“O beautiful one, Asher-ellit;
Immaculate one of the goddesses,
Torch of Heaven and earth,
Radiance of all the lands,
Goddess ‘Lady of Heaven’,
First-begotten of Sin,
First-born of Ningal,
Sweet sister of Shamas
O Asher-Anu, you rule the heavens;
O Queen of Morning and Evening Sky,”
“Come bless me this starry night.
Shine for one who begs to serve you.
Come bless me this starry night.”
Marai remembered the song he sang to his goddess Ashera for fifteen years to atone for the death of his wife and child. It came to him clearly, as clearly as if he was still singing it on that strange night when what he thought was his goddess came to him. He had been planning to leave his childhood village of Wadi-Ahu so he could travel to Kemet with his family. That night after he sang his song, a falling star had moved in the moonless sky. Curious about it, he wandered into the wilderness led by a spirit voice. He thought it was his goddess Ashera finally answering his nightly prayers.
Come and see me…
Her low and feminine voice sounded like the tinkle of a hundred tiny rings and bells on a dancer’s swirling skirts. It seductively led him across the scrub-filled wasteland where he had lived, in search of her. He remembered how the voices had lulled him even when he had discovered what he thought would have been her chariot drawn by flaming lions. Instead, it really had been a fallen star.
There is something here
In grains of sand
Something is new
It has never been here before, like this
Long It has not been at all…
The Children of Stone had been on that star. It was their boat of the places beyond his sky, they told him. He never saw them, but he felt their words inside his heart. He never understood why they had come to the wastes of the land below Sin-Ai, or place of the god Sin. He never knew what their goals truly were, only that they needed his help. As rode above the heavens in his own mind-born boat, the memory came to him as clearly as the words he had sang to his goddess had always rang out.
Perhaps I was a fool, Marai thought as he continued to travel a universe of starry depths, a fool to be amazed by those little glittering stones. But then, they can think and act and they even flew through the sky to come to my world. Why shouldn’t I be amazed? Even if the Children weren’t my goddess, they gave me so many gifts. His sun-burnt, overworked and aging body had become godly. Later, the bodies of his three wives had been nearly deified. The four of them were beyond human, marked by the Child Stones left in their brows like small unreachable eyes. Why me? Why was I chosen for this? He often asked the Children of Stone. They had told him that as their song seduced him, his song to his goddess had come into their restless souls to teach them about the nature of man, and the power of devotion. Devotion? He asked himself as he lay trapped. Foolishness and madness! He wanted to shake his head in grief, but the irate and cursing thought-voice of Prince Hordjedtef returned:
You will not escape them.
They will use you until you are gone
and nothing remains of your simple shepherd man but an empty shell.
Pray you die tonight.
Pray to the gods,
if you have any left who will listen to you,
to take you from this,
lest what they create goes on to animate your dead flesh forever.
The old High Priest Prince Hordjedtef had told him in a moment of unguarded irritation; how all of the wisdom and gifts the Children had brought him were pointless and wasted on a peasant and a madman such as himself. He knew that Hordjedtef had no intention of returning to check on him as he would with other initiates. The old priest intended fully to leave him to rot within the diorite box in the depths of some tomb, only to be spoken of in taboo whispers if mentioned at all. For him, there would be no Going Forth By Day. The weight of the scalding words returned his celestial chariot to the pit over which he had hung.
NO! Marai’s thoughts cried out, casting aside his doubt. Though Hordjedtef had tried to kill him, but now Marai rose above his tormented thoughts and sailed once more through the cosmos. They close me for my devotion, for my ability to continue despite all odds. I may not know the way to return, I may not know how long I will suffer, but I will win this. Laughing to himself, he returned once more to where he had begun. Relax, Marai. This is not real. He can’t beat you, if you don’t accept defeat.
CHAPTER 3: TWO PRINCES
After the guards hustled the women down the hall to the dry store room, Hordjedtef prodded the Lord Inspector of the Ways, Prince Wserkaf, away from his momentary empathy for them. “Over here, now, Wse. Let us see.”
