Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (110 page)

A lump rose in Mikhail's throat.

“Ninsianna is more valuable to them alive,” Mikhail said softly. "I know it. I know it because I can
feel
her," he pointed to his chest, "right here. And though I know she is not well, I know that she is not dead, either."

Needa looked away. Was it because she didn't
believe
him? Or feared he was mistaken whenever he said he could
feel
that Ninsianna was still alive. Lately, his mother-in-law had been acting evasive.

“I understand why you wish to hurry,” Needa said, “but you’ll only get one chance to steal a sky canoe. That means you must be truly healed."

She tussled his hair as though he was a little boy. Her evasive look disappeared behind her habitual
'I bite your head off because I care'
expression.

"You’re our son, too, you know?" Needa said. "Before you married our daughter, we adopted you into our home. Ninsianna will be sad if I let anything happen to you.”

“Yes, General Needa,” Mikhail gave her a mock salute. “I will only do exercises that won’t open up the scab.”

“Good,” Needa said. “Immanu is due back the day after tomorrow. He was trying to track down a trader who has access to this
brimstone
you need to help us defend us against the lizard demons.”

Immanu had been missing a lot lately, and when he
was
home, the couple stared at one another in awkward silence. Whatever had happened while he'd lain unconscious, it had strained their marriage to the point of breaking.

“If only I were strong enough to fly any sort of distance,” Mikhail's voice rose with frustration. "Then I could find the rocks I need myself. It's all I can do just to get off the ground!”

“You need to know what direction to fly in first, son,” Needa said.

She gathered up her healer's basket and, with a stern finger, pointed at the crock of slimy squirrel. With a grunt goodbye, she bustled out the door to tend to patients in far worse condition than he. Mikhail poked through the tasteless clumps of stew, unashamed to show his disgust now that there was nobody in the room. He loved his mother-in-law dearly, but gods! The woman was the most terrible cook he had ever met!

He remembered the sight of Ninsianna bouncing out of the stream with a fish impaled at the end of a spear. Tears rose to his eyes. The chunk of meat he'd been chewing lodged in his throat, refusing to let him swallow. Gods! How he missed his wife!

He rose and buttoned his uniform shirt, tucking the tails into the belt of his kilt. He supposed he should go put his cargo pants back on, but the truth was, he'd shrunk so much his pants kept sliding down to his ankles. It was yet another reminder of just how diminished he'd become. There were no mirrors, but it was just as well, because he feared what he would see when he looked into his own eyes.

He picked up two buckets of water and the yoke, and then made his way to the central well to draw water for the widow-sisters. Siamek was there, the man who had helped hold their warriors together while he'd been unconscious. Mikhail had never been good at initiating conversation for any purpose other than to  say something relevant to a problem the village suffered, so he stood there awkwardly, waiting his turn, until he realized Siamek would not initiate a conversation, either.

"Hello?" Mikhail said. Just to make sure he wasn't misunderstood, he softened his feathers the way he did whenever he spoke to family.

Siamek glowered at him and spoke stiffly in return. "Mikhail."

Mikhail felt an odd combination of disappointment and anger. Things had not been well between him and Siamek ever since he had woken up, and unlike before, when Jamin had been causing trouble, Mikhail had absolutely no idea what he might have done wrong. He decided to try a direct approach, instead.

"Have I done something to offend you?"

Siamek's cold gaze met his.

"No."

The new Mikhail, the one who
cared
what people thought, felt hurt by his lieutenant's cold demeanor. The old Mikhail, however, calculated that, should this man who he depended upon to carry out his orders nurture some sort of grudge, it could cause the chain of command to break down at some crucial moment in the future.
Both
versions of Mikhail agreed that four weeks of stony silence was far longer than he should have let this mystery fester.

"Walk with me, Siamek," Mikhail said. He gave the command as an order, not a request.

Siamek moved to help him carry the buckets of water. Mikhail waved him away.

"I need to do this myself," Mikhail said. "It is all part of my rehabilitation." He groaned as he heaved the two heavy buckets up and then teetered, a bit dizzy, as he adjusted the yoke for balance.

"Does Needa know you're doing this?"

Mikhail gave him that blank stare he used which was his version of,
'are you kidding me?'

"This water is for the widow-sister's," Mikhail said. "They have invited me for dinner. Since I can perform no other useful function, the least I can do is bring them water to wash the dishes."

Siamek's hostile glare softened.

"Do
they
know you're doing this?"

"No."

They walked in silence. When he realized Siamek would not volunteer any information, he wracked his mind for things Ninsianna had taught him to entice another person into a dialogue. Raphael had always been good at duties such as this. He, on the other hand, had always preferred to stand back and watch.

"How is Rakshan doing building the device I sketched out for him in the clay?" Mikhail asked.

"He does not understand it," Siamek said. "But he is very excited. He thinks he can get the wood you need to make it bend the way you say."

"What about the bat excrement?"

"Namhu scours the caves for some now," Siamek said. He frowned. "Though I can't understand why you want them to carry so much home. We already have a pile large enough to bury a house."

