Time Knot

by M. C. Morison

  The paved area leading to the jetty had small kiosks and the little lamps that burned threw their flickering illumination on warm nuts, meat on sticks and sweet things, as well as little trinkets and toys from Rome and Constantinople. She’d come down here with her family in the past. But now it looked alien and potentially dangerous.

  Bother that. Nysa crossed the paved area leading to the jetty, walking with a firm step and keeping her face hidden under her shawl. Off to her right a water-seller rang his little bells and held out his copper cups.

  Only when she reached the jetty did she see the horseman. He sat motionless, partly hidden by one of the trees that gave shade from the fierce summer sun for those drinking or sitting watching the harbour life. At night it provided a perfect place for a man on a black horse to be inconspicuous. As she had that thought he rode forward. She recognised the man she’d seen weeks earlier who’d looked at her so intently. The same man who’d ridden across the long causeway and promptly vanished.

  This night he didn’t vanish. He raised the ivory rod he carried in a sort of salute. Then he pointed behind her. Nysa had nearly reached the steps down to the jetty. She looked back. The giant stood fully lit in the strong moonlight, his breastplate gleaming and his legs, like small tree trunks, planted asunder. He’d been watching her all along. She couldn’t make out his expression but the man on the horse grinned and, tapping his mount, wheeled round and cantered off in the direction of the Jewish Quarter.

  “Come on, miss, I can’t wait all night.”

  This came from the boatman at the end of the jetty. Nysa made her way over and stepped gingerly into the rocking boat. She sat down rather too sharply as it lurched with the bucking motion of a wave. A slap of water gave her face a fine salty spray. The man paddled and they crossed to the palace side. Nysa reached for her purse.

  “Don’t be silly, duck,” said the man, “it’s all paid for. And I’m always here, see. You’d be surprised who takes this little trip in the darkness. Your friend is waiting for you, see?”

  He pointed up the stairs leading to the Palace. A figure stood at the top of the stairs, his dark wavy hair silvered by the moonlight.

  “Look lively, Nysa. You have a library to visit,” said Angelos, pointing towards the palace.

  The Labyrinth

  Angelos opened the library door with a great key in the shape of an ankh. Above his head a soft blush of illumination glowed on the sword of Alexander. Their footsteps echoed as they entered.

  “Change in there,” said Angelos, pointing to a small door on Nysa’s right, one she’d not noticed on her first visit. She closed the door to the oddly shaped chamber, with one curving wall making the room wider as she went forward. She sat for a moment on a stool, catching her breath and bringing her racing heart under control. She trusted Angelos because the Lady trusted Angelos, but she’d never ever been alone with a young Christian man before and here she was on an island, with no one in her family believing she was anywhere except in her own bed. She could be sold into slavery or robbed or… She shuddered.

  Two lamps hanging from the ceiling gave a warm, if slightly inconsistent illumination. A little stray moonlight added some cold comfort. Spread out on a table lay a robe of white linen. Next to it sat a smooth leather draw-string bag. On the floor were sandals with silvered leather straps. Nysa quietly secured the clasp on the door to the room, and slipped out of her dark clothes. The soft robe passed easily over her head. Three mother-of-pearl toggles closed the top of the garment and when done up it fitted perfectly. She opened the pale leather bag and drew out a long braided cord of smooth silken threads, with tassels at each end.

  A gentle knock sounded on the door.

  “Just a moment,” she whispered.

  She tied the cord around her waist and slipped on the silvery sandals.

  Angelos nodded as she stepped out into the library entrance, the quivering light of the lamps enhancing his good looks. He didn’t smile but inclined his head slightly.

  “I’m honoured to lead you to this labyrinth,” he said, his voice a little tight. In the quiet of the night it echoed faintly. “Listen carefully. You must find your way to the source of life, the bull. From there seek once more the Chamber of Initiation.”

  Nysa frowned. What’s he talking about?

  He held her eyes. His own were fathomless in the gloom.

  “Once there,” he went on, clearly using words to be spoken as a ritual, “find your way through.”

