“Keep it,” the old man told him. He eyed the younger ones—Snow laughing, leaning against Yotam’s arm; Yotam blushing. “He may yet need it for a brideprice.”
**
The prophet paused wearily at the door of his little room built onto the back wall of the sanctuary. His knees were weak with age, but he could not rest yet. He stood in the moonlight and waited.
Overpowerer, how long shall I wait? The breath is willing, but the flesh is weak.
To bring the girl out of sleep: that had been a glorious thing. Her companions’ willingness to sacrifice for her: that had been even more glorious.
Well. Some of her companions had been willing.
A tall shadow eased out of the bushes behind the stone building. It glanced around furtively, twitching slightly as if every patch of darkness hid an enemy. Half bent, it darted toward the prophet, a pack squeezed tightly under its arm.
Thus. The young man—what was his name called? Vine.
Wild eyes met the prophet’s calm ones. “You! Prophet!”
“Let us go in,” the old man invited, extending his hand toward the door of his room.
“No! No.” The young man pressed himself against the wall and hugged his bundle to his chest, bracing himself as if he expected the prophet to grasp him and drag him bodily through the door.
“Do you have a word to speak?” the prophet asked.
Vine rocked a little, his eyes darting to and fro. “It’s not my fault, you know. What did they expect?”
The old man waited.
“How was I supposed to know that the god cared about it? He never did anything for me. But now—an army. A thrice-cursed army.” The youth was steadier now that he had begun to talk, fear giving way to anger. “One of the riders looked at me! It was like dying. I don’t deserve that, to die, not for this! If I keep the cursed thing now, may—” He stopped short. “So take it. Take it back. I don’t want it anymore.” He thrust the pack roughly against the prophet’s chest.
The old man opened the bundle and lifted out what was inside. A golden cup, beautifully smooth and shining. A wreath of pomegranates encircled the rim, and on the lip was inscribed its owner: lyhwh. There were several similar cups on the table in the building behind them, though they were not quite so fine.
“And which of the Overpowerer’s sanctuaries should I return this to, son of Levi?” the prophet inquired. His face was blank; he did not yet know whether sternness or kindness would be required of him this night.
“What does it matter?” Vine rubbed his hands down his arms, stepping away from the wall. “Only—they’ll stop now, thus? The nightmares. And he’ll stop watching me.”
“The Overpowerer will never cease to see you, no matter where you go.” The prophet of Luz studied the young man. The youth’s expression was not promising, but he would try him anyway. “Have you turned from your sin? Will you turn to the Overpowerer?”
“Turn from my sin? I gave the cup back, thus? What more do you want? Giving it back should be enough!”
“Unless you turn to the god, it will never be enough,” the prophet warned him. “Vine—” No, that was not his true name. “Zurishaddai son of Pelati’el, you must turn.”
“That’s not my name!” Vine shouted. “No! Stop looking at me!” He turned and ran as if all the Overpowerer’s chariots were pursuing him.
The prophet hoped they were.
After.
Here it lies, between two hills: the little village of the Well. A good well is a thing to be proud of; but just as this was not the only well in the hills, this was not the only village of the Well. Whether this tiny cluster of houses lay at the edge of the plains or along the Descending River, whether it sat in the heart of the Yeshurni hills or under the walls of Salim, who can say?
A little way from the village, as far as one might shoot a chariot bow, sat a little house. Although it was no longer abandoned acacia trees still grew along its walls and a grapevine trailed over its roof.
Just beyond the house, Taliyah bat Shammai was grinding grain. Sweat prickled the back of her neck as she pushed the millstone in endless circles. A plump baby lay on a cloth and clutched gleefully at his bare toes. She sang to him as she went around and around. It was a child’s song, about a sapling that wanted to be an oak—or perhaps a cedar—or perhaps a myrtle tree…
A small, neat man came up from the grove, a girl trailing behind him. “The trees are doing well—let them grow another year, and then you may eat from them.”
