Silence permeated the house, the only sound the muffled voices of villagers walking by in the street beyond the door. He wasn't certain whether to be disappointed or relieved nobody would see him in this sorry condition. Needa had left some bundles of herbs she'd been tying up to dry unfinished, so she must have been called out to assist somebody. Immanu spent his days either in the fields, chasing evil spirits from a sick person, or consulting with the chief, while Ninsianna did laundry, milked the goat, tended the garden, or coached the junior archers … if she wasn't helping her mother. Every person in this household had something of value to contribute to this village except for him. The only thing he had any talent for was killing.
The tail end of the dream niggled at his subconscious, but would not reveal itself to him. Why did he feel lately as though the excrement was about to hit the antimatter induction ports and he hadn't done everything he needed to get done?
A clay tablet caught his eye. It had cracked stumbling home drunk last night, but cut into it in a simplified version of Galactic Standard cuneiform was the recipe for the source of his rip-roaring hangover. Even as his stomach lurched, he could not help but smile. Here was something that might prove useful?
Eating some stale flatbread to settle his stomach, he painstakingly pressed the still-damp clay back together so the recipe read clearly. There. If he were to die tomorrow, when the Alliance eventually found this planet, at least they would be able to recreate the recipe for beer.
Time. That ticking clock, the chess pieces that had to be moved before time ran out, that black wall he could not see around, pushed him forward with a sense of urgency even though he could never remember the first part of the dream, only an arm sweeping all of the chess pieces off the table when the time ran out. He was out of time.
He stared at the clay tablet, the writing. So much knowledge to pass down, so little time to do it. Ninsianna had no interest in learning either written communication or his archaic prayers when she possessed a direct pathway to She-who-is, but he knew who might.
Shielding his migraine from the sun as he exited the house, he went in search of Pareesa. He found her in one of the fields that had been harvested of its einkorn and was nothing but stubble, the rising Hiddekel River lapping at the slender levy which soon would not be able to keep out the rising flood. As was her habit, she mercilessly rode her B-team even though no one in the village still considered the sixteen sons of merchants and traders to be inept as warriors. Pushups were the sadistic fairy general's favorite form of torture and all sixteen men now sported muscles that had the village women swooning.
"Eighty-six!" Pareesa shouted. "Eighty-seven! Eighty-eight!" She pranced up and down the line, dropping to the ground herself to do pushups along with them to demonstrate the proper form. The little fairy had a preternatural ability to catapult herself off the ground from a pushup to standing so lightly it was as though gravity did not apply to her.
Mikhail waited until she reached one hundred before coughing to make his presence known.
"Pareesa? Do you have a moment?"
She shot him an eager grin that was a combination of look what I'm doing for you and is everything I'm doing okay? She pranced up to him like an eager puppy anxious to have its master scratch its ears.
"Mikhail? Oh! I was just whipping the B-team into shape."
From the groans and pleading expressions of the sixteen men, whipping was the operative word. The men had grown more fit in the months she'd been teaching them to work as a team, but knowing Pareesa, this was the seventh or eighth time today she'd made them drop and give her one hundred.
"They look good," Mikhail said. "Why not send them on a run around the exterior of the fields? I've got something I'd like to teach you."
Pareesa sent them off, ignoring the plaintive look Ebad gave her as she turned her back, oblivious that the young man lived or died according to whether or not she graced him with a smile. Mikhail felt pity for the young man. Hadn't that once been him mooning after Ninsianna? Although he had been a lot less obvious about it. He hoped.
"What do you have to teach me today?"
Pareesa danced over, so excited she danced on her tip-toes. Or, wait, no, she wasn't on her tip-toes. When had Pareesa shot up to his chin? She was now taller than Ninsianna? Perhaps the lingering hangover was breaking down his emotional self-control, but he could not help but smile. Yes. It was time. Mikhail gestured for her to follow him down towards a quiet spot where the other villagers would hopefully not distract her.
"I've been saying the Cherubim battle prayers for so long that I can't remember when I was first taught to say them," Mikhail said. "But you proved yourself in battle the other day. I think perhaps it is time I teach you the first of the battle prayers."
