Ramon realized it was time to mine his several-thousand-year-long Egyptian past life for still more treasure. But the fact was, he was afraid; they weren’t ready to do battle with celestial wizards, especially off world where the earth’s protective womb would no longer offer any shelter. Most wizards’ magic was keyed to Mother Nature in one way or another, whether they were elemental wizards or not, whether they were inclined to nature magic as Natura was, or not. They may have other ways of connecting with Mother Nature—the chi masters for instance—but they all paid homage to a female deity of sorts that ruled their world. Without Her help…. He hated to admit it, but he shared one more quality with Victor; past a certain point, he’d rather have other people fight his battles for him. Mandala magicians were plotters and schemers, Machiavellian master minds; when their genius came up short, they hunkered down until they could learn enough from other people’s mistakes before venturing further. He hated that Victor reminded him of himself so. He was so determined to be something more. Maybe this was his chance, if only….
Stealy seemed to read his mind, took her hand off Anubis and ran it over his cheek, leaned in for a kiss. She was lending him her bravery, her thirst for finding and snatching hidden treasure—this time, located somewhere in back of his mind.
Vima, content their carrying on was leading her in the direction she wanted, turned her attention instead to the statue. When she ran her hands over it, Ramon got the sense she was searching instead for hidden compartments. He lost sight of her as Stealy upped her amorousness, taking him deeper within himself, even as he felt her body enveloping him.
***
Giza, 2551 B.C.
Ramon’s prior life counterpart was known as Ahmose. It was through Ahmose’s eyes that Ramon now looked—frozen as he was in stone for all time, courtesy of the magic spell that imprisoned him.
The two royal born figures before him, several feet shorter than the statue, their statures more like children by comparison, were speaking in whispers. The Pharaoh Khufu’s daughter was plotting with someone, but who?
“We’ll never get away with it Manetho,” Hetepheres shout-whispered.
The name, Manetho, meant nothing to Ahmose.
An ill wind swept through the vast room that made the two doing the plotting and scheming seem small by comparison, and seemed to suggest an inevitable outcome to their little drama.
“Ah, but we will get away with it, my princess. The original statue of Anubis has already been replaced, the replica built by the gods themselves.”
“You lie.” She sighed out her sadness. “They left us so very long ago.”
“One was left behind—for comingling with a commoner.”
“One of us?” Hetepheres’ gasp communicated surprise as much as hopefulness. Her widely separated, upward sloping eyes that seemed as if they could see around her head gave her both a cagy appearance, and a catlike wariness. She appeared to be availing herself of both qualities currently as she checked for eavesdroppers. Lips that never smiled and rarely entirely closed lay suspended over her teeth in a vague combination of apprehensiveness, surprise, and pensiveness.
“No. A servant of another god that our gods were warring with. His abandonment was his punishment. He was branded as a Ludio, a player, for refusing to take the dictates of his people seriously.” Manetho’s ears extended far to either side of his head, jutting out further than most to better hear the secrets of others and detect efforts to sneak up on him. His eyes were contrastingly recessed deep under his forehead and were forever in shadow, masking and simultaneously enhancing his own skulking, snooping disposition. His eyes and ears now were both on high alert, both sense organs twitching.
“But what does this get us?”
“He asked only to be entombed within the statue of Anubis. And that his crypt not be open until he could reunite with his beloved. If we can bring them together, he promised to take us from here, and welcome us into the dominion of the gods.”
She smiled, but the light quickly went out of Hetepheres’ eyes. “It is the hope of the hopeless.”
“Why do you say such a thing?”
“These gods live for thousands of years. We will not be around to bring them together. That job is for someone else.”
Manetho sighed. “We can hope we get lucky, find her before our candles have snuffed out.”
Guards entered the room; the rhythm of their steps said it all. They carried Manetho away most unceremoniously.
“You will come with us, Princess,” said the leader of the ones that remained behind. “I have no idea what the pharaoh wishes to do with you.”
She hissed. “I do.”
***
Ramon rolled off of Stealy, both of them gasping. “We have the strangest sex,” Ramon said. They were both perspiring this time, despite the dry desert air. They were flushed, as much with passion for intrigue as for one another; the blood and warmth he could see rushing to Stealy’s cheeks, he could feel in his.
Stealy leaped to her feet ahead of him, but didn’t offer a hand up. “I believe this is my cue,” was all she said. She linked with Ramon’s mind psychically, or rather her spiking excitement level allowed him to see what she was seeing. Clued suddenly as to what was going on, he didn’t hesitate to grant her wish, opening a portal to Victor’s lab.
Stealy stole the dead savant’s body out from under Victor while his eyes were marveling at the console. He’d be pissed, but an angry Victor, strangely, was the least of their problems. Besides, anything that advanced Victor’s plans was ultimately forgiven in the end.
Stealy was no strongman, but her stealy magic obviated such obstacles as the weight of a treasure she was making off with, provided her higher-self identified the precious bounty as real treasure.
