Ark

by J. J. Wilder

  He stumbled and lurched to her side. “Don’t, please.” His voice was hoarse and rough. Blood dripped from his face onto the polished floor. “Whatever you’re about to do, don’t do it. I’ll be fine.”

  She looked down at him through tear-flooded golden eyes, shaking her head. A strand of auburn hair fell loose from the intricate bundle at the nape of her neck, and he reached up to tuck it behind her ear.

  “It is done, Japheth, and it cannot be undone.” Her gaze left his face, flickered to her father, standing behind Japheth like a mountain of anger and hatred, and then back to him.

  She kissed him, a slow, passionate farewell, a kiss deeper and more potent than any they had shared until that moment, a kiss tasting of citrus and garlic, sending a pang of realization through him that drowned out even his pain.

  Emmen-Utu grabbed him by the hair and ripped him away. “I’ll have his head yet, you stupid girl,” he snarled at Aresia. And then he turned to Japheth and kicked him to the floor. “Get you gone, worm, before I change my mind.”

  Japheth was lifted painfully to his feet by his hair and shoved toward the door. He stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself. At the threshold, he stopped, turned to look at Aresia once more; she had fallen to her knees, face to the floor, shoulders heaving. Japheth wanted to weep at the sight of her torment, and actually took a step back into the throne room, but Emmen-Utu hurled the spear at him, the spearhead burying in the wood door frame beside his face, the shaft shaking and thrumming and wavering side to side.

  The day beyond the palace walls was hot and dry, leaching what little strength Japheth had left. The king’s guards had given him a severe beating, pummeling him with fists and spear-butts and kicking him with boots; several ribs were cracked, causing sharp lances of pain with every breath and every step. He shuffled slowly away from the palace clutching his side and wanting to do nothing so much as storm back into palace and take Aresia for himself. Sense won out, however—he knew he wouldn’t get past the gate alive, and that would do Aresia no good.

  He had his small room, let to him by a kindly old man and his wife, candle-makers. He went there, step by dragging step, his thoughts on Aresia and her mysterious sacrifice. What had she done, and why? She was attracted to him, that much was obvious, but mere attraction couldn’t explain her actions. She had defied her father for him, had agreed to something she clearly feared more than death itself, all to save him from her father’s wrath; all this, and they barely knew each other.

  Japheth had no answers, but the churning in his gut told him he wouldn’t like the answers even if he had them. All he could do now was go home and recover.

  He was a warrior, and one of some reknown, even among the Nephilim, yet his life had been saved by a woman. A princess, to be sure, but still; her status was little comfort. Especially galling was the fact that he had no idea what she had agreed to in the name of preserving his life. Something horrible, something she feared down to her marrow. He could have done nothing to stop it, but he felt . . . emasculated. Worthless. His pain seemed a fitting price for his guilt.

  His room overlooked the main street, giving him a clear view of traffic entering and exiting the city by the main gate. For three days he sat at the window and stared out, lost in thought, despondent and hurting. His landlord’s wife had brought him several meals he’d forced himself to eat. The food was tasteless to him, ash in his mouth. The wine had gone down much easier—too well. One wineskin had led to two, and after two his despair had seemed insurmountable, an endless river flowing through his heart, drowning him from within. A third skin had lessened the pang of sorrow, and a fourth left him slumped in a kind of drifting peacefulness, which he knew deep inside was false. He didn’t care. The forgetting was his goal, and to that end he continued to drink until he felt nothing at all.

  A hand slapped him awake, shook him, jostled him, dragged him from his bed. He cracked an eye and saw a man standing over him, or was it three men? Japheth couldn’t tell and didn’t care. The spinning ceiling made his stomach lurch, and even with one eye closed he couldn’t make out the features of the person above him.

  “Get your drunk carcass off the floor, you lazy worm.” The gravelly voice, however, was unmistakable: Zidan, mercenary warrior, and Japheth’s only friend. “You’ve been moping about in here for a month, mooning after that Nephilim princess like a lovesick boy. It’s time to move on. She was never meant for the likes of you.”

  Japheth groaned, rubbed his eyes with his palms, struggled to sit up. “Go away, Zidan.”

  Zidan’s fist collided with Japheth’s jaw, not a full blow, just enough to hurt. “Be a man, Japheth. You can’t keep feeling sorry for yourself. What’s done is done, and you can’t undo it.” He paused for effect. “Aresia is already in Larsa.”

