HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror - Weird Tales

56 H . P . L O V E C R A F T ’S M A G A Z IN E O F H O R R O R
hear, if they might come. “Shukran!” Thanking the sun for
leaving the sky. Thanking the moon for coming to mitigate the
night. When it peeps over the rim, she has the idea that if she
can see the moon, then whoever else looks at the moon can
see her. If they were still looking. If they hadn’t given up for
the night.
She painfully shifts her position as the moon crosses the
sky; she is reluctant to lose its company. And when it reaches
the western edge of her horizon, she knows it is rising in some
other part of the world. A young man might look up from his
basement apartment, through the window with the bars and the
red curtains which had been photographed for her by the private
detective. That young man might see her reflection in the
white circle, along with the sun’s light.
Then she shuts her eyes and hides her face in the sand.
After all these years, she does not want him to see her like this.
She wanted him to be in awe of what she had achieved.
THERE were a hundred pyramids in Egypt, and who knew
how many more buried by the sands. But the main three, the
famous grouping seen in all the photographs, were in a suburb
of Cairo. The group traveled there in a minivan, passing halfbuilt
high rises and dusty shops and patches of ground being
farmed with the same lack of technology used in the time of the
pharaohs. After a day of touring perfume factories and souvenir
shopping, Merril was glad to be finally checking an
accomplishment off her list.
As soon as the van stopped and the Scottsdale seniors
eased their bulk out of the middle seat, Merril sprinted past
them right up to the base of the Great Cheops.
It was enormous. Nearly five hundred feet tall. Even the
individual blocks of granite were huge—three feet high and six
feet long, each weighing several tons. According to her guidebook,
there were two million of them. Merril had never seen a
million of anything. Her own millions were abstract. But here
was a manifest representation of wealth. Although her own fortune
more accurately resembled an upside-down pyramid, since
she made her money by cleverly placing that first large block of
capital and letting others heap more on top of it. Still, here this
stood, after four thousand years, ready for her to conquer. She
took one giant step up onto the bottom layer of blocks and prepared
to make her climb.
Immediately a soldier in a navy blue woolen uniform
waved his AK-47 at her. She went up two more levels. Surely
he was there to protect her from terrorists, not to guard the
pyramid from her. When the soldier shouted, Mido came running
over and put himself between the gun and Merril.
“Climbing is not permitted,” Mido said.
“But Napoleon did,” Merril said.
His answer was the sort she hated. If every tourist scrambled
up the side, the structure would crumble. She explained to
Mido that she was not every tourist. She couldn’t care less
about every tourist. If anyone ever deserved to climb, she did.
Mido extended his hand to make her descend. He reminded
her that the pyramids had not been built to enable the
pharaohs to stand on top, but instead to bury them within.
* * *
b
IN the half light, just before dawn, the rescuers come. She has
slept fitfully if at all, and so she knows she is not dreaming. She
feels the thudding of the horses’ hoofs. She feels the sand
sprinkle down upon her like magic dust. “Shukran!” she yells.
“Help!” She pushes herself up into a sitting position to be ready
for them. The thudding is pounding now in her heart and in her
head. “Shukran! Shukran!“
Men peer over the edge. Their heads are wrapped in turbans.
Their faces have brown leather skin with deep creases and
hollow cheeks and glittering eyes. But these are not the old
guides who practically live at the tombs and for a little baksheesh
will help you find the place where Rimbaud carved his
name. It’s her partner, Marty. Her lover, Stephen. Her ex-husband,
John.
She cries then. Even though she tries not to. Tears are
such a waste of body fluids. But she didn’t want these men. No,
she didn’t want them. She wanted the only one who had really
loved her, even if just for a little while.
4he ancient Egyptian world was divided between two
sons. Osiris and Seth. As with most divisions, the split
was obviously unfair. Osiris got the good part, on the
east side of the Nile. And Seth got all the desert on the west. So
Seth, like any ambitious person, decided to kill Osiris and take
over his part. Once Osiris was dead, Isis, the sister-wife of
Osiris, tried to claim his body. To prevent this, Seth hacked the
corpse all up into pieces and fed the penis to the crocodiles. But
Isis was undaunted. She collected all the bits (somehow finding
the penis too) and reassembled the body. She wrapped it up in
cloth, creating the prototypical mummy. Miraculously Osiris
managed one last night of passion and impregnated Isis. She
gave birth to a son Horus who grew up in the swamp, away
from his jealous uncle. When he reached manhood, Horus
avenged the death of his father by killing Seth in a bloody battle
near Edfu. Into the underworld went Seth. For no one wanted
to resurrect him.
ALTHOUGH the water bottle is empty, she keeps the cap on
tight. Sometimes she puts the bottle in the shade. Sometimes