The Dark Lord's Vessel

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The soldier bore it in silence.

He sat up, propp'd—was much wasted—

Had lain a long time quiet in one position,

A bloodless, brown-skinn'd face,

With eyes full of determination.

.

—Walt Whitman, Memoranda During the War

.

PAREESA

"Walk with the gods, little fairy," Pareesa's mother said. "And don't get into any trouble today."

Pareesa resisted the urge to weep as her mother lifted a shaky hand to touch her cheek and grimaced; no doubt it caused her a lot of pain. She glanced at Papa, who did his best to remain stoic as Granny bustled around the common room, trying to cook breakfast for her six younger brothers and sisters.

"You know I will, Mama," Pareesa said. "We'll only practice for a few hours, and then we'll come back inside the gate. There's too much work to do rebuilding."

Mama smiled, and for a moment she looked pretty despite the bandage Doctor Peyman had taped around her head. Pareesa tried not to think about what Mama's face looked like beneath the linen wrapped across one cheek and ear.

She climbed up the ladder into the sleeping loft she shared with her brothers and sisters, strapped her sword onto her hip, and then paused to caress the firestick she'd used to shoot down the sky canoe. The Chief wanted them to resume their normal training, but it seemed so futile, to train with sticks and stones when the lizard people could rain fire down upon them from the heavens?

If only the weapon still had some magic!

She left it hanging in its holster next to her sleeping pallet and clattered down the ladder where Papa struggled to feed her brothers and sisters. She kissed Mama on the cheek, careful not to jostle the bandage which covered the firestick burn. Her little sister Zakriti blocked her at the door, arms crossed; her expression as mature as a five-summer-girl could manage.

"When is Mikhail going to take me for a flight?"

Pareesa glanced at Papa who, thankfully, was too busy feeding baby Gemeli to pay attention.

"He can't, pesty-poo." She kept her voice low. "Papa told him you're too little."

"I'm not little! I'm an i-in-integral part of village, erm, d-def-defens, uhm, the warriors." Zakriti's small face solidified into a scowl.

Pareesa tussled her little sister's hair which had begun to resemble a long, brown bird's nest without Mama to brush and braid it.

"Yes, you are integral, little spider. I wish you'd seen the look on the lizard people's faces when the boys dropped the pots down onto their heads and there were camel-spiders…" She made creepy-crawly fingers with her free hand and wiggled them onto her little sister's neck. "Everywhere!"

Pareesa tickled her until Zakriti howled for mercy. No doubt she'd find her and at least two of her brothers shadowing her as she trained the warriors, re-enacting each blow upon each other with sticks.

"I'm not too little," Zakriti said as soon as she caught her breath. "He let you fly!"

"He only flew me over the rooftop to get me someplace for the battle."

Zakriti's eyes sparkled as she tugged upon her hand and asked for the millionth time: "Tell me what it was like?"

Pareesa made her eyes grow wide with mock-terror.

"It was terrifying!" she lied. "It felt as though I had dropped my stomach."

"He promised if I got him enough snakes and spiders," Zakriti pouted, "he'd take me for a ride. I thought Mikhail always tells the truth?"

Pareesa bent down and whispered in Zakriti's ear.

"I'll ask him again, but Papa told him no."

"Why doesn't he just do what he wants?"

Pareesa sighed.

"Because he always does what he thinks is right, even when it causes him trouble."

She squeezed her little sister's hand. The poor kid was even more obsessed with Mikhail than she was. She feared if Mikhail didn't indulge Zakriti's wish, the kid might build herself a pair of wings and jump right off the roof of their house.

She skipped along the hard packed street past the ruined houses, humming a song that’d been stuck in her head. The morning sky still bore hints of grey, streaked with stripes of red reflected off the clouds. What would it be like when Mikhail carried her up into the heavens? Would the Cherubim queen agree to train her? Would her B-Team become soldiers in the Eternal Emperor's armies?

"Hey, Pareesa!"

She whirled to see who called her name. A dark-haired young man jogged to catch up to her, wearing the bleary-eyed look of a warrior who'd just spent the night assigned to guard-duty. Pareesa suppressed a smile and tried not to act too giddy.

"Ebad?" She feigned cool disinterest. She was, after all, technically his commander.

“What’s that you’re singing?”

“Just something I woke up with.”

"Is it Cherubim?"

Pareesa shrugged. "I don't know. I just woke up singing."

Ebad gave her a shy smile, reminding her that once upon a time she'd thought he was awkward. Four years older than her, he was competent in battle, intelligent, and reliable. He'd also taken a spear for her, always a nice gesture from a suitor. She pretended not to notice how handsome he looked in his brand new three-tiered kilt, a symbol of his promotion to what Mikhail called 'Lieutenant.'