  That got Japheth’s attention. “Larsa? Why is she in Larsa?”

  “You don’t know?” Zidan sighed. “Well, I guess you may as well hear it from me rather than another—Aresia was married to Sin-Iddim.”

  Japheth reeled and fell back upon his bed. When he could speak again he said, “Sin-Iddim? Gods damn it all. Him? Of all the kings in Sumer, him?”

  “Listen,” Zidan began, “I know how you feel about him, but—”

  “No! You don’t know!” Japheth exploded, “You can’t know. You weren’t there, Zidan, remember? Gods damn it all! It was as if Ereshkigal himself had arisen from the underworld to devour us all. Sin-Iddim had been there in his chariot, commanding the forces from behind the battle lines. Never once did he get within a bow’s shot of the action but, by all the gods, his men chewed us up like gristle and spat us out. It wasn’t Emmen’s fault, I have to give him that, even much as I hate him, especially now. Our forces in the east were overrun, and suddenly, after hours of fighting, we were flanked—it was a slaughter. I remember the moment the Larsan warriors hit us. I heard the crash when the lines hit—you know the sound. Men meeting men, shield against shield, the screams of arms being crushed and legs getting snapped. Larsans, thousands of them, hitting us on the right flank, our weak side. That first clash took out hundreds, easily.”

  Japheth paused, remembering, and accepted a skin of water from Zidan, swigging, swishing, and spitting to clear his mouth of the taste of dust coating his tongue.

  “They didn’t kill us outright but captured us instead, at least a thousand of us. They marched us back to Larsa, tied neck to neck. Some they sold as slaves, others they kept and brought to the palace, and I was with the latter group. Sin-Iddim has a taste for torture, even worse than Emmen’s. Unlike our fair king, however, Sin-Iddim has the ability to keep them alive. Emmen gets greedy for the kill, so his victims never last long. Sin-Iddim? He’s patient and careful. And he likes boys as much as girls. He sodomized some of the male prisoners, right there in the throne room, in front of everyone.”

  Japheth halted, his throat dry, memories assaulting him. “I vowed to kill myself, or get myself killed before I let that happen to me. He took me from the bunch of prisoners and tortured me for several hours . . . perhaps longer, I don’t know. I thought for sure he was going to violate me as he had so many others, and I think he meant to, eventually, but Emmen’s messenger arrived before he could get to me. The king had bartered for us: two thousand slaves, a thousand oxen, and some gold for all of the prisoners taken in the battle.”

  Zidan interrupted, “Why would Emmen barter for a bunch of humans?”

  “There weren’t many other humans among the prisoners; it was mostly Nephilim. One of Emmen’s sons, Dummuzi, was among the prisoners, and he had to get him back without giving away the fact that he was there. No one had noticed, I guess, because it was Dummuzi’s first battle, so he hadn’t made a name for himself yet, not like Kichu or Algar. Dummuzi was one of the poor bastards Sin-Iddim sodomized, and the boy has never been stable since. It turned him nasty, that experience, and I don’t blame him.

  “That throne room was awful, Zidan. I thought perhaps I’d been killed after all and had be
en dragged down to Kur. Emmen keeps a clean court in comparison, I tell you. He kills and tortures, and perhaps tumbles a whore every now and then, but nothing like what went on in the court of Sin-Iddim. That demon sat on his throne the whole while, watching it happen and smiling like he found it delightful. I don’t know if Dummuzi ever told his father what happened—I’m not sure even Emmen would marry his daughter to that man if he knew what he was really like.”

  Zidan looked pale. “I . . . I had no idea, Japheth.”

  “I know you didn’t, Zidan. I don’t talk about it much, and now you know why. And you also know why I have to get her back, somehow.”

  “It’s impossible, Japheth. She’s a queen now. She’s out of your reach, and there’s nothing you can do.” Zidan hauled Japheth to his feet. “Listen, I’ve got some work lined up. Come with me, and I’ll share the profit with you. It’ll be easy—we’re escorting a fat old cloth-seller to Ur. We’ll break a few heads on the way, find some whores in Ur, and you’ll forget all about this fancy Nephilim girl. I promise you.”

