Books by Maggie Shayne (309 page)

The path wound further and then, towering before him, was the mighty ziggurat. A huge structure, a man-made mountain, bleached white by the sun and reaching into the very heavens. It was built with a massive square base. Each succeeding level was a smaller square, all the way to the sacred
cella
at the very top. It resembled a giant stairway on all sides, one that might seem to lead to heaven itself.

This was his destination, and he mounted the steps with some trepidation. Learning the ways of the temple priests and priestesses—the ways of magick, divination, healing—was a frightening prospect. Far more difficult, he suspected, than learning to make the symbols of the written language on the moist clay tablets at school. But more than the lessons themselves, Eannatum feared he might disappoint his father. And above all, he did not wish to do that. He often felt burdened by the weight of his father’s expectations. He disliked being set apart from the other boys his age. He disliked being held above them, and often wished he could put on a disguise and run away to live the life of a normal boy.

Much as he might fantasize about that, though, he knew his duty. And he took honor seriously. He would do what he should ... what he must.

He opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped out of the blazing sun into the cool, dim corridors of the tower’s lower levels. The door groaned as it slowly swung closed behind him.

Eannatum swallowed hard, looking around.

Then the flickering of a torch appeared in the distance, and a female voice said, “This way, my prince.”

With a nod, he followed that dancing torchlight, barely glimpsing she who carried it. Brief flashes of her white robes, and the gold bracelets adorning her arms were all he was allowed. He was led to a small room, where baked stone tablets lined the shelves on the walls. In the center was a table of wood, with three chairs around it and a rack of unlit candles in its center.

“Sit. Light the candles and wait,” the woman said. She then anchored the torch she carried in a chink in the wall and vanished like a shadow.

Eannatum sighed, wondering what would become of him were he to wander off into the depths of this massive structure. He’d been inside before, of course. During ceremonies and on the High Holy Days. But then he’d been in the company of his father and a dozen servants. The halls had been alive with people and chanting and alight with candles and torches.

It was different now. Dark. Lonely. So dim and hollow that every step, every breath, echoed a thousand times. Haunted, he thought. His footsteps in the corridors had bounced from the walls over and over again, and it had sounded as if he were surrounded by netherworld ghosts.

He took the candlestick to the torch in the wall, lifted the wicks to the dancing flames, and lit them one by one. Then he carried the softer candlelight to the table and replaced it in the center. Waiting had never been his favorite thing to do. As the son of the king, he rarely had to tolerate it. But today he must. So to pass the time, he removed the moist clay tablet from the sack he carried, and took out the stylus reeds as well. He might as well work on his lessons as sit here wasting time.

He was still bent over the tablet, pressing symbols into clay with the reed, when the priestess stepped into the room. At her side was a girl, younger than Eannatum by two years, at least.

The priestess was beautiful, as was every priestess Eannatum had ever seen, be she young or old, plump or poor. There was a kind of emanation from women who served the Goddess. A glow that seemed to come from within, making them beautiful to any eye that beheld them. What they might actually look like seemed to Eannatum to have very little to do with that beauty.

But the girl... the girl was different. Stunning. Her eyes were large and round, thickly fringed with extravagantly long, curling lashes and gleaming black in the candlelight with an intensity that took his breath away. Her brows were thick and dark, her lips, lush and red. And there was something else about her ... something invisible, yet real all the same. It was something that went beyond that inner light that all priestesses possessed. He didn’t know what it was, but he was certain it was real. She made his stomach clench tight and his skin heat and tingle. The feelings confused him.

The priestess bowed slightly. “Welcome, my prince,” she said. Then she nudged the little girl beside her.

The girl looked startled. “Prince?” she asked. “Are you Prince Eannatum?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling slightly when her eyes went wider.

Again the priestess nudged the girl, and this time the girl bowed, but only halfway. She never took her eyes from Eannatum’s. And when she straightened, she looked up at the priestess, a question in her eyes. “Lia, what is the prince doing here?”

