“I didn’t pick Djerah out for this journey,” Marai smirked, reminiscing. “He’s my sister’s great-grandson, I believe I told you. The last link I have to my people. I picked out Prince Wserkaf, but both of us know his destiny, at least the way it stands as of now.” He thought about Deka, Naibe, and Ariennu for just a moment. “And the women… I just don’t know. Men of the sand and women…” he started to tell the Akaru that in his upbringing, life was so brutal and death so imminent that men and women never seemed to have lengthy discussions of each other’s ways and over the years formed different ways as the gods had dictated.
“But you are here, and in this land we worship women as creator and maker of the earth. The men are here only to help and learn from them in reward for cherishing and protecting them and the children they make,” Akaru Sef said. “Certainly Prince Hordjedtef schooled you in this way…”
“He did, but very early I knew he was cheating me on everything he taught me. I found out he wanted to get the secrets the Children of Stone had to offer and then seize them for himself. I had left them with my ladies across the river. Great One had no reverence for my women as anything godly if he brought them over just to get at the Children.”
Marai looked up briefly and saw Akaru-Sef’s face become ghostlike, as if some terrible truth had slithered out of Marai’s mouth.
“Children… you keep calling them children,” Akaru whispered. “Just now that sun broke in the horizon of my thoughts. If I doubted it, I know now you really are the one…” the corner of his mouth twitched in nervous delight.
“One?” Marai repeated.
“Come here…” he rose and picked up the lamp he had brought. He beckoned to the sojourner, then led him to a subterranean room behind the one where they had been sitting. “Look here…” he showed a carved and painted map on a stele at the back of the room. “Here is Qustul-Amani…” he pointed. “Here, the River Asar, and there is Ineb-Hedj along it, so far away; beyond that, Per-A-At.” He showed a perfectly drawn replica of how the land might look from the air when someone flew over it, perhaps during a spirit flight. “Over here is the land where they take copper and turquoises… is that where you were living so long ago?” his sandy-silvery head whipped around so quickly that his earrings jingled.
Marai stared, stunned that all of the places he knew were outlined so well on the stone.
“Sin-ai…” he breathed, beginning to get dizzy with anticipation at what he would learn next.
“Good. Then by my calculations…” Akaru brought the lamp closer and pulled a clay slab from a stack of ostraca filled with rubbed out figures on them. Quickly drawing a triangle on it, he held it up to the map. The angles and proportions matched perfectly. Over the triangle, Akaru chalked in a slightly curved arc that traveled from bottom to top of the triangle but passed in proximity to all three points.
“The stars were different the night I lay ill with scorpion fever.” he tilted his head in a sheepish gesture. “Some young ones take a sting better than others, but I became very ill. They thought it might be my light color that made me suffer so. Anyway, a strange star came down and went over our village that night. I heard the elders saying that they had heard of one like it from tales of the ancient days. They told me perhaps the god Sebiumeker was said to go in a boat of a million stars and that no one has seen it since.”
Boat of million stars Marai paled a little, anticipating the next truth to drop. The vessel of the Children of Stone might seem as such… but the god Sebiumeker… just the evening Ra Atum. He listened as the Akaru continued.
“It sang in a strange language for me, but now that I have heard you speak some words to young Djerah… I recognize it. My father and the elders did not. When I heard it, I ran out into the grass, and that is how I came to find the lions!”
“Ay…” Marai shook his head, breathing in the memory of that night and feeling each word rising to his lips as if it had taken on its own peculiar magic. He began to softly sing:
“…Return to the night…
Your servant implores,
Your faithful slave to kiss your feet
To touch your ankle would be rapture…
Into your golden fire eyes…
I vanish, burnt to a cinder…
Consume me, O Goddess of every joy…
Until I am nothing but your will…”
Marai felt his eyes mist as he saw Naibe-Ellit, who had become the goddess of all of his dreams, fade into Ariennu, and then into Deka. He understood that, in some way they were a triple goddess being formed.
