“A little more than five thousand years ago.” A fluid voice interrupted them.
The grey-bearded man and his group of children turned around to the neighboring stall, towards the owner of the voice, where a robe-clad stranger sat, whether man or woman they could not tell, for the owner wore an outlandish head covering made of dark linen that hid the stranger’s face in shadow. Two bright, hypnotic, sapphire-colored eyes drew attention away from the dark, dusty face that seemed not unlike one of their own.
“Yes, five thousand years.” Khnum said slowly, a look of suspicion and intrigue passing over his face. “Who are you? How do you know that? Are you a sage?” The man asked, noticing the fine quality of the stranger’s garment; though dirty and torn, it had been made of exquisite, foreign linen.
“No, not exactly a sage, but I do know of Atlantis.”
Should you really be telling them about it, though, Alessia? A mirthful voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Kellar!” Alessia smiled, lapsing into Seynorynaelian. The group of children before her stared at her as though struck mute. She threw aside her outer garment, letting out a tumble of long, dark, grey-streaked hair. “What are you doing here?” Alessia called out, then ran towards the figure across the market place, a nearly bald nobleman wearing a fine white garment clasped by a scarab at his shoulder.
“What are any of us doing here?” He returned, speaking in the native language of the area.
“I meant that it is good to see you,” Alessia said, ignoring the critical glances coming from the merchants and farming traders around them.
She had seen no trace of him in years, not since the last time the explorers had all lived briefly together in the young city of Eridu more than a thousand years earlier. There the explorers had lived more than a year, establishing their own tents and trading collected goods in the rough market place, growing their own crops.
She remembered how Kellar and Celekar had built a wagon of stone wheels for the barley harvest near year's end, a wagon that was adopted by the local population. One of the neighboring farmers, an elderly man who had given the explorers some seed, begged their assistance and that of their strange plow in his harvest once they had finished.
However, the explorer's unusual habits had soon called undue attention to them. Though Kiel had devised false attachments between them, after a year they had no children; moreover, the strong alliance among fifteen apparently unrelated young couples equally struck the Eridu population as peculiar.
After a year and a half, Kiel decided it was time to leave the population and move to the southern continent. After Eridu, however, the explorers had separated and traveled among different the humanoid populations, some going to the areas nearby, others heading over the ocean. Their rapport had been the subject of suspicion, so from that time on, they had again forged on.
And from there, each had made his own plans to modify and guide another chosen culture or cultures for patronage as he might, until they were called together again at the next rendezvous; if the singularity and/or evidence of the ‘first race’ hadn’t yet been found, there they would make a decision either to leave or continue the search.
Kellar had been seen heading northeast as they separated from Eridu. Alessia had heard no news of him in all the time since, and though the next rendezvous approached, it was still a few years away.
“Well, Alessia, it’s good to see you, too.” Kellar admitted, looking her over. “Age suits you, you know.”
She broke into laughter, seeing his point, then let the artificial veil of Hinev’s cloak fade somewhat; the aging features of the woman known as Naunet, a leathery, dark-skinned woman with grey-streaked hair grew youthful before his eyes.
“This is as much as I’ll do, in front of all these people, these remet en Kemet,” she shrugged.
“Actually, I’m looking for a man named Shatrevar,” he admitted, suddenly seeming distracted. “A murdering deloch of a man. I’ve been searching for him for the past few years.”
“Can I help you to find him?” She asked, ignoring the whispers across the market place; just who was the female magician speaking with the noble Khaldun?
Now Kellar strained to form a smile. “No, this is something I’ve got to do on my own. And I’ll find him. And when I do, he will pay the price for the life of someone I once held very dear. I have sworn to find him.”
“Kellar–” she began, sensing the vein of fury behind his smiling eyes.
“No, Alessia. I won’t rest until I do find him. He got away from me once, but only once.” Kellar’s voice was hard.
“You’re not staying here, then.”
“No, not even though you’re here, my dear.”
