by Paul Edwards
Chapter five
The morning light was streaming through the open window in our room when I woke up the next morning. Shelley had already gotten up, her bed was empty with blankets neatly folded on top.
I stretched and yawned as I sat up, I picked up my dress off the floor and pulled it on as I stood up.
“Kem, I have some toothpaste and a reed if you want It,” Shelley said as she walked through the door. She was carrying a clay jug of water and a dish with some white powder in it. There were three small reeds lying across the dish.
“Is the water boiled,” I asked.
“Don’t worry it’s fresh, it comes from a mountain steam. Don’t have to worry about industrial waste here.”
I felt the urge to wash my hands again, I didn’t want to tell Shelley industrial waste was a very old invention.
I picked up a reed and chewed the end of it to soften it up, then I dipped it into the powder and started to brush my teeth. After I was finished I rinsed my mouth out with water and spit it out the window.
“There is some food on the table in the dining room, Amisi and Osiris had to leave,” Shelley said.
“I can think of at least five diseases we could get from eating it,” I replied.
“We have to eat something.”
“There should be some food vendors at the market place, we can get some cooked meat and bread there. It should be safe.”
I wrote a note on a piece of papyrus to Amisi to thank her for her hospitality. I then straightened my hair fixed my makeup and prepared to face the day.
We left the house and started walking down the narrow street towards were I thought the market would be.
“Remember what you said last night Kem, about the stories.”
I rolled my eyes ,”Ok, but first you have to tell me why you like elephants.”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“So you don’t want to tell me?” I said.
“It’s no big deal, when I was very young my mother gave me a statue she had inherited from her great aunt, she was East Indian. The statue was of Ganesha an Indian god who looked like an elephant, I was really young and just used it to play with.
It was really beautiful, I used to have tea parties with him and my teddy bears. I called him Ganny, I still have it somewhere. I’ve liked elephants ever since.”
“So you took a ritual statue of Ganesha and made it offerings of food and drink?” I said feeling alarmed.
“You make it sound bad, there aren’t really gods are there?”
I thought about the look the elephant Shelley had summoned had given me.
“I don’t know anymore, I only saw Sobek in my dreams, however I’d stay away from elephants from now on.”
“Well that’s not going to happen... besides I’ve seen you at the zoo staring at the crocodiles. So now you have to tell me your story. ”
“When you wrote your rampaging elephant spell, you used a verbal command to initiate it, how did you do that?”
“Oh that was easy, I have a voice recognition app in my tablet computer, I opened a fissure to it then had it activate the spell on its screen when it heard my command.”
“Very good, you see you are already developing your own style.”
“What does that have to do with stories about tricking children?” Shelley asked.
“Well there weren’t any voice recognition apps in four thousand BC.”
“Oh... the magic box, that was to activate the spell when the child heard the command, but why did you use children?”
“I tried adults, but it’s hard to get someone to do a simple task when they’re quaking in terror. I found young children weren’t afraid of me.”
“But why the stories?”
“I don’t know really, the thing is you’re creating a moment in time when you have a person waiting to hear a command, and you can use that moment over and over, but the first time the child waits with the magic box there is no command. Maybe it was the stress of that.”
“That’s it?”
“Well there was one other thing... I had to find a reliable child so I came up with a test to weed them out?”
“What test?” Shelley asked, an alarmed look on her face.
“I would put a piece of chocolate covered honey in front of them, then I told them I was going away for a few moments and if they didn’t eat the honey I would give them a bowl of the stuff when I came back.”
“The marshmallow test! You gave them the marshmallow test,” Shelley exclaimed.
“Marshmallow test?”
“Instead of honey they use marshmallows, and it can determine how people will do later in life.”
“Really?” I thought about Pepi the child I had ended up using, he had struck me as particularly sensible.”
“It must have seemed very odd to the children’s parents when these children told them about their experiences, maybe the parents told them these stories to scare them away from you,” Shelley said, she had grasped her chin with her thumb and forefinger.
“I guess that’s possible, children’s stories usually have a lesson woven into them.”
“Kem did the stories in your time have evil witches in them?” Shelley asked.
I thought about the stories of my youth, “no... they were usually about animals.”
“I wonder...” Shelley murmured to herself.
“Wonder what?”
“Oh nothing.”
We had arrived at the cities market place, it was busy but not as busy as I had expected it to be. The people all seemed to have dour expressions on their faces. I guessed this was the result of being conquered.
We found a stall that served flat bread covered in chunks of meat and vegetables. I could see that the food was being cooked as the customers watched, so it would be safe from bacteria.
“How are we going to pay?” Shelley asked.
“I had a bunch of pennies in my pocket when we left, they’re copper.”
“They’ll accept them?”
“They should, but we’ll get screwed on the exchange rate,” I said laughing.
