Chapter 9
Carved in Stone
“Where’s the stele?” I ask Leonora when she brings the tea tray from the kitchenette.
She sets her burden down with a clink of Willow Pattern china but doesn’t at first look at me. Her eyes are large. “I was afraid you were going to ask after it.”
“And you have not looked at it in all this time?”
“I didn’t feel…worthy. I kept it wrapped in the cloth in which it had been stored. It, tingled, for lack of better description, when I touched even the fabric. I’m too scared to take it further. I don’t think I’m qualified.”
I run a hand through my hair, which has come loose from its binding. “And you think I’m qualified?”
“You’ve passed through the Black Gate, you’ve had your heart weighed in the Hall of Judgment; you have resided in Per Ankh and have walked the path of Ma’at. You have returned and you are worthy.”
“How can you gauge that I’m worthy? I have spent a few decades biding my time, raiding the memories of the Blessed Dead before they sink into rebirth and forgetfulness. What I know is patchy at best and the skills I took with me when I died are rusty from disuse. I don’t have a fraction of the skill, the control you have over your daimonic powers. I have vague knowledge of world events, popular culture, that’s it. I’m lucky I can even recall half of the hymns and chants.”
My revelation stuns her and she sits heavily on her chair, hands cupping the teapot. Richard had never told me what it was like. Study hard, you’ll find out, was all he’d ever said accompanied by one of his enigmatic smiles. And here I was now blurting the mysteries as if they were worth nothing.
“I’m sorry if this wasn’t the glorious afterlife in the Tuat they led you to believe. There are about two-dozen Inkarna of House Adamastor. Most are content, after several sojourns on the mortal plain, to remain in Per Ankh, to advise, meditate and machinate. The eldest barely acknowledge our existence and eventually, they just…” I wave my hand, half amused by the memory. “They’re simply not there anymore. And no one knows what becomes of them, save that they are less and less keen to involve themselves in affairs that they give the impression of being somehow beneath them.
“Even there, in Per Ankh, there is back-stabbing and in-fighting. I almost didn’t come back and I’m suspecting they sent me back because they blame me for Richard’s—Siptah’s—disappearance.
“And, you know what?” The bitterness flows forth with my words. “I wasn’t even the love of Richard’s life. He had another before me.” I cradle my head in my hands and stare at the steaming cup of tea Leonora pours.
“Well… A cup of tea will give you more perspective. Have you eaten yet? I have some soup I can warm up and then we can look at this stele everyone’s got their knickers in a twist about.”
I shake my head, a dozen conflicting thoughts striving for dominance over each other. “It would have been better if I’d never made it to Per Ankh.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Leonora sounds angry, but I don’t look up. “Do you honestly think one of the others would have done half as well despite the circumstances?”
“What if I did something wrong somehow? I mean, it’s my first time.”
“Look at me, Lizzie.”
“That’s not my name anymore. Call me Ash. Only the Ren matters, not the name of the Kha and, besides, I’m getting used to it.”
“Fine. Ash. Look at me.”
I obey, allowing Leonora’s concern to wash over me. Now that she’s taken off her beanie, it shocks me to see how thin her hair is, how white it is, how old she’s become. “And now that I’ve found you I’m going to lose you soon, won’t I?”
She doesn’t break my gaze. “My death is waiting around the corner, Ash. There’s nothing I can do about it.” Leo says the name carefully, as though she doesn’t quite want to pronounce it, as if it makes things final.
“Will you tell them everything? Tell them that we tried?”
“That’s a stupid thing to ask, but yes. You know I’ll do everything in my power for the truth to come out.”
It’s almost pathetic how our roles are reversed. She places her hand on top of mine, the skin rough from age, liver spotted. I reciprocate by placing my free hand on hers. For a moment our daimonic selves stir, mingling essences. We know each other on a deeper level, siblings. There is love here, the peace of knowing another individual understands completely.
“My Ren is Ankhakhet. Will you scribe it on my memorial?”
