Marlene held Rider's forearm to quiet him and the team waited. The old men's cloudy, bluish-white eyes followed the sound of Rider's voice and the rustle of Marlene's robe.
The eldest among them lifted his cane and pointed toward Carlos. "The voice is not the one we seek. The woman cannot go to the island of knowing. Only one travels with us."
"No can do, brother," Shabazz said, stepping in front of Carlos in a protective stance. "He's one of ours, and we all go down as a team. State your business."
"He must learn things before the apex that only we can show him," the second old man said, his blind eyes traveling to find Shabazz's face as he pointed his stick toward the sun.
"He must learn his true name, then he will guide you home," the third old man said, and then turned to motion toward a far-off island.
Carlos placed a hand on Shabazz's shoulder to indicate he was willing to give the strange request a shot. "It's cool, man. If these old dudes have wisdom, I'm down for whatever." He watched Shabazz rub his chin then stand aside reluctantly. "Hey, they came out during the day," Carlos said with a half smile. "Beats the courier service I used to have."
"You sure, man?" Big Mike asked, grunting as he stood with effort.
Carlos simply nodded and walked forward until the edge of the water dampened his sandaled feet.
Grit and dust stung Damali's eyes as she dismounted from the helicopter and reached for Telek's hand. She couldn't get the image of blue water and smoke out of her mind. Panic had covered her skin with a cool sheen of perspiration, and no amount of small talk and platitudes could make her shake it.
Without a word she trudged behind her overly hospitable guides, listening to nothing except the hard yellowish dust crunch beneath her feet. This land was one of contrasts, like so many others she'd seen. Gravel and dust, but also shade-producing trees. In Askum there were white stone monuments and an eerie vacancy all around, but it also gave one the feeling that eyes were everywhere.
"He is not far from here," Telek said proudly as he waved toward the litter of palace ruins and stelae bearing strange inscriptions. He smiled broadly. "You feel the ancestors watching from the many underground tombs, if you stand very still."
Damali glanced around nervously as she picked up her pace. "Yeah, I sorta had the feeling that there was some seriously old energy around here."
"Indeed. My grandfather is so near the St. Mary of Zion Church people always want him to allow them to board there while on pilgrimages. It is one of the holiest shrines, the church, and it is said that the Ark of the Covenant is hidden somewhere here, however grandfather claims that three seers have long since moved it to an island home." Telek chuckled and shrugged as he kept walking. "Who knows? But grandfather is very peculiar and particular about whom he allows in his home. Dirt from his yard, and granite pieces from the huge obelisks in Stele Field, are believed to be mystical." Her guide leaned in closer and offered Damali a jaunty wink. "Local people even swear that the water pumped into his small well actually travels beneath the ground, past the ancestors' resting places, from Queen Sheba's pool."
After a winding path, Telek stepped through a low iron gate into a circular courtyard where a small, one-story, whitewashed brick house stood surrounded by pink-and-red blossoms on prickly vines. He walked around toward the back of it, where a high wall protected it from the north, and the majestic mountains in the distance seemed to stand guard. The high iron gate on the far side of the courtyard led to what seemed to be a centuries-old church or temple that she now knew was the one Telek had mentioned earlier. But the tall, intricately carved granite obelisks that flanked it made Damali stop for a moment and stare. Telek smiled and motioned to a large, leafy tree that she could not name and bade her to sit down beneath it. Dori began to walk away, and only then did Damali summon her voice.
"Our pilot, though..."
"Dori is not an elder. He cannot be here. The children cannot be here. The mothers and fathers do not come to grandfather's compound unless invited." He hugged his cousin and said something to him in the language she would never fully learn, and then took his time to go to a small pump by the house to fill a flat metal pan with water. Balancing the water with care, he set it down before Damali. "I must wash your feet before you enter. We should do this near the door, and you must leave your shoes outside. Grandfather is very particular about the spirits you could walk over on his threshold."
