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

by Anna Erishkigal

  "She told me she will never love me the way she loved her first husband," Jamin said. He took aim and threw another pebble towards a tiny, dead flower clinging to a bush. "She loved her husband dearly, and though she will marry me because she has no other choice, she will never love me the way that she loved her husband."

  He caressed the small, grass wreath, woven carefully by a soldier with far too much down-time.

  "At least she was honest with me," Jamin mumbled. "Not like Ninsianna, who led me on because I was the best option she had until a man fell from the heavens and gave her a better one."

  He placed the wreath down gently back upon the tombstone. He did not wish to contaminate whatever magic the person had woven into it with his own, accursed fate.

  "I guess that should make you happy," Jamin said. "That me, the most eligible man in the village, can't find somebody to love me because I treated you so wrong?"

  He hoped Shahla would appear as she had so many times when he had visited her here, but even when she did appear she never gloated over his misery, only appeared sad, clinging to the rag-doll as she searched for her poor, dead baby. He hadn't seen her since the day he had spared Qishtea from death. Either she had abandoned him, or at last she had found peace. He hoped it was the latter. If there was any person who deserved entrance into the dreamtime, it was Shahla, who had only committed wrong because he had set her to it.

  "If I kill him, Aturdokht will marry me," Jamin said. "She scolded me, you know? She said I should have married you, and then married her. She was willing to share me because the poor woman is in not such a different a predicament as you were."

  He picked up Qishtea's hair. Someone had tied it together with several strands of the same woven grass which had comprised the wreath. The Sata'anic soldiers believed he had made a great gift upon her tomb of the hair of a vanquished chief because she had granted his wish for greatness. They had no idea of the real reason he had spared the man.

  A small white bird peeked its head around one of the Sata'anic lizard tombs and gave its lonely, greebling cry. A reply was made from somewhere down the hill. It flew off with a whir of feathers, down to where a duller member of the same species poked its head out from some shrubbery, casting off a small, white feather which landed at the foot of the tomb. The second bird was a female by the way the male danced around it. Why was it that men always thought the world evolved around them when, in reality, it was the female who decided which man would procreate and which would sink into the abyss of time, forgotten by evolution?

  He picked up the feather, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, dark treasure box that had been left to him by his mother, the one his father had hidden from him most of his life. He ran his fingers along the lid, along the cool surface that was neither wood nor any of the substances the lizard people kept around the base. On the lid was an eleven-pointed star, and around the edges were carved symbols. He opened up the lid and pulled out trinkets he had hidden there as a little boy.

  'Close your eyes,' Mama had said, 'and make a wish.'

  'What should I wish for, Mama?'

  "Whatever your heart desires,' Mama's black eyes had sparkled, 'and if you wish for it fervently enough, someday the goddess will make your wish come true.'

  He had opened the box and turned it over, searching for the means to make the magic box work.

  'But it's just a box,' he had said. 'How can a box grant me a wish?'

  His Mama had smiled at him, her smile so very like his own.

  'You just believe it,' Mama said. 'And act -as if- it will come true, and before you know it, it -will- be true.'

  'What did -you- wish for, Mama?'

  Mama had laughed and tussled his hair.

  'I wished for your father, silly,' Mama said. Her black eyes had crinkled around the corners in a happy memory. 'I lived at the temple then, but times were unsettled so my mother said I had to leave. She gave me this box, the way that I have just given it to you, and told me to put a symbol in it for every wish I want to come to fruition, and if I examined it every single day, one day my wish would true.'

  Had that been where he'd gone wrong? Had it all gone wrong because he'd lost the box and forgotten about it, so all of his dreams had gone awry?

  'What symbol did you use for my father?' he had asked her.

  Mama had laughed. 'I'll never tell! But I wished for him, and then the goddess sent him when I least expected it, and then he gave me -you-.'

  Oh, gods! How he missed his mother! How might things have been different had she been there growing up? Telling him not to tease the other boys? Reminding his father to spend time with them instead of worrying about his treasury? Warning him that Ninsianna's eye had not been on him, but on how much her own position would improve if she married the Chief's son?

