Opener of the Sky Read online

  That name – Ptah-ten-Atum! Is that her word Ta-te? I can’t believe this. The Father God of these people? Re-Atum? No. This is stupid. She cannot be one of the elder ones. Ariennu pondered through her misery.

  “What are you trying to say?” she complained, still aching. Ari convinced herself the feelings Deka had over Prince Maatkare Raemkai had to be nothing more than some kind of spell of sex magic the man had used to bind her. She’d felt it herself last night. He was beautiful, powerful, wealthy, tormented, wildly animal, and even ravenous. The matter of his becoming a wolf in the middle of the ride added another layer of wonder to the entire evening. That package might engender any number of crazy ideas in a lonely woman. Not bad, Ari had thought. Certainly worth a few more rounds if I wasn’t so mad at Deka right now. Maybe both of us at once on him. No, Deka’s just lust smacked, Ari clucked inwardly before letting disgust overtake her again. She was like Naibe and I were; scrapping and laying it down for fun and profit back in the old days in the sand when Marai found us. Why’s she acting like this is the first one she ever had? She has to be under a spell, she sniffed. Maybe I’m more protected because I let my beautiful Marai into my heart when he was still alive. She never did, so maybe the prince could get at her heart. Something’s still not right though and it’s beyond any spell that man or his grandfather could cast.

  The woman smoothed her rust colored ringlets. I know something’s awfully familiar about this now. It feels like that damned darkness that followed us out of the wilderness after Marai found us and went up against N’ahab. She remembered thinking she would see a killing that morning. It would have been at least a temporary relief to her suffering the last stages of yellow disease. She had struggled to the window of the women’s hut and had seen her former cohorts trying to torment Marai.

  I saw the dark thing come down. I thought it was some kind of demon coming for my soul after all the things I’d done. I could hide and wait to die back then. If it’s come for me now, I don’t know what I’ll do other than feed her to it.

  At first she had been outraged when Marai defeated them by merely walking among the men with waves of the dark energy rolling through his head and down the length of his arms like black lightning. Too weak to complain, Ari had retreated to her deathbed to await her doom, but he came to her, Deka, and round little Naibe. He was kind and gentle. He took pity on the three of them even though they deserved nothing from him. He took me to the boat of a million stars that lay in the sand and made me lie down inside. It followed us, like a bitter old lion stalking us. Marai said it would. It attacked us when we lay together for so many years in the place of crystal and rainbow light. Even then, Ari reflected, staring hard at Deka’s face again. She called that darkness Ta-Te.

  “Are you talking about the Dark? The Hidden?” Ari gasped. “You crazy fool. You think that’s your Ta-Te? At one time you thought it was Marai. Now you think it’s Maatkare Raemkai? You think Ptah-ten-Atum’s spirit walks in him now?”

  Ariennu didn’t even want to think of the dark thing that invaded them because her next thought was to invariably compare that to an elder god from her own Kina land. When she visualized that force, it appeared in her thoughts as an oddly winged beast, part hawk and part bull. It stirred wind and sorcery like the god El in her own land. El, the rising one, the phallus, the force that makes a man. The father god; the bull. Marai was a little like that too. Stupid kuna, its Marai who takes that shape. You even called him Man Sun, at first and thought you weren’t worthy of him. Well he’s dead and now you think… Goddess… she collapsed, not wanting to speak to Deka about it any longer. It was too much.

  CHAPTER 2: SOKOR

  Two months of a slow descent into madness followed that first morning on the boat.

  At first, as Ariennu lay recovering from the wine sickness, she felt her situation was going to be temporary at worst. The argument with Deka about Maatkare infuriated her, but left her exhausted. It doesn’t matter. Stupid kuna can stay with him if he even still wants her. Be funny if after all this he picks out Naibe or me and puts her out on the shore, just the way I think he will. Can’t see any man being hungry enough to need three women full time, unless what the king’s ladies said about him being some kind of demon is true. Something’s not right, though. This whole thing’s getting a stench about it. Ariennu rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She extended her fingertips to massage the place on her forehead where her stone lay. She knew that if she tried to contact Naibe with her thoughts, Deka would know and Maatkare might figure it out. She sulked a little. Damned man doesn’t even have a Child Stone, and yet he can read thoughts almost as well as we can.

