Voices in Crystal

by Mary R Woldering

  Let us give you ourselves; teach you

  You are of their best

  “Best?” Marai frowned, but began to grasp the reason.

  It wasn’t unknown that, from time to time a man or woman was chosen for a god or goddess pleasure. He’d been asking the Lady for that for all of those years, after all.

  “Will I become wise, maybe become a demi-god because I have been chosen?” he asked, pulling at his lower lip as he thought a about it. “Maybe..younger..Maybe good looking enough that Ashera might even be impressed? Is that what I’m being offered?” He stopped, realizing he was thinking a fool’s thoughts.

  Yes! The whispers burst aloud in their excitement.

  If it truly is your wish,

  You shall know her...

  You will live a long life

  You will be repaired, where damaged

  Come!

  Lie with us now

  You will learn to sleep...

  To dream powerful things. the humming increased.

  Feeling strangely privileged, Marai shyly touched the orbs again, running both hands, like a lover might, over the fleshy crystals. He felt light-headed, as if he had become suddenly drunk. Dancing rainbows rippled out from his hands as he caressed the gleaming shards. Color ran up his arms and down his legs permeating him, arousing him and lulling him with their own kind of soft, silent music. The exhilarating wind and dampness of a coming storm filled him, though nothing stirred around him.

  Come to us

  Man of Ai

  Man of the sand

  The voices breathed whispers into the sound of the storm wind in his thoughts. He fell forward, dizzy and out of control.

  Marai, Marai, Marai

  The crystalline mother lulled her new child into a deep whirlwind of dreams.

  Q

  CHAPTER 2

  AWAKENING

  Marai didn’t remember the exact moment the rolling sensation in the closed pod stopped. When it slowed he began to wake up. The humming and roaring that had buoyed him into peaceful complacency had softened and become part of a gentle background noise. Sensing the stillness, Marai opened his eyes.

  After little more than morning grogginess, the shepherd remembered he was not at his home in the wilderness cave near his cousin Sheb’s station, Wadi Ahu. He wasn’t waking from some fantastic dream. He lay on his side naked, curled and enclosed in the strange and softly glowing fruit-like bed. Only a few moments had passed. The vibrant crystals beneath him had retracted into flat, blood-red, six and eight-sided shapes that echoed the honeycombed pattern on the walls of the fallen “star”.

  Breathe...again...slow and deep...

  The sound of his own voice spoke inside his head. It came from a place right above the point where his eyebrows met, paired with a curious sensation that branched outward toward each ear.

  Puzzled, Marai took a deep breath, stretched with a slight yawn, and sat up. He reached forward instinctively. As if the closed pod read his intention, the two halves of the “shell” opened with an almost musical sigh.

  Marai never noticed it. He saw nothing but his extended arm. In a panic, he looked down at the rest of his body then patted at his hair and beard as if he had been besieged by locusts. Leaping out of the glowing bed, he pinched and clawed at his arms and chest suddenly hoping he really was still dreaming. He wasn’t.

  The shepherd had fallen asleep in an aging, flawed, and ugly body. Waking, he discovered his body had become more beautiful than any mortal man had a right to own.

  The voices had told him, before he fell asleep, that they would make some changes, but he assumed they would make him just slightly healthier and “cleaned up”. They never implied he would bear more resemblance to an image of a god than a man when they had finished with him. He had joked, in his thoughts, about looking like a god… about seducing his beloved goddess, but he never thought the “Children” would make that fantasy a reality even though they said they would.

  It had to be a dream within a dream. Certainly he was still asleep and merely dreaming he had wakened. He knew there was only one way to tell.

  Fighting off the weakness of deep sleep that still clung to his legs, Marai stumbled once, but darted with absolute certainty, to the place which had housed the reflective image screen.

  Come. His thoughts called to it. That he thought to call out to the screen, shocked him too. While he waited for the rippling silver sheet to descend, an awful thought came to him that a great evil had been done while he lay sleeping.

