The door slid open. The gangplank slowly extended. The Prime Minister stepped off, shepherding a female wearing an ornate, jeweled wedding dress.
“Figures,” Larajie said. “With him it's always something female.”
“A Sata’anic female,” Eligor whispered. “The only one who has ever seen one is General Abaddon. Shay’tan won’t let them out of the Hades cluster.”
“So now he's going to fuck a lizard?” Larajie scoffed.
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” another crewman said. “We all know there are two Lucifers. The one he shows the cameras, and the one we see the minute he is out from underneath the Emperor’s thumb.”
The Prime Minister guided the terrified female to stand in front of the line of men, three-deep, and stood, a feral glint in his eyes as he grinned like a cat who had just swallowed a bird. He waited for his men to recognize what was standing right in front of their eyes.
“That’s no lizard,” Eligor said. “She's ... “
“Human,” Lerajie finished. “Shit ... he did it! He found the root race! We're saved!”
Eligor looked into Lucifer’s eerie silver eyes and shivered. What stared back was so malevolent and cold he could swear it wasn't mortal.
Chapter 52
Summer Solstice - June - 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
His knee hurt.
Immanu had explained their custom of prostrating oneself before the Chief, but Mikhail refused. There may not be many things he remembered, but going down on both knees and having somebody stand over him, demanding submission, felt so unnatural that he'd been unable to prevent the anxious twitching of his wings. After Ninsianna had been unable to dissuade her father from imposing Ubaid social customs upon his new 'son,' it had been Needa who'd stormed over to Chief Kiyan's house, pounded upon his door, and let him have it. Mikhail had not been there to hear this juicy conversation, but from the whispers that drifted his way in the days that followed, three square blocks had heard his new 'mother' chew the Chief out. The mere thought of it made him smirk, even now.
That had led to conversations about what felt natural. While his mind didn't want to release his memories, his body could often be tricked into regurgitating the information. If he emptied out his mind and did things, his body let him know if he'd done it before. After an afternoon spent attempting every known demonstration of swearing fealty, they'd finally come up with a solution. Go down on one knee, place his right fist over his heart, and let the Chief put his hand upon one shoulder, not his head.
Staying in that position for half an hour, however, while the Chief droned on and on and on, wasn't part of the bargain. The gravel dug into his knee, his wings ached from being held above the ground, and his muscles were beginning to cramp. By how awkward this gesture was for a creature with wings, he suspected it was not an Angelic gesture of respect, but a Cherubim one.
“Membership has its privileges,” Chief Kiyan droned on. "But it also comes with responsibility. The responsibility to contribute something of value to the society in which you live. To carry your own weight. To ply a trade. To defend our village in time of need."
So far, Mikhail had one out of the three. Defend the village. As for the other two? He was giving it his best effort while trying not to eat Immanu out of house and home.
He shifted focus to the warm, tingling sensation that originated with Ninsianna's hand resting upon his shoulder. He liked it when she touched him. It did things to him. Warm, fuzzy things that felt totally alien, and yet so familiar, as though it were something he'd searched for his entire life. Chief Kiyan's voice receded as Mikhail noted the way the warmth echoed in his chest.
“Mikhail,” Ninsianna whispered. “Tá tú ag ceaptha chun freagra a thabhairt dó [you're supposed to answer him].”
“Hmmm?” he asked, coming back to reality.
“You're supposed to say you will protect and honor our customs,” Ninsianna repeated.
“I'm sorry,” Mikhail told the Chief. “Could you please repeat exactly what I'm supposed to say?”
“I solemnly swear to protect and honor the people and customs of Assur,” Chief Kiyan said.
Mikhail repeated the oath word for word.
Some of his adopted people cheered. Some of them clapped. Some of them got up and stretched with mutters of “oh thank the gods the old windbag has stopped speaking” before coming over to congratulate him. With a sigh of relief, Mikhail heaved himself up off the ground and flared his wings to work the cramps out of them, nearly knocking over several villagers.
