Song of Songs

by Marc Graham

  More quickly than a blink, a jet of steam burst from the funnel. Droplets of fire trailed in its wake and showered down upon the frame, the people, the statues. Amid bellows and wails of pain, the Star Dwellers melted into a ring of fiery bronze that crept inward like a snare. Blossoms of flame sprouted up where the molten ring met stands of grass or scraps of wood.

  The people fared little better. Cloaks of fire replaced those of wool, and burning crowns flared upon their heads under the rain of destruction. The wooden frame, the platform, the roof and walls of the foundry burst alight. I reached for Yetzer, tried to run to him, but my legs seemed mired as in the muck at the foot of my dam.

  Yetzer pulled me to him, held me close and kissed my lips. Despite the horror around us, despite the panic in my breast, I kissed him back. If my final moments were upon me, I would take solace in them.

  “Yetzer,” a deep voice called out.

  We broke our embrace and turned toward the sound. Three men stood opposite us on the remains of the wooden frame.

  A clean-shaven, middle-aged man stood bare-chested, a starched linen kilt about his waist, copper bands upon his arms. Beside him was an old man, his long white beard spilling down the front of a striped woolen robe. To the other side stood a handsome youth dressed in leather kilt and apron.

  Between the furnace and the men, the casting’s funnel sank into a yawning chasm that belched smoke and flame and globules of molten bronze.

  “Father?” Yetzer said.

  “What destruction have you wrought?” said the bald man in the center of the trio.

  “I did not cause this,” Yetzer protested.

  “Is this not your mold, the work of your hands? See what you have done.” The man spread his arms in a gesture that encompassed the ruined foundry, the scorched earth, the charred and shrunken bodies that had moments earlier joined in celebration.

  “The secrets of foundry and forge are not for the simple of heart,” Huram continued. “He who would chase the art with folly forfeits his life, the lives of innocents.”

  “No,” Yetzer shouted as tears streamed down his cheek. “The casting was true and well vented.”

  “Still you have murdered those who loved you, trusted you.”

  “No!” Yetzer raised his staff like a war club. He seemed ready to leap across the fiery gap, but the eldest man raised his hands.

  “Peace, my sons,” he chided them. “Be still.”

  “Father Tubaal,” Yetzer pleaded, “you know the care of my work.”

  “Indeed,” the man acknowledged. “And for all that care, those you esteemed have perished.”

  Yetzer’s shoulders drooped, his head bowed in defeat.

  “However true your hand,” the old man said, “you must be ever wary of the children of Yubaal. While we seek to bring order to the world, my brother’s sons would cast it back into the ancient chaos. A lifetime of careful work may be undone by a moment of perfidy.”

  Yetzer looked up at that. “By whose hand was this done?” The menace in his voice made me take a step back. “Tell me,” Yetzer snarled, “and I will deliver him to the Pit this very morning.”

  “You care more for vengeance than for life?” His father’s voice dripped with scorn.

  “I care for these lives above all,” Yetzer protested, “but can flesh become unburned? Can life be redeemed from death?”

  Laughter rumbled across the plain, so rich it invited me to join in despite the carnage about me.

  “All things are possible, if sufficient price be paid.” No mouth opened, yet I knew the voice to be the third man’s. His eyes shone brightly, his expression placid, and I felt the same peace as when Athtar whispered to me.

  “Tell me.” Yetzer fell to his knees and thrice touched his head to the scorched wood of the platform. “Name the price. What would you have me do?”

  “Child, it is not a question of what I would take, but of what you would give.”

  “Then take me,” Yetzer declared. “Exchange my life for theirs.”

  “No,” I heard myself say. I hadn’t intended to speak, hadn’t even suspected I might. For the first time in my life—certainly since becoming Mukarrib—my heart spoke out against will and duty.

  It was right and just, of course, that Yetzer offer his life in exchange for his loved ones. I would make the same trade. But to lose this man who had become the harmony to my heart’s song was a cost past bearing.

  The stares of seven eyes weighed upon me. I looked from one stranger to the next, then finally to Yetzer. Flames reflected upon the vibrant green eye that pierced to my core.