“That is so very like what I heard…” the elder sighed, “but now it is so much more passionate, like a man who knows the truth instead of one who dreams it. You were the singer then, just as you sing now?” the elder asked.
Marai knew it was time.
“We’ll need to sit down again. Right here in front of this map will do,” he helped the Akaru ease himself into a sitting position on the soft earth floor, then hitched up his kilt and unfastened the pouch at his belt. “I was the singer you heard. I didn’t mean to sing for anyone but Asher-Ani, but…” his words halted as he felt the impact of what he was revealing. “So much happened to me after that night, it would just be better if they showed you.”
Akaru-Sef stared into the vague glow of the seven stones as Marai arranged them.
A moment before the energy coming from the stones he placed in the powdery earth began to enchant both of them, Marai thought he saw a slight and clouded darkness move over the Akaru’s face. He blinked but saw only ecstatic tears in the elder’s eyes.
“These are…” the Akaru started to say something else, but couldn’t continue.
“I know… what your people call the Ntr stones… just seven of the original seventy-eight, though,” Marai answered. “They called themselves Children of Stone to me. I used to think they were Children themselves, and had always been as Children.” The sojourner moved his hands through the glow, sending a thought. Show me my ladies. Show the answer to where I will find them.
“Then, for a while, I thought they were the Ka and Ba, the Akh as you call it of some who once lived but were now dead.” Marai continued, slowly caressing the light above the stones.
“Then, I thought, maybe they are things crafted by them; stones that could think but much better than crystals I saw some of the priests using as healing stones. I used to think they were powerless in this form; that they needed me because their ship of the stars was no longer able to fly and that some grave thing had brought them down in the sand near my place. Now, lately, I wonder if this isn’t all part of some grander design to make me think they were helpless, because I always cared over the weak. I was a shepherd. I’m used to saving lambs from the mouths of wild dogs.” he smoothed his hand over the images on the stele, realizing he had thought of his wives in that way. A wolf of a prince had seized them and was all but flaunting his catch. “Could it be this god Sebiumeker doing this? The one those in the north call Atum?” he asked.
“I… I don’t know, really…” Akaru stared into the image the stones made, still awed that he recognized the voice of his childhood dreams coming out of the mouth of his big new friend. “But you were right to think them separate… and also wrong… each time, don’t you see?”
Marai saw an image of Deka forming magically in the light of the Child stones and watched as Akaru’s eyes fastened on her image. She sat in a lamp-lit tent with her eyes cast down, aimlessly twisting a strand of hair into a thin braid along the side of her head.
“So this is the one you and Djerah called Deka, the woman of Ta-Seti?” Akaru-Sef breathed out, enchanted.
“I see her face and yet…” Marai traced his fingertips along her long necked image. A weak smile filled her expression, as if she felt his touch, then faltered.
“So lovely she is, but so sad and cold. She bears a great and painful sorrow as a mother whose child was ripped from her womb,” Akaru-Sef whispered.
“She told
me once that she remembered birthing a child who died. Told me because I, too, suffered the loss of a wife and a baby girl. It made me mourn until the night the Children found me. It was why I sang to my goddess; to make reparations. I always felt if I had respected my wife more she would have thrived. Men of the sand need a woman to seek other women for comfort and to endure a man, not be coddled by a husband. It’s wrong of my people to think that. I lost her because I never knew she needed me so much,” Marai thought of Ilara again. He hadn’t thought of her in a long time.
“I could love this woman here easily; make her warm if I… Could I touch her through this light as you do?” Akaru asked.
Marai nodded, knowing his thoughts about his wife who had died were unheard.
“I tried,” he said. “Something else was going on with her, though. Maybe you could reach her in spirit,” Marai watched as the man’s supple and sensitive fingers extended into the gentle glowing light. He touched her brow where the stone lay as if it was an instinct. When he did, her countenance softened as if she had fallen into a dream of ecstasy, then suddenly woke and froze. Her mouth formed the words “Ta-Te?” then retreated under a quiet and dour expression.
