The Akaru buried his face in his hands, then looked up with a woeful expression on his face.
“Then I submit, as I have always submitted, to the will of King Shepseskaf, Lord of the Upper and Lower lands.”
Akaru, this is a trick. You don’t… Marai sent an unguarded thought to the elder but checked himself.
“I do not want your submission, old man,” Maatkare slapped the arm of the chair. “I want your rage. Do you have any of that? Does anything but morning gruel lurk in your belly?” his eyes slid toward Marai, who had quietly watched his performance.
“Enjoying yourself, Highness?” Marai couldn’t resist a taunt. “Maybe I should call you Lowness that you would waste your entire hunting excursion trying to provoke a war among peaceful and loyal subjects. You and I both know what this is about and who the architect of all this nonsense is. What has the old man promised you? Full exoneration? Perhaps a puppet kingship where he will still rule and control with a trick from time to time designed to make you think you have some power.”
Marai moved toward the Akaru with the clear thought meant for the general and Deka to pick up: Aped is strong enough, Akaru. Don’t worry. If he falters, I’ll give him the strength he needs. This one knows nothing will happen. It’s all show for his men – and for her.
Deka’s face snapped up. She stared at Marai as if he had become a stranger.
Waking from a dream, he thought, sadly. If I could speak to you one more time.
Maatkare shook his head as if he was confident she would decline.
“I would speak with her, then,” the Akaru moved forward as if stepping into a light and spoke. “I have the answer of her lineage she has been seeking for so long. If you promise me my grandson will not be harmed I will speak them to her, but privately. I know why her heart cries out at night when you sleep, and why you will never rule anything but her body’s pleasure for the moments she grants you that accomplishment. I know her.”
Deka’s face drained of color. Her nails dug into Maatkare’s hand.
Do not let this worm speak to me, thus. Kill him. You would not let me taste the younger one. You know I have need of it.
Marai sensed Deka’s struggle to maintain her composure and to combat the aspect of the lioness that wanted to come forth and pounce.
“You dare speak to me with an empty promise?” she snapped aloud, then looked at Maatkare to read his expression of approval. She turned to Akaru again. “I will speak with you as long as it entertains me. If I don’t like what I hear…”
Marai shook his head, dismayed, as the Akaru took a step forward with his hands extended in peace.
This is so ridiculous, Deka. Wake up. See us for who we are. Don’t do this, the big man’s thoughts pleaded.
“Deka is no more, Man-Sun; dead.” She addressed him briefly before inclining her head to Maatkare with a whisper: “This is not for you, my love. You take the man Marai outside and wait for us. This is my own destiny which needs to be sorted out. He will not do anything foolish if he wants anyone from his world to survive.”
Marai’s last backward glance revealed her beckoning the elder governor to sit by her in the chair Maatkare vacated. Guards took positions outside, ready to answer if the Akaru tried to harm her.
Chapter 19: School of the Neter Stones
When Marai and Maatkare walked away from the audience building and towards the inner wall of Buhen with several of Maatkare’s soldiers in tow, the sojourner thought of plucking Maatkare from them and giving him a beating, but didn’t. He wanted to thrash the general when they first met. It would have been merciless. Now that the man hosted a stone, the dynamic had changed. They would only fight to a draw, then heal from any wounds to fight again.
Maatkare stopped when both he and the big man were halfway to the wall. The soldiers remained by them, a short distance away. It gave Marai a starting point.
Despite all his disgust and dislike of the pompous young creature in front of him, Marai knew the best option was to come to some sort of clumsy peace. His instincts told him Maatkare understood that and didn’t like it either.
“Well, we can stand here squaring off like a couple of big cats waiting for each other to blink if that’s what you want to do, Highness,” Marai spoke first.
“True, but if you come at me,” the prince answered, “I’ll be more of a challenge.” He tapped the place on his brow. “Nice, eh?”
At that moment, Marai knew exactly how he would gain the upper hand.
“I appreciated mine when I first got it. It’s a natural feeling,” Marai took a step forward, but soldiers stepped too, moving their spears closer.
“And this right here is where we find out if you have any respect at all for the men under you,” Marai remarked, leveling a metallic stare at one of the guards. “Nice training,” he added when the man didn’t flinch. “Still. If one of them tries to stick me…”
“Leave him,” Maatkare grumbled, flipping his left hand. “Take leave, all of you, I’ll manage this. You just go take watch over the one in the well.”
When the men left, the prince gazed directly at the sojourner. A smile curled out of the corner of his mouth. “Better?” he asked.
“Even better would be a walk out and down to the river,” Marai parried, wondering about increasing his own advantage.
“I think not. You can choose to go to the cook yard outside this wall, but we’re not leaving the city. You can take some food out there if you wish. I’ve ordered my own cooks to prepare a meal for the higher in the ranks,” the prince answered.
Marai nodded and walked beside Maatkare as they headed out to the cook yard. The big man was aware of the guarded conversation. It was no different than the time he had encountered the prince in the grassland across the river. The more politely he behaved, the more deceptive and deadly his potential. Hordjedtef had trained him well.