The priestess smiled at the girl. It was obvious to Eannatum that the woman loved the child very much. He wished yet again that his own mother had lived beyond the day of his birth, that he might have known such love. But regrets were a waste of his thoughts.

To distract himself, he answered the girl’s question himself. “My father feels that if I am to be fit to rule one day, I need more education than just that of the
edubba.
He wishes that I learn all the tales of the Gods and of creation. All the rites and divinations mastered by priests and priestesses. And all the secrets of magick.”

“Yes,” the priestess said. “All the very same things you are learning here with us, Nidaba,” she told the girl.

“The king is very wise,” the girl whispered.

Her name was that of a goddess, and Eannatum remembered hearing talk about her, but just then he was too busy watching her to recall it. He had placed all his stylus reeds into a pottery vessel on the table, and the girl’s eyes kept darting to them. He saw eagerness and longing unmistakably gleaming from their ebon depths.

“This is my charge,” Lia said to him. “Her name is Nidaba.”

He nodded, noticing for the first time the onyx pendant the girl wore around her neck. As shiny and black as her eyes. And it came to him what he’d heard of her before.

“You are the one they say is born of a goddess,” he said.

“That is what some say, yes.” She moved forward without being asked and sat down at the table, her eyes still flicking over the stylus reeds every few seconds and over the clay tablet on which he’d been doing his assignment.

“I was hoping you might allow Nidaba to join us in your lessons, my prince,” the priestess Lia said. “She is truly the most gifted student we’ve ever had here at the temple. She will be a powerful priestess one day.”

At the praise the girl smiled, bowing her head slightly but beaming with pride all the same.

“I thought you two might become friends,” Lia continued. “Learning is always easier with a friend at your side.”

Eannatum looked warily at the girl. “Are you not afraid to be my friend?” he asked.

Her chin came up. “I am not afraid of anything. Why should I be?”

Such a spirited reply surprised him. He tried not to smile, because he thought it would offend her. But he found her truly amusing. So small, so pretty ... and yet obviously not the least bit intimidated to be in the presence of her future king. “Not afraid of anything?” he repeated, lifting his brows.

“No.”

“I don’t believe you. What about a lion? Surely you would be afraid of a lion?”

“What could a lion do to me?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

“Kill you and eat you, of course!”

Nidaba looked very thoughtful. “Then perhaps I should finally be able to know my mother and my father.”

Eannatum fell silent for a moment. He could see the sadness in her eyes, hear it in her voice. His own voice was softer when he said, “They are dead, your parents?”

Nidaba shrugged. “They must be dead. Or else why would they not have kept me to raise for their own?” She looked down at the table. “Unless they simply did not want me.”

“No,” Eannatum said quickly. “It couldn’t have been that.” And he meant it, though he barely knew her.

“Why couldn’t it?”

He smiled at her, seeing a slight moisture now glistening in her downcast eyes. “You are wise, your priestess says. It’s plain that you are brave as well. And you are quite the prettiest girl in all of Lagash. Only a fool would give such a child away.”

The girl’s head came up quickly, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks. They grew pinker, and she smiled. Eannatum saw the moisture in her eyes vanish and felt extremely pleased with himself.

“Why would you think I might be afraid to be your friend, Prince Eannatum?” she asked at length.

“If we are to be friends, you must call me Natum. I like it far better.”

“All right—Natum, then. Surely the other boys at the
edubba
school are your friends. Aren’t they?”

“My friends?” he asked, lifting his brows. “They are afraid even to sit too close to me, in case they might make some mistake and offend me, thus incurring my father’s wrath.”

Nidaba smiled at him. “More likely they’re afraid you’ll tell your father of the mischief they make.” Then she leaned closer over the table. “But I
do
know how it feels, Natum. Girls give me a wide berth when I pass them in the streets.”

“And why do you suppose that is?” he asked, fascinated by her even though he was not entirely certain just why.

She shrugged. “I think they fear that I really
am
part deity, and that I can incinerate them with my divine glare.” As she said it she narrowed her eyes to slits, demonstrating what she perceived to be a frightening look. It only made him smile wider.

