Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga)

by Anna Erishkigal

  She shut her eyes and tried to feel her way into that dark realm that her eyes could no longer see. No intuitive voice whispered secrets about how to get across, but that other voice, her voice, told her that even if she did journey there, she'd be every bit as blind as she was right now.

  "Our people always believed," Ninsianna said, "that if a person willingly sacrificed their life on the longest night of the year, that they would carry a message straight to the gods, and the gods would intervene to bring back hope for the entire village."

  "Shay'tan says such beliefs are an abomination," Apausha said. "No man dies willingly. He says evil will always warp those who demand such sacrifice until all murders become a sacrifice to seek the favor of the gods."

  "So does my father," Ninsianna sighed. "No one ever wanted to sacrifice themselves, so they would find a scapegoat and execute him for some petty crime. The Chief put a stop to it when he inherited the village from his father."

  She touched the cheek of the poor, dying man. Would she make such a journey for a stranger? Would she make such a journey to save her husband? Would she make such a sacrifice for anyone? Ever? Had she ever believed in anything fervently enough that she would cast her spirit into the void?

  No. She would not. Not even for Mikhail.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks and fell upon the victim whose chest moved almost imperceptibly, his flesh turning bluer by the heartbeat. She didn't even know his name. How could she perform the death ceremonies for a man who had never woken up? Whoever he was, this man would pass alone. Where would he go with the entrance to the dreamtime blocked? Would he become a disembodied spirit? Or would his spirit simply cease to exist?

  She thought of her poor, dead husband, and how he'd cried out as he'd reached across the void to find her. He, a man who had never had any natural abilities or training, had reached across the void to find her instead of she, the Chosen one, to find him; and then she had cut him loose, guaranteeing that even if he had lived, he could never again use their bond of marriage to find her.

  "I never understood that all he needed was for me to love him," Ninsianna said. "And that if I loved him enough, it would give him the strength to do everything else."

  "But you did love him," Apausha said, then blinked as he realized he'd spoken in the past tense. "I mean, I know you do. It's all you ever talk about, how very much you miss him."

  "I do," Ninsianna said. She stared into the darkness she could no longer see, but she could feel it more intensely than she ever had now that she'd been denied all passage into the light. Truth stared out at her from that void. The terrible truth she had always known. "I loved him. Oh, Apausha! I loved him dearly. But I never loved him the way that he loved me."

  The unknown man's chest shuddered, and then exhaled one last time. It was the last breath he took; he did not breathe again. Emotion crushed her chest, the reality of his passing. There were two deaths she mourned tonight, the loss of this unknown man, and the very real loss of the husband who had never been hers to keep.

  Apausha held her as she wept. She wept, all the tears she had withheld, trying to convince herself that Mikhail would come and rescue her. They were trapped here. They were trapped, and if she wanted to get out of this place, then she would have to do it all herself.

  Her baby kicked. Her son. The child She-who-is had been desperately eager for her to conceive. It was for her child, now, this stolen child, that she must carry on. His child. Mikhail's.

  "He has crossed over," Ninsianna said, not just of this unfortunate, nameless man, but also her poor, dead husband, who she had lost the day she had let him go. " Perhaps he will find his way through the darkness and tell the goddess where we are?"

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Chapter 55

  Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.12 AE

  Tokoloshe Kingdom: Prince of Tyre

  Special Agent Eligor

  Eligor

  Eligor eyed the two lurking Tokoloshe who'd been assigned to babysit him, along with Lucifer's escape shuttle, as he met with King Barabas to negotiate a treaty. This wasn't the first time Eligor had piloted a shuttle into Tokoloshe territory for a meeting, but fuck! All those other times they'd met them on the borderlands!

  "What you looking at, Angelic?" one of the two hulking guards snarled.

  Eligor schooled an 'I don't give a fuck' expression and pretended to pick at his fingernails.

  "Nothing," Eligor said.

  "Why…"

  Tokoloshe were bear-like creatures, three meters tall, with a foul disposition and even nastier habit of eating those they'd conquered in battle. They were the most feared creatures in the galaxy, second, perhaps to even Shay'tan himself.

