The sun rose amid gathering storm clouds, and the Ottokurss dig team hurried to protect the exposed viewing tables near the grand pyramid. Tori Jessica Powell had set this as the optimum site for displaying artifacts during the process of photographing, describing, and cataloguing each of the items taken from within the pyramid. Some of the artifacts brought out into the light of day for the first time in millennia were fragile and highly subject to the elements, and the dry and arid climate during these summer months aided in their preservation. The destructive power of the moisture in the air that would accompany a storm, however, would be another matter. The numerous clay tablets and the papyrus sheets now in good condition, would deteriorate rapidly under the effects of even the slightest amount of moisture, and Tori wanted to insure their safe keeping. The Upper Nile generally enjoyed a temperate and mild climate, but on occasion storm clouds brought heavy rains and flash floods through the ravines and vast desert stretches of the Ottokurss Valley. The dig team worked quickly, each move calculated and deliberate and sure.

Joseph Behai, specialist and lead interpreter of ancient hieroglyphs and pictoglyphs, was examining artifacts unearthed in a desert cache several hundred kilometers to the south of the Jherq-Ah-Yem III dig site. These pieces, as well as a series of wall markings, were discovered by a caravan of camel traders seeking shelter during one of the region’s sudden sandstorms. These fierce Bedouin tribesmen by chance found shelter in a remote cave in the sandstone banks along the Nile River.

The mouth of the cave was normally below the river’s waters, and was only exposed during exceptionally dry periods when the river was low. The leader of the caravan recognized the priceless artifacts for what they were, and knew they would be worth something to some digger of antiquity. As it happened, one of the Bedouin tribesmen had heard of the Ottokurss excavation, and alerted the leader of the band. Joseph was contacted by a shadow in the night, and for a price was told of the cave and its timeless treasures. Tori dispatched Joseph and a team of aides to follow-up these reports.

Paul Chernov, in the meantime, was following the trail of a legend brought to his attention by one of the local merchants in nearby Caliph. Legend held that the intrigue-filled past of Jherq-Ah-Yem III included tales of mistresses, concubines, and a harem of magnificent beauties that fed the carnal pleasures of the powerful Pharaoh. This was nothing unusual, for powerful men across the ages have had beautiful women at their beck and call. The legend, however, described one such beauty, a sylph of the desert, who appeared briefly and vanished with nary a trace. None of the clay tablets, pictoglyphs, or papyrus manuscripts, made any reference to a mysterious woman from the desert regions, who after a liaison with the powerful Pharaoh, disappeared into the night. Paul was intrigued with the story, and thus was embarked upon the elusive trail in the shifting desert sands.

Late one afternoon in mid-July, 1943, a member of the dig team came to Paul having just experienced a most unusual phenomenon. He had been putting the finishing touches on a report of the measurements of the inner chambers and passageways deep within the main pyramid, when he noticed that the candle flame flickered occasionally.

An examination of the walls of passageway L-13 had found nothing to cause this anomaly. Paul and the worker walked the particular stretch of passageway with candles lit, but noticed nothing unusual. The two men felt along the walls and floor of the passageway, feeling for uneven stones, loose mortar, and any irregularity in the masonry work. Nothing. They held the candle next to the walls, moving them up and down, then held them near the floor, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Paul looked up at the ceiling of the passageway, searching for cracks, uneven stonework, possibly light coming in through a crack. Again, nothing.

The worker brought a ladder from the large inner chamber two passageways over, and Paul climbed to the top and held the candle near the ceiling stones. Nothing. Then, as he moved the candle slowly from side to side, it happened; the flame flickered ever so slightly, the motion almost lost in the dim light and the sideways sweeping of Paul’s hand. Paul held the candle near the crack above his head, and it flickered as though the merest hint of a zephyr passed between the two massive stones. Paul instructed the worker to summon Tori and others of the crew, and have them bring tools.

Joseph crawled through the cave entrance and into the dark inner chamber, followed by the large Bedouin. The light from their lanterns lit the inside of the cave, and for a moment both men blinked their eyes to get used to the subdued lighting after the bright blaze of the mid-day sun. Joseph looked slowly around him, and his eyes immediately beheld a large expanse of wall where figure drawings moved across the surface, unfolding a story untold for centuries. Joseph approached the wall, his hand reaching out to touch the surface and its markings. His fingers stopped just short of the sandstone, his eyes drinking in the beauty of the artwork of the ancient artist.

The cough of the Bedouin behind him brought him back from his brief reverie, and he looked closely at the painted figures. His attention focused, and from the far reaches and dark corners of his mind, he began to pull first this recollection, then that knowing, then a long series of memory traces – and a picture began to form giving meaning to the wall markings. He didn’t know exactly how he did this, but without any conscious thought, this process worked within him, and he was able intuitively to decipher and extract meaning from the painted figures.

