Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght

by LYDIA STORM

  Caesarion blinked his pale green eyes as they entered the dim temple. In an alcove at the far end of the room, Apollodorus was tending the altar of Thoth. Though the old man's back was to them, he called out, “You may leave Caesarion with me.”

  Unwrapping Caesarion's grasping little fingers from her own, Charmion gave him a kind nod of encouragement before slipping into the courtyard.

  Apollodorus turned to Caesarion, beaming proudly. “Well, my boy, your first lesson! It seems not so long ago your mother stood there in your place.”

  Caesarion shrank back into himself, looking up warily at the imposing priest with his tiger skin clasped around his shoulder and his deep all-seeing eyes.

  But Apollodorus smiled and patted his thin shoulder. “Caesarion, you have nothing to fear from me or what you learn here. Do you understand?”

  Caesarion nodded, feeling somewhat relieved by Apollodorus's warm smile and the two sat down cross-legged on the floor.

  “Before I teach you anything, I think it would be good to have a little chat. How does that sound?”

  “Very well,” murmured Caesarion, shyly.

  “First you must always remember you are to be pharaoh one day and pharaohs do not mutter their words. They hold their heads up proudly and speak in clear voices for everyone to hear.”

  Caesarion straightened his slender back and allowed the older man to cock his chin up a notch. He spoke up as loud and clear as he could. “Very well!”

  “Excellent,” Apollodorus smiled encouragingly. “You will practice that.”

  Caesarion warmed under the priest’s approval and grinned up at him.

  The priest grew serious and gave Caesarion a long considering look. “Tell me, do you ever seem to know things without being told before they happen?”

  “Oh yes, all the time. Often I know what’s for dinner before Iris brings me my tray.”

  “But couldn’t you have smelled it cooking? Your nursery is fairly close to the kitchens.”

  Caesarion shook his head. “No, I see it, not smell it. I see lots of other things too. Like when Charmion hurt her ankle walking down the stairs.”

  “Indeed.” Apollodorus nodded thoughtfully. “What else have you seen?”

  “I knew my mother was going to give me a lion cub for my birthday this year.” Caesarion was starting to enjoy his meeting with the priest. If this was all tutoring was, maybe it would not be so bad.

  “Let us try an experiment,” suggested Apollodorus taking out a polished bronze mirror. “You say you see things sometimes, but can you call up the visions at will? A pharaoh must be able to look into the future and see what is coming. Now sit quietly with your hands in your lap.” Apollodorus demonstrated the posture.

  Caesarion easily mimicked him and sat waiting expectantly.

  “Very good. Now I'm going to burn frankincense. It will help your visions manifest more clearly.”

  Moving to a wall of small drawers, the old priest pulled out the aromatic resin and placed it carefully into a brazier next to Caesarion. As he lit the incense, its bitter aroma rose up through the smoke and the acrid smell seemed to almost singe the inside of Caesarion's tender nostrils. He made a face but Apollodorus corrected him.

  “A pharaoh must maintain a calm expression, even if his nose is on fire.”

  Sniffling, Caesarion forced his face into the same serene lines as his teacher.

  “Now we will say a simple prayer to Isis, Lady of Magic, who grants visions to her priests.”

  When the invocation was finished Caesarion peeked up at Apollodorus.

  “Relax,” instructed the priest, “and rest your eyes on the mirror. When you see something you may tell me.”

  Caesarion sat silently gazing at the polished bronze, the incense swirling around him making him slightly lightheaded. The familiar dreamlike feeling that came when he was going to have a vision washed over him and the mirror’s surface began to shift and darken.

  His body stiffened. He could see the palace where he and his mother lived, but the white walls had bloody handprints smeared across the marble and the lovely statues and elegant vases lay smashed to dust on the inlaid floors. The smell of black churning smoke caught at his lungs, choking him, but this time it was not the incense. Clouds of smoldering ash and molten licks of flame caught at the long swathes of silk curtains that lined the back of his mother’s throne, sparks flying, catching on the climbing roses and the carved ebony furniture, blackening the walls, smoking until fire flared and fed on Lochias like an all consuming beast, the inferno roaring through the deserted chambers of the palace complex destroying everything in its wake.

