Voices in Crystal

by Mary R Woldering

  Marai whirled, in a panic and looked out of Deka’s empty window. Some of the women had returned from the waterfront and were below them frying fish for their evening meal. They laughed and gossiped as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened in hours. Deka who suddenly appeared as if by magic stood looking out of the window with him. She turned to face him, smiling sleepily as if she had wakened from a dream. The straps of her dark skirt had fallen. Her breasts glistened with sweat.

  “We frightened him.” She murmured, dizzily shaking her head. “You know it’s true.” Her hair, which had somehow come undone in the back, floated airily on the rising late afternoon breeze. Once again, the veil of her cold reclusiveness lifted for just a moment. “He’s gone for now, but we will see him again. We will see all of them, Man-Sun. What you have sought...”

  In her eyes everyone was waking in the sleep pod, before the darkness that hounded her discovered she was alive. She went to her window again; faltered, and nearly slipped. Marai swept her up in his arms to keep her from dizzily falling out.

  “That light...” Marai whispered, shut-eyed and winded, himself. “What the...Djedi’s light…the amulet.” He looked around the room. Naibe-Ellit lay sprawled on his pallet as if asleep. Behind her was Ariennu, also sleeping. He looked down dizzily, realizing he no longer wore his work clothing. His loose open sleeved shirt hung open, revealing his nakedness.

  “Oh he did not...” Marai shook violently.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE GARDEN OF THE SCRUTINY

  The nearly bare, shaded alcove opened out onto a spacious and sunny plaza. A lotus-filled reflection pool designed to grace the middle of the open area, was lined with woven mats and soft, pleasant cushions which lay about on the hand-polished tiles around the edge of the pool. On one side near the edge of the water, a carved dark stone bench with clean folded linen stood ready for anyone who had taken a casual dip on a hot day. A plain, square-carved chair of polished diorite, mounted on a white dais had been placed just inside the three-sided audience room. It was late afternoon.

  Studied placement of the chair kept the old man who was seated in it out of the direct rays of the sun, but close enough to the pool so the trickling of water and hushing of any breeze could be of comfort to him. His chair was every bit like a throne and could have been mistaken for one if a matching stone block on one side, as tall as the arm rest hadn’t been there. Another low table meant for an attendant, stood in front of the throne-like chair within easy reach of the old man. Alabaster and gold cups, half-filled with exotic herbal teas, rolled sheaves of papyrus and writing linen, a writing box with reeds, lap boards and tools for measuring and calculating completed the tabletop array. More cushions stuffed at intervals behind the old man’s back and beneath him padded his bones from the hard stone of his chair. A small gong in the shape of the full moon embraced by crescent shaped bull’s horns graced a column to the right of the chair, ready to summon help whenever the old man needed it.

  Despite all of the effort servants had made to secure the ancient one’s comfort, it seemed as if he didn’t fit well in his seat. He looked like some kind of bloodless wraith tentatively appearing among the sacred figures of Djehuti and the other gods painted on the rear walls of this sun lit receiving porch.

  “You’re certain of this, Wse?” the old man drummed his fingers on the shiny black arm rest of his chair then smoothed his wrinkled hand over his plain long shendyt skirting.

  The elder often broke with tradition when he held an audience with his chief inspector. The younger man was the elder’s protégé and lifelong acquaintance. It was even said the Great One had known him since he was born and even knew of his spirit before he was conceived in his mother’s womb. He motioned for the younger priest to rise from his very quick and obligatory genuflection and to begin to speak freely.

  The priest shed his cloak, donned the medallion-styled amulet he took from it’s pouch and sat on a mat spread at the edge of the white platform in front of his mentor’s chair.

  “It is as I have said, Your Wisdom.” The priest nicknamed Wse, trembled a little from the memory of all he had seen that day as he related everything to the Wr Djehuti, or Great One of Five He could hardly contain his excitement over all he had seen that late morning and early afternoon on his journey across the river.