  Nysa frowned some more. Through? Through where? The room didn’t go anywhere, did it?

  “If at any point you wish to end your quest, call thrice the name of the Messenger of the Gods, Divine Hermes. We will hear. We will free you. But you will remain a candidate for three more years before you may try again. For some time more you will remain a slave in the twisting coils of time.”

  Angelos took a breath and raised his chin slightly as though freeing a crick in his Adam’s apple.

  “Candidate at the entryway to the Maze of Time, do you wish to proceed? Think well. You may tarry here and no one will believe the worse of you.”

  “No. I’m fine. I’ll proceed,” Nysa heard herself say, as though from several cubits away.

  Angelos nodded, suggesting she’d offered an oracle of great significance.

  “It is well. Proceed in peace and may the light of those who have trod Time’s Circles and found their true Source be with you.”

  Angelos crossed to a small table placed by the fresco of Apollo playing music to the Muses. He picked up a pipe with a double shaft and placed it to his lips. The music swirled around her as he backed away leaving her standing at the entrance. His movement – or a breeze from outside – fluttered the flames in the oil lamps and Apollo himself, with light rippling over him, appeared to be playing, and the Muses to be swaying gently.

  When the music faded Angelos had gone and the door to the library was sealed fast. Nysa turned back to the entranceway to the labyrinth library. Which way should I go? The Librarian had taken them left. She remembered that. But parts of the library could be moved. She was sure. So the path through might well be different tonight. A voice she couldn’t quite hear, a voice inside and far away, reminded her to trust her intuition, to look and really see. She turned to the right.

  The smell of dust, papyrus, cloth and leather played like a multi-layered tune on her senses. At night the aromas took on a greater power. Ahead of her the passageway of scrolls curved to the left. The glowing lamps hung well out of arm’s reach every second cubit or so, giving just enough light to steer by but hardly enough to read comfortably. No matter how gently she placed her feet, her steps resonated. She approached the first opening, bordered by pillars of wood full of Egyptian carvings. Sandalwood! The scent arose quite distinctly as she stood close by. Simple hieroglyphs of gods, animals, snakes, eyes, arms, winged suns, all descended incomprehensibly from the lintel high above her, to the point where the pillars swelled as they met the stone floor. Khloe, her older sister, had taught her the meaning of some of these pictures. A shaft with four lines crossing the top had the name ‘djed’ and represented Osiris’s backbone. She stroked the shape with her finger. I wish I’d paid more attention. Perhaps these are words that say which way to go.

  She moved on. At the next entranceway she stopped. Sandalwood scent refreshed her and something caught her eye. Three or four pictures above the floor, on the right pillar, a lotus plant showed the head of a boy emerging. For under a moment and with less force than a half-remembered dream, she felt a tall girl of about her age standing close by. Instead of freaking her out, the tiny glint of sensation spread through her like a peaceful glow. She passed through the entrance and turned right. Almost at once another opening appeared on her left. Again the sandalwood graced her senses. She closed her eyes and drew a breath. Something gently pressed against her left shoulder; so gently it felt like the memory of a touch. She looked at the figures on her left hand side. Once more she saw the lotus with the
emerging head. It caught the light a fraction more than the images above and below. She entered and turned left, followed by the smile of the tall girl. This time she passed three openings on her right and one to her left, feeling nothing special. Then she reached a stone wall. I’ve made a mistake. The utter stillness settled around her.

  ‘Look carefully.’

  Nysa couldn’t be sure if that was her own voice or a voice from the girl who remained close and yet far away: a tall girl wearing a robe similar to hers, standing in an Egyptian Temple.

  ‘Look. You will know. But look’.

  She walked back. At the first opening she felt nothing – just an emptiness. At the second a puff of air made all the hanging flames flutter and the pictures danced. In her imagination something pressed back at her through this entrance. A gloom; cold despair; a chill of loneliness and fear. How come I didn’t feel that before? Nysa moved on, reaching the third opening. She stood for a long while. Nothing. Silence. The stillness of questions unanswered and impossible puzzles unresolved. She could go on or turn back. Help me, she said to her inner friend – the one from so long ago.