  "Ignore him," the second Tokoloshe said. "He's just trying to rile us."

  The first Tokoloshe stepped closer to him, his hulking shoulders so broad it gave the creature the appearance of having no neck whatsoever.

  "Maybe the lackey would like to be invited for dinner?"

  Eligor fingered the hilt of his pulse rifle which sat in its holster with the strap undone and the safety feature flipped off. Maybe Shay'tan wasn't so scary after all. The old dragon was a ferocious creature, but the Sata'anic emperor lived by an eccentric moral code which made him predictable in a sort of inflexible, galactic-dominating kind of way. Tokoloshe, on the other hand, made no sense whatsoever.

  The first Tokoloshe's nostrils quivered as it gave Eligor a sniff. Saliva dripped from its fangs.

  "You smell … tasty."

  Its beady eyes narrowed as it waited for Eligor to show the appropriate amount of fear. Eligor had dealt with the creatures enough times to know that doing so would be a mistake.

  "Your breath stinks like shit," Eligor said. "Maybe you should go find some breath sanitizer?"

  "Why!" The first Tokoloshe stepped towards him.

  The second Tokoloshe yanked it back.

  "Get your hand off of me!"

  As Eligor had predicted, the two moved off to duke it out amongst themselves. Orders or not, no Tokoloshe could overcome their instinct to toy with a prey animal, in this case the prey being him. He hoped Lucifer was okay. Whatever had possessed the man to think he'd be safe accompanying King Barabas into his dining hall? Yeah, Furcas and Pruflas were with him, but three Angelics against a planet full of cannibals was more than even the goon squad could overcome.

  A third Tokoloshe, far smaller than the other two, stepped out of the shadows and gave him a wary sniff. This creature Eligor thought he could take, especially with the added security of his pulse rifle. It was a wiry runt of a creature, old, with mangy fur and a scar across its muzzle that looked like it had been on the losing end of a knife fight. The creature eyed him as it swept up the asphalt, moving methodically until it began to approach the shuttle.

  "Stay away from my ship," Eligor said.

  The creature shrugged and continued to sweep the sidewalk anyways.

  "You hear what I just said?" Eligor said. "I said scram."

  The creature paused and leaned on its broom. "You know what they're doing in there, don't you?"

  "No."

  The creature bared its fangs, but it was more an expression of an old coot chuckling at the cluelessness of a youngster than the threatening gesture of a predator stalking a prey animal.

  "It is our highest honor," the old Tokoloshe said. "To feed upon the flesh of our enemies so you can absorb their essence into your own."

  "It's barbaric," Eligor said.

  I-don't-give-a-fuckedness was for him a way of life, one which had kept him out of many scrapes. But cannibalism? He was a lot of things, but that? No. Just … no.

  The old Tokoloshe swept up another shovelful of litter, and then leaned on his shovel once more.

  "You ever kill a man in battle?"

  Eligor schooled his expression to remain neutral. "Yeah."

  "How'd it make you feel?"

  What the kind of question was that?

  "It's none of your fucking busines
s."

  The old Tokoloshe grinned at him. "It felt good, didn't it, the first time you killed a man when you thought you were in the right?"

  A pang of guilt gripped Eligor in the gut. He'd killed many men, but unlike Furcas and Pruflas, every life he'd taken he remembered. The look in their eyes. The way the light had gone out of them as their life-blood had flowed out of their body. Sure, the first few times, when he'd been young and angry, he'd relished killing the people he blamed for his troubles. But then something had changed. He'd killed a man who'd cried out for his mother as he'd died.

  "Do you know when the lifespark is at its peak?" the old Tokoloshe asked.

  "I don't know," Eligor said. "When you're a teenager?"

  "At the moment it changes form," the Tokoloshe said. "The best time to feast upon your prey is as it cries out in pain, either as it is being born, or as it is about to leave this world."

  "Get away from me!" Eligor hissed at him. He picked up a piece of trash and threw it at the man. "You're all fucking sick!"

