Voices in Crystal

by Mary R Woldering

  By this time, both boys were whimpering. Neither of them could explain what had happened. They shuffled about in front of their father, staring at the sand, and waiting for more blows to be rained down on them.

  Suddenly Sheb, who had been lost in disciplining his sons, realized the youths had cried out that everyone was gone. He glanced around the empty camp, dumbfounded. The tents in which his cousins and their families lived yawned open. Pots and baskets lay strewn about on the ground; evidence of a great struggle that he had somehow missed while he slept. The guests had most certainly drugged them or put them under a spell, he decided. Now, for whatever heinous reason, these men posing as innocent ass traders and brokers had decided in the night to forget the trade, bind most of his family up and carry them off into lives of misery and perilous servitude.

  Why?! Sheb wanted to scream out, but his thoughts contined to race. I’ve almost always paid my tribute goods on time! Why seize them? Some foul villain must have given them the order to do it! Was it Kemet men? Why? Sheb dared not think about the reason too long. He realized instantly that the only reason they had not carried everyone off was fear of discovery. They would be back to round up the rest of them. Marai had been right! The shepherd had warned him just last night about their cousin young Naim’s deal with the protectors via these traders. Instead of a good deal, they had been drugged and kidnapped. It had indeed been a trick.

  By the way…Where is he? The wadi man released his sons and began to stumble from tent to empty tent in shock.

  Sheb’s elders had trained him well enough in the craft of determining what travelers carried with them when they arrived at the station. It was important to discover the nature of any hidden goods or concealed weapons. The threat of violence in this line of work was always over the next ridge. Lately, the danger had been increasing. There had been rumors of bands of theives who infiltrated groups of sojourners and trafficked hapless wadi-owners into slavery or into the grave, then took the water holes for themselves for a few months before moving to the next ripe outpost.

  “Thieving…No... no...” He mumbled, too distraught to scream curses. He returned to the storeroom to see if the travelers had taken his supplies as well as his people. “Knew we should have gone with my brothers a year ago! Damned Marai says to wait until the lambs drop…pretending to be Dumuzi the shepherd boy is all he was doing…” he grabbed his own ears in disbelief. “I’m stupid! I’ve been weak to put up with that crazy fool’s ravings. Where is he? If he’s asleep up there…”

  Peering into the cool darkness of the storeroom, he couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him. Pawing around on his hands and knees, the wadi man found more than the usual jars of stored oil and grain that had been kept inside last night. New basket-making supplies were stacked to his right, when he turned to face out of the door. The supplies were all sorted, bundled, and tied with colorful ribbons. The men didn’t have these things with them last night. Of that, he was certain. Suddenly, from nowhere, and for no reason there were enough supplies for his wife Houra to make two dozen or more large, lidded baskets.

  The value of these will be more than helpful in our travel to Kemet. How did they have these things? How did I not see this? How can we go now, if so many have been taken? Have I now totally lost my wits to even think this way? Sheb fretted in a panic, wondering how, and worse why these things had been left for them..Is this a devil’s trade of some kind? He asked himself, trying to make sense of the fact so many people were missing from the wadi. Naim and his wife had just had a little girl. His cousins Shar and Marom, and their wives and mothers, and pretty Pilyit, her father and her beloved.

  Eight children in all under the age of thirteen, and four elders in dotage. All gone! Outrage! Sheb emerged from the storehouse into the sun slowly, so puzzled that he could barely extend his arms to forgive his sons.

  “Where’s Marai? I see the sheep...What’s happened here?” his voice wavered.

  Younger Tisehe stopped, pointing in mute horror at something he saw lying in the sand. Behind the tent where Naim and his young family had lived, lay a broken pot. On the surface of the shard was a man’s bloody hand print.

  “No…Not Naim… Gods! What spell or sorcery is this? They fought those men!! They did it so we would live! How could we not hear it?” Sheb scrambled to his legs and ran up to his son. He seized the pot, inspecting the dried stain with his trembling fingers. Tears of rage started out of his eyes.

