Heaven's Lies

by Daniel Caet

  Laughter interrupted us from the other side of the pond. Suddenly the young woman who accompanied Sadith in the procession and the market appeared with other girls around her. There, illuminated by the light of the moon and the few torches that lit the garden, her beauty was emphasised even more. Again, and again she caressed her belly sweet and protective. For some reason I could not take my eyes off her. Seeing her gave me a strange kind of calm and peace.

  “She’s beautiful, right?” Sadith asked in a much calmer tone than she had used until then.

  “Very much,” I said without looking at the young girl, “but there is much more than beauty in her, it's like a balm for the heart, looking at her makes everything calm down… it seems that time does not exist and that nothing matters, but her.”

  “I know.”

  I turned to look at her and saw that her face had changed, the anger that had dominated her until that moment no longer existed and her look was sweet and beautiful like that of the girl.

  “Who is it, Sadith? Is it your daughter?”

  A sad smile lit her face.

  “No, it's true that I've raised her and that I love her as if she were my own daughter, but she’s not. She is the last descendant of Niel and therefore yours. She's your blood, Helel.”

  That phrase made my legs could not hold me anymore and I fell on my knees to the ground. That girl was my blood, my family. The children I had missed so much had survived, they had had their own children, but how? My hands began to tremble. What had been the role of Sadith in that miracle? And how was it possible that she was still alive? And, what had happened to my children? The questions clustered in my head, and I noticed how I was short of breath. Suddenly I had no control over my body, I did not know what was happening to me and that made the control escape even more from my hands.

  “It is better you calm down, Helel, your head is a chaos impossible to read”. Her hands rested on my back and I felt her power take control and my breathing slow down. “Come with me,” she said, helping me up, “we have a lot to talk about.”

  She led me to a small clearing beyond the willows that surrounded us. In the middle of the clearing there was a small awning held by four large poles.

  “This is one of the favourite places of Queen Tuya during the hottest hours of the day, a kind of hiding place where to escape from the palatial routines that she cannot dislike more. Here nobody will bother us at this time.”

  She helped me to sit on one of the large cushions under the awning and sat beside me with a delicacy typical of the ladies of the highest rank.

  “I see that many things in you have changed,” I said, referring to her manners.

  “Helel. it has been more than a thousand years, I had time to refine myself. In fact, we can say that I had no choice but to adapt to the passage of time.”

  “I still do not understand how you have been able to survive all this time.”

  “I will come to that too, do not worry, but first I need to tell you my story and that of your children so that you understand why it is necessary for you to stay away from me and Ankh.”

  And that's how Sadith began to tell me her story.

  Woman

  Life is unpredictable even for those of us who have the gift of vision. No matter how many plans we make, in the end, life simply happens, and men have no choice but bending to their desires and surviving, whenever possible.

  The night that everything took place I was playing with the children in the garden as I had been doing for months. Their joy had settled in my heart permanently from the moment I met them, and any excuse was good to spend more time with them even at the cost of delaying my own obligations with the temple in Akkad. At first, I said to myself that it was the aunt love that anyone would expect, but eventually I understood that it was much more. I do not know if the lack of the presence of their real mother contributed to this, but little by little I felt more their mother than Liliath herself, and many times I wished that they had been my little ones instead of hers. You must be careful with what you wish because sometimes it can be granted.

  When I heard that you were going to look for Liliath in the temple, something inside me knew that there was something wrong; although I had been seeing your relationship crumble for months, and I knew that its end was inevitable, sooner or later. However, part of me warned me of something else and, even at the risk of worrying my mother more than necessary, I had cast protection spells, not only on Narmesh and Niel, but on the entire house. I want to believe that it was my vision that guided me when I made that decision, preparing me for what should happen. I felt his arrival as if something exploded inside me. A force so powerful that it broke all my spells at the same time, and I knew that death had come to my house. Immediately, a scream echoed in my mind, a scream that only I could hear, one last thought of my mother sent directly to me to save my life and that of the children.

  «Run!»

  My vision took control and showed me, not the future, but the present, the misfortune that was happening in the patio of my house, that creature slashing my mother's neck with his sword. I had to bite my fist not to scream, not to alert him of our presence, and I swear I do not know where I found the strength for it. That being, whoever he was, had come to our home with only one purpose, to kill, and my mother had been only the first victim. My mind stopped showing me what was happening. I heard the cries of the servants who had undoubtedly found my mother's body. Unfortunately, they must also have found her killer who would make sure to eliminate anyone who got in his way. Their screams vanished in a moment. My mind reacted quickly by casting an invisibility spell on the children and on myself, whoever this creature was, he could not see or hear us, we had ceased to exist for the world.

