Winged Pharaoh

by Joan Grant

  Then I saw a man who, when he had met people who were in trouble, instead of speaking to them with words that would have been a healing ointment to their wounds, in his self-righteousness had told them that they were unworthy of his sympathy, for their sufferings were of their own making. Now he who would not comfort others is in a desert with no shade, and the sun beats down upon him until his skin is cracked like river mud before the inundation. Before him he sees palm trees, which surround a well of cool water, and in the shade there sits a man with two jars. He knows that in one of them is a healing ointment, and he goes to this stranger sitting in the shade and asks him to anoint his wounds. But it is from the other jar that his wounds are anointed, and it is filled with salt, which licks over his skin with a tongue of fire. Then he is driven forth to wander again under the sun, to learn that, though it is true that a man who is lost upon a desert would not be lost if he had stayed at home, yet if a fellow-traveller leaves him to wander unguided, he in his turn shall look for comfort and find it not.

  Then I saw those who had mocked children and others who could not answer to their wordy spears. They stand naked in the market-place and cannot control their hands or feet, which make idiot gestures and bespatter their own bodies with filth, so that the passers mock them in their turn.

  Then I saw a man who had slit the tongues of those he had made the unwilling holders of his secrets, lest they should betray him as he had betrayed others. Now he lies blistering upon a rock, while water-carriers pass, who, if he could but make a sound, would pour sweet water into his parched mouth. But he is dumb.

  Then I saw another, who had stood in shadows and looked upon sacred things that were not for his eyes and then revealed them. Now, as he lies rigid upon the ground, he watches the vultures wheeling in the air, until one swoops and tears out both his eyes. Then for an instant he is in the dark, and then again he sees the wheeling birds, until one down-plunges with darkness in its beak.

  Then I saw the place where all must go who have betrayed a proven friend. This is one of the greatest of sins: for he who would betray a friend is a betrayer of the Brotherhood. He shall go upon his journey without a friend, and fear shall be his only companion. Such as he shall walk through a bleak and bitter land, where before them stretches a seemingly endless path between sombre rocks and withered, arid wastes; and above them is a canopy of mist, for upon them no sun or stars shall shine. At their backs there plods a horrid shape, the embodiment of their most secret fears; and though they strive to hurry through this place, their straining feet are bound by clinging slime.

  Here they shall remain until one, of whose companionship they are no longer worthy, shall of his compassion fetch them from this place to rejoin the brotherhood of man.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The False Priest

  Then I went to one who had been a priest of Anubis in the little temple of Athlanta. He was the only true dreamer in that temple, where the Light should have shone, but he had blunted his will and had lost his sleep-memory: for he had become a sooted mirror that no longer reflected the light. He was too lazy to strive to recapture his lost power, yet he was too proud to admit of his failure. So he recounted that which was not true, and which was but a weaving of his earth thoughts. And when the time came that the Prophecy of Doom was heard by all true priests, those who came to his temple received it not, and with their false priest perished beneath the water.

  For more than two thousand years he has dwelt alone in a temple whose courts echo to his solitary footsteps. Here there are statues of gods whose faces he knows not. He prays to them, although he knows that their ears are deaf and their hearts are of stone, for he can reach no others. And he prays to them that there may be one still left in this land of desolation who may come to him; for he thinks that all the world perished because of his sin.

  Often he stands at the gate of the temple, looking out upon an endless plain. Sometimes he sees a loved child running towards him and he thinks that his prayers are answered; but as he touches it, it is as though his hands were white-hot, for the child shrivels before him, and he holds but a figurine of charred wood. Sometimes he sees one walking toward him in the robe of a true priest; but as he clasps his hand in greeting, he finds that he holds the whitened bones of the long drowned. Sometimes he sees his mother walking towards him with infinite compassion on her face, but when he touches her, he finds waterweeds dripping between his fingers. Sometimes upon the barren plain he sees in the distance flowers growing; but as he runs toward them, they turn to a reef of coral that cuts his feet.

  When I came to him, he stood before me not daring to stretch out his hand, lest I should turn to ashes at his touch. I put my hands upon his shoulders, and his drowned face was lit with a radiance. And I said to him, “Your time has come. You will return to Earth to train your memory, and it will take you five lives to gain that perfection which once you should have had. But your great loneliness is ended. In five months you will be born from your mother’s womb and feel the gentle comfort of her arms. For your companions you will have three brothers. And when you are seven, a seer will come to your house and he will say that in your twelfth year you must go to the temple to be trained. And the time shall come when you shall bring wisdom to those on Earth; and you shall express your knowledge in such words that you shall be known as ‘the priest of the silver tongue’.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Treasure on Earth

  Then I went to that place where are those who upon Earth had made a graven image of their possessions and worshipped it as their god.

  I saw a man who had been master of a great vineyard. The love of plants can be a bringer of peace to the heart, but it had filled this man’s thoughts and encompassed his spirit.

