FanStory.com - The Future Eclipsedby K. Olsen

***

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. Her nerves struggled at steadiness, surrounded by armored men only a language different from the hounds that had destroyed her home. Anger kept her bearings. “Grandfather, are you well?”

A faint chuckle sounded 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 the braziers, she could barely see down into the depths to know if Eigou remained unharmed. Ilati could dimly make out his bedroll and the sorcerer himself, seated upon it. When he looked up at her, his single eye gleamed. Here 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. Their hands never wavered from their spears as they neared the pit, watching Eigou warily. 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 matter, 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.”

“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.”

The priestess’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 as 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. “All princes desire dominion in their hearts, even those who approach with sweet words rather than swords.”

The door to the courtyard opened and more guards stepped in with Kulziya at their head. “The King summons the prisoner. It is almost midday,” he said, far grimmer than the last time Ilati saw him. Then again, she doubted he had any wish to stone the sorcerer, for a variety of reasons.

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

“Why do you treat him so?” Ilati demanded, anger 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.”

The priestess 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, a sign the rumors had spread. Sarhad and Yaeeta were near the front of the press, watching with a blood-hungry fascination. The guards lashed Eigou to a pillar, a pile of large jagged stones nearby.

The priestess felt a prickle at the back of her neck as she moved through the crowd and stopped. She turned, her 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 alongside a small piece of bread. His eyes pulled her in, dark like a blackbird’s.

“I know you, priestess,” the beggar rasped, his twisted body and crooked leg bronzed dark by the sun. He smiled, showing broken teeth. “Hail 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.” The poet wasn’t certain who or what she was actually speaking to, but a dreadful weight had settled in her stomach and she watched him warily.

The beggar’s 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. One without a home.” That smile seemed impossibly wide. “One who can help, perhaps. So I ask again: what are you willing to sacrifice to move the heavens themselves?”

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

The beggar’s eyes consumed everything now, the darkness of the night sky between stars. She could see nothing else. “You are correct, priestess. Only fates may bend the heavens.”

Ilati knew that if Eigou died, everything they had worked for would be lost. She needed his aid to find justice for her people, living and dead. “What do you ask of me, stranger in a strange land?”

He rattled his begging bowl. “Give me the Queen of Kullah. Give me the restoration of law. Give me all that is not the path of the red star.”

“What would that leave me?” the priestess asked.

The broken teeth seemed to sharpen. “The daughter of the night winds.”

“Did the Mother of Demons send you?”

He barked a laugh, the swallowing darkness in his eyes even deeper. “Not this time, daughter of Amar-Sin. I am here of my own accord. Will you sacrifice or not? The sorcerer’s time is running out.”

Ilati looked behind her to see the first guard lifting a stone and turned back to the stranger. “It is a bargain, then. I will follow the path of the red star.”

The beggar reached out, brushing his gnarled fingers across her palm. A shiver ran down her spine, followed by a ripping sensation in her hand. Her blood splashed crimson into his bowl and soaked into the hungry clay. His smile cracked open into speech. “So be it.”

She looked back at Eigou as the first guard readied his throw. It was midday, after all, the sun rising to its highest point. Another shudder ran 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 atop 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 there was no trace of him except the wound on her hand, a jagged rip in the shape of a star across her palm. She hurried to Eigou.

Tudhaliya’s eyes fixed on her with a feverish intensity as she went to the sorcerer’s side. “You! You are the one who spoke of this eclipse. Speak of what it means.”

“You harbor darkness in your midst, o mighty king!” Ilati pitched her voice to carry across the crowd, as she might have in her old life as a high priestess of Zu. “You would stone the one who can drive it out on its belly! The gods are displeased and the longer 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?”

Ilati had to think quickly. She needed time to speak to Hattusa, to try and make peace between him and Zidanta. “Appease your gods with sacrifices for seven days and seven nights! 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 sorcerer.”

Ilati untied Eigou from the pillar. The knots on his hands and wrists would take more time. The old man grimaced. “I hope you have a plan. This is a great risk.”

“We will think of something.”

Once his hands were unbound, Eigou seized her bloodied fingers and turned them over to see the wound. His lips pressed into a grim line. “What did you give?”

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

The sorcerer lapsed into silence as Tudhaliya and his sons passed like a storm, while Ilati bound a single wrap of cloth around her hand to conceal the wound.

Where Ilati expected relief, instead she found only a heaviness of the spirit as she walked beside Eigou up the great stairs to Ulmanna’s palace. The old man rubbed at his wrists and hands, still red and raw from the imprisoning ropes, even after the offending restraints were removed. He stared at the ground as they walked with a frown etched into his leathery features. Yaeeta and the Nadaren emissary followed at a distance like thwarted vultures.

