Stealing Sacred Fire

by Constantine, Storm

  Etemenanki dominated the city, rising over it incredibly. Smoke from the eternal fires and their offerings purled from its summit, visible only on the clearest of days. Amytis knew what her husband the king had incarcerated within the labyrinthine chambers beneath the temple. Tiy had told her about the strange being Nimnezzar had brought back with him from the tell. The king had refused to talk about it when Amytis had questioned him, and had forbidden her strictly to enter the chambers beneath Etemenanki until he gave word otherwise. It was for her own safety, he said. She knew Nimnezzar was wary of allowing his wife to view the captive. He was either afraid of it or of its possible effect on her, or perhaps vice versa. Amytis was patient. She did not push the issue, nor had need to. For the time being, she could glean all the information she needed from Tiy.

  Amytis guessed, or perhaps instinctively knew, that something had occurred in the dark passages of Etemenanki. Tiy had divulged that since his arrival, some weeks previously, the strange captive had not spoken, nor eaten anything but an occasional small fruit. Water, he drank copiously, but it seemed the long incarceration beneath the earth had damaged his immortal mind. He seemed, so Tiy reported, hardly aware of his surroundings. The king had many scholars in his court, some of whom were familiar with several of the ancient tongues. All these had been tried on the visitor without success. No ancient word, of any known dialect, attracted his attention. Now, Sarpanita had heard a cry from the temple, and Amytis wondered whether her husband had resorted to torture to coax a reaction from the dead-alive angel.

  A private walkway, used by the royal family, led from the palace to a back door of the temple. On the way there, Jazirah clearly realised that the queen would not be stopped and became more communicative. ‘The king was roused from his bed only a few minutes before you arrived, my lady. The temple priests came for him.’

  ‘So what has happened?’

  The vizier shrugged. ‘I was just on my way to find out.’

  ‘Then we shall find out together,’ said the queen. She knew her husband well enough to be sure that, in the midst of a crisis, he would forget about how he had refused her admission to the rooms beneath the temple.

  The lower levels of Etemenanki comprised a series of linked shrines. Above ground, on the rising tiers, the flame was worshipped, and djinn conjured from the sacred smokes, but sometimes the priests of Babylon needed to invoke the elementals of earth and this was done deep underground. Here, the king had imprisoned his find, perhaps so that he was as far as possible from the flames, from which he might draw power and escape. Penemue was an unknown quantity. He had apparently survived for millennia, and no-one knew the extent of his power, only that he could not be remotely human.

  The queen and her companions passed through several empty shrines, and then came to the door of a room where a peering cluster of people was gathered, dressed in the scarlet and orange robes of Magian priests. Amytis parted them with a wave of her hand and, with Jazirah keeping pace, stepped to the threshold.

  Sarpanita hung back. She could not speak, for her head was still full of the terrible cry that she could not hear with her ears. Within the shrine, something suffered and twisted in pain. She did not want to see it. She was afraid.

  Her mother’s body stiffened, and Sarpanita knew she beheld something almost indescribable. Then, she turned. ‘Come, Nita. Come here at once.’

  Sarpanita froze. She heard her father speak her name in surprise, then from within the room, Tiy’s voice, ‘It is time, now.’

  Something else within the room became aware of her. She could feel it. And it drew her towards it inexorably. Her feet moved numbly and the doorway came closer. She had no choice.

  He sat upon a great stone chair within a cage of iron. His hair hung over his chest, a strange red in colour, like slender metal wires. They had dressed him in plain linen trousers and tunic, yet still his body seemed inhuman — too big for the room. One of his hands, which hung over the arms of the chair, could have crushed her head like a seed. His face was alien yet beautiful; the face of one of the statues. He was looking directly at her with eyes that were unnaturally blue. Penemue. I dreamed of your name.

  Slowly, Sarpanita approached the cage and the angel watched her like a large animal would watch a small creature coming towards it. She could not turn her head, but heard her mother’s voice, speaking to her father.

  ‘See, my love. See! He recognises her for what she is!’