  “I must do this,” Yetzer said.

  He touched my cheek, his fingers coarse but light upon my skin, then smoothed an errant lock of hair behind my ear. The unseen hand that squeezed my heart also squeezed the breath from my throat. I could not beg him to stay, could not speak my approval of his sacrifice. I could only twist my lips into a sickly smile and offer an encouraging nod.

  Yetzer returned the smile with a heart-rending one of his own. He gathered my hands in his, kissed the inside of my wrist, then turned away. He stepped to the edge of the platform’s remains, before the flaming pit. Huram crossed his arms and scowled at his son, but Tubaal offered a beneficent smile. The third man seemed unmoved, an enigmatic expression on his face.

  Yetzer touched his staff to the swirling, fiery vortex. Flames leapt up the lightning-tempered walnut, but the wood was not consumed. Tension played across the muscles of Yetzer’s back as he squared his shoulders, stood upright, stepped off the edge.

  And was gone.

  64

  Yetzer

  Yetzer plunged into the void. Makeda’s kiss still burned his lips, even as heat engulfed him and flames erupted upon his hair and clothing. Leather turned to fire, his nostrils filled with the infernal stench, but his flesh remained untouched.

  Still he fell, sliding down a slope of molten bronze as smooth as obsidian. Flames twice his size danced about him, replaced by giant spheres of steam as darkness conquered light and he crossed the boundary from liquid metal to watery abyss.

  Pressure folded about him like the fist of the sea god Yam, relentless and unforgiving. Deeper he sank, his naked body flayed as he scraped along walls now jagged. The unseen hand squeezed tighter. Yetzer wanted to cry out, to give voice to his agony, but his lungs defied him. The only sound was that of the terror that surged with each beat of his heart.

  The rocky wall gave way to a floor just as coarse and cruel. The drag of skin over stone brought him to a stop, and he lay facedown, surrounded by blackness and crushed by the weight of the sea.

  “Yetzer.”

  The word echoed around him, rolling out of the dark from every direction and none.

  The builder pushed himself up. Rock cut into his hands and knees, but the pain was as nothing, shut out by the cloak of oblivion that hung tightly about him.

  “He doesn’t understand.” His father’s voice came from behind him, hot with scorn that striped Yetzer’s heart as the stones did his flesh.

  “You are too demanding, Huram,” spoke another on Yetzer’s right. “As I recall, your own awakening took quite some time.”

  Yetzer recognized the speaker as his ancestor Tubaal, his voice abraded with age.

  “The secrets are intended to be challenging,” said a youthful voice before him, the voice of the one who had lured Yetzer into this fiery grave. “There are truths meant for only the blind to see.”

  Yetzer’s friends were dead, his work destroyed, and he’d thrown himself into the Pit just as he’d discovered a woman every bit his match. His world was consumed in fire, and these three offered him derision and riddles as recompense.

  He sat back on his heels in frustration and ran his hands over his scalp, fire-shorn and bald as a priest of Kemet. His cheeks bore not even a trace of stubble. Without the protection of his headscarf, his fingers easily found the hollow of his vacant left …

  Yetzer closed his right eye to shu
t out the impenetrable darkness. He settled into the crushing embrace, content to be at one with his ka, his indestructible nature.

  Pressure built behind his forehead, like a finger trying to push through from the inside. Sparks flitted before Yetzer’s left eye. Remembering his long-ago instruction in the Temple of Amun, he did his best to ignore them, lest by his attention he chase them away.

  The sparks stretched into strands of color that danced before him, deep green and blue, mingled and intertwined. These gave birth to yellow and magenta, then again to orange and red and all the hues of nature. Color resolved into shape and form, then the scene about him snapped into focus.

  Yetzer rose before the young man who radiated warmth and welcome. A barren landscape stretched around them, dun-colored and sown with shards of quartz and granite, the quarrier’s banes. Before and behind, the land swept up into darkness, while to left and right it seemed to go on forever.

  “You see?” Tubaal said behind Yetzer, a chiding tone in his voice. “His eye opens as well as yours or mine.”

  Huram grunted. “Perhaps, but I doubt he knows where he stands.”

