Stealing Sacred Fire (37 page)

Nimnezzar uttered a sound of
annoyance. ‘I would like your opinion.’

‘Then you must let me speak to
him.’

Nimnezzar paused, then said, ‘Very
well. I shall send Jazirah with you.’

‘I would like to speak with
Shemyaza alone.’ When Nimnezzar didn’t respond, she said, ‘You must
trust me. Haven’t I helped you well in the past?’

‘Very well. Speak to him, if he
can speak.’

Shemyaza had been confined in a
dank hole, far below Etemenanki. The smell of the place offended
Tiy’s heightened senses as she was led by two of Nimnezzar’s
personal guard to the steps that disappeared down into the dark.
She reached for the wall with her left hand and began her descent,
dismissing the guards from her presence. They withdrew reluctantly
and she heard a heavy door slam behind her. There was no source of
light, but this did not matter to Tiy.

As she went slowly down the
steps, Shemyaza’s feelings drifted up to her like smoke. He was
hurt and bitter, yet still she sensed no urge to fight in him. He
felt defeated, confused. Tiy shook her head in bewilderment. He was
a creature of contradictions, unsure himself of what and who he
was. But there was no denying the flame of his soul, burning strong
and true. Nimnezzar was more blind than she, for he had not noticed
this flame.

At the bottom of the steps, Tiy
stepped onto soiled straw. Others had been confined here, and
perhaps still were, hanging dead in their chains. The smell of
death hung in the air like unholy incense.

‘Shemyaza,’ she said, and heard
a rustle nearby.

She moved towards the sound,
feeling in front of her with sensitive fingers. Presently, she felt
cloth beneath her touch and the warmth of living flesh. Shemyaza
appeared to be half lying in the straw. Almost greedily, her hands
moved over his body, up to his face. She felt his fine bones, his
high brow, but also the swelling there, the patina of dry, crusting
blood. ‘You have been enjoying the hospitality of Babylon’s king,’
she said.

Strong, agile hands gripped her own,
lifted her questing fingers away from his face. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Tiy, a seeress. I came to
the city with Nimnezzar’s queen.’

She heard him sigh. His breath
rattled slightly in his chest. Perhaps they had damaged him there.
‘What do you want?’

Tiy squatted down before him.
‘To speak with you, to learn why you have allowed Nimnezzar to
abuse you so.’

‘He cannot kill me. It is not
yet time for me to die.’

‘How bravely you suffer your
pain.’

He paused, then said, ‘It is
inconsequential.’

Tiy became aware then that part
of him gorged itself on pain because it justified the fear that he
was again to be a martyr. She spoke carefully. ‘I understand that
Babylon is graced by your presence only because that is your wish.
You want to be here. Why?’

She heard Shemyaza shift
position slightly upon the straw, his soft grunt of discomfort. ‘I
wanted to meet the man who claimed to be the heir to my people’s
kingdom.’

Tiy’s voice became insidious,
an invisible serpent in the dark. ‘You could have come with fire.
You could have come victorious. I know you have that power.’

‘Do you?’ His voice was weary.
‘Your king sees only the weakness of a man.’

‘You cannot blame him. That is
all you let him see.’

Shemyaza was silent for a
moment. ‘Then why do you think differently?’

‘I am blind,’ she answered.
‘Therefore I see by other means.’

Shemyaza again hesitated before
speaking. ‘It is more than that. I feel that you…’ His voice
trailed into silence.

‘Yes, I know,’ Tiy murmured.
She reached out again to touch him. She could not help herself.
Words came quickly that she had intended to preserve within her
until later. ‘Shemyaza, I have waited long for the moment when I
would meet you again.’

‘Meet me again?’ Shemyaza
echoed faintly. ‘When have we met before?’

She did not pause. ‘You were
conceived in me, cut from my own body. I am your mother.’

There was again silence for a
moment, and Tiy knew she had managed to shock him. Then he laughed.
‘You can’t be.’

‘But I am,’ she said patiently.
‘The body you wear is fifty years old. I bore it that long ago,
when I was still lovely.’

‘You are human…’

‘Yes. But your father was
not.’

Shemyaza took one of Tiy’s
withered hands in his own. ‘I was brought up by a Grigori clan —
the Othmans. They told me my parents were dead. I heard nothing of
a mother in the east.’

