Rhakotis
by Susanne S. Brydenbaugh

 Her lovers queued up in the hallway… I heard them scratching at the door. I tried to tell her of Marx and Engels, God and Angels—I don’t really know what for—but she looked good in ribbons.
                                                                                                      Sisters of Mercy
                                                                                                                       "Ribbons"

Alexandria, Egypt 1881

I awoke to the muffled throb of my heartbeat and the glazed coolness of sweat exorcizing whatever demons sheltered within for the night. I attributed the sensation to the dreams I’d been experiencing of late: Dreams of knotty Cork Oak trees riddled with faces that were vague and concrete at the same time—faces I felt I should know, yet didn’t, I was quite sure. These were the dreams that gave birth to other dreams of strangeness: disproportioned, frayed edges, as if the smooth ninety-degree angle had yet to be discovered. And then, to conclude a blissful night of unrest were the really disturbing dreams of giant, talking beetles rolling around a ball of shit. If you saw one of the beetles without her honorary ball of feces you knew she was coming to rob your eyeballs from of your head—a strong resemblance to that round clump of shit—will do nicely to lay my eggs on, and, provide the protein-rich environment the little ones need to survive in this hostile world—such politeness from these monsters before they streaked across the floor and leapt upon you with their tearing, razored jaws. Yes, an uninvited dementia that I will never forget, for now I see the dreams as a precursor to the events of that evening I’m bound to elucidate.

I donned my pants and scurried to find my shirt, swift fingers untangling my longish pale hair as I needed to be out of my somber one-window rooms and into the thick light of the Alexandria hub. I stirred about all day, perusing the Turkish Quarter, then on to Fanansa Street which traveled parallel with the sea, testing the merchants who called to me, "Hey Richmond" (although I’d told them my name was Devon countless times) and flirting with the idea of finding a permanent residence in the bend of Osprey Plume, where masses of Blood Geraniums grew from the cracks in the ochre-coloured stone.

In time, I found myself on the Eastern Harbor overlooking a blazing blue Mediterranean Sea and the island of Pharos, beautifully haunting after losing its primeval lighthouse centuries ago in an earthquake. I stood there surveying my cargo ship, the Angelina, and soaking up every nuance that was Alexandria, every curl of her sloping, swarming structures, the sandstone reflective and brilliant as gold in the backdrop of a cloudless sky. For I was returning to the States, Richmond to be precise, in two days time, and although I missed the land of my birth and its comfortable predictability, or at least I did miss some aspect of it at one time, Alexandria set my blood afire. The mystique of the city, tangible in the very air, of antiquity and before permeated every street, every sound, every inhalation. Ahh, Alexandria: a Mecca of trade, a sluice of every character of man, every class and nationality, rising above the shambles of a renaissance that had proved not to be so kind.

And the women...I expected to find the shy daisies of Beirut, but instead to my delight, they smiled brazenly; ah yes, they smile as they stroll along past you, leaving in their wake the aroma of lotus and papyrus. They smile as though all the secrets of a bygone age were still alive in their innermost being and the cosmos were theirs for the plucking, weaving a spell so tightly that a man was unable to qualify whether it was the lotus or the smile that ensnared him so.

My heart felt inexplicably tied to this city, and I found myself clutching to the edges of her lifeboat as if a drowning man. I’m an accomplished trader, no city had enchanted me thus far, but I’d never been within a city quite like Alexandria. She lured and kept me here when I’d completed my trade two weeks ago and could have traveled at once, but found excuse after excuse to stay until I’d run the length of my tether.

I stayed when I knew the nationalists were staging anti-foreign propaganda against the Westerners who inhabited and visited Alexandria, and riots were beginning to rumble. Most of these foreign residents stayed inside their housing out of harms way. Not so with me, in a way the danger intensified her appeal, leading one’s nerves to leap in nervous ecstasy. The merchants and innkeepers laughed the politics off predicting a cooling off of tensions in the upcoming months of autumn. I wanted them to be right; Alexandria was starting to mold itself to me like a tailored caveat.

I grew agitated and took to walking, traveling from the harbor into the district of Gumrok, one of the oldest quarters in Alexandria.

