Opener of the Sky

by Mary R Woldering

  “Lies the problem…” Djerah finished the big man’s sentence. “Well, if they are with Prince Maatkare…” he sipped his beer. “I can’t think they are doing as well as you imagine by this time. I saw the way he treated the women he took… like prisoners if they opposed him on anything or tried to deny him their bodies.”

  Marai tensed, but took a deep, silent breath.

  If they are truly suffering, if the Children are lying… he shook his head because the Children doing that to keep him from roaring in mad bull shape throughout all of Ta-Seti to mete out justice made too much sense.

  “He’s definitely the one I served under when I was a boy. You want to stay on his good side, though. He’s the best I’ve ever seen in bow, mace, spear, and grappling, excellent in strategy too, but if he gets angry he will kill without guilt and not always quickly.” The stonecutter looked around, then leaned forward to whisper: “There’s no point to any of this, really. The hour he knows you are coming with be their last and likely ours unless the king is sending his own troops to help us and plans to sneak up and get the ladies before the prince learns of it. He won’t go up against the king.”

  Marai’s shoulders sagged. He left the stone Djerah had touched, put the seven remaining stones back in the little bag, and finished his food. When Djerah offered him the moon colored one he held up his hand to deny it and then closed the young man’s hand around it.

  “Just for tonight, keep this one and see if it speaks to you some more.” Marai wagged his head in dismay. “I’m too close to this. I can’t hear about them or feel their energy without everything in my eyes turning red. I have to stop, before I send a devil in a shadow after him,” Marai’s face twisted. “I haven’t seen it. The Children won’t let me see it, or let my ladies have hope that I’m alive, but I feel pain and sorrow from three stars, each a different kind of suffering. He’s not killing them – he’s forcing them to live.

  After a moment’s more thought he added: “Maybe you’ll be able to hear their voices for me, but not feel what I am feeling. Houra could do that with me long ago and her blood is in you,” the big man got up and tied the bag of stones to his belt.

  “I’m already too cross to sleep. I need to walk for a bit. You’ll be safe from lurkers with the stone in your hand, so don’t lose sleep listening for trouble.” Marai sauntered down the hillock, into the grass, and over to the gathering of locals.

  Lights were being placed around. Because Menkaure had been known to drink and celebrate to excess when he was alive, men and women were drinking and creeping off into the reeds in his honor.

  Djerah watched the big man walk away, then looked at the glimmering little stone. He turned it over and over again, marveling at its ability to change form from crescent to round, just like the moon. The weight of everything he had learned during the meal suddenly descended on him and he yawned.

  I still think this is the journey of fools, he thought. Gods? Or some god beyond the sky? Not ready to die for one I know nothing about, crystal children or not. I’m sorry about his women, but he should have thought of that before he went to the priests. At least my Raawa and her sisters will be cared for, Djerah lay back looking at the dim light glimmer in the stone. So he is letting me hold this to see if it speaks? Why would he really do that? The young man tucked the stone into his own sack of trade rings in the basket, but hesitated, thinking he heard something.

  Djerah

  Be aware

  Be for Marai

  Like a son.

  Learn from him.

  “Huh?” the stone-maker grabbed the stone and stared at it. As he did, a sedateness filled him. He lay back and slept.

  CHAPTER 11: DREAM SPACE

  “You’re trembling. Why?” Deka heard Prince Maatkare whisper gently into the side of her face, just in front of her ear so that she felt his breath waft over it. On any other night, being so close to him made her grow faint in ecstasy. Tonight, she shook uncontrollably and tears welled in her eyes.

  “You were wonderful, Nefira, pure fire and frost in the water,” he punctuated his words with nibbles and evil little kisses. “See when you obey me, how good I can be to you? See how you crave this; so much it makes you shake?”

