Voices in Crystal

by Mary R Woldering

  Marai had no choice but to follow the Etum Addi out onto the ledge and down the stairs while he tightened up the sash on his work kilt.

  Ariennu stood over the community coals in the courtyard re-heating the bread and fish Marai had brought for them the night before. As she sipped on some fresh goat milk she had taken this morning, she turned the bread quickly before it burned

  Deka ascended the stairs, waiting almost impatiently for Naibe-Ellit to tie the straps of her shift behind her neck.

  “So you two were in here last night, in the heat? After we worked with that poor Raawa.” She inquired of Naibe as the two were tugging the dates to the door, The Ta-Seti woman sighed inquisitively before the response came.

  Naibe gestured.

  Me? No...We slept...honest... Then she whispered aloud to Deka. “Ssst ...I called down Marai’s sister...She’s alive and living in the city here!...She’s old, old made me so tired to have her thoughts...”

  Deka and Naibe-Ellit chatted a little more loudly once they were further from the men. They were going to trade some fancy knotted girdles Deka had finger-woven for some honey. Later they would make up some more date candy with it. First, however, they stopped to check on the woman and her baby. They had been dimly aware that the heavy cane door Marai had lashed together was ajar. Now they paid closer attention. Crocodiles didn’t come this far up from the water, so that wasn’t a thought.

  Marai hadn’t really been listening to the women going about their business or to much of Etum Addi’s jubilation. His thoughts were full of Houra and of her being alive but dying of old age before she saw him again. Only half of his thoughts heard the Sangir say to Deka and Naibe:

  “Oh... they’re not in there.” he turned to the sojourner.

  “Marai, why not go down to the water and get the rest that young Raawa’s people to move up here after all. I’ll get those young urchins to work for me if she and her sister can’t do it...or Gizzi will!” He laughed, slapping on the palm of his hand as a sign of what he or his wife intended to do to three naked bottoms.

  Marai could hardly forget the entirely ungovered children who had been playing without ceasing yesterday.

  “Raawa?” Marai shook his head. “Is that...?”

  “That woman who birthed the baby boy yesterday.” Etum Addi sighed. “Know... her husband came in after you all were up for the night, stayed to sleep and was up to take the boat back across just as dawn broke...” The merchant scratched his fat belly and paced. “That’s what woke the rest of us up... The women-folk down there fussing at that poor bastard to get moving so he wouldn’t lose his wage for the day...I were him, I’d stay over there...Now everyone in Little Kina Ahna knows he has a house of scolds...They hustled him out and down there. All of them did: Woman, baby, and sister...Everyone.”

  Marai stood at the coals where Ari was cooking and gave her a little “Good Morning” press.

  She stuck some fish in a fold of the leftover bread and handed it to him.

  “That’s all I have left... we already ate. If you don’t want it, give it to one of them down at the water.” Ariennu sighed “I’ll be glad to sit down all day. All of us will...”

  “I don’t know why they would still be down there Marai, unless someone got sick.” Etum Addi looked like he expected to get some of the fish, so Marai broke off half of his bread and fish, giving it to him. The merchant took a big bite and chewed noisily while he talked.

  “They’re half Tjemehu I think, and half gods know what...maybe Akkad, but the soil of our land would certainly spit them back out...pretty much good for nothing, except for that young man!”

  The merchant wouldn’t starve, but he loved to eat, think and talk at the same time.

  “Sister Nene already took the little ones down to their stand...Their man had brought over something for them to sell when he came last night but I’ll wager it won’t bring them nearly enough... You go and get them to come up to work for Etum Addi, eh?” he swaggered.

  For just a moment, that swagger reminded Marai of a jolly version of his onetime foe, N’ahab-Atall. The two men were day and night of each other but in so many ways, they were quite the same. One was a thief, collectioner and a trafficker of flesh. Both men were successful businessmen. Both were stocky, hairy and unclean by Kemet standards. Both had big grins and bad teeth, wild shorn hair and scruffy beards.