Tiy squeezed his fingers. ‘They
kept it from you. Now, I will tell you, because it is time for you
to know. Whether this conflicts with their plans or not, I will
still tell you.’

‘Their plans? Whose? The
Babylonians?’

Tiy shook her head, although he
could not see it. ‘Hush. Soon, you will know all, but listen… I
bore you in the land of Persia.’

Tiy explained that she had been
born into a Gypsy clan, who were remnants of a Magian cult. They
had worshipped one of Shemyaza’s many forms — the Hanged One,
Azazel — and believed they were descendants of the people who had
given succour to the Scapegoat when his father had cast him out
into the desert. Azazel had given sons and daughters to the women
of Tiy’s ancestors, so that their human blood had mingled with the
essence of angels. The old histories had been handed down through
the generations by word of mouth; it was a secret tradition. Tiy’s
clan had roamed across Persia, feared by some, scorned by others,
but always held in a grudging respect.

When Tiy was twenty years old,
a strange man had approached the camp of her people one evening at
sunset. He was not a Gypsy, but neither was he like the people who
lived in the cities and towns, or upon the farms. He was tall and,
for those who were able to see the inner world, his countenance
shone like the sun. Tiy, he singled out for attention, and that
very night she took him to her bed. This Angel of Annunciation told
her that she would bear a special son, who was of the gods.

‘He was Grigori,’ Tiy said. ‘I
sensed it, for even then, before my sight faded, I could see more
with my inner eyes than others could.’

‘Your people knew of the
Grigori, then,’ Shemyaza said.

She nodded. ‘Yes. We knew the
children of angels walked the world, although it was your father
told me their name. When the time came for your birth, you were too
big for me and the women of my family had to cut my belly to bring
you forth. Your skin and eyes shone like the sun; there was a
glamour about you. I named you Ra, after the Egyptian god of the
sun.’

Tiy sensed a stillness within
Shemyaza’s mind as he struggled to uncover some memory of his early
years. ‘I cannot remember,’ he said.

Tiy ran her fingers over his
hands. ‘It was so long ago,’ she said. ‘You stayed with me only for
three years.’

Tiy never forgot the words of
her lost lover, that she had borne a son of the gods. Ra was living
proof of this promise. In her heart, she had known she’d not be
able to keep the boy with her. The days while her shining son
played beside her were gifts from Azazel. She cherished them,
knowing that eventually all she would have would be memories of
those gilded hours. ‘You were a lovely child,’ Tiy said, ‘kind and
strong and sensitive. It was so hard for me, because even then I
knew your future held agony, fear and darkness. I tried to fill you
with my love, that it might be a candle in the darkness to
come.’

One day, Tiy’s fears were
justified and three tall men came out of the desert to the camp of
the Gypsies. They told Tiy they had come for her son, to take him
back to his father’s people.

‘I could not fight them,’ Tiy
said. ‘Your destiny had already been written. I knew I had been
chosen to bear you, for I carried the royal blood of the Shining
Ones. Their only gift to me, after they had taken you back, was
that they gave my spirit entry into corners of their world, from
where I could watch you grow into a man.’

Shemyaza uttered a sound of
anger and anguish. ‘But this means…’ He could not say the
words.

‘Yes, my son. Do not doubt that
the Grigori have always known who you were. Your reincarnation was
planned from the first moment. What you have perceived as rogue
fortune in your life has been crafted by the most secret cabals of
your people. Many dark rituals have been conducted to drive you
along your path.’

She could sense confusion
emanating from Shemyaza’s body like a physical force. The news was
so astounding to him, he could barely react, but there was also a
secret, cynical part of him that wasn’t surprised at all. ‘Tell me
more,’ he said.

She squeezed his hands. ‘My
son, the race of the Grigori is like a living thing in its own
right, a complex creature. Secrets within secrets within secrets.
There are those who guide you towards your destiny, but equally
there are those who would stop you achieving it. Some Grigori do
not want change to come.’

‘How do you know all this?’
Shem held her hands so tightly, she felt her bones bend in her
flesh.

‘Because, with my inner sight,
I have remained alert to the beacon of your presence in the world.
The Grigori were merciful and granted me knowledge of your growth,
but I also used that connection carefully and learned much about
the Grigori themselves. When the time came that the ancient
fragments of your soul were freed by the boy, Daniel, I felt
it.’

