Lydia March smiled — he saw relief in the expression — and nodded. ‘Yes! That’s it! God, I thought I was going crazy! I had a dream, and in it, a lion came to me. It lay at my feet, and as I watched, transformed into a sphinx.’
Murchison recounted his experiences at home, and the pull that the face of the pharaoh Akenaten had had over him. ‘I had no choice but to come. I could not ignore what was happening.’
Lydia nodded. ‘Yes. After I had my dream, I felt as if I woke up being somebody else. Does that make sense?’
‘Entirely.’
Her eyes were alight with excitement now. ‘What’s happening, Cameron? Are we part of something? Are there others like us?’
Murchison had not thought of that. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll find out. We’ve found each other.’
Lydia touched her throat with her strong left hand. ‘I don’t know whether to be afraid or ecstatic. This is so strange. I can’t believe it!’
Murchison was thinking, things like this don’t happen in real life, but it was happening now. He had to believe it.
They spent the afternoon together, weaving their stories, discussing their implications. Lydia was a rep for a pharmaceutical company. She was single, not attracted by the prospect of marriage or children and, like Murchison, had only a dim recollection of her formative years. It was tempting to believe they were, in fact, related, and that somehow their memories had been mysteriously wiped clean. But perhaps this was too fanciful. Their conversation was like a dance, full of wild tarantellas, when their most speculative ideas would burst forth, only to be followed by slow, stately steps, when they considered they were acting like children, making things up, stepping too far into the domain of fantasy.
‘But can anything be too fantastical?’ Lydia mused, twirling her fourth glass of wine in her hands. ‘We don’t know the truth, we only know it exists. Our reality, our truth, might be anything.’
‘I keep wondering whether I’ll wake up shortly,’ Murchison said, ‘but the truth is, I’ve never felt more real than sitting here with you, talking about this absurd… idea.’
By the time they decided to go out for dinner, both were feeling light-headed. Lydia took Murchison’s arm as they immersed themselves in the furnace of the night. The stenches and perfumes of the city washed over them in a suffocating fug; its cacophony howled in their ears. Along with a very visible military presence, hundreds of westerners filled the city streets, risking the dangers because they’d been drawn to Egypt for the approach of the new millennium. New Year’s Eve was still a couple of months away, but already the atmosphere was building up towards it. A gigantic party had been planned to take place on the Giza plateau, with superstar bands, laser displays and various circus side-shows. Murchison found the whole thing a little distasteful, as if the New Age party plans threatened to cheapen an event that should be special and holy. He didn’t know why he felt this so strongly, but voiced his thoughts to Lydia. She nodded. ‘Yes. I feel the same way. Are these feelings connected to why we’re here?’
‘You mean we might have been drawn here for the new millennium as well?’
Again, she nodded, then laughed. ‘Perhaps the New Agers are right and something amazing will happen. Perhaps we are part of it.’
Murchison joined in her laughter. ‘Who knows? Maybe all these people booked themselves on last minute flights too!’ In truth, he felt that Lydia and he were quite apart from other travellers.
Beyond the city, the pyramids loomed on the horizon like alien craft against the sky, weirdly sentient and watchful. Lydia shuddered. ‘I keep wanting to look up at the sky, as if something’s hovering over me. I feel very strange.’
Murchison patted her hand where it was hooked through his elbow. ‘Don’t worry. If anything’s going to happen to us, I’m sure it won’t be bad.’
Lydia glanced at him quickly. ‘I hadn’t thought of it in terms of good and bad before. It just was. But you’re right. I don’t have a feeling of doom, just impendence.’
They ate in a small restaurant, and talked about their work, their small lives. To both of them, it seemed increasingly as if some part of themselves had been shut away or even broken off. Lydia’s careful questioning brought it home to Murchison just how unusual his lack of history was.
‘Who were we?’ Lydia asked, ‘and what have we to do with Egypt?’
Murchison took her hand. ‘It is a mysterious, ancient land. Who knows its secrets?’
‘I want to be part of them,’ Lydia said, then grinned ruefully. ‘I think.’
