Living in a world where distance was measured by how the crow flies and how the goat climbs up and down, up and down, how could Sibylla have been less than physical? Chloe stifled a yawn. “Sounds good. Thank you.” Slowly she began inching back down, yelping when Atenis yanked off the covers.
“Come along, then.”
“Now?”
“You have less than three moon-cycles to learn how to win, to beat Ileana. I assure you, she is out training this morning and will spend part of the afternoon at it also. Now.”
I hate running, Chloe thought, wincing as she stood. I really, really do!
CHEFTU HAD BEEN UNABLE TO SLEEP, so after a bath and shave, his body silent and sated, he had broken his fast in the scroll room. He was just finishing a treatise on the human circulatory system when Dion was announced.
After traditional greetings (Cheftu still didn’t know where these language skills had come from; a sign of approval from the One God?), the two men sat down. Cheftu waited expectantly. Dion was formally dressed, and only a smudge or two beneath his eyes betrayed the grape and dance he had reveled in the night before.
“Egyptian, the Council has decided, and I have been chosen to convey, the need for you to undergo some testing.’
“Of what sort?”
“Spiralmaster was expert in all the fields, including: mnasonry, alkhem, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, physics, geometry, biology, spirit travel.” Dion licked his lips and smiled sheepishly. “Because you are an unknown and seek this position, the Council would like you to undergo the testing that Spiralmaster would have required of any inheritor.”
“When?” Cheftu asked. He dared not even voice the fear that he would fail. Some of the things mentioned by Dion were unknown to him, at least named as such.
“Dawn tomorrow.”
“I have no time to prepare?” I’ve been ordained to fail, Cheftu thought.
Dion shrugged. “You have today. I—” He held out a hand to still Cheftu’s response. “I am a Scholomancer myself. I can assist you in anything you want to know.”
Why am I here? Cheftu thought. Can you assist me with that? Why have I been placed in this position of power? Any illumination there?
Unable to sit, he walked to the window, looking out across the sea. Delphiniums, a shade lighter than the waters, waved in the breeze below. Cheftu breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. Chloe was here, they had positions in society, he had to succeed this testing or he might not be able to be with her.
His resolve now iron, Cheftu turned to Dion. He was looking at an Egyptian papryus illustration of the human body. “What is this?” the chieftain asked.
Relieved to speak of something of which he was actually a master—anatomy—Cheftu explained the Egyptian understanding that all vessels came from the heart, in the center of one’s chest, but assembled again around the rectum. Hence, all healing required purging first.
“How is that? You should give a sick person an enema first?”
“Aye. Anything that breaches the anus vessels can be carried anywhere in the body, poisoning the entire body with ukhedu. ”
“Ukhedu?” Dion repeated slowly.
“Poison, vitriol, the power of khefts and khaibits. It can infect man and lead him to intemperate behavior, illness or insanity.” Cheftu realized as he spoke that the Aztlantu didn’t share the Egyptian ideals of calm and balance.
“Enemas flush this out?”
“Aye, only for a short period of time; but during those moments the body is pure and medicaments can be administered effectively.”
“So what of intercourse?”
Cheftu turned back from the view. “My friend, intercourse is not with a woman’s anus. There is no fear of ukhedu from coupling.”
“What about sex with a man?”
Blinking, Cheftu tried to discern what the man was asking. He wanted to be certain, to not offend. “A man … and a man?” he asked cautiously.
“Aye. Equals. Brothers. Comrades.” Dion crossed his arms. “There are many things women cannot know or understand. Only a man can truly be the equal heartlove of another man.”
A man and a man. In Egypt, homosexuality was virtually unheard of. The gods—Isis and Osiris, Amun-Ra and Mut, Geb and Nuit—all showed the pathway to fruitful, marital love. A man and woman producing a child. That was Ma’at, the universal fulcrum that each Egyptian sought to keep stable.
In other courts, Mesopotamia, Canaan, even the strange land of Punt, men might have been lovers of men, but Cheftu had never participated and was uneasy speaking of it. “I … have not thought about it,” he stuttered. During his childhood in France, there was hushed gossip about men who preferred the love of other men. As one who appreciated the differences between the sexes, two men seemed one man too many to him.