  Where was mother?

  He tried to close his eyes, tried to blot out the horrible vision but the dream space sucked him in and he couldn’t find his way out. Couldn’t unfasten his dilated pupils from the unholy vision in the mirror or catch the breath which had stopped up in his chest.

  The scene shifted.

  Beyond the palace now, he was in an expansive desert. There was nothing but sand and the merciless eye of the sun beating down on him. He was completely alone, deserted. His mother was locked away and couldn’t help him. Across the plain, like an army of vermin, men with dark swirling halos thundered towards him on horseback.

  They were after him!

  He stood rooted to the ground, the desert wind whipping sand on his parched lips, the sun scorching his face. The horsemen grew closer, until suddenly they were surrounding him, and he was gripped from behind and held roughly, his arms twisted behind his back.

  A man with cold blue eyes and skin white as the underbelly of a fish dismounted and came to stand before him, a look of intense hatred twisting his pale features.

  Yanking his sword from its sheath, the man leaned down close to Caesarion's face, his unnaturally light eyes looking straight into him. “It is not a good thing to have too many Caesars.”

  Caesarion felt the searing shock of the blade piercing his belly….

  A deafening shriek exploded out of his chest and filled the temple as at last his eyes closed and the vision was gone.

  Everything was wrong! Everything was bad!

  Caesarion screeched like a wounded hyena, huddling himself into a ball on the floor. He was vaguely aware of Apollodorus pulling him up, trying to speak to him, but through his own screams of terror he couldn’t understand what the old priest said.

  He wasn’t safe!

  He howled and cried, frantically beating his fists against the priest's chest, trying to push him away, but Apollodorus was too strong and the familiar odor of something sweet and soothing broke through his gripping terror. His mouth was pried open and a cool liquid that tasted like lavender slid down his throat. His constricted chest began to unlock and his breath returned, but he still cowered in fear, tears sticking to his red cheeks.

  He was being carried now in Apollodorus’s arms, out into the bright courtyard. Caesarion buried his face in his great-grandfather’s chest, hiding until they reached the palace nursery.

  With relief he clutched at the familiar sheets and pillows of his bed as they laid him down. Charmion tucked the soft covers around him and smoothed his brow as she and Apollodorus spoke in voices too low for him to hear.

  He felt, rather than saw, the glow of light that could only be his mother out in the corridor.

  “Mother!” bolting up he screeched for her at the top of his lungs.

  All eyes turned to the Queen, whose cheeks had gone pale as ash, as she rushed to her son's bedside.

  He was screaming again, clutching her so tightly he pinched her skin, but she only rocked him in her arms, murmuring quietly in his ear, until at last, as he smelled her soft rose scented skin and felt the comforting swell of her bosom and round arms pressing him close, he began to rest a little and his hysteria quieted.

  He caught his mother looking questioningly at Apollodorus and read the old priest’s thoughts.

  Not now. Not before the boy.

  Exhausted fro
m his fit, Caesarion closed his eyes and let his head rest against his mother's shoulder. She held him and gently swayed him back and forth, the hum of her voice low and rhythmic, making his eyelids droop and his weary body began to grow heavy. He nestled closer to her and drifted on her lullaby until he fell into a deep sleep.

  A frown of worry creased Cleopatra’s forehead as she laid Caesarion carefully back on his bed. She brushed a lock of hair from her son’s face, still red and swollen from his fit. His skin burned beneath her fingertips.

  She looked up at her grandfather in alarm. “Something’s wrong with him!”

  Apollodorus took hold of Caesarion's wrist. He looked grave as the moments ticked by. “His pulse is uneven and racing too quickly.”

  Cleopatra clutched the side of Caesarion’s bed to steady herself. “What’s the matter? There is no fever about.”