“Thank you,” said Taliyah, giving him a brilliant smile.
“Eh.” He waved her thanks away, but he looked pleased.
“Immah! Look what Uncle Fig brought me!” The little girl made a sudden lunge for her mother, holding a wooden object as high as she could. Taliyah took it carefully. It was the carving of an animal. Its head was something like a caracal’s, but it had long feathered wings that spread over its back like a cloak.
“Beautiful.” Taliyah ran her fingers over the wings. “But I hope it doesn’t dwell near here.” She looked inquiringly at Fig. He shrugged, his brown skin darkening with the hint of a blush.
The girl’s shriek made them both twitch. “Abba! Abba’s home!” She charged down the hill, heading for the loose-limbed man who had just crossed over the ditch. He greeted her with a shout and lifted her onto his shoulder.
Taliyah took her hand off her knife and gave Fig a wry smile. He loosened his grip on his own weapon. “You will stay for the evening meal? It’ll be dark soon—you can’t travel in the dark.”
“This morning, you said I must stay for the morning meal; last night, you said I must stay for the evening meal. How long will you keep me?” he asked good-naturedly. “Besides, I do very well in the dark.”
Yotam reached the top of the hill and paused under the olive tree to put his wriggling daughter down. “Fig, are you still here? You must stay the night.”
Taliyah laughed and kissed him. “I hope you will persuade him, for I cannot.” She lifted her baby and gathered them all in with a wave. “Come into the house.”
Yotam followed her, a smile on his face. Fig nudged his shoulder. “You are well caught, my friend.”
“A virtuous woman is a tree of life,” Yotam told him, with a look of mock-gravity.
“Oh, thus, thus,” Fig agreed. “And the fear of the Lord is the root of all good fruits.”
They went into the house, leaving millstone, winged cat, and olive tree behind them.
The branches of the olive tree shivered in the breeze. A single leaf fell from its branch, dropping upon a round stone nestled among the roots of the tree.
Upon the stone was an inscription.
For the Overpowerer
let us burn.
Acknowledgements
Writing has always been a solitary task for me—the thing I do in my own little introvert space. Publishing, however, has turned out to be a communal endeavor. Apparently, the internet is heavily populated with friendly groups of writers and readers. Who knew? So many thanks to the folks from the Arista’s Band, Realm Makers Consortium, and Five Poisoned Apples groups. You’ve made my world bigger.
Special thanks to my wonderful beta readers Betsy, Faith and Sarah, and to the host of the Magic Mirrors release, Kendra Ardnek. Many thanks also to the anonymous judge of the Five Poisoned Apples contest who sent me her comments. If you enjoyed this story, thank them—about ten thousand words of the book in your hands were written in direct response to their feedback.
Authors Anne Elisabeth Stengl and Jill Stengl also have a place on this page, both for working their editorial magic on “Guardian of Our Beauty” and for their continuing encouragement. Many thanks! If you haven’t read their books yet, go find them. You won’t regret it.
Last but not least, thanks to all my readers! I love sharing my stories with you. If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer.
About the Author
Kathryn Mc
Conaughy is a Christian fantasy author. She studied at Geneva College (as well as sundry other institutions of higher learning), where she pursued the goal of learning as many ancient languages as possible. She is reliably informed that she wrote her first story in the second grade; most recently, she has been writing a series of young adult fantasies set in the world of King Arthur. When she’s not writing stories she enjoys gardening, reading, sword-fighting, and writing papers on obscure aspects of Semitic grammar. She is the author of “Guardian of Our Beauty,” an ancient Near Eastern Sleeping Beauty tale from the best-selling anthology Five Magic Spindles. Kathryn lives in an apartment in Maryland and will probably remain there until the building collapses under the weight of her dissertation materials.
