Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (64 page)

Abaddon flew straight at one of Shay'tan's golden eyes and jabbed it with his sword. Clear liquid spurted out of it, the same as it would any mortal eye.

With a roar, Shay'tan clapped his claw over his eye.

"I had not intended to kill you, mortal," Shay'tan hissed like a serpent. "But now I have changed my mind!"

Shay'tan's form grew redder and more diffuse. The room grew intently hot. Flames licked along his trunk and then ignited.

"She-who-is forbids you from using your ascended powers to gain an advantage," Abaddon shouted. "If you kill me, the moment I gain entrance to the dreamtime, I shall tell her that her pet dragon has betrayed her trust!"

Shay'tan bared his fangs, white-hot daggers which bore little resemblance to the incisors of an animal.

"Perhaps, then, it is time I introduced you to my true form," Shay'tan hissed. His body shimmered, each scale erupting into flames until every aspect of him resembled a burning sun. "When I kill you, it will be with the form She-who-is created with her own hand!"

An inferno burst out of the facsimile of a mortal shell which Shay'tan assumed to contain the wrath of his fire. Flames licked towards him, a miniature supernova igniting. Abaddon screamed as the flames burned off his hair, his feathers and his skin. Somewhere out of his pain, he recognized a second consciousness cry out along with him. Sarvenaz! He could sense she felt his death-wound.

"Leave him alone, you scaly bastard!" Lieutenant Valac shouted.

Weapons fire.

An angry roar.

More weapons fire.

Voices shouting.

Abaddon fell backwards into the Devourer of Children's outstretched hands.

The rumble of the statue behind him, speaking as it clenched its fingers around him, surprised Shay'tan as much as it surprised him.

"Ex ambitio qui obtulerit holocaustum Deo?"

"So?" Shay'tan's flames grew furious. "At last you come out of hiding to answer for the murder of my mate!"

The statue dropped Abaddon into the brazier, and then answered the old dragon in a language he could not understand.

"Id libuerit, inermes. Quid pro me tu id quaeris?"

Abaddon shrieked as the dragon's fire burned him alive. Pain. So much pain. And the worst of it was that he could sense Sarvenaz could feel his pain, too!

It was, ironically, Shay'tan who plucked him out of the brazier.

The world turned dark, and then it was light again as hands dragged him across the floor. Abaddon screamed as his charred flesh left chunks against the bedrock.

"Hang on Sir, just hang on! Everything's going to be alright…"

"Sarvenaz," Abaddon whispered as he stared up beyond the roof of the cavern into the world beyond. He could see her, three grey hairs and the crow's feet he adored. He stared not just at her, but past her to the Eternal Tree which spread its canopy over her like a protective umbrella. He could see her, not just as he knew her now, but as he had known her in her last lifetime, the one where she had died in his arms.

He reached for her and, despite his pain he smiled. She had found him again, and if she'd found him twice during this lifetime, then goddess willing, they would find each other a third time.

Rocks fell down from the ceiling. All around them the cavern began to collapse.

"Just hang on Sir," Lieutenant Valac shouted at him. "I think these only failed because they ran out of power."

He picked up Abaddon, ignoring his cries of pain as Valac tore him out of his pleasant death-moment, and dumped him into a cryo-chamber from which he had just yanked out a mummified Nephilim.

The cavern rumbled, but it wasn't from the two gods fighting, but the natural collapse of a ceiling subjected to far more heat than an ice-cavern had any business being subjected to.

"Everything's going to be alright, Sir…"

The lid slipped down. Mist flooded into the chamber and obscured the sight of the cavern collapsing onto Valac's head.

Abaddon's last thought as the ice took him was just how much he regretted not living long enough to see his daughter born.

~ * ~ * ~

December, 3,390 BC

Earth: Mesopotamian Plain

Pareesa

"Where in Shay'tan's name
is
he!"

Pareesa mouthed the unfamiliar curse-word, the one her people had picked up from Mikhail after he'd come back from Gasur carrying lizard-gold stamped with an image of the creature he called 'dragon.'  Sweat beaded on her forehead and caused the salty desert sand to stick to her skin even though, this close to the winter solstice, usually the weather was cold. Roast all day! Freeze all night! That was life once you traveled more than a few leagues away from Hiddekel River.

She stared up at the sun, not yet even to its apex, and wondered if the Cherubim god laughed at her impudence. She'd come into the desert unprepared to do anything but make a perfunctory search, just enough to tell her father she'd made a good-faith effort to find Dadbeh and apologize before going back home to practice with the sword. But then her overdeveloped sense of responsibility had kicked in.
Mikhail
would never leave a mission incomplete! All she could picture was how disappointed he would be when he woke up and realized she'd shamed one of their best warriors into leaving.

Who was she kidding? Mikhail was dying…

No he wasn't!

Yes, he was.

No! He
wasn't!!!
Mikhail would recover! He
had
to recover.

She reached for her goatskin and realized she was low on water. The desert stretched as far as she could see, ochre-yellow and filled with rubble. She had not brought rations to search the desert at length.

'I should go home.' 

No. Not yet. This was
her
responsibility. She would searc
hj
ust over the next rise, to the small stream which was usually dry, but thanks to the rainy season might carry enough water to support a man like Dadbeh who wished to be left alone. It would be muddy and taste terrible, but at least she wouldn't die of thirst.

