‘“I am, and I say this without pride, the descendant of one of the royal families. At one point in time, my ancestors wore the crown and the tiara, the pschent. Thousands of years have gone by since, and the most terrible vicissitudes befell my family. But their traditions survived, in one form or another. The last descendant, my mother, married a French engineer. Being widowed young, and having only me (my half-brother, Arnault, having left the country), my mother regaled me, during my infancy and adolescence, with what I believed were delicious or terrifying legends.
‘“One day, I had a violent emotion. It was in Cairo, in the museum, which was one of my favourite haunts. Everyone knew me and I was allowed everywhere. A papyrus which had been in a recently discovered batch of documents interested me enormously. It was not written in hieroglyphics. More precisely, the symbols employed were not in common use. The experts had argued about it for a long time, but up until then, nobody had been able to read it. Except me.
‘“It took me years. One of the legends my mother had taught me had impressed me with its savage passion and its realism. It is unknown to the rest of the world, because it was part of the secret literary heritage of the Pharaoh. Here it is:
‘“Anubis, the god with the head of a fox, suspects that a secret allows the sun-god to conquer life, assuring him not only eternity, but a permanent and triumphant youth. And he mourns his own, which is fading. He wants to know Râ’s secret. But he fears the mysteries and perils of the Douât, where no human and no god have penetrated. Eventually, he decides to do it. Trembling, and crawling under cover to avoid the watchful eye of Ammon, he follows its course. Weeks later he arrives at his destination, to discover the retreat where his master, profiting from the night, renews himself. Finally, at the end of his tether, his whole being trembling, more from fright than fatigue (for the gods, in those times, knew fear) he is able to see his enemy stop in a strange gorge surrounded by immense mountains.
‘“Unsteadily, Râ walks towards a fantastically illuminated cave. Anubis would learn later that the light seeps out from a rock hidden deep down in the abyss. Râ approaches it, whilst the fox-god, dazzled, overwhelmed, but already more vigorous, spies on him. The great god picks up a handful of earth and eats it. Then he lies down on the same ground and goes to sleep. All night long Anubis contemplates him. He sees youth return to Ammon’s limbs. In the morning, a radiant adolescent once again, Râ will continue his mission.”
‘“Now, with great difficulty, I had managed to decipher the story on the papyrus. That was useful training, and what I learnt from it allowed me to continue the translation. The second part described the voyage of Anubis. And I was surprised by the precision of the information. The further I got into the narrative, the more I felt I would be able to follow the god’s journey. Where would his steps have led me? I don’t know, but what I do know is that Pharaoh had thus hidden an extraordinary secret. The papyrus, written in strange symbols, was a kind of cryptogramme, to which the legend was the key.
‘“So, what was the secret? The facts came back to me. The story of Geb, burnt by Râ’s uraeus, put me on the right track. Egyptian priests had found... radium. They recognised its power, simultaneously beneficial and deadly. They discovered a huge source, hidden in an inaccessible place, known only to them. A horrible death awaited the unwary. And, from what I understood—it’s very obscure—the place could be the centre of significant radiation which the writers of the papyrus apparently didn’t know how to control, but which modern science could utilise.
‘“One thing seems certain: only vague echoes of this story have reached the public, and they were the source of rumours about the philosopher’s stone. In that secret place, matter is so unstable that its transmutations can spontaneously transform any base metal into gold. Samples were brought to the Pharaoh’s court. One of them came into my possession. I shan’t say any more. What’s gone before is enough to demonstrate the power of this secret. The man who possesses it will dominate the world. He will be immensely rich and infinitely powerful.
‘“I continue reading the clues in the papyrus, and I translate them here: Isis spoke to Anubis on December 22nd, the day of the winter solstice. The moon was in its first quarter. The eclipse of the sun thus announced took place at the next new moon, thirteen days later, in other words, January 13th. It is on the evening of January 15th that Anubis begins his voyage. Its direction is determined by the line joining the south angle of the Great Pyramid to a mound situated to the west, the one which, on January 15th, the two-day-old moon kisses with its disc at the same time the sun disappears over the horizon. We even know the distance: between January 15th and the summer solstice, one hundred and sixty-five times twenty-four hours. It’s only necessary to determine the direction of the line from the Great Pyramid to the mound and its length, and prolong it one hundred and fifty-five times in its own direction. That will reveal the opening of the secret valley. The rest speaks for itself.
‘“But, some will say, why didn’t I use the document myself? I tried. It’s impossible without placing oneself in the precise conditions described. There are too many mounds to choose from, and even the smallest error, multiplied by one hundred and fifty-five, will result in a huge gap. Now, as we know, the cycle of the moon covers nineteen years. It’s
