Opener of the Sky

by Mary R Woldering

  “When we do this healing, I don’t think you should give any more of your energy into it. It’s too dangerous for the child, if you should draw some of the pain and hurt from him,” he positioned himself on one side of Djerah. Naibe-Ellit’s eyes flashed a different gold fire.

  “No beloved. You’ll need me. I’ll just have to be careful,” she contradicted him then adjusted the way she sat with Djerah’s head in her lap. Ariennu settled at his other side and tried to relax.

  “We’ll have to put ourselves into trances. If you don’t think you can because of everything else, follow me,” he said. “We have to get started with whatever we can do for him.”

  CHAPTER 22: INTERIM

  A helpless expression filtered over Deka’s face. She slithered next to Maatkare, then lay her head on his arm as Marai left the dais area. He saw her eyes fill with purest hunger as her slim fingers played across his thick shoulder, down and over his chest. The prince knew she was trying to take his attention away from the sojourner and his gesture that released those inside from the spell of stalled time as he strode toward the women’s tent. Maatkare knew the man’s show of power had surprised even her. He patted her hand and stopped her seduction attempt.

  “Let him go for now. Give him his moments with your sisters and the wretch who has stolen a few more moments of his own life. When he dies and nothing they do can save him…” He set down his bow, still puzzled that his skilled ‘short-snap’ shot had bounced off the man’s cloak. He knew he had aimed well enough and his pull had been even. He grumbled a little, picked up the box, and opened it once more to look at the glimmer of the stones.

  “Very well, Akkad, do what you will. I will learn the things my grandfather hasn’t the energy to undertake. I can feel that he knows he has lost my cousin over this nonsense.” He muttered under his breath, closed the box, and stepped down from the dais, leading Deka by the fingertips of one hand. “We’ll just see about these now, while you’re busy with the others.” He spoke to the sojourner’s departing back even though he knew the man didn’t care about his words.

  “Sit on the rug over there, Nefira,” Maatkare’s voice charmed again once he and Deka had re-entered the tent. He indicated a place on the soft carpet in front of his camp bed, but noticed her tearing at her hands in anxiety.

  “You were different from your sisters in kind. I meant what I said.” He sat, then reached forward to gently touch her hand. “Calm yourself. I have need of your strength.” He placed the box containing the Children of Stone between them.

  “You worry about this man Marai being alive, don’t you; what it means; how I will be to you now. You ask yourself if I will reject you,” Maatkare continued. “As I said to you on the first night we enjoyed each other, whether I do or do not depends on you. I see your strength and your openness to me and I respect it. You told me once this sojourner did not see into your heart and failed to meet your needs.”

  “I… I don’t know what to say,” Deka bowed her head. “My heart ached for him once. Now that he has returned the pain is still there, but my need is for you, my beloved.”

  Maatkare sat still, as if her words meant little, then opened the box. When he removed the wdjat which she had placed on top of the stones, he extended his upward turned palms to receive her hands.

  “Good. Then say nothing more of him.”

  She placed her hands on his and sucked in air as his thumbs gently traced the tops of her hands.

  “Here. You touch the Ntr stones for me. I’ve held one or two at a time, but I need you to show them I mean no harm to them.” He turned her hands over and placed them down on the glimmering mass.

  Deka felt the sensations of the crystalline bodies soar around and over her hands in greeting, but suddenly tensed when the ghost-words of her memory swarmed from them.

  Ha-go-re! Akh-go-re Nejter Deka Nefer Sekht

  My name is sung ever-present

  Though I am here.

  I fly to you, I come

  On dark but burning wings I walk on air

  Open the sky to me

  Ha-go-re Ta-te

  Deka heard her own voice singing in her stone. She closed her eyes lightly, distantly aware that the prince had moved his own hands so they would be on top of hers. He wanted to read the sensations through them. The song repeated. At first she mouthed it, then whispered it then began to sing it.

  “Nefira…” she heard him call, but it sounded far in the distance. “What is this?” the faraway voice asked again. “Speak.”