  “Be at ease, but be exact and strong in truth with me, a as your name dictates...it is important...” The elder priest insisted, his voice soothing. “Say again to me...The man you saw said he was the son of Marai?” the ancient quizzed, sounding almost disappointed. “Repeat your words, but do elevate your thoughts so that I may see into them as you speak them, my son. I can see they are troubling you.” The elder’s voice which had once resounded as powerfully as the blast of a ram’s horn, had weakened only slightly with age. It remained firm enough to rivet his inspector’s attention completely.

  Extending his hands, the old man gently caressed the air before him and whispered words of an utterance. Soon the younger priest perceived a golden bowl-like vessel forming in midair above the ancient hands.

  The inspector priest sighed slightly, preparing himself for the light trance his mentor expected. He concentrated on truth and reason much more deeply, sending his thoughts into that bowl shape as he spoke of his day. He closed his eyes, so he could remember all of the voices he had heard and actions taken clearly.

  “I saw a man in the East Shore Reeds market, which is called “the Poors” by the natives there. He was nearly a giant yet garbed as a plain sojourner merchant who has done moderately well. At first, I overheard him speaking the language of the Kinaahnkt, yet when I addressed him, he spoke our own tongue as if he was born to speak it.” The priest slipped out of his deeper level of concentration just long enough to see that his elder had already grown restless.

  The old man hadn’t been in the best of health since the close of the last of the Bast festivals during the first month of the Planting season. He had been coughing and had been prone to bouts of impatience as well as outright ill temper. It was thought for a while by some of his physicians that he had begun his final decline. In cantankerous rebellion of their diagnosis, he spent most of his days meditating just out of the sunlight, getting plenty of rest and sipping his own wise mixtures of curative teas in hopes of proving them wrong. He repeatedly claimed he had much more work the gods had asked him to do, but never explained what these duties were to the younger priest.

  His irritation began to show again. A giant with the gift of languages, posing as a trader was charming, but not what the old man wanted to hear from his subordinate.

  “And?” The elder prodded, his bony hands stiffening into bird talons around the roll of writing linen he’d seized. “How is it you came to cross the Asar to this market, my dear Wse? Do we not have enough men or maids for this task?” His long nose seemed to grow slender. It appeared to turn down, assuming a beak-like appearance.

  The younger priest averted his eyes. He had never seen his teacher Count Prince Hordjetef transform into an ibis so clearly when he had previously opened his thoughts to him through a trance. Wse was always awed, even though he didn’t like witnessing such feats of illusion. If wondrous Djehuti had given his great uncle the permission and gift to assume that shape, the younger priest felt it should have been employed only on the most sacred of occasions. That he did it now at his home, albeit absent-mindedly, worried his inspector.

  “Ah, I see...” The elder didn’t wait for the answer but proudly filled in the question with his own knowledge. “Was it that gossip of one of our sesh trainees some months ago? Perhaps you heard young Apedmeketep down from Buhen speaking of his adventure across the river at flood to see about the new cedar spice brought in from the Shinar? I know he came back with some fine date candy for us too!” The elder had read his inspector Wse’s thoughts quite easily but in the process, nearly roused the man from his reflective trance.

  “I sensed something in my meditations and so I went to the Eas
t Shore Reeds market by mistake,” the priest added.” I thought I was in the Little Kina-Ahna market because I heard Kina, Akkad and Shur being spoken among those in the rabble. As I was on the way to the right market, I saw a crowd gathering at some waterfront hovel. Someone called out that a demon was attacking an old woman. I went to assist, seeing no one else had arrived to help.”

  A rustle of a starched shendyt sounded near the edge of the pool. The elder’s bird form and the vessel of truth vaporized.

  Hordjedtef nodded a greeting to the wan-faced and very young servant.

  All of the old man’s beginning students served as servants in his home or in the temples for a while “to improve their humility” before the study that would make them candidates. In reality the boy, a son of one of the younger priests in the service of Djehuti had led a fairly pampered and labor-free life.