  These “Children” must have been illusions created by some dreadfully powerful sorcerer. In legend, it was said that some wizards who were in league with the highest of demonic forces could renew their aging bodies through the blood sacrifice of unblemished youths. These demon-men would kill young men or women, then eat their victim’s heart. In that way, they could consume the soul. Once they had fed, the new soul would transform and renew their aging flesh.

  The shepherd tried to quiet his fears. With trembling hands, he searched his own chest for a scar, a burn, or a blemish to mark the fiery entry of his tired soul into this perfect body. He found nothing. When the silvery sheet descended, Marai stood staring at his reflection for a long time.

  Dede, as the Djedi the Great had once called the young prince, woke from his troubled sleep again. It was a hot, dry night, but the condition of the weather wasn’t what robbed him of his sleep this time. His servants could always fan him or prepare a sleep inducing tea for him, to solve that problem.

  Tonight when he meditated, he contemplated the life and tutelage of his elder teacher Djedi again. Prince Hordjedtef vacated his stateroom after an hour or two of fruitless attempts to get some sleep. He climbed the brick steps up to the kitchen roof and remembered the way he and the great man always came up to the roof after each evening meal to think and pray. Tonight, even the roof and the cooler breezes there didn’t comfort him. Prince Hordjedtef sorted his rational thought from his speculative musings and sought the grace of Maat once more.

  The old man had passed into the Field of Reeds not too long after the night they saw the strange star streaking across the sky. The “Children” or the Ta-Ntr, as the old man called them, had betrayed them that night. For the old man, it had been the beginning of the end.

  Both he and his teacher, he remembered, had heard the Akkad shepherd sing that night. Shortly after that, they received word of a young foundling child in old Qustul far to the south. the little boy had odd, pale skin and softly waving chestnut hair and it was said he could tame lions.

  Djedi had expressed an interest in meeting with the child to see if the boy might be a prophet. If he was, the old man wanted to insure that the boy’s adoptive parents sent him to the priestly schools to be educated as soon as possible. The two men had journeyed up the river to Hordjedtef’s Nekhen estate and then further up past the Island of the Elephants and the first Cataract of falling water to the river town Qustul.

  The elder teacher, it was said, could also tame a lion by speaking to it, so he would be the one to test the boy. To demonstrate that skill, Djedi called a lioness from the grass. When she approached, the elder watched with great delight. Before he had been able to “speak” to the lioness so she would not to attack, the child ran out into the grass and threw his arms around her neck.

  Djedi examined the child with great delight. Even though the little one had been named Metautep, meaning “Metaut is satisfied” for his adoptive father, old Djedi insisted he should be given the new name “child of the lion”, or Mtoto Akaru.

  The child was “sighted” and twice born the elders of Qustul had said. He had certainly been born of a woman, they whispered, but he had been suckled by a lioness when he was found. When he had been near death of a scorpion sting, the lions came to him once more and the milk of the lioness was said to have healed him.

  That story, and what he saw in the child’s eyes was enough to convince the old man of the boy’s gifts. As the two men returned to I
neb Hedj, the white-walled city of the kings, the elder smiled, content but told the prince his time on earth was coming to an end.

  The prince brought more dark thoughts to the front of his will, in hopes of cleansing himself of them. The Ta-Ntr, as the men called the “Children” had destroyed the relationship between Hordjedtef and his mentor Djedi the night they heard the shepherd sing. Hordjedtef thought his elder guide had made a grievous mistake. He tried to convince old Djedi that they had both been betrayed.

  From their faraway place beyond the stars of Asar, these “Children” of the Ntr had used Master Djedi’s talents and elicited his trust. Understanding from them that he would be their emissary when they came to his world, he’d shared the secrets of Earth with them. He’d uttered the things he had learned through a lifetime of study, and had told to no Earthly man. They returned the favor.

  The secrets the Children taught him were safe– written carefully in code. Djedi had written this way his entire life, from the hour he first became aware of the voices. In return, he was given the wisdom of Djehuti by the very god himself. After the night they saw the light and heard the singer, things changed between the two men. For reasons the prince could only guess, Djedi had grown increasingly distant from him.

