To Ride the Gods’ Own Stallion

by Diane Lee Wilson

  Huge stone slabs began to crop up among the wind-whipped grasses, and first Ti, then Soulai, tripped. Other slabs joined these to form an unkempt roadway to Dur Sharrukin’s main gate, but when their footfalls on the stones brought no sentry’s call, Soulai’s suspicions deepened.

  The two great wooden doors at the main gate rotted on their posts. The one on the left, in fact, had partially pulled away and was hanging at such a precarious angle that Soulai was careful not to touch it as he peeked through the gap. “The whole city’s empty,” he said in amazement. “There’s no one here.”

  “Except the ghosts of the dead,” Habasle responded.

  Soulai turned. “What?”

  “Three kings and eighty years have passed since Sargon the Second built here. He died in battle before sleeping in his own palace—a bad omen. Thus, it’s been abandoned.” Habasle slid off Ti, obviously in great pain, for he held his side and sagged against the stallion. “I discovered it last year. And if you fancy your limbs, I’d move away from that left door.”

  Soulai sprang aside. Flushing, he searched his owner’s queer smile for a prank. Habasle snickered in an unnerving manner. “Naramsin, my servant at that time, uses his remaining arm to stir a pot in the kitchens. Try your luck at the other door.”

  By then Soulai would have settled for sleeping beneath the blackening winds, but he knew better than to ignore Habasle’s command. Holding his breath, he crept toward the right door and cautiously tested his shoulder against it. A menacing creak rasped the air and he closed his eyes and waited, but nothing fell. He pushed again, and gradually, amid more nerve-wracking creaks and scrapes, the door opened. Habasle shoved his way inside. Soulai coaxed Ti through the narrow entry and was almost trampled when the horse’s hip got caught against the door and another loud creak shot him forward in a frightened leap. Somehow the door stayed in place.

  “I want Annakum in here, too.”

  Reluctantly Soulai ducked back outside and scanned the dusky flatland. There was no sign of the mastiff. A section of grasses shivered with the passage of the wind. Or possibly a jackal. Or…Soulai shook away images of the uridimmu. He slipped through the entry again.

  Habasle was settling himself inside the gatehouse, a narrow, high-roofed building with two small rooms and stairs that climbed to a row of lookout windows. Glazed tiles in red and white and black formed a decorative band around the first room.

  “I don’t see Annakum,” Soulai began hesitantly. “But I think something’s wrong with him. I think he’s…gone mad or something.”

  “He’s not gone mad,” Habasle snapped. “He’s no doubt decided to keep guard outside the walls tonight. Close the gate, then, and keep Ti close.” The braided hobbles hit Soulai in the back as he headed out of the gatehouse. “And don’t bother with a fire; I’m burning already.”

  Soulai carefully shoved the gate to the city closed again and walked to where Ti was hungrily tearing at the dead grasses poking from a dirty trough. His back was hunched against the wind, his tail tucked between his legs. Sand had crusted the lashes around his eyes. Sheltering the stallion’s face as best he could, he guided him to a protected corner beside the gatehouse. As he bent to knot the hobbles around Ti’s ankles, he wondered why they were needed here within the city’s walls. Unless the walls had holes. It had been eighty years. Suddenly he wished for a fire, a big, crackling one. Wild animals wouldn’t approach a fire, would they? Not even mad dogs or lions.

  When he had removed the rug and bridle and rubbed the sweaty spots smooth, Soulai searched through the darkness for suitable forage. His heart thumped with every step. In a crack beside a wall he found a scrawny sapling and wrenched it from its hold. He carried it back to Ti, who eagerly began ripping the small leaves from the branches. It wasn’t nearly enough for the exhausted horse, and Soulai frowned with worry as he patted Ti on the neck and left him for the night.

  A dusty haze hid all but the brightest stars now, and a queer burnt smell filled the air. Jackals set up a howling chorus right outside the walls, making Soulai hurry into the gatehouse.

  Habasle was already asleep in the center of the first room, one arm bent under his head, the other wrapped around a pouch held close to his stomach. The way he’d drawn up his knees reminded Soulai of how his younger sisters slept.