  “Marai!!! You hear me, you waste of a be beard! This is your fault…your fault…” He choked, sinking to the threshold of his cousin’s vacant tent, unable to stand. He saw another larger stain of blood that had soaked into the sand, nearby.

  At that moment, a cry sounded from his hut. Houra rushed out of the little brick house, pale-faced, and in a panic.

  “He’s gone! Marai is gone!” She dashed to her husband to seize his arm, tugging him in the direction of the caves.

  Sheb stared at her, aghast.

  “And how do you know that, woman?” The wadi man’s tear-stained eyes lined with a rage that only jealousy could make. Our family is stolen, maybe murdered and she is thinking of that, that...

  “He is, Abu, he is...just like the others!” Tisehe piped up, his eyes reflecting the horrified wonder his mother’s face already showed. “We tried to tell you, but…”

  Sheb’s eyes narrowed.

  “When we saw the men and everyone else was gone and the sheep were still in, we went to his cave. He wasn’t even there!” the younger boy, Tisehe breathlessly explained “We saw it at daybreak… Iar-el took me with him and we tracked the prints, but halfway to the yonder dunes...all the tracks just stop!...no blood that far out, no look of fighting... just not there!”

  Sheb tried to take in everything that assaulted his senses...the oversleeping, the vanished guests, the strange gifts, a missing encampment and guests, a bloodied jug and stain on the sand and a wife and son who seemed to be thinking all the wrong thoughts.

  “My husband...” Houra bent nervously to him, while he sat at the threshold of Naim’s tent contemplating the pot shard he held. Her voice grew fragile and wounded. “I had a dream of him going away last night, but I couldn’t get up, It was as if something was holding me down and I couldn’t wake you. The woman bowed by her husband almost embarrassed to mention her vision. “I dreamed there was a most horrible blast of light in the sky. Then later, I saw Marai come into the storehouse to get some things...I thought he was deserting us like some of the brothers had done, but then I saw him walking into a place of great light. I tried to wake you but I couldn’t move... A voice kept singing to me and telling me it would be alright.” Her eyes raised “I think the Goddess Ashera must have come for him, just like you wanted her to!”

  Sheb sighed, first sick at heart, then furious. A blank look filled his face.

  “Houra...woman, be silent.” Sheb shook his shaggy head and sighed in something akin to nerveless despair. “I’m in no mood for your stupid dreams today. Not when Naim and his family have likely been slaughtered…” His eyes turned inward, and dark. “If he’s with his dream Ashera, then explain to me what happened to the men who were here last night and all of our kin and the children and why we didn’t hear a thing. And then maybe you’ll tell me why you haven’t even noticed they are gone too? Is everyone with his Lady God too?” He pointed lamely in the direction of the distant dune. “No…they are not! The damned sand devils bewitched us and made a fine harvest of us, that’s what!”

  “Oh…” Houra suddenly gasped, as if waking from a second dream. This time she understood everything her husband said and began to dart about from tent to empty tent in a panic. Then, as if she still had one foot in her dream, she remembered everything the voices had said to her in the middle of the night while she couldn’t move.

  Prepare your mate and young

  Look to the others.

  When you wake

  A change has come

  Wolves have come

&
nbsp; More with the sun

  Understand, what begins in pain

  Will end in complacency

  Do what you must

  She stared at the blood on the ground behind her cousin’s tent.

  “Then it’s really true?” Her voice rose in a shrill, helpless whisper as she gathered her sons and stood next to the threshold where Sheb sat. He had been starting to rise, but stopped for a moment, pointing into the storage room.

  “Bastards made a sick kind of trade… tried anyway… Naim must have waked up and tried to fight them…You just go in there and look at the pretties our guests left...a fortune in basket grass for you....all colored and ready...”

  Houra scampered past her Sheb to the storehouse and saw the supplies. She squeaked in horror instead.

