"Some doors should never be opened" is a bit of a horror cliche, I know. But sometimes cliches work - and I think that is the case in my latest offering, a chilling tale of Egyptology set just before the dawn of the 20th century. Let me know what you think!
THE BURIAL CHAMBER
a Short Story by
Lewis B. Smith
The following letters were found in the collection of the Sawyer family’s estate when Gerald Sawyer passed away with no heirs in 2019. The letters were sealed in a trunk and exceptionally well preserved, considering they were over 120 years old. They are all addressed to Hixton Sawyer, Gerald’s great-grandfather, who was born in 1870 and passed away in 1935. They are all from Glenn Sage, a college classmate of Sawyer’s, and date from the year 1898. Sage was a promising young archeologist who disappeared in the Egyptian desert near the Valley of the Kings in the fall of 1898; no trace of him, his encampment, or the archeological site described in the letters has ever been found. These letters provide the only clues as to his fate; as to how true his account might be, I leave that to your judgment.
12 Sept. 1898
Wadi-el-Muluk, Egypt
Dear Hicks,
I received your letter dated July 30 yesterday. I am relieved to hear that you survived the invasion unscathed by Spanish bullets, but was saddened to hear that you had come down with malaria. I do hope this missive finds you on the mend.
Your account of the battle on Kettle Hill was fascinating; it sounds like Theodore acquitted himself quite nobly! Is he really planning on running for governor? I can’t believe that Senator Platt would allow it – but at the same time, TR has made such a name for himself the senator might not be able to prevent it. Do keep me posted; it’s dreadfully difficult to get newspapers out here in the Egyptian hinterland!
It figures, does it not, that in the first war America has fought since the ‘War of the Rebellion’ (as father still calls it) that you would be on the front lines whilst I am here in Egypt digging for mummies!
Still, I would be lying if I said I didn’t like this place. Scorpions, cobras, and all, the Valley of the Kings is truly remarkable! Collins and I have opened two tombs since I have been here, both long since plundered, of course. At least the grave robbers were kind enough to leave the mummies themselves, even if they are in poor condition from having their wrappings ripped off and their rings and jewelry taken – the other day, I found three fingers broken off and tossed aside in the corner of one chamber, where grave robbers had left them after taking off their signet rings. I don’t think there is a single undisturbed tomb left!
Give my love to your family, and send your sister a fond kiss from me (don’t make that same old face – you know she and I are meant to be together!). Please be careful of your health; you know how malaria is likely to return once the initial bout fades. It’s about time for me to put out the lamps and turn in. At least we are far enough from the Nile that mosquitos are not a problem, although fleas are everywhere.
Take care, old chum! Your fondest fraternity brother,
Glenn
PS – from the next morning: A Bedouin stopped by the camp to beg for some water and dates and said that he has found another wadi, many kilometers to the southwest, which has some sort of bricked up entrance to a chamber or tomb in one of its walls. Of course, natives are always telling us about some fabulous secret tomb or structure they’ve found in the desert, but Ibrahim insists he knows this fellow and that the man is reliable. I am sending a trusted scout to investigate the site. I’ll keep you informed if it turns out to be anything. GS
18 Sep. 1898
Wadi-il-Muluk, Egypt
Dear Hicks,
I hope you don’t mind me writing so often; my journal was stolen along with some of my other luggage in Cairo this spring, and I haven’t replaced it yet. I miss that battered old notebook of mine! That means these epistles shall constitute my record when I come back to the states and publish an account of the expedition; so please keep them together for me, old chum.
Not that our excavations so far have been worth publishing – just emptied tomb chambers and plundered mummies. However, I have reason to hope that may soon change. Sulemein, the scout I sent to investigate the reports of a sealed chamber in a far-off wadi, returned this morning in a state of considerable excitement. It seems there is indeed a sealed-up door near some ruins in the wall of a narrow canyon, inscribed with faded hieroglyphics. He took one of our field cameras and got several pictures of it. I developed them last night and upon a cursory glance, it looks very much like some of the tomb entrances here in the Valley of the Kings – or, as they would look if they had not been broken into centuries ago.
