by A. L. Knorr
“Come now, my child.” The voice was rich and deep, and as terrible as time itself. “Look upon your father and be made new.”
My eyes betrayed me.
Ninurta was both less and more than I imagined. Reclining upon his throne was a huge but emaciated figure of bygone majesty and power. The rich fabrics that flowed around him were threadbare, and the jewellery that seemed to drip from every part of him was dull and tarnished. Thick ropes of muscle still corded his frame, but they moved beneath weathered, wrinkled skin, and his broad back was bent. His hair and beard were white and in places worn so thin that liver-spotted skin could be seen beneath. His chestnut eyes were bright with watchful intelligence, but even they seemed to sag with the incredible weight of long, long years.
He was an old king, a man nearing the end of his reign.
Seeing him like that filled me with an odd combination of sorrow and joy. An old and mighty creature nearing its end was always sad, but his apparent infirmity led me to believe that perhaps there was yet hope he could be defeated. I had been raised to respect my elders, but in the case of my maniacal demigod progenitor, I would make an exception.
“You are smiling,” he observed, his voice filled with interest. “What do you see?”
I hadn’t realised I was smiling, but I wasn’t about to back down. I was pretty sure that if I did, I would crumble. He might be an ageing king, but his presence and will were still incredibly potent.
“I see an old man.” I forced my voice to be steady in a way that my knees were not. “Powerful and dangerous, but still old.”
Ninurta nodded, the motion all the more sagacious for his swaying grey hair.
Grey? Hadn’t his hair been white? Why couldn’t I see through to his spotted scalp anymore?
A sick feeling crept into my stomach. Was he changing before my eyes?
“Oh, but I am old.” His heavy brows slid low, turning his look crafty. “But it is one of the great follies of the young to think age makes one impotent.”
I stared up into his face, refusing to be cowed. “And it is the folly of the old to think the young are incapable.”
“Such would be true if you faced anyone else,” he said tenderly. A patronising smile spread across the aged face, as though he was explaining something to a child. “Your spirit does you credit. In my new world, I wish to foster exactly that kind of daring.”
His dark eyes glittered in wizened sockets, but the folds about them weren’t as heavy now.
“You got that from me, you know.” His hands hung from the armrests of his seething throne. Two fingers on his left hand were made of gold – digits of living metal.
“We may be separated by epochs but it is true,” he continued. “More than anything, these long years have given me perspective, and with that perspective, I see you. Can you see me?”
The last word rippled through the air like the distortions rolling off a furnace; for an instant I felt his will and I couldn’t suppress a shudder. Monstrous in size and scope, he was a psychic leviathan in whose wake I could barely keep from being dragged along. Lowe had promised he couldn’t hurt me, but I wasn’t so certain.
“You begin to understand.” He grinned, shark-like, and his potent aura swept by me again. A small, weak sound escaped my lips as I fell to my knees, shaking.
Kezsarak’s power, both bound within Sark and unfettered, had been ferocious and relentless. This was something else, something I couldn’t have imagined until I’d experienced it. Now that I had, I felt diminished and cold.
“What are you?” I gasped, tears springing to my eyes.
In answer, Ninurta rose, his back straightening as the guise of infirmity sloughed off him. Muscles swelled to fill glistening skin, while his hair and beard shone jet black and lustrous. He stepped down from the throne with a dancer’s lithe movements. He was a warrior king in his prime, a sorcerous monarch at the height of his power.
“I am the first, and I am the only,” he intoned as he advanced. “I am the culmination of the grand design. I was a child among grunting brutes when I first understood that I was destined for more.”
He stared out at the dream horizon as though he might see those bygone days there, playing out on the sky. I remained on my knees, watching him, gathering the courage I felt I might be losing at being so near him.
“By the will of nature or god, I rose from that savage beginning with not just dreams and ambitions, but the power to achieve them. Whatever I laid my hand to was mine, mastery was my birth right. While my tribe cowered in caves and scratched out their living amongst stones, I learned the mysteries which lay beneath the earth.”
His gaze returned to me, and I marvelled to see tears glittering at the corners of his eyes.
“I returned to them,” he said softly. “The simple creatures from which I emerged. I strove to teach them, but they were too simple, too crude. They turned on me, fearing what I’d become.”
He closed his eyes, drawing in a heavy breath. When he continued, his voice was flat and cold.
“I killed them all. It broke my heart, but in my agony, as I throttled the last of the misbegotten children, I had a revelation: some are incapable of ascendancy, and their very existence holds back those who would climb up to pluck the stars.”
He swept around in a slow circle viewing his children arrayed about him. The rings of dreaming Inconquo began their chant again, low and urgent.
My voice surged to join them, but I forced my jaws together until I thought they would break, refusing to submit. Disgust at the display of vacancy and submission rose like bile in my throat.
“I determined to build an empire, a dynasty where the exceptional might ascend. I founded Kalhu and set about uniting man under my name. But again they disappointed me. They sought to worship gods and such smallness disgusted me. Had I not slain enough of their demons for them to see what they could become if they only willed it? I watched factions spread through my house and came to hate my children; I grew weary of waiting for mankind to evolve enough to suit my purpose. So I decided to sleep, to dream away the ages. I just needed someone to ensure I was not disturbed until the time was right.”