My throat grows tight, warmth prickling at the corners of my eyes. “I will.”
“Now, down to business.” Leo withdraws her hand and rises. “You have your tea, I’ll set the soup to warm in the microwave, and we’ll look at this stele. Mind you, my Middle Egyptian is not what it was, but we’ll see what we can do about this.”
She vanishes into the kitchenette where I hear doors open and shut, and the clink of crockery. The microwave hums. I stare out the window, half-listening to her busyness until Leo brings a steaming bowl of what smells like pea soup and a thick slice of brown bread smothered in cream cheese. While she kneels by the bed to withdraw a wooden chest, I busy myself with the ritual of tea drinking. It strikes me then, with a frightening pang of nostalgia, that I recognise this exact cup. This tea set dates back to the early 1900s. The humour doesn’t escape me.
“What are you smiling about?” Leo sets the box on her lap as she sits.
“This tea set…”
“I used to bring you your early morning cuppa in that exact one. See the little chip there on the ear?” She beams at me.
“Oh gods.” I sit back, staring.
“Eat your soup. It’s going to get cold.”
I have eyes only for the chest on her lap.
“I will not open this thing until you eat and have at least three sips of tea.” There’s no arguing with Leonora. Her tone is firm and, for once, I feel like a scolded child, and it’s comforting to have someone in charge like this, telling me what to do.
Although the tea is divine, the food is tasteless, the sick expectation of wanting to see the object that has caused so much hassle, keeping me from fully appreciating anything else.
I push the plate away once I’ve eaten what I consider to be enough. “All right, show me what’s in the box.”
Leonora raises a brow, her gnarled hands caressing the highly polished wood. Without a word, she flips back the antique brass latch and reaches within to pull out a cloth-wrapped bundle.
Gingerly I take the burgundy velvet from her and the moment I touch the fabric I can feel a buzz emanating from the object. “It’s old but it’s not that old. It has presence.”
She nods, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. Her inquisitiveness is almost tangible. How did she manage to live for half a decade with this thing under her bed and not suffer the curiosity of wanting to look at it? She is stronger than I am, for sure.
With reverence I untie the leather thongs, fumbling at first with knots until they loosen under my insistent tugs.
I hold a slab of fine-grained serpentine, the hieroglyphs carved in a delicate hand. This was no ornamental stele, with the typical figures of the Neteru parading across the surface. The artist was intent only on imparting information, carving both sides of the stone. Permanence, not aesthetics—this in itself is highly out of the ordinary when considering ancient Egyptian artefacts.
“This wasn’t carved during the pharaonic age,” I tell Leonora. I close my eyes and hold the stone to my heart, reaching into it, reading it. Jumbled visions reach me. It’s like trying to push through putty to get to the heart of the information.
A young man cautiously carves in a dimly lit chamber. I can hear sonorous chanting, and he curses when his chisel slips and he cuts his finger. A man asks in a stilted form of Middle Egyptian, “Are you done yet?”
The young man answers in French-accented English, “Almost, sir.”
I open my eyes. “I think if anything, this
dates back to Napoleonic times. It’s hard to tell.”
We spend the next half-hour reading the stele. The ritual it illustrates frightens me beyond anything I’ve ever encountered, including the five years in limbo. Simply entitled The Book of Ammit, it imparts the knowledge of the permanent destruction of the heart, or Ib, so that the Akh cannot form, which results in the destruction of the Ba and Ka.
The words burn themselves on my heart and souls, indelibly painted. Once this knowledge is taken in, it is impossible to forget. For a long time Leonora and I sit and stare, unable, at first, to fully comprehend the implications.
“I shouldn’t have read this,” she says.
I straighten, nod and wipe at the cold sweat that has formed on my brow. “We’ve been sitting on this knowledge now for all this time? And Richard didn’t tell me.” Now that stings. How many in Per Ankh know this terrible secret?
Leonora gulps and shakily pours herself a cup from the teapot’s dregs, her hands shaking. “I don’t want to know this.”