  “I…” she started but couldn’t finish “Ha-go-re! Akh-go-re Nejter Deka Nefer Sekht…” she sang aloud, sinking deeper into a trance. Something shook her hands and lifted them. She heard his determined grunt and an irritated hiss.

  Burning him… she thought, then asked the Children of Stone inwardly: Will you speak to my beloved Raem she sang the second phrase of the song aloud. “My name is sung ever present…” She felt the voices whirl the answer through to her thoughts.

  The wolf hears

  But disregards

  He touches, but does not feel

  He is wise but does not know

  He is not open.

  He will not move.

  I must help him, then. I must open him to the spirit of greatness he deserves. Is there anything else I must do? Would you come into him, Ta-te? she asked silently, hoping the sensations in the prince’s hands had distracted him from reading her thoughts.

  When she lapsed into her trance, Maatkare heard her begin to sing but realized she couldn’t hear him or accept his judgements in such a state. He knew he had to rouse her before she went too deep and slipped too far away from his control.

  “Nefira, what is this? Speak!” he shuffled her hands, lifted them and then placed his own hands in the box beneath them. A crackle of energy raced up his arms before he could think through the utterance Eeen Nau, Eeen Tjoad…

  Wicked laughter sounded in his ears; then… a memory of something dreadful. The afternoon Meryt killed herself. How can these stones know this? He opened his eyes and stared at his hands resting under hers in the glimmering box. A rainbow pattern swarmed their surface. The energy of the Ntr stones tingled on his hands like small bits of lightning.

  “Nefira Deka, wake. I need you in this world, teaching me how these things work,” he ordered. The sojourner had told him he would get the demonstration he needed if he brought the box of stones and the Wdjat to the women’s tent after he gave him a few moments to greet the other women and see the wounds on the traitorous man.

  “I…” she started, then lapsed into the song again.

  He’d heard her sing it before.

  Ah. That Ta-Te character who governed you long ago then rose on a column of light. I told you he had died because it’s been so long. He never returned for you. Your child by him died as you birthed it and you were so ill you knew not if it was a boy or girl. Happens, he thought to himself. Now they bring my own memory forward. I can’t allow this. This is enough for now. He raised both of their hands from the stones and snapped the lid shut.

  She also told me she believed I could be the new Ta-Te; that she had thought this man who brought her out of the wilderness, saw to her healing from her old injuries thus far was the god in new skin, but she fell out of that belief because he feared her. I didn’t. The prince knew women and how one controlled them with a mixture of discipline and sex. If there was disquiet over any of these three, he had simply whispered the control utterance or used the “nau” loop and ring his grandfather had given him.

  “Why did you close the box, beloved? Did you not feel them speaking to you?” Deka asked.

  “I heard them and I felt them too, but I suspect a trick set up by your former friends. Perhaps I will see how he uses them himself. Ready yourself,” he tried to read her expression, because for a moment he felt her blocking a thought from him.

  Something’s not right that this sojourner would let me have these stones so handily. There’s a trick in this
. She knows something is in the works and now she, too, is afraid to speak of it. This with her is not going to work until she makes a full break from them. He raised his arms and stretched a little, as if the brief touch of the stones had pulled his energy and resolve from him.

  “They still think they can heal the man after I told them it’s impossible even for a god to bring him back. I have seen the ghosts assembling. If he thinks…”

  Her hand reached forward to still him and her eyes shone as if she had become a worshipping little girl in the throes of first love. She hadn’t listened to a single word he said.

  “My Ta-te. You are my only reminder of Ta-te alive, Raem. We should just go to them, then. If there’s a ruse, I will know it.”

  The prince’s lips pursed. He set the box aside and beckoned for her to sit on his lap… to embrace him.

  And there it is. She adores me. She would give me all, he struggled to keep his pleasure at that thought quiet.

  “A few moments more,” Prince Maatkare smiled almost paternally. He had a daughter in Ineb Hedj, aged five years, but Sadeh had not let him do more than hold her briefly. She wasn’t a warm and friendly child and neither were her vain little brothers. They were all spoiled by her indulging them. Maatkare shuddered and wondered why Deka on his lap felt better than his own children when they sat there.

