The Ka

by Mary Deal

  His breath was warm and gave her chills. His lips and tongue found her nipples. So did his bite as she screamed both in pleasure and pain. He tore at her linen dress and flung it aside.

  “My Tauret,” he said in deep throaty tones. “Give me an heir. Give me my son!”

  Her spell was working. “You shall have your son, my King,” she said. Then she remembered her mother's admonishments about this being a pathway from which she could never return. It could also be a means to fulfillment in every conceivable manner.

  Her body shook with anxiety and anticipation and it excited Pharaoh to see her in such a state. He kissed her gently then momentarily stared deep into her eyes. She was at his mercy. Soon his lips found her neck while his hands explored the rest of her body and she could no longer keep track of anything he might do. When he kissed her again it was not at all like the first kiss. He seemed love starved and in every way meant to exercise his regal privilege.

  Tauret was prepared as she sensed Pharaoh about to take her. He brought up her legs. She separated her knees and held her breath as he pushed into her. Then came the sting for which no motherly advice could prepare. Tears gushed from her eyes and she cried out without meaning to. He groaned with great pleasure and became wild in his movements. The virginity she had kept secret from him had evidently pleased the one man who might change her life forever. A burning sensation followed and she was now alone with her painful feelings as Pharaoh expressed his with groans and thrusts of heightened excitement. Despite discomfort, Tauret had to let Pharaoh know that he pleased her. She could not fail in this. If she did, he might simply get up and walk out and by morning her life and the lives of her parents could be relegated to the fields.

  She wrapped her legs tighter around him and gave in to the moment and encouraged him to do whatever gave him pleasure. “Oba,” she whispered lustily. She clutched desperately at his buttocks. “Oba!”

  Something woke Tauret after all the candles had burned down and gone out. Only a dim streak of moonlight came through the window. She felt his warm breath on her neck. Then he was kissing her again as his hands explored.

  “You please me, my Tauret,” he said as his voice filled the room. “Now give me a son.”

  Without hesitation, Pharaoh lifted her legs and was inside of her again in one fluid movement. The painful burning returned. She wanted to cry out and say she could not continue. She remembered again what had led to that moment, this night, and knew that she would not fail. She lifted her legs higher and clutched at his hair. “Plant your seed, my Pharaoh,” she said. “I will give you a son.”

  She woke toward morning and found Pharaoh still sleeping beside her. How regal he looked despite his nakedness, without regal accoutrements. She had pleased him well. He had not left during the night. She looked about as sunlight began to filter in. She had worked herself into frenzy with the music and dance and copulating with her Pharaoh had been a lofty goal. It was a dream that she could offer no other man, but one part of the dream was not yet complete.

  She reached to gently wake her King. As he stirred, she brought her lips to his and ran her hands over his body and found him already excited. She knew nothing about a man's anatomy. What she found pleased her as she acquainted herself and that excited Pharaoh until he lifted her up and sat her down on top of his throbbing pole.

  The stinging pain was still there but so was a new determination because this man, this King of all kings, remained with her through the night. Nothing would stop her now. She would give this King an heir with every conceivable pleasure in the making.

  19

  Chione felt great disappointment as the scene faded and she found herself back inside the Pillared Hall, lying on her mat, full of sexual desire and perspiring as Tauret had with Pharaoh. Wishing to go back into the scene but realizing where she was, Chione had to lie still until the disappointment subsided. The Pillared Hall was in total darkness. The air was stifling hot. She put her hand to her heart and found her shirt completely unbuttoned. Undone, too, was the button of her trousers and the zipper! Her skin felt sticky all over. She sat up and patted the floor at the head of her mat till she found her small pocket flashlight and switched on its dim beam. Then she saw him. Aaron lay on a mat over by the next pillar. Though a simple blanket covered his hip area, his shirt and trousers were neatly folded and lay alongside his sleeping mat.

