Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (35 page)

"Pity," Kasib said. His tail twirled down from its stiff salute and snaked across the room to brush a piece of paper off his desk. "It limits you, not having a fifth fighting limb. But…" his long forked tongue flit into the air, "…no matter. What's important is the
intent
to pay the proper respect. The Sata'an Empire is
built
upon respect. Respect for each other. Respect for order. Respect for our Emperor and god."

Kasib repeated the move, only this time instead of snapping his tail, he slapped his left palm upon his thigh. It made a smacking noise not all that different from the sound of a snapping tail.

"Got it," Jamin replicated the move.

"Good," Kasib said. "Next is to learn the prayer-gestures." The lizard man raised his fingertips to touch his forehead, his snout and his heart, and mumbled, "Shay'tan be praised."

Jamin froze with his fingers touching his forehead. Lucifer's mocking attitude towards
all
gods, including She-who-is, had been infectious, but now that he was away from the charismatic leader, the thought gave him pause. Who was
he,
mere mortal, to antagonize the gods?

"Mikhail said Shay'tan was the devil," Jamin finally said. "I … can't. I just … don't..."

"Service to Shay'tan is our greatest honor." Kasib's hairless, serpent-like head tilted in an expression that was surprisingly human. "But if you can't
feel
the devotion, than Shay'tan will know it is false. Perhaps it's better to wait until our god has showed you the error of your ways?"

"How?" Jamin asked. "According to Mikhail, the two old gods are nothing but … chiefs. Big, powerful chiefs. Lucifer said…"

Kasib slammed his fist down upon the desk.

"Lucifer is an abomination!" He leaned forward, his expression surprisingly menacing given how mild-mannered the lizard usually appeared. "You should thank Shay'tan that I was able to convince Hudhafah to consider you an
investment!
"

"You
did
let that knife pass, didn't you?" Jamin leaned forward.

Kasib broke eye contact and strode over to the picture of the big red dragon he kept directly across from his desk. Jamin had noticed that some version of the picture adorned every room on the base, but Kasib's had been lovingly adorned with an elaborate frame and trinkets.

A gruff growl from behind the inner door reminded Jamin they weren't alone. With a curt 'stay here,' Kasib disappeared into Hudhafah's office. Jamin chided himself for his own obstreperous behavior. Kasib had stuck his neck out for him and he was repaying the favor by shouting the lizard-man's guilt to his commanding officer. Until he figured out what was
really
going on, perhaps it would be better if he just played along?

Kasib came back out of the general's office, his demeanor formal. For a skinny little lizard, the man had balls of stone.

"General Hudhafah will see you now," Kasib said as blandly as if his outburst of only moments before had never happened.

Jamin went to adjust his shawl and lamented the loss of the familiar symbol of status. Here, he had no status except what Hudhafah chose to bequeath upon him. Marwan's words, the desert shaykh whose daughter had sold him into slavery, came back to him.
If you make yourself indispensable to the lizard people, perhaps they will amply reward you?

Jamin stepped in the door and replicated, perfectly, three-quarters of the gesture of respect Kasib had just taught, minus the bit about worshipping the devil. Until he figured out who the
real
devil was, the only god he intended to worship was his own sense of self-preservation.

Hudhafah rose, a grizzled battle-veteran whose shoulders were nearly as broad as the lizard was tall, and reared his dorsal ridge.

Jamin forced himself to stand firm. All his life he'd ridden on the coattails of his father's prestige. Now … it was up to
him
to earn his own place in the world. He tried on several facial expressions: defiance, irritation, even briefly Kasib's habitual stance of respect before settling upon curiosity.

Hudhafah lumbered forward, his green eyes narrowed into slits. His nostrils flared. Satisfied with whatever he smelled, the general gestured to some maps and barked in the Sata'anic language. Kasib translated.

"He wants to know if you recognize this?" Kasib asked. He pointed to one of many images which had been pinned to the wall.

Jamin stepped closer to the paintings which made it look as though he stood on top of a mountain staring down.

"No," Jamin said.

"Look closer," Kasib gestured at the picture.

Jamin stared at the concentric circles until he realized he stared at a village …
his
village … as seen from the sky. Across the map lay pins, different colored lines, and markings in the squiggly-lined Sata'anic letters he now knew represented words. One series of squiggles caught his eye.

"Chief?" Jamin poked his finger at the symbol as he read his very first word aloud.

He'd never seen his own village from the air, but now that he knew, he could recognize the landmarks. His father's rooftop as seen from the heavens, the central well, the granary. He traced his finger along roads he had walked his entire life, to Siamek's house, to the place they liked to practice throwing spears, to Ninsianna's house, and over to the fields.

Kasib handed General Hudhafah the tek-no-lo-gee and explained something to him in the guttural Sata'anic language. A word or two caught Jamin's attention, not because the words were special or possessed any special significance, they were really quite ordinary words, but because in fact he understood them. The magic in the tek-no-lo-gee had enabled him to understand a bit of their language, enough to understand the gist of what Kasib tried to say.

Kasib pleaded his worth to his commanding officer and Hudhafah was obviously intrigued. Hudhafah barked something in the hissing Sata’anic language. Kasib tasted the air, his gold-green eyes sympathetic as he finally revealed the news the lizard-people had been withholding from him.