“As you were saying, you’ll be more of a challenge for me to best now that you’re a host. Right now you’re pleased with yourself, but it’s already starting to tip, isn’t it?” Marai sat with Maatkare, just outside the inner wall gate. Many of Maatkare’s soldiers were moving around between the inner and outer walls, quelling any blazes of the homes now reduced to embers. Marai nodded at the Akaru’s success, seeing no bodies or signs of slaughter outside the walls.
“You expect there to be no dead?” Maatkare questioned. “I can feel your thoughts. You knew something meddled in our plans; something warned them. That’s not pride in yourself though, is it? It must have been the old man. He must be stronger than I expected. Still, it doesn’t matter. We have this city, and neither it nor its people are safe. We could run them down in a matter of hours if we wanted to, and I could re-light these fires with a single word.”
Marai’s stare withered. He picked up a small stone, twirled it over and over in his fingertips, and then tossed it away. “And that made you think of this was a successful mission?”
“Not your concern,” the prince snapped.
“Which brings me to the problem you’ve observed; how your feelings have tipped ever so slightly since you’ve become a host. I can read you, and so can every other host, including Deka. We always will be able to do that unless you learn compartmentalizing, and that’s not an easy task. I can do it, so can Deka and Ariennu. I would not know if Naibe has made attempts, but I suspect she has. The Children of Stone don’t understand why we would even want to separate ourselves. They don’t like it, and they always push us to share everything; to have a sameness of purpose.”
Marai paused and noticed that Maatkare wasn’t paying attention. The man’s eyes had misted in a daydream. So close, I could rip it out of him right now, he considered privately. What’s he so distracted over?
Marai briefly read Maatkare’s thoughts. Lust. Never far from your thoughts, I see. He sent a thought as he was assaulted by a montage of several hundred sexual encounters in which Maatkare and any number of women enjoyed him and each other. Among those faces and r
ipe bodies were the sojourner’s own wives. Marai sighed, wanting to slap the young general on principle.
“Jealous?” Maatkare quipped because he and Marai both knew exactly what the big man saw.
“No. What I seek from a woman and what you seek are vastly different, Your Highness. You just have to determine what is more appreciated and by whom. Now, as I was saying, the Children are harmonious and seek sameness. They don’t care for individual will or understand that our secrets, more than our skin, are what separates one human from another.”
“How do you know these things?” Maatkare asked, taking a moment to yawn. “And why should I believe you or care? I can draw as much as I want from them when wish to, and I can do it on my own.”
“I know them better than any man. I’ve had their whispers lull me in sleep and in waking for fifty and seven years now. I’ve also learned it’s best to not ask too many questions or start making demands. They’ve told me to let the memories flow like water rippling in a lake. Too much at once creates madness. It could destroy you,” Marai wondered very privately if the Akaru intended to destroy Deka now that she was alone with him.
Worried, Marai looked away and sent a very quiet inquiry into the distance that would sense if there was trouble between Akaru and Deka. He wanted to sense it and to keep Maatkare distracted enough so that he wouldn’t feel it at the same time.
“Or maybe it’s their way of controlling you,” Maatkare scoffed. “Making you think they seek sameness so you would follow what they direct. As for how many questions you ask, you being born a meek simpleton, I’d suppose you would not think to ask your betters too many things.”
Marai grumbled and shifted as they sat watching the meal preparation. Some men were checking to see if the slaughtered geese were drained enough to roast, other were making sweet date cakes.
“How little you know of me. Think of this: If I am so simple and meek, why is it that your esteemed grandfather tried to kill me in his own version of the Pit and Rebirthing ceremony, then assured himself he had succeeded and is now scrambling to direct your every move to overtake me where he himself failed – the brightest of all men in Kemet?” The sojourner waited for a response, but got only an emotionless expression in return.
“I relived the way in which you received your own small green stone through the unwanted link between us,” Marai continued. “I don’t think you asked too many questions other than would it heal you so that your scars would fade and your skin and muscle be lovely to see; superior to those of your men. You were howling like a hurt dog that you might get well, but live and be ugly, weak, and above all undesirable. That’s your fear you can’t face and a test you failed miserably. Failure, weakness, ugliness, scars, an El that won’t rise.”
“I had a fever, damn you. I was near death, so no, I was not investigating the mysteries of the universe or my place in it at the time,” he wagged his head.
“I was singing to my goddess when they called me. I thought she had come to take me from my sad life,” Marai added, but then his tone grew serious. “Enough of this for now, though. You need to let the young governor out of the Pit,” he absent-mindedly pointed a scolding finger at the prince.
“Why? He wants to be a priest. This’ll be practice for him. Stop pointing at me,” he looked away again. “I really don’t like having to deal with you. That by itself makes this gift in my head less appealing.”
“Lean over here and I’ll fix the problem for you,” Marai grinned but didn’t mask the blaze in his eyes.
“Oh, this is you being friendly now, because you think I would accept this sameness of purpose? No, I will learn you and rule you because it is my birthright,” Maatkare snarled.
“You’re right. I don’t like you,” Marai continued. “If this was truly up to me you would have been dead the day we went at each other in the tent, but Naibe and Ari stopped us.”
