Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (27 page)

"Mother, help me," Ninsianna cried. But her only response was the taunted warning of Ibilisi, Ibilisi, Ibilisi, warning her that she was in the presence of the devil.

She drifted for the longest time, staring up at the stars which no longer sang to her, until the words of the ebony-skinned woman grew louder and the pain in her chest at last began to subside. The clouds she lay upon had a texture to them, softer than linen, and the air had a clean, lifeless scent, as though it had just been washed and hung out on the clothesline.

Ninsianna opened her eyes. Tiny lights sparkled so close she could touch them, but they were not stars, but the magic lanterns Mikhail called 'LED's.' Was she back on his sky canoe? She reached over to pull his warm, dark wing over herself like a blanket and came up empty-handed.

She remembered the white-winged Evil One, bent over her abdomen with a knife.

"My baby!!!" She grabbed at her abdomen, clawing frantically to remove the strange shawl they'd wrapped around her. "My baby! My baby!" The Evil One had taken her baby!

She grabbed at her belly, touched it, rubbed it, and ran her fingers over her taut skin searching for her injuries. Her abdomen swelled beneath her fingers in a reassuring curve.

"He stabbed me, he stabbed me, oh, great goddess I felt him stab me!" Ninsianna sobbed. Her heart raced as she searched for the knife-wound and found nothing. She could find no wound.

Sobbing hysterically, she threw back her head and gave an ululating cry of grief. No one moved to comfort her. No one consoled her as she called out for the goddess and could feel no reassurance at all.

Finally, a tiny kick tapping from inside her belly cut through her fog of anguish.

"He's alive!" Ninsianna sobbed with joy.

She pressed through her skin to feel the reassuring outline of her son growing unharmed in her womb. The Evil One had stabbed her. She had seen him sink the knife into her belly. She had felt it. She had
felt
her flesh tear open and heard her son cry out as the Evil One had ripped him from her womb and devoured him alive.

"Ibilisi, Ibilisi, Ibilisi," the ebony-skinned woman whispered from the bunk next to hers. "Ibilisi, Ibilisi, Ibilisi…"

Ninsianna forced herself upward on her elbows and rubbed the dull ache which centered just above her heart. Had that, too, been one of the Evil One's illusions? His bragging he would use her to kill her husband?

She looked around the larger room which surrounded her bed. The magic lanterns and sterile, white atmosphere reminded her of Mikhail's sleeping quarters, but this room was much larger than the cramped quarters they had enjoyed as a kind of sanctuary, far from the village of Assur. In the center was the largest table she had ever seen, complete with luxurious chairs for seating perhaps two dozen people, and around that table shuffled pregnant women as though they existed in a dream.

"Ibilisi. Ibilisi. Ibilisi."

Ninsianna looked over at the source of that chanted whisper. Nestled with her back pressed against the wall sat the most beautiful, ebony-skinned woman she had ever seen. She had the long, eloquent neck and the regal bone structure of a woman accustomed to wealth and servants. Her hair trailed down her back in tiny, ebony curls, but her eyes had a dead look, as if only her body was here.

Ninsianna focused on the word the ebony-skinned woman chanted over and over again, but that sudden flash of knowledge she'd grown accustomed to ever since She-who-is had granted her the gift of tongues did not occur. A butterfly of fear fluttered in Ninsianna's gut as she realized the tenets of language once again limited her ability to communicate, but she didn't need the goddess' gift to understand the woman warned her they were trapped in the presence of the devil.

"Um … hello?" Ninsianna said.

The ebony-skinned woman continued rocking, her eyes unseeing as she chanted her recitation. Ninsianna sat upright, careful not to bang her head upon the ceiling which sat only inches above her head. Her abdomen moved reassuringly in all the awkward, uncomfortable ways a pregnant woman's belly should move, right down to the pressure in her bladder. She reached across the small railing which separated her pillow from the foot of the ebony-skinned woman's sleeping pallet. Ninsianna pointed to her own chest.