  “This is my fault.” The old priest bowed his head. “Caesarion was not ready for visions. He’s too young, but Queen of Heaven, he is extraordinarily gifted. I only wanted to discover how much he could see, but when I showed him the scrying mirror he went into such a deep trance, I couldn’t pull him out!”

  Cleopatra covered her face in her hands for a moment, stricken by what she had done. “No, no the fault is mine. I thought training him would protect him from danger!” She raised her head and gazed down at her son's scarlet face. His body was beginning to shiver beneath the sheet. Instinctively, she placed a protective hand over his heart. “How could I have been so foolish?”

  Cleopatra pressed her eyes closed, trying to master herself. Falling apart would not heal her son. She took a long grounding breath. “What did Caesarion see that upset him so much?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Apollodorus. “Somehow he closed the gates to the dream space and he was too distraught to tell me once his vision left.”

  Cleopatra nodded but could not tear her eyes away from Caesarion. His illness was serious. She could feel it in the swirl of murky unwholesome air around his bedside.

  Apollodorus placed a comforting hand on her back. “Our physicians are the best in the world.”

  She shook her head. “There’s something wrong with his sickness. It feels almost as though…as though he willed it upon himself.”

  She bit her lip hard to push down the panic that was trying to force its way to the surface. She had lost Caesar and now perhaps Antony. She could not stand to lose her only child too.

  Cleopatra turned to the old priest for reassurance but could read nothing in his impassive face.

  Charmion had rushed out to locate the pharaoh’s physician and her other waiting women were already pressing cooling strips of herb-soaked linen to Caesarion’s forehead. There was nothing else Cleopatra could do now. She reached out for Apollodorus, for all the world feeling almost as young and frightened as Caesarion had in the temple. Clasping his hand, she pulled her grandfather down on his knees with her.

  “Pray with me.”

  They knelt together by Caesarion's bed, the glow of the setting sun casting ever deepening shadows around the room, as they prayed fervently to the Divine Mother to heal the young prince.

  ***

  Cleopatra never left Caesarion’s side. For eight agonizing days his ka hovered in the Land of the Reeds, lost somewhere on the misty shoreline between life and death. The fever had ravaged his small frame until he wasted away to little more than a skeleton. In his delirium, he wailed and struggled, and they were forced to bind his wrists to prevent him from injuring himself. The doctors plied their medicines and protective amulets, chanting their incantations from dawn till dusk. They prayed over him, trying everything to break the fierce consuming fever that would not go. Even Cleopatra’s powerful magic failed in the face of her son’s will to die.

  On the past two nights, when the anxiety and long hours had worn her down, and Cleopatra dozed in her chair beside her son’s bed, she dreamt the stern figure of the

  Jackal God, Anubis, was there with them, hovering patiently in the chamber’s darkened corners to escort Caesarion into the underworld. Each time she woke with a jerk and with trembling fingers burned incense, praying with renewed vigor for Isis to spare her child.

  Tonight the lack of sleep was hitting her hard. She had dismissed everyone but the guards outside the door. Only her small flickering votive kept the encroaching midnight shadows at bay. Beyond the drawn curtains she could feel the sea as flat as glass, as unnaturally silent as the tomb. As silent and hushed as nature had fallen the night Caesar died.

  She took in Caesarion's vacant glassy eyes and wasted frame. If his fever did not break by morning, he would cross over in the Dark God’s slim boat to a place even she could not reach him.

  For what seemed the thousandth time, she clutched his burning hand and bowed her forehead to the floor in desperate supplication to Isis.

  Instinct made her raise her head mid-prayer.

  It took a moment to register what was happening.

  The Jackal stood above Caesarion's bedside, his eyes boring into the young prince’s as he stretched his dark hand over the boy’s heart, calling the child’s soul into his keeping.

  “No!”

  Overturning her chair, Cleopatra threw herself between her son and Anubis, holding herself like a shield against death.

  The Dark God loomed over her, raising his hand to push Cleopatra out of his way. Cold sweat ran down her spine, but she would not back away. Could not let him take her only son.

