Voices in Crystal

by Mary R Woldering

  “The Vigil...” Marai called after the the assistant “Wse”, as he was hastily led down the narrow hall to his room. “For initiation?” He asked, but outside of a quick nod, he received nothing. The priest had once again tucked all of his personal feelings inside.

  Talk to me this way then...Marai insisted. He’s shut you out and he’s listening to his music. Is it the preparation for the Pit of Apep rite? Out of season? he asked. The old man had briefly touched on this. Marai would be questioned as to his knowledge of the mysteries and quizzed on his instructions so far. He would be asked to recite some ancient passages. If he could do this verbatim, he would be cast alone into a water-filled pit in a secluded location to confront his fears. This trial was of such an intensity that many could not overcome their inner personal terror and died of fright. Marai wondered what terror he might encounter for a moment, but couldn’t think of anything but the fear of missing time...that he would wake and all that he knew would be lost in the mists. But that had already happened with Houra’s death.

  The inspector shook his head. As soon as the two men reached the guest room. A pan of water for washing and a jar for him to use as a privy were placed inside. As soon as the sojourner had washed his hands and feet, the inspector broke his silence.

  “It’s been discussed.” The inspector began to explain quietly, pacing back and forth in the corner of the room uncomfortably.

  Marai knew he didn’t want to be there.

  “We decided you certainly have already passed many of your initiations when you fell asleep in the arms of these “Children” as you name them, but now you don’t remember the things you learned. It’s been decided that we will go ahead and re-birth you...” He added, bowing his head and pursing his lips solemnly for a moment.

  You want to be with your wife...to consult her...ask for her wisdom. Marai’s thought’s penetrated the inspector’s thoughts. For a moment he thought he visualized a woman of middle years, not much younger than the inspector himself. She was the color of bright spice and her wide but sensitive face reflected great wisdom This thing your Great One wants to do is bothering you...a lot!

  “Now...” The assistant’s hand went up sharply, to silence all further questions. “Speak to no one... No matter what you hear outside this room for the full of the day. This is very makeshift and off season, but you will be monitored and also sustenanced twice more.” He turned as if he had more to say but couldn’t say it and hastened from the room.

  A servant came to put a drape over the door that would block out the light of the coming day.

  Marai sat heavily on the lashed bed, feeling it groan beneath him. Despite the drape, which should have made the evening air oppressive, an almost pleasant coolness spread over him.

  Reviewing the day, he visualized the shape of the characters he had drawn and tried to block out the distracting thoughts.

  So they’re skipping over the first two parts of the ritual a and doing it off season? He wondered about that. There had to be a way to find out the answer before it was too late to turn back.

  It is as it should be, Man of Ai

  A calm man’s voice spoke in his thoughts. This time the Child Stone mimicked the gentle voice of the inspector. In the distance, Marai heard urgent speaking rising above the pretty stringing of the harp, followed by

  “Shh...shh, dear one, You worry overmuch... It is as it should be...”

  It is as it should be

  Marai repeated several times, then Thank You... as he drifted.

  Marai woke from an oddly dreamless and exhausted sleep to the assault of the distant early morning household sounds. The dogs were “yowling”. Birds and servants chattered. The elder priest snapped at his attendants. Soon he heard the elder’s four man chaise leaving in his through the gates.

  Oh... appointment with the king, I see...maybe that’s the real reason he needs to be done with me...Marai thought.

  Water and something like little salt crackers had been slipped into his room while he slept. It was a semi-fasting meal. He sat, ate it and tried to visualize his wives. They were happily working with Etum Addi. Naibe, who had been a little irritable last week due to yet another passage of her moon was brighter in spirits today. She had glumly made her offerings and purified herself. A sly smile dotted her lips, as if to say:

  I know you are near me, beloved...the smile on me is for you. My sweetness with men who come to buy things... is a mirror for all I feel for you.

  I know He returned the thought. When I come to you soon, it will be as a god, sweet one, so be ready! He teased her, knowing she loved that kind of talk and that it was he, not she who needed to “be ready”. He got up and paced for a moment or two, attempting to clear his thoughts. He sat again, listening to the chatter in the plaza...the coming and going of daily life in a princely estate that had become part of his own life for sixteen days.

  At some point he drifted again, thinking a strong sedative must have been put in the food and drink he had been given. Throughout the day his thoughts rose and fell several times. Finally, he noticed the stillness of evening around him. Outside, no servant sounded. The estate was quiet. The inspector was in the room again. It was the middle of the night.

  The man silently beckoned him to rise and follow him. Marai went with the priest, padding toward the same bath area he had been using for his daily purification. Now that it was dark, everything about it seemed different. The drama of his “initiation” had begun.

  After the priest had seated Marai on a stone bench now set beside the pool, he offered the sojourner a sip of filtered water mixed with what seemed to be the wine of grapes to drink.

  As Marai drank it, some attendants he didn’t really recognize filled the half empty braziers they had brought into the bathing room with incense.