"I'm Ninsianna. What's your name?"

She pointed to the ebony-skinned woman and waited. Her only answer was the mantra chanted over and over again. Ibilisi. Ibilisi. Ibilisi.

"I won't hurt you," Ninsianna said. Her voice carried a bit of a panicked edge. "Please. Can you tell me where we are?"

The ebony skinned woman stared past her towards the stars she could not reach. That oppressive feeling of being trapped pressed in upon her and made her want to scream. It felt as though she could no longer feel her arms or legs or feet, a deadening of sensation, screaming that something was terribly wrong. She searched for the woman's spirit light, but she could neither see nor hear no feel absolutely anything, leaving her deaf, dumb and blind. Why could she not sense She-who-is? Was she, like this woman, trapped inside of a nightmare?

"Mother," she whimpered. "Why have you abandoned me?"

The shuffle of other people drew Ninsianna's attention back to the larger room. She watched the women, hoping one would welcome her as a newcomer, but it was as though she was invisible, for not one of them looked her way.

She slipped down the ladder, determined to assess the situation. Where was she? And how had she gotten into this room? Beneath her bunk lay another bunk, occupied by a sandy-haired woman.

"Hello," Ninsianna said. She pointed to her own chest in case the woman didn't speak Ubaid. "I am Ninsianna. What's your name?"

The woman hissed and clawed at her like a cat. Ninsianna jumped back. The woman gave a guttural yowl and huddled, wild-eyed, at the furthest corner of her bunk, tearing at the hem of her dress.

She remembered how Shahla had been; mind-broken and unpredictable enough that she'd been easy prey for the Evil One. Her heart sank. She'd been assigned to sleep above a crazy woman?

"I'm sorry," Ninsianna said. She reached out, palm down, to show she meant no harm. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just …" She backed away, not wishing to antagonize the woman further. "Uhm … go back to doing whatever you were doing. I'll … um …"

The woman hissed and crushed back against the wall, her teeth bared like a cat that had seen a cobra.

She moved through the bunk room, attempting to engage first one woman, and then another, in conversation, but their reactions ranged from apathy to outright hostility. At last she came to an alcove at the back of the room. On the floor, covered with a blanket was a long, green tail, and attached to that tail was a…

"Lizard demon!" Ninsianna shrieked.

She leaped backwards, searching frantically for a weapon to defend herself. Finding none, she ran to the furthest corner of the room where six or seven pregnant women huddled together like frightened sheep. She waited for the lizard-demon to leap up and attack her, but it did not move except to occasionally groan as though it was in pain.

Her feet began to ache, followed shortly by her back. She shifted her weight back and forth, but the urgent pressure of the baby pressing against her bladder shouted it was time to visit the chamber-pot. Every now and again one of the women moved through a doorway into another room. Could it be a bathroom like the one on Mikhail's sky canoe? Discomfort finally caused her to overcome her fear. Rather than huddling in the corner like a mewling kitten, perhaps it was time to explore the source of that terrible stench?

More women huddled inside. Ninsianna tried to push past them to get inside one of the stalls, but they growled and hissed at her like lionesses protecting their prey. She peeked at her doppelgänger in the reflective wall Mikhail called a 'mirror.' The eyes which stared back at her were not the internally luminescent gold ones she'd had since the day the goddess had Chosen her, but the ordinary tawny-beige ones she had inherited from her father. Fear ignited in her belly. She reached out with a trembling hand to touch the all-too-ordinary eyes.

"Mother? Have I done something to lose your favor?"

Tears slid down her cheeks as she realized she'd been Un-Chosen. The goddess had warned her that one day the Evil One would come to her village, she had failed to prepare, and now she was being punished.

At last a woman vacated one of the little rooms. Ninsianna pushed forward before somebody else did and slammed shut the door, ignoring the screech of indignation that she'd cut in line in front of another. She gagged as the stench of unflushed excrement slammed into her nostrils.

"Why hasn't anybody emptied this?"

