In Her Name

by Esther Mitchell

  "My name," she began, her eyes averted from him, "is Manara Binte Alzena Abd Ishtar. I was, at birth, the sworn Priestess of Ishtar and the chosen Poet-Priestess -- Mukarramma -- meant to protect the holiest of Ishtar's temples. I was raised and trained in the Temple of Ishtar in Syria, and it was all I knew until my sixteenth year. Angered by the restrictions placed upon me and bored with temple life, I fled at sixteen, swearing I would never go back."

  A wistful smile spread across her face and Matt wondered at its genesis. "In the year following that decision, I met with a man named Percy Lannard. I discovered quite quickly he was an agent of the CIA, but my association with him was to be very brief." Pain touched her eyes and Matt wished he could take the sorrow from her. She looked abandoned. "Within a few months of his tutoring, Percy was murdered by men who claimed to be part of al-Ashid, with whom I believe you are familiar."

  Matt nodded uneasily. He didn't like where this was headed. Al-Ashid was a terrorist cell out of Syria, led by Ra'id al-Mawsil. Whoever this Lannard was, he was important to US interests, and even more so to Manara. Matt recalled hearing the CIA lost an asset with inroads to al-Ashid several years ago and then suddenly picked it up again. His stomach knotted as he recalled the man named Star. Had al-Ashid managed to infiltrate the CIA's ranks?

  "When Percy was murdered, I was angry. Very, very angry. He was like a father to me, a wise and noble man who did his best to both protect me and show me the world. I took what he taught me and opened a channel to his superiors in the United States. Matthew," her voice dropped to a whisper as her gaze fell again, "I am Star."

  The blood drained from Matt's head as her softly spoken confession hit him in the gut like a technical knockout. He must be crazy. There was no way gentle, giving Manara was the cold, effective spy Langley waxed poetic about. It was ridiculous, laughable... but it had the ring of absolute truth to it. Flashes of memory hit him. Manara, on the docks of Sidon. Her dark, shocked eyes when she watched him get into the car. The flashes of white he saw as his team headed into that damned canyon. Manara standing on the canyon wall, framed by a setting sun, before his world went dark after the explosion. It all made an eerie, Twilight-Zone kind of sense.

  "Why didn't you tell us to look for a woman? Why didn't you warn us about the canyon?"

  "I could not!" She shook her head sharply in frustration. "I did not know who I could trust. In one of the last conversations Percy and I had, he told me he thought someone in his organization had sold him out. He did not know who or why. When he was murdered, I informed his superiors, and as Star, I took up where he left off, but I refused to identify myself at all. I told them it was safer for us all if they did not know who I was." She sighed. "I did not know who I could trust and my work was twice as dangerous as Percy's. I would have placed not just myself, but also my mother and her people, at risk if al-Ashid discovered I was Star. I am hated enough in this world for being neither a Muslim nor a proper woman. But for Ra'id al-Mawsil, the hatred is very personal." Her eyes kindled with a blend of regret and rage. Matt's lungs seized in dread. "You see, Ra'id is my brother."

  That little bombshell would have disturbed him, had he not stumbled into her fight in the desert and heard her make the connection, before. "I heard what you asked that bastard in the desert. Why would Al-Mawsil want to kill you?"

  She sighed heavily and turned her face from him, as if by doing so, she could avoid the unpleasant truths she spoke. "Ra'id and I share the same mother, but while he knew his father, I did not know mine. Ra'id's father was deeply in love with my mother, and she could not make him understand that she could love no man. He became bitter, vengeful. When I was but a baby, he took Ra'id away and filled his head with hateful thoughts."

  Her expression was so sad Matt ached to kiss away her pain. He wanted to tell her to stop. The past was unimportant. However, both her past and her association with Ra'id al-Mawsil could mean the difference between life and death for them all. "Ra'id will do anything to destroy me, whom he sees as the one who kept our mother and his father apart. It has never been about religion, though he uses that excuse. After I ran away from the temple, his hate abated some and he no longer saw me as a threat. He let me be for those years. For Ra'id to discover I was giving information to your CIA, I would have signed my own execution warrant and Percy's vital work would go unfinished."

