Opener of the Sky

by Mary R Woldering

  It felt different than the female spirit of a moment ago.

  Means something to me now. I guess I had to set her aside. Deka did need to come here. This is her place to do the work of the Children. Different journey, as she told me over and over. And Akaru is right. He did see something in the stars, I’ll bet, if stars ever predict anything at all.

  The sojourner began to drift into a dream. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the stand of trees where he sheltered from the sun had grown lush and green, as rich in vegetation as the room in the Children’s vessel where they had brought him food when he was first transformed. The boughs of a great tree trailed down around him and dipped into gurgling water of a shaded pool.

  Peace. I will have peace here, he thought, wondering if this truly was the place he had seen in a different time, or if it was another reality. We’ll be together, Naibe, his own voice spoke as if it was a Child Stone voice inside his heart. It repeated a few times in fading harmonies, then quieted as he slept. After a while, a dream like a vision formed for him.

  Naibe-Ellit slept with Deka. In a different, spacious tent, Ariennu dutifully oiled the prince’s back and shoulders. She whispered to him of his greatness… of how she knew she must wear a blindfold because his brilliance forbade her to look on him. She begged to touch his body, to service its needs, repeating again and again that she was a dirty kuna and not worthy of him. The man laughed a little, said filthy things to her, seized her, threw her on her belly, and took her like a mad dog. It was an act. She told him a long time ago that she learned wealthy men often liked to dominate women and show power, so she had become good at such games. It lulled them into trusting. That done, she could easily rob them after they lay snoring off a “good one”. Odd, he thought as he observed, it doesn’t feel like an act when I see her do it. Wonder if she is working him, after all, or is he ruling her? This is too real, not heat-inspiring. This is ugly.

  Ariennu. I will be there. I am so close by. I will come to you soon, he whispered into her thoughts, but didn’t think she heard him.

  Trees surrounded him again. It was the present time in the arid and brown grassland. He roused himself, then focused on movement in the distance.

  A lion? he tensed, because he was certain he had sensed something stalking him in the grass. His hand found and tightened on the knife in his belt, hoping he didn’t have to wrestle with a rogue beast. He knew he would win a fight if there was one, but he would likely be scarred and forced to delay his charge into the wilderness to get his wives while he healed himself. He crouched and grew still, obscuring his presence. If the lion came closer and found his scent, it would not be able to see him.

  The tall grass rustled closer. Birds fluttered up, startled.

  “Marai?” a voice called. “Are you over here in these trees?”

  Akaru, Marai thought, then returned silently. Be careful, I thought I saw a lion.

  “Oh. You are here,” the elder man called back. “There’s no lion. Remember what you were told of me by legend? If there was a lion, I would know it. Your heightened awareness just showed you the spirit of one near me,” the elder marched steadily through the grass right in the area where Marai was certain he had seen the animal a moment ago.

  The sojourner squinted and rubbed his eyes.

  I know what I saw, he thought. That was no spirit; that was a shape change.

  “Do remember, not everything is as it seems,” the old man quipped. “Are your thoughts clearing any about what you plan to do?” he asked, hands clasped and his body inclined slightly forward.

  Marai motioned for him to sit and extended his hand.

  “Oh, I suppose I can sit.” the elder let the sojourner help him to the ground.

  Akaru Sef reminded Marai of what an older version of Wserkaf would be like, in that he had the same training against frivolous emotional display.

  “I know this provokes you,” Akaru began, looking into Marai’s face. “That I did not act in the manner of wild highland men or even the kings in the north, returning insult for insult, but there is much you do not know of me; that I was a foundling and the fact that I rule at all was a gift. I felt your thoughts at my gate about my color. My light skin; the speckles on it like a plover bird; my odd color eyes.” The elder began to weave his tale and talk with his hands as he did. “Old Metaut was the last king before the suph saved me and raised me. Oh, there were hushy, hushy whispers as I grew and strange things happened to me that had no explanation. Later, an old priest Djedi came and asked that I study in a Hall of Life; that I was special. He told me a lion was my mother, perhaps it was Goddess Menhit herself.” The elder plucked a stem of grass and nervously picked apart the end.