  He sniffed and wiped his cheek. His hand came away wet, glistening in the setting sun of the burning sky. What would have happened had his mother been there to teach him not to use a woman for sex and then cast her away like refuse?

  "I'm sorry," he spoke to the corpse in the tomb. "I'm so very sorry for what I did to you and your baby. Even if it wasn't mine."

  He pictured Ninsianna, the way that he had always seen her. Beautiful. Callous. Lover. Betrayer. Just like any other human woman; beautiful, flawed, manipulative. First he had loved her, and then he had hated her. But now? Now, he just wanted her to stop taking up space inside his heart.

  He toyed with the little treasure box, noticing the way the bottom was so much thicker than the lid. His mother had told him the box could only be passed down to a son or daughter of their bloodline. What would he wish for now, if he still believed in the power of the box?

  "I wish somebody would love me the way that my Mama loved my father," Jamin said. "And Aturdokht loved her husband." He thought a moment, and then he added softly, "the way that Mikhail loves Ninsianna, enough to die trying to rescue her from me."

  He placed the small, white feather into the treasure box and snapped it shut. The eleven pointed star shone back at him as the last dying rays of sunlight reflected off the lid. He leaned back against the tomb and shut his eyes.

  A faint, silver star, shining from a distant prison…

  An eagle…

  His mama, singing to him as the Amorites had carried him across the desert after the Halifians had sold him into slavery, dying from a fever…

  A woman, clutching him to her breast, pleading with him to do something...

  Cold, blue lips touching his…

  'Circumspector…'

  Fire. So much fire. It was coming for him. And he needed to embrace it…

  The sound of boots woke him up. Jamin opened his eyes to stare up at a dark silhouette backlit by the last dying embers of the setting sun.

  "I'm sorry," the lizard soldier said to him. "I didn't see you."

  The lizard man hid the small gift of flowers he had brought to place upon Shahla's grave behind his back, embarrassed to be caught making this pilgrimage to the tomb of the warrior woman. Jamin couldn't help but grin. He resettled his own offering of Qishtea's hair back upon the top of the cold, flat tombstone and weighted it down with a rock.

  "She likes flowers," Jamin said. "If you want your wish to come true, you should bring them to her every single day."

  He glanced back as he walked away, pleased to see the lizard man did just that, sat as he had sat as if in doing so, it gave his wishes power? Why not honor Shahla now that she was dead? She would like that.

  Feeling lighter than he had in a very long time, he made his way to visit Private Katlego in sick bay.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Chapter 84

  February: 3,389 BC

  Earth: Village of Assur

  Mikhail

  It was dim in Varshab's house, the house of a bachelor, a house where had once lived a wife and several children, but now only he lived here. Mikhail squeezed the Chief's top enforcer's forearm. He glanced up at his mother-in-law, her expre
ssion grim.

  "There's nothing more I can do for him," Needa said. "Unless he finds a way to heal himself as you did, I fear he shall not last through the night."

  Pareesa pressed herself into his side and sniffled. His little fairy had refused to leave the elder warrior's side ever since he had been cut down by the lizards.

  "It's my fault," Pareesa sobbed. Moisture trailed down her cheeks as she buried her face into his chest. "He told us to stick together, but then I rushed ahead and wasn't there to watch his back."

  Mikhail stood woodenly like a tall, stupid tree, unsure how to handle a grief-stricken thirteen-summer-girl. He glanced at his mother-in-law for guidance, but she was too busy attending to her patient to notice he needed help navigating the intricacies of human interactions. He finally gave Pareesa a small hug, and then stepped away, peeling his sobbing prodigy off of his chest like a man distancing himself from a too-friendly dog. Even though Ninsianna was no longer here, in his mind, he could hear her fit of jealousy.

  "If you hadn't let fly your arrow when you did," Mikhail said, "Jamin would have shot me full in the chest with his pulse rifle, uhm, firestick, and that is a wound there is no healing from."

