Daughter of Isis - Lilian Nirupa (best ereader for pdf and epub .TXT) 📗

I’m trapped into this monastery.”
Psusennes caressed her lips with his and answered tenderly. “No, my love, you are not trapped here. Your child, our child, shall be born and I’ll raise him in my palace – There’s no art – but magic in the ways of love – Can’t you see the miracle of the fruit you bear, and the passion your lips chain to my heart?” Altamira surrendered again, totally lost in her emotions.
As Lizla observed the way he kissed and caressed her, she left a mixture of new, inexplicable feelings. There was something regal in his actions, like a lion, like Isis herself. But Altamira’s attitude irritated her. How could Psusennes not notice that? Altamira’s ways in love were covetous, supplicating, begging, and almost enslaving.
Was that what the magic of love did to women? Lizla felt somehow uneasy, but her proud character rebelled against that. ISIS was not like that, but then, she was a Goddess. No! Lizla swore to herself, whatever would become of her, woman, queen or magician, she would never beg for love or tenderness. She would not beg for anything. Ah, but this magic was strong. She had felt it herself. She would have to learn much; she would learn all about it.
Lizla turned away pensively and sat by one of the flowing fountains. The fountains of those temples were illuminated by electricity, a carefully guarded knowledge of the Egyptian priests as well as other advanced civilizations in the East. Although electricity was considered a magic property and its nature made akin to that of the spirits in all living things, its practical applications were exploited to a limited extent, particularly in medicine.
Long copper filaments were set incandescent under very fine crystal rock and glass paste tiles of several colors. The result was a magnificent display of blue, red and silver streams of water flowing high into the starry night, making light and shadow phantoms of the surrounding date palms. Lizla contemplated the beautiful scene, noting an unusual apprehension cloaking her heart. She could not understand why, but it was an almost forgotten feeling of un-fulfillment that she had not experienced since she left her parents’ home.
With a sigh, she rose to go back to her room, when on the opposite side of the large fountain she saw another figure seemingly lost in abstract thought. She came close to it as the lights and shadows played tricks with her eyes and would not let her see clearly. Then she was sure. Yes! It was Mikos, the boy she thought lost in her palace days. She ran to his side.
”Mikos!” She greeted him with surprise and excitement.
”Lizla!” His voice carried almost the same feelings. Then he added seriously, “What are you doing here? Are you ill?” Although of Greek birth, he and his older brother Diogenes had been longtime guests of Pharaoh. Mikos was aware of the fact that women rarely get an education like he was getting at the temple.
Lizla felt another pang of pride, the second in that strange evening. “Ill, not so. Do I look it?”
Mikos answered: “No, but I thought, well, I am studying here and you a lady...”
Lizla interrupted him: “A princess. I am a princess, I am also studying here.” She held up her chin in an imperious way that Mikos found new and fascinating.
“Well, that is interesting. I’m so glad to see you. A lot of things happened to me. But first tell me about yourself. What are you studying?” Mikos friendly voice was now the familiar one, although Lizla noticed gleefully that his former shyness was not so pronounced as it was in the palace. Still, with a majestic mood, she acceded to sit by his side on the tile-covered bench next to the fountain.
She told him about her desert training and her acquaintance with the temple grounds. She carefully omitted the prophecy as well as her whole relationship with Isis as a Mother and special protector. She did relate enthusiastically her experience at the Nile bank with the crocodiles and the healing of the wounded man.
Mikos listened to her story with deep attention. Lizla noticed that his serious intelligence had developed a more mature, deepening tone that pleased her very much. She wondered if he found her grown up likewise. But he was attentive to the facts of her narrative. He had gone through interesting experiences himself, especially one that related to healing.
On one of his school camping trips, he had been taken all the way south to the Nubian border. There, while he was walking by the sparse forest that surrounds the birth of the Nile, he had found an almost dying man. The man had been wounded and left to die, on the border of a quick sand hole. An hour more and he would have gone, but his wounds would not let him move fast enough to make the trip to the safe land, a few yards away. Mikos acted quickly. With the help of his hunting cord and a date palm trunk to which he tied it, he helped the poor man out after a long laborious effort. The man was thankful and mumbled many blessings on his unknown benefactor. But, Mikos could see, it would be almost impossible to heal his wounds. He tried to soothe the man’s pain with a vegetable ointment he had learned to make with water and certain leaves. He had to chew the leaves carefully, mentally repeating a healing invocation.
Although he himself was a little more skeptical than the average Egyptian of magic incantations, he tried it anyhow. The man seemed relieved from his pain, but his spirit had been broken. The bandits had killed his teacher and beloved companion, whom he accompanied on an exploring trip. He wanted to die to join his master in the other world, but his teacher had given him quite urgent orders about a certain pouch that contained ancient secrets. It had to be donated to the Isis temple, for it had been in its family for generations and a curse would be upon anyone who lost it or sold it. He thus feared interrupting the fated trip to the Goddess’s Temple where the mysterious package belonged.