They wandered back to the hotel, and it seemed entirely natural for them to spend the night together. Both confessed to virginity, but the fact of it was inconsequential. They were meant to be together. As they undressed, without inhibition, in Murchison’s room, Lydia mentioned the fact they might be brother and sister, but strangely, this only excited them. They imagined an affinity with the incestuous alliances of the ancient Egyptian kings and queens.
Lydia lay in the blue glow of night, her body pale and supple, beneath a single sheet which she held up to her breasts.
Murchison looked at her. He felt desire, but it wasn’t urgent, more a simple need for oneness with this new companion. Once they embraced, they tumbled easily into lovemaking, almost as if they’d been lovers before, or at least were practised at the art.
For one moment, as he moved upon her, he looked down into her eyes. They were deep and tranquil, almost like smooth, dark beads of glass. What thoughts flowed behind them? He could not tell, although he did not feel embarrassed gazing upon her.
‘Listen,’ she said, and he paused, conscious of being held, hard, within her body. He could feel her heartbeat pulsing closely against him.
‘Listen to what?’
She flinched as if a sudden, sharp sound had squealed into her ears. She shook her head, smiled. ‘Nothing. Really. I thought I heard…’ She brushed her damp hair back from her brow, curled her arms around his back. ‘We are moving back through time.’
He heard it then. A faint skirl of music, a summoning, like a hypnotist’s trigger to reawaken the memory of a hidden command. The harder he concentrated on the music, the more it blended in with the faint sounds of the city beyond the windows, filtered by double glazing. He could not hear the music now. Perhaps it had never existed.
Murchison felt sure that when they climaxed, they would both remember something, but his orgasm was like an ebbing of the memory tide, fragments of recollections sizzling away back into the deep. Lydia uttered a gentle sigh, her eyes closed. It seemed no revelations had come to her either.
Lydia lay beside him, curled along his side. ‘We were so close,’ she said. Both were too tired to make love again.
Lydia slept restlessly, and kept Murchison awake for several hours. She frowned in her sleep, murmuring phrases he could not properly hear. Her dreams seemed troubled. He held her in his arms, compelled to stare at her face.
In the morning, when Murchison awoke, he opened his eyes to see Lydia standing naked by the gauzy drapes at the window. She was staring through them at the hazy dawn.
‘What is it?’ Murchison asked, fearing she was distressed.
She turned to look at him with dark eyes. ‘I know who we are,’ she said, ‘who I am.’
‘How? A dream?’ He had to swallow. He felt afraid now, afraid of what she would say.
‘I am Pharmaros,’ she said. ‘That is my name. I know you, have always known you.’
Murchison stared at her. Her words disturbed him; he didn’t want to hear them. Yet wasn’t this what they’d both wanted?
Then Lydia was gripping the drapes with both hands and he was out of the bed in an instant to catch her as she fell. She lay against his bare chest, shuddering. ‘They took it all away from us… all of it. I hate them!’
‘Who?’
‘Remember!’ Her voice was a snarl. ‘You can. It’s there! Just think! This morning, it all seems so clear, as if the last twenty years of my l
ife never even existed. We’ve woken up now, truly woken. It can’t just be me. Think!’
Murchison’s mind was like a TV screen, and some madman was constantly changing the channels. He caught glimpses of images, memories, but they refused to remain static. He could not interpret them. ‘It’s no good… I can’t…’
Lydia, or Pharmaros as she’d claimed to be, pulled away from him and got to her feet. ‘I was not always a woman,’ she said, looking down at him.
Crouched before her, gazing up at her full, statuesque body, Murchison found, strangely, that was not difficult to believe. She was voluptuously feminine, but there was a masculine steel about her. He remembered his first sight of her hands.
She put her strong, agile fingers against her body, below her breasts, and stroked down her stomach in one graceful movement. ‘I have become the thing I desired, that initiated my fall…’ Her eyes became glazed. ‘In the age of Eden, in its prime. I am he who taught the children of men the resolving of enchantments, and for that I was cursed. Look at me now, my brother. Remember with me the moments of our wretched, glorious history!’