Wserkaf sat beside Hordjedtef and eagerly looked at the wooden box in his mentor’s hands. The elder reminded his assistant to speak the known words of protection in unison with him. Because the tall, henna-haired woman named ArreNu had screamed at them to fling it open, the elder suspected a spell had been placed on the stones. Her curse demanded the protective utterance his own master, the Great Djedi, had taught him. Hordjedtef had already used some of the other secret words moments earlier to subdue the women. The secret words in this protective utterance were gentler and kinder. They were passed to him in case he ever came in contact with things belonging to the Ta-Ntr-Akh, as the god’s tools and goods including of Children of Stone were called in Kemet. As Hordjedtef aged, he had taught these verses to Wserkaf, who served as second in command of the cultus of Djehuti: the Inspector of the Ways. Together, and on the elder’s cue the men carefully spoke the words:
Little stars…
Soul’s embodiment of light and truth
Cast in crystal stone of Earth,
Understand us –-
We bring you no harm,
You need not fear us.
Or selves defend
Eagerly, on finishing their whispered incantation, the men waited for a few moments, then sensing nothing, threw open the box and simultaneously placed their hands on top of the stones inside. Their thoughts were filled with peaceful images of sun and the calm, beautiful River Asar as they touched, so that these stone creatures would be reassured and bring them no harm. In a moment, a gentle, musical purr emanated from the stones, as if the beings inside them read the hands that caressed them. The inspector knew at once that something wasn’t right about the sensations he and his master felt. Both men had expected great power, something glowing, or at least a flash of light when they opened the box. Nothing happened. The so-called Child Stones lay inside the open case as still as a heap of ordinary river or quarry rock. The only difference either man sensed was the barely noticeable hum.
“Humph…” Prince Hordjedtef, the Great One of Five, shrugged. “These can’t be the keys I’ve been searching for. The Set-haired female must have switched them out. I think we’ve been taken for fools again, Wse,” he picked up one of the stones that was the size of a small nut and examined it. “And yet…”
The stone Hordjedtef held was an unpolished looking piece of ore that didn’t glow, but did seem to have some kind of warmth issuing from it. He examined another stone which was the color of the grey granite facing that had been used to lap over the lower courses of King Menkaure’s Pyr Mer or Eternal House. It was also unpolished, but had a curious spark-like pulse that was different from the other pieces. Next, Hordjedtef chose a shiny one that looked like amber and emitted a mellow tone, and another one that had a strata of crystal lodged inside a sand red base so that twinkled in the light. Though each stone had curious oddities, the old priest still found nothing special about them.
“Now, how would one use these to unlock the secrets?” Hordjedtef mused, half-aloud. “If this is more code…” he fretted. “These could indeed be of the heavens, but our ancestors knew of such stones. We’ve gathered them from the sand wastes and shaped them into simple charms and beads for years,
” his voice couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have gotten rid of their messenger so zealously.” Wserkaf murmured, somewhat disgusted with his role in the demise of the Akkad sojourner. “Now we’ll need a soul-binder to find him and compel him, or we’ll have to force the women to show us more if they will.” Wserkaf got up from his cane chair on the same dais that held the elder’s stone chair. “Now that their beloved has been dispatched, I somehow don’t think they’ll want to.”
Hordjedtef paused, thinking his protégé might have been right about his haste. The high priest had made an effort to teach the one-time shepherd named Marai instead of turning him around at his gate. Hordjedtef remembered thinking the sojourner would be no more than a gullible peasant who would bring the precious stones to him without question. The Great One knew he had been zealous and even impatient toward the end of the artificial School of Life he had devised, but the sojourner had surpassed all of his expectations. The man Marai had unlocked many mystical truths and had touched on too many of the higher mysteries of the universe that had no place being discussed in a sunlit plaza where any unschooled servant might hear them. Hordjedtef could not accept this behavior; the man’s audacity knew no bounds. For that, Marai had to be taught a lesson. The elder had hoped two weeks of blazingly fast tutorials might have humbled Marai, but it didn’t. In fact, the Akkad’s speed in learning and mastering the concepts taught to him had only encouraged him. The elder knew the man was astute enough to, at some point, discover their fraud. He felt there was no alternative other than to get rid of Marai before that happened.
