The Dark Blessing

By James Lecky

Eons have passed since the words of the dark blessing were uttered. From my tower at the Heart of the World, I have watched empires rise and fall, seen their remnants crawl from the darkness of barbarity into the light of civilisation and back again.

The steps of the dance of life have become so familiar to me now that I no longer pay attention to them.

I have my own distractions: Hurum the jester, for one and the Madman in the Temple for another.

Hurum is a funny little creature, bowed and bent by the unnatural weight of his years, kept alive by the sorcerous threads that connect his essence to mine. He had another name, once, but has been Hurum for so long that I believe he has forgotten his previous life as commander of the Serpent Warriors.

But sometimes, perhaps once a century, a glimmer of his old self breaks through:

“When will you allow me to die, my lady?” he asks on those occasions.

“When you teach me to laugh again.”

“And when will that be?”

“Soon, little Hurum, soon.”

But what is soon to me - a creature who has seen the ice caps creep across the world? A thousand years? Ten thousand?

The Madman in the Temple is another matter. The dark blessing gave us eternity, but for poor insane Xisuthros – trapped within the confines of the temple – eternity broke his spirit and his mind.

Like Hurum, he has his lucid moments and in those he too begs for death.

“When will I die, Asharru?”

“Soon, my Lord. Soon.”

***

The gods were cruel and capricious. How could they not be? After all, mankind made them in its own image. We created them from earth and fire and water; and because we believed in them they came to be.

We sought to challenge them, Xisuthros and I, two minor dabblers in the black arts. We proclaimed ourselves divine, raised armies and sundered the earthly power of The Seven Who Decreed Fate.

When I close my eyes I can still see the ancient cities in flames – Erech, Eridu, Ur, Larsa – I can smell the rivers of blood that washed through the streets, hear the screams of the dying and touch the fragments of shattered idols.

On the last day of the war - the day we drove the followers of Enlil from the city of Lagash and destroyed his shrines – I stood in my chariot before the Great Temple and watched our soldiers pull down all but one of the idols.

Xisuthros stood beside me, resplendent in bronze, copper and gold, a blood-drenched axe in his fist. I think I saw the first glitter of madness in his eyes even then, heard it in his voice when he spoke:

“Raze the city and salt the earth!” he commanded. “Let no stone stand upon another. Kill the men – all of them! The women and children are yours to do with what you will – a gift from Xisuthros, God of Gods!”

I laughed and kissed him: “The world is ours, God of Gods.”

“Yes, Asharru, the world is ours forever.”

Forever. If only I had known then what the word truly meant.

***

The destruction lasted a month and when it was done only two buildings remained intact in Lagash, the City at the Heart of the World – the shell of the Great Temple of Enlil and the Tower of Lugal-sha-engur.

Once, Lugal-sha-engur had been the ruler of Lagash and High Priest of the Seven, now he was our dog, chained to the wall of his own dungeons and ours to do with as we pleased.

We sat, side-by-side, in the uppermost chamber of the Tower, Xisuthros and I, staring out at the splendid devastation we had wrought..

“The eyes of Lugal-sha-engur offend me,” Xisuthros said, stretching his limbs lazily, “I see no love, no worship in them. I have a mind to have them put out of his head.”

“Perhaps one,” I said. “But not both – how will he see our glory if we blind him?”

He kissed me softly on the forehead. “Just one, then.”

We rose and left our chamber, clinging to each other like young lovers and giggling at the thought of the inventive tortures we would inflict upon our dog.

He looked up as we entered his cell, his eyes filled with hatred, pain and fear. Lugal-sha-engur had been a proud man once, Most Favoured of Enlil, but a month of our tender ministrations had left him a maimed and riven creature. The long, sensitive fingers with which had had once strummed the lyre were crushed beyond repair, the feet which had bestrode an empire scorched, the handsome face torn beyond recognition. A brand – that same serpentine symbol with which we marked our slaves – burned squarely onto his forehead.

“What say you, Lugal,” Xisuthros asked him, leaning in close, “are you ready to acknowledge my mastery of the world?”

He shook his ruined head. Thick drool fell from his mouth together with the first garbled words of an ancient prayer.

We laughed at his pitiful faith.

“If you must pray Lugal,” Xisuthros said. “Then it is best to pray to a living god, for no others will hear you.”

When Lugal-sha-engur replied his words were slow and measured, each vowel an effort.

“Even if you were a god, Xisuthros, you would not be worthy of worship. Neither you nor your bitch.”

I drew my bronze sword, the sound of it rang with a pure, clear note in the empty dungeon. ”We would not have worshippers such as you, Lugal.”

Xisuthros reached out and put his hand on my wrist – the touch of his skin against mine sent a delicious thrill through me.

“Not here, my love,” he said.

“Where then?”

He smiled, his perfect teeth bright against his sun-burnished skin.

“Where else but the Great Temple? Let Lugal-sha-engur witness his god’s impotence before he dies.”

We dragged him from the dungeon and across the salted fields that led to the Temple. Our army had dispersed after the sack and destruction of Lagash, and only a few squadrons of black-clad Azag Etlu – our all-conquering serpent warriors – remained to serve us. They averted their eyes as we passed knowing full well not to disturb their gods at play.

