Rogue Command (The Kalahari Series) (38 page)

“It will always be special to me.”

“When we had finished, I mean, parted, it was very late. We didn’t talk much. I went back to my room – with a headache I might add.” Richard was perched on the edge of the couch. “You said that I had slipped deep into your subconscious – further than you had intended.”

“I remember this.”

“I never told you. We left early the next morning. The opportunity didn’t arise again.”

“You did not speak of what, Richard.”

“Well, I sensed myself falling through some sort of tunnel, through a crawling mist, and when I emerged I was at a ceremony of some kind. I knew immediately
where
I was, because I recognised the geography of the place!”

Naomi raised her eyebrows in anticipation.

“The Plain of Giza! But there were only two pyramids! The ceremony was the placing of the capping stone, in order to complete the construction of the Great Pyramid. There was a huge crowd and other buildings forming a plaza that are long since gone. I remember a woman; the crowd acknowledged her as a queen. And then suddenly I was somewhere else. I don’t remember the place, but there was distress – screaming and crying. One woman shouted, ‘The seas have risen and swallowed the great city!’, and another said, ‘Poseidon has their souls.’ It was so vivid!”

“Poseidon was the god of the sea.”

“Yes, I know, in Greek mythology.”

“And what else?”

“The only other thing I remember was being in a Great Hall. There was a banquet; it was Roman times. I know because I recognised the soldier’s uniforms – I’ve seen so many old movies! Someone spoke of Cleopatra. Don’t you see, Naomi? These . . . these . . . occurrences – not dreams. And these women – Cleopatra, your remarkable likeness to Nefertiti – their memories are
your
memories. They are your forebears. These amazing women were all of the same line. The bones of that priest we found in KV5 . . . he was the last of the male line, a line that died out a thousand years before Nefertiti.”

“But I have no recollection of the events you experienced . . . nothing . . . not even in my dreams.”

“These are not dreams, Naomi. I did some research into the nature of dreams, because I needed some answers. Dreams represent residual electrical activity in the brain – they are recurring impulses that play in the superficial areas of one’s consciousness. Memories are something else entirely!”

“Tell me!”

“There’s been some research done in the field over the last few decades. They found that there are several levels to the memory matrix. The deepest memories may be irretrievable, but that’s not to say that they are not there. In the higher levels we know that stimulation can help trigger a memory. For example, if you see something you recognise – as in
déjà vu
. Also, such things as pheromones . . . deep-seated odours . . . they can evoke primordial responses.”

Naomi looked long and hard at Richard. It was as if she was being told something she had always known, but had never, ever, recalled; nor had her mother or her grandmother or her great-grandmother, and back through her ancestral line.

“Of what you speak, and the accepting of it, comes easily to me, Richard – as if deep inside I have always known it to be true. You have a capacity for seeing what is hidden. It is an ability that comes from your aura. I have always known that to be uncommonly strong.” Naomi lifted her head as if expecting a blow. “You want something of me, I can see it. I am willing.”

Richard stepped across and sat next to Naomi. He grasped her hands. “I want to make a journey into your subconscious, as I did before,” he said. “Only this time I will keep control of my emotions, not just go with the sensual thing. I want to focus on what I feel and experience in your memories – those in the deepest recesses of your mind. I want to go back in time and find out what your ancestors did with the crystals – how they used them – and discover the real reason for building the pyramids.”

Naomi considered Richard’s request. She looked down at her lap for some while. Richard looked through her flawed beauty to see only her exquisite face with the long slender neck and the poise of a queen.

“Such a joining will have dangers,” continued Naomi sombrely. She lifted her head to look at him. “Your consciousness will be in my keeping. But all pleasures have consequences, Richard. If you go deeper, beyond my recollection, you will be lost to me. I could not help you if you were troubled. You risk your very being; some might say your soul. Therefore you risk your life.”

“I’m prepared to accept that. I need to find out how best to use that crystal.”

“Then we shall join. We should lie next to each other on the floor and I will tie our palms together – we cannot risk a parting of our auras during such a time.”

Richard finished his coffee and moved the table aside. Then he did as Naomi asked and lay on his back on the rug. Naomi sat up next to him. Richard held up his right hand; Naomi took it in her left. They locked fingers. Naomi bound the two of them together with a curtain tie and Richard helped her to tie a knot. Then she lowered the entanglement between them and pressed it with her thigh against Richard’s. Finally she lay back and took a deep breath.

“To open the door to my subconscious, Richard, first you must be intimate with my emotions – do you remember?”

“Yes I do.”

“Then close your eyes and imagine my face. Think only of me, Richard, nothing else. Be gentle, at peace.”

Richard sank into a coma-like state – as if in deep meditation. He found himself falling. There was no horizon and no reference. A grey mist was all around him. He was aware that he was moving, but not of movement. He lost his perspective on reality; his was a fathomless dark place. Phantoms whirled past so fast that only the brain registered their placing. Light and dark, like summer and winter days, came and went. Aeons fell before him when Naomi’s face appeared. She was distant at first, but she blew towards him on a solar wind and grew larger until she filled his mind. Her image was transparent and the backdrop was space – the eternity of an endless blackness punctured only by stars and vast clouds of effervescing gas and nebulas with centres of intense colour: yellows and reds and purples.

How pleased he was to feel the well-remembered pleasure of Naomi and her pulling at his senses. This time, on this journey, he would remain focused. He would hold on to his thoughts and evade her seduction. Eventually, but with no reference of time, he slowly passed through her. Still the seasons changed. And then, unexpected and abruptly, he was aware of a hardness beneath his feet; he felt a surface. He appeared to be standing; he heard his breathing. The mist began to clear, but not before a rush of sounds pressed into his brain and seized his sanity. The clamour pummelled into his awareness until the noise subsided and he heard individual voices. The enshrouding mist dissipated, as if a cloud of dense, white, steam evaporated to nothing. He looked around and found himself in a busy market.

