Hordjedtef’s heart quickened.
Djed Djedi, my departed master, is that you? he stared into the quiet cell behind his shaded audience area then moved toward the plain stone altar that jutted out from the wall. Thought I saw the sojourner, not yourself. He adjusted the little statues of Djehuti and Ptah that graced the top and flanked a small bowl of incense. Lighting the low brass lamp, Hordjedtef bent at the waist. He touched his forehead to the altar edge then sank to one knee in false reverence. “Fraud. This is a trickery,” he muttered under his breath. “Show Yourself. I command you to come in peace.” He stood, quickly whispered words of protection, then announced: “Know I am still first son of Djehut and Lord Horus is my strength.” He waited, sensed nothing in the way of an answer, then centered himself and fell into a light trance.
I shouldn’t be alone for this, he reflected. I always cautioned my students against it, but this voice lacking a head and a mouth drives me to know its source.
A dark red and black swirl formed in his thoughts, accompanied by a sonorous laughing sound. He knew it wasn’t the sojourner. The peasant wouldn’t have laughed at him.
“Your concerns are that you now question your agreement to step down. Is it wise, you ask yourself, knowing what you now know of the unrest forming about you? The king has died. It is your time to move along,” the voice continued as if it hadn’t attempted to read his thoughts.
“Then I am speaking neither to the cursed soul of the Akkad Marai or to the spirit of Menkaure or the great Djedi, am I?” he blinked, trying to remain nonchalant but still respectful. He felt clammy inside, hesitant. “Are you a god whose form I do not recognize?” Thinking to himself, he frowned: Gods do not come into our realms unbidden. I was pondering my future, but if I called this one by accident it wasn’t serious. I had only considered praying to Great Djehuti for a direction in this muddled wreck of palace intrigue that surrounds me.
He roused himself, concerned that his ignorance of the spirit would put him in too much danger, then stared at the statuette of the ibis form of Djehuti on his altar. It peered back at him down its curved beak as it held the tablet of knowledge and a reed for writing in its human hands.
Somehow, he thought, this shade is not of Djehut, either. It feels…
Laughter again.
“Still here? Followed me into my world. I won’t have this. Show yourself. I command you. Out here.” The elder grumbled all the way to his wicker chair and sat, pouting. Glancing up, he startled. He thought he had been speaking to the tail end of a dream vision, but something under the canopy was looking back at him.
“‘Show Yourself. I command you’, the skin worm demands.” The sonorous voice from within the tumbling red and black cloud laughed as the image cleared. “What form would you desire? I have many. This one perhaps?”
Hordjedtef’s own tall and slim form from the days when he was a young princely scholar stared back at him.
“You were a young god in those days, Dede. You certainly worshipped yourself, and do to this very day. All signs pointed to you as the next king if your brother Kawab could meet an untimely death. It crossed your thoughts often, did it not; for him to have a grievous accident?” The vision of young Hordjedtef spoke to his elder self in his own clear, un-garbled voice of youth.
Uncanny image of me, Hordjedtef mused that even the still black surface of his pool never showed his image so well. Even seductive. And the entity uses my common name. He knows too much of me to be an ordinary spirit. The elder shuddered, but couldn’t stop reminiscing:
“Hetepheres and my brother Djedephre conspired and killed Prince Kawab and Khufu right afterward.” Hordjedtef muttered as he stared at the image of his younger self, now solid enough to stand in front of him. Extending his wrinkled hand, he paused, deciding against touching it as the image continued to speak.
“A myth which you yourself invented to curse both your brother and sister throughout time. You did not understand that they would merely be forgotten, not cursed. The words of your wisdom will live on in books and scrolls. And still you seethe with anger?”
His younger self melted, losing height and gaining width until his form shifted into the shape of his elderly teacher Djedi.
Hordjedtef stumbled backward a step, in shock, but made the misstep seem deliberate.
He’s right, the elder mused. Perhaps it has been a kind of destiny for me to shape the rules of the three kings after Great Khufu, yet never be king myself. Still…
“This image suited me once,” the entity suggested in the teacher’s frail, but peaceful old voice.
