Thoth was scribbling restlessly on a long sheet of papyrus that lay in front of him on a stone floor, his long beak going up and down as he wrote tracing the movement of his hand. A lone feeble candle shone dimly in the velvety darkness of the chamber, casting long jumpy shadows on the smooth granite walls around him. The Great Mountain had been finished for weeks now, but this thought brought Thoth little joy. For many nights he brooded deep inside the pyramid, his eyes dry and bloodshot, scrolling through countless rows of glyphs, checking and rechecking his calculations, yet failing to find an error. This puzzled him deeply. If there was no error then why would the mountain not breathe?
With only a waning candle keeping him company, Thoth moved from one papyrus to the next. Thin bands of winding scribbles made a tangled mess at his feet. Lost in his ruminations, Thoth did not pay any attention to his light, which grew precariously weak and fluttered before dying completely, leaving Thoth in total and complete darkness. The darkness stuck to his skin as a thick wet cloth that would not peel off. With no wind and no breeze, the air was completely still, swallowing Thoth in vast hollow emptiness. Behind him, Thoth felt the restless trembling of a granite sarcophagus he was leaning against. The stone box was empty.
Thoth waited for his eyes to acclimate to darkness. Damn gods! Why do I listen to them? Thoth cursed quietly, trying to make out his surroundings, struggling to remember who else besides his mother and Seth had talked him into building the Great Mountain. When push comes to shove, how many would gather to leave? There was a lot that Thoth loathed in the affairs of the gods, yet he continued to do their bidding. Must he obey them? He wondered. Why did he obey them? He was not sure. Thoth was their equal, and yet the other gods never asked Thoth to do anything, they commanded him instead, as if he was a mere lu and their servant. Perhaps he’d spent too much time with lu for now the other goods doubtless mistook him for one. How did it come to that? Thoth could not remember, but he was used to it by now.
There was no way of telling if minutes or hours had passed before the darkness finally receded from Thoth’s eyes and he could see a faint shimmer of a cool violet glow emanating from the granite box. This balmy radiance was not the scorching fire he’d expected. Thoth wasn’t sure why. The taste of failure was new to him, and he loathed the feeling. Why couldn’t he see the problem? It was a question without an answer.
Thoth’s mind was rambling through previous designs. Every new pyramid he’d built worked better than the one before, and small wonder in that. With each new mountain of limestone blocks, Thoth gained new knowledge, corrected his mistakes, and went on to build a better mound. The Great Mountain was meant to be the pinnacle, his crowning achievement, and yet the pyramid stood silent, its stones fast asleep.
Thoth got up and walked around the chamber, his steps echoed brightly in the silence. The faint glow of the sarcophagus grew dimmer when he stepped away from it but brightened back up when he drew closer. Puzzled, Thoth leaned over the box and put his arm inside it, swinging it from side to side, scooping the air. The glow brightened, pulsating in synchrony with the motion of his arm. Thoth lowered both of his arms inside the box, and the glow intensified as if it was feeding on the fire of his blood.
That’s it! That’s it!!! The revelation startled Thoth, making the scales of his body prickle and stirring a colony of butterflies in his stomach. How could he be so blind? Of course, it is the fire in my blood that the mountain needs! Thoth raised his leg and stepped over the edge of the sarcophagus. The box shone brighter now, lit by a glow coming from within the rock. He set another foot inside the sarcophagus and heard the room fill up with a low hum, soft and growing in volume. Thoth climbed out of the box, bewildered, happy, and relieved. The low hum and eerie glow receded quickly as he did. It is the fire in my blood. He thought, remembering how he cradled in a litter floating on firestone when he was a baby. His brother thought it was a bad idea, to paint firestone on the bottom of his litter, but Thoth liked it so much when his cradle floated by itself with nobody around it, rocking him gently to sleep. Thoth cherished his solitude from the day he was born, and he was happy in it. Alone in the rocking floating cradle, Thoth could feel like… a god, and the god he was.
His elder brother warned him, that he was too young to play with such things, that his skin was too thin and gentle, and that if he was not careful he would poison his blood, and the firestone would weep through his skin creating painful ulcers and bleeding sores, turning his budding scales blue with blood. Thoth, however, did not listen, yet nothing horrible of what his brother promised came to pass. When Thoth grew to be of age he had no reason to fear the firestone anymore as his skin had become thick with scales. He often helped lu to paint skyboats with firestone to make them float. The lu had much thinner and much fairer skin and no scales, so some did get ulcers, but only those who were careless when working with it. But not Thoth, he was deft at handling the firestone, and although some of it did get into his blood over time, he suffered no ill effects from it. Sometimes Thoth thought that he had seen a faint glow around himself when he was in complete darkness, but he attributed it to his imagination. Now he knew that it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him, for in the total darkness of the pyramid’s chamber, he could vividly see a soft radiance emanating from his body, and the granite box amplified it.
