Apr 9

Apr 9 You Within Me

You Within Me - book excerpt

Prologue

Skeon, a small city-state near the southwestern border of Egypt’s Old Kingdom. 2680 B.C.

Face grim, Leontios stood, his sandals sinking deep into the thin, muddy soil outside the wall of Skeon’s inner city. With one hand, he clutched a large scroll. With the other, he used a chunk of glittering quartz to trace magic symbols in the air.

“Hurry,” Ellani urged. “Hurry. They will be here soon.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” he snapped at his wife. “If you want to help, draw on some of your moon magic and reinforce what I’m doing.”

She grabbed his wrist, and he could feel the moon energy flowing from the sky, through her and into him. The sun, still lingering on the horizon, energized Leontios. The circuit completed, he murmured, “Me within you.”

“You within me,” Ellani echoed back.

Together they chanted, “By the power of moon and sun, all things—through us—can be done.”

Dim yellow light flared. Leontios didn’t need to look to see Ellani illuminate. He didn’t need to see his brighter golden glow as the magic of the sun lit him up.

“What are we trying to do?” Ellani asked.

“Conceal the inner city from view,” Leontios explained. “My brother cannot defend the outer city—let alone the farms—but we cannot let the Egyptians have the crystal.”

“Nor the pool,” Ellani agreed. Her voice broke. “Will any of us survive?”

He shook his head. “As slaves,” he suggested. “At least, you will. Who knows? Maybe the king’s son will become entranced with your beauty and make you his queen.”

Ellani sobbed. “I have no heart left to love again.”

“I am sorry,” Leontios told her, never pausing in the casting of his spell. While it might have seemed an inappropriate moment to have the conversation, he knew he had only a short time to express his regret before the end. “I never wanted to interfere with your family.”

“I know you didn’t. I wish Kel could have coped with our… relationship. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Please say you forgive me,” Leontios urged. “I may not have intended harm, but harm was done nonetheless.”

“I do forgive you.” Ellani sniffled. In the extremity of her emotion, power bled from her.

“Easy,” Leontios urged. “We may yet survive. Don’t give it all away.”

“It is not for them,” Ellani replied, her words serious as a prophecy despite her continual weeping. “If I live, they may have possession of my body, but my magic will ever be only for Skeon.”

Leontios forged one last symbol, and a shimmer of heat rose in the desert. The wall surrounding the inner city gleamed for a moment in gold and yellow, like liquid sand. Then, the glow winked out and the wall itself disappeared.

“Now all we need is the key.” Leontios turned to the crystal in his hand.

Shouts rang through the outer city. Bowstrings hummed. Arrows whizzed past.

“Hurry, now, husband.” Ellani urged. “Hurry and let us run away into the desert. Let the sun take me, and the moonlit night claim your bones. These Egyptians can never have us.”

Another volley whizzed across the outer city.

Ellani choked.

Leontios turned to look. An arrow had entered his wife’s back, just beside her spine, traveled through the center of her body, and exited between her ribs. Her eyes opened wide, and she fell in the dust.

Leontios offered a quick prayer for the woman who had been with him for so long. The love they bore for each other—though not as precious to her as that of the mate she’d chosen—still deserved grief. Sadly, there would be no time.

Time. I need more time. No matter what the future holds, we need to stay nearby to tend the crystal.

His wife’s moon energy shimmered like moonlight above the ground; her presence not yet departed. Leontios gathered it and tucked it, safe and sound, into the small crystal. It shone faintly blue with her life energy.

Content that he had saved her from both the Egyptians and death itself, Leontios used a blast of sun energy to enhance his power as he tossed the quartz towards the desert beyond and behind the invading enemies.

“My master!” A voice cut into Leontios’s dark thoughts. He didn’t even turn.

“What is it, Eithon?”

“They have broken through the outer defenses,” the young man—Leontios’s apprentice—blurted, panting hard. “Please, Master. Do not let them take me. You know how brutally they execute their enemies.”

