Voices in Crystal

by Mary R Woldering

  Now the old man was laughing at him.

  Wse felt his eyes twitch. He had heard his mother’s voice whispering gently in his heart when the elder woman touched him a few hours ago. Once again she was quietly urging him to watch what he was saying.

  Is it that woman again? he wondered Is she tempting my thoughts from this far away? He reflected. Even if these sojourners are as divisive as Dede says, it doesn’t seem they are something to worry about.

  The woman’s dance had been joyous and playful...self-loving and giving. The four sojourners had teased him to the point of near drunkenness and arousal just to get at his motives and nothing more. He knew that. It was simple misdirection heka, or spell casting. He had pranked them back with the Wdjat, reversing the channeling and flow of all of the sexual energy the young woman had been stirring in him. If he hadn’t created a cover for his exit, he would have dearly loved to have watched the result of his utterance. Wse stopped his line of thought. He needed to go home to his wife. He was arousing himself too much just thinking about the woman and her dance. Wse realized his thoughts were drifting away from the events of the afternoon. Soon the old man would notice. “The man wanted to meet with you, Great One.” The priest stated. “I told him to come first thing in the morning, but I suspect he might be a bit late after what I turned back on him. That woman was something else...” Wse almost laughed but checked himself.

  His teacher didn’t want to hear about a beautiful woman, lust, or anything else.

  Prince Hordjedtef, the Scion of Nekhen and Great One of Five had outlived several wives and many of his children in his long life. All of his sons had died young. His daughters had long been grown and married. Most of his grandchildren were even grown. They had little communion with him except when he visited his main estate in Nekhen far to the south. Long ago, he had written a lovely set of “Instructions” for his favorite son Auibre who had diednot long after. Now they were a wise standard in the sort of teaching a father gives to his son as he becomes a man.

  The elder had two consorts who traveled with him to either estate. One was a much younger cousin who was considered elder countess of Nekhen. The other woman, younger than the countess but beginning to age, had been a concubine and a favorite musician. Hordjedtef had given her full status in his house as a noble and appointed consort when she bore him a child. Even though that child and none of her other children survived past age five or six, he had been compassionate and still quite fond of her musical talents.

  The Great One was close to all of his students always developed a closeness to his students through the years of required training. Sometimes that closeness seemed to border on infatuation. His doting and gentle manner of speaking to the boys under his tutelage concerned Wse when he first came to study, but the old man never approached him. None of the other youthful students ever complained about being pestered in that way. It was just his manner. The old man loved his inspector Wse more than the others. He even came to view him as a divine replacement for his poor son Auibre.

  “When I was a youth,” Hordjedtef began, his black and beady eyes glazing in the distant memory of the often recited story.

  Wse moaned inwardly knowing, in no uncertain terms, he wasn’t going to be released from this audience until he sat through yet another retelling of the tale. If his teacher had lost his sense and memory from age it might have been forgivable, but the old man knew he had recited it to his students more than once. He intended to tell it again.

  Wse would not be able to escape for that evening swim with his beloved wife, after all.

  “As I entered the Hall of Life for study in preparation for my elevation.” Hordjedtef continued. “I heard of a magician, a distant relative, in Djed-Djed Sneferu who might interest my father, as we sons were competing for his favor in those days. At his bidding, I took a boat to go and get him. He was a lector, but he’d gained much favor of the gods and knew more of our Lord Djehuti than anyone alive at the time. Some said he was the Ape of Wisdom, with his round belly and great appetite. No priest or wizard dared come up against him. He had learned the power over life and death and knew all of the sacred words and phrases. It was a worry to him, thus he had taken an oath to practice it on no man. He was humble, kind, devoted to the studies of the heavens...and to the knowing of healing.” The old man waxed monotonous as he retold the often whispered fable of the voices from the stars who had beguiled his own teacher into thinking they were the same beings who had instructed people of Earth in the “first time” when all gods walked as men. The voices put out the thought that it was they who had actually seeded the gods.

