Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (105 page)

"Are you okay, Mama?"

"I just want you to get better so you can go and fetch my daughter."

Mikhail didn't take offense. Needa had always spoken exactly what was in her heart. He preferred her straightforward brusqueness to the disingenuous exaltations of a sycophant.

She finished unwrapping his bandages, wrinkling up her nose at the terrible odor. He had shed the necrotic tissue which lined the wound, but his chest kept spewing out puss as his immune system purged the poison.

"That smells bad," he said, the silence so awkward that even
he
felt compelled to fill it.

Needa snorted. "That's nothing. You should have seen how bad it got a couple of days before you died."

Her hand shook as she realized what she'd just said.

"I'm not dead, Mama," Mikhail said. "And neither is Ninsianna."

"How do you know?" Needa's voice warbled as she spoke the words.

"Because I can
feel
her, Mama," Mikhail said. He touched his chest which hummed with the song he had carried out of the dream. "I can feel her. Right
here.
And I know
you
can feel her too. You don't need to
see
it to know what is in your heart."

Tears rose to Needa's eyes, but she looked away.

"How do you know the person you feel is Ninsianna?" she asked.

"Because I
do
," Mikhail said. "Amongst my people, my
original
people, the most sacred union is that shared between a husband and a wife. Nobody else could make me feel this way except for my one true mate."

Needa dipped her cloth into the hot water and dabbed his wound. The water had a pleasant scent, melted myrrh sap. It stung, but not horribly, more like the light disinfectant they used back on the hospital ship. Even with her primitive understanding of microbiology, Needa understood she had to
boil
the suckers to reduce the risk of infection.

"It's as though death, itself was in that blade," Needa said. "Have you ever seen such a wound before?"

"Yes," Mikhail said. "I have suffered such an injury before."

"You have?" Needa's eyebrows shot up with surprise. Whatever troubled her, it disappeared as curiosity lit up her eyes with interest.

"It's called
neacróis
," Mikhail said. "We, um, you don't quite have a direct translation for this word. It means death-venom."

"Gangrene?" Needa asked.

"More than gangrene," Mikhail said. "Gangrene is caused by lack of circulation, but
neacróis
can also be caused by the bite of an insect or serpent, or certain types of evil spirits that live in the water. The Eternal Emperor forbids it, but there are species who live in the
réaltra,
um, heavens who gather up these natural venoms and use them to poison their weapons."

"Just like Shahla did to you?"

"Yes," Mikhail said. He supposed he should feel
angry
about it, but the truth was he could remember precious little about just how he had gotten stabbed or what had happened after he had fallen. All he knew was that he felt a profound urgency to
do something,
but that something was conflicted, as if he was being torn in half, with one part of him shouting 'run this way' and the other half screaming 'no, this way is more important!'  None of what he was feeling made any sense.

"How did you heal yourself the last time you were infected thus?" Needa asked.

"I didn't," Mikhail said. He pointed to a small, sunken scar about the size of a pebble just beneath where his combat boots usually laced up.

"That was a spider bite on 55-Cancri-f," Mikhail said. "A stupid injury. We're supposed to shake out our boots before putting them back on after bedding down for the night. We got into a firefight, so I pulled them on quick and paid the price. Lost half a week of my life in sick bay, hallucinating while they put me into a medical coma until they were able to reverse the damage."

He realized by Needa's blank stare that he'd slipped into speaking Galactic Standard. Previously when he'd had a memory, he would discuss it with Ninsianna, who thanks to her gift of tongues could help him translate it into words her people could understand.

Hadn't Ninsianna told him she'd lost her gift of tongues?

Mikhail frowned. He tugged at the memory, but as before, the memory sat beneath the surface but refused to come free. Whereas before he could remember the present, but nothing from the past, now he could remember the past just fine, or at least that part of it which started after he had gone to live with the Cherubim, but he couldn't remember the last six weeks, as if somebody had gone into his brain and hacked out those memories.

"Mikhail?"

"Sorry, Mama," Mikhail said. He gave her a guilty look, and then he translated what he'd just said into Ubaid, substituting simpler words for the technological terms his mother-in-law had no way of comprehending.

Needa pulled away the blackened chunks with tweezers he'd given her out of his ship's medical kit. He glanced at her black obsidian blade. He had given her the medical kit as part of Ninsianna's 'bride price' after witnessing Needa use that blade to scrape away the infected tissue of a man who'd developed gangrene. He reminded himself as Needa removed the necrotic tissue that this pain was a lot less severe than it
would
have been had he not given his mother-in-law Alliance medical technology.

At last she took out the small beige jug which Mikhail always dreaded. Oh, how he loathed this potion, which burned far worse than the most sadistic ship's surgeon's dis
infectant!

"Fixate on something pleasant," Needa said as she uncapped the vial and prepared to pour it generously over his chest wound.

Mikhail stared on the red cape which Needa had hung back on the wall as she splashed the alcohol liberally onto his chest. He let out a strangled whimper which sounded remarkably like a duck having its neck wrung.

Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it...

"Ow!!!" He let out his breath with an explosive exhalation, his feathers shuddering with his suppressed cry of pain

Damantia that hurt!

Needa picked up the little pieces of straw which had fallen from his wings like raindrops as he'd thrashed in pain.

"You lost your little playthings," Needa said.