The Great One and his assistant now planned to unlock the keys using trances and the crystal wdjat his protégé had worn for years. Perhaps, he confided to Wserkaf, he would harvest the small shining stone imbedded in Marai’s forehead once his unprepared corpse had withered. By that time, Hordjedtef had thought, these Ta-Ntr spirits would know of his own intelligence and worthiness. They would accept him as the bearer they needed all along. Have I been foolish? The elder asked himself. No, this is just another obstacle to overcome, Hordjedtef thought once more of the stones before him. If these are the long sought Ta-Ntr stones, they are no more phenomenal than pretty baubles an artisan would set into jewelry. There must be more to them than this! The unworthy Akkad would have only gotten in the way of my discovery, I was right to dispose of him quickly, despite what gentle Wse would have me think!
Focusing on what to do next, Hordjedtef mulled over his options in silence. Marai, who had come to him in innocence, was dead. Both he and his second, when they contemplated the sojourner’s physical state, received no sensations of life from the ritual chamber for the past five days. Marai’s beloved ones were here, by the elder’s order, but they were obviously too upset to follow anyone’s dictates for the near future. This is unraveling, the elder prince mused. Fifty-five years of work and study can become smoke unless… the High Priest paused only a moment longer to reflect, then drew a satisfied breath.
“Then it is highly important that we show these women respect, despite their scorn of us, isn’t it, Wse?” Hordjedtef used Prince Wserkaf’s affectionate nickname to lighten the tense atmosphere in the plaza. Carefully, he put the stone he was inspecting back in the box. In silence, he folded his hands so that his forefingers touched his pursed lips, then thought for a moment over his new plan. “You did know they were the lowest of women, those of no value bartering away whatever may have been sacred in good women, don’t you?” the elder priest asked his assistant. “Our most unfortunate sojourner told me that himself.”
Wserkaf noticed a slight expression of disdain filtering over his master’s face as he continued to speak of the women.
“Evidently, he pitied their lowly and humbled selves regardless of how many men had plowed their overturned fields,” the elder continued to think aloud while the inspector carefully took the box containing the Children of Stone and placed it safely on the pedestal near his mentor.
“Will they not be returned to Little Kina-Ahna to work with the gentleman who had employed them?” Wserkaf paced and as he did he strained his ears to pick up sounds from the direction where the women had been taken. They were skilled in some forms of heka, he knew. He didn’t trust what they might try to do to the guards over them, given the state of their grief.
“Oh! Didn’t you give the writ to the spice seller as I asked?” Hordjedtef paused, amazed that his second in command thought to suggest the women could live unsupervised.
“Of course, Great One!” Wserkaf nodded. “It properly sent the man and his business to Ra Kedet, as he once petitioned. Surely, though, the women might go there to seek him and be no further…” the inspector began, but stopped mid-phase when he realized the women would have to stay in Ineb Hedj if they were going to help decipher the mysteries of the stones.
“Our ever forward-thinking Majesty simply offered to pay the man’s expenses, if he could leave to set things up in that city within the week.” the elder began to sigh in exasperation. “Which brings us back to our three new guests,” Hordjedtef’s lips pursed. “As widows of a usurper, or at best a storied man, they will likely be shunned in any neighborhood they attempt to visit should that tale arrive before they do. Soon they will become destitute without our protection, and likely fall in with the unsavory sorts that once provided them comfort.” After only a moment’s pause, he suddenly added: “So, then, they are far from their homes and have no family or friend to return to? I believe they are at the mercy of our decisions if they wish a better existence than the alleyways,” the elder’s eyes blinked shut once. “A shame for ones so comely, wouldn’t you agree?”
