Lincoln Child - The Third Gate

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Romero replied, a new urgency in her voice. “The evidence is conflicting. Everything about this tomb implies it was built for Narmer, following his royal instructions-except for those particular rituals that would be carried out after death. That’s where the evidence becomes self-contradictory. The royal seals with the feminine flourishes. The final, ritualistic inscriptions-recall how I said they looked rude? And the mummy itself-I only got the briefest of chances to study it, but I noticed that the cut over the mouth was imprecise, incomplete.”

“As if the actual burial ritual was rushed,” Logan said.

A faint rumble, almost below the level of audibility, echoed through the chamber. The guards and several of the roustabouts glanced uneasily around at the supporting structure. But the sound appeared to have come from the surface, down to them via the Umbilicus, and after a moment the debate resumed.

“You’re not making sense,” Stone told her. “All this is hypothetical. Inconclusive.”

“I’m not so sure,” Logan said. He spoke slowly, thinking through what Tina Romero was saying. “You need to look at all this from another angle. If the crown we found here in chamber three could be used to simulate, practice death-in effect, to render a pharaoh immortal, ensure his divinity… wouldn’t a queen desire that as much as a king? Especially a queen as powerful, as headstrong, as Niethotep was?”

There was a silence.

“You’re saying…” Stone began. “You’re saying that Niethotep, Narmer’s queen- took Narmer’s place in the tomb?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Romero said. “Nothing else explains the conflicting evidence I’ve laid out for you.”

“And it may also help explain why future generations misinterpreted Narmer’s symbols and practices,” Logan added. “It wasn’t Narmer in the tomb, he wasn’t buried in the proper manner. The wife would have substituted herself-and seemingly hastily, even prematurely.”

“Then what happened to Narmer?” Dr. Rush asked.

“Who knows?” Romero replied. “Poison. A dagger to the throat, late at night in the conjugal bed. Perhaps killed with his concubines. You know the legends of Niethotep, of how strong-willed, bloodthirsty, and selfish she was. This would have been just her game. Can’t you picture it? She may have even waited him out, let him die a natural death. Then she would have accompanied his body here, with their twin sets of retinues, to be present at the rituals of his interment-and then, by a prearranged plan, her guards overpowered his… and now his skeleton is lying in the muck of the Sudd, entangled with all the others, and her mummy took his rightful place.”

Stone stared at the Egyptologist. The anger, the ferocity, had slowly left his face. “But if you’re right about the-the crown,” he said, “then only one person could be allowed to use it. If you were Narmer, once you had passed over into the netherworld, you wouldn’t want another to take your place, to compromise your life force, your immortality. The crown would be linked to the soul of the person who wielded it.”

“Which is exactly what Niethotep must have done,” said Romero. “She tricked Narmer, had him killed, used the crown in his place. And then, believing herself immortal, she had herself buried in his tomb, which was hastily converted-the seals, the inscriptions-into her own.”

“Is that even possible?” Logan asked. “Isn’t a pharaoh’s tomb designed to be the resting place for a specific monarch, and only that monarch?”

“That’s just the problem,” Romero said. “We need much more time to examine the evidence. Maybe she thought the gamble-eternal life as a supreme deity-was worth the risk.”

“But why the haste?” Stone asked. “With Narmer out of the way, she could have taken all the time she wanted.”

Romero thought for a moment. “I can think of several reasons. Maybe Narmer’s main priests, with their private army, were still on the way to the tomb-and they wouldn’t have taken kindly to what they found. She had to retrofit the tomb as best she could, seal it up before they arrived. Another possibility is that she and her retinue were unfamiliar with the operation of the battery-the double crown. They may have been… overzealous.”

“What was supposed to be a near-death experience turned into a deadly one,” Logan said.

Romero nodded. “If that was the case-the queen dying unexpectedly-they would have had to rush to get her mummified and entombed. Even to the point of cutting corners in the death rituals. As we’ve seen in some of the carvings here-the carvings that deal with those specific rituals.”

“And if the queen had herself entombed without sufficient preparation?” Rush asked. “Sufficient rites?”

“Impossible to say. I mentioned the imperfect cut in the mummy’s mouth. That’s an important part of the Egyptian funerary magic: the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. It allows the ba to leave the dead body, reunite with the ka in the next life. It frees the mouth to accept food and drink so the soul can receive nourishment-in essence, survive-in the afterlife.”

“Go on,” said Stone.

“If such an important ritual as the Opening of the Mouth was rushed, it implies great urgency involved in the final stages of her entombment. Who knows what other critical steps for the journey of Niethotep’s soul into the next world might have been abbreviated-or even skipped?”

“This Opening of the Mouth ceremony,” Logan said. “If the queen’s soul could not receive nourishment in the next world-what would happen?”

Romero thought a minute. “From the ancient texts, I would guess that her vital spark-the soul that leaves the body after death-would be trapped here.”

Rush shook his head. “If she really committed this atrocity-killed her husband or at the very least usurped his place in the next world-I’d think at least a part of her ka would want to remain here. To guard the crown, safeguard her immortality, make sure nobody did to her what she did to Narmer.”

“The curse,” Romero murmured.

Her soul would be trapped here… To guard the crown; to make sure nobody did to her what she did to Narmer… All of a sudden, a terrible thought struck Logan.

“Oh, my God,” he said aloud.

Suddenly, there was another rumble from above, stronger than before. The papyrus sheets on the table trembled, as if from a gust of wind.

“What the hell is that?” Stone asked.

Valentino turned to two of the roustabouts. “Kowinsky. Dugan. Go out to the platform, see what’s going on.”

As the two headed back through the tomb, Logan took Rush aside. “We’ve been forgetting something,” he said in a low voice, out of earshot of the others.

The doctor looked at him. “What? What is it?”

“Remember our earlier talk? Where we speculated that Jennifer was brain-dead for so long-that she went over for so protracted a period-that she might have, in essence, lost her soul? Your phrase, not mine.”

The doctor frowned, nodded.

“I told you that I believe it possible for the life force of one who has already passed on to take residence in a living being- if that being’s own life force, own soul, has been compromised. But that in all documented cases, the dead person’s spirit can only take possession of someone of the same sex.”

“I remember,” Dr. Rush said. “That’s how we knew Narmer, or some shade of Narmer’s, could not be speaking through-could not be within-Jennifer.”

“Exactly. But if it isn’t Narmer’s life force that’s here at this site… if, rather, it’s the life force of a woman…”

“Queen Niethotep.” Slowly, Rush raised a hand to his mouth. “Oh, Jesus…”