Eventually the silence became intolerable to Ilati. “Speak, Eigou. Tell me what I have done to offend you, else I cannot put it to right.”

Eigou pivoted abruptly on his heel, facing Ilati on the steps. “You do not know the value of what you sacrificed,” he said in a low voice. “Nor the price the world will pay for the choice you made.”

“I saved your life, Eigou.”

The old man seemed to quiver, not with fear, but with a barely contained anger. “And what is one life weighed against so many others? Did you not hear the prophecy of the red star and every ounce of the dread it contained? I did not think you deaf, so surely it is the folly of youth!”

Ilati remembered the prophecy perfectly well, and the visions Eigou had shared with her. Only one had ended with Nysra crushed: the one she had chosen. “My people need me, Eigou, and I need your help or they will never be avenged.”

Eigou grabbed her hand and ripped away the bandage. Immediately, fresh blood welled and splashed against the bricks of Ulmanna’s palace stairs. “How much is enough?” he demanded, gesturing at the crimson spatter. “Yours? Mine? Ulmanna’s? The world’s? Your goddess gives with both hands, but so too does she shape and take with them. Your vengeance will come with a cost you cannot even begin to comprehend.”

“I can take blood,” Ilati said, pulling her hand back.

“Can you take fire and ash and death? Can you endure a path that leads to the forbidden, the sacred, the abominable?” Eigou’s words hounded her, sharp and brittle as old bone. “You could have saved them without crossing this place from which there is no turning back!”

“Are you angry with my choice or that you survived to see it come to pass?” the priestess demanded. “They would have stoned you. Is that what you desire, Eigou? There was never any turning back, the moment I tasted lightning. The consequences are mine to bear.”

Eigou’s eye flashed in the sun as he turned his head away. “Spoken like a conqueror.”

“You wished his yoke for me,” Ilati said quietly, aware that Yaeeta was approaching. “You said the first night you knew me that you hoped I carried much of him in my heart. Do not scorn me because I live up to the expectations you set.”

The sorcerer sighed and his shoulders slumped. He scratched at his beard. “You are right,” he said finally. “I just shudder at what is coming.”

Yaeeta stepped in at that moment and forced an end to their conversation. Ilati turned to face King Nysra’s pet priestess, her lip curling in contempt. “Not the outcome you were slavering for?”

“I would have taken no joy in Eigou’s death,” Yaeeta said, hands held wide and pacifying. She moved carefully, as if confronting a wild beast when approaching Ilati. “Ziana is goddess of love and fertility, not war.”

“Strange, then, that the bloodthirsty hounds of Nadar howl to her.” Ilati’s distaste dripped from her words.

“Why do you cast such stings at me, woman of the wilds. What offense have I given?”

Ilati glared. “You and Muwatalli tried to have Eigou killed. I have not forgotten your words at the feast, harlot.”

“You were harsh with me well before that,” Yaeeta said, lips curving into a smile, like a bow drawn to release an arrow. It came swiftly. “I think there is another reason.”

Eigou seemed to sense Ilati was losing grip on her temper. “It is unwise to stir at scorpions, priestess,” he advised Yaeeta quickly.

Before Yaeeta could reply, Ilati seized the woman by the front of her dress. In a strange way, she almost hated Yaeeta more than even Sarhad, not for what she had done, but the capitulation and the goddess she represented. Instead of pushing away, she yanked Yaeeta closer and put her off-balance, forcing the enemy priestess to meet her eyes and see the darkness boiling therein. “I am tired of your games, serpent. Keep your forked tongue behind your fangs in my presence or slither away, I care not, but I will crush you beneath my heel if you persist in wasting the breath your words are unworthy of.”

“You make an enemy of Ziana to rough-handle her faithful,” Yaeeta blurted out, shocked.

Ilati smiled, but the expression was bitter as wild almonds and fell short of her eyes as she released Yaeeta. In her senses, the smell of crackling flesh consumed by flame dominated everything else. There was no gentleness in her, not at the sound of their screams echoing through her memory. “Ask Sarhad how sweetly he has treated her faithful in the past. Ask him what wrath Ziana has wrought against him for those mercies. Then come and tell me how accursed I am, how much I have to fear.”

Eigou grabbed Ilati by her arm as Yaeeta regathered her dignity and balance, keeping hold so the poet didn’t shove her Nadaren reflection down the stairs. It wasn’t really a danger, already Ilati was cooling off, but he seemed to think it was wise to restrain her all the same. “Temper yourself, Hedu,” he warned. “We do not want more trouble.”

