xxviii
Prologue
the enigmatic tradition of the sanctuaries, the words that brought the god into his shrine and the acts that protected the sacred precinct. Eventually, the prince withdrew from palace life altogether. After marrying his childhood companion Mehusekha and begetting handsome children by her, he found a home in the formidable school of Ptah at Memphis, where he was in vested as high priest to oversee of all the scriptoriums in the Lower Kingdom. Here he could certainly indulge his passion, spending hours inspecting the an cient scrolls, ordering eager young scribes to copy the rare books, and strolling through the vast necropolis of the city to read the wondrous inscriptions on the great ancestral monuments. It was during one of those casual walks one afternoon in the city of the dead that Khaemwas encountered an old sorcerer, one infrequently seen among the crumbling tombs in the dusk hours. Though he seemed to avoid the company of others who went about their business in this place, on this occasion the sorcerer approached Khaemwas and spoke unpretentiously to him. "Venerable prince, I am told that you seek the great secrets of our ancestors and that you walk among these old tombs in the hope of finding such treasures." "Well, what do you know of these things?" Khaemwas responded, rather sur prised at the encounter. He waved his flywisk in the air to dispel the dust and scrutinized the wizened old man. '1\h," he said knowingly. "I know much of these things. In fact, I know of a
tome that you have never seen, a book written by the hand of Djehuti himself. It exists right under your nose, you know." Khaemwas ceased waving the flywisk and looked at the man intently. "Your speech is sacrilege," he said, "The noble book you speak of has been returned to the gods because men have made poor use of it. No one knows its whereabouts." Indeed, the book of Djehuti, divine scribe to the gods, was fabled for cen turies to contain the formula for charming the wind, the spirits of the mountains and waters, and knowing the language of birds and beasts. It was also said to endow 1ts owner with the power to see the spirits in shadow worlds, and to see Ra in the sky with his retinue of attendant divinities. These secrets were no longer known to the living, because the book was protected by Djehuti himself. But the old sorcerer did seem to know the whereabouts of the book. He led his scholarly companion to a simple tomb, down timeworn steps hidden by a
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