February - 3,390 BC
Earth: Crash site
Ninsianna
Ninsianna followed the scorched vegetation to the shallow valley where the sky canoe had slammed into the earth. The peculiar vessel was three times bigger than her father's house and so shiny it reflected the cloudless blue sky like the reflection off of a pool of water. Terrible black smoke poured out of an oven at the end which faced towards her, but the sky canoe itself did not burn even though it radiated more heat than a midsummer day. Had She-who-is not shown her a vision, Ninsianna might have run away in terror, but within this vessel lay the answer to her prayers. Wearing false bravado like a winter cape, she wiped the smoke out her eyes as she searched for a way inside.
At last she found a jagged tear which stretched from the ground all the way up into the rooftop. She reached to touch the reflective silver surface, but it glowed so hot she was forced to yank back her hand. It was, she hoped, not so hot inside. Squeezing gingerly through the crack so it did not burn her flesh, she groped through some rubble to gain entrance to this temple which had fallen from the stars. Sunlight shone down through the cracked roof like a golden beacon to illuminate a broken, bloody man who struggled to extricate himself from a spear which had pierced his breast.
A cry of horror escaped from Ninsianna's lips. "How can any creature sustain such injuries and still be alive?"
Sharp edges tore at her hands and knees as she scrambled over the debris. The copper stench of blood mixed with smoke filled her nostrils with the scent of impending death. Even in the dim light, she could see his chances were slim.
"How can I heal such a wound?" Ninsianna cried out to the goddess who had sent her. "Mother, I am only an apprentice healer! Even if I was close enough to the village to summon my Mama, by the time I get her back here, it will be far too late to help him!"
She placed one trembling hand upon the man's cheek, praying he didn't see the fear in her eyes. Their eyes met in the murky light, a frightened, dying creature and a stranger.
“She-who-is sent me to help," Ninsianna said. "I mean you no harm."
The man's eyes lost focus and slid shut.
Panic gripped her gut as she placed her fingers at the base of his throat. "No! Please don't die!"
She held her breath, praying the man was still alive. A weak, steady, throb fluttered against her fingertips. Oh, thank the goddess! She still had a little time. She forced her mind to recall the words to the sacred songs.
“Mother of All-That-Is,” Ninsianna chanted in a sing-song voice. “Please guide my hands."
She followed the whisper of intuition which warned her to attend to the most deadly object first. A long, slender spear had pierced his chest and pinned him to the floor. She fumbled with his strange, foreign clothing, using her obsidian blade to cut it away from the spear. She stared at his shattered ribcage with dismay. How could any man be impaled so close to his heart and still have it beat? It appeared the spear staunched his blood, but once removed, he would bleed out in a matter of heartbeats.
Rummaging through her satchel, she pulled out a bone needle and hair from the tail of a wild horse, laying out the objects on the man's trembling abdomen. In her lifetime she had helped her Mama tend to many serious wounds, but never had she treated such an injury without the benefit of Mama's guiding hand. Her preparations ready, she grabbed the shaft and yanked it with all of her might. It made a horrible sucking noise as his flesh clung to the spear which staunched his blood. The stranger moaned as the shaft slid reluctantly from his chest.
Throwing it aside, she kneeled and poked at his wound. Bad. This looked really, really bad. She needed to know where, exactly, she had to stitch. Wincing as she pushed aside his clothing to expose the gaping wound, she pressed two fingers into the hole, past his ribs until she hit a hollow cavity. Ninsianna grimaced. The shaft had pierced his lungs. If she did not stitch this up, the hole would steal his breath and drown the man in his own blood.
Something pulsated against her fingertips. Ninsianna paused, awestruck as the man's heart fluttered through the delicate lung tissue to caress her fingers. No one, not even her mother, had ever touched something as sacred as a man's still-beating heart. Was this what it felt like to be a goddess?
“Thank you, Mother,” Ninsianna whispered in awe.
With each beat the man's life-blood seeped out of the wound. Ninsianna shifted closer and slid on a bloodied, feathered cloak which lay crushed beneath the man's body. Jamming her knee into the feathers, she grabbed her bone needle and rammed it through the tender tissue which covered his lung. Out, in. Out, in. Draw it closed just like the laces of her pampooties. As she stitched, the stranger reopened his eyes.
“An bhfuil tú ag seoladh isteach spiorad chun treoir a thabhairt dom an t-am aisling?” His expression was strangely calm given the precariousness with which he clung to life.
"Don't be afraid," Ninsianna said. "She-who-is sent me here to help you.” Since both of her hands were busy, he kissed his cheek, hoping he would understand the gesture of comfort.
“Ní raibh mé riamh eagla an bháis, ach amháin a chaitheamh ar an saol mar a n-aonar i ndiaidh huile gan maité mar atá mé ag éigean a chaitheamh i mo shaol. Bháis mé sásta go bhfuil spiorad álainn teacht chun gabháil mé isteach sa saol atá romhainn. Beidh mé ar turas lúcháireach le leat."