Akaru withdrew his hands from the light and motioned for Marai to clear away the stones. He rocked back on his heels, lost in thought for a moment.
“What is it?” Marai asked, startled at how quickly Akaru had ended their exploration.
“Something,” Akaru Sef mused as Marai put away the stones. “Can’t say, yet, but I know I will meet this woman one day, and soon. I know we have a journey to make together.”
Marai paused, then fastened the bag to his belt. That the Akaru and Deka would meet one day calmed the big man a little. Deka told me her journey was here. Now she is in her homeland, but…
Akaru looked toward the entry of the subterranean room where they sat.
A noise of shuffling bare feet and talking drifted down the shaft.
“I know, it’s late.” Akaru pressed against the earth and made his way to his feet, “but there is so much to know and in so very little time.”
Marai felt a question rise in his thoughts: Little time? You? It doesn’t have to be… but the Akaru was already climbing the ladder out of the burial pit.
CHAPTER 16: DJERAH’S REVELATION
“Look at that… almost evening.” Marai remarked at the position of the sun in the sky.
“You noticed,” the Akaru added. “When one is thinking and learning, the day is often so short that one runs out of time before all else is done.” He pointed before Marai said anything else. “Look. I see young Djerah coming up the rise, too, or… is it?”
Marai scanned the path out to the river where the fishing boats were tied and the shaduf brought water into a canal for the fields. Something covered with muck from the ditches was advancing. Some of the young men were throwing jars of water on each other to clean themselves, laughing and playing and then going to their homes after Djerah turned and thanked them. He came up to Marai and Akaru, sweaty, wet, grimy, and breathless.
“Have a good day?” Marai asked.
“Good enough,” Djerah gasped, mopping his face and spreading more mud all over it. “Flies are bad out here, though. Made us all dance. Had to keep the mud on us to stop the bites.”
“When you are clean, there’s an oil for the skin to keep the welts away. Xania can get it for you.” Akaru reached forward to inspect the few swellings he saw. “But you have good skin, so there aren’t too many bad places. I could never be out near the water without my ‘Stay-Off Oil’. They love my spotty old skin.” He beckoned for Djerah to join them and to move toward his estate house.
“So what were you doing?” Marai felt at least happy that his younger companion had occupied himself. He knew Djerah loved physical work just as much as he did and although he had been interested in Akaru’s knowledge, he wished for a moment that he had been out on the river with the young man.
“I took our boat out to check it and I saw some of the men bringing water to the fields, so I decided to help them with the lever; shore it up so it wouldn’t snap. Then, I just got in and showed them some of the things we did to get the water to the builder’s stones so we could cut them sharp and one thing led to another and soon I was rutting out the channel for them.” He grinned widely enough to rival a hyena.
The three men got cleaned up, sat for supper, and retired early – just after dark.
Glad he’s eased up a little, Marai thought to himself as he settled on the cool mat set out for his bed. His chatter kept everyone’s thoughts off of all of the grim purpose of this part of the journey.
Akaru-Sef is the heir of Djedi then, chosen by him, taught by the very man who wanted so much to be the heir that he posed as him in my first visions. Marai mused as his eyes closed, but Wserkaf is no less important, still, and not just because I turned his thoughts around and he saved me. It’s something else that will reveal itself later, I guess. After all, he does have the Eye of Truth, even if he let it get away from him.
It is not who holds the object made of crystal stone
Be one who knows its spirit.
It finds its own in time.
Know that.
It is important.
Marai sensed the message the Children whispered on the breeze that soothed them in the room. His eyes closed in sleep and once again he wandered in the grey of nothingness. The Children’s vessel, but dimmer, he thought. Why here? Why am I seeing this now? He drearily wondered, but the grey turned into the black and dreamless void before he was able to think about the meaning of the message:
You know.
The pieces fall into place.
