"Salam," Kasib greeted. "Have you finished loading the next shipment?" His reared dorsal crest was the only indicator he possessed mixed feelings about his carrying out his orders.
"Not yet," Apausha said. "I wanted to speak with General Hudhafah first."
"What about?" Kasib asked.
Apausha tasted the air to feel him out before divulging something that was otherwise best left to the general. The long, slender end of his tail curled and uncurled around the leg of a chair Kasib had propped in front of a filing cabinet so he'd have someplace extra to pile all these reports.
"You know I've been working under-the-cuff for Ba'al Zebub?" Apausha asked. "Right?"
"We all put our shoulders to the wheels of the Empire and push," Kasib said. "Even those tasks our Emperor deems must remain beneath scrutiny."
"Beneath!" Apausha's nostrils flared. "I have seen goings on even our emperor would not stoop to!"
"The gods move in mysterious ways," Kasib gesticulated to his head, his snout and his heart. "Shay'tan be praised."
Apausha held a crumpled piece of paper. It had the look about it of a report that had been written, then crumpled, then written on again. He noted the way Apausha fidgeted with the cuff of his uniform, his claws engaging in the hatchling habit of scratching his own clothing for comfort. Whatever Apausha had seen, it truly had him rattled. Kasib's cat-like irises expanded, detecting the dark scribble down on the signature line.
"Is it signed?" Kasib asked.
"Yes," Apausha said.
"Are you going to turn it in?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether or not you believe General Hudhafah will take the word of a lowly Lieutenant from a disgraced family over the word of our highest-ranking official," Apausha said. His tongue flitted out again, tasting the air for his response.
"Who?" Kasib asked.
"Maybe it's better if you don't know." Apausha stood with his arms bowed out at his sides, like a gunslinger who anticipated any moment now he might need to fight his way out. The pheromones which came off of him, however, were not aggression, but angst and fear.
"Isn't your wife sitting on a clutch of eggs?" Kasib asked gently.
Apausha's sharp intake of breath gave him his answer.
"What do you think General Hudhafah could do that filing your report through ordinary channels would fail to accomplish?" Kasib asked.
"I hear he is a good man," Apausha said. "Only takes enough graft to pad his retirement and uses the rest to make sure his men have enough bullets. I know he's not my direct commander, but perhaps he knows someone who can do something about this?"
Kasib stared at the small icon every Sata'an soldier kept of their emperor and god above their desk.
"What would Shay'tan do?" Kasib asked.
Apausha's hand trembled as he crumpled the paper a bit more, and then put it on Kasib's desk, all balled up.
"The old dragon would want to know," Apausha said.
Kasib uncrumpled the report and smoothed it out. Apausha was silent as he read what was written on the report. A sensation akin to falling made it feel as though he were about to tumble out of his chair. Taram's sister had been on that first shipment! As well as her cousin!
"You say Ba'al Zebub got your initial report and refused to do anything about this?" Kasib asked.
"Yes."
Kasib looked up at his old friend. They had come up through the Sata'an Naval Academy together before Ba'al Zebub had snatched him to run guns and other smuggled goods under the auspices of the Sata'an Merchant Marine. Had Apausha's family not been disgraced, a casualty of a father who had been captured in battle and, some say, executed by the Destroyer himself, his friend would have been a Captain or perhaps even a Major by now. Having just been gifted a wife by Ba'al Zebub for loyalty not too many months before, would Apausha risk everything to turn in his own benefactor for the benefit of a few non-Sata'an females he didn't even know.
Kasib re-read the report just to be certain he wasn't having a bad dream, perhaps, a nightmare induced by eating too many of the strange, tasty fruits this world produced.
Yes. And he would too…
But that was just because he had no wife and hatchlings to disgrace if Apausha was wrong. What if General Hudhafah was not a good man. At least not good enough to bite the hand that fed him, as well? Ba'al Zebub had given Hudhafah his command.
