Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred (21 page)

here are those knowing nothing of the races that inhabited this world before the creation of man who write that Memphis is the first city, older than all others, even more ancient than Irem of the thousand pillars. A traveler who views its ruins rising up amid its streets and fields would be persuaded of the truth of this assertion in the absence of other knowledge, for so great are the carven stones that it scarcely seems possible that they were cut by the hand of man. In the earliest history of the Black Land, as it was called due to the blackness of its soil, Memphis was the chief city of the people, but this honor in after times was conferred on Thebes, and though its grandeur has diminished, the most primal secrets continue to lie hidden among its catacombs and tombs.

Before the coming of the Christians to Egypt, the god Ptah was worshipped in this city. His name signifies the craftsman, or engraver on stones, and evidence of his worship is scattered everywhere around the buildings of the place, for no people in the world so loved to cut images and words into stone. He is benign in disposition, yet not to be used with contempt, for his power has lingered in his homeland, and terrible misfortunes fall upon the heads of those who mock the gods. The Egyptians believed the heavens to be supported on a great iron plate beaten into shape by the hammer of this workman, whom they praised with the titles Father of Beginnings and Lord of Truth.

No other human race takes such care in the handling of its corpses. By their arts they sought to preserve the body of the newly dead for eternity, and by constant effort and study over countless generations they so well succeeded that tombs may be discovered containing the bodies of nobles and honored scribes that are many centuries old, yet have faces that when unwrapped appear to be sleeping, so well are they fortified against worms.

The chief substance used in the process of preservation is mumia, from which the wrapped bodies derive their common name. Idb Betar testifies that it is very like the bitumen of Judea that is taken from the Asphaltites Lake, where it is found accumulating beneath the water. Other ingredients commonly used are a salt called natrum, honey, oil of cedar, and spices such as powdered myrrh, cassia, and frankincense. These preservatives would not prevail in the absence of careful preparation of the corpse, which has all its organs extracted, including the brain, which the embalmers draw from the skull through the nose with iron hooks. The main viscera are placed in jars sacred to the four corners of the world, and set within the tomb near the corpse, which is carefully wrapped in all its parts with strips of linen or silk. The older mummies are always linen-wrapped, but those made under the rule of the Ptolemies are often wound in silk imported from the east.

In the present era the practice of mummification has almost been abandoned. Old men who saw it thrive in their boyhood have watched it dwindle to only two workshops where it is still actively done, for the sons and daughters of wealthy houses still prefer to preserve their dead in this traditional manner, in spite of the condemnation of the Christians, who put their corpses untreated in the ground to rot. Those without wealth can no longer afford to preserve their dead, but will often place the corpse swathed in its winding sheet in the ancient catacombs where the mummies of countless generations of their ancestors are stacked in niches carved in the stone walls.

Under Christian rule the reverence for the dead has given way to indifference. Jewish traders hire men to plunder the catacombs and break open the bodies for their mumia, which is sold as a potent medicine in many lands. It is taken from the skulls and stomachs, and sold locally in the market at a low price, for so abundant are the ancient corpses that no end of this resource can be foreseen. The renowned physician El-Magar wrote of its many virtues, particularly of its power to heal wounds, in which it excels all other remedies. It is applied directly to the injured part of the body or powdered and consumed, depending on the disease. Common bitumen does not possess its healing virtues, for certain salts and juices of the corpse over time leech their way into the mumia and fortify it.

Nor should it be thought that all mumia is equally potent. The older is more powerful, and that taken from the corpse of a great warrior or king has greater virtues both for healing and for other uses than that extracted from an ordinary man. It was for this mumia that the tombs of the pharaohs were plundered by necromancers in past ages. That the tombs contained great wealth of gold and precious gems was only an added inducement, but the mumia of the king was the principle prize to those aware of its many virtues.

An amusing story may be related here that shall act as a caution to travelers. It is said that once the traffickers in mumia, having exhausted the usual places where it is found, plundered a catacomb that had been used to entomb the bodies of a leper colony many centuries ago. It was traded far and wide, but also sold in the market square to the healers and common citizens of Memphis. Less than a year later it was noticed that many of those who had bought this tainted remedy had contracted the dread disease, and the Jewish merchant responsible for its distribution was torn apart by women enraged at the fate of their husbands and sons at the base of the common well that may be seen in the square to this day. So the poet was moved to write,
Avoid physicians as though they were the plague itself, for the plague is less pernicious, and exacts no fee for its services.

ll the land of Egypt, from the Delta to the Cataracts, is infested with sorcerers and necromancers. This should not be cause for wonder when it is considered that the religion of the ancients of this place was composed of magical arts for intercourse with the gods, and their coercion in the service of men. The gods of Egypt were not merely worshipped and adored but were manipulated, and even created, by the arts of the priests, whose skill in magic has never been equaled by any of our race since their time. Greater even than the magic of the priests was that of the wizards, who dwelt alone and apart in the desert, at some distance from the river and the green places that are the habitations of men, their only servants an apprentice and the familiar spirits bound in obedience to them.

The tombs of wizards are deep, for it was their constant fear that after death men, and other creatures of the wastes, would meddle with their bones; the art of necromancy is dependent on the use of the bodies of the dead, and on things joined to those bodies, and no corpse is more potent in magic than that of a wizard, for which reason they are highly prized. Great is the power of the mummy of a pharaoh, but greater still is the might of the mummy of a wizard, which was not made as were the mummies of the nobles and commoners of Egypt, but from different substances that preserved not the flesh but the soul and spirit. For this reason they caused their bodies to be placed in the deepest openings of the earth, below the catacombs, below even the mines.

The nethermost caves are not fit places for eyes that see; their marvels are bizarre and terrifying. Cursed is the ground where dead thoughts quicken anew and become oddly bodied, and evil is the mind that no skull imprisons. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao write that
Happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes.
For it is anciently reputed that the soul in compact with a devil fleets not from his mortal husk, but nourishes and instructs the very worms as they gnaw, until out of decay springs abominable life, and the dull scavengers of the depths wax crafty and swell monstrous to plague the earth. Great wounds are opened where the natural pores of the ground should suffice, and things have learned to walk that should have crawled.

The body of a wizard is rendered impotent by only one means: it must be burned to ashes in the open air in daylight, even to the bones and teeth, and its ashes collected with care and scattered widely upon the wind before the setting of the sun. It is to avoid this fate that causes wizards to select their tombs in readiness for their deaths; for though their life may be prolonged by their arts beyond the reckoning of men, they are mortal and in the end must die. In the common unfolding of events they become aware of the time of their death before it occurs, and are able to select among men a living vessel into which they transfer their essence, and this is usually their apprentice, who prepares himself for this surrender of his flesh by years of study; for the wizard that has passed into a living human vessel loses part or all of his memories, and must relearn his wisdom in the arcane arts.