In awe and amazement Richard slowly turned full circle. He was in a large public square. People and noise engulfed him. It was a bright day and warm like summer. The sky was such an intense blue it seemed unreal. The architecture reminded him of Ancient Greece – what he remembered from school history, and to his right and at some distance was a columned façade. The building evoked memories of the Parthenon in Athens – he had played tourist there twice before: the first before it was enclosed in a plastic shell, thereafter to lose its appeal. At first he thought himself invisible as people around him seemed oblivious to his presence. Only then did he realise that he was dressed, essentially, like them – in a loose-flowing garment made of a single piece of rough cotton cloth that covered his whole body – except that his right arm was exposed. His garment was plain, off-white and coarse, but there was colour all around him.

Richard began to realise his social standing in this historic place, for the finer the garments and more intense the colours the more reverence those people seemed to evoke. Two women in flowing silks of crimson red passed him by; they were in deep conversation and giggling, but Richard
could
understand their words. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his arm. He turned and was instantly in his new reality, as a large bald man, dressed as he was but with the addition of a thick leather belt around his waist, punched him again on his shoulder. “Lower your eyes!” the man demanded. He had a deep gravelly voice. “Do not stare at the daughters of Zeus!”

Richard looked down at his sandalled feet and apologised with a gesture. The man and his attitude strode off into the crowd. Richard drew a long breath and assessed the surroundings. He was aware of being by the sea, because of the faint odour of fish and the salty breeze. He didn’t know exactly how long he had in this memory of Naomi’s, and so he followed his nose towards the water.

After perhaps fifteen minutes walking along streets that were swept clean, Richard began to hear the noises of the hustle and bustle of ships and trade. He could hear sails flapping in the wind and lanyards vibrating against masks. Before he could see them, he heard the sounds of men shouting instructions, pulley wheels squeaking and seagulls squawking. He walked down a narrow lane that was shaded and cool and, as with all the streets he had passed along, straight and paved in stone. At the end, and turning a corner, he found himself in an extensive open area. It was primarily a harbour where the sea was quite calm and turquoise blue. Several sailing ships were docked and unloading stores. It was a paradise.

At the far end of what looked to be a natural estuary there was a square – like a precinct or a piazza – and Richard made for it. He kept his manner nonchalant and tried to resist his natural tendency to stare and gawp at the remarkable surroundings.

The people that passed him by seemed content and they smiled readily. The young women had light suntans and bright eyes and a healthy glow. A fresh fish stall was stocked with giant tuna and Blue Marlin. They lay there whole and shiny on wooden tables, and there were huge crabs and squid. Richard had never seen such produce, but he recognised the numerous species from natural history books that he had read over the years. He had never seen such huge specimens as these either, as during his school days fishing was limited to just a few varieties and they were small and prohibitively expensive, and by the 2030s the seas of the Earth that he knew were devoid of life.

The square was lively and Richard tried to get his bearings by looking back across the harbour and out to sea towards the sun – which by now had passed its zenith and was on a downward track towards the west. It was then that he did stop and gawp – longer, in fact, than was sensible to maintain anonymity, for what he saw took his breath away.

Richard walked a little unsteadily back to the quayside and sat down on a stone bench. He was unable to pull his gaze from the enormous structure as it glinted in the sunlight, and even estimating the distance at 1 kilometre, its scale still completely dominated the panorama – and his senses.

Richard hadn’t noticed the old man who sat at the other end of the carved and curving stone seat. The kindly looking gentleman had weathered skin, a short grey beard and white curly hair that was thinning on top. He had a face of experience, with keen eyes, and on his garment of finely spun cotton, regal blue in colour, there was a gold brooch with an insignia consisting of two dolphins supporting a star between their beaks. The man watched Richard for some time but Richard remained unaware of his presence.

“You are not Atlean, are you?” asked the old man, coming nearer.

Richard dragged his eyes away from the towering structure and stared at the man, appearing a little blank at first. “I’m sorry,” he replied, “what was that you said?” Richard was thinking in English, but his words came out in an old form of Greek. The entire situation, what he was seeing and hearing, served to disorientate him and he gave up in despair. He massaged his temples for a while and bowed his head.

The man clenched his right fist and touched his chest by his heart. “My name is Diomedes, son of Eutocius from the House of Archimedes. I said that you are not from here – this island is not your home. I think that to be true.”

Richard looked up at the man, who smiled, comfortable in his large girth. He had a round face and ample jowls. There was a sparkle in his eye. Richard gathered his thoughts. “Err . . . no, not exactly. Good day to you.” Richard touched his chest with his fist in a similar way. “Um, I am Richardius, from the house of, er . . . Pythagoras.”

“You are a mainlander, I can tell – from Eridu, perhaps?”

The oldest recorded city in the world
, recalled Richard. “Eridu, yes, that’s it. I am a traveller. I’m looking for something.”

“Only rarely do our cousins from the east visit. Is your quest for trade or pleasure?”

Richard felt his eyes being drawn again towards the great statue that straddled the harbour entrance. It looked to be modelled on a Greek God . . . Helios, or the like, and dressed as a Grecian warrior. He found himself only half-listening. “Sorry,” he said, after an impolite pause. He looked back at the man. “That statue . . . is this place . . . this city by the sea . . . Rhodes?”