  Yetzer spun toward his father. “He stands before a stubborn fool,” he growled. “If you have aught to say to me, speak it as a man, not as a bitter old crone.”

  Tubaal chuckled in his rich baritone, but Huram glared at his son.

  “You mightn’t care to hear what I would say.”

  A ball of fiery wrath formed in Yetzer’s very core and threatened to burst out of him. He clenched his teeth, cheek quivering and nostrils flaring.

  “And what would that be?” he demanded. “That I should have warned you sooner? That it’s my fault you and your men died? That this,” he pointed to his empty left eye, “was cheap redemption for so great a loss?”

  Huram folded his arms and looked down his nose at his son.

  Crimson rage surged from Yetzer in a howl equal parts fury and pain. He rushed his father, grasped him by his copper armbands and glared into those implacable green eyes.

  “It wasn’t,” he screamed, but Huram didn’t even flinch at the spittle that flew to his cheek. “I was only a boy, not yet entered as an apprentice, but I saw it. I knew what the rock would do. I warned you, but you didn’t listen.” Tears blurred Yetzer’s vision as the scene from the Kemeti quarry played before him. The steam vents bursting from the earth. The explosion of rock. Red life spurting from Huram’s throat.

  “I tried.” Yetzer shook his father by the arms, his strength sapped by grief. “You didn’t listen. It wasn’t my fault.” Huram’s eyes held no emotion, his expression fixed in grim disapproval. “It wasn’t my fault,” Yetzer insisted. A tear spilled down his cheek. Sorrow squeezed his throat, but he managed to make his tremulous voice heard. “It was yours.” He blinked his vision clear and met his father’s cold, unfeeling glare. “It was your fault,” he whispered.

  Disdain and tension drained from Huram’s expression. His eyes softened and a smile tilted the corners of his mouth.

  “That’s right, my son,” he said. He unfolded his arms and clasped a hand gently behind Yetzer’s neck. “It was my fault, not yours.” He touched his forehead to Yetzer’s. “You did what you could. Naught that happened that day was your fault.”

  A sob escaped Yetzer’s throat and he fell into the embrace of his forgiving father.

  “You’ve a sound reason.” Huram’s words were a balm upon Yetzer’s heart. “Fear not. Have a care for the people in your trust, but don’t be afraid of your heart or your passions. The true master finds his greatness in their balance.”

  Yetzer nodded and clung to his father a bit longer, until a rough, phlegmy rattle broke the silence.

  “Touching,” Tubaal said. “Truly. But shall we do something for those poor scorched folk out there? And for Kothar’s sake,” he added as Yetzer and Huram parted, “put this on.”

  He produced Yetzer’s apron, embroidered with the triangle and eye of Haru.

  “What is this place?” Yetzer asked as he tied the apron about his waist.

  “You don’t recognize it?” His father gazed at him. “You had a hand in creating it.”

  Yetzer gave Huram a quizzical look then turned his attention to his surroundings. The place was every bit as featureless as before, save for the high sloping wall behind Kothar, where a pattern came into focus. A series of lines, about the thickness of Yetzer’s leg, stood out in bold relief upon the wall in a wavelike pattern. Yetzer envisioned the lines inverted, and recognized the motif he’d designed for his Molten Sea.

  “The casting,” he said, not quite trusting his answer. “We’re inside the mold?”

  “If we are to undo what has been done,” Kothar said, “we must begin at the source of the error.”

  “The mold is true,” Yetzer insisted. “I’m sure of it.”

  “And yet the vents were fouled,” Tubaal added.

  Yetzer had shaped his Molten Sea, the centerpiece for the temple’s forecourt, in sand. The great mound reflected the interior surface of the basin. Over this he’d spread a layer of pitch followed by a coating of wax as thick as his thumb. When the wax had set, Yetzer and his artisans etched into its surface the final design for the basin’s exterior, the outlines of the world’s great islands long visited by Kenahni seafarers. They fixed waxen brackets to match those that would mount the Sea upon the backs and shoulders of the brazen Star Dwellers, then added a spidery network of sprues and encased the entire piece in pitch and fine sand.

