“Are you telling me that you are in fact able to translate that … that thing?” Khaemwaset jabbed one impatient finger at the smooth, beige papyrus held open between Sisenet’s quiet hands. Sisenet’s eyebrows shot up.
“But of course, Highness,” he said. “A moment, and I will write it down for you.”
Unbelieving, Khaemwaset saw him lay the palette across the scroll to prevent it from rolling shut, and begin to write, his pen scratching loudly and surely across the unblemished paper Khaemwaset’s temporary scribe had laid ready. He found it difficult to breathe. Fear and excitement had gripped him and he leaned forward tensely, hands locked between his knees, mesmerized by the columns of hieroglyphs taking shape under Sisenet’s sleek black head. The moments slid by. How can he be so calm, so uninvolved? Khaemwaset wondered hotly. Though perhaps what he is writing has no significance. Perhaps it is a love poem, a family event recorded joyously, even a list of some kind … But he remembered the curious and familiar cadence of the sentences, the light, dry feel of the bandaged hand from which he had severed the scroll, and his mind retreated and fell silent.
After what seemed a very long time, Sisenet straightened and laid the pen back in its slot on the palette. He passed the sheet of papyrus over the desk, wordlessly handing it to Khaemwaset, who was unable to still the tremor in his arm as he took it. The room was becoming hotter now, the fleeting coolness of early morning giving way to stifling, motionless air. The scroll no longer quivered, for the draughts had ceased. Sisenet had allowed it to roll up again, and now waited, his hands clasped on the desk beside it.
Khaemwaset had begun to sweat. He was aware of Sisenet’s clear, unwavering observation as he forced his eyes to begin the reading, and he cursed himself for so betraying his agitation. At first his mind did not register what his gaze was presenting and he was forced to go back and scan the lines again, but then eye and mind suddenly harmonized and the shock of it went through Khaemwaset like a galvanizing drug.
“Oh gods, I said these words even though I did not understand them,” he croaked, horror and elation coursing through him, and though he tried to hold on to the elation, the horror grew. “Gods! Gods! What have I done?”
“It was a foolish thing to do once you realized, as you must have, that the words had the cadence of a spell,” Sisenet replied, “but in this case a harmless mistake. Highness, are you ill?”
Khaemwaset was aware of him half rising from behind the desk, and managed to wave him down. “No! I am not ill!”
“Surely you do not believe in this thing, Prince?” Sisenet said slowly. “I apologize, for I seem to have given you a shock. The Scroll of Thoth is a matter of myth and legend only. The story of its existence is merely an expression of man’s longing to control both life and death. Only the gods have that power. This,” and he flicked the scroll contemptuously with a long fingernail, “this is a game. Someone fabricated a Scroll of Thoth out of his need, his desire for ultimate power, or perhaps even out of his anguish. A dead loved one, a horror of the Judgment Hall because of a life spent doing evil.” Sisenet shrugged. “Who knows? The Scroll does not exist. It has never existed, and if you consider the matter for a moment, Highness, you must admit that it simply could not exist.”
Khaemwaset was struggling for control, the papyrus clutched tightly in both hands. “I am a magician,” he responded, his voice still clogged with fear. “I know many spells that have mighty power. I know how other magicians have sought this Scroll for hentis beyond counting, and their searches have been conducted with the absolute certainty that such a thing exists and has the power to bend the dead and the living to its will.”
“And I tell you, Prince, that although magic may control many areas of our lives because the magician may coerce the gods into doing what is requested, we cannot use it to resurrect the dead or communicate with animals and birds as the legitimate owner of the Scroll of Thoth is supposed to be able to do, no matter how fervently we desire to do so. This scroll has great value, but as an historic artifact, not as a myth come to reality. Do you not think that if the scroll had any real power the tomb would be empty?”
Khaemwaset clenched his teeth. He knew that he was white and shaking, for he was consumed with the feeling that he was in fact asleep, on his couch in a blistering afternoon, in the grip of a dreadful nightmare. All he could think of while Sisenet was talking in that maddening, not-quite-recognized accent, his face full of concern and skepticism and something else, something that might have been faint amusement, was the night he had spoken the strange words and then rushed to negate the power he had felt settle around him.