Kasib glanced once more at the icon of Shay'tan, resplendent in his bejeweled robes, scepter, and throne. What would Shay'tan do?
Shay'tan was a devious old devil. He'd find a way to make this information known and stymie things, gum up the works and make it look like something else was at fault until he could find a way to outmaneuver the bastard and show his hand.
"The fifty women in Yellow Area One are ready for shipment," Kasib slid the signed report into his pencil-drawer. "You should load them and complete the mission."
Apausha wavered, confused. "I thought there three hundred brides awaiting delivery to their new husbands?"
Kasib pulled out the written orders he had prepared, the ones that had initially been authorized to load fifty women, but several days ago he had received a message ordering him to increase that number to three hundred. The updated order sat in the folder, but with work piling up around him, he hadn't had a chance to bring it into Hudhafah to get it signed. He pulled the unsigned orders out of the folder and slid it across the desk to let Apausha open the folder and read it.
"Ba'al Zebub will crucify you if he finds out it was you who mixed up the orders," Apausha said.
Kasib's scales rippled at the thought of what would happen to him if they found out he had been the one to initiate the screw-up, but he'd been playing the shell game on Hudhafah's behalf for too many years to not know how to cover his tracks. Besides, he was an unmarried male with few prospects of being gifted a wife anytime soon, unlike Apausha, who had a wife and hatchlings to think of now.
"Fifty women," Kasib said. "It's the best that I can do for now. But if I find a way to get this report through to somebody without putting your family in danger, I will. You have my word."
"Thank you," Apausha breathed a sigh of relief. "What about the ones who aren't so lucky?"
"Sometimes we must accept things we do not agree with until a better opportunity presents itself," Kasib said. "Shay'tan be praised."
"Shay'tan be praised." Apausha tucked his tail up along his right side and gave Kasib the kind of formal salute you might give a commanding officer even though he had no such obligation to a male who was not within his own chain of command. With a murmured goodbye, Apausha went back to performing his distasteful duties.
Kasib pulled the crumpled report out of his pencil drawer. Hashem's bushy eyebrows! There would be Haven to pay if Ba'al Zebub found out it was him who had botched the shipment! As tempting as it was, he didn't want to just slip it onto General Hudhafah's desk and let him take the fall. He'd made paperwork disappear before on behalf of the general, made funds appear where no such funds existed, or made things disappear, including people Hudhafah wanted out of the picture, but these orders were different. Whatever the Haven Ba'al Zebub had cooked up with the Alliance Prime Minister, it was so far off the map of black market deals and graft that greased the wheels of the Empire that even Hudhafah himself wasn't high-ranking enough to deal with it.
But Kasib knew who was…
They operated this base under full long-range radio silence so the Alliance spies who skittered around the fringes of every troop movement would not detect they were here, but once each week a small, fast scout ship was dispatched with a black box full of radio communications to be plugged into the regular military command channels once they got back within Sata'an Empire borders. It was risky, but there was one venue a nobody like him could use to get a message back to somebody who might care.
He scanned the hand-written report and attached it to an email to someone he knew within the Sata'an Central Intelligence
Agency. His contact was way down in the food chain, about as far down in the ranks you could get and still be in the agency, but his contact had been there a long time and knew which men could be relied upon to be discreet, and which ones were tail-turns, ready to sell you out to curry favor.
It would take time for this report to work its way up to the intended recipient, if ever, but Shay'tan had quietly installed a spider web to alert him if something was amiss. The slow, indirect route was safer than walking into the door right in front of him and plunking it down on Hudhafah's desk.
Kasib stapled the original report to the unsigned orders and hid the folder in the bottommost pile. The way paperwork was piling up, even if they did suspect him of botching the report intentionally, it would take them years to dig through it all.
