The Dark Lord's Vessel

Chapter 5-2

"Guess who?" Tirdard whispers affectionately in her ear.

Yadiditum's lips curve up into a smile.

"A mušḫuššu?" Yadiditum names a mythological beast that is part eagle, part lion and part goat.

"I am not!"

"Well you sure smell like it!" Yadiditum laughs.

"Hey! I just woke up from pulling sentry duty through the night!" Tirdard places his hand possessively over her belly and pulls her in to plant a kiss.

Yadiditum giggles. I try not to stare at the burgeoning testament of their love. She and Tirdard got married at the autumn Akitu festival. In her belly grows a reminder of what I have lost, for she and Ninsianna were always the best of friends.

My fists clench until I force the errant emotion down. I should have milked my own goat this morning, damantia! Not let the task fall to a pregnant woman.

"Thank you."

"It's okay." She gives me a mischievous eyebrow. "Needa let me take your half the milk."

Tirdard whispers something that turns his wife's cheeks the color of a pomegranate. With my Angelic hearing I catch a reference about milking that has nothing to do with goats and milk buckets.

A young mother behind me pokes the back of my wing. On either side of her stand two hungry-looking children, their clothing torn, and one of them has his arm immobilized in a sling.

I bid my mother-in-law farewell and move forward to give my report to the Chief.

Chief Kiyan is a handsome man, with grey at his temples and increasingly through his beard. He carries himself with the strength and agility of a warrior, but there is something else about him which compels one to obey. While it's beneath his stature to ladle out food, he greets every villager personally to remind them this meal is a gift from him.

"Ahh, Mikhail!" Chief Kiyan grabs my hand in an awkward Alliance handshake. "Did you find the source of the scream?"

"I found nothing, Sir."

"What about Dadbeh? Did he meet up with the escort"

"Yes," I say curtly. "But I didn't land to chat."

He already knows my feelings on the subject. I voiced them, vehemently, when he announced this farce of a trial. The last thing this village needs is to invite retaliation from the Uruk, especially over the innocence of the 'soith' who stabbed me! He no doubt hopes, by exonerating Shahla, it will also exonerate his own traitor of a son!

I snort. -If- the bastard still lives.

The cross old woman who stands next to him shoves a bowl full of stew into my scowling hands. Chief Kiyan's housekeeper is a cantankerous old widow, rendered homeless when Jamin burned down his house. She points at the basket full of flatbread whose scent has kept me salivating.

"You. Eat! You're nothing but bones and feathers."

I take a piece, still warm from the oven, rip off a hunk and shove it into my mouth. A taste reminiscent of Haven seeps across my tongue as the crackling outer husk dissolves into soft, spongy goodness. Ever since Yalda and Zhila were killed, the housekeeper has taken it upon herself to keep me supplied with bread which is a good thing, because otherwise I would probably forget to eat at all.

"Thffffank youffff," I mumble.

The cook smiles, softening her dour expression. She shoves a second loaf into my hand. Each refugee is supposed to get only one, but she announced because I am still too thin, that I will get two, and anybody who doesn't agree can take the matter up with the Chief.

Balancing my stew precariously so it does not spill, I hop-flap onto the Temple roof and plop down onto a stool placed at the corner. Up here I can keep watch over the village without feeling overwhelmed by humanity's chaos.

I bend the flat bread to scoop up the stew of carrots, lentils and chickpeas, flavored with flesh from a stringy old he-goat, some onions, some greens, and something oily I suspect is crocodile. The food settles into my stomach, radiating warmth.

I finger the clay beads Zakriti gave me, silently reciting the Cherubim prayer-meditations each pressed-in symbol represents. Right action. Always tell the truth. Save ten good men for every life you take. Little by little the tension fades, chased away by the prayers in the beads.

In the square below, an injured old man limps painfully towards the bread line. Two youngsters get up and take him by the elbow. A teenage girl helps a woman with a crying baby. A boy and a girl play, oblivious to the destruction which surrounds them. How can I abandon these people when it is my fault the lizards came here in the first place?

A sound behind me causes me to jerk around. I rise and flare my wings. My hand automatically flies to grip the hilt of my sword.

"It's just me."

My father-in-law holds out both his hands to show he is unarmed.

Ninsianna's father has the same tawny-beige eyes that she used to have, at least until she got Chosen, and then her eyes turned gold. His salt-and-pepper hair sticks up like a mad scientist thanks to his habit of running his fingers through it whenever he's deep in thought. His four-fringed kilt denotes he's a man of stature, and around his neck he wears a breastplate made of animal bones, lapis beads and bits of gold.

My feathers involuntarily rustle. Although he looks like the same shaman who welcomed me into their village, ever since I woke up, my subconscious whispers danger.

Immanu waits until we've made eye contact before he steps fully off the ladder, moving slowly and deliberately. There have been incidents since I woke up. Times when one of the villagers came up to me too quickly. Even so, I am unable to prevent the way my feathers ruffle outwards like a cat that's been spooked by a dog.