"They weren't playthings," Mikhail said through gritted teeth. "It was a resource map. I was planning how to fend off an
eachtrannach
(alien) invasion."

While not a smile, Needa's grim nod indicated she found satisfaction with his plan. The warriors who poured into Assur since he'd woken up were highly motivated to learn more than simply hold a line of scrimmage. If he was to
keep
their trust, he needed to come up with a plan, fast, ask to steal a Sata'anic spaceship right from underneath their noses.

Needa finished binding his chest. Mikhail stared out the window at the sun he hadn't seen in weeks.

"Get some rest," Needa ordered.

"I want to go outside."

Needa gave him her sternest, most non-nonsense glare, the one she used instead of speaking, the one which said it all.

“I’ve been in bed for almost two months,” Mikhail protested. He held up a pale, thin arm that had lost a significant amount of muscle tone. “I need to build up my strength!”

“It’s been little more than a week since you woke up,” Needa said. "It’s all you can do to use the chamberpot. Either you stay in that bed, or I shall barricade you inside your room.”

“I’ll just fly out the window,” Mikhail said. A smirk twitched up one side of his mouth.

“You’re too big to fit,” Needa said. “And you’re so weak you’ll plop right down into the mud. Then you’ll be recovering from broken bones in addition to everything else.”

Mikhail sighed. For all his complaining, he knew Needa was right.

“Could we put a chair outside in the sun?” he asked. "Please. This room still smells of death. I’d really like to go outside.”

Needa scrutinized his progress. He knew she could
feel
the echo of other people's life energy the way that Ninsianna could
see
things about people's health. How could he explain to his mother-in-law that, yes, he was weak, but a step outside was one step closer to resolving the clamoring inside his heart which demanded he go in two different directions at once?

“I think it would be good for you to get outside for a little while,” Needa finally said. “It is sunny and not too cold today. We’ll bundle you up and you can get some fresh air.”

He flashed his mother-in-law the smile which had always turned Ninsianna’s knees to jelly. He remembered now that he was from a race of beings that rarely showed emotion, but these people had adopted him and, honestly, it felt less awkward than always suppressing his feelings.

His good-naturedness disappeared.

“Could you please ask the warriors to help me get outside? If I have to spend another moment in this room, I think I will go insane.”

Several warriors appeared a short time later to keep him steady as he navigated his way to a chair set up outside in the sun. He felt embarrassed to need so much help, but the warriors lifted his wings out of the dirt, which hung limply from his back like a soggy brown cape, and chattered about the advanced training Pareesa had taught them. Mikhail's chest swelled with pride. He didn't have the heart to tell them that, against Sata'anic spaceships, a sword would never be enough.

Finally Needa reappeared and chased them back out front to guard the entrance to the house. The mid-winter sun was bright but chilly. He welcomed Needa's blanket, but still complained about it … just because it gave him something to focus on besides the infernal itching of the dead tissue sloughing off of his chest.

“I’m not an invalid!"

“Whining is a good sign,” Needa said. “It means you’re starting to get better.”

“I’m not whining,” Mikhail whined.

Needa fixed upon him her sternest gaze.

“Get your sunshine and fresh air," she said. "I’ll check back on you in about an hour.”

Mikhail noticed how despondent Needa looked.

“We’ll get her back." He squeezed her hand. “I promise we will.”

Unable to do much else, he closed his eyes and flared his wings to enjoy the pure, luxurious sensation of the wind blowing through his feathers, the sun on his face, and the sound of the village going about its day. It felt good to be alive. Soaking up the sun, he focused on the song he felt inside his heart.

Drifting off to sleep … he dreamed…

* * * * *

The vulture circled the rushes which lined the banks of the Hiddekel River, searching for a carcass left by a predator, ambushed as it had come to the river to drink. Something at the edge of the reeds caught its attention. It circled closer, eager to find something to eat.

It landed next to a pale, scrawny female entangled in a clump of floating reeds. The scent of death rose out of an enormous, black wound which had rotted straight into her heart. The vulture crept closer, and then pecked at the body a few times. No movement. There was nothing left of this human but carrion.

The vulture bit into the gaping chest wound and tugged until a chunk of skin tore free. It gulped it down, expecting it to taste like any other carrion it had ever consumed, but something vile clawed at its throat like scorpion claws. The vulture gagged, trying to excise the rancid meat, and then it fell to the ground, wings twitching in agony as the dark poison which flowed through the woman's veins like blood rotted
it
from the inside as well.

The last thing the vulture comprehended as it died was the sensation of somebody throwing a rock at it.

"Get away from her, you dirty bird!"

* * * * *

The sensation of something nibbling at his wings shook Mikhail out of his daydream. He floundered a moment, disoriented, until he realized he'd fallen forward, his wings spread wide as though he'd tried to take flight in his sleep. As for the creature that was eating him? He recognized her stench before he even opened his eyes.

“Hello, Little Nemesis,” he mumbled softly to Immanu’s recalcitrant dairy goat, the one who left hoof prints all over him every time he tried to milk her. As usual, the gate to her pen lay open, the rope nibbled in half where she had let herself out. She affectionately nuzzled his hand and gave him a bleating sigh.

The dream faded, but not the sense of urgency which had come with it. He reached out and laid his hand upon the goat's head.

“I missed you too, Little Nemesis,” he said.

Yes, it was good to be alive.

~ * ~ * ~