by Daniel Caet
That same night I left Egypt, Rameses, Seti and their world and only kept with me the memory of my dear girl, Ankh; and a part of her in the body of her daughter, Nasepté. I mobilised all my contacts so that the same night the little girl and I could leave Egypt behind, disguised as part of a caravan of merchants as I had done before with Iohebed and her family, and as it was already becoming a custom in my long life. I knew that I could use my power to hide from Helel or any other being who tried to find us, but I also knew that I could not do it forever, and that it was imperative that, at least for a while, we did not stop moving.
In just a few days and avoiding all the busiest routes, we reached the coast and there we embarked towards what is now Turkey. From there we continued tirelessly for months to Asia, beyond the Indukush, and finally we arrived in India where we lived for a few years. China and the Russian plains were our next destinations, and in all places the same pattern that had previously worked successfully was repeated. We were integrated into small communities where our arrival had little impact and I began to work as a healer and midwife. When the mentality of these people allowed it, I presented myself as a witch or seer, which in many cases gave us a somewhat higher status; but we never stayed in any of those places for too many years, just until my lack of wrinkles began to generate questions and suspicions. When you are immortal, time ceases to have meaning, and there is only one thing that constantly reminds you that, even if it does not affect you, it continues to pass undeterred, the death of those you love. Little Nasepté's time passed in what seemed to me like a sigh, and I soon found myself cradling her old, wrinkled body in my arms as we said goodbye. Many other goodbyes came later. Those of her children, and the children of their children. And so, dozens of generations that expanded like the rivers of the earth. I always looked for all of them just as I promised Helel that I would do, but I always kept by my side those who needed me most, those girls descended directly from Helel and Liliath and who were the only ones who inherited some of their power.
As the years went by I felt more confident. No one had come to look for us, no one seemed to know where we were and Helel's children had been able to have almost normal lives, but I was foolish to think that fate would not turn at any moment to look straight at us and remind us that it was he who marked the passage of all of us.
It was the year 1443 of the modern calendar and my steps had taken me many years before to England thanks to the northern peoples with whom I had lived for several decades. Since that time, I had seen England grow to become a relatively united people and not a group of disconnected tribes constantly fighting each other.
My existence had become the life of a young widow who survived as best she could out of what the land gave her on a small farm on the outskirts of a village called Saint Albans, near present-day London. My life was as simple as the life of a single woman without the support of a husband could be at that time. I had obtained permission from a nearby abbey to collect mushrooms in their forest that, although I was not allowed to sell, helped me to survive every day. Also, my work as a midwife allowed me to enjoy the gratitude of many of the villagers in the form of meat or fish with which to accompany the poor vegetables that the land gave. All those sacrifices, of which I could obviously have been dispensed only by using my power, and that were necessary to go as unnoticed as possible, lost all their worth a cold winter morning in the Eywood forest when I found myself facing destiny. And this time, his face was tremendously familiar.
I remember that my steps echoed in the dirt of the road that led me to the central part of the forest where the best mushrooms grew. I always went to that part because I knew that it also allowed me to collect herbs and healing plants without anyone seeing me and running to the abbey accusing me of collecting ingredients for potions and other mussels. I think my instincts reacted before my body and they threw a wall of energy around me automatically for protection. For a moment I could not understand what was happening until I realised that all the sounds of the forest had disappeared, and that even the steam that my body exhaled had become cold. I couldn't see anyone around me, but I could feel a presence, an energy that filled everything and I recognised immediately.
“Show yourself, Helel, I could recognise the stench of hell miles away!”
“I suppose it was very bold to think I would catch you by surprise, Sadith,” said his familiar voice as a kind of vibration in the air in front of me gave way to a figure dressed in a dark-coloured cape that slowly withdrew his hood to show his face that had changed absolutely nothing in the eternity that I have not seen him. “You have nothing to fear from me, you can lower your shields.”
“Let me decide that. What do you want?”
“As direct as always. Glad to see that the years have not changed you.”
“They couldn't even if they wanted to. Say what the hell you want!”
“When it comes to hell, I think I am served, thank you,” he replied, smiling openly. “Are you going to lower the shields or make me break them into pieces?”
“It will be fun to see how you try!”
“Sadith, lower the shields, I don't have time for this right now!”
“Tell me what you came for or I'll send you back to the underworld with a kick in the ass!”
“Lower the shields, Sadith!” he shouted as I noticed how he launched a wave of energy against me. It was evident that his power had increased under the influence of the dark energy of the underworld, and the blow made me move a couple of steps back, but it did not prevent me from launching an immediate counterattack that made him travel much more distance than me.
“Get away from me or with the next blow I won't hold back!”
