by A. L. Knorr
“You are unworthy. Unworthy of my time, my attention, and my blood.” Ninurta bent his head forward to place his lips next to my ears.
“Die knowing you were not enough,” Ninurta whispered as his fingers began to tighten. “Die knowing you failed.”
21
The pressure on my neck, the tissue of my throat, the bones of my spine, was so incredible I had a fleeting thought that I was about to explode. Then the pressure was gone and I was falling.
Is this what it’s like to die?
I landed on the stone floor hard enough to make my teeth rattle and raw, hacking gasps rocked me. I forced myself to my hands and knees to give my greedy lungs as much room as they needed to claim the oxygen they had been denied. I looked up at Ninurta with tear-bleared eyes.
Every sinew stood out as his body like an electric current was passing through him; his teeth bared in a frothing grimace. Across his taut neck, a bloom of black veins stood out like venomous vines burrowing into the trunk of a tree. From those tumorous growths a shadow tentacle of an edimmu stretched behind the stricken demigod to Daria standing a few paces away. Ninurta had been so intent on me he didn’t notice when a living darkness separated itself from the shadows of the throne, rearing back like a black serpent ready to strike.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time,” Daria hissed through jagged fangs.
A hard hand seized my arms and hauled me to my feet. I looked up and saw Sark’s demon-ravaged face, but he wasn’t even looking at me. His eyes were fixed on Ninurta, and I could hear the grinding engine pulse inside his chest building momentum. Kezsarak’s voice bubbled up from deep within, a poisonous, hateful noise that stung my ears.
TRAITOR
Still fighting for air, I remembered the ancient history between Kezsarak and Ninurta. Ninurta had convinced Kezsarak to aid him against the demon’s father Asag, but despite his promises to the contrary, Ninurta had slain Asag and set the gallu on the path to madness and damnation. Kezsarak’s hatred of humanity in general, and the Inconquo, in particular, all began with Ninurta.
“Remember the plan, Sark,” I croaked. “We’re so close. Remember.”
Sark’s gaze didn’t leave the demigod, but his cracked lips quivered, and he ran a pale tongue over them.
“Hurry, Ibby,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m not sure how long we can hold him.”
We? Oh no! If Sark and Lowe were working together and could barely keep the demon at bay, things could come undone just before the finish line.
Pulling from his nerveless grip, I staggered a few steps away from the demigod and the gaping black pit. The copper had sunk back down into the depths without Ninurta’s will to animate it.
“Not yet, Kezsarak,” I gasped, as I fought to slow my pounding heart and steady my laboured breathing. I had one shot at this.
“Hurry!”
Lowe’s voice revived me, and with hardening focus I drove my metallic awareness into Ninurta’s rigid body. I plunged deep and found the nebula of living metal, its movement sluggish, slowed by Daria’s poison. It was a testament to his terrible will that it still flowed at all. It quickened and pulled against me: even against the crippling demonic poison of an edimmu the demigod fought on.
The rings before me, I poured everything I had into drawing the living metal out of him. At first it felt like trying to drag a mountain, but with agonising slowness, the current began to bow and turn my way. A fresh coat of sweat broke out across my body and stung my eyes as I dug deep, pulling from depths I didn’t know I had.
Crimson motes sprang from the demigod’s skin and a tight, impotent scream of rage slipped from between Ninurta’s teeth. Sark stalked forward, Kezsarak’s demonic heartbeat hammering like an engine ready to explode.
TRAITOR!
“Not yet!” Daria shouted, muscles standing out on her neck. “She has to draw it all out. Not yet!”
The stream of bloody particles coming off Ninurta grew by the second, coalescing into a flickering cloud. I could already sense places in Ninurta where the choruses of metal had gone silent.
“Almost … there!” I snarled through clenched teeth. “Almost!”
Sark lurched forward, hand outstretched, his body recoiling as though he was trying to pull away from a fire.
“Sark, no!” I screamed. “Almost—”
VENGEANCE!
