Palqui embraced Shatru and his wife. The other two couples seemed frightened of him at first, but when Lomina went before her husband to greet them, and held his hand, their fear settled into a quiet respect.
“I have found Zuisudra at Shurrupak.” Palqui explained. “My wife is Lomina, and the young man is Yoktan, my brother. The older man is Nephthal, a son of Father Cham. Eya blesses you all.” Palqui had decided that using the name Eya was better than trying to pronounce the Divine Name, only to have it come out something like Huwawa.
Shatru’s wife smiled the smile that had once calmed Palqui’s terrors. “You stay with us many days.”
Palqui exchanged glances with Nephthal, and said, “Three days we can. We must gather food for Zuisudra.”
Shatru laughed, “Oh, nothing fearings, good Eya-man! We send you with big basket of smoke-dried fishes. Good with old beer.”
Palqui nodded and smiled.
Shatru called for the two young men of Isin to light the cooking fires, while Nephthal and Yokti went to see if they could add some game to the feast. Eya blessed them with a young boar.
111
The two weeks it took for the Sun Ships to reach the ruined foundry at Bad-Tibira, had reduced Haviri to commanding plague ships, choked with the fevered insane. If the boat crews from Surupag had not already recovered as much as they would from the Madness, all three vessels would have become derelicts. Unfortunately, most of them had not been Sun Ship mariners. They could barely work the machinery, and were hard to train with their reduced attention spans. Except for Malaq, who had not been a helmsman, only Haviri could skillfully handle the wheel and throttle levers aboard the Iyared.
The sight that met their eyes, as they rounded the half-submerged foundry, made Haviri increase his screw revolutions to two-thirds speed—far too hazardous a rate for so narrow a channel with many bends and obstacles.
A pile of gray, partially dismembered corpses sat on the quay of the ruined settlement, most with skulls caved-in by some form of blunt weapon. Naked men, women, and children squatted around the dead, smeared in blood, gorging themselves on bodies already beginning to putrefy.
Malaq burst through the wheelhouse hatch from below decks. “Captain, the speed! It’s too…” his sentence trailed off when he saw what Haviri did. Three filthy children played “Lugal of the Mountain” on the corpse heap, laughing in the morning sun, as they stepped on blank-staring dead faces.
Objects began to splash in the river all around the ship. For a second, Haviri thought the feral ones in Bad-Tibira’s ruins had started throwing large stones at them. Then he saw that several of the fevered crew had leapt over the side to swim, howling, to the horror on the shore.
The other two ships also increased speed once their helmsmen saw what waited on the quay. Haviri watched helplessly as former Sun Ship crewmen, the best and brightest of their generation, tore their clothes off, and went after some of the women feeding on the corpses. They began to feast with them.
“What have they become?” Malaq asked, slumping against the bulkhead. “What will we become?”
Haviri shook his head. “Mother T’Qinna said the Plague removed inhibitions. But who could be tempted to live like this?”
Malaq stared at the dead pile. His words echoed from the darkest part of night, where both light and blood shone gray. “Nightmares are dreams where we terrify ourselves by doing the unthinkable in our sleep—things we would never want to do in the waking world. Perhaps they cannot tell reality from the nightmare anymore. Perhaps reality for them is the nightmare.”
Haviri kept glancing ahead at the river, but could not resist looking back. “How many of our men went over; did you see?”
“Maybe twenty or thirty, combined, from all three ships; E’Yahavah help them, and us!” Malaq answered.
Once well beyond Bad-Tibira, the ships returned to their safe channel speed. It never seriously occurred to Haviri to stop and rescue those who had leapt overboard. What could he do for them? Even Mother T’Qinna had called Father Khumi’s men to drive away the feral ones, who grunted only like animals, and defecated wherever the urge hit them. They had not been even a tenth of her patients, but there had been enough of them.
A few days later, Haviri steered Iyared toward the strand at Surupag. The place seemed deserted from the river, which told him that the army sent to take Kish had not yet returned. He wondered what had happened to Mother T’Qinna, and worried for the first time since leaving the Narrows what he would do with the fever victims who had until so recently been sailors waiting to greet families they had not seen in nearly a generation.
