“What did you say?” he turned.
“Nothing, nor did I think it. Likely it was your own stone in the form of a waking conscience.” Marai shook his head knowing, much to his dislike of it, that the Children of Stone were beginning the long and difficult task of healing his young adversary.
He wondered why they had not exerted themselves with Deka until he thought that perhaps the prince, once changed, would be the one to change her heart. He didn’t want the prince to know how he felt because he still resented him being a host. It was an unwelcome challenge for everyone because he had betrayed and mistreated his way into prominence and now it seemed he would never pay for his past crimes.
Before the day of the dog
When all basked in the light
A child danced and played tricks in the sun
Cast into darkness,
It became enamored
Yet though a long night lasts…
Day follows
Chapter 20: A Truth Unwanted
The noon sun washed the outdoor plaza in hot, white light. Deka followed Marai and Maatkare part of the way out of the central room as if she was taking in the bright day. The Akaru followed her, then beckoned to her to follow him around the main audience building an alcove near to the back entry.
He watched her meander among the bodies of the guards she and the prince had killed the night before.
Some of Maatkare’s guards fanned the bodies so flies didn’t settle, but stepped back from Deka in obedience. She inspected the corpses, then quietly contemplated all she had seen as the Akaru came to look at them with her.
“You have taken your sustenance of the dead?” he asked, after a few moments.
She heard his gentle voice, but the question surprised her. She didn’t want to answer him, and looked away as he continued speaking.
“Now see, dear lady, this one was named Mafuane. Oh, and I see Dakkar lying here and beyond him…” the man went around the bodies, calling them by name as he recognized them.
“Stop,” Deka stared at the collection of gashed chests and wrenched, sliced necks. “Why are you doing this?” she looked for his expression and found him returning an oddly sympathetic gaze.
“I must bless their spirits by speaking their names. The gods need to hear their presence announced. Oh yes, and that would be Jibade over there. His wives will be sad to miss him but glad he died defending us.” He glanced into the staring, dead eyes of another. “Yayfue. I remember his happy birth.”
“Those four. Now stop. You annoy me, naming them when all that is left of them is meat, blood, and bone.”
“It is not the way of the ancestors; your ancestors,” Akaru added. “I am now asking that these you have tasted be taken to a place and prepared for burial. I accepted your ritual and beg you to accept ours. When the women and sons and daughters return they will want to know it was done properly.”
Deka studied the man’s expression because something about him compelled her. She also wanted to see exactly what sort of game he might be playing.
“These men have done nothing in their lives to deserve the dishonor of being left in the heat for the flies and wild dogs,” his voice stopping short of scolding.
Deka didn’t want to hear any of it. She connected her thoughts to the men on the other side of the plaza.
Man-Sun has taken my beloved out to speak to him. Will they battle again? I feel it brewing in them, but something stops them. Then she asked herself: Who is this old man? Why does he tell me of the ancestors? This is Ta-Seti where we stand now, and I have sought it, but I do not remember him. I no longer understand more than a word here and there of his tongue. Perhaps I was mistaken about being from this place. I should remember more of it. She looked at her hands and understood: He’s trying to get me to sorrow over my acts by telling me names these men had when they were walking. The dead do not say their names to the living.
Tilting her head to one side, she concentrated, asking her stone to show her how they died once more. The old man tensed when he saw the blood-like glimmer of her stone that looked like a welling drop of blood.
“Yes,” she went back over the words he had uttered. “They died bravely, though they were carelessly asleep at their fire,” she spoke lightly.
A noise behind them; rough talk and bustling echoed up from the riverside. Distracted, she looked up to notice some of Maatkare’s patrolling guards.
Ah! The men have taken the old one’s bodyguards. They bring them to my beloved.
The soldier leading them stopped on seeing Maatkare in conference with Marai and diverted the men to the pit and the other dead guards.
“Good enough you’ve brought them. These ones will do instead. You men here have other work by the river. Check weapons.” Deka instructed her men to seize any weapons and put the captured troops in the place of the troops fanning the bodies.
Akaru darted over to instruct his own guards to coat the bodies in palm wine and blankets, carry them to a cool cellar, and then seal it off to keep the insects away.
Deka watched Akaru the whole time as if watching his manner would reveal something. Why is there a mystery? Everything about him is familiar, yet nothing is. The answer to that question formed in her thoughts:
Dreams ever sought and never forgotten
In wisdom walk
In blood, be born
As wine that quenches all
Deka shook her head, knowing that although the voice sounded similar, it hadn’t belonged to Maatkare. He sat calmly, in an almost meditative pose, with Marai. She paced impatiently as Akaru finished saying his blessing over the fallen men. As soon as he finished, she turned away and walked to the private areas once again, bored. She knew the Akaru would follow her. On her way there, she ordered for Akaru’s men to be tied up in the shade next to the building once they had moved the bodies.
“For you?” Akaru asked as he entered the audience room with bread and a jar of beer. His voice was gentle and unafraid.
“No. You will eat it. I will not.” Might be poisoned, she thought, her stone pulsing slightly as she listened to the chorus of voices inside her thoughts:
In the darkness of the eons.
