Oh, it wasn't like she could make the situation any worse! With false bravado she placed the flask into the center of the circle. Why should men determine the fate of women when it was a goddess who was the architect of All-That-Is?
She unwrapped her long fringed shawl and stepped into the brook, picturing the cool, clear water cleansed her spirit-light of her worries. Suitably purified, she dug soft yellow ochre out of the stream and smeared it all over her body to symbolize her willingness to return back into the Great Mother's womb.
"Papa says you favor this marriage because I'll stabilize Jamin's hot temper," Ninsianna said. "But Mother! Jamin has a terrible temper when he doesn't get his way! What will he do if I displease him?"
She felt the flow of energy shift as at last she piqued the goddess’ interest. Papa said the secret to using magic was to figure out what the goddess really wanted and then offer her a solution which would give her the same result. But what? How could she convince the goddess to spurn her favorite son?
The sun slipped beneath the horizon, casting the land into terrifying shadows. She gathered some twigs and fished out her firestone, anxious to fight back the impending dusk. The desert grew cold at night and hyenas prowled the wilderness, searching for an easy meal. Her lips moved in prayer as she thwacked the firestone against the striker. At last the desiccated leaves ignited. She fed the hungry red tongues sticks until the fire had grown enough to beat back the darkness like rays of a tiny sun.
Listening to it crackle, she contemplated solutions to her sorry predicament. Betrothed! To a man she did not love! All because she'd been foolish enough to believe Jamin would take her on future trading missions!
“Couldn't you make him fall in love with somebody else?" Ninsianna suggested. "He -is-, after all, the son of the Chief! Why not send him someone better so he forgets all about me?"
Her own brilliance lit up like the crackling fire. That was it! She would perform a love ritual for him! But who? Who would want the most eligible … and arrogant … man in the entire village?
Why not make him fall for Shahla? The jealous strumpet had pulled a fit when Jamin had proposed to her. Ninsianna stared into the fire, picturing within her mind the consequences of such a union. Her intuition told her 'no.' Jamin only used the village trollop to satiate his baser appetites and while Shahla coveted Jamin, Assur would become the laughing stock of the larger Ubaid confederation if their future chief took to wife a bride so well-used.
Perhaps her cousin, Gita? They were, after all, descended from the same warrior-shaman. Ninsianna contemplated her peculiar, black-eyed cousin with disdain. That wouldn't do. Not only was Gita as plain as dirt, but it would garner their village no prestige if the chief's son married the daughter of the village drunk.
How about Yadidatum? Her parents were well-off, at least as well-off as any in the trades. Soft-spoken, curvaceous and a talented weaver, Yadidatum would be a prize for any man to take home. Her intuition told her 'no.' Her friend was betrothed to Tirdard, one of the warriors, and everybody considered them a suitable match. Besides … for all his talk about submission, Jamin would never fall for someone who wasn't as strong-willed as he was.
Ninsianna placed another bundle of twigs into the fire, poking at the embers with frustration. Why did she have to find somebody else for him when it was She-who-is' plan?
"It would serve Jamin right to wed somebody powerful enough to put him into his place for a change instead of the other way around!" Ninsianna stabbed a stick at a log. "But who? Who would be tempting enough to get him to stop obsessing about me?"
A thrill of mirth welled up in her psyche. Ninsianna could almost feel the goddess laughing at her musings.
'Ninsianna … trust…'
A burst of white light radiated out from the fire, indicating the goddess found favor with her wager. Wind giggled through the soft fronds of grass which had not yet dried up for the summer. Moths danced around her like butterflies as laughter welled up from Ninsianna's lungs, but the amusement was not her own. The goddess would decide Jamin’s fate and bring her somebody formidable enough to make even Jamin back off.
'Come child … I wish for you to see…'
She pried the stopper out of the flask and gave the sacred beverage a wary sip. Immediately, she began to choke. Ugh! It tasted like dirt mixed with goat urine! She had watched Papa only ever take a sip, but Ninsianna was determined to find a solution to her problem. Pinching her nose, she forced herself to gag down the remainder of the bottle.