Thunder crashed and lightning crackled above us. The dream wind was rising as though to dramatize his story.
“I found a creature as eternal as I: the edimmu that Lamashtu sent to kill me. With her phylactery held in the balance, I enlisted her to seal my tomb and hold the key for a time. Until the world could be shaped to my will. She despised her corrupted condition, so I knew eventually she would awaken me hoping to end her own cursed existence. But lo, I am awakened, and the fallen priestess has done well. This world is ready at last.”
The chant rose, beating against me like waves, making every thought a struggle, but I knew who he meant: Daria. Her part in this distressing story fit so many pieces together, but it was little comfort. It seemed like we were all doomed, Inconquo and edimmu alike.
“Ready for what?” I was not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“Rebirth. To be broken open and reformed. I shall reach to the very heart of the world using the resonance of my descendants – now as many as the sands across the world. It will then be a simple matter to build a new world order.”
With growing horror, I began to understand: the earth’s heart, its core, is hypothesised to be metal. His plan seemed insane – changing the movements of the earth’s core could bring about untold destruction – but the sanity of the plan didn’t matter if he could actually accomplish it.
“That will kill millions of people,” I cried.
Ninurta corrected me blithely. “I am told that the teeming masses count in the billions now, and by my calculations the initial casualties will be forty percent.”
I stared at him, unsure how to even speak to someone who could say this with such calm.
“Come now, child, you’ve surely learned of the way of nature. It is only natural that unsuitable creatures perish and those worthy of life rise to prominen
ce. I will merely accelerate the process. Evolution is imprecise, but it will out eventually; and when it does, I will be there to usher the worthy into a golden age that will never end.”
The magnitude of his insanity was mind-numbing. I suddenly felt like I was drowning and needed to push away from the suffocating weight of his vision, to bring things back to a scale I could understand.
“So what do you want with me then?” I shouted to be heard over the rising chorus. “Why this whole production?”
Ninurta’s brows rose, a shadow briefly passing over his face before he knelt in front of me, bringing me to my feet. His huge hands took mine in a firm but gentle grip. He on his knees, and I on my feet, we were eye-to-eye; and snared in those deep, dark pools, I couldn’t move.
“I want you to join me, child.” His voice was quiet but impossibly clear through the tumult. “You, whether through will or destiny have risen above any who came before you. I am determined to never need an heir, but it would please me to have you at my side, adding your strength to mine in this great work. Be my princess, be my consort, be my queen, be whatever you will, but be so with me. Let us remake the world together.”
I stared at him, wind tugging at my hair as the sky threatened to tear itself apart.
The offer, as abhorrent it was, still had temptation – not least because I knew Ninurta would not take rejection well. The idea of such power for a girl who’d spent her life scuttling along the bottom of the proverbial barrel was incredible. Looking at Ninurta’s bright eyes and soulful expression, I could almost convince myself that with time and tact, I could influence him. Wasn’t it better to guide such power?
One look around me answered that question. Thousands of his descendants enslaved in his dreamscape, chanting his praises. Ninurta was a force of nature, a malevolent tidal wave, I either I rode with him into destruction pretending I was in control, or I stood in defiance.
I am a guardian.
“No,” I met his gaze levelly. “I won’t join you. Not now, not ever.”
He was composed in the face of rejection. “Oh, my dear, you don’t even know what I am going to do. It will be magnificent.”
I shook my head, refusing to look away. “I’ve heard fanatics muttering doomsday prophecies: the world made new as the wicked are destroyed and the faithful rewarded. I will not be part of your apocalypse.”
Ninurta frowned and stroked his beard thoughtfully.
“If apocalypse is what I bring, then you will be bound up in it, like it or not.” A genial grin lit his face. “But you mustn't take those poor souls too seriously. They’re pawns, not princes. It is their place to serve, and be sacrificed for the good of better men.”
Now it was my time to smile, grim and hard to match my voice.
“And that right there, is why my answer is never. They aren’t pawns to be cast aside, but people who need to be protected.”
The skies shivered as rivers of lightning coursed searing tracks overhead. Something hard and ugly appeared in the king’s gaze before it sank deep into eyes growing watery with sad resignation.
“I hoped this wouldn’t happen.” He got up and walked toward his throne, his movements weary, as though bearing a heavy burden. “I’d hoped that whatever had made me had resurfaced in you.”
He settled into place with a ponderous elegance. Even knowing what he was, he looked noble, as though stoically shouldering the weight of ruling on his broad, sculpted shoulders.
“I had expectations, but I will wait a little longer for one who has awoken to the same truth I have.”
The spell broke on the word ‘truth’. He really saw himself as the tragic hero, and somehow knowing that fractured whatever glamour he’d woven over me. He was a self-pitying monster, no matter how he dressed it up.
My lip curled. “You’re breaking my heart, but if it means you’re going to crawl back into your metal box and sleep another few millennia, then I’m all for it.”
