“Namtar, Tiamba, hold him down,” Sereb-Meloch said. “It is time we rid ourselves of this unholy vermin.”
The two Girtablilu lumbered over to King. Three legs from each monster lifted and settled down on each of King’s limbs and his torso, pinning him down to the slab. The scorpion men each looked down at their prey, but the animosity they’d shown before was completely gone. In its place, King could detect nothing but sadness.
As Zaidu dusted himself off and retrieved the heavy axe, Tiamba leaned its massive head closer and sniffed at King’s battered body. It was the second time the creature had done that. The first had been when he’d first encountered them on Mount Mashu. Namtar followed his brother’s example, leaned in and joined in the strange sniffing ritual.
“My lord, what exactly are those beasts doing?” Zaidu asked Sereb-Meloch, as he approached the slab.
“I imagine they are saying farewell to their last great hope,” the priest replied.
Though dangerously close to delirium from pain, King puzzled over that last remark. ‘Rebellion now’? ‘Last hope’? Were these creatures being used against their will?
As if answering his unspoken question, Tiamba reared back. With a sound reminiscent of a lobster shell cracking, the creature’s chest plates began to separate. Everyone’s eyes grew locked on the scorpion man, as the plates spread farther apart. Two tiny, human-like arms extended from the crack. Underdeveloped, three fingered hands held something within their grip. Slowly, Tiamba lowered itself down and placed the object on King’s heaving chest. King tried to see what the object was, but he couldn’t even manage to lift his head. He clutched the object tightly and tried to bring it up to his face, but he simply didn’t have the strength. The only thing he knew for certain was that it was flat, round and made of a shining, reflective metal of some sort.
“What is that? What are you giving him?” Sereb-Meloch demanded. Worry dripped with each word from the priest’s mouth. But the moment the priest moved closer to investigate, Namtar whirled on him with a sharp hiss.
“It will make no difference, beasts!” the priest said. “He will be dead soon enough. And your trinket will be incinerated with him.”
Satisfied that no one would make a move for the object again, Namtar returned to his vigil over King’s pain-wracked form. Once the two creatures’ full attention was again completely on him, they both leaned closer.
“KKKIIIIIINNNNNGGGG!” they hissed in unison.
King’s heart skipped at the sound. There it was again. No mistake this time. They’d called him by his callsign. But how is that possible? What is going on?
“Enough of this!” Sereb-Meloch’s shout pulled him back to reality. “Zaidu, end this now.”
Without another word, the mercenary captain stepped forward. He eyed the Girtablilu warily, but stood his ground nonetheless. When they failed to prevent him from approaching, he raised the axe over his head and brought it down in one clean sweep. King’s hands still gripped the strange Giltablilu object, as his head rolled to the left, off the stone slab and onto the dry, barren earth.
15
The darkness was everywhere. It was everything. It encompassed the entire world with its thick ebony silk. There was nothing else. No air or gravity or even earth. The darkness was complete. It was eternity, and King found that he really didn’t mind.
There was a certain kind of peace to it. The weight of all he’d been through had suddenly been ripped from existence, and there was a cold comfort to that. A finality that lifted the burden of the world off Atlas’s shoulders.
Since being tricked by Alexander those many years before, King had died and been revived countless times. Death had become such a part of his life, he’d long since learned to deal with the mental scars it left behind each time.
But this was different. Never before had he been aware of his death after the fact. Never had his conscious mind worked while his body lay dormant. It had always seemed like sleep. He’d drift off, only to awaken sometime later, refreshed and ready for another fight. This death, however, was like none he’d experienced before. His awareness of the darkness was proof enough of that.
He tried to remember what had led him to this point, but nothing was there. Tried to remember his past, but only brief flashes illuminated his mind’s eye. A girlfriend—no, a fiancée. He had a fiancée now. A daughter too. He knew he had a daughter. Knew he loved her more than anything in the world, but for some reason he couldn’t remember her name. And his team. He belonged to some sort of team, but their names and their purpose eluded him.