You were conceived
Woman immortal.
Go to the man who wishes to tell you your story
He knows.
Listen to his wisdom
She indicated he sit in one of the central chairs. At first she stood near him and watched him eat some of the old sweet bread.
She paced, her layered dark skirts trailing on the floor.
“You asked if I were afraid of you?” he added nonchalantly and finished the bread. “I am afraid of you because I know what burns inside you and it makes me fearful of its emergence.”
His words chattered in her thoughts as her hunger returned. Should have taken his offer of food. Nevermind. If he provokes me I will take him. She needed something weak to startle and seize – but she could not take this man. The concept of his quiet fear had already thrilled her. He was old, wise, and, more than that, he said he knew of her ancestors. She needed to keep him alive and keep him talking.
“I’m terrified, awesome Lady, because I know the power you have taken into your body all too well. I know the forces your Wepwawet Anpu has opened in you; how he has stirred you from your slumber.”
Deka faced him again.
What does he know about it? How can he know so much when I have only just begun to realize this power? He is not like me – too meek. He lies to himself. The lulling purr inside her thoughts cautioned:
Listen and wait
Guard against the fierceness
Waking too quickly
Control it.
“What would you know about it? You don’t know me,” she snapped, knowing she was exhibiting visible signs of nervousness. She needed to stop him. A lesson. He needs a lesson. If I give it to him it will be his last, wise words and legends or not.
“Oh, but I do know you. You are the
very one I have always feared, yet admired. You are the very image of her. Now you are here and through our talking this afternoon, you will remember many things.”
Your smiling face. I see it turning into a meatless skull. She projected a thought, but found it was ignored.
“I have known you would come to see me for a long time,” he added. “I told this Marai of your coming when I first saw him.”
She frowned. Fierceness grew in her eyes. The old man dares to enter the forbidden parts of my heart, yet he does not know any more than Brown Eyes knew when she spoke of this place or her vision – that I had been abandoned by a god.
“You also begin to know that, try as you will, you can only get your lover to fill some of your hunger; no matter what he becomes, or what you create in him.”
But he does know, somehow, her thoughts anticipated his next statement.
“You know inside your heart that there was another one, far greater and more powerful than your prince. He is gone, perhaps rightfully so, perhaps dead as all who choose to walk this world must die – even those who seem immortal to ordinary men.” He extended his hand up to her. “Will you stop your pacing like the lion in a cage and sit down with me?”
Deka paused, uncertain if she should trust him enough to allow him to touch her. She extended her slim, dark hand and searched for a response to what the old governor said.
She felt a growl begin, but fought it down in the interest of hearing more.
“Your young prince does not think as deeply as he should, or see into others’ hearts as one who truly knows love. He is always the hunter, the scout, the opener of the way, which is why his guise of Wepwawet Anpu suits him. What he opens, other must close. That to which he lays waste, others must bring renewal after the fire dies. In this, he gave you the taste for the redness of life and rage as it flows from out of the heart. You surprised him. He thought it would make you faint with fear or scream, but…” the old governor laughed. He held Deka’s hand, turning it over to study the lines in the faded henna work.
“What would you know of it?” she looked away again, wanting to withdraw her hand, but not doing so.
“Enough to know you’ll not quench the hunger anytime soon and one day, perhaps sooner than you think, you’ll even need to be cleansed of it – if you are to continue in the Land of the Living. I, too, once had to be cleansed of it many, many years ago.” He smiled, eyes misting in memory.
“You lie,” she stated, but had already caught herself wondering if perhaps this was why the man never exhibited fear even though he said he feared her. He’s toying with me now; lying. He cannot possibly understand. She sneered, then realized the elder still grasped her hand.
Your hand is warm, not frozen in fear. I feel your blood pulsing. I close my eyes and see how it moves in your ancient heart. A thrill began to creep into the pit of her stomach.
As if magic was more than real, she found it easy to think of the face of the god who had loved and then left her when she touched Akaru’s hand. She recalled Ta-Te once had been a great and powerful creature; a god so like the burning sun and yet like the east wind that moved the mountains of sand.
He taught her to fly by reciting numbers and words the way she had taught Maatkare. ‘And One, And One…’ they said and then walked into the air buoyed up by his transient, dragon-like wings. She called him Ta-Te and saw him as a tall and gloriously mighty man; a giant with hair blazing like fire and eyes like the malachite ocean. His skin looked like mahogany and copper. He was a red god who bent all energy and mastered all things; the man from another place beyond the stars. When he walked, men fell to their faces and women offered themselves up to him, obeying every need of his without question.
She had not been cast away like the rest of the women. He had not tired of her so quickly. She knew he had loved her, because he told her had created her, taught her everything. He merged her spirit with his own when they loved in a calm and motionless way that lasted for hours and even days. Then, when he had finished, he would carry her to the water and explain to her that she had power over the rain and the sky because she had come from him and a woman of black earth and water. She hung her head, remembering those things when she looked at the Akaru sitting by her.
