by S. M. Reine
“Let’s go see her,” Khet said.
“We could climb the wall and run,” Inanna said.
Anat was not so confident in her climbing ability. The walls around the garden were deliberately towering, and the trees were planted more than a body’s length from them. There was no easy path over.
Khet must have known what Anat’s hesitance meant. He surprised her by taking her hand—and she was even more surprised by her reaction, which was one of warmth rather than fear.
“Bewitchery,” Inanna hissed. “Be careful of him. He acts strangely for Utu.”
But he smiled just like Utu had.
Khet checked inside before bringing Anat back into the manor. “You don’t need to be seen by the nomarch this early in the night. Kadar has a taste for the pretty ones, and you’re ill-equipped to handle yourself when he’s hungry.”
“Do you mean he’s like Nügua?” Anat asked.
“He lives on the blood of men and hides from the sun, like she,” Khet said.
She was trembling. “Are you like she?”
“No,” he said. Then he winked. “Not yet.” He led her to a room at the rear of the house. “She’s here,” he called through the curtain.
“Come in,” said a soft female voice.
Khet parted the curtains and brought Anat inside.
It was a bathing room. Rather than exposed brick, the room was lined with stone, and the sounds of flowing water echoed within. Divots in the floor allowed water to trickle away from the platform and disappear through the drain. The platform in the corner was broad but shallow, comfortable for its lone occupant.
Nügua lounged atop that platform. She was a buxom woman above the navel. Her white breasts were tipped by flat nipples the color of dusky sunset. The hair at her underarms was as glossy-black as the damp mane lying over her shoulder, and her eyes were inhumanly lovely, focused upon Anat. Below the navel, she was black as a venomous asp, her tail coiled underneath her with its tip playfully twitching off the side of the table.
Tiaa stood at her side, arms cradling a huge water jug. She was also naked, though she seemed as sour as Nügua was relaxed. Annoyance burned in her eyes from the moment they rested upon Anat’s hand clasped within Khet’s.
“At last, you’ve come.” Nügua spoke like a song, musical and slow, tapping vicious black fingernails in time with the rhythm. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of you. There are so few Remnants these days. If you’re not the last of Inanna, then you must be the second.”
“You’ve been killing men,” Anat said.
“Yes.” Frankness must have run in their adopted family. Nügua looked no more ashamed of this than she was her bare breasts and asp’s tail. “I’m bringing them into a new life even better than the Field of Reeds. If they are strong enough, they will persist to join me. Instead, they run into the sunlight and disappear to ash.”
“You’re changing them?”
“These men allowed themselves to be seduced away from their wives,” Nügua said. “They are no real loss.”
Inanna stood nearly within Anat, one layered upon the other, and she spoke through Anat. “Do you pretend all your victims have deserved your kiss?”
“I wanted to apologize to you,” Nügua said. “Things didn’t end the way I had hoped they would. I never meant—”
“To rip my throat out with your fangs?”
“One of many mistakes I’ve made. Times were confusing then. I don’t know how much you remember…” Nügua trailed off. Her elongated claws pressed lightly against her temple, and her brow furrowed in thought. “I know so little. I’m an Avatar, you see. Are you familiar?” Anat shook her head. “Gods cannot directly interact with the world. They must use heralds if they seek to spread a message. To live in the world, they must create Avatars, weak physical copies of the god’s consciousness in a mortal body. I am an Avatar of Lilith.”
“Then what is a Remnant?” Anat asked.
“A fragment of a god’s soul that never made it to the Field of Reeds, reborn alongside another soul,” Nügua said. “All gods who die leave several behind. I have met others who carried fragments of Inanna in the past, but they are scattered to the winds of time. To each of you, I owe a favor in deference to the debt I can never repay.” She waved impatiently at her servant. “Tiaa. Again.”
Tiaa poured water over Nügua’s body. It trickled down the curve of her ribcage into the swell of her soft belly, making her scales shimmer in the lantern light. Even her black tail was somehow luminous.