“And can you?”

Her smile was swift and brilliant, and so stunning he had to gasp for his next breath. She crossed her arms over her chest, and settled back into her chair again. “I have never tried. But I promise not to try it on you, so long as you promise not to report my mischief to your father.”

“It’s a bargain, then.”

Reaching across the table, he clasped Nidaba’s hand in his, and the feeling that went through him was like none he had known before. A tingling, jolting sensation that made no sense. Her eyes widened and leapt to his, and she drew her hand back quickly, staring down at her palm. So she had felt it too, then. How very odd. It had to be a sign. An omen.

“You will be my first real friend,” he said, already sensing that it was true. And he reached out again to take her hand.

Warily she slid her hand into his, and again there was that jolt, but only briefly. It passed in an instant, and he closed his hand around hers, cradling it, and liking the feeling.

“And you will be mine,” she told him in return, her hand warming beneath his as their fingers laced and their eyes seemed to lock.

Lia cleared her throat. Eannatum released Nidaba’s hand quickly, and they both looked up at the priestess. “Nidaba can be a great help to you in your lessons,” she told Eannatum. “She is already far more talented at divination and certain healing rites than many of the priestesses in the temple.”

“Than
all
of them, she means,” Nidaba whispered behind her hand, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

Lia sent her a quelling look. But the remark only made Natum like the girl more. “I’ll be grateful for the help,” he said. “My work at the
edubba
takes up most of my time, and for these added studies I will take any help offered. But... but I would wish to repay your kindness in some way, Nidaba. Is there anything you would like in return?”

Nidaba’s gaze fell again upon the clay tablet, covered with wedge-shaped figures. Then she looked up at Lia. The priestess nodded once. Licking her lips, facing Eannatum once more, Nidaba said, “Yes. There is something. Something I wish for more than anything in all of Sumer.” She reached out and gently took the reed stylus from the pottery cup. Staring at it, she whispered, “I wish to learn the script.”

For some reason, the declaration seemed perfectly logical. It didn’t surprise him in the least. Though he supposed it should have, since girls were no longer allowed to learn the script. It had always seemed an odd law to him, but it had been that way for his entire lifetime. His father said it had not always been so. “Then I will teach you,” he said.

Her eyes widened as she looked from the pen to his face. “You will? Honestly, you truly will?”

Smiling, he bent down, reached into his pack on the floor, and pulled out a new tablet, still wrapped in moist leaves. Unwrapping it, he placed it on the table, took a fresh reed from the cup, and carefully inscribed the symbols that stood for Nidaba’s name into the clay.

Fascinated, the girl came around the table to stand beside him, leaning over him to see what he had done. “That... that’s my name,” she whispered. “Just like on my pendant.”

“Yes.” He pushed the tablet sideways so it was in front of her. “Now you make the symbols. Just the way I did.”

She stared at him, blinking, looking doubtful, but he nodded at her. She bent over the tablet, clutched the stylus awkwardly, and began. Eannatum watched, occasionally covering her hand with his own to help her guide the stylus reed. The result was clumsy, sloppy, but legible.

And her eyes were brighter than any two stars in the Sumerian night sky. “I did it,” she whispered, awestruck.

It amazed him that such a small thing could mean so much to her. And it amazed him even more that seeing that light in her eyes, and knowing he was the one who put it there, could make him feel the way it did.

“Thank you, Natum,” she whispered. “You have given me a gift more precious than anyone ever has. And I will not forget. Not even if I live forever.”

“Don’t be silly,” Eannatum said with a grin. “No one lives forever.”

Folding the newspaper and setting it carefully aside, Nathan looked up at his two dearest friends. He had been living the life of a mortal for a long time. He’d had no contact at all with others like him. He loved this life of his. And he knew—dammit, he knew full well—that he would be risking all he had built if he did what he felt compelled to do.

And yet he had no choice.

“I can’t explain this to you ... but I need to go there.”