Stealing Sacred Fire (27 page)

Sarpanita sat before the cage,
deep below Etemenanki, absorbing the dream-images that Penemue sent
to her. Incense smouldered, filling the air with smoke that smelled
sweet, but which burned her throat. Sarpanita stared at her hands,
which were folded in her lap. She could not look at the angel while
he sent her the pictures, for his face was a distraction and her
mind became filled with it.

Over the days, she had learned
much about the history of the Arallu. Penemue had not been able to
witness the construction of their underground city firsthand, for
by the time the first excavations were made, he’d been incarcerated
beneath rocks in his life-tomb, but as he’d lain there, suffering
beneath the weight of the stones, his mind had flown out of his
body, and had witnessed much of what had happened. He’d seen the
dour Arallu lords stalk the bare corridors, heard the screams of
captive women, and had smelled the bloody incense the Arallu used
in their rites. He had sensed their fear of Anu and his faithful
Watchers. He had heard the stories of those who had been discovered
by these loyal forces and how they had been murdered, their new
cities destroyed so thoroughly that not even a memory of them would
remain.

The Arallu had found Penemue by
accident as their human workers burrowed deep into the earth. His
sarcophagus had been uncovered, in the place where Anu’s engineers
had buried it. No-one was supposed to discover it, but they
had.

At first, the discovery had
caused argument. Some had wanted to open the sarcophagus, while
others, thinking that Penemue, if he survived, would take control
of their city, had advised against it. Quickly, they had learned
that their priests could communicate with the captive, and that he
could be questioned like an oracle. They had been puzzled that he
made no demands for release.

Even now Penemue was distressed
that he had been disturbed.

Had he been asleep all these
centuries? Sarpanita wondered.

No, not asleep. Dead more than
alive, but eventually the heaviness of the rocks and the eternal
darkness lost their power to hurt his mind and body. He had felt
weightless, insubstantial. His body had become merely a numb vessel
to which his mind could return and rest, whenever astral travel
became too tiring.

On the rare occasions when
Penemue pined for activities of the flesh, he had found that he
could inhabit a living body. Sometimes, under ritual conditions,
the Arallu would provide an unwilling host for him, seized from
their human work-force. Otherwise, Penemue would steal a body,
slipping into its owner’s mind without them even realising it.
Through these vehicles of flesh, he could experience the pleasures
of food and wine, of lovers’ bodies, even experience the act of
killing. He could ride into battle without ever fearing death or
injury, for his mind could quit the host body whenever he willed it
so. Sometimes, gripped by a strange anger, he had driven his
unwitting hosts to suicide. Or else, to experience the farthest
reaches of emotion, he had killed the loved ones of the human
vessel he inhabited.

Sarpanita could not judge the
Watcher for these acts. His mind, she knew, worked in a way very
different to her own. It was not that he did not perceive a
difference between good and evil, but that he didn’t see what she
termed ‘evil’ as bad, or thought what she knew as ‘good’ was
somehow worthy and desirable. Acts had consequences, as did
thoughts. The tapestry woven from the different strands of
consequence was valid, and if some of the threads required for its
construction caused pain to others, it was simply a necessary part
of the whole.

He asked her a question in the
form of a feeling that invaded her heart, ‘Why have they woken
me?’

‘Because you were there,’ she
answered in her mind. ‘And you are what my father desires to be. He
wants to rule like a god over his angels.’

She sensed the Watcher’s
amusement. ‘He wants me to be like the Arallu were in the past and
breed a line of little kings for him, with you.’

‘Yes,’ she answered and he
observed the distress in her heart without sending any reciprocal
thought or feeling. She felt as if he’d touched her feelings
somehow, held them and looked at them, and then put them down
again, for they did not hold his interest for long.

‘It is a circle,’ Penemue told
her. ‘I was incarcerated for tasting and honouring a human woman,
and now I am exhumed for the same purpose.’ His humour was bleak.
Perhaps he would not be able to perform in the way Nimnezzar
wanted.