Chapter 25
October 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Ninsianna
The three Magian women had been stranded here by the Amorite slavers, so far from home that even the furthest trading partners claimed they had never heard of their people. Strange featured, with black hair, almond eyes, and flat faces, Ninsianna had promised she would help them find a way home. Mikhail had freed them the day the Halifians had snatched Pareesa to to lure Mikhail into a trap.
"Are you ready?" Papa lay out his prayer mat and arranged the sacred objects that signified their willingness to receive the wisdom of the goddess.
"How will I make the journey without kratom?" Ninsianna lamented. Kratom was a blue flower which induced hallucinations.
"You are with child," Papa's tawny-beige eyes crinkled in a sympathetic expression. "You don't want to harm your baby."
"I know," Ninsianna sighed. "It's just … " She trailed off. The mind-expanding properties of the toxic flower propelled her into the dreamtime in a way that no amount of meditation had been able to replicate since. She looked down at her thickening waist which only 'showed' her pregnancy if you searched for symptoms. For years she'd helped Mama tend to the new mothers in this village, but until she'd become pregnant herself, it had never dawned on her how much bearing Mikhail's child would impinge upon her everyday activities.
"Each day your gift grows stronger, child," Papa reassured her. "The kratom is just an aid. If She-who-is wants you to find their people, she will show you. If she does not, then no amount of kratom will help."
Ninsianna turned to Seyahat, a petite woman in her twenties. In her lap sat a red wool cape dyed a shade of scarlet no Ubaid pigmentation had ever achieved, redder than a pomegranate, with embroidered flowers wrought of threads of many different colors and beads woven into the hem. -If- Ninsianna could help them find a way home, Seyahat had promised after three months stranded with the Ubaid, she would give her this cape to her as her gift. Ninsianna would have attempted this journey even without the promise of the cape, but its fiery red coloration, symbolic of blood and inner strength, compelled her to be bold and travel far even without the crutch of kratom to expand the reach of her mind.
"Don't be afraid," Ninsianna gestured for Seyahat to sit on Papa's prayer mat in the center of the sacred symbols. "It helps me focus better when you sit within the circle along with me."
Seyahat eyed the objects Papa had arranged to keep out evil spirits. "Will this hurt?"
"No," Ninsianna said. "But whenever I journey into the Dreamtime, my mind travels far from my body. These objects keep me safe and help me find my way home again."
She squeezed the Magian woman's hand, but it was really she who needed the reassurance. There was always danger any time a shaman traveled into the dreamtime. Several times she had gone too far and needed Papa to come in to get her, or worse, fetch Mikhail to call her back into her body. If she ever became lost there, her body would wither for want of a spirit to inhabit it. It was for this reason, even though she was the Chosen of She-who-is, that Papa came with her into the dreamtime, at least as far as he was capable, which was not nearly as far as her. He was like the man who stood inside the entrance of a cave, calling out as she explored further so she could track his voice back to the entrance. Papa might be the less talented of the two, but his gift was more reliable from years of practice.
"I am not afraid," Seyahat said. Her trembling lip said otherwise. She clutched Ninsianna's hand the way one might when learning to swim.
Seyahat's older sister, Fatma, was the most outspoken of the trio, prone to cattiness, and the one Ninsianna liked the least. She scrutinized the sacred objects as though they were goat dung.
"I do not like this magic," Fatma pursed her lips. "If she were a true medicine woman, she would not take away your fine red cape." Her black eyes glowered at Ninsianna. "In our tribe, such magic is called sorcery."
Ninsianna was thankful her father could not understand their language. He was unaware she had made this bargain for the cape, although in her defense, amongst the Ubaid it was customary to give a gift to a shaman who helped you in accordance with your means. It had been Seyahat who had offered the cape as an enticement after Ninsianna had expressed doubt about whether she should even attempt such a journey, not because Ninsianna had asked.
The youngest of the three Magian women, Norhan, swatted at the thin plume of smoke which streamed from the bundle of dried cedar Papa used to smudge her.