A fist clenched at her gut with revulsion. Feeling quite ill, she stared into the fire, clutching her blanket, not certain what should happen next.
“Death would be preferable to life as a brood goat!” Ninsianna said. “Please, Mother! I'll do anything you ask! Just don't ask me to marry him!”
A paralyzing numbness crept through her limbs. Night fell. The sky turned black, plunging the desert into total darkness. The chirp-chirp-chirp of crickets took on the eerie percussion of a shamanic rattle. Her body shivered, but she could no longer feel the cold. A jackal howled and was answered by its mate, but instead of being afraid, Ninsianna felt as though she were part of the pack, relishing the thrill of the hunt. Grass and shrubbery glowed with an internal spirit-light, but never before had she seen All-That-Is this clearly.
She reached up to touch stars which whispered secrets older than the universe, wishing she could dwell amongst them instead of being stuck down here on earth. She whispered the heartfelt plea she'd made every night to the deity who felt more like a mother than her own flesh-and-blood mother for as long as she'd been alive.
"Mother … when will you let me join you?"
'Soon, my Chosen One. But first you must do something for me…'
Ninsianna slipped into the flow of information, relishing the feel of the goddess' thoughts flowing all around her like the brook which gurgled at her side. Time and space became meaningless as she watched creatures fly between the stars in strange enclosed canoes, every kind of creature that could walk or creep or crawl. Her eyes were drawn to one of the sky canoes, the one She-who-is wished for her to see. A man unlike any she had ever seen battled a cancer which seeped into a vortex of spinning stars like pooling blood. As she watched, a blade of darkness reached out and smote his sky canoe, casting it out of the stars towards a round, blue stone she understood was her home. She sensed a query.
'This man can carry you out into the stars. Will you help him?'
"Yes, Mother," Ninsianna said. "I will help him."
A sensation not unlike a hug caressed her thoughts and carried her back to her own body. She and the goddess had reached an agreement. Whoever this man was, her fate was now tied to his. Content that her prayers had been answered, Ninsianna snuggled into her blanket and fell asleep.
Bathing in the stream the next morning to remove the sticky yellow ochre from her hair, she was not surprised to see an enormous ball of fire hurtle out of the sky and slam into the earth not far from where she'd just spent the night. Belting her shawl around her waist and flipping the end over her shoulder to cover her breasts, she gathered her things and headed in the direction it had gone.
Chapter 3
February - 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur (present moment)
Jamin
The moment the spear left his hand, Jamin knew his aim was off by a good hands-breadth.
“Hah!” Firouz laughed at him. “You missed the target!”
The chief's son gave his elite band of warriors a sullen scowl. Tall and olive skinned, with black eyes and hair the color of a raven's wings, Jamin was in no mood to arbitrate the petty quarrels the villagers kept bringing to him to resolve while his father was out of the village. He stared at the south gate like a lion cordoned off into a canyon, unable to escape because his father had ordered him to stay here.
"I told you this was a mistake," Jamin said. He took back his spear from Siamek, his second-in-command, and stared at the target his friends had
set up to distract him from his worries. "I should be out there, searching for her before the goat-headed fool gets herself eaten by a lion!"
"We shall search for her again," his tall, serious friend Siamek said, "as soon as your father returns from his trading mission. But for now, your father ordered us to stay here."
Jamin pressed his palm into his forehead, unable to block his worries from his mind. "What if the Halifians capture her and try to use her against me?"
"We searched for her and she evaded us," Siamek said. "And now she has traveled beyond our lands. We don't even know in which direction to hunt. If the village is attacked while we are out there, searching for a faithless woman, there would be no one left to keep our people safe."
"We don't know that she's faithless," Jamin snarled at him. He glanced once more at the south gate of the village, the one where three days ago Ninsianna had stormed out, vowing she would rather become hyena meat than be forced to marry him. Why, oh why, had he dared her to try and let her go? He'd had no idea she would actually do it!
