Raem. Man-Sun. You search for me. Do not, the voice was tired and pitiful.
Marai paused, then returned a silent answer:
Deka. I will not harm you.
“She’s near,” the prince whispered and, turning to the exhausted-looking men with him, gave a new order: “Stay back. I will go into the brush by myself.”
Marai saw him sheath his dagger and unfasten his kopesh blade used for slicing. Momentary rage filled him at the thought that Maatkare might try to cut her throat rather than endure the humiliation of a rebellious female in front of his troops. He bowed his head, exhaled, and felt a sigh reverberate through his thoughts.
Come back to us, pretty Deka, he sent his thoughts out to her. Know you are nothing but loved. Don’t be afraid anymore. Don’t be…
No, her decisive answer came. I made a mistake. I mourn now. Leave me to myself. Don’t come any closer.
The prince felt her answer too. His grumble became a growl of discontent and finally a shout.
“Mistake, eh? What part? You denying everything you’ve said to me up until now, ka’t? After you see me out here like some lost pup looking for a mother? After all your disrespect?” He spat, shrugging and turning to keep the growl from turning into something savage and pitiless. “Well, I still have this little stone you put in my head and many of their brother and sister stones,” he hissed aloud. “We’ll see you try to escape. We’re linked in case you forgot.” There was a rustle as she fled further into the canopy of the trees above them.
The two black lions sauntered below the great sycamore where she had fled higher. They bore no ferocity. To Marai, they appeared to be waiting for instruction.
Rutiy, Sutiy. Come forth. We bring no harm to her, Marai spoke inwardly to them.
“Highness. Lions…” a whisper of one of the men from the ranks cut across the grass. “Don’t move. I can get one of them.”
“Fool,” the prince snapped out an urgent half-whispered response, “while the other takes us? Get back.”
Marai stared at the prince with an amazed and withering stare as the two lions came up to the men like big tame cats and began to lick and nuzzle the sojourner.
“You tame lions?” the prince asked, then sneered. “I hunt them.”
“And hunt women,” Marai couldn’t resist digging at the prince while he petted the former guards. He sent the lions his thought. I know you. I know this spell of being men bothers you, but know you are as gods among beasts. When this is over you will be free of what binds you, then you may put away the man form forever if you wish. It will be your choice.
“True… I do hunt.” the prince toed a small semi-circle, but made certain his men stayed back. “…but some women want to be caught. They desire a firm man by day as well as in bed.”
Marai chuckled at the prince’s poor attempt at humor.
“We both know the real reason she went to you, so stop your bragging and chest thumping like a bull ape. She first wanted me for the same reason, and you know it. You know that better than you want to admit.”
Maatkare whirled, ready to stop looking for the woman and take a slice at Marai, but one of the lions growled then indicated with a twist of his head to a place behind them.
“Highness,” another of his men pointed out a shape rising just behind them near the tree. The prince backed up a half step, but his feet struck a curious outcropping of brick and he stumbled.
You two lion-men. No harm comes. Allow me to pass and see it, the prince tried speaking to the lions the way he had just seen Marai demonstrate.
See what happens when you are peaceful to them? Marai added mentally. I learned that as a shepherd. I can speak to any animal.
Maatkare acted as if he ignored the sentiment, but Marai knew his message had reached the prince. Both men turned their attention to what had tripped the prince. It was carved, painted scrap stone that was stacked and mingled with brick.
“So, this is what you’re looking for, Nefira Sekht Deka?” he called up into the trees. “These ruins? Is that all?”
Silence.
“Well, I hope you’ve had a look at them. Hope you’ve seen how fast the dreams of men can die. See how everything you looked for all these years is now a ruin?”
There was still no response.
The prince sauntered back to the base of the tree.
“Men who put these here? They thought they were gods and that these things would last forever. Even the eternal houses at Sokor and Ineb Hedj crumble bit by bit. The little people the ancestors ruled? They crawl about in their shadows, forgetting the glory that once was. See, I’ve been to the future with this stone you gave me. I wanted to see if my dreams would come true. What I saw was that, once we’re gone, people forget and then they make up myths and legends. I have something better for you than a dead god; something alive!” he turned his face up the trunk of the tree. “You hear that? You hear me, ka’t? You come down and I’ll get you something that you like a lot.” Then, his voice softened, sad. “Maybe I’m wasting my time. This is stupid. See me acting like a fool down here? You see this? See?”
Marai felt the anguish in Maatkare’s soul through the sound of his almost howling cry and through the link in the child stones.
You love her, then? he asked silently.
Stay out, came the response. I’m warning you. The image of the wolf head began to form in the prince’s growing rage at the situation.
Despite the warning, the sojourner pushed past the young general and went back up a different pile of rock behind the trees.
“Deka. I’ll come up. We’ll talk this out. That you can trust.” He clambered to the top that jutted up to the lowest branches of the trees, turned, and observed his surroundings briefly. He knew Maatkare was too busy sulking to stop him.