Sark’s hand plunged into the swirling motes, fingers curling into a gnarled claw. The sour tang of Kezsarak’s corrupting influence spread like wildfire, and the red turned to black. The glimmers of metal turned to bleak stars flashing with lethal promise. I knew what was coming as my grip came undone and the last particles of living metal were drawn back into Ninurta.
The catastrophic detonation came, and time seemed to slow to a crawl even as the sparks bloomed into fireballs. Sark’s eyes bulged in terror as a mad, rambling laugh burst from his lips. Daria’s grip on Ninurta withered before the surge of heat and light. I reared back, certain I was dead.
A silver silhouette detached itself from Sark with a sound like ripping parchment. The figure stretched into the shape of a tall and lanky man. Pearly translucent arms enveloped me. The shade’s touch was cold yet comforting, an embrace that soothed and steadied me.
I will hold you.
The voice was the rich, articulate tones of a century-old ghost and a very dear friend.
The fireballs swelled, as time returned to normal, devouring everything they touched. Heat and force wash over me, but I felt little more than a summer breeze. I squeezed my eyes shut as the explosion grew bright as the sun.
I won’t let you go.
Flashes of heat prickled across my skin, slipping through as the force of the blast tore at the protective layer Lowe had created around me, but the breaches mended even as I felt Lowe’s grip slacken.
The seconds stretched and Lowe’s grip thinned into a bare caress as more and more of him was ripped away by the fury he was holding at bay. The final aftershock of the eruption rolled by and dragged away the last traces of Lowe’s spirit.
I’m so proud of you.
Then he was gone.
---
Blinking in the wake of Kezsarak’s fatal error, I stood on unsteady legs and looked around.
An ache like a piece of my heart was missing throbbed in my chest and I wanted to crumple to the ground and weep. My gaze swung left and right, seeing things without understanding, hearing things without comprehending.
Lowe was gone and Ninurta survived. How could this happen, the plan had been …
Ninurta survived!
The world snapped into focus and I heard a scream of pain accompanied by the hiss of searing heat.
I spun around and saw Ninurta, ravaged and burned to a nightmare, sinking his fingers into the exposed metal throbbing in Sark’s chest. Sark shrieked as the grinding gears of Kezsarak’s infernal engine whined and snarled. More of Ninurta’s flesh peeled away as he sank his hand up to the wrist, revealing bones that glimmered with a metal sheen.
“So close, Kezsarak,” Ninurta rasped, his voice a ragged sound in his scorched throat. “So very close.”
The demigod’s hand closed around something inside Sark’s chest and his scream rose then crashed into a breathless groan. Ninurta’s hand gave a sharp twist and withdrew. Sark collapsed to the floor and stared upward, his mouth working soundlessly. He shuddered and went limp, a puppet with its strings cut.
In Ninurta’s hand, dripping molten metal was a heart. Around the metallic organ, a shuddering shadow, almost like a lightless flame flickered and shrank. The sound of Kezsarak’s hellish motor coughed a final turn and then fell silent as the shadowy flame extinguished.
Ninurta gargled a laugh and tossed the heart over his shoulder into the pit.
Daria, her human guise in tatters, crouched next to me. Just like Pierre, the creature beneath the beautiful woman’s skin was a black-skinned horror; but also like him, the power of Lamashtu’s curse knit her back together.
When most of her human face had reappeared, I was surprised to see neither fear nor sadness. In that instant, looking into her eyes, I saw acceptance, even peace.
“Why can’t any of you fools understand?” Ninurta drew my attention back to his skeletal hulk, all that remained of the once magnificent king. “I am unstoppable. I am irresistible. I am perpetual!
He threw a hand toward his feet and with an enraged bellow launched his will outward and downward simultaneously. I felt it like a rip-tide and was nearly drawn into the undertow. Bracing myself against it, I realised others were not so lucky. The wills, the very life energy, of the other Inconquo-blooded were being dragged from beyond the temple walls to fuel his downward questing blast. It was not as clean or elegant as the ritual, and I felt wills snapping like the Inconquo with the bronze club, their minds and bodies buckling under the strain.