“What do you want, son?” Leontios asked, at last turning away from the now-invisible wall to regard the young man. His shiny black hair dripped with sweat that turned the strands stringy. His tawny face had turned red with fear and exertion, and an embarrassing wet patch marred the front of his trousers.

“Kill me, Master,” Eithon begged. “Kill me swiftly and gently. I do not fear death but… but I do fear pain. Don’t let them smite me… or worse.”

Leontios considered the young man’s request. He surely had the ability to end Eithon’s life as requested. He reached out and took Eithon’s sweaty hand. “The power of the sun flows through me and infuses you. You are now more. Bigger. You belong to the sun. The sun belongs to you. It will protect and save you.”

Eithon began to glow. Glow brighter and brighter. For a moment, it seemed as though the sun itself had taken possession of the lad. He glistened, sparkled, and the sparks coalesced into a ball of pure light. Eithon’s body, devoid of its life force, collapsed to the dust.

Leontios turned, looking for a convenient object to embed his protégé in.

The shouting and clashing behind him grew louder. Leontios dared glance over his shoulder. A band of shouting Egyptians waved spears in the air, one adorned with the bloody, gape-mouthed head of his brother, the prince of Skeon.

My time has come to an end.

All around him, his countrymen fell one after another under a hail of arrows and thrusting lances. He could do nothing to save them, and the impotence burned like the desert sun.

So, I am too late, too late to escape. Too late to fight. Like Ellani, I will not live as a slave to the Egyptians.

With his last, failing strength, Leontios opened himself to the final rays of the setting sun. Drawing deeply on his god, he released a burst of sunlight that vaporized enemies, countrymen, and all the houses and gardens of Skeon—everything outside the hidden wall—into dust. He could not save his home, but he would not allow the Egyptians to have it. Now, without most of its landmarks, the oasis would hopefully remain hidden until the threat passed. Until he could return and set things to right.

You are a fool, priest, his reason nagged. These Egyptians may be gone, but more will come. It will not be safe to enter the oasis for generations. Perhaps centuries. Until then, you are better off unaware like Ellani.And if the crystal finally erupts, you will quietly wink out of existence, unaware.

The sun sank lower in the horizon, sending a beam directly into his eyes. Leontios began to glow. His luminescence quickly outpaced the setting sun. The symbols on his scroll lit up with matching intensity. A moment later, his abandoned body dropped into the sand, his scroll beside him.

Chapter 1

Athens, 1909

“Violet! Time to go.”

Nineteen-year-old Violet Warren sighed and glanced over her shoulder at her father, Hiram, who stood in the doorway of the shop, regarding his ostentatious pocket watch with an air of impatience.

“Just a moment, Father,” Violet urged, rubbing her hands together to dispel the gritty dust that had gathered when she touched one fascinating object after another. “I haven’t selected my souvenir yet.”

“I don’t understand,” her mother Charlotte said, her head barely visible over Father’s shoulder, “why you couldn’t find a souvenir in the shops and markets we’ve already perused. What’s so special about this dusty old firetrap?”

The proprietor, who was rearranging vase fragments in the display window at the front of the store, huffed angrily into an oversized mustache.

“Those are tourist trinkets, Mother,” Violet said. “I’m not interested in bringing back something made last week and painted to look old.”

“Well,” Father said, “the boat leaves in two hours whether we’re on it or not, and I aim to be on it.”

“I understand,” Violet agreed, “but I already packed this morning and sent my bags down with the porter. Just give me ten minutes, won’t you, please?”

“Five,” Father snapped, “and not a moment more.”

Rolling her eyes, Violet sneezed out a nose full of dust and peered at the shelf, frantically searching for anything that would bring to mind the marvelous sensations she’d gotten when exploring all those ancient ruins.

At last, something snared her gaze: a patch of tawny leather, mostly concealed behind a shelf full of broken pottery shards. Sliding dull red and vibrant blue ceramic aside, she reached into the depths. She disturbed at least two spiderwebs and left an arm-shaped pattern in the dust before her hand closed around the leather.