I showed them to Dr. Collins, and he told me not to get my hopes up too high - but I am preparing a team to go and conduct a preliminary investigation. Just because a tomb’s entrance is sealed does not mean it hasn’t been plundered; Dr. Jameson’s experience with the tomb of Imhotep showed us that a few years ago. Still, I’d be lying if I said I’m not excited. Why a single tomb, so far from the site of other royal burials? And if the entrance is not a tomb, then what exactly is it? The hieroglyphics are damaged; I intend to examine them more closely tonight. So far all I have been able to decipher is the large inscription near the top that reads “Sacred to Nar – o - Teph, whose hunger is not slaked.” I am not familiar with that particular deity, and neither is Collins, but as everyone knows, the Egyptian pantheon is enormous and poorly documented.
I hope you continue to improve, and that your voyage home is smooth and uneventful. Tell Theodore I wish him the best of luck in the gubernatorial campaign; Albany could use a good clean sweep, and he is just the man to wield the broom! Give Ellen my love, as always, and the rest of your family as well. Sorry to cut this short, but I have an expedition to plan!
Fondest regards,
Glenn
25 Sept 1898
Wadi Nar-o-Teph, Egypt
Dear Hicks,
I received your letter dated August 9 just before I left the Valley of the Kings. I am delighted to hear your health is returning, and that you were able to get back to good old New York ahead of the rest. So, TR is writing a book about your regiment’s exploits? I have no doubt it shall be a smashing success, just as your campaign in Cuba was. And I am sure it won’t hurt his chances in the election, either. I do adore how that man consistently manages to foil the best-laid schemes of Platt and his merry band of plutocrats!
I have been at the new site for a couple of days now, and I truly think we are on to something significant here. We are preparing to cut our way through the sealed entrance tomorrow; I am in the process of documenting the inscriptions on the door, since I am not sure that we can preserve all of them once we begin our excavation. The centuries of wind and sand have done their work on them, but I took several rubbings which have helped me interpret the characters which are too worn to be read with the naked eye.
I am enclosing a couple of photographs of the exterior; PLEASE do not share these around – they will be vital to my publication! [Editor’s note: sadly, these photographs were not found with this letter or anywhere else in the Sawyer family estate. It is believed they were destroyed after Sage’s disappearance.] As you can see, in front of the sealed chamber one can observe the remnants of a temple, although they have been ravaged by the elements and perhaps by the hand of man as well – some of the columns bear marks of violence from hammers and picks. Most likely the collapsed ruins of the temple concealed this entrance for many centuries, but landslides, coupled with the massive floods of ‘88, seem to have swept huge amounts of debris to the east, exposing the sealed entrance (which may have been the back wall of the temple at one time).
The inscription is most curious, unlike any I have encountered in the Valley of the Kings or elsewhere. As best I can translate it, it reads thus:
“SACRED TO NAR-O-TEPH,
WHOSE HUNGER IS NOT SLAKED
EATER OF THE DEAD, DEVOURER OF SOULS,
SHE WHO WALKS IN THE DARKNESS BETWEEN WORLDS.
OSIRIS PROTECT THE PHARAOH FROM HER WRATH;
HORUS AVENGE THE BLOOD SHE HAS SHED.
HERE MAY OUR SACRIFICES APPEASE HER WRATH
AND OUR WARDS FOREVER PROTECT THE WORLD
FROM HER HUNGER.”
Quite the incantation, isn’t it? The nature of the inscription leads me to think that this may be a temple rather than a tomb, but if the shrine remains intact beyond the sealed wall, this could be a truly remarkable discovery! Tell Peabody at the Museum he will not regret funding this expedition.
Cutting through the entrance will take a day or so – our goal is to create an entrance large enough to accommodate us, while leaving as much of the stonework and inscription as intact as we can. We are archeologists, after all, not grave robbers. Our ultimate goal is knowledge, not treasure (although treasure is always welcome!). Once we’ve secured entry and explored what lies beyond, I shall write again.
I tell you, old chum, this is bully! It was the hope of a moment like this that lured me into Egyptology in the first place, and I feel like I am living a childhood dream. My regards to all, my love to dear Ellen, and my fondest wishes for your continued recovery.
Best regards,
Glenn
2 October 1898
Wadi Nar-o-Teph, Egypt
Dear Hicks,
It seems odd to begin a letter with “I have no words” and then fill several pages with them, but I can think of no other phrase to describe how I felt when I crawled through the gap we made in the wall and beheld the chamber beyond for the first time. I simply stared around me, holding my torch aloft, and all breath left me for what seemed like an hour – although I am sure it was just for a moment. Of this much I am certain – our expedition and its discoveries will be studied by Egyptologists for decades to come!