“Don’t worry about sparing my feelings,” she gave a thin laugh. “I’m leaving soon myself.”
“Alessia–”
“Yes?”
Kellar paused, perhaps thinking of Kiel’s orders, lifetimes ago. “Don’t think badly of me for what I’m doing. Shatrevar may not have the power to defend himself on equal terms with me, but then neither did Chione.”
“Your wife?” Alessia guessed.
Kellar nodded. “For a time.”
“I understand what you’re doing, Kellar.” Alessia said gravely. “And believe me, I have no intentions of standing in the way of justice.”
“No, Alessia.” Kellar sighed tiredly. “This is revenge, not justice. I know it, but I don’t care. Not after what happened. And I won’t let anyone stop me, not even you.”
“I heard of a Shatrevar to the northeast of here, in a kingdom on the road to the northern Silver Mountains along the Great Green. Head North from old Jericho and then follow the coastline until it turns West.” Alessia directed, searching her memory. “It may not be the same man–”
“Thank you, Alessia.” Kellar nodded. “Take care of yourself.” He said, embracing her once, with ancient feeling now subdued but of such depth that she sensed it was still there, underlying his present state of mind. Then he turned and marched away down the road, away from the sea.
And you, my friend. She thought after him, watching until he was lost in the dust.
* * * * *
After a few years living in the city of Jarmo, Alessia traveled south to the territories between the north-south Rivers Buranun and Idigna, where the Unsanni and Akkadu people lived on the plain of Edin. In Edin, “the open country:, there were two main kingdoms: Ki-engi in the south and the land of Ki-uri in the north. They lived in a handful of farming communities and city-states mostly situated along the changing banks of the western river, Buranun, or Purattu in the language of the nomadic tribes, the Akkadu. Fewer communities thrived along the swifter eastern river of Idigna, which the nomads called Idiqlat.
Alessia had passed through the territory last six hundred years ago before heading northeast to the tin mountains and the inland sea and then to the wide plains beyond. After a brief return to Selesta and a visit to the two continents over the great ocean, she had returned to the arid center of flourishing cultures, where the Ki-engi and Ki-uri people worshipped half-human, half-sea creature gods who had, legend said, given the people agriculture, metalworking, and most recently, writing.
It was near the new city of Kish that Alessia found Ioka and In-nekel traveling among a nomadic tribe of southbound traders, or so she surmised judging from the wagons of fine multi-colored pottery, glass, and blue faience jewelry from Kemet, unworked ivory, copper, and obsidian bowls they brought with them. Ioka and In-nekel had met them on their southward journey, and the strangers had spoken their own language and understood their culture so well that they allowed them to be accepted among them.
The nomads surrounded Alessia by a well in the desert and made ready to attack her; sensing her presence, In-nekel and Ioka had hurried from the rear of the company towards her, but not in time to prevent one of the t
ribe’s warrior’s spears from being hurled at her, where it pierced the homespun cloth and cut into her shoulder.
Ioka screamed, alerting the leader, Egal, who came forward to observe as In-nekel explained that Alessia was one of their people. Ioka knelt beside her; Alessia wasn’t in pain, but the attack had surprised her. Without a word, she pulled the shaft from her shoulder. Without bleeding, the wound began to close on its own, forcing the small spear-head from her skin to fall on the hard ground by the well and roll to the edge.
The nomads stared in open wonder at the woman who had healed miraculously before their eyes; those that had doubted it before were now convinced that the new friends who walked among them were gods, and that the woman they had attacked was also a deity.
The man who had thrown the spear stepped back in fear, and several of the men around him moved away from him. The women at the back of the train watched in silence as the men were pushed back by the fear of the two creatures that embraced by the well.
“Inanna...” the man’s voice trailed off, as he caught sight of the pendant of a gold lion that dangled from her throat. “Inanna!
