…Ayesha,
the legendary She-who-must-be-obeyed, described, in Wisdom’s
Daughter,
her birth as the daughter of Yarab, an Arab chieftain. Her mother,
she added, had died after looking upon her, fearing that, if she
lived on, she might give birth to another child who was less
beautiful. As a young woman Ayesha loved the golden-haired Apollo,
Kallikrates, but stained her hands with his blood in a fit of
jealousy
when she discovered him embracing her rival for his affections,
Amenartas.
Then, disobeying the
instructions of her aged teacher and friend, the Prophet Noot, high
priest of Isis, she entered the Fire of Immortality she had been
appointed to guard and began a two-thousand-year exile of undying
loneliness as queen of the ancient ruined kingdom of Kor in Africa,
her only comfort being the hope that Kallikrates would one day be
reborn and ultimately be restored to her. She
and Allan,
a memoir of the famous Victorian explorer Allan Quatermain, added to
the history of Ayesha but it was Horace Holly’s reminiscence, She,
that told of how her hopes were seemingly fulfilled when Holly
arrived at Kor with his ward Leo Vincey, the image of her lost love.
Ironically, Leo, or Kallikrates, then lost Ayesha when the Fire of
Immortality reversed its process the second time she bathed in it.
Holly recorded how she aged to death before their horrified eyes. In
fact, she was unable to die and Leo eventually, as described in
Holly’s second book, Ayesha,
rediscovered her in Asia, reincarnated as a virtually mummified
ancient ruler known as the Hesea, who was in due course rejuvenated
in Ayesha’s former image…
‘…The books I mentioned earlier, the ones Holly allowed me to see, the originals of Wisdom’s Daughter, were written in the hand of Ayesha herself during this period of her second incarnation,’ explained Dr Who. ‘She gave those, and her sceptre that you heard her mention, into Holly’s keeping at their last parting, after the death of Leo and before she herself departed from this world. The sceptre, both a symbol and a receptacle of power, was passed on to Rider Haggard, together with the manuscript of Ayesha, on the instructions of Holly - but I suspect Haggard didn’t retain the items after the book was published in 1905…’
Old Chitty, brightening suddenly with excitement, interposed. ‘The solicitor of the late Miss Hester Swinburne, the sale of whose effects I attended at her house in Cumberland, was present at the auction and told me that the old lady’s maternal uncle had been a college professor and an explorer in foreign parts, and had bequeathed his own manuscripts and a collection of unusual paraphernalia to his niece!’
‘…The books I mentioned earlier, the ones Holly allowed me to see, the originals of Wisdom’s Daughter, were written in the hand of Ayesha herself during this period of her second incarnation,’ explained Dr Who. ‘She gave those, and her sceptre that you heard her mention, into Holly’s keeping at their last parting, after the death of Leo and before she herself departed from this world. The sceptre, both a symbol and a receptacle of power, was passed on to Rider Haggard, together with the manuscript of Ayesha, on the instructions of Holly - but I suspect Haggard didn’t retain the items after the book was published in 1905…’
Old Chitty, brightening suddenly with excitement, interposed. ‘The solicitor of the late Miss Hester Swinburne, the sale of whose effects I attended at her house in Cumberland, was present at the auction and told me that the old lady’s maternal uncle had been a college professor and an explorer in foreign parts, and had bequeathed his own manuscripts and a collection of unusual paraphernalia to his niece!’
Dr Who nodded slowly and thoughtfully at this. ‘That rather ties things up then, does it not, hmm?’ He paused. Then, ‘There was an alternative account to Holly’s, you know, in which Leo Vincey entered the flame with Ayesha and gained immortality as she lost it. He then spent the subsequent decades ruling her crumbling kingdom, calling himself Kallikrates, waiting for herto be reborn and in due course to find him there. She did, but sadly there was no happy ending to that story either and poor Kallikrates ended up being forsaken by her reincarnation. In despair, feeling that he had nothing left to remain alive for, he walked into the flame and was reduced to a skeleton. In that version, the ancient city of Kor was known as Kuma.’
‘Indeed? I can’t say I’ve ever heard of that particular rendering of the tale,’ replied the old man.
‘There are also the writings on the subject of that fellow…dear me, now what was his name?’ Dr Who’s brow furrowed in concentration for several moments. ‘Ah, that’s it – Tremayne. His footnotes to Ayesha’s story fitted in with Holly’s description of events.’
Edwin shook his head, bewildered. Well-read as he undoubtedly was, he had no knowledge of a work on Ayesha by anyone of that name.
‘Of course, his efforts won’t appear in print for quite a few years yet,’ the Doctor added hastily, noticing Chitty’s puzzled face.
The old shopkeeper’s expression, not surprisingly, remained a bemused one. He shook his head and reached a little unsteadily for the decanter. Then a thought occurred to him. ‘So…where is Ayesha now?’
Dr Who’s eyes and voice became very sombre. ‘When we saw her, Ayesha was looking through the barrier I mentioned from the shadowy half-world in which she exists between incarnations. I would think that soon, very soon now, since she has sought out her sceptre again, Ayesha will summon enough of her old powers to enable her to cross that barrier and return to this world, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the world finds itself trembling when she does.’
written by
MICHAEL BAXTER
copyright 2013
artwork by
COLIN JOHN
copyright 2013
artwork by
COLIN JOHN
copyright 2013