Knowing the other two vessels had less experienced pilots, Haviri moved upstream, past the strand, and allowed Q’Enukki and Sa-utar to drop anchor by the easier-to-navigate moorings. Only when Iyared slid by the palace landing did he realize something was wrong.
The Plague-struck still fouled the decks of all three ships, many of them beginning to move past the high fever stage, to needing full-time guards to keep them from mucking with operations. This stretched the exhausted fishing boat crews past their abilities. It also explained why only Haviri saw the hail of javelins explode from the greenery above the strand, when he glanced back to see if the other two ships had properly dropped anchor. Priceless crystal wheelhouse domes shattered as men with grappling hooks broke from their leafy cover, and soon had the rear two ships snared.
Haviri again opened the throttle.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Father Khumi run from the palace, waving for him to increase speed. An arrow fired from the building took Khumi down before he could make the water.
Haviri steered out into the channel at flank speed.
112
Ninurta’s force of about a hundred bowmen and macers had taken down Khumi’s guard of less than fifteen men from the greenery cover before anyone knew Surupag was under attack.
That was yesterday.
Tiva now nursed her husband’s shoulder while they waited to be marched aboard one of the captured Sun Ships. The arrow hit Khumi from behind; fortunately stopped by his shoulder blade. He was conscious; she had gotten to him quickly enough to stanch the bleeding and bind it up. Many of his men were not so fortunate. Misori’Ra had managed to escape into the green after the surrounding forces cut him off from camp. At least Tiva hoped he had escaped. He was not among the dead and injured.
Aboard the captured Sun Ships, the fugitives from Kish put what appeared to be boatloads of Madness Plague victims ashore, where Ninurta allowed Ereshkigal, Arrafu, and Palqui’s mother to tend them, along with the wounded of Surupag he apparently intended to leave behind. Most Plague victims wandered off into the woods, and Ninurta’s men made no effort to stop them. Nor would he permit any of the Surupag caregivers to do so.
P’Tah-Tahut ordered Tiva, Khumi, and Pahpi Nu sequestered from Arrafu and the others. He told Tiva that if she treated Ninurta’s injured also, she could keep her husband and the Zhui’Sudra with her. The attackers from Kish had few wounded, except a mace trauma and a couple arrow hits.
Pahpi Nu was too weak to be of much use, but she heard him whispering prayers under his breath, and that lifted her spirits some. She had overheard P’Tah-Tahut suggest that they bring the Zhui’Sudra and Khumi to Uruk as hostages. Tiva knew Pahpi Nu would not likely survive the trip.
P’Tah-Tahut had spotted the masts on the river in plenty of time to set up his ambush, before the taking of the Sun Ships. It seemed that he and Ninurta had planned their escape from Kish carefully, and had stocked their boats with every weapon they might need—including grappling hooks, for boarding any hapless boat unlucky enough to be on the rivers between Kish and Uruk.
Khumi had dashed for the river to warn them off before Tiva could stop him. At least one ship escaped; apparently Haviri’s, since she had not seen him or his body taken ashore.
Her husband turned to look up at her, his head down in her lap as she checked his dressings. He said, “I love you, you know.”
“Be quiet, my stupid Fire-sprite. Save your strength.”
They sat under guard on a small patch of grass overlooking the strand, while Ninurta’s men rousted the last of the sick overboard.
Only once aboard the ship commanded by P’Tah-Tahut, and headed downstream, did the enormity of events hit Tiva.
Tahut ordered the hostages kept below decks, even though the men were in no condition to jump ship, and he must have known that Tiva would never leave them. The air reeked of sailor sweat and a salty stuffiness.
She fought to keep her mind focused on E’Yahavah, but found it impossible, except for sporadic bursts. Tiva set her face, however, and refused to show the despair that burrowed like worms through her heart. Her men needed her, and she was not about to give those sons and grandsons, who should have been her men, the satisfaction of watching her break down.
Several hours after the guards locked them below, Khumi slept as deeply as Pahpi Nu. Only then did Tiva allow a few silent tears.