She had forgotten to hide it again, the gold amulet she had born with her since the destruction of the sunken volcanic island, the amulet that seemed to convey the names Inanna and Ishtar to the minds of the people of this region. Yet what were these people, so finely dressed, doing out in the desert? Alessia wondered. Seldom did the Sag-giga people of Ki-engi travel in nomadic groups as the people of Ki-uri did. Alessia reached to their minds for an explanation.
They were nomads, nag-gar artisans, sab-gal herdsmen, mostly kinsmen and others of the house of an influential but petty ruler who had traveled north to check his new holdings in the region of Subartu to the far north. After a recent accident, the nomads in his train now believed Ioka to be an incarnation of a goddess. Her physical strength alone had convinced the men that she was not a human woman as much as her odd beauty and unfeminine self-assurance, her intelligence, her skill at hunting, and her strong will. As for In-nekel, the nomads had first called him “apkallu”, making him one of the seven immortal sages.
Ioka had become a favorite story-teller among the nomads, retelling Kilkoran legends she had learned in her childhood, using the nomads' language. Her extensive background in Seynorynaelian culture helped her reconstruct tales from the seven regions of their home world.
In-nekel had become a favorite of the nomads' middle-aged leader, Egal, whose own grown son had been killed in a dispute with a nomadic tribe of Amurrû from Martu, to the west. In-nekel had been teaching the nomads how to improve the metal alloys they had begun to develop. Now, more and more, the leader Egal's young son Mes-anni-padda had begun to follow In-nekel with the admiring eyes of a student and to imitate every least thing In-nekel did.
"Alessia, oh, it’s so good to see you.” Ioka found herself speaking Seynorynaelian, perhaps overcome by surprise at the chance meeting. She spoke with an odd sensitivity; they had not seen each other in several centuries. “Where have your journeys taken you?" She asked, compressing her lips to subdue a smile. The nomadic tribe looked on, listening to the unaccustomed music of three voice-boxes in awe and confusion, sure that what they all heard was the tongue of the gods. Several of the train covered their ears, but others stood, entranced by the sound, their eyes wide.
"I went to the north, to the far west, and then to the lands on the other side of the planet.” Alessia replied, trying hard not to let the nomads’ gazes distract her attention. ’Some time ago I returned to the joining of the three continents." She explained. “Uruk has grown since the flood.”
Ioka nodded. "Yes, it seems that the people of Ziusudra have recovered from the deluge. In-nekel and I have been in the lands to the south, as far as on the tip of the great continent of the Punt. We encountered the animals Gerryls is so taken with–the families of clawed hunters. One of them tried to eat In-nekel! Then the animals with stripes and long necks..."
"I went to the last remnant of the great island to pick up some specimens with Gerryls and Ri-ari after the last rendezvous–”
“Alessia,” Ioka said slowly and shook her head, letting a wistful expression pass over her face. “Remember the hot springs of Eria? I often think about them out here in this desert, in these violent times. But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? This race seems to rise and adapt civilizations rapidly only to fall backward into ignorance and barbarism again. It’s frustrating, but we have to be patient. Civilization is a slow experiment, like evolution, and eventually the strongest takes hold. Alessia–”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I can see I reminded you of Diraovedas.”
“I assure you I’m fine.”
“Alessia, you couldn’t keep him alive any longer. It was his time.”
“I am aware of that, Ioka.” Alessia said quietly. “I came to terms with that a long time ago.” She shrugged away sentiment, here on the plain, under the bright desert sun. The best way to honor Diraovedas was to remember him well. “But I doubt he would have accepted the gift of eternal life, even if I had been disposed to break Hinev’s decree not to use our blood to immortalize other beings and offer it to him.” She added, betraying a fond smile. Even back then, even before his sudden death, she had never even considered risking his life by offering him the thin hope of immortality their blood serum promised.
Diraovedas hadn’t even let her restore his sight. She still remembered his face, the beaten nose, the dark, dark hair like two crow’s wings, the sightless, staring eyes over crooked eyebrows, eyes long ago blinded by fire; his face had never been handsome or noble-looking, but it had become handsome to her. Diraovedas, slight-boned but fast, fast like a shadow, seer and sage, historian of his people, had been far more noble a man than she had ever thought could exist. Blind though he was, he–his knowledge–had led his people through the wilds when the world fell into another dark age. Diraovedas, a true hero in a world that didn’t yet understand what the word meant, had died well more than five thousand years ago.