"Will you teach me to use your sword?" Pareesa's brown eyes glistened with hope.
Mikhail's lip twitched upwards in a smile which, this time, he suppressed.
"Not yet, little fairy," he said. "I will only teach you the prayer to help you open your mind to listen. You are still young to be learning the other skills. First, you must prove you have mastered listening before the Cherubim god will gift you with his insight."
"Should we sit down like when we do the prayers to calm the spirit?" Pareesa circled a likely spot near the rising river.
"Eventually you must be able to master this skill while in the heat of battle," Mikhail said. "But yes, this spot will be fine." He lowered himself to sit upon a convenient rock, flexing his wings behind him so he did not crush his feathers.
Pareesa sat cross-legged on the ground, her face eager. Mikhail scratched a symbol on the ground, Cherubim, not Alliance cuneiform, but he was determined she learn to interpret at least a few of the symbols and recognize they could be used to impart knowledge even when the teacher was no longer present. He picked up a stick and drew a square in the dirt, divided into quadrants, then added the body and tail holding up a stupa to the left-hand side. In its simplest form, both Galactic Standard and Cherubim were picture languages, but each symbol also had a phonetic speech equivalent, which was how both languages were used.
"This symbol means Bishamonten," Mikhail said. "The Cherubim god. It is pronounced 'Toe.' Repeat?"
"T-t-t-toe," Pareesa repeated as she drew her own symbols.
"Whenever I teach you one of these symbols," Mikhail said, "you must memorize it. Our language is a picture-language, but it is also phonetic, which means each symbol carries a sound. Once you memorize all the symbols, you can look at them and hear your teacher speak within your own mind even though they may not be here."
"Is this like Ninsianna's gift?" Pareesa asked.
Mikhail frowned. "No. Ninsianna does not wish to learn these symbols because she can already hear what other people think directly. But people like me need help. These symbols are the magic through which our teachers can speak to us even when they are no longer here."
Over the next few hours he taught her the symbols to the first prayer of the killing dance and the simpler focusing prayer to clear the mind. By the end of the lesson, Pareesa was able to recognize the word-sounds when he scratched them in the dirt and recreate the proper phonetics. Eleven symbols he'd taught her to read. It was time to teach her the next lesson.
"Now we learn to apply the lesson to when you fight," Mikhail said. "First recite the meditative prayer to clear your mind until it is empty of all other thoughts."
"Mattaku machigatta kōdō o shinai, suru koto ga dekimasu dekirudake ōku no yoikoto o suru, anata no kokoro o kiyomeru," Pareesa recited in a sing-song manner. Do no wrong actions. Do as much good as you can. Purify your mind. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip in concentration.
"Do you sense that opening of your mind?" Mikhail asked. "As though you are more aware of everything that is going on around you?"
"Mmm-hmmm," Pareesa said.
"Now repeat the four symbols for the Cherubim god I just taught you," Mikhail spoke calmly and evenly so as not to break her con
centration.
"Namu tobatsu Bishamonten!" Pareesa spoke in an almost reverent whisper.
"Good," Mikhail said, pleased she remembered the sounds of the symbols, and in the correct order. "And now we say the rest of the prayer. Akuma o seifuku suru ni wa! Watashi ni nata no chikara o fuyo shimasu. To subjugate the demons, give me your strength."
"Akuma o seifuku suru ni wa! Watashi ni nata no chikara o fuyo shimasu," Pareesa repeated. She began to fidget.
"Do you sense anything?" Mikhail asked.
"Um…" Pareesa chewed her lip. "Not … really? What's it supposed to feel like?"
"It may take a while," Mikhail said. "When the Cherubim god decides to grant you access to his ability to see, you will just know it."
Pareesa opened her eyes. "Were you able sense anything the first time you were taught this?" she asked.
Mikhail gave her a sheepish expression. "I can't remember."