Siamek threw his own spear and buried the shaft into the target, his expression intense, as though he was angry about something. "Why else does a woman break things off suddenly?"
"Ninsianna was angry at me," Jamin said, "that is all. I should not have insinuated my father would take us along to the regional meeting of chiefs!" He lowered his voice so that only Siamek could hear. "I should have talked to her, not used my position to tell her she didn't have a choice."
Siamek snorted and gave him a look that communicated, 'who are you, and what have you done with Chief Kiyan's son?'
Jamin stiffened. One by one, the other warriors took turns throwing their spears, earning exclamations of delight and cat-calls from the young women who'd gathered close to the well to watch the warriors practice, shirtless. Jamin adjusted his kilt and prepared to throw again. Siamek gasped and pointed at the horizon.
“Jamin?” Siamek asked. “Look to the east. What -is- that?"
Jamin stared at the second sunrise which had suddenly appeared in the cloudless cobalt sky. The fireball hurtled towards them, streaking white smoke behind it like the tail of a shooting star. Fear gurgled in his belly as he realized the object was headed straight towards the village of Assur. As it grew closer, an enormous, silver spearhead grew visible at its point.
“That’s no shooting star!” Jamin said.
The fireball grew so large it dwarfed the horizon. Jamin had been left behind to protect the village, but never had a threat come hurtling at him from the sky. His disbelief was only momentary. When one was charged by a predator, one did not need to know that predator's name to have enough sense to get out of its way.
“Run for cover!” Jamin shouted. “Order the villagers to hide inside their houses!"
The warriors scattered, every man for himself. Jamin tackled a little boy to the ground and yanked him behind the spear target, squealing. With a roar like an avalanche of rocks, the fireball shot overhead. An ear-splitting boom shook the mud brick houses after the object passed, causing him to yelp and cover his ears. A cloud of fire and dust erupted into the air far out in the desert. The villagers remained hidden until Jamin gave them the all-clear.
The warriors ignored the villager's mutters about incompetence as they brushed the dust from their kilts. Jamin picked out a clump of goat-dung, trying his hardest to appear chiefly in the face of a threat which had turned out to not be so dangerous after all.
“What was that?" Siamek asked.
Jamin stared at the pillar of smoke which had appeared on the horizon, two days walk, perhaps a single day at a run.
“It's an evil omen," Jamin said. “A star has been cast down from the heavens to signal the god's displeasure.”
“Who has displeased the gods?” Firouz asked, another warrior and one who was prone to be a trickster.
“Who do you think?" his sidekick Dadbeh elbowed Firouz in the ribs. “A certain woman who said ‘I love you, but I'm just not in love with you anymore.’”
The women gathered around the well snickered at Jamin's misfortune. From their midst he could hear whispers that it was about time he had gotten his comeuppance, for many of those women he had lain down with over the years, including the woman who whispered the loudest, Shahla. A vein throbbed in Jamin's forehead, unaccustomed to being ridiculed.
“You will not disrespect me so!” Jamin stepped towards the two tricksters, furious they would air his dirty linens in front of the entire village.
"Knock it off, guys," Siamek scolded them. He gave Jamin a sympathetic look that was far more humiliating than the cruelest taunt of the villagers. "Forget about her. You'll find somebody better."
Jamin gave Siamek an ironic snort.
"Somebody better? Where will I find somebody better than the shaman's daughter?"
Siamek paused, and then feigned fascination with the head of his spear. Not only was Ninsianna the most beautiful woman in all the Ubaid tribes, but as a gifted healer, it was critical they entice her to marry a man from within this village. It had been a cocky wager, one to see which one of them could lure the aloof maiden into a warrior's bed, but the harder Jamin had tried to impress her, the less impressed Ninsianna had always seemed to be! All his life women had thrown themselves at his feet, hoping to garner the prestige that would come once he ascended to be the Chief, but not Ninsianna! No! The shaman's daughter had always wanted nothing to do with him.