We decided to work from the bottom center of the sealed door. The blocks making up the wall were quite large and offset, so that removing a few of them would not cause the entire facing to collapse – and this let us preserve the external inscription, since it is six feet up from the bottom of the wall. The mortar was crumbling with age, and we used metal rods to gradually scrape and chisel it out until we had one bottom block, about a yard long and two feet high, completely free of mortar. But the blocks were set into a carved recess in the old temple floor, so we couldn’t simply pull it free. It took several days of carefully chiseling away the side of the slot so that the block could be moved towards us. Once it was finally free, it was easier to loosen and remove the two blocks above it. There was a bit of shifting and groaning as the weight of the wall settled, but we had wooden beams of the correct length repaired and placed them as braces on either side of the opening we’d made, to keep the whole thing from collapsing!
The air from within was foul, so we lit a fire just outside the opening to draw the stale air outward and gave the chamber a day to vent its stale atmosphere before we dared go inside. I cannot tell you how hard it was to make myself wait, but I also know how lethal tomb fungus can be.
The next morning, I crawled through the opening and had Ibrahim hand me a torch. For the first time in over three thousand years, the contents of the sealed temple were beheld by human eyes. Rich panels of pictures and hieroglyphics covered the walls on either side, and two large statues stood, still painted in their vivid original colors, on either side of the back wall. The images in the panels were bizarre, even for ancient Egypt, depicting the traditional gods and goddesses of the Nile pantheon engaged in a struggle with a bizarre figure identified in the inscriptions as Nar-o-Teph herself. There are altars and tables with votive lamps and vases still resting exactly as they were abandoned. It is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!
Although this goddess is nowhere mentioned in any inscription I have ever seen or heard tell of, the paintings seem to place her as an equal or even a rival to Isis, Osiris, Horus, and Anubis. Her images are grotesque, even for a culture that regularly portrayed their gods as human/animal hybrids. She looks like a bipedal dog-beast, with a row of eight teats that are always shown fully engorged. She stands upright, with two sturdy, dog-like legs and four arms attached to her torso, and a tail like a scorpion’s, but covered with fur. But her arms have multiple joints, like those of a spider, and terminate in clawed hands that are humanoid in outline, but with six clawed digits instead of five. But the head – dear God, Hicks, what kind of imagination these ancients must have had to conjure up such a nightmare! The head is triangular, like that of a mantis or wasp, but the eyes are placed on the end of long stalks, like the antenna of a snail! The mandibles are huge and serrated, like those of a large beetle.
Nar-o-Teph is shown devouring humans both living and dead. In one memorable panel, she clutches a mummy in each hand, the expressions of their dead faces registering horror and despair, as Osiris holds the Staff of Ra in his hand, shining the light of the sun on her hideous form, forcing her to retreat and leave her dead prey behind in the next picture. Anubis and Set did not fare as well; indeed, in one picture her mandibles are locked onto the throat of the god of death as he tries to stab her prehensile eyes with a flint dagger. Isis herself, the mother of Egypt, intervenes in the next panel, using a beam of light from some gemstone to force her to release her jackal-headed prey. The message seems clear: the hound-insect hybrid is at war with the gods of Egypt, and only the mightiest of them can prevail against her. Fully translating these panels may take years – the dialect seems different from anything I’ve seen in the Valley of the Kings – but the implications are clear: we have discovered a major cult within the traditional mythology of Egypt that is not mentioned in any other ancient text!
The statues at the rear of the chamber are particularly magnificent – Osiris is portrayed raising his staff, which is covered with solid gold leaf, and Isis stands guard opposite him, holding a bright gemstone in her raised hand, identical to her posture in the panel that depicts her coming to the aid of Anubis. In between the two statues is the most detailed and terrifying depiction of Nar-o-Teph, grisly and remarkably lifelike for a depiction of a creature which never existed – never could exist! – in a sane world. I am bringing in kerosene lamps to get better pictures of all the reliefs, but I plan on translating the glyphs surrounding this unholy tryptic first – the whole chamber seems to be oriented towards that tableau, so I think it will be critical in understanding the purpose of this shrine.
I am sending a package of photographs back to Collins by way of Ahmed – like several of our Bedouin diggers, he hates this place and is anxious to be away from it –and I shall send this letter with him. At least good old Ibrahim is still dependable! I tell you, Hicks, this site is going to make me famous! So many precious religious implements, still intact as they were abandoned long ago, and the incredibly vivid wall paintings make this the most remarkable temple chamber yet unearthed in Egypt.
