Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght (47 page)

Were her twins still alive?

Her gaze went to Apollodorus and she met the compassion in his dark eyes. The flickering of torchlight played against his black pupils, now the flash of lightening in a dark angry sky. She let everything fall away as she stared deeper at the swirling black clouds and a desert.

Selene’s face, then Alexander’s, sprung up.

Comforting arms cloaked in gray enclosed the children and a lock of golden hair brushed across Selene’s cheek. The storm clouds swirled and decomposed back into the reflected torchlight on her grandfather’s eyes.

She felt her own welling up as a sob of relief broke from her chest.

“They’re safe,” she clutched at her grandfather’s hands for a moment and saw the relief in his face. He had seen the vision too.

“Thank the Gods!” She brushed the tears from her cheeks and the twist in her gut loosened a bit.

She looked back at the gilded walls with their rows of hieroglyphics and the vision she had experienced on the eve of Actium, of the Goddess hidden deep in the woods with the serpent as her companion rose up in her consciousness. Perhaps when the Lady emerged from her time of hiding in the woods, Selene, or one of her bloodline, would come here, and with the utterance of God’s true name, all would be revealed again.

Isis let it be so!

Cleopatra turned to her loyal friends. “It’s still possible for you to escape.” She pointed to a corridor partially obscured by a statue of Anubis, The Opener of the Way. “That passage leads directly to the sea. I have a small boat waiting in the little cove behind the palace.”

“And where would we go?” asked Charmion.

“There are places still,” said Cleopatra, “distant corners of the earth where even Rome cannot reach.”

“We wish to go with you, Isis,” said Iris solemnly. “There is no better place for us.”

Cleopatra hesitated. With her children still alive, they would need a teacher, someone to help them grow to their full powers. She looked from Iris to Charmion. But which to chose? The dark Goddess or the light?

Her gaze was drawn to Iris. In this time of coming darkness she could feel dawning in all its bloody excess, her children would have need of the powers of Nephthys.

“Iris, you must go. “

Iris shook her head, anguish twisting her fair features. “Never! Please, let me stay with you!”

Cleopatra took her priestess’s hands gently. “Selene and Alexander are still alive. They will need your wisdom and perhaps your protection. Find them and watch over them––even if it must be from the shadows.” She gripped Iris’s hands tighter. “Please, do this for me.”

Iris bit her trembling lip and looked at the floor. After a moment she said, “I will guard them with my life and teach them all I know.”

Cleopatra kissed Iris’s flushed cheek and looked lovingly at the young woman whose star-like eyes burned with emotion. “You have brought me more comfort than you know with your beautiful voice, and because the Goddess you serve dwells in a darkness forbidden to me in this lifetime, you have defended me when I could not defend myself. I feel nothing but love and gratitude towards you.”

Iris blinked back tears. Cleopatra had never once mentioned the terrible chaos she had caused with her spell so many years before. Though the Queen forgave her, she had never forgiven herself. But now, at her mistress’s words, something heavy inside of her seemed to lift. It was the final gift of healing from the woman who had been her mother, more than her mistress, in this lifetime.

Iris’s pressed her forehead to the floor before Cleopatra, then turned to hurry down the passage which led to the small boat.

“Iris, wait!” Cleopatra ran to her priestess and unclasped the fabulous emerald and turquoise pectoral which hung heavy across her breasts. She quickly fastened it around Iris’s slender neck and then covered her priestess’s shoulders with a length of deep purple silk from her store of rare fabrics, hiding the necklace from view. Apollodorus stepped forward with a small chest filled to the brim with glittering jewels and heavy gold coins, placing it in Iris’s hands.

“Now go, or it will be too late!” commanded Cleopatra.

Iris took one parting glance at her Queen, then gathering the treasure box to her chest, disappeared into the dark passage leading to the sea.

Cleopatra stood for a moment watching Iris go. The priestess would be the last one to escape.

She turned to Charmion. “Is all in readiness?”