  The voice seemed to break a spell and Sarpanita looked at her parents. Her father had his arm around his wife’s shoulder, but it seemed as if he was restraining her rather than showing affection. Tiy stood to the side; a dark, wizened creature. Her milky blind eyes were like polished pearls. The three figures seemed to be a long distance away; small and unreachable.

  The princess put her hands upon the bars of the cage and the angel let his head drop to one side. He tried to smile, although his face was haggard and tired. She saw then that they had chained him by the ankles to the floor.

  The king came up to her and put his hands upon her shoulders. ‘My daughter, do you know who this is?’

  She nodded, whispered, ‘Yes. It is Shemyaza’s brother. I dreamed of it.’ She felt her father’s fingers convulse upon her shoulders.

  ‘He has lived for a very long time.’

  ‘I know. You found him under the earth.’ She wanted to say, ‘but he does not belong with us’, and warn her father that to keep Penemue in chains might be dangerous, for then his fierce brother would come looking for him. But, as she also knew her father was not afraid of anything, there seemed no point in saying this.

  Amytis came to her husband’s side. ‘When did he... wake up?’

  The king flicked a quick, sardonic glance at Tiy to indicate he disapproved of Amytis knowing about the captive and that he understood exactly where her knowledge came from, then relented and spoke. ‘Not long ago. He was sitting there peacefully as usual, then jumped in his seat and let out a great scream.’

  ‘Sarpanita heard it,’ said the queen.

  The king patted his daughter’s arm. ‘I am not surprised.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Give him to the linguists again. What else can be done?’ The king eyed his daughter. ‘Speak to him, Nita.’

  Sarpanita did not want to. If she was to speak to this being, she should do it alone, not in front of others. She shook her head.

  The king made a sound of annoyance. ‘You must. Can’t you see that he is aware of you?’

  ‘I don’t want to, Papa. I’m afraid.’

  ‘Nita, this great angel is to be your...’

  ‘Hush!’ interrupted Tiy, who had so far remained uncharacteristically quiet. ‘It should be carefully explained to the girl in private. Women’s talk.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ snapped the king. ‘In the ancient days, the daughters of the settlements were not given careful explanations as to what must happen to them. We must continue the tradition. We conceived this child for this very moment, and who knows, our sacred act might even have influenced the Shining Ones to allow me to find Penemue. She belongs to him already, and on her, he will conceive the sons of a great race.’

  ‘Yes,’ hissed Tiy. ‘That is true. But she is only a child, great king. And you are a man. The knowledge of this intimate subject should not come from you.’

  Nimnezzar laughed. ‘You’ll get your chance, old woman. My daughter is yours to instruct, as we have discussed.’

  Sarpanita listened to their conversation without feeling. They wanted to give her to this creature, who would tear her body with his great size, perhaps kill and devour her. Angels were terrible creatures; she had always known that. She wished her father had not found Penemue, yet over the past couple of weeks, her body had thrummed to strange rhythms. She had been waiting for something, her blood had been waiting for it, and here it was.

  ‘Speak to your husband,’ said the king.

  And Sarpanita felt her blood turn to dust. The an
gel shuddered before her, flexed his shoulders; his nostrils quivered, scenting her. It made her think of bulls and stallions. He moved his body upon the chair, trying to stand, and but for the princess, everyone in the room took a step back from the iron cage.

  The angel uttered a groan and collapsed back into his seat. Then he gripped the stone arms of the chair and threw back his head, screamed out a single, deafening word that shook the foundations of the ziggurat: ‘Shemyaza!’

  Chapter Seven

  The Summoning

  Essex, England

  The tall man rinsed his long, pale hands at a small, porcelain sink, having already removed the rustling plastic gloves. On his examination couch, his patient sat rearranging her clothing in the afternoon light that came in diffusely through the blinds at the windows.

  ‘Well, it’s all going splendidly,’ said the man, a gynaecologist. ‘Only a few more weeks.’ He remembered to smile as he turned round.