Her feet ached as she veered away from the well-trod path and set out across the open desert. Her own musings about whether Mikhail would live occupied her thoughts until the ground suddenly disappeared beneath her feet. With a startled cry, Pareesa rolled down the embankment and plopped face-first in a trickle of water which couldn't be more than three fingers deep. She had found the stream.

"Damantia!"

With a sob of frustration, Pareesa shoved herself up and rearranged her now muddy shawl across her chest, the wet, sticky clay, heavy and uncomfortable across her nipples. Ugh! Why couldn't she have fallen into a nice deep stream which would have washed off the salt which stung her eyes? Oh, well… At least the sloppy wet gloop had cooled her down.

She untied the mouthpiece to her goatskin. The water was tepid and muddy, but at least it was wet and in the desert, water was the source of life. How much further did she dare travel before giving up and walking home? She stared up at the golden yellow sun which shone down on her with relentless fury.

"Are you going to help me find him?" Pareesa spoke into the air, "or will you make me wander the desert forever?"

The Cherubim god gave her that amused 'tickle' she associated with him half-listening to her. It reminded her of the way her father let her chatter whenever he was busy carving wood. For some reason, she'd expected the gods would be more … attentive? No. Not attentive. It was
she,
really, who'd become better at paying attention to
him.

With a sigh, she took one last sip out of her goatskin then wrapped the rawhide tightly around the neck. Since she was already
down
in the stream bed and her pampooties were coated in mud, she might as well
stay
down here. It was a good measure cooler in the ditch. She continued her journey upstream. She stopped when she heard the sound of a man's voice.

Dadbeh! She hurried towards the sound.

Pareesa's natural inclination had always been to approach people with friendliness, but her near-kidnapping had taught her caution. As the sound grew closer, she realized it was not one voice, but many, along with the jingle of harness-bells and deep-chested groaning of many camels. A trading caravan? Perhaps Dadbeh had crossed paths with them and they could tell her in which direction he had travelled?

A warning buzz struck at her crown so powerful that, for a moment, it made her ears ring. There was something about this trading caravan which the God of War did not like.

'Thanks…'
she sent up a little silent prayer.

She pressed herself into a crevasse, thankful she had encountered the group of traders
here,
in one of the few places she could take cover. A man's voice called out from the party of traders in Uruk. With shouts and curses, the camels groaned as the caravan came to a halt.

Pareesa peeked above the embankment. The camel's colorful woven bridles and blankets were Kemet, but there were far too many men and no sign of the usual women and children. Despite their voluminous packs, the camels stepped jauntily and not the weary trudge of beasts laden down with trade goods. While the men wore colorful Kemet striped robes, there was an awkwardness about the way they bounced on top of the camel's humps.

The man leading the caravan looked her way. Oh! Drat! He had seen her! She waited to be dragged out of the ditch, painfully aware of just how loud her breathing sounded. Ten heartbeats. Twenty. One hundred heartbeats. She clenched her obsidian blade and prepared to do battle.

The anticipated attack never materialized. With more talk and laughter, the Uruk dismounted the camels and began to make a temporary camp. She stared down at her mud-caked shawl-dress, suddenly thankful she had fallen into the mud. She rubbed her hands onto her mud-caked shawl and smeared it through her hair so she would blend better into the desert.

What were Uruk doing this far into Ubaid territory? Her heart racing, she painstakingly moved up the small embankment on her hands and knees, careful not to announce her presence by dislodging the loose gravel. Coming towards them walked a small party dressed in Ubaid attire. Should she warn them these men were imposters?

The Uruk leader moved forward, his arms flung open in a greeting. Pareesa scrutinized their body language. Whoever these people were, it was who the Uruk had traveled here to meet. At last the Ubaid's facial features grew close enough to recognize as Laum, Shahla's wealthy linen-trader of a father; traders in his employ, and a woman with a newborn infant which gossip claimed was Laum's mistress. The men carried small, heavy packs, likely grain and gold.

Laum embraced the Uruk group leader. The Uruk took the heavy satchels from the men and packed them into the empty saddlebags of one of the camels. Pareesa cursed her inability to catch anything but the most fragmentary word as the parties devolved into a strange pidgin of Ubaid, Kemet, and Uruk. She only understood Kemet if she had sufficient time to translate it, while the Uruk she understood not at all.

The Uruk broke into two groups. Three Uruk and two camels moved back in the direction they had come, escorting Laum's mistress, his offspring, and his employees south towards Uruk territory, while Laum remained with the larger group.

The Uruk leader and Laum turned and moved towards the stream, away from the ears of the other men.
Goatshit!
Her heart pounding, Pareesa skittered back into her crevasse and did her best to melt into the mud. Their voices grew louder as they stood mere inches away.

"I did not expect you to honor us with camels," Laum said in Kemet. "It should go a long way towards alleviating my mistress' apprehensions."

"We liberated them from a caravan which tried to circumvent our tribute," the Uruk leader laughed. His expression grew serious. "Tell me, friend. Did you drop the poison down into the well?"

"Both wells have been contaminated," Laum said. "By late this afternoon, the entire village will have consumed it with their supper. May she-who-is kill them all!"