“Because of me, Adam has control, and you are a faded memory.” Nügua looked genuinely regretful. “What do you want from me? I can give you nearly anything.”
Anat wanted her city back. Her family. Her innocence.
And Inanna wanted her life. The goddess of the old world still ached for it. She had fought so hard to liberate Irkalla, even when the guilt made her wish herself dead. She had loved Ereshkigal as much as Utu in the end. Even after he had hanged her. Even when her body had been eaten by the ravens.
“You can’t give us what we want,” Anat said.
“Take your time to consider it,” Nügua said. “You have no obligation to reply. I will let you free, if you wish. You may also stay with us as you think. You are safe in my company. I won’t harm you again.”
“Am I truly to believe that the Godslayer regrets slaying the gods?” Inanna asked, the words coming from Anat.
“I will show you that I mean it,” Nügua said. “You only have to give me your wish.”
Khet and Anat took to the rooftop, empty at this time of night. The manor stood on the fringes of Itjtawy, high enough to see the homes spanning the slope toward the river. Even at night, lantern-lit boats drifted on the Nile. The smell of roasted fish wafted on the same fingers of wind that lifted Anat’s hair from her sweaty neck. She sank to a low stool, elbow on the half-wall. Her legs had suddenly become weak.
He leaned upon the corner with his elbows behind him. “What do you think? Will you stay or go?”
“Stay,” Inanna whispered. “Kill them.”
Anat swallowed down her urge to speak. “I’m confused. Nügua is freely changing the men of Itjtawy into the bloodless, but you remain human. Who are you to her? What are you?”
“My sister and I are Nügua’s adoptees. She found us starving on the steppes when we were very small. We’ve observed almost twenty of Set’s birthdays since then, and we have followed her around the world, living in nighttime, trading in secrets, and thriving off men’s blood.” He spread his arms. “For now, I remain human.”
“You help her kill them,” Anat said.
“Tiaa and I make sure that our mother remains fed,” Khet said.
“Then you are just a slave.”
“I am her son. She is my mother, and I happily serve.”
It was sickening to think of a boy raised by some vampire—an Avatar of a true god—from an age so young that he could not see how this was all counter to maat . Killing men because a woman had lured them from their wives didn’t mean they deserved death. It was a brutal violation of the harmony within the city.
Anat had never been without Inanna’s influence, but she’d also never been isolated with her. She had been loved by her brothers and parents. She’d been raised in a community with gentle words, uplifting hands, and a love of Elohim. Sadly, they had also taught her the harder lessons, dying under Israelite blades.
She knew the costs of death and pricelessness of life. What did Khet know?
“When you value life so little, what does that say of how little you value yourself?” Anat asked. “Have you no connection to the harmony in Itjtawy? Are you alone, isolated, in constant defiance of maat ?”
His look grew thoughtful. “Stay with us,” Khet said. “We will be in the city for weeks more. You may work in the granary and bed with my sister. Nobody will know you. You’ll be safe.”
“I will do no such thing,” Anat said. The idea of labor didn’t bother he
r. Trying to sleep with Tiaa scowling at her sounded nigh unto impossible and like she’d get a knife in the back if she ever succeeded.
“Then I will keep you as a queen, if you don’t want to perform drudgery.” He skimmed her chin with a knuckle. “Think of it. Where else will you go?”
“We would be safer in the desert,” Inanna said.
Anat had done it before. She had nearly died. She was not strong enough for that—and far from strong enough to deny the warmth that she felt every time Khet looked at her. She wondered if she was alone in feeling the connection, or if the close way he gazed at her meant he shared in the sensation.
Gods could always see each other, and perhaps they could always feel each other too. Utu and Inanna had been companions as much as lovers. Somehow, though they had never met in this life, Anat missed Khet. “I will stay,” she said.
“Good,” Inanna said, to her surprise. “Then we will wait until they sleep at sunrise and slay them all.”
Anat meant to do as Inanna ordered. She meant to sharpen her knife, wait until everyone slept, and then murder Nügua in her sleep. But she was too tired that first night. The excitement of her attack gave way to exhaustion.
