An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) by Paul Doherty

his nose. ‘The Veiled One,’ he slurred.
    ‘Why is he veiled?’
    ‘Because he’s ugly like you!’
    ‘Who is he?’ I asked.
    Weni smiled drunkenly and waved me away.
    I was intrigued. A boy living all by himself, kept away because he was ugly? And why those cart tracks? And the disfigured guards? Early the next morning, long before dawn, it must have been the eighteenth or nineteenth day of the Inundation, I stole out of the dormitory and took up my position near the Silent Pavilion. The guards were easily distinguishable in the glaring light of fiery pitch torches dug into the ground. The dancing flames illuminated the spiked gates as well as the grotesque wounds of those who guarded it. I waited.
    The north wind, the cooling breath of Amun, began to subside. At the first gash of sunlight a conch horn wailed from beyond the gate, a harsh braying sound which sent the birds all a-flutter. The torches had now burned out. I was moving to ease my cramp when the conch horn wailed again. I recalled hearing it on a number of occasions in the House of Instruction but had always dismissed it as just another eerie sound of the palace. The double gates opened and a covered cart, pulled by four red-and-white oxen, garlands between their horns, lumbered out. Two Kushite archers led these, another sat on the seat guiding the beasts through the gate. On the cart stood what looked like a naos , a tabernacle. I could make out a wooden frame and a shape beneath hidden by drapes of the finest gauze linen. Pots of incense in the cart glowed and sent up perfumed clouds. The cart, followed by its escort, turned east towards the river. I followed. It entered a small glade and drew to one side.
    The day was already bright with the glowing rays of the rising sun. Steps were brought to the tail of the cart and the veil lifted. A figure emerged, head and face hidden by a linen mask. A roll of similar material hung over a long, unnaturally thin body, the legs and arms strangely elongated. Whoever it was wore no ornamentation except for a red arm guard embossed with silver studs. I glimpsed sagging breasts and a protruding stomach. As the figure clambered down, his legs and arms, as well as the fingers of the thin hands appeared almost spidery. He wore no sandals, exposing long slim feet, with toes like that of a monkey. So this was the Veiled One?
    The figure turned its back on me and went to squat cross-legged on blood-red cushions the guard had already laid out, two pots of burning incense placed either side of him. He sat, head down, towards the rising sun. A low, melodious voice began to chant a hymn which would one day ring through Egypt and shatter its gods.
    ‘Oh you, who come beautiful above the Horizon.
Oh you, whose rays kiss the earth and bring it to life!
All glory to you!
A million jubilees, Greatest and Only!’
    I crouched transfixed. The rest of the retinue were now squatting in a semi-circle behind this figure; his appearance might be strange but the voice was strong, rich. I had heard hymns and poetry chanted before, but not with the passion which suffused these lines. Was he a worshipper of the Aten, the Sun Disc, a cult gaining popularity amongst the wealthy nobles of Thebes?
    The face veil was now pushed back. Leaving my position, I stole quietly through the trees to outflank the guards and obtain a better view. I settled beneath a holm oak. The figure seated on the cushions lifted his head; revealing a face with elongated chin, narrow eyes, and a sharp nose above thick full red lips, his high cheekbones emphasising the narrowness of the eyes. And yet, although the face was strange, it possessed a singular beauty. Again the head went down and the hymn was resumed.
    ‘Oh you who come from a
Million, Million Years.
Who sustains all life on the earth
Who hears the petals break and smells the lotus,
All praise to you.’
    The hymn was taken up by the escort, a low, melodious chant followed by silence. The young man had