Expecting Miracles

By Karen L. Kobylarz

Ra, Sun-Lord, glared down upon Gubal-By-the-Sea. I felt His eye, a fiery brand against my back, despite my white linen dress and the shade of the house before me. And there was that other eye, too, lingering in the West. No heat to Him, just a presence, a white fleck, a mere fingernail, marring a cloudless morning sky. Thuti, Master Magician and Scribe.

I reached for my amulet, a small gold-plaited ibis dangling from a chain around my neck. It marked me as His. Sit-Thuti, woman of the Moon-Lord. Not wife, priestess, or concubine. Just servant. Ha! More like slave. Damn Him for making me leave Kamt.

I looked skyward and returned His glare and Ra's. But neither god blinked--do they ever? The sea came to Ra's aid, casting back His light, battering my gaze to a squint.

Gods: one; mortal: nothing--the usual score.

I turned back to the matter at hand--the house before me.

Hands... I looked down at my own, fine-lined with age and dark as sandalwood. Commoner's hands, their softer brown baked by years. Years away from awnings and sunshades that had once guarded them, from oils and perfumes that had touched them, from the touch of gold, from Pharaoh touch. And Merira . . .

Merira with his mischievous smile and eyes that always captured Ra's light despite their darkness. Merira with his tiny hands and fingers thin as papyrus reeds--fingers twining with mine, tugging my arm. "Come on, Mother! Let's play a game!"

Bah! Enough of Merira and richer days. These old hands held nothing now but a folded papyrus scrap. And a silver signet ring on my right hand--a remnant from the past I'd never surrender.

But enough of the past. I turned my thoughts to the present and the slip of papyrus. Once more I unfolded it and read, "Greetings to Lady Sit-Thuti from the Royal Scribe Amunemopet. I write from Gubal in the Fenkhu-lands and request your help in a matter of great urgency. Your work among our people is known to me. I dare trust no other. Come with haste to Gubal, to the house of Ithobaal the merchant."

So here I was--with haste, indeed. Fifteen days down the river, ten more along the eastern sea coast. Not as hasty as Amunemopet's letter, perhaps--scribbled down in ten heartbeats, judging from the shaky script. Here, at the house of Ithobaal.

House? Two watch towers sat upon its surrounding wall, a bronze gate served as its entrance, and above all this, the "house" itself, its top story peeking above the enclosure. I slipped the letter into my belt and knocked at the gates. "I am Lady Sit-Thuti of Kamt," I called. "I--"

The gates swung and a guard ushered me in, into the courtyard of Ra Himself, it seemed. White bricks lined the walkways and the walls, capturing the Sun-Lord's rays and flinging them back.

I blinked and shook my head. Footsteps thudded against the pavement. I turned towards the sound and saw a man clad in the pleated kilt my countrymen favored. His hair, too, was like that of the Kamtiu--dark and short-cropped, his features sharp, his skin the fairer shade of Kamtiu nobility. Amunemopet?

"Madam, welcome."

The words grated against my ear--an awkward mix of Kamtiu and Fenkhu. "Lord Ithobaal?" I guessed. Where in the twelve regions of the Netherworld was Amunemopet? "I am Lady Sit-Thuti--"

"A magic-worker from Kamtiu-land?"

"Yes--"

"Come." The word was sharp--a general's command to his troops. Ithobaal beckoned and with a precise military turn, marched toward the towering monstrosity that was his home.

I followed him. Amunemopet was probably inside--ill, hurt, or engaged in whatever urgent matter his letter spoke of. We walked down a corridor flanked by gaping doorways--sixteen in all--each leading to a room as white and blinding as the courtyard. We turned a corner and started up a staircase. Stairs, endless stairs--I half expected to step into the abode of Ra when we reached the top. But instead, there were double wooden doors--doors covered with symbols and scribblings and sealed by an metal bar.

A prison. My heartbeat thudded in my ears, and I reached for my amulet. Surely Amunemopet wasn't... Thuti be merciful. As Ithobaal unbarred the door, I stepped forward and scanned the etchings. Words in Kamtiu, Fenkhu, Hittite, Apiru...all the tongues of the world. I peered at the nearest one: Baal, Lord of Gubal, King of Gods, Prince of the Earth, bind all evil and protect--

The bar came free with a clang and the door swung "Come," Ithobaal said again, waving me in.

