdomen as the life
within her was rejected by her body.
It didn’t take long, but it was one of the most traumatic episodes
of her short life.
For a long time after it was over she could
do nothing but lie in the dark, sobbing
piteously. But at length her
sobs diminished. Rage swelled
up within her. Her child had
been destroyed, and there was no doubt who was to
blame. Controlling her emotions
she went back to work on the bandages.
With one hand completely free she was able to work a little
faster. An hour or so of working
at the bandages freed her other arm.
Then she went to work on her legs.
Fortunately the sarcophagus she had been placed in was quite
spacious. She remembered that
in ancient Egyptian burials, several coffins, one within the other, were
placed in each outer stone sarcophagus.
But Isetnofret had placed her in this one without the usual inner
coffins. As a result she had
plenty of room to work.
She found the water jar and drained
it. There was no point in conserving
it. This was her last
chance. If she did not escape
from her tomb in the next little while she never
would. She simply wouldn’t
have the strength for it. She
placed her hands and her feet on the heavy stone lid above
her. She went through a mental
checklist, remembering every detail that Larra had taught her about concentrating
her energy. She would probably
only have one chance. She could
tell that she was almost finished
physically. Her starved body
simply didn’t have the strength for more than one
effort.
She took a deep breath and drawing on all
of her remaining strength pushed.
For a horrible second she thought she had failed and then the lid
moved. Not very much, but enough
to shift a few inches out of its niche and let in a breath of sweet clean
air. She rested for a few minutes
before trying again, but this time it was much
easier. She no longer had to
move the lid straight up, just shift it a bit to the side each
time.
It took her awhile, but eventually she had
enough room to squeeze out of the
sarcophagus. “Good thing
I’ve lost so much weight,” she
murmured. Sliding out of the
stone tomb she collapsed to the floor of the burial chamber and almost instantly
fainted.
The smell of food awoke
her. Opening her eyes she had
to shield them from a stream of sunlight.
Dozens of sunbeams entered from niches cut into the wall of the burial
chamber. Melissa noted that all
of them were centered on one of the many sarcophagi in the huge
room. “Clever,” she
thought. Obviously the mausoleum
had been designed to admit the light in precisely that
pattern. It indicated a degree
of sophistication among the Egyptians that was more than
admirable. She recognized where
she was. It was the Hall of the
Dead. The impressive building
was only a short distance from the palace and she had seen it on a few occasions
from the terrace of the palace.
She tried to stand, but found that she lacked
the strength. How long had she
been without food?
Days? A
week? However long it was she
no longer had the strength to stand.
Breaking out of the stone coffin had taken all of her remaining
strength.
But she could still
crawl. Rising to her elbows she
pulled her knees beneath her, and ignoring the protests from her tormented
body she inched toward the light.
Directly ahead of her was an opening in the
wall. Slowly and painfully she
crawled toward it. She had to
stop several times to rest, but eventually she reached the
opening. Crawling on a few more
feet, she found herself looking out on a series of low stone
platforms. Piled high on each
one were dozens of food offerings, from tropical fruits and nuts to the little
honey cakes that she had learned were Wosret’s favourite
delicacy. The memory of the pharaoh
was bittersweet. She smiled faintly
as she remembered that his pet name for her had been “Honey Cake,”
rather than “Honey
Bee.” But the loss
of his child immediately clouded the
memory. Grimly she realized that
Isetnofret had known that the smell of the food offerings would reach to
her tomb, further aggravating her
suffering. It certainly explained
a good deal about the dreams and hallucinations she had experienced regarding
food.
In front of the offering platforms were several
guards, but they were all facing away from the burial
chamber. It made
sense. No one was likely to exit
from the building. It only needed
to be protected from intrusions.
Nevertheless, Melissa, exhausted in any case, lay down and
waited. She had escaped from
a living death and would not get a second
chance. If she revealed herself
the guards might help her, but they might also be loyal to
Isetnofret. She could not afford
to take the chance. Lowering
her head onto her arms she closed her eyes and slept.
She awoke to the most intense pains from her
stomach, but this time they were pangs of
hunger. It was early
evening. The glow of the sun
was fading in the sky and torches had been lit in front of the burial
chamber. Ever so slowly, partly
from caution, and partly from weakness, Melissa hauled herself to the nearest
offering platform.
The first taste of food was an experience
she never forgot. She could almost
feel the energy flowing back into her
body. It took great strength
of will to stop herself from stuffing food into her mouth with both
hands. Instead she forced herself
to eat slowly, hoping all the time that none of the guards would look back
in her direction. As her strength
returned she was able to gather up a number of food items, and then walking
uncertainly, but as quietly as she could she returned to the burial
chamber.