  He repeated, as if it was a sacred litany, the way his master had grown old awaiting the return of these first ones, and how their message had changed over the years.

  “They betrayed him”, Hordjedtef re-explained. One night when I sailed the stars with him as my guide, I witnessed it myself. They asked him to do something new. They showed us a vision of a hulking man of the sand, Wse dear. Bright of heart he was, but simple and easily opened. They had picked out this creature and asked us to teach him wisdom and our crafts as a reward for his bearing the keys to the golden scrolls of knowledge, the sacred tablets and other secrets we have stored here. They had buried these keys in his heart.”

  The old man had truly believed these scrolls were no less than a copy of the great wisdoms set down in those far distant times by Djehuti himself. The story hadn’t changed. It had just become more real with the appearance of this man across the river.

  The inspector priest had been sitting patiently through the verbal dissertation, but had become increasingly bored. Wse tried to match the people he had met with the supposed ancient and manipulative race and simply could not do it. He felt all three women were lightly skilled in seduction and had the ability to spirit-speak to each other. The Ta-Seti woman had further secrets, but none of them had manifested during his visit. The big man had demonstrated only healing power. He had miraculously cured the dying woman and straightened out the stonecutter’s wrist after he had wrung it in self-defense. Some inner wisdom and the ability to project a thought were his only other apparent skills. The inspector felt a little ashamed that he had stirred his mentor up over a mere Akkad seer and his consorts.

  “I was the last to see him alive.” the elder priest drew his lengthy tale to a close. “It was I who eased his heart’s struggle and aided him into the West. His dying wish was that I carry out his desire to protect our truths and make secure that which was given to us by the Seshat Goddess of all that is known, if this Marai did survive and manage to come to us.” He touched his pursed lips with his folded fingertips, glancing quickly at his protégé out of the corner on one eye.

  Wse sorted through everything his master had just retold him.

  Old Djedi must have broken his so-called vow against harming men, if old Dede even entertained the idea that a man such as this merchant had been destroyed. Did he attempt to stop the sojourner? The inspector pondered silently Or did you?

  It had not worked, an any case. After fifty-five circuits of the sun, this Marai, if it was indeed really the same man and not a pretender was back whether he was welcome or not. In addition, he was not alone. The women had also come and could likely fortify any of his efforts.

  “So, you’re saying Wise Djedi in no way invited him here?” Wse struggled for clarity, seeing the sunny warmth and sensual openness of Marai’s face in his thoughts again. “Why does he come here, then?”

  The same dry chortle rattled again in the open sun room. This time it sounded like rats rasping in a storeroom. The sky was growing darker as the sun set. The idea of going for a swim with his wife faded completely from the priest’s thoughts as his mentor answered.

  “O.....because the voices from the far off place, told him to...and like the man of easy guile he is, he must follow their commands blindly, despite how empowered they have made him to choose otherwise. I would think one as simple as he is can know to do naught else
. He’s loyal to them to a fault because they have made him lovely to behold, unable to age as men ought to, and have given him some glorious ka’t to play with. He thinks his fealty to these creatures means something.” The old eyes glittered a little. The elder reached forward, picking up a rule for measuring circles and angles, stared at it and twirled it by one end in his dark, frail fingertips.

  “So let’s employ that idea, when he comes.” The elder perked up, sitting a little straighter in his stone chair. “We’ll teach and test to find just what gifts they have given him. We’ll see how quickly the brute can learn, if he can at all and what he knows already. Then we’ll open his thoughts, if he has any worth our effort, in Hall of Truth.” Hordjedtef paused, accepting the last dregs of his tea from the last cup his protege had handed him.

  “My gentle one, how long do you think he will last during the scrutinies, let alone the trials, when he stands before our gods who will certainly take issue with these possible outer realm betrayors of sacred Maat?”

  The elder priest sat well now, animated by his own stored venom.