Her fingers tingled at the flesh-warm material. She drew it out, brushed off a thick layer of grime and looked at the burnished surface. Now that she could see it more clearly, it resembled nothing so much as human skin. It felt like skin too—thin and ragged—its surface stamped with symbols the likes of which she’d never seen. They resembled a primitive form of Egyptian hieratic, but the symbols did not correspond to any hieratic she’d seen.

Heart pounding, Violet gently eased the cover open. The leather hinges creaked but held. Inside, papyrus sheets, ragged and uneven, contained text in the same strange hieratic along with what seemed to be a set of sophisticated yet primitive drawings like the ones she’d seen in an article about a cave in Spain. Its beauty stole her breath.

“Violet!” Father shouted, “your time is up. Let’s go.”

Violet inhaled to respond, and a thick cloud of dust rose up, setting her coughing. Closing the book reverently, she carried it to the front of the shop and handed it to the owner so she could dig out her handkerchief and wipe her streaming eyes.

“Would you like to buy this?” the man asked in heavily accented English.

“Yes,” Violet replied in even more broken Greek. “How much is it?”

The man quoted a price that made her choke again, but without reservation, she pulled a roll of dollars out and handed it to him.

Avarice lit the dark eyes. The man grabbed the cash, stroked his beard and extended the book.

Violet grabbed it and ran to the entrance. “I’m ready now, Father,” she rasped.

Father regarded the book with a sour expression, twisting his pencil-thin mustache into a frown. “This is what you’ve dragged me all over Athens to find? You ignored statues, paintings, textiles—anything with any beauty or style—and bought a book. Violet, I fear you’ll never find a husband at this rate.”

Violet shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

The boat whistled, its call reverberating across all the buildings in town.

“Let’s hurry,” Father urged. He took his wife’s arm and escorted her across the uneven streets.

“Let’s hurry carefully,” Mother replied. We still have over an hour to walk only a few blocks. No need to stumble about.”

“Yes, I agree,” Violet added, her eyes glued to her book, not watching where she was going.

“I will concede your mother’s need,” Hiram said bluntly to his daughter, “but not yours. You can stare at that damned book for weeks as we sail across the Atlantic. In the meanwhile, step lively. You’ve dragged your mother around this city more than is good for her in her…cond—”

“Hiram, stop,” Charlotte urged. “The doctors say my illness is already under control. It’s likely I’ll make a full recovery.”

Violet heard the false confidence in her mother’s voice. It won’t, she acknowledged sadly. She weakens every day. This will be our last trip as a whole family. I’m grown, and Mother is… Her mind veered away from the unwanted thought.

They made their way to the docks and joined a throng of sweating, fretting tourists loading themselves for the long journey home.

This is going to be a long, sad and tiresome trip, Violet thought. At least I have my book to keep me company.

Chapter 2

Pittsburgh, 1919

“Violet, are you ready? It’s almost time to go,” Father called from the corridor.

Violet froze, set her book to the side and shoved her foot into her boot. “Almost, Father,” she called back.

Hiram knocked on her door and let himself in. “Quit fiddling with that damned book and get ready. You were the one who wanted to go to this party,” he groused to his daughter. “The grippe is far from settled, despite the relaxing of quarantine rules. Why would you drag us to a party neither of us wants to go to in the middle of an epidemic?”

“You should put in an appearance for the sake of your reputation,” Violet pointed out as she tied the laces into a bow and groped across the bed to retrieve her gauze face mask. “You haven’t made your way so high in your company only to molder at home as a recluse. Your reputation is based on your network of supporters. You need to get out and meet with them sometimes. Besides, no one in our circles has gotten sick, and you don’t even interact with the factory workers anymore. You just drink tea in the sunroom. Put on a mask, bring a hankie and go mingle.”

“I thought you were going to meet with that suitor of yours,” Hiram rebutted. “I don’t need some slip of a girl telling me how to do my job.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m reminding you of what you used to do. And I don’t have a suitor, Father. I hope you don’t mean that idiot you invited to dinner last week. He didn’t even bring a hankie. He sneezed all over the good napkins.” She shuddered.

“James Wilson is a good, solid young man. A rising star in the steel business. I hope we can keep him, and he doesn’t decide to go into competition against us.”