She spent the rest of the night there and
all of the next day. Whenever
possible she headed out to offering platforms and pilfered more
food. She also took with her
several jugs of wine. Each time
the guards remained oblivious to her
presence. Slowly but surely she
rebuilt her strength. By the
end of the third day of her escape she was
ready.
She was still quite
weak. Three days of decent food
could not make up for the ordeal she had been
through. Her body was still healing
from the brutal treatment it had been dealt by Isetnofret and her guards,
and her many days confinement in the sarcophagus had left her muscles quite
feeble. But she was not depending
on her physical strength to enable her to
escape. She was counting on something
else and that was the religious beliefs and superstitions of the Egyptians
themselves. If her plan worked
she would escape without opposition.
If it failed, well it didn’t matter
anyway. She did not have the
strength to get away without help.
She had to take the chance.
Returning to the sarcophagus where she had been imprisoned she set
to work.
Sabef
yawned. Soon his shift would
be coming to an end and a good thing too.
There wasn’t much to do or see at this time of
night. The many friends and relatives
of the dead were no longer placing their gifts of food in front of temple,
and the night watch was out, keeping the streets clear of those up to no
good. A slight noise behind him
made him turn. He expected to
see a rat scurrying among the offerings, but what he saw froze the blood
in his veins. With a scream of
sheer terror he threw down his spear and shield and ran as fast as he
could.
Djehuty heard the scream and whirled in the direction
of the sound. He followed
Sabef’s gaze to the door of the mortuary
temple. He voided himself where
he stood, and emulating his companion took to his heels, his shrieks of horror
echoing through the streets.
Wosret was roused from his bed by his High
Chamberlain. He was not particularly
pleased. He had been in the middle
of a most interesting session with two of the latest additions to his harem
and was in no mood to be disturbed.
He changed his mind quickly, however, over the news the High Chamberlain
whispered in his ear. The hair
stood up on the back of his neck.
No small feat on a man who had his head shaved every
day. Dressing and strapping on
his sword, he led a hundred men from the
palace. In the courtyard his
chariot and driver were waiting.
Climbing aboard, he led the members of his guard from the
palace.
He drove to the centre of the city, to the great
Hall of the Dead. On the front
steps he encountered an incredible scene.
In the middle of dozens of priests, but isolated from each of them
by a distance of at least a dozen paces was a frightening apparition. “It
can’t be,” he thought. An
involuntary shudder ran down his
backbone. As his driver reined
in the chariot the specter slowly turned its eyes toward
him. It was like looking into
the face of death.
“Greetings mighty
pharaoh.” Wosret
shivered. It was
her voice, but horribly
distorted.
Wosret tried to remain
calm. Every eye was upon him,
but his heart was pounding wildly against his rib
cage. He could not believe what
he was seeing. Only a few days
ago a member of his court had found her hyena gnawed bones scattered bones
on the outskirts of the city.
Licking his lips he forced a
reply. “Who is it that speaks
to the pharaoh and what does it
desire?” He had no experience
in speaking to the dead. That
was the province of the priests and all of them seemed
terrified. A number of them had
prostrated themselves before the ghostly vision and many others were refusing
to look at it.
Melissa held her
breath. This was the most important
part of her deception. Too weak
to escape unaided she had decided to fix on the superstitions of the
Egyptians. Even her short stay
in the pharaoh’s court had acquainted her with the fact that almost
everything was connected to religion in some way, and that these beliefs
were powerful influences in their lives and thought.
She had taken full advantage of her emaciated
condition, allowing as much of her body to show as she
dared. She had returned to the
sarcophagus and salvaged those bandages that were not too badly soiled; arranging
them around her body and limbs in what she hoped was a rather ghoulish
pattern. She was helped by this
in this by the ravaged condition of her
body. She was positively
skeletal. Three days of scrounging
food had done little to put the missing pounds back on her normally statuesque
frame. Every rib stood out like
rungs in a ladder, and the stripes on her back were barely scabbed
over. Even her prominent breasts
had lost a few inches, a development that concerned her more than almost
anything else.
She had also added a few special
touches. Soot from the torches
helped to highlight her gaunt features and red wine and juice from some of
the fruit she had collected served well as blood and
putrescence. Finally, she had
held her nose and smeared some of the filth from the bottom of the sarcophagus
over her bandages. It gave off
a smell so vile and attracted so many flies that she doubted anyone would
dare approach her.
It appeared to have worked so
far. Not a soul had dared come
closer to her than forty feet. But
now she had to answer the pharaoh and do so in a way that was
convincing. With her broken Egyptian,
she feared giving herself away.
Slowly she replied, phrasing her words
carefully.
“I have been sent by Anubis,” she said,
using the name of the Egyptian god of the underworld, “to punish those
who defied the pharaoh and sent his servant Melissa to the portals of
death.” She paused for effect,
hoping that her deliberately distorted vocalizations would add to the
impact. It seemed to
work. Wosret kept his distance
and his voice respectful.
