Chapter 5
Joss completed her day at the museum, trying to calm her fevered mind and focus on the exhibits she was seeing. She took notes and sketched, asked questions and nodded intelligently at the answers, but she was functioning on two levels. Half of her brain was soaking up what the museum had to offer, including Nassor’s learned commentary, while the other half endlessly reviewed what had been said about the Med-jai. She realized there was no explanation for their appearance in her dream; all she could do now was try to survive her nightly encounter with them and hope that it whatever was causing it would be resolved and the dream would end. Yet . . . part of her dreaded that very thing. It would release her from the desolation she suffered each time he left her there at the edge of the bazaar, but it would also mean she’d never see him again. And, she wanted to see him again. Even if only as a distant figure on horseback, she wanted—needed—to see him again.
When the museum closed, Jocelyn thanked everyone for their kindness and patience in teaching her so much, and began the walk back to the hotel. Her pace was slow, as she was both tired and preoccupied. Jostled by the crowds and lost in thought, she wandered off course without realizing it. Before long, she was in a part of the city completely strange to her, with no idea of how to get to her hotel. There were few shops or restaurants along this street; it looked closed-up and rather forbidding. “Oh, great. Just what I need. I’m lost. Well, at least it’s summer; it won’t be dark for awhile.” Turning around, she headed back down the way she’d just come, only to discover that she must have made quite a number of turns because the street she was on was not taking her back to anything she recognized.
Refusing to panic–it was still light out and while her surroundings weren’t terribly friendly-looking, there weren’t actual gangs in the streets, Joss stopped and pulled out the city map she carried with her everywhere. By locating the museum and then scanning the area around where she should have been, she tried to locate her current position. Whatever part of the town she was in, it was one which didn’t seem to merit much attention from cartographers. She had a good head for maps, but she couldn’t find the street she was on anywhere. Just as she’d decided to go into the first open business she could find and fess up to being a dumb tourist, a voice by her elbow made her jump.
“Are you lost?”
Getting her breath back, Joss turned and saw the friendly face of a girl next to her, and then the tiny, wizened woman on her arm. By appearance, the woman must have been at least ninety, if this person had spent a lifetime in the sun and wind of the desert, she could easily look twenty years older than she was. The girl spoke again: “I’m sorry if I startled you, but are you lost, madam?”
“Yes, I think I am. I was at a museum not too far from here . . . well, I don’t think it was far from here . . . and I guess I had too much on my mind to pay attention to where I was going. I ended up way off course! Could you direct me back to my hotel, do you think? I’d very much appreciate it.”
“Where are you staying?”
Jocelyn gave her the name of her hotel, and the girl nodded. “I know that place, and it’s not too far from here.” She stood next to Joss and showed her where she was on the map—it was, in fact, in a section that showed only a few main streets and not the small lane she was on—and then plotted her an easy route back to the hotel with very few turns. Sighing with relief, Jocelyn thanked the young woman for her help. The older woman had been watching her closely, black eyes glowing. As Joss prepared to walk away, the woman suddenly said something to her in Arabic. Sighing, the young woman muttered something back to her, but the old lady shook her arm and spoke again. Looking very embarrassed, the girl turned to Joss. “My grandmother says that a woman alone should be careful in the city and she insists that I tell you that.” Lowering her voice, she added, “I’m sorry, but she’s lived in a tiny settlement out in the desert for over seventy years, and she’s very hesitant about city life.”
“That’s all right,” said Joss, smiling. “My grandmother’s the same way about being careful in traffic.” She nodded pleasantly at the old woman who spoke again. This time, what she said made Jocelyn freeze, for mixed in with the flow of words she could not understand was one she knew well: Med-jai. Staring at the little figure, Joss leaned in more closely. She glanced up at the young girl who showed every desire to get out of there before her grandmother mortified her completely in front of this American woman. “Did she say . . . Med-jai?”
The girl was clearly startled that Jocelyn recognized the name but replied: “Yes. Grandmother believes in those ‘magic men.’ Everyone in her settlement did.”
“What did she just say?”
“That a woman must be more careful in the city, because there are no Med-jai to protect her. It’s ridiculous, I know, but nothing will shake her belief that they really exist.”
