Star Gods: Book Four of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

  “No.”

  His eyes suddenly flared, but he kept his temper. Nonetheless, he stood and marched towards her, but she held her ground against him; muscled like one of the great cats, he was nonetheless more like a bear in gait. He stopped but a step from her; his body smelled a little of sweat and dust, but also of perfumed oil.

  “When you speak, lady, your teeth seem white as bone bleached by the sun,” he declared, looking at her mouth a moment, then upwards. “And your eyes are like lapis lazuli,” he remarked in wonder. “Just like the priestess of Inanna in Uruk, or so I hear.”

  “I am that priestess. They call me Ur-Inanna.”

  “Oh?” He paused, processing the thought. “Ur-Inanna herself? So you’re not a sal-me then… and more’s the pity. The gods keep you entu for themselves.” He reached a dirty, callused hand up to stroke her cheek lightly. Then his eye turned upward, towards her clean, ebony hair.

  His breath was perfectly steady but audible, marking the passage time in the silence.

  “Yes.” She said calmly after several moments, noticing that his teeth were also intact and of a shade still close to ivory, when most people his age had a mouth half-full of rotting black teeth. His age… contemplating this thought made her vaguely unsettled, but she couldn’t think why. “The penalty of defiling an entu priestess is severe,” she reminded him.

  Meanwhile, he laughed heartily at her temerity, dropping his hand. However, there was a familiar quality to his laugh that made her triumphant smile vanish.

  “Who was your father?” She asked carefully, unwilling to read too much from his mind. Could it be–had his father been one of the mythical Enorians Kiel believed lived here on this planet? There had been no trace of the Enorians, the “watchers” a few of Hinev’s explorers believed kept vigil over this planet even though no trace of them had yet to be found. Could it be that the Enorians didn’t want to be found? She had begun to wonder…

  The man frowned. “I don’t know.” He admitted, crossing his arms across his broad chest. “For all I know my father was a fallen angel of the gods, a watcher, the false claimant La’ibum, or no more than a farmer. Yet I am Sharru-kinu, the rightful ruler.” He added in Akkadû, almost angrily, but his anger wasn’t directed at her.

  “So, you are the new emperor,” she breathed, surprised that she hadn’t realized who he was.

  “You speak in Akkadû, too, now, Ur-Innana,” he laughed. “I didn’t think any of you Un-sanni could get your tongues to work so fast.”

  She just stared at him.

  Sharru-kinu… They had met before, long ago, before he became King of the civilized world.

  Since Sharu-kinu’s rise to fame, she had heard the rumors surrounding his birth and early life. Ishtar had drawn the child once called Nimrod from the waters of Buranun, from the reed basket his mother had placed him in before abandoning him to the river. Then later, she had placed him in the house of King Ur-Zababa of Kish in northern Akkadia.

  Alessia knew the rumors were true, for she and not Ishtar had been the one who had saved him, never suspecting that his shimtu, his destiny and character combined, would lead him to become the first conqueror-emperor of the world.

  “I thought you’d show your years more, to have three grown children already.” She said.

  He couldn’t be Sharru-kinu. Sharru-kinu had ruled Akkad for nearly fifty years already, and this man appeared but half the age the emperor should have been.

  He laughed. “Yes, I am told the gods smile on me, and not only Ishtar. But you should also be dead by now, high priestess of Uruk.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that if you are the same Ur-Inanna who was an entu while I was a child in the house of Ur-Zababa, you should be twenty years older than me, or long since dead. Unless you are Inanna herself, which I would believe if you claimed it. I hear you are a magician, an asu. Can you cast your spells on kings as well as crops?”

  “Of course not.”

  He took hold of her hand. “But I believe you already have.” He declared, squeezing it so hard that the blood flow would have been cut off, had she been human. Apparently, he was not used to being corrected.

  Instead of weakening under his threat, she laughed. “Spells that feed the people are worth far more.”

  He broke a feral smile but held on to her hand, then suddenly wrinkled his nose.

