The Future Eclipse

Ilati’s lips pressed into a grim line as she stopped at the edge of the pit in the floor of the prison. Covered by a sort of lattice-work of bronze pieces and sheer-sided, the holding cell was more than twice the height of a man in depth, designed to be climbed with a ladder lowered down by the guards. It was difficult to keep her nerves steady, surrounded by armored men only a language different from the hounds that had destroyed her home, but she was angry enough to keep her bearings. “Grandfather, are you well?” 

She heard a faint chuckle from the depths of the pit. “The King’s hospitality is not as friendly as I have become accustomed to, but perhaps that is my aching old bones talking.” 

In the flickering light of braziers, it was difficult to see down into the depths to know if Eigou was unharmed. She could dimly make out his bedroll and the sorcerer himself, seated upon it. When he looked up at her, his single eye gleamed. Here the fear oppressed the very air, not at all like the late morning air of a city freshly drunk off its own celebrations that ruled outside. The men of Ulmanna knew they had caged something dangerous, hands never wavering from their spears as they neared the pit, watching Eigou with wary eyes. The caution certainly seemed to extend to Ilati as well, but that was no surprise. Many tongues had been busy spreading rumors about her and the scar from seven talons on her shoulder did nothing to silence them. 

Demon-touched, they whispered. She imagined the blood draining from their faces until they were as white as the cold atop the sacred peaks if they ever learned the truth of it. 

“Have they hurt you?”

Down in the pit, Eigou chuckled again. “They would not be so foolish as to tire their arms when an execution awaits already. They will need their strength to stone me.”

Ilati shook her head. It was like Eigou to be untroubled by such a demonstration, but it angered her. “That will not happen.” 

The eye flashed down in the darkness like a jackal’s meeting torchlight. “Are you certain of that, granddaughter?” 

Her brow furrowed. “I know what I have seen will come to pass.”

“The priests of Lugal say there is to be no eclipse, and he is god over this city.” She caught something in the dimness of his expression, the brief gleam of teeth in a humorless grin. “I hope you will forgive me, Hedis. I have questioned the One With a Thousand Faces many times down in this hole, and the god does not answer, so I have taken this to mean it is an unlucky day.” 

Ilati rubbed at her ring, slowly spinning it around her thumb in thought. “An unlucky day, perhaps, but there are many others for whom it may be ill fortune. Are you so certain you are to be the recipient of that one’s ire?” 

“Either it is I who will suffer, Hedis, or King Tudhaliya’s pride. And really, what is the difference between those outcomes? Do you think he is a man who will suffer to be made a fool in public?” 

“If he was offered a graceful exit from the situation his wrath has placed him in, he would take it,” Ilati said with confidence. 

“O daughter of the desert, how little you know of kings! They are more like bulls than lions. One must beware of stinging them, for they fly into rages that may crush any around.”

Ilati’s expression softened slightly. “Not all who rule men are the Conqueror.”

Eigou sighed, weighing her words against his own experience. “There is some truth to that,” he allowed. “Yet I do not think it would be wise for you to rely upon that difference like a cripple needs a crutch. A woman in your position should believe only half of what she sees of men and even less of what she hears.” 

Her brow furrowed. “Do you know something I do not?” 

“I know that you cannot afford to be any man’s prize.”

Ilati frowned. “So I understand.”

This time, the flash she saw in the darkness of the pit was not Eigou’s living eye, but his ghost of one. “Do you? See as I see.”

Ilati’s vision shifted like the sands of the Desert of Kings, giving her for the first time an eagle’s view of the land between two rivers. Like serpents of gold, the rivers trailed down from their mountains towards fertile marshes and almost endless canals, teeming with life and emerald growth. From the villages to the great cities along the shores of the Esharra and the Nintu, Eigou’s voice echoed like a lyre’s notes plucked in the quiet sanctum of the temple.

Do you not see, Ilati? To be conquered means Kullah is conquered. Sacrifice even an iota of your power, and the kings of men will seek to strip you of the rest. Zidanta is kinder than Nysra, but all princes desire dominion in their hearts.

