Darkness, I

by Lee, Tanith

  No, it was not like a film set.

  She trod over the jewels, and they went out and blinked up again, like undamaged eyes.

  The candle pillars were so huge. Perhaps six or seven people could have ringed them round.

  Anna’s water-mirrored image slid under her. And behind and between the pillars she saw the old gods standing. Groups in black granite, Isis crowned with the moon, Osiris diademed by a reed, the hawk-headed child Horus on his mother’s hip. And there Nephthys, and Set, who was shown with the head of a bizarre hog, on which the red light wetly flickered.

  There were others she could not identify. Some were primitive and ancient, cyphers, and here and there was one depicted in a modelled Greek style.

  Some beasts were present too. An Assyrian lion, a cobra. And in a cave of blackness a Greek sphynx, crouched, yellow white as a bone. Her breasts were broken, but not her taloned paws.

  The Hall went on for ever.

  Under Nuit’s loins, Anna passed the god of the burial place, Sokar, his falcon head grosser, unlike that of the Horus child, and surmounted by a beetle shape. And then Sekhmet loomed up, a stone woman with a cup of gold in her hand, and a golden lion’s mask.

  Beyond Sekhmet was a wide hollow alcove, and the last darkness, which was blue.

  A distant window had been cut in the pulsing blood-womb of the Hall. An aquamarine window, the colour of the glass paste flowers, luminous and blind.

  Steps ran up to it; she could just make them out in the vagueness beyond the lamps.

  Something sat there, raised up against the blue window. It too was dark.

  And then a pair of other things, which were dark and also very pale, padded out across the incoherent space.

  As the first one morphed into the lamplight, it became visible, impossibly, like a ghost.

  A tiger, full grown, a length of ten foot at least. It was an albino.

  On the cream coat were brownish stripes. And the eyes were like the window and the glass paste and all painfully blue things.

  It snarled softly, but it was, entirely, softness. The vast pads had not unsheathed—like the sphynx, like the goddess Sekhmet—its claws.

  The other one emerged after it, slightly smaller, a clearer icier white, milk not cream, the stripes harder, nearly black. Its eyes were as piercingly, achingly, blue.

  Anna stretched out her hands, and let the tigers nose her, if they would.

  Their heads came to her breast.

  When they had smelled her, she touched them. The whiter one shied away, shaking itself. The other stayed, and she felt its rough brisk fur. Its breath was slightly fishy. With its teeth it could have removed her arm. It had a collar of silver with deep sapphire stones. The whiter one had black stones in a collar of gold.

  Then both animals turned from Anna, and trotted back towards the stairs that led up to the blue window.

  And the figure sitting there stretched out its own arms, and caressed them.

  The tigers lay down, under the chair where the shadow sat.

  The shadow did not speak.

  Anna walked towards it.

  The window was quite large, about six feet across, oval in construction.

  Outside, a glacial cavern of the ice—or, was it water under the ice? So still, so cold, so empty, one could not tell.

  And against the blue radiation, the shadow was mostly only that.

  Yet there was the impression of another goddess.

  Anna also did not speak.

  The shadow, which was a woman, kept her silence.

  On the stair a white-banded tail thumped heavily, once, twice.

  And then the hands of the woman—pale like the tiger fur, darkened only by a ring—moved. And flame flashed out like lightning between them.

  How inappropriate. She must have struck a match. However, it only appeared to be magic.

  A low lamp of alabaster smeared up its curdled fire.

  It struck the woman on her right side, and on the left was the aquamarine shade.

  Yes. She was Sekhmet, Sekhmet the woman, for she had the face of a lioness, the low broad brow, and long feline nose, the humanized smooth mouth, coloured transparent red. Her eyes were long and black in wings of faint leaden paint. Her black hair fell to her shoulders, cut in the way of Egypt, and with small gold buds caught in it.

  Her dress was not Egyptian. It fitted her slenderness closely, covered her arms like gloves. A deep white V was open at its front, and here on a chain of embers, golden and green beads, hung a yellowish scarab pendant with wings of faded black and gold.

  The woman looked at Anna in the light.