“Who are you? I sense you are not the elder Djedi though you appear in his shape.”
This time, Hordjedtef stuck his hand forward to touch the image. He quickly discovered it was as solid as his own and jerked his hand back, unnerved at the entity’s ease in assuming both forms.
“Dj-Djehuti…” words leaked out of the elder’s mouth.
The shape of Hordjedtef’s former mentor wove the fingers of his clasped hands over his fat belly and waited.
“I smell your fear, despite your calm, proud look.” The entity’s words rang through the elder’s heart. “However, it would be unhelpful for your heart to beat its last out of fright.”
Hordjedtef felt an uncanny sense of calm sweep over him, stilling his racing heart and quieting his inner struggle with the image in front of him. He had sensed the Lord of Time often in meditation and in spirit journeys, but had never known him to materialize before him or any of his priests; especially in the half-sunlit alcove where he had always taught.
“Yes. A name given me by men in this time… those I have taught and raised up; my children; remnant of the time when gods walked as men. You have willed me into your world.”
“S-speak, then, my most wise master.” Hordjedtef’s eyes lowered briefly, but something bothered him. Treachery. I smell it. This is a fakery; some sorcery or interloper posing as the Lord of Wisdom under my canopy. I will expose the truth.
“Perhaps if I were a lesser god or demon I would end you now. You doubt me, refuse to accept that I hear your secrets as if they were shouted from mountains, and even more so doubt your senses.” The shade, still appearing as old Djedi began to shift into another form. “I know your reason for this incredibly careless conjuration.”
“Conjuration? I did not…” The elder took a step back, as if he perceived the form advancing.
“You want to know what becomes of you when your second takes over. You wonder why he avoids you; cannot look you in the eye without raising his barriers like walls of bronze.”
“The sojourners. It’s their fault. But all is well now; I’ve seen to it. My second and I did disagree.” Hordjedtef groped behind himself to see if he had backed his way to the altar area again.
“This too, I know. Speak to me of this Akkad sojourner; the one named Marai. I desire to hear why you wished to end his life, when he was no true threat. He could have been managed. I had hoped you would at least surmise my own need of him,” the entity who looked like fat old Djedi asked in a less than wise and calm manner.
“It was his disrespect, Highest One,” Hordjedtef paused, having thought only briefly about his response. “He came to us wise beyond his humble and ignorant birth. I know he had been assisted by the neter stones he carried, but I perceived that the more he learned, the less likely he would be to submit to our god-ordained ways.”
“So, you tried him.” The voice of the entity changed from Djedi’s calming voice to something unidentifiable.
“I did, after discussing it with some of my fellows from the other priesthoods. It was a practice form of the Entombment Ritual, meant expose his deepest terror.”
“A moment ago, you might have known that terror yourself had I not calmed you. I allowed you to recover. Yet, you deigned to finish him with drugs that break the will and the spirit, instead of the calmatives normally called for in these practices.”
Hordjedtef re-focused his eyes. The im
age of Djedi shifted from the heavyset old man to a taller and mightier form.
“As you saw fit to test the sojourner, I saw fit to test you. Do you now find his shape agreeable or does its superior appearance still trouble you?”
The image of Marai stared back at Hordjedtef and even spoke with the sojourner’s almost shy, rustic accent.
“I sense you are concerned about this shape. Your prideful heart will not allow you to regret your decision. You refused to see that he whom I gave permission to assume the Bull of Heaven, in a form more familiar to you… that of the Bakha Montu, now lives, breathes, and is journeying to the highlands; returning to the places I had once walked as man.”
“Places you have walked. You are saying… No,” Hordjedtef stammered, glancing at the statues of Djehuti and Ptah on this altar. The smoke from the incense in the bowl before them rose, then curled low toward the floor.
“You mean you are not Djehut? Ptah, perhaps?” The elder straightened himself, then realized the other part of what the voice said.