  Without the sprue vents, there would be no pathway for the molten bronze to fill the mold or—just as importantly—for trapped air and moisture to be vented. If those vents were plugged, if any wax remained within the mold, the heat of the liquid bronze could have flashed the wax to vapor with devastating results.

  “There, you see?”

  Yetzer had been lost in thoughts of the mold’s construction. He scarcely realized he’d been walking until he stopped as Tubaal pointed out an area where floor sloped into wall.

  An ugly grey pock, almost the width of Yetzer’s stride, marred the sand’s mottled surface. Yetzer knelt to study it, a circle of dull, murky liquid. He dipped the end of his staff into the pool, probing less than a hand’s breadth before the wood met a solid floor. He removed the staff, its tip coated with liquid that dried into a metallic sheath.

  “Lead,” he murmured, then realization struck him. “Someone plugged the vents with lead.”

  His three guides offered no objection as they stared at him expectantly.

  “Who would do this?” Yetzer rubbed a hand over his face.

  “Who would want to see the casting fail?” Huram asked him.

  “Or the temple?” Tubaal chimed in.

  “Or its builder?”

  Yetzer looked at Kothar, who spoke this last, and shook his head. “Not even Bilkis could do such a thing.”

  “The temple is nearly complete,” the divine craftsman replied. “It is a simple matter to finish the work, so you are now more nuisance than help to her.”

  “But to endanger my mother? Eliam and Rahab? Her own sister?”

  “Perhaps an acceptable accident,” Tubaal suggested. “Or perhaps a desire to be rid of those close to her.”

  “Those who knew her as something other than a queen,” Huram added.

  Yetzer shook his head again, though in truth such a possibility surprised him no more than seeing water run downhill.

  “What do I do? You said it would be possible to restore what was lost.”

  “You possess the very tool within your hands,” Kothar answered.

  Yetzer looked at his staff, now with its leaded tip. The walnut had been hardened by lightning cast by the hand of Hadad, whose celestial palace Kothar himself had built. Tubaal nodded and smiled at Yetzer as Huram stepped forward. The Overseer of Pharaoh’s Works wrapped his thick arms about Yetzer.

  “Your mother is well?”

  “If this works,” Yetzer replied.

  Huram laughed at t
hat and pounded his son on the back. He stepped away, still clasping Yetzer by the shoulders.

  “Go,” he said. “Complete your work but know that a task greater still lies before you.”

  “What—” Yetzer began, but his father stepped back, gently silencing him with a raised hand.

  Tubaal and Kothar took up position behind and to either side of Yetzer, then all three stretched out their arms, enclosing him in a triangle of blessing.

  You are about to quit this sacred place, to mix again with the world, the three men intoned, their lips still even as their voices filled Yetzer’s heart.

  Yetzer lifted his staff then drove it down between his feet. The thick liquid resisted the assault.

  Amidst the concerns and distractions of the profane, forget not that which has been instilled in you here.

  Yetzer repeated the motion, this time striking the plug below.

  Be ever vigilant and wise, modest and discreet.

  Once more he raised the staff and drove it down. The tip stuck in the semisolid mass and molten lead leeched up the stout walnut. Yetzer tried to release his grip, to cast the staff away, but his hands held fast. He looked to Huram, who smiled at his son as he continued the priestly injunction.

  Act unto your fellows as you would have them act unto you, and do good unto all.

  The lead reached Yetzer’s hands and coated his arms and legs, sheathing him in its molten embrace. It climbed his chest, spanned his shoulders, covered his mouth before he could scream.

  Be as one with those of like heart, live in peace.

  Yetzer cast a final glance at his father before darkness entombed him.

  And may the god of peace and love delight to dwell with and bless you.

  65

  Yetzer

  Yetzer bolted upright on his pallet as a sharp, ragged breath filled his lungs. He flexed his fingers and raised his hands to his face. His breathing came more easily when he found flesh instead of lead. His heart still raced, but he calmed himself and took in the familiar surroundings of his tent. The sweat on his skin rapidly cooled him as he rose, wrapped his kilt about his waist and laced on his sandals.