“After so many years your character should have softened,” he said as he ran and threw himself against my shield like someone throwing himself against a wall, only this time, my shield folded as if it were made of water and Helel ended up knocking me down with his impulse, and we both rolled on the ground. I tried to get up immediately to launch a new attack, but when I got up I found his lips against mine, and it left me completely out of place and unable to react.
“But what…!” I said without being able to finish the sentence while his smiling face looked at me lying there, on the floor.
“Well, at least you've stopped fighting,” he said without helping me up. “But ... are you pregnant?” he asked realising my state to which it had not paid attention until then.
“Yes, I am pregnant, damn animal, and I swear that if something happens to the child I will tear your guts out with my own hands!” Helel didn't say another word, he just looked at me with his face disenchanted with misunderstanding, all hostility between the two completely dead. “Are you going to help me get up or not?”
“Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't realise that ... Well, I haven't hit you too hard, I hope.”
“No, don't worry, you've been as delicate as a cow stampede. Seriously, what are you doing here? Do you know the risk you put me in? You have to leave immediately!”
“After I don't know exactly how many thousands of years, I thought you would be glad to see me!”
“Oh, please, don't make me laugh! The last time I saw you, you decided to put aside the whole world –and that includes me and what was left of your family,– for the ambition of becoming king of the underworld. Allow me not to explode with emotion at this reunion.”
“I didn't remember you so sour, Sadith, what happened to you?”
“I have lived many years, Helel. Many years of losing people I love. Your people! I think I have the right to be a bitter old woman, after all I am older than anyone.” The noise of a cart approaching accompanied by a cheerful whistle brought us out of our conversation. “Hurry, he shouldn't see you!” I told Helel turning to see that he had already disappeared before I told him anything. Just in time to prevent the driver of the cart, a plump and simple man who I knew from the town, seeing him.
“Good morning, Anne!” he greeted with a smile using the
name everyone in town knew me for. “All good? You seem suffocated.”
“Yes, James, all good. I hit a stumble and finished on the floor. Pregnant women things, you know. Fortunately it has been nothing and we are all well,” I said, stroking my belly.
“Praise the Lord, you better get on the cart and I will take you home, in your state you should not risk another fall. As a midwife you should know that you are too advanced to continue having these walks. It is not good for the child.” he taught me as he got off the cart and helped me up to the back.
The man drove the cart to my house, and on the way, he kept talking about his wife and daughters –whom I knew well because I had helped her bring the two younger ones into the world,– and the difficulties of finding them a good and respectable husband. The man complained that the men of the town just wanted to eat the bread without paying for it, and that he constantly had to accompany his daughters everywhere so that they did not suffer the same as the baker's daughter, who had ended up having three boys from three different parents, and now she was alone without anyone wanting her.
“It's just that a woman is nothing without a man, Anne, that's what I tell my daughters all the time! A woman without a husband to protect her, may well throw herself to the dogs.” My silence made the man realise who he was talking to and try to rectify instantly. “Well, it's not your case, you're a widow, Anne, what's happened to you isn't your fault. I always tell my Berta. The poor Anne is not to blame for so many misfortunes, the dead husband, the eldest witch daughter and not knowing if she will end up burning like a torch, and another creature on the way. But nothing is your fault, that's what I always say.”
The man was covering himself in glory, but I preferred not to respond to his outbursts and endure as I could until we got home. When we finally reached the small hut on the outskirts of the town where I lived, the man helped me off the cart and said goodbye kindly, letting me enter the house.
“You can show yourself, there is a spell on the house, even if someone looked out the window they would only see me sewing by the fire.” Helel appeared in front of me again accompanied by the same vibration of the air I had seen in the forest. “Nice trick!”
“I've learned some things in hell,” he said, still looking around. “Can I ask why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why do you live in these conditions when you could be living in a palace?”
“Because of you, of course. Do you really not realise the risk you put us all when you put your buttocks on the throne of the underworld? Your children and I have spent the rest of our existence running away from any possible link with you. Do you know how many enemies you have?”
“Yes, I have an idea. But you could have stayed by my side, I would have protected you.”
“Oh, yes? How, Helel? How many attempts to eliminate yourself have you suffered in hell since your ascent? How many of your supporters have died in your infernal wars? How many innocents have been sacrificed by the archangels and their supporters in order to harm you along this damn crusade of yours against heaven? And, if that wasn't enough, now men have found their perfect drug, Christianity. A form of faith that has you as the number one enemy. For men you are the embodiment of everything detestable and cursed. How were you going to protect us from all that, Helel?”
“The men's change has been instigated by the archangels and you know it. Without their help, Christianity would never have become the religion of the people, and their church would never have been the organ of power that it is today. I must admit that they have done very well. They have controlled men with a religion based on fear that only threatens to withdraw their access to salvation if they commit any shitty sin. Sin is not a concept of my father’s, Sadith, but it is not even one of men, it is something invented by angels. With its doctrine of fear, religion dominates man and archangels dominate religion.”