Dion rose. “I gathered from your silence that you had not.” He stepped closer, and Cheftu felt himself drawing taller, defensive. “What do you find so distasteful, Cheftu? Is not a mouth a mouth and a receptacle a receptacle?”
Cheftu had the sudden urge to laugh, imagining Chloe’s response to being called a “receptacle.” It restored his equilibrium. “I doubt any of this will be in my Spiralmaster testing,” he said with a smile. “Perhaps we could discuss those things that might be?” Looking out the window, he gauged his time. “I have less than twenty decans to learn all that Spiralmaster spent his life studying. I confess I feel a little overwhelmed.”
Dion laughed and clapped Cheftu on the shoulder. “Let us go to the library first, then the laboratory!”
CHLOE WAITED PATIENTLY, SHE THOUGHT, to hear from Cheftu.
Nothing.
She returned from her training with Atenis, threw herself into the bath, rushed through the massage/dressing phase, and made sure wine and fruit were cooling and on call. The sun sailed farther and farther west, and Chloe sat looking out the window, drumming her fingers on the window ledge and waiting.
By the time the sun was setting she was fuming. Selena brought her wine and sat with her. “I hear the new Spiralmaster has been closeted with Dion all since dawn.”
Chloe could have smacked herself for being so dense! He was tested tomorrow! Suddenly her irritation melted into fear for him.
“I hope for the Egyptian’s sake that they really were studying,” Selena said coyly.
“What happens if he, uh, doesn’t pass?”
“You know, Sibylla. Death in the Labyrinth.”
Oh my God. “That seems unfair, one day to study for a position he didn’t request, then a death penalty if he errs.”
Selena shrugged. “The priests at the pyramid are jealous of their secrets. You cannot go inside and hope to live without becoming one of them.”
Cheftu once said he’d been inducted into the secrets of Amun in Karnak, hush-hush priesthood rituals. Maybe they were the same? Please, God, please help him, she thought. Does he need me?
The answer didn’t come from without, it came from within. In her heart Chloe knew that she gave strength to Cheftu, gave him drive and confidence. Call it chemistry, soulmates, or just lucky, nevertheless they needed each other. He needed her to survive this. In microseconds Sibylla was complaining of a headache, refusing Selena’s offers of infusions and herbs and locking the door behind her well-meaning friend and the serf.
Swiping the palace’s floor plan from Sibylla’s mind, Chloe slipped into the corridor. Cheftu might as well be on the moon for the sense the directions made, but she would find him, she would get there. To think I used to complain about the one-way streets in Dallas, she thought to herself.
A decan later, she was tapping on his door.
A serf opened it, and Chloe found herself at a loss for words. With a shawl over her head and most of her face, she blinked at the serf. “Tell Lord Cheftu that his chérie is here,” she said, hoping she sounded foreign.
He was at the door in seconds, and Chloe smiled behind her costume as she saw the pulse in his throat beat faster. He dismissed the serf without
even looking at him and pulled Chloe into the room, closing and locking the double doors behind her.
“My chérie, eee?” he said, kissing her softly.
“I have been led to believe so,” she said.
He took her hand and led her into the adjoining room. Scrolls and booklike pieces of leather and papyri were open everywhere. “My preparation,” he said.
“Do you need me to help?”
He sighed. “I can only hope that Imhotep taught Egyptian skills. I do not know what secrets Aztlan guards.”
Rifling through Sibylla’s memory, puzzled, Chloe repeated the answers to herself. “They are these: pouring stone, shaping rock, and transforming.”
“Where did you learn that?”
Chloe touched her forehead.
“Eee, you have a spy.” He glanced away. “Do you have her memory?”
“Actually, I think I am the spy,” she said. “I only remember a few things. Why?” Sibylla hadn’t spoken in days, and the space felt very … open. Was Sibylla even there? If she isn’t, did I kill her off? But her knowledge was there, intrinsically.