  Marai frowned, listening intently. Something touched his heart as the old governor related the tale. He hitched his knee up a little tighter to ease his back. “Did you ever hear the truth?”

  “My father told me he killed a lioness one day but found me lying beneath her, almost fresh born… my navel string unbound but withered, as if the lion herself had given birth to me. He wondered how I had come to be… if it was possible for a lion to have a pale gold and spotty human child. Knowing I would die there, he took me home.”

  “I see why they allowed you to be prince and sepat chief. They need an ally, but your people respect you. If they hadn’t thought you had magical powers or something of a god about you, men could have found a way to kill you.” Marai thought of Hordjedtef manipulating King Menkaure to death so his grandson, a more ruthless warrior, could seize the double crown.

  Wonder why these people invented such a legend if it wasn’t true at least in part. It’s certainly every bit as strange as Wserkaf’s father insisting the god Ra had sired him. A fantastic birth is always a needed ingredient for godhood. Simple people would believe he had dropped from a lioness’ womb if she hadn’t eaten him.

  “They could have killed me, I suppose. Even now, because of the misery this prince brings us every year since he was partially banished, there are cousins of mine who discuss who will reign after me. It is very likely King Shepseskaf will make that ruling when I go to his ascension. I’m old. I’ll ask to hand this to my own grandson, Aped. He is a minor priest, but more amenable to warfare, like the other young ones. And no, I never found out a thing more about the lioness. I just know lions listen to me when I speak and there has been not attack on our people this whole time; not even when someone has been foolish.”

  “A lion could attack this prince any time and I would not weep too much.” Marai grumbled, then paused noticing his comment had caused an almost imperceptible change in the elder’s expression. It was as if he had sent an age-old admonishment to him:

  Be careful what you wish up. It may have a long tail, Akaru thought to the big sojourner. Then, he abruptly returned to talk of the stars.

  “There was a thing that happened long ago, before I was born. Elder Djedi told me this when I was a child. I have told it to no ordinary man, so you hear it out here and away from other men.

  One of the ancient and ever-living First Ones came to the world along with a tribe of others like him. They wished to craft a man from beasts who roamed here in the grass. Some of them created the bodies of men from clay, like Khnum. Some created them of their own seed like Atum. In the end, they left, but one elected to stay behind; to watch and guide. The world of men grew strong in body, but their souls were crafted in the arms and womb of their dark mother who bore them.

  They learned from her daughters. It was good, but this First One was lonely and lost. His own never returned for him until right before I came to be alive. Hearing this, I grew up observing a certain track of Asar’s star, certain that group had called to me,” the elder paused. “I know the pattern like these spots on my hand and you know it too,” Akaru continued; “the feeling that something watches you.”

  Marai caught the old man reading his thoughts again, but didn’t mind this time. He remembered the shimmery thing in the night sky that watched him
the night he saw the Children of Stone come through in the great pink bubble. He felt it again the night he and Naibe had become lovers. Something in the particular moments always lifted them up to another reality as if it wanted to take them with it, or experience it and could not. He sensed it on the night before his journey to the priests and then again before he started here. His mouth set and twitched. The goddess? I sang to her.

  “I used to think…” Marai started, but Akaru interrupted him.

  “Certain things do not reveal themselves to a person until they are ready to know how small they really are in the great pattern of worlds beyond worlds, where time is not. It’s why even wise, very wise men like Great One will ultimately be replaced and the eras of the great kings come unraveled, as I have seen. Men have invoked chaos with this pride in self. Our young prince embraces it and even boasts he can control it. The sky will open like the blossoming of a mother’s sweet womb, but from it will come the storm before the great age of darkness. Some of it still isn’t clear to me, though. I simply asked him to leave because his very presence begs this time to come sooner, and he will not accept that he is the Opener of the Sky.”