  Pareesa sniffled until she composed herself, and then knelt back at Varshab's side. Needa had bandaged up his gut as best she could, but she had only ever successfully treated one such wound … Jamin. Mikhail's mouth tightened into a grim line. The only thing they could do was comfort Varshab until either blood loss, or septicemia, killed him.

  "Are any of his children still alive?" Mikhail asked. It was funny that he'd never really gotten to know the man even though the Chief had relied upon him to get all of his dirty work done.

  "We sent a message to his daughter," Needa said. "She married a man from Dur-Katlimmu, our furthest Ubaid ally. It will take many days to get their and back." She lowered her voice. "I don't think he has that long."

  "Maybe you could get there in time, Mikhail?" Pareesa asked. "And carry her back? So he doesn't have to die alone?"

  Her eyes were too bright and hopeful, his little fairy who had never known the real meaning of defeat. Mikhail lifted his wing which, while the skin had miraculously healed, his feathers would take much longer to regrow. Even he had limits to what he could do.

  "I shouldn't have even been able to get off the ground," Mikhail said, "but even if I wasn't still a ninety manû weakling, there is no way I could safely carry a second passenger."

  Ipquidad, one of Pareesa's B-team, stuck his head inside the door.

  "Mikhail … the Chief is asking for you."

  Mikhail squeezed Varshab's arm one last time. A lump rose in his throat as he stared down at the great bear of a man who had always kept order in the village and protected the Chief so that he was free to focus his attentions elsewhere. It was a job nobody wanted, being the enforcer, being the one to carry out the letter of the law. With Varshab gone, would the task fall to him?

  "I've got to go, my friend," Mikhail said. "I have to interrogate the prisoners you captured. I'll stop by to check on you later, okay?"

  He didn't say, 'If you still happen to be alive.'

  Varshab grimaced and mumbled something not quite audible.

  Mikhail turned to Pareesa. "Sit with him. He deserves to be surrounded by his friends."

  Pareesa nodded, her eyes filled with tears. She was no fairy general today, just a teenage girl, uniquely vulnerable despite her uncanny abilities as a warrior. It reminded him of all the reasons he needed to get back to full strength quickly, because despite the human capacity for bravery, his species had been bred to protect her species, and not the other way around.

  Needa intercepted him at the door.

  "If that lizard healer hadn't helped him," Needa said, "he wouldn't be alive. Is there anything he can do for him?"

  Mikhail stiffened.

  "Even in a hospital," Mikhail said, "this wound would be a challenge to treat. Sata'anic doctors usually euthanize their patients when they get this bad, rather than watch them suffer a wound they cannot heal."

  Needa gave him a grim nod. The Alliance considered euthanasia an abomination, but hemlock was one of the herbs Needa kept in her healer's arsenal. It was an easy death, she had explained, involving paralysis and then a gradual slowing of the heart.

  He stepped out into the sunlight, still cold although the temperature was not freezing. An unruly crowd had gathered at the pits where five Sata'anic soldiers had been shoved down into the holes and covered with a rock. The sixth prisoner had died. How could he sate the Assurians blood-lust when he, himself, wanted to disembowel them to make them tell him where Lucifer had taken Ninsianna?

  If that was even true…

  No. It couldn't possibly be true! Since when did the Emperor's adopted son consort with Shay'tan? Jamin must have lied!

  How? How had Jamin even known who his Prime Minister was unless someone else had told him?

  The lizards. The lizards must have put him up to it. It was all part of their game of psychological warfare to make up for what he suspected was a serious crimp in their supply lines.

  Chief Kiyan stood next to Immanu, but their bodies pointed away from one another, arms crossed, Immanu's wild, salt-and-pepper hair jolting out of his forehead like a god of thunder. Mikhail had always found the Chief to be a little too pragmatic for his tastes, but ever since he had awoken from his coma, he found himself drifting towards the reliability of a man driven by practical concerns rather than the whims of a man who relied upon a goddess who was fickle.