  "We've all had a chance to dine upon the old ones," the old Tokoloshe said. "The ones who lost in battle, the criminals, the weak ones who did not meet their tribute quotas. But a new life? One which cries out as it emerges from the womb? Or a willing one? Ooh! Now that is a feast appropriate for a god."

  An odd vertigo began to spin in Eligor's ears as the hulking, ostentatious palace they'd parked in front seemed to recede and, in his mind's eye, he could almost hear the screams of the women Lucifer had impregnated.

  "A willing one could keep a god satiated for many meals," the old Tokoloshe said. "Tell me, Eligor. Are you willing?"

  How in Hades did this creature even know his name?

  "Get the fuck out of here!" Eligor shouted.

  He pulled his pulse rifle and aimed it at the old Tokoloshe. The creature laughed, picked up its broom and began to move away, sweeping as it went as if Eligor didn't have a weapon aimed at it. Just as it was about to disappear back into the shadows, it turned to face him once more.

  "You can't even comprehend what an honor it is to bask in the presence of the one you serve," the old Tokoloshe said. He used his broom to give a mocking salute. “Oh, how I envy you.”

  Before Eligor could think of a suitable expletive, the old Tokoloshe disappeared. Eligor squinted, trying to see the creature, but it was as though the street-sweeper had never been there.

  He waited and waited, guarding the shuttle as he stared at the garish mausoleum King Barabas had built until he'd become convinced they'd strapped Lucifer to a feeding pole and carved chunks out of his flesh to eat him alive until they finally killed him by dining on his heart. The two big Tokoloshe guards came back, both sporting missing fur and a few bloodstains on their uniforms, to hiss insults at him until he was ready to dive into his shuttle and attempt to shoot his way off this planet. At last the outer gates to the palace opened and out strode Lucifer, with Ba’al Zebub and the Tokoloshe king trotting happily behind him like a matched pair of little yippy lap madraí.

  "Sir." Eligor forced his words to not come out as a desperate cry of oh-thank-the-gods.

  "Why so anxious?" Lucifer smiled pleasantly. He gestured to King Barabas, who practically fell over himself to hand Lucifer a trench coat which looked, for all the world, like an emperor's robe of state. "You weren't worried about me, were you?"

  Eligor muttered something noncommittal under his breath. If Lucifer could read his mind? Good. Let him eavesdrop on this! Eligor pictured his most horrific memory of a picture some news outlet had once smuggled out of the Tokoloshe Kingdom exposing what the cannibals really did to any subject who was not able to meet King Barabas’ tribute quota.

  "Why Eligor?” Lucifer purred. “The Tokoloshe are our allies."

  "Whatever you say, Sir," Eligor said. He filled his brain with busy-thoughts to hide from the Prime Minister what he really thought of their so-called allies.

  'Kept the engines idling on the shuttle just in case. Never know when I might need to save Lucifer's tail feathers and drag him out of here before the cannibals can invite -him- to dinner.'

  "Come," Lucifer said. "King Barabas has prepared a celebration in my honor."

  "Didn't you just come from a celebration, Sir?" Eligor asked.

  The piss-yellow lights which illuminated the launch pad reflected off of Lucifer's eerie silver eyes, giving the illusion he stared into the fires of a sun.

  "That was a feast, dear Eligor," Lucifer almost purred with contentment, a cat that had just eaten a bird. "And now, our allies will show me how glad they are that I have returned."

  Lucifer smiled, showing off his perfectly straight white teeth. Just underneath the cleft in his chin where you might not notice it unless you happened to look up at the man was a smear of something which looked like blood. Eligor shivered. He buried the thought in the deepest recesses of his brain and focused on the list of things he needed to do on the shuttle before taking off.

  "Where are we going, Sir?" Eligor asked.

  "Not far," Lucifer said. "I just need you to help me descend for a stage entrance."

  "As you wish, Sir," Eligor said.

