“Well?” Pa asked, hefting the clattering tray into his arms. “Are you going to help me, or are you going to stand there like a goose?”
“Oh—um, yes,” Karim grabbed the pile of linen and bowl of water that remained, nearly upsetting it in his haste.
“For gods’ sake, be careful!” the priest barked. He examined Karim critically, taking in his stained robes, stubbled chin, and sleep-mussed hair. He frowned. “You’re filthier than the dog, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Better to come into the god’s house with dirty feet than to never visit at all. Come on, thief. Khnum forgive me…” He then made his way toward the far side of the temple, where three more steps led to a curtained inner sanctum. Karim followed obediently, setting the items down just inside the curtain as directed by the priest.
“Only I may enter the holy of holies and approach the god. You must remain here until I’m finished,” Pa commanded. He glanced meaningfully toward the palm stem broom leaning against the wall. “I encourage you to stay busy and earn your keep.” With that, he vanished beyond the veil.
Sighing, Karim took up the broom and began sweeping sand into a little pile. Behkai, seemingly accustomed to this daily ritual, turned three times and curled up in a sunbeam. Soon, the sound of Pa’s voice filled the air.
“Greetings to you, O Khnum!” he chanted. “Divine Potter, who shapes all men on his Wheel! Look north upon a new day!”
Curious, Karim crept back to the curtain and peeked through the edges, trying to get a glimpse of what lay within. The priest knelt on the floor, alternately kissing the ground and raising his arms into the air. Before him stood a golden statue in the shape of a crowned, ram-headed man, surrounded by cups of burning incense and the various offerings from the tray. Karim’s eyes bugged at the sight of all that gold.How has the old man kept sucha treasure from being stolen all these years?Then he remembered how comfortable Pa seemed wielding that spear and wondered how many other “thieves” like himself had perished at the end of it.
The gold wasn’t the only unique feature. The ram-headed statue also had four faces, each pointing in a different direction.
Talk about an all-seeing god, Karim thought.
Pa continued, “Greetings O Khnum, Lord of the Great River! Look south upon a new day!” He rose and began wrapping the linens around the statue, as if clothing it.
Having seen enough, Karim wandered away from the door, sweeping absently and thinking about what he was going to do next. Was it worth the risk of trading some of the tomb’s treasures in the nearest city? Or should he lie low and look for work in the next village? He darkened at the thought of herding sheep, after all his attempts to avoid doing just that.
Such were his thoughts when his gaze fell upon a scene on the wall. “What…?” he breathed, moving closer to the painting.
The scene showed a man with one arm outstretched, as if summoning something. Unlike the other figures on the wall, his skin was a different shade of red ochre, his chin bearded, his robe long and dark. The man stood before a long black box marked with what Pa had called a “shenu”—an oval with a line across one end. Inside the shenu were two symbols. There might have been others, but time had worn them away. Karim recognized the symbols immediately—the folded cloth, the loaf of bread. They were the same ones engraved on the amulet he’d taken from Setnakht’s tomb.
“Greetings O Khnum, God of Hidden Things, Father of Mystery,” Pa’s voice rang out. “Look east upon a new day!”
Karim’s heart began to pound. What made him almost run from that place was not the symbols, but the man. Despite the strange Khetaran style, the simplicity of line and color, Karimrecognized him.
“Greetings O Khnum, protector of the living and the dead, who sets every soul on their path! Look west upon a new day!”
The broom slipped from Karim’s hand and clattered to thefloor as every thought fled his mind but one.
That man is me.
***
Karim still hadn’t moved by the time the old priest completed his rituals. He remained in front of his likeness, his mind attempting to make sense of what he was seeing.
There was a scraping sound as Pa pushed the tray of offerings out through the curtain, and then emerged from the inner sanctum backwards, bent low, sweeping away his footsteps as he went. When he straightened, he saw Karim’s stare.
“I wondered when you’d find it,” he said with an enigmatic smile.
Karim suddenly felt trapped and confused. He still did not trust the priest, and with the appearance of such strange magic, he trusted him even less. He considered bolting—the old man would be hard-pressed to stop him—but in the end, his curiositywon out. “That… that picture,” he stammered, glancing back at the image. “It…”
Pa patted the perspiration from his forehead with a clean cloth. “It looks remarkably like you, doesn’t it?”
Karim felt as if the floor had dropped out from under him. “Youknewabout this?” he exclaimed.
The priest scoffed. “Of course I did. I know every fingerbreadth of this temple like the back of my own hand. The moment I saw the engraving on that stone of yours, I knew Khnum had sent you to me. The first two symbols match the wall exactly, and the man in the painting is your perfect likeness. I wasn’t prepared to tell you about it right away, though, not before I knew you wouldn’t murder me in the night. Thieves like you can’t be trusted. But now that you’ve found it, I might as well tell you everything. After all, you’re part of this now.”
Karim fought a wave of dizziness as the priest’s words swirled around his mind. It was almost too much to take in, and so unexpected that he hardly knew how to react. “Part of what?” He gestured at the wall. “I hail from the Red Lands, hey? These are not my ways. If you could please… explain what this is?”
“It’s the oracle I mentioned to you last night, given to us by Khnum himself. The Oracle of the Lamb.”
“‘Oracle?’” he repeated. He’d heard Pa use the word but didn’t quite understand what it meant.
“It’s a, hmm,” the priest said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “a message from the divine. A foretelling of our future, yes? Like I said, it was the reason this temple was constructed more than a thousand years ago. It shows four scenes surrounding a central image, and a bit of writing along the left side of the wall.” He pointed to the central image of a lamb with a bloody wound in its side. A man knelt before it, his arms raised in reverence.