  Chione dropped the flashlight. Its small beam illuminated only a nearby pillar to the side. “How could you, Aaron?” she said, screaming. “How could you?”

  The sounds reverberated off the stone walls. Aaron bolted to his feet in his under shorts. When he realized where he was and that a light was on, he quickly grabbed up the blanket and tied it around his waist. “What's the matter?” he asked quickly as he came to her side. His expression in the dim light was one of disbelief. “What's wrong?”

  She felt her bare chest again and turned away to button her shirt and close her zipper. Her mind flashed on the vivid scenes between Tauret and Pharaoh and she wondered how they could have seemed so real. She stood and raised her arm as if to strike Aaron but he kept some distance. “My clothes,” she said. “Did we— did you—“

  “What is it? What's the matter?”

  Chione felt defeated. “Did we do what I think we did last night?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You weren't in here when I started my meditation. Then I was with Tauret and she and Pharaoh were….” She could not get the words out. “Did we do anything, Aaron?”

  “You mean make love?”

  “Yes!”

  “Only in your fantasies.”

  She had nearly broken down but his comment unnerved her. “My fantasies? When you and I both have the same psychic experiences? You tell me Aaron Ashby!” The room continued to echo. Chione felt as if they had insulted the sanctity of the Pillared Hall. She lowered her voice. “You tell me you didn't take advantage of me!”

  Aaron let out a breath of air. His face softened. He made sure his blanket was still wrapped. “Oh, Chione, you've never been with a guy at all, have you?”

  The comment took her by surprise. How could he have known? She shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “If you and I had made love, your body would be telling you so. I mean… there are ways to tell and you….” He shrugged, seeming to have difficulty talking about sex between them.

  “We didn't?”

  “I'm half naked because the electricity went out again last night. Climate control in here doesn't work without power, so I took my clothes off. It's not safe for you meditating alone in here in total darkness.”

  It was ghastly hot in the Hall. She was still perspiring. “Then why—”

  “It was a strong paranormal occurrence, okay?” His words did not sound convincing.

  “That's all?”

  “That's all it was. So can we just enjoy being Tauret and Tut?” he asked, “together in our other world?” He returned to his mat and turned his back while he quickly dressed. As he walked past, he said, “See you topside.” He flicked on his flashlight as he exited into the dark passageway.

  So how did he know what kind of manifestation took place in her trance state?

  Chione flicked off the flashlight and sat again in total darkness. Paranormal events were happening too quickly and too frequently. She needed to think about how to allow what was happening, yet how not to allow them to overpower her. Much more and she would not be able to function with the team. Concentrating deeply, she heard the distant sound of Aaron ringing the bell so the guards at the top of the portcullis shaft could let him out when he climbed up. The ringing of the bell slipped her into trance again and Tauret approached.

  Tauret carried the same blue faience bowl that she had used while performing her ritual spell. This time, the bowl contained a thick dark mixture that felt sticky as Tauret applied it to her face and then receded into darkness toward the north wall.

  Chione roused again not knowing
how long she remained entranced. She looked at her watch and found it was just before dawn. The team would be assembling in the cook tent for breakfast and the morning briefing. She had not returned to her yurt all night.

  She did not have to ring the bell. The grate above the portcullis shaft had already been opened. However, guards were still in place to keep out those not permitted to enter. As she climbed out, they looked at her as if in disbelief.

  Chione felt sticky and would hurry to take a shower. The moment she emerged from the shaft and people noticed, all eyes were upon her. Young boys pointed, giggled. Yafeu stuck his head out of the cook tent and suddenly Dr. Withers and Aaron and everyone were rushing toward her.

  “What's with your face, Chione?” Dr. Withers asked.

  People gathered around and suddenly she was sitting on a wooden box and touching her cheek with her fingertips. Her facial skin felt puckered, rough, and coarse. Siti rushed up with a hand mirror. Chione peered at herself and saw her mouth drop open. She was just as surprised as everyone else was.