In a flash they were in and out of the lab, and back on the other side of the sealed portal.
Ramon stood by Stealy’s side looking down at the dead body of the savant just feet from the statue of Anubis. “I’m guessing she’s out of moves,” he said.
“Except for one,” Stealy replied. Both of them shifted their attention to Vima at the sound of the crypt of Anubis opening. Inside was the alien from one off-world civilization that had dared to mate with an alien from another off-world civilization, violating his people’s most sacred credo. One look at the guy told them why. They themselves were hybrids; the result of some experiment, some desire to interbreed lower animals with higher ones in hopes of achieving a slave race that had the perfect qualities. The alien inside the crypt of Anubis looked just like Anubis. Suddenly it was clear that the Egyptians did not lend human figures the qualities of animals because they were a primitive people looking to draw spiritual strength from the natural world. The figures were instead an homage to their true gods.
The poor man inside the crypt had been just as much a slave in his own way as the alien he’d mated with. Who could blame him for empathizing across genetic boundaries? For seeking solace in the arms of someone who might actually understand him better than his own people?
As to the husband that the savant had left behind in Victor’s lab, Ramon could only assume she’d cheated on him. That she had her reasons. And they may not have been self-serving. She may have sensed this day would come; a time when the progeny of the two slave species might be just the thing to throw off the yoke of master races that deserved to hold no people prisoners for all eternity.
Let’s hope the savant was half the plotter and schemer as the master species she heralded from, Ramon thought.
Both corpses were glowing suddenly. Had they left enough life force within themselves to permit for their reanimation when in the proximity of one another? What else could be going on? Ramon wondered.
And what about the savant’s hollowed out brainpan—its grey matter morphed into the child they spied in Victor’s lab? Did the vacuum chamber of the savant’s mind function like a strange kind of Faraday cage—trapping the consciousness of the savant, the soul, the spirit, even in th
e absence of the grey matter? The dura mater that sheathed the human brain in a thin protective sack might have been able to do as much—if it were nano-enhanced.
The two hybrid aliens took their first gasping breaths of air in sync with one another. Even after all this time…. What they said about twins, and their ability to share one another’s extreme emotions…. Perhaps it was even truer for soulmates. Ramon’s mind was given to these kinds of speculations because it was just another dimension of being a mandala magician—filling in the blanks in the thinking of other plotters and schemers like himself.
The two lovers beheld one another and melted into one another’s arms.
Ramon could think of no sensible way that their bodies could ever come together. Bestiality was one thing, but how could a human/animal hybrid mate with an insect/humanoid hybrid? It was a question whose seed of an answer Ramon would drop in one of his mandala portals in back of his mind for that part of his brain to work away on at its leisure. For right now, he didn’t have time to indulge the curiosity.
“Hate to break it to you two lovebirds, but you’re our tickets off this world, and we didn’t bring you back from the dead for nearly the self-sacrificing reasons you did what you did,” Ramon said, speaking so as to disrupt the altered state the two lovers had slipped into in one another’s presence.
In their excitement, the two lovers were glowing brighter and brighter. “We must leave now,” the savant said, speaking through Vima, the quality of Vima’s voice altered to convey the spirit and the essence of the savant. “Soon my mind will be powerful enough once again to summon the queen. Are you sure you wish to come with us? Your minds truly aren’t prepared for what’s out there.”
Ramon, Vima, and Stealy regarded one another, looking for the consensus in one another’s eyes. “It’s now or never,” they all said, slipping into their own mind link via the triad magic.
“Not. Wise,” the animal-headed deity barked out.
“Now!” It was the howl of the beast—Soren’s beast—the disembodied voice lending the group a strange kind of reassurance.
Vima, Ramon, and Stealy nodded. “Now!” they echoed.
And the party was gone, dematerializing from the spot on which they stood and beaming to someplace else on the celestial stage.
***
“Oh shit!” Vima exclaimed once on the other side of the wormhole. “I may have exaggerated the ability of my womb magic to protect us.”
She didn’t like what she was seeing any more than Stealy and Ramon.
Worst of all, when they looked around, Anubis and the savant were gone. It was possible they were no longer incarnate. That they’d saved their last precious piece of psychic energy to join each other in eternity—on the other side of the veil.
A hell of a time and a hell of a way to find out, Ramon thought.
TWENTY-FIVE
Player’s church-like loft was dimly lit by the stained-glass windows throwing images of Christ’s story upon the hardwood floor. The irony wasn’t lost on Player, considering how much he needed to be “the chosen one” among the faceless multitudes. But for now, Player engaged in a lightshow all his own.
Holding his arms out with their palms up, he broadcasted images of the elements he was toying with in the periodic table—the theoretical elements whose actual existence was unclear. The glowing balls of light of various colors, representing the sub-atomic components of the electrons, protons, and neutrons, would crash together and then ricochet apart like a pool game in progress; the players wielding the sticks, invisible.