“Pouring stone, shaping rock, and transforming,” Cheftu repeated. “By the gods! I know how to embalm, to do surgery, to pray to a dozen deities. These skills …” He bowed his head, his hands hanging loosely between his kilted thighs.
“You are tired, beloved,” Chloe said, slipping to kneel before him. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Nay. I cannot sleep now.”
“Do you feel prepared?”
“As prepared as I can get in one day,” he said bitterly. “It is …” Cheftu sighed. “I fear losing the privilege of being with you. Nor do I want to fail in my duties here.”
“Which are?” she asked, stroking his legs gently.
Cheftu shrugged. “I am not certain.”
“God will help you. Hell, Cheftu, he brought us together in a whole other time! Other bodies. What time is it, by the way?”
He squinted out the window.
“Nay, the time in history. Chronological time,” she clarified.
“Middle Kingdom. The Hyksos will invade Egypt shortly.”
“What years are those?”
He gazed at her, his golden eyes glittering. “The 1850s Before Christ.”
“Holy shit.” Back almost four hundred years? Chloe sat beside him on the stone sofa, staring and wondering. “Sleep, beloved,” he said, picking up a scroll and bending over it. Chloe watched him, his finger moving over the page, his concentration tangible, until her eyes closed.
THE PYRAMID GRACED THE NOSTRIL OF THE BULL, the largest of the volcanoes scattered through the islands of Aztlan. Priests and priestesses lined the causeway that ran up at a nearly forty-five-degree angle.
Cheftu would walk the three hundred and sixty-five steps, alone. A step for each day, giving the temple its name. The flat gold top reflected the limitless turquoise sky. Far below, the water shifted from dark blue, almost black, to silver-crested waves. Fortunately Cheftu was not required to recite the prayers for each day as he walked up the steps. Phoebus would do that when it was his turn to submit to the pyramid testing.
He’d had nineteen years to prepare, Cheftu thought, mounting them. I had one day. Licking his lips, he continued walking.
The Council stood near the top of the flight. Atenis, Talos, Iason, Dion, Embla, Minos, Chloe—he didn’t dare let their gazes touch for more than a moment; still, his heart swelled. She was so beautiful, so magnificent in her passion, her care, and her talent. Zelos and Nekros bade him Apis’ wisdom. With a last glance toward the sun and Chloe, Cheftu stepped down into the shadows of the pyramid.
The Minos touched his arm and Cheftu followed him, listening to the crunch of the high priest’s sandals on the shell-strewn floor. He felt, rather than saw, a wall loom before him. Without hesitation he walked to the left and, after a sharp turn, entered the room. For a moment breath left him. In more than a decade of dwelling amid Egypt’s gilded splendor he had never seen such opulence. Again he asked, Who were these people?
The walls were covered in a mosaic of gold, silver, and bronze, depicting scenes of the founding of Aztlan by Atlas Olimpi. As Dion had told him, everything was written in the ancient tongue, scratchings and symbols that had no meaning outside of the priesthood and the Scholomance.
However, they were decipherable to Cheftu. He’d learned this language, along with a host of others, in order to unravel the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was a proto-Hebrew. Mon Dieu! Cheftu stepped closer, reading the legacy of these people. The text contained innumerable references to “stones.” Communicating stones.
Turning to check that the door was open, Cheftu was shocked to realize it was gone. He scrutinized all the walls, the stories marching seamlessly down one long wall and onto another. He could find no way out. He looked up. Even the ceiling, covered with the same precious metal mosaic, offered no exit. He stalked through the room, calming himself. Measure the paces, he thought. Here, as in Egypt, numbers are very significant.
It measured sixty-six by sixty-six paces. Thank God he’d learned the exact measure of an Aztlantu pace yesterday. Cheftu stared at the floor. It was abstractly patterned hammered gold. If there were any more light in this room, he would be blinded.
He glanced up, a shimmer unlike silver or gold having caught his eye. He scanned the far wall, moving his head slowly until he saw it again. He crossed the room and stared into the crystalline eye of the Bull.
