Perhaps he had misinterpreted the vision because the beer and the dance had befuddled his wits. Perhaps the older woman was a deceptively skilled oracle in hiding. If that was so, it would have been possible for her to create the illusion drawn from his own thoughts.
His mother had been the protectress of the numbers, but she had taken much of her knowledge into the West with her when she died. If what Hordjedtef said was true, she should have been the herald of those seeking the sojourner’s destruction. She would not have whispered to him to be careful of those who would deceive him for their own purposes.
He began to understand. His mother had been warning him about the old man, not about Marai. It meant that the elder Great One was actually the outsider, because his heart was no longer pure enough to match his learning and his wisdom.
Hordjedtef craned up in his chair, trying to pierce his protege’s back with a stare that would make his skin prickle and cause him to turn around. He knew the younger priest had stumbled upon a truth much deeper than even he himself knew. He impatiently rang for the young acolyte again.
Wse turned as his elder beckoned for him.
In a brief, unguarded moment, the priest sighed as the younger man came back to him.
“Sometimes I feel you ought never bow to me, my precious light.” Hordjedtef took his inspector’s hand in his own and looked up at him. “Here is what my studies have revealed...my sweetest friend...” The old priest sighed, suddenly appearing even older. “I think the location of these works of knowledge was promised to us and that the all-knowing Djehuti told my master where they were and who might be allowed to open this chamber where the secrets are. He knew all of his life that his own knowledge was incomplete, and that our sister Redji would open it for us. But it didn’t happen that way, did it?” the old man’s face softened. Your legacy as her son says you, of all men, should know what the gods intended.
Wse had never heard Hordjedtef use his mother’s nickname, Redji, instead of The Holy Prophet Neferhetepes, Mistress of the Sycamore, her official birth name and title. He stopped, about to turn, but the elder continued.
“It might be that the missing part of the secret ways and numbers was not as predicted.” Hordjedtef continued. “Have you ever considered that? Perhaps your dear mother knew that as well and thus continued her secret, protecting it in her own realm.” The elder priest’s face took on a new placidity. His voice regained the sweetness Wse had always known.
“The far-off worlders are keenly aware of our stories and they are playing with them like senet pieces. That is the rule of order they violate...There is, in the Akkad tale I mentioned before, the not so small matter of Innana’s, or as this sojourner styles her, “Ashera’s” boat of the moon going up to capture the 100 tablets of all wisdom from the god Enki...” Hordjedtef raised his hands gently. He took both of Wse’s hands in his own, whispering a little incantation of peace and stillness.
Wse felt the relaxing influence of peace and balminess on a quiet early season morning assail him like a gentle wind, but the anxiety he felt was almost too great. The elder. satisfied his assistants torment was lessened, went on speaking.
“They have already beguiled this Marai into presuming they were of the Akkad Great One, Inanna herself. My great and wronged master told me he had seen the place they kept the scrolls, and of how it was such a wondrous piece of work designed to look like a star that had fallen from the sky. This Marai was taken there in the flesh rather than in spirit, as he had been taken, but like the uneducated brute he is, this shepherd could not read the scrolls. At present, the man is a conduit. He has the keys in his heart and the life essences of our friends in crystalline form stored in a pretty box he carries, but no wit to use them. Enlightened...” A haunted expression filled the old man’s face.
Wse was taken aback. The elder had never seemed this concerned about things of prophecy or state affairs even though he stayed close to and unofficially advised the king as if he were a substitute and self-proclaimed vizier. The inspector also knew that nothing ever happened by chance in royal life. Births, naming of children, their friendships, associations and marriage contracts were always pre-ordained by observations of the heavens and shaped for the ultimate benefit of the Two Lands.