"Siamek sent me to ask you to meet him at his house," Ebad said.

"He's awake?"

"He's always awake," Ebad said. "Doctor Peyman ran out of the medicine he uses for pain. Needa's afraid to give him too much borage tea because she said it might make his wounds bleed."

"I'll go right away." Pareesa veered to head up into the second ring where Siamek still lived with his mother. Ebad hurried to keep up with her. She noted the way his steps fell in line with hers.

"Could you tell Mikhail I'll be late starting this morning's lesson?"

"Mikhail never came back last night."

Pareesa stopped. Ebad crashed into her back.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes. I was on sentry duty all night."

Pareesa wrung her hands. "Maybe he flew over some other part of the wall?"

"The Chief asked us to have him report to him, night or day, the minute he came back. We've got guards stationed everywhere. If he came back last night, he didn't go home."

A dull sensation settled into her gut. Mikhail was mad as hell the Tribunal implied this destruction was his fault. She, better than anybody, knew it was best to never make him become enraged. The Chief had promised to make amends, but if Mikhail never returned…

Pareesa's lip trembled. Would he really just leave and not tell them all goodbye?

No. Mikhail wouldn't do that. He wouldn't leave her behind. Sure, he was anxious to find Ninsianna, but he'd been training the other warriors to take over once they were gone. When he left, it would all be proper and planned. With a proper ceremony, just like the ones he'd told her about when an Angelic was assigned to another sky canoe, with a successor all trained to step in and fill their shoes.

"Is that why Siamek wants to see me?"

Ebad raised his shoulders in a shrug. "I don't know. I'm just the nobody who guards the gate."

He gave her a sheepish grin. He was fishing for a compliment.

"Oh, you!" She stood on tiptoe and gave him a peck on the cheek. Mikhail had warned her that officers were not supposed to 'fraternize.' Gah! Was that even a word? It had taken him forever to translate what 'fraternization' meant, and from the way his cheeks had turned scarlet, she suspected it had to do with that thing a man and women did which resulted in babies.

She noted the dark circles underneath Ebad's eyes.

"Go get some sleep. I want you to be fully awake when I murderlize you in training this afternoon."

Ebad grinned. By murderlize she meant 'brutally humiliate you with some fancy new warrior skill in front of all your friends.' Even though she liked him, she didn't hold her blows. In fact, she was harder on Ebad than anybody else. It wouldn't do if he went and got himself killed.

"You're going to see Siamek now, right?" Ebad asked.

"Complete the mission."

"Complete the mission." Ebad gave her a salute and a grin, and then veered off to head to his home.

Pareesa hurried off to see what Siamek needed. The door opened before she could knock. Dadbeh stepped out, almost bumping into her.

"Hey, Pareesa!" The small man gave her a wry grin which only accentuated his off-center nose. "I hear you've been running the warriors into the ground?"

"Who, me?" Pareesa feigned innocence.

Dadbeh laughed. "Just don't beat them up too badly. We might need them to actually fight the enemy."

Pareesa grinned. "How's Siamek doing?"

Dadbeh's expression turned more sober. "He's lucky to be alive."

He stared off towards the still-rising sun. It reflected off his mismatched eyes, one of them brown, the other sprinkled with flecks of green. Ghost eyes. It was said that people with mismatched eyes had one eye in the Dreamtime, the other firmly settled upon the Earth, and that they could see into both worlds simultaneously, including the ghosts of the dead. Had Dadbeh seen the ghosts Tizqar ranted about yesterday? Shahla and her dead baby? And the terrifying, blood-stained wraith that'd materialized out of the ethers to stab the lizard which had nearly smote Siamek, and then disappeared again, nowhere to be found?

Pareesa shivered. It had looked like Gita, but even the God of War had trembled when the ghost appeared and looked at her with furious, fathomless black eyes. She hadn't seen eyes like that since Mikhail…

She pushed the thought out of her mind.

The door opened. Three more men stepped outside. Tirdard, one of the elite warriors who happened to be her friend Yadiditum's husband, along with Urgula, a potter-friend of Ebad's, and a cloth-merchant of good repute, Buttatam. The three men were outfitted in travel attire.

"Going someplace?" Pareesa asked.

The three looked at one another, their expressions cloaked.

"Siamek and the Chief are waiting for you inside," Tirdard said. "They need to speak to you about what happened yesterday."