  At least there’d be some peace, he thought, as he made his way to the near corner and sank to the floor. Never in his life had he been so tired. The musty green flavor of the river water rose to his throat and he fought back the urge to vomit again. Wearily he unfastened his sandals and poked at the liquid-filled blisters on his soles. While the air had cooled, a warmth still radiated from the clay tiles, and it soothed his aching legs.

  He was sitting there in the dark when a hideous camel spider as big as his hand darted past his feet. The hairy creature raced across the floor and right up and over Habasle’s arm to seize a scorpion that had been investigating the pouch. It disappeared just as quickly with its prey.

  Soulai’s empty stomach growled. Everyone was eating but him, and he began to wonder if there were more figs in Habasle’s pouch. He risked the loss of a hand if he was caught. Of course, he might be at risk just looking at the pouch. With his master in such a fevered state, who knew what could happen? He hugged his knees and stared at Habasle. He looked so helpless right now. An unexpected feeling of power grew inside Soulai, such that another rumble from his stomach moved him to action.

  As silently as the moonlight drifting across the gatehouse steps, he rose, paused, then tiptoed around Habasle. Holding his breath, he knelt. Slowly he reached out. His stomach gurgled in anticipation. Habasle’s breathing changed and Soulai froze. At last he pinched the lip of the pouch and, exhaling, slid it free.

  Habasle’s eyes shot open. “No! No! No!” he yelled.

  His flailing arms knocked the pouch to the floor. “Damn you to Nergal, no!”

  Soulai scrambled backward.

  A dagger cut the air, jabbing blindly. “I’ve been waiting, you son of a jackal. You’ll never have Ti. Get away!” The black eyes glared but didn’t focus, though the knife kept slashing the air. “Fish-headed monster!” Habasle growled. “Red-robed demon!”

  The ashipu! Soulai realized, trembling all over. Habasle thought that he was the ashipu, come to kill him.

  “It’s just me,” he blurted in defense, “Soulai. It’s me, Soulai.”

  Habasle blinked. The knife hand fell limp. He shook his head and stared dumbly around the room. Suddenly his eyes closed and he collapsed. Only the rapid rising and falling of his shoulders showed that he was alive. He shivered. “By Ishtar, I’m cold,” he mumbled. “Build me a fire.”

  Still trembling, Soulai ran from the gatehouse and found the branches from the tree that Ti had stripped of leaves. He returned, snapped the twigs into pieces, and piled them in front of Habasle. He waited, then carefully reached for the larger pouch, the one he knew contained a flint. Habasle just lay there, glassy-eyed and moaning slightly.

  Between Soulai’s cupped hands, the spark caught and quickly ignited the kindling. He remembered another dead tree, a larger one, and ventured into the night to break off its lower branches and add them to the fire. Soon the light from the blaze was flickering up the four walls of the room. It illuminated bas-relief carvings that showed two men joined in a series of battles against monstrous creatures.

  “I thought you were the ashipu.” Habasle’s voice came low and solemn, almost an apology.

  “I know,” was all Soulai could bring himself to say.

  “He’s trying to kill me.”

  I know that, too, Soulai thought. But out loud he said, “Why don’t you tell your father? He’s a king; can’t he do something?”

  Muffled laughter came from the other side of the fire. It stopped and started, climbed and fell, like the senseless chatter of a nervous monkey until Soulai demanded, “What?”

  Habasle pointed out the arched doorway at the clearing sky. “See those stars? They tell my
father who he may see and when. And if he isn’t sure, the ashipu tells him.” Habasle stopped laughing. In an entirely different voice he said, “In my whole life, I’ve seen my father only once.”

  He rested his head on his arm, stared at the fire, and remained quiet. After a while his eyes closed. As time passed, his moaning grew louder, and Soulai could tell that the fever had taken hold again. Habasle mumbled nonsensical words. “Into the darkness,” Soulai heard. “All day…darkness, white robe…figs, no meat…emmer, no meat…” The words fragmented until Habasle was only tossing his head back and forth and moving his lips in whispers.

