Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga)

by Anna Erishkigal

  "Asherah," Father looked stricken. "This is not what I want."

  "It's not about what you -want-, old friend," Mama's hand rose up to touch Father's cheek, "but about what is -right-. You know this is true."

  Father trembled beneath her touch, tears welling in his golden eyes as he placed the palm of his hand over -her- hand and moved it down to kiss her palm, trying to make her stay.

  I cried too. Usually I could not see into Father's mind, but I could see into it now, the mind of a living god. Father loved my mother. Oh, how he had loved my mother for so very long. He had held back on sending an assassin to kill Shemijaza because he knew it would break her heart even though the bastard deserved to die.

  "I could complete you," Father whispered. "I'm so close. We could be always be together."

  Mama squeezed the hand Father had placed on her cheek, pulling it down so she held both of our god's hands in front of her heart.

  "What use is immortality if every day you grieve for the person you love?" Mama asked. "I took a vow the day we conceived our son that we would never be parted from one another, not even in death. He was not the one who left me, but it was -I- who abandoned him. I was frightened and I left before I had a chance to appeal to his better nature when that monster did not have a hold over his mind."

  Mama leaned forward and kissed Father on the lips, tears streaming down her cheeks. I could see into her mind, and I saw that Father's love for her was not one-sided. It just wasn't enough because she had always loved Shemijaza -more-. It made -me- cry, too.

  "I have consoled myself all these years with the promise that, once our son had grown enough to no longer need me, I would return to my husband. If that thing that had control of him kills me, then it will lose, because in that moment Shemijaza will remember who he is. The bond that surpasses all other bonds will compel him to cast out that shade and follow me into the dreamtime."

  She turned to look at where I stood, eavesdropping, behind the door.

  "I'm just lucky that when my song awoke his heart and he looked into our son's eyes in the land between, that he recognized him for who he really was." Mama wiped a tear. "Now, I don't have to wait until I am dead to be reunited with him. Please be happy for me? Okay?"

  Father blinked and swallowed, choking back his tears.

  "What of Lucifer?" Father asked. "I do not trust that bastard with my son!"

  My son? Father had called me 'my son!' It made me so happy I wiggled like a six-year-old boy.

  "Your concerns have validity," Mama said. "When his ship arrives, I will go to him alone and we will talk. Our bonding was interrupted during the consummation period, and then I hid so he could not track me back to Lucifer, so I could protect our son. Once we strengthen the Song between us, there will be no way for evil such as that which whispered to him to regain a foothold ever again."

  Father looked away. -He- saw what was in her mind, even though Mama blocked it from me, and it brought a sob to his chest.

  "I am first and foremost a daughter of the Alliance," Mama said. "It is not good to have you and Shemijaza keep escalating hostilities. I will finish the mission you sent me there to accomplish sixteen years ago … to use his love for me to work out some kind of accord so that both our empires can coexist."

  Mission? What mission? Mama had never said anything about a mission before?

  "It's not just about empires anymore," tears streamed down Father's cheeks. "You have become more to me than you were then, and Lucifer is the closest thing I have ever had to a son! And now you want me to just hand the both of you over to him?"

  Tears welled in my -own- eyes as I saw the fear that dwelled in Father's heart and understood he feared losing -my- love, as well. I wanted to run up and hug him, to let him know I would -never- stop loving him!

  "I will talk to him," Mama said. "I will find a way to make him understand that, whether he likes it or not, he cannot simply take Lucifer away from you."

  She stood up straight, the way she often stood when she was chastising me.

  "You need to share. You -both- need to share! Or else!"

  "Or else what?" Father voice croaked like a sad bullfrog.

  Mama's expression grew light-hearted as she leaned forward and wiggled a finger in Father's face the way that only -she- had ever dared.

  "Or else I shall take my son and go seek refuge with Emperor Shay'tan! And not let either -one- of you see him until you -both- start acting like adults!" Mama scolded her Emperor and god. "And think about what a laugh the old dragon will have at -your- expense! To give your son shelter because -you- are too pig-headed to compromise!"