I stopped at an open tent along the way to buy a cupful of pomegranate wine from the sloe-eyed merchant as had been my habit these past few weeks, sighing as the first drops met my lips and tongue. I stood there sipping my wine as the dusk rolled in and swept out the last vestiges of a dying sun, watching the endless progression of mules, buggies, and bipeds. A second cup of wine had passed when I gazed across the street and found the old man’s furrowed brow and discerning eyes upon my person, wary in these troubled days of unrest.

I surged forward to converse with this man and relieve his fears.

He operated displays of trinkets and cloth; they hung everywhere, partly obscuring the man from my vision as I lumbered across the narrow road to his tent. Hollow beads and thin copper mobiles tinkled and rang like wind chimes of a different tune in the brisk wind.

"Do you have something of age that I might take home to beloved ones in the States?" I asked.

Visibly the man relaxed and smiled a near toothless grin; luck was raining upon him this night as I’d proved to be neither brutish, nor indifferent to his wares. But his eyes went on to study me further, more intimately than before, searching for something behind my eyes—in the corners of my soul—as if it was kept there for he alone to see.

"I have old," he nodded. "I have old, and I have ‘Sands of Time’," he said, as if he’d come to some remarkable conclusion.

"Explain this ‘Sands of Time’, sir, if you will. I wish to be fully apprised of what I might receive, and its value."

The old man held four fingers to his closed lips, the Egyptian sign of silence and secrecy. He nodded me into the tent fully and proceeded to close the flaps together, lighting a candle as deftly as a cat landing on all four feet simultaneously. From a far corner of the tent he retrieved a thick plum colored pillow and placed it on the floor, indicating that I should sit. I never considered otherwise, it is with great honor that one is invited into another’s tent.

From several dark wood boxes he rummaged, finally answering his search: a small ebony box with a fair amount of gold ornamentation on its lid, fastened with an elaborate gold toggle. He brought it before me, kneeling on the dusty floor as he carefully opened the box as if it contained the Holy Grail.

There were five in all, slightly larger than the gold coin used for legal tender, and all a seemingly worthless bronze metal. I almost jeered. Perhaps he would tell me that in truth they were relics from Atlantis, recently found from the depths of the ocean after centuries of rest, or Roman coins, the merchants were forever trying to pawn their supposed Roman artifacts on a passerby. Yet I held my tongue quietly behind my teeth, patient enough to await an explanation.

"These," he pointed with dirt-grout fingernails, "are ancient emblems of Egypt."

"These," he continued, foreseeing my disbelief, "are of Rhakotis."

I shrugged. "I know nothing of Hieroglyphics and its symbols, or this Rhakotis you speak of. What are you attempting to pass on to me old man?"

The man shook the box in the air emphatically. "Rhakotis. Rhakotis." He drew air into his lungs heavily, "Alexandria was built atop of it. Now it is gone save a few worthwhile pieces rescued from the dust and rubble."

"Stolen from a sacred tomb is what you mean. You know the laws prohibiting such looting," I said.

"In truth I know not of how they were procured originally, only that I’ve been their owner for sixty of their most recent years, a fleeting second in the course of millennia they’ve known. And now I’m an old man with no sons to relinquish them to—no one to pass on my good fortune."

"Oh, I see, not only are these archaic and priceless, but they are auspicious as well." This time the mirth would not stay contained and I laughed openly, my eyes tearing from their squeezed corners.

"Yes, that is right," he nodded, choosing to ignore my sacrilege. "Their keepers are endowed with knowledge and visions; their life’s path and desires revealed to them."

Perhaps it was the guileless way in which he found it impossible that I would not believe him—for suddenly I perked, the first shadow of ‘what if’ edging across my mind like razor wire, and I decided that to abide his tale would only be courteous. Strange lands held strange customs and superstitions after all.

"Let me prove it to you!" he pleaded. "Take one of the seals for twenty-four hours, if it leads you to your most desperate cravings return and pay me my price, if not, I give you your choice of gold coin medallions, worth something I guarantee."