Connect with her on the web at her blog, The Language of Writing
Or her author page on Facebook
More by this Author
TALES FROM THE STORMBIRD CYCLE
In Distant Days
Guardian of Our Beauty (in Five Magic Spindles)
Overpowered
A Bride-Price for Hinzuri (in Spark)
OTHER STORIES BY THIS AUTHOR
Incognito
BONUS FEATURES
Interview
One of my favorite parts of interacting with beta readers is answering the background questions—where did the story come from? What’s based on real historical fact and what isn’t? This time around, my readers asked some great questions. I thought you might enjoy reading the answers. If you have questions that I don’t answer here or in the historical commentary below, feel free to visit my blog or my Facebook page and ask!
Is this story set in the same world as “Guardian of Our Beauty”?
Yes, it is! They’re both set in a fantasy version of the ancient Near East. They’re set in the same time period, too (about 1200 BC); “Guardian” begins maybe a decade earlier than “Overpowered” but ends a good bit later due to everyone’s extended nap. There’s actually one character who appears in both stories!
If “Overpowered” is in the same world as “Guardian,” why is there so much less magic in this story?
You’re right that “Guardian” has a lot of magic in it—not just miraculous events, but also natural magic (inherently magical places and creatures) and even some human-directed magic. “Overpowered” has only miracles and some natural magic. Who the main POV character is has a big impact on that. Palli, the heroine of “Guardian,” sees sea monsters where others see rafts of cut trees; she hears words in the barking of dogs. Her eyes and her heart are wide open, so she sees the wonders all around her. Snow, on the other hand, is a more ordinary person. There are things around her that she doesn’t notice or believe. If “Overpowered” were written from Fig’s point of view, the fantasy elements would be a lot more obvious!
The other big reason for the difference between the stories is where each of them takes place. When I sit down to write an ancient Near Eastern fairy tale, I don’t start by saying, “Here’s some cool historical stuff, I’ll make up some of my own fantasy elements and put them in.” Instead, I try to enter the mythological world of the ancient people and treat their stories as real (to a certain extent… the Syrian and Canaanite gods will not be appearing as characters in my stories, though some of my characters clearly believe in them). “Guardian” was set on the Syrian coastline in the city of Gubla (modern Jubeil). We have found many amazing mythological texts preserved in the nearby city of Ugarit, which inspired the magical creatures of “Guardian.” On the other hand “Overpowered” is set in the Israelite hill country, so my main source for the mental world of my characters is the Old Testament. If you read carefully through the OT, you’ll find very few references to magical creatures—and those that do appear are treated as literary figures. (English translations often make their presence even less obvious.) While archaeology shows us that many Israelites believed in magical creatures—these creatures appear in their art, on their amulets, in the lists of things that their amulets are supposed to protect them from—I decided not to insert too many of them into “Overpowered.” There are a lot of things that images don’t tell us—like what the creatures were called or what stories people told about them. As for the human-directed magic that made the villain of “Guardian” so dangerous—if anyone tried human-directed magic in Yeshurni territory I’m not even sure it would work!
Are your characters’ names real?
Yes. All the names written in Hebrew are real (Yotam, Elishama, Zurishaddai). Most of them come from the Old Testament. For Taliyah’s name I went to a different Semitic language and then Hebraized it; there just aren’t that many female names in the Bible which aren’t famous. If I’d named her Devorah, my readers would probably have thought she was meant to be the biblical prophetess. I also paid a lot of attention to the meanings of the names. “Taliyah” means “dew of YHWH.” Vine has the nice Levitic name “My rock is the Overpowerer” (Zurishaddai). Zeb means “wolf.” I’m not sure that this was a name in biblical times (though it certainly is in modern Israel), but we do have biblical characters named “bee,” “dog,” and “snake.”
Are the places in your story real?
