Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (29 page)

“Oh … sorry!”  She
dusted stray pin feathers off of her shawl.

“Okay,” he reassured
her.  “
Ní raibh sé gortaithe
… no hurt.” 
Thank
the goddess he was too engrossed to see her face turn flaming red! 

Magic!  She needed to
learn how his magic worked, or at least how it
should
work so she would
understand once it started working again.  She deliberately turned her
attention to something
other
than the very appealing lower half of his
body.  She'd always hated the long lists of medicinal herbs Mama made her
memorize, but that was why she was here, wasn't it?  She-who-is wanted her to
learn this magic he called
technology
.  She decided to memorize the
layout of his engine room.  Just because she didn't understand what she was
looking at didn't mean she couldn't create an image of it in her mind's eye.

“
Céilí
m
ór!
!!”
he
cursed as he slid out from beneath the engine and gave it an icy stare.  Wiping
black tar off his hands with a cloth, he exclaimed,
“n
íl a fhios agam cad é an diabhal cearr leis an
rud damanta!
 
Don't … know … why … broken!” 

That her usually
unflappable friend was visibly frustrated meant whatever had him perplexed would
cause any normal man to break out in a fit of temper.  She didn't know anything
about fixing engine oars that made sky canoes travel across the stars, but she
could relate to the frustration of not being able to fix something that you
needed to have work.  She wanted the engines to work every bit as much as
he
did so he could take her to see the stars, but she didn't think he would
appreciate hearing how his broken engines were the goddess' will.  Instead, she
slid her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest to let him
know she sympathized with his frustration. 
She
was frustrated, too! 

“Ninsianna,” he tilted
up her chin.  “
T
ú ag
dul a fháil ramhar inneall ar fud an tosach do ghúna
.” 

Smears of a black,
tar-like substance striped his hands, face, and chest.  She moved her face
against his chest and sniffed.  It smelled like the black, sticky bitumen their
allies in Arrapha traded as a waterproofing for canoes.  It appeared that river
canoes and sky canoes had something in common. 

"Bitumen?" 
She tried to read the emotion which darted across his beautiful, chiseled
features as she playfully gave the substance another sniff.  Taking the cloth
he'd just used to clean his hands, he dabbed at a spot on her cheek. 

 “See … now … dirty,”
he admonished her. 

Her heart did an
interesting little flip-flop as she stared up into his clear, blue eyes.  Time
stretched out for an eternity even though she knew it was only seconds. 

She knew the only
reason he didn't pull away from her embrace was because he didn't know what to
do with her, not because he found her desirable.  He allowed her to take the
lead and studied her every move as he adjusted to human culture.   If she were
to stand on her head and insist it was an important part of human communication,
he would probably mimic her.  No … that wasn't very nice.  She-who-is had asked
her to
help
him, not take out her frustration at his total lack of
interest by making him act foolish.  She must not abuse his trust. 

She took the rag and
stood on tip-toe to wipe a large streak that went from his chin to his ear. 

“Yes … dirty…” she
wiped the spot clean before stepping back and handing him the rag.  “Good …
now…  let’s eat?”

At the mention of
food, Mikhail followed her out of the sky canoe like an enormous winged dog. 
Yes, she thought.  They were becoming very good friends.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

Late-February 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Jamin

Incomplete rows of
mud-bricks whispered their taunts the same way the villagers whispered taunts
behind his back.  The emptiness was so palpable he could feel it throb with
each beat of his heart.  Each pulse caused the emptiness to grow until he
thought it would consume him.  Not only had he lost
her
love, but now
he'd gone and lost his father’s love as well.

The forms sat empty as
they'd sat since the day she'd broken off their engagement.  Sand.  Straw. 
Buckets to carry water from the Hiddekel River and a pile of goat dung to act
as a binding agent to make their house strong.  The wall he sat upon had been
meant to be the outer wall of their bedroom.  Not just a sleeping loft like
most houses in Assur had, but a genuine, full-fledged bedroom.  He picked up a
sapling he'd cut as a roof strut and jabbed it into the soil, imagining he
stabbed
him
with his spear.  All his life he'd enjoyed the hunt.  The
sport.  The kill.  But only Ninsianna had ever inspired him to
build.

He choked back the
emptiness which threatened to consume him, his mind leaping to all
sorts
of
horrible conclusions, each one more terrible than the last.  The winged demon
touching his girl.  The winged demon touching her face.  The winged demon
touching her … her … her …

NO!
  Ninsianna was no floozy.  For two years he'd wooed
her and never once had she allowed him any liberties, nor any of the other
warriors who'd pursued her over the years.  She was … pure!

The muscle in his
cheek twitched.  He could almost
hear
a light, feminine voice whispering
to him in the warm late-winter wind.

'She is not meant
to be with you…' 

No!  He refused to
listen!  She was
his
fiancé and this was a battle he was certain he
could win!  If only he could figure out a point of attack.  But what?  No
matter what he tried, he kept digging himself in deeper.

