Mortal Edicts

“I trust his excellency, Pharaoh Akhenaten, will find you obedient.” The messenger strode out the doors of the planetarium into the main hall of the Temple of Ra. Behind him trailed Bak, his face ashen and his eyes sunken.

“You can expect us here again.”

As sudden as a dust storm from the west, the messenger was gone. Bak sunk to his knees, tears of disbelief stinging his eyes. Believing himself alone, Bak rent his linen robe. Grabbing handfuls of dirt from the temple floor, he ground it into the robe’s pristine whiteness.

“The rumors are true then, hem-netjer-tepi?”

“I should have expected you to be lurking.” Bak gave a wan smile and looked over his shoulder to where Pawah had emerged from behind a temple pillar. “How much had you overheard?”

“Enough to know the extent of the new pharaoh’s heresy.

“Akhenaten.” Pawah spat at his feet. “He means to destroy our beliefs, our history.”

“He is the high priest of all the gods of Upper and Lower Egypt,” Bak said. “Help me to my feet.”

“You know as well as I do, hem-netjer-tepi, he only wants to loot our temples and enrich himself.” Pawah extended Bak a hand, though did not help pull him up.

“As high priest he has the right to do that. Whether he believes it or not, he is a part of Horus and — according to the messenger — also hand chosen by Aten to rule.”

Pawah shook off his master’s grasp. Shuffling to his feet, Bak stared into his student’s restless eyes. Their blackness appeared iridescent in the flickering torchlight. It was those eyes that made Bak originally take Pawah in as a priest. More than once, Bak swore Pawah did not have eyes at all but two scarabs crawling across his face.

A most holy omen. A gift from Ra himself. But now Ra was gone. Or more precisely, according to their god-given lord, had never existed at all.

“So, the planetarium and your orrery must be dismantled,” Bak said. “The name of Ra must be scrubbed from these walls…”

“And what will you say, Bak, when the time comes for the weighing of your heart? That your fear of death was greater than your adoration?”

“Pawah.” Bak gnashed his teeth. “Do not forget yourself or your position. I may have seen your potential and brought you in from the desert, but I will send you back if I must.”

“You’re a fool.” Pawah turned and strode into his planetarium. “We are already in the desert. This fake pharaoh has upset ma’at. The balance is gone, and next will be the magic that lets the Nile flow, the fish swim, and Ra to champion his chariot through the sky and his boat through the underworld every day and night.”

“Pharaohs come and go.” Bak grabbed Pawah’s shoulder. “I know you have spent your service building this magnificence, that you have dedicated your life to charting the course of Ra through the night sky.

“And so I beg of you, as a mentor, as a friend, and as your hem-netjer-tepi, take your orrery out to the desert and bury it in the sand. In gentler times, Ra willing, you or your descendants can return it here.”

Pawah shook his head. With a trembling hand he gestured around his planetarium. Its sandstone walls and ceilings were undecorated but polished smooth, devoid of any inscriptions proclaiming the achievements of most holy Ra. Instead, in the center of the room was Pawah’s lifework.

Seven bronze spheres were arranged in a circle, connected to a central mechanism. Extending from the mechanism was a wheel with a handle, upon which Pawah went to rest his hand. From the mechanism wafted an acrid smell. Pawah ran his hand across the orrery and raised a shield, exposing a central flame within. Immediately, shadows of the seven spheres appeared on the walls.

“Do you know how long it took me make the movement of the gods correspond to our actual observations?” Pawah turned the wheel steadily, though his body shook as he sobbed. “It’s not enough to just have them orbit each other. I had to let them soar and sink.”

Pawah began to crank a second, smaller wheel. The planets now began to move horizontally as well as vertically as they continued to range around the central mechanism. Gracefully, they dipped ever closer to the ground before soaring back to the ceiling.

“We know, thanks to this, when Ra is closest to us.

“And you,” Pawah choked on his words. “You want us to dismantle it and bury it in the sand? To turn our faith away from Ra and towards some new god that was, until Akhenaten came along, merely one of Ra’s aspects?

“Should I start referring solely to your foot as hem-netjer-tepi?”

“Enough, Pawah,” Bak said, his voice reverberating in the polished room. “This is not some game. We can only obey.”

“Ra will mark his closest approach to us this dawn,” Pawah said. “You can come with me or not, but at the very least, I intend to send his holiness a message.”

#

Dawn broke to the east of the temple, a fiery red filling the horizon and setting the Nile beneath it ablaze. Pawah did not take a moment to savor the view. Behind him, a column of chariots carrying torches approached along the temple road. Bak was nowhere to be seen.

“At least my heart will be light,” Pawah said as he assembled his final offering. “May this balloon fly true.”

Pawah attached a small balloon made of intestines to a reed basket. Inside sat a single scrap of papyrus and a small bowl of pitch. With a final prayer, Pawah lit the pitch, centered the balloon, and sent it floating heavenward as Ra’s chariot crested the eastern horizon.

“May the heavens know our plight.”