  “He’s alive then…” she gasped. “Sheb, beloved...they all would be, else they would be lying slain out here… What thief carries off the dead? We just have to start looking for them…”

  “I thought you were about to tell me the Goddess left those things...to make up for her amusement at letting those bastards destroy us!” Sheb’s voice grew bitter. “And why did everyone sleep?” Sheb continued to muse aloud, staring unblinking at the flat, unsympathetic sun. “Did the honey-beer they shared with us have a sleep-herb, so they could kidnap so many? I was awake too long for it to have been something in the drink and so were you” He quickly discarded that thought. “A big one like Marai would not be brought down with a single draught of it! And he would even then put up too much of a fight if they tried...” He shook his head. “It’s something else we’re missing!”

  Houra knew that. Marai was capable of managing the flock single-handed and often without adequate sleep. If wolves or lions came, he could fight them as well. She remembered how as a newly grown youth, he had wrestled a wolf and snapped its neck like dry wood even as he shouted for older brothers to come help.

  “You don’t believe… the others live… and Marai too! A voice in my dream told me he would go. It also told me we have to leave the wadi this morning. We’re in worse danger now than either of us ever thought. They will be back for us as soon as they have the others secured wherever they have taken them!” Houra knew it was useless to talk about dreams even when Sheb was in a good mood, but knew she had to speak this morning. “Don’t you see” Her eyes shone with the faraway look, Sheb had come to despise.

  He stood, faced her and dusted his clothes.

  “A voice...?” He got to his feet and began to pace a little.

  “Voices...” she emphasized, she grabbed his arm. “In my dream...”

  Sheb showed his wife his fist briefly and for the first time in all of their years together, he struck her hard enough to send her sprawling backward onto the sandy earth.

  “Enough of your foolish visions and prancing demon voices.” he howled,. “I won’t hear you speak of them again, do you hear me!” When he saw Houra wincing and wiping her bloodied lip as she struggled to her feet he almost went to her, but waited.

  “You would strike me?” Houra drew herself up, instantly resolute…“Disrespect the mother of your own? Is that what you would teach our sons? They don’t deserve you!” She turned her back, walking in the direction of the cave where Marai had lived. Sheb understood her gesture of contempt well enough. She would have run off to Marai that instant if he had been there. Sheb knew it was madness and against everything he had been taught by his Abu...that women were to be cherished and loved because they created life in their bellies. He felt so overwhelmed that he could only shake his head.

  “Abu…” Iar-el, who had been poking around the back of Naim’s tent looking for something that would indicate the family might be alive, ambled toward his parents.

  Sheb looked at his son, then at the horizon. In the distance, over the youth’s shoulder, he saw dark specks of humanity moving toward them. Travelers were coming from the direction of the dunes where the footprints had faded. It was an odd time of day for men to arrive from the nearest wadi, unless they had journeyed in the dark. Perhaps they knew something or had seen something.

  They were approaching, nonetheless, and would need to rest and water themselves in the day’s heat. It was more likely the brigands returning rather than a new group. He would get his bow from the hut. It would be the most foolish gesture of all, considering his chances, but he knew he would show the gods he had tried to protect his own.

  “Men come…” Houra turned back, even though she thought of hiding in the cave until Sheb came to profusely apologize at that moment. “Are these the men coming with our travel goods, then?” She felt like coming to mightily box sense into her husband’s head for the slap, but felt the echo of the small voices in her heart again.

  Look to the others.

  When you wake

  A change has come

  Wolves have come

  More with the sun

  Understand, what begins in pain

  Will end in complacency

  Do what you must

  “Are they coming to kill us or enslave us then?” she asked but received no answer. Her husband strung his bow and handed weapons to his sons.