I need to finish this and send Ahmed on his way. Best regards and love to all,
Glenn
5 October 1898
Wadi-al-Nar-o-Teph, Egypt
Dear Hicks,
I am stunned and a bit shaken by our latest discoveries. I just got word yesterday that Collins has been called away due to a crisis back home, so I am alone in excavating and guarding this incredible discovery. A shame, really, I could use his experience and knowledge right now! My letters are being carried off to civilization every few days by Ahmed or one of the other Bedouins; the nearest village is nearly a hundred kilometers distant from here. Who knows when this will reach you!
We have removed some of the implements from the Temple we discovered, and I have carefully documented all the wall panels, illuminating them with kerosene lamps and sunlight reflected with mirrors. The magnificent statues of Isis and Osiris I have left undisturbed for the moment; it will be up to Collins or his successor to determine if they are to be left here or taken to Cairo for future study and display.
But most of the last three days have been spent carefully interpreting the inscription below the hideous image of Nar-o-Teph on the back wall. As I mentioned earlier, the dialect of Egyptian is primitive, closer to that surrounding the great pyramids at Giza than the later writings in the Valley of the Kings. But I think I’ve gotten it down right, and if so, then I swear what we have found so far is just the beginning! According to the inscription, there is another chamber, a burial chamber, behind the back wall of the Temple, which actually holds the remains of Nar-o-Teph herself!
You be the judge, for here is my translation of the hieroglyphs:
After the battle of many years,
In which the gods themselves descended
And fought with Nar-o-Teph for the souls of men,
The she-demon was finally vanquished.
Osiris used the power of Ra to paralyze her
Isis used the light of the stars to burn her flesh;
Anubis cut her head from her body,
And Set flayed her with his scythe.
Here in this temple, her mortal remains must lie buried
With a thousand curses on whoever disturbs her rest,
And daily offerings to slake her hunger,
That she may never trouble the world of the living again.
Of course, threats of curses are old hat in this business – virtually every tomb and temple has them – but I won’t deny this one gave me a bit of a turn! Still, I am aflame with curiosity to see what lies behind this next door, and to find out what is behind the frightful myth recorded in hieroglyphs and wall paintings. I think there may be some hidden switch or latch somewhere in the Temple to unlock the last chamber, for the wall is seamless to the naked eye, and I am reluctant to simply break through it and destroy such a magnificent work of ancient art, no matter how gruesome its subject.
This place is damnably creepy at times. When I am in the temple, alone, copying the hieroglyph inscriptions, my imagination plays tricks on me. I swear I heard a scratching sound coming from behind the back wall at one point! It’s always a relief to step back out into the clean air and blinding sunshine after spending any amount of time inside that ancient structure.
I am sending Muhammad and Rhazi back to the Valley of the Kings to bring some more digging tools back, and a case of dynamite – I think we can clear a more direct path to this site if we can blast some boulders out of the trail, and that will let us bring wagons in to haul our discoveries back to Cairo. I will send this letter along with them. How I wish you were here, old chum! There is nothing like the thrill of discovery.
Best regards,
Glenn
10 October 1898
Same place
Dear Hicks,
The burial chamber is opened! The air from inside was unspeakably foul, so we shall have to let it vent for a day or two before we dare venture in. I was beginning to despair of finding the switch, so carefully was it hidden, but in the end, it was one of the inscriptions that tipped me off how to do it. Below the panel that depicted Isis driving Nar-o-Teph back with her flaming gem, the Egyptians had written this incantation:
Isis, Queen of the Heavens,
Rescuer of the souls of men from the jaws of the devourer!
May you hold the key to the prison that contains
She whose hunger cannot be slaked
From now until the end of all ages!
Of course, I just thought it was religious jargon, but as I studied the painting more closely, I saw that the glowing gem she held was the same as the one in the hand of her statue at the back of the chamber! I had to stand on a camp stool to reach it, but after a few moments of applying careful pressure in different directions, the gemstone suddenly shifted sharply to the right, and a flash of light emerged from its depths, blinding in its brightness! I fell backward off the stool, and as I sat up, rubbing my head, I heard a low grinding sound from the wall between the two statues! The entire rock face with its hideous painting of Nar-o-Teph slowly slid backwards about a foot, and then swung inward.