Rest.
In what seemed a moment later, Marai woke with a cold and sweating start. Djerah’s rumpled mat beside him lay empty. At first he assumed the young man had risen to relieve himself, but as moments stretched out he did not return. Securing his bag of Child Stones and a blade to his belt, the silver-haired man tightened his linen kilt, stood, and then darted to the outer door of Akaru-Sef’s simple palace. The household slept except for the two guards grouped around the watch fire near the wall. A half-dozing guard sprang to his feet and brandished his short spear as a warning.
“Have you seen a man…?” Marai started, but when the guard saw who it was he pointed in the direction of the observatory.
“The young man came out not long ago and went to the Akaru’s thinking place.”
“Is he…?” Marai didn’t need to ask if Djerah was alright because he instantly knew the young man had put the events in his life together with a slight nudge from his borrowed Child Stone. He quickly made his way to the gates of the temple portion.
Goddess, why tonight? Marai’s arms flailed. As he hurried toward the entry gates, he sensed the young man’s dark mood all at once. Finding the entryway sealed, he circled the base of the lower step. A hemp ladder was slung over the side near the back so that a climber might not be seen ascending it. Tugging at it, he decided it would hold his weight and went up.
Djerah stood facing west, staring at the small gully which had been dug below. He didn’t turn to notice who had made a footfall behind him.
“Djerah?” Marai ventured as took a place at the observatory rail next to the stonecutter. The young man’s head whipped around. His dark, angry eyes cut through the big man once. He bit his lip in awful agony, as if he dared himself to control the coming outburst.
“Talk to me, friend,” Marai felt the young man’s thunder of grief and didn’t need to ask him what had happened.
“My wife left me,” words wrenched from his throat. “This…” he slapped the small Yah stone down on the ledge. “This demon-thing spoke to me. You wanted to know if it would talk to me?” Djerah’s voice grew louder and shrill.
“Well it did, in the night. It said my family is in ruins, and now where am I? I’m off trying to make a better life for something that’s already turned to dust; something that was going on under
my nose and I was so busy keeping us fed that I didn’t even notice!” The pale stone glimmered a little as if it sensed his emotion and had realized how painful the truth it revealed had been.
Marai grabbed the little stone to protect it from being seized and hurled to the ground below.
“I knew I should have stayed at home. I wouldn’t have left if I had thought…” Djerah’s eyes glistened in rage, grief, hatred, and self-pity for a suffering moment.
The sojourner placed his hand on the back of Djerah’s neck, expecting him to turn and weep. Venom instead of tears poured out of the younger man.
“I came out here because I knew you’d feel it and come out here after me. You can’t help yourself and I can’t keep anything from you. You knew about what she was doing! The stone let me see that, too! You knew if I stayed I might have kept the family, but you did sorcery on me and got the king’s writ on top of it. You said on the way up here you really didn’t need me but these Children wanted me to come. Well damn them, damn the king, and damn you!” He rushed Marai swiftly and with his gut knife drawn. It caught the big man off guard and bent him backward over the brick railing.
Marai seized Djerah’s wrists, planted his own feet and pushed back up slowly and steadily, his fingers maneuvering to the pain centers on the young man’s hands. He glanced to the side to make sure their combined weight wouldn’t crack the stone rail. Guards’ torches below formed red-gold circles in the dark.
“Djerah, don’t make me hurt you. You’re always coming at me with a knife when something bothers you. Last time I broke your wrist. What do you want broken tonight?” Marai pressed deftly on the stonecutter’s wrists until his hands spasmed and he released the knife. With a roar, Djerah rammed him off-balance again with his head and shoulders, but Marai lifted him firmly and shook him the way a predator shakes its prey to snap its neck. Slamming him against the floor of the observatory porch, he knocked him senseless with one slap, then went to his knees to cradle the unconscious man on his chest. The light from the torches cast eerie blood red lights on their skin.
Opener of the Sky Page 22