“This thing is too dangerous to just lie around. I can’t believe you kept it in a box under your bed. We should destroy it.”
“Sometimes the most obvious places… What can we do? I don’t advocate destroying it. This is something we could one day use to our advantage.”
To destroy another’s immortal souls… This goes against our very nature yet at the same time I can’t deny that while this knowledge must never slip into the wrong hands, we cannot simply let it be lost. There was a reason why this was laid down in stone, why it was kept hidden. How many others know of its existence?
We sit in silence, simply staring at each in horror while the cuckoo clock ticks off the empty minutes. The stone tablet rests between us, innocent in its speckled green-and-black surface until one reads the text. Where the hell can I hide this thing? Many years ago, Richard had spoken of a ritual he’d enacted in a cavern in Table Mountain. Perhaps…
“There are caves up in the mountains here,” I tell her.
“I’ve never been to any of them.”
“Neither have I.” The thought tantalises me, however. I glance out the window into the gloomy afternoon. “What’s the time?”
“It’s after four.”
“Shit!”
“What?”
“I was supposed to meet Marlise outside her college at three. She must be worried sick.”
“Want to call her?”
I nod. Small mercies be praised, I’ve memorised the woman’s cell phone number. With a sigh Leonora rises and retrieves her phone from the bedside table. It’s clunky and old, more like a black brick compared to the slim silver device Marlise uses.
Staring at it dumbly for a few heartbeats—I have to suppress a laugh for this is the first time I’m using one of these—I punch in the digits then the green button Leonora gestures at. She smiles indulgently at my fumblings as I hold the thing up to my ear.
Marlise answers on the third ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me. I’m fine. I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.”
“I’ve been freaking out on this side wondering if you’ve been kidnapped or something!”
“I’m safe. I’m fine. I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. Can you come collect me, please? But stop in Jubilee Square in Simon’s Town. I’ll meet you at the statue of Just Nuisance.”
“Ash, what’s going on?”
“I can’t talk to you about it on the phone, okay? It’s absolutely vital you don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
“I’ve seen him again.”
I don’t want to hear this, not now, and my blood turns to ice. I know exactly who she’s talking about. “Where?”
“He’s in the room here with me, just watching me. He won’t leave me. He’s been here ever since I got home. Every so often he gives me this filthy look.”
“Just tell him to fuck off and finish with the rest of what he needs to be really dead. Will you be there? Then we’ll sort out our troublesome ghost.” My growing paranoia stops me from saying more. Would I really consign this man’s soul to true oblivion?
“It’s gonna take me at least half an hour to get there, but I’ll come,” says Marlise. “I’m not happy about this.”
“Neither am I. Now stop talking and get going.” I don’t mean to be abrupt but a growing urgency nags at me. I kill the call.
Leonora gazes at me. “Can she be trusted? And the ghost? This should be dealt with.”
“She’s in the thick of things, thanks to me. I don’t have a choice. I’d rather keep her close than have her jumping to all sorts of the wrong conclusions. As for the ghost…” I give a noncommittal shrug.
“An innocent, dragged into this.” Leonora doesn’t sound happy. “It would be best if she weren’t.”
“You know that’s not possible. She’s seen too much already.” I don’t have to add that it’s all my fault.
She sighs and lifts a tired hand to her face before glancing at the stone. “How do you know the stele will be safe?”
“I’ll lay a compulsion over it.”
“What if they somehow gain the information with regard to its location? Wouldn’t it be better to keep it with you?”
“And if I get caught? What then?” This is a difficult situation so fraught with danger it hardly bears thinking.
We spend the next thirty minutes making plans. Although I protest, Leonora gives me a wad of money saying it’s the least she can do until she passes through the Black Gate. For all I know this is the last time I’ll see her in a very long time and that thought sends a dark fear coursing through me, snatching at my heart. I bite the inside of my cheeks.