Oddly, only two names remained clear in the darkness of his death. Alexander. Or was it Hercules? After an eternity of pondering that question, King decided it didn’t matter. The only name that mattered now would have turned his blood to boiling magma, if he still had blood to boil.
The second name was Ridley. An enemy. More than an enemy, in fact. King felt in his gut that no longer existed that there were few men, if any, that he could truly say he hated. But the man called Ridley would have qualified. King was certain of it. But that wasn’t why the man’s name sprang to mind here in the netherworld...in the darkness of his own death. There was something very important about that name. Something pertinent to his current predicament. Something essential that he needed to remember.
A sudden flash of white hot bronze blazed across his field of vision. Fire burned at his neck. His throat. His brain screamed silently, as a thick, metal axe head slammed down on his ethereal neck, splitting him in two.
What had the tall, lanky man said he would do? Cut off his head...and then what?
Ridley’s name came to mind again. That infernal, cursed name. He’d been like King. Only different. Twisted. Corrupt. Not just where it truly mattered...not just in the soul...but corrupted bodily as well. Yes, like King, Ridley had been able to die and return. Often. As a matter of fact, King had killed him on more than one occasion. Gruesomely, if memory served. And still, the man continued to come back.
Perhaps King was mistaken. Perhaps the darkness was playing tricks on him. Messing with his mind. His memories. Maybe King only fantasized about the horrible ways in which he’d caused the man named Ridley to die. It had been so long ago, after all. An eternity. Or was it only two hundred years or so? Time meant nothing in the darkness.
There must be a reason the man’s name kept creeping into King’s consciousness. A reason such a vile memory was attempting to reach the surface of the deep pool in his mind. After all, he’d much rather be thinking of his daughter. Or the woman he loved. What a travesty that he could not recall their names, but Ridley was forever etched into his soul.
Why is that? he wondered.
His subconscious screamed the answer at him. No matter how brutally ravaged the man called Ridley had been in the past, he’d always pulled through. Something like decapitation was nothing to him, so why would it be a problem for King, who’d been blessed with the pure elixir that Ridley had struggled to halfway emulate in life?
Another image. A blinding, searing flare of intense light blazed against his lidless disembodied eyes. The light invaded the wondrous darkness, burning. Biting and licking. The heat sweltered and stung. He felt it tearing into the flesh he knew he no longer possessed. Felt his limbs blister and melt, pouring off of a slab of stone like grease from a George Foreman grill.
The tall, lanky man had said something else. What was it? He would sever King’s head from his body, and then to ensure he’d never return, he would...
What would he do?
Suddenly, King’s eyes snapped open. They stared straight ahead into his own immolated torso. Flames danced all around him, burning his flesh into smoldering ruin. He tried to scream, but he had no more voice. How could he? His head had been removed from the rest of his body. No air could stimulate his vocal cords to elicit any sound. And still, the monstrous flames lapped at him with unforgiving teeth.
His boiling eyes watched in horror, as the skin of his chest blister
ed and cracked. Charred black. The epidermis split, revealing tender red meat, as his body broiled in the open flame. All the while, King could feel every cell—every atom—in his body screaming for mercy from the unforgiving fire.
Then, before he knew what was happening, something yanked him from the flames. First his head. Then, the rest of his body was heaved off the stone slab and onto the dirt. Smoke obscured his vision, making it impossible to see what was happening or who had extricated him from the funeral pyre.
Suddenly, all was darkness again, and King wondered whether he’d succumbed once more to the blackness of death. But there were other sensations in this darkness that quickly negated that theory. There was a course roughness of the darkness against his face. A harsh pain as the darkness lifted and came down upon him again. Someone was using a horse blanket to smother the flames. The agony was beginning to subside, though his face and body still smoldered in char and ash.