‘Now I am here in the air, it
is difficult for my mind to roam,’ Penemue said. ‘I once saw a dim
spark that was a tiny flame. All that was left of my brother and
master, Shemyaza. I do not believe that he is dead.’

‘He will come here looking for
you,’ Sarpanita said, to please him. ‘I dreamed of it.’

‘Shemyaza was love, but it was
terrible,’ said the angel.

And Sarpanita shuddered to
think what kind of monster made the amoral Penemue think that way.
‘How can love be terrible, lord?’ she asked.

The angel’s sigh was a dark
breeze through her mind. ‘Shemyaza loved a human maid, a young
woman like you. Their union was that of spirit and the earth. But
it was forbidden, and they were discovered. Shemyaza lost his
heaven for it. At first, he was a willing sacrifice and became the
scapegoat, cast out into the desert, to atone for the sins of his
brethren who had also taken human lovers. I was one of them. I saw
his fall and turned away to eat the festival meat. In the desert,
Shemyaza learned bitterness and hatred. He felt we had betrayed and
abandoned him, that his sacrifice meant nothing. Eventually, he
raised an army of half-breed Nephilim, terrible warriors, and
filled with their father’s rage they ravaged the sacred ground of
Eden. Many died, and our Father released the Deluge to cleanse the
earth. Shemyaza was captured, his earthly body burned alive, while
his soul was cast into the constellation of Orion, where it was
sentenced to hang for eternity. Perhaps eternity is over, for now
Shemyaza is free in the world.’

Sarpanita listened to this
story with rising dread. She was becoming part of this terrifying
history. It was leaking into reality.

In the afternoon, while the
palace shimmered like a mirage, aching and white in the sun, a
foreign woman came to the court of the king.

A soft-footed courtier
approached Nimnezzar in his cool, cavernous study, and here
whispered of a fair-skinned Western woman, who had travelled long,
perilous roads in a truck, with only an idiot Turkish boy for
protection. The woman wished to see him.

Nimnezzar raised his eyes from
his work, and wondered for a moment what manner of female, Western
or otherwise, could burrow her way through the morass of officials,
protocol and obstructions that were set like a maze around his
inner sanctum. He frowned. ‘Why are you bothering me with this? Who
is this woman and what is her business?’ He looked around for his
vizier, Jazirah; the shadow who normally eclipsed all intruding
lights from his presence. He felt strangely vulnerable being
accosted in this way, no matter how fearful the servant might
be.

The official bowed low. ‘Great
King, she claims she is looking for a Watcher lord and that she has
information you will find useful. She insists on speaking to
you.’

Nimnezzar had wooed the lands
of the west; perhaps this woman knew she would not be dismissed out
of hand. ‘Who does she represent?’

The official shrugged. ‘She has
indicated she represents no-one but herself, great king.’

‘Indicated?’

‘She will speak to no-one but
you, great king. She is fearless and tenacious.’

For a moment, Nimnezzar felt
annoyed by the woman’s audacity. Perhaps he should order a group of
his personal guard to molest and humiliate her for this effrontery.
She claimed no connection to a government or official agency. He
was mindful of causing diplomatic upset, but at the same time
resented the way this unknown female felt she had the right to
march up to his palace and demand audience. However, it was
possible she really did have information.

‘Find Jazirah and ask him to
question the woman,’ Nimnezzar said, and dismissed the official
from his attention, carefully lifting a sheaf of papers before his
nose. His minion backed, bowing, from his presence.

Melandra Maynard felt as if she
had invaded the court of hell. Here she was, through wits and
impudence alone, sitting in an ante-chamber to the court of one of
the devil’s followers. She could not believe she had achieved her
objective. Her hands were steady on her shoulder bag, which perched
upon her knees. The guards had divested it of its secret — the
weapon — but did not appear to find it unusual that a woman would
carry a gun of its type. She had surrendered it without argument.
This was a cross-roads.

In Istanbul, she had discovered
it was possible to hire guides to take her anywhere in the
dangerous east. People there lived with the troubles; they knew how
to negotiate them. So, accompanied by a Turkish guide, she had made
her way to Babylon. The journey had not been uneventful, and
sometimes they had had to buy their way out of trouble, first with
the Turks and then the Babylonians, but by degrees, they had made
progress. Now, Melandra was in Babylon, in the palace of the king.
She was quietly surprised that she had achieved her objective. It
seemed to her now that the journey had been almost too easy.

