Sunrise on the Mediterranean (6 page)

“No. It lives in the streets, on the boats that sail the Nile. It is a magic that anyone can hold in their hand.”

Cheftu frowned into the darkness. “This magic has been given to everyone?”

“No. Well, yes and no,” she said, sounding confused. “Through the TV I learned all about it. The TV uses it, too.” The confusion
faded from her voice, replaced by RaEm-style arrogance. “
I
could control lightning if I wanted to.”

Cheftu refrained from asking about the tee-vee. He’d heard Chloe mention it occasionally, though with her it was usually in
a derisive tone. His beloved did not seem as appreciative of her century as RaEm was. Nor had she ever mentioned this story
of a bird flying into the heavens with a key and unlocking lightning. It made no sense. There was a missing element here,
he was sure of it. What interpretation would be so apparent to Chloe? He wanted to ask her, to hold her while she thought,
to touch her while she spoke. Aii,
Chloe, where are you?
“What else about Chloe’s world fascinated you?” he asked.

“Rameses,” RaEm said promptly around her full mouth. “Serve me some more sushi and I’ll tell you.”

Because this was as close as RaEm came to being pleasant, Cheftu handed her another slab of fish. All that was left were scales
and head. Should he try to catch another? But it was night now, they needed to rest. Tomorrow he would get more food and ask
the oracular stones what they should do to survive—he didn’t want to reveal them to RaEm.

Chances of rescue were limited to the miraculous. It was wintertime; no one sailed the Aegean now. The waters were deadly.
Everyone from Odysseus to Saint Paul had tales of woe from trying to cross in this season. How many more had shipwrecked and
been forgotten?

He looked out at the limitless sea. Was Chloe out there somewhere? They’d always found each other, though this time Cheftu
feared it would be more challenging. RaEm was in the skin Chloe had been wearing. So what did his beloved look like? Apparently
the two women had traded bodies again, leaving RaEm with him and Chloe in 1996—Cheftu still felt a little awed at the date—on
the stretch of sand where RaEm claimed she’d been strolling.

Except Cheftu knew RaEm. It had been her natal day. He doubted her celebration had been walking alone on a stretch of sand.
She was lying to him, a reaction that was as natural and common to her as breathing. Nothing she said was to be trusted. Nothing.

“Rameses was glorious!” RaEm gushed. Again her voice was filled with excitement. Perhaps modern times had been the making
of RaEm. Was he judging her too harshly?

He bit back telling her that he had heard of Rameses— she obviously didn’t realize Cheftu was from her future, from Chloe’s
past, that according to Chloe Cheftu’s real name was well-known in her world. He knew of Rameses. Indeed, in his own century
Cheftu had walked through many a temple the smiling pharaoh had built.

RaEm’s voice was warm. “Many reigns after Pharaoh Hatshepsut, life! health! prosperity! there was a pharaoh named Rameses,”
she explained.
“Aii
, Cheftu, he was such a man, so magnificent! Egypt was magnificent with him! He built a huge temple before the Second Cataract,
where he paid homage to his wife. In Chloe’s childhood, the Nile was redirected, so that it wouldn’t hurt the temple Rameses
had built, the Abu Simbel.”

Cheftu froze. “They redirected the Nile?”

“Yep. They took this huge temple, this Abu Simbel, and moved it up.”

“Where? How?” He’d seen Abu Simbel, the monstrosity of it. How could it be moved, ever, save by the hand of
le bon Dieu
himself?

“Much funding came Frum-A-roundthwerld,” RaEm said. “I saw it on TV.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in. Did she even have a concept of the world being round? Did she know all the peoples
who inhabited the planet? She spoke as though the phrases were memorized. How lost she must have been in Chloe’s fast-paced
world of eating raw fish. “What exactly did you see?” Cheftu asked. She didn’t know what she was talking about, but the concept
was fascinating. Moving the temple of Abu Simbel?

“They took Rameses’ temple apart and rebuilt it on the cliff overlooking the lake they’d made from the Nile.” She sucked one
finger dry. “To have been in Rameses’ time, to be loved and honored in the shape of that temple! Imagine the jewelry his wife
had; the slaves, the power.”

He should have known her fervor stemmed from customary greed. However, he wouldn’t let her smallness bother him; RaEm was
but a temporary companion.