Ninurta stared at me for a few heartbeats, and I looked right back, my chin thrust out. I’d chosen defiance and I would give it my all.
Something passed between us that told me he knew what I’d seen. His wickedness, his selfishness, his madness.
“There is no turning back after this,” he said. “Once I end this dream, there will be no conversation, no parley, no second chances.” His voice grew colder, sharper with every syllable.
“Promise?” I asked in an exaggeratedly hopeful voice. “Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Very well.” He looked down his nose, not amused. “Ibukun Bashir, once the bright hope of a degenerate generation, I declare you my enemy and unworthy of the blood you carry in your veins. I shall come for you. I will not suffer the insult of my children’s defiance.”
Ninurta gave a dismissive flick of his hand.
“Take her from my presence.”
Hard hands grabbed my arms and hauled me backward. More gripped my throat, my legs, and my waist. My first instinct was to scream in outrage, but I reminded myself this was a dream. You can’t hurt me. This is a dream. Only a dream. My mind whispered reminders to my heart to keep it from pounding itself into a panic. The murky-faced figures in the innermost ring carried me away from the throne, and I let them, focusing on keeping the fear they wanted to incite at bay.
They dragged me closer to the next circle where they squeezed and wrenched at my limbs and body, passing me to the hands of the next ring. My world became a suffocating tide of rough fingered and sharp nailed hands, dragging me away in the cruellest way possible, away from the throne and toward the ziggurat’s edge.
With the surety of a dream I knew what they intended, and just as surely, I surrendered to the oppressive current.
It is just a dream.
That became my mantra…until I was plummeting, screaming, toward the shadow-swathed city below.
Twelve
A churning, humming sound grated on my frayed nerves but the hands were still there, though perhaps not as many. I loosed an enraged scream.
“Get off me!”
“For god’s sake, hold ’er down!”
The grips tightened, but so did my resolve to escape.
The world was a blur of colours that didn’t make sense, but I sensed open space to my right and hurled myself toward it.
Profanity-laden cries erupted. Hands lost their grip, and my feet hit solid ground. I shrieked a defiant victory, dragging those I couldn’t twist away from as I tried to run.
“Ibby, please stop!”
I knew that voice, but when massive arms wrapped around my body, engulfing me until I was sure I would be crushed to death, the primal will to fight, to escape, to survive, overcame me. I heard grunts of pain as I fought, but the grip held.
Eventually I collapsed, exhausted, my rage expired. The forced embrace didn’t withdraw, but as my legs gave way I was lowered into a sitting position. By degrees the arms loosened, slabs of muscle slowly relaxing. As the constricting force lessened, the fog of the nightmare and claustrophobia dissipated. The world began to make sense again.
I was high up, overlooking London. The sky was indigo with bands of violet and the city glittered with a million lights. A second longer and I recognised the whirring sound, now slowing and fading: as helicopter blades. Understanding crashed over me. The dream was over. I was still alive. I was seated on the rooftop helipad of The Nakesh Corporation building, less than a metre from the edge.
I shuddered at what had almost happened – my dream becoming reality – and unconsciously pressed myself against the broad chest that braced me.
“Can I let go now?” Marcus’s voice was breathy from his exertions. “Or are you going to go mad again?”
“I think I’m good,” I whispered, “but that doesn’t mean you should let go.”
The second he let go, everything would come crashing back in and a new kind of madness would take hold. What had I done, defying such a force as Ninurta? Even taunting him. Had I gone momentarily nuts insid
e that dream? It was like I’d had a death-wish. Strangely, I was more afraid now than when I had been inside that nightmarish dreamscape.
“Okay,” he whispered back and pulled me in closer. “Have it your way.”
The wind was cold, but Marcus was warm against me. He shifted his position and slid his thick legs slid alongside mine, a protective shield. I rested my head against his chest and savoured the steadying rhythm of his breathing.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked after a long while and our hearts returned to a normal rhythm.
“I met Ninurta,” I croaked, licking at dry lips.
Marcus tensed, but to his credit he waited, letting me share in my own time.
“He pulled me into a dream. One he created with his mind, but it was so real, Marcus. Full of zombie Inconquo worshipping him.” I shuddered with disgust.
“That sounds … terrifying.” Marcus slid his hand up and down my arm in soothing strokes. “Why did he bring you there?”
“To recruit me.”
The city lights blurred into a kaleidoscope of dancing glows.
“He thought I’d be tempted to join his legion of doom as queen of his new world order.” I could hardly say the words without nausea closing off the back of my throat.
Marcus took in a heavy breath and then let it out slowly.
“Then he really doesn’t know you. Such goodness as you have is foreign to him.” He kissed the side of my head.
Love surged through my heart for the man cradling me, his utter faith that I would do the right thing. Mingled with that affection was a touch of shame and I let out a long exhale, feeling my heart throb. Could I ever fully be who my sweetheart thought I was? I hadn’t the heart to tell him that I had in fact been momentarily tempted, even if I had been in a trance.
“I hope you told him where he could stick his offer.” Marcus chuckled: a warm, buttery sound that made me want to melt in his arms and be cradled there forever.
I nodded against him and he kissed my cheekbone.