  “Priestess, I believe you have no smell,” he said, inclining his nose towards her arm. “There is no perfumed oil on your skin, yet–no odor, either.”

  “And that displeases you?”

  “I find it unnatural out here in the desert, in these months of drought and heat.” His expression was abruptly thoughtful. He appeared to be contemplating what he had rashly suggested, that she was an incarnation of Inanna, his beloved Ishtar, the restless goddess.

  In the silence, the clamor of the legionary voices outside echoed like a distant thunder.

  “Inanna–or not, I would like to meet you again.” He said and let go of her hand. “I shall have you visit me at my new capital Agade soon, once I have returned from my conquest of all of Ki-engi and Umma. I’ll introduce you to my daughter Enheduanna, also an entu. And Rimush and Manishtusu, my sons.”

  His expression showed that he was more than conscious of the honor he had extended to her, and what it entailed. Agade, the capital of Sharru-kinu’s empire, boasted a feasting table of more than five thousand men.

  “You sound certain of victory over Umma.” She observed.

  “I have never lost a city,” he told her, with oblivious arrogance. “I always win, you see. The first defeat of my life will be my end.” He spoke seriously, leaning forward. Then he straightened, and a bare smile formed around the corners of his mouth. “After Umma, I’ll send for you. But take care, priestess, for outside holy walls, you belong not to the gods but to your king.”

  “I belong to myself.”

  He looked at her but did not take offense at her defiance; he was still smiling.

  “However,” she added, judging his reaction, “if you request me to come to Agade, then I will.”

  “Splendid!” he pronounced, folding his arms across his chest. “And once I have conquered Umma, next I shall conquer your heart, mistress of the temple of Enlil.”

  For a moment, she just looked at him, marveling at the integrity and fearlessness behind his dark eyes. He was unafraid of any man, which was natural for a great leader, yet by some greater miracle, he also seemed unafraid of anything.

  “Yes, perhaps you shall,” she said at last, in wonder. “Perhaps you shall. But tell me, how do you know you’ll win Umma, or that I’ll fulfill my promise–”

  “Ishtar has favored me all my life. Why should she turn against me now?”

  “What has Ishtar got to do with me?”

  He gave a conspiratorial smile.

  “Well do I remember her. Her eyes were lapis lazuli, and her skin held the perfume of the river in it. And only she, the goddess of both love and war, would ever dare to battle with me so fearlessly—as you have just done.”

  At that moment, the doors to the temple swung wide, and a lu-kasa courier sprinted in.

  “Lugal-Sharru-Kinu!” he cried and delivered a cuneiform tablet to Sharru-Kinu.

  The new emperor cast a glance over the tablet and handed it back to the lu-kasa courier.

  “The fleet of ships from Dimun has reached Akkad. Now my armies are entirely assembled,” he told her as the messenger left. “I leave tomorrow. I wonder…”

  “What?”

  “Is Ishtar is planning to accompany me?”

  “Has she never abandoned you before?”

  “Never.” He stared hard at her, then waited a moment for an answer.

  “Then she never will.”

  * * * * *

  The rain fell lightly on
her hair, falling softly on the darkened land. Raindrops broke loudly on the stone lintels above her head, but she listened to the constant, distant whisperings beneath this intermittent sound as the rain met the trees away on the plain, a plain that stretched three miles in all directions from the standing circle of stone. The luminous moon above shone with a ghostly light behind the veil of clouds; there were no stars.

  In the great circle of Myrddin’s standing stones, once only an earthen temple more than two thousand years old, Alessia crouched under a pillar within the newer, inner circle of stones, with only a dark woolen garment to keep out the elements. Yet she couldn’t feel much of the creeping cold in her limbs or joints, or the chill in her nose and throat, nor weariness enough to help her rest against the stones. The pressure of the rain on her skin and the sounds of the primal wilderness around her reminded her that she was alive.

  “Somehow I knew I ‘d find you here,” a voice echoed in the dark, in a soft speech, but she recognized it from another time and place. The last time she had heard it speak to her alone had been on the great island before it sank beneath the waters eight thousand years before.