“I do not understand, messenger of Aubis,”
he replied. “I was told
that you had escaped and died in the desert after you lost your
way.”
“So you were intended to believe, oh
pharaoh. But I was foully murdered
and my body hidden in the Hall of the Dead.
This was a sin against the Son
of Ra and must be punished.”
Wosret shifted
uneasily. “And who committed
this sin?” he asked finally.
“One who is closest to you, oh
pharaoh. Your queen,
Isetnofret.”
Melissa held her
breath. Would her performance
be convincing or would she be discovered?
There was a long silence as the pharaoh digested the information Melissa
had given her. Relief flooded
through her at the pharaoh’s next words.
“Isetnofret
will be punished. She will be
put to
death.”
“No,” Melissa
said. “She has sinned against
the gods and will be punished by the
gods. Bring her to the Hall of
the dead at
Wosret nodded.
“It shall be done, oh servant of
Anubis.”
With what he hoped was proper dignity, Melissa
turned and headed back into the Hall of the
Dead. She hoped that no one would
try to follow her. Her performance
had strained her strength to the limit and she desperately needed to sit
down and rest. As she moved up
the steps the priests scattered, not one of them daring to look in her
direction.
Once back in the safety of the burial chamber
she collapsed. The physical and
mental strain of her masquerade had left her completely
drained. She lay on the cold
stone floor for almost and hour before rousing
herself. “I should have
asked for some clothes,” she muttered, “and a decent
bed.” With a sigh she got
to her feet and put together the pile of clothes she had been sleeping
on. Fortunately for her some
of the offerings left outside the temple included fine cotton
robes. Several of these folded
together made a serviceable if not luxurious
bed. Tomorrow if all went as
planned she would have her vengeance and also her way out of the
city. She would have to clean
herself up before then, but at the moment she was just too tired to
care. Composing herself she lay
down on her makeshift bed and slept.
Isetnofret trembled in abject
terror. She had sinned against
the gods and now she went to face her
punishment. She had been dragged
out of her living quarters in the middle of the night and thrown into the
vilest of dungeons. Now she went
to meet her fate.
As the chariot carrying her neared the Hall
of the Dead she strained against her
bonds. She was absolutely
terrified. Her pale-skinned rival
had returned from the dead and now she faced a horrifying
ordeal. No one in her lifetime
had ever been punished by the gods before, although legends told of the
gods’ vengeance. It was
sure to be a most painful and terrifying
experience.
Without thinking she tried to wriggle out
of the ropes that bound her. She
had been stripped naked and her hands bound behind
her. Each wrist had been tied
to the elbow of the other arm so that her forearms were parallel behind her
back. Then additional rope had
been lashed about her forearms.
Ropes had also been lashed to each of her upper arms, the ropes being
brought forward and crisscrossing over and under her small firm
breasts. She stood tall, attempting
to give as much dignity to her humiliating situation as she
could. She and her escort were
approaching the Hall of the Dead.
It was hard not to tremble as she thought of what awaited
her.
When she had been confronted by the pharaoh
she had confessed everything. He
had been so angry that he thought he was going to kill her right on the
spot. But instead he had thrown
her into the dungeon. The next
morning he fetched her from there and told her of her
fate. She had begged him as the
mother of his children not to send her
away. The thought of being taken
to the Underworld had turned her blood to water and her legs to
jelly. She had thrown herself
at his feet and begged his forgiveness.
When he would not relent she had asked him to kill her, preferring
death at his hands to the unknown fate that awaited
her. But she had been refused
and now she was almost sick with the thought of what would happen to her
at the hands of the messenger of Anubis.
The chariot halted at the bottom of the steps
leading to the Hall of the Dead.
The outside of the mausoleum was completely
deserted. No one dared to be
near it after the events of yesterday.
The driver whispered a prayer as he helped her
dismount. Only the fear of a
painful death had convinced him to carry out the pharaoh’s orders and
bring her here.
Several other soldiers were with her as
well. They had brought the funerary
goods for her journey to the underworld.
The chariot and the team of horses would be left at the foot of the
temple along with abundant food and wine for a long
journey. In addition, much of
her jewelry and clothing had been packed.
All she lacked was servants. but no serving girl could be convinced
to accompany her voluntarily and so she had come
alone. It was another humiliating
indignity, but Wosret had declined to punish the innocent for the crimes
of his queen. When she entered
the Underworld it would be alone.
They left her at the bottom of the
steps. As the soldiers made good
their escape she waited alone, her ankles bound to prevent her
escape. She caught her breath
as a tall figure in white appeared at the entrance to the Hall of the
Dead. The servant of Anubis had
come for her.
Her heart in her mouth,
Isetnofret watched the spectral figure
glide toward her. Overcome by
fear, she tried to scream, but her mouth was so dry that no sound would come
out. Sweat beaded her body and
she was almost wet herself.