“Tell that to Ziana,” Ilati said with a humorless bark of a laugh. “Perhaps she will heed you.”

As Yaeeta scurried back to the safety of Sarhad, Eigou gave Ilati a meaningful squeeze and spoke harshly. “Your anger makes you cruel, o poet, justified or not. Where is the woman who made peace with the demon of the fallen tree? I do not see her here.”

Ilati swallowed down the rest of her bitterness, a hint of shame coloring her cheeks at his rebuke. “Every time I think of all they have done, it is like my vision turns bloody red and all I can think of is ripping them to pieces with my hands.”

“If you let that anger ride you with whip and bridle, they will lead you by it,” Eigou said more gently. “Therein lies the danger of being the bull.” He sighed. “I think this is something I have overlooked in your training. Fear, you know how to temper, but not fury. We cannot afford to have you wielding power blindly.”

Ilati looked down at her bloody hand and thought of the red star. Was there room in that for temperance? Control, she told herself. You must bring your own demons to heel. Eigou is right. She sighed. “I will strive to be better.”

“Come, let us rejoin the others,” Eigou said, steering her towards the guest quarters once they had entered the palace. Yaeeta and Sarhad made no move to follow.

Roshanak’s squeal greeted them at the doors as the girl launched herself at Eigou, wrapping her arms around the old man’s waist and squeezing as hard as she was able. “You’re alive!”

Eigou chuckled, a hint of fondness cracking through his worry, and tousled Roshanak’s hair. “I am.”

“Then at least we have our own problem back to solve the kingdom’s problems,” Menes said as he approached, a bowl of water in his hands. “Ilati, wash off the blood. Eigou will have to bandage your hand when he is ready. What happened?”

Ilati dipped her hands in the cool water, working around the edges of the star-shaped wound to free herself of the worst of the flakes without disturbing where it had clotted. “A beggar approached me, asking me what I would sacrifice to free Eigou. I…answered.”

Shir Del moved from her perch near the door to the gardens, sliding off the table. “That is not possible, little sister. I watched you the whole time, until the eclipse. I saw no one approach you in the thronging crowds.”

“Perhaps he did not wish to be seen,” Ilati said quietly. “Regardless, the heavens moved and Eigou is free.”

The warrior woman toyed with her own braid thoughtfully, lapis lazuli eyes narrow and sharp. “And King Tudhaliya smolders like a wildfire beneath the rain. His sons are little better, readying themselves for war one against the other.”

“We must convince them to reach an accord,” Eigou said firmly.

Shir Del rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. “Like that, sorcerer? They have had years to quarrel and sting at each other. If Tudhaliya cannot make them peaceable, what makes you think we can?”

“Because he is the one who instigates their rivalry,” Ilati said plainly. “He favors Hattusa in all things, and treats Zidanta coldly. But if either of the princes are half the man Eigou calls them, they are capable of seeing past old wounds.”

Menes stood quietly for a long moment before speaking. “Or we render aid to the one we choose.”

Shir Del spit on the ground, apparently oblivious to the fine carpet that she soiled. “Backbiting? Palace squabbles? They should meet each other in combat and the strongest rule.”

Ilati hated the idea of either brother striking down the other. “No. Zidanta would listen to me before it came to that.”

“He does seem fond of you.” The archer sighed, twisting the ring on her thumb. “Still, direct confrontation is the easiest way.”

“But it threatens to weaken all of Sarru,” Eigou said sternly. “This is not archery, Shir Del. We must think not only of the target the arrow strikes, but the consequences it will have.” He turned to Ilati. “Go to Zidanta on his hunt, o lioness. See how hard his heart is. I will insist upon a private audience between you and Hattusa when you return.”

“And Tudhaliya?” Menes asked.

Eigou grimaced. “We have not felt the last stomp of his hooves, but he will be obligated now to make offerings to Lugal for seven days and seven nights. That gives us time.” He gently took Ilati’s hand as she removed it from the bowl and wrapped it carefully with a cloth bandage. “Go carefully, Ilati. This is not a battle that will be won by sharp words and sharper tempers. Prove to me that you are wise and careful as well as brash.”

Ilati felt the rebuke even if it went without saying openly: her assault on Yaeeta still disappointed Eigou. “I will, I swear it.”

“Perhaps some time away from the city, away from the Nadaren emissaries, will allow you to clear your head,” the old sorcerer said. He leaned in closer. “Remember, though, what I said. You cannot afford to yield yourself in the attempt.”

The priestess nodded and fetched her bow, along with the quiver Zidanta gave her and its bronze-headed arrows. “I remember.”