Chloe would keep her vow. Cheftu needed to keep alert for the green-eyed women who strayed across his path. “More sushi?”
He offered RaEm the head.

“Nay,” she said, recoiling. “You feed me offal?”

Cheftu sighed as he tossed the remnants in the water. RaEm spoke after a moment, her tone meditative. “Though I think there
is more to sushi than just seaweed and raw fish. An avocado.”

“What is that?”

“I don’t know, something you eat. I told you: I don’t know things, or facts outside language. I just know how she felt about
them. Avocado must be an emotional memory.”

“Chloe was emotional over avocado?”

“I want to be a consort, worshiped and adored by a powerful man,” RaEm said, changing the subject back to herself. “I want
to be remembered throughout history. Do you know how those moderns worship us? The Amazing Ancients, they say. They are in
wonder over how we built the pyramids, over why we mummified our dead. They live narrow, dark lives yet think we are fascinated
with death.” She shivered. “It is eerie how much they do not know, how unreal we are to them.”

“Did you think it was easier for you to understand them?” She fell silent, giving Cheftu a moment to marvel that he was having
a reasonable conversation with this woman. Of course, there was nothing to gain right now, nothing to barter for or with.
Only because she didn’t know about the stones. He shuddered to think of RaEm with that kind of power.

“Egypt is ruled by a tribe called Arabs, who have a celibate, childless god. I cannot find my roots in their eyes. They are
merchants and artisans, with no trace of Amun-Ra in their souls.”

Cheftu opened his mouth to agree with her, to relay his wonder when he’d arrived from nineteenth-century France and into the
people and culture he’d devoted his life to studying.

“If I had had the power, I would have wiped them all away,” she said. “Start all over again. Even with neon and electricity,
they were nothing special.”

He was stunned. “They are a people,” he said. “An entire nation.”

“They are groundskeepers,” she said. “They know nothing of real Egypt. Worshiping just one god, a god they can’t even see,
how could they?”

She didn’t know what she was talking about, Cheftu reasoned. She couldn’t.

“Phaemon, when he first woke, thought he was in the afterworld, so he fought the demons.”

Cheftu felt the blood leave his face. “But—”

“But he wasn’t,” RaEm said. “Of course, he killed half a dozen of them, gutting them as one would do to a demon, before he
realized it.” He felt her shrug. “Phaemon was distraught, but they were nothing but peasants.”

“How can you be so removed?” Cheftu whispered, horrified.

He felt RaEm’s gaze on his face. “Power is what matters. They had none, so they were of no consequence. They carried no talismans,
they knew no magic, they were nothing except fodder.”

The stones against his waist, his talismans, heated through his skin. Their warmth combated the chill this woman was giving
him. An icy bite greater than the winter wind. “They were human beings.”

“Haii!
They were as pebbles.”

Suddenly Cheftu was grateful he was here with RaEm and Chloe was safely gone. RaEm was a demon. He would stay awake, guard
against her. He hoped someone, preferably ugly and aged, though competent, was guarding Chloe in this Egypt that RaEm would
gladly destroy.
Be safe, beloved.

M
Y INTERNAL LEXICON
woke me up with the definition for
teraphim.
Images of statuettes—Lladros, Precious Moments, Hummels, and anything from the Franklin Mint— flashed in a slide show before
my eyes.

B’seder
, so they were the dustables, the collectibles, of this day and age. No, the lexicon said, they were more. They were little
personal gods, good-luck charms, and the wealth of the household, all wrapped into one easily transportable object.

The Pelesti
teraphim
that had been burned by the highlanders were not only the little gods the soldiers had brought to the battlefield for good
fortune, but also the enormous totem statues the priests took into battle. These images were positioned on a hill overlooking
the field of engagement to serve as encouragement for the soldiers. At the end of the day, or battle, the statues were loaded
on their palanquins and carted back to the temple.

What a way to wake up, bashed over the head with an encyclopedia.

You ask, I tell. You wanted to know
, it scribbled on the blackboard in my brain.

Yep, I did. But did you have to tell me so early? I rolled over for a few hours’ more sleep.

The rest of the day had passed uneventfully in perfect safety. Uneventful because people kept showing up; in perfect safety
because there were priests everywhere, carrying swords. I’d checked them all out, but not a one was Cheftu. Unless, of course,
he had stepped into someone else’s body this time. But no one even had amber eyes.

