The Oracle of Avaris, page 6
part #3 of Secrets of the Sands Series
I understand Paser’s compulsion to find his relative. “This afternoon, after I’ve had a chance to review the scroll.”
With a promise to meet me back in time for the operation, the trio leaves. Eager to see this scriptorium — likely where my own scroll is being stored — I ask for directions from the servants and at last find the room in a far-off wing at the end of the palace. Poking my head in, I see Pepi at a table, surrounded by several papyri and what looks to be a map or two.
“Merat said I would find you here,” I say softly, so as not to disturb his sanctuary. He is not startled, no doubt having heard my approach.
“Come in, Sesha.” His voice is warm. “You, of all people, will appreciate this particular room, or rather its contents, I should say.”
I walk in, unable to tear my eyes from the marvellous assortment of writings. Not since the chamber under the temple in Thebes, where Paser and I found the original scroll, have I seen so many documents in one place. Light shines in through a high window, gilding many of them in gold. Most of the writing is hieratic script, but there are other forms, intricate and unfamiliar.
“This is incredible.” My voice is hushed. The gods feel close in this room, their sacred words together in one place. “Where did you find them all?”
“My uncle” — his lips twist wryly — “mother, and I have been collecting them for some time. We share a passion and respect for the written word.” He looks up and around. “Do you feel it? There is much power concentrated in this room.”
I do feel it, along with an immense rush of gratitude that I am able to read and write so many of these words. It is an extraordinary gift my father gave me.
“Some of them are quite old.” He motions to documents that look like they will crumble into dust if one so much as breathes on them. “Perhaps you would consent to transcribe copies of the rarer ones, as you did with Imhotep’s scroll, to preserve them for future generations?”
“It would be a great honour.” I feel light-headed at the thought of having the ancient papyri at my fingertips.
“You can study your scroll here,” he says, nodding at the long cedar table, and I touch the smooth wood. Examining the scroll in this sanctuary will be a welcome change from swirling sands and boisterous sailors.
“I will see to it that you have all the equipment you need,” Pepi says. “How are you feeling about undertaking Akin’s procedure?”
“Scared,” I admit. “What if I cannot heal him? Or worse —” I swallow “— if he dies at my hand?”
“It does not sound like he is doing all that well.”
“At least he lives,” I say softly.
“There is something to be said about the quality of one’s life.” Pepi’s tone is gentle.
“There is some truth to that,” I admit. To allow one to suffer when there is no chance of recovery is awful and cruel. “But Akin is not dying, nor by his own admission, in pain. His condition is stable. He could make a different life if he wanted.”
“Like many, the solider is a proud man,” Pepi says. “Convincing him he might find joy, without full use of his once-formidable body, may be a difficult, if not impossible, task.”
I make a frustrated sound. “If only we could consult the oracle about the outcome of the surgery. Or whether I should even perform it or not!”
“There are many things she could resolve,” Pepi agrees, expression serious. “Which is why you need to find her as quickly as possible.”
I take a deep breath. “The king thinks there might be a third prophecy.”
“I agree with him,” he says calmly.
“He also said the best place to begin looking for the oracle is at her temple, but that Kalali was the only person to know of its whereabouts.”
“Not the only one.” Pepi taps one of the maps with a finger. “As you know, my mother belonged to that sect of priestesses. They guard the oracle who is produced from their midst every generation. A few nights before she died, my mother told me of their location, a highly protected secret.” He looks down at the map, murmuring under his breath. “Almost as if she knew …”
Distracted by the papyri, I only now notice the small pile of glittering green gems by Pepi’s hand. He’d lent us the mystical stones to aid in Paser’s healing; they were a powerful complement to the scroll.
“You think the priestesses will assist us?”
“I hope so; they might know where she is, or what became of her.” A shadow crosses his face. “It was my fault my mother died. It should not have happened the way it did.”
“As you stand here well and whole before me, I think she would feel her sacrifice worth it.”
“Or she’d be angry with me for failing to protect Tany.” He swallows, a small muscle in his cheek moving involuntarily. “She was my only sister. I was to look out for her.”
Ky, my sweet brother, now a member of the royal family, materializes in my mind. Will I ever see him again? Or is he starting to forget me, our family? My heart aches. “I know what it is like to love and lose those closest to you.”
“I had a small hope she might be here, in the city.” His face is bleak. “But no one has seen or heard from her.”
“Perhaps that is another question for the oracle.”
Pepi takes a reed and begins to mark one of the maps. “I would go with you, but my uncle is right, I need to be at his side should his condition worsen, or to receive any instructions he might pass on to me. I must also watch Yanassi. He says he is planning a wedding, but I do not fully trust him. The hand-off of power is a precarious time filled with hidden opportunities and threats from all sides.”
“Do not worry, Pepi. You trained me well.” I tap the map. “Now, tell me how to find the priestesses.”
“I will.” He stops drawing to pick up the glittering gems beside him and puts them in my hand. “When you find the sect, show them these — priestess stones. They were my mother’s.”