  She had made the light to look by, not to be seen.

  Her nails were opaque red. Sekhmet’s claws dipped into blood? And pomegranate on her lips—

  The woman spoke. Her voice was low, and sombre, lit by nothing, let alone a lamp.

  ‘You’re Anna. But he has given you a new name. Did they tell you? Ankhet Persephone. The child of life, stolen and brought down into the Underworld.’

  ‘I’m called Anna.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re stubborn,’ said the woman. ‘He’ll like that. Or are you only frightened?’

  ‘Of course,’ Anna said. ‘Anyone would be.’

  ‘Would they? I’ve forgotten what fear is. What is it?’

  Anna said nothing, and the woman went on looking at her. She was beautiful in the same way that her pendant was. Flawless and untouchable. Perhaps hard, or only seeming so, brittle under the chalcedony shell.

  ‘They called you the Mother,’ said Anna.

  ‘And these are my children,’ said the woman. She indicated the two tigers. ‘You understand quite well how long we can live.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Of course. Or else we die and come back. As you have done.’ Anna lowered her head. ‘Embarrassed by reincarnation?’ said the woman. She said, ‘We’re obscene, evidently. Our kind. And we are the oldest. Ankhet, Ankhet Persephone. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘No. Why,’ said Anna, ‘don’t you speak in Ancient Egyptian?’

  ‘Or the Semitic tongues, or mediaeval Russian, or the French of the eighteenth century. I’ve forgotten them all, like fear. I remember my childhood,’ said the woman. ‘I played in the mud, and my sister brought me little coloured animals she made, hippopotami and crocodiles. And I remember three rivers.’

  She said something then in a language Anna had never heard. It was glaucous, guttural and knife-edged together, with the rhythm of water.

  The woman said, in ordinary English, ‘We’ve learnt your speech, you, the others. What else. My name is Lilith. Have you heard that name? There is a demoness in Babylonian and Hebrew writings... and elsewhere, and in alchemy, who bears this name. There are other versions. Lilith will be the easiest.’

  Anna said, ‘Do I call you that?’

  ‘Yes. But we’ll seldom meet.’

  ‘What do you want?’ said Anna.

  ‘Nothing. Although—’ the woman called Lilith gazed through Anna, far away. ‘He says that someone is coming to me. One of the children. He told me this. But perhaps he lied. The boy is for him. And you are for him.’

  ‘For whom? Who is he?’

  ‘My lord,’ said Lilith. A still little smile lifted the rim of her mouth. But not very much. She had forgotten also how to smile, it was a reflex. ‘Already he’ll have seen you, watched you. And when he wants, he’ll appear to you, like the god. Suddenly. Yes, you have everything to fear.’

  ‘This man—called Kay.’

  Lilith laughed aloud. It was a cool mechanical sound. The creamy tiger rose and she put her hand with the ring upon its head, which was thickly ruffed. She dug her fingers into its fur.

  ‘Is that what the boy child called him? Well, he has many names. He was a pharaoh once. Does that impress you?’

  ‘I don’t believe it’s true.’

  ‘Yes. A sorcerer and a pharaoh. Set’s night. The bringer o
f darkness and loss. He has a black stone in his apartment. On it is a phrase in Roman Latin. Tenebrae sum. What have you been taught? Do you understand?’

  ‘I know what it means.’

  Lilith moved, a whisper; she crouched forward like the Greek sphynx. ‘What does it mean, then? Say it.’

  Anna said, slowly, ‘Darkness, I.’

  ‘That is him.’ She paused. ‘Or, all of us. What do you remember, Anna-Ankhet?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Seventeen.’

  ‘No. Two years of age. He watched you long before you were taken. Before you were born. He knows everything about you.’

  ‘He knows who I am? Who I really am?’

  ‘Maybe not. Or perhaps. He’ll seem to know. And you’re so small and slim. He’ll be pleased with you. His height, you see. He’s lived so long. He was tall, once.’

  The whiter tiger turned its head, and then the darker one.

  In the blueness of the window came a motion, Lilith too turned to see, away from Anna.