The Egyptians believed our eyes were the windows to our souls. Perhaps that was why I always had my own eyes? To not have
them would be not to be myself? On this theory, Cheftu would be here, possibly in another body but definitely with his bronzy
brown eyes.

Additionally, I was learning that escape wasn’t going to be easy. Each time I thought I was alone, another person would come
in, seeking my wisdom and words, leaving me little gifts. I’ve played the part of oracle before, so I just played it again.

The overriding concern was when Dagon would get over being mad at them. Would I intercede? The answer was always yes, though
I had no idea to what I was agreeing. It didn’t matter, since I was leaving during naptime.

My, or rather RaEm’s, cheap rayon clothing had dried stiff with salt water. My skin felt like scales, and my hair was grimy.
I wanted a bath before my escape. The little handmaiden brought me a bath, then washed my hair. She seemed mystified that
I had legs. So I spun some elaborate story about needing salt water in order to regain my fishtail. It seemed to comfort her,
but now I really had to leave. I didn’t want her to throw me back, just as a test.

She massaged my back and neck while I thought.

I’d come through water, just as the lintel had predicted. Terrified that I’d misunderstood some part of it and wouldn’t be
able to get back to Cheftu, I had memorized the passage during my few hours in modern times:

A portal for those of the twenty-third power, those who serve in the priesthood of the Unknown. For those, the power exists
on earth, mentored by the heavens and directed through the waves. The waters will guide, they will purify, they will offer
salvation. From the twenty-third decan to the twenty-third decan this doorway remains.

So was the actual portal beneath the sea in some way? Was that the only way in and out of this time period? Just how many
of us were floating around in the ether of chronology, displaced?

Chronologically challenged, I amended, coining the phrase. I was drifting to sleep under the mastery of Tamera’s strong hands,
enveloped in the perfume of singed coriander.

“Sea-Mistress, are you ready to dress?” I woke with a jolt and looked over my shoulder. Immediately I noticed that the day
was almost gone. Shit! I was here for one more evening? Could I leave tonight? “If the Sea-Mistress would care to dress as
we do, we could clothe her?” the girl said. The garments I’d had, a blue miniskirt, silver velvet V-neck shirt, and sandals,
were cleaned and ready for me to wear. However, those clothes were small and good only for a discotheque. My necklace, sadly,
had faded.

“Sea-Mistress,
haDerkato
, what would you like to wear?”

I sat up, covering myself with the linen sheet. My mind was sluggish, my heart still pounding from waking so abruptly. “To
what?” I asked.

“The evening’s feast,
haDerkato.”

Hadn’t they had one last night? One thing about ancient people, they never let a workday get in the way of a feast. “I’m attending?”

“Ken, haDerkato.
First there is a small ritual at sea, then the feast will be at the palace.” Her honey eyes were bright.

“You dress me,” I said. This was wonderful! I would get out of the temple with them and mingle in with the masses before I
made my getaway to Egypt. Or perhaps I would run into Cheftu here, in Ashqelon. Maybe he wasn’t serving in the temple, which
was why we hadn’t found each other yet.

“Dress me like you,” I said, smiling. She plucked at her dress. It was a simple, fitted sheath in a dark green. A sash of
gold, rust, and green stripes encircled her waist, delineating the curve to her hips. An armband of bronze emblazoned with
swirls matched her necklace and drop earrings. Around her head she wore a headband, whose tassels brushed her shoulders. She
was barefoot, tiny feet with shell pink nails. She was lovely and elegant.

And a Philistine?

If I were in Ashqelon, if these were the Philistines, then I knew only a few things about them. They had lived in five cities—Ashqelon
being one of them, Gaza another—and they were supposed to be pretty. Delilah, the woman who had nagged Samson to death, had
wooed him first with her beauty. Looking at Tamera, I considered for the first time that maybe the story hadn’t been a fable.

“Ach, ken,”
she said. I recognized “Ah yes,” but as the words entered my ears, the lexicon changed them from the language she spoke,
using visuals. I saw a Barbie, then a Ken doll. The Barbie exploded, but Ken remained, shaking his head up and down.
Ken
, I surmised hesitantly, was actually “yes”? The Ken doll smiled. The
ach
was a guttural I’d heard throughout my life in Arabic. What language did the Philistines speak?