Pareesa tossed her head in a laugh. She might not get it right away, but like every other lesson he'd ever taught his littlest protégé, she would go home and repeat the lesson again and again and again, pestering him to help her with things she did not understand, until she perfected it and beat his socks off.
He glanced down at his combat boots, which had begun to develop a hole in the bottom of one sole. Until she beat his very holey socks off! It was time for him to make a trip back to his ship to fetch his last remaining pair.
An idea began to form in his mind.
"I have a favor to ask," he asked Pareesa.
"Anything," Pareesa looked at him eagerly. She would make him repay the favor by sparring with her personally to teach some new advanced skill, preferably with a healthy helping of bruises. His bruises.
"We leave in three days for the regional meeting of chiefs," Mikhail said. "Do you think you and Siamek can make sure the men we selected are ready to accompany us there so I can sneak away for a couple of days?"
One dark eyebrow arched his way in a not-quite-knowing grin. Pareesa was still a maiden he was certain, but she hung around some very bawdy warriors. As far as the warriors were concerned, Pareesa was 'one of the guys' and had been learning all sorts of crude things he was certain her mother would not approve of. She waggled her eyebrows at him the same way Dadbeh or Firouz might.
"You're gonna owe me big time," Pareesa grinned.
Chapter 94
November – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Shahla
Shahla
Shahla clutched her baby to her breast and tried to get it to nurse. She was a quiet baby, well-behaved and never cried. But then again, its father was not prone to fits of temper or loquaciousness, so why would Mikhail's daughter?
"I don't understand why you don't latch on," Shahla told the bundle of rags. "But each day you grow bigger and you make no trouble for me. Such a good little girl."
Below she could hear the sound of her parents fighting. Oh! Why did they fight so much? They had always fought, but ever since her daughter had been born, it seemed they fought even more. Her father did not know what to do with her, or more accurately, her baby. Was it because her little girl had wings?
"Such beautiful, dark wings," Shahla nuzzled the knotted 'head' of the bundle of rags and caressed the tattered remnants which trailed out the back of it. "Just like your father. When he comes home for supper, I will tell him you spoke to me today and called me Mama."
Goosebumps rose on the breast she had bared to feed her daughter. After her milk had come in that horrid witch, Ninsianna, had told her it would dry up. Hah! What did she know?
Her parent's shouting escalated, followed by a thud and the sound of breaking crockery. The door slammed so hard it shook the house. Her father had just stormed out … again. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Her mother stomped up the stairs, enraged.
"Quick!" Shahla whispered to her baby. "I must hide you. Papa says it's her fault Jamin beat me. They fight about it every single day." She covered her breast with her shawl.
Her mother burst into the room.
"You were supposed to go milk the goat," her mother sneered at her. "Not play with that stupid doll!"
Shahla cringed back in terror. "Please don't hurt my baby!"
Her mother always beat her when her father left the house, trying to force her to leave. But her father wept and told her he was sorry she had lost her baby. He would not let her mother turn her out into the desert the way she threatened several times each day.
Lost her baby?
No! Her baby was right here! She clutched the rags to her breast and examined the baby's eyes, two black smudges where she'd taken ashes from the fire and lay fingerprints upon her baby so her little girl would be able to see her. Her eyes were dark, not blue as Mikhail's were. Perhaps it was Jamin's baby after all? Or Dadbeh's? Or somebody else's? The Chief had asked if there were several who could be the father, but it was all very fuzzy. And what was she doing carrying around this pile of rags?
"Get out of here!" her mother screamed at her. "You want a husband? Then go find one to take you off our hands so you stop shaming this household!" She grabbed Shahla by the hair and dragged her towards the steps.
"My baby!" Shahla reached back towards the rags.
"Your baby is dead!" her mother shrieked at her. "I wish you would do the same! Your father prefers your company to mine these days!" She shoved Shahla towards the stairs too hard and gave her a kick.
With a shriek, Shahla fell the first step and then caught herself before she toppled any further. She made her way down the rest of the way, shaking. One of these days her mother would kill her.
"And take this useless thing!"