  “So...” He began without waiting for the younger priest’s incredulous response. “As my master tended him and his women in the past, so shall we be glad to tie up the ends of this untidy business.” The priest’s slit eyes grew birdlike again. He would have broken into loud, sonorous laughter, before flying around his own courtyard, the priest sensed. That concept disturbed him more than a little.

  Wse’s own father Userre had known the high priest of Djehuti, Prince Hordjedtef ever since he himself had been a youth. The two men, now both seniors in their separate orders had few occasional dealings with each other. To the younger priest’s own young eyes as he grew up, Hordjedtef had always been the epitome of inner peace and light. Now, after so many years, this light of wisdom was being eclipsed by a somewhat darker force. He understood perfectly well what his teacher intended.

  “You mean, we’re to destroy them.” Wse stated.

  The elder’s expression didn’t change. He twirled the instrument back and forth as if waiting for the concept to take hold in his protege.

  “Only if we’re forced to do it...We are honor bound to defend what is ours...” The elder’s black eyes grew to irritated slits again. “To set in place what is right…to maintain the Djed…to restore and maintain honor to Goddess Maat...that is your sacred duty.” he paused “Any mere acolyte knows these things...not he who has long been with me.”

  “I understand...but...” The inspector began, even though already knew the answer. In the various trials there was always risk of death. If the initiate could not pass them, he or she often perished.

  “Yes, you do understand the grave responsibility we have in upholding the truth from pollution. Better the man Marai realize the error that was made by his allies and begin to make it right on his own.” The dark veined hand wove a place in the air, aimlessly. “We must assist him in the discovery of his own personal truth.” The elder reiterated.

  “Uncle, is he such a great threat to you? To us?” The younger priest knew he had felt another truth near the surface of his thoughts, but couldn’t name it.. “The man seemed so good and pleasant...like a man who, with training in our disciplines, could be a useful ally for us. He’s certainly not as brutish or stupid as you’ve made him out to be. I have met him in flesh, where you have not, and I’ve spent a fairly pleasant morning with him and his ladies.”

  The elder continued tracing his fingers in the air, a gesture for thought sending.

  “You mean you were very nearly seduced by him...by them…lucky you came to your senses and cast confusion on the lot of them.”

  Wse thought of the silver blue fire in Marai’s dark eyes and trembled inwardly when he remembered where he had seen that color. The sacred Benu stone that capped the solid ray of the sun in the temple at Per-A-At where his father served, had veins of metallic crystal that same color. It too, had come out of the night sky the legends said.

  “And what if he does well in the scrutinies?” the inspector suggested.

  Hordjedtef winced in surprise and disgust. The slits in his eyes reddened again. His thin brown hand took up the striker and rang for service on the moon-shaped gong at his side. He had noticed the back of his neck aching ahead of schedule but he didn’t wish to press Wse into healing duty. He wanted to ask a few more questions...to search his assistants thoughts a little longer.

  “Come to me, Wseriri, my true strength” The elder created a weakness and neediness in his voice.

  The sound of an even more affectionate form of his name magically soothed the inspector.

  “You are no youth fresh to learning. The man himself is not a threat to us. Nor are the women. The secret things he carries in his heart are the danger if they were to fall into the wrong hands. He is, of himself, an unschooled sojourner, which is bad enough that he is bringing his uncleanness here among us. To answer your earlier thought, however, he is not an immortal in the truest sense of the word. He can die, but unless someone knows what truly hurts him, he can at least cure himself of any death and debility for enough years to make a nuisance of himself to any of those who will wear the holy pschent. The talents he has been given are meant to be earned through years of study, not given freely as gifts. Do I need to remind you of the child’s lesson of great wealth spread before dogs?”

  Wse, frowned. He rose from his mat beside the old man and walked behind his seat so he could to massage the ancient shoulders gently.

  Hordjedtef’s taloned hand grasped one of his inspector’s hands, freezing it in place. He laid his head on it, for a moment, stopping the healing procedure with almost kittenish affection.