  “You’re alive!” she cried, clambering to her feet, but then she just stood still, staring at him.

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” Kiel laughed, stepping forward under the arch. A fine woolen cloak of the invading Keltoi hid him, but as he moved, she saw through the billowing folds bronze greaves over his shins. At the archway, he dropped a long, leather shield to the ground which landed heavily not far away, then discarded the sodden woolen cloak. Beneath it he wore the bronze cuirass and breastplate of a foreign soldier over a kilt made of bronze plates.

  A silver-studded sword had been belted at Kiel’s side. He paused a moment under the arch, discarding other weapons outside the temple. Last of all he withdrew a fine dagger, inlaid with linked spirals, silver lilies, and a gold lion hunt, his eyes lingering over it a moment. He tossed it on the wet ground behind him, surrendering it to the dark.

  “I thought I saw you in Taruisa, but I couldn’t be sure. I was afraid for you. I had a vision—you had died, or been lost somehow.” She said as she watched the dagger sail away into the night. “I couldn’t be sure it was you just now.” Alessia laughed, tasting the rain as she spoke, blinking back the drops of water blurring her sight. There was relief in her laugh.

  “I was looking for you. It’s time, Alessia,” Kiel said quietly.

  “Yes. The world is changing, I know.” She said quickly, as though to dispel her surprise at his news, as though just remembering it herself. “At least, the changes seem to be coming faster.”

  “Yes.” Kiel sighed, leaning against one of the standing stones, crossing his ankles and folding his arms across his chest. “Although, not always.” He amended with a self-conscious shrug. “That’s why you left the East, isn’t it? You saw the dark age coming.”

  “I suppose. We’ve done what you hoped to do, but I feel guilty for our interference here, and tired, and I long to go home.”

  “I know.” Kiel nodded. “But the people of this world have taught me more than I expected. We found no sign of the singularity, but I was sure, on more than one occasion, that I saw signs of a ‘first race’ in the progeny of the population. I wonder—where are they, the Enorians that might be living undetected here.”

  “I don’t know. I am not sure, either, that they are here, watching us all, but I wonder. And god himself, can he be pleased about what we did here? Or shall we feel our guilt to the end of our days for all that we have done to control the course of human fate and life?”

  “What about the Enorians, as well, do they also do what we did, and guide the course of human life, and if so, why? Are they human themselves, or emissaries of the greater power of the universe? Who knows?”

  “We must leave soon, as you said, before our interference is known.” She commented.

  “Yes,” he agreed, then sank to the ground, feeling weary, indifferent to the chilling water beneath him which began to soak through his armor. She suddenly felt very awkward standing, but she didn’t want to follow suit, so she just stood, looking down at him, letting the rain run down her face.

  “Yes,” she said, returning to his earlier question. “Yes, I left because of the dark age.”

  He turned to her.

  “Not long ago.” She continued. “Well, a few hundred years ago. Just after the volcanic eruption on the island of Thera sent the entire land of the Green Sea into chaos, I met some of the seafarers of Keptiu—“

  “I do not like the Kemet speech, Alessia.” He threw up his hands in jest. “You mean you met the Kaptaran sailors?” he asked, knowing the answer all along.

  “Yes, Kaptarans, from Minos’ isle.” She replied. “I met several of them. Ever since the Mycenaens subjugated their island, a lot of Kaptaran sailors had turned piratic. But they tried to save the inhabitants of Thera when the volcano erupted, to bring the survivors to safety, every bit as much as I. The pirates told me there was a lot of rumor around on Kaptara, rumor about things going wrong, the people dissatisfied with the King–and I knew there would be trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Civil trouble of course. I just couldn’t let it go, Kiel. I wanted to stop the civil wars and put out the fires of madness however I could. I sometimes wonder if I can control myself here anymore. I get too involved, and feel I must control the population before they destroy each other, destroying what we have worked so hard to help them build–”

  “I know,” Kiel said. He removed a gold-winged helmet, put it down; it rolled up against the stones. “I knew that another dark age was coming, too. The world lost its main mariners and traders when Knossos was sacked, when Kaptara’s beautiful capital was lost in fire and the entire island embroiled in civil war. Your pirates are likely the last of that great first race of skilful sailors. I hoped it wouldn’t happen, but—as I feared, the lands bordering the Green Sea lost their main trading fleet,” he shrugged. “Fewer traders, fewer kingdoms negotiating for goods from each other. It wouldn’t be long before they were all fighting one another instead.”