  “Oh…” Deka felt the word escape her throat. She remembered everything that had happened after he took her from Naibe and Ari’s room. The only thing she had wanted was to be held; to be engulfed by him, but so much more had happened. She trembled as his mouth closed on hers, his tongue tracing the inside of her upper lip. He had teased and tormented her earlier, but she knew better than to cry out or beg for him even if her heart was about to burst and her womb ached for the need of him inside her. He always stopped before he allowed her release, to reflect on her pleasure, build it, and then watch her writhe in sweet torment.

  I would drink your joy of me like finest wine, just a sip at a time, he had once explained, but at some point she noticed that he never lost control of his acts, even in the heat of sexual fervor. Everything about him was technique of pleasure and pain in measured amounts, but always restrained by self-control.

  “Take me, beloved, please” she always whispered again and again. “Make me… fly so high…”

  He paused, snickered, and teased some more.

  Tonight is different, she gasped. Something of the spirit like… Ta-te and I had done so long ago. The way I had wanted when I woke with Marai, but he didn’t understand what I needed. Is this Ta-te’s spirit come into my Raem? At last?

  Everything tonight had been frighteningly erotic.

  After almost a month on the boats, we’re in someone’s palace. He told me the prince here and his family fled due to some sign in the heavens? I don’t understand. Something is strange about this place and Raem knows it. Wise MaMa and Brown Eyes knew it too. It’s why we couldn’t be together while I dressed. The moment we came here I felt it in that little wind. I truly felt something like the earth dropping beneath my feet when we walked across the mats in the open court. It was as if this place said to me: “I have looked for you, my long lost one.” Deka thought of the passage of time between everyone’s arrival and this moment after the bath. Something had danced around in her thoughts while she and the prince ate their supper and again when they had bathed. Whatever it was became particularly dark and needy when she had been gently drizzling warm milky water and oil over him, then followed by gently caressing and kissing him. She remembered his hands coming up out of the water as if he sensed the darkness too. He had even gestured a protective spell.

  It calls us tonight, Deka Nefira, does it not? he had seized her slim dark hand, licking the palm of it then looking up into her eyes. She had noticed the hot yellow-green glimmer in his eyes and the ever so slight elongation of his teeth. “I know you feel it too.” He whispered “Don’t deny that you do.”

  “It’s something here. A memory…” she had sighed, but couldn’t avoid the vision of herself as a young girl, barely grown into her breasts and dancing in a flowing red skirt on a large pattern etched in stone. Red. The same color of the cloth I saw on some of the men. This place. Could this be the place? Is it where Ta-te ruled? Is it where I first came to be?

  “Yes. I know. It lurks. But there is something new here that never has been here before… And that would be me. If there’s a spirit taunting us, it will have to overtake me first.” his voice chanted nonchalantly. He had moved to the edge of the bath, hoisted himself up, then lifted her and draped a warm absorbent cloak around her shoulders. In a way, it felt like a kind of royal robe. That was when her trembling started, because those words were the ones she’d heard the Children of Stone say:

  There is something new here that never has been here before

  “What am I to you, beloved?” she asked, trying to get the thoughts and memories to leave her alone. “You give me honors above the others, and yet are still cold to me when we touch?”

  His eyes had glimmered again, but he patted her arm quietly. At that point he had not answe
red her but rose to get something from the box of goods one of his men brought in. It contained two pots of cosmetic. He painted her eyes a shade of gold dust, refreshed the kohl on both of their eyes, and painted her lips a darker shade of red.

  He teases me again. Now, because I asked, he will deny me, she thought but then watched as he brought out the crystal Eye of Truth she had taken from Ariennu’s basket the night of the Sending Forth party.

  “I know you float this on the water to see a far distance. My grandfather spoke of that to me before your red sister took it from my cousin. I told you I wanted it and you brought it to me; all by design,” his eyes fluttered almost in shy reverence.

  Long eyelashes, she thought, distracted, but he continued.

