Labyrinth Through The Mirror of Time Chapter 16

  

Chapter 16: The Birth of the Twins

The collapse of the networks did not alter the atmosphere inside Shehrazad’s house in the slightest. The white cat’s mission had no need for internet or electricity; it required only the magic of the Collar of the Two Skies and the purifying presence of the white cat herself.

In Demir’s room, it was quiet, filled with the usual pleasant, sweet aroma. Shehrazad resumed the familiar ritual with the string soaked in cedar resin. Everyone, including Samir, was lost in thought. Each of them wondered whether the awakening of the Mirror of Time was somehow connected to the apocalyptic reality into which they had suddenly been plunged. For a hyper-technological world, returning to a life stripped of technology is perhaps, from an evolutionary standpoint, akin to birds regressing to the age of reptiles.

Once Shehrazad set the tortoise-shaped clock, Remi felt her collar vibrating again. Her eyelids grew heavy as lead, and she found herself back within the Wall of Ether, holding Demir by the hand.

"The mirror is repairing itself!" was the first thing the boy said. "Will I manage to save my mother?"

Remi, a woman once more in this new dimension, placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing it gently.

"Where are we this time?"

They stood in a long corridor with floors of polished white limestone blocks, the walls covered in giant frescoes painted in mineral colors—ocher, lapis lazuli blue, and brick-red—depicting the Aten sun disc with its rays ending in sheltering hands. Servants carrying out various chores and maidservants moving noiselessly in single file gave the impression of a crowded sidewalk of our time.

"Look!" Demir said, pointing.

Very close to the wall, in the light filtering through the slanted slits of the stonework, two cats could be seen, seemingly trying not to draw attention: a white cat that looked identical to Remi-Bise, wearing a collar exactly like hers, and a fluffy black one, Mehyt.

"Let’s follow them!" Remi said. In the next second, remembering they were invisible to the rest of the world, she grabbed the boy's hand again and quickened her pace to catch up with the ancient felines.

"Pssst, Mehyt! Pssst!"

The black cat stopped walking, visibly annoyed.

"You two again? Do you ghosts never say hello?"

"Forgive us, Your Darkness! What is happening?"

The white cat, who resembled Remi, stopped as well. She measured the writer from head to toe and, in sheer amazement, could barely find her voice:

"Mother? Are you the spirit of our mother?"

Remi swallowed hard and squeezed Demir’s hand tightly, but she didn't manage to answer, because Mehyt beat her to it.

"She is not your mother, Meritbastet! She looks like her, and like you, but she is not your mother! They keep appearing around here, asking for my help, and then they vanish... I don't understand what it is with these ghosts, but look at her neck—we are of the same order."

"My sister is in the throes of childbirth," Meritbastet said. "I have no access to the palace, which is why I have taken this form. Let us hurry, Mehyt!"

Past them, in an even greater rush, went barefoot maidservants, treading on the woven reed mats placed here and there along the middle of the corridor. Their long, tight dresses—kalasiris—were made of a linen so fine it had become translucent. Their eyes, heavily rimmed with black kohl, and the broad collars of turquoise beads around their necks gave Remi a powerful sense of déjà vu. Moreover, she felt as if she and Meritbastet were the exact same person, as though she were seeing herself in a dream about something that had happened to her long ago.

They advanced like this, past guards with massive frames, as if sculpted from stone, their skin burnt by the sun, dressed in short kilts of coarse linen and heavy wigs; past maidservants carrying giant bronze trays and porous ceramic amphorae on their heads, towels, and bowls filled with blue lotus petals; through the sharp smell of warm sweat, nard oil, and burning myrrh.

Eventually, they reached a tall, majestic opening covered by a heavy drapery of royal purple-dyed linen, embroidered along the edges with threads of solid gold. The two cats squeezed underneath, slipping through the heavy folds of the curtain, while Remi and Demir followed them curiously.

Once inside the royal chamber, Meritbastet looked around and then, sighing with relief, transformed back into a woman.

Remi could not believe her eyes. She had been struggling for more than three months to become a woman again, yet this young girl, the queen's twin sister, could change her form at will, all while keeping her collar-necklace around her neck.

In the Queen’s chamber, the atmosphere was suffocating, intimate, and heavy. At the windows, a kind of reed blind filtered the light into golden stripes, maintaining a semi-darkness that was not cool at all—quite the contrary. The air was burning hot, thick with the metallic smell of fresh, warm blood mixed with the scent of burning incense.

Surrounded by four midwives, the queen, Meritmut, seemed to be in terrible pain. She was not on a bed or a birthing table; she was half-crouched, leaning against two large, ritual birth bricks decorated with the face of the goddess Hathor. A sheen of glistening sweat covered her pale skin. Her linen dress was wet, pulled up to facilitate bringing the infants into the world.

Meritbastet drew even closer to her suffering sister and pressed her lips first to her forehead, kissing her gently, then to her ear, whispering prayers... incantations.

"Do not leave me, my sister! Stay here beside me! Do not let the High Priest into my quarters! This child..."

A lusty cry of a baby pierced the hot air, and Demir, within the Wall of Ether, began to breathe raggedly once more.

"Calm down, Demir, everything will be fine! You have already been born... breathe!"

The midwives immediately took the child to clean him and check his physical integrity when, completely unexpected by those around the queen, another cry, just as lusty, announced the arrival of the second infant.

"You have two perfect children, little sister! Hold them to your chest."

In that exact instant, one of the maidservants announced the arrival of the Pharaoh, and Meritbastet instantly transformed back into a cat, sitting quietly beside the black tomcat by the wall, right underneath the window. They looked like two masterfully sculpted statues.

"Did you see that?" Remi whispered. "She shifts from one form to another without any effort. What happened to these collars in the meantime?"

The ringing of the tortoise clock announced the end of the journey and of the magic from the Wall of Ether.

Remi opened her eyes, but she felt more exhausted than ever. Leaping down from the child’s chest in a single bound, forgetting about the connection made by Shehrazad, she inadvertently gave the child’s body a violent jolt, almost knocking him out of bed.