“Yes, Queen of Heaven.” The priestess brought forward a basket of thick purple figs.

Cleopatra stared at the basket as if hypnotized. “Apollodorus, you know all that must be done?”

“You may rely on me,” he said, but his voice shook.

She looked up into his dear face. Tears formed in his deep black eyes.

“Grandfather,” she took his hands and squeezed them tight. “You must be strong just a short while longer. You, who have been my greatest support ever since I was a child, be strong and help me this one last time.”

He raised her hands to his lips and said in blessing, “May the Gods guide you safely on your journey and may we meet again beyond the misty river.”

“So be it,” she whispered.

Cleopatra turned to Charmion. A queen was allowed so few true friends; always someone wanted something, plotted some scheme, or stood in awe trembling in the presence of the mighty Goddess. But as Cleopatra looked at Charmion’s serene face, she understood no words need pass between them. Charmion knew her heart at this moment as well as she always had. Cleopatra embraced her friend. Charmion’s warmth and strength surrounding her, giving Cleopatra the courage she needed.

Finally, she allowed herself to go to Antony. Fresh tears pricked her eyes as she looked at his quiet face, his breathless body laid still on the dais. She crawled up next to him and lay with her arms encircling his broad shoulders, her face buried in his cold neck.

Let the burdens of the crown and mortality fall away. Too much was wrong in the world. Her mind spun with it all.

For all of her life she had gone on faith because she could feel the smile of the Goddess, warming her like the sun, and where she went crops grew bounteous and Egypt flourished.

What had gone wrong?

She could no longer understand the design of the Gods. Was it she who had failed them or the other way around?

Apollodorus murmured. “Octavian is coming.”

She sat up. Her grandfather was right. She could feel Octavian approaching down the hidden passage with his men to take her in chains.

Mentally preparing herself, Cleopatra held out her hand to Charmion. “Give me the basket.”

Charmion hesitated a moment, then placed it in her Queen’s lap and quietly backed away.

Cleopatra gazed into the basket and began to speak low melodious words, conjuring the cobra from its sleep under the ripe purple figs. Slowly, as she murmured to it, the serpent rose up, its regal head flared open in all its glory. It slithered and coiled around her arm. Cleopatra and the old king were long time friends and had been through many magical rituals together and the cobra, who had been the sacred protector of the pharaohs since the Time before Time, was used to the Queen’s humming voice. His cool black skin slid along the inside of her arm. His flaring head wrapped around her elbow where her tender flesh and the veins and arteries lay exposed to the cobra’s fangs.

She took a deep breath, preparing for the bite.

The cobra struck swiftly, the burning venom almost immediately turning into an intoxicating heat which spread through her body, washed along her bloodstream with the ever slower beating of her heart. The room disintegrated into tiny dots of sparkling color, shining like diamond dust, swirling in the air all around her.

She fell back so slowly, caught out of time, gently reclining against Antony's peaceful form. Her breath hardly came anymore, but with the surge of serpent’s venom to her heart, the strains of something so lovely, so familiar began to reverberate through her, growing and spreading, until the Song of the universe drowned out everything else, and there were only the shivering cords of the stars and sigh of the winds; the chorus of all the earth’s flowers and trees. Beneath it all, the beauty of every living heart, and the soft thrumming of the womb of the earth and all the other planets; the thrilling keys of all material and ethereal coming together in a celestial chorus so beautiful, her soft lips spread into a smile of ecstasy.

A sigh of pure joy escaped her, as her last breath was carried away gently into the beauty which had been too great, even for a woman half divine, to fully experience while she lived.

***

When Octavian, now with a troop of heavily armed men at his back, returned to the tomb, he stopped at the entrance and stood gaping.

The great vaulted chamber glowed with the light of hundreds of candles reflecting off the golden walls and the heavy scent of myrrh incense floated across the air in tendrils of smoke like ghostly serpents. Upon a couch of gold Cleopatra lay as still as a statue. She was dressed in robes of layered silver tissue, as finely wrought as spiderwebs which gleamed and sparkled against her dusky skin. She was ablaze with more jewels than Octavian had ever seen in one place, from her glittering diamond encrusted sandals, to the ropes of soft shimmering white pearls and sea-green emeralds which hung around her neck.