“Mikhail, Mikhail!” several children clamored about. “Can we touch your wings?”
“Go ahead." He sat down on a stone wall so he wouldn't tower over the children, but kept his wings high enough off the ground to avoid being stepped on. It was a lesson he'd learned the hard way. He masked his awkwardness behind an unreadable expression as the village children patted him as though he were a dog.
“Hey! Run your hand in the same direction as the feathers," he said. "Not the wrong way. You’ll break them.”
“When you can fly again,” a precocious boy ran a feather he'd inadvertently plucked across his face, “will you take me for a ride?”
“I don't think your parents would be too happy if I did that,” Mikhail said. He felt a twinge of remorse as disappointment crossed the little boy's face. “I don't think I'm meant to carry any more than my own body weight.”
“Can I climb on your lap?" A little girl held up her arms. He picked her up, not sure what to do with her. He looked to Ninsianna for guidance. The girl put her hands on his cheeks and pressed her forehead against his, eye to eye. “Look,” she said, “I only have one eye.”
“I can see that, little one,” Mikhail suppressed a smile. Human offspring baffled him. It felt as though he'd never been around any children before.
“Sore ga sarani akka suru kanō-sei ga arimasu [it could be worse],” Ninsianna said in the clicking Cherubim language so the children wouldn't understand. “Kanojo wa anata o motomeru koto ga dekiru [she could ask you] ningyō o saisei shimasu [to play dolls].”
“Anata wa kanojo no aidea o ataeru aete shinaide kudasai!" [Don't you dare give her any ideas!]
Ninsianna gave him an evil smile, as though considering suggesting just that.
“Ninsianna,” a young warrior named Dadbeh called. “Firouz sliced his leg horsing around with Tirdard. It's bleeding all over the place. Could you please take a look at it?”
Ninsianna turned to Mikhail, wearing that expression she always donned whenever anyone came first to her for healing instead of her mother. “If you'll excuse me, duty calls.”
A stab of jealousy tightened in his chest as he watched Ninsianna's hand lingered on the young man's leg far longer than Mikhail would have liked. He chided himself on the ridiculous emotion. Ninsianna liked to touch. Whenever she did, it smacked of intimacy, whether or not it was him she touched or somebody else. What he'd thought was special, reserved only for him, he now understood was her normal way of relating to the world. It made him feel … unimportant. He watched her tend the wounded male out of the corner of his eye as well-wishers converged upon him, blocking her from his view.
“Why do you let Ninsianna tell you what to do,” a brassy young woman named Shahla asked. She suggestively ran her fingers down his chest. “A real woman would let you be in charge."
Mikhail suppressed a scowl. He only liked it when Ninsianna touched him. Whenever anybody else did, it felt … wrong.
“Angelics don't differentiate between males and females." He hoped the ice in his voice would make Shahla go away. He might suffer from lingering memory loss, but he wasn't stupid. Shahla was trouble.
“But males are so … strong,” Shahla ran her hand down the side of her breasts and hips. “And women so soft and yielding. I wouldn't want to have to act like a man.”
Shahla was beautiful, but her forward de
meanor put him off. Which was worse? When the villagers had feared and avoided him. Or when everyone had decided they had an open invitation to tweak his feathers and prod him like a prize goat. Sometimes he just wanted to fly back to his ship and tell everyone to leave him alone!
Like right now…
Warmth sank into his damaged wing as fingers slipped through the pin-feathers which had finally begun to grow back. His wings tingled as an achingly familiar warmth flowed into his heart and made him smile. Ninsianna. He would know her touch anywhere. He reached back without looking and took her hand, slipping his fingers through hers.
“Is féidir liom a bhraitheann tú, chol beag,” he murmured so the others wouldn’t understand his words. I can feel you, little dove.
A fearful squeak and the tug of her hand jolted him out of his pleasant cocoon. Shahla covered her mouth and giggled. He looked up and saw Ninsianna coming at him from a different direction, wearing an expression like a thundercloud. Glancing at whose hand he held, he was held captive by the blackest pair of eyes he'd ever seen. The black-eyed girl tugged her hand, trying to break free. She had the look of a prey animal about to be slaughtered.