Wserkaf nodded mutely, amazed at his master’s instantly crafted manipulation. The old man always worked wonders and miracles of diplomacy. The inspector admired that skill at one time. Now, seeing the internal workings as they were formed, he was horrified.
“A shame; and they could be quite dangerous too,” Hordjedtef continued, “were we not to give them a positive direction for the applying of their beautiful and magical skills. The wise ones have always taught that beautiful women – even foreign ones – foster greatness in their brothers and in their sons. In time, they might even find love again, among some of our high-ranking and esteemed ones, wouldn’t you say?”
The inspector nodded in agreement, but added nothing. Wserkaf knew senior looked tired. The High Priest’s realization that he would be able to do little with the Ta-Ntr stones without the women’s help had vexed and drained him. The inspector knew Hordjedtef had truly hoped to be able to talk to the stones, use them, and be rid of the “sojourner influence” for the last time. He had failed.
But you see, now…
A quiet, musical whisper entered the inspector’s thoughts and then left them just as quickly. Suspicious of the source of the voice, Wserkaf’s, his head snapped around. Is one of them..? He wondered if one of the women had broken free and had somehow returned to the open plaza where he and his elder still sat. No one had entered. He was alone with his thoughts and his senior as alone with his schemes.
“Did you…” Wserkaf started, but saw that while he was contemplating, the elder had retrieved the carved box from the stand where his protégé had placed it, opened it, and had begun to pick through and sort the stones. The elder had seen a few strange stones in the bunch; a blue one, a warm olive green one and a crescent shaped pearly one. Prince Hordjedtef was entirely comforted by the gentle purring and oblivious to any voices which might have been speaking through the ethers. He hadn’t heard a thing. That was the moment, Wserkaf would later remember, when he truly began to reconsider the long ago legend of Djedi that had patterned his life. Keys of knowledge. He thought. Maybe they are the sacred lost keys. Was that sojourner really the lock? Were there other locks; the women perhaps? Wserkaf remembered that the great magician’s prophecy to King Khnum Khufu was about a holy woman who would bear three kings sired by the god Ra. These sons would grow up to r
ule the two lands of Kemet after three more kings had ruled. He had all but dismissed the legend as a foolish myth until Marai and the women became known on his side of the river.
When he began his study with the Great One, he gained an awareness of power born from knowledge, and he understood it well. After his mother died, the prophecies with which she had raised him seemed preposterous. When the brassy and rude “Lady ArreNu” had brought forth her spirit at the Little Kina-Ahna apartment three weeks ago, he had been more than taken aback. She had done this act without any relic or incantation. Later, Marai had written several untaught mysteries out on practice linen one day during his study with them. He was a simple man, he thought. The women are untrained but have just as much potential. More untold story needed to be revealed. The inspector knew he needed to reflect and pray to all of the gods and goddesses he held dear about the true nature of the prophecy and whether or not the women might be an unrevealed part of the story.
While Hordjedtef sorted through the stones in the box, occasionally whispering a chant to them as he became familiar with them, the inspector paced a little and thought of his own life. I was supposed to be king one day… one of the three predicted sons of a holy woman. His father, Userre, married his beloved Neferhetepes, daughter of Hordjedtef’s arch-rivals, King Djedephre and his half-sister Crown Princess Hetepheres. She became Priestess of Hethrt and Mistress of the Sycamore. Neferhetepes and Userre employed their dreams and visions until they began to believe she was the woman who, would find the keys of wisdom inscribed on lapis, crystal, and emerald stone tablets. Userre had even called her Redjeddet, the name spoken in the legend, as a good-hearted jest. Prince Wserkaf’s early education was at his father’s temple in Per-A-At. He had been raised to go into the cult of Ra. He had become enamored of mystery and healing. It wasn’t what you wanted, he sighed as if he was speaking to her disembodied spirit. I just had to show you I was my own person. It was just false. All of the legends were lies you told yourself. I wanted to worship truth. For twenty-three years he had studied with his elder, Prince Hordjedtef. I should have followed the prophecies of the stars according to their wishes, the inspector thought.
Going Forth By Day Page 4