When Player found a configuration he liked, where the different colored balls seemed to stick together, he’d say something like: “This looks promising,” or “What about this?” “Ooh, I like that!”
To which the responses were always: “Nope. Can’t do anything with it.” “You’re out of your mind.” “Not in a million years.” Those voices belonged to Aeros and Airy, both experimenting with his theoretical components, running tests inside their own bodies to test out the potential of the new elements to see if they could be joined with other elements to make anything of any use to them; nanites in his case, chemical compounds in hers.
The owls, for their part, perched high up in the rafters overhead or in the hollows of the several-feet-thick stone walls, would squawk their disapproval even before the transhumans in the room—floating above the floor and orbiting the holographic images on display—could voice their own opinions. Did the birds know something? Were they keyed to Player’s unconscious? Or did they have their own magic? Was something else going on with them? Had Natura thrown a spell over them, just to mess with him?
“There!” Aeros exclaimed. “Now that I can work with.”
Player was delighted that his latest element, formed of so many subatomic particles, might actually be certified as another element on the periodic table. More to the point—as one that could aid in their passage off this world.
The owls were cooing approvingly as well. Another good sign.
One element down. Two more to go.
Considering the luck everyone was having with the magic of threes, no one was messing with the idea that it would take at least three new elements on the periodic table to get them clear of this world and back—despite what the tarot lady had said. And she had warned them not to go, hadn’t she? Maybe if she didn’t predict things working out well for them, it was because she was not privy to the magic of threes.
Several hours later, Player could no longer stand on his own. He was using his way with the wind element to keep him vertical, keeping a torrent of air blowing about him to supplement the strength in his weary legs. But the project of procuring the necessary elements was finally complete.
He was now awaiting the experiments Aeros and Airy were currently conducting inside their own bodies.
Finally the two looked up at him and smiled. “We’re good to go,” they said in two-part harmony. They must have been parallel-arrayed with one another’s minds the entire time. Transhumanists were big fans of group-mind effects, long before anyone came along and tried to throw the magic of threes into the mix.
“Just what have I done, exactly?” Player asked.
“The first two elements allow us to open a wormhole to most anywhere once they’ve been properly annealed with any number of other components,” Aeros explained.
“The third component” Airy chimed in, “allows us to target a more specific location.”
“Considering the alien queen’s energy output, we figure celestial wizards at that level must have at least that much in common,” Aeros continued.
“We just have to make sure to screen for suns, supernovas, black holes, and other huge energy sources of a less sentient nature,” Airy said, finishing Aeros’s thought for him.
“I guess that should suffice.” Player wasn’t so sure; no doubt his tone belied his words. Now that they were this close to achieving their goal, moreover, he was more scared than ever. It was one thing to talk a big game, it was another thing to climb into the ring with celestial wizards when he had serious misgivings regarding his own powers. His self-confidence had been whittled away to next to nothing with the likes of Victor and Soren and even the abilities of lesser wizards like Natura, Stealy, and Lar, who all got around him just fine. Who was he kidding? He wasn’t leaving this world; not now, not ever.
Aeros and Airy eyed regarded another as if reading his mind. They probably were. Player’s suppressing a psychic link to them might have more to do with not wanting to know what was inside their heads than his inability to invoke triad magic. For sure that triad magic would have been gifted to them by now by the Soren/beast dyad. Soren was forever coaxing the “kids” to graduate up to celestial wizard level to keep pace with Victor and Dr. Frankenstein and his creature. It made sense that Player’s mounting tensions was the only real cloaking device on his mind and it wasn’t working nearly as well for him as he thought.
“Enough, Player!” he heard Soren blare in
his head. “You’re more powerful than you ever were before, and the alliances you have entered into will only augment your abilities further. I wouldn’t lead us into places lesser wizards fear to go without ensuring we at least had a fighting chance. You must trust your triad magic. So long as you’re linked to me and to the others in my crew and Victor’s crew, you’ll have access to yet more forms of magic, and even understand how to work with those different magics from how the others are wielding them.”
Soren was done with his pep talk even though Player was a long way from being convinced. How he knew was that the next one to light a fire under him was the beast. “The portal. Open it now.” That was not a request. The tone, brutish and violent, was its own kind of magic.
Aeros and Airy reacted even before Player did, no doubt responding to the order from the beast.
Player found himself being yanked through the portal by his two compatriots who had each grabbed an arm. Their weightless, lighter-than-air bodies, now powered by chemical explosives in Airy’s case, and by nanite rockets in Aeros’ case, were blasting them through that wormhole at an impressive speed. That was good, because Player wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t collapse down on them before they could get through it.
When they arrived on the other side, Player wanted to turn around and go back. Suddenly Soren’s and the beast’s entreaties sounded like the kind of hot air Player himself was quite used to blowing.
One look at what was before them and no amount of magic seemed remotely up to the occasion.
Reawakened Page 17