“I-I-I'm sorry,” she stammered. “I shouldn't have … I'm sorry…”
He looked from the painfully thin young woman whose hand he held to Ninsianna. Although her eyes were black, not gold, and her features painfully thin, there was a family resemblance. Not incredibly so, but enough that he could see why he'd mistaken her for Ninsianna. The only reason the girl had not yet bolted, as she plainly wished to do, was because he still held her hand captive. He let her go.
“What's the matter, Ninsianna?” Shahla taunted. “Do you fear your man will realize you're not the only woman in Assur?”
The brassy young woman grabbed the shy black-eyed one and dragged her towards a group of warriors. Mikhail looked up into Ninsianna’s eyes and saw that she was upset.
“For a moment, I thought she was you,” he said. “Is she a relative?” The moment the words left his mouth, he realized the were a mistake. Ninsianna scowled. It was an ugly expression she rarely wore.
“More like the village tramp and her spooky side-kick,” Ninsianna snapped. “Everybody will be talking about this now behind your back!" She pointed to where Jamin leaned against a goat shed, a look of dark intensity on the swarthy male's face as he scrutinized them with a malicious smirk.
Was Ninsianna jealous? For him? For some reason, her jealousy pleased him. He reached up to touch her cheek the way she often did to reassure him. Her anger melted. Slowly but surely, he was learning the intricate dance of non-verbal human social interactions. He suppressed his own jealousy as a second young man asked her to look at some sibling's injury, abandoning him to the village children once more.
“And now it's time for the summer solstice games,” the Chief announced, grabbing a spear out of a pile and balancing it perfectly in his palm. “We shall begin with the spear throwing competition.”
His two elderly sister-widow friends hobbled up to rescue him from some curious children.
“Mikhail,” Yalda asked. “Will you compete?”
“Yes, you must compete,” Zhila said. “I think our fine young friend will be good at it, don't you, Yalda?”
“Yes, he is very strong!" Yalda squeezed his bicep and nodded approval. “And become even stronger hauling water to our crops. We shall see how the other warriors fare against a man who is not afraid to dirty his tail feathers, shan’t we, Mikhail?”
Mikhail suppressed the smile which threatened to burst through his habitual poker face. His affable new 'grandmothers' wanted to make a point about the young warriors' insistence they were too important to help other members of the tribe. He'd quickly learned that beneath his new friends grandmotherly exterior lay the razor-edged wit of two sharp swords.
“Yes, I'll compete. You must introduce me as your champion.”
The widow-sisters each grabbed an arm and tugged him out the south gate of the village with surprising vigor for two women well into their seventieth year. The warriors gathered in the flat, rocky plain, some sort of obstacle course already set up beforehand. Several Ubaid females also joined the group, mostly young women he'd seen around the village, but not yet formally met. Although Ninsianna lamented the fact that women were discouraged from participating in traditionally male activities, it appeared it was not forbidden. The constant threat of annihilation from hostile neighbors meant strict male-female rules were imprudent in areas such as the ability to defend one's own self.
“Ahhh … here comes Ninsianna,” Yalda said. “She will compete again this year.”
Ninsianna glided up to them, her face lit up in a beautiful smile.
“You're too late,” Zhila taunted Ninsianna. “We have already commandeered your fine young man to be our champion. If you want to win the prize, you will have to earn it on your own!”
Ninsianna laughed.
“I see you've been conscripted into service,” Ninsianna said. “Maybe I'll be nice enough to share a few of the prize olives after I have kicked your tail feathers.”
“We shall see,” Zhila pursed her wrinkled lips as though she were a trader. “I know a thing or two about a good throwing arm and our champion has a strong one." Zhila squeezed his bicep in approval.
“Hey … what am I … a prize goat?” Mikhail suppressed a laugh.
“Yes!” all three women said at once.