She whispered to herself, “E’Yahavah has not deserted us! But, I’m sorry, that just feels like a cold intellectual thesis.”
That musty below decks cabin was where the voice of Pahn chose to strike. “A cold, intellectual thesis; hardly the fullness of joy and power you were led to expect. What proofs support your ‘thesis’—oh that’s a ‘T’Qinna word’ isn’t it—thesis? You never used such big words back in the good old days at Grove Hollow, Tiva. Why do you want so much to be like T’Qinna that you parrot even her words? Oh, I get it; now that T’Qinna has deserted you all, too, you feel like you need to be T’Qinna for everyone who’s left, don’t you? But how long can you keep that up?”
“Shut up, you lying bastard!”
Khumi stirred. “I wasn’t talking.”
Tiva almost bawled. Instead, she mumbled, “You’re not a lying bastard,” and tapped his forehead with two of her fingers as a gentle smack.
He smiled his best fire-sprite smile. “Pahpi’s asleep, and I’m the only other person in the cabin.”
She didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want him burdened, but the words popped out before she could stop them. “Pahn’s back—at least, maybe, I keep imagining he is.”
He reached up with his good arm and touched her cheek. “That’s crazy. But then again, what isn’t?”
Tiva clutched his head and kissed him. Then she said, “Though I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“From now on, and forever, girl,” he said, winking at her in the growing darkness.
113
U’Sumi first saw the masts when his horse turned a bend on the broken Delta Road just north of the new Isin Channel carved by the Big Wave. He kicked his and T’Qinna’s mount to a gallop to clear the greenery, when the sun sparkled off the black sun sail facets.
The ship looked derelict, until closing distance revealed the men sitting idly on its main deck, behind the obstructing prow. The glyph canvas hung over the joined bundles of kapar-shelled reeds told him it was the Iyared Salaamis.
He kicked his mount even harder at the realization that something was dreadfully wrong. Once in earshot, he called out to the men on deck.
“Hail Iyared, what news?”
A familiar, wiry figure stepped from the wheelhouse. Haviri seemed gaunt and sickly. His voice trembled, “I left her again—Hazurada, my wife—I just up and left her again!”
He looked like he hadn’t slept in over a week.
U’Sumi brought his horse to a halt as near to the ship as possible, heart wilting inside. A swath of intertwined tree trunks stuck in a sandbar obstructed the vessel’s way north.
“What happened?”
Haviri sat down under the rail, and dangled his feet over the protruding deck platform. “Surupag has been taken by enemies—perhaps an army from Uruk. The Q’Enukki and Sa-utar are in enemy hands. Not only that, but the Madness Plague struck all three ships, starting the day we left the signal fire camp at the Narrows. My men and I must have carried it. Captain’s Ludth and Europatha are captive at Surupag, and Tarsys is aboard with me, unable to speak a word anyone else can understand.”
U’Sumi and T’Qinna dismounted, stunned, and waded into the river. The main deck railing was just ten cubits from the bank. He climbed aboard, helping his wife up behind him, and then straightened his shoulders before he addressed Haviri again. “How large was the enemy force?”
Haviri shrugged. “I couldn’t see. They hid in the green. Father Khumi fell to an arrow as he broke from cover to warn me off the bank. I was the most experienced pilot, so I pulled upstream to let the other two vessels have the strand moorings. Only then did I see what was happening.”
U’Sumi embraced his descendant and told him, “You did what any sensible man would have; you got your ship to safety to warn us. Now we won’t walk into an ambush. We’ll retake Surupag, and rescue Hazurada. I don’t think Lugalbanda would have come north to engage us yet. Ninurta escaped Kish downriver, with only about a hundred men. We have ten times that number.”
At that moment, Iyapeti and his vanguard rode into view.
Haviri did not seem encouraged. “Then Ninurta has taken the two prize ships south to Uruk by now. He would not try to defend Surupag against your numbers. He now has hostages.”
U’Sumi had hoped the Captain would not think of that, and take some temporary morale boost. “You’re probably right. Let’s go rescue them.”