  Japheth just laughed, a joyless bark of sarcasm. “Zidan, I’ll never forget her. I can’t. I’ve been trying.”

  “You’ve been drinking yourself into a stupor, you idiot. That’s not forgetting. The only way to forget a woman is to live on and find another.”

  “The wisdom of a lecher.”

  “But I’m never heartsick, am I? Now come on. Urugan is waiting.”

  Japheth hauled himself to his feet and followed after Zidan, his head throbbing and his heart cracked.

  Urugan the cloth-seller was the fattest, shortest man Japheth had ever seen. Barely five feet tall, he was almost completely spherical, tottering about on stubby little legs, waving pudgy arms with busy, gold-ringed fingers. Porcine eyes and fleshy lips gave him the impression of weak-minded stupidity, but Urugan was a wealthy cloth-merchant and anything but stupid. He sat in a little two-wheeled wagon pulled by four large, braying onagers, popping dates in his mouth and shouting for the caravan to move faster—the customers in Ur were waiting. Japheth plodded on foot next to Urugan’s wagon, listening to the sweaty little man babble; he kept up a nonstop prattle like a child, commenting on everything he saw, speaking every thought that entered his head, and if Japheth tried to so much as respond, Urugan would throw a date at him.

  Zidan had promised this trip would help him forget about Aresia but, so far, all it was doing was depressing him further. Mile after mile on foot, with nothing to do but think about her, remembering their nights together, remembering that last kiss, remembering the way she’d first approached him, swaying her hips, remembering the feel of her arms around him, her golden eyes inches from his as they moved together. Gods, the woman was beautiful . . . too beautiful for an ugly old sodomizing demon like Sin-Iddim. Too beautiful, too good, too kind. Sure she was a little arrogant, but what Nephilim wasn’t?

  Descended from angels, they claimed to be, and it was possible. Stronger and taller than humans, and longer-lived by far, they were assuredly other-than-human. They ruled the cities, dominated over humans, swaggered like gods and took what they wanted. Unstoppable in battle and brutal in everything they did, the Nephilim indeed seemed like angels made flesh, gods clothed in vileness and evil and selfish conceit. Noah, Japheth’s father, claimed that one day Elohim, The One God, would get sick of watching the sins of his once-perfect creation and wipe them all out. Japheth wasn’t sure he believed in Elohim any longer, but if He did exist, Japheth earnestly hoped He would wipe out the Nephilim.

  Ur was a huge, bustling place with a ziggurat on every corner, dedicated to every god, major and minor, that one could think of. Priests and acolytes shuffled by with their noses in the air, hands clasped importantly behind their backs, expressions of holiness and self-righteousness on their haughty faces. Worshippers ascended long stairways to the temple-tops, offering grain and gold and meat and slaves to the priests in return for blessings of a prosperous season or in propitiation for sins committed, or simply to appease the ever-hungry gods.

  Barely-clothed prostitutes swayed up and down the streets, making eyes at any male they saw, offering days and nights of endless pleasure, lifting skirts and pulling aside bodices to display their wares. Guards from the palace patrolled the streets, clashing and scuffling on occasion with temple guards and mercenaries like Zidan and Japheth.

  Every street was lined with sellers hawking wares of all kinds, as well as scholars offering to inscribe the customer’s name in cuneiform on clay tablets as protection against evil spirits. Japheth had been to other cities around Bad-Tibira, of course, but never as far south as Ur, which was by far the largest city he’d ever seen. It dwarfed Bad-Tibira easily, the walls rising up nearly twice the height and easily twice as thick—making Ur’s walls some thirty feet high and ten feet thick—enclosing a population thrice that of his home city.

  Japheth was jerked back to reality when Zidan smacked the back of his head, jolting his attention. “Pay attention, farm-boy,” he said. “We’ve got trouble.”

  Ahead, a troop of temple guards had spread across the road, blocking the way, weapons drawn. Only the royal guards wielded more power and authority than temple guards, who did the bidding of the high priests of the various temples. Temple priests were known in most cities to be brutal and ruthless; most people kept their heads down and prayed hard when temple guards were around, hoping to remain unnoticed.

  The lead guard, a massive Nephilim man with a long scar cutting through a thick beard, stepped forward when Urugan and the small band of humans halted.

  “Ereshkigal demands a sacrifice,” he barked.