Of course, Americans were
welcome in Babylon. Since the country was no longer Islamic, the
West had lost no time in befriending the Babylonian government. In
time-honoured tradition, the West chose to overlook the atrocities
committed in Babylon’s name, in order to profit from the commerce
of oil and arms. To them, Nimnezzar seemed tractable and
co-operative in comparison with other Middle Eastern rulers.
Babylonians on the street might glance askance at a Westerner, but
officials couldn’t be more helpful.

Melandra had been struck by the
signs of prosperity she’d encountered in the country: copies of
ancient monuments littered the stark countryside; new towns reared
their columns and minarets towards the sky. Conflict in the north
did not sully the tranquillity of life further south. It might not
exist. In Babylon itself, the streets were wide and clean. The ugly
old buildings of late twentieth century architecture were being
replaced everywhere by elegant constructions of marble, granite and
basalt. Traffic was restricted in the city centre, but there was an
efficient, modern public transport system that looked like
something out of an SF movie. Even the people were part of this
expressionism; their clothes were neither Western-style nor
traditional Eastern, but a newly-conceived meld of both, fashioned
from soft, elegant fabrics. Babylon was like a fantasy artist’s
impression of an exotic alien culture that had developed
sophisticated futuristic technology. The ancient and the
ultra-modern blended together to create an aesthetically-stunning
whole. Only Melandra knew that this was the work of the devil. Its
beauty was furled around a maggoted heart.

Melandra found that the word
Grigori acted like a cantrip — it opened doors and minds. Her
guide, staunch at her side for the promise of American dollars, had
led her to the right offices, speaking the words that allowed her
access to the next platform of the game. The magic charm of the
Grigori had broken every barrier until it had led her unharmed into
the lair of the monster himself. At the last gateway, her guide had
been taken from her. She wondered whether Shemyaza was already here
in the city.

Melandra sat for over an hour,
thirsty and hungry in the cool, dark room. The journey from the
walls to the heart of the palace complex had taken over a day, and
she had neither eaten nor rested during this time. Now, she felt
light-headed and reality seemed a plastic, unreliable thing.
Fighting dizziness, she eyed with longing the pool in the garden
visible beyond the windows. Soon, she might find she had wandered
out there involuntarily and was scooping aside the lilies to drink
the water like an animal, lapping with dry tongue. Melandra did not
want this to happen. She must remain in control and aloof. The
first thing she would do the next time she saw someone — anyone —
would be to ask for a drink. They would grant her that, surely, in
this court of Pandemonium whose demons aped civility and
manners?

When the tall man came to her,
she jumped in alarm, for she had not heard him approach. He was
handsome and sinister, clad in embroidered silk robes, like a
prince from the Arabian Nights. He looked at her with cold eyes,
his lips smiling slyly, then bowed his head. ‘Madam, I am Jazirah,
vizier to the great king, Nimnezzar. What is your business
here?’

Melandra put her bag onto the
floor, feeling too ordinarily female with it clutched to her lap.
She clasped her hands loosely on her thighs. ‘My name is Melandra
Maynard. I am American. I believe, sir, that your great king and I
have certain interests in common.’

Jazirah laughed soundlessly,
throwing back his head so that his jaw dropped open. Then he shut
his mouth with a soft snap; a reptile capturing insects. ‘My dear
lady, I am quite sure that many people would like to have interests
in common with our great king, but that alone does not have them
clamouring at our door demanding an audience. Your sheer
impertinence and determination has aroused our curiosity. I hope
the reason for your being here is a good one.’

‘Shemyaza,’ said Melandra. ‘I
met with him in Istanbul. Is he here yet?’

Jazirah did not flinch,
although Melandra felt sure an invisible shudder had passed through
his body. For the fleetest of moments, his pupils might have
widened a fraction. ‘Who is this Shemyaza?’