This was big once, Marai looked down from the spot where he now stood. Maybe it was a temple like the Akaru has, but bigger. That tree growing by it did a lot of damage. He envisioned the wide spacious halls and the little brown girl in long red skirts who twirled and danced as she learned of her power. Behind her was a big man who, oddly enough, resembled what he had seen of his own form. Marai knew it was her Ta-Te, the real Man-Sun, who fathered her and owned every aspect of her life, including her soul.
“I remember. It’s all gone. Ruined and destroyed. Ta-Te! Ptah-t’a-tenen-amun,” her cry wafted from the trees. “Return to me! Don’t leave your Deka!”
“That – You disgust me!” Maatkare Raemkai shouted, staring up at the trees. Then, reflecting for a moment, he added: “I had come to respect you more than most.”
Marai heard a muffled, sob-like noise, then the thought: No. Please don’t leave me now, beloved, please. I wanted to give you a son. I wanted a new Ameny to replace the one who is already old and who I lost and never knew, her voice sounded hollow, as if it had become too tired to weep.
Ameny Metauhetep Mtoto Sef the Akaru. I should cut his throat for this and then cut all who came of his seed, but I would then erase her own blood as well. Maatkare paced in front of the ruins, grumbling and kicking at bits of rock.
A sign of a broken heart? Marai mused, coming down from the rock pile.
“There’s no point in any of this…” the prince sulked, then shivered and whirled, arms raised in defense.
At the same moment Marai heard the all-too-familiar popping sound of something coming through space and time. Whipping his head around, he saw a flash of pink light in the sky but felt a blast of dark energy full of horrific intent trace toward the orb in the sky.
“Hey! What are you doing!” he shouted, but the orb had turned and was gone.
Maatkare stomped up to the bottom of the hill, triumphant.
“And what in Sutekh’s warted ass was that? Some winged devil sent by the old man?” he chuckled. “Got it with a thought. Now this is what I call a benefit of this thing in my head.”
“That was Djerah in our boat. You know, my young assistant you tried to kill before. Young fool wasn’t s
upposed to be using the neter stones!” then whirled to the prince. “And it’s about enough with you! Both of you are acting like babies.”
Listen to him, please Raem, Deka’s thoughts purred but pleaded with both men, but the prince said nothing.
Marai responded quietly, the way he had responded when they were in their apartment in Ineb Hedj and she had been struggling with her feelings for him.
“Deka. He is listening. He’s just hurting, as you are.” Marai attempted the same soothing tone, but this time Maatkare leapt for him in a growling rage.
Marai whirled, seized Maatkare’s hands firmly, and struggled Maatkare back until he sat on the ground and wiped his slavering lips that had started to become wolf jaws.
“If you weren’t part of this, I’d be glad to break your neck,” Marai’s voice thundered, gruff through the struggle.
“The stone here,” the prince looked up and growled through his teeth. “It changes everything, doesn’t it?”
Marai felt Deka’s thoughts reaching out to them again.
The ruins, Man-sun. You see I found them. This is the place where I danced for him when he ruled as Mandulis. Man like the Sun. I know this now. Ta-Te is Mandulis and Ptah-ta-tenen – Re Atum in one. I had to see if it was all truly gone; if there was nothing left at all.
“Talk then. You saw…” Maatkare grumbled, staring into the movement in the trees above. “…and now that you’ve led me on this chase, give me a good reason to stay.” He leapt to his feet then spat on the ground. “That’s how much I care for your ghosts of gods and memories. I need to bury real gods: my king and now along with them, all my dreams.”
A faint whining keen issued from the upper branches above them.
“There…” Marai pointed at the golden, burning eyes gleaming down at them in the dark.
Marai wasted no time. He found footholds on the trunk of the tree and climbed up until he was eye-level with an achingly sad sight.
The lion guards had closed behind him, keeping Maatkare at bay and then slowly reforming into the tall and muscular men he had known as guards.
Maatkare’s men paused in horror at the lions becoming men, but the hesitation was momentary. Soon they sprang forward ready for his signal, but the prince waved them away.
“I am going to kill you one day, Akkad scum! Not today, but don’t you turn your back on me for too long,” he shouted up the trunk of the tree.
“Don’t be so sure of things, Highness. One day you may need to save me. You never know,” Marai called back, unsure of where that thought had originated. He envisioned a cave and felt all the horror and pain he had been able to overcome when he had been in the Pit of Chaos. Suffocation. Weakness. Helplessness. Failure. I refuse. I refuse, he looked in Deka’s hard yellow eyes.
She sat on a wide limb, clinging to an upright segment of the massive divided trunk. She glared, but looked astonished that Marai had climbed up so quickly to save her.
Maatkare paced below.
Marai knew he was waiting to hear the rest of her story.
So then, Maatkare’s own thought intruded Marai’s tenderness but stopped. The sojourner knew the man didn’t want to seem too sympathetic.
As gently as if he had been coaxing a lost lamb, Marai reached his hand forward to touch Deka’s face. He felt the nervous hiss and growl and saw her tense.
“Come here,” he whispered, then spoke to her heart more silently. He does love you. He loves you until it hurts. It’s just too new of a thing for him.
Her gold-green cat eyes blinked. She resisted at first, then let Marai coax her onto his broad back.