  ‘Face your fears,’ came the response.

  This time the thought arrived with a clear image. The girl stood looking right at her, wearing a pale grey cloak with a feather embroidered near her left shoulder.

  Feelings churned through Nysa. Surely she knew this girl. Her face … I’ve been with her in my dreams. She drew a deep breath, trying unsuccessfully to master her nervousness, and walked unsteadily to the opening that now swirled with eddies of dread. Fear clutched with icy fingers at her stomach. Her legs became weak and her thoughts seemed to flee as a white fuzzy fog took over her mind. She forced herself to look at each pillar. Neither side had a hieroglyph of a lotus. She looked carefully once more. On both sides, at the same height, a single feather had been carved, with other devices below and above. The feather, the sound ‘i’ according to Khloe, like the feather worn by the girl with the grey cloak. Without thought Nysa stepped through. At once the cold fear departed. Nysa heard a gentle laugh, somewhere beneath her feet, so faint it couldn’t be real. The face of her inner friend, tall and beautiful, with long dark hair, smiled at her.

  ‘Now, it’s easier.’

  It didn’t matter which way she turned. The curved passageway, full of scrolls snuggled in their cubbyholes, beckoned her on. Moments later she had gained the centre of the library with Apis, the sun-bull.

  Entombed

  The passage leading to the stone room pressed in around her. Ahead, the rectangular stone doorway framed the central pillar in the small room, with its carved bands of hieroglyphs emphasised with tiny shadows. Nysa stepped inside the lamp-lit room. A deep stillness embraced her as though all the images around her held their breath even as she held hers. The fine relief carvings on either side, evoked from the smooth stone, were even more lifelike. She could sense the river flowing slowly, pressing against the legs of the men and women wading through it. Above these exquisite stone pictures, a band of symbolic lotus blooms divided the bottom two thirds of the wall from the top. This upper portion to her left contained a familiar scene of a hawk-headed god and a jackal-headed god, weighing a feather on huge scales, against a heart-shaped pot. To one side stood a goddess with a feather rising from the top of her head. To the other, a helmeted god, tightly wrapped in cloth, had a green face and sat in judgement. The judgement of Osiris. Khloe had explained a similar picture to her at the Temple of Isis. The heart of the candidate for heaven is weighed against a feather to see if it’s been true in life. If the scales remain in balance, the person is safe. If not, some disgusting hippo-type creature eats them. Nysa shuddered. Seeing this picture in a busy temple on market day had been faintly boring; here it accused her of all the things she had done which she shouldn’t have.

  On the right wall the same picture repeated. Okay, you’ve made your point. This is a judgement room.

  Nysa skirted round the pillar and studied the wall in front of her. It had no dominant large images except for a winged sun extending at the top. Below, the walls remained largely bare apart from a row of single glyphs just about level with her eyes and one casting a slight shadow, lower on the left. She moved to explore the hieroglyph that extended into the room by the depth of a fingernail. It contained an etched shape of a strange curved head, with two rectangular ears. Set, thought Nysa. And then wished she hadn’t. Not good to evoke the god of chaos here. She could see no doorway, nothing to slide or push to open a way through. Except this raised slab.

  She pushed against the stone carving of Set and it slid flush to the wall. Nysa sucked in her breath and bit her lower lip. Nothing happened. Nothing except a grinding noise so faint she thought she must be imagining it. She ran her hands along the other carvings. Nothing else stood out. The stone felt entirely smooth except for the slight incisions made to produce the various pictures.

  What on earth am I meant to do now?

  Something had changed. The silence, if anything, had just become fuller and deeper. Anubis, the jackal-headed god, stared at her from one intricately drawn eye. The feather in the weighing pan seemed to quiver slightly. She walked back around the pillar and nearly fainted. Where the door had been, stood three figures. The goddess Isis on the left, Osiris her husband on the right and in the centre, Horus, their falcon-headed son. Horus, carved into solid stone at the place where she’d entered the room. Now, no longer a room but potentially a tomb, unless she could find a way out.