After learning what I need to know from Pepi, I spend the rest of the morning poring over the scroll and cases pertaining to Akin’s surgery. To my growing dismay, I cannot find a single promising treatment for an injury like his across the entire papyrus. I tell myself I must be missing something. I was certain that the great medical document, with its impressive history, would contain the answer. Taking the scroll with me, I study it while walking to Akin’s room and feel a rekindled glimmer of hope as I spot the ancient incantation that had such remarkable results for Paser. Surely it will have some power over Akin’s affliction, as well.
Angry shouts outside his chamber make me look up from the scroll in alarm.
“How dare you?” An anguished voice hastens my footsteps. I enter expecting to see my patient, but aside from Yanassi, Amara, and the baby wrapped snugly against her belly, the room is empty.
“Where is Akin?” Panic grips my chest.
“Gone.” Amara’s distraught face sends my heart to my stomach.
“He is on his way to his surgery,” Yanassi informs me.
“By whose hand?” I demand, indignation sweeping through my body.
“Kazir, the best healer Avaris has on offer,” Yanassi sneers. “One with several more years of experience than a scribe barely out of temple.”
“You did not consult me.” Amara is furious. The baby, as if picking up on her mother’s mood, lets out a distressed cry.
“I did not need to,” Yanassi says coldly. “Akin is my second; I will decide what is best for him.”
“He is my husband!” Amara snaps, one hand patting the child’s back to calm her. “Sesha was supposed to perform the procedure.”
“What happened to needing the scroll?” I interrupt, bewildered, holding up the document. Yanassi’s eyes flicker to the papyrus.
“Give that to me,” he demands. “I will bring it to the healer.”
My hand tightens around the document. “I will deliver it myself. Amara, take me to Akin.”
“You will not interfere!” Yanassi shouts, slamming a meaty fist into his palm.
Ignoring him, we hurry from the room. I follow Amara with a quick look over my shoulder, but Yanassi does not follow. I hope we are not too late.
11
MY THOUGHTS WHIR along with my feet as we fly through the halls like birds startled from their perch. After all this time, why couldn’t the chieftain wait?
“This way,” Amara calls, one hand still on her baby, who settles, lulled by the motion. Turning left, we dash past several startled servants, causing one to almost drop the tray she is carrying. We reach the medical wing at last, breath coming in gasps, and burst into the room.
The healer-priest, Kazir, stands beside the still form of Akin, hands hovering above the injured soldier. He looks up, startled at the interruption. “What is happening?”
“That man is my patient,” I gasp, pointing at Akin with the scroll.
“She will be the one to perform the surgery.” Breathless, Amara walks up to her husband and inserts herself between his inert form and the tall priest.
Bafflement crosses Kazir’s homely face as he takes me in. “How many successful surgeries have you performed with this type of ailment?” he questions.
“None.” I grip the scroll tighter, doubt creeping along my veins. “But I have studied intensively and trained under the very best healers in Thebes.”
“Though your training has no doubt been comprehensive, young physician, I myself have performed hundreds of surgeries over the past twenty years, many of which were highly successful.” His eyes flicker from us to the dozing soldier. Kazir must have given him a tincture to ease him into unconsciousness. “Part of that success is owed to a thorough diagnostic assessment of my patients. After making a full examination of Akin, I have determined that this is an ailment I will not treat.” He pauses, allowing his words to sink in. Then he walks over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “And — in my humblest of opinions — neither should you, Daughter of Ay.”
Already taken aback by his announcement, I almost fall over. He knows who I am?
“She has the great scroll of Imhotep,” Amara protests. “The document is filled with old magic, Heka.” I can almost see the hope slipping, like sand through her fingers. “There must be something in it that can help.”
“There is a powerful incantation,” I say, avoiding admitting what I discovered earlier — that it’s the only thing the scroll seems to contain that might help Akin. “It worked wonders on my friend. And another healer used a procedure from this very scroll to cure my brother of his illness. It saved his life!”
“By all means, recite the incantation, if you wish.” The healer gestures at Akin. “But it is my belief that operating may severely worsen his condition, or even kill him. It is out of our hands and in the hands of the gods now. I will inform the chieftain of this myself.”
I look over at my friend, helpless, wanting to deny what Kazir has said. But I realize that the healer has the mettle to voice what I already feared deep down, from the moment I laid my hands on the soldier: Akin’s injury may simply be too grave for us to contend with. Even the great Imhotep has not given us such a miraculous procedure. Amara, whose desolate expression must match mine, lets out a sob, seeming to fold around her baby. I put my arms out to support her, the child warm between us.
“I do not mind that he is lame,” she weeps into my shoulder. “But what am I to do about his heart? It will be more broken than his body by this news.”
“Akin is strong,” I say with a gentle squeeze. “And so are you. You will find a way through this, together.”
Akin’s eyelids flutter open. “Is it over?” His voice is hoarse, his dilated pupils full of cautious optimism.
Amara squares her shoulders and swallows her own grief to confront her husband’s, brave as any soldier striding into battle. The healer, Kazir, looks at me and we step forward to join her — and the child held tightly to her chest — in letting Akin know he has much left to live for.
Afterward, Kazir and I leave the room to allow Akin and Amara some privacy.
