Ark(30)

“I know what you say is true, Kichu.” Japheth hobbled on his twisted foot, testing it. “I have no plan, I cannot forget her. I can’t . . .” Japheth trailed off and slumped back to the ground, too exhausted to remain on his feet.

“I don’t have any answers for you, Japheth. If it were me, I would stay as far away from Larsa as I could. There is nothing for you here. Go back to Bad-Tibira, or go back to your family.”

Japheth nodded, knowing Kichu was right. This battle had shown him that, for all his bravado, he wasn’t quite ready yet to throw his life away. He would begin again, somewhere, somehow.

Kichu hauled Japheth to his feet. “I’ll buy you a few rounds, take you dicing. Time will do the rest.”

Japheth could only nod again. Wine, gambling, whores, none of that mattered. Aresia might as well be a star twinkling in the sky for all that he could reach her.





6





Sorrow





“‘I am sorry I ever made them.’” Genesis 6:7 (NLT)





My prayers that my husband will be killed in battle go unanswered. He returns to Larsa filled with the pride of someone who always gets what he wants.

He comes to my rooms nearly every night, and he behaves as if he were still on the battlefield. My thighs and womanhood are sore from him, but he will not relent. He is punishing me for murdering his child, and I take his punishment because, deep down, I know I deserve it. Even the child of a monster like Sin-Iddim deserves to live, but I could not stomach the thought of bearing his child. I simply could not do it.

Poor Mirra. She did as I asked, and she died for it, as she knew she would. I saw the knowledge of death in her eyes when she left. I don’t know how Sin-Iddim knew Mirra gave me the herbs. For all I know, he has her killed simply out of sheer petulance, for letting me miscarry. I do not know, and I cannot care. She is dead, and no prayers of mine can bring her back.

I still think of Japheth. His face erupts in my dreams. His tender lips brush mine as I sleep, and then I wake to an empty room and an aching heart. Irkalla has given up trying to rouse me, or cheer me. Days turn into weeks, and then weeks into months, and I allow myself to grow lethargic. I do not allow the servants to dress me or paint my eyes with kohl. I eat little and drink wine until the room spins from morning till night.

Sin-Iddim is furious. He married me for my beauty, and I have stolen it from him. He comes to me, rages at me, hits me, kicks me, curses me. Madness gleams in his eyes, and I find satisfaction knowing I put it there.

Or make it worse, at least. I believe he has always been mad, and I have simply thrown oil onto the fire.

This cannot continue. I will die soon, and I will welcome the darkness.



I do not know how much time has passed.

Sin-Iddim still comes, but not every night, not even once a week now. Perhaps he satisfies himself with that poor boy. I do not know that either, and I do not care.

If I do not waste away and die of starvation, perhaps I can make the demon-king kill me.

I think perhaps that would be best—better to die quickly, end the suffering of my broken and empty heart.

Thoughts of Japheth swirl through my clouded, drunken, hunger-hazed head. I can feel him, out there somewhere. I thought he might be close once, long ago. I thought I felt him nearby, but then it passed and I could only tip the wineskin and drown the agony of his imagined nearness.

Now he is far away, and Irkalla sits in a chair near my bed, eyes red-rimmed from weeping for me, even though I plead with her not to mourn for me.

I think I will send her away, and prod Sin-Iddim into beating me. The pain will wake me from my stupor, and he will kill me, and I will be free.



I did not imagine anything could hurt this badly; this is worse than the miscarriage. Fool that I am, I underestimated the demon-king’s taste for savagery.

He did not merely beat me—he tortured me.

I no longer call on Inanna, for she is silent, as she has always been, as she ever will be. She is a dead god; she is no god at all; she is naught but empty air.

Elohim, help me. I called on The One God, finally. Not as I did when Father threatened Japheth, but for myself. Not to spare me, but to answer me. To speak to me.

If you are Lord of Heaven, as your followers claim, you will answer me. I am dying, Elohim. I am alone, and I am dying. Speak to me, Elohim. Speak to me.

Blood runs from my nose, from my ears, from the cleft between my thighs, from a thousand cuts upon every inch of my body. He burns the soles of my feet with red-hot sword tips; I can smell my flesh burning, a sick smell nightmarishly like roasting meat.

He rapes me as I bleed, his pig-thing smeared with my effluvia. He laughs as I weep.

When I pass into unconsciousness from the pain, he waits until I regain my senses, and then he turns me onto my stomach and sodomizes me. He forces himself into my mouth, sour with excrement, and his seed burns my throat and chokes me.

I bite him, and that is when his fists descend like hammers on a blacksmith’s forge. When he breaks his knuckles on my face and ribs, he uses his feet.

I wake again, and I curse the knowledge that I am still alive. My heart continues to beat still, albeit weakly.

I am on the floor of my chamber, lying in a foul puddle from the over-turned chamber pot, bleeding, soiling myself, vomiting blood and weeping. I have lost hope, and I believe I will not die, but only continue on like this, drowning in this sea of unbearable agony but never grant the peace of death.