A fresh cool wind blew across the courtyard. Above, the stars shone brightly beyond the slimmest crescent of a moon. While it did not provide a lot of light, the moon did answer the question of time; it appeared to be around the 4th hour of night. If Iruhotep had entered the sanctum just before midday, he had been studying scrolls for ten hours. No wonder the Per Ib was empty. Softly cursing under his breath, Iruhotep hurried home, trailed by a small, floating, magical light. He passed through the dark gardens and entered his equally dark home. His conjured light created deep contrasts on the relief sculptures in the vestibule. Hunger urging him onwards, he entered the dining hall. It was late enough that even his normal belated meal had been cleared. Iruhotep’s stomach growled loudly, firmly asserting itself after having been ignored for so long at the conspicuously foodless Per Ib. He walked past the large dining table and pushed open the door to the kitchen. Here at last, he found another living being. Fitting that it would be his twin brother, Iruchastep, sneaking food from the pantry.

Chas looked shocked when Ho walked in: eyebrows up, ears back, a slice of bread held in his mouth because his hands were busy cutting a sausage link from a longer chain. He was frozen like a guilty child stealing pastries, even emitting a quick yelp muffled by bread, but relaxed after recognizing the intruder.

“Bow ime oo ga er,” he said through a stuffed mouth. Chas pulled a second sausage link on the chain and separated it with a knife. He grabbed a larger loaf of bread, set the meager meal on a table, and sat down on a stool while motioning for Ho to do the same. Chas then got to work cutting the sausages into large chunks while chewing his bread.

Iruhotep smiled as he took his seat. “I hope you weren't waiting for me all night," he quipped. "Did you come down here because your legs fell asleep while you were waiting for me?"

“They might’ve,” Chas said between bites, “but I suddenly felt overwhelmingly hungry. Almost as if my shadow forgot to eat and I now had to pay the price.”

“Categorically untrue. Your light skipped a meal because of some very important research. My shadow became hungry waiting for my glorious return.”

“What a presumptuous shadow I have," Chas lamented. "He forgets to eat but still claims that I am the reflection.” He slid two slices of bread and several slices of rough cut sausage over to Ho. “One would think the light would know eating was vital to living.”

Iruhotep began pinching off bits of crusty bread and tossing them into his mouth interspersed with bites of savory sausage. The bread crunched between his teeth and was ever so slightly sweet on his tongue. The sausage was cold, dense, and salty, offering a delightful contrast to the bread.

“I found something…frustrating today,” Ho said after his immediate hunger had been satiated.

“About the age thing we were talking about? Djadjaemankh and his boat, right?” Chas asked as he sat down.

“Right. I got permission to review some older documents directly tied to Mesenmutef.”

“What did he write again?”

“Wisdom literature. I’m making copies for dissemination, so I convinced Uwerrekh to let me look through the wisdom literature section in the Per Ib.”

“That does sound frustrating. I honestly have no idea how you’re able to stomach working with that genre. Don’t you just get… well, bored?” Chas asked after eating a small piece of sausage.

“It’s really not that bad if I’m being honest. Don’t you think it’s interesting how we can receive this information from the past, written down exactly as it was originally relayed, despite the author having passed beyond the gate centuries or even millenia beforehand?”

“Sounds morbid to me.” Chas chuckled. “I can see the appeal in the abstract at least, but in practice I’m not entirely convinced.”

“Then we’re both lucky that I am the light and you are the shadow.”

Chas scoffed but didn’t retort. He was more interested in what his brother had found than in sparring wits. “So, what did you find in your regurgitation of the wisdom of others, oh glorious light?”

Ho stared at his bread for a moment before speaking. “Do you remember when Uersekhem was Nebperet?”

“Well, I didn’t personally know him. It was a little before my time. He ascended to the throne… what, about 500 years ago?”

“It was closer to 650.”

“Like I said, it was just a little before my time.”