  You do not understand, dear one. The elder insisted almost pathetically. Calm yourself. Do not allow these things to overtake you! Drive the thoughts of this dark and jealous nature from your heart. Practice sublime calmness as I have begged you to do. Maat you must guard and in time she will speak within your heart. Do you not see?

  Both men knew the young prince was, in all likelihood, right. Nothing had been wrong with the stellar boat in which the Ntr sailed. It would never go “off course” or crash in the sand of the Copper Road wastelands like the boats of the River Asar sometimes ran aground on the shore. If the “Children” could come across the firmament and the endless worlds beyond all that was humanly knowable, they could arrive on a veritable grain of sand if they wished. There was no failure.

  Hordjedtef refused to believe these creatures had lost any sort of control of their “boat”.

  “Oh, they used you, my wise master, admit it.” the young prince lamented. “I can see now how they probably planned to discard you all along. Can’t you see it?”

  “Ah, I do see.” The old man replied, nodding sadly. The elder’s understanding of the reason the Ntr children would have changed their plans was not usury at all. The Ntr, Djedi thought, simply realized young Hordjedtef wasn’t ready to learn from them. In the time he had left, the elder tried to get his protege to understand that reason. but telling him this, only enraged the young prince.

  “You are still heartbroken about the choice the “daughter of the god” made when you know her reasons were educated and in harmony with truth. You must now strive to control your ego and jealousy, lest you become a mere and common mortal. You will descend too far from the realm of the god, embracing the role of the animal, just as it has happened before.”

  The prince remembered he had looked at the old man, not comprehending him then, but not willing to humble himself enough to ask for an explanation. The men didn’t speak much about the “Children” after that. Djedi simply stated that when the shepherd arrived in Kemet with his message, they ought to welcome him and teach him with the same energy as they planned to teach the young foundling from Qustul. Reflecting back, the youthful prince realized Djedi must have already known his time was very short on that voyage to meet the child. Soon, they both knew and taught, he would have a resurrected body and dwell in the half-life of the tomb until he and the others of royal and godly blood would become ascended gods.

  Hordjedtef found doubt in his heart. He had seen no evidence of godhood in the noble dead. In the stale air of the tomb only quiet and perhaps a hushed whisper of a spirit voice...a wisp as thin as smoke, of the memory of a being ever sounded. It became an obsession with him to honor the dead and prepare his own tomb for the ages. Several times he tried to speak of the “Children”, but the old man would simply ask him to chant for clarity with him. The two men would sing a cleansing chant and then purify both of their rooms before they slept.

  During their duty to Djehuti at Khmenu, the old man sat quietly as if he knew it was the last time he would know the temple as a man. A dejected expression crept over his ancient face. He “slept” often, lips trembling in his sleep as if they wanted to say something.

  The young noble implored him to release his trouble to him, but the old wizard stopped speaking of his dreams. Instead, he would lie for hours, staring at the stars grouped in the shape of Asar and his beloved sister-wife Aset, or at the circumpolar group.

  In a strange way, the very last day of his life, the elder reached out to him. As death approached, he asked for the young noble to sit with him. Djedi wanted to hold his protege’s hand, taking that touch as a final physical sensation of life when he took leave of his earthly form.

  Hordjedtef clearly remembered that night, as he sorted through the memory of it again.

  The stars had newly risen. The men sat in the wide plaza. The elder was wrapped up in soft coverlets. Djedi would have preferred the roof, but it was too risky for servants to carry the elderly man up the steps. Djedi knew it was time. Too weak to use his voice, the elder spoke only through thoughts issuing gently from his ancient form.

  You have grown strong now, dear one. Djedi’s thoughts whispered. I have been wandering far across space and time... watching, as they do, young Dede... His blackest eyes regarded the young man. I have seen much of what will be in the time after I have ascended.

  Tell me then Hordjedtef remembered asking his elder. The prince regarded the old wizard’s faint smile as he dotted on the man’s cracked and parched lips with honey and milk.

