by Daniel Caet
“Mother, are you okay?” she said with her usual sweetness.
“Yes, my little one, I'm fine thanks to you. But Narmesh …”
“I do not think we should worry about him right now. I noticed how my flames hit him full, and I could feel his pain. I do not know how he managed to disappear, but I stopped feeling his presence suddenly, as if he had become immaterial.”
“Do you think that…?”
“No, I do not think he's dead, somehow, do not ask me how, I know he's still alive.”
“If so, you know he will come back,” I said, getting up. “We must prepare. His anger at what I have told him does not let him think clearly. He believes that I wanted to deprive him of the life that corresponds to a god and will not stop until he takes revenge.”
“Mother …”
“Tell me my little one,” I said, fearing what she might say to me.
“I heard everything you told Narmesh and I just want you to know that I do not care who gave me life, for me you will always be my mother, the only one I have.”
Those words full of love in the midst of the destruction and pain created by our past filled my heart with joy, and Niel and I melted into an embrace that would never break again.
During the following weeks neither Niel nor I slept too much. In our belief that Narmesh would return to take revenge we took turns to stay awake and make sure he did not catch us off guard. But the days went by and we did not hear anything from him. My good Jeshar went through all the nearby villages trying to find out if anyone had seen him, but he seemed to have vanished. The lack of news fed my concern about his health. I knew that any human could not survive the injuries caused by Niel's blow, but I also knew that Narmesh was not just any human. Inevitably the passage of days and the lack of news caused that little by little Niel and I relaxed and slowly returned to our routines. And that was our great mistake, one that would unleash a wave of destruction and pain.
One morning a peasant from a nearby village came looking for me. The man had traveled all night to get to me as soon as possible. His wife had two days trying to give birth without success and the midwife in her village did not know what to do. The despair of the man for the fear of losing the wife and the son was enormous, and he begged me for all the gods to go with him. I was reluctant to leave Niel alone, but she convinced me that she would be fine. To make sure she was protected and accompanied, I asked Jeshar to have her at home with her family, and my good servant accepted on the condition that I took Saersh, his oldest son who was already twelve years old, as help. I did so, and in the middle of the morning, despite the reluctance of my heart, we left with the peasant promising to return as soon as the delivery had reached its resolution.
The road to the village took us most of the day and by the time we arrived the situation was truly delicate. Using all my knowledge I was able to save the baby and the mother, but unfortunately, her body was so damaged that I knew that the woman could not conceive again. I chose not to say anything to her or to her husband, knowing how it was that, in case the child did not survive, the husband could consider rejecting a woman he knew would not give him more children. The man was immensely grateful to me and insisted that we spent the night in his house assuring us that he would take us to our village at dawn. Although I did not want to delay my return, I knew that I did not have many alternatives. Our return would be safer if we were accompanied by someone else, so we spent that night with them. The neighbours prepared a delicious rabbit stew for us and a broth for the woman to recover her strength. We dined among the happiness that a baby brings to a home, and just before we were ready to go to sleep somebody knocked on the door of the house. It was other neighbours who had just arrived from Ushur and had heard about the new addition to the family and wanted to congratulate the peasant and his wife. The man, tall and in his fifties with a big beard, explained that he would have liked to arrive earlier, but a big stir in the city had closed the wall gates for most of the day causing them to leave very late. Curiosity took me over and I could not resist asking that man what had caused the commotion.
“Actually, it's been a terrible and strange thing. Apparently, a man-shaped demon entered a canteen looking for a woman he wanted to take with him. The woman rejected him, and the demon used his power to kill her and all those who tried to defend her, including her husband. Apparently, a man who was in the tavern and managed to hide behind a jar said he saw how he dismembered them all with just his thought. The city council closed all the gates hoping to catch the demon, but it was impossible, it must have vanished using its black magic.”
My body trembled at the story of that man. Something inside me knew who the devil he was talking about was.
“By chance, you know what the woman he wanted to kidnap the devil was called?”
“Yes, everyone knew her because she is the wife of a well-known merchant, they called her the beautiful Tinish.”
Upon hearing that name I knew that the supposed demon could not be other than Narmesh, and fear seized me. If Narmesh was still alive and had lost control to the point of committing this massacre it would not take long until he tried to take revenge on all those who had stood in his way. My mind could only think of one person, my little Niel. Immediately, I asked the peasant to leave that same night back to our village, but the man did not understand my reaction and tried to convince me that we should wait until dawn. Finally, he agreed seeing that my insistence did not diminish and so, we left in the middle of the night, the peasant with fear of being attacked and I afraid of Narmesh reaching Niel before me.