Eventually, we make our way down to Main Road, Leonora once again stuffed into her army jacket. The wind is blowing in earnest, a black northwester. It will be dark soon, the low clouds gobbling up what little light remains. Cars are already driving with their headlights on. The sea here in the bay is a dark olive slate puckered with every squall. The moisture on my face is salt-laden, whipped from the ocean. We reach the statue of the Great Dane, Able Seaman Just Nuisance, and I look anywhere but at Leonora. Nothing has gone according to plan. I need more time with Leonora, and yet I know this won’t be the case. Her calm surety is something I’ve only realised I’ve missed this much now that I’ve found her again, only to realise she will be taken from me too soon. Once I was the one who guided her. Now it’s the other way round and I want her, need her in my life. The stone I carry is heavy, its evil words whispering through my memory, indelible.
“Don’t cry, Ash.” She turns me around to face her, lifting a hand to caress my cheek. Her touch is electric, that instant recognition between Inkarna.
“It’s not fair,” I tell her. “Things should have been better, different circumstances.”
“Life is cruel, my dear. Surely you, who have lived through three wars and now this, should know.”
I clasp her hand in mine. “We were sheltered from so much, both here and in Per Ankh. I never dreamt I’d see the day when everything would be stripped from me, and now we’ve been robbed even of the short time we would have had in each other’s company.” It is at that moment that I realise how much I’m about to lose again—my truest, dearest friend.
“We’ll meet again. You told me that so many times when we knew of your time. It should be sufficient that we could see each other and that I could help you, as you helped me when I was younger.”
A memory of that forlorn streetwalker returns with recollections of my crazy whim to take her home with me. I’d seen something in Leonora back then, even beneath the tawdry clothing and cheap make-up.
She smiles, squeezes my arm then turns and starts walking. “No goodbyes. You know I’ve never been big on those. I’ll see you soon.”
That’s it, no long embraces. I half raise my hand to wave farewell but she doesn’t turn around. Who knows, maybe she doesn’t want me to see her cry. It’s impossible to tell in this weather, with the fat droplets now patte
ring with greater frequency. I watch Leonora’s bent form disappear up a lane, until she’s swallowed by the gloom between the old Victorians facing the road.
Although I suspect the time that passes is only about ten or so minutes, it feels like an hour, and when I see the familiar beat-up Toyota hatchback pull into the square, I’m soaked, my teeth chattering so much I’m scared I’m going to bite the inside of my mouth.
Marlise throws open the passenger door and I slip in, grateful for the hot blast of air from the car’s heater.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says.
“And I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier,” I reply. If I can pre-empt any lectures before they get out of hand that would be better. “I discovered some things and had a lot of catching up to do.”
“Well, your disappearing sucked, okay?” Marlise shifts the gears with far too much force but at least we’re headed north again. “Will you tell me what’s going on?”
“Essentially, I’ve met up with one of the old House members. The woman I mentioned, Leonora. She’s given me a…relic of some sort that I need to hide somewhere safe.”
Marlise gives a soft snort. “And what are we going to do about the spook?”
“We’ll sort that out tonight. Finally,” I reply, not liking the tack my mind is taking: a final solution, for Ashton Kennedy’s unquiet soul—not nice. To destroy his Ib. Even as I consider my intention I realise what a burden this knowledge is, not something to be considered lightly. Already it is corrupting me.
But what to do with the stele? I need a place no one would know about, or as few people as possible, a most unlikely spot. Closing my eyes, I tap into Blessed memories of Cape Town and its hidden places, along the lines of Richard’s comment. Structures are too impermanent until a sudden flash hits me: a view of False Bay from a kloof. A boardwalk runs through a forest—the Amazon Forest—Kroon se Bos—it’s called nearby, more toward Kalk Bay, a path snakes up to where sandstone cliffs rise. Cliffs filled with caves. Long, winding caves. A damp cleft where the folded sandstone has cracked to drop away into the earth through a narrow slot… I silently thank the Blessed memory and open my eyes.
Inkarna Page 14