In my time most of the value of coins was in the metal they were constructed from. I couldn’t use the quarters, dimes, or nickels I had because the metal in them hadn’t been invented yet.
I spoke a tiny bit of the local language and was able to order our food, I handed three pennies to the proprietor. He examined them closely.
“I don’t recognize the king,” he said.
“Oh he ruled in the far west.”
“What’s his name?”
“Abraham.”
“Hmm... he doesn’t look like a Canaanite.”
The shop keeper put the coins into a wooden box on the counter behind him and handed us our food.
“We must enter the palace,” I said to Shelley as we ate our food.
“That sounds dangerous.”
We had found a stall that sold beer and had purchased two cups, we were sitting on a small bench near the stall.
“I have to know how they acquired my staff.”
“How do we sneak in?”
“We may not have too, it’s probably an administrative building as well, we’ll make up a story about needing to see a deed or something,” I said.
After we finished eating, we started walking towards a large building perched on a hill, it dominated the city below it.
“How do you know that’s the palace?” Shelley asked.
“No narcissistic megalomaniac would ever allow a larger more impressive building then his own to be constructed.”
“Meaning the King? What if he isn’t a narcissist?”
I looked at Shelley, “Then he wouldn’t be a king. There are certain personality traits required for a person who subjugates others and starts terrible wars.”
“Didn’t Amisi say they had a regent here?”
“A less successful megalomaniac,” I replied.
“You should have been a union leader Kem,”
Shelley said smiling.
It took us about thirty exhausting minutes to climb the steep hill the palace sat on. Amisi had given us each a pair of thin leather sandals which did little to protect our feet.
When we finally reached the steps to the entrance we saw two Minoan foot soldiers guarding the main entrance, they carried long spears.
“State your business,” one of them barked.
“We have come to look for documents in the hall of records,” I replied.
I noticed an annoyed expression cross the guards face.
“Come to tally your property before you desert us,” he said derisively, “proceed.”
We walked past them as quickly as possible.
“What was that about? Shelley asked, “He looked angry.
I’d forgotten Shelley didn’t have my rudimentary knowledge of the Minoan language.
“When things go bad the first people to be scapegoated are the minorities.”
“Oh... because we’re dressed as Egyptian’s,” she replied.
We entered the main courtyard of the palace, there was a large bustle of serious looking people walking quickly, some carried weapons others clay tablets. I scanned all the entrances to the buildings surrounding the courtyard until I spied what I was looking for.
“Look over there, “I said without pointing.
“Ah... a Sea person,” Shelley said.
“He looks like he’s guarding that entrance that must be where they rule from.”
“What now?”
“I know a simple spell from memory, let’s walk over to that alcove for some privacy.”
As soon as we were out of sight I pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and started writing the spell.
“You must stay very close, we have to walk shoulder to shoulder.”
I activated the spell with final pen stroke as Shelley stood next to me. Suddenly the world was silent, I could hear us both breathing. All the people in the courtyard were now motionless, many were frozen in mid-stride.
“You’ve stopped time!” Shelley exclaimed.
“More like sped it up... but I guess it depends on your point of view.”
We carefully started walking, I made sure to give wide berth to all the other people in the courtyard. I was unsure of the spells area of effect.
We were soon in front of the fierce looking sea warrior guarding the entrance. I examined him closely, he had deep blue eyes and a long brown beard with streaks of blonde in it. His skin was darkly tanned but of a very light complexion.
“He looks European,” Shelley said.
“Yes almost Nordic, the horned helmet makes him look like a cartoon Viking.”
“He’s a long way from home.”
We continued through the entrance and emerged into a gloomy hallway, it was empty of people. I noticed the walls had been stripped of decoration and there were remnants of furniture and pottery strewn about.
We walked for a few dozen more yards when I deactivated the spell. I hid the pad of paper in my dress. I heard the sound of a loud voice yelling from one of the entranceways lining the walls of the hallway.
We pressed ourselves against one of the walls and slowly crept towards the opening the sound was coming from. I peeked around the corner when we were close enough.
I saw the old bearded man that had used the lightning staff on the beach. He was yelling into a glass orb that was perched on three bronze poles fashioned into a tripod. I could see the shadowy outline of another person in the orb. I did not understand the language they were speaking.
I felt Shelly peeking over my shoulder, “Did you make that item... the orb?” she whispered.
“No... I had had the same idea but I did it differently.”
I looked about the room, it appeared to be the throne room, there was a large chair on a dais flanked by two smaller chairs, the floor had a large carpet covering it. I noticed the lightning staff leaning against a wall
“I think we should just confront him when he hangs up. He’s alone,” I said.
“What about the staff.”
“He’s crazy if he tries to use it inside. I’ll try to grab it anyway.”
It was a few moments later when the orb went dark, I counted to three and then we both ran into the room.