  The door opened at the long of the long hall that led out of this wing of the palace that had been Mama's prison these last fifteen years. A bland-looking Angelic with dirty-looking white wings informed her that Shemijaza's shuttle had arrived to take her home. Mama kissed Father on the cheek, heedless of his tears, and moved down the hallway, so graceful in her joy she was like a swan gliding across a lake. Her dark wings fluttered with excitement, spread high as though the moment she got outside she would -fly- to greet the ship that waited for her in orbit instead of riding the shuttle like a mortal woman.

  Father trailed behind her, his shoulders hunched. I waited until he got to the end of the hall before sneaking out of the room and followed them to the Pearl Gate where he watched her and the dirty-winged guard board the shuttle Shemijaza's men had landed right at the bottom of the front steps. The Cherubim let me pass, as did the regular guards from the outer hallways of the Eternal Palace who had not previously known I existed because Father had taken such drastic measures to keep me a secret from my rrrreee…

  Bah! Shemijaza. I -refused- to call him my you-know-what [*real*] father, that silver-eyed man with the brutal jaw! -Father- was my father!

  That momentary glimpse I had caught of Father's mind faded as he watched Mama's shuttle ascend into the sky. Shoulders stooped, he shuffled back to his small antechamber, the one he met informally with trusted advisors, and summoned Master Yoritomo. The Eternal Tree helped me sneak in the window without setting off the flight sensors so I could hide behind a plush velvet curtain and eavesdrop. Father watched video footage of the ship Shemijaza had sent for her until Master Yoritomo arrived.

  "Every television network in the Alliance is watching this ship arrive," Father clenched his fist.

  "Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Master Yoritomo gestured at the ship on the screen.

  "Never," Father touched the video monitor. "How did he get it into the solar system without us seeing it?"

  "Some kind of cloaking device, we think," Master Yoritomo said. "We had every ship we could spare ringing the outer gravitational zone of Haven-1. Somehow it got through and just -appeared- in orbit, as though the ship, itself, could teleport the way that -you- do."

  "Impossible," Father said. "If Shemijaza had the power of a god, I would have known about it before now. Or sensed a temporal displacement. No consciousness that large can teleport here without my sensing it." He looked back at the video monitor. "Were you able to sneak spies onto the ship to track where it goes?

  "Just one," Master Yoritomo said. "Our best man, Zepar. Ostensibly he's there as Asherah's assistant, but he's military intelligence. He'll figure out how to disable the cloaking device so we can be rid of Shemijaza once and for all."

  Father glared at the video screen. As we watched, the ship fired up its impulse engines and began to move.

  "What's it doing? Asherah!" Father's voice was strangled and high with panic. "Stop it!" He grabbed at the screen as if -that- could do something to prevent it from leaving.

  The screen shifted. More of that jamming technology Father complained about that the silver-eyed man used to broadcast his demands to every video monitor in the Alliance. On that screen stood the silver-eyed man and Mama, their arms wrapped around each other.

  "I brought this ship to carry home my son, my only child," the silver-eyed man said. "My son
is no unwanted bastard as your Emperor raised him to believe, but a prince. A Prince of Tyre. Soon it shall return to carry him home to take his rightful place as heir to my throne."

  The silver-eyed man looked straight through the screen as though he could see me, peeking out of the curtain where I was hidden.

  "See, Lucifer? This ship is yours. I have named it after -you-."

  The camera shifted to the name written down the fuselage in large, block cuneiform. -Prince of Tyre-.

  "Good people of the Alliance," Mama spoke, as regal as a queen. "My husband and I go to talk and seek common ground to create a peace between our two empires … and also to negotiate a way to share our son between two fathers who both dearly love him."

  Mama looked through the camera as though she could see me hiding behind the curtain. "Lucifer. If the Emperor lets you see this, know that I am well and will see you soon. Until then … benedictus."

