“Ari. Let me go. You know he needs to die,” Marai grunted and pressed the lips of his wound together so it could seal itself.
“No please. The Children don’t…” by this time Naibe clustered near him. She soothed him in her own gentle way.
“Damn the Children, then! None of this should have happened,” he grumbled. Deka looked up in shock.
Naibe and Ariennu gripped Marai and restrained him with all of their energy. He was more than ready to launch a thunderbolt of deadly will that would collapse the prince’s throat without his even touching it.
Maatkare grabbed his swollen neck, feeling the tightness and choking resume, then hoarsely mouthed the words of control, “Een…” and coughed.
“Has no effect on me, wretch,” Marai started but paused as the voices of the Children whispered in their own rhyme:
Cease and calm.
You will die
And he will die
But not today.
Marai felt the terse voice of what he thought was the Akaru filter through the subsiding stone in his brow. That shocked him, because he knew the elder, though chosen, was not a host of the Children of Stone. The puzzled expressions on the women’s and children’s faces showed him they all shared the recited verse.
Both men exchanged stares of dull hatred, slowly eclipsed by a kind of admiration for each other’s strength.
“Very well…” the prince coughed, still unable to say more than one or two words at a time. He rubbed his bruised throat. Deka immediately comforted him, shooting a more than irritated glance at the sojourner.
You… If you care anything about me, Man Sun…
As Deka caressed and consoled the prince, Marai began to see a very different radiance of desire and hunger displayed in her actions.
Ari is right. She has changed. It’s as if she feeds on our struggle, denies it to herself and then finds great joy that her words brought my wrath when I have always wished only happiness for my goddesses. He reflected; looked at the newly sealed jagged pink line on his flesh and then shut his eyes once more to think about the Ta-Seti woman.
Marai had seen the ominous darkness in Deka’s face many times. Like the entity that hovered over his own soul that first day he emerged, it had stripped her of any physical affection for him when they first woke in the vessel. It had lurked just over her shoulder like some dark imp that whispered to her in a shared private language. When he and Naibe-Ellit had ripped the sky open with their passion, the night they lay beside the way station well, Deka had entered the young woman’s ecstasy in a way that nearly frightened her out of her wits. The day Wserkaf had followed them to their apartment and pranked them with a love charm, that same energy had nearly claimed Naibe again.
So… it wasn’t Hordjedtef or the priests who tried to kill Naibe. It was you, Deka. You said you couldn’t remember your past. I think you lied, but most of all you lie to yourself every day. Now, your prince’s heka just unmasks it for the rest of us. Does he even know? He thinks you are swooning over his position, his sexual skill, and his excellent appearance. What is it about you in reality?
Deka’s face looked up, surprised and oddly innocent of the dire accusations Marai had heaped on her. Her finger coyly went to her lips and to her stone as if she was saying: Shhh… don’t tell…
Maatkare sat, his expression defiant, as if he dared Marai to mention their scuffle to the mysteriously unaware men outside the tent.
Ari. You clouded this, didn’t you? It’s why you had to stop us before they noticed and came in to help. Marai checked the wound again to see if it was fully sealed then twisted his forearm back and forth to make sure he had its full use.
The two men continued to sulk and stare at each other in a kind of quiet respect.
Marai turned his attention to the Ta-Seti woman as she nurtured her fallen hero and shot the occasional hurt glance at her returned husband.
So, this really is a rift in us, Deka? Is it truly by the Children’s design? Marai wondered.
Deka sensed Marai’s thoughts, then turned her gaze away from the prince for a moment.
One day you will see. Brown Eyes was right about me… and you are very, very wrong about my beloved. We are born of the same spirit. Leave us to each other.
Naibe stared quietly at Deka as if she had asked her one more silent question. The woman shivered, then gazed at the prince as if her adoring glance at him could blot out any thoughts the young woman sent to her.
