Ark(4)

Even with the sleeping draught Irkalla gave me, sleep eluded me well into the smallest hours of the dawn, and it was late in the day when I finally arose and left my chambers. I waited until full dark that night to sneak out of the palace with Irkalla; if I had but known the trouble I would have finding sleep again that night, and why, I might have stayed in the palace.

Tonight Father was in his cups, and it was at such times when he was most dangerous, so I clothed myself in my plain commoner’s robes and had Irkalla accompany me to my favorite temple, a tiny, rude little building far off the main road, hunched and crammed between taller, newer buildings, and overshadowed by a towering ziggurat to Enlil.

It was easy to miss, being dark within and as old as the stars themselves, the once-handsomely carved exterior long-since crumbled. I had discovered it by accident, one day, while lost with Irkalla, and I fell in love with it. It was nothing but four crumbling brick walls and a slab of stone across the top, the ceiling so low I felt the stone brushing my hair if I stood upright, and the walls were close and stained with age. This place had been there for an age already, and the altar to Inanna was a soot-stained block of stone with a rudely carved little statue to the goddess and a few guttering candles.

The priestess was as old as the temple, stooped and hunched and wrinkled, and though she knew me, she allowed me to come and pay my respects to the goddess and say a prayer or make an offering.

This night, however, was different. I was not here to make an offering to Inanna. It was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and the reason for my Father’s drunken rage, and my own steep melancholy. I lit a candle and wafted the smoke to the ceiling, whispered a prayer to my goddess, and tried to remember my mother. Tall, imperiously beautiful, her hair the same rich glossy auburn as my own, always left loose in a cascade around her shoulders and waist, her eyes kohled and her nostrils pierced and her ears hung with precious jewels, her wrists adorned with gold, the bracelets clattering as she walked and tinkling as she caught me up in her lithe arms.

I remembered her singing to me at night, teaching me prayers to Lady Inanna, showing me how to light the candle and waft the sweet smoke to the heavens. I remembered her sitting on her chair beside Father’s throne: head high, a gold circlet on her brow. I remembered her lying beside me as I drifted to sleep, her skin smelling of perfume and her hair of jasmine.

I remembered, too, the night she died. I had heard a shout and stumbled from my bed to the doorway of the throne room. Father was lounging on his throne, and a naked human girl was on top of him, writhing sinuously and moaning loudly, her eyes hooded as if dazed by the herbs the priests used to commune with the gods.

Father had a wineskin in his hand, and Mother was standing in the center of the throne room, kohl dripping in black streaks down her cheeks. I remembered her cursing Father, calling him dog and pig, damning him in the vilest terms. I remember Father throwing the girl off of him, stumbling from the dais, and swinging his fist clumsily at Mother. Even a half-strength blow from my father was enough to fell an ox; a drunken strike such as that one . . . it connected with Mother’s temple, cracking wetly, and she fell. I watched as she tumbled to the floor, and I watched as her head struck the stones with a sickening crunch, and then redness seeped out of her to stain the flags.

Father fell to his knees, cradling her, cursing her, cursing himself, begging her to get up, begging her to forgive him. I remembered the way Mother’s head lolled oddly, dripping crimson. Father changed that night, and his distaste for humans soured further into open hatred and persecution.

I was much like my mother, so said Irkalla and the other servants, and I thought my face reminded Father of her, reminding him of his sin, of his guilt, of his shame. He sank deep into his cups and was prone to sudden and terrible rages, and gods help anyone who got in his way. He had been known to kill messengers and servants for the slightest transgression, and if there were any humans in the dungeons, they died awful deaths at his hand. And if I was near him, I received the worst of his rage. He did not strike me, but he cursed me, accosted me with epithets and threw things at me until I left.

Thus, on the anniversary of Mother’s death I stayed in my rooms until it was dark and then I made my way to this temple, and I remembered Mother the best I could, whispering her name and calling up her face—a face that grew more hazy and distant with each passing year.

When I had lit my candle and said my prayers, when I had remembered my mother and offered propitiation to Inanna on my Mother’s behalf, Irkalla and I scurried out of the temple and threaded our way through the dark, narrow streets of this rude, rough section of the city, back toward the temple.

Bad-Tibira was not a gentle place; Father’s rule did not foster peace. I felt no fear, however, knowing if I were to reveal my face, no man would dare harm me. It was a hot night, and my melancholy was thick upon me, sorrow a dense knot in my heart, perhaps occluding my better judgement. I decided to pause at an inn for wine, against Irkalla’s wishes.

The inn was a human establishment, and as a Nephilim, even in a commoner’s robe, I stood out. Stares met me as I we entered, eyes following me, conversations halting momentarily.

“We should not be here, mistress,” Irkalla whispered. “It is not safe.”

I shushed her. “A cup of wine or two cannot do harm, Irkalla,” I said. “And besides, what can a handful of drunk humans do to us? If they laid so much as a finger on me, they would find death close behind.”