  And why do these stones stir my memory of Meryt when I’ve kept those thoughts away so well? Heka? Deka nestled in his arms and stroked his chest for a few moments.

  “By the way,” he asked one last question, “did they tell you anything else when you first placed your hands on them? Your head went back and your stone came forth again… right before you sang,” Maatkare stroked her hair as if she was a favorite pet.

  She didn’t answer, but that was the only answer he needed. He knew he would have to watch her very carefully.

  CHAPTER 23: THE FLEDGLING

  “We have to get started with whatever we can do for him.”

  Maatkare heard Marai’s voice catch a little as his own guards lifted the side of the tent wall for him and Deka. He saw the sojourner moving to one side of the young man so that Naibe faced him. Ariennu held the injured man’s head and chest up slightly, but froze when he came forward.

  “Sit where it pleases you Your Highness,” Marai greeted him, but did not look up. “Leave us room to work this.”

  The prince stepped forward, spied a sheepskin mat near the group surrounding the dying man and indicated he and Deka would sit there.

  “Rutiy, Sutiy… you go,” he quietly gestured to the new guards, “but stay close.” Then he smoothed the fleece out for her and he sat beside her. The guards left for the outside of the tent wall but guarded it obediently.

  Marai bowed his head as the prince and Deka watched, then began.

  “Djerah bin Esai… I call you by your name and the blood of my sister Houra bint Ahu. Stay a while,” his hand moved up over the young man’s swollen and discolored forehead.

  “Rest, young Djerah, we will heal you,” he spoke aloud.

  Maatkare shook his head. “Pointless. See his chest rise high? Struggle? Death comes, I tell you.”

  “We will heal you. The Children and I will heal you.” Marai glared and repeated the phrase, apparently ignoring him.

  “The Children and I will heal you…” Maatkare mocked as Ariennu and Naibe extended their hands near Marai’s hand. “What foolishness is this?” He wanted to make them stop, but then stared intently at the way the women gently touched and soothed Djerah as if they were his lovers.

  His chest fell and then tentatively rose again.

  Maatkare thought about that for a moment. Hmm. His breathing is easier now. They do have good touch techniques.

  “He suffers, Marai,” Naibe spoke just above a whisper. “He still feels all of the pain. It hasn’t gone into the night for him. When I touch him, I can feel it burning in him. He cries out but no sound comes.”

  The prince wasn’t as fluent in Kina as he wanted to be, but sensed the young woman had said something about his pain.

  See? See what you did, heifer? His thoughts grumbled.

  The young woman paused, gave him a withering glance and looked to the big sojourner for advice.

  Marai nodded and moved his fingertips to the young man’s oozing temple, then nodded to cue the two women.

  “Djerah, go into a deep sleep. Ari and Naibe will talk you through it.”

  “Deep sleep. Beyond the pain. Deep sleep... sleep deep...” the two women quietly chanted again and again.

  Maatkare frowned, because that was the way of speaking taught to the healers. The difference was that these women invoked no god or goddess as they attempted it.

  “Fools,” the prince made a petulant grumble. “You cause him to sleep, and he will die. I read his thoughts. It’s what he wants. He will just keep trying to go through the portal until he succeeds. You can’t stay watchful forever.”

  Naibe’s head bowed a little, a sorrowful expression on her face. She looked up at the prince, flashing direct black and golden wells at him.

  Beautiful, Maatkare thought, but as he stared he felt a kind of terror. Her face didn’t change, but her beauty and the sensuality suddenly frightened him. She’s drawing strength from this sojourner. She wasn’t so strong when she believed he was dead. He watched her glance at Deka and sensed her silent message to both of them.

  If there is any good left in you, please help us.

  Maatkare instinctively looked into Deka’s feverish but sightless eyes when he felt her grip tighten on his arm. He knew she wanted to help with the healing but felt it would upset him. That she was afraid of displeasing him excited him, but he motioned for her to proceed. He decided to employ her worry for a moment.