  You and I both know a little thing. Djedi almost chuckled I know what moves my heart and what quickens in yours, dear one. I will be at peace soon. He had said. What I have done will not be regretted. What I am about to do... He had stopped suddenly, grasping the young prince’s hand and placing it on the Wdjat at his throat.

  This will guide you to her and to your place in the Hall of Time. Be well and do no harm. It is important. Then he had begun to slip away. Hordjedtef took a breath and let the old man’s essence move through him one last time.

  Tonight the prince remembered his mentor’s last moment in the world of men well.

  Djedi had achieved his lifelong goal of peaceful life, wisdom, and mastery of knowledge. Even being passed over by his beloved “Children” had never truly hurt him. He had been a legendary powerhouse. In his life, Hordjedtef realized, the elder had shaped a dynasty of kings and laid the groundwork for the dynasty to follow. He had shown his king that many after him would build houses like mountains, to mirror their heavenly abodes, but those of Khufu, his son, and grandson would stand forever as monuments to knowledge more than to the god-kings who had ordered them constructed.

  It was the House of Ra, not Djehuti, which would ascend through these kings just as Djedi had predicted. Perhaps it was true, the young man thought. Ra himself, legend had predicted, would sire through the wife of a priest, three sons to rule after Khufu’s dynasty had passed into shadow. She would know of the box containing the secrets of Djehuti with the so-called emerald tablets which had been hidden long ago in the chart room at Per-A-At, away from unschooled eyes.

  Hordjedtef realized, as he felt the last thoughts of the gentle man’s spirit passing through him, that these voices of “Children” must have been the very voices who whispered to Djedi long ago that this particular woman alone would know how to open the box. The prince had lost any faith in that revelation, for a number of reasons. He assumed Queen Hetty would be the woman and he her king.

  A man from a strange land was coming...a shepherd. If this shepherd was guided by the Ntr, couldn’t these creatures just as easily tell him how to find and open it? No untutored outsider should bear the knowledge guarded by the ancestors to distant lands. Would th
e sojourner shepherd be the “No ordinary man” of legend?

  The prince felt death in his thoughts, as the old man’s last breath rattled. He sighed and broke contact. A hurt tear and another tear of unrequited rage filled his eyes and ran over his dark cheeks until he shook trying to keep his emotions in check. At the age of “One hundred and ten” Djedi lay still and lifeless. Hordjedtef grasped the shining crystal disc, carved with the eye of Heru by the hand of a god and plucked it from around his master’s silent throat.

  Take it, my good prince. Use it wisely, until she comes who is great with the sons of Ra. It can see many things. It knows me and it sees who you truly are. The parting spirit whispered. The wanderer of the Dog Star, once named Djedi, put his foot into the path of light, roaming free of his earthly form at last. He was somewhat puzzled, yet embraced by the calm whiteness of the journey. Though his heart was weighed as a good one, he did not yet attain the fullness of light he thought he had seen. He looked back toward Earth at the misfortunes of Chaos now growing stronger and he understood he would be called, somewhere in time, to set it right...to return.

  The prince nodded, reassuring his master’s departing spirit. He folded the crystal medallion secretly into a waiting linen case, unaware that it had begun to glimmer again. Looking back at that moment, the prince saw with much greater clarity, just what his master had seen.

  Marai calmed himself just enough to compare his new body with the one he remembered wearing around his heart for nearly thirty-five years. He was still “Ai-and-a-half”, but now that he stood tall instead of slumping tiredly into his belly, he seemed to have grown even a head taller than he remembered. His natural hairiness and fat belly had been toned into rich, well-muscled, medium copper skin. At first, he thought he might have waked up hairless as a child, but he soon found a mere scattering of fine silver-and-gold hair on his upper chest, arms and legs. The shepherd turned quickly to trick the image in the reflective sheet, but the reflection turned with him. Continuing the slow, still apprehensive, study of himself, he noticed his chunky, long legs and callused, knobby knees had grown into hard, godlike thighs.