  Marai had to almost laugh at the thought that the wretched thief’s spirit had been sent back to the world to try again and to even be of benefit to those he had abused so long ago.

  The gods are cruel... he laughed inwardly. But this time they’ve done well. Wonder if the ladies have even thought of that? Seen that soul?

  Naibe and Deka returned with the honey. In a few minutes Ari would climb up to the apartment to get the second barrel of dates Marai had stored there. They would make and sell the candy during slower moments after they had portioned out individual amounts for offerings on the cedar. Etum Addi was still planning out loud, as Marai, took the remaining scraps of bread and fish and headed down the rise to the waterfront.

  All the nastiness of the waterfront market known as “the Poors” to the locals but, “East Shore Reeds” to the tribute adjusters showed clearly by day. Night had always covered so many of it’s sins. Marai surveyed the dismal market that was just as apt to have thieves roaming by day as it might have crocodiles moving up the banks at night. Nothing about that scummy, bleak riverside seemed likely to turn a profit. The market there was little better than a stinking, garbage-filled, tent village.

  As the water had risen during the flood, the tents were moved back until they were nesting on each other. Now desperate merchants who hadn’t profited enough had begun setting up all week to hawk wares from places that were emerging from the water line as it fell. Citizens of Kemet traded quickly here then hurried away, as if there was something shameful about visiting such a squalor-filled place.

  The Houses like Mountains seemed so much closer and larger from this vantage point, Marai noticed, even though they were still quite far away. The sight of great and wide causeways, terraces, canals and lakes dotted with personal rafts, boats and wonderful gardens swept his eyes across the river and upward to the shining gold caps on their peaks. In the early morning sun, these mighty structures were as the legends said: gates unto the heavens where the kings went into their horizon to become the very stars. They were the place to which the gods descended, too when they wanted to walk as men. He stared, speechless, gazing at something he knew would be a part of his destiny.

  The sojourner fought off the momentary surge of ecstasy as the Child Stone embedded in his forehead recognized the place where he trained his gaze. Everything was coming together now. He hoped he could put those feelings aside until he rounded up this mysterious Raawa and her family again. Once he proposed Etum-Addi’s plan for their salvation to them, he could meditate with Naibe to find where his sister Houra, even ancient Houra, might be found. He would drag her out of whatever squalor she had come into, giving her the chance to spend her last days on earth in some measure of dignity, cleanliness and contentment. Etum-Addi would just need to understand that.

  Naked and half-naked children, lost in some mindless game of chase, ran around him almost tripping him up. Marai knew at once that these children were ill-fated Raawa’s three little ones, led by one or two other youngsters. They circled him with squeals and shouts, recognizing him from the day before. Their little brown arms seized his legs as if they were columns and they hid in his legs from their companions. Suddenly, they bolted past a potters stall.

  The pot seller swiped out to save two bowls on the edge of his humble plank table but failed. As his wares shattered against the hard earth, he shrieked such livid curses, that one child even paused to take notice. The child’s lip trembled and he suddenly began to howl, unconsolably. Other merchants paused, wondering if the old man had taken a strap to the boy and started to call out either against the man or encouraging him to beat the
boy even more soundly.

  Seeing Marai bending to pick up the pieces and hearing his brother crying, the littlest one let out a yell, as if his life was over and ran away screaming. An older child whistled shrilly from a slight distance. On that signal, all of the children followed the two screaming ones into the ragged black tent which was lashed onto a crumbling wall just at the boat ramp.

  Children that size should be helping their families, not running useless. Yesterday was different with the mother laboring and father away... Thieves in training! Marai mused. In the wilderness, idleness was never tolerated. At the very least the older child should have been working in the booth sorting goods. The middle child should have already been taught how to keep the area free of filth.

  Marai was suddenly distracted by the oaths of the vendor who had lost the pots.