Marai bowed his head, still unable to process the idea that Deka had chosen to go her own way. He touched Naibe’s arm as if to say: You told me to leave her alone. Now I tell you the same thing. He knew Naibe had opened another secret in Deka’s heart and the woman didn’t like it.
My Love. There are things… strange things in my heart. I had to provoke it.
Marai sensed her thoughts retract, just as a favor to him. He distracted himself from that thought and watched the skin on his arm assume a deeply tanned color. In the near distance, Deka caressed Maatkare’s neck and throat in her own healing manner. The sojourner stood up and stretched a little, even though the prince had not given him permission to do so. He recalled too many moments when he had reached out to the woman of Ta-Seti, and was misunderstood. Now he moved quietly past the couple, turning only once to glare in disgust at the prince before he fastened his gaze out of the opening of the tent. Looking at them petting each other as they sat together was still too painful.
Deka rose, leaving Maatkare for a moment to join the sojourner at the tent opening. She took the box of stones with her, then placed her hand gently on his arm. The touch of her sensitive hand was almost too much.
“I can’t believe you’re really going to stay, but you are, aren’t you?” he turned and looked down at her deep green/brown eyes. They softened for a moment. All of the coldness and hardness melted. So gentle her eyes. It is too much, he looked away, feeling the pit of his stomach knot and sink.
“I must, gentle Marai, my only Man Sun,” her sweet, low voice soothed him. “Believe me when I say there is nothing you have done to drive me from you. All of you have been so good to me, but this is what I have longed for. I wish to be here in the place of my birth. Don’t you want that happiness for me? That peace? That I be happy and find peace?” She stared at her hands for a moment then looked up again. “You take the Eye of Truth to the priest. It’s his. Take the seven and five more to lock a promise to it...” she handed five more of the stones to Marai. The five stones glimmered in the slightly concave shape.
“Just thought...” Marai shook his head, dismayed. Naibe came to him and threw her arms around him, understanding his grief. For one moment, he looked back and perceived the prince’s expression as one of smug satisfaction.
Marai knew something was desperately wrong about her staying with the prince. The rhythm of the Children of Stone’s music had suddenly hit a sour note that played into an irritating chord. Deka shouldn’t be staying, he kept telling himself. This is one journey, not five separate ones. She seems so sure of herself… more than ever and yet resigned to some invisible, uncontrollable thing. He wanted to say a thousand things to her, to somehow wake her up from the strange dream-state into which she had fallen, but nothing he thought of saying made sense.
She moved back toward the prince, her statement to Marai complete.
“Your Highness” he made himself look at the couple again.
Maatkare rose to draw Deka away from the sojourner, then turned with more than a little disgust on his sullen face, as if Marai had been thoroughly rude to call after him once more.
“What now?” he snarled. Deka enclosed the stones that would remain in the box, then turned to regard him lovingly. “Don’t congratulate yourself on a victory, sojourner,” he looked back over his shoulder as Marai returned to Djerah’s area. “The women pulled us apart… and we let them do it. If there’s a next time…”
“I doubt there will be,” Marai quipped. “It will still be up to you to t
reat your Nefira Deka, as you call her, with the best of care. You seem to think that just because you have her now, and because she feels she must stay with you, that you own her.” He raised a forefinger and quietly winked at the woman on the prince’s arm.
Deka shivered in delight, but froze, fighting Maatkare noticing the feeling of pleasure that swept her.
“It’s just not true, Highness. She is still a host to a Child Stone and linked to us because of it.”
Maatkare froze as if he hadn’t truly considered what that might mean in the long view of things. His mouth opened in surprise, then snapped shut.
“You should go now, Nefira,” he nodded. “You’ve said your piece. Wait for me in our tent.”
Deka hesitated for an instant, but then slipped out of the women’s tent and to the royal tent without pausing or looking back again.
No. Deka stay… Marai sent his own lament but it only stirred Maatkare into turning toward him; his hand gently caressing the wolf head pommel of the beautiful knife in his belt.