I went inside, skin prickling with every step. The ceiling hovered a mere hand's breadth above my head, and in the center of the room sat two chairs and a small table strewn with papyrus sheets. Two ink pots rested there, too, and an oil lamp, its golden flame dwindling beneath the mightier orange glares of the torches that perched in the room's corners.

On the far wall, two thin lines of light, betrayed a window--one covered by a reed mat. I moved closer to that window, saw a pool of sunlight gathered on the floor beneath it. And resting in that pool, a pair of feet, so small--

"Bay!" Ithobaal stalked into the room, past me, heading for the window. The reed mat stirred, and the feet were soon joined by knees, arms, a head. "Bay," Ithobaal growled again, and a boy scurried out from behind the mat, heading towards the table.

He stopped when he saw me and stared with wide, wary eyes. Dark eyes, murky as river-water beneath a twilight sky, deep-set in a round, fine-boned face. Fine-boned like the rest of him--arms, legs, fingers. A willowy reed that the slightest breeze could break.

Like my Merira.

"My son," Ithobaal said in perfect Kamtiu for once. But--ack!--the words still sounded wrong. I remembered them well, their feel on my tongue, so soft, evoking a smile. My son. Merira...

Memories stirred clear and sharp--a dagger-twist in my heart. I winced at the pain, shook it away. My son...

Those words brought no smile to Ithobaal's lips. "My only one," the Fenkhu merchant continued. "A weakling."

"Sir," I said, tearing my eyes from the boy. I'd come for Amunemopet, not some child. "I have a letter--"

"Sit, Bay!" Ithobaal waved his son into a chair before I could finish and turned back to me. "Come and watch." He motioned to the table and moved toward it himself. He stood beside the boy, selected a clean sheet of papyrus and placed it and an ink pot before his son. "Write!"

The boy sat bolt upright. His cheek twitched; he blinked; he picked up a reed pen, fiddled with it, held it in one hand, then the other, moved it back again.

With a curse, Ithobaal snatched the pen away, dipped it in ink, and pressed it back into the boy's right hand. "Write! In Kamtiu!" He turned to me. "Recite something."

Recite something? I stared into those Fenkhu eyes of his, darker than his son's. Not twilight-gray but black as a jackal's. Who in Ra's name did he think he was? "Are you Pharaoh to be giving me orders?" I demanded, clasping my amulet and willing the power of god and goddess into my gaze.

Ithobaal lowered his eyes. "Please, Madam"--his voice softened--"let him write. A demon is here."

Demon? A matter of great urgency...Amunemopet had said... Once more, my skin prickled. I took a step back, clasped my amulet, eyed the boy. He glanced up, his eyes flicking first to his father, then to me. I met their gaze and took in the lean face, the narrow shoulders, the spindly arms. A slender child, yes, but--

I moved closer, searching for signs. No sweat beaded his brow, no flush tainted his skin to mark the demon's presence. His mouth didn't froth like sea water in a storm; no screams passed his lips. Not like Merira. This boy said nothing, just stared and looked away, the fingers of his right hand twitching against the pen.

"Please," Ithobaal urged. "You will see. Recite."

So I did--the first thing that entered my thoughts: a prayer to Thuti. After all, He brought me here.

When the boy finished, Ithobaal snatched up the page, examined it, and shoved it into my hands. "The demon shows itself," he said, tapping the page with a fingertip. "See?"

Yes, I saw. An ibis--marking the name of Thuti--looked like a sick snake, and other signs, going this way and that, as if a vulture had attacked the ink pot and scattered the contents with its claws. Words arched and dipped, started out large and ended small, and some letters were backwards... Ack! Easier to read Amunemopet's hasty script. A demon's work? Perhaps. Though of a kind I'd not seen before.

"It has possessed him since birth," Ithobaal went on, in his stilted Kamtiu. "It killed his mother and made him an idiot. My son knows this language, knows other languages. But he cannot write. I pray to gods, I buy spells." He gestured to the door and pulled out some strangely-wrought amulet from beneath his tunic. "I call physicians, priests, scribes. But all fail."