‘Daniel,’ Shemyaza said, and
groaned. ‘He is lost to me again.’

‘Have no fear,’ Tiy answered.
‘He and your other companions escaped Nimnezzar’s clutches. They
fared better than you, but then they had more spirit to fight.’

Shemyaza sighed and released
his tight grip on her hands. ‘I am relieved to hear that.’ He
paused. ‘It is strange that my mother — if that is truly who you
are — should be one of Nimnezzar’s followers.’

Tiy laughed. ‘His follower? No!
I have acted as his advisor, but in many ways he has been my
pawn.’

‘You knew that I would come
here?’

‘Of course. I knew that long
ago, before Nimnezzar ever dreamed he would be king, which is why
my protégé, Amytis, is now Nimnezzar’s wife. I needed a pathway
into the city, and I built one. But that is not important now.
Shemyaza, the time of your destiny approaches. You know what you
must do.’

He laughed bleakly. ‘Do I? I
have learned I am half human, and that makes sense to me. It
explains why I could do nothing but fall beneath the fists and feet
that beat and kicked me. Nimnezzar is right about me. I am hardly a
king.’

Tiy made an impatient sound.
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You need to understand more about
the past. You know so little. I have spent fifty years scouring the
astral worlds for grains of truth and now I have a desert’s worth
of grains! The Elders of your race came out of Egypt, where they
seeded the first great dynasties of kings. Their civilisation
foundered — something happened to them which has been lost to
memory — and their race fragmented. The great chambers where they
stored their knowledge were closed down and hidden. Anu was a
descendant of one of the Elders. He was an ambitious and
industrious man. His forefathers had entrusted the keys to the
Chambers of Light to their sons, and through the power of the key
Anu created Kharsag in Eden. But that too went wrong. You know of
that sorry history.’

‘Yes,’ Shemyaza said coldly. ‘I
feel it is my task to open the Chambers once more, to redress the
wrongs of the past.’

‘They were not wrongs,’ Tiy
said, ‘The Elders did what was necessary at the time, but perhaps
the world is ready now to know what was lost. It is indeed your
task to open the Chambers. Let me tell you what I have learned
about them, for you will need this knowledge.’

Tiy explained that the Magians
had advised Nimnezzar how to build Etemenanki, intending to use it
as a focus for their considerable powers, but if anything, the
Tower responded more to Tiy. The spirit of what it represented
attuned to her, and gave her dreams of the past. She was a
priestess of the Great Earth Mother, and the earth remembers
everything that happens upon her body. Combining these two
influences, Tiy had been able to learn about the Chambers and their
history. She discovered that they had been built by the power of
the Source of Creation, which had been channelled through a great
alexandrite crystal, housed in a gigantic chamber in the centre of
the complex. Twelve smaller chambers had been constructed around it
in a circle and within these the Elders had placed miniature
replicas of the great crystal. In these lesser chambers, twelve
Elders would use the smaller crystals to enter deep trance and
leave their bodies. A pattern of deeply-cut circles and lines on
the chamber floors created a pathway for the astral bodies,
enabling them to enter into the great central crystal. This
gargantuan stone acted as a portal to the gateway of the stars of
Orion. There, folding space and time itself, the astral bodies of
the Elders were able to journey back to the Source of Creation at
the centre of the universe, and there commune with it.

Shemyaza interrupted her
narrative. ‘When I possessed the privilege of astral flight, I was
always drawn to pass through Orion, but entry was always forbidden
to me. Then, as part of my punishment, Anu decreed that my soul
should be bound within those terrible stars, for what I thought
would be eternity.’

Tiy spoke softly. ‘Yes, my son.
I have felt your pain.’

‘I strove to commune with the
Source as the Elders once did. I wanted knowledge, I wanted the
universe and I wanted the earth and her fires of ecstasy.’ He
laughed ruefully. ‘I wanted it all.’

‘The Chambers of Light were the
all,’ Tiy said. ‘They facilitated a union between spirit, earth and
source. Through the crystal, the Elders could attain the answers to
any question. They even learned of the great plan of the universe
itself. The destiny of this planet was mapped out, recorded and
initiated through those chambers.’