Menkaure #2

November 11, this year
Cairo, Egypt
7:15pm EET

“I’ve got you. Stay! Stay! Stay! Loche!” It is Julia’s voice.

A blurry speck of light sharpens into a thorn of white in the Egyptian sky. Edwin’s face is crowned with stars. He feels pressure on his shoulder, but no pain. To his left, Julia has both palms bearing down upon him.

“What—what are you doing?”

“You fainted,” she says.

“Yjb ‘an nasrae,” a voice says.

“Who’s there? Where—where are we?”

“That’s our guide, just ahead,” she replies. “I think he wants us to hurry.”

Memories, like heavy stones, tumble into his mind: Giza, desert sand, pyramids, must escape, Menkaure…

“Are you alright, Edwin?”

The child does not answer.

Julia says, “He’s very tired.” She slowly lets her hands ease the pressure, “How’s your shoulder?”

There is no sensation save a slight tingling. He moves to touch the puncture but finds nothing there but dried, flaking blood.

“I had no choice—I used the leaf, Loche. I used your father’s leaf to heal you.”

The pain is gone. “So it is true? The leaves can heal.”

“Yes,” she says. “It was—it was amazing. Just ama—”

“Yjb ‘an nasrae,” the guide hisses. “Yjb ‘an nasrae!”

“Can you walk?” Julia asks. “We’ve got to go.”

Loche sits up from the sand. Energy surges through his limbs. He blinks. Hopeful. Powerful. “I can,” he says.

Julia starts to repack the strewn contents of Loche’s bag. The Red Notebook, water bottle and other items she gathers out of the sand and secures them inside. She places the strap back over Loche’s head and motions to the guide who is crouching a few meters away in the dark. “After you.”

On the verge of sleep, Edwin staggers. Loche lifts him onto his back for a piggyback ride. “Not long now, Bug.”

The guide ducks low and runs. Julia, Loche and Edwin follow. The cold desert air tastes sweet. Jutting out and circling, the lights of Cairo and the laser light show fade. With each footfall forward the stars above seem to pierce and rend the black sky deeper.

“Look,” says Julia through running gasps.

“I see it.” Above Menkaure, like a splashed mist of silver paint, the trail of Julia’s constellation hovers over the apex. The lucida appears to blink—but only when it is positioned in one’s periphery.

He can hear Julia singing, breathy and quiet. “Just find that single star and watch it blink…”

Their guide takes a sharper turn now, his course circling back toward the dark side of the approaching pyramid. “No guard,” he says. “No guard here. Come.”

And no sign of Neil, Alexia and Gary. Loche searches the thick dark but can see nothing but a black horizon, and a blacker, approaching triangular colossus.

At the base the stones are waist-high. The climb will be tough. And long. The peak disappears into the cosmos. Stepping between Loche and the pyramid, the guide motions to the rising stairway to the stars. He points to his open palm. It is difficult to see the man’s facial expression in the dark, but after a moment, Loche understands.

“Of course,” Loche says, “payment.” Loche sets Edwin on the pyramid edge and rummages in his bag for the wallet that Corey gave him. His fingers brush over the Red Notebook, the energy bars and other items, but no wallet. “It’s not here,” he says.

“I hope it made it back into the bag,” Julia says. “It may be in the sand where you fell—”

The absurd notion of money at this moment wrinkles along Loche’s forehead. Finding nothing, he pulls his hands from the bag, unbuckles his wristwatch, passes it to the guide and shrugs. “It’s all we have,” he says.

The guide takes the watch, holds it close to his face and examines it. After a few moments he whispers, “Marr.” With a glance to the apex, to Loche’s face and then to the timepiece again, he says, “So be it. Shukraan.” Then he waves and points upward, “Eajil. Tslq. Tasalluq Alan.”

Loche turns and lifts Edwin atop the first block. He and Julia climb up beside him. Looking back, their guide is gone.

“I guess the watch was enough.”

“Hopefully,” Julia says. “Hopefully it didn’t insult him and he’s off to find security.”

“Let’s not wait to find out.”

Julia scrutinizes the steep rise. “Here we go again.”

Edwin begins to cry after they manage clambering over some thirty blocks. “I’m tired, Dad. I want to sleep. I want to sleep.”

Loche holds him and kisses his forehead—it tastes like dust and salt. “It won’t be long now. Let’s have a snack and see how we feel, okay?”

Julia is already handing Loche an opened energy bar and her water bottle. “Chocolate, peanut butter,” she tells Edwin. The boy takes the bar and bites into it. His tears subside as he eats.

Loche feels Julia’s hand caress his back.

“You okay?” she says.

“I feel strangely alert. It must be the properties of the leaf.” As he speaks he scans below. Nothing. A welcome breeze flutters into his open coat.

“Well, like Edwin, I could use some sleep, too.”

“It’s been a long day,” Loche says. “We’re at the halfway point by the look of it.”

“Then what?” Julia asks. “Somehow I don’t think we’re going to find Basil sitting up there.”

“I think you’re right,” Loche agrees. “But then, stranger things have happened.”

“And I know we shouldn’t celebrate just yet, but there’s been no sign of Albion’s people—no security either.”

From below, Loche hears a whisper, “Dr. Newirth?” It is a woman’s voice.

As Loche whirls toward the sound. His sword rings from the umbrella sheath.

“Fear me not, Dr. Newirth. I am Alexia Lerxt, Orathom Wis.”

Relieved, Loche raises his hand and waves. He’s unsure if the shrouded voice waves back.

“Gary and Neil are scaling the opposite faces. It is safe above. Proceed at will. But do hurry. We have eliminated three Endale Gen. Gary has spied seven more approaching from the North. We must hold the way. You must cross the apex before us. We will follow, if we are able, after tea.”

Turning, his little boy is staring up toward the apex tracing the cluster of crowning stars. Loche says, “Are you ready?”

The boy god in his mind:

—A thousand poems with each step.

The words come, soundlessly. Loche has trouble distinguishing if he indeed heard something or if he simply understood—a bridge between words and simple knowing.

—That is why we come. That is why we die.

Edwin’s little face is now tranquil. Loche wonders at him.

—You remember me, do you not?

His son’s visage transforms into the deity at the Center of Basil’s painting. Loche’s mouth begins to reply but feels the answer lift out of a thought:

—I do. What of my son, Edwin?

—We are here.

—Leave my son! Leave him be!

—Your son, like all sons, like all daughters, children, are heaven on Earth. I exist with them.

—Leave him with me!

—Not yet. We must end what you have begun. When it is done, we shall part.

—When what is done?

—Cross the omvide.

Edwin begins to cry again. “I want to sleep, Dad.”

—Cross the omvide, the thought forms.

“Come on,” he says lifting Edwin and lunging higher.

“Are you alright?” Julia asks.

Loche does not answer.

Fifteen minutes later Loche, Julia and Edwin stand a stone below the Menkaure omvide summit.

“Of all the pyramids, this is the one with no recorded destination, and a lengthy missing person’s list,” Julia says. “And Basil wanted us to come here.”

“The big, deep heavy,” Loche offers.

She smiles and looks skyward to her constellation. “At least the stars are familiar.” Their light is so clear, so close, Loche thinks that if he reached up he might pluck one from the night. With Edwin between them, the three hold hands, step to the top and start across.

“Lonwayro.”

The air sweetens.