Cheftu reached up and pried at the crystal. A loud groaning filled his ears, then was gone. The crystal pulled forward, extending a full cubit, then halted. He stepped back, looking at the crystal and knowing there had to be logic behind it. Were there more?
For a decan he searched the room, finding two more crystals that extended from the wall. Three, the mystery number. Dion said it was odd, consequently sacred to the goddess, just as sixty-six was an even number and would be sacred, doubly so, to Apis.
Now what? Cheftu had already taken off the gold links he’d been wearing, so he stripped off the elaborate belled skirt and loosened his corselet. The three crystals formed a triangle of sorts. Triangles were sacred; any mage knew that. But there wouldn’t be just one. There had to be at least two more.
The ceiling! The floor!
After decans of searching he found another triangle, formed by shards of black obsidian. He pushed against it until stone ground against stone. The room sounded as though it would shatter as the mechanism outside it shifted.
The third triangle was simple to find. Cheftu leaned against the wall and tried to put himself into the mind of the builder. What was the purpose of this exercise? He’d dealt with the three dimensions of creation: width, depth, height. The only other dimension was time.
Time? He stood up and walked around the room again, searching for some symbol of time. Find an ankh. He turned back to the room, mentally imposing the triangles he’d created on the ceiling, floor, and walls. There, at the joining of the three dimensions, was the key of life for millions of years; a more potent symbol for time did not exist. Looking down at the floor, he smiled. An ankh-shaped depression.
Now where was the ankh that fit there? Again he perused the chamber. Stepping closer, he noticed an ankh that was made of a metal other than the silver in which it was set. The difference was subtle but noticeable.
It jiggled in its setting, and Cheftu tried to slide something beneath it, but his nails were short. Think, he told himself. He walked back to the center of the room, looking again at the hollow, approximately where the three triangles intersected.
Using the post of his earring, he pried the ankh from its resting place and put it in the shaped hollow. The ensuing noise shook the walls. He watched the room change. With great shrieks the walls moved, portions levering and sliding, until at the end he was in a triangular room.
By the stones of Apis, this was incredible!
The gold-and-silver narrative had been replaced by smooth walls, one lapis, one
malachite, and one jasper. The floor beneath him remained the same. Warily he picked up the ankh and jumped back as a section of floor rose, waist high. Then all was still again.
The risen part looked like a stone trunk. Cheftu nudged what he presumed was the top—back and forward. It wouldn’t budge. With an exasperated sigh he remembered the ankh and placed it in the hole. Nothing happened. He placed his ear on the stone, turning the ankh until he heard a series of clicks. Of course, three turns to the left, three more right, and three more left; Egyptians and Aztlantu had that much in common.
He pushed the top off easily and stared.
A small trough, a square, a wooden box, a plumb line, a level, and a trowel. He laid each of them on the table. At the bottom of the box were two linen bags and three jars. He took them out, opening as he went. A white powder, with small pebbles; he tasted the next—natron; a brown slime; a big bag of larger pebbles; and a jug of water. Cheftu paced. What could these have to do with each other?
What had Chloe said? The ability to pour stone, shape rock, and transform?
He had studied at the Temple of Amun-Ra before choosing medicine and joining the House of Life. He had learned how certain substances and liquids interacted with each other, forming new substances. Enamel was created by mixing mafkat powder with niter and holding it over a flame. He sped back to the table with its odd assortment.
Niter and water and lime—the white powder—made a caustic substance; add mafkat until it dissolved, then mud. When it thickened, he would pour in the stones. Cheftu stripped off the remains of his finery and began to measure and mix, pulling from recipes and rituals his mind never forgot.
He would succeed.
When the food appeared, Cheftu could not say. Yet it was there—roasted meat, sea scallops, and a salad of sliced citrus and onion. A flask of watered wine complemented the meal. He glanced over his shoulder; his experimental mixture was setting in the wooden box. Already it had taken on the appearance of limestone, its edges sharp and clean, the faces smooth and sparkling with bits of mica and ore. The art of al-khemti —even called Egyptian, after the land of Kemt.
Shadows on the Aegean Page 29