  When Ariennu had been apart from the other two women and they had been working at different houses, she had used the Child Stones only once. No telling what I’ll stir up if I ask it something. She decided to try, now that Deka was taking some air on the deck. Little One… she started. My dark star. Can you speak to me of what will be?

  Silence.

  Speak under my secrets, then. Show me you have not abandoned me, she insisted.

  Calm silence followed.

  Ariennu lay back to rest some more and to contemplate her fate. I’d like the upper hand in this, please. He’s an excellent match… I do see why Deka might protect that, but so much else comes with it. The wolf, the magic; skilled with a woman’s body indeed, but… she breathed, reflecting. He’s no Marai. No one will ever be. Marai was different… just a better man… a one of a kind. You could feel he loved you, that he wanted to make you happy, whatever the cost. She thought of him lying dead, not destroyed as the old man said. I’m here on this boat. I know now that the king isn’t part of this. I just know it. He’ll send men, he has to. She closed her eyes again, lulled by the rhythmic rowing into another healing sleep. She brushed the place on her brow and sensed the purring sensation increase.

  Tell me or just show me, before Deka comes back… a secret for me. She asked the stone.

  Ariennu felt her spirit lurch outward with such violence that she stifled a cry. Yeouch! Damn. Warn me next time. Her “body of light” twisted in the blackness of the void as if it hadn’t decided if it would return or continue on its journey. She breathed out, then visualized herself in an upright position. Her arms had stretched into great brown and white speckled wings. A hawk? Oh, funny, little one. Old man would piss himself, if he saw. That’s another god-shape… Heru, I think, and that’s a boy. She couldn’t recall, at the moment, a female hawk in the god groups.

  She soared high, wind whistling by her feather-capped head. The gleaming Pyr Akhs rose in the horizon and nearby she saw the palace. There. I see it now. Oh…it’s earlier this morning. Maybe I can whisper something to His Majesty and he’ll send a boat out to get us. She settled on the stone rail outside the king’s front window, then in a tinkling flash obscured herself with the shield of prismatic light the Children of Stone had taught her to create.

  “Where are they? I want them brought to me at once!” she heard the king roar and saw him struggle to his feet while his grooms fell to their knees, his clothing in their hands. One man held out the pleated linen that formed the king’s shendyt, but Menkaure swatted at the air near them and the man shrank back knowing he could be punished with instant death. Menkaure paced for a moment then noticed his own nakedness and tersely beckoned for one of his grooms to fasten and belt his clothing neatly. He beckoned the other man who held his ordinary khat to put it on him and to clasp his pectoral at his throat.

  “Lady Naibe…” The king called “Lady ArreNu.”

  “Your Majesty.” a low and timid voice suggested the king calm himself enough for the kohl to be painted around his eyes.

  Ariennu saw guards returning up the stairs strong-arming the young concubines, Irika and Suenma, who had been rude to her right before the party commenced. They had been chosen by the king to entertain him after the party but when Menkaure had seen Naibe’s dance his plans changed. The women froze at the door, reading the king’s di
spleasure. The guards behind them pushed them to the floor in an attitude of worship.

  “Where are they? What have you done to them?” the king demanded. Then, he continued. “Guard your words with your worthless and jealous lives.”

  Ariennu shuddered, almost ready to leave that scene. She had seen the king mildly happy, tired, depressed, slightly ill, and even paternal but never enraged to the point of breathlessness. The concubines were clinging to each other and crying. Menkaure slumped into his wicker day chair and had the guards bring them closer, pushing them face-down on the floor before him.

  “You two know something. You will tell me everything, and if what I hear is not to my liking or if I even begin to sense you are lying to me, your throats shall feel a draft and your last words to your Father will be an apology.” He pointed to Irika first. “You… You did not like my fire haired healing woman… or the young goddess-girl.” He shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “You spoke ill of my young dancer as if you told a joke, but I knew your spiteful heart from the day she joined her sister here.” He leaned forward, accusing. “I know you women plot to be with your Father, and to be the star in his eye. This morning Lady Naibe has gone from me when I did not give her leave and her dear sister is missing too.”

