A few months ago on a whim I ended up writing Pharaoh and Ibis, an ages adventure/superhero novel that I posted to tumblr. Tumblr is a horrible tool to publish books so as I edit the book I’ll be doing a serialization of the book on here, possibly with illustrations. When the first book is done I’ll start writing or posting the second one. Simple as that.
Updates will be Tuesdays or any other weekdays that we need content. I hope you enjoy this journey that begins after the bump.
Chapter 1: Broken
Written by Luke Herr
Chris sat alone in his hospital bed, stooped over his broken arm. He typed carefully so he could continue his translations without pulling it.
He poured over each papyrus page of the book that sat in his lap, preserved in a film that served to prevent decay while also allowing its study. The Book of the Dead, ancient tome of magic and religion, belonging to the pharaohs and priests of ancient Egypt and his copy was special.
While the sling made his arm drastically harder to use, for now he was enjoying the time in the air conditioned Egyptian hospital, far from the heat of the desert that he’d dealt with only hours beforehand.
He typed a few notes onto his laptop from the Book and then switched back watching his excavation team who were at the tomb of Akenhaten, toiling under the heat of the sun.
“You know Mr. Cushing, if something big goes wrong with this dig they’ll say the curse of the mummy is real again,” joked Mahyuddin over the video screen.
Chris weakly smiled as he winced at the pain in his arm. “Well Mayu, you should be more careful that I was.” Chris leaned towards the screen only to pull his arm again in the process. He groaned a little and carefully readjusted himself.
“It should be easy,” replied Mahyuddin, “We won’t need to worry about slipping in our RVs. We are more than happy to stay in the hotels just to sleep.” Chris had used an RV with the hope of staying close to camp, though he ended up staying alone favoring his solace above all. His fellow crew preferred to stay at the hotels that were provided.
And yet it was Chris’s decision to stay in the camper lead to his injury since the dry and unstable ground caused the RV to sink leading to his arm injury.
Chris was annoyed as he minimized the window. He quickly returned to his translation work. It was on loan from the British Museum where Chris maintained a good standing thanks to his knowledge and his plentiful donations.
Currently Chris was tasked by himself with excavation of the lost second tomb of Akhenaten, the banished pharaoh of Egypt. His particular copy of the Book of the Dead had contained three extra sections of text that were missing or incomplete in other versions.
The volume had shown up on his desk at the museum unsealed and opened to the elements. There were no notes on it, no prints and apart from it’s age, it was in good condition.
One of these sections had led to the location of the lost tomb and displayed several rare spells that weren’t present in the previous versions that had been found in the tombs.
Chris looked back over the Book and studied the second passage that dealt with the crimes of Akhenaten. Akhenaten was born a pharaoh who sought to create a new religion devoted to the worship of Aten, a sun deity. Akhenaten sought to turn Egypt from the polytheistic culture to on that solely worshiped Aten. Furthermore, he claimed that only he and his wife, Nefertiti, were the sole representatives of Aten and therefore sole true priests of the people. Soon Akhenaten began destroying temples and shrines to other gods and his legacy became one of sorrow for many of the Egyptian people.
When he finally died, Akhenaten’s priests conspired against him for revenge and sought to curse him in the afterlife. His first tomb and burial was strictly for show, loaded with riches and tools to use in the afterlife but ultimately lacking the king. After the burial, the priests moved his body to a second hidden and cursed tomb in the Valley of the Kings. There, using spells, they bound the immortality and powers of Aten to Akhenaten, reviving the dead pharaoh and leaving him to live forever in the darkness of his sealed tomb. Aten, upon losing his powers, became mortal and was tortured for his treachery by the gods before dying.
Chris jotted his final notes on the ritual before looking out the window as the heat intensified.