  And something passed through the vivid soul-less tiger’s eye of the blue. But Anna could not make out what.

  ‘I sit here very often,’ said Lilith. ‘Months go by. But today something swam through the water. A fish or a seal. Or something older. To honour you, do you think?’

  ‘Why has he had me brought here, this man?’

  ‘Why do you suppose?’

  Anna thought. It was what had happened to her mother—to Rachaela. The same. She had guessed almost immediately. She said nothing.

  Lilith rose.

  Possibly she herself was tall, but then, it might be an effect of light or perspective.

  She came down the steps and passed Anna like a night breeze, and the two tigers paced after her in their collars of silver and gold.

  ‘Stay or go as you want,’ said Lilith.

  ‘I don’t know how to find my way,’ Anna replied.

  ‘Stay then. This is the heart of his world.’

  The lamp-fire curtained Lilith, and as she moved by the lion goddess, a ray of gold sprang out on her like a blow.

  Anna walked up the steps. She looked at the black chair with its lion’s arms on which Lilith had sat. There was a perfume where she had been, smoky, tarnished, dry as certain wines.

  In the blue of the window, nothing was.

  A handful of days went by, in Anna’s room—her flat, as she called it to herself.

  She had been struck by then by a sinister simplicity. Coming down from Lilith’s alcove, going back across the jewellery floor of the Hall, Anna had seen Mesit standing on the threshold, presumably attending on Anna’s wish to leave. Mesit had conducted her back to the ‘flat’.

  And it was all like this.

  All—simple. Straightforward.

  Meals came three times a day, as in an accustomed, well-regulated household. Rachaela and Althene’s house had been able to operate like this under the care of Elizabeth. Although on days when Elizabeth was not there, it had not. These meals were Westernized—and simple. Chicken, fish, vegetables, pasta, bread. Seldom potatoes. Coffee and tea. And always, now, a glass of red wine on the middle and final tray. Anna had simply been acknowledged as an adult. As if at a party.

  Books also came, carried in by male porters, chaperoned by one of the women. The books were in boxes packed with straw. It was apparently to be Anna’s pleasure to unearth them, and partly it was. They were mostly novels, contemporary novels, of various times. No historical works. But there were a few volumes about animals, lions and elephants and foxes. Some of these were duplicates of books Anna had had in England.

  When she asked for music, Shesat said that nothing like that had been arranged. Simple again, this dearth.

  In what was presumably the morning, and at night, they bathed her.

  They were decorous. Only once, when the jar of soap slipped from Mesit’s hands and Anna caught it, did the women giggle. When Anna did not laugh, they desisted.

  They brought fresh clothes every day. The underclothes and dresses were identical. All the bras and pants had Paris labels. All the dresses were without labels, but had zips. On the fourth evening, Anna marked her dress with a tiny cut—they had given her nail scissors and other accessories—at the hem. Two days after, it reappeared. The dresses then were not limitless; two or three of them only.

  Sometimes Anna went out through her own corridor, past the dark stone guardian, into the courtyard with the four mixed statues. Shesat had told her that these were Bastet, Anpu, Hercules and Astarte. There were supposed to be fish in the pool, but she saw none.

  There was no prohibition on her leaving the court and going into the passageways. Except, of course, that she would get lost. And so, she did not do it.

  One day, after the middle meal, Anna was in the courtyard, and the boy, Andrew, came in, led by a male slave.

  Andrew said to her casually, ‘Hallo.’

  Anna said, ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘With Uncle,’ said Andrew. (Was that still his name?)

  Ridiculously, or ominously, or simply, Andrew had been dressed for Uncle Kay’s pyramid. Andrew wore a close-fitting top of brown material, and a white gaufred kilt, belted by gold. Round his chest was a light gold collar. He had a gold wristlet. His head had been shaved, leaving a cluster of dark hair on the right side, into which gold wire was coiled.

  He was now a tiny prince—the son of Rameses perhaps, from De Mille’s Ten Commandments. He did not seem disconcerted or delighted at this dressing-up. Did not seem to notice.

  And he had been ‘with Uncle’.