There. You are safe now. No one will hurt you or forget you, he thought reassuringly as he climbed down the tree.
Part 4: End of an Era
Chapter 24: Dream and Reality
Naibe made her way back up to her mat for a mid-morning nap. Recently, she had noticed a few changes in her condition. Xania and the wives told her not to worry about it because the greater the changes, the more blessed the child was going to be. She knew that. She had known that from the hour she knew she carried Marai’s child and even before. The women read her fortune and gave her charms to protect her from any evil spirits, because one had come for her earlier, but most of them prescribed rest. She laughed and put up a loom in the shade, then made tiny stitches on the edge of the swaddle in which she would wrap her child.
It was lonely in the inner breezeway where they slept. People worked, built better shelters than tents, cooked, and helped in the fields or with fishing. Even Djerah, after catching only a few hours of sleep at dawn, stayed outside making further adaptations to the fascination of any children not already occupied.
Bored, but unwilling to go outside and wander aimlessly, she fetched the chamois wrap that held the Wdjat and stones, then opened it to see if they were still there.
Djerah took the wdjat but not the stones, I see. I thought this felt light.
On instinct, she spilled the twelve stones out a few at a time and touched each of them, one by one, to the one in her brow.
“Have you met mine?” she asked, then instructed the stones. “Kiss each other a greeting. And now hear my prayer:
Strengthen me, little ones
No harm to the little Asar in me”
She heard the Ashera voice echoing in her thoughts in tandem with her own gentle voice as if two separate women were speaking, then becoming one person’s voice, then two again.
You are honey-sweet
Most precious one
This time only one of the voices, the one inside her, spoke:
You are the essence
Of all that is sweet.
Say it to yourself
You know it is true.
The internal voice suggested.
“Will I be safe if I work with you all today?” she asked the voice as if it was a separate entity. “Marai will be devastated if something happens to me or to the child. I fear my death in this birth and yet I don’t know why.”
Then say the words
I am the essence of sweet.
“I am the essence of sweet,” she repeated, contemplating at the way the chorus of women’s voices and children’s voices joined and separated, gradually blending into one thing.
You fear, and yet...
The voices soothed and consoled. More voices became part of her thoughts. Sometimes there were men’s voices, sometimes women’s, sometimes her own voice. She trembled in the awe of the next thought as it passed through her.
Death, and yet you had begged for this ending once.
“Yes,” she answered in a soft whisper, glad no one else was passing through the darkened building. “When I thought my Marai had died, I felt I could be nothing without him because he had given me all that I was.” Naibe sighed, remembering the aching that Wserkaf had eased from her fragile heart in those terrible first days.
But you know so very much more
Of yourself now…
Your gift,
That sadness and even death itself
Will never conquer…
You have courage now
To show true Ma-at.
There is no truth
Without the absolute of love,
There is no love
Without the absolute of truth
Do what is needful
For your life and for his…
“His life,” she thought, gripping the last of the stones harder in her fingertips and touching it to her brow.
Dizziness fluttered like a rush of heat through her stone. She looked at the gleaming stone in her hand. None of the other stones had felt this way.
Blue, she thought, a lapis stone for the Lady. Pretty, and just like mine. As she watched, the blue stone in her hand began to change. It’s becoming like the one in my brow – singing the same song. Odd that it would do that, she paused. The stone in her hand felt wet and at the same moment, the one in her brow drooled slightly.
She stared at it, but the l
onger she did the drowsier she felt.
Sleep little one.
Much to be revealed
Changes in you to make you strong.
Her thoughts chorused and the child kicked slightly. Naibe didn’t want to go to sleep, but she couldn’t overcome the fatigue that weighed on her shoulders. She propped herself up with one hand and gazed at the stone in her other until all she saw was the stone fading into a soft, warm blue blur.
As she focused on the stone, she became aware of a rolling sensation that brought back a memory of when she had been in the crystalline vessel. There, the Children of Stone had changed her from useless meat and made her into the beautiful creature who represented Marai’s Ashera.
What do you want of me now? her thoughts asked, but there was no answer other than:
A gift.
Something for you to see and know.
The future, or one petal to pick
Of many choices.
She remembered Marai mentioning something the Akaru had told him about life being like a lotus with many petals and that the journey of life was that of choosing many of them to chart a course. It wasn’t like a path with stones laid down one after another. It was a series of overlapping petals, each connected to a center of a sort. When a person stepped out on one, the others fell away. There was more. Because all beings were in a lake composed of memories and other people’s choices, each decision influenced the other petals nearby which in turn created choices for those flowers. It had been a complicated theory, even though a part of her heart understood. She had been happier just nestling on Marai’s powerful arm than trying to analyze the mysticism.
I’m not much for deep thinking. Maybe that’s because for so many years I was unable to think at all. The Children have already done so much for me.
Naibe opened her eyes again and noticed the hand that held the stone had become lighter in color, almost translucent. My pretty fawn color is fading like the sun has bleached it. She gasped and sat securely, then felt her hand with her other. It too had lost color, as if both were now like cloud or ghost and that her flesh itself was the illusion.
Heart of the Lotus Page 29