  “I guess it makes sense,” Marai thought about the seven stones at his belt and the one he had lent Djerah. “Seems that if we mass up troops we might convince him.”

  Akaru shook his head, emitting a wry laugh. “His own death would not convince his soul. Other ways. He has to make the choice un-compelled and of his own free will.”

  Marai sat for a moment in silence, sorting through everything he heard. He patted the bag of stones.

  “I at least have something that could show more than you know to you… clear up the mystery of your birth.”

  “Don’t,” the old man got up and Marai followed him with a half-drowsy stretch. “If you want to show me what happened in the past, I don’t need to know what it is.” The men sauntered back through the grass toward the walled village. The sojourner was stunned when he realized it was already the middle of the afternoon.

  “How a man comes to be is never as important as what he does once he has arrived. You know this. Nor is it important to force the hand of time by trying to see what lies ahead,” Akaru’s voice grew suddenly stern and almost scolding.

  Sesen petals and the path of choice, Marai shook his head.

  “That’s the prince and his kind talking, to think a person’s birth means something. Maybe Metaut knew the truth about me and decided some crazy legend would be better for me to hear. Whatever it is, I’m certain he had his reasons. Thus, I became the Lion Master and my sons were of the Sons of the Lion.”

  The rest of the walk back was silent. Each man contemplated his own thoughts about the exchange. After Akaru led Marai to the room where his audiences were held, he bid him sit beside his chair.

  “I am no son of a king, accidental or otherwise,” Akaru-Sef chortled under his breath and reached over to slap Marai’s knee. “You’re so concerned about reaching this goal of freeing your wives that it makes you rage. The deaf could even hear you think. Yet, you still ask yourself how I have anything to do with this and why you must wait to go and get them simply because some strange old man asks you to wait. I can only say it’s because we are both chosen by them,” he pointed to the sky, then looked up with a cryptic smile. “…and this was laid out in a pattern long ago. The Ntr, as our Kemet brothers want to call them, those whose memories are in the very stones you carry, that our young prince has and that young Djerah has borrowed are the very same ones who marked me on a starlit night fifty and six years ago when I had lived just seven years. I heard their song and waited all of these years for you to make your way to me and you still cannot say who I am…” the elder’s thoughts drifted.

  Marai’s jaw sagged. The Children had told him at the beginning that one in Kemet would teach him. It was supposed to be Djedi, he thought, but the old man died. This place was not Kemet, but was under its control for now. Is it this old man Akaru who is the destiny, or is this another blind run after I trusted Hordjedtef and then picked out Wserkaf only to hear him tell me no? Marai asked himself inwardly.

  Destiny seemed so fragile at times, but durable as history itself. No matter how many twists and turns the river of his life took in the Children’s hands, it always remained frightfully on course. Hadn’t Wserkaf said the same thing to him? Deka had wanted to go home, forever and always. Her suspicious alliance with the prince brought her to this border. It may have left her trapped. If he had not taken her, no one would have found Akaru Sef. He thought for a moment, then began a slow laugh. There was yet another connection he hadn’t asked about.

  “Nekhen…” Marai started. “When your elder Djedi came, he brought along his student Hordjedtef.”

  Akaru Sef nodded, and added:

  “I think I mentioned that. That first journey, Count Prince Hordjedtef Iri-Nekhen realized he had been betrayed by his sister. He had so looked to becoming the king of the two lands. I heard later he nearly lost his wits and had to be secluded for nearly a full year after his brother Djedephre ascended to the rule. Some thought he died, but I know he recovered and became of masterful influence to the throne, even standing in as king when the ones who ruled were away on campaign. “I knew him more as an excellent teacher,” his voice trailed.

  “Masterful influence,” Marai repeated in disgust. “He may as well have been king for good. I think he held the power and the sway of all of the other priesthoods.”

  “Ah… promoting some, poisoning others.”

  Marai shuddered.

  Poisoning. He tried…” the big man started, but Akaru held up his hand.