Too bad Thoth used up the last remaining firestone to build his limestone mountains. There was none of it left for skyboats and none to move or cut any more blocks. He knew that with firestone gone gods had little choice but to return home during the next crossing. What else was there left for them to do? Gods were ill-suited for this world, and Thoth did all he could to make their life bearable. Yet if the Great Mountain won’t breathe the gods would be trapped on Earth forever, condemned to slow death. What would he tell them?
Using the faint glow of his body for illumination, Thoth stumbled about the chamber trying to find his way out of the pyramid. With his hands outstretched he felt the walls in front of him, looking for the low opening leading away from the chamber. He made his way through the portcullis and down the descending passage of the grand gallery. His heart drummed wildly as he navigated in near-total darkness the bowels of the Great Mountain he’d built. Still at a loss of what to tell the gods, he wondered if the firestone in his blood would be enough to make the mountain stir. How would he extract it? He found it unlikely that the gods would care to hear his concerns. Some were preparing to leave already if he was to believe the rumors. Such minutiae were nothing but a nuisance to them. Perhaps it would be best to keep all doubt to himself. Thoth never failed the gods, why would he fail them now?
Soon Thoth could see a faint shimmer of light illuminating the far end of the dark corridor he was climbing through. He was approaching the exit from the pyramid, his mind preoccupied with the firestone. What would happen to him if he were to stay inside the pyramid to help it breathe? If he started the fire with his blood, the radiance and heat of it would doubtless destroy him. Surely the other gods did not expect him to do that? How could they? If only he could get the firestone out, if only he could find a way… Yet he could not think of it right now as he was walking along the causeway towards the temple of Nut. Is his life theirs now? Thoth wandered as he approached.
His mother Nut sat on a dais in her temple overlooking the causeway. A myriad of granite columns supported the roof above the palace, each covered top to bottom in elegant carvings, some done by Thoth’s hand. A soft breeze flowed through the collonade, carrying the sweet incense smoke that veiled the inner sanctum of the temple in dense fog. Nut was old and frail, and she needed the haze of the incense burners to protect her flailing body from the angry southern sun. Without the haze, her skin would fester with boils and cracks. She was dressed in a white gown adorned with feathers and ornate inlaid gold plates on her chest, neck, and cuffs of her sleeves. This was for good health, Thoth told her as this was one of his inventions.
Nut was expecting him, her aloof look did fool him.
“I waited for you,” she said as he approached, looking past him, her gaze fixated on the causeway. Nut’s eyes were clouded from old age but not completely blind. He saw her wrinkles shift, her face changed expression as he climbed upon the dais steps towards her.
“I am surprised you visited your mother,” Nut noted accusingly, “You have been busy with the mountains of yours, or so I am told”. Thoth was standing directly in front of her, yet she did not offer him a seat. He settled on a step at her feet.
“You know why I built them, Mother”, he replied quietly trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, “You know why I do it, to take you and Seth home. To take all of us home.” He leaned closer and placed his hand on hers. Mother’s hand was dry and wrinkly. “The gods command it, and I am the only equal to the task.”
She pulled her hand away. “So the gods make you forget your mother?” She said indignantly, her gaze still firmly locked on the causeway. “Seth visits me every day,” she gestured to one of her handmaidens, the girl ran to a hidden door and muttered something to a servant on the other side.
Abruptly Nut stood up and walked down from the dais, Thoth followed her. She stretched out her hands: “Seth, darling!” She exclaimed, greeting a litter carried by four dark-skinned lu up the steps of the temple. Sitting inside was Seth, hidden behind a waterfall of fine silk curtains. When they reached Nut, his lu had lowered the litter to the floor and lifted the drapes. Nut’s servants helped Seth climb out. He smelled of perfume and wine. Inside his litter, an incense burner seethed with delirious intensity. Dressed in everything white and richly adorned in gold and fine jewelry, Seth looked like a true god in all his glory, standing in stark contrast to Thoth who wore a brown dirty old garb and was head to toe covered in dust. Light-colored clothing stained too fast, Thoth learned. He did not want to disappoint his mother, who reprimanded him coldly when he visited her last time during a construction break, his white overalls muddy and soiled.