Chills tingled throughout Ninsianna's body as though she should recognize the language, even though she was certain she had never heard it uttered. The man gave her a look she could only describe as relief before he lost consciousness once again. Ninsianna resumed her stitching. Once she finished, she moved down to extricate his legs. Beneath her feet his feathered cloak caused her feet to slip and robbed her of her footing.
“Darn cloak!" Ninsianna exclaimed as she nearly fell. “How will I free you if I keep slipping on these bloody feathers?"
She yanked out several handfuls trying to move the accursed garment, noting the way they were tightly sewn into the fabric. The man groaned as she ripped out the next double-handful of feathers. She shrieked like a frightened little girl when one side of the 'cloak' suddenly twitched upwards. With a shock, she realized that not only was the garment warm, but it was also attached firmly to the stranger's back.
“You have wings?"
The man opened his eyes. One of the small lightning-sparks illuminated his irises and showed her they were the color of the winter sky. The moment stretched between them as she realized she'd been sent to save a living god. She glanced at the handful of dark feathers she'd just ripped out of his living flesh and placed them back down, as if she could simply reattach them.
“Uhm … I'm sorry?” She gave him her most sheepish expression, the one she used whenever her Mama caught her doing something naughty. "We don't, uhm…"
The man did not appear to be angry at her, but rather confused, as though he wished to figure out why she would both help and hurt him. She touched his cheek to convey she hadn't meant to cause him any pain. The spirit-light she could sometimes see revealed he drifted between the world of the living and the dead. A sense of urgency pushed her to work more quickly!
Ninsianna used her hands to accentuate her words as she touched the spot where his legs disappeared beneath the wreckage. “I will pull, but you must pull out your own legs. Okay?"
She felt relieved when the stranger nodded his assent.
“Is ea."
She positioned herself behind his head and threaded her forearms through his armpits. The man groaned in agony and his one good wing trembled as she pulled using every ounce of her strength. Goddess! The man was heavy! Moving his legs of his own accord, he shifted just far enough to free himself from the wreckage before he lost consciousness once again. She rolled him onto his side to gain access to the exit wound on his back and marveled at the reality of the appendages which had gotten in her way.
“Mother! He has the wings of an eagle!"
Protruding from his back was a pair of enormous, muscul
ar wings, blackish-brown to match his hair and streaked at the tips with darker plumage. One wing bent backwards at an ominous angle which signaled a horrific break, but the other wing appeared to be intact except for the handful of feathers she had just ripped out.
“When you sent me a vision of a man with wings," Ninsianna said to the goddess, "I thought you wished to convey this man is blessed by the gods. I had no idea you were being literal!”
Grabbing her needle and thread, she stitched the exit wound where the shaft had come out the other side, and then she moved on to attend to the next most critical injury. Just below the knee joint of his wing, the bone had snapped and part of it stuck though his skin. Ninsianna carefully slid the delicate bone back under the skin and manipulated it until it slid into place. She grabbed the spear she'd ripped earlier from his chest and used it to splint his broken wing. His left wrist was also bent at an unnatural angle, signaling another break.
“It's a good thing you're unconscious," Ninsianna said, "or I do not think you would let me do this to you!”
She braced her feet against the side of the man's chest to gain leverage and rammed his elbow between her knees, yanking his arm until his wrist made a cracking noise. She twisted it until it snapped it back into place, wincing as the bone made a horrible grinding noise.
“Not that you have a choice!"
She grabbed some of the peculiar, colored spiderwebs which hung from the ceiling to bind a splint to his wrist, yelping as one of the spiderwebs bit her fingers, and then moved on to examine the nasty gash in his skull, speaking to him the entire time as she stitched him up to anchor his spirit so he would not pass into the dreamtime. Papa swore it was the intent in a shaman's voice which mattered while Mama insisted it was touch which anchored the badly injured. Ninsianna used both gifts, speaking with no expectation of an answer, the same way she always spoke to She-who-is. At last she had done all she could. The rest was up to him.
“It's an all-day run back to my village," Ninsianna stroked his cheek, "and it will be getting dark soon. I don't wise to leave you alone with your spirit so close to crossing into the next realm. I will stay with you until you are strong.”
The man's skin felt cold and clammy. She pressed her fingers to his neck and noticed his heart beat unevenly and too light. She used a piece of debris to prop his legs up higher than his head so the blood would flow where it was needed just as Mama had taught her. To fend off the death-sleep, you must keep the injured warm. She grabbed the blanket she'd brought with her in her satchel, covered him, and curled against his side to share her warmth.
Exhausted, Ninsianna fell fast asleep.
Chapter 6