Damali nodded. "Marlene has some of these ways, too," she said, slipping off her sandals. She allowed the earth to warm her feet as she again took Telek's hand. But an inner wave of despair hit her as soon as her soles connected with the bare earth. Tears sprung to her eyes and she shut them as images reeled against her mind and made her temporarily cling to her guide for support.
Women so weary that tears would no longer come to their eyes pressed skeletal-weight infants too weak to suckle to their flat, milk-empty br**sts. War and famine, disease and drought so treacherous that it had left babies mere brown skin and loose bones. Damali covered her mouth as Nzinga's voice filled her ears.You had to see this, queen sister. Your suffering pales by comparison. This is whom you raise your Isis for. Always remember the ancestors in your quest .
Damali knelt, the dust and gravel of the outer yard eating into her knees as her hands skimmed it blindly. She touched the surface as though a gentle lover, revering those that had gone before her. "But you never gave up," she whispered, her tears wetting the ground.
"No..." the ground whispered back. Damali lifted her face and turned quickly toward the huge tree above her. "All over the world," the tree murmured in the breeze. "The children are dying. The earth has been desecrated." She picked up a small pebble that suddenly rolled toward her. "Take me," it echoed, "I was here in the beginning and can tell you much." A tiny beetle pushed its way between blades of rough grass. It stopped and stared up at Damali, its beady black eyes unblinking as she looked deeply into them. "Collect seven stones," it murmured. "The flat ones worn smooth by my friends, time and water. They will find you. Just open your hand." Then it parted its hard outer metallic green casing, spread a pair of sheer tawny wings, and flew away.
Telek gazed down at her with a warm smile as she sought his gaze for confirmation. When he nodded she opened her hands and laid them palms up in the grass and waited. The tree shuddered as another breeze disturbed its branches. A small brown bird lit upon a low limb and dropped a smooth, clear quartz rock near her hand and was gone.
An elderly man appeared in the doorway of the house and grinned a full dazzling white smile. His leathery, brown skin sparkled with youth just beneath it, and he motioned to Telek to bring Damali forward. He said several long sentences, and looked at Telek, then gazed at Damali tenderly.
"My grandfather is Ephener, his name means 'to have plenty' He says that his garden likes you. This is good. You may now wash your feet and enter his home. The rest of your stones are on the way."
Carlos walked into the water shin-deep, the lake silt making his sandals slippery against the bottom. He was unsure about how to climb into the canoe without tipping it and sending the blind old men splashing into the water, so he studied the problem for a moment until the eldest one leaned over and offered him a hand, bracing his long walking stick against the shoal.
It was amazing, the strength in the old man's grip. Carlos was certain he'd felt a mild current run through him as he clasped the gnarled hand and stepped up into the narrow craft. But it never wavered, nor did the surefooted elders budge. Then he watched with pure awe as the two on his flank each reached out into the air and grabbed at nothingness, as though the air were a blanket to be balled into their elderly fists and they were closing an invisible cloak around them.
He could see his teammates' shocked expressions, could see everything going on along the shore as they panicked and rushed about, hollering behind the slow-moving boat as though it were gone. The two men chuckled and threw open their arms, the one on the left flinging open his left arm at the same time the elder on Carlos's right flung his right arm away from him. A new shore stood before them with a small, white sand bank that gave way to lush, tall green lake grasses. Beyond it loomed a white stone monastery, weathered gray by wind and storms. Moss ate at its mortar, creating velvet down between each centuries' old stone.
The oldest man in the boat calmly stepped into the water, his walking stick guiding him as he simply waved for Carlos to follow. He bowed toward the shore, then toward each cardinal direction, but never actually stood on the shore.
"Before you enter, you must be cleansed by the waters of life," he said, "and reborn to be given a new name."
Carlos gingerly stepped out of the boat into the mystically still water, but unlike the old man, when he stepped down into it, he was waist deep. The old man came to him, bent, and dipped his hand in the water, drizzling it over Carlos's head. He handed off his long stick to one of his brethren, and placed a flat palm on Carlos's back and one on his chest. Before Carlos could protest, a pair of strong arms that belonged to a twenty-year-old man had dunked him backward.
He came up sputtering and coughing to nods and smiles of approval.