Fail. Familiar word and old friend. I felt my lips twist into a grimace at the sound of it. Fail. What the royal physicians did to Merira... What I did to Merira...

Slowly, I looked up from the papyrus, looked at Ithobaal and his eyes--the dark, skulking eyes of a jackal. But I also saw a glimmer there, a pleading, or was it the glint of unshed tears?

I glanced at the paper again, at the writing. "And this is the only sign of the demon? No sickness?"

"None," Ithobaal answered.

Well, it couldn't be that powerful a demon then, could it? Not like the one--

Bah! There I was again, thinking of Merira. Merira and the spell--a spell for banishing demons. I scanned the room, searching for what I would need. "I'll require a jar of water and a cup."

Ithobaal gave a curt nod. "You shall have them." And he left, the door thudding behind him.

The boy winced at the sound. He still sat at the table, hands folded, fingers twitching, head down, and eyes darting this way and that. Looking everywhere except at me. I pulled up a chair and sat beside him. "Bay," I began, but the thunk of the door interrupted us. A serving girl came to my side, gave me the water and cup, and departed as hastily as she'd come. The door closed again.

Thunk. Groan. Bang. What the--?

This time the boy wasn't the only one to give a start. Those sounds... Ithobaal had replaced the bar, locked the door from the outside.... The outside, where all the spells were carved... I stared at the door, its inner face as barren as Kamt's desert sands. Regions of the Netherworld! Those spells--I should've taken more time to read them.

My fingers twisted, curling my hands into fists. Great Thuti! What had He and that accursed Amunemopet and gotten me into?. I took a deep breath, slowly let it go, and turned back to the boy. Solution? Simple: help him, then leave. "Bay," I said, "I'm going to do some magic."

Magic. The word worked miracles by itself. He looked up at me at last, eyes wide and--

Wizened. And not just his eyes. His face--I saw lines there, creasing his brow, gathering under his eyes, tugging the corners of his lips. I looked away, picked up papyrus and pen, and pulled the ink pot closer to me. "I'm going to write down a spell," I told him. "I'll also be saying it out loud, so I need you to be very quiet. If I make the slightest mistake, we'll both regret it. Understand?"

He nodded and I put pen to papyrus. "Get back! Retreat, O dangerous one, in the name of Thuti, Lord of Magic...." And as I spoke and wrote, I felt a presence. Not the cold, damp, river-water-in-winter touch of a demon, but one with the fiery intensity of Ra. A stare, a set of eyes fixed on my hand, taking in each movement, each stroke, committing them to heart. I finished the last line and glanced at Bay.

He leaned across the table now, eyes fixed on my work, an all too familiar gleam in his gaze. A gleam of wanting, needing... How'd you do that, Mother? Show me how!

But those were Merira's words. Dead Merira. Dead because--

I turned back to the spell, checking each word. One careless mistake, one wrong word, a misspelling could be a slip of a knife. A slip...a small wound... He'd been skinning a gazelle that he'd caught while hunting... It's nothing, Mother. Just a scratch. A scratch, a doorway for demons, infection, fever, death...

"Oh!" A cry, barely above a whisper, tore at the memory and sent the pieces scattering. "I wish I could write like that." Bay's voice, soft and a little strangled, as if Ithobaal were still lingering over him, commanding him to write.

I blinked, looked at him again, and found his gaze meeting mine. "Could you teach me, Lady?" he asked in smoother Kamtiu than his father possessed. "I've heard stories about your people. Is it true that you're all magicians who can turn sand into grain and rivers into gold?"

Rivers into gold? Dear gods, what a tale! I smiled at the thought of it. "So someone's been telling you stories," I said. Probably Amunemopet. I reached out for the water jug and the cup and set them between us. One more step and the spell would be done. "Would you like to hear another?"

Bay nodded, the lines fading from his face.

"See here?" I reached for my amulet, removed it, and held it out to him.

His eyes widened, took it in, then flicked to the ring on my right hand. "Is it real gold, Lady?"