I could see nothing but blackness beyond, and the foul air that came pouring out was so thick and noxious that it extinguished my lamp! I half ran, half crawled to the entrance and shouted to Ibrahim that we had done it, that the burial chamber was finally uncovered. He is a remarkable fellow, I must tell you, Hicks. An Egyptian Bedouin with an Oxford degree in ancient history, he is as at home in a debate over hieroglyphic interpretation as he is discussing the care and feeding of sheep and goats with his countrymen. He certainly seems free of the suspicions that plague the simple diggers, for they have been very vocal about their hatred of this place, and shudder whenever I ask one of them to step inside the Temple to bring them something.
I mention that as preface to a most annoying development - this morning I woke up to find that all of them had fled! Ibrahim was still here, but the rest had taken off during the night. One of them, apparently, was in such a hurry that he injured himself, for there was a spattering of blood near his blankets. Hopefully Muhammad and Rhazi will be here tomorrow; then we will at least have some help to load up our wagon when it is time to depart. I think nearly all archeologists have to fight local superstitions at some point, but the timing of this episode could not be worse!
I’ll conclude this letter now and set it aside; hopefully whatever we find in the inner chamber will be worth a full missive in and of itself.
Best Regards,
Glenn
12 October 1898
The Cursed Valley
Dear Hicks,
How can I begin to describe the horror I saw today? It defies all logic; my entire view of the world and our place in it has been turned on its head! I sit here in my tent, the desert wind rustling the flaps, listening to Muhammad and Rhazi speculating as to why I am so pale and upset, and all I can do is think how lucky they are not to have seen what I saw this morning. I will never be able to un-see it, my dear Hixton. My mind is broken . . .
All right, a stiff shot of whiskey and a walk down the valley later, and my nerves are settling . . . somewhat. I’m sure you are muttering at me to get on with it, tell you what I saw, and I intend to. But I have to come at this obliquely, Hicks, because confronting the memory head-on this soon might unhinge me altogether! So, here goes . . .
It’s been two days since I last wrote to you. I mentioned that our Bedouins had taken off in the night, and I was upset because of the delays that might incur. That was the morning after I managed to open the hidden door, but when I returned to the chamber the next day, it had been closed again during the night! I suspect one of the Bedouins did it; I mentioned that one had been injured, and I found a few drops of his blood there by the door and the Osiris statue. But I was able to open it again, pulling the gem in Isis’ hand just like I did the day before. The air that flowed out when the chamber opened was only slightly less foul than it had been; Ibrahim and I decided to bring in a small brazier and light a fire in it to help ventilate the space. After lighting it we backed out, as the miasma was making us both quite dizzy.
That afternoon Muhammad and Rhazi returned – they were quite upset to find their companions gone, but I offered to pay them double if they would stay, and they reluctantly agreed. We spent the day removing two altar tables from the temple and carefully wrapping them preparatory to loading them on the cart. Near sunset I went back into the temple and found the stench from the inner chamber much diminished; I shone my lamp through the door and saw nothing but a long straight passage sloping downward into the dark. Since it was late in the day and my lamp was low on kerosene, I decided to forego further exploration until the next day.
So this morning I bade Ibrahim wait for me in the Temple while I made my way down to the sealed chamber. The passage was surprisingly long, moving downward at a constant angle for around one hundred and fifty feet. At its end was an ornately carved arch, decorated with figures that bore no resemblance to any Egyptian deities I’ve ever seen – horrible, eldritch creatures with batlike wings, reptilian bodies, and octopus-like tentacles where their faces should be. But above the door hieroglyphs bearing the name of Nar-o-Teph were carved – they looked more recent to me than the hideous images sculpted into the arch, although they were still very ancient. I paused there for a moment to study them, both attracted and appalled by their hideous nature and unusual style. Then I raised my lamp and stepped into the burial chamber – and nearly lost my mind!
There is no way to mince words about this, Hicks, so I will just come out and say it: Nar-ho-Teph is REAL! Not a myth, not a legend, but there was – is? - a creature that resembles in every aspect the vile thing depicted on the walls of the temple we found! The inscriptions were not an incantation but a recitation of the creature’s fate.
The first sight that greeted me inside that cursed burial chamber was a bronze pole atop which was impaled a triangular head with jagged mandibles and its eyes sitting atop six-inch, segmented stalks. I thought it was a sculpture at first, but I’ve handled enough mummies to know dried flesh when I touch it. This monstrous thing was once a living, breathing creature! A statue of Anubis stood next to the severed head, guarding it for eternity.