  I do not know if I was an idiot or just a daughter wanting to save her mother, but I left the children, who were still asleep carelessly, and I ran to the patio. There, my vision and reality merged into a single image. My mother lay dead on the floor next to one of our maids, the creature held the head of the other. He had his back to me, tall, with the shape of a man and long brown hair. On his back, two large black wings that the being kept extended made him look gigantic. I knew I had seen that image before, beings like that had populated my dreams and visions the day I saw you and then I understood. That being had come to our house looking for you, the rest were just necessary victims. Suddenly, the creature turned to look at me and for a moment I feared that he had managed to overcome my spell and I was the next to fall. I wish it had been so! The creature did not look at me, but through me, at my father who had just appeared behind me. His screams, crying out my mother's name, penetrated my being, and I saw him run to her body without worrying about the being that now occupied the center of our house. He did not get to her. The creature flew up to him and lifted him into the air holding him with one hand while his voice thundered in the courtyard.

  “Where is he, damn monkey?”

  I heard how my father tried to answer him, but the hand on his throat did not let him breathe or speak. The creature looked at him with disgust and only uttered a phrase. “Actually, I do not care.”

  With a twist of his wrist he threw him against the opposite wall of the patio, and before his body began to fall he threw four knives that were nailed to his body anchoring him to the wall. A quick twist of his sword cut him up and the last thing I heard from my father was the sound of blood gurgling in his throat. His eyes looked in my direction for a last second in which I want to believe he was able to see me. I had to bite my tongue to not scream again and run to him because that would have been not only my end but that of your children. For a second, I wanted you to return, to come back so we could face that creature, but I knew that neither of us could do anything against that being, my power was not what I have now, and you were powerless. Then my mind finally came back to itself and understood what I should do. The only important thing was to save your children, so, dragging the pain of my parents loss, I went back to the room where I
had left the children, I picked them up and left the house.

  I think I had never been in that state before. It was as if all my movements, my actions were directed by someone outside me. My mind blocked all the images of what happened, preventing me from succumbing to the pain and my irrational part seized me with a single purpose, fleeing. I ran through the streets of Uruk with a very clear course, the pilgrim's door, the caravan market, and a single man in my head, Jeshar, my faithful servant who had accompanied me from the temple in Akkad for my protection as a priestess and who had postponed his return as many times as I had postponed mine. I knew that if someone could take us out of the city with discretion that was Jeshar, and although I did not know exactly where he was, I was sure that he would have taken care that it would not be difficult to find him if I needed his help.

  I ran as much as I could through the streets with the two little ones, now awake, in my arms. Their eyes looked at me as if trying to tell me that they understood what I was doing and why, and none of them cried the whole way as if they were trying to ease my task. When I reached the pilgrim’s door the sun was beginning to set. The owners of the caravans had already collected their camels in the pens and went to their tents installed in the adjacent esplanade to spend the night. It was difficult for me to find someone to ask about Jeshar's whereabouts, and even those who deigned to speak with me gave me strange looks without really understanding what a mother with two children in her arms was doing in that area of the city. Unfortunately, no one knew the whereabouts of my good servant, and I could not risk asking too many people because that meant having to lower the invisibility barrier that had been raised for our protection, so the night and the cold found us walking among the caravanners’ tents. My time was running out, and despair began to mix with my fear that the creature that had killed my parents would find us. I went to a small drinking trough located in the enclosure. I knew that my emotional state would not allow me to concentrate for too long, but if I managed to reach the minimum level of concentration I could find Jeshar. With the children still in my arms I sat on the edge of the trough and looked in the dark water. The risk was great, I knew that if I did not find the necessary concentration I could not see anything, or worse, I could relive the scenes I had seen in my house, and that was something that, at that moment, I could not afford. In addition, the degree of concentration required implied that during the time I tried to find Jeshar I could not keep the invisibility spell. I breathed deeply, and the cold air of the night filled my lungs, the effort that I needed to put for that spell that was normally natural to me caused almost a physical pain. The water from the trough remained black for a few seconds, but finally a light reflected in it and I could see him warming up in front of a fire with other men, chatting and laughing. The language they used was Akkadian, and the tents around them were an intense purple, a caravan of cloth merchants. I could not keep the image for more than a few moments, but what I saw was enough. I went to the first man I found and asked him where I could find the caravan of the Akkadian cloth merchants. The man knew exactly which caravan I was referring to and directed me to the other end of the esplanade. A few moments later I could see the colourful tents, and the warm light of the bonfire of my vision. I did not even need to approach, Jeshar saw me immediately and came running to me.

  “Mistress, what are you doing here? What has happened?”

  “We have to go, right now!” I answered, and he read the anxiety in my face. Without asking anything else, he took one of the children from my arms and accompanied me to one of the pens.

  “Wait here, mistress, it will be a moment.”

  He walked away in the darkness of the night leaving me alone with the children who were beginning to shake because of the cold wind that had risen. He returned a short time later and entered the fold where he took two horses. He asked me to follow him and I obeyed without hesitation knowing that this man was my only hope of leaving Uruk. Jeshar took us to the back of one of the tents where a large, closed cart was waiting, tied the horses to the cart and helped me climb inside with the children.

  “This is hot goat's milk,” he said, handing me a small clay bottle. “There is not much, but until we get to the first village and can buy supplies it is the only thing I can offer. At least it will calm the little ones.”

  “Thanks, Jeshar, thanks for everything” I said taking his hand. “I will never forget what you are doing for me, for us.”