Alive. I knew it. I knew he might not have died, but I denied my heart permission to see it. The man was strong as any bull-shape he assumed. He survived the test of darkness and fear despite all that was done to him? Thoughts raced through the high priest’s soul. He’ll return to see me about this,” Hordjedtef paced, unconcerned that the entity remained as if it watched in strange satisfaction.
“Wse. Curse him! He lied to me. I knew there was an odor about him and thought his wits still under the woman Naibe’s spell.” Hordjedtef whirled, consumed by his angry soliloquy. “He even told me he had checked the body and made certain it would not rise to bother us if there was ever an issue.” Now he spoke to the apparition. “He said to me: Wait, Great One, to harvest the neter stone from his head. It is the cardinal one of the eight and might have spells in its restive state. Wait ‘til the body corrupts and withers.”
The elder shook his own head as if addressing his protégé. “Wserkaf… son of my heart, how could you do this to me? To us? Was it the sorceress who locked you into betraying us?” he lamented. “She is naught but a demon behind a pretty face. She is a man-killer. Perhaps she should have killed you as she did Our Father. I will see to her doom. I will send a dream to my left hand in Ta-Seti. I will end this,” the elder prince paced, beside himself with emotion.
“That’s your thought on the matter?” The voice of the entity rang in the form of silent thought that entered the elder’s frame and rang him like a gong. “And you still make your weak attempt to keep your thoughts from me when I knew them before you even rose today or considered them in your heart.”
The voice from Marai’s re-formed but dispassionate image quipped. “So, you now tell me that you believe if betrayal comes of another human it is a female? Is the voice of your sister Hetepheres still gnawing on your heart though she at this moment almost breathes her last, knowing nothing of her present place and time? You suspected he lived, so do not imply you never thought such a thing possible, else you would have never asked your precious ‘Wse’ to inspect the corpse, and then you would have left all three women to fend for themselves in the marketplace, find new mates, and fade from your knowledge. Instead, you decided to separate and conquer each and when that became a trouble you inserted the scout of god and his wilding ways in the mix. I should leave you to your fate and let them all return to accuse you.”
Hordjedtef shot into the air like an arrow and found himself suspended above his open pool area. Hovering as if pinned, he stared at a much redder form of the Akkad.
“No. Eminence forgive me. I die,” the elder sputtered, finding himself face down on the polished brick. He struggled to his knees, but the pain in his throat shut off his breath. He gasped and struggled. When the grip of the unseen force released him, he stroked his throat, looked up and waited for the image to nod.
“Die? Not today. You still amuse me. You may soon prefer death, though.”
“The eight neter stones. You still require them, do you not? Is this not why the Akkad was sent to us? To bring them among the lesser stones? I sensed in my meditations…” Hordjedtef began, but felt doubt about the high order of the creature manifesting in his plaza nagging him again.
I’ve seen and touched all the others. A true god wouldn’t need… This is a minion of the god sent to cause me to doubt myself. It’s a test after all these years of my unfailing work.
“Still blindly trying to keep secrets from me, fool? The ‘stones’ as you want to call them are much more than this. They are important, not for what they are but for what they contain. I wouldn’t expect a mere man of your time and place to know this. But, tell me in your own words why, when the Akkad was within your grasp, you did not obtain all the Children?”
“The Kina-Keft half-skin woman ArreNu hid them and wasn’t inclined to turn over the others to us as her “husband” had been ordered to do,” he explained “Only the Ta-Seti woman who has become my grandson’s concubine was respectful enough to remember her mission and to assist us. Young Maatkare has been quite useful to us in that regard. I have every confidence they will return with all the neter and the wdjat my protégé allowed to slip away. Then it will be as promised. The Akkad sojourner could not… would not do this for you. He went rogue. I saw that he might do that. Even with your gifts of strength and long life to him he retained his stubborn and rebellious heart.”
“Was his faltering, rebel nature and not his disrespect a thing that made him so unacceptable to you? To us? As you have just admitted, your own protégé, now poised to represent Djehut as you retire, falters in your teaching. Will you punish him likewise, now that he turns from you?” The red god towered over the elder’s sprawled form.