  “He succeeded,” he said. “Your Ntr stone could repair your body from almost anything, but it does not repair your will. He broke that. The bliss and stillness of heart you will have to regain on your own.”

  Marai remembered that Deka had not lost her madness or coldness, Naibe had not lost her childish fears of storms or of being abandoned. Ariennu was as stony but saucy and ribald as she had been in her thieving days. He contemplated the way he had grown confused and distracted, then broke a long silence…

  “And Hordjedtef sensed nothing of you, as I did when I saw you?”

  “We were younger then. He is only eleven years my senior. He is still well even at his age? I’m impressed. Back then, I liked him then. There was no nonsense in him. He was very, very sharp.”

  “And yet, you were nothing to him?” Marai grew incredulous.

  “No, I don’t think so. He never treated me as anything special, anyway. My guess is that elder Djedi did not speak to him of any plans for me other than this sepat seat either. He clung to his own family: his poor son Auibre… his daughter’s boy now camping over the hills and making grief for us, and lately I hear he has a protégé, Prince Wserkaf. Now there’s a man of legend for you,” he paused, noticing the afternoon was advancing. “But you already know about that ‘Son of Ra’, don’t you?” he turned his attention to his few servants beginning to prepare food for evening.

  “Come with me in a while,” he rose and moved out into the plaza again.

  Marai followed, looking around for Djerah. He had seen him as they woke. The young man had mentioned something about walking down to check on the activities at the water, and to fish or shoot something everyone might enjoy for the evening meal since the food brought in had been spoiled.

  “The young man? He has a lot to think about now,” Akaru sensed Marai’s thought again. “We’ll see him this evening. Just come with me. So much to share with you, now that you know!!” the old man bustled the sojourner quickly.

  “You see, after that night, even if my father had wanted to raise me as the next generation of warrior-king, it couldn’t happen. He had little choice, even if there was nothing special about me, but you know that.” He smiled paternally. “You speak to my soul like a friend who has always known it. Your hands and heart are open and warm, like the voices I heard that night.”

  Marai
stepped back, thinking he sensed a sound from Djerah in the distance and turning to look for him. The elder made a gesture for him to wait until he dismissed his guards. He walked Marai back into the lower portions of the observatory where the heat of the day never penetrated. Brick steps, padded down partway, and a rope ladder descended into a burial pit. Once both men were at the bottom in the cool damp chamber, Akaru Sef flinted a lamp then urged Marai to sit on the packed earth floor with him.

  “This is an even better place to talk than out in the hungry grass. Here is where we can talk and only spirits will hear us,” he said, taking a deep breath and regarding Marai’s face in the light for a moment. “So how is it you came upon the Ntr stones, my brother-in-this-way?” the elder asked.

  Marai felt a strangeness in the man’s voice.

  He’s doing something that makes me feel uneasy, the way Hordjedtef made me feel, just no threat… a deep scanning read, perhaps. Maybe it’s because he studied under Hordjedtef. The tone of inquiry sounds the same. I’ll counter… the way I did to him. Question for question.

  “What do I seem like to you, when you look at me?” the sojourner asked, watching Akaru-Sef cock his head in thought for a moment, as if he heard something and almost named it. He grew silent for a little while before answering.

  “I know you are not what you appear,” he started. “I know you are much older than I am, but not as old as a god. I know you have traveled far from your place and that somewhere along the way they took you up and built you like a monument. You, of all of us, the ones they mark, are the closest to them; to what they would like to be. But, because you are made of earth, you never can be like them. You will always be drawn into living your life as a man and not the god they wished to have you become. Your friend might be one in very much more time, but he needs watching now. I saw him at the water looking at the rafts.”

  Marai nodded slowly. His hand drifted to the place at his belt where he kept bag of stones. He shook his head. All of the wisdom in Kemet didn’t explain it so well. Because I am made of earth. Maybe they never even understood it. This humble governor of a sepat on the River Asar, even though he was educated by and with them. He’s just unlocked all of the wisdom I could have ever gained from them.