  “Akkad, half-skin trash breed like rats and let their young run free in our cities! Who asked them to come here?” The potter danced and flapped his arms, speaking so rapidly that Marai could barely understand his words which were a mixture of “half-skin” Shinar and gutter Kemet. “Ought to send ‘um all back to the wilderness and their fever-filled water-holes. Once more, and I’ll a turn them in to the peacekeepers to be beaten! Their nasty ka’t of a mother too! All they’re fit for is serving us...” Then, all of his venom spent, he took the shards from Marai, grumbled thanks and set about straightening his stall.

  Marai stared at the place where the children had taken cover. Their two older companions had fled to their own family’s booths for shelter, one mother slapping her son and hurling him into their tent to think about the trouble he had caused. A man was caning the other squalling boy.

  Akkad wasn’t a name given to all of the endless drift of Sanghir and Kina-ahnket immigrants who sought their fortune on the outskirts of the cities the way Etum Addi had made his living. It was a word for the loose confederation of wandering tribes who had made the wilderness their home for better than a generation before pushing into Kemet.

  Marai caught himself staring at the make of what was left of the family tent. Though the tent was black like the tents of any who lived on the Copper Road, the color of the fabric seemed to be the only part of the wilderness left in these people, if indeed that was where their ancestors had ever lived.

  They were trading some overripe melons, but they were also assembling and painting baskets at such a blinding speed that it was easy for the former shepherd to see they must have fallen desperately behind on any contracts and tribute they had promised. Now they were supplementing their income with cut-rate fruit that could be sauced rather than eaten fresh. Falling behind on their tribute must have been the norm for them rather than the exception. How much longer they might be able to beg the mercy of the debt collectors was anybody’s guess. He wondered why the man of the household, this Raawa’s husband couldn’t even provide for them on a contract laborers wage.

  The flood laborers were paid reasonably well. Even if the worker was injured or killed, their families were always compensated because the work they were doing was considered holy. The workers, though almost never wealthy, should never have been this desperate.

  The dozen or so people sitting in front of the tent, into which the children had run, all looked like some of the people he had seen the day before. They were lighter skinned than the usual Kemet native, but clearly mixed with Kemet and perhaps even lighter-skinned Tjemehu stock.

  Though he had been pleasant enough to them when he met them yesterday, today they greeted him only with nods. No one got up or went to the potter. No one made a move to offer goods for the broken pots. They didn’t even seem to acknowledge the havoc the children created.

  That struck Marai as not only odd, but rude.

  Against the retaining wall, under a makeshift awning that protected her from the sun, an old woman sat. Her bent and twisted hands wove reeds that her nearly-blind eyes couldn’t possibly see.

  It was Houra, just as Naibe had seen her.

  Marai froze, pained immeasurably by the silent passage of time when he regarded the ancient woman. Her whitened eyes stared aimlessly out of the shade and into the sunlight. Nothing remained of their once bright impishness. She’d grown so very near to death, just as her dream-voice had whispered about it through Naibe last night.

  The sojourner had remained about thirty-four years old. His height and basic features hadn’t changed any more than his age but everything else about him had changed.

  Perhaps it’s good she’s gone blind. Would she even kn know me, if she could see? he asked himself.

  As he stared, he noticed an eerie light shining around her head.

  Is this her spirit rising up? he wondered. Astonished that he could see it so clearly, Marai watched it reach tentatively up into the sky as if it were attempting flight. The shimmer of light paused; reflecting. Her jaw drooped and sagged. Then, just as the flight of her spirit had begun, she regained her senses and wove a little more on the basket in her lap. The once vibrant part of his former life was here, beginning her dance of death before his eyes. The Child Stone in his brow pulsed a mournful cadence as it struggled to process the raw emotions of his joy at seeing a beloved one after so long yet, at the same time, grief that time could not be stopped for her as it had been stopped for him.

  Those of this world

  Forms are so frail,

  Your time so brief.

  there is nothing but kindness and love

  which does not fade

  as the thing you call skin does...