  “Did you not tell me how unsure of his own gifts he is?” The old priest asked “My great old master realized in the end, that he had swallowed lies by the actions of these faraway walkers. They style themselves the Ntr and so he did call them that, but I think there is more to learn about them. He taught what we now teach others... that the heavens are much more vast than the place above where our kings now live. There are oceans and lands far beyond that above, just as below, and they are just as peopled and apt to contest the right given us by our godly ancestors to give order to them.” his lips pursed in thought.

  “By gifting this Marai the wandering shepherd, they gave a mere man a taste of godhood that is to be reserved only for those who have either journeyed into light or are of godly blood. Soon enough he will come to crave his newfound power like some men crave strong wine. Those of the Ta-Ntr have told him we will help him find balance... That we will ‘unlock’ him.” The old man coughed, as his inspector worked a particular pressure point.

  “So...If this Marai obtains the clarity of thought he seeks here, all of the storehouse of knowledge will suddenly open to him at his bidding.” The elder priest leaned back and stared up pensively into his protege’s eyes. “You, my sweet, sweet Wse, of all men, should know how mere legends have the power to shape kingdoms and even divinities.” There was a smirk in the elder’s craggy visage.

  The inspector priest didn’t like it when anyone, let alone his great uncle and mentor brought up the power of the legend under which he himself had been born, even in a slight reference. Because of his own legendary birth, Wse felt compelled to spend his lifetime in trying to prove the error in taking mere tales at face value. Wse was supposed to be one-third of a set of triplets who would all rule Kemet in sequence. His birth was to have been tended by goddesses. Most men, even Hordjedtef himself, would have killed to fulfill that destiny. Prophesies recorded at his birth and at his protege’s birth never exactly came to pass.

  For just a moment, the inspector felt the older wife of Marai’s energy in his thoughts. She was showing him his mother’s face and showing him the same vision he had seen when he was in her apartment. It wakened the memory of his running to the south to bury himself in the study of wisdom instead of choosing the ceremonial wonder of Ra as his parents had designed for him.

&
nbsp; “You have studied the Akkad legend of their god Enki of wisdom and magic?” The old priest proposed.

  Wse thought for a while. He reviewed what he had learned about the legend with a frown. Suddenly, as if dawn broke, the light of recognition came into his face.

  “The so-called Ta-Ntr race wants to translate this man into that god?” Wse’s always composed voice almost gasped as the myriad of dreadful possibilities parading through his thoughts at that moment.

  “Hardly, but they are filling him with falsehood of that nature. He has given himself the significance of being part of the myth.” The elder mused.

  The inspector frowned, rubbing the ancient shoulders of his teacher again. A thought of the Akkad’s true nature and purpose had almost come to him when he had been looking into the man’s eyes during his woman’s dance. If such a thought wasn’t fantasy, then legend bound Marai, Hordjedtef, Djedi and Great Khufu together on the same tablet.

  It stated that ‘No insignificant man’ would bring the key to open the box containing the lapis lazuli or emerald tablets. He had always assumed the “no insignificant man” referred to himself or his brothers who were never even conceived, let alone born. Because they hadn’t been born, the inspector had decided none of the legend was true. It caused youthful Wse’s lack of faith to begin brewing.

  “Is he claiming to be the one who could open the secret chambers of Djehuti... and find the...No...” The inspector shook his head as if he had suddenly tasted poison. “That just can’t be...” He put his hand to his own brow as if he were trying to force those thoughts into submission. “No outsider is to know where the sacred Pdut numbers...” The priest blanched the color of raw earth, suddenly understanding why his mother’s essence had penetrated the elder woman. His hands withdrew from the old man’s shoulders. He began to walk away, lost in sudden ruminations. That woman’s face appeared over his mother’s face in his memory of the early afternoon, but he didn’t understand why she spoke of Marai as if he were her lover.