  Now he is imprisoned in his house by the vines that he loved too much. They have shrouded the walls and thrust open the doors and the shutters of the windows. They creep across the floors, and their clustering leaves have shut out the light until the air of the room is like dark water heavy with the weight of the sea. Savage with growth they strain towards him like leeches on a jungle path. He tries to scream, but he is as voiceless as a fish. He thinks that soon their tendrils, groping towards him with their blind green fingers will twine about him and ensnare him, even as his love for them had once ensnared his heart.

  On Earth he had known no enemies save the insects that assailed his vines, and he could see the sky only as a background for the pattern of their leaves. To him life was the putting forth of their shoots, and death the decay in their branches. He ordered that when he died he should be buried under the great vine, which grew upon the wall of his house, so that his body might be food for its strength. His vines were his father and his mother, his children and his gods; and he prayed that they should grow as no other vines had grown throughout the history of the Earth.

  And when he died the Gods had granted him his prayer.

  Then I saw a man who upon Earth had filled his house with rare treasures. He had been jealous of the pleasure that their beauty might give to others who saw them, yet he invited people to his house so that they might envy him his possessions. He liked to see their fingers clasping the smooth curve of his goblets, for he thought their hearts sorrowed that their own wine could not be so graciously enfolded. He liked them to walk across his floors of cedar-wood so that the floors of their own houses should seem like the beaten mud of a fisherman’s hut. He liked them to sleep between the gilded leopards of his beds so that they should think of their own as a wooden bench covered with straw. He would walk round his house and stroke the precious woods of his furniture, and fondle his figurines of ivory as if they were the head of a favourite hunting-dog; and if his finger found a grain of dust upon a table, he ordered his servants to be beaten. He could not see the stars, for his eyes were filled with the beauty of the frescoes upon his walls; he could not see the beauty of a tree, for to him a thing must be possessed before it could be beautiful. And of his house he made a temple where he re
igned alone, and of his possessions he made his only god.

  When he died his spirit could not travel beyond the walls of his house, and the things that had filled his heart made him their slave. He would see a figurine of ivory begin to crack, and only when he took it in his hands was it whole again; white ants would attack his furniture, and only when he polished it with a soft cloth was it unflawed. Now he runs backwards and forwards between the rooms of his house, trying to save his possessions from dissolution. He thirsts, and his wine flagons are dry. He hungers, and his gold dishes are empty. He longs to sleep, but he dares not rest, for he thinks that by morning all the things he cherishes will have crumbled.

  When I went to release him, he was trying to sweep out the dust that shrouded the floor of his favourite room. It swirled about him in a choking cloud, and only where he stood did the polished cedarwood shine through the grey. As I walked towards him, the dust curled back and withered like foam on a beach, and before me there was a smooth pathway like moonlight across the sea. And I said to him, “On Earth you built yourself a tomb, not for your body, but for your spirit: and in your spirit you have lived in it. Now the time has come for you to be free.”

  Then I took him by the hand and led him from this prison that he had made, and I showed him the part of Earth where he would be re-born, a country whose white cliffs, rising from the sea, gave to it the name of The White Island. I told him that here he would find little to distract him from realities or to remind him of what he had loved too much before. His heart was thirsty for wisdom, but though he knew of his thirst, he thought that it was a thirst of the body. So, to appease it, I gave him water in an earthen cup. And when he had quenched his thirst he broke the earthen cup lest he should become too fond of it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Pitiful Ones

  Then I went to that place where are those who upon Earth know not true gods, but worship a blind figure of injustice whom they call Fate; and they are guided not by their will, but are driven by the reins of their own imagination.

  Among them are those who fear famine. Although the granaries are full and their sleeping bodies are satisfied with food, here they are like skeletons with hunger, and round them are empty grain-jars, and even their water pitchers are cracked and broken.

  And here, also, are some who on Earth have but a little fever, yet here they suffer the torments of all the illnesses of the flesh that they have seen or heard of, and they spend their nights sweating in an agony that is of their own creation.

  And here are some who, though their land is at peace, fear death in battle; and though their sleeping bodies are safe upon the bed-places of their own houses, every night their flesh is pierced by arrows and their skulls staved in by the maces of their enemies.

  And here are some who upon Earth have well watered fields deep in grain, and fat cows whose milk hisses from heavy udders, yet here they wring their hands as they walk over the desolation of their barren fields, or watch their sick cattle dying in the byre.

  To these I went, and I told them that they were being as cruel to themselves as a scribe who cut off his right hand, or a gardener who destroyed his most precious plants; and I told them that of their own craven fear they created the realities that they dreaded, so that the wise compassion of the Gods was kept from them by barriers of their own building.