"Twenty-four hours? If it brings me insight, what makes you so sure I’d return and give you your price? Seems to me that I’d be free to carry my talisman forever without having to part with a single gold coin from my pocket."

He grinned knowingly. "You are a disciplined man—honest, and besotted with our fair Alexandria, I will trust this instinct of mine." He paused for a moment, added: "Mind you, I will only sell one and it will be the one you originally choose."

"And how much do you ask for this piece of history?" I asked. "‘This Sands of Time’."

"I will tell you when you return to buy it," he said confidently.

"Fair enough," I agreed, and he held the box prone to my eyes for choosing.

Amused at this scenario, I grew anxious to disprove the seal’s worth both in integrity of metal and magic. I reached my hand out and without care or study, and flipped the middle disk from my fingers to my palm, testing its weight and viewing its strange etchments. A large eye gobbled most of the rear of the medallion, unblinking and strangely detailed while the front side was simplistic with a few crude engravings. One of these engravings was a small beetle and I shivered, at once reminded of my dream. Flipping the seal over I noticed a small hole pierced the pendant at the top of the eye. I removed a thin, silver link chain given to me by an enamored barmaid in Athens a few years back, and slid the coin through its length, fastening it about my neck again, the eye staring outward. I nodded to the man and he nodded back in approval, our business concluded for the time being.

After leaving the old man’s tent, I found myself perusing the narrow streets in this historic district, my eyes catching many affable taverns along the way, their heavy doors swung open and inviting. But still I pressed, my legs restless and wont of a good stretching. I walked past the familiar and progressed west to areas unbeknownst to me. Areas where the air tasted dead-foul, where foreboding shadows housed lesser beings and the flames of lanterns grew sparse and not so many doorways beckoned for visitors. At the end of such a street I heard the sound of cockney voices and rum flowing freely. The door was not thrown wide, but open perhaps a hand’s breadth, allowing the yellow light to carry into the street like a narrow strip of banner.

I knocked on the wooden door unsure of whether the establishment was open to patrons. Soldiers were notorious to rent taverns for weeks on end, allowing only those of their own brigade access.

To the left of the door another creaked open and a pair of obsidian eyes peered around the doorframe, glinty in their regard of me.

"If I may impose just long enough on your person, sir, but I was wondering if this establishment was open to the public?" I pointed to his neighboring business.

The man seemed dazed, his attention was upon my necklace and I thought for a fleeting moment he was interested in the polished silver; but then he reached out a hand to touch the seal, and upon almost reaching it with quivering fingers, recoiled hesitantly. Holding up four fingers to his mouth, he bade me silent; the other hand motioning me to wait one moment as he disappeared behind the door.

I contemplated following my original plan and entering the tavern uninvited, for surely this neighbor could not offer me its rousing company. But again I sensed adventure, and I did wait. I waited longer than the quick moment the mysterious man promised, leaning against the doorframe listening to the merriment next door.

Then, curiously, the door creaked open a fraction more, and a hand appeared: smooth and lily-white, beautiful in its simple curvature and languid, long tapered fingers, palm held up, an extension of the moonlight herself.

I knew not what this feminine hand wanted, so I dug within my pockets thinking it must be money. But upon the clinking of the coins in my linen pouch the hand flexed and grew insistent, the palm once again thrust out in some unspoken need.

I stood frozen in my confusion.

The hand withdrew from my sight and on impulse I almost grabbed at its fluid departure, my heart sinking to the depths of my feet that I should lose the meaning and intent of that swan-like appendage. My blood itched to know the face in which the hand belonged to.

I stood at the threshold of the door without breath; thinking of knocking on its crude planks and demanding to know the price of entrance, the tavern next door a fading memory.

The door eased open again and the hand emerged, this time a length of bright blue ribbon dangled across her fingers, contrasting vividly with the pale skin and gleaming nails. Her hand extended as if to give me the silken strip.

I touched the ribbon, the coolness of her flesh, and heard the rush of my own breath leave my parted lips. Her hand fluttered like a luminescent white dove in the light of the moon, and before I’d realized…indeed in marvelous precision, she looped the silken ribbon about my own fingers and drew me in, as the door opened some measure for me to slide through into another darkness. Here the air did not move; it hung sluggish in the void of murk, a bog of quicksand sucking at my lungs.

