Late-February 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Jamin
Incomplete rows of mud-bricks whispered their taunts the same way the villagers whispered taunts behind his back. The emptiness was so palpable he could feel it throb with each beat of his heart. Each pulse caused the emptiness to grow until he thought it would consume him. Not only had he lost her love, but now he'd gone and lost his father’s respect as well.
The forms sat empty as they'd sat since the day she'd broken off their engagement. Sand. Straw. Buckets to carry water from the Hiddekel River and a pile of goat dung to act as a binding agent to make their house strong. The wall he sat upon had been meant to be the outer wall of their bedroom. Not just a sleeping loft like most houses in Assur had, but a genuine, full-fledged bedroom. He picked up a sapling he'd cut as a roof strut and jabbed it into the soil, imagining he stabbed him with his spear. All his life he'd enjoyed the hunt. The sport. The kill. But only Ninsianna had ever inspired him to build.
He choked back the emptiness which threatened to consume him, his mind leaping to all sorts of horrible conclusions, each one more terrible than the last. The winged demon touching his girl. The winged demon touching her face. The winged demon touching her … her … her …
NO! Ninsianna was no floozy. For two years he'd wooed her and never once had she allowed him any liberties, nor any of the other warriors who'd pursued her over the years. She was … pure!
The muscle in his cheek twitched. He could almost hear a light, feminine voice whispering to him in the warm late-winter wind.
'She is not meant to be with you…'
No! He refused to listen! She was his fiancé! This was a battle he was certain he could win! If only he could figure out a point of attack. But what? No matter what he tried, he kept digging himself in deeper.
'Let her go…'
His father was right. The only reason she stayed with the winged demon was because he'd overplayed his hand, trying to force her to marry him when something else had caused her to balk. But what? He choked back his tears. Real men didn't cry!
He realized he was being watched. Anger surged through his veins at the thought that someone had witnessed his humiliation.
“Go away,” he hissed.
Black eyes stared at him out of a face that was a faint echo of the face he really wanted to see. Gita might have been Ninsianna's cousin, but other than a faint family resemblance, his ex-fiancé had always shunned the peculiar girl. She was shorter than Ninsianna by two palm's breadth, with bones sticking out of a shawl dress so worn it barely covered her emaciated frame. How long had the scrawny waif stood there watching him weep like a sissy, pretending to be part of the lengthening shadows of the setting sun?
“You have seen him?" Gita's black eyes were filled with awe. “The legends are real?”
Jamin gave her a look of disgust. It was bad enough his own father was all a-twitter over the presence of the winged demon on the outskirts of their village, but now Shahla’s peculiar sidekick was all googly-eyed as well?
“What legend?” Jamin growled. “I've never heard of any legends. Immanu made it up!”
Her preternaturally black eyes stared right through him as though he was not even there. Immanu’s eyes … only blacker. As black as night when no moon graced the sky. As black as…
Jamin shuddered and looked away. He'd taken the odd girl under his protection when her father had suddenly reappeared in their village after being banished from whatever haughty house he had married into. For some reason, Shahla had taken an instant liking to the reclusive child, probably because she followed the flamboyant drama queen around like an adoring retainer. Gita had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since he'd cast Shahla aside to pursue Ninsianna. Why was she now lurking in his shadow? Because once upon a time they had been friends?
“I have seen them,” Gita said, her eyes haunted, “the cave paintings in Es Skhul. The priestesses built their oracle at Jebel Mar Elyas until the Amorites destroyed it.”
Jamin’s ears perked up. “What cave paintings?”
“Demi-gods,” Gita said. “Half-human, half-animal. They came across the waters in a great ship and waged war upon the people that came before. The Nephilim. The priestesses said we are all descended from them.”
“We are not descended from that … that … thing!” Jamin snapped, and then really listened to what she was telling him. “War? What war?”
Gita’s eyes swirled blacker, as though she stared into his soul. Jamin shivered at the sensation of suddenly being laid naked. Gita turned to leave, not even gracing his anger with an argument.
“Gita … wait!” Jamin called, remorse suddenly blending with his anger. “Please … I'm sorry.”
Gita paused, her expression unreadable as she gave him an eerie, dark look. Just for a moment, it was as though he stared into Ninsianna’s eyes, so closely did she resemble her cousin when he bothered to look at her.
The illusion passed. The pale, gaunt girl with the black eyes only bore the slightest resemblance to the grandfather the two women shared. Immanu’s father, Lugalbanda, had been a shaman so powerful it was rumored he could reach straight through the dreamtime and stop the heart of his enemies. Jamin shivered. Ghost stories…
“Now you know how Shahla feels," Gita said. There was no accusation in her tone, but it cut through his grief like an obsidian blade. A sensation akin to having his heart squeezed made him choke up, bringing fresh tears to his eyes, and was gone. Jamin gasped for breath. Whenever Gita had done that as a child, it had always terrified him.
“Yes, I do,” Jamin said, not sure why he felt compelled to confess his sins. He'd mistreated Shahla. He knew it. But at least he'd never lied to Gita’s promiscuous friend, making promises about a future he had no intention of keeping the way Ninsianna had done to him. It wasn’t his fault Shahla had latched onto him because she wanted to be the wife of a chief. He'd always told her he could never give her more.
Gita stared until he squirmed. He could see she weighed whether nor not to give him some tidbit of information, morsels she only occasionally doled out to those she trusted.
“The priestesses were healers,” Gita said. “People would come from miles around to pray for healing. They called their temple ‘hospital.' The sick would stay there until they got better.”
“Needa does that now,” Jamin said.
Gita looked at the foundations of the house Jamin had begun to build in Ninsianna’s honor. His temple to her. The woman he loved.
“This is a house,” Gita said. “Your house should be separate from the diseased so their sicknesses don't become your sicknesses.”
As she spoke, Jamin could almost see the temple she spoke of in his mind's eye. A magnificent building on top of the highest mountain, built not from mud-bricks, but carved from stone. Yes. That was what Ninsianna wanted. To have people come and worship her for her abilities as a healer. But how? Assur didn't have the resources to build such things. But perhaps … there … yes! He could see it. A separate room of their dream house where people could worship his bride-to-be. Her very own hospital!
Jamin looked up to thank Ninsianna’s spooky cousin and was not surprised to see she'd disappeared. Unless Gita wished to be seen, she had a way of fading into the shadows to escape notice. A survival skill, no doubt, to escape the wrath of her drunken father.
His heart light, Jamin pulled out the goatskin parchment he'd used to sketch plans for Ninsianna’s dream house and added blueprints for a ‘hospital’ room. For the first time in weeks, he felt hope.
Chapter 33