The pictoglyphs described a young woman, a ravishing beauty who lived in the dunes nearby, and who, it was said, carried a child fathered by an unknown patriarch. The child, born of a forced union, grew into a young woman, and after 16 floodings of the Holy Nile, disappeared from the sands of the Valley of the Dunes. Joseph was unaware that he had been mouthing the deciphered meanings, and had spoken in soft tones the emerging story line.

The Bedouin grunted, and said the story was told also in the legends of his people. But legend held, he said, that the offspring was half male-half female. Joseph started, first at the abrupt sound of the man’s voice, then at his disclosure. He pressed the Bedouin to explain further. The man described how his father’s father had once told of a powerful ruler who held a beautiful woman captive, and served his desires with her. But because the gods were angered, the offspring of this union was born with the organs of a female below, and the body of a male above. Joseph looked puzzled. The Bedouin looked impassive. Joseph gathered together his team and left the cave, and began the journey back to the Ottokurss Valley.

Tori watched as the candle flame flickered near the crack in the ceiling. The workmen erected a scaffold under that portion of the ceiling, and Paul climbed up and with the help of two of the workers, pushed hard on the two massive stones. There was no movement by either stone. They rigged a fulcrum under it, and angling the lever just so, Paul heaved on the end of the sturdy oaken pole and strained against the weight of the stone and of the ages. The worker next to him shouted that the stone moved, and a trickle of dust fell from between the stones.

Paul took a deep breath, and heaved again. The stone moved, and a gentle breath of wind blew from between the stones, marking the edges of a narrow doorway above them. The two workers set braces against the bottom surface of the stone, and spotted Paul as he gained second leverage against the rectangular stone. Slowly, with painstaking effort, Paul and the two men lifted the stone up and off to the side into the darkness above. It came to rest above them with a loud crash and grinding of sand. Paul could see the stone was hewn in the shape of a truncated pyramid, placed upside down in the opening to receive it, fitting flawlessly by design as the door to eternity.

Paul stood, and poked his head, then his shoulders, up and through the opening. He lifted a lantern up past his head, and holding it high peered into the darkness now made light. The space was a smallish chamber, low vaulted, with the surfaces painted white. This was unusual in itself. Paul scanned the tiny room, and his eyes spotted a low table off to one side. Setting the lantern on the floor next to the opening, he cautiously lifted himself up and into the room, sitting on the edge of the entryway, his legs dangling below.

Tori called up to him and asked what he was seeing; Paul described the white room with a low table. He lifted his legs into the room, and crouching to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling, moved over to the table. Beside it he found a square container, and recognized immediately the royal seal of the Pharaoh, Jherq-Ah-Yem III, sealing the box. Tori poked her head up through the opening, and pulling herself up and into the chamber, came over and knelt beside Paul. Paul handed the container to Tori, who turned it side to side, then over, examining the fine workmanship of the box. Tori took a tool from her hip pocket, and unfolding its slender blade, slipped it beneath the royal seal, and gently lifted.

The wax seal resisted a moment, then gave way and crumbled into a number of pieces onto the floor between her knees. Tori slipped the slender blade between the box and its lid, and again lifted gently. The lid slid off with ease, bespeaking the workmanship of the original craftsman.

Inside was a bundle of papyrus with a leather strap wrapped around it. Tori lifted it out, and slowly unwrapped the leather tie. The sheaves of papyrus unfolded in Tori’s hands, and she could see that the writing was in the classic pictoglyphs of the Third Dynasty. She handed them to Paul, who confirmed Tori’s initial assessment. They would have to await Joseph’s return for any definitive deciphering, but on cursory study, Paul thought the text spoke of a captive woman brought from the southern deserts for a liaison with the Pharaoh, and who, when his royal desires had been satisfied, was sent away to the lost lands of the endless desert because he was angered by the woman’s husband. Tori concurred with Paul’s cursory interpretation, and took the loose sheaves of paper, and placed them again into the royal container. Joseph would return soon.

Paul sat on the floor of the passageway, his back against the cold stone wall, and thought long and hard on the recent finding. Tori, for her part, took a walk out past the massive pyramid, down to the wadi to the west, and sat in the moonlight amid the still gathering storm clouds. Soon, Joseph’s caravan crested the hill to the south, and the long journey back to the Ottokurss Valley concluded. After the usual warm greetings, the three sat and shared their thoughts about their separate but similar discoveries.

The juxtaposition of this woman of the desert, and a child born out of hate, the offspring of the Pharaoh, were pieces of the ongoing puzzle. Joseph told of the Bedouin’s family legend, which added an hermaphroditic overlay to the story. Paul recalled having translated the gold tablet a little over a year ago, about the daughter of Reuben Hodh, also named Reuben Hodh by the mother. That girl left the southern deserts and escaped her slave master at the age of 17, disguised as a man. Could this be the half man-half woman alluded to in the Bedouin legend? “If so,” suggested Paul, “this daughter, conceived in hatred, grew into a young woman who led a slave revolt against her own father.” “Hmmm,” said Tori…