"In our village, sorcerers are stoned to death," Norhan blurted out.
Heat radiated into Ninsianna's cheeks. How dare they accuse her of sorcery when she was about to risk her life to help them?
"Norhan…" Seyahat gave her cousin a disapproving look.
Norhan immediately qualified her statement. "Although Ninsianna does not act like any of the sorcerers my uncle has put to death."
Fatma glowered at Papa as he smudged her next and coughed, waving him away as though her enveloped her in burned goat dung instead of the pleasant scent of aromatic cedar.
"She speaks our language even though she never learned it," Fatma said. "And her eyes are filled with fire. We should trade the cape for passage north with one of the trading caravans."
"I am certain our husbands wait for us near the last village we traded in," Norhan said. "Perhaps we should just go there?"
"And be kidnapped again?" Seyahat cut her off. "Chief Kiyan sent word of our rescue far and wide. No one has come to claim us."
"So she says," Fatma pointed at Ninsianna. "She is the only one who speaks our language. How do we know what she says is true?"
Ninsianna wished fervently she had inherited her grandfather, Lugalbanda's, legendary ability to reach through the dreamtime and throttle somebody!
"These people have been nothing but kind to us," Norhan sided with Seyahat. "I communicate well enough with Pareesa to understand they have done all they can. If we want to get home, we must put our trust in Ninsianna."
"Ninsianna did not ask me for this cape," Seyahat reassured her sister. "I offered it of my own free will. If she can help us find a way home, it will be a fair trade."
"It was a bridal gift crafted by your mother-in-law's own hand," Fatma snorted. "It will not be replaced!"
"I would rather live amongst our own people wearing rags," Seyahat said, "then be fashionable amongst the pity of strangers. The cape is mine to trade.."
"Do you want to go home or don't you?" Ninsianna interrupted their bickering. "Because the Chief sent word through every network he could think of. Nobody in Ubaid territory has ever even heard of Margiana."
The three women looked at one another and nodded.
"We have been treated kindly here," Seyahat said. "But I miss my husband. With no families to provide for us, we are a burden on your people."
"Your ways are strange to us," Norhan said, "to be settled into villages which do not move and live by grains instead of herds. Please. Help us find our way home." Tears glistened in her dark eyes. Norhan had been a newlywed when the Amorites had kidnapped them and had just found out she was carrying his child. She still bore hope her husband was alive.
"I will do my be
st," Ninsianna's annoyance softened, "but without kratom, I cannot make any promises. This is a type of journey I have never made before."
"If you fail," Fatma shook her finger at Ninsianna's face, "Seyahat will not give you her red cape."
Ninsianna glanced at the prize. It wasn't about the cape. But goddess be! Its scarlet color beckoned to her!
"Ninsianna, I am ready," Papa touched her arm. He spoke in Ubaid, not the lilting Magian language.
Ninsianna gave him a fake smile to hide her annoyance, thankful he did not understand their language. Papa began to shake his rattle, a dried gourd with dried emmer seeds inside to add percussion to his chants. He repeated the same prayer over and over again.
'Mother. Carry me in your wind so I may see.'
Ninsianna closed her eyes and added her voice to her father's earthy chant, her light tone adding harmonies. The three Magian women, the chanting, the rattle grew far away as she dove into the stream of consciousness which lay closer to the surface each time she sought the wisdom of the goddess, a river of light which eased the heaviness from her flesh. Finding her way in to the dreamtime was always easy. It was forcing herself to come out again which always gave her problems.
The way grew brighter. So many baubles beckoned within the mind of She-who-is, bright, shiny, wonderful! Stars, planets, and other amazing things her people had observed, but had no words to describe, danced before her eyes as though they were playthings. All information that had ever existed, and someday might exist, lay at her disposal. One particularly beautiful cluster of lights appealed to her, pink and purple and white, with a configuration in the middle like the head of a horse. She stepped off the path to move towards it.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 25