Ilati shifted her focus in the vision, turning her eyes towards the great mountain range to the north that separated Kullah from Nadar: the Ehursagkalamnu. The peaks rose so high they bridged into heaven, summits wreathed in clouds. Somewhere among them was Ankida, the joining of earth and sky where the gods dwelt. 

Where Zu made her home, a thing Ilati would never again possess.

Two paths lie open before you, granddaughter of Ilishu.

Ilati’s vision shifted again. First she saw an older, hardened version of herself in armor gleaming like the sun, a bright bronze-tipped spear in her hand. A crown adorned her brow, bearing the symbol of the land between two rivers, but the people who stood behind her were still shattered and shaken, many broken and bowed by the forced labor of their time in Nysra’s hand. She was a martial ruler, perhaps even without equal, but of a diminished people who still feared the bite of the viper in the north. 

This is Ilati the Conqueror, shaped by a warrior’s hand and intent. She learned all there was to know of tactics, to play the games of war and conquest, and brought an alliance that shattered Nysra’s power but did not entirely crush the serpent. She restored the luster of Kullah and brought many of her people out of servitude towards a brighter future she would not live to see. Her name is lauded by men as a restoration.

“And the other path?”

Ilati turned her head and was almost blinded by the glare of a massive red star rising in the east. After a moment, her eyes adjusted and she saw herself rising up steps, scarred and battleworn, but wearing a robe of fire swirling around her body. A blade of bronze in one hand upraised, she made her ascent bloodied but unbowed. A scorpion perched on her shoulder, holding to the seven-taloned scar on her flesh. Under her heel was a dark serpent, its head crushed flat. 

This is Ilati, Daughter of the Night Winds. She sacrificed more than she could have ever imagined to attain mastery of magic, shattering the chains of her people in her teeth, striking her enemies with mountains’ fire, raising the dead from Ersetu. She left behind the molds of expectation and surmounted all obstacles, all heights, for revenge, but paid the price: exile forever from the world of men.

“Why do you show me this?” Ilati demanded as her vision of the tower and its pit in the floor returned. Eigou was still looking up at her. “It does nothing to save you from what awaits.” 

“In case I die, granddaughter, now you see the way the One With a Thousand Faces spins your future.” 

The guards seemed even more uneasy at the mention of the god. Ilati was confident Eigou had only shown her the visions, not everyone. “And which path do you suggest I follow?”

Eigou shrugged down in the pit, the motion wreathed in shadows. “You have a choice, granddaughter. That is a rare gift, handed down by your goddess herself.”

“And a challenge.” If it had come from K’adau, it was not simply an option: it was a test. She would see how far I am willing to go for what I desire. “I will think on it.”

The door to the courtyard opened and more guards stepped in, led by Kulziya. “The King summons the prisoner. It is almost midday,” he said, far grimmer than the last time Ilati had seen him. Then again, Kulziya seemed fond of Eigou and probably had no wish to stone him. 

Four men lifted the bronze lattice work over the hole and then they lowered down a ladder for Eigou to climb. At the top they seized him and bound him with ropes until his hands were completely immobilized behind him. Another blindfolded the old man.

“Why do you treat him so?” Ilati demanded, her anger only rising. “Is the mighty king so cruel to all his guests?”

“I am responsible for the safety of the King and his people. Sorcerers are dangerous. He will cast no evil eye or spells.” Kulziya looked Ilati up and down. “Be grateful you do not suffer the same treatment, witch of the wilds.”

Ilati bristled. “I am accompanying him.”

“Good. Your presence was requested as well.” Kulziya gestured to his men, who marched Eigou out to the central courtyard of the palace. 

Ilati followed on their heels, anger eclipsing her fears. A crowd gathered in the grand open space, many of them guests from the night before—but more yet came, apparently as the rumors had spread. She saw Sarhad and Yaeeta near the front, watching with a blood-hungry fascination. They tied Eigou to a pillar, a pile of large and jagged stones nearby.

The priestess felt a prickle at the back of her neck as she moved through the crowd and stopped. She turned, eyes meeting a beggar’s. Gnarled hands clutched a clay bowl, unfired and baked instead by the heat of the summer sun. A few copper bits gleamed in it, as well as a few small pieces of bread. She found she couldn’t look away from his eyes, dark like a blackbird’s. 