Seth was different. Younger, taller, and slender he was an image of perfection that Mother loved so much. She took his hands in hers and pulled him closer.
“Seth, dear!” she said, kissing him on both of his cheeks, smiling. Thoth was not amused by this. He knew that Seth visited Mother every day, he could afford the time as he had nothing better to do. Like all the other gods he spent his days choking on the gourmet dishes of his cooks and sauntered through the edifices of the other gods who lived up and down the Nile (his uncles, aunts, and cousins). If anything, Seth looked a bit worn out by endless parties, ceaseless celebrations, and sumptuous offerings. Yes, Seth demanded rich and luxuriant offerings from his followers. Those who disappointed him he beat with his long scepter.
Thoth had a temple too, although his ‘palace’ was little more than a ramshackle barn where Thoth had kept his raggle-taggle papyri, countless clay tablets, odd tools, and old blueprints. Thoth had a priest, a librarian in truth, to guard and organize his knowledge. The only offering Thoth took was that of papyrus, parchment, ink, and bronze, and he employed a scribe or two when he needed to make copies to pass instructions to his workers. Unlike the other gods, lu could not read his mind; Thoth was in a bad need of scribes to communicate his thoughts.
Thoth thought that he’d feel happier when the gods were all gone, returned to their home world safely, leaving him alone to his devices. Thoth was never bored, he had his lu and took exalted joy in teaching them new things and seeing them learn. Take this Great Mountain he had them built, he hardly had to direct them this time. The plans were his, but lu did all the work. He only oversaw and intervened occasionally. The poro he appointed had learned enough to organize all the work required to carry out Thoth’s plans. Yet Thoth liked the labor and often assisted in rubbing firestone on heavy granite blocks to make them float. Too little of the precious gift of the heavens remained and they had to use it sparingly, painting the stones as thinly as they could until the lu could pull and lift the blocks with ropes. Although the floating blocks did not have weight they still had the inertia, and often it took dozens of lu to wrestle an unusually stubborn block in place. Three times the height of an average lu, Thoth could move and set many of the blocks entirely by himself, and he sometimes did so, especially when the blocks were particularly large and required fine positioning.
Thoth also liked to shape the blocks. By dipping huge bronze knives in firestone water, he’d make them cut through stone like through butter, the firestone softening the rock. This feeling of hard stone parting at the edge of his blade was strangely satisfying. This work was art, no less, and Seth often added ornaments and decorations to pillars and boxes that he fashioned, as he could never be satisfied with a plain look. Early on Thoth gifted flasks of firestone to stone workers, instructing them to carve the likenesses of their poro and whatever else they pleased, and they surprised him with dainty sphinxes and tall stelae stamped with inscriptions.
Thoth sighed, remembering how one of the carvers had spilled the precious firestone on the stairs of his aunt’s temple, ruining and melting the stone steps. He knew he had to replace the steps, but with so little firestone left he had to save whatever little of it was left for the pyramid. So maybe later he will get around to it. The other gods had tasked him with too much, such small things would have to wait. The Great Mountain was rising rapidly from the bedrock of the plateau by the Nile, and as it is Thoth barely had time to visit Mother.
“How is that mountain of yours coming, brother?” Seth asked smirking, his face basking in the rays of the setting sun, his golden crown gleaming. “When are you going to take us home?” Seth kneeled beside Nut and took her hand in his, his finely sculpted big marbled hand easily covering hers. Thoth shifted uncomfortably. Does Seth truly love Mother this much? He was annoyed at something yet could not quite put his finger on it.
“Look at our poor mother, Thoth! She can’t stay here for much longer. This world is just too harsh, the Nile does not agree with her, I fear.” He let go of his mother’s hand and stood up. Seth fixed his stare at Thoth’s uncouth dusty outfit, then his gaze shifted to his brother’s face. Mischievous lights flickered in Seth’s eyes, his mouth curling in a curt smile as he continued.
“Even my skin feels dry and prickly now. I do not feel the same as I had been just a hundred years ago.” He signed turning back to Mother. He crouched next to her again, scooping up both of her hands this time. ”Don’t make us wait any longer, brother. It pains me greatly to see our mother like that. I fear she can’t bear this for much longer.” Nut did not seem to listen, drowned in the awe of Seth’s divine presence.