  The tall and lanky woman whose arm Ariennu remembered twisting when she insulted her, buried her face in her hands. Ari smirked inwardly. I should have become a fly so I could see this closer. Look at that. I could almost laugh at the stupid kuna, scared like that. Not so proud and sure of yourself now, are you?

  The sensation of a controlling utterance at the door stirred Ari’s attention. She layered extra secrecy over her hawk shadow and sensed more than saw the elongated skirt-like shendyt that swept gracefully into the room: Count Prince Hordjedtef.

  And there it is. The demon himself. Damn! Ari sighed. I see the bastard saving the day for his young pet. Wretched girl knows who has the real power in this place, she watched the elder prince bend to the girl to comfort her and then dismiss both of them.

  “Uncle, did you just dare speak for me?” Ari heard the king snarl. “I will know what became of the sojourning women who were in my house. The girls were bold enough to speak of their discomfort. I asked for them to be brought for questioning and now you release them?”

  Uh-oh. Ari’s vision continued. King Menkaure leapt to his feet and strode to the elder priest in such a rage that for a moment Ari hoped she would see the king liberate the Great One’s head from his neck.

  Be strong your Majesty…

  He is the one.

  He is the architect

  Ari tried to get into the king’s thoughts, but winced when she felt the Great One’s gaze searched the outer porch as if he had sensed something.

  “I’ve known you as my wise uncle all my life as a young prince and all through the good times and the bad with my heavy crown. I looked up to you, even passing over the advice of my brothers and my good vizier Neb, yet your heart decides it speaks as god?”

  Ari knew the king blamed Hordjedtef for her and Naibe’s disappearance. She watched as Menkaure pushed the elder aside and headed for the door. She saw him pause, seize the old man by the top of his collar and yank him close to his rage-darkened face. Ariennu heard his words and felt her heart suddenly drop. She knew her thought had reached the king but now she realized she should have kept it to herself.

  “Just so you know, Uncle, I have also heard the cry of my sweet child’s soul again through the gifts of these holy women you so callously sent packing. I am taking fine offense at what you have done.” He shook the old man loose from his hand and stormed to the door about to send for his guards.

  “Kind Majesty…”

  Ariennu sensed the old man scrambling after the king; trying to get his attention.

  “Don’t.” Menkaure turned from his elder. “It seems I’ve listened to your whispering and your spells long enough. You have been holding back and dismissing as fantasy the very truth I knew from the day my heart was torn out. The ladies, without me asking them to do so, brought my sweet one back to me. “I know this is why you sent them away. You are to protect goddess Maat, not bury her or choke her with lies.” The king whirled in another pacing turn. “I will see the best rowers on my swiftest boats sent to take them up and bring them here back to my arms. They are to me more than gold.”

  Ariennu bowed her head, feeling an impossible blush of pride.

  “But, Most High Majesty. Hear me once more and then no more if you wish,” the elder protested. “These women have gained your trust and have cast spells of their own on you I fear. You know their sire was a would-be foreign usurper whom I and my second man, Prince Wserkaf, apprehended and routed. You had approved all that was done to him at one time.”

  Fearless wretch, Ariennu murmured in thought, He’ll turn it around and now I’ll have to watch how it happened. She saw the king pause, then think. Goddess; she thought quickly. Do not listen, Majesty. Do not believe him.

  “I did, it’s true.” The king paused, still pacing and becoming even more agitated. “Have I piled on even more evil? Or, is it you, Uncle?”

  “The fault is also mine to have taken pity on these pleasing ones, Majesty. I discovered that they cast spells on us all with their weeping and grieving, but under it, the whole time they were plotting and planning. I know the elder one whispered to you that you ought to take in her flower teas and creamed broths and not the tonics I labored to produce for you. Remember that soon enough you knew them to be weaker medicine? The younger beauty then came to you in your weakened state and further seized your godly heart.” The Great One of Five straightened. “I feel there was less of love in them for you and more of vengeance.”