The sojourner shook his head at the implied threat, delighted that he had flattened the prince so quickly in the fight that he hadn’t drawn the knife. He was suddenly inspired to add another layer of insult.
“So what will you want of her when you return to your home and to your wife and children? What becomes of the child in Deka’s belly, who you already know will become mighty because of what she is?” He waited for realization to dawn on his princely adversary.
Maatkare’s broad shoulders twitched as if he wanted to ‘correct’ the perceived challenge but thought better of it as Marai continued.
“Will those enthroned now welcome her as goddess, or will they conspire against her as they once did with me? Will you find you must turn usurper and unleash the Children of Stone you have taken to help you spill the blood of your own kin?”
The prince’s face twisted in disgust, but he took in everything the big man said. He mulled over the last part, then shook his head and bent to pick up his nemes, which had come off during the scuffle. He put it on his head and answered:
“None of this is your concern… and… your welcome here has run out. I assure you that the stones I’m keeping will be given to my cousin, eventually.” His eyes resumed an emotionless expression as he lifted the tent flap to leave, adding: “Gather your things and go… all of you, before my feelings on the matter change. My men will see you to the edge of camp without harm. If your man isn’t well enough to travel, it’s still not my problem because my wish for him was death and it still stands. He is still unpunished and will be turned in on my return if the lot of you are foolish enough to remain in our land.”
Naibe scurried to Marai and half-clung, half-pulled him away from going after the prince.
When the guards saw Deka leave the tent with an anxious look on her face, they massed outside the flap to wait for the prince’s command. He beckoned to his remaining personal guard and gave orders that by mid-afternoon, when the sojourners left, the men were to fell and reset the tent as an additional room for his own housing. Then, as an afterthought, he looked back into the women’s tent at Marai.
“So it would seem that you are somewhat wise after all. In different circumstances I might have tolerated you. My grandfather misjudged you, except that he knew you were young to your skills and not one of you were seasoned. Still, you’re not just some dust wizard to be contained or routed for daring upon the sacred mysteries. My advice? Turn in the Wdjat and the twelve stones you have and then leave Ineb-Hedj as well, because I’ll speak to his Majesty on my…” Maatkare suddenly recognized Marai’s eyes silvering almost imperceptibly.
“Dead? When?” he asked, suddenly pale and so internally upset that Marai heard his next thoughts:
I should have felt him passing by. These women must have known about it and blocked it from me.
“You knew, didn’t you? Nefira did not, but I can feel you two had all manner of secrets, didn’t you?” Maatkare glanced at Ari briefly, then toed the earth at the opening of the tent.
Ariennu had risen from Djerah, who had lapsed into sleep again. Marai scooped her into his other arm and looked down at her, amazed.
“Me?” she protested. “How could I know if you didn’t?” her eyes sought Marai for a moment. “I didn’t know you were alive, Marai… not until you walked into the tent last afternoon,” her glance moved back to the prince, whose expression showed he didn’t believe a word of her story.
“I believe that part,” Marai spoke out. “I tried to contact them, but something or someone blocked me until I neared your camp,” the sojourner affirmed. “Majesty died two days before the ten days of my journey here on the very night I awakened from my supposed death. They were already gone.”
“Humph...” Maatkare began again, this time glancing at Ari. “I guess your healing powers were as dim as your otherworld sight too, then, if you and the young one working together could not lift the curse laid on him. I believe he had reached the end of the six year rule granted him by the oracle of Buto. There was likely little to do about it.”
“Then perhaps, you should search the Child Stones you have for your answer.” Marai absent mindedly rubbed Ariennu’s arm, but shot a glance back at Djerah. “Be careful when you look, though.”
“Meaning?” the prince asked but Marai found himself more interested in Djerah’s symptoms than in adding barbs to his royal host.
He’s too weak to get to Qustul, unless I carry him. No option really. Every moment I stay it gets worse… every word I speak, dangerous. Too tempting, though.