Then one day he'd been gored by an auroch and not been expected to live. Like a golden-eyed goddess, Ninsianna had appeared at his death-bed and laid her hands upon his broken body, alleviating not only his suffering, but also the mud-brick wall he had built around his heart to protect it. Desperate to prolong her visits, he'd finally stopped trying to convince her how smart it would be to marry him and started telling her things he'd never told anyone else; tender things, unmanly whispers, dreams of building and travel and adventure. Ninsianna had started to visit more often, and this time, when he had asked her to marry him, Ninsianna had finally said yes.
For six months he had been the happiest man alive; but then three days ago, Ninsianna had inexplicably broken off their engagement. Could Siamek be right? Could there be another man? But who? Ninsianna had always been worried about increasing her prestige. Who would she consort with who was a better catch than him?
Black smoke billowed to fill the horizon, every bit as dark as the hurt which gnawed at Jamin's heart. The wind shifted, blowing the ominous substance towards their village like the advancing edge of a sandstorm. The villagers twittered like frightened little ducklings, that maybe the fireball hadn't been so innocuous after all.
“Maybe we should we ask the shaman to read the signs?” Siamek asked.
Normally the shaman would be summoned, but Ninsianna's father was less than pleased Jamin's clunky ultimatum had caused his only child to run away. With his own father out of the village, it was up to him to take charge.
“No,” Jamin said. His black eyes glistened deep in thought as he considered the distance and how long it would take him if he ran straight through the night. “We shall go investigate this phenomenon ourselves.”
The other warriors nudged one another and laughed.
“That's just an excuse," Dadbeh teased. "You know Ninsianna will be drawn to it like a bee to a flower.”
"The women in Immanu’s house have always worn the kilts," Firouz laughed. "Ninsianna is just angry because your father wouldn't let her boss you around in front of the other village's chiefs."
The muscle beneath Jamin's cheek twitched as he glanced down at the short wool kilt belted around his waist, its elaborate four-layered fringe demarcating him as a person of prestige. It was an insult to insinuate a woman wore the kilt, especially to a chief's son.
“Perhaps that's why you find her so attractive?” Dadbeh teased. “Maybe you like the idea of a wife who is more outspoken than you are?”
Firouz and Dadbeh proceeded to play-act an obscene litt
le scenario they role played whenever they teased someone about being too henpecked to stand up for themselves.
“Oh, Jamin,” Dadbeh said in a high falsetto voice, “you must service me with your tongue. And then I want you to empty out all the chamber pots and cook me dinner." Dadbeh held a small pottery bowl upside down near his groin to simulate female genitals.
“Oh, Ninsianna,” Firouz said in a false bass voice, “I am your slave. I shall pleasure you." Firouz got down on his hands and knees and pretended to lick the bowl like a dog.
“Oh! Oh! Oo-oh!" Dadbeh groaned with fake pleasure. He grabbed a length of rope and whipped Firouz over the back with it. "Don't stop, don't stop, oh! Jamin! Next you shall kiss my toes!"
“Harder! Harder! Oh … harder!” Firouz yelped with mock passion.
The women gathered around the well pointed at the two tricksters and then pointed at Jamin, jabbering about the stud-bull having finally gotten corralled for castration. Jamin's face turned purple with anger. It was no longer simply a matter of finding her, but rectifying a blow to his very honor.
“Ninsianna will marry me!" Jamin grabbed the bowl from Dadbeh's hands and shattered it upon the ground. “I will not allow her to undermine my authority to rule this village!”
Grabbing his spear, he stormed out the gate and towards the black smoke which billowed on the horizon like an unearthly demon, not caring if his absence put the village in danger. Dadbeh was right. If Ninsianna had seen the fireball, it would beckon to her like honey.
Gathering up the remaining warriors, Siamek ordered them to follow Jamin to the place something had been cast down from heaven to burn in a fiery hell.
Chapter 4
February 3,390 BC
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 2