  Please... his thoughts internally begged the Children of Stone. Somehow, after all this. just let her know that I didn’t ever forget about her...that I never stopped looking for her and that I came to her at the end. Nothing in Marai’s or the Children’s power could stop the process of her imminent death. They understood that.

  The woman’s head snapped back. Then...a little smile of recognition dotted her toothless mouth, as if she knew something.

  Houra... Marai sighed, knowing her family was no more aware of her plight than they had been aware of their vagabond children. More stunning than that, Raawa’s family which had been scattered on both sides of the river was Houra’s family. It was he, the sojourner, just as Houra’s spirit had told him through Naibe last night, who had not even recognized the last remnants of his own clan. Whoever they were, Ahu’s people or not, they certainly weren’t aware of his own agonizing about whether to carry her away or linger in the distance.

  Sheb had been dead for many years. Marai knew that at a glance. The sojourner’s own despair at having lost a wife and daughter and of having felt cursed paled next to the despair that had consumed poor Sheb. He never recovered from being captured and made to watch his wife raped by N’ahab-Atall; to hear her beg to take more of the men if it would cause them to spare her husband and sons. It had been too much for him.

  Ariennu, with her own selfish motives, helped them escape but Sheb would have been better off if they had killed him. His soul died that day because he could not defend his family.

  Houra became dreamier and crazier after that, but held the family together. The boys clung to her for healing and support but took wives quickly once they arrived in Kemet. They worked like slaves in the murky farmlands, never finding Naim and his family or anyone from their former clan.

  Forty years ago, they had almost been successful. Sheb even had a slight exit from hopelessness when he met a man who was going to take him on in the running of a tavern near the East Gate. Then it all fell apart. Some kind of fever came through the neighborhood. It ended Sheb’s life and ravaged the rest of the clan. Those who lived including Tisehe, the youngest son, were lame and palsied in the hands...useless for the basket weaving trade. The women were fertile enough, but their children seldom lived to adulthood...The men took other work during the flood but it was never enough.

  Marai moved closer, unable to keep himself from bending to her.

  The woman stared up at him, sensing an immense
, but somehow familiar shadow passing between her head and the light of the sun.

  “Ma...r...” She tried to cry out in joy, because she knew at once who it was. Then she stiffened. The shock had been too much. The half-made basket rolled from her lap.

  A darkly bronzed, tall young man about twenty years of age, who’d been haggling with a customer over the value of some brightly painted baskets saw her fade. Vaulting over the bench he’d been using as a table, he tried to keep the old woman from collapsing into the stored baskets behind her. In the basket maker’s eyes, the old woman appeared to be merely fainting from the heat.

  Marai stood like a statue, at once dazzled by the bright aura of her joyous spirit blossoming forth to surround and penetrate him. Her strong young embrace that day they had almost loved, echoed through all of his memories at once. It smelled so much like the tentative burst of yellow flowers, just the way Naibe had spoken of them. He sensed that day and the way those blossoms used to spread along the cliff tops after the briefest winter rain, where he grazed his sheep.

  She’d gathered the flowers that day to make them into a perfume for her wedding night. it said to him she’d be Sheb’s wife and find happiness in his arms, but her heart would always lie with her brother in that bed of yellow blossoms.

  You! Her thoughts cried. Oh! Look at you....You did go with the Lady...and now you’ve come for me...I’ve waited so long! Carry me, beloved angel of death...I’m so very tired. The strength of her thoughts filled his soul.

  Houra... Marai’s thoughts reeled a second time. He staggered back, startled by the force of her spirit passing around and through him. Her soul paused, realizing, in its passage, that Marai was still very much alive, and not a benevolent spirit to guide her through her death. At that, her flight accelerated into its own radiance.

  Oh...No...I see you now. We’ve traded places...Fare you well then... her thoughts began to thin.

  “What are you doing to her?” The young man snarled, suddenly aware of the seriousness of the situation. Leaping between Marai and Houra, he held the woman’s upper body with one arm and threatened Marai with his other fist.