If the scrolls had been intended for the Lords of Kemet, then so far no one, not even Djedi had been able to read them. That must have been what had truly destroyed the great old seer–that he was the wisest of men, but still ignorant of the truths hidden by the Ntr.. It wasn’t that either Djedi or Hordjedtef had been overlooked, the inspector mused. It must have been that the secrets weren’t to be learned by either of these men in the first place. Hordjedtef didn’t have to tell him that. If one learned to read the secrets, one would automatically have mastery over life and death. For such a person, even the talent of becoming ever young would not be considered a particularly special gift.
Vengeance, however, was not the way of Djehuti. Other deities quibbled and quarreled, but not the Lord of Time and Knowledge. One might, instead, accept this merchant and hapless conduit into trust. Then one could discover the secrets locked in his innocent heart quite peacefully. The inspector had fled to the priesthood of Djehuti to escape the politics and manipulations in the cult of Ra. Now the high priests plaza felt as desperately dark and oppressive as his unguarded moments in the ritual of the Chamber of Chaos. The inspector was beginning to wonder if his flight to the cult of Djehuti had been his own idea after all, or was it part of some greater design? Was there no escape from some arcane and predicted destiny?
A starched garment rasped about the legs of the grim-faced and somewhat tardy boy. He entered to fill the lamps, eyeing the already snipped wicks. A servant followed, bringing more tea and plumping up the pillows behind the old man. His countesses were preparing to join the two men for supper.
At this point, Wse realized, it would be rude for him to go home.
“Your thoughts are growing loud, my beloved Wse,” The elder spoke, his eyes twinkling merrily, as if some evil imp thrived inside him. He almost delighted that the inspector felt an ever darkening plot.
“Remember, I saw my stout and hearty master become a changed and frail man in his grief over how these strange and wondrous creatures had betrayed him. He only did what was necessary to keep the secrets, yet released his hold on life in payment for it.”
“What did he do?” Wse questioned, settling again on the mat and extending his hands and feet so the youths could wash them. He whispered to the boys that someone ought to send word to his own household that he would be taking his evening meal here, rather than leave his wife expecting him.
Hordjedtef motioned for the lingering acolyte of the healing arts and the servant to leave. As soon as one went to the inspector’s household, the other signalled the high priests’s wives, to join him for the evening meal. Always gracious, he quietly thanked them for their tea and care an gave them permission to retire for the evening.
“You asked what my teacher did? Just what you told me you employed this very day when you met with them across the Asar, but on a much grander scale. This Marai was given confusion of the spirit and motive. He still believes we are honor-bound to assist him and he’s consumed by a passion to seek us out, even though his brighter soul has told him to fade back into the sand with his women, start a pretty little tribe, grow a peaceful nation and forget about it. He is still very scattered in spirit. His inner disquiet makes him only able to use randomly and by chance any of the gifts given him by the Ta-Ntr. Ultimately, it’s a matter of time before he destroys himself and all in his embrace.” The thin bone-fingers drummed the dark table, exasperated that his inspector was feeling the need to question him at all.
“Then why not let him alone so that, like a badly attended lamp, he burns himself out.” Wse suggested.
“The gods smile on your mercy, my son, and sweetly sing to me why your feet have found this path...” He chortled.
It was a mild insult, more typica
l of the elder’s brash young grandson the esteemed general, Prince Maatkare Raemkai than the old man himself. It implied that Wse was perhaps too gentle for any path but deep study. Political ascent and the arts of war, the elder implied, might be best left to others given the flawed nature of prophecy.
“As you have seen this very afternoon...” The elder indicated the lamps Wse had trimmed earlier. “Badly attended lamps can also smoke up the house and cause misery before they are stopped.” He sighed, his cough evolving into a growling little wheeze.
Wse freed the old man of his sandals and firmly massaged the ball of each foot until Hordjedtef’s chest cleared and he could speak again.
“He is the lamp, and so he will come for trimming. He will ask for illumination, and we will open him. If those of the Ta-Ntr saw fit to prepare him, he will live. There is no ill weight to throw the feather of truth for letting the off worlder’s bravado and impertinence in using him, make for their destruction through him. I suspect their bold experiment may well fail. It has to...I owe at least this much to our way of life.”