The door closed, ending what little light the moon provided from the street. I startled when I felt her fingers at my chest, smoothing over the medallion; her body achingly close yet not touching mine. I could tell she was tall, feeling her breath as she whispered words I could not decipher against my neck with honeycombed brushes of her mouth. And all the while I cursed the darkness and waited for my eyes to accustom themselves, which proved to be futile.

Finally she urged me to follow her, hand still entwined by flesh and silk with mine, as we descended down numerous steps. After a short time small sconces made sporadic appearances in the recesses of earthen walls, punctuating the dark and giving me glimpses of a single white feather headdress rising above sleek ebony tresses. I stared at her backside and the snug white fit of the gown she wore, her curves arching and swaying with each step we took. I wondered what cult I’d stumbled on to with this ancient clothing and strange tongue. But I did not turn back.

The aroma of incense drifts stronger the further we descend, and I wondered if we were traveling to the very bowels of earth. The corridor widened suddenly as candlelight spilled from the surface of crudely built tables. I noticed the strange little man who originally stood at the door. Blood pooled at his feet as, shoulders hunched, he slashed at something… something obscured from my vision, until I could only ascertain the movement of his arms and the curved blade catching the sparks of firelight as he raised it and ripped, raised and ripped. On the dirt-packed floor beside one of the tables I saw a heap of dusty clothing, and as I looked on I recognized the braiding and star-encrusted embroidery of some ranking official, split and defaced, along with splatters and splotches of carmine. A shiver raced the length of my arm to where we joined at the hands. She slowed and turned to me for the first time.

My heart leapt at the intense eyes that gazed at me with the slightest tilt. A rose among women, but mostly it had nothing to do with the flawlessness of her skin or the perfect symmetry of her features; it burned through her kohl-rimmed eyes as I was unable to turn away. And although I knew what the man was dismembering in the corner… knew without seeing for my own eyes the sight of retribution and thought of breaking with her to run from this place of hellish visions—when she turned those eyes to mine, I had not a care to my own fate. My treacherous mind spun and whispered in its cavity: You don’t really wish to leave. You wish to become one with this city—with this woman. No matter when—it must be here—In Rhakotis.

And I stayed.

Our hands remained coupled as another set of stairs were descended, sandstone twinkling along the inner walls until, at last, we entered another room, slightly larger, and magnificent in its design. Paintings of gods and goddesses, deities of half-animal half-god, and the mightiest of all—Ra, centered upon the opposite wall, casing the smooth rock in decorated veneration. In the center of the room, an altar was erected at the feet of a golden woman with wide-spanned wings tipped with blood that dripped and ran from some hidden source, to the stone floor in veins of a red river. The statue bore such a likeness to my guide, that I could only stare, and it took several attempts to get my lips to move, to form a single word. Maat, I whispered. I knew her from paintings and ancient text found in traveling exhibitions: Ra’s daughter, Goddess of Truth and Balance, mistress of the underworld. She weighed souls and deeds of the dead, determining how many trials must be overcome to be worthy of an after-life with Osiris.

I wondered if my soul had already been judged and found lacking.

Dark eyes studied me from their corners. Although she wore simple dress with no ornamentation besides the headdress, it somehow made her appear even more elite.

Her marble-smooth skin shone, and what I first thought was kohl surrounding her eyes appeared to be natural pigmentation, and the sweep of eyelashes that I assumed to be artifice, now appeared to be quite real and impossibly long by mortal standards.

By their own accord, or rather hers I suspect, the candles upon the walls dimmed to the same yellow-gold as the statue. After the butchery I’d witnessed in the antechamber leading to the shrine, and the strange likeness my hostess held with the golden goddess, I found my legs were now tremulous. Oddly enough, I did not fear Maat, or death, really. I felt a sense of otherworldliness that eclipsed my existence. I had, after all, been led to my desire as the old merchant had promised.