For a brief moment, Murchison felt as if he’d been engulfed in flame. He saw a woman’s face, blond hair, arms reaching out for him in terror from an inferno of blue fire. He put one hand over his mouth, froze, stooping, gazing at the floor. Then he said in a quiet, wondering voice, ‘Helen, my god.’ The moment of his fall was far closer to the present moment than millennia before. Twenty years previously, he had sought to enact forbidden rituals with a daughter of man — Helen Winter. He had been seized by the Parzupheim from his family domain in the village of Little Moor, and a new personality had been grafted onto him. Something, or someone, had now released him from the prison of forgetfulness. The memories had come back to him entire, as if he’d never lost them. He knew now what the face of Akenaten meant to him: it resembled the long-faced countenance of an ancient Watcher.
Pharmaros held out her hands and lifted him from the floor. They stood facing one another, of a similar height, eye to eye. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘Kashday,’ he replied. ‘Kashday Murkaster. ’
They embraced for a moment, the room stilled around them. Then Pharmaros lifted the drapes. ‘It’s been so long,’ she said, ‘this punishment.’
Chapter Seventeen
The Jewelled Serpent
Daniel and the others waited two days in the Valley of Stones. By the end of this time, the Yarasadi were getting impatient and wanted to return home. Gadreel said she felt they should still wait, but Daniel could tell she was no longer as sure about this as she had been.
‘Oh, for Anu’s sake, let’s go back to Qimir’s camp,’ Salamiel said. ‘It’s obvious Shem isn’t coming back here. What good is it doing hanging around? Our supplies are running low. Remember we have to feed ourselves on the journey back.’
‘We can’t just leave him!’ Daniel said. He’d already made some short forays into the surrounding mountains, but had been unable to pick up any sign of Shem, physical or psychic. He’d also meditated for hours, trying to contact Ishtahar, hoping she could give him information, but she either wouldn’t or couldn’t co-operate. Daniel had never felt so alone. He couldn’t dispel the feeling that Shem was now far away, but still felt it would be a betrayal if they returned to Qimir without definite proof that Shem had gone elsewhere. There was still a chance he might be meditating somewhere up in the mountains.
Gadreel ran her fingers through her hair. ‘One more night,’ she said. ‘That’s all. This afternoon, we’ll have another thorough search and if nothing’s found, or Shem hasn’t turned up by tomorrow morning, we’ll leave.’
Daniel uttered a suppressed cry of outrage and turned away from her.
‘Salamiel is right,’ Gadreel said softly. ‘We can’t wait here for ever, Daniel.’
‘Then what do we do?’ he snapped. ‘Without Shem we have no purpose, no idea what to do. We are the limbs; he is the brain. Do we return to Qimir and forget all about the key and the Chambers, and the other avatars who must be waiting for us somewhere?’
Gadreel sighed. ‘I understand your anxieties, but I still think we should go back, not least because of what Salamiel has pointed out about our supplies. At Qimir’s settlement we could apply ourselves to working psychically to trace Shem. We could work intensively on what to do next.’
‘We have no key,’ Daniel said. ‘No master and no key. No knowledge.’
‘We have no choice!’ Gadreel said sharply. ‘We can’t stay here until we starve. And don’t think of waiting here alone. I’ll tie you up and drag you away kicking and screaming before I’ll allow that!’
That night, Daniel lay in his blanket, listening to the comforting sounds of horses around him, and the snores and breathing of his companions. This is my last chance, he thought. Ishtahar, come to me. Advise me as you always have.
His mind was totally blank. There was no buzz of psychic contact, just deadness, and the soft cacophony of mundane thoughts. ‘Damn it!’ Daniel said softly and sat up abruptly. Why was his ability so unreliable? He remembered how, when he’d first worked with Shem, he’d had psychic information tumbling out of his mind whenever it was needed. Now, it was such hard work, for so little reward. Maybe he was too old, too closed off. But he was Grigori now, no longer human. Perhaps that meant whatever blocks he was experiencing were self-created.
Daniel felt an urge to walk around and got to his feet. Creeping away from his companions, he ventured beyond the circle that Gadreel had drawn with the sword, and which they still kept intact, punctuated by the bowls of flowers and water.