The road was not easy or fast, the trip was much more complicated at night and we could not move at the same speed that we would have done during the day, but I was confident that any time we could save would play in our favour. Finally, a couple of hours after dawn we saw the village. In the road we met a couple of neighbours who were heading to the port to start the fishing day, nothing abnormal and a part of me breathed a sigh of relief. I indicated to the farmer where Jeshar's house was, but before we arrived I noticed how Saersh who was sitting next to me on the cart seat got up uneasily.
“What is it, boy?”
“The cart.”
“What do you mean?” I asked beginning to infect me of his nervousness.
“It’s strange. At this time, my father should have left for the market like every morning, but the cart is still at the door of the house. Besides, he never leaves it there at night, he always leaves it at the back.”
At that moment I could not resist it anymore, I got off the cart that rattled slowly in the direction of the house, and I started to run. I came to the house breathless and threw myself against the door that opened with my impulse. What I found was about to make me vomit. The bodies of Jeshar, his wife and their three-year-old son lay piled in a corner in a pool of blood. The smell of death was very intense and impregnated everything.
“Father, mother!” I heard Saersh shouting behind me running towards the corpses of his family.
I barely managed to hold him back even though I could not stop him from seeing the bodies piled up. I screamed, calling for the peasant to take the boy outside amid his cries of pain and incomprehension. I crouched down next to the body of my good Jeshar and verified that all of them had had their necks cut off. I searched with my eyes between the bodies, but I could not find Niel. Maybe she had been able to hide, maybe she had been able to defend herself. I ran up to the upper floor where the bedrooms of the house were. I went through the rooms one by one until I finally found her on the floor of the smallest room, completely inert. I ran to her and found that she was still alive, but unconscious. Her legs were bloodied, and her clothes torn. My mind knew immediately what that meant, but I could not worry about it then, the most important thing was to make sure that she would live. I needed to ask for help, so I got up and went to the door of the room. And then I saw it. If I could have any doubt who had committed that atrocity, it dissipated in a moment. Written with blood on
the door of the room the author had left a message especially for me.
«Here your hell begins, mother.»
A cry of rage came from my throat and I fell to my knees in front of the door. Death once more. The same brutality and devastation that had made me leave Uruk had haunted me to my new life, only that this time it was me who had fed the monster that had just destroyed everything that was dear to me. Rage seized me, and I lost control of my power that spread around me, causing the door and furniture to explode into a thousand pieces. The noise was followed by voices and steps on the stairs. The young Saersh had arrived with some of the neighbours, and helped me get up off the ground. Some of the men who entered the room with him lifted Niel tenderly to get her out of the house, and Saersh and I followed them. Only for a second did I see the face of that boy who had just lost his whole family and who was nevertheless helping me to pick up my pieces without worrying about his own pain, and I understood that he had just become a man against his will.
Those men took me to my house and helped me deposit Niel in her bed. I asked them to leave the room, so I could take care of my little one and they did. Immediately I started checking Niel's condition. She was still unconscious, but her breathing and pulse were soft and constant. I scanned her body trying to identify any open wound or fracture that might need immediate attention, but found none other than an obvious tear in her genitals. My head and my heart could not conceive how Narmesh could have done that to his own sister. So great was his hatred towards us that he was capable of reaching that extreme? I ran to my room and came back with several bottles of oils and medicines that I knew could help Niel. Rosemary and thyme oils to calm her body and leave time for her consciousness to recover. A healing lotion for the tear and clean bandages that absorbed any possible bleeding. I began to burn verbena oil to avoid any dream or memory, any thought that might disturb her peace. The aroma flooded the room in just a few moments and served so that I too could relax and prepare for the most important part of the treatment. The light of the goddess. I plunged my mind into a state of absolute concentration as I had for many years to invoke the light of Ishtar on my little one. The light of Ishtar was the most powerful blessing I knew and that would put Niel directly under the protection of the goddess, if someone could help her to return to the world of the living was the mother. Calmly I visualised the golden light flooding my hands and invoked the name of the goddess; the light became even more intense and when it reached the apex of its intensity I placed my hands on the face of Niel and the light passed to her body flooding it completely. Now my little one was not only under my protection, but under that of the mother of everything; but there was still one more thing that I had to do. I placed myself in the center of the room and with my hands to the sky I invoked a power that I had not used for years, a power so big and so dark that the priestesses of Ishtar were only authorised to use in situations of absolute necessity. Using the forbidden language of the temple, I decided to counteract death with death, blood with blood and pain with agony.
“Get up, oh, guardian, I order you! I give you form from mother Earth and father Sky. I call you from this day forward. I imbue you with energy and will, with rage and with the sword, with the thirst for blood and death to protect this house and this creature. Stand up, oh, guardian and be my revenge, get up and be death!”