  She felt, rather than saw, his cold unearthly energy gather, like a force of nature, to throw her to the ground––out of the way of the child marked for death. She held her breath, bracing for the blow.

  It came on suddenly. Powerfully.

  Her vision blurred, the sound of the sea below the chamber roaring in a violent surge against the palace walls filled her ears and she fell back against the bed as a voice, not her own, rang through her vocal chords, filling the room with its gentle strength.

  “In the name of Isis, whose power overreaches even Fate itself, I send you back, Lord Anubis!”

  The words rung in the air like the toll of a bell, echoing through the chamber, shaking the shadows like cobwebs.

  Hardly daring to move, Cleopatra lay breathless against the bed, clutching her son’s skeletal frame to her. Sweat poured down her face, her ears buzzing but her vision began to clear.

  Still grasping Caesarion, she looked up.

  The Jackal God remained. Even the command of Isis had failed to stop him in his fatal assignment.

  She shook her head in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. The Gods had to obey Her command. Didn’t they?

  Cleopatra met his black eyes, so dark and bottomless, hypnotic as serpent’s eyes. She dropped her gaze to escape from losing herself in them. The power that surged through her had disintegrated like sand in the Giza breeze, deserting her and she was alone before Death’s Guide, all too aware of her mortal frailty.

  Summoning her courage, Cleopatra got up from the bed. Her legs were shaking but she slowly walked towards him. Keeping her eyes cast down, she raised her trembling hands and pressed them against his cold chest to block him as he once more approached the bed.

  “Go!” her hoarse voice was barely more than a whisper. “I will not let you take him!”

  Cleopatra could not even look into his face, but he would have to steal her soul too before she would allow him to reach her son’s bedside again.

  Anubis reached for her hands and held them in his icy grasp, the cold stealing through her veins, up her arms and into her chest with frigid biting fingers. She could hear her son’s shallow breathing and the deadening gloom seemed to deepen around them until the room seemed almost pitch black. A thrill of fear ran through her.

  What if Anubis took her too?

  The Dark God bowed down before her.

  “I leave the Son of Osiris for you now, Queen of Heaven, but you cannot keep me away forever. ”

  Instinctively Cleopatra jerked h
er chilled hands free, placing them protectively over her son’s heart. She turned back to Anubis hovering in the corner. The edges of the Jackal’s form grew soft as his ka slowly melted away with the velvet darkness of night.

  The clear breath of the sea swept through the room and he was gone.

  She stood staring at the place where the Dark God had been and it took a moment for her attention to shift, for Cleopatra to register the steady even thump beneath her fingers. She quickly felt Caesarion's forehead and cheeks. They were blessedly cool to the touch.

  His fever was gone.

  Tears of gratitude welled in her eyes and Cleopatra let out a long half sob of relief as she took in the twitter of birdsong and the gentle cascade of the waves foaming against the shells and driftwood scattered on the shore below. Dawn’s first light filtered into the chamber, erasing the long shadows and brightening the air around them. She hurried to sweep the curtains open and welcome morning in before returning to her son’s bedside, grasping his little hand firmly in hers.

  Let it be over, she prayed.

  Cleopatra looked up as Apollodorus entered and came to her side.

  Is it wise to fight the Jackal?

  “I won’t give him up.” Her voice cracked as she quickly brushed away the tears. “Not Caesarion.”

  The old priest’s eyes held understanding. She knew how much he loved his great-grandson.

  Looking down upon her boy, a smile of pure joy lit up Cleopatra’s face. The scarlet blotches had left his cheeks and he lay with calm clear eyes gazing up at her.

  Blinking away tears, she knelt by his bedside and stroked his hair back. “Caesarion, my darling…how do you feel?”

  “Don't worry, Mother, I’m alright now,” he croaked through parched lips.

  “Thank you, Mother, “ she sighed to the air around her, and then silently, May you protect him always!

  Cleopatra knew she should let Caesarion sleep, but she could not help gathering him into her arms and holding her little son close. She felt his thin frame rest quietly against her warmth and held him even tighter. “We must take better care of you from now on.”