On the wall to my right, I saw a statue of Set, and next to it, stretched out on the wall was a dried, leathery hide – with six limbs and a long, curved tail! Coarse black fur still clung to it in places. No animal on earth has a skin like that, and I can tell you it was not a clever composite – there were no seams or stitches anywhere on it. And the skin where the neck should have been had been cleanly sliced through, just as it would be if the creature had been decapitated pre-mortem.
But the most horrifying sight was lying inside the sarcophagus at the back of the chamber. The lid of the sarcophagus was lying shattered on the floor, and the statues of Isis and Horus on either side of it had been decapitated. The damage was recent; I saw drops of blood on the floor around them. Had the crazed Bedouin decided to end the curse by destroying the mummy of Nar-o-Teph? Or perhaps thought to simply rob it? For as I stepped forward and looked into the sarcophagus, I saw that the wrappings which once bound the unholy carcass had been torn asunder, and were rudely shoved down to the feet of the mummy inside.
That mummy . . . dear God, Hicks, let me take another drink before I describe it. How can such a thing have existed in a sane world? It lay on one side, curled as if it were asleep. Six limbs were folded together, the rear legs ending in large, three-clawed feet like those of a bird, with a black dew claw six inches long halfway up the back of the calf. The arms featured the same clawed, six-fingered hand as the beast depicted in the temple; their claws glistened as if they were damp. In the dim light, the body seemed to pulsate slightly, creating the illusion that it was breathing. The teats were fully engorged, as if the monstrous thing were lactating. How? A four-thousand-year-old mummy should have been nothing but dried, papery skin stretched tight over bones! Yet the monster I stared at looked strangely fat and supple, as if it had just been fed.
I slowly backed away, shaken to the core at the thought that such a being could even exist. I was so rattled that when I finally turned to flee, I could have sworn that those unholy orbs atop the segmented stalks had rotated to follow my steps into the chamber! It seems ridiculous now, I know, but that is how shaken I was.
What to do next? Half of me wants to seal up the burial chamber, destroy the Temple with dynamite, and spend the rest of my life trying to forget what I saw in there. But then the scholar in me shrieks in protest, and paints me a vision of the notoriety and fame that would come from bringing the mummy of a completely unknown species of animal to the attention of modern science. Peabody would have conniptions just looking at this thing!
I haven’t taken Ibrahim down there yet, but in the morning we will both examine the chamber more closely, bring in more lamps, and begin photographing everything there. I am exhausted, but I will admit, my friend, going to sleep knowing that monster lies inside the cliff behind us is going to be a challenge. I keep remembering how the flickering light of my lantern made it look as if it were breathing . . .
God, I’m too morbid! Whatever it was, however terrifying it may have been, Nar-op-Teph is DEAD. It has been dead for four thousand years or more. Any imagination to the contrary is nothing more than my frightened brain trying to make sense of the unknown.
So there you have it, my dear Hixton. I am sure facing the Spanish was terrifying, but I doubt Kettle Hill will ever haunt your nightmares the way the tomb of Nar-o-Teph is going to haunt mine. But, nightmares or no, I must try to sleep now. I will try to write more coherently tomorrow . . .
13 October 1898
The Cursed Valley
Hicks – this may be the last letter I will ever write you. Ibrahim, bless him, has remained by my side, and I am sending this with him to Cairo with strict orders to never return to this accursed gorge!! Death will be welcome after the events of last night and this morning. Some doors should never be opened, Hixton, and this was one of them. Just my accursed luck I should be the one to find it!
I told you that Nar-o-Teph was real in my last letter, but that was only the penultimate horror. The final revelation came in the last hours before dawn; you see, not only was this abomination real – IT IS STILL ALIVE!
Had I not fallen asleep with my lamp still lit, I would be dead, and the monster unleashed on the world. I drank one too many shots of whiskey while writing to you last night, and I nodded off over my notebook sometime after midnight. I sat there, face down on my camp table, as death slowly crept out of the chamber and came for us.
I was awakened from uneasy slumber by a choking cry not too far off. I raised my head, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and heard it again – a pitiful cry cut short very swiftly. I lifted my lamp and stepped outside. The moon was full, and I could tell the cry came from the tent shared by the two Bedouins, Muhammad and Rhazi. I saw their tent shaking and called their names to see what the ruckus was. Something black and indistinct slowly emerged, wrapped in shadows that the moonlight could not penetrate.