“You do know that it was your grandfather who brought your king down once he arranged for the women to go away with you, don’t you?”
“I’m listening,” the prince paused, but looked outside to see that his men were not idling. When he turned back, he fondled the hilt of the knife.
“Your Great One wanted my ladies out of Ineb-Hedj and away from King Menkaure because he needed to work his own design privately. They were getting too close to His Majesty and they knew about how his daughter really died. I’m sure he felt there was no choice left, if you were to ever ascend.”
Marai felt a satisfied smile creep across his lips just as incredible darkness crossed the young prince’s face.
“Last night, you even dreamt about it, didn’t you? I can learn much through this, if Deka is with you when a dream comes…” The sojourner tapped the place on his brow where his silvery stone lay as he drank in Maatkare’s slow seethe of rage and the pain of his sudden vulnerability.
“She couldn’t send me a dream if she had no idea of the truth,” the prince grumbled, but his eyes shifted downward, deflecting. “Princess Khentkawes has told plenty of lies about it in the past because some errant mouth opened to her, but she was not there either,” he snarled. “The old ka-reen jumped. She took her own life just to ruin me after she discovered she couldn’t command me or suck out my soul. It’s known. It’s recorded as a suicide.”
Ariennu held out the twelve glimmering stones. She had taken the other seven out of her belt and perched them all in Wserkaf’s wdjat.
“Oh, Really?” she chuckled.
The stones gently hushed at the prince. Their echo bounced off of the gold in his new dagger so that it glimmered and the slurred sound of his own very drunk voice echoed in everyone’s ears.
Just a little push.
“Seems you were about to shout it from the rail yourself the night I was hauled out of there. You know it was, because you told me yourself what happened; not Wserkaf or his wife.” Ariennu snorted, indignantly. “And Little One was taken because we worked as one through our Child Stones; a threat to your grandfather’s plans for you because his Majesty liked us so much.”
“Leave me…” Maatkare shaded his eyes. “Go back to Qustul and to the old man. You tell him, too, that I know of his plans for rebellion. He’d better put a leash on his men in two weeks when I’m ready to come through. If I see anyone coming here, they will be
shot by my bow masters before they clear the ridge, no questions asked. I should arrive back in time for the funeral, but understand this matter between us is not finished. You both have assaulted and tried to murder a prince” he spun around with his back to Marai and the two women. “My men just have orders not to harm you as you leave, but I’m about to change my thoughts and have you chased down like bad animals. All I have to do is just to take your heads from your necks and you will die like any mortal. Then the stones will come out rather easily, don’t you think? And don’t think I won’t be able to do it one day,” he stomped toward the royal tent.
“Damn You. Not if I get to you first,” Ari started to leap after the prince, but Marai stayed her.
“Don’t. Just let him go. Like he said, it isn’t over,” the big man turned from the flap and went to check on Djerah.
Ariennu stood for a moment, in more than a little stunned rage until Naibe took her hand.
“We’d better see about him too,” she indicated Marai who now looked up at them both. His eyes had grown sad, even though he tried to hide it.
Ari. Come here woman, his thoughts spoke as gently as a caress. And bring the little ones we still have. See if we can give him some strength for the travel. He’s not doing that well.
CHAPTER 28: THE UNQUIET FUTURE
“Well that’s that, I suppose,” Marai rubbed the back of his neck, profoundly disappointed. “I still…” he started, but he finally began to realize along with Ariennu and Naibe that the attempt to free Deka from the prince’s grasp had failed. They had only succeeded in causing Maatkare to evict them from his camp and Djerah was in no shape to travel.
“Maybe it’s for the best; getting away from him and her for a while,” Ariennu ran her forefinger over the tops of the stones resting in the cup of the wdjat. “I’ve known her longer than any of us, I guess. Old Chibale pulled her into my camp on a chain a life ago, but he was the one who was a slave. Maybe that’s what’s really going on with them.”
Opener of the Sky Page 39