Charmion had lovingly combed out her shining black hair and it fell across the soft curve of her breast, where her arms had been crossed in the traditional pose of the deceased pharaohs. She was crowned with the diadem of Isis, and clutched in her hands she held the crook and flail, the symbols of dominion over Upper and Lower Egypt. Golden powder and dark kohl lined her eyes which shone like polished jade gazing up into eternity.

Octavian narrowed his eyes. Her peaceful form seemed to emanate a faint glow around her. Or was that simply the reflection of the candles off Cleopatra’s jewels and silver gown?

At the foot of her Queen, Charmion sat on the floor, one dark arm curled around the couch’s leg for support as her head fell back against her shoulder, a sleepy, otherworldly expression clouding her elegant face.

Enraged, Octavian stepped forward and grasped her chin in his hand. “Was this well done of your lady?”

She only smiled, her eyes dreamily staring into his, as if she beheld worlds and worlds before her and not Octavian’s angry pinched expression. “Extremely well,” she drawled, “and as became the descendant of so many Pharaohs.”

Octavian raised his hand to strike her, but Charmion’s head fell back and she slipped gently from his grasp to lie motionless on the floor.

Rage gripped Octavian. For a moment he thought he would go mad with fury. He turned to his men. “Destroy this place!”

But to his astonishment, the soldiers shifted on their feet and looked down. None of them moved to follow his command.

“Well? What is it?” he asked.

An old veteran stepped forward. “Caesar, forgive us, but this is Lord Antony’s tomb. Many of us served him. Let us leave him to an honorable death.”

Octavian stared daggers at the veteran. “An honorable
Egyptian
death?”

The old soldier looked down and no one dared say any more, but Octavian, who had gotten where he was in part by reading people, sensed this was not his battle to win. “Very well. We shall, in our mercy, though he was a traitor to Rome, allow Antony the interment he requested in his will.”

The soldiers looked relieved.

Octavian swallowed his anger. He would pay these men back later after he brought others to destroy the tomb and strip it of its treasures. “Well? Return to the palace. You have plenty to occupy you there,” he snapped.

When his legionnaires had gone, Octavian stood for one final moment looking at his enemies. Never mind their splendid tomb with its fabulous jewels and carved statues. He had won and no one would ever stand in his way again.

He picked up a sparkling diamond the size of his thumb which lay discarded on the floor. He fingered the gem, then looked back upon the majesty of Cleopatra and Antony for the last time, their bodies unearthly and still in the glowing light. With a curse her gripped the diamond in his hand and marched out, leaving the tomb in otherworldly silence.

***

When Octavian was gone, Apollodorus stepped out of the shadows. He walked to the foot of the couch where Cleopatra gleamed in all her splendor and simply stood staring at his granddaughter.

Her beauty shone so bright!

Touching her hand, he whispered, “Never will there be another such as you.”

His spine tingled. In his blood the old priest could feel the moon reaching its zenith over the silver shifting sea outside the tomb walls. He must perform the rituals now.

Slowly, he raised his arms and began to recite the words that were hewn into the gleaming gold on the tomb walls; ancient words filled with power. As he spoke, the chamber trembled and the earth shook beneath his feet. The flames of the torches grew brighter and flared crimson as he called on all the Gods of Egypt to be present.

He closed his eyes in concentration as he spoke the words which had been seared upon his heart for close to a century. He was not merely guiding a soul through The Land of the Reeds, as was the High Priest’s duty at the death of his Pharaoh. What he did now was a much greater task. An effort which would tax the last bit of life within him. Apollodorus was closing the gates between the worlds, as he had always known he would be called upon one day to do. Now that Egypt had fallen, it was no longer safe for The Keepers Of The Light to allow the portals of the Gods to remain open.