Sphinx

James Thornton

Description

“I may intervene to help, though reluctantly,” said the sphinx, “or I may destroy them.”

A team of academics arrive in Cairo to study the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx of Giza. Inside the pyramid, they find otherworldly tests of intelligence. Unbeknownst to them, an ancient god observes them from the sphinx. Secrets of Ancient Egypt are alive beneath modern Cairo.

Across space and time, Earth’s development is monitored by ruling powers on distant galaxies. Aliens journey to Earth to investigate recent anomalies. All this, and methane still bubbles beneath the ocean’s beds. Global heating approaches a point of no recovery.

A great reckoning approaches…

Is humanity ready?

James Thornton delivers a novel about the consequences of hurting our planet. It delves into ancient history, roams the universe, and melds science with the supernatural. A frightening, exciting read.

Sujets

• Faraón (videojuego)
• Keops
• Ra
• Amun
• Blacklands
• Valley of the Kings
• Supreme Council of Antiquities
• Set
• Dark Fantasy
• Khufu
• Egyptology
• Ancient history
• Thebes
• Science fiction
• Pharaoh
• M-theory
• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Ancient Egyptian religion
• Arab people
• Arab
• Ancient
• Luxor
• Cairo
• Kemet
• Nile
• Karnak
• Fiction
• Apocalypse
• Khéops
• Fantasy
• Sobek
• Seth
• Horus

Informations

• Publié par: Barbican Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909954007
• Langue: English