“It's been a long time since we were strong enough to compete ourselves." Yalda's cataract-clouded eyes turned inward to competitions of years past. “Zhila used to be quite good, you know?”
“Ahhh…” Zhila said, “but that was many years ago. These days I count myself fortunate to toss my walking stick into the corner.”
“Listen!" Ninsianna said. "The Chief is about to explain the rules.”
Chief Kiyan outlined how the competition would proceed. The prize was an urn of olives obtained in a trade with the Ghassulian tribe in the Ghor valley. Olive trees rarely grew more than a few miles from the Akdeniz Sea, so the prize was considered precious.
For the first round, all contestants would throw the spear into a field marked with measurements. Anyone who couldn't throw 15 paces would be eliminated. In the second round, the contestants would throw spears at a target 30 paces away. Anyone who couldn't hit the target would be disqualified. In the third round, the contestants would run through an obstacle course and then hit a target. The one who hit the closest to the inner circle without being disqualified would be the winner.
“Have you ever thrown a spear before?” Yalda asked.
“I'm not sure,” Mikhail said. “I can't remember.”
“Here, let me show you." Zhila grabbed a spear from the pile and posed in a fierce throwing stance that was amazing for one so advanced in age. “The secret is not in the throw, but how you put your weight behind it when you release the shaft.”
Picking up a second spear from the pile, Mikhail found the center of gravity and hefted it into the position Zhila demonstrated. The shaft felt familiar in his hand. “I think I've had training throwing a similar weapon. But I'm not an expert. It feels as though I haven't wielded such a weapon in a very long time.”
“When you throw,” Zhila said, “picture your entire body becoming part of the spear. Like this…”
Zhila hefted the spear 17 paces into the field, a remarkable feat given her advanced age.
“You should compete,” Mikhail said with admiration. “That will qualify you past the first round.”
“My eyes are too bad,” Zhila said. “I can still throw, but I can't see the target well enough to hit it. And my knees ache too much to run the obstacle course. Such games are for the young and strong!”
“Let’s start!” the Chief clapped his hands. An excited murmur rose up as spectators gathered behind their chosen champions to cheer them on.
“Your spear-throwing lesson is over,” Ninsianna laughed, hefting her spear with practiced grace. “
Now it's time to take your lumps!" Mikhail had seen her hunt fish. Beating her was not a given.
The Chief took the first throw. His spear sailed a good 50 paces. The crowd clapped approval. Then his son Jamin threw. His spear flew 50 paces as well. Like father, like son, Mikhail thought to himself, although the Chief was a much more admirable man than his sullen, spoiled son. One by one, other villagers threw their spears. Immanu and Needa lined up behind their champion, Ninsianna.
“So, I see our new son has defected to our neighbors,” Needa joked with a deadpan expression.
“That's because Yalda keeps him plied with bread,” Immanu said.
Immanu was right. The widow-sisters did keep him fed. It made more sense for him to haul water from the river to irrigate their crops, and them to thank him by keeping him plied with hot, soft flat bread, straight out of Yalda's oven, than for the two old women to waste such talent bent over in the fields. Besides … anything tasted better than Needa's cooking…
“Look!" Needa pointed. "It's Ninsianna’s turn!”
Ninsianna wound up in a graceful pose that brought a memory to the surface of a temple painting he'd once seen of She-who-is engaged in a hunt. Although she didn't possess the weight to heave her shaft quite as far as the Chief had done, she made 46 paces, more than enough to qualify and better than most of the young men. Mikhail tried not to beam too blatantly with pride as she strutted back to her parents and gave them a high-five.
“That's how it's done!” she bragged.
Several more contestants threw, including a slender young girl and the black-eyed waif. Even children as young as six or seven were expected to try for, and surpass, the fifteen pace mark, which appeared to be the point of setting the first qualification bar so low. Mikhail scrutinized the way the others threw, his sharp eyes watching for patterns in the body movements of the most successful contestants. Then it was his turn.
“Become one with the spear…” Zhila reminded him. “Everything else is secondary.”
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 27