“Hence why you’re trying to arrange a reason for him to stick with the Carnegie corporation?” Violet guessed, rolling her eyes.

Hiram shrugged, creasing his suit coat and his forehead in a single movement.

A violent sigh tore itself from Violet’s chest. “Father, you’ll have to find some other incentive to keep Mr. Wilson on board. He’s eight years younger than me—too young to be a serious suitor, too old for me to train how to behave properly. That’s assuming I wanted to—which I don’t. And he still thinks he can boss me around. He’s definitely not someone I’m interested in.”

“You know,” Hiram pointed out, “the odds of you finding a man who will let you be the head of the household are extremely low. You should consider whether you ought to compromise that desire rather than be alone. You’re no spring chicken.”

“Exactly, Father,” Violet said. “I didn’t reach the great old age of twenty-nine alone by being desperate to find a partner. I’m comfortable being single. If my fate is to become an eccentric spinster, I don’t mind. I have quite a special job that I find very fulfilling. I have friends, and I’m not interested in being the head of the household, only an equal partner.”

Hiram laughed, though it didn’t hold much humor. “Good luck with that, princess. If your mother were here, I’m sure she’d be quick to disabuse you of such nonsense. I have no doubt that, with her guidance, you’d be long married by now. Maybe even a mother.”

“What a world,” Violet said, intentionally tweaking her father’s sensibilities, “where half the population is relegated to only a few of the possible goals, and only the ones that are least respected.”

“We’re not starting this again,” Hiram growled. “Get moving. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

Frowning, Violet tied the strings of her mask behind the back of her head and plunked a hat on. At the last moment, she grabbed her book, tucked it into her handbag—a large leather satchel heavily decorated with elaborate beading—and headed for the door. If nothing else, I can hide away in the corner and study these strange hieroglyphics one more time. Maybe different lighting will reveal something I haven’t noticed before.

***

A sumptuous ballroom hummed with conversation. Drinks flowed freely and luxurious snacks, still rare after years of wartime rationing, adorned several small tables in one corner. Violet suppressed a smile as she watched people eyeing food when they thought no one was looking. Have to look dignified in the face of chocolate petit fours, filled pastries and rum punch. It all seemed so artificial. If the party hadn’t been hosted by her father’s boss, she would have skipped it. Anything for the family business, she thought, rolling her eyes. Hope I don’t get the grippe from some idiot coughing in the punch.

Clutching a cup in her hand as camouflage against unwanted kindness, her book a comforting weight in her handbag, she moved away from the wall and circulated at random, approaching a crowd and then tiptoeing away.

Randall. Drat. Why does he have to be everywhere I want to go? Her former suiter sported a dashing scar that bisected his left eyebrow. His wild brown hair, which Violet had always loved, had been slicked back with pomade and now looked unnatural. Also greasy. His slim-cut brown suit highlighted a figure that had been transformed by years of hard work overseas from a slender youth to a fuller, more muscular shape.

Women in fancy dresses flocked around him, and he absorbed the adulation with a smug grin that made Violet want to retch.

Good thing I didn’t marry him, she thought. It doesn’t look like maturity improved him much.

Shaking her head, she approached another group.

“Violet,” Hiram shouted from the middle of a knot of younger men and women, mostly his work team.

Violet’s stomach clenched. “Hello, Father.”

“Look who’s here.”

Violet sighed. “Hello, Mr. Wilson.”

“Jim, please,” the young man urged. His fingers, their nails bitten to the quick, fluttered as though to smooth his slicked hair, but he ultimately didn’t touch. He cleared his throat and coughed but made no move to reach for the hankie in his breast pocket.

Nervous, and no wonder, with Father hovering over his shoulder.Still, nerves are no excuse to spread germs. “How is work?” she asked blandly, not accepting his invitation to use a more intimate name.

“We have fifteen new accounts this month!” the young man exclaimed. Again, he attempted to touch his hair and forced his hand back to his side. “The end of the war didn’t hurt business at all! And in spite of the grippe, business is thriving. We’re having a hard time containing contagion in the factories because we need so many workers to keep up with demand. They’re packed in like sardines.”