Hordjedtef panted in a sweating fear that he hoped wouldn’t show as the Marai -shaped god grew tall enough to fill the entire empty plaza. Like an illusion within an illusion, a copy of the entity huddled, bent-shouldered and hunchbacked, in the shade of his canopy.
Gods, the elder priest murmured. It is… It is… Baal… Atom… The larger of the two images assumed the shape of a massive man with entirely red skin and curling, shoulder-length hair. His eyes blazed like the sun on the hottest of days, but the light from them sucked the life out of all things. His firm and passionless lips curled into a slight sneer above his braided beard.
Dark. Hordjedtef’s head sank to the brick in horror, his old heart about to jump from his corded chest. Cold, yet hot at once. Great yet small. Nothing yet all. Beginning yet ending. I know…
“Master,” Hordjedtef pushed up to his knees. After a length of silence, he looked up and suggested. “Great Eminence, you have come to see. I know there is still time for me to right the djed… to bring the eight to Per-A-At so they may rise with you.”
Laughter.
“But some are installed in hosts and you continue to thwart them. Now you say I should continue to give you favor, who have listened to lies sprouting in your heart one after another and added your own imaginings to the heap of untruths for nothing more than personal gain?”
“Lies? Lies that were told to me?” the elder felt his vision grey and his thoughts swim as if he was about to faint. When they cleared again: “I serve truth…”
“False. Your teacher began teaching you untruths because he understood your rage. He knew you needed to be controlled, just as you later sought to control the Akkad and any other who opposed you. Search your heart. It is there.”
“My wise Uncle Djedi told me the tale of the children of the gods who were coming as stars that fell; but got lost. I promised him as he died that I would go to find them in their hiding place.”
“And why was that? Was it honor? Loyalty? Likely it was greed and power.”
The elder shuddered inwardly at the candor of the spirit.
“I did mount an expedition to the wilderness, too. I thought it was your hand as Lord Djehut guiding me to that rotten wasteland only to find nothing more than smoldering corpses and corroded weapons. I
tracked the vessel my master had described based on the variances of vibration it caused in earth. I found where it should have been, but it remained hidden from me.”
Hordjedtef visualized himself borne out into the Eastern wastes, near the Copper Road in the Turquoise Sand wastes at Sin-Ai. We camped near a ruined campsite that had been raided not long before we arrived, then cleansed so fully that only broken skulls and fragments of a few long bones lay scattered in a white ash pile. A supernatural blast of fire from the heavens. This one’s work, likely.
In his memory, he saw himself kicking a skull in disgust, then ordering men to strip the crumbling brick hut, the distant cave and what was left of a few flapping black tents. Bandits got what was coming to them, he had thought as he picked up a knife with a curious-looking wolf as the hilt. Then he saw himself meditating on the mound of sand, ordering his men to dig until a mighty windstorm covered everything back up again, leaving him raging, cursing and beating the domed surface of the sifted sand.
“A trick you cried,” the image repeated, “because you knew you had been overlooked again. Thus, I arranged things for you in wondrous ways, freezing time into a dark web and yet you shunned the examples sent you in the wisdom of the woman Rudjedet. You opted instead to govern and control her sensitive son whom she bore the priest of Ra. Then, I sent the gloriously reformed sojourner and his cherished ones.”
“You sent…” Hordjedtef stammered, his entire life roaring through his thoughts in review. “It was she who rejected me; claimed I was not pure of intent. She conspired with Userre to make that lie of giving birth to the son of Ra, just to gall me. Impudent young ka’t!”
“Ra, as you wish to name him, could have a son through a mortal woman.” The entity appeared to bask in his own light for a moment; to pivot and almost smile. “This you know. The old ones could not often resist the charm of mortals…”
The elder sighed a long and pained breath. True, he thought, taken aback that the entity before him implied his most worried thought; that he was the creator… the Atum-Ra. That smile when I mentioned liaisons with mortal women. I refuse this. The most high one would be mightier; not approachable. I would not be able to stand before him. And to say I turned away the ones he had chosen to aid him.
Heart of the Lotus Page 5
