Pyramids by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

The source of the strange illumination was visible, and drawing closer.

It resembled a giant, translucent bird, and it was coming silently down out of the starry sky and settling, gliding toward the ground with its immense triangular wings stiffly outspread. The apparition landed, very near the pyramid. Its light dimmed almost to nothing.

"A god! Or the vessel of a god."

"Or of gods. Of course. But which?"

Quivering with fear, but excited as well with hopeful anticipation, Thothmes and Ptah-hotep advanced step by step.

As they drew nearer, the two officials could see the shimmering, ghostly, gigantic winged shape more clearly. It looked less birdlike now, much less alive, as it sat waiting on the sand-for what?

"It is the barque of dead Pharaoh," Thothmes whispered.

"No, surely. It must be that of Ra himself."

"But what does its presence here, now, mean?"

By now the moon was clear of the horizon, and by moonlight the vessel-if such it really was-looked both like metal and like crystal. It changed shape slightly as the two men watched it, but otherwise remained virtually motionless. Details of its configuration altered from one moment to the next, but always the outline of it was there, as insubstantial as a cloud of wind-blown sand, and yet as constant as the rocks. It was an enormous thing, dwarfed of course by the pyramid above and behind it, but certainly far bigger than any real boat that Ptah-hotep had ever seen, or any of the wooden Barques of Khufu that had been buried in their several pits around the pyramid.

"I wonder," he muttered at last. "Though it flew it cannot be a bird or a bat. Nor is it really of the proper shape to be a boat."

"Do you now intend to dispute with the gods as to what shape their boats must be? Let us be gone."

"No. No, we have been summoned here to see this. Is not the night sky under the control of Set?" Ptah-hotep knew he must sound confident. But he was not really sure that he was right. He only knew that he could not turn his back without investigating the marvel before him.

Suspended between advance and retreat, the two conspirators remained at the distance of a long arrow-flight from the winged thing, huddled among the sand and rocks.

"Are we then to stay here through the night?"

"Why not? The night sky belongs to Set. And we are officials concerned with the safety of Khufu's tomb. We have the right to be here."

It was not soldiers that Thothmes had been concerned about, not any longer. But he made no further protest now.

The remaining hours of the night passed slowly. Only with the near approach of Ra to the horizon in the east did Ptah-hotep and Thothmes dare to approach again the strange gigantic vessel resting on the sand.

They were halfway there when Ptah-hotep clutched his companion by the arm. From around one end of the strange ship, as if it might have emerged on the for side, a figure moved. It looked quite human.

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