The Evil Spirit Amel

In ancient Egypt, the two witches Mararet and Mekare were able to communicate with spirits. By and large, spirits were good, if a little vain. Amel, however was a bad sort. Whereas other spirits could, at most, only move objects around, Amel could actually pierce the skin of humans with little needle pricks. Worryingly, he liked the taste of human blood.

The King of Egypt had a loyal steward was called Khayman. Amel moved into Khayman’s house and started to terrorise him. He would fling objects around the room and hit Khayman with them, keep him up all night with the commotion he made and put sand in Khayman’s food when he was looking, amongst other things. This went on for six months before Amel’s final act of terror pushed Khayman over the brink.

Late one night, Khayman heard loud thumping on his door. He knew it had something to do with Amel. When he opened the door, there were the mummified remains of his long dead father. Amel had dug him up from his burial ground and was now making him knock on the door. Khayman had had enough and went to pieces. He started flinging his furniture around and screaming.

Hearing this, king Enkil came to his aid and chose to make an effort to try and communicate with the evil spirit in order to learn from it.

Khayman left whereupong Enkil and his queen, Akasha, holed themselves up in Khayman’s house for three days and nights. In this time, Amel raged with renewed violence.

During their rule, the king and queen of Egypt had outlawed the eating of human flesh. The old cannibal warlords, however, were displeased with the new laws that forbid their old tradition. Such was their dislike of the king and queen, that they used the recent events in Khayman’s house as an opportunity to kill them.

While Enkil and Akasha were locked in Khayman’s house, they stole in with daggers raised. The warlords stabbed Akasha repeatedly and when she fell, they set upon Enkil, giving him the same treatment. Having completed their mission, the warlords left.

Khayman returned, dagger in hand, to his house to see his beloved king and queen on the floor. Akasha was writhing about and there was a red cloud above her body. The smell of her blood was driving Amel wild and he was creating a whirlwind! As Akasha lay there moaning, he worked himself up into a frenzy and entered her body via her wounds.

Spirits are traditionally envious of a human’s possession of their fleshly body, but here was Amel’s chance to have a physical body of his own. Amel was in Akasha’s blood. She sat up and her wounds healed miraculously. She saw Enkil’s blood and started to lap and lick at it like a wild animal. Her wounds healed to nothing.

Understandably, Khayman was a little stunned.

Akasha took Khayman’s dagger and he feared for his safety. Akasha, however, cut her wrists and allowed Enkil to drink her blood, thus healing the king’s own wounds.