  Ba'al Zebub and the two goons waddled up the ramp to enter into the shuttle. Lucifer began the ascent himself, flicking a hand to signal it was time to go. Eligor fell into line behind him. As he did, he got a good look at the man's magnificent snow-white wings. Someone had taken a paintbrush and speckled his feathers with pink splotches. At the bottom, jammed in between a couple of primary feathers, was a smear of red. Eligor used the excuse of closing the hatch to get a good look at whatever had lodged in Lucifer's wings. Bright red, with an outer smear of peach, like…

  Eligor's eyes met Lucifer's.

  "Is something wrong, friend?"

  'Check the fuel gauges again. Run a comms check. Tell Captain Marbas that Lucifer didn't get eaten so he doesn't feel compelled to bomb the fuck out of the planet. I could sure use a sandwich right now. Might need to get more fuel.'

  "No, Sir," Eligor said. "It isn't okay."

  Lucifer tilted his head, as though this statement was unexpected. Eligor met his gaze.

  "You forgot to buckle your seat belt, Sir."

  Lucifer laughed and slapped him on the back.

  "Why Eligor," Lucifer said. "It's always so gratifying to have such a … willing … friend."

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Chapter 56

  December, 3,390 BC

  Earth: Village of Assur

  Gita

  Gita flung her old brown cape around her shoulders, a childhood fancy that Shahla had cast off once it had become too threadbare. It had grown even more decrepit since then, torn and mended countless times until even the patched spots had needed reinforcing, but it was hers. It was practical, it kept her warm, and more importantly, it had served her well each time she'd needed to fade into the darkness. She did not fade into the dark now. She did not wish to put back on the red cape she had hidden behind for weeks. For the first time in her life, Gita wanted to be seen.

  Siamek sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

  “You know what Immanu ordered me to do?” Siamek asked.

  Gita eyed the club he held in his hand. It was a simple war-club, little more than a rock fastened to the end of a stick, the kind of club used for clubbing an animal unconscious prior to slaughter so you could slit its throat without the inconvenience of watching it squirm.

  “Yes," Gita said.

  Siamek fell silent, his dark eyes glittering with tears.

  "Why didn't you run away?" Siamek said. "Firouz gave you countless chances!"

  "Because I promised Mikhail I would not abandon him," Gita said softly. "And I will not break my word."

  Siamek's hand trembled, causing the war club to rattle against the floor. It made an odd, drumming sound, not ominous the way a death-instrument should be.

  “It’s barbaric,” Siamek said, “the ancient ways. I had thought the Chief would put a stop to it. He wo
uldn’t let them do it to his own son.”

  "Immanu is desperate to have my life tonight," Gita said, "because it is said, at the Narduğan fire, the gods will accept the sacrifice of one human life in exchange for another.”

  "I was at the vote," Siamek said. "Not one person stepped forward to testify on your behalf. Not even your own father."

  “I am nobody’s child,” Gita sighed. “If you must smite me, do it as he finishes taking his last breath, and hit me hard, so I do not wake up as I am being burned alive."

  Siamek's sorrow twisted into an expression of anger.

  "You are not the one he wishes to see!"

  "I know," Gita said. "But if I am going to die anyways, I would rather make the journey with him."

  She bowed her head and pushed aside her raven black hair to lay bare her neck, the most optimal place for an executioner to make her death a merciful one. She bent forward to kiss Mikhail's cold, blue lips.

  “Goodbye, my love. I will join you in the next world.”

  She waited for the blow, but it never came. Instead, they both stood listening to the hollow shell of the man who had once been their hero attempt to breathe. Shuddering breath in. Hold. Rattled exhalation out. A long, long pause. Was he gone now? Was this the last breath? Quick! Kill me now! For I do not wish to be left behind to grieve!

  But then Mikhail breathed again. And another breath after that. And another. And another. And another. Siamek stood behind her, club raised, waiting to give her the quick end she pleaded for, but it was not Ninsianna he breathed for now, but for her.

  Siamek’s arm began to falter. He rested the club against the ground. At last his legs grew weary and he moved back to lean against his customary guard spot by the door. Out. In. Out. In. Mikhail breathed, because he wanted to protect her.

  “Pareesa said I should look into my heart,” Siamek finally said. “And ask what Mikhail would do. What would Mikhail do to bring justice to the woman accused of orchestrating his murder?”