Pleatra

Fold a sheet of papyrus in half and the leaf you lift turns face down, its left edge now on the right. Pleatra is built on that small truth. Each sheet is cut into panels whose quarters carry an eye, an ankh, a scarab or a flowering reed, and some quarters are cut clean through. Drag a panel across its crease and it swings over. Fold until the papyrus lies one panel thick: through the windows, the four quarters must show the seal in the cartouche. Every fold spends a drop of ink, so the fewest folds earn the most red ochre. As Ra's barque sails on, backs turn out to be painted, flaps tuck beneath, a bronze weight pins one leaf down, and the serpent Apophis lurks where he must never show. At the Twin Mirror the packet is read from above and from below at once.