“How lovely for you,” she said sarcastically. I used to have nothing against the boy, apart from him being too young and too bossy. Now, his casual disregard for suffering doesn’t impress me. That makes me even less interested than before. “If you will excuse me, Father, Mr. Wilson, I must go and greet a friend.”

Turning slightly to the side, she meandered away. “This party is boring,” she muttered under her breath as she approached the punchbowl. Though more than half the liquid remained in her cup, she added a splash anyway. Perhaps some alcohol will help smooth the evening.

“Is everything all right, Miss Warren?” a voice murmured in her ear.

Violet glanced over her shoulder to see the pointy, refined features of her boss, linguistics professor Miles Owen.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said meekly.

Miles raised one dark eyebrow. “Your father invited me.”

“Did he? I wonder why?” Noticing a few cookies on a plate beside the punchbowl, she snagged one and tugged her mask down so she could take a bite. “I would hardly think a bunch of money-grubbing steel tycoons would be interested in world languages.”

“On the contrary,” the professor protested, “They’re always looking for new markets and new customers. Eventually, they will run out of territory in the United States. That means it’s important to learn new languages so that they can expand.”

“Interesting,” Violet said, tucking her mask up around her face. “So, from the realm of pure academia, you’ve managed to capture the interest of the captains of industry? That’s quite a coup.”

“I think so,” Owen agreed. “I may end up relying on you even more heavily to continue the cataloging and translating of ancient documents, so I can attend to more… profitable matters.”

“I’d be delighted,” Violet replied. “I’m able to read hieratic without a guide, and my hieroglyphics are almost as good as yours. Do you think, if all goes well in the next year or so, I could get some credit toward the translations?” Snack finished, she tucked the mask up around her face.

“It’s possible,” Owen said. He ladled himself a glass of the potent punch. “We’ll see what the future holds.” He downed his drink in a single gulp, coughed, and poured another. It too disappeared quickly.

“Boss, you might want to take it easy on the punch,” Violet suggested. “It’s pretty strong. You don’t want to look bad in front of all these steel tycoons.”

Owen raised bushy eyebrows but obediently set his cup down. “So, are you here with anyone?” he asked, fruit and alcohol wafting on his breath. She could smell it right through the gauze of her mask.

“Yes,” Violet said.

Owen’s face fell.

“With my father,” she added.

His dark eyes lit up.

Something in his expression alarmed Violet, and she quickly scooted away from him, muttering a vague excuse in his direction.

Annoyed by the entire party, Violet retreated to the hallway, where late arrivals had long since stopped appearing. Though a lack of windows in this interior space prevented moonlight from reaching her, she found a spot below an electric wall sconce where the light sufficed for her to see her book.

Tugging the ragged, loosely bound volume from her bag, she examined the leathery cover again. With its strange markings of embossed hieratic that she could not read or understand, it frustrated her.

“Someday, I will learn your secrets,” she whispered.

The leather seemed to pulse under her fingers. She caressed it.

“Oh, here you are. What do you have there?”

Violet glanced up to see Miles Owen standing beside her. Or rather, leaning. His shoulder rested heavily against the yellow floral wallpaper.

“A book,” Violet replied. “I bought it on holiday in Greece several years ago, and I’ve been trying to read it ever since. Have you ever seen marks like these?”

Carefully and with great reluctance, she extended the volume to her boss.

He examined the cover with narrowed eyes and then opened it with less care than Violet liked. Lips pursing, Owen ran his fingers over the unfamiliar hieratic. Then he shook his head, shut the cover and handed the volume back to Violet. “Looks like you’ve been rooked, my dear.” A soft exhalation and a waft of alcohol seemed to be a burp.

Violet frowned. “What do you mean?”

“That is not a real written language,” he replied bluntly. “It looks like someone bound up a collection of children’s scribbles and bound it all in a goat’s skin, maybe as a gift for a grandmother. There’s nothing to see here. I hope you didn’t spend too much on it.”