Extrait

Biography
James Thornton is one of the world’s leading environmental lawyers and a Zen Buddhist priest. He founded and runs ClientEarth, the leading environmental NGO, working throughout Europe and in Africa. The New Statesman called him ‘one of ten people who could change the world’ while the Big Issue termed ClientEarth a ‘fleet of armour plated tanks in the battle to secure our future on planet Earth.’ This is his second novel.
Also By James Thornton
Immediate Harm
A Field Guide to the Soul (non-fiction)
Sphinx:
The Second Coming
James Thornton
Published by Barbican Press in 2014
Copyright © James Thornton 2014
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention
No reproduction without permission
All rights reserved
The right of James Thornton to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
First published in Great Britain as a paperback original by: Barbican Press, 1 Ashenden Road, London E5 0DP www.barbicanpress.com
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-909954-00-7
Typeset in Garamond by Mike Gower
Cover Design by Jason Anscomb: www.rawshock.co.uk
Printed by Lightning Source, Milton Keynes
For Martin
A shape with lion body and head of a man A gaze bland and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
--from ‘ The Second Coming ’, William Butler Yeats, 1919
Prologue
I was on my way by train to the mountains of Switzerland, to visit the psychiatric hospital where Carl Jung was trained. There I would meet with a brain scientist, a colleague working on the physical substrate for human consciousness. I had decided to take the overland route from our house in the wild French Pyrenees. It would give me a chance to visit a friend at the 13th century chateau of his aunt, a countess. The chateau was one of her many estates, and I was told that it was charmingly situated near the Abbey of the Grand Chartreuse.
From the station I hired a car for the excursion along French country lanes. Losing my way, I stopped in a village bar. It was 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning and the habitués were already knocking back the local white wine. They argued among themselves about how to describe where the countess and her chateau could be found. I picked out the thread running through their haze, and arrived at the chateau just in time for a pre-lunch pastis.
The visit went well. Spry for ninety-two years old, the old countess produced a fine salmon from her own river as the main course. An onion tart to start, and raspberries from her garden for dessert rounded out the meal, washed down with a pleasant local red, and followed by her own liqueur. We spent hours chatting dozily under an arbor of white roses.
I declined to spend the night in the countess’s chateau, preferring such old piles by daylight. In the late afternoon I returned the car to Grenoble. A sophisticated provincial town that incubated the French Revolution, Grenoble is where Stendhal was born and where Champollion decoded Egyptian hieroglyphs. The town was nearly full and I began to regret turning down the offer of a bed in the chateau as I was turned away from one hotel reception desk after another. I worked my way down from the five star hotels through the four and three stars before walking at last, with a little trepidation, into a two star. Little did I know I was about to receive what Henry James called a donée, the germ of the tale that became this book.
The man behind the distinctly two star counter was Arab-French. He was reading what appeared to be an esoteric tome. He looked up, fixed me with a stare, and said, “What is your work?”
I explained I was a lawyer who runs an international brain science institute. This pleased but did not placate him.
“And you studied philosophy?”
I admitted that I’d taken my degree in philosophy from Yale.
“You are also a writer?”
I admitted I was, uncertain what was coming next. His accuracy was better than your average palm reader.
“And you like science fiction?”
Admitting I did precipitated his explosive leap over the counter.
“You are the one!” he yelled, grasping the lapels of my khaki traveling suit, but leaving the tattersal shirt unwrinkled. “You must write his story!” He spoke as if his life depended on it. His eyes were wild and I thought him slightly mad. “The story of the Sphinx! You must bring him alive in all his power and glory. You must write how he is the bridge between the gods and humans—you know he is a chimera, with an animal body and a human head—this symbolizes his divinity and humanity. He is made of different stuff. He will transform our genes and bring about the next stage in the evolution of the human race! But for this to happen, you must bring him to life. I have been waiting for years to find you. I tell you this: you think me crazy, you will ignore me and try to forget what I tell you. Yet I am no fool. I am a member of a learned society at the University. And I will also tell you this: it does not matter that you try to forget me, for you can never forget your duty to the Sphinx. Now that I, his messenger, have discovered you, now that you have walked into his web, you cannot escape. When you try to forget, the Sphinx himself will come to you in dreams. He is famous for it. You will see. It all depends on you now. You must make it real! You will bring him alive! The next stage of human evolution will begin. It must happen!”
I told him as politely as I could that I’d think about it, in order to dislodge from him the key to my room. Once out of his company I didn’t give another thought to his ravings. I ate dinner with my traveling companion in a restaurant with too many dried flowers under glass bells, a view of the Alps and a three-course prix fixe.
The next morning I awoke covered in boils. It didn’t take long to recall that this was one of the plagues of Egypt. I lay listing them in my mind, staring in the half-light at the dingy ceiling: the plague of frogs, the plague of locusts, the death of the first-born sons, the plague of boils. There were others. I couldn’t remember all the plagues inflicted on Egypt, but boils were surely on the list. My traveling companion in a separate bed was untouched by them. The plague had covered my chest, back, and legs. The boils took four months to heal. I say that the boils healed, but while the blemishes vanished from my skin, something festered still.
For two years I ignored the prompting of the boils and fought against writing the Sphinx’s story. I turned my mind to professional tasks. But the memory of the boils kept returning. At a certain point the dreams came, dreams of the Sphinx, just as the mad hotelier had predicted. Perhaps he had been afflicted with them too. Perhaps that is how he came to think of himself as the messenger of the Sphinx, and gained the power to afflict me.
The Sphinx told me to work on his behalf. Such a command had also been given to a pharaoh of the New Kingdom. By that time the Sphinx’s statue was already old. It was buried in desert sands up to the chin. Thutmose IV was then a teenager, one of several princes who might succeed to the throne of Egypt. He went out hunting for the day. After lunch, he decided to take a nap. He sheltered on a comfortable sand dune right under the Sphinx’s chin, to take advantage of its shadow in the hot desert sun.
The living Sphinx came to Thutmose in a dream. The Sphinx told the prince to dig his statue out of the desert sands. Thutmose was told he would succeed to the throne and become a great pharaoh if he did this. His dream of the Sphinx changed the pharaoh’s life 3,500 years ago. He dug it out of the sands. He erected his Dream Stela, a high flat panel of rock between the Sphinx’s paws, where the story of his dream is detailed in hieroglyphs. The dream served both the Sphinx and Thutmose well. The Sphinx was worshiped as a god, and Thutmose did indeed become a great pharaoh.
The Sphinx changed my life in dreams too.
When the Sphinx first came I was unprepared. One night I found myself standing by the Nile. Though my body was in my bed at home, this was no dream.
I felt the sand between my toes. I heard the palm fronds snap and sway in the breeze. It was dark. There were no lights only stars. Then out of nowhere the Sphinx stood before me.
He bowed his head low to honor me. The Earth shook.
He spoke and the sound resounded in my skull.
“Welcome, Way Opener. I am The Bridge Between Gods and Men. It is time for my return. You are my Way Opener. I need your help to enter into your time. I need it now. Make my Way ready. Tell my story. Tell my story and I will become real in your time. Tell my story and I will save your species.”
Then the Sphinx went silent and vanished into light.
Back in my bed I was wet with sweat.
More than anything else, I was eager to forget the burden the Sphinx had given me. What was his story? Where was I to discover it? What made me the Way Opener for the Great Sphinx? Did my species need saving?
But the Sphinx was not interested in my qualms.
The Sphinx left my dreams and entered my ordinary reality. When I sat down to write legal or scientific documents, an alternative stream of logic kept flowing from my pen. I had begun against my will to channel the true story of the Sphinx.
I can normally focus my mind as I choose, but in this instance I finally had to give in, and devote myself to the task of letting this incredible story come through me. While I must make the ludicrous confession that I channel material from some unknown sphere, like spiritualists and mediums I once scorned, I have nevertheless maintained some aspects of my professional training. While I channel, I also edit. I have confirmed this story by traveling to Egypt and by months of research in the recesses of the