Ninurta would have his new world, even if he had to kill all of his descendants to do it.
I reached out, trying to divert his efforts, but it was like trying to redirect a flooding river. I was more likely to get dragged in than I was to change its course, much less stop it.
I turned to Daria, despair welling up, and saw a sad smile spreading across her face. She reached out and clasped my hands in hers.
As the earth beneath us began to shake, she said, “I’m glad it will end this way, and I’m glad it will be with you.”
I wanted to argue, to tell her not to give up, but I was beaten, nearly broken, and so tired. I stared at her as she bent her head and kissed my hands. Something small, cylindrical, and feeling of earth slid into my hand before she pulled away.
Daria turned back towards Ninurta, her eyes gleaming fiercely.
“You look ragged and weary, o’ king of kings.” Tendrils of darkness spread around her. “Come rest in my embrace!”
Ninurta looked up and a rictus grin spread across his face. He moved to meet the edimmu, even as his will continued to drag in more Inconquo essence to power his assault upon the earth’s core. Another shudder shook the ziggurat.
Ninurta laughed as he batted the clutching cords of night away, but Daria was not satisfied to lash at him from a distance. Shrieking like a hellcat, she threw herself on him, fingers curling into claws as her mouth sprouted a nest of fangs. He punched forward, hitting her squarely in the chest. Despite this, her black claw fingers dug at his flesh, finding enough purchase to climb up his arm. Loosing a shrill war-cry, her human disguise sloughed off like an old garment as she scrambled up his body. The demigod roared like an enraged beast, gripping at her but only ever managing to pull great fistfuls of ichor away.
“Now, Ibby!” Daria cried before snapping her head forward and driving hooked fangs into Ninurta’s flesh. Many broke off with grinding cracks, but a handful pierced skin and notched into bones.
With a drunken start, I remembered she had placed something in my hand. I recognised the small clay cylinder, its entire length engraved in a spidery web of cuneiform: Daria’s phylactery.
Ninurta gripped Daria by the back of her head, wrenching her back. Teeth snapped, tumbling free or remaining lodged in his chest. In answer, she lashed out with tentacles of living darkness, dragging herself tight against his raw, exposed flesh. Her venom found no purchase in his alert and enraged psyche, but the physical darkness dug into him like meat hooks. So much metal had been taken that he couldn’t protect all of himself, not anymore.
“Ibby, please!” Daria screamed, pulling until her mangled body was nearly within his wounds.
Grief, exhaustion, and pain had thickened my thoughts, but her urgent words punched through. I remembered Pierre Gwaffu’s last terrible moments, the voice of Lamashtu, his terror, and then the fire. The fire.
My fingers closed around the construction of ancient clay, feeling it crumble even with a little pressure. Around me, I could feel the mounting power the demigod was driving deeper and harder. There was a trembling to the ground now, like a tuning fork ringing. Thousands of miles beneath my feet, the heart of the world trembled as it came under the grip of a monster. The time to act was almost gone.
Choking back a sob, I raised my ringed hand toward them, drawing the broken fragments of my armour and wings together. For an instant, as Ninurta’s hand began to crush her skull, Daria twisted to look at me, one part of her face still human.
“Thank you,” I gasped, and a smile formed on her face.
Then I crushed the phylactery.
The wild, hellish sounds of pig, donkey, lion, and dog crying out in unison rent the air. It seemed Lamashtu had been waiting. The announcing chorus filled the amphitheatre, spinning round and round, louder and louder until I dropped to my knees. I tried to cover both my ears, while I focused my will through the rings, launching the twisted metal scraps forward. Ninurta was a frenzy of twisting and struggling, but still Daria held on.
“Oh my darling Daria, what have you brought me at last?”
Even prepared for it, the Lamashtu’s voice turned my stomach and left me shivering.
Ninurta roared a wordless cry of defiance until the metal struck him and Daria, pinning them together.
“It took longer than I hoped, but immortality lets one be patient. Isn’t that right, little king?”
“You have no claim on me!” Ninurta screamed, real fear sharpening his booming voice. “I deny you, demon! I am the only god here!”