The younger priest of Djehuti felt cheapened. Hordjedtef was his great uncle, his senior and his teacher, but for the first time, Wse felt he could not respect the old man. He felt the mystic tug of his name “Strength”. His teacher was willing to send this man who seemed entirely benevolent to almost certain death. If the man didn’t die, total madness in the various chamber rituals would likely follow. Hordjedtef hadn’t met this man. He was judging him based on other Akkad peasants he had observed in his travels and working in the fields. His mother’s spirit had been right to ask him to be careful.
The strange sojourner might turn out to be helpless in the face of this treachery, but what was this foreigner, to the spirit of his mother? Wse felt a touch of guilt that he had opened himself to somehow assisting in the probable ruin of the sojourners.
Great Djehuti intended knowledge for all who wished to seek it. Knowledge was never to be restricted to a particular clan, race, or nation. I It was not a thing to be jealously guarded from the masses of the unwashed, either. One inquired and learned, each to his or her needs and abilities. And what if this Marai came out of the chamber alive and sane? What would happen then? Would he, fully wise and aware sink humbly back into the sand from whence he came?
Sensing his inspector’s doubt, the old man cautioned him.
“Remember, we have spoken of honor binding, and that you are sworn bound to Djehuti primarily. As a priest you serve all of our gods, but your focus is to be on the guardianship of knowledge. I sense your disquiet.” Hordjedtef’s gaze was as riveting as a lightning strike. “Now...my sweet Wse, are you with me on this to the end?” The dark-jellylike wells of the ancient eyes glistened like ailing bird eyes. The frail hand extended once more.
Wse envisioned those sweet women’s faces, and the face of the merchant becoming radiant as the sun. The image grew eclipsed by Djehuti the moon, in the shape of the dog-faced baboon, who suddenly snarled like an evil headwind of the east. For the first time, Wse wondered if it was really Djehuti his master served, or something chaotic and dark; an unknowable Apep. If Marai and the others had come to rout that, who were they really? Enki and Inanna or Enlil or...
Something very wrong was going on, he knew, and his mother had come into his thoughts, so he might stop what he had helped start. Reluctantly the priest pressed his elder’s wrinkled hand in his.
“Damn...” Marai tried to shake the dizziness out of his head again. “Deka? What?” He turned to face the woman who was frozen but suddenly popping from his side to her seat in the window. She looked back into the room, but eyes weren’t seeing anything. Everything in Marai’s vision began to swim, blur and become edged with faceted parts of a crystal. Rainbow colored flashes edged everything he saw.
As he stumbled to his knees, he knew something had happened to the Child Stone in his forehead. Whatever it was affected his vision and his ability to stand upright. The stone stung and writhed under his skin like a struggling bug as he tried to re-adjust the sensations pouring through his thoughts.
The priest... Marai grunted, turning back again, squeezing his eyes open and shut. That flash of light...He flipped the damned thing over...He cast an utterance… after our kindness? Our respect for him? Won’t have me for long. It can’t. He tried to get up again but couldn’t find his legs. Finding a space at the corner of the window edge beside the spot where Deka now sat, he set his fists and forearms on it and pushed against it with a grunting roar. That dirty little...What did he do to me..? His head cleared a little. Buzzy, tense, and frightened gibberish filled his brow as if the children were trying to re-establish their word-thought-link with him but had temporarily forgotten his language. Then:
He knows
He knows not
This one knows
This one knows not…
The struggling voices inside his thoughts whispered lightly.
Deka’s eyes were open wide. Her lips parted in a little keen balanced between shock, horror and a bizarre sort of delight.