  The screen moved back to whatever camera Father had watching the ship in orbit. Without so much as an afterburner glowing out the back where the hyperdrives were, the ship leaped forward like a Centauri stallion leaping over a fence and disappeared.

  "What?" Father shouted. "Where'd it go?"

  Father shimmered gold and disappeared, no doubt trying to chase them. Master Yoritomo rushed out of the room, shouting to the Cherubim and other guards to rally the ships in orbit to capture the rebel ship before it escaped into hyperspace carrying my Mama. I waited until the coast was clear, then snuck up to the video monitor to replay the message, especially that last part which showed the long, slender ship, as white and sleek as a ray of sunlight, with a funny little nose that reminded me of a gorock's whiskers.

  My finger traced the lettering on the side of the fuselage.

  -Prince of Tyre-. Was that ship really for -me-?

  Chapter 55

  November – 3,390 BC

  Earth: Village of Assur

  Angelic Air Force Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili

  Mikhail

  Mikhail fought to keep out the daylight, to slay it, smite it; hang onto these precious moments when the brightening dawn caused him to awaken before the goddess in his arms. Although he could not remember his past, deep in his heart he knew that never in his life had he been so happy as he felt each morning before the first rays of sunlight rose above the horizon.

  He buried his nose into her dark brown hair; her scent so intoxicating it was like a drug. His. She was his. And for so long as he lived, and for eternity thereafter, he would be her husband, and she his wife, for that was the way of his people. Although he could not remember this, he knew this was the way things were meant to be, and he prolonged this moment before the tasks each had to do, the troubles which had come between them lately, the worries which sat heavily upon her brow, arose with the sunlight to break the spell.

  The brightening pre-dawn light gave them a place to meet in between, two lovers who worshipped each other dearly, his dark wings and her soft flesh, his angled features and her rounded ones, the way her lush lips moved as she murmured his name.

  It did not matter that she had rolled onto his lower wing and it had fallen asleep, or that a splinter from their sleeping pallet jabbed into his back, or the crick in his neck he had not worked out before going to bed last night was now so stiff he could barely turn his head. All that mattered was the goddess in his arms, his beautiful Ninsianna, was mo maité saol. His lifemate.

  The words had a sacred feeling to them, as if he should remember what they meant beyond the simple translation from his language into hers, but in a way, he did know, for every time he made love to her, he knew this woman meant everything to him.

  The first rays of sun crept above the horizon. A jagged sword stabbed into their bedroom, illuminating a spider web spun across the window. A small green spider lived there, spinning her web and catching what insects she could. Ninsianna kept asking him to carry it away and crush the spider, but each night he did not, not because he wished to displease her or, heaven forbid, shared her fear of the eight-legged creatures, but because he rather liked Miss Spider, sitting above them spinning her web, as though she was an ally, sent to protect their love and capture the sunlight which would awaken his wife and steal her from his arms.

  The spider moved to intercept a wriggling fly, the excuse he gave Ninsianna for not removing the web, but the truth was the web reminded him of his own lost memories, that part of himself that had been missing ever since he had awoken on this world, mortally wounded, Ninsianna's fingers inside the hole in his chest, touching his heart. She held it still. She had touched his heart that day and never let it go. Nor did he wish for her to ever let him go. For if that day ever came, he knew that it would kill him.

  "Sleep, mo ghrá," he whispered.

  Would she wake up happy today? Or would that dark cloud still linger between them? Ninsianna's lips moved and murmured his name, first a smile, and then a grimace. Would today be the day she finally forgave him?

  "Sleep, mo ghrá, and let me worship you in my arms," he whispered silently so she would not hear it. Even a whisper would cause her to awaken sooner and slip from his grasp. He prolonged the moment as long as he could, that time he stole from the world each morning to be one with her.

  A new feeling had come over him lately, ever since the day she had come home upset. He had felt it before when she was distracted or angry, but since that day, even when he made love to her, it felt as though he could not feel her anymore, as though the woman who lay in his arms was an imposter. Not his wife. Not the woman who had crawled so deeply into his heart he could not bear to be away from her.

