Reincarnation (3 page)

her as his mate would help his situation.

She walked to the ledge overlooking the valley, and sounds such as Kye had never heard

before poured out of her mouth. It reminded him of the drumming his people loved so well,

but it was higher and flowed magically around her like rushing water. She was making the

talk of The New Ones. But to whom was she talking?

There was sorrow in her heart. Her sounds infused him with that same pain. He became

suddenly, overwhelmingly sad.

Her form was still lovely but, to him, it had also become radiant with her suffering, the grace

of her lifted arms, the desire written across her face.

His desire was now tempered with another feeling. He had connected to her in a way that

was mysterious, even frightening. All he could do was listen, rapt with awe as she sang in

the night's light.

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He cursed his softness.

What kind of male
was
he? He had run from the battle and now he was so touched by a

female's plaintive wail that he would not -- could not -- take her by force!

A breeze sent dead leaves running away from the base of the cave. The weasel had

awakened and pounced on a mouse that had been slumbering beneath the leaves. Kye's

eye was drawn to the movement, but he soon forgot about the mouse struggling in the

weasel's jaws.

Something more captivating had been uncovered when the leaves blew away.

In the moonlight, a brilliant green light sparkled at the base of the cave.

He'd seen green rocks like these before, usually embedded in coarse stone. Sometimes

there were flecks of it in cave walls. It was rare to see an entire stone this large all in one

piece.

This
was the prize he would bring back instead of the female!

His people would value it even more highly than a captive. He would say he had fought a

New One for it. It would restore his prestige, his pride. And he could spare the female.

He decided to wait until she departed or slept, and then he could chisel the precious green

stone loose.

Slowly turning, the female spied the green rock just moments after Kye saw it.

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Her song trailed off into the air as her face lit joyfully. Kye had never imagined anything as

lovely as the rapturous smile she directed at the stone.

Digging in a hare-skin bundle, she produced a flint-blade knife with a bone handle. Deftly

wielding the knife, she eagerly hacked at the surrounding black rock that held the treasure

fast in its grasp.

Kye leaned forward, watching avidly. He couldn't let her take the green rock. He had to get

it from her. Now!

Slowly, he rose from the bush. She was so intent on her work that she didn't see or hear his

approach. He paused a moment at the side of the cave, looking down on her feverish

activity.

He longed to explain his situation to her, to request that she give him the prized rock and

let him depart with it. He did not want to fight her for fear of causing her pain. Even more,

he didn't want to be at odds with this lovely creature.

He took a step closer.

The female's head snapped back. Wide-eyed with fear, her every muscle tensed as she held

tight to the knife stuck in the rock.

"Mine! Go!" she barked fiercely, waving him off. "Go!"

He did not know her words but he understood. He shook his head and thumped his chest,

taking a step closer.

Her eyes grew wider. A shiver shook her shoulders for the quickest moment.

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"Mine!" She shrieked in a voice he could barely recognize as the exquisite thing he had just heard. This voice was all rage, aggression, and desperation. It was a voice he could deal with.

Boldly approaching, he knocked her aside with one powerful sweep of his arm. Her knife slid

across the rocky ground and he seized it. He used it to come down on the rock once, twice.

Three shattering blows was all it took for him to dislodge the gemstone.

Moonlight played on its indents and turns. Peering into its depths was like gazing into

fathomless water hardened into rock. Surely the power of the green growing earth was

captured in its brilliant hardness. His people would be right to hold this treasure in great

awe. He would be their hero for bringing it to them.

The green prize suddenly flew from his hand. The female was on his back, pounding his

wounded head, screaming with the wild fury of an injured animal.

The pain made him furious, and he hurled her to the ground with greater force than he had

intended.

The stone lay on the ground. He bent to seize it.

The female ran into him, leading with her shoulder.

He staggered backward, though he kept hold of the stone. He recovered in time to see her

charge toward him again, her enraged stare locked on the stone in his hand.

She slammed into him more forcefully, throwing her entire weight onto his arm.

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This time he was seriously off-balance, and she was locked onto his shoulder. Instinctively,

he reached for something to hold on to as he felt himself lose balance.

The back of her neck was the first thing he found to grip.

She screamed in his ear, her voice no longer combative or aggressive. She was screaming in

terror.

At first he did not realize how tightly he was gripping both her neck in his one hand and the

stone with his other. His only thought was to hold on -- to keep from being knocked down.

Nor did he understand, until seconds after that, that they had stumbled backward off the

high cliff. There was nothing beneath their feet now and they were turning, spinning.

Still he held on to her, unwilling to release his grip. He would not let go of her or the green

prize.

They were plummeting, locked together, toward the gorge below.

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I hear the sickening sound before we even hit the gorge. A bone has snapped. It rings up

into my ears, vibrating in my skull.

There is no pain.

The Ice Being tumbles into the racing water beside me, his eyes wide with terror.

Then there is another Ice Being. His face is softer. He looks at me and I gaze back at him.

For a second.

A surge of water pulls one Ice Being away, the one with the stunned wide-open stare frozen

on his face. The other Ice Being begins to rise toward the surface of the water.

I swim after him, wanting to know where he is going.

Breaking the water's surface, the insistent call of an overhead bird makes me look up to

investigate. I have never seen a bird this large; not even the great gliding birds of prey have

such a wingspan. Slowly, its great wings spread, and it spirals toward the water.