“Unnhhh…” She tried again, as if she had become mute once again from some unknown terror. “Unnhhh…” Her voice grew louder and into a higher pitched wail. The tight fleece of her curls spread out like rays of a black sun shining behind her glistening and wet, naked upper body. She pitched forward out of the window and into the room again. Scrambling on all fours like an animal new to the enchantment a human form, she fought her way to Naibe-Ellit. Naibe lay sprawled on Marai’s pallet with her arms flung wide. The dark woman lay her head on Naibe’s chest for a moment then crept her fingers up to the young woman’s silent mouth. Sitting back on her heels, she reached up for Marai, who finally stopped staggering and bent on one knee by the three women.
Marai struggled to break free of an unseen force and confusion that held him in place. He watched Deka stroke the younger woman’s damp hair and brow.
Something’s wrong. He looked into Deka’s well-like eyes when he felt her trembling beside him, vibrant and alive, but exhausted. Something...Something about her reminded him of the way she had come to him when they woke on the Children of Stone’s vessel. Did you come to me, woman? Did we…? He shrugged and gasped dizzily, feeling heat flash down his chest and through his belly, as if his heart had burst. I should remember. This afternoon is… Deka? Deka talk to me! His thoughts shrieked in the horror at the thought that time had been mercilessly stolen again. Five years...Fifty years How long has time been bent around us now? Has the world ended? Djehuti! Lord of time elusive...What?! The priest wields power over our time?
Naibe-Ellit had certainly wanted him with an eagerness that outdid her usual desire this afternoon. He felt that during her dance demonstration and laughingly sent the thought to her that he was about to lay her down in front of their esteemed guest if she didn’t calm herself down a bit. She had danced to torment the priest into letting down his guard and she had been deliberately provocative by feeding erotic energy into the poor man’s soul.
Out of self-protection, the priest made an exit and used the amulet Marai remembered from his visions of Djedi. When he flipped the amulet over and the light from it flashed in their eyes, everything in the room lost edge and focus. Now Naibe lay collapsed and crumpled.
Marai knelt by her, even though his head still swam.
Ariennu’s face popped up from the mat beside Naibe. Her mouth was open wide and eyes just as deranged as Deka’s eyes. Mad laughter rose from her chest and her hands, bent like claws, gestured madly. She, too, had forgotten how to speak. Her lips allowed sounds after a moment, but her words were the same as the words of the children.
“Not see…not see…” Her eyes were pressing shut. “No…A secret…Cannot know… Cannot know…” She chattered, glancing right and left several times like a madwoman jumping at shadows.
“Ari...Did we...” Marai attempted, words finally coming. “Did we...”
She fell forward, hooting like a jackal.
Drunk? he wondered, then sensed she was experiencing the same horrid dizziness he had felt combined with her own expression of terror. Laughter, or a screech in triumph, just when she felt most helpless was her usual response. She shook her head and forced herself to sit up.
“Deka?”
Ariennu couldn’t stop shaking as she tried to speak. The elder woman’s rage at the Ta-Seti woman emerged in a squeak. She couldn’t even bring up her usual torrent of cursing and name calling. “You did this to us…Why, Deka Why?” She pointed at the woman sitting at Naibe’s pallet, as if accusing. “Why? You filthy …green stink-pus-filled-kuna…you…you…kill you...” she half growled and wailed and would have jumped the woman if she had been able to move.
“Deka?” Marai repeated, “What’s going on? You do this?”
The woman didn’t answer. Tears streaked Deka’s cheeks and winded little sobs began to shake her dark, rigid shoulders. She held Naibe-Ellit’s pale, still hand, pressing the knuckles of it to her trembling lips for a second. Then...
“Deka! No!” Marai shouted, knowing something was terribly wrong. He seized her bare shoulders and shook her until she exploded into loud sobs.
The instant before he seized her, he saw a flash of a different Deka–some kind of black cat serpent fiend crouching to suck blood from the woman’s fingers…to begin sneakily draining her life.
Marai flung the woman across Naibe’s feet and lowered his head to the younger woman’s clammy, pale chest. He lifted her limp form his fingertips rested at her slightly gaping mouth. For a long time he listened and sensed.
Voices in Crystal Page 39