A laugh filled the amphitheatre, and the sound slithered up my spine and wrapped its barbed coils around my heart. The shadows streaming from Daria began to boil and Ninurta’s movements grew jerky, his supreme grace overruled by panic. His will turned against me, trying to free himself from the crushing embrace of the metal that caged him and Daria together. On my knees, I threw everything I had into holding him and thwarting his power. Spots filled my vision and hot blood ran from my nose.
“Fools!” the demigod screamed as the first blossom of green flames sprang to life. “You stupid, ignorant fools! I am king of kings, I AM—”
“MINE!”
Lamashtu’s exultant cry almost drowned out Ninurta and Daria’s screams as the crackling jade flames enshrouding them. Ninurta’s dying will thrust against me, not strong enough to free himself but strong enough to send him and Daria into the gaping hole in the floor. A blazing torch, their bodies indistinguishable amongst the flames…
22
An awful grinding sound warned that the stone floor beneath me was starting to crack and shift. I forced myself into a lurching run. The cracks expanded across the floor and into the tiered steps above. As I mounted the first step a seam widened with shocking suddenness, creating a chasm wide enough to swallow me whole.
My body burned and throbbed with exhaustion. The long, crumbling path to the top filled me with despair. I’d never make it. Why die any more tired than I already was? Wasn’t the battle won?
A shrill cry from above snapped me out of my morbid musing.
Two little girls had been thrown to a lower tier, which had now become an island. One look at their wide terrified eyes in their small terrified faces was all I needed.
“Get moving guardian!” I snarled as I pivoted and sprang back towards the pit that had swallowed Ninurta and Daria’s burning remains.
Skidding to a stop at the very edge, I forced myself not to think about the shards of stone I’d sent spiralling down into the dark. My brain screamed at me to leave it alone; it was done. Strained beyond all reason I licked parched, bloodied lips and reached down into the dark.
Screaming with the effort, although the sound was hoarse and tremulous, I drove my ringed fist skyward as a tendril of copper rose from the pit. The copper bowed at my feet and I leaped on as I widened the head into a platform wide enough to accommodate several people.
Another shuddering rumble shook the ziggurat. Stones tumbled down. With more screams from the Inconquo-blooded, I knew my time was short.
I bid the copper rise, fighting the static at the back of my mind I knew meant unconsciousness, and theref
ore death. I might die from the exertion, but I was getting those people out of here.
The copper disc reached the crumbling tier where the girls huddled as it began to come apart.
“Jump!” I beckoned them with outstretched arms.
The girls stared as they clutched each other, too terrified to move. I moved toward the edge of the disc and felt my hold wobble as I fought to keep the disc level.
“Please, jump!” I moved the disc as close as I dared under that splitting piece of stone. If a chunk of falling stone hit the disc, it would be the end.
Sobbing, one of the girls took a step forward, dragging her sister.
A spur of stone fell away less than a metre from them and they screamed, recoiling again.
“Please!” I locked eyes with the one who had taken the first step. “You can do it!”
Dark eyes, huge and terrified, met my gaze, and I willed with all I could that whatever blood we shared would let me reach her, touch her.
Jump. Jump and I won’t let you fall.
Her eyes still wide and teary, she nodded. With a whispered word to her sister they took one step, then another. More stone fell away and they cried out, but they inched toward the edge, almost there.
The ziggurat rumbled and the platform gave way as they leaped into the air.
---
I settled into a sitting position to conserve energy as we glided over the collapsing ziggurat. For all the joy at saving the two girls, I was holding on by threads.
The last works of Ninurta sank into the hungry, vengeful earth. Massive stones slid, and towering idols tottered before falling into the yawning pit that stretched out from the centre of the structure. What had been built in days to last for millennia vanished in seconds. When the dust settled there would be nothing but rubble, and perhaps an echo of hubris.
I, an aspiring archaeologist, had a single thought as I bore witness to the fallout of Ninurta’s grand scheme: good riddance. The world had enough monuments to tyrants and madmen. Let time and antiquity forget him.