The room filled with an immense cold just for a few moments, and then I knew that my spell had been successful. If Narmesh tried to approach us again it would be the last thing he would do. If any part of me felt sorry for the child that I had raised myself, it was something that I forgot at that moment looking at the body of Niel.
For the next few days I did not move from her side expecting her to regain consciousness. I did not even go to the funerals of my good Jeshar. By the small Saersh I knew that the neighbours had helped him to remove the corpses from the house and prepared them for the farewell. The funeral lasted three days and during that time Saersh lived with us in the house and it was soon evident that he would not leave again, which made me very happy. His father had taken an oath to serve me throughout his life, and the son had made the decision to honor the father's promise. Leaving aside my concern about the fact that he was only a twelve-year-old boy who had assumed such a burden, another part of me thought that having him close to me I could give back to Jeshar something of how much he had given me.
Niel woke up two days after the funeral. At first, she could not speak, but by the way her eyes filled with tears I knew she had regained full consciousness including the memories of what had happened. Without being able to say anything, I limited myself to grabbing her hand and trying to reassure her while her body returned to what it was. Little by little she regained mobility and was able to sit up in bed. Her speech did not take much longer to return, and that day finally Niel told me what had happened between tears, both hers and mine. Narmesh had arrived at night with bloodshot eyes crying out my name. Jeshar tried to face him, but Narmesh lifted him up in the air like a sack and threw him against a wall. Then he made one of the knives in the kitchen fly to cut off his neck amid the cries of his wife and son. Niel tried to use her powers to protect the woman and the child, but Narmesh's power, dominated by his rage and hatred, was too great, and he also lifted her up in the air. While holding her in the air he ended the life of the mother and the child without her being able to do anything to avoid it. Then he went to her and he uncovered his face. Half of it was occupied by a large burn scar.
“Do you remember the little gift you gave me the last time we saw each other, little sister? I barely managed to get out of your ball of fire alive. It's only fair that I do the same for you, don’t you think?”
While he spoke Niel managed to gather all her strength and throw a new ball of fire directly at his face, but this time his attack barely managed to blind him although it made him lose control over his prisoner, and Niel fell to the floor and ran up the stairs to her room. Unfortunately, he came to the room before she could use a protection spell and used his power to throw her on the ground and prevent her from moving.
“Do you really think you could escape from me, from a god? My intention was to make our mother pay for the years of subjugation and forget those who submitted to me, but I have a better idea. I am going to use you to send a message to our dear mother, one that she will not forget.”
Niel could not continue, the tears drowned out her voice and, anyway, there was nothing more to say. Only she and the holy mother knew what that girl had truly suffered. A suffering that was only my fault.
Time caught us all and we healed the wounds as much as possible and when it was possible; even though I knew that everyone, Niel, Saersh and myself, would carry some of them throughout our lives. To make everything even more difficult it was soon evident that the rape by Narmesh had spawned a creature in Niel. At first, I tried to convince Niel of the convenience of getting rid of that being, born of misfortune, but she refused arguing that the baby should not pay for the sins of the father and finally managed to convince me to continue with her pregnancy. I was aware that in the village there were all kinds of comments regarding what had happened, but since everyone believed that whoever had attacked Jeshar's house that night was a band of thieves, no one could guess the identity of the real father of the creature. The pregnancy went on without problems and Niel grew in beauty at the same time that her belly did in size. I had never seen her so happy before. It was wonderful to see her in the garden, sitting in the sun, caressing her belly with her eyes lost on the horizon and a permanent smile on her face. I did not know how it happened, but somehow her soul had been able to find peace in the idea of motherhood, even though the origin of that creature had been so terrible. She never spoke again about what happened, and I never asked her again. Her peace became my peace, and together we moved forward.
The moment of delivery came two weeks earlier than we expected and caught us all by surprise. Niel was as always in the garden and from inside I could hear her
screams calling me. When I got to her it was clear that she had broken waters and her face was looking at me with fear.
“Do not worry, little one,” I said, helping her walk. “It's the moment we were waiting for, let's go to your room. Saersh!” I shouted, “boil some water and bring me clean gauzes, the little one is already here!”
When we got to the room and I was able to examine Niel it was obvious that something was not right. Although she had broken waters, she had hardly dilated, which made it impossible for the baby to come out. I moved as fast as I could and prepared the mother root poultices, a plant that we always used to facilitate delivery. The hours went by, but nothing improved. When the night came, Niel's condition was very worrying. The pains of the many hours trying to give birth were catching up with her and her strength was about to be extinguished.
“Mother,” she called in a whisper.
“I'm here, little one,” I said, grabbing her hand while wiping her sweat.
“Mother, if the worst happened …”
“Don't say nonsense” I interrupted, “absolutely nothing will happen, in a few moments you will see how you will hold your little child, and everything will be over.”
She looked at me with immense sweetness and smiled slightly.