  Soulai felt a twinge of pity. Habasle’s words were tortured by a sickness, to be sure, but at their core was a loneliness much like his own. He, too, had been abandoned by his father. Memories flooded over him: days spent gathering pistachios with his mother, laughing with his younger sisters, secretly sharing his latest clay sculpture with Soulassa. Tears blurred his eyes and he dug his chin into his knees.

  In his mind he also saw the lion and the dead goats. And the burned remains of the hut. Better that you’d never been born, came the words.

  But I’m stronger now, he argued with himself. In two months I’ve barely touched any clay. I have scars! The disapproving face of his father appeared in Soulai’s mind. He wasn’t a man yet, it seemed to say. Not yet.

  Soulai stared through the doorway at the black sky. A gust of wind sprayed sand against his cheek. His stomach still hurt, but from a different sort of emptiness. Eventually he resigned himself to a miserable night and stretched out on the floor. Just as sleep began to pull over him, Habasle spoke again, this time clearly.

  “Damn this worm! It’s eating right through me. My other pouch.” He held up his hand, and Soulai, fumbling to waken, got up to hand the pouch the short distance. Habasle reached in and pulled out a small clay tablet, much like the ones Soulai had seen in the royal library. He rolled onto his back then, with a pained grunting, and laid it atop his chest. Soulai returned to his corner and silently watched Habasle’s strange doings.

  “He may control King Ashurbanipal, but he won’t hold the reins of King Habasle,” he muttered. “The great gods who dwell in heaven and on earth have granted me their favor. Like real fathers, they have raised me. I hear their murmurings in my ear. I read their signs in the sky. I have Ninurta’s blessing in Ti and I have this tablet. And now only I will say when the moon disappears.” Habasle chuckled. “I’ll show him.” He chuckled again. “I’ll show everyone.”

  Soulai could make no sense of his owner’s boastful words. It was the fever talking, he decided, so he stretched out again and closed his eyes. But he was still awake when the command came.

  “Tell me a story.”

  The words surprised Soulai. When a snicker followed, however, he doubted their urgency. He waited, listening for the steady breathing that would show that Habasle slept.

  “Wake up! Wake up, you good-for-nothing wretch.” A palm was slapping the tile floor. Soulai bolted upright. His pity vanished when he saw Habasle’s arrogant grin. “I want a story. Now.”

  With his anger mounting, Soulai sorted through the tales he knew. He tried to reach back to his mountain home, to the times when the storyteller in his uncle’s village—

  “Just choose one!” Habasle ordered.

  “It’s from my village,” Soulai blurted, scrambling to piece together the story he’d been hearing on the night of the fire. It was an oft-told favorite about a certain lazy fool who spoke vainly and acted stupidly. A malicious sense of mischief overtook him. The story would be perfect. He shivered with the danger of telling it, but, as Habasle was feverish, would he even understand? He cleared his throat and began.

  “In a mountain village near ours lived a man who never lifted his hand to any sort of work. He had no family to feed him, and yet he didn’t starve. This was because he had convinced the others in his village that he was going to be wealthy some day and that if they would only feed him now, he would feed them all in the future. So, although they had their doubts, the people came to this man every day and gave him some bread, some eggs, and a cup of oil. And every day—”

  “No meat?” Habasle interrupted.

  “No meat,” Soulai replied. “But every day this man—”

  “Seems they could have given him a little meat now and then,” Habasle argued.

  “They didn’t give him any meat.”

  “Not even a thimbleful of ox tongue?”

  “No ox tongue, no meat. They gave him bread, eggs, and oil. Do you want to hear the story?”

  Habasle mumbled something that ended in a giggle. Soulai pressed his lips together and looked up at the ceiling. He waited for Habasle to be silent before continuing.

  “But this man was so lazy that he never cooked anything,” he went on, “and so he didn’t use the oil. Every day he just dumped the cup of oil that he had been given into a clay jar. And as the jar filled, this man had an idea. ‘I’ll sell my oil and buy a cow,’ he said.”

  “Then he’d have some meat,” came the voice from the other side of the fire. It ended in a loud guffaw.

  Infectious laughter started to rise in Soulai’s own throat. He choked it down. When Habasle’s chortling turned into moaning, he felt a vengeful satisfaction. Habasle rolled onto his side, clutching his bandaged wound and drawing up his knees. “Continue,” he said between short breaths. “Go on, it’s a fine story. Truly.”