“Well, I am surprised you went back to the rendezvous.” Ioka said in a sober tone. “In-nekel and I missed it. It’s been so long since we’ve seen you, or Kiel.”
“He wasn’t there.”
“No? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised about that. The moment we’re all together again, there is always talk of leaving this planet...” she said, hesitant.
“You almost sound like you don’t want to leave.”
“I don’t,” Ioka laughed. ”Oh, I know most of the women have a difficult life on this world, and I know we aren’t supposed to interfere with any native customs or beliefs, or even in their wars against each other, but I’m not subject to their laws, so I don’t suffer under them. Whenever I want to leave, I know I can. And I have the power to alter my appearance to suit my mood, to change my life here whenever I want. And if I resent the way I’m treated as a woman, I can even present myself as a man–creator above, I can transform my chemical structure, make myself a man temporarily if I want!
But I don’t have to fear starvation or pain, or death at the hands of conquerors, priests and their barbaric sacrificial religious rites, or at toil in the field. I’m only here to try to make a difference when I can–and I think we have, Alessia. We’ve helped those we could. We’ve healed them and we’ve tilled their fields to yield grain for their food. After a while, it–well it becomes hard to stop trying to help, to make yourself want to stop. This philanthropic lifestyle, this slow alteration of civilization for the better of all–it becomes almost an addiction to stay involved in the process. Of course, In-nekel and I did try to make it to the rendezvous, but...and after the last big battle between Kilran, Talden, and Cerdko and Sharratu—I mean Sar-a–”
“You don’t need to make an excuse to me, remember?” Alessia winked. “I try not to think about the few times when
we explorers have fought here. I tried not to take sides, either. It can’t be permitted for us to fight each other.”
“So, whose turn is it to take care of the home fires?” Ioka asked abruptly.
“Vala stayed on Selesta this time for the analysis.” Alessia explained. “She said Gerryls and I should return to the surface, to give him time away from that laboratory of his. We stayed together a short while, but then I've been wandering ever since we parted ways. You two are the first explorers I've seen in four hundred years."
"Well, then there is a lot you don’t know, then," Ioka said. "In-nekel and I met Jir-end and Peilann more than a century ago on the southern continent across the ocean, then we encountered Broah and Derstan, Wen-eil, and Nal-ayn only twelve revolutions ago, near the great delta, in Saqqara.
“Nal-ayn’s stirring up trouble you know, with her talk of building monuments in the sands, giant statues of sphikayas and delochs of Seynorynael for the per-ao! There have been a lot of arguments and battles between our faction and Cerdko’s friends I don’t even know about, I gathered from Nal-ayn. Anyway, we stayed with Nal-ayn and Wen-eil a year before traveling on northward to Martu, where someone got the idea we were some kind of watchers–then we came here."
"The great delta of the river Iteru aa isn't very far from here." Alessia said, mentally calculating the distance. “I spent a considerable time there. I’m surprised I didn’t meet anyone.” She was beginning to wonder how many of her fellow crew had deliberately disguised themselves to avoid meeting up with other explorers.
"Yes, the journey wouldn’t be far, but not if you travel with nomads from Ki-uri.” Ioka laughed. “It’s taken us months just to get from Mosul back to Ki-engi. We left them outside Babil and joined these people heading south, though I doubt they’re traveling much faster." Ioka turned around as In-nekel appeared and tapped her shoulder.
"We won't be able to stay with them as far south as Ur," he said and shook his head. "They still believe we're gods, or sages. I tried to convince them that we aren't deities, but they don't believe me. They think we joined them to set them on some divine path, to reveal their destiny to them, to tell them about the visible world around them and the shadow world and of abzu and how they can best serve our needs so that we will in turn protect them..."