“So, oh queen, you have been abandoned
by your pharaoh. How does it
feel to be so alone and helpless?”
The voice, in broken Egyptian, was mocking and cold, but Isetnofret
recognized at once that it was not the voice of a dead
woman. The sudden awareness was
both comforting and terrifying. She
was not in the presence of the envoy to the Underworld, but she was completely
at the mercy of the woman she had, tortured, violated, and buried
alive.
Finding her voice she managed to stammer a
question of the woman she had thought
dead. “W… Wh…
What are you going to do to me?”
She tried to recall the woman’s name, but could not think of
it. She had always called her
‘hyena bitch.’
“Interesting you should ask,” the
woman replied. She was very close
now, standing behind her.
Isetnofret had gotten a good look at her at she passed; and a good
smell as well. She looked and
smelled like death, her normally pale skin almost the colour of bleached
papyrus, and the stench of rot surrounding her.
“Stink, don’t I?” asked the
woman, noticing Isetnofret wrinkling her
nose. “Well that’s
your fault, and you’re going to pay for
it.” She bent and untied
the ropes binding Isetnofret’s
ankles. The queen gasped in pain
as she felt her long black hair grasped by the woman behind
her. She was yanked to her feet
and then pushed forward up the temple steps.
“Where are you taking me?” the queen
wailed as she was prodded steadily
upward.
“Someplace you’ll recognize,”
the strange woman replied.
Isetnofret now remembered what the pharaoh had called her, ‘Honey
Cake.’ That was not her
real name, but the pharaoh had never called her anything
else. The pet name had enraged
Isetnofret, but now she could think of nothing else to call
her.
They entered the Hall of the
Dead. Only a week before Isetnofret
had buried Honey Cake alive in here; now it appeared that the favour was
about to be repaid. She stumbled
forward, her back arched due to the painful binding of her arms, her small
breasts quivering with every step.
Honey Cake directed her toward the sarcophagus where she had been
buried alive.
“Please,” Isetnofret pleaded,
“don’t do this. Kill
me quickly.” Her protests
were ignored. Honey Cake drove
her inexorably toward the open tomb.
Melissa set her jaw in grim
determination. She had in her
power the woman who had ordered her raped and
tortured. Her hatred was intense;
beyond anything she had ever felt before.
The sadistic queen had not only brutalized and humiliated her, but
had destroyed the child within her.
Then she had condemned her to a living
death. It was time for
vengeance. She pushed Isetnofret
toward the sarcophagus.
“Please,” the queen sobbed, “kill
me now. Don’t put me in
there.” Her knees buckled
and she fell forward in front of the
tomb.
“Get up,” said Melissa; stirring
her with her foot, but the queen lay on the stone floor sobbing in
terror. “Damn it,”
said Melissa in English. She
grabbed the ropes binding the queen’s arms and tried to haul her to
her feet. The queen sagged; her
dead weight forcing Melissa to use all of her
strength. Gasping with the effort,
her chest heaved, but try as she might she could not move the weeping, pleading
queen from the floor. Finally,
Melissa slumped against the sarcophagus in
frustration. She was far from
recovered from her ordeal. It
would take several days of good food and many hours of rest to do
that. She simple lacked the strength
to force Isetnofret to cooperate.
Her rage fading, Melissa stared at the wretched
figure huddled on the floor. She
knew that the queen deserved death, but already her civilized upbringing
was reasserting itself.
“Alright,” she said, speaking English again, “I won’t
kill you, but you’re not getting off that
easily.” Switching to Egyptian
she ordered the queen to her feet, prodding her back toward the outside of
the building this time.
Isetnofret staggered uncertainly toward the
outside. Guided by Melissa she
was marched back to the waiting chariot.
With a few quick turns of the rope, Melissa lashed her to the
chariot. “Stay here,”
she ordered, sarcastically.
Sorting through the pile of goods that had
been brought with the queen, Melissa selected what she thought the chariot
would carry. There wasn’t
a lot of room on the vehicle and she had to choose
carefully. Fortunately, the chariot
was pulled by two very fine horses.
When she ran out of room on the chariot she slung some of the supplies
they needed on their backs.
She chose a fine cotton robe for herself, discarding the rags she had draped herself in. She moved as quickly as she could. At any moment the Egyptians might return and she wanted to be far away when that happened. Eventually she was ready. Now she had to decide which way to go. She had entered the city from the east. Without any better idea of where to go she decided to head west. She clicked her tongue and flicked the reins. Crouched at her feet was the queen, still sobbing in fear. Melissa felt like giving her a good kick, but decided against it; she would probably make even more noise. Following the stars, she raced through the deserted streets. Ten minutes later she was clear of the city and heading out into the desert.
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