A feeling of apprehension settled into her gut. She slipped past them into the common room which had the sharp, astringent edge of bandages soaked in myrrh sap and the substance Doctor Peyman called alcohol. Siamek lay propped up on a bunch of pillows, his torso wrapped in bandages to keep the stitches clean.

"Pareesa!" Siamek raised his good arm in greeting.

Beside him, Chief Kiyan and his advisor Kiaresh sat on mismatched stools which were far too small for such burly men, making their knees come almost up to their chins. Both wore work-kilts instead of the ceremonial attire the Chief wore whenever he acted as adjudicator.

"Ah, Pareesa," Chief Kiyan gestured. "Come, sit with us."

She grabbed a pillow and sat down cross-legged next to Siamek. They gripped hands, forearm to forearm. His skin felt warmer this morning, less clammy, a bit more color. She squeezed his hand. It had taken her a long time to find his body after she'd killed the last lizard.

"You needed to speak to me?"

"We all do." Chief Kiyan gestured to Siamek and Kiaresh.

"Wouldn't there be more room at the temple?"

A look passed between Chief Kiyan and the other men.

"Let's just keep this between us?"

Pareesa nodded. There'd been a strange malaise between the Chief and the village shaman. With all his talk of burnt offerings and sacrifices to the old gods, ever since Ninsianna had been kidnapped, Immanu had become downright scary.

"So, Mikhail didn't come home last night?" Pareesa blurted out.

"No, he didn't," Chief Kiyan said. "Do you know where he might have gone?"

"Maybe he left to go find Ninsianna?"

"He has no idea where the lizard's base of operation is."

"Dadbeh knows."

"Dadbeh knows what direction the base is in," Chief Kiyan said, "as well as several landmarks. But it's journey of several months, even for a man who can fly. Only the Kemet traders know how to get there without getting captured or killed."

"So why can't Dadbeh just introduce us to his new friends?"

A veiled look passed between Chief Kiyan, Siamek and Kiaresh. It was Siamek who answered:

"Dadbeh won't help unless the Tribunal declares Shahla and Gita are both innocent of Ninsianna's abduction. He wants Mikhail to hear the evidence and declare it, himself. He insists Mikhail write it into a clay tablet using the language of the gods, and that each member of the Tribunal scratches their sigil into it to make it official, and a symbol from the chief to prove it is valid."

Pareesa wrinkled her forehead in confusion. While the Ubaid didn't use the Cherubim prayer-symbols Mikhail had been teaching her to read, they did use counting-symbols and cylinder-seals for trade. Why did they need the writing of the gods?

"I can do it," she said. "Mikhail's been teaching me to write the Cherubim language."

"Mikhail has to do it," Siamek said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Dadbeh has his reasons," Siamek said softly. "Ones we agree with. The Kemet won't help unless Mikhail can control his anger."

Pareesa frowned. That didn't make any sense. They had never seen Mikhail fight, much less seen him when he was truly angry. And it wasn't like he was mad at them.

"If you don't want to help him, fine." She spoke with the same clipped words her mother used when she was angry. "Mikhail will find his own way."

"Not even a bird can cross the bādiyat ash-shām," Chief Kiyan said. "The safest route is through Uruk land, then up the Baranuman River into Anatolia, but that land is ruled by the Amorites. The same Amorites who sent mercenaries to kill him for lizard-gold."

Pareesa swallowed.

"He'll just fly over them and avoid them."

"Without supplies? You are talking a journey of several months."

A sinking feeling settled into her stomach.

"He knows how to hunt."

"There's an even bigger desert which lies beyond," Chief Kiyan said. "You have no idea, how big the world is once you get beyond the confines of this village. If he doesn't have a guide to lead him, he'll get lost and die of thirst."

Pareesa's face turned red.

"How do you know? For all we know, the Kemet lied to Dadbeh?"

Chief Kiyan's brow knitted together in a sorrowful expression.

"My wife crossed that desert when the Amorites took her prisoner. We were at war with the Uruk, so I freed her from an Amorite slave caravan."

A chill trickled up her back. The Amorite slavers…

"I thought your wife came from another Ubaid village?"

Chief Kiyan's expression grew veiled. Kiararsh grabbed the chief's arm.

"Tell her," Kiarersh said.

"It's personal. I never told anybody but Immanu and Varshab."

"You heard her?" Kiararsh said. "Her arguments are his arguments. She's the only one who can talk some sense into him."

The Chief nodded.

"Beleti came from the Ghassulian tribe," Chief Kiyan said. "It's the same tribe Gita's mother came from. Merariy was the one who found her, close to death from abuse and dehydration. He was furious when she fell in love with me instead of him, so Lugalbanda sent him on a quest to find his own Priestess of Ki."