  “What's the meaning of this?” Aaron asked.

  “I-I don't know,” she said.

  She felt confused and scared but remembered Tauret with her bowl of a sticky black substance that she had applied to her face. That had happened in the trance state. Surely that could not be the reason her face was now streaked with a muddy substance. Nothing tangible ever transferred from a trance state. Chione trembled at the implication.

  Aaron bent to kneel in front of her. His knee must have hit a stone because he flinched badly, but his intense gaze told that he was concerned only for her at that moment. “Do you want to lie down?” he asked.

  “Better to wash,” Siti said.

  Dr. Withers placed a hand on Aaron's shoulder. “After she's cleaned up, I want to see you two in her tent.”

  By the time Dr. Withers crowded into the yurt, Chione was sitting on the low cot. Her face had been washed after Siti pulled off the sticky mud and piled the pieces on a clean cloth. Chione looked again into a mirror. Her cheeks were rosy and clear.

  “Hapi's mud,” Siti said.

  “Whose?” Dr. Withers asked with exasperation.

  “Hapi's,” Chione said cautiously. “Or maybe it was just dirt and I perspired and made it turn dark.” She could not look either of them in the eye. “It's hot in the tomb at night.”

  Dr. Withers pulled up the woven stool and sat down as the reeds creaked beneath him. “So, after you and Aaron finished whatever, you spent the night in there… alone?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought I warned—”

  “But Dr. Withers, I'm getting—I've had….”

  Aaron's eyes widened as if he had guessed what had happened. Then he looked utterly sympathetic.

  Dr. Withers motioned to Siti and Aaron. “Leave me in here for a while.” He looked stern. When they were alone, he asked, “Is something going on that I don't know about? Or has the whole world gone wobbly?” He looked at the strips of mud and almost reached out to touch them but changed his mind.

  She owed him an explanation, but how could she explain when she, herself, did not understand what had happened. “I think I just got really dirty.”

  Dr. Withers threw up his hands and left the tent. Now she had to worry that she may have offended him by not confiding in him. What could she say to make him understand? Either way, he might lose faith in her.

  Aaron entered and took a turn sitting on the creaky stool. Chione felt like a child about to be scolded. “I didn't ask to have these things happen to me,” she said. “Now I'm left to interpret them as best I can.” Suddenly, Aaron dropped to his knees on the ground in front of her and she leaned forward into his arms and trembled as her breath come out in nervous fluttering sighs. “You've got to help me,” was all she could say.

  “I'm here for you, Chione,” he said. “What's going on?”

  “I'm into this way over my head.”

  “Can't you turn it off, slow it down?”

  She pulled away and sat back. “Can't… won't,” she said, gesturing with her hands as they shook nervously.

  He eased back onto the stool. “So tell me what happened.”

  “After you left, I was thinking to leave too,” she said. “Then Tauret appeared again. It's strange. She put this stuff on my face. Then she disappeared. She seemed in a hurry.”

  “Hurry? Why?”

  “Don't know,” she said. “We had to hurry, that's all. And Aaron, you won't believe this.”

  “Try me.”

  “Tauret put this mud on my face, and when I looked at her, she was me.”

  Outside, the winds howled, filled the yurt and made it balloon then snap harshly. Aaron ignored the distraction. “You were her putting mud on someone else's face?” he asked.

  “No, I was her, putting mud on my own face,” Chione said emphatically. She glanced at the mud strips again and reached over and touched one.

  “You and Tauret were the same person?”

  “That's the way I understand it.”

  “I guess you can be two people at one time,” he said. “In a vision, anything can happen, I guess.”

  “That's what I saw. Now here I am with this makeover.”

  He could not possibly understand it yet. He had read quite a bit about the experiences of others and about psychic phenomena and the spiritual realm. He still practiced the meditation techniques and disciplines she taught him. At times, he reported that he felt consciousness shift to other realities. Still, he needed more experience.