  Few there were who listened to me, but to one I talked who night after night for years had lived death. On Earth he was a soldier of the garrison of Na-kish, and he was on an expedition in the deep forests to the south. I knew that round his camp there was an ambush of the pygmy people. I told him to return to Earth and to lead his twenty men through a narrow defile down to the river where they might yet escape this closing net. I put my hands upon his shoulders and said, “You shall have the courage for which you have prayed, and you shall no longer visit this shadow-land, but belong to the companionship of the brave.” And his fear-ridden eyes grew calm; and he returned to his body and left my sight. I knew that before the sun again set over Kam the time of his return from exile would be reached, and that in his dying he would find that he no longer suffered a thousand deaths; rather would he walk dear-eyed and fearless into the Light.

  Then I talked to a man who feared pain and disease, and I told him no longer to think about his ills, but to fill his courtyard with all the suffering and the crippled who crossed his path. And in succouring those who needed it, he might attain to the courage of those who felt deep pain and rent not the air with lamentations, but smiled their courage.

  And I told a rich man who feared to starve, no longer to guard his granaries, but to share his plenty with the poor; and that in so doing he might share the satisfaction of those whom he had fed, and learn that it is better to lie hungry upon straw and to find refreshment away from Earth than to live in fear of famine and in sleep to suffer it.

  These three listened to me. Yet there were many who refused my words and strove not for that courage which would free them. And they stayed among the pitiful ones who dwell in prisons they have built around themselves.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The House of the Gods

  Then I saw before me the Great Building Splendid with Pillars. And it shone with light, as though it were of alabaster translucent with a living flame.

  Before it were two great lions, which in size and savagery were as an earth lion is to a kitten; and they towered above me as though I had but the stature of a field-mouse. I knew that I must walk towards them smoothly and in rhythm, my steps unhurried, for they would know my heart and it must be filled with peace. I must be upright in my strength and without fear. And as I walked towards them, they no longer towered above me, and they became as earth lions. And as I passed between them, they lay upon the ground, gentle as lion cubs in my father’s courtyard.

  I mounted the steps and passed across the colonnaded terrace under the great lintel. And before me stood the Keeper of the Gate, and he asked me to tell him what was written upon the lintel. When I looked upon it, it was smooth; and then, written in letters of fire, I read, ‘Peace and Truth and Wisdom be one, and from them shines the everlasting Light which casts no shadow’.

  Then did the doors open before me.

  Here I saw many things that are strange, yet I thought they were not strange; I saw many things that my earth eyes know not, yet they had a sweet familiarity: for here I was as a tree knowing all that is part of my growth through the ages, and not as I am upon Earth, where I am as a leaf upon a branch.

  Then I entered a great hall where many were seated at a long table, which was white, like polished stone, like pearl, like ivory, and yet like none of these: for it gave forth a faint light. And the Watchers can look upon it and see any part of Earth as though lit in a mirror.

  These great ones are beyond form as we know it, yet did I see them in the semblance of man. And in their faces is the wisdom of age and the glory of youth; they are neither man nor woman, yet they have the knowledge, they have the beauty, they have the strength, they have the understanding of these two in one.

  Here all is light, which is a living substance.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Place of Records

  Then I went to the Place of Records, where the Keepers of the Great Scales of Tahuti take those of mankind who cannot themselves look into the past; and here they show them those things that are reflected in their future, so that upon Earth they know what, of their free will, they should do to adjust the balance.

  It is like a great hall of audience and the walls are of a smooth whiteness, yet they who come here see it as though it were a place of earth records, in the form that in their own countries such things are kept.

  Some there are who see it as a storehouse of day tablets, and to some the records are carved upon sheets of gold, or scribed in bright colours upon a vellum page; some see them in the likeness of papyrus rolls, or frescoed upon a temple wall.

  In whatever form they see them, among the records there is one on whic
h they see their true name, and none other can they read; and when they hold it in their hands, they see what they must know for the hastening of their long journey; like a vision in a looking-bowl, like sleep-memory, yet dearer.

  I saw an old man of the Dragon People. He held in his hand a tablet of white jade, and in it he saw himself as he was in his last life, when he was the son of a gardener and his work was to tend the peonies of his master. But he sorrowed when their petals fell, and he longed to capture their beauty upon silk. His master knew of this and he took the boy into his house and had him trained in the way of a scribe. That boy is now a man of riches and his house is the dwelling-place of things of great beauty, of jade and ivory, chalcedony and bronze and fragile porcelain that is smooth as oil. And the man who was once the master that befriended him is poor and works in the rice fields. And in the morning the man who read from the tablet will meet him as they go to the temple, and they will talk to each other of the gentle philosophies of these people; and they will walk home together and forget that one wears an embroidered robe and the other a coat of blue cotton. And their friendship will have been renewed.

  Then I saw a woman who is barren. She was shown how once she had had a child that died when it was six years old. And in the morning, when she rides upon her litter through the streets, she will see a little boy playing in the dust; and though she will not remember him, she will find there is love for him in her heart. And when she finds that his parents are dead and that he lives with his great-uncle, a silversmith, who is grudging of his charity, she will give the old man a bag of gold and take the child with her. And they will be happy together, for her son who died two hundred years ago will have returned to dwell in her house.