“Is that really the legendary scroll of the great Imhotep?” The healer eyes the document with respect.
“It is only a copy.” I offer it to him, allowing him to examine it. “Transcribed by my father and me.”
“Incredible,” he murmurs, studying the papyrus carefully. “Your father was an extraordinary physician. How fitting that he was the one to perform the transcription.”
“You knew him?” I say, my heart beating faster.
“We trained together,” he says, confirming what my gut tells me. “He was a brilliant healer and showed me a most effective treatment for binding the bowels.”
I shake my head. “You are not the first person to tell me he studied and trained here in Avaris, but it seems unreal. It is strange to think he had a whole other life before me and my brother, before he met my mother.”
“He must have been as excellent a father as he was a physician for you to feel like you were his entire world,” Kazir remarks.
I blink back the tears forming in the corners of my eyes. “He was.”
The healer nods and hands me back the scroll. “I will go and deal with the chieftain.”
“He will not be pleased,” I warn. “Yanassi expects nothing less than his second to be restored to his former strength and abilities.”
“I am aware,” the healer says dryly. “But one does not argue with the gods.”
“You have my thanks.”
He tilts his head, examining me. “For what?”
“For showing me something.”
“What was that?”
“That sometimes it takes as much courage to accept what is, as it does to challenge it.” I look down, at a loss. “Now if only I knew when to do which.”
“That will come with time.” Kazir gives me a faint smile. “Then again, it may not. But a good healer always does what they can, and that is all they can do.”
His words have a tinge of prophecy-speak, and as he leaves me standing there, my thoughts return to the impossible task my friends and I are about to perform: leave for the unknown to find a lost oracle, in hopes of setting Pepi on the throne and securing peace for an entire kingdom. A peace that will last a lifetime for many. The gods feel near just then, perhaps due to my earlier immersion in their words. I whisper my vow out loud, in case they are listening.
“We will do all that we can, and that is all we can do.”
And then we will pray that it is enough.
I find Paser and Reb later that afternoon in the courtyard. They are hot and dusty from inquiring about the city after anyone fitting Paser’s uncle’s description, to no avail. I tell them about Akin and they assure me I am not wrong to respect another healer’s opinion, particularly one with years of experience.
“A part of me feels like I am failing Amara and her husband,” I say. We sit beside the lotus pond watching small frogs jump from pad to pad.
“That is only your pride talking, Sesha,” Reb says, not unkindly. “You’d think you’d have learned to recognize it by now.”
I look at my friends. “You do not think I am a terrible coward?”
“It is not cowardly to know what one can contend with and what one cannot,” Paser reasons. “It is good sense.”
I sigh. “I must have missed that lesson in temple.”
“You did start late.” Reb grins.
“Still. I would like to try something.” I can’t forget Akin’s devastated expression, Amara’s anguish, and Kazir’s advice. A good healer does what they can, and that is all they can do. “Maybe I cannot operate, but it will not hurt to perform the incantation for Akin.”
“The one from the scroll?” Reb asks.
“That is an idea,” Paser says, thoughtful. “When you used it in my healing, there was something … I cannot quite explain.”
I look at him in curiosity. “Try.”
He shrugs, looking helpless. “It was as if … as if the words themselves infiltrated my skin, dissolving the sickness eating at my blood and bones. But it was more than the incantation alone. It was you, too, Sesha.” Paser looks at me. “When you put your hands on me, an incredible warmth flowed into my body.” He closes his eyes, in memory. “It was electrifying and soothing, all at the same time.” Reb snorts and Paser open his eyes but ignores him. “You are a gifted healer, and the scroll is more than a medical document.” He echoes Merat’s sentiment. “Maybe there is something to these prophecies Pepi speaks of.” We are silent amidst the chirping frogs.
“When do you propose to perform the rite?” Reb gets back to the matter at hand. “We’re supposed to leave tomorrow.”
“Tonight, when all are asleep.” I look at my friends. “May I count on your assistance?”
“Always,” Paser says.
We look at Reb, who sighs. “I’ll bring the candles.”
12
TORCHES FLICKER AT the entrance to the dining hall. They illuminate Merat standing with the chieftain, who tosses his customary disgusted look our way. She touches his arm and whispers something in his ear. He gives a brief, tight nod and goes inside while she turns to greet us. Merat’s charms seem to be working; Queen Anat and her courtiers instructed the princess well in wielding her influence.
“Did you learn anything at all in your search this morning?” I refer to the brief hunt for Paser’s uncle, including Merat in the question.
“Avaris holds many people,” Paser admits, sounding uncharacteristically dejected.
“It was like looking for a needle in a sandhill,” Reb says. “Good practice for traipsing off in search of a lost or hiding oracle who may or may not want to be found.”
I stop short. “What makes you think she does not want to be found?” If the oracle is deliberately in hiding, our task may be even more difficult than we imagine.
“Would you want people pestering you with questions on everything from when it’s the right time to plough a field, to who should preside over kingdoms?” Reb shakes his head. “Everyone, from farmers to pharaohs, demanding answers? What if you say something someone does not want to hear? Or what of the consequences if you are wrong? If it were me, I’d run and hide, too.”