  They were aware of other planes of existence where the impossible might happen and also be real. They perceived the planes as being up in the heavens, the universe or maybe all around them, unseen. Those realities did not intermingle with the earthly plane. One could visit another plane and bring back the memory but certainly nothing tangible like Hapi's mud.

  Chione needed to exercise utmost caution. Aaron was too eager to learn and, at times, seemed ready to cast aside much of his life to satisfy his thirst for knowledge about the realms to which he had been introduced. If word got out about their practices, he would be labeled one of “those” people. His career could be jeopardized. From the beginning he made her aware of the necessity of balance between privacy and practice. “I doubt anyone will say anything about this,” she said. “They won't know how to talk about it. So let's keep it our secret.”

  “What meanings do you interpret from this?”

  “I wish I knew,” she said, sighing. “Most occurrences seem left to me to decipher in the days that follow.”

  “You can't glean anything else?” he asked. He finally touched and then lifted the edge of a drying sheet of mud. It stuck to his fingertips, presumably like mud reportedly found at certain locations bordering the Nile. Hapi's mud.

  “You know that I couldn't have come up with a supply of that mud,” she said.

  “Was anyone with you in the tomb?”

  “Definitely not, but I know one thing. I slipped deep into another realm this time.”

  “No kidding.”

  “It was just as real as you and me sitting here,” she said. Then her eyes lit up. “Oh, I remember. I came out of trance knowing that Queen Tyi was not a Nubian. She was thought to be barren, then used Hapi's mud to conceive. That's why her face was depicted black.”

  At the moment she remembered, Aaron's expression said he must have also remembered the spell from the First Chamber: Blacken your face with Hapi's mud. Like farmer's fields, new life will bud. Suddenly, they both realized the implication of the spell. Chione, herself, was barren, but Queen Tyi had several children. They sat staring expectantly into each other's eyes.

  “There's no record of Queen Tyi having been barren,” Aaron said finally.

  “Hieroglyphs couldn't tell it all. We'll never know the personal lives of the Ancients. Besides,” she said after a moment of pause. “What happened to me was only another vision.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said.

/>   20

  The sifted rubble from the children's room produced few finds. “A small pile of loose beads,” Dr. Withers said. “Papyrus ropes, threads and tiny broken trinkets.”

  “They're all a part of history,” Chione said. The Madu Museum people would later tediously piece those together.

  Plans were made to seal off the hole Randy fell through into the Second Chamber. As little as possible would be done other than seal the ceiling both on the outside and the inside. If complete restoration were to be accomplished, the expert artists of the Restoration Society would be the ones to complete it. A local stonecutter from the Theban village volunteered his services to shape a stone to fit the cavity and a message was sent to Cairo for a few bags of cement.

  Dr. Withers decided to hold off on emptying the food annex. Crates were being completed for the larger pieces of furniture in the Pillared Hall. Once the Hall was cleared, they would have more space to maneuver.

  Aaron cornered Chione, turned to leave and then turned back again. He was busy, but something must have been playing on his mind. “I should run something by you,” he said as they moved to stand in the shade of the inventory tent.

  “Sounds important,” she said.

  “Maybe so.” He paused in thought, and then softly said, “I had a phenomenal experience yesterday.”

  She smiled warmly. “Tell me about it.”

  “Guess I should,” he said. “I was inside the children's room, looking at the walls. I know we're not supposed to touch—”

  “You didn't.”

  “Couldn't help myself,” he said. “As if it wasn't my hand reaching out. I-I heard a voice.”

  “Re-eally?” she asked. Chills ran down her arms. All he had to do was mention something paranormal and she would have a kinesthetic reaction. “What did you touch… hear?”

  He took the water bottle off his hip, opened it and took a long gulp. “Not sure where I saw that symbol before,” he said. He pressed his shirtsleeve against his lips. “Don't know what attracted me. Maybe you can identify it.”