With darting eyes, I search out The Ice Being and find

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that he still is in the gorge, but is now surrounded by other Ice Beings. They are not of this

world. I know this because they hover just above the water. The Ice Being begins to rise into

the air and they touch him, aiding his ascent, lifting toward the sky along with him.

Together, they sail up to meet the descending giant bird. They let go of The Ice Being male

as the bird grips him in its talons. I watch the bird fly away with him as the others fade.

I realize that I must get out of this icy water. I am already so late getting home. They will all

want to hear how I fought The Ice Being and survived. They will gather round tonight by the

fire and I will tell them.

The current is strong: I will have to swim like the water beasts if I am to free myself.

A thing from the depths of the river rises behind me and I turn quickly to see what it is: a

face, pale and crazed with terror. Dark hair tangles around it; the head is bent at an angle

that is painful to see. Shoulders, torso, belly follow. An arm springs up, fingers splayed,

jostled by the current.

It is me! I am staring in horror at myself.

But I am here at the same time.

I slowly understand that I have split apart from my broken body -- and yet I still exist.

I cannot make sense of this.

I am here. I exist. Then what is this twisted other floating in the water beside me?

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The broken self is caught in a wave and sinks again just below the river's surface. Racing

water carries it downstream, around a jutting rock, and then out of sight.

I begin to understand what has happened to me.

I scan the sky, searching for a bird to carry me away.

No bird comes for me. No spirit ancestors.

What am I to do?

And then I begin to rise above the river.

I sail through the blue sky and pass into a black, light-sparked night.

My mouth opens. The back of my head falls away. Stars shoot through me.

The top of my head floats off painlessly.

That part of me that is me at its center gives way. I am scattered, dispersed among the stars.

I am blissfully blown apart. Terrified by the shattering, yet so willing to go.

Swirling balls of fire soar through light-spattered darkness and I watch them, awestruck but

not afraid.

I watch them for a long time.

Voices speak to me in whispers. They ask me questions. I don't know the answers.

I do not know why or when it is that I begin to float in a certain direction. I am on a river,

traveling the current.

I come to what I think is a waterfall. I see that it's not water -- but light. White light

standing tall as the oldest, most giant of trees, inside a crystal pool.

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As I swim into the pool, my thoughts grow so vivid that I can't tell if I am voicing them or

not. I have the sense that it all has to be expressed before I am swirled into the vortex of the

towering light.

Great Mother, do not abandon me.

Show me your sign again. Return your blessing to me.

Where is The Ice Being who took it from me?

Make him return the prize he stole.

I want rank of my own.

Do not let me freeze in another time of ice.

Do not make me mate with a male I despise.

I am floating in a warm darkness. Time has returned. I am aware of the moments passing in

every beat of the steady thunder that pounds everywhere around me.

And then, once again, the river begins to rush. Again I am carried forward.

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(On the Wheel of Rebirth)

Tetisheri, my baby girl. We name you for the queen of old now entombed at Luxor. May our

divine mother, the goddess Isis, bless you. Let her son, Horus, the falcon god, always watch

over you. We are not rich, but your father is respected for his craft. May you grow in beauty

and talent so that a wealthy, powerful man may take you as a wife.

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Egypt, 1280 B.C.E.

The sun blistered Taharaq's back as he pulled on the oars. The bitterness in his heart was

not lightened by the increasingly lush beauty of the palms on either side of the rushing Nile,

nor the silver crane that spread its majestic wings as it flew from a marshy inlet or even the

comical hippo that rose to observe the passing barge before submerging once

again.

All these sights only meant that they were nearer to Luxor and farther away from his

beloved home in Nubia, the home that he might never see again.

The young Egyptian officer at the bow of the long, narrow boat snapped a whip over the

heads of the laboring prisoners. The striped headpiece he wore shielded his head and neck

from the burning sun. The golden cobra at its center flared brilliantly, its glare occasionally

blinding. A golden cord around his neck boasted a single gleaming medallion in the shape

of a golden fly, an Egyptian award for military valor. His white linen tunic, knotted firmly

around his trim waist, gave him a look of cool authority over his laboring, sweating, black-

skinned prisoners. Sweat coursed down Taharaq's sides. The officer snapped his whip once

more. Had it hit,

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Taharaq didn't know whether he would have been able to contain his rage. These men, his

fellow prisoners, were proud men, archers so skilled that their prowess was legendary.

Taharaq glowered at the whip-wielding officer, filled with hatred. More than any other of

the guards, this arrogant captain raised a murderous fury within him. When this Egyptian

even glanced his way, Taharaq felt the stinging humiliation of defeat more keenly than at

any other time. Perhaps it was the captain's smug self-assurance; whatever the reason,

Taharaq had never known another who evoked these feelings in him.

As though suddenly aware of the electric surge of Taharaq's loathing, the Egyptian officer's

head snapped around and he stared directly at him, his harsh expression full of warning.

Taharaq lifted his chin, intending to meet this man's challenge with proud defiance.

But the moment their eyes locked, Taharaq was once again slammed with shame. A wave of

nausea hit him like a body blow and he looked down at the moving river, frothing at the

side of the boat. He knew such a movement gave the appearance of subservience, and he

detested himself for it.

When he looked up again, the Egyptian captain stood beside him. "You and I know each

other, don't we?" he snapped in his native Egyptian. "Where did we fight?"

Taharaq understood his words since Nubians had traded with their neighbors in Egypt for

many centuries. Most

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Nubians were familiar with Egyptian culture, including the language.

Yes,
Taharaq thought.
It makes sense. He must have been the one who hurled the spear that
wounded me. Why else would I detest him so?