Thoth wanted to tell them about the problem with the pyramid but changed his mind. What good would it do to upset Mother and to give Seth another chance to gloat? “It is ready… the mountain I mean…” Thoth lied, “We will be home soon. You and Seth, and Horus, and everybody else. Tell them… tell them to prepare the ark. I will have my lu carry it to the top of the Great Mountain as soon as you are ready. Then we will go home, you’ll see.” He turned towards Seth. “Tell the others the mountain is ready. Go, have your celebration, Seth.”
It was time for Thoth to go. “Goodbye Mother, I will see you on the ark.” He kissed her on the cheek and stepped down from the dais walking towards the causeway.
“Why is your brother always in such a rush?” Mother asked Seth. “He never had your manners, darling,” she said clutching his smooth marbled hand, stroking it gently.
The next morning Thoth found the ark already at the base of the pyramid, and hurrying lu were busy loading it with the belongings the gods wished to take home. For the most part, these were gold things, small and large, for the gods were not interested in much of anything, but gold.
When the ark was loaded Thoth sent his servants to fetch his mother and brother. They arrived together, each riding in a splendid gilded litter carried by four strong dark-skinned lu.
“Aren’t you coming, brother?” Seth asked exiting his ride and taking unsteady steps towards the ark. His breath reeked of wine, but not any wine. Seth did not drink just any wine. By the bouquet of smells, Thoth could tell that this potion was something special for it smelled of herbs and spices he’d never tasted before. Even Seth’s drunkenness was excessively refined. Thoth sighed observing lu ushering his mother to the ark.
“I will join you later,” Thoth replied, forcing a smile on his face. When Seth and Nut boarded the ark, Thoth closed the hatch and instructed his lu to start turning a giant winch wheel to haul the ark up the polished limestone slope of the pyramid all the way up to its summit. Thoth eyes filled up with tears when he realized that this was the last time he’d seen his mother and brother. It would be if the Great Mountain worked. Thoth felt uneasy and confused: his smart brother jeered at him subtly, while his mother barely acknowledged him, always disappointed with something that he’d done. Yet as he stood by the entrance to the pyramid watching the winch haul the ark towards the summit, he felt lost, a hungry void growing inside him swallowing his heart. He loved them, and curiously one does not have a choice at love.
One of his lu approached Thoth, kneeled, and reported, “The ark is in position, your lordship”. Thoth nodded and proceeded towards the pyramid’s entrance. The opening was dark and seemed to suck light right out of the air. Thoth looked up – the ark was at the top now, secured perfectly in place – and disappeared in the descending corridor.
Thoth made his descent into the darkness. The corridor was narrow, roughly hewn from the bedrock beneath the Mountain. He had to command a granite plug to be inserted into the ascending gallery and therefore had to follow a different route toward the sarcophagus, a route hastily cut by lu with pick axes and hammers through the beautiful limestone blocks of the pyramid. He was happy that he could not see this butchery, not well anyhow as his eyes were still acclimating to the darkness. Thoth hated compromises and disliked cutting corners when it came to correcting his mistakes. Yet Mother was old, and Thoth did not have the time to do it properly, not now. And he certainly had neither time nor firestone to build another mountain. The crooked passage would have to do if this is what it takes to send Mother and Seth home. They both needed the Fruit of Life, she far more than he, however.
Thoth squeezed his body through twists and turns of the ascending passage cut through blocks, which were barely wide enough to accommodate him, hoping that he wouldn’t get stuck, and soon he emerged by the entrance to the ascending gallery. The climb was steep as the floor was slippery. Breathing heavily, he managed to reach the portcullis and crawled into the main chamber. He knew what he had to do now. Stripping naked from his shapeless robe, he approached the granite box, it was warm. The mountain was breathing but just barely, its breath too shallow and too feeble to return his mother, brother, and few other gods home. Thoth took a deep breath and crawled into the box, stretching himself straight on its finely polished bottom. Thoth saw the air swirl around him and fill with tiny shining motes. Thoth was trying to keep calm as he watched the glow around him growing brighter and the air warmer. The low growling hum soon filled his ears, overpowering his senses. The top of the granite box was vibrating visibly, the granite was a string, and Thoth’s body a bow. Quick blue flames grew from the top of the box, fluttering and lashing violently at the walls of the chamber. Then abruptly it all stopped and Thoth felt a sudden onrush of cool air and… relief. His heart pounded like a drum no more. His mind was at peace giving Thoth a feeling of all-consuming contentment and transcendent happiness. The entire top of the box was glowing red hot now with Thoth inside it, his body blistering white. He knew that Mother and Seth were on their way now, they would be home soon, and nothing else mattered.