Pareesa's mouth dropped. Gita had always borne an obsession with the desert. She'd wander out there after her father had beaten her and disappear into it for days. The warriors used to say she went out there to meet her demon lover, but Gita once told her she simply wanted to get home.

Maybe Gita knew where…

No. Gita was dead. Nobody knew where this temple was that Mikhail kept asking about, the one that went with the strange golden talisman he called a 'key.'

"You can't keep him here," Pareesa said. "You have to let him go."

Chief Kiyan glanced at Kiaresh, his right-hand man ever since Varshab had been killed. Kiarersh had been a bridge-man between Mikhail and the elite warriors until, over the course of much training and many successful battles, he'd won the elite warriors over.

"Pareesa," Kiarersh said softly. "You know we are all grateful to Mikhail, for everything he has done. Normally, we would have talked to him first, but he took off last night and never returned. He's been so erratic lately, we fear he might disobey."

"Disobey what?"

The three men looked to one another.

"I just sent Tirdard to Akshak village to inform Chief Ditanu we have his son," Chief Kiyan said. "Buttatam and Urgula will accompany him to negotiate reparations in exchange for Tizqar's safe return."

"You want Mikhail to go with them?"

"No," Chief Kiyan said. "We can't risk it. The lizards want him dead."

"But Tirdard's wife is expecting a baby!" Pareesa's voice rose in panic. "What if they kill the messenger?"

"Buttatam and Urgula both have kinfolk among the Uruk, as well as powerful trading-partners and many friends. They shall remind the Uruk that, by sending Tizqar to poison our wells, they essentially declared war on the entire Ubaid tribe. Unless, of course, Tizqar acted without permission. In which case, the villagers will urge his father to pay us off rather than lose their own sons to a needless war."

"You know he had permission!"

"Yes." Chief Kiyan snorted. "The Uruk have been waging war on the Ubaid by proxy for many years. The lizard demons have made them bold, but from what Tizqar told us, all the lizards did was visit them and promise good things if they submitted to Sata'anic rule, the same as they did every other village in the territory."

"But isn't it better if Mikhail is there to protect them?"

"No," Chief Kiyan said. "You saw how he acted yesterday. If you hadn't stopped him, he would have killed Tizqar before we'd gotten any information out of him."

Yes. And the bastard deserved it…

"Maybe that's just what the Uruk need?" Pareesa said. "To see that Mikhail is more powerful than their lizard friends?"

"Mikhail has been too erratic lately," Chief Kiyan said, "too paranoid, too unstable. I wish to find out what Uruk know about our real enemy, this white-winged Angelic who kidnapped Ninsianna. Not to watch Mikhail beat the Uruk chief into a bloody mess."

"How can you say that after all that he's done for us?"

Siamek propped himself up on an elbow, grimacing in pain.

"You've seen him." Siamek gestured to his own bandaged shoulder and chest. "He hasn't been getting any sleep, and he's distracted during training. He angers too easily and, several times, he's overreacted when somebody came too close to him. He can't fly for more than a half a bêru before he has to rest, and when he thinks nobody is looking, I've seen him doubled over in pain."

"He helped us win the last battle!"

"Yes, he did," Chief Kiyan said. "But he was also knocked unconscious and suffered internal injuries when he took down that second sky canoe. Needa came to me last night, pleading with me to give him time to recover. She fears, if he pushes himself any harder, he'll drop dead of exhaustion."

Pareesa wrapped her arms around her knees. They were telling the truth. She'd noticed it. Heck! The last time they sparred, she'd almost beaten him!

"What do you want me to do?"

Chief Kiyan gestured to the door she'd just come in.

"Discourage Mikhail from shadowing my emissaries to Akshak," Chief Kiyan said. "I want him to stay out of this until they return."

"You can't keep him here," Pareesa said. "You have no idea, how badly he misses Ninsianna."

"I know he does," Chief Kiyan said, "which is why, while they are there, Buttatam and Urgula will contact their trading partners to arrange for safe passage through Uruk territory to the Baranuman River."

"The route the Kemet take?"

"Yes," Chief Kiyan said. "Once they get to the other side, Dadbeh hopes to catch up with the Kemet caravan. With the right bribes, the tariff-takers will look the other way."

"I'm going with him." Pareesa jutted up her chin.

The Chief and Kiaresh looked at each other and nodded. A sick feeling settled into the pit of Pareesa's stomach.

"You're a thirteen summer girl," Chief Kiyan said. "Your father has already made his wishes clear. When Mikhail leaves, you will be staying here."