“Muhammad?” I said. “Is that you? What the devil is happening, man?”
The figure suddenly shimmered with a pale light as it stood upright and faced me. To my astonishment, I saw Ellen! Standing there in the moonlight, wearing that pale blue dress she wore on the day we all went to the opera together last year. I stood there paralyzed, knowing it was not her, yet unable to deny the evidence of my own eyes. She smiled – that same lovely smile that has stolen my heart every time she directed it at me since we were children! My hands, and the lamp I was holding, slowly dropped to my side as she advanced towards me, arms outstretched.
“Sir! Mister Glenn, RUN!” I heard Ibrahim cry suddenly, and in that instant whatever glamor had been cast over my mind evaporated, and I saw – oh my dear God, Hicks, I saw that decapitated, flayed THING slowly walking towards me, that obscenely fat, four-armed torso striding on its thick clawed feet! The teats that were so strangely engorged before were now extended towards me, splitting open to reveal small mouths with rows of glistening teeth. A strange, ululating sound emerged from the torso, holding me transfixed with its bizarre, pulsating melody.
Suddenly a blinding light arced over my head, and Ibrahim’s kerosene lamp came crashing down on the shambling form of Nar-o-Teph, the Eater of the Dead, the Devourer of Souls. The abomination was immediately doused with flaming oil, and snapping out of my trance, I hurled my own lamp at it. The ululating cry became a shriek of rage and pain, and the now-blazing form fled back towards the Temple entrance, pausing long enough to reach into the worker’s tent with an impossibly long arm and snag the limp corpse of Muhammad – we discovered that Rhazi had already been taken or devoured when we searched the tent later.
We lit every lamp we had and huddled together, staring at the entrance to the Temple, until dawn came. As we waited, we made our plans. As soon as the sun is a little higher, I am going inside the temple, where I will shut the door to that accursed burial chamber for the last time. Then I shall take the dynamite and blasting caps that the Bedouins brought and rig up enough explosives to bring the whole hillside down on top of the site, burying temple, tomb, and the horrors they contain for all time.
I’ve already told Ibrahim to take everything and get out of here. The pictures and sketches will be destroyed; if I survive, we shall inform Collins, Peabody, and the whole lot that the rumor of a hidden tomb was completely spurious. The world is better off never knowing what we uncovered.
If I survive the destruction I am sowing, I shall find him in Cairo and then we can return to the Valley of the Kings together. But I am not certain I shall. There are still sounds, faint but undeniable, coming from within the Temple, or, to be more precise, from the hidden chamber beyond it. I doubt Nar-o-Thep will like the thought of being sealed up in there again, but I intend to do exactly that . . . or die trying.
Goodbye, dear Hixton. You have been a faithful and loyal friend. Please make sure no one comes looking for me. If I succeed, I shall go to my grave in the knowledge that I spared mankind from a nightmare beyond words.
The dynamite and blasting caps are ready. I can tell Ibrahim, despite all his protestations of loyalty, is eager to be away. I go to do what I must, for the sanity of us all. Tell Ellen that I love her, and that I wish most fervently for her to have a long and happy life.
Now to bury that damnable thing under the weight of an entire mountain. . .
Glenn
The claims in this collection of letters are so remarkable, and so terrifying in their import, that I sought to find some confirmation of their truth. The records of the New York Museum of Natural History do confirm that Glenn Sage was indeed on an excavation in the Valley of the Kings when he disappeared, and that his supervisor was well-known Egyptologist Dr. Reginald Collins. But I could find nothing else related to Sage’s remarkable narrative for several months. That changed yesterday, when Sam Jenkins, an old friend of mine who works in the national archive, sent me a scan of this letter from Theodore Roosevelt, dated from 1909, to Colonel Leonard Wood, his old friend and fellow Progressive. The final paragraph ends thus:
We encountered a very distinguished Bedouin last week as we toured the Great Pyramids at Giza, by the name if Ibrahim bin-Sammael. He told me that he had been working with the vanished archeologist Glenn Sage ten years or more ago at the time when Sage mysteriously disappeared. He was very reticent with details, as if he knew more than he was telling, but he did say that the young American uncovered some unspeakable horror or other in some remote valley, and that he sacrificed his life to save humanity from whatever it was. All balderdash, of course, but it was a bully good tale to hear around the campfire just the same!
What Glenn Sage saw, or thought he saw, we may never know. But if history and archeology have taught us anything, it is that the deserts of Egypt hold many secrets.
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