After an inestimable amount of time, the blanket was pulled aside and a lean, hunched figure knelt down beside him. The figure was mumbling something, but King couldn’t make out what was being said. Then, mercifully, King closed his eyes, and all was darkness once more.
16
“Don’t try to move,” said a voice from somewhere in the distance. King heard it clearly, but it sounded far away and irrelevant to the excruciating agony that tore through his body. Disobeying the unbidden command, he tried to sit up, only to be rewarded with a horrid crunching sound and a sliver of torment unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
He screamed, then felt a moist cloth come down across his forehead. “I warned you not to move,” the voice said. “Your body is still pretty charred. You have lost most of the fingers on your left hand and the entire lower arm on the right. If you try sitting up like that again, something else is bound to fall off. So lay still.”
King tried to open his eyes, but the lids were so stiff, like a wall of granite had suddenly materialized to replace them.
“Wh-who ah you?” he croaked. His throat was parched. Not enough moisture to form the words correctly.
His savior chuckled. “Already forgotten about me, eh? The Lion’s Den? That writing on a wall, you mentioned?”
Daniel. It was Daniel. He’d survived the attack by Sereb-Meloch’s men. Silently, King thanked whatever God the man worshipped for the not-so-small miracle.
“H-how b-bad?” he asked, giving up on trying to open his eyes.
Though the pain was still intense in certain places, most of his body felt numb. Of course, that made sense, considering the majority of his nerves would have been burnt to cinders. No, the pain would come later...as his body continued the process of regeneration.
“Just a moment,” Daniel said. “First, let us see if we can get some water down that throat of yours.”
King felt a small trickle of something cool and wet slap against his lips. He imagined the old man hovering over him, wringing a wet cloth to allow the water to drip into his partially opened mouth.
After a few seconds of the cool relief, he heard the old man sigh. “That should help some,” he said. “But then, in all my years, I have never seen anyone quite like you before, have I? I believed you were dead when I found the pyre. I mean, in my visions of you, I had seen you die—a number of times, in fact—and seen you come back to life, though I never imagined that to be taken literally. As I approached the fire though, I heard your screams.” He chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. “Imagine my surprise when I reached in and pulled out your severed head...your mouth still open and still silently screaming like a lost soul in the pit of Sheol.
“I managed to get the rest of you out of the blaze, and the strangest thing started happening...”
King didn’t need to listen to what happened next. He knew all too well. His head and torso had been placed close enough together that tissue, veins, arteries and tendons would have begun to grow. They would have extended out, sweeping the ground like unholy tentacles searching for their mates. Eventually, these tendrils would have connected. Bonded. Then, they would have retracted, pulling King’s head toward its proper place, where the rest of his body would begin the arduous process of knitting it back together. He’d seen his teammate, Bishop, go through similar trauma before. He knew all too well what the old prophet would have seen.
The fact that Daniel hadn’t thrown him right back into the fire for possessing demonic powers was a testament to the man’s wisdom. Or, at the very least, his mercy. King wasn’t sure how he would have responded to such a horror, if the roles had been reversed.
“...so, as I said, I am a little out of my realm of knowledge here, but your body does seem to be healing. Rather rapidly too. Those fingers I told you about? I can already see new ones forming. Your right arm has grown nearly two inches since I mentioned it. Patches of skin are flaking away to reveal new, raw flesh underneath. If I had to guess, I would say you will be back as good as new by this time tomorrow.”
Once again, King attempted to open his eyes. This time, the resistance was minimal, and he managed to peer through tiny slits to see a blurry vision of the old man huddled beside him. Concern was etched on the prophet’s face, but his eyes betrayed a sense of wonder and hope.
King looked around. From what he could see through his horribly dehydrated eyes, they were in a cave. A campfire burned in the center of the chamber, illuminating the space with a warm, orange light.
“D-don’t have a d-day,” King rasped. “The prince n-needs me.”