You thought Shahla wasn't a threat…

I thought she was Ninsianna at the time…

Immanu grabs a second stool and places it beside me.

"Care for company?"

"It's the goddess' rooftop."

We sit in silence, watching the village go about its life. At last Immanu clears his throat to say what he came here to say.

"Needa's worried about you. She says you haven't been getting any sleep?"

I stare south-west. In the distance I can see the jagged mountain where my ship crashed, beckoning like a ray of sunlight.

"It's nothing."

"There's no shame in saying you miss them."

I stare straight ahead, resisting the urge to wrap my wings around myself to shut out the chill. First Ninsianna, and now Yalda and Zhila. How many people can a person lose before they lose their heart?

"Maybe we should see if we can put you up someplace else?" Immanu's brow furrows. "It can't be healthy, sleeping in the same bed where Yalda died.

I finger the golden cruciform key through the fabric of my pocket. Yalda and Zhila would have wanted me to protect them. But I wasn't there. So now the two kind old women are dead. I rub the aching emptiness which lives beneath my scar.

"When are you and Needa going to rebuild your house?" I deflect the conversation onto safer ground. Immanu's expression grows veiled. Now it's his turn to keep secrets.

"Just find Ninsianna, okay?" He rises up to leave. "Just find my daughter! And then everything will go back to the way it was before."

My reply comes out a sob. "But I have no idea where she is!"

"You're not going to find her staying here!" Immanu's voice turns sharp with anger. "Just fly away, and don't return until you bring her back!"

The thought occurs to me every waking moment, but I am still far weaker than I was before I got stabbed. The desert stretches for thousands of square kilometers, and even if I did know where the Sata'anic base is, the lizards all swear they did not take Ninsianna there.

"Ask HER where to look?" I grab my shaman father-in-law's arm. "Tell me where they took her, and I will beat down the gates of Hades-6 to get her back!"

Immanu stares down at his hands.

"SHE grew silent right after they attacked our village. Needa and the Chief won't let me perform the ceremony to force the spirits to tell us where she is."

That part of me which grew up in a modern galactic empire remains skeptical of these 'ceremonies' my father-in-law claims give him the power to speak to the gods. But the part who has seen She-who-is possess my wife wishes fervently I could contact the Emperor without building a deep space transmitter?

"What kind of ceremony?" I ask.

Immanu grimaces. "Needa won't allow it." From the way he looks away, I know it is about that thing nobody wants to tell me.

"What happened, Immanu?"

The question hangs between us. Whatever caused Immanu and Needa's marriage to break down, not only do they refuse to speak of it, but it's as though the entire village wishes to forget. Even Pareesa claims its better I do not know.

"Fine," I rise to my feet. "I need to fly patrol."

My wings ache as though they might snap off, but I have grown weary of secrets, especially secrets which appear to revolve around me.

"Wait!" Immanu's eyes dart fervently behind us to make sure nobody else came up onto the roof. "Maybe you can talk some sense into her. Have I ever told you about the ceremony of a scapegoat?"

"A scapegoat?" I think of the goat I forgot to milk this morning. Little Nemesis is what I call her. She is the bane of my existence.

"Whenever a spot of bad luck comes upon our village," Immanu says. "Sometimes the shaman will make an appeal to the gods."

"What kind of appeal?"

"We dress it up in the finest ribbons and whisper in its ear the faults we want to purge. Then I throw it off a cliff or burn it alive, because in its pain, it opens a gateway to the gods. But sometimes, if your need is dire, you offer up something dearer."

I laugh. "You want to throw Little Nemesis off a cliff? Be my guest! Goddess only knows the little Hades-spawn deserves it."

Immanu's expression grows instantly veiled. I realize I must have transgressed one of those vague human social customs. My father-in-law was, I am certain, only making a joke.

We stare out across the village in silence, the Angelic and the shaman. Two divine creatures whose gods no longer care to speak to them. I stare at the setting sun.

'Please, your Eminence? Help me find your Chosen One? Send me an omen? Accurate intelligence? A map? A guide?'

A shout rises up from the south gate and works its way up through the rings in an excited whisper.

"Dadbeh is returned."

We look at each other, neither daring to ask if the other will slip a knife into the prisoner's ribcage. The last thing this village needs is a trial to exonerate a bunch of traitors. It will be war, for certain, between us and the Uruk for taking Chief Ditanu's son.

A runner jogs up to the temple entrance located beneath us. He pounds on the door, his sides heaving as he catches his breath. On his face, I see the same expression of apprehension that I feel. The Chief comes out wearing his golden armbands and finest five-tiered kilt. Tossing his shawl around his shoulders like a lion's mantle, he looks up towards the rooftop where he knows I prefer to sit. His expression is grim as he snaps the golden torque around his neck which marks him as decider of the law.

"Come," he says. "Let's go find out what our guest knows about my son."