She awoke unharmed the next afternoon. A fresh gown had been hung in the room as she slept. Someone had come in, and she hadn’t awakened at the disturbance. There was nothing that could have prevented Tiaa from killing Anat if she’d wanted.
“Did you sleep well in the belly of my enemy?” Inanna asked.
She had never rested better than in her private quarters at the nomarch’s house. “Nügua seems to feel remorse for what she did to you.” Anat pulled the new dress over her body. It was woven much more neatly than her previous dresses.
“Regret doesn’t change what’s been done to me.”
“Killing them faster also won’t bring you back,” Anat said, and she felt guilty for it. “Give me time.” She walked past Inanna, head hung, eyes low.
Khet sat in a chair at a table. Servants were placing bowls of food in front of him—and in front of a second chair, which remained vacant. This, too, was strange for Anat. There weren’t many chairs around the House of Maat, and none of them had been for the use of a servant.
“Join me.” Khet’s eyes sparkled with a smile that didn’t quite touch his lips.
She took the other chair. The plates were filled with delicacies like honey cakes, braised fish, and berries. “Why are you treating me like this?”
“You don’t want to be kept as a servant, so I will keep you as queen as I promised.” There was sultry potential seething underneath his words.
Inanna stood beside the end of the table. She was holding a knife that could not stab Khet, though the fire in her eyes made Anat doubt it.
Anat could have taken the knife from Khet’s belt.
She might have been able to kill him with it before he reacted, too.
Yet Anat felt that Khet was not as lazy as his posture on that chair would suggest. He grinned at her with easy warmth, but his eyes were alert, and his muscles had the well-developed mass of a noble who’d spent his life growing strong on mutton and heron. He would be faster than her. He could certainly overpower her.
It made no sense to attack now.
“You disappoint me,” Inanna said as Anat quietly ate.
It was the richest, tastiest food she had consumed since her village burned, and she hated herself for enjoying it.
At first, it seemed like Inanna wouldn’t allow Anat a moment’s peace until she performed the deed. She became a constant nagging, a hiss that never silenced. But in the early days, Nügua clearly didn’t trust Anat, and she was never without the eyes of the nomarch’s guards upon her. And how was she to perform an assassination when she was so often in Khet’s company? He entertained her with games of knucklebones and took her on walks through the garden, where harpists played. Even he was watching her.
Nobody knew what to make of this new guest. Tiaa’s glare was as chilly as the sun burned hot, and she insisted on attention from servants throughout the roasting midday. When Khet told the servants to attend to Anat as well, they didn’t initially leap to obey and looked to Tiaa in confusion. Yet when Anat was alone, she wandered to the granary to help, and found the servants bowing so low that their foreheads touched the ground at the sight of her.
The nomarch invited her to dinner some weeks after her arrival. His name was Kadar, and he was a handsome noble, taller than Khet and dressed more lavishly. Kohl ringed his eyes and gold flakes glittered upon his skin.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Anat said.
“I’d have brought you to a dinner sooner if I had known you were here,” Kadar said. He seemed unbothered by his unawareness of the manor’s goings-on. “Tiaa told me that there was a captive, but Nügua informed me last night that she was mistaken, and so…” He gestured to the table. It held a veritable feast. “Help yourself.”
“A captive?” Anat asked, looking askance at Khet.
He didn’t have her answers. No, those came from Tiaa, who arrived from the doorway beyond Kadar—his bedchambers. She swayed to his chair and bent over him to kiss his neck. Tiaa glared at Anat silently over the nomarch’s head.
Dinner was brief but pleasant. Kadar was more interested in Tiaa than the food, and it didn’t take long for the two of them to lead a harpist back to his bedchambers. Anat didn’t mind being left with Khet among all that food. She had come to find him pleasant company, and he was always ready with a handful of dice.
But she couldn’t spend the entire night laughing with Khet as the lamps faded out. Inanna was hovering again, and Anat couldn’t put her off anymore. It was time to get Inanna’s revenge.