  ‘What’s your uncle like?’ said Anna.

  ‘Oh, he’s brill,’ said Andrew, at his most South London.

  Then, not interested in the girl, he walked on, and the servant let him in through the other door.

  Did Andrew still think ‘mum’ would come? Perhaps he no longer cared.

  Anna stared in at the fishless tank.

  When she went back to her flat, she began to investigate for spy holes. For ‘Kay’ watched and had watched her, watched her even before she was born.

  Rachaela had been taken by the Scarabae to their house, brought there for the one called Adamus. And Rachaela had conceived the child of Adamus, as planned.

  Anna did not recollect either Rachaela or Althene telling her this.

  Somehow, nevertheless, Ruth had haunted Anna’s childhood. Ruth, and Rachaela’s seduction by the first Scarabae male.

  For Adamus was the first, Althene the second. Third stood Malach, the unknown one, whose hair, like Anna’s, was white. Fourth now came this other. The watcher. Darkness.

  She had put the ebony chair against the painted wall and was searching along the tops of painted hunters and reeds for the aperture where an eye might look through.

  Things were simple here, and so there would be just such a simple hole.

  And then, standing on a chair, a last terrible simplicity occurred to her.

  She had heard nothing, no sound, no movement of the door, let alone a footstep, or a polite alerting cough.

  Yet she turned.

  From her vantage, she looked down into the room.

  He was there.

  He was in the room with her.

  Standing quite still.

  The man who had had her brought here.

  Anna jumped lightly, cat-like, down from her chair. Evidently elevation was not of paramount importance. She wanted firm ground under her feet.

  Standing on this ground then, she found that he was—as the woman had seemed to predict—taller than she. But not by very much, a few inches.

  His build was, for his height, broad, yet compact. He wore a long dark tunic that reached his booted ankles. Everything was plain, even the belt that shaped the garment to his waist, leather with a clasp of dull silver.

  His hair was midnight black, thick, rushing hair, with the sheen on it of plumage. It poured round his face, going down his
back to below the level of the belt.

  And from the hair looked the face, on its column of throat.

  He seemed perhaps forty years of age. A forty that was fit and honed, skin and muscle streamlined and taut as those of a far younger man.

  The nose was short and the mouth long, the forehead wide, like a book. The eyes ruled the face. Large and set like jewels in carving. Bluer than the bluest eyes of Lilith’s tiger children. He might have fathered them. He was like a tiger too. A black tiger, the essence of some ancient night.

  Of all the new and old and mingled things of this underworld of his, he was the core, the foundation. The Greek sphynx, that maybe Alexander had paused to look on, was a baby to this one. And the fresh-made ebony chair, formed in some clever shop in AD 1920 or 1970, that, by him, was scarred and worn and nearly defunct.

  All times and no time. The woman had had a touch of it, but she was so motionless—frozen—a wonderful spider hung for ever in her web of dreams.

  Did he dream? Or did he only live.

  The long mouth moved in a gentle, friendly smile. It was very charming, almost—innocent.

  He spoke to her.

  He had the most beautiful voice she had ever heard, with a curious, halting cadence, as if thought was in every word.

  ‘Anna,’ he said.

  Not Ankhet, although he had made the others say only that. Anna.

  And then, I’ve brought you a present.’

  And she saw he held out, in his cunning craftsman’s hands, which looked as if they might have fashioned it, an exquisite cup of jade-blue faience. A standing girl in the Egyptian manner was its stem. On either side a duck’s head rose from the bowl. The rim was cut with a design of leaves, perhaps convolvulus.

  She did not take it.

  ‘For you,’ he said. ‘It’s very old. Quite precious. Look, I’ll leave it here.’ And he set it on a table.

  He did not seem impatient, irked, surprised, amused. There was nothing threatening.

  Then he said, ‘My name is Cain.’

  When he did this, a vast thunder, totally silent and without reverberation, seemed to go through the room, and through Anna’s body. Why? It was only a name from the Bible. The Scarabae seemed quite partial to those.

  Anna replied, ‘The little boy said you were called Kay.’

  ‘Yes. But he didn’t understand.’