  "Please don't do this," Mikhail said. "These men are mere foot soldiers. You cannot execute them for following orders unless they personally committed genocide."

  "We are not part of your Alliance, Champion," Immanu spoke with a voice that was not entirely his. "These prisoners will tell me where my Chosen One is, and if they do not, we shall flay them all alive."

  The iridescent golden eyes which stared out of his father-in-law were all too familiar. That dark power which always swam just beneath the surface of his body whispered for him to be patient with HER, made excuses for HER, begged him to appease her and to understand SHE acted vicious out of worry, but Mikhail was not that dark power, and he forced it to recede until he could think on his own.

  "How is it that you don't know where she is?" Mikhail asked softly enough so that the other villagers would not hear him. "And yet you expect five mortals to tell you what you, yourself do not know?"

  Immanu's eyes turned reddish-gold, the color of fire when it consumed a log. Yes. He was right. SHE could no longer speak through Ninsianna, so she had found a voice through the vessel of her all-too-desperate father.

  "You question me?"

  "I question a parent who is just as desperate to find Ninsianna as I am," Mikhail said. He tucked his wings respectfully against his back, understanding that the line he walked was a razor thin one. "If you wish me to help you, you have to let me do it my way."

  "Then you shall lose her," She-Who-Is-Immanu said.

  "I have already lost her," Mikhail said. "And not even you, with all of your power and premonitions, were able to stop it."

  "You have no choice."

  "There is always a choice," Mikhail said. He thought of something the Cherubim queen had once told him. His mouth twitched into an involuntary smirk. "That is your law if I remember properly, isn't it? Your way of making sure that, despite your temperament, you will never turn into your father?"

  The visage-behind-the-visage softened.

  "North," She-Who-Is-Immanu said. "You will find their base to the north. Beyond that, I cannot see where the Evil One has taken her. He is invisible, even to me."

  The fire faded from Immanu's eyes, leaving only a grief-stricken shaman whose behavior had alienated him from his wife and friends. Mikhail suppressed the urge to curse at him. North? North-what? Due north? Northeast? Northwest? How many days travel? What distance? Were they even on the same continent? Having gotten similarly vague directions fro
m the Eternal Emperor in the past, he resisted the urge to shake his father-in-law and demand directions from a deity who was clueless about distance as perceived by a mortal.

  Immanu blinked, as if unsteady, and then swayed into the Chief who caught him and held him upright.

  "Wh-what just happened?" Immanu asked.

  "We were just discussing the terms of the First Galactic Convention Outlining the Rights of Prisoners and Civilians," Mikhail said. "If you violate that treaty, when I summon the armies of heaven, the Eternal Emperor will refuse to help you."

  It was a lie; an outright, bald-faced lie, the first lie he could remember ever telling. But if he had his way it would be the truth, because there was nothing he despised more than mistreatment of men who were only following orders, even if they were soldiers of the enemy.

  "What are we supposed to do with these prisoners, then?" Chief Kiyan asked. "We have no cage capable of holding them, and if we let them go, who knows what intelligence they will spill to our enemies?"

  He didn't add, 'Or prevent the villagers from lynching them.'

  "The Galactic Convention says that all prisoners of war must be treated with a minimal level of care," Mikhail said. "You must put them in a house, and let their physician treat them as best he can. You must give them adequate meals, sunlight and exercise, and you must allow them their prayers, even if you find them to be offensive."

  The crowd had pressed in upon them, eager for the spectacle of a public flaying, especially an enemy so fantastic as three lizard soldiers, a Catoplebas, and a blue-skinned Marid.

  "Why should we give such creatures mercy?" the Chief asked. "When amongst our own kind, we would never guarantee such protections."

  Mikhail's mouth tightened into a grim line.

  "The Convention is not to protect them," Mikhail said. "It is to protect you. And me. And any creature who gets caught between the anvil of the Eternal Emperor and Shay'tan's hammer. The two old gods made this agreement millennia ago. So long as you follow the letter of the contract, the old dragon will reciprocate rather than burn your planet into ash."