  Was it the goddesses fault? Perhaps. As Ninsianna's powers grew, it changed her, exacerbated her irritability when he could not see the things she saw, share the dreams which came each night in her visions, look into other people's souls, read pictures off of their minds, or leave his body to travel far away without ever leaving the room. He had fallen in love with her because she was special, but oh, how he wished she was just a little less special right now! Just special enough so he would feel the way he felt about her, all the little kindnesses and bossy behavior quirks he had fallen in love with, but without the meddling of She-who-is.

  Was it blasphemy to be envious of the goddess? Perhaps... But She-who-is had come between them. He just wanted to finish this great mission and then, once it was done, do nothing more than plant the fields each spring, haul water during the summer, and harvest the fruits of his labors each fall so he could do nothing but worship her every winter.

  "Mikhail?" Ninsianna's voice was throaty with sleep.

  "I am here, Mo ghrá," Mikhail nuzzled the soft throb of her pulse on the skin beneath her ear. "Sleep, chol beag. It is not quite time to greet the dawn."

  She snuggled closer, accidentally kneeing him in the testicles, but he did not care. All he cared was that he could relish this moment for as long as he could.

  The brave little spider moved across her web, an ally, its frail threads capturing the sunlight and buying him a few extra seconds, those threads that were so much like his memories of himself, slender, strong, a coherent pattern, but with more space missing than what could be seen.

  He moved his wing higher to better block the sunlight. Ninsianna did not like the feel of feathers covering her face, but she did not like the loss of warmth when he raised them high enough to block the window, either. It was an awkward dance he performed each morning, he and little Miss Spider, to cast a shadow and keep the sunlight from Ninsianna's face.

  Her breathing fell back into a rhythmic pattern, her lips twitching as she fell back into her pleasant dream. A vision? Or a simple dream, perhaps of him? Or the baby she would bear him sometime late spring?

  Why was it that, lately, he had this overwhelming feeling he would not be here to see it born? Why did he feel as though the clock was ticking, that things were speeding up, that he needed to hurry up and make the most of each day he shared with her because, soon, he would be out o
f time?

  He pressed his lips to the pulse point at the base of her neck. Her species did not share his overwhelming instinct to reaffirm his bond with his mate every chance he got, but he was lucky to have her, that he knew even though he could not remember why. She was his chalice. His holy grail. The goal he had aspired to his entire life even though his shattered memories meant he could not remember ever having sought it. It was like all the other memories he still carried, how to fire a pulse rifle or how to use a sword. Although his mind was blank, his body remembered what it knew.

  She stirred...

  "I should get out of bed," Ninsianna flung her hand to cover her face. "I promised Alalah I would help her teach the newest archers to provide cover fire using tracer arrows."

  "I could send Pareesa down to do it," Mikhail waited for her to open her eyes. "She would welcome the respite from training the B-Team."

  Ninsianna rolled towards him, eyes still scrunched shut, and slid her hand down his abdomen to caress his manhood. That brought a smile to his face, the first time she had initiated marital relations ever since that awful day when she had gone cold in his arms.

  He slid one finger beneath a strand of raven-dark hair that crept across her cheek and pulled it out of her mouth, the errant lock having the same idea that he had right now, to taste those lips. He did so gently, forcing himself to hold back, to not push her.

  Her eyes opened. Golden eyes stared into his blue ones.

  "Good morning, Mo ghrá?" He watched her for her mood. Would she linger in his arms today and reforge the bond he could feel her tugging away from him? Or would she make excuses and slip out of the bed as she had done every morning for the last two weeks?

  Ninsianna frowned. Mikhail's lip twitched, allowing his disappointment to show even though a lifetime of training with armies who were not supposed to show any emotion had taught him how to suppress it. He did not wish to suppress it, damantia!

  "Stay?" he pleaded. He caressed her cheek. "Please stay? I do not like this distance which has opened up between us."