She started to open the door to search for a bucket to haul water from the faucet, but spotted the little silver handle Mikhail had explained would carry water to the chalice had his sky canoe not been broken. If the waterfalls in the sink worked, perhaps this would as well? She held her nose and pressed the handle. Water flowed into the bowl. It made a terrible, sucking noise, but it worked exactly the way Mikhail had promised it would.

Outside her stall she heard shrieks of terror and the sound of running feet. She realized the women were afraid of the sound of a flushing toilet?

With a malicious smile, Ninsianna pressed the handle three more times. It left the bowl as clean and white as it had always looked on Mikhail's sky canoe. With a contented sigh, she sat down and took care of business. This, at least, felt familiar thanks to her time spent helping Mikhail heal. She sat praying for direction from She-who-is until her backside went numb. Wiggling her rump to shake away the pins and needles, she pressed the magic handle and watched, fascinated, as the water spirits purified it. Unlike desert water, which always carried a stain of ochre, this water was clear.

Perhaps it was a sacred well?

Yes! That was it! She would make an offering to the water spirits and beg them to plead for intercession! She eagerly ripped off tiny squares from the long, rolled strip of cloth Mikhail called 'toilet paper' and used it to fashion a makeshift flower. She would create her own nature symbols to receive omens from She-who-is.

"Thank you for not letting the Evil One take my baby," Ninsianna prayed. "You must have a purpose for sending me  into the bosom of your enemy. Please, Mother. Tell me what to do?"

She dropped the offering into the magic well. It floated the same as if she offered a real flower into a stream, but after a moment it began to sink. That gnawing feeling of being abandoned gripped her belly.

It shouldn't matter. All streams eventually flowed to the sacred Hiddekel River. She pushed the magic handle and watched the flower swirl around in a vortex until finally the water spirits accepted it with a gulping swallow. She waited for that familiar tingle, but none came.

Tears welled into her eyes.

"Are you angry with me, Mother?"

She repeated the ritual, only this time she closed her eyes and raised the paper flowers above her head before dropping them into the bowl. Like the first flower the second one disappeared, but that familiar sensation of being cradled by the goddess never materialized.

An urgent flutter beat inside her chest. She had been abandoned. She had been abandoned by She-who-is! Frantically ripping square after square off the roll, she formed them into flowers and filled the entire bowl with offerings until she could no longer see the water. There. That should demonstrate her devotion! She shut her eyes and prayed with every ounce of her being as she pushed down upon the handle and prayed for an omen, any omen, from She-who-is.

"Please, Mother! Anything! Even a cockroach!"

The flowers swirled around and around.

The water rose higher.

The water spirits pushed her offering right up and out of the well and rejected it, spilling paper flowers all over the floor.

Ninsianna burst into tears as she crawled upon the floor and picked up the soggy flowers which disintegrated into mush in her hand.

"Mother! Why have you forsaken me?"

A pounding on the door startled her out of her prayer. Ninsianna peeked out. A dark-haired Uruk woman snarled at her like an angry hyena. Here, as was true everywhere, the women had a pecking order, but unlike in Assur, here Ninsianna was the lowest caste member.

The woman clawed at her and dragged her away from the sacred well.

"Get your hands off of me!"

Ninsianna stared at the circle of unfriendly faces, but even with her diminished gift she could tell these women were insane. Whatever had happened to them, only enough of their spirit light still remained to keep their bodies functioning to incubate their pregnancies.

Ninsianna backed into the room with her bunk bed. The lizard demon had still not moved, but while she'd been praying somebody had placed two large trays of food on the table, food which had already been devoured. Ninsianna stared at the empty tray with dismay. There was nothing left except a piece of fruit somebody had dropped on the floor and some half-eaten bread.

She stared at the smeared crumbs left on the tray. Why, she'd rather starve than lower herself to eat cast-off offal! She sat back on her bunk and shut her eyes to distract herself from her hunger.

Why did her chest hurt?