  Soulai waited for complete silence before he spoke. This new sense of power thrilled him. “But this foolish man was full of foolish dreams,” he said quietly. A little tingle ran up his arms and nape. “And he made great plans. ‘The cow will give me calves and they’ll grow into cows that will give me more calves and—’”

  “And then he’ll become a butcher,” Habasle interjected with a smirk, but Soulai didn’t stop.

  “‘—and then I’ll have a herd of cattle larger than anyone. And I won’t live in this little village on the side of a mountain any longer, I’ll move to a big house in a big city and I’ll have hundreds of servants to tend to my every whim. Then all of the wealthy merchants in this city will parade their most beautiful daughters before me and beg me to make one my bride. And when I have chosen the loveliest of them all, I’ll host a huge wedding feast. I’ll serve oxen—’”

  “Aha!”

  Soulai glared.

  “‘—and camel and mutton and duck. I’ll serve beer and olives and cakes and honey. I’ll have music and dancers. And I’ll even let the poor fools from the village come sit on the walls to watch me get married.’”

  Soulai paused.

  “That’s it?”

  “‘And the people in my new city will so admire me that they’ll make me their king. Upon my head they’ll place a tall crown.’ This vain man then picked up the clay jar of oil and balanced it on his head. ‘And when they cheer me, I shall graciously bow to the right and to the left’—And with that the clay jar slipped from the man’s head, broke into pieces upon the floor, and the oil was lost.”

  There was a long, dead silence. Soulai fidgeted. Habasle’s eyes remained closed, but it wasn’t clear if he slept. Deciding at last that he did, Soulai laid down.

  “You have told me this story for a reason.”

  Soulai’s sense of power instantly evaporated.

  “You believe my plans are as foolish as those of that lazy man, don’t you? You rate me an idiot, no saner than he, when, in fact, I am born of the gods.” Even though Soulai’s eyes were closed, he knew that it was Habasle who now watched him; his cheeks burned. “If you value your life at this moment, you’ll pray to me for forgiveness.”

  Soulai clenched his jaw, wavering whether to give up his feigned sleep.

  “Pray to me!” the voice roared.

  Resentfully, he began the litany. “Lord of my life—”

  “Louder!” Habasle demanded.

  “—judge of days past and present, forgive me. May your generous heart take pity. Grant me
life, though it be worthless, that I may live to serve thee.”

  “Now,” Habasle said smugly, “tell me another story. And save your messages for the thickheaded.”

  Soulai opened his eyes and glared. “An ant once met a goat by a river,” he began. After the harrowing day, his mind was growing cloudy and he struggled to form the story. But before it was finished, Habasle’s snoring indicated that he was asleep. “So they cut off the crocodile’s tail and they ate the goat,” he finished.

  He waited. No response this time. Staring out the doorway at the half moon he wondered anew how much of what Habasle said was true. Was he truly born of the gods, as kings were? Could he make the moon disappear? What about the ashipu’s plans to murder him and Ti?

  And what about the curse—where was the terrible uridimmu now?

  14

  Annakum’s Honor

  The worm, it crawled out.” Fingers poked Soulai’s ribs until Soulai lifted himself onto one elbow and rubbed his eyes. “Look,” Habasle said. He raised his tunic to his chest, free of bandages, and pointed to a wound that resembled thin lips parting to reveal a black mouth. An ooze glistened from the swollen opening. But he rocked back on his heels and made a show of thumping his chest with his fist. “I feel strong. The worm took the fever and left me with a lion’s hunger, so we’re riding back to the river to hunt. I’m not as frugal as the man in your story,” he added, grinning. “I need meat.”

  Soulai didn’t miss the pained wince that crossed Habasle’s face as he rose, though, and he wondered how well he really felt.

  Almost in answer to his question, Habasle suddenly groaned and slapped his forehead. “Damn! My spear.” The image of the weapon sailing out over Nineveh on the night of their escape shot through Soulai’s mind. But Habasle was already turning a dagger over and over in his hands. “We’ll manage something when we get to the river,” he said resolutely. He picked up the bridle and tossed it at Soulai. “You go find Ti.”