Jocelyn drew closer to the old woman, who looked at her earnestly. “Would you please ask her if she’s ever seen a Med-jai? I’m not making fun of her, truly. I spent the day with some respected archaeologists who think there is evidence that the Med-jai are real.”
The girl looked skeptical, but relayed the question to her grandmother. The old woman nodded her head vigorously and began speaking at length, releasing her granddaughter’s arm to make sweeping gestures, her face alight with excitement. Jocelyn watched her, wishing desperately that she spoke Arabic. Finally, the girl took pity on her and translated:
“She says she saw a Med-jai warrior just once, when she was about my age. She had gone to another settlement with some friends and wanted to return home before they did, so she set out alone, even though it was forbidden. When she got into the dunes, hidden from both villages, a man rode up and dragged her onto his horse. She fought and screamed, but there was no one to help her. Then, ‘out of the air’ she says, a man dressed all in flowing black with strange marks on his face came up beside them on a huge, black horse. Her captor drew a sword, but the other man was too quick for him—as quick as a flash of light. His scimitar sliced the kidnapper’s sword hand from his arm, and then the man in black pulled her from the other horse onto his. They rode very fast back to the edge of her village, where he left her and disappeared into the desert.”
Jocelyn was transfixed by the story, watching every movement the old woman made. When she had finished her tale, she seemed exhausted and took hold of her granddaughter’s arm again. But she looked up at Joss and nodded one last time, saying firmly: “Med-jai!” Joss reached out and touched the woman’s arm briefly, feeling that to make contact with someone who had been with a Med-jai brought her closer to the man in her dream. Then she thanked the girl again, and began walking towards the hotel. From what the girl had said, her grandmother was somewhere in her seventies. The granddaughter had been about eighteen. That would mean, if her story were true, that the Med-jai had been alive and active as recently as fifty years ago. If then . . . why not now?
By the time she made it back to her room, it was past seven-thirty and Jocelyn was sweaty, dirty and starving. She decided she couldn’t face getting pulled together enough to eat in the restaurant, so she called room service, asking them to deliver her order in an hour. Peeling off her clothes, she first washed her hair in the bathroom sink and wrapped it in one of the lush towels. Then she ran a deep, hot bath scented with jasmine bath salts. When the water was just below drowning level, she eased herself into it with a grateful sigh. It felt so good not to move, letting the sweet-smelling water wash away the day’s grime and refresh her spirit. She lay back in the tub, eyes closed. Her very brain was exhausted; she couldn’t think clearly about anything right now. Bits and pieces of the day drifted through her mind . . . the artifacts she’d touched, Nassor’s pleasant voice answering her questions, the exhibits, the luncheon, what she’d learned about the Med-jai and the odd encounter with the old woman.
Inevitably, her thoughts turned from everything else and centered on her dark rider. As she lay there, relaxed and quiet, he filled her mind. She saw him riding, first nothing but a black dot moving smoothly across the glowing sand. Then he came closer, the pace never slackening. She could see him as distinct from his horse, now, two dark forms instead of one. Nearer still, enough to make out the black turban on hair nearly as dark, tunic and pants fluttering in the wind generated by his speed, the sword at his side. Such power, such perfect control over his horse. Tall and confident, he held his seat easily.
Jocelyn began to moan softly, so intent on the Med-jai warrior—and on the body she was imagining beneath those inky garments—that she was unaware of her hands moving on her skin. Her fingers glided over her breasts, finding and teasing the hardened nipples. Joss’s lips parted, and her breath came in soft gasps. Her hips pulsed in a once-familiar rhythm, and her body tightened in response to urges she’d believed long-dead. One hand slid over her stomach and across her belly to the juncture of her thighs, her fingers teasing at the wiry curls. Lower still, between the lips of her sex to find the fleshy pearl that was already swollen with need. The figure of her Med-jai warrior was in her head, drawing her into a place of heat and passion. With one hand rolling and tugging a rigid nipple while her fingers stroked her aching center, it didn’t take long to reach completion. Jocelyn cried out, her back arching as waves of release flowed through her body. Her legs thrashed, pushing water over the edges of the tub onto the floor. She continued touching herself gently, whimpering through the final pulses of her orgasm.