“They‘ve won the game, Helel!” I said bluntly.
“So you think? Do you know how many people in the world profess their devotion to me? They have achieved the opposite effect of what they wanted. They have transformed me into a dark and obscure figure, but there is nothing darker than the human soul. And that is an image that I am more than happy to feed because it has given me, without intending it, the same power that they thought they had, the power of fear” he replied and his green eyes shone as I had never seen them.
“And, if you think you are so powerful, what are you doing here? And don't tell me you wanted to see me because we know each other too well for such lies.”
Helel turned and stared at me before answering.
“I need your help.”
“I knew it, I knew there was a reason and that reason had to be interested!”
“Listen to me first, Sadith!” he said chasing me around the hut. “You said it yourself, you think the angels have won the game, and they believe it too. Now is the perfect time to strike them a blow to the head and regain control of heaven for my father. But I can't do it without something essential, something you can help me find.”
“I'm not going to help you, Helel, I'm not going to give you the tools to make this world an even bigger battlefield than it already is. If you persist in that blind fury of revenge of yours, the ones who will pay for it will be the humans, and I cannot allow that.”
“Hello!” he said gently ignoring my answer and making me turn to find him kneeling in front of the figure of a dark-eyed, dark-haired boy who reminded me slightly of a childish version of himself. “And who are you?”
“Everything is fine, Isobel, you can come out honey,” I interrupted. Immediately the figure of the boy disappeared to Helel's surprise, and a girl of about ten years went down the wooden stairs of the hut to hug me. “Fear not, this is Helel, he is ... an old friend! Helel, this is Isobel!”
For a second, his eyes lit up as he looked at the little girl who kept clinging to my skirts.
“Nice to meet you, Isobel!” he said, extending a hand that the little girl rejected.
“Isobel can't talk, so she uses other ways to communicate. She is able to capture what she wants in images and make people see only what she wants them to see. The boy you've seen before was his way of testing you to see if you would be nice to someone her age.”
Suddenly, Helel did something I would never have expected. Everything around us became a night forest, but each of the trees around us were lit by fireflies that turned darkness into a beautiful play of light. Isobel looked around delighted to see someone with the same power and fascinated with the beauty of the image, and she immediately let go of my skirts to grab Helel's hand, no longer releasing him that night. And an idea began to hover around my head.
Helel and I did not talk about us that afternoon, all his time was dedicated to Isobel with whom he made games of images that drove the girl crazy with joy. When Isobel finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, Helel climbed her upstairs to deposit her in her straw bed.
“Is Isobel …?” he asked without daring to formulate the phrase.
“Your last direct descendant, yes.”
“She is a beautiful girl.”
“Yes, she is, and she has an immense heart. One that perfectly compensates her lack of words.”
“Are you alone?”
“I think you may have noticed by our discreet friend James that I am a widow. One of those situations that with all my power I did not see coming at all. Meanwhile, Eleanor, Isobel's mother, has never shown the slightest interest in taking care of the bastard daughter she had with her husband's stable boy. I have been the only mother this girl has ever known, and it has probably been better for her.”
He watched me with the face of not understanding what I meant, but without asking any questions.
“Eleanor is a creature full of ambition and craving for power. That and her immense beauty are two things that make me see Liliath every time I look in her eyes. Since she was a child she has been a capricious girl, accustomed to getting her every desire and
who enjoyed causing pain to those she knew were in a disadvantaged position. Throughout her childhood I tried to correct that behaviour clinging to the hope that it was only one of those deviations of character some children show when they are young but which disappear with adulthood. But I was blind to reality. That inordinately ambitious character, fuelled by the aspirations of her father, Lord Reginald Cobahm, a minor nobleman who wished to marry her as high on the scale of power as feasible, transformed her into a woman as terrible and dangerous as she is beautiful. Lord Reginald rejected numerous marriage offers for Eleanor waiting for the fattest fish in the river to appear. Meanwhile Eleanor gave free rein to her lust with all the young men, goat-men and servants of the house who she used until she got tired of them. Until finally the big fish appeared. Lord Reginald managed to place Eleanor as a lady in company of Jacqueline d'Hainault, Duchess of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester is the brother of the late king and guardian of the current king, Henry, a languid and faint-hearted lad that everyone pities. In just a few months, Eleanor had managed to get into the duke's bed who in a year had repudiated his wife to marry her. Isobel was conceived in one of the Duke's absences due to his military campaigns in France. Given his absence it was impossible for Eleanor to pretend that the baby was the duke’s daughter, so she retired to her father's house throughout the pregnancy to keep it a secret, and she asked me to get rid of the little girl, which I refused to do, giving Eleanor a new reason to hate me.”