  She met his gaze then, her eyes imploring him to understand, as she murmured, "When I realized you were taken in by Ra'id's decoy, I tried to warn you. I followed the car as far as I could, but he made turns to throw me off and I could not find your hiding place. I stayed outside the city, waiting for you, and saw his men planting mines. I planned to warn you the moment I saw you, but you did not come my route and I failed to get to the canyon in time to stop you. Because of my weakness, those men are dead." She stared bleakly down at her hands. "These hands are as red with blood as Rachel Murray's."

  "No!"

  Manara's head jerked up in surprise at Matthew's vehement denial of her claim. She did not expect to find a champion in him after what she confessed. But the rage and grief in his eyes were real, though not weapons against her. She held her breath, unable to believe herself this fortunate as his hands closed gently over hers.

  "Never compare yourself to Rachel." The words flew from him like gunfire, but they brought her peace rather than fear. "Rachel did those things because she enjoyed them, and she never showed one ounce of regret or remorse for it. I know you haven't found any reason for pride in what you've done. You've tortured yourself over all those deaths."

  Her eyes widened, surprised at his vehement defense. This was far from the reaction she anticipated. "How did you...?"

  His fingers skimmed her face gently and his tender smile stole her breath away. "I can see it in your face and eyes. I just wish I'd recognized it sooner, realized what it was. I should have; I've been there myself. Manara, yours was a crime of omission, an understandable enough decision considering the risk you took. That took guts, sweetheart. You stood to lose everything, but you did what you could to save people you didn't even know." The pride shining in his eyes was unmistakable and resurrected hope in Manara's heart.

  "But your men. I--"

  "You can't blame yourself for my mistakes. I was the seasoned operator and I knew something was wrong from the start, but I ignored my own instincts." His brow wrinkled in worry as he captured her gaze, confusion clouding his eyes. "What I still don't understand is why you've risked coming the whole way to Iraq. Didn't you say your temple's in Syria?"

  Bitter pain closed over Manara's heart. Here was her true crime; the one she could never forgive herself for if she lived a thousand years. She knew she showed him her most raw pains, but she was past caring, past hiding her shame. Better he know it all. Better he know exactly how bloody her hands were. Better he realize now what a coward she was.

  "Not anymore." Sadness washed through her. She felt Matthew's arms enfold her, but refused his comfort and his touch, pulling away. "I was a restless, angry fool. I did not want my destiny, my heritage, or my responsibilities. I ran away from the temple, wanting nothing more than to get away. I did not want to face the future. I was content to let it happen without me because I told myself my mother was deluded, that there was no danger. But, deep inside, I was terrified. I was afraid she was right. I was afraid of what she accepted. I thought, if I could get far enough away, I could hold back the future. It could not happen without me, right?"

  She laughed bitterly in answer to her own question. "I was a fool and a coward. Five years ago, on the night of my twentieth birthday, I dreamed a wave of terror and death so catastrophic that it shook the center of the world. It was, I knew at the time, the same vision my mother was granted just before my birth."

  She squeezed her eyes closed against heart-rending memories. How blind she had been! "I... I convinced myself it was just a dream and that it could not happen if I was not there. But, deep inside, I knew it would find me wherever I went. There w
as nowhere to hide. For two years I continued to tell myself it was a dream, though it tortured me night and day." Through her mind flashed visions of blood and death, and she shivered with dread. Only she could prevent these terrors and she feared she was still unprepared. The tormented screams of the dying who she abandoned in her selfish fear echoed in her ears without mercy, even after all this time. The nightmares had yet to fade away and the pain was as fresh as the day she returned to the temple. She sucked in a shuddering breath and managed, "Finally, I could stand it no longer. I ran, quite literally, to Ishtar's temple near Sidon and threw myself at the altar, begging Her to take the vision away."

  "I take it that didn't work."

  How he knew that, she didn't ask. She was content simply to know he finally believed her. "She answered my prayers, after a fashion. In another vision, She told me that I could stop the wave of death. All I had to do was return to Her service and fulfil my destiny. I was raised, tutored and protected as the Poet-Priestess. Only my sacrifice could save the temples from desecration."