  The woman smiled back, her face radiant. Later, that might change when the realities of parenting stubbed out the pink fantasy. The consultant thought suddenly that he too might have had children once, but now his life was an arid desert, and the past seemed inappropriate, somehow messy. He felt disassociated from it and pushed the unwelcome, intrusive idea from his mind. It was absurd. He lived alone, had never married.

  The woman, his patient, chattered on as she put on her coat. He uttered platitudes in return. She really was in superb health and as far as modern medical technology could predict, so was her budding child. There was little to say to her.

  At the door, she pressed a slim hand into one of his, which was still slightly damp. ‘Thank you for everything. You’re always so reassuring, Mr Murchison. Forgive me for saying this — I hope it doesn’t sound too personal — but I think you must have been born to look after the needs of the female body.’

  He smiled again, unembarrassed, but unwilling to comment. ‘Thanks. You take care of yourself.’ Gently, he propelled her out of his office.

  Once the door had closed behind her, he went to sit behind his desk, which was virtually empty. She had been the last patient of the day, yet he felt as if there was something else he had to do before he could leave the hospital. All day, he’d been plagued by strange urges to keep looking in his diary. Had he forgotten an appointment? Perhaps it had not been written down. He buzzed his secretary. ‘Pamela, is there anything that needs my attention before I go home?’

  A slight pause. ‘No, Mr Murchison. Would you like me to bring you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll just be off.’

  He stood up and took off his white coat. What was it that nagged at his mind? What morsel of information had he mislaid? Before he left for the day, he was driven to roll up the window blinds. Sunlight splashed into his consulting room, an August invasion. When he turned away from the window, the room seemed too bright, everything held in a caul of radiance that weirdly immobilised it. Pieces of furniture had taken on a sinister stillness, as if they might move of their own accord once he’d left the room. He shivered in the warm air. Perhaps a summer chill was presaged.

  When he opened the door to leave, his name on the door-plate seemed the name of a stranger. Cameron Murchison. He felt it did not belong to him. He was not usually prone to such fancies.

  He drove in his car through the city heat to the suburb where his lonely house was situated. Along the sides of the roads, the tamed gardens were parched, and melting hose-pipes lay useless upon sticky drive-ways; their use was temporarily banned. His long, elderly car rolled quietly up the short avenue where he lived, to the tall narrow house at the end, hidden behind a screen of yews trained into a hedge.

  He had a housekeeper, Mrs Melrose, who came in every morning to attend to the slight disorder his presence in the house created. The only times he saw this woman was on the weekends, when she cooked his breakfast also, and sat opposite him at the wide kitchen table to talk about the newspapers, which came through the door in a roll.

  This evening, Murchison would have welcomed the company of the housekeeper. He felt odd. Driving home, he thought he had seen a star high up in the bleached, daytime sky. It must have been the sun reflecting off a plane.

  The house was utterly silent. Not even the tick of a clock broke through it. As he went into the spacious, airy kitchen, the refrigerator began to hum, which made him jump. Mrs Melrose had left him a note on the table. He picked it up and stared at it, but was unable to decipher the words, as if they’d been written in a language he did not know.

  An evening meal of select cured meats and crisp pale salad had been left for him in the fridge. He found it by accident looking for the milk; presumably this was what the housekeeper’s note had been about. She didn’t leave him a meal habitually, only when she had something she wished to use up; then she’d bring it with her from home.

  Murchison sat in the silent kitchen and ate the meal. It seemed delicate, the food of a rarefied being, its subtle flavours exploding on his tongue. It needed wine to complement it; a light, sand-dry vintage. He drank some fresh orange juice instead.

  Something was happening to him. Would madness feel like this? His life was mostly without textures; its greatest highs being the enjoyment of good food and wine. He never went out socially, and listened to music only at home on his hi-fi system, which had cost thousands of pounds. Films did not interest him, particularly, and he liked only books on archaeology. He had an arrangement with a local antique dealer who made polite phone calls on the occasions when merchandise came into his hands that he thought Murchison might appreciate. He owned many artefacts dug up from far sands that were arranged in a glass-fronted cabinet in his study. Sometimes, he would stare at them for hours, searching for a memory that never came back to him.

