Stealing Sacred Fire (33 page)

Murchison expected the woman
he’d seen to have disappeared by the time he’d finished with the
hotel receptionists, but he found that she was still sitting in the
same place. He’d have to walk past her to reach the elevators.

She’d finished her milk, and
the glass now stood on the table by her elbow. She was staring
straight ahead at the wall, as if deep in thought, as if trying to
remember something. When Murchison drew abreast of her, she looked
directly at him. A smile hovered on her mouth, uncertain. Her brows
drew together. She’d seemed to recognise him, but now clearly
thought she was mistaken.

Murchison paused. He could walk
past now. It was in his nature to do that, for generally he
disliked potentially embarrassing situations. But still, he paused.
His mouth opened of its own volition and uttered a greeting. For a
moment he thought, we are meant to meet here, then dismissed the
idea. From the expression on the woman’s face it seemed she was
equally confused.

‘Forgive how this sounds,’
Murchison said, ‘but I get the feeling I know you. I’m Cameron
Murchison.’ He held out his hand.

The woman stared at it for a
moment, then took it. Her palm was cold and wet, presumably from
her drinking glass, but her grip was firm. ‘I must admit you look
familiar, yet I don’t know your name. Are you in pharmaceuticals?’
Her accent was English, yet Murchison would have sworn she was of a
more exotic blood.

Murchison grinned. It was
surprisingly easy to conduct this conversation. He knew that soon
they would be drinking together in the bar. ‘No, not exactly. I’m
in the medical profession; gynaecology.’

‘Perhaps we’ve met at a
conference, then.’ She smiled more easily. ‘Lydia March.’

‘Here for business?’

Again her heavy brows drew
together, and her eyes became reflective as if, for just a moment,
she was confused, unsure. ‘Well… I… just fancied a holiday, and
Egypt has always fascinated me.’

‘Me too,’ Murchison said. ‘It
was rather a last moment decision flying out here.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean.’
She shrugged. ‘Well…’

‘Look, I could do with a drink.
How about you?’

She stared at him, so he
babbled on. ‘I could just drop my luggage off in my room and meet
you in the bar. What do you think?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, OK. I must
admit I feel slightly at a loose end right now.’

On the way up in the elevator,
Murchison’s face grew hot. Would Lydia March think he was simply
trying to chat her up? He was never so forward. Perhaps she would
now discreetly go to her room, or venture outside into the
turbulence of the city, unnerved by an importunate male. Was his
purpose in being here simply to find a new, more impulsive side to
himself? He would be the first to admit that might be an
improvement.

The bar was dark yet airy, huge
brass fan blades turning on the ceiling. The air conditioning made
it almost cold, like a tomb. Copies of mummy cases, layered with
gold paint, were positioned around the walls.

At first, Murchison thought his
assumption had been correct and Lydia March had disappeared, then
he saw her sitting at a table in the shadowy corner, beneath a
canopy of palm fronds that rose from a gigantic urn. She smiled up
at him, and in response to his enquiry, requested a glass of white
wine.

At the bar, he wondered whether
he should tell her the way he was feeling, that he was sure they
were somehow destined to meet. No, it sounded too melodramatic, the
worst of chat-up lines.

When he returned to the table, she took
the wine from him and sipped it, then placed the glass carefully in
front of her. ‘You know, she said, ‘this is most peculiar, and
you’ll no doubt think I’m mad, but I can’t help feeling we were
somehow… well... supposed to meet here.’ She grinned cautiously.
‘Is that too bizarre?’

He wriggled in his seat
opposite her. ‘No, not at all. I was thinking the same thing,
actually, although I didn’t think I’d have the guts to say it.’

Lydia March leaned forward.
‘Tell me, why are you here in Cairo? Why are you really here?’

Murchison sighed. ‘It sounds
insane. A day or so ago, I had an extraordinary day, and simply had
a compulsion to come to Egypt. It was almost — and this sounds the
most insane thing of all — as if I was summoned or drawn here.’

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 life 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.