  Ariennu saw the old man’s secretive gesture and the resulting twinge in the king’s chest. She winced and made a cawing screech.

  “Ah, Majesty, you see...” he said, rushing to Menkaure to heal him with all of the proper series of touches. She saw the elder priest look up once and noticed the reddened glare in his slit-like bird eyes. Everything dissolved around her.

  The boat had stopped. Some sort of landing ritual was taking place.

  “Eyes low! All attend!” A sharp voice ordered outside the rush-woven cabin walls.

  Already? The King’s men? Ari sat and patted her hair. Damn! I must still look wrecked. My eye-paint’s turned to mud. Ariennu patted her body and froze, remembering her dress had been torn beyond repair by his Highness antics at the end of the party. I’m naked. Oh thank goddess. She found and grabbed the fabric of the dance shawl and covered her breasts. Chewing the red back into her lips she straightened expectantly as the curtain parted.

  “There.” A voice spoke. “In you go.”

  Naibe stumbled in, clutching her own dance shawl around her back, belly, and breasts. She went to her knees, breathing heavily. Her eyes were wide as plates.

  “Ah… she… rah…” she rasped, scrambling on all fours to Ariennu. Ari felt her tremble as they hugged each other tightly. She had been about to tease the youngest of Marai’s former companions about Maatkare, but quickly decided against it because Naibe was clearly terrified of something.

  “I saw…” she started.

  “He did the wolf thing when he was taking you, didn’t he?” Ari asked. “He did that with me too… turned into an extra beast along with it, when he did.” Her eyes rolled in delight at her own memory.

  Naibe shut her eyes tightly as if doing so could stop a memory. She nodded vigorously then whimpered against Ari’s naked breasts.

  “I saw that, Ari, but it’s not… what I…” her words failed. She continued with projected thoughts. Once he let the wolf out, he was better. It was how he was before… and after. I tried to help him, I… It hurts. She tucked into a ball and rocked back and forth.

  “Really? He hurt you?” Ari raised one brow, amazed. She tried to make light of Naibe’s comment. “Hmm. I’ll say he’s got a heavy plow and a strong force behind it, but I was needing a good
pounding myself last night. You used to like it a little rough, too, so…”

  “No, not like that. Not that part. I could meet and match what his body did with me. It was the other thing, Ari, I saw it… not the wolf, but what came behind him. There were so many. They were so dark and angry and they came into him and… and…” she sniveled.

  “Spirits? Djin?”

  The girl nodded, clinging to her elder.

  “His thoughts. His spirit and rage. The storm. I saw it, worse than ever, Ari,” Naibe confessed. “It was right in the middle of hard thunder that he got this look behind the wolf eyes… I got lost, Ari. He made me cry out for Marai and then he laughed at me and it sounded like some kind of…” she gulped.

  As Naibe related her story, Ari saw the vision mirrored through her Child Stone. Prince Maatkare’s clawed hands holding the young woman’s hips high and firm to his as he moved with her. He grinned down at his prize, who lay senseless with pleasure, accepting and begging for more, but her lips formed the name ‘Marai’.

  “Ah.” Maatkare had whispered. “So you dared to bring a ghost to us. But he, this Marai sees who has you now; yet another man after a handful of others? So untrue to his memory you are, my sweet ka’t. And one thing more… ” Ari sensed his gentle whisper and knew he was making an utterance over her. He wasn’t wearing the leather nauu ring. He simply whispered, almost passionately. His hands released her hips and went to her throat as her head thrashed wildly. They closed and pressed almost too quickly for her to claw and fight. In an instant she was unconscious. “You are here to serve my hunger,” he kissed her wildly, not slowing or stopping to see if she was still alive. “I feast on your heart as it is overwrought with the gladness of my ben doing its work deep inside you.”

  In moments, he finished and soon sat on his heels, bending once to gently kiss the deep blue stone pulsing in her brow. After that, he waited for her to stir. As she did and as she cried out in absolute horror he regarded her mutely, thinking. She sat to fight, but he clasped her arms.