  His life comprised small, precise pleasures. Most people liked him, for he was quiet and gentle, but he did not yearn for their company. His ironic smile, springing auburn hair and attenuated good looks pleased women, yet he seemed not to notice the messages in their eyes. Several of his patients had fallen in love with him over the years, but it had escaped his attention. He liked and respected women, enjoyed his work, and knew he had a healing touch that often smoothed the path of a difficult pregnancy. Despite this, he never wanted lovers, and felt, for the most part, asexual. Perhaps that was what his patients liked in him. Yet sometimes, a woman might come to him who gave off an invisible aura that felt to him like a fierce, open wound. These women he knew he could not help, and usually they did not take to him and even distrusted his opinions. It did not necessarily mean they would have trouble with their pregnancies. He did not know what it might mean.

  As the sun sank, Murchison went into his music room and slid a Mozart CD into the hi-fi. The music did not please him; in fact, he felt quite irritated by it. Silencing the equipment, he pulled a book from one of his tall book-cases. It fell open in his hands and the long face of the pharaoh Akhenaten, captured in stone, stared back at him. A strange coldness filled his belly; it seemed as if his heart had slowed. What significance was there in this? He had seen the picture a hundred times before, yet now he felt that if he only gave himself up to the sensation squirming in his body, he would be transported back in time and the statue would be rough stone beneath his fingers. It might even speak. A thick, pungent aroma as of church incense tantalised his nose. He heard the distant ringing of bells. It was all coming up to him, out of the book.

  Murchison slammed the pages shut and pushed the book hastily back onto the shelf. There was no temple scent in the house, no haunting chime.

  He went to the drinks trolley and poured himself a large Scotch. Normally, he drank only in moderation as all his liquors were obscenely expensive and wanted only to be enjoyed in small sips. Murchison drained the glass, blinking water from his eyes conjured by the fiery trail in his throat. Then he poured another. He was shaking. He felt ill.

  Upstairs, things were no better. He felt watched in his bedroom and closed a
nd opened the curtains several times, unsure of whether he felt safer with the world let in or shut out.

  He knew there were dreams waiting for him, and could even feel their shadowy presences rustling in the corners of the room, among his clothes in the wardrobe, beneath the bed. He was afraid, yet also resigned. Something was going to be shown to him, something which had been approaching him all day, from a great distance. He could feel it drawing nearer. It might be terrible.

  But how could he sleep? His mind raced, juggling myriad random thoughts. He closed his eyes and listened to the drumming in his breast. It was tribal, a summoning.

  In his dream, he owned a great house that spread out around him like a great, sleeping monster. It was full of secrets and darkness, and unexpected splashes of colour. This was his real life. He sat in a study far larger than the one to which he was accustomed, though in many respects they were similar; antique curios littered every surface and he knew that books on ancient lands were crammed onto the floor to ceiling shelves that lined the room. This house was filled with his family, who spanned many generations. He had a gracious aloof wife, who ruled the domain. He had sons and daughters; aristocratic creatures who obeyed his word and the will of their mother. Below the house, was a vast labyrinth of work-rooms. He knew that in this place, he performed medical procedures; it was a link with the life that he knew. But who was he at the moment?

  In the dream, he rose from his desk and turned round, gazed up into a massive stained glass window depicting a giant peacock. Was he awake now?

  A voice spoke to him. ‘Go back to the ancient domain. It is time.’

  When he turned round, the room was empty. Really empty. The furnishings had vanished, leaving only an echoing shell.

  Cameron Murchison woke up abruptly, a short gasp expelled from his lungs. He stared into the blue darkness, blinking. The dream had been so vivid. He had felt more comfortable in it than he did in waking life. In the dream, he had a full history and each detail was available to his memory. He felt that if he could only go back there, he’d learn a lot about Cameron Murchison.