Iruhotep waved his hand. “Well, Mesenmutef, the author of the manuscript I was copying, was the Grand Vizier of Uersekhem.”

“So he was probably before my time too.” Chas snapped his fingers. “No wonder he didn’t attend our birthweek celebration last month. He’s been dead for 600 years now! And nobody bothered to tell us. How rude.”

“To be fair, they might have forgotten the news in the 625 years between him dying and our birth. Now, do you want to hear about what I found or not?”

“Edge of my seat,” Chas responded, leaning back on his stool, gnawing on a bread crust.

Ho sighed. “Well, I found a copy- or maybe it was the original? I don’t know. It was old. I found an old manuscript of Mesenmutef.”

“Is that why you were asking me about Uersekhem? You think you might have found a 650 year old instruction manual detailing how one should salt their food? And a first edition no less? Praise the gods!” Chas raised his hands to the ceiling in mock adoration.

“The document was just a bit older than that.”

“Oh?” Chas leaned forward, interest piqued. “That sounds exactly what we were looking for.”

Ho nodded.

Chas continued while gesticulating with his bread crust theatrically, “So we were right. There’s something wrong with our history. How far off was the actual date? A year? A decade? A century?”

Ho shook his head.

Chas looked confused. “Was it less than a year? I mean, that’s still an inconsistency, but that’s hardly worth mentioning.”

Ho took a deep breath before speaking. “Chas, before I opened the scroll I thought it was 3,000 years old.”

Chas coughed and finally dropped his bread, “Three thousand?!”

Ho nodded.

“Wait-wait-wait,” Chas balked, “You said you ‘thought’ it was that old before you opened it, right? So, you changed your mind. How old is it really?”

Ho took another deep breath. Chas noticed and began waving his arms. “No-no-no. Your last sigh almost made me choke. Is this one going to do the same?”

Ho bobbed his head side-to-side as he considered the question, ending with a shrug.

“Dammit, Ho. Okay, is the number lower?”

Ho looked guilty.

“So it’s even older. By a lot?”

Ho’s neck began to recede into his shoulders.

“By that much?” Chas began gently rubbing the fur between his eyes. After a sigh, he addressed his brother. “Okay, I’m ready, how much older is the blasted scroll?”

“Conservatively, the scroll is 4,000 years old.”

Chas was shocked, but his preparation meant he wasn’t taken too off guard.

“However-” Ho began, causing Chas's eyebrow to rise, “4,000 is a bare minimum. There’s a good chance the scroll is 5,000 years old or older.”

For a moment, there was silence between the twins. No talking, or cutting, or chewing. No sounds of the building settling around them or any small creature scurrying about. Just two Khenra, alone, in a kitchen illuminated by a glowing wisp-like light, contemplating the implications of Iruhotep’s discovery.

The younger brother was first to speak. “How sure are you, about the age of that scroll, Ho?”

“I couldn’t find any fault in my work. Apparently, I was at it long enough to give you hunger pangs.”

“Well, what do we do now?”

“I need to confirm my suspicions. I’ll ask Uwerrekh to check it in the morning.”

Chas grimaced. “I hate that old man. Do you need to tell him?”

“If not Uwerrekh, who should I consult with?”

“Well-” Chas hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Do we need to tell anybody at all?”

“Do we need to-” Ho stammered in response before raising his voice. “Of course we need to tell somebody, Chas!” 

Suddenly, all of the questions and frustrations that had been simmering within Iruhotep’s mind for half of the day boiled over. He stood up from the table and began pacing back and forth in the kitchen. “If I’m correct, this changes everything! Our history, our culture, our everything! Suddenly, we have no way of knowing if a Nebperet lived 100 years ago or 1,000. When did Ta’nefret unite the southern oases? Was it during the life of our grandfather? Great-grandfather? Is this problem localized entirely to this city? Are we the only fools who have been wrongfully interpreting the procession of our kings? Does anybody have a true account? Fuck, what about neighboring countries? Do they have a true account? Can we trust their accounts? Because it’s really looking like we can’t trust ours!”