114
It took longer to reach Uruk than P’Tah-Tahut anticipated. The Sun Ships did not appear to have had proper maintenance in quite some time, and the grinding motors on Ninurta’s ship soon seized. In the end, they had to drift downstream, relying on polers to fend off the riverbanks. Tahut’s vessel had intermittent power, but the connections between the sun sails and the quickfire cells were erratic. The ship was slowly dying, the last of her kind.
They would need outfitting for wind sails at Uruk—full wind sails, instead of the half-measure rigging that sun sails used, under the assumption that quickfire power could get them out of any real mess. Tahut made a note of it to take up with both Ninurta and the Lugalbanda.
A week after leaving Surupag, the ships drifted into Uruk Haven, which had a new boatyard on the tongue of land where two channels met. He saw the imposing form of Kengu on the bank, waiting, while the two ships dropped anchor. Something about him seemed most unlike the Vizier’s old friend, perhaps the way he stood still as stone. Kengu had always been a bundle of energy, unable to remain stationary without shifting or shuffling.
Tahut had the hostages brought up from below and placed with him in the launch to go ashore. The ancient Zhui’Sudra seemed tired, but alert, as they lowered him into the boat by hoist.
The little man Tahut had called “Popo Khumi” as a small child seemed hardly worse off for his arrow wound, and climbed down the hull netting with one arm. He glared balefully up at P’Tah-Tahut in a way that made the Vizier extremely uncomfortable, despite having the upper hand in all ways that mattered. He had hoped that Khumi would understand their actions upon his return from exploring the southlands beyond the Great Yordaen Estuary. Something he did not like had changed his Grandfather.
Gram’Mo Tiva would not even look Tahut’s way.
The Vizier expected some part of his young friend Kengu to greet him. But Lugalbanda smiled at him like someone alien and aloof, when he pulled the small boat up onto the strand.
“Kengu?” The Vizier stammered, in spite of himself.
Lugalbanda chuckled. “Kengu doesn’t live here anymore.”
115
Tiva recognized those eyes instantly, and it was all she could do to keep from wailing and wetting herself. Somehow, E’Yahavah strengthened her just enough not to succumb to her most primal childhood terrors.
Lugalbanda reached for her hand to help her from the boat, but she snatched it away. He said, “Now, Tiva love, is that any way to treat an old friend and lover? You actually kissed me once, on the for
est trail near good old Grove Hollow. I really miss that place!”
Khumi held her, eyes perplexed at the mention of a location in a vanished world, which Tiva and he had never named to any of their children. He snapped, “Keep a civil tongue, boy! That’s your Great Mother!” It came out sounding like an adolescent squeak.
Lugalbanda ignored him, and looked instead to the Zhui’Sudra. “My, how times have changed! Not the war lion you were last time we faced off, are you, Old Man? Go ahead, command me to ‘get out of here,’ like you did last time! Won’t work, will it? There’s a new government upstairs. All that’s left is a stairway connecting the Heavens, Earth, and Under-world.”
Pahpi Nu just stumbled from the boat onto the muddy bank, and remained silent.
Lugalbanda made a move, as if he would shove Khumi away from Tiva, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, the hollowed-out giant that used to be Ninurta’s son said, “You know, Tiva, you used to be quite attractive, but you’ve really let yourself go. Now, you’re just a dumpy old woman. I think I’ll move on.”
He motioned a knit-browed P’Tah-Tahut to lead them up the Kulaba Hill toward the lavish “House of Heaven.”
Along the way, Lugalbanda continued to enjoy his little victory parade. “P’Tah-Tahut here doesn’t know who I am, but you can tell him, can’t you, Tiva? Tell him who I was to you.”
Tiva let Khumi lean on her, as the climb taxed his wound. She took her lead from A’Nu-Ahki, and kept silent.
“Tell him my name!” Lugalbanda demanded. His eyes bulged just as her father’s had, when she was small, whenever he got angry and beat her.
She said, “Tell him yourself!”
The dark giant raised his hand to strike Tiva, but again seemed to think better of it. He lowered his arm, and smiled. “No matter, woman; you know who I am, and that’s all that’s really important.”
Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven Page 35