  The boy placed another cup of soothing tea at the table. This serving, he politely whispered, had been ordered by the elder’s caring countesses who always stayed out of sight during these audiences. Once the boy collected the empty vessels, he bowed and backed out of the men’s presence.

  This new dose contained all of the sedatives, restoratives and other medicines the old man had prescribed for himself. This week, in addition to fatigue, he had been battling the fever in his joints with moderate success. The medications were strong and often left him weak. That, in turn, increased his irritable nature.

  “And..?” The old priest’s mouth, oddly lip-less for a noble of the Two Lands, sipped briefly at the golden teacup given him. As soon as the boy had gone, he put it on the column and reformed the bowl-image with his free hand, urging his inspector to continue speaking.

  “I found a big man, like unto a statue of foreign Shinar god, bent over an old wretch of a woman who was at the point of her departure. Her soul was winging away to its judgment, but this man would not allow it to go. As if his will were mighty arms, he seized it and wrestled it down into her most pitiable body. Then, when he’d drawn it close enough, he opened the lotus at her heart and breathed into it. This act seemed more of instinct than of training...”

  Wse who enjoyed his affectionate nickname, even though his senior pronounced it “Oosey” instead of the proper WsR or “Wessyr” could hardly contain his excitement at this level of relaxed ecstasy. He continued contemplating the globe of dancing golden light.

  The high priest grinned. He took an almost perverse joy in peeling away the vestiges of his grand nephew’s control and sobriety during these regular truth sayings. He delighted that Wse, despite having sons who were of age and a grandchild coming soon, still had a youth’s curiosity and even lapsed into the demeanor of a wonder-filled child during these sessions.

  As Grand Inspector of the Ways, the younger priest was glad to go about in secret outside the walls. He was in excellent physical condition, having served for several years as a movement instructor. He often cloaked himself to walk about unescorted and somewhat hidden in order to see how life proceeded in the kingdom. The news of this man at the market was, while both dreaded and expected, still greatly unsettling to the elder.

  “Indeed...It is not a skill to practice lightly.” The high priest’s voice rustled like a parched palm in a hot, dry wind, as if he had grown suddenly tired. “The gods allow select few outside the highest of priests to know such an art in each generation. One in my father’s house could do it with ease...” The old man’s heavy, lined eyelids slid down until his eyes appeared to be dark slits in his bald head.

  “Yet...” He began after momentary reflection. “The son of Marai, he called himself? Examine your heart my son, be certain.” The flames of the lamp lights in the nearly airless chamber behind the men sputtered and leapt madly.

  “That is what he said at first, when he was with those poor wretches at the waterfront.” the inspector stated, concentrating on the memory while he gazed steadfasly into the vision of the bowl, allowing all other images he remembered to drop away. “But then, interestingly enough, when he drew away from those people and asked me to follow him, which I did, he introduced himself as just Marai or Marai bin Ahu.” Wse glanced up at his master, suddenly realizing his own incredible revelation. “He claimed to be the old woman’s nephew, but her own people certainly didn’t know him. One of them even tried to knife him! Yet the woman, even sun-blind and dim of thoughts, did seem to know him. He called her name as well. HR-Ah I believe.”

  Sputtering lamps often meant some kind of spiritual presence had arrived. The inspector wondered if this was the case or if he was making himself nervous over nothing. Maybe the wicks just needed trimming. “She even opened to him as one beloved. I could see the girl she had once been rising up at his touch!” Wse played that scene at the waterfront again in his memory. He stared into the dancing flames as they pumped a stream of spiraling, but fragrant black smoke into the back of his elder’s receiving area.

  “You will remember... that of the thousand things on which we have discoursed, I spoke to you of a race of the Ta Ntr who came to our world from the stars?” the old man cleared his throat a little in some exasperation, realizing that the evening meal would be delayed because of this audience. “They are but the remnants of the race of gods who walked with us in the ‘First Time’. They now return intending to seize the things the gods left for us as our legacy. They wish to take them back into their realm, regain their strength and perhaps conquer us from their far-off world.” The elder sighed almost mournfully. “Marai is the name of the scion of that race. I am certain this the same man. With my own teacher, the god Wise Djedi, I saw him and tracked his spirit since I was little more than a boy. I think that you have brought me most excellent news.” The sallow, deep olive skinned head paused in its speech, enlivened as much by the tea as by the tale his assistant had brought him.