"This is, yes," I replied, holding up the amulet and turning it so he could see the back. "See the inscription here? It is the name of a famous priest of Thuti--Djadjaemankh. A thousand years ago he came to the aid of Pharaoh's wife, who had lost a piece of gold in the river. Djadjaemankh stood on the riverbank and chanted a spell."

I paused for a moment, picked up the jar, and filled the cup. Bay's eyes stayed fixed, watching my hands, taking in these mundane moves as if they were magic themselves. I sat back in my chair and took a deep breath, preparing for Djadjaemankh's spell and my own.

"'Get back, O waters,'" I said, quoting the old magician. The spell had worked for him and others a million times over a thousand years. By Ra and Thuti, if it wouldn't fail me now... "'In the name of Thuti, rise up!'" And droplets, like sea-spray, rose from the cup--first one, then two...ten...twenty...hundreds...

"Oh!" With a cry that was more an exhaling of breath, Bay sat back in his chair, his eyes no longer on me, but on the misty cloud hovering a hand's width above the cup's brim.

"So Pharaoh's wife was able to retrieve her charm," I murmured, my muscles going limp with relief. Success, no more failure. "And then--" I wrapped up the tale with a snap of my fingers. Bay gave a start, and the water slipped back into the cup.

"I want to do that!" The boy was perched on the seat's edge now. "Can you teach me? Please?"

Please, Mother! Please...

"Patience!" I said, dismissing Merira's voice with a wave of my hand. Merira... Why did this boy always manage to summon him--memories banished to the nether regions of my heart?

Bay flinched and looked away, his cheek beginning to twitch again. I swallowed hard; if only I'd swallowed my sharp words as well. "Perhaps I will," I said. "But first, there's something I must tell you about Kamtiu magic."

Magic--the word cast its spell again. He looked up at me.

"Sometimes a spell needs more than words." I picked up the papyrus containing the spell against demons, folded it up, placed it into the cup, let the water soak up its essence. "Sometimes it has to be taken in--literally swallowed." I stared at Bay and held his gaze for many heartbeats. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Lady," he said.

I turned back to the cup, stirred its contents. The water darkened to gray, a sign that it had absorbed the spell. I removed the papyrus and slid the cup towards Bay.

His face twitched again, this time into a grimace. But he picked up the cup and drained it quickly. Now only waiting remained.

There should've been signs--a skin prickling chill, a hissing shriek, an unexpected wind that would tear through the room and set the torches quivering. There should've been something. But instead--

Nothing.

Bay sat at the table, his hands folded. "Is it gone now?" he asked.

If only I knew for sure. The spell should've worked. I'd checked it--double-checked it, word for word. The water spell had worked... "Let's see," I said, sifting through the papyrus for a blank scrap. I found one and placed it in front of Bay. "Try the prayer to Thuti again."

Bay sat up straight, lips curling with the beginnings of a smile. He snatched up the pen, dipped it in ink, and began scribbling away.

Scribbling. I moved closer to see his writing, and that's exactly what it was. Vulture's scratch, same as before. Bay saw it, too. "No!" he cried, flinging down the pen. "It's not fair! I know how the words should look here." He looked up at me and placed a hand over his heart. "But they get mixed up between here--" He placed a hand over his eyes, banishing a few tears in the process. "--and here." His hand balled into a fist and slammed against the table. Tears poured down his face.

Oh, dear gods--that look. It's not fair, Mother! All my brothers have hunting knives! Why won't Father give me one? And, Merira, if I'd known that that knife would bring you death, I never would have talked him into giving you one...

I put my arms around him, held him close. Not Merira--Bay. His tears dripped on my shoulder, soaked through my dress. Wet linen clung to me like a second skin. "There, there," I soothed and blinked back a few tears of my own. "Patience. Let's try again." I let him go, picked up the pen, and held it out to him. "Write slowly."

Bay swallowed, blinked away his tears, and picked up the pen. He pressed it to paper, brow furrowing in concentration. And each stroke came--one...after...the other--as if he were pulling teeth from a crocodile's mouth, trying hard not to get bitten.

I peered over his shoulder, eyed his work. The lines rippled slightly like water stirred by wind, but-- "See?" I said, setting his first attempt beside the second.