  “I owe you my life, mistress, I have promised to take care of you until the end of my days and I intend to keep my promise.”

  Hearing his words, I had no doubt that it would be so.

  “Where do we go, mistress, to Akkad?” he asked.

  “No, not Akkad! Anywhere but Akkad!”

  Jeshar asked nothing more, closed the curtain of the cart and thus, in the middle of the night, we left Uruk.

  The trip was exhausting for everyone because it is not easy to travel without definite direction and without knowing when you will arrive at your destination. At first, we took a north course towards Babylon, although I knew that we should get as far away as possible from the big cities where, far from being able to get lost in the crowd, we would be exposed to thousands of eyes and mouths that could speak of our whereabouts. However, Jeshar convinced me that, by taking that route, we would have more possibilities of joining a large caravan going in some other direction. The trip in the cart was not comfortable, the constant rattle tortured my bones and made me feel dizzy but seemed to entertain the children making it easier for them to be locked inside all day. During the first days we made several stops in the villages that we found along the way buying some of the things we needed, hoping not to raise questions about why we were traveling with absolutely nothing. To all intents and purposes Jeshar was posing as my husband, and to whom he asked we told that we were going to Kish with our children to see my family. My fear of being discovered did not diminish at any time during the trip. I constantly looked at the sky fearing to see the creature descending on us like a bird of prey. That fear made me invest a huge amount of energy in keeping my spells that act as a barrier and hid us from indiscreet eyes, and that exhausted me to the point of preventing me from sleeping at night, which accentuated my fatigue.

  Finally, we arrived at a village about three days from Babylon and I understood that it was time to change the route before we were too close to the big city. I knew that we could not be fleeing all our lives, the children could not stand it, it was imperative that we leave behind what had been our lives to become different people and start a new existence, disappear for the world that had known us. And so, I made the decision to head west, towards the land of the Canaanites, towards the sea. I changed my name to Hashna, the name of my father's mother, and the name of the children for Silah and Haresh. For those who asked me, I was a young widow with two children who had no family and I was looking for a place to start a new life, nothing very different from my reality because the best lies are those that are not too much so. As much as I tried to convince Jaresh to leave and return to Akkad, it was in vain. That small, dark man had sworn to defend my life in payment for having saved his a few years before, and he was willing to keep his promise. With no family or business to return to, he decided to stay by my side, pretending to be the only possession left to me by my supposed deceased husband, a faithful servant. So, we continued our journey until after a month and a half travelling dusty roads, the sea breeze filled our lungs. We had reached the village of Tujarh-su, near a large walled city called Tire. The inhabitants of the village made their living by fishing and collecting seashells that they used to make a purple tint that apparently sold to other towns even on the other side of the sea, and that meant that, in general, all the villagers could live comfortably. The only problem for these people was the lack of medical care given that the nearest healer was in the capital. I do not know if it was the sea breeze, the sun that reflected in its waters or the fatigue that gained its battle against me, but since
we arrived at that village it was clear to me that was the end of our trip. Thanks to my powers and what I learned in the temple, I was able to pass as a healer and midwife and all the inhabitants of the village welcomed me with open arms. For a few days we continued to live in the cart on the outskirts of the town, but soon the grateful family of a small boy who I had helped recovering from a fever gave me a small two-room house to set me up as long as I wished. The gesture moved me deeply, to see how people who did not even speak my own language and did not know me at all were so kind to me and my family was something unexpected. I accepted delighted with the condition that they let me pay them a small rent with what I could earn with my services so that no one would lose in the deal. And so, almost without realising it, we became a family.

  Time did not forgive us, and it passed for us as fast as for any man. The children grew up very quickly convinced that I was their mother, and that their father had died before they were born; and little by little their personalities were built until it was obvious how different they were from each other. My little Niel, or Silah as everyone in the village knew her, was a sweet, kind girl, always caring for us all and with a beauty that reminded me much of Liliath. Narmesh, on the other hand, was becoming a strong boy, of an ambitious and tough character, who liked to win in any competition with the other children in the town, and who constantly repeated that he wanted to be a soldier. But not everything was different in them. Both had a common characteristic that at the same time differentiated them from the rest of the people, from very young age the two showed powers beyond a simple human. I do not know if it was the result of your blood running through their veins or if they had inherited it from Liliath, but very soon their abilities were evident. Narmesh was able to move things using his mind and his power was much more intense when he was angry and lost control. In time his power acquired a destructive dimension of a truly shocking intensity in such a small child, and all my efforts to help him control it were of little use. Niel, meanwhile, was able to control the elements at will, the fire, the water, the wind and the earth bent to her desires. Unlike Narmesh, Niel was all control and temperance what made her power grow a little more each day. Soon her vision capabilities were also evident although in her case they were limited to the use of water as a driver as it had been for me and my mother. Maybe that's why I started almost without realising to dedicate more time to her training and to teach her what I had learned in the temple, and I did not realise that it was Narmesh who most needed my help and support, a mistake that I would end up paying dearly.