  His golden glowing eyes scanned the knot of human mercenaries, flicking from one to the other, dismissing each in turn until his gaze settled on Japheth—on his pendant in particular. A cruel smirk twisted his features; he gestured with his spear, pointing at Japheth. “Him.”

  Before he could even move, the guards rushed Japheth and grabbed his arms, pinioning him between them. Wrestling his spear away, they forced him to his knees. One or two guards Japheth would have fought, but more than a dozen? And more but a shout away?

  “But sir, he is not—he is not a slave” Urugan protested, “He is a soldier, one of my loyal guards. Please, give me an hour, and I will personally bring a slave to the temple as sacrifice.”

  The guard only laughed. “You may bring another, if you wish. Unless you’re volunteering to take his place?”

  “No—no, sir. Please, take him,” Urugan wheedled.

  Japheth struggled in vain against the vise-like grip of the guards, and Zidan watched helplessly, not daring to speak up.

  His struggles only earned him a brutal blow to the kidney, which rendered Japheth limp and gasping, and from then on he quit struggling, and the guards let Japheth find his feet, guiding him none too gently toward the largest ziggurat in the city. Up a long ramp of stairs they marched him with rough spear-pricks to the back, and with every step the city fell farther away below him, and with it Japheth’s hope of getting away from Ur alive.

  They brought him into the temple itself, a squat block of stones and sunbaked mud bricks perched at the very top of the ziggurat. Within the ceilings were low and the walls close, the air choking with incense. There were no windows and only the one entrance, which was now a distant rectangle of light.

  Priests bustled to and fro within the temple, speaking and praying in low tones, swinging censers and murmuring and chanting; statues of the gods lined the walls, and at the farthest end of the temple stood a likeness of Enlil himself, standing some sixty feet tall and carved to look haughty and stern, one arm outstretched with the palm facing outward and down, as if gesturing for the worshippers to kneel down and pay obeisance. Indeed, when the priest caught Japheth staring, he struck him on the mouth with a fist, his ring ripping open Japheth’s lip.

  “Avert your eyes from the Lord Enlil!” the priest hissed. “Do not look upon the Lord of Heaven. You are not worthy.”

  Japhet
h cast his eyes down, as much to hide his rage as to obey the priest. He was led to a small doorway underneath the statue of Enlil and into a small room, barely more than a cell. There was a chair carved out of the stone of the floor itself. Japheth was thrust roughly into the chair, and chains were manacled to his wrists and appended to the walls so that his arms were stretched out wide, and another set bound his ankles to the legs of the chair.

  The guards left and stood outside the doorway to wait. After a few minutes of waiting, a priest entered, an aging man some four cubits tall—short by Nephilim male standards—with the natural brawn of his race but with a wide belly sagging over his belt. He had small, dark eyes glittering with malice, and he wore a sleeveless crimson robe held closed by wide leather belt, upon which was hung a long, curved iron dagger. The priest drew a dagger from his belt and stalked in a circle around Japheth, sharpening the blade on a small whetstone. He halted, leaning close to Japheth, and lifted the pendant off of Japheth’s chest with the tip of his knife.

  “You wear the name of the false god upon you, little human.” The priest spoke in a conversational tone, belying the dangerous zing of steel on stone, the threat of blood to be spilled.

  Japheth was beginning to think the pendant his mother had given him was more trouble than it was worth—he’d only insisted upon wearing it out of fondness for his mother, rather than out of any love for Elohim, his father’s One God. A few Nephilim gave him trouble about it every now and again, but never anything like this. First Emmen, now this priest . . . all for a god in whom Japheth wasn’t even sure he believed in any more. His mother would be hurt deeply if she knew he had taken it off, but it wasn’t worth dying over.

  “Take it,” Japheth said, offering it to him. “Take it, then.”

  “Ah, so quick to renounce your god, are you? It won’t be that easy. No indeed.” The priest tossed the pendant aside and then leaned over Japheth. Slowly he dragged the tip of the dagger through the meat of Japheth’s chest. Then, casually, he lifted the blade to his lips and licked the blood away with relish. “Where is your One God now? Can your petty Elohim save you now, little worm? No indeed.” The blade flicked out and the tip of Japheth’s ear lobe dropped to the floor. The priest picked it up and ate it, chewing slowly and watching Japheth’s reaction all the while.