  “Tonight we have a chance to see what it will show us,” Maatkare pressed her gently and handed it to her. As she took the disc, she noticed the rainbow effect on its cut edge. The lamplight in the bathing area found the prism and illuminated it. The central or ‘eye’ portion clouded as if it was instantly crowded with too many images. Deka placed it on the water, half expecting it to sink, but the slight cupped shape held it above the water.

  How does it float? It’s too heavy to float, she watched the central eye with the prince as the images began to clear. Against the dark evening background, they both saw Inspector Wserkaf sitting near what she assumed was his own pool. She watched quietly while Maatkare taunted him about the ‘eye’, but wasn’t listening. Outside the room in the night sky, something was still watching her.

  She shook harder. Stop this feeling, she thought to herself. He’ll notice, she suffered, fighting the tears. Darkness looking up at me, too, not just down. It’s not the priest, she wept. I hear Raem calling it tears of joy. Good. Let him think he causes my weeping. It’s Marai, I know it now. His spirit is searching for me. It so much feels like the force I remember that day when he went up against N’ahab-atal and his men… he wasn’t the meek shepherd or the jolly merchant then… Did he have to die to unleash Ta-te inside him? I feel the shape of the dark moving upon me, choking me. Was I wrong to think it was not he and go to Maatkare? It drives me mad… I so much need Raem like a drug to quench the fever in me.

  She heard him curse lightly about a spirit and laugh as she felt a burning crackle of energy leave him. His eyes rolled slightly back. Something red had come forth and had danced through the ‘eye’ in the water.

  “There… Nefira, the spirit of the dead who cannot find his portals and wanders in the grey, forbidden plane. His cursed soul has come to stand beside my cousin, but I sent him a message. He will not haunt you or the Lady Naibe any longer. I’ve seen to it.”

  “Marai? Was it Marai you saw? It felt different…” Deka protested.

  “Your sojourner ghost or whoever… is blocked from here. He knows I can make him suffer if he tries again,” the prince looked away. For a moment Deka glanced at the floating crystal, then gasped. Something without a face but with the glowing eyes of a storm was looking back and beckoning to her. It spoke in a language from her memory and rushed through her soul, but sounded like Marai’s voice.

  You have returned to the land of your birth;

  The land of your undoing.

  It is good.

  Soon, very soon

  All will be made clear to you.

  The one provided for you, suits you.

  Use him well,

  Teach him.

  “Raem, best beloved,” Deka began, still trembling. “I beg for you…” she crawled forward to him as he took the crystal out of the water and put it away.

  “So now you are safe. I should take power over it though; make it do my bidding, make it scare you when you get too proud. I love to see you crawl to me like this,” he looked over his shoulder, a smirk of cryptic delight spreading over his face.

  Deka sat on her heels with her head bowed, waiting for him to take her hand and pull her to the room on the other side of the pool area where they would rest.

  Use him well, the voice said. Provided for me? By whom? Ta-Te? Are you here in this place? If you are just a spirit, be my Raem and walk on Earth once more. My heart is broken with this longing, Deka’s thoughts whispered back, imagining the immense darkness and power in his surrounding arms. The answer surprised her.

  You knew my touch

  When you were found by the shepherd,

  Yet you would not teach

  Because you were proud.

  Now that you serve this one,

  Your pride has died.

  Teach him, instead.

  It is too late to teach the other one.

  I am here within soul, within skin.

  Know me.

  Deka felt Maatkare’s arms close around her and she reveled in the feeling of his lips as he helped her stand and moved with her toward the room that had been prepared for them.