  Her shoulders quaked with silent tears and she couldn't talk for a long moment as she battled fear. After a moment she managed, "Chastened, I returned to my mother's temple, hoping to reconcile the bitter words that passed between us years before."

  Tears burned her cheeks and her heart cracked with the memory of that humbled homecoming and the horror awaiting her at its end.

  "It was not to be. I arrived to find the temple a smoking ruin. Ra'id's rage had finally consumed him and he fell prey to a demon. Men from al-Ashid discovered I intended to return, and fell on my mother's temple with the blood-thirst of a barbarian horde. They..." she could no longer hold in her sobs. "Th-they butchered my mother and her ishtaristu and left words scrawled in blood on the walls. Those words I see every night when I close my eyes. Then they burned out the temple. I found..."

  She buried her face in her hands, shivering uncontrollably, but not with cold. "I found the children. They were tied up, alive, in the altar room and left for the flames. It was..." she swallowed hard. "It was horrible to see, and worse to know I was its cause. Those innocent babies paid for my sins!"

  Manara's wild sobbing broke Matt's heart. He once called her an innocent. Now, he realized just how wrong he was. Manara witnessed the most violent brutality known to man, and carried the weight of it as if it were her own crime, not another's. She was a survivor.

  "Shh," he pulled her into the shelter of his arms with a soothing murmur. "It gets easier with time."

  Her head snapped up, her eyes flashing with angry heat. "It never gets easier!"

  "Manara--"

  "Spare me your platitudes, Matthew," she muttered as she pulled from his grasp, as regal as any queen. Only, Matt knew that aloofness was Manara's defense mechanism, meant to hide the pain she didn't think she had a right to feel.

  "I'm not telling you the pain goes away, Manara," he reasoned with her as he lightly grasped her chin and turned her face back toward his. He waited until she met his gaze to continue, "But the memories do get easier to live with in time."

  Her eyes filled with tears and Matt loosed a tormented groan as he pulled her back into his embrace, rocking her as he asked, "What happened after the temple?"

  She heaved a shuddering sigh. "I returned to Sidon, and my anger rode with me. I wanted blood. I wanted those men dead at my own hands." Her eyes raised, full of challenge. "Now, tell me you still think I share nothing with your Rachel Murray!"

  He knew what Manara was trying to do. She wanted to push him away with her words and cling to her grief and guilt. Matt's expression hardened. He'd be damned if he would let her shoulder weight she hadn't earned. "You share nothing with Rachel. She wouldn't have cared about those children. You wanted revenge. That's human. But you didn't do it. You didn't kill those men, did you?"

  "Ra'id al-Mawsil still lives. Do you have any need to ask more?"

  "There. You just proved my point." He raised her hands to his lips, before massaging them gently. "These hands are beautiful and clean. Did you ever think maybe you left that temple so you'd be spared when it came down?"

  She swallowed, glancing away from his tender gaze. "If I had not left, those men would never have had a reason..."

  "You don't know that. Manara, I've dealt with these kinds of people all over the world. Fanatics are fanatics, and they'll make up a reason if they can't find one. Besides, from what you told me, your leaving probably saved your mother, for a few years, anyway. I can't help thinking if you hadn't left that temple, neither one of us might be here today. You save lives, sweetheart. That's got to even the score."

  She relaxed into his embrace and Matt's heart eased. She was so innocent and so very precious to him. He couldn't bear for her to see herself as anything but pure and good.

  "So, why'd you go to Sidon? It couldn't have been easy crossing the border."

  She laughed darkly. "One woman on horseback? I slipped across in the night. I went to the temple to save what lives I could." Her chin raised, satisfaction gleaming in her gray eyes. "I was not too late that time."

  Understanding dawned as he recalled the camp and hospice in Syria. Those women in the camp were her priestesses, her faithful flock from Sidon.

  "But why come to Iraq? Surely you don't expect religious tolerance here."

  "No," she admitted quietly. "I go to Nineveh."

  "So you said. But what do you want with a bunch of ruins?"

  She smiled that secret smile. "The city is ruins, true. But the true Temple of Ishtar was spared the destruction, buried beneath the ruins of the public temple."