  “What is this?” Maatkare grabbed Deka’s arm, yanked her close, and then whispered under his breath. “A moment ago you swore you were mine, but now you suffer to go to this man? You know my answer. You have always known it,” the prince took her hand on his arm and flung it down. His face turned away. Lying ka’t. This is how it always starts.

  “Beloved… It’s not that. They call to me. They ask me to come. I can’t tell you how it feels, unless…”

  “What? Unless I am one of your former little group? I can see this will be a worry for me then,” he snapped.

  Her hands quickly grasped the box of stones he had set in front of them and opened it.

  “How many of them do you think you need?” her voice, hoarse with emotion, barely made a sound.

  The prince read all of the pathos in the sojourner’s eyes as the big man’s thoughts joined in the chorus of voices that called from the box of stones. Maatkare couldn’t heard the words well, but sensed Marai calling her.

  Deka...

  No. No more. I can’t. Her inner voice faded inward, then whispered to him, please beloved. Don’t reject me. Just watch me help. She waved her graceful hands over the gently purring stones. As if she had always known how to conjure them, Deka lowered her hand to touch them and slipped into a trance.

  Maatkare felt her slip backward in an ecstasy, but just in time he moved behind her, then held her against his chest. Lights ran out of the box and up her arms, creating a triangular arc of prismatic light between the stones, her arm and the blood-red stone in her forehead.

  Een… Maatkare instinctively thought, attempting to control and guide her trance. He felt the first unspoken word of his utterance bounce off of an unmistakable barrier, followed by agony in his own ears. Marai and Naibe’s glance froze his thoughts, turning them into the pain his utterance usually gave them.

  “Agh! You dare. You…” he released her and grabbed his ears. When the misery subsided he saw Deka entranced and half-floating as if he still held her.

  She slowly raised her hands from the box after she passed them over the stones one more time. Three deep blue stones, shimmering and surrounded by light, followed. Fourteen others trailed up behind them. They rose, becoming weightless,
shining little balls of light that zipped joyously about the tent for a moment like fireflies and then descended into Marai’s upraised, cupped hands.

  Little ones. It’s so good to feel your strength again.

  Maatkare heard Marai’s welcome much more clearly, as if the onslaught of reversed pain had been a kind of initiation. He watched the warmth of their energy as it lit the faces of those around the young renegade.

  Heka as I have never seen, he craned forward for a better look. Nothing like this exists inside any of the sober studies of the different disciplines. So beautiful! It rises and evokes at his wish, yet I can’t taste any of it. He supported Deka’s body again, then waited for her to rouse herself.

  Marai turned Djerah’s head gently to one side and placed three deep blue stones in a semicircle between his ear and eye. Pointing one finger downward at a place in the middle of the stones, he breathed out. A shimmer of heat formed between the big man’s fingertips and the dying man’s temple. Marai’s face crinkled in a slight, almost pained grimace as if he were forcing out the last of his breath. Stopping that gesture, he beckoned and Ariennu followed in tandem. Naibe, sat slightly apart, with her hand resting on Marai’s shoulder. She closed her shining golden eyes. Her lips whispered a chant of calmness and strength again and again.

  Beyond fear, beyond pain.

  In the middle of the shimmer, the prince saw a red and black light flash once and a new wound magically open on the man’s swollen, purpled left temple.

  He cuts skin without a knife? Maatkare scooted Deka and the box of stones a little closer so he could lean forward.

  “Go on, Nefira. Help them. I’m curious now. Just remember what I said…”

  Her head nodded, even though she hid a concerned whimper.

  Thick, black blood oozed out of the new hole. As it did, the prince watched Ariennu gently dabbed at it with a folded clean cloth. Marai massaged the spot to get all of the old blood out, then pinched the lips of the wound he had made together. He chose one of the three blue stones and traced it over the wound until it sealed. He moved to another badly discolored spot and repeated this procedure. The same followed three more times on that side and two times on the other.