  The young men, probably waeb priests from one of the other temples, stoked the vessels so heavily that a sweet cloud of incense lingered and circled near the ceiling before exiting at the skylight. Two other men of inspector rank, who had been watching for the men to enter, brought sweet herbs, oil, cosmetic jars, a rough linen drying cloth, and a plain white kilt for Marai to wear once he had been purified. When the men put these things at the foot of the stone bath bench they left Marai alone with the Inspector priest.

  “You have been dwelling in dusk before the darkness until now...” the priest began with the quiet, sober tones of a ritual charge. “Where you go next is filled with trial and temptation. Are you willing to go on?” his hand poised as if he committed Marai’s words to memory.

  Normally a scribe had been taking notes of some of the sojourner’s answers. This time, the priest was tasked with remembering the answers without one.

  The strange sensation he sometimes felt in the bath house had returned. Somewhere, eyes were watching and ears were straining to hear his response. Marai wondered if the old man had crept to a secret location to listen again.

  “I am willing...” He answered.

  Slowly he undressed, went through some lightly relaxing poses guided by the inspector and slipped into the water while the priest remained standing at the side of the pool. Marai reveled in the clouded warmth for a few moments, mentally placing himself in the white cloud of the vessel again as the memory of a comforting place

  The inspector and other voices in the background from outside the room whispered and gently sang the chants of “Opening” and “Watchful Be”.

  Time was slipping away from all of Marai’s points of reference. Something had been put in the wine again. Reveling in the pleasant grogginess that swam in sweet warmth over him, he traced his hands over the slickness of the moss covered sides of the pool.

  All is well with me, my flowers of the wilderness. He sent a thought to the women again, wondering if the weakness and dizziness he felt was brought on more by heat, lack of food and fresh air, the fragrant herbs charring on the coals or all of these things, combined. He felt detached from himself.

  I’ ll be coming home to
you soon. His thoughts ascended through the skylight with the smoke. One last trial...

  “You’re talking to them, aren’t you?” The priest broke the stillness of the room.

  Marai opened his eyes. Turning his head and looking up, he saw the inspector sitting cross-legged at the edge of the pool. Something in the priest’s voice had reached out to him. A defensive cloudiness reflecting a pink dawn color almost obscured the man from sight. The other voices had stopped. The two men were alone.

  You’re afraid of me...You and your master both are...Why? Marai attempted in Kinaankht to reach into the younger priest’s heart. For a moment it seemed as if he had failed again, but then he understood the inspector did hear him, because an aura of sadness and regret surrounded the man.

  Not another thought! Terse thoughts suddenly rang back at him from the priest. He held up one finger, saying ‘not yet’ once again. He pointed to the wall and to his ear. Getting up quickly, he whispered a nearly silent utterance at intervals around the wall.

  Marai knew his suspicions were true. The bricks didn’t exactly meet in some places in the wall. Someone had been periodically watching him as he bathed throughout the two weeks of his stay. Looking up to the barely lit skylight, the younger priest whispered over that opening too.

  The priest sat, this time on the bench by the pool, smoothed his shendyt and clasped his hands around his knee.

  I will give you permission to speak the name Wserkaf, which you learned by accident . I do this to show you the trust I have gained of you. I give you my best nickname: Wse…and one of the names of power to be used in case of dire emergency only. It is Wseriri... Know also, as you embark on this journey, that I can no longer condone what my elder does or wishes to do to you.

  Marai bowed his head, understanding the immeasurable sadness. This Wserkaf or Wseriri wouldn’t be confessing these things to him unless the old bastard intended to kill him during this out of the ordinary initiation.

  For a moment, he wondered what had suddenly turned Hordjedtef, against him. Toward the end of the lessons, it had seemed they were almost becoming friendly. The evening meals with the countesses were even becoming comforting. Was it the jest during the writing examination yesterday? Had he been so insulted that he considered any of the mystic offerings of the Children of Stone a worthless joke? Marai wondered if he and the Children had unwittingly committed a sacrilege that was grave enough that the Great One felt their offerings of wisdom were too dangerous to pursue openly. Maybe Count Prince Hordjedtef thought they were best locked away with the legendary box of Ways and Numbers, wherever it was truly hidden.

  The drawing itself was no sacrilege. Marai knew that. It was very a respectful work to the greatest of goddesses and to Maat: Truth, Wisdom and Balance. The fact that a sojourner, assumed to be ignorant, had risen to such a keen understanding in two weeks of dialog was the sacrilege.

  The learned of Kemet loved double meaning and wit, often reversing parts of their own names. Hordjedtef could be written Djedefhor, hence Dede. The sojourner also knew the Children were tricksters in that they rather enjoyed using shock to provoke deep thought. They had used it when they presented themselves as Ashera and then told him they were not she. They used it in the writing demonstration. This showed the old man that his own protege was the chosen successor of his teacher Djedi. If he guessed it other bright people might learn it too.

  Very soon, any meditations on the Children’s intense and loving symbolism would open the younger priest to the translation of the rest of the mysterious text. This Prince Wserkaf had even begun to recite the pattern aloud: What seemed to be the Tyet or blood of Aset or menstrual blood or life was a woman’s vulva. It was more than fitting that ruminations on the physical regeneration of humans would be characterized in such a way. The birth of the universe from the original dark womb. All of the symbolism fit. Even the resemblance of a boat pit to a vulva fit. Man journeyed to earth in the boat of his body: launched from between a woman’s thighs. In mating, he sought her safe harbor once again.