  “But all the better for your up and coming friends in Mycenae to take what they could get!”

  “You aren’t supposed to take sides against me!” Said Kiel, conjuring an image of the massive-walled imperial city of the Achaiwoi nestled between the mountains. The Achaiwoi were a tribe in the land of Hellas; many of them belonged to the political power of the city-state Mycenae. The Hellenes had long depended on wealthy people in Khatti and Kemet and Canaan to buy their pottery, iron wares, and weapons. This trade had made the brigand tribes of Hellas rich and their conglomeration of city-states a world power, and, now that the Hellenes had stopped fighting each other for the moment, the older nations of Khatti and Kemet had been forced to acknowledge them as equals.

  “Your friends the Achaiwoi managed to take Kaptara while the city was burning and make themselves the new masters of the sea, but they killed so many to do it!”

  “I only joined the Achaiwoi of Mycenae to look for you.” He replied calmly. “You weren’t in Ugarit or Babylon, and I needed to find you so that we can leave–”

  “I had gone north to Khattu-sas.”

  “The capital of Khatti!” He shook his head. “Then how did you end up in the lands of the Achaiwoi in Hellas? In the Achaiwian city of Amyklai?”

  “Would you believe me if I said curiosity?”

  “No.”

  “I suppose I was tired of the affairs of kings. I wanted to do whatever I could to help and heal ordinary people, an enslaved and poorer people that truly needed my help–”

  “To heal and dispense justice as you saw fit.” He corrected her, as though he knew all she had done in the long years.

  “That is harsh. I wanted to help people who had no other champion–”

  “
You know you overstepped what we are supposed to be doing here.” He shook his head. “You can’t force people to stay civilized or make them behave as you would. But I have heard rumors that you did—that you have forced the hands of the natives at times to bend to your will, through mind control.”

  “At least I kept my hands clean of war until I was forced to interfere. I have heard rumors of you as well, my friend—rumors of your involvement in several wars and political debacles you shouldn’t have been involved in.

  “At least I didn’t ever kill anyone–”

  “Until Troia.” He said.

  Then he wished he hadn’t said it, reading her face. He knew that expression. She had been protecting someone, possibly more than one specific person; it hadn’t been fair to call the death of his Mycenaen friend at her hands anything more than justifiable self-defense. And was he one to judge?

  No, he would not let her hear those thoughts. So, she had killed one man that he knew for certain, a Mycenaen, back during the siege on Troia—during a war, and he had been her enemy in that war. After all, the Mycenaen Achaiwoi had attacked the province of Wilios and its capital of Troia, Alessia’s allies at the time. Yet he could see that what she had done, even as an act done in a protracted war, still haunted her. Most likely, she hadn’t given the Mycenaen the chance to defend himself, or to escape. She had used her powers to her own advantage.

  “Alessia, how exactly did you end up in Ilios, at the defeat of Troia?” He asked, trying to be diplomatic once more.

  “Defeat?” She laughed.

  “How?” her mind took her back, mercilessly. It took her back to the seaside city of winds, Taruisa, the capital of Wilusa kingdom in the greater Khatti Empire, before the war. Taruisa, alone on the alluvial plain, a grand, fortified city of fine towers and lofty gates, surrounded by greater Taruisa and many outlying, smaller villages; a city of treasures, of electrum, carnelian, ivory, and priceless bronze, a living city of potter’s kilns and bronze smithies, chariot workshops, craftsmen, and weavers.