‘Come to me,’ Daniel murmured. ‘I’m waiting. Come.’
He sat down on the cold stones. The circle, with its smouldering fire, seemed miles away. Wind fretted his hair, reached into his clothes with icy claws. He shivered. ‘Ishtahar! Come to me!’
There was no sign of the blue glow which presaged Ishtahar’s presence, either in reality or in his mind. Daniel concentrated harder, bellowed her name with his inner voice, willed her to manifest.
After a few moments, he opened his eyes. He felt dizzy, sick with the effort. Nothing, still nothing. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, uttered a groan of defeat. ‘Where are you, you bitch?’ He knew that in insulting his goddess, he was castigating himself, and yet the suspicion lurked within him that now he was Grigori, Ishtahar would no longer have dealings with him. He had become the person with whom she’d once had to compete for Shemyaza’s affections.
A rattle of stones alerted him and he dropped his hands from his eyes. For a moment, all he could see was sparkling stars of light, then his vision cleared. A serpent was undulating over the stones towards him. It was as thin as a whip and even in the meagre light of the distant fire, its scales glinted and glistered with a gold-shot blue radiance, as if it were made of lapis lazuli. Its eyes were sapphires, each reflecting a single, purple spark.
Daniel stared at the creature, hardly daring to believe it might have come in answer to his summons. ‘Ishtahar?’ His voice was a whisper.
The serpent reared up and hung before him, its blue-black tongue flickering in and out of its lipless mouth. ‘Ah, Daniel, you chide me so sorely,’ it said.
Daniel’s shoulders slumped in relief. ‘You came. Thank God!’
‘Thank who?’ lisped the serpent. ‘You should thank me, and me only.’
Daniel detected a new tone to Ishtahar’s remarks, a sharpness that had not been there before. ‘Then I thank you, Ishtahar. My sore words are inspired by desperate need.’
The serpent undulated before him; a private dance. ‘Ssso, you are Grigori now, my Daniel. You have regained what the years have taken from you, while I still languish in my grief.’
‘We both deserve respite,’ Daniel said carefully. ‘Yours will come.’
The serpent dipped and swayed before him. ‘Yet even in your elevated condition, you still need me — as I have ever been needed by men!’
r /> ‘You sound bitter,’ Daniel said. ‘You never were before.’
The serpent emitted a sound like a sigh. ‘It is my curse to be a goddess to others,’ it said, ‘yet who will be a god for me? Must I wait for an eternity to live again?’
Daniel thought about this, and saw how he could, in some ways, be seen as instrumental in this continuing torment. ‘You are a goddess because you allow it. People petition you, and you hear, you respond. Surely only you have the power to end the curse?’
The serpent contemplated him silently for a moment. ‘Daniel, I am a forgotten goddess. My shrines are ruins, visited only by lizards and birds. Only you call to me now and hold me to the form I am.’
‘I do not wish to cause you suffering,’ Daniel said. ‘You came to me as an advisor. It was you, not I, who initiated our contact.’
The serpent lunged forward, but Daniel did not flinch. ‘It was love that drew me to you,’ the serpent lisped. ‘Love for a man, your master. You do not need me now, yet you bind me to the earth.’
‘I do need you,’ Daniel said softly. ‘And I will always be grateful for what you have done for me. But I don’t want to bind you.’
Purple sparks flared in the serpent’s eyes. ‘You are releasing me, Daniel, from our confederacy?’
‘If you want me to, yes. If my word alone will provide that release.’
The serpent swayed a little. ‘Then I accept that release with gratitude. You may ask me one last question.’
Daniel considered for a while, knowing that the way he worded this question was extremely important. Ultimately, he opted for simplicity. ‘How can I regain my inner sight?’
The serpent did not hesitate. ‘You have never lost it. Your dilemma is that you do not trust yourself, which is why you stare into darkness. You have been so close to the answer, walked the ground where it lay absorbed by the stones, yet did not recognise it. You can hear the things that even Shemyaza did not hear. The answer the key gave to him.’
‘I can’t hear it. I have tried — walked these mountain paths. They are silent.’