  Wolves have come

  More with the sun

  Understand, what begins in pain

  Will end in complacency

  Do what you must

  Houra knew these men were now her fate as much as everything that had happened. For now she would do just that… ignore Sheb’s blustering lack of faith and pray she and her own lived see her brother Marai again. Even through the years and all of his stubbornness she did love her Sheb. She would hold her family together and hold the generations that came after them, if it took that long. The men were coming with evil intent, she knew. She and her family would still go to Kemet to start a new life, if they lived that long. She whispered a prayer in her heart, as the men came into view. These men weren’t the ones from last night. These men were raiders.

  Oh Yahweh-Sin, my father of the mountain and of the Wondrous Lady who has taken my Marai, let him know my regret… Let him see me in his heart!!

  The shepherd pressed his body against a vertical surface inside the strange, cloudy interior where he had fallen. Thrumming, toneless music surrounded him, penetrating every pore of his skin as it sank into the core of his being.

  When he dared to look up from the flat surface, he saw just as much gleaming white fog as he had seen when he had been lying on his back. He perceived no depth or distance in any of the white. He thought of the warmer winter days when he would stretch out on the plateau above his home, staring into the spinning of the clouds in the sky. The impenetrable white of that cover reminded him of those clouds.

  Man of Ai...

  A voice sounded beside him as the lulling music played on in his head, just between his ears. Marai looked around, hoping he could spy the owner of the melodious voice, but no one was there.

  We are glad you have come.

  Shall food or drink be created?

  The gentle, well-polished voice rang like the voice of a courteous wadi man, but the language sounded closer to some of the Kush dialects he had once heard from blackskinned traders passing through his part of the wilderness.

  Marai considered the offer for a moment. To refuse a host’s or even a captor’s courtesy was an insult worth bloodshed. It meant there could never be trust between the two parties. The shepherd didn’t trust the voices. So far, too many surprises had come from them tonight.

  “No, thank you.” he murmured. “But I am grateful for your offer.” He was famished. It didn’t take magical powers for whoever or whatever had taken him in to see that. He would have liked nothing better than to settle down in front of a large meal and plenty of drink after his midnight trek across the wilderness.

  You are wisely wary of us, Man of Ai.

  We understand and take no offense

  How shall we soothe you...

  Gain your trust?

  The voice immediately sensed his doub
t.

  “It would help if I could see you.” Marai suggested, half joking then added. “See what is really you and not some vision you wish for me to see.” His eyes scanned the rolling, gleaming white in vain.

  It would not be wise.

  Not yet

  Stand upright please.

  Marai boosted himself to his feet and was instantly besieged by darting and whirling lights. These dove in, probed, turned and poked at him, examining him with what felt like, invisible bird beak like hands.

  “Wait! No!” Marai groped and swatted away the phantom fingers of light in new terror. “No more touching...Stop, I beg you...” The shepherd threw his hands over his head and dropped to the floor again in a tight crouch until the mysterious sensation stopped.

  Remove the things which cover your body.

  A different, less sensuous woman’s voice requested in a matter of fact but cheerful, tone. Marai recognized that it was neither the goddess voice nor Ilara’s voice. The voice was in his thoughts rather than in his ears. He stopped cowering and raised one brow.

  “Houra?” a smirk formed in the corner of his mouth as he recognized the familiar sauciness of his half-sister. “By the Sweet Lady herself, what a voice to steal!” He wondered how the voices could even know of her youthful pursuit of him or the fact that he had almost responded to it before their father had speedily married her to his cousin. He felt a little more at ease, but wanted to fully understand why they wanted him naked.

  If this is the voice of my Houra. He thought of the way he and Houra used to speak on idle days. It had been their game. Thinking into each others’ souls had been their special way. He didn’t know what gave him the idea he could make a voice in his thoughts that these voices could hear. It had merely seemed worth a try. An onrush of ecstasy sighed through him.

  Your inner voice is music

  O man of Ai

  Without a lesson

  You have learned excellently

  The child-voice that sounded like Houra cheered the same way she cried out in joy when he gave her a toy he had whittled out of the base of a palm frond. That had been in their childhood, years before she even thought about desiring him. The voice changed again, shifting once more into the childlike but sultry tone of the Ashera voice.