  Now that he knew her ulterior motive for tagging along, the subtle tension riding him dissipated. He could admit he was worried about Manara. She wasn't naïve, but he was afraid she was so fixated on her perceived destiny she couldn't see the big picture. "So you expect to just waltz in and set up housekeeping?"

  She shook her head. "It is... complicated. The evil I dreamed of? It bides its time locked inside the temple. To reclaim the temple, I must first face Ashurbanipal's demon."

  "What?" More demons. She mentioned them before and so did J.R. What was it about this region that had everyone so demon-happy?

  Manara sighed. "Ashurbanipal was an ancient king of Nineveh and a priest of Ishtar, back when men were still permitted to officiate temple duties. He was a decent man and a good king, in his youth. Never more bloody or driven than his times demanded. Then, on the eve of a great battle, he knelt before the temple altar and asked Ishtar to guide him to glory on the coming morn. Legend says he had suffered a nightmare of death and dishonor on the field of battle and would pay any price to see those events never came to pass. In the end," she shook her head sadly, "he was to pay the ultimate price."

  "What happened?"

  "As he knelt in supplication, a spirit appeared before him, guised as a woman of surpassing beauty. She promised him victory and eternal life if he would carry her in his heart all his days. Ashurbanipal believed her to be Ishtar and joyfully accepted."

  Matt could see where this was headed. Personally, he thought Ashurbanipal was a fool. "Who was she really?"

  Manara frowned. "No one is really certain. Some believe she was a succubus, tempting him with the irrational and toying with his sexuality, since he eventually began dressing as a woman and was undecided in his sexual preference. Others believe she was a Djinn, jealous of his devotion to Ishtar. There are even legends which claim her to be an ancient power, trapped in the desert before humanity arrived. There are many versions of who she was, but they are unanimous in declaring her a source of great evil and consort to Urasat the Galla, who roams restlessly beneath the temple, trapped there by Sargon. It is my belief she found a human consort to take Urasat's place, and now inhabits the body of a human host, herself."

  Matt shook his head in disbelief. "It sounds like some warped fairy tale."

  She turned somber eyes on him. "It is a very real and deadly tale. Ashurbanipal went mad after he made
his pact with the demon. He slew men by the thousands without cause, driven by his temptress to satiate Urasat's lust for blood and death. He shed human blood on the altar of Ishtar, defiling the most sacred temple and rousing the Goddess' wrath. He bled Mesopotamia like a slaughtered ox and claimed it all to be for the glory of Ishtar. Finally, the Goddess became so furious with him that She struck him down and destroyed the priesthood. From that day on, only women have been allowed to officiate temple duties with the exception of the man chosen as Sargon's vessel -- his reincarnated soul."

  This whole story began to sound eerily familiar and Matt's dreams rose up to trouble him. He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. "Why do I get the feeling this story isn't over?"

  "Because it is not. No one knows what became of Ashurbanipal's demon, but legend claims Urasat bides his time within the labyrinth below the holiest temple, at Nineveh. It is believed he remains buried beneath the sands after his demonic mistress failed, and Ashurbanipal, and later Nineveh, was destroyed. Ashurbanipal's demon has taken many forms over the centuries, luring unsuspecting men to Nineveh in hopes one will loose Urasat upon the world again. Now, she has found just such a man."

  Her softly spoken admission closed Matt's heart in the grip of icy terror and he knew, as certainly as he knew his own soul, who she referred to. "Al-Mawsil."

  She nodded bleakly. "His madness, loosed as it was upon Ishtar's temples, was all the proof I needed. He is nearing Nineveh, if he is not already there. If he releases Urasat, humanity will suffer as it has not suffered in millennia."

  Matt stared morosely into the fire. He had believed Manara was sick, like Rachel. Without giving her a chance to defend or explain her beliefs, he condemned her as evil and self-serving. The truth was staggering. She had shown a selfless dedication he longed for in his jaded life and her goodness gave him faith in humanity, again. Did it really matter what god she believed in? He had never been a particularly religious man and he knew, in his heart, it wouldn't matter if he was a devote priest. It didn't matter what she called the face of Deity. Manara believed in life, in its sanctity and blessedness, and that was all that really mattered.