“The prince will be fine for the time being,” Daniel said. “The journey to Eridu on foot is another five days march. Sereb-Meloch will not harm the boy until they get to the tomb. And I have horses. They can get you there in under three days. You need to rest now. Let your body do whatever magic it does to make you well.”
Daniel reached down, dipped a cloth into a hollowed out piece of tree bark filled with water, and brought the rag up to King’s lips. “Here, have some more.” King parted his lips a little farther apart and allowed a few moist drops of heaven to glide down his throat. “Now rest. Let your body heal. We will be on the road to help our young charge this time tomorrow.”
King wanted to protest. Wanted to argue. But his body refused to cooperate. It demanded sleep, and there was nothing he could do to deny it that. Soon, after tasting a few more drops of the cool water, he let himself slip off into a dreamless sleep.
17
When King awoke the next day, his body was almost entirely regenerated. Well, perhaps that’s not the best word, he thought. More like mobile. Useable. He still wasn’t entirely sure how the healing process worked or why it took longer for some injuries to repair than others. Daniel had insisted that the healing had accelerated even more than normal, because the prophet had spent the entire night in earnest prayer over him. King wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but he couldn’t argue with the results.
He stood by his horse, packing their meager supplies in a leather bag, which he then slung over the nag. His skin was still pretty charred. Blackened. Though flakes of ash and soot continued to crumble away with every movement to reveal tender, fresh skin beneath. He had no idea what his face looked like, but he could imagine it would have been striking to anyone who saw him.
“What is your plan?” Daniel asked, handing him a bladder of water for the journey.
“Ride as fast and as hard as she’ll carry me.” King nodded to the horse. “Then get the prince out of harm’s way and bring down the wrath of God on Sereb-Meloch’s head.”
King ground his brittle, charred teeth at the mention of the name. Yes, he’d been through a lot in the two hundred years he’d lived in the past. He’d suffered plenty of injuries. Plenty of deaths. But none had been quite like this. Immolation was a horrible way to be killed, especially when you don’t die easily. He wasn’t certain it was an experience he could just brush aside like he’d done in the past. It would stay with him. Haunt his dreams. Scar his psyche in ways he couldn’t
possibly imagine. And although there was nothing he could do about that, he could certainly keep his promise to the damned high priest. He’d be sure the bastard knew exactly what King had endured by his hand.
“May I present to you another option?” Daniel asked.
King turned to him, convinced he didn’t want to hear this alternative. If it kept him one second longer from saving the boy and exacting his revenge against the priest, he was certain of it. But one look in the old man’s determined eyes told him he should listen.
Daniel held out his hand. He was holding an object wrapped in an ash-covered cloth. King took it and peeled back the rag to reveal a strange, round disc about three inches in diameter and a quarter of an inch thick. The disc looked golden at first, but as he moved it in the light of the sun, it changed colors: gold, green, blue, yellow, red and a mixture of them all, depending on where the light hit it. If King didn’t know better, he’d almost believe the metal of the disc was holographic, though there was no discernable image on its surface as far as he could tell. The metal it was made of was also completely foreign to him. King was no metallurgist, but he was certain the material wasn’t made of any naturally occurring substance. He wasn’t even sure it was made from anything on earth.
“This is what the Girtablilu gave me just before...” King trailed off, reluctant to relive the experience of the past twenty-four hours. Instead, he held the disc up into the light. There was some sort of strange writing on it, but the language was unfamiliar to him as well. “What is it?”
The old man shrugged. “I am uncertain. But I believe it is important. There was a reason those creatures wanted you to have it.” Daniel held out his hand, silently asking for the disc back. When King complied, the old prophet looked up at him with deep, sad eyes. “There is more to the Girtablilu than anyone knows. A story of slavery and despair. I believe I am one of the few who know of it, and that is only because it was revealed to me in a dream I had years ago, when an Assyrian general threatened Babylon.
Jack Sigler Continuum 1: Guardian Page 8