Her baby thumped down onto the ground next to her. This was not the first time her mother had tried to kill her baby, but her little girl was tough. She was a demigod just like her father! No mortal could kill her!
"Just you wait until my husband gets home and hears of this!" Shahla picked up her baby and shook her fist up at her mother.
"If you've got a husband?" her mother sneered down at her. "Then go tell him. See if I care!"
"I will!" Shahla shouted in defiance. She slammed the door and made her way out into the streets. Wherever she went, people whispered. Evil people. Why did they whisper bad things about her when Mikhail had only tried to help them?
"Don't you listen to them," Shahla told her baby. "They are just jealous because I got your father and they can't have him! And I have him because of you."
She closed her eyes and remembered what it had felt like when Mikhail had carried her up into the sky. Pain. But then the ground had no longer been beneath her feet, the sun had been on her face, and she had looked into his eyes and seen a glimpse of what it would be like when she passed into the dreamtime, eternal bliss. Another memory. Those sad, blue eyes as he had taken her tiny bundle and cradled it to his chest.
"He said you wait for me," a tear slid down Shahla's cheek. "And that he lay you down in a bed of his own feathers so that you would never know the cold." She sniffled and pushed the memory out of her mind, preferring to focus on the happier daydream of that tall, beautiful mountain of a man reaching down to help her up after she had fallen.
Yes. He was the baby's father. He must be. She was certain of it. For none other in the village had ever shown her baby a hint of compassion. Why did the villagers always whisper about her? Whisper about her baby. She must protect her from those who would whisper against her and besmirch her father's name. She spotted an old woman she knew was kind.
"Excuse me, Liwwaresagil," Shahla trotted to catch up with an old woman doubled over carrying the weight of her water from the communal well. "Have you seen my husband?"
"Who is your husband today, child?" Liwwaresagil's face was sympathetic. She was bent over not only from her two buckets of water strung from a stick across her back, but also from a lifetime spent doubled over in the fields, harvesting her grain.
"Why Mikhail, of course," Shahla said. She held out
her bundle of rags. "Can't you see this is his child?"
Liwwaresagil's expression was one of mixed anger and sorrow. "If only the tribunal had let us judge Jamin for his crimes and let us stone him to death!" she shook her fist in the general direction of the center of the village. "At least then perhaps it would give you some closure?"
Shahla swayed. "Jamin?"
All eyes in the village turned in her direction as the whispers began to close around her.
"Yes. Jamin is the baby's father. My mother tells me so every day."
Liwwaresagil touched the bundle of rags with her swollen, wrinkled hands and then reached up to place her trembling palm on Shahla's cheek. Her hand felt cool the way elderly people's extremities often did once they became stooped over with age. Liwwaresagil had always treated Shahla kindly.
"Dadbeh came forward and claimed responsibility for fathering your child," the old woman said gently. "Why won't you go to him? You know he loves you."
"Dadbeh?" Shahla swayed with confusion, then remembered what both her parents said whenever Dadbeh came to the door, pleading to see her. "Dadbeh's family is the lowest-ranking family in the village, lower only than Meriray. He cannot possibly be the baby's father. Mama says it is Jamin's child so she can get the Chief to pay for my support! But I think maybe it is Mikhail?"
"Oh, child," Liwwaresagil wept. "You poor thing! Your baby died, remember?" Those wrinkled claws reached up to touch Shahla's unkempt hair, matted and greasy.
People pressed around her, whispering. Why did they always whisper nasty things about her?
"No!" Shahla pushed the old woman's hand away. "Get away from me! Mikhail is the baby's father!"
Some of the villagers wept, some laughed, but most of them simply pointed at her beautiful winged daughter and whispered about her shame. She backed away, clutching her baby to her breast, and turned to run. She ran into the chest of Ilakabkubu, a cruel man of average height and middle-aged. She had lain down with him once, a long time ago. His manhood had been thin and short and he had grunted over her like a rutting boar, not the kind of man she had wanted to feel inside of her a second time. She had spurned him afterwards. He had retaliated by telling his wife so she would recruit the other women to hate her.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 93