Why do I see this now? she asked herself. Man Sun. Marai, Deka’s thoughts drifted to the man who sat outside with her beloved. The elder sat with her, peacefully holding her hand as if he intended for it to calm her. He distracted me when we met. He was so tall and big, just like my memory of Ta-Te. I tried to make him into Ta-Te when he first came to us and then again when I woke up in the Children’s vessel. He would not become him. He was nice, sweet, tender, passionate, and caring. But he was too good to me… it wasn’t natural.
Deka knew the god she had sought would, just for his own amusement, breathe out and stir the hills of sand to overtake villages of those who disrespected him. Then, she thought of Maatkare.
Raem has the ferocity, the rage, and yet the noble heart laced with the need for my flesh. Man-Sun didn’t need me that way. He waited for me to surrender my heart – the one Raem simply took, because he could do it. “You are like my Man-Sun who sits out there with my love, old man,” she faced the Akaru. “Gentle with the hand. Sympathy-filled. You cannot possibly have the same burning I have, or that my Ta-Te had,” a grin wove its way across her face.
“Your Ta-Te,” the Akaru regarded her expression. She saw his eyes twitch as if irritated before he spoke: “I know your heart still cries for him when your young man takes you in his arms. You think a good man is hard and unfeeling, noble but cold; that this is what men must be so they can show they are not easily intimidated – that they can protect. But, they often forget they protect because they serve. He was always a god. He did not know this thing called serving. Because men looked to him, were inspired by him, generations will make a new mistake, attempting to be this god until it is explained to them, but…” his eyes closed and he drifted to another subject. “Do you believe in fate? That fate would bring you to see me this year?” he asked her.
Then, without taking much of a breath, he went on:
“I see you looking at my face. I see how you stare at me as if I am a ghost. I told this to the man Marai when he came to see me in Qustul; that this was the year I had dreamed of when they would return.” He shook his head and almost laughed.
“Fate? They?” Deka questioned, almost withdrawing her hand as he continued to pet it.
“Do you ever wonder how your fine young prince chose to bring you with him when it is more fitting for him to hunt and pursue women as he travels? Do you ever ask yourself what brought my grandson Aped to your spot at the market those months before?” the man paused and waited for her answer.
Deka trembled, irritated.
“Fate then. Yes, I see it, but I asked you of my past. Now you try to charm and distract me with words like ‘they’. If you mean the neter that Man-Sun calls the ‘Children’, then I know you must not know what you are talking about. You stir my anger, not my patience, old one.”
“Ah, there it is,” the man smiled. “It is you who has the fear also, I see; fear of knowing the truth you seek.” He continued holding her hand. “We have not much time though.”
Deka felt a growing sense of discomfort, as if a thought from somewhere else was invading her. She and Maatkare traded thoughts before she gave him a stone. With Marai, Ari, and Naibe it had been second nature until she shut it off. She knew this man did not have one, but she felt a sinister push of his thoughts entering her consciousness.
“What are you doing to me?” she jerked her hand away from his. “I have not asked for your thoughts or your memories. I’ve drawn nothing from you, but they flow like the river. I told you I wanted you to tell me stories of my past if you could. Are you so tired of living that you are now casting a spell on me?” The horrific thought of him lulling her into openness riveted her, but she already knew the Akaru sensed her turmoil.
“Shh, pretty
lady,” he lulled. “I know you want to kill me because I can see you.” He became at once humble and reverent. “I wanted to see if the pathway was there, and it still is.”
“Still there? What do you mean?” she kneaded her hands, wanting Maatkare to come in and break her free from her error of sitting with what she had assumed was a peculiar old governor but who now seemed much more dangerous.
“I was awakening the bond I believe we have. I will not touch you if you wish, and I cast no spell, but I do want you to close your eyes and remember this thought.” He exhaled and closed his own eyes.
Reluctantly, Deka closed hers as well.
Lions. They’re so large, with soft golden fur. We check each other’s scent, greet each other, nip and butt our faces to trade our odors. Licking as if I am one of them. I am one of them. How is it possible? Then: Something is there. Someone. Is it a man? No. It is a child, so strange looking. It is sick. It hungers. It is afraid. I lie on my side. My full teats suckle. He is not like others here. His color is so pallid and hair like fire, not black and brown or purple dark. He is better now. Sleeps. “Mami Lion” he calls me. But, I am not a lion. I am only in this shape for now…
“Uhhh… no!” she broke away, eyes open but unable to look the old man in the eye. “You deserve death.” The dullness in her voice wavered because she knew anyone who could send her such a vision was no one to toy with and certainly no one she could kill as easily as she had killed the guards. The worst part was that she had felt at home in the shape of a lion and this man knew that. When she hunted with Maatkare, she copied his shift into the wolf-dog and became feline. The mute guards Maatkare had given her echoed the sentiment MaMa Menhit – she who slaughters. Deka paused, adding things together.
“Rutiy and Sutiy, the guards,” she scooted a little further from the old man’s grasp. “My beloved said you gave them to him, that they had been born slaves. Was that another lesson sent before we met?”
“It is,” Akaru nodded. “And where are they at this hour?” he asked, looking around to see if there was more bread or some wine.
Heart of the Lotus Page 24