Mostly, yes. The Dawn Refuge is Shechem. The root of “Shechem” is identical to the root of a verb meaning “to rise early”—thus “the city of the Dawn.” Luz Bit-Aron-Ili is Bethel; if you read the books of Joshua and Judges carefully you will notice that the city was called Luz before the Israelites conquered the area. The ark (Hebrew ‘aron) was in Bethel for a while during the Judges period, but it moved around so much (and the internal chronology for this era is so messy) that I don’t know whether the ark would have been there during “Overpowered” or not. I made up Qir Qatina.
Why is God called the Overpowerer?
“Overpowerer” is a non-traditional translation of Shaddai, which English Bibles usually translate as “the Almighty.” Why didn’t I use “the Almighty”? I think that certain translations of names for God (like “the Lord”) are so familiar that we stop thinking about what they mean. I wanted to take a step back in this story and think about God as Overpowerer—the God of Armies, the master of irresistible power both in the physical world and in our hearts.
What was your revision process like for this story?
I originally wrote “Overpowered” for the Five Poisoned Apples Contest, so it was structured as a heroine-driven 20,000-word retelling of Snow White. The word count restriction was a big factor in how I put the story together. My only POV characters were Snow and (to a very limited extent) the Avenger. The story began with parts of what is now Chapter Two (Bet) and ended with the prophet reviving Snow. However, I already had some of Yotam’s arc written in my head, including the dream that prompted him to leave Aphirah; even in the 5PA version of the story he makes a reference to his dream in the waterskin-and-acacia scene that he has with Snow, which must have seemed pretty cryptic! After the contest was over I added about 13,000 words, filling out Yotam and Vine’s arcs and putting a lot more material at the beginning and end of the story. My beta readers wanted to know more about Zeb and Abimalk, so I expanded their scenes as well as adding new ones.
The History Behind “Overpowered”
I got a lot of questions from early readers about the historical details in this story—questions that I was all too happy to answer. (To those of you who received absurdly long emails from me… sorry, guys!) If you wondered why Cypress and his band were out in the hills, why Cedar keeps dumping dirt on his head, or where Willow’s proverbs came from, read on. If you never wondered about these things, just skip this section—there are cut scenes and even a bonus short story still to come.
Why were Cypress and his band out in the hills?
“Everyone knew that there were bands of men living in the hills, fighting in wars or doing whatever else came to their hands.” Snow knows it, Yotam knows it.
The authors of the Old Testament know it. When Jephthah was driven away from Gilead he went out into the w
ilderness, where “empty men (‘anashim reqim) gathered to Jephthah and went out with him” (Judges 11:3). Then, when trouble came to Gilead and the elders were unable to handle it, they sent for Jephthah and his band to defend them. Elsewhere in Judges, when Abimelek wanted to kill his brothers his Shechemite relatives gave him money to hire “empty and reckless men” to do the deed (Judges 9:4).
The biblical example that gives us the most information comes from the life of David. After David fled from Saul, his family joined him in the wilderness. Then “every man who was distressed or had a debt and every man bitter of life gathered to him; and he was over them as a commander, and there were with him about four hundred men” (1 Sam 22:2). This was a lot of men to be roaming around in the hill country! They hid themselves in the remote areas of the land, often in caves (1 Sam 24). They sustained themselves not only by hunting but by guarding the flocks of the locals,(for which they expected to receive presents, 1 Sam 25), or by hiring themselves out to the king of the Philistines (1 Sam 27-28). They were a potent military force! They were also a diverse one. From the list in 2 Sam 23, we can see that even the thirty most trusted men of David’s band came from many different backgrounds. We have Zelek the Ammonite, Uriah the Hittite, and men from all of the tribes of Israel.
Many other ancient Near Eastern texts mention the masterless folk of the hills. A few hundred years before “Overpowered” takes place, a Syrian king named Idrimi claimed to have found hundreds of men from many different Syrian cities just hanging out in the Lebanon. He became the leader of these men and used them not only to take over the city of Alalakh—which became the capital of his kingdom—but to prosecute some very successful wars against nearby Hittite vassal cities. Texts from Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt also mention these men, often labelling them as ‘apiru.
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