Iruchastep allowed his brother to vent all of his accumulated pressure. Diatribe completed, Ho slumped back onto his seat, breathing heavily. After organizing his thoughts, Chas issued a response. “I worry, brother, that our history is not the only thing that cannot be trusted.”

“What are you suggesting now?”

“Ho, you’re brilliant, but are you so arrogant that you think you’re the most curious scholar born in the last 5,000 years?”

“Of course n-” Ho trailed off, realizing the implication. The Per Ib just in this city sees hundreds of scribes every year. There were likely thousands of Per Ibs that have a similar throughput. It would be nearly impossible for Iruhotep to have been the first to recognize the significance of the scroll, especially given how long this has apparently gone on for. The Wisdom of Mesenmutef wasn’t even the only manuscript with a dating issue. Chas had pointed out the issue with The Tale of Djadjaemankh, prompting Ho to look into other documents.

“I can’t be the first one,” Ho said, barely above a whisper.

Chas nodded, “And if you are not the first then-”

“What happened to the others,” Ho concluded.

“Anybody that found an issue like this would immediately report it to their superior, right? However, the problem persists but the witness does not. I don’t know exactly why this is the case, but I think it would be unwise to contact Uwerrekh given the circumstances.”

After a brief return to silence, Iruhotep spoke. “There’s another scenario you haven’t considered.“

"Oh?"

“I might have made a mistake.”

“Ha!” Chas laughed loudly, “You made a mistake? I’d love for it to be true. There's a lot of things you're not great at, but I don’t think you’ve made a clerical error since we had that pomegranate stand as pups.”

“I told you, I wrote those characters backwards intentionally. It was marketing.”

“Oh, then this is your very first clerical error ever. Strange it would be such a large one.”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Do you really think you’re wrong?”

“I have to be, don’t I?”

“Why?”

“Because!” Iruhotep yelled and slammed his hands onto the table, lifting himself from the stool. “Because if I’m not wrong-” He stopped mid-sentence and slumped back onto his seat, folding forward like a sail with no wind. “Because If I’m not wrong- If I’m right about this, then everything I’ve created so far at the Per Ib has been a lie.”

“Ho…”

“What was the point of it all? Why would we be told to copy these fake stories? What benefit does it bring? Doesn’t the truth matter?”

Ho’s shoulders began to twitch, a precursor to sobbing. Chas stood up and walked behind his brother, gently placing a hand on the top of his head between Ho’s ears, which had folded backwards.

“Can’t I just be wrong this time?”

Chas consoled his brother by slowly scratching the back of Ho’s neck, just beneath the base of his skull.

“Would you be comfortable lying to yourself?”

Ho shook his head. Now firmly planted on the table, his snout making a wide arc on the wooden surface.

“Of course not. You’ve always been adamant about ‘the sanctity of knowledge’ and what-not.” Chas sighed. “But knowing you, you’ll have to independently verify your findings won’t you. You're going to have to talk to somebody else to double check your work. Just... be careful, brother. It wouldn’t do to have a light without a shadow.”

Chas embraced his brother from behind. He squeezed Ho's collarbone with his arm. After a short while, Ho tapped Chas' hand twice with his own, a gesture Chas had taught him for wrestling to indicate surrender. Chas smiled and released him from the hug. Ho had surrendered. He would consider Chas' words. Chas stood up fully, gave Ho a final squeeze on the shoulder, and walked to the door. He paused in the frame for a moment, glanced backward and offered one more quip before exiting the kitchen. “I’ve grown very attached to my current shadow. It’d be a chore to find a new one.”

Alone again, Iruhotep lifted his head from the table and surveyed the room. Bread on the floor. Dirty knife next to the basin. Extra stool left standing in the middle of the floor. Ho rose from his seat and began cleaning up. No matter how dirty the work, it was always worth setting things right.