"We shall need more," Mikhail said. "Ask for volunteers. After we wash it through a sieve, we must lay it out to dry for several weeks."

Siamek wrinkled his nose up in disgust.

"What about the fortifications I recommended?" Mikhail asked.

"We have sharpened every stick we could find," Siamek said. "But what good will such weapons do against a sky canoe that can call down lightning?"

Had Siamek not been giving him the cold shoulder, perhaps he might have shared that information with him, but having already been burnt once by Jamin, he would not divulge any more information than he absolutely had to.

Siamek fell silent as they continued their descent into the ring where Yalda and Zhila lived. As they walked, Mikhail could see the man's face resume its earlier scowl.

"You are angry at me?" Mikhail said at last.

Siamek said nothing, and for a moment Mikhail feared he would not answer him at all. But then the man's mask of anger slipped, and beneath that mask was an expression that Mikhail recognized as anguish.

"How can you tolerate them not even performing the death rituals for the girl?" Siamek said.

"Who? Shahla?"

"Gita!"

"Gita? Why would they perform the death rituals for Gita?"

"Because she is
dead
because of you!"

Siamek lobbed the words at him as though they were a sword. Mikhail stopped walking and stared at the man in confusion.

"Gita ran away so she wouldn't have to answer to the Tribunal."

"She ran away because your
father-in-law
wanted to throw her upon the solstice bonfire!" Siamek spat. "Whether or not she was innocent of any wrongdoing!"

A sensation of revulsion rippled through Mikhail's feathers. Trial-by-fire was a barbaric means of execution he had seen on far too many pre-technological worlds, but it did not explain why Siamek was angry at
him.

"Everyone knows the girl aided and abutted Shahla," Mikhail said. "They were best friends."

Siamek turned and began to walk away.

"Forget it," Siamek gestured with disgust. "You are nothing but a fool!"

A fog of confusion stabbed into Mikhail's brain. For as long as he'd known the man, Siamek had always behaved as though he disliked Gita and avoided her like a plague. Whatever was going on here, he was missing important pieces of the puzzle.

"Siamek!" Mikhail called. He wished to fly after him, but laden down with buckets and winded from the brief walk down here, he had no strength for such games. He resorted to the one tactic he'd seen Immanu use when Needa was angry at him.

"Please, Siamek! I don't understand what I did wrong!"

Siamek whirled and glowered at him.

"For six weeks that girl never left your side," Siamek said. "And then when she'd thought you'd died, she
killed
herself. She threw herself off the east wall of the village because everybody blamed her for what Shahla had done. She had no idea the Tribunal had just ruled she was not to blame."

The village swam with a peculiar sense of vertigo. A song. A hand holding his. The unnamed scent which still clung to Ninsianna's red cape. A crown of dancing stars. And a dark-winged child with eyes so black it seemed as though they carried the sorrows of the universe.

"Immanu said she ran away because she was guilty?" Mikhail said.

That sense of having his frontal lobes squeezed in a machine shop vise and then having his brain lobotomized grew stronger as the village around him began to spin.

"If it wasn't for
her,
" Siamek hissed. "You wouldn't be alive!"

Siamek turned and stalked away, ignoring Mikhail's calls to wait.

Chasing after Siamek would accomplish little. Plastering that old, familiar unreadable expression onto his face, the one he had mastered while living amongst the Cherubim, he knocked on the widow-sisters door, hoping that perhaps
they
might enlighten him with the truth?

~ * ~ * ~

Late-January: 3,389 BC

Uncharted Territories: Prince of Tyre

Ninsianna

"Thanks, Ninsianna!"

Ruax practically flew out of the harem, his white wings fluttering with happiness as the Uruk woman hissed and devoured the fruit he'd finally, after much coaxing, gotten her to take out of his hand.

Ninsianna stared at the woman in question. Progress? She'd hoped the woman would become
less
combative, not more. Instead, the strong-willed, raven-haired beauty had grown relentless about tormenting the other women in the harem. Sane? Not quite…  But at least she'd stopped cringing every time Ruax stepped into the room.

The moment the door shut, Apausha rose from his alcove.

"Did you
really
just convince him that being hit by the woman was an ancient human mating ritual?" Apausha asked.

Ninsianna batted her eyelashes in a show of mock-flirtation.

"Why, Apausha?" Ninsianna spoke in her most sultry voice. "Doesn't
every
lady try to pluck out the tailfeathers of any man she's interested in."

Apausha gave a barking laugh and then tasted the air. His dewlap transformed into the pink of a just-ripening pomegranate as his olfactory senses told him far more than Ninsianna probably wanted him to know.

"I don't know how you do that," Apausha said. "But every time you flirt, not only does it
look
like you really like them, but it also
tastes
like it."

Ninsianna sniffled.

"I have no interest in the man."

Apausha averted his gaze, an annoying habit the creature had of never making eye contact. She'd made great progress, explaining that to refuse to meet her gaze was considered an
insult
, but whenever he felt embarrassed, Apausha reverted to his old habit.