“So, what now?” the prince asked. “The stones want us to make peace and you will obey that? Weak. They do own you.”
“I’m just going to sit here and observe while you sort out what this all means to you and to everyone in your life: Deka, your grandfather, your men.” Marai shifted again, less uncomfortable and formulating a plan in his deepest thoughts. “As for them owning me, I wouldn’t rush to judge. They have never made me do anything I didn’t secretly want to do and have only slowed me down when I am tempted to unreasonable violence without thinking it through. You look in my eyes to see my first day out in the world as a host and you will see how they learned quite a lot of human nature that morning.”
“I saw it though our Red Sister’s memory of how you met them. The thieves in the wilderness? And we both recall the thing with the bull before my grandfather and again at a gate you demolished, and once more even before I got my own stone. I just wanted you to think about how much control you think you have. They won’t let you win even when you have advantage.”
“I can show you, but…” Marai took a deep breath and without further warning tapped Maatkare’s brow with his forefinger and waited for numbing dizziness to engulf him. “You’re not going to like this.”
“Wh… the… bastard! I can’t see!” The prince waved his hands in the air, then wrestled a leather handpiece from his belt while he mouthed incantations, hissed, and began to shift into a half-human form with longer fangs and clawed hands.
Marai chuckled as the prince fought the emergence of the shape and struggled to exude calmness and a masking illusion over it. His men were wandering too close. Marai instantly surmised that only a very few had seen the shape of the beast in the heat of a battle charge and most were likely uncertain of what they had seen because of their own frenzy.
“I …will… kill …you.” he hissed and mashed at his eyes in misery.
“You might try, but it’s just a threat. You figure now you have less control than me and that bothers you to the brink of madness. You can’t even stop this pain. You so arrogantly think the Children might favor you; that they would ‘never let me win’?
Your grandfather assumed the very same thing about me shortly after we met and gave you your own null piece to use when you were with my ladies.” Marai tugged the edge of the leather hand brace the prince held.
The prince’s expression wrinkled in a snarl that didn’t finish forming.
“This is me warning you,” Marai pulled the strap free of the prince’s hand and tossed it in the air. A dark spark jumped through the strap so quickly the men milling in the camp never noticed. It engulfed the strap, the crisped remains falling next to the big man’s leg. “No more of that thing… and that’s the price for underestimating me. You boasted and I was able to draw your wrath out and control it just now. It would be easy for me to make the same wrath desert you at your most defenseless hour, too.”
Maatkare’s expression began to ease as the pain and buzzing Marai knew the prince was feeling faded.
“Now, before you come back to level, I want you to think about who it is that truly controls you and why that is? I’ve shared far too much of your acts through my stone as it is. I don’t want your desires, habits, and weaknesses paraded before me on a regular basis,” Marai continued.
“Count Hordjedtef does not control me,” Maatkare grumbled, becoming more human in appearance and starting to breathe easier.
“But he knows you and knows the truth behind a certain afternoon just over six years ago which I unfortunately have seen through the link with my ladies when you burned it into their thoughts. You don’t un-see such things, but I would scrub it from myself if I could,” Marai shut his eyes in attempt to block the emotion of anger and other pathos just a little longer. “And if it had been my daughter, no sorcerer could have cleansed the truth. You would be dead beyond damnation.”
“She jumped,” Maatkare snapped, the heel of his hand rubbing a still tender place on his head.
“No. Not exactly. There was more to it,” Marai corrected. “But because you are who you are, and are mere
ly interested a moment’s pleasure, you never once bothered to look in her heart.”
“Which isn’t your concern,” Maatkare snapped. “If you anger me by dwelling on such things of the past, I will order that young priest slaughtered before his grandfather and I’ll just go ahead and let my own present beauty of a woman hunt down and enjoy the rest of his people wherever they went.” He moved around and looked as if he was about to shout the order.
“You might, but murdering an innocent because you know you can’t yet match me man to man is one thing,” Marai started. “It still wouldn’t solve the issue of your grandfather towing your rope.”
“I have a neter stone, damn you,” Maatkare growled. “I almost bested you when we fought before. Those ka’t pulled you away before I could rip out your worthless throat. That was before a stone was given to me. They wouldn’t be able to do that now if they were even here, so don’t taunt me by bringing up old and buried events.”
“The woman was miserable, Highness. What she shared with you was her own self-hatred. That’s all I wanted to say,” Marai’s voice was softer, almost sympathetic. “And I have no need whatsoever to shame you. Your grandfather will do that with excellence should you ever decide to cross him.”
“Wrong. I know I owe him no small amount for seeing I was not executed,” Maatkare paused, his eyes seeming to turn inward in a brief and unpleasant memory. “Miserable? No. She liked what I could give her, but maybe it just scared her a little bit. It was all like dancing on a rail and daring the gods to cry foul. The rest is buried in silence, and I will destroy anyone who brings it into the light again, even you.” The prince started to rise, but turned with parting words. “Now if there isn’t anything else…”
In the dark, you will find me
A boyish, scared sounding voice echoed in both men’s thoughts. Maatkare paused in his half-rise to his feet.
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