Slowly, Joss sat up, stunned by what had just happened. Not once in the three years since Stephen’s death had she felt the slightest flicker of desire. And yet, just thinking about the man in her dream had aroused her so much that she’d brought herself to climax, unaware of what she was doing until the pleasure flooded her body. “What would happen if I were actually with him?” she thought. Jocelyn felt both fear and longing at the idea, and could not honestly have said which was stronger.
Moving somewhat shakily, Jocelyn climbed carefully out of the tub and reached for a towel. As she dried herself, she wondered how much longer she could live torn between the waking world and her dream world without breaking apart. If she were to be honest with herself, she had to admit that despite the pain it caused, her dream was giving her something she had always longed for in life: to need someone so much that it overwhelmed you. She had loved Stephen with all her heart . . . that was beyond question. They had shared a warm, faithful, very happy marriage. But . . . it had been love, not passion. When they were apart, she’d missed him a great deal, but she hadn’t ached for him, hadn’t felt incomplete without him. In her deepest self, she wanted to know what that was like—to be so inextricably fused with your love that neither of you is whole without the other.
“But I can’t have that, really, with someone who’s just a figure in my dreams,” she thought, sadly. “I can’t even have him with me when I need him. I see him only in my sleep, and even then the dream has to happen on its own.”
Jocelyn put on her pajamas, remembering almost too late to add robe and slippers. Room service knocked at her door just as she was tying her sash. She answered the door and watched while the man set the tray on the small table near the window, uncovering the dishes and arranging her meal. Thanking him, she gave him a tip and closed the door. She felt melancholy and alone for the first time since arriving in
It was only nine o’clock, but she decided to go to bed. The day had been exhausting, physically, mentally and emotionally, and an extra hour or so of sleep might help her shake off her blues. She’d removed her robe and slippers when the mural above her bed caught her eye. Joss had never given this one careful examination before; it was the mural near the door that she’d scrutinized. Something about this one had struck a wrong note, but she’d never analyzed that impression. Now she saw the difference: the other murals were of well-known Egyptian landmarks, places most tourists would recognize. One featured the Sphinx, another the great pyramids, another the Temple of Hathor at Abu Simbel. But this one . . . the monuments depicted in this mural were completely unknown to her, which meant they either didn’t exist or that the painter had possessed some very esoteric knowledge about Ancient Egypt.
As her eyes scanned the painted surface, Joss spotted something that made her cry aloud in shock. Poised on high bluffs above the stone statues and monoliths was a line of dark horsemen. Climbing onto the bed, she snatched up the bedside lamp and held it high to illuminate that section of the mural. There was no doubt: she was looking at a painted depiction of the Med-jai. The riders were not more than four inches high including their horses, but the artist had painted them with care. Their identity was clear: the turbans; the loose, black clothing; the gleaming scimitars at their belts. Scrambling off the bed, Jocelyn dug through her satchel until she found her magnifying glass and resumed her examination. Using the bedside lamp and the glass, she could even see the small marks on the face of the largest Med-jai figure that represented the tattoos Nassor had described.
Jocelyn sat down heavily and returned the lamp to its spot beside her bed. Who on earth had painted this? Had the artist been working from legends or actual knowledge of the Med-jai—his or a family member’s? Was the location a real place as yet unknown to archaeologists or simply a fantasy landscape of ancient times? How had she never noticed the “dark riders” in the mural before? Looking up, she realized that wasn’t so surprising. They were tucked into an upper corner of the work and it wasn’t likely she’d have seen them at a quick glance.
Then a thought struck her: if she’d seen those figures before she started having the dream, she wouldn’t have paid much attention, probably dismissing them as artistic license for dramatic effect. After the dream started, she still wouldn’t have known the name of the brotherhood or to look for the tattoos. That had to wait until after today’s revelations at the museum. Her rider had never come close enough to see the markings, and even if he had, they were covered. The turban came down over his forehead, and the scarf was wrapped across his face just below his eyes. Now, instead of simply being characters to fill a scene, they were real, identifiable beings.
She thought of something else, and in her overwrought state, it made her giggle helplessly. “I guess at least I can sleep well, according to that old woman. I have the Med-jai watching over me!” She continued to giggle, which changed into laughter and, finally, to tears. Jocelyn lay on the bed, weeping. There was no hiding from it anymore, no running away from the truth which was now bitterly clear: she was totally, helplessly in love with a man whom she’d not only never met . . . he didn’t exist.
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A Dream Realized – Chapter 6