“I know you, priestess,” the beggar rasped, his twisted body and crooked leg bronzed by the sun. He smiled, showing broken teeth. “Ilati, daughter of Amar-Sin, of the line of Ilishu.”

Ilati looked around instinctively, but no one was close enough to hear over the chattering of the crowd. “How do you know me?”

His canted smile of shattered teeth widened. “I know everyone. I also know you wish the sorcerer to live.”

“I do,” Ilati said, wary. She was not certain who or what she was actually speaking to, but a weight had settled into her stomach.

His dark eyes seemed to grow even darker and he shook his bowl. “What would you sacrifice to save him?”

Ilati’s blood ran cold. It was not a normal fear, but the same current of awe and dread Lugal’s presence inspired. In this humble package burned the power of a god or great demon. “Who are you?” 

“A stranger in a strange land, just as you are.” That smile seemed impossibly wide. “One who can help. So I ask again: what are you willing to sacrifice to move the heavens themselves?”

Ilati took a deep breath. “It would have to be something valuable, more precious than jewels or gold.”

The beggar’s eyes were all-consuming now, a darkness of the night sky between stars. “You are correct. Only fates may bend the heavens.”

Ilati knew that if Eigou died, everything they had worked for would be lost. She needed him to get justice for her people, living and dead. If the price of that was exile, well, how different was that from her life now? "You know the futures laid out before me, don’t you? I sacrifice my choice. Take the warrior queen, and I will follow the path of the red star.”

The beggar reached out, brushing his gnarled fingers across her palm. Ilati felt a shiver run down her spine, followed by a ripping sensation in her hand. She jerked back, only to see her blood splash into his bowl. It soaked into the hungry clay.

His smile cracked open into speech. “So be it.”

Ilati turned to look at Eigou, tied to the pillar as the first stone was lifted. It was midday, after all, the sun rising to its highest point. She felt another shudder run through her being when the crowd gasped and shouted, many of them pointing up towards the sky.

Blackness edged slowly across the radiant disk of sun, the beginning of an eclipse. The guards lifting stones dropped them, and Tudhaliya himself rose out of his seat on his palanquin, a visible mixture of rage and dread on his face.

“Weep and wail, people of Ulmanna!” Eigou shouted from his position tied to the pillar. “Here is your omen! I spoke only truth!”

The eclipse moved closer and closer to its totality, turning a sunny day into darkness. Ilati turned back to the beggar, but he had disappeared. The only sign he had ever existed was the wound on her hand, a jagged rip in the shape of a star across her palm. She had nothing to bind it with, so she hurried to Eigou.

Tudhaliya’s eyes fixed on her with a feverish intensity as she went to Eigou’s side. “You are the one who spoke of this harbinger. Speak of what it means,” he said harshly.

“You harbor darkness in your midst, o mighty king!” Ilati pitched her voice to carry across the stone, as a high priestess addressing a crowd might. “You would stone the one who can drive it out on its belly! The gods are displeased, and so long as you let it linger, the tighter the darkness winds itself in the hearts of your sons! Yours is the tree that bears a fruit to poison its own roots!”

Tudhaliya’s eyes narrowed. “And what is your remedy, witch of the wilds?”

“Appease your gods with sacrifices for seven days and seven nights!” That would buy her enough time to speak to Hattusa, to try to make peace between him and Zidanta. “Beseech Lugal for his protection from this evil, for the Lawgiver drives out the unjust! Ask him to anoint his next chosen king!” There would be all kinds of maneuvers in the court to ensure which prince was chosen by both camps, but hopefully seven days was not enough for them to twist Hattusa or Zidanta in a direction she could not sway them from.

It was a gamble, but Tudhaliya seemed satisfied by the answer. “Very well,” the great king said stiffly. “This will be done. Release the prisoner.”

Ilati untied Eigou from the pillar. The knots on his hands and wrists would take more time. 

“I hope you have a plan,” Eigou muttered. “This is a great risk.”

“We will think of something.”

Once his hands were unbound, Eigou seized her bloodied hand and turned it over to see the wound. His lips pressed into a grim line and then he looked up at her. “Which did you give?”

Ilati hesitated a moment, unsure if she wanted to tell him the truth. Finally, she said quietly, “I am the daughter of the night winds, Eigou.”