  There’s no door. How do I get out?

  Tears pricked against her eyes and Nysa felt a giddy whirlpool of panic opening up inside her. She closed her eyes and leant against the wall. Its coolness calmed her a little.

  There has to be a way.

  Nysa turned and studied the picture above the fresco. Something didn’t fit. She worked her way carefully along all the figures. The gods! Something about the gods. The hawk-headed god, Horus, faced back over his shoulder, looking at Anubis behind him. Nysa circled the pillar to compare with the mirror image opposite. Here, Horus also regarded Anubis, behind him.

  Their eyes. What is it about their eyes?

  The eyes were detailed and very stylised. On Horus the right eye had been carved, just as it should be. But behind him Anubis had a left eye on the right side of his face. Up above his head three glyphs sat: a tiny, seated goddess with a feather, a thin rectangle with an angled end lying horizontal and then the same shape, vertical.

  Maat! They all mean Maat or ‘truth’.

  Nysa went back to the right-hand wall. Here Horus’s turned head again showed the right eye correctly and Anubis with a left eye, this time correctly. Above his head were four glyphs: a feather, a tiny pharaoh’s crown, a hawk and a line folding back on itself.

  Random, so random.

  The wall at the far end of the room had ten little glyphs, nine in a row and then the one of Set, which she had pushed, no doubt closing the stone door to her sarcophagus. All the glyphs she had seen incised above Anubis were there. Surely if she pushed the glyphs meaning Truth, in the right order, she would be released. The stonework had tiny lines around each picture and Nysa felt certain if she pressed them, they would move. She went back and checked. The first glyph showed the tiny version of Maat, seated. She found it and her fingers hovered. The silence closed around her softly, like the desert on a night of total stillness.

  Too simple, anyone could guess that. These letters all say Maat. What do the other letters say?

  She looked at the letters above Anubis on the right hand side. One of the lamps suspended from the roof guttered, and the figures on the wall quivered. The hieroglyphs spelt no word she recognised. They were nonsense. The pictures stood for ‘i’, ‘n’, ‘a’ and ‘s’. Khloe had insisted on teaching her the Egyptian alphabet last year. Inas. It didn’t mean anything.

  It has to be Maat in the right order. Surely.

  She stared at the row of glyphs on the wall. All the letters were there. But if she g
ot it wrong she would fail. And she so didn’t want to fail. She rubbed her hands up and over her face and eyes. Then it came to her.

  Wrong eye means wrong way. It has to be the nonsense letters. Inas. Inas. The sound returned to her from around the room.

  She giggled. “Nysa! It spells Nysa!” The silent gods at the blocked entrance echoed the words back to her. She thought she also heard a snort as though someone, somewhere, was trying not to laugh.

  Probably the Hippo, getting ready for dinner.

  Without giving it any more thought she went and pushed the glyphs in the right order – the order that spelt her own name. They shifted in by fingertip depth really easily. The final hawk – the ‘a’ of her name – was the second glyph on the left. As it slid home, a rumbling started and, at the corner to her right, the floor began to open. A whole slab of stone slid gradually under the wall, revealing an illumined crypt with some stone steps descending. Nysa stood uncertain at the top. She held her breath and the universe did too.

  Time Treasures

  “Come on, Nysa, we haven’t got all night, you know.”

  Anastasia’s face appeared at the bottom peering up at her. Nysa came down to be greeted by Anastasia and then Devorah, who both gave her a big hug. They had huge grins on their faces. Nysa descended into a room a cubit or so bigger than the one above, but with two closed wooden doors.

  “You were very quick,” said Devorah. “I took much longer before I worked it out.”

  “We watched you, you know,” said Anastasia.

  Nysa frowned and shook her head.

  “The Hippo. If you look at the Hippo really carefully you’ll see its black eye is a space. We watched you through that. Come. We really haven’t much time and others are waiting. Are you ready?”