  Marai sat on the ground at the edge of the hushed revelry near the water’s edge. Someone in the small group of men and women who were looking across the river at the lights handed him a flask of bitter beer. He drank a very small amount “out of respect for the passing of the Great King”, then approached the people, making sure he had obscured his appearance. When anyone in the gathering looked at him they saw nothing but a big, fairly plain Kemet native. After a while, some of the youths sauntered closer to see if they knew him. When he mentioned the name Djerah, they nodded that they had seen him earlier and let him sit with them. A woman came by, placed her hand on his shoulder, and smiled down at him. He thought about trailing after her for a few moments of diversion, but then:

  Ariennu worked men at a campfire before I knew her, he shook his head and patted the woman’s hand. I lost her. I lost all of them. I have to get them back, Djerah or not, no distractions. I can’t spend half a season walking either. I need a boat… and a dream to make it go faster than possible. Maybe I could just tell Djerah to forget about this and then fly or relocate myself so I would just be there. No, there’s some reason why Djerah must go, too.

  He scooted back a little bit from the gathering around the fire pit and bowed his head, seeking answers of the stone in his brow. He patted the seven in the bag at his belt, thinking, talk to me.

  At first, the feeling seemed too strong. Marai thought he was drowsy or dizzy, and wondered if the effects of the Sweet Horizon concoction from the temple still lingered. His spirit drew backward, up and out of his seated form. Will someone notice? Will someone speak to me and not get a response? Will the illusion of how I look fade? Maybe I should get back to my shelter, Djerah’s asleep.

  Go.

  Allow.

  All is watched

  You shall return in the blink of an eye,

  But wiser.

  Marai felt the world move away from him and only the roar of something like a storm enclose him. The chorus of the voices of the Children echoed gently through his entire frame. He suddenly knew his Child Stone had sent him backward in time. He saw himself, as if he was flying separately from the events, then coming down to the celebration moments ago. Then he was talking with Djerah and handing him the small stone.

  Was this the right thing to do? Should I even be taking this young man of such a fool’s errand just to keep him blind to the truth in his family for a few more days?

  It was a choice at the appointed time, foreseen.

  Your son of heart is one.

  Treat him with kindness.

  Spare his life.

  Guide his hand.

  He walks into a greater destiny.

  Remember that you were once a shepherd.

  With only a song to ease your sorrow.

  So it wasn’t just me taking pity on him, or that he is Houra’s great-grandson and my only link to the ancestors, Marai thought as his spirit soared back into courtyard at Little Kina Ahna when he saw the red imp with green eyes the prince had sent through the ether to contain him. The negative energy tingled about him as evilly as it had when he first felt it. Wserkaf defended again, just as before,
and Deka wept quietly somewhere, lost in this sorcerer-prince’s arms.

  How much of this do you know, anyway? Is there anything I do that is not part of the original plan? Marai saw himself transforming into the raging bull at the thought of the women having been stolen from him while he lay as if dead. As he drew near, his spirit swept through the image, became part of it, felt all of the rage and anguish and then pulled away again, spinning head over heels through a brilliant void. The motion of his body formed the prismatic shell that encompassed him. He remembered it from the moments he lay dying in the black and buried stone box.

  Remember the sesen.

  Its petals of pink, white and blue

  Rise above the water in their fragrance.

  Each petal…

  The voice began to crackle and fade as if something external was distorting it. Marai remembered the lesson. It was spoken to him once as he lay in the shining and iridescent pod on the Children’s vessel buried in the sand. Or was it Hordjedtef who said it? he wondered as he tumbled through the old man’s courtyard and sat once more at his feet absorbing knowledge of the great mysteries and unlocking the information from the Child Stone in his brow. The elder looked up briefly, as if he noticed Marai tumbling backward in time, and smiled. The red spark glimmered in his slit-like bird eyes. His hands rose quietly in a gesture of self-protection.

  “Oh but you have no idea of the high winds of fate that are blowing even as we discourse one man to another do you?” he had said. Marai remembered him saying those words and that they had puzzled him.

  He had thought the Great One was insulting him about his humble background as he usually did several times in each session. They had been speaking of choices in life. Marai had whispered that a person’s life is like the lotus, patterned as the Flower of Life. One chose a petal by actions or by thought and stepped out onto it. Each step one took re-arranged the possibilities not only of his own life, but of the lives of all others in space and time. Once chosen, all other petals fell away and new ones grew along the path.