His eyes moved from one to the other, and he looked up again at me. "It is better! The spell worked!" He clapped his hands and grinned, his voice tinged with a certainty that I could only wish to feel. The signs--Thuti preserve us--why were there no signs?

My face must've mirrored my thoughts. "Didn't it?" Bay's voice quivered and so did his smile.

Again I studied his writing--his first copy, then his second. "If there was a demon," I told him, "it should be gone. But I haven't felt it leave...." Indeed, when did I feel it? The only presence I'd ever sensed was--

I stared at the boy, into those gray eyes, gray with green specks--or were they blue?--like Kamt's river--ageless, timeless, a darkness even in daytime. Strange child... Amunemopet's "matter of great urgency."

My eyes traveled back to the papyrus and Bay's own shaky script, now not unlike--

Amunemopet's? My hand reached for my belt, for the note tucked behind it. I pulled out the slip of papyrus, set it down beside the others.

Click. Thunk. "Well?" Ithobaal's voice. I looked up and saw him standing in the doorway. "The demon is gone?"

I took a deep breath. "In a manner of speaking, yes," I replied and returned my attention to Amunemopet's note, to the line, "Greetings to Lady Sit-Thuti..." Thuti. I turned now to the prayer, found the god's name. The writing--a perfect match. Demon, indeed. "You see," I began, turning back to Ithobaal, "there never was--"

"Don't, Lady," Bay's voice whispered in my ear. His hand clasped mine, squeezed tight. "Please. He won't--"

"Never was?" Ithobaal echoed, a perplexed scowl twisting his features. "There was a demon," he persisted.

I stared at him--this man and his talk of demons.

"You did magic and now it is gone?"

So that was it. A little magic and--poof!--problem's gone. You've got your miracle. "No," I replied. "What I said was--"

"Stop, please! Dakhamunzu--"

Ker-thunk!

That word. That sound, coming from behind. My heart paused, then quickened. I sat up, turned around, my hand racing to my amulet. The reed mat covering the window had fallen to the floor, unveiling a twilight sky. And Him, a touch of gold in the darkness--Thuti, watching me still.

"Dakhamunzu." That word, whispered again. One I hadn't heard since--since I'd left Pharaoh's court. But how could I have stayed after Merira was gone? All those halls and chambers and gardens summoning memories of my son.

"Dakhamunzu." Great Royal Wife. Bay's voice murmured again. How could he know? I stared out at Thuti, my fingers tightening against my amulet, and the scrape of metal against metal banished all need for questions. My signet ring brushing against my amulet. Its markings had betrayed me at last.

I turned to Ithobaal. "May I speak to Bay alone for a moment?" He gave a curt nod. "Well, Bay?" I said once his father had gone. "Or should I call you"--I slid his most recent writing and the note towards him--"Amunemopet?"

Bay lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry. But I dreamed... He told me to do it. He said you would help me." He nodded toward the window and the single star hovering in the sky. "There's no demon--other people told my father that, too. But he won't listen, and he won't let me out. Not until he thinks the demon's gone." Tears brimmed his eyes again. He blinked them away and stared at me with the unblinking, soulful gaze of a hound begging for scraps at the dinner table.

That look--it spoke: Take me with you.

Take him with me, back to Kamt. Teach him, raise him, as I did Merira. And to lose him--it would only take a slip of a knife. Like Merira.

"Please." A voice--Bay's, not Merira's.

I glanced around the room one last time, took in the walls, the torches, the low ceiling, the barred door. The door--where Ithobaal waited outside.

Ithobaal and his words: A demon is here.... It killed his mother and made him an idiot.

An idiot who lured me from Kamt, and discovered the past I thought I'd hidden so well. Your son, Ithobaal. Your son.

"The demon is gone, sir," I told the merchant. "But a full recovery will take time. If I take him to Kamt, he'll have the care of the finest magicians in the world." And Ithobaal agreed, ordered us to leave at first light.

So when night's blackness faded to dawn's pinks and grays, we passed down dimly lit halls, through the white-washed courtyard, and into a city still wrapped in sleep. A single shaft of light pierced the East--Ra, Himself, illuminating the path ahead. And before us, Thuti, a pale sliver hovering above the western horizon, guiding us toward the harbor, the sea--toward Kamt and home.