  That was the real outrage. Hordjedtef had been bypassed again: three times for king and now once as reigning sage. Marai knew the only way the old man could stop his own comeuppance would be to stop him.

  So, he expects me to die? He’s changed the ritual into a joke because he thinks I’m teasing him? He assumes I’m so thinly prepared? Is that it? Marai tried to ask.

  In the final ritual the spirit of the initiate was released from its earthly shell in a series of progressively deep risings and fallings from a trance state over a three-day period. Marai didn’t understand why the Children would want him to go through with this in Hordjedtef’s hands rather than in the safety of their vessel, especially after Naibe-Ellit had nearly died trying to entrance herself outside the vessel the other week. He could no longer mistake the old man’s treacherous nature for anything else. Now, even his inspector knew his teacher’s master plan.

  Why did you come to us? The Inspector Wse lamented. You have your gifts. You knew this could happen. Dede told me about you becoming the image of the Bakha Monthu...The priest trembled, leaning forward over Marai. That he knew of the evil afoot reflected in the large, sad eyes of his haunted, dark face.

  Did you ever make a promise? Marai quietly stated. I made one long ago. He knew he had struck at the truth in speaking of a promise when the last of Wserkaf’s stoniness dissolved like the steam above the bath.

  The younger priest knew he was just as duty bound to Hordjedtef and to his king as Marai was bound to the Children of Stone. The more the idea of promise keeping made sense, the more neither of their lives did, because they knew just how trapped their duties to the futures they each upheld made them.

  This is so wrong...the inspector lamented. You’re as innocent as a child! You’re no criminal or murdering usurper! Yet, I handed you over to him blindly, because I was told you were all of those things. I stopped listening to the things I felt in my heart. I can’t believe how I just obeyed what I was told...me...who took on the prophecy of the gods into my own disobedience because it wasn’t exact and I had no taste for living someone else’s vision...

  Marai reached up out of the water for the linen not exactly sure what the priest’s thoughts meant. Instinctively, he patted Wserkaf’s hand in consolation, feeling a little of the energy going from him.

  I think it’s going to be alright. You didn’t mean any harm...not even with the nasty little trick you cast into my ladies and I the other week. he smiled wistfully.

  That? It was nothing more than a simple love charm...for the woman like HetHrt, like Raet...to amuse her... Wserkaf’s face drained of any color left in it. Through Marai’s touch he saw the image of Naibe’s limp form and her pale breathless lips. He saw Marai trying to revive her and the other women weeping.

  No, I did not do that... Wserkaf protested. Don’t you see? That was another heka invading it. His eyes glimmered evilly at the thought of the elder priest actually using his magic to pollute the one link to his mother as the goddess and to the temple of Ra...a demonstration of power

  The old man had always wanted the sacred Wdjat as the Eye of Truth. In one candid moment years ago, Hordjedtef even claimed the crystal amulet had once belonged to him, but he never explained to Wserkaf why his own mother had it later. As his beloved protege and son of his heart, the elder had told him, he would be allowed him to keep it as a memento of her. He considered it an excellently crafted jewel. It wasn’t until much later that he discovered it had any function outside of personal adornment. When he realized that, his interest was more than renewed.

  When Marai emerged from the bath, the attendants returned. After they had dried him, they painted his face a deep green, like Asar’s face.

  Wserkaf shook his head several times, fighting back tears of rage and guilt at the thought of such vile energy infecting the spell of joy he had cast upon Marai and the women.

  When we are together in love Marai tried to explain and somehow comfort the In
spector at the same time. Our spirits as well as our flesh grow through each other so thoroughly that our defenses slip...we lose touch... we become vulnerable in those moments We become part of each other…Someone knew that, knew that would be exactly the right time to strike at us… He touched the priest’s hand again, sending a slight spark of sensuality coursing up his arm.

  You speak of the sacred love. Wserkaf blinked at the rush of pleasure in his arm. It’s the witness of the creative principle and of oneness of true masculine and feminine. Wserkaf answered. Those of godly blood alone can understand the meaning of it. We honor our best beloveds, with it. It’s not the same as enjoying the skill of a concubine. Those of the priest caste must be very careful of whom they choose to bed, because of this. Wserkaf withdrew his hand in a startled moment and shook it out, averting his face again from Marai’s silvery eyes.

  As Marai relaxed from the bath, the tea and the calmative smoke his eyes flashed a memory of that afternoon. What he remembered moved through the inspector as a strange sensation of bliss, raw sexual power, and almost evil sweetness.

  The inspector sobered again, knowing it was time.

  Marai was dressed by the attendants in silence, but found his reflection in the dark stilling pool hard to avoid. In that paint and sun-white garment, he did look like some strange image of a god...not Asar perhaps but some other god. The image of the black-faced bull, Bakha crept into reality for a moment. Marai knew that his face shouldn’t have been done up as Asar. That in itself was a sacrilege. Inspector Wserkaf knew it too, but was not protesting for his own reasons and promises to his elder.