'Let her go…'

His father was right. 
The only reason she stayed with the winged demon was because he'd overplayed
his hand, trying to force her to marry him when something else had caused her
to balk.  But what?  He choked back his tears. 
Real
men didn't cry!

He realized he was
being watched.

“Go away,” he hissed.

Black eyes stared at
him out of a face that was a faint echo of the face he
really
wanted to
see.  Gita.  Ninsianna's peculiar cousin.  She'd been standing there all along,
unseen, part of the lengthening shadows of the setting sun.  Watching.

“You've seen him?” 
Gita's voice was a whisper, her black eyes filled with awe.  “The legends are
real?”

Jamin gave her a look
of disgust.  It was bad enough his own
father
was all a-twitter over the
presence of the winged demon on the outskirts of their village, but now
Shahla’s creepy sidekick was all googley-eyed as well?

“What legend?” Jamin
snapped.  “I've never heard of any legends.  Immanu made it up!”

Her eerie black eyes
stared right through him as though he was not even there.  Immanu’s eyes … only
black.  As black as night when no moon graced the sky.  As black as… 

Jamin shuddered.  He'd
taken the odd girl under his protection when her father had suddenly reappeared
in their village after being banished from whatever haughty house he'd married
into.  For some reason, Shahla had taken an instant liking to the reclusive
child, probably because she followed the flamboyant drama queen around like an
adoring retainer.  Gita had been giving him the cold shoulder since he'd cast
Shahla aside to pursue Ninsianna.  Why was she now lurking in his shadow?

“I have seen them,”
Gita said, her eyes haunted.  “The cave paintings in Es Skhul.  The priestesses
built their oracle at Jebel Mar Elyas until the Amorites destroyed it.”

Jamin’s ears perked
up.  “What cave paintings?”

“Demi-gods,” Gita
said.  “Half-human, half-animal.  They came across the waters in a great ship
and waged war upon the people that came before.  The Nephilim.  The priestesses
said we are all descended from them.”

“We are
not
descended
from that … that …
thing!
” Jamin snapped, and then really
listened
to
what she was telling him.  “War?  What war?”

Gita’s eyes swirled
blacker, as though she stared into his soul.  Jamin shuddered.  She turned to
leave, not even gracing his anger with an argument.

“Gita … wait!” Jamin
called.  “Please … I'm sorry.”

Gita paused, her
expression unreadable as she gave him an eerie, dark look.  Just for a moment,
it was as though he stared into Ninsianna’s eyes, so closely did she resemble
her cousin when he bothered to
look
at her. 

The illusion passed. 
The pale, gaunt girl with the black eyes only bore the slightest resemblance to
the grandfather the two women shared.  Immanu’s father, Lugalbanda.  A shaman
so powerful it had been rumored he could reach straight through the dreamtime
and stop the heart of his enemies.  Jamin shivered.  Ghost stories…

“Now you know how
Shahla feels.”  There was no accusation in her tone, but it cut through his
grief like an obsidian blade.  A sensation akin to having his heart squeezed
out of his chest made him choke up, bringing tears to his eyes, and was gone. 
Gita was kind of scary.

“Yes,” Jamin said, not
sure why he felt compelled to confess his sins.  He'd mistreated Shahla.  He
knew it.  But at least he'd never lied to Gita’s promiscuous friend, making
promises about a future he had no intention of keeping the way Ninsianna had
done to him.  It wasn’t
his
fault Shahla had latched onto him because
she wanted to be the wife of a chief.  He'd always told her he could never give
her more.

Gita stared until he
squirmed.  He could see she weighed whether nor not to trust him with some
tidbit of information.  Morsels she only occasionally doled out to those she
trusted.

“The priestesses were
healers,” Gita said.  “Like my cousin.  People would come from miles around to
pray for healing.  They called their temple ‘hospital.’  The sick would stay
there until they got better.”

“Needa does that now,”
Jamin said.

Gita looked at the
foundations of the house Jamin had begun to build in Ninsianna’s honor.  His
temple to
her.
  The woman he loved.

“This is a house,”
Gita said.  “Your house should be
separate
from the souls of the
diseased.  So their sicknesses don't become
your
sicknesses.”

As she spoke, Jamin
could almost
see
the temple she spoke of in his mind's eye.  A
magnificent building on top of the highest mountain, built not from mud-bricks,
but carved from stone.  Yes.  That was what Ninsianna wanted.  To have people
come and worship her for her abilities as a healer.  But how?  Assur didn't
have the resources to build such things.  But perhaps … there … yes!  He could
see it.  A separate room of their dream house where people could worship his
bride-to-be the way she
deserved
to be worshipped.  Her very own
hospital!

Jamin looked up to
thank Ninsianna’s spooky cousin and was not surprised to see she'd
disappeared.  Unless Gita wanted to be seen, she had a way of fading into the
woodwork to escape notice.  A survival skill, no doubt, to escape the wrath of
her drunken father.

His heart light, Jamin
pulled out the goatskin parchment he'd used to sketch plans for Ninsianna’s
dream house and added blueprints for a ‘hospital’ room.  For the first time in
weeks, he felt hope.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~