“I must sleep,” Anat said. “I fear I’ve had a few drops too much wine.”
She wobbled when she stood, and Khet caught her by the waist. “Careful, lamb,” he said. “You’ll make me look a terrible shepherd if you hurt yourself.”
“It would be terrible if Tiaa didn’t get the privilege, wouldn’t it?” Anat asked.
“Don’t fear my sister,” Khet said. “Her heart is good as yours.”
He left her at the door to her quarters, and Anat stood over her bed for a few breathless moments. Khet thought that Anat’s heart was good. He’d been paying so much attention to her lately. She wondered if it was possible he wasn’t just trying to guard her.
A shape slithered past Anat’s window.
“Nügua is leaving to hunt,” Inanna said. “Go get her.”
Anat wanted to go back out the door and find Khet. But she took off her sandals, grabbed her knife, and climbed out of the window.
Nügua took a lazy route to the exit from the grounds. She passed by the cattle, smiling at their unrest at her presence. She weaved through the garden. Anat followed her all the way to the gatekeeper’s house.
She hung back by the pasture wall when Nügua stopped by the gatekeeper’s house to speak with him, her words indistinct but her tone warm. It was so strange to see a woman whose face shone as Nügua’s did taking the time to speak with an old man of little import.
She wondered if Nügua was always this kind to men she was about to kill.
“Follow her,” urged Inanna. “Finish this.”
Anat’s fist tightened around the knife. She took a deep, bracing breath, and stood to follow Nügua.
She bumped into Khet. He had approached so silently that she hadn’t noticed him. Even Inanna looked surprised. “Utu,” whispered the god.
“Khet,” whispered Anat.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, encircling her wrist in his forefinger and thumb to trap the knife between them.
“Inanna demands justice,” Anat said. “Will you stop me?”
“I will tell you this.” Khet brought her arm up so that he could rest his lips against her pulse point. He didn’t have Nügua’s fangs. His teeth were human, his mouth gentle, yet her heart raced. “If you hurt my mother or sister, this dream we’ve b
een living will end. Immediately. Do you understand?”
“You want me to choose between you and Inanna,” Anat said.
“I want you to know that you cannot please both of us,” Khet said, “as long as her pleasures require our deaths.”
“What do your pleasures require?” she asked.
He lifted her arm and dipped his head. He drew a line to her shoulder with his lips. It was too forward, yet Anat didn’t want to draw back from him. Her senses were filled with the oil of his hair and the warmth of his cheek against hers. “Increasingly, I find my pleasure is dependent on yours,” Khet said.
Anat turned to see that Nügua was gone. The lamp in the gatekeeper’s house had dimmed.
Inanna screamed her frustration, and Anat bowed her head, ashamed.
“I know what it is to fight an internal battle,” Khet said. “To wonder which of your natures is the better. You don’t want to kill anyone, do you?”
The mere thought of fighting and killing reminded her of home in the worst possible way. “Inanna—”
“She’s a relic of another world,” he said. “You can only answer to yourself. Is killing my mother worthwhile, when she only kills men who wander from their wives? Will that spare you a stain on your soul? Is it justice?”
Anat’s fingers went limp. Her knife fell.
He picked it up, tucking it into his belt. “Come. You should rest.”
Khet took her to her room.
She slept very well.
The next day found them in the market. Rumors on the wind said that a man had died last night—a fisherman. The gatekeeper had not been a target of Nügua’s thirst for human blood.
“You’re troubled,” Khet said, keeping pace with Anat as she wandered stall to stall.
“Even if the men deserve what happens to them, their families mourn,” Anat said.
“They will be together again in the Field of Reeds. It’s never goodbye forever.” He stopped at a cart where knives were sold, and she stood back to watch him talk quietly with the smithy. Khet was as friendly as his mother had been with the gatekeeper. They ended up with their heads bowed over a knife wrapped in linen that Anat couldn’t see. They seemed to haggle. Eventually, gold pieces exchanged hands.