She stepped to the outreach of the altar, this Maat of the ancients, dropping my hand, leaving me dry and thirsty for her the moment I registered the broken connection.

We stood facing one another for an endless second: I, an empty husk, she, the long and winding Nile. I could resist her no longer and stepped toward her, but refrained from touching her unless she willed me to do so. Her lips moved in soft sighs of the tongue I didn’t understand, lyrical to my ears, bathing my face with caressing air. I thought I heard her utter my name; surely this would not be impossible for her, a Goddess, to know; to pick from my mind like a random thorn.

She took my hand once again and I sighed uncontrollably again. Pulling me down to the rushes, she rose to her knees and leaned over me. Looking up I saw Maat of the flesh: warm, visceral, seductive, and above her: Maat of the immortal: hard, cloyingly inviting, blood-loving, and vengeful. They stared down at me until Maat of the flesh eased my torment by blocking the golden deity from my sight as she brought her face down to mine.

Our lips touched, burned; obliterated the outside world. I closed my eyes, falling through the oceans, the sands of time, drifting slowly then rapidly, noticing the warmth against my bare skin. Her warmth, her skin, mortal and divine, joined and locked with mine. A flute played beyond and underneath my fall, the notes floating up to my ears and holding me buoyant for an instant before I plunged and the sequence would start anew. Clutching and twisting, thrusting and merging, we spiraled into the incense-heavy air. I exploded, consumed with a joy and agony that pitied any previous experience I could possibly hold in my meager memory, and for a fraction of a second I opened my eyes and stared into a void of bone-colored needles, hundreds, nestled within the moist pink of her mouth--registered this distortion the second she closed those teeth on my lips and pierced our bond.

&&&&&&

I remember nothing subsequent to this; the cold, utter blackness is my memory. I awoke in the street outside the door that I’d entered just hours before. The sun coming up in dull orange brass as I noticed most of my world had faded, perhaps never to return. Maybe I paid such a price by becoming privy to the sights of a God’s world. Holding my fingers up to my tender lip I rubbed at the encrusted blood and placed it to my tongue hoping for some slice of the utopia I’d had the night before. I didn’t receive it. I knocked upon the door until my hand ached, but no one answered my request, and eventually I left, making my way back to the merchant’s tent to settle my debt.

The merchant smiled upon seeing my face, confident, as he knew he could be. He asked for half of the gold coin within my pouch. I gave him all but a couple that I would need for my return home. He was entitled to every measure of the coin. We both knew this. The remaining three medallions, he tells me, he will distribute to worthy recipients from other corners of the world, those who crave the underworld of Alexandria and do not know it just yet. He keeps one for himself.

&&&&&

I now wake up in the cradle of the sea’s waves. I suffer each boat’s length as I gather distance from her. Yet, I’ve come to realize that I’m not as empty as I previously thought. Maat gave me some small piece of her when she pricked my lips. I sense it growing stronger each passing day, and, I’ve decided that once I deliver my cargo, I shall be heading back.

She calls me back—demands that I come back…I have no qualms, in fact, I willingly capitulate. I believe I made the decision long before my Spirit Goddess bit me. I believe I joined my blood to this city upon first touching my soles to her soil. The sale of my ship will buy my swiftest passage; I’ll leave the rest to family. I shan’t need it any longer—I’m going back to the womb of my city, deep in the sticky-sweet caviar of Rhakotis.

 ©2003 Susanne S. Brydenbaugh

Susanne S. Brydenbaugh is the author of over 70 short stories and poems published in both the Dark Fantasy genre and Horror small press. Her most current work can be found in the following anthologies: Cemetery Poets: Grave Offerings, Atrocitas Aqua, Femmes de la Brume, and forthcoming in such anthologies as: Scary! Holidays to Make You Scream, Scriptures of the Damned, Double Dragon Publishing; and Experiments of a Different Vein, 3F Publications. She is finishing her first novel, Old Cahawba, a fictionalized story of a real ghost town. Other than writing and reading voraciously, she enjoys the outdoors, craves music, and is a classic car enthusiast. She lives in the southern U.S. Her website can be found at: www.mywriterstooth.com