Intrigued and touched by the continuous supplications of the man, Mikos had promised to fulfill the strange plea, and at this, the grateful man laid his head down to rest.
He never woke up. As soon as Mikos returned to camp, he talked to his guide about this strange experience and the impact it had on his vision for the future. He had made up his mind. A solitary meditation had indicated to him what he really was to do. He wanted initiation into the Isis temple of medicine! His guide had pondered for a moment. Then, with a meaningful smile he had answered, “Yes, you have my blessings; the Goddess temple is a great center of healing wisdom and practice. But remember that all you will learn there is neither new nor old. It belongs to eternity. When you come back to your land, you will carry a torch that may be carried on for centuries.”
Then his old Egyptian guide and teacher added with a quizzical smile, “Are you ready for that challenge?”
The answer had provoked a jolt of pride and excitement in Mikos’s heart. Sure he would! He could not sleep all night. That very morning, however, he joined a small caravan northwest. Soon he found a large boat destined for Memphis.
As Mikos confided his story, Lizla felt a passing sting in her conscience, as she had withheld most of her own story from him. But to her, her destiny was sacred and deeply involved. She decided to keep it a secret. Besides she was not too sure he would be able to believe it. After all, he was just a foreigner.
“Well, don’t you want to know what the package contained?” he asked, smiling quizzically.
She blushed without knowing exactly why. “It’s not polite to be curious,” she retorted to cover her momentary confusion. For a moment she feared he had read her thoughts! But then she turned to her habitual sweetness. “I would love to hear the rest of your adventure.”
“Ah! The adventure hasn’t begun yet. By the way, how familiar are you with this temple?”
“Not much. I haven’t been here long enough. But I’ve been exploring it, if that’s the word, and I expect to get quite familiar with it very soon.” Lizla was surprised by the question.
“Explore, that’s the exact word,” he answered with unusual force.
She looked at him, really puzzled now: “What do you mean?”
“Let me continue my story. After I arrived at the temple, I was surprised to notice that some signs over the big outer murals are quite peculiar.”
On hearing this, Lizla felt they were touching a subject bordered with the unspeakable mystery. She said cryptically: “The signs of the Mysteries are only for those who have eyes to see.”
On seeing her so serious, Mikos had to restrain himself from laughing. He commented cautiously, “By the Gods, Lizla, you are beginning to sound like one of those mysterious priests.”
But she was firm in her position; ignoring the humor in the remark she asked calmly, “What signs are those that look so strange to you?”
“Well they are everywhere. They are the same that appeared in the engraved ancient coin the dying man gave me.” He seemed almost irritated with his inability to interpret those.
“Oh, there was an engraved ancient coin in that pouch. Let me see,” Lizla said, quite excited.
“I thought curiosity was impolite,” he teased her.
“Oh, I was just trying to help you, you know that.” But she noticed that he was really pleased with her taking a friendly and open attitude. It was good to feel that way again. Besides, he seemed to be getting into something really interesting.
Mikos searched among the pleats of his tunic and found a small sheepskin leather pouch. It was fastened by a cord of golden silk on which ends, two crosses of life of pure gold were tightly fastened. Mikos opened it and extracted a round tablet of burnished copper with silver relief on both sides. They brought it close to the nearest lamp and examined it carefully.
On one side, there were hieroglyphics with these inscriptions, “To the Glory of Isis, mother of the land whose veil no mortal has yet lifted.” These inscriptions, although familiar enough, never failed to touch Lizla’s heart. To her the Goddess had always appeared unveiled!
There was another symbol they did not recognize. Around the inscription there was a zodiac image. It looked very old. Lizla could not tell, but promised herself to find out when she visited the Astronomy school.
The other side had another inscription, this one unfamiliar to both of them. It said: “To the Prince of Peace whose blood will set free the souls of men.” There was the picture of a lamb underneath the word peace and another zodiac, totally different from the first one.
As Mikos opened the pouch again, this time by the light of the lamp, Lizla noted some writing on the inside of it. She grasped the pouch and turned it inside out. Carefully they tried to decipher the inscriptions on it. It was a map of the Nile and the City of Memphis marked with a cross. Then, to the left, the symbol of Isis and the words, “Great wall of the Sunrise.” Beneath it these symbols were marked: The image of a foot, an arrow pointing to the right, the image of two hands and another foot. All these symbols were enclosed in the eye of a large cross of life that pointed to the North, as a compass star was drawn beside it.
Lizla and Mikos