“They tried to protect her,” Kasib said, “but they failed. If it was
us,
we never would have sent a woman in to do a man’s job.”

“Who?” Jamin’s gut clenched with dread.

“Your friend,” Kasib said. “The Alliance Prime Minister’s newest wife. Your people killed one of their own.”

A cacophony of emotions, guilt, disinterest, satisfaction, and then an older emotion, caring … for once upon a time he had felt
something
for Shahla even though he had never loved her, ripped through him in an odd mishmash of guilt and relief. Dead? Shahla was dead?

Jamin lunged forward. “You swore your men would protect her!”

Kasib stepped between him and Hudhafah, though the Sata’anic general didn’t appear to be worried. The creature was nearly twice his size.

“All five men died trying to get her away from him,” Kasib grabbed Jamin’s arm, surprisingly strong for someone Jamin thought of as a lackey.

“She failed?”

“She did
not
fail!” Kasib hissed. “The Prime Minister’s deception worked, even though it is loathsome to us!” His dorsal ridge rose in anger, a deep scarlet the way a higher-ranking male’s would. “What we did
not
expect was the Angelic would summon reinforcements!”

“Reinforcements?” Jamin said. “Who?”

Hudhafah growled something and met Jamin's gaze.

"You … show … me," General Hudhafah growled in heavily accented Kemet.

"What?" Jamin asked. "Show you what?"

Hudhafah pointed to the map of Assur.

"Where …
her?
" General Hudhafah growled. He pointed to an image displayed on Kasib's
smart pad
, a device the lizard always carried with him which was twice as large as the little language game.

Jamin scrutinized the birds-eye image. It was grainy and the reddish light cast off from the bonfire gave everything a hellish appearance, but the face which stared up at him, twisted with hatred as she stood over a pile of crumpled brown feathers and drew back her spear, was unmistakable.

"Pareesa," Jamin hissed with hatred.

He whirled to the map and pointed to a rooftop.

"She lives
here.
"

~ * ~ * ~

November: 3,390 BC

Earth: Mesopotamian Plain

Pareesa

"Hey … Pareesa!"

"Pareesa!"

"Pareesa!"

People greeted her as though she was some sort of hero as she made her way to the inner ring. She passed Shahla's father's house, the door and windows fastened shut, with a black mourning banner conspicuously
absent
from the front door. Brown splotches of excrement painted the mud-brick façade like a mural, the contents of numerous chamber pots. It was
almost
enough to cause Pareesa to smile.

"Pareesa!" Tirdard grinned. "I hear you took down seventy men?"

"It wasn't just me," Pareesa said without humor. Normally she'd be bouncing on her toes, eager to show off her latest mastery of a war skill, but celebrating seemed somehow inappropriate.

"How's Mikhail doing?".

"Better," Pareesa lied. He was no such thing. After he'd scared the crap out of her trying to fly out of there, he'd collapsed into his bed and been in and out of a raging fever ever since.

More villagers lauded her as she ascended to the pinnacle of the village. All her life she'd dreamed of getting accolades, and now that she was getting them, they sat like rotted meat in her belly.

Mikhail had survived the knife wound, only to succumb to a fever…

Mikhail's wound was infected…

Mikhail was delirious….

The man she had risked everything to save; mentor, best friend, role model and teacher, might not make it. Mikhail might die!

She wiped at the dust which caused her eyes to tear up. Best not to let the other warriors see she wept like a little girl. A runner had come to her mother's house to summon her for an audience with the chief.
Her
. A thirteen summer girl! She paused in front of Chief Kiyan's house, the second-largest building in the village, and knocked.

The door opened.

"I'm here to see…" Pareesa said with a mixture of girlish sheepishness and bravado.

"He's expecting you," the housekeeper cut her off. The stooped old woman gestured for her to follow. "This way."

Unlike most houses in Assur, the Chief's house had one room for ordinary activities, a second for greeting guests. A din of familiar voices informed her this meeting was about more than
her.

"Ahh, Pareesa!" Chief Kiyan said. " We were just talking about you."

Pareesa stared at the faces seated in a circle on luxurious, fat cushions.

"Chief Kiyan," Pareesa addressed them in order of their rank. "Immanu. Varshab. Siamek." She turned to the three unexpected people in the room. "Yalda, Behnam and Rakshan?" What were the three elders who made up the Tribunal doing here? Was she in some kind of trouble?

"Come, sit Pareesa," Yalda said as if the old woman read her mind. "This is a war counsel. Before the Chief authorizes retaliation, he is
strongly
advised to bring evidence before the Tribunal." The seventy-six summer woman looked as though she'd spent the last few days crying. Mikhail was like a grandson to her, and she and her sister were the closest things that the dark-winged Angelic had to his own family.

"It prevents ill-advised retaliation," Behnam said, the second elder and one of Mikhail's eight original archers. "A clever enemy provokes retaliation before a village is prepared to sustain a full campaign."

"It gives us a chance to consider alternatives to outright action," Rakshan said, the third elder and a flint-knapper. "Our warriors are brave, but they often fail to consider whether we have the resources, lest we leave them with no weapons to lob at our enemy except for stones."