  “But, Dede, the man I saw was robust and about my age.” Wse leapt up in desperation, seizing the wick nippers from the tall table beside the old man. He snipped the madly dancing flames in each of the four lamps behind his teacher.

  “Is he then, an immortal as the gods themselves are?” The priest’s voice trailed. He hoped his uncle didn’t notice he’d spoken the nickname “Dede”. He never knew why, but only the countesses could address him by that name. “I didn’t sense the expansive wisdom of one in Earth for so many years.” He returned the nippers to the high column and sat politely on the mat before his elder again.

  Luckily, the old man had continued in his musing. He gave no indication he had heard his assistant.

  “I had hoped such a scourge of a man might have died.” Hordjedtef sighed. “Still, there’s another way to tell.” He finished the draught of tea and daintily bent forward to set the cup on the lower table.

  Wse, the inspector, took the cup from him, and set it down.

  The old man re-formed the bowl-vision one more time.

  “Tell me of his three faded ka-t...the women who are of no value. Did he have them with him, or did the mists of time succeed in claiming them?”

  Wse shuddered, visibly stunned.

  The old man knows. But how much does he know? He shut his eyes and clapped one hand over his mouth, starting to close his thoughts.

  “No, no, no, no, No!” The elder clucked “Do not close yourself to me, my sweet.”

  The younger priest relaxed with a defeated sigh. The old man could still peel him like an onion. And yes, the man of whom they were speaking probably was the legendary eastern evil who had crossed the sand and was rumored to have broken the spirit of the great Djedi so many years ago.

  Had he come looking for the Great One to challenge him now that he had grown too old to be a worthy opponent? None of it made a bit of sense. The hostility his great uncle exuded was irrational for one of such deep and wise study. The great man had seen so many things in his life, both good and horrific that it was unseemly for him to react so strongly unless there was some serious danger. The man had outlived three kings and served under four, but never..
.Perhaps it was the medication, the inspector thought.

  “There were three women with him, yes, but not worthless ka’t, as you have said.” the priest began his answer. “Each was a beauty beyond compare. And this Marai said they were his wives...not flesh he was using. One of them danced for me.” The younger priest remembered how he had been thinking of stopping at his home to surprise his wife this afternoon, but knew he needed to see his uncle about the sojourners first.

  Perhaps Khentie and I can still go down to our inner lake for a swim if it isn’t yet dark when I come home. he thought. He knew he needed to hurry his elder teacher so the man would dismiss him for the day.

  “There was an elder woman who most certainly had been a thief in part of her life. She was still ripe and comely despite her years.” He remembered the woman could have stolen the Eye of Truth if she had really wanted to do so. He hadn’t caught her. He had been caught by her because he had seen his lovely mother in her eyes. “and a wonderful Ta-Seti woman who had the look of a goddess.” He lowered his eyes, deciding not to keep the next thing from the old man’s probing after all.” The youngest one, a Shinar and a very accomplished dancer called up some tempting energy, but I was able to turn her sorcery over and keep my wits. I left them with a surprise, as a parting gift.”

  “Did you?” The ancient eyes twinkled. “How excellent...” The old man pointed to another cup he could not quite reach. The inspector Wse boosted himself forward to reach it for the old man who sipped it quickly, now that it was cooler.

  “I see through your memory that the young one was born on a temple floor and rejected from their arts. That man Marai most certainly asked her to come tempt you!” The elder dismissed his protege’s enthusiasm...“But you saw through their tricks and traps. You are to be praised you did not foam at the mouth over her! Her kind of sorcery can be quite imposing!” A rattling sound issued from the bony old chest which merged into a slight cough.