The entrance to the Great Temple yawned before us, its once magnificent doors lay open, shattered on their hinges, the gold and rubies that had decorated them scraped or prised away. Our footsteps and laugher echoed around the high vaulted ceiling, in stark counterpoint to the dull sound of whips on flesh.

And there at the heart of the Temple stood the last idol – a massive thing of granite and marble fashioned into Enlil’s likeness, part man, part bird, part snake.

Xisuthros seized Lugal by his topknot and forced his head upward so that he stared directly into the idol’s granite eyes.

“What would you ask of him, Lugal-sha-engur? Speak!”

Again that slow, pain-wracked voice.

“I would ask his blessing upon you, Xisuthros, god of gods.”

Xisuthros laughed. “Continue,” he said.

“I ask that you may live endless eons and the prayers of your worshippers forever reach your ears.”

“And me,” I said. “What would you ask for me?”

“That you may rule the heart of the world for as long as the prayers of men reach their god.”

“It is a good blessing,” I said, then killed him with a single blow. He deserved that much mercy at least.

“Now what will you do, thing of stone?” I called to the idol.

And Enlil replied in a voice that echoed through the Temple and beyond, soft as a whisper yet loud enough for the universe to hear.

“I will give you my blessing.”

***

There are shadows on the salted plains. Even in the darkest of nights and the dullest of days they are there, moving over the rocks and scrub. Furtive things they are, as befits their nature, fleeting things man-sized and man-shaped, but with a greater substance than mere shadows should possess.

At times, little Hurum takes it into his head to chase them - running around the base of the Tower, clashing his cymbals and screeching – but the shadows pay him no need. Why should they? He cannot hurt them any more than they can injure him.

At sunset the shadows cluster around the Great Temple, swarming around its steps and columns, coating the domes and obelisks like a shroud.

It is then that the Madman appears at the Temple doors.

The weight of time hangs heavy on Xisuthros: he was a handsome man once, with long dark hair and a coiled beard, his eyes had glittered with a malevolent intelligence and his strength had been all but inexhaustible.

The Madman in the Temple bears little resemblance to the God of Gods. His body is emaciated, covered in scars and burns, his hair waist-length, matted and crawling with lice. Those grey eyes still glitter, but now it is with the agony of understanding rather than the joy of conquest.

“Silence! Why can’t you be silent? Chatter, chatter, chatter! Can you hear them, Asharru? So many wants and needs and desires. Imploring, screeching, whispering. So many voices, so many tongues! Silence! I command you to be silent!”

We wished to be gods and our wish was granted by Enlil’s dark blessing. But we did not wish for madness or isolation or the agony that comes with the death of love.

Once, Xisuthros was the universe to me, my happiness was his happiness, my despair his despair, my flesh his flesh. Now, I want for nothing except the end of his existence, for the end of his existence will be mine also. But what can kill the god of gods?

From my Tower at the Heart of the World I have listened to the wisest voices of mankind, studied and scoured their words minutely, searching for an answer. Xisuthros the Mad God of Gods is not loved and men have ever sought a method to destroy him.

“No blade wielded by a living man can destroy the god of gods.”

“No man may set his eyes upon the Heart of the World and return.”

But even in their futile wondering they have shown me the way. I have sent whispers out into the world, legends and half-truths that may, one day, bring about my release.

***

In the silence after the battle I walked among the dead, as I have done innumerable times before. Searching.

Around me corpses lay scattered in their final, fatal embraces – here a warrior with his hands wrapped around an enemy throat and a broken sword blade protruding from his chest. There an officer with a dozen javelins protruding from his body. Here the unmarked body of a young nobleman, his hand on the hilt of his undrawn short-sword and only the barest mark behind his left ear to testify to the well-aimed dart that had killed him. There, propped up by the shield that bore his city’s symbol, a grizzled general, his face a mask of fury and pain, his glassy eyes staring at the ruin around him.

I walked through them all, studying their faces, the way they had died, how many of the enemy had fallen around them, making no distinction between victor and vanquished – indeed, what distinction could be made in this charnel house – but sought in each of them a particular death or way of dying.

At last, at the centre of the carnage, I stopped and stared into the face of a young man with the bodies of a score or more warriors around him. His spear broken, shield smashed, his short-bladed xiphos blunted on the bones of his enemies, bronze armour dented, caked in gore: the shaft of a lance jutted from his side.

The face of a hero, a warrior who fought to the very last against death itself.

I plucked a hair from my head and wove a thread with it, a thread that spat and crackled with dark power.

At its touch the young man stirred, releasing his grip on the spear and struggling slowly to his feet. The movements caused his wounds to bleed again and a heartsick moan escaped from his lips.

“Walk with me,” I said. I turned and began the journey back to the Heart of the World.

And he followed.

As we left the field and moved towards the dense black forests that surrounded it, the first scavengers – both human and animal – began to arrive. They could not see us, but I doubt that even if they seen a tall, dark-haired woman and a stumbling warrior it would have given them no pause, for they were more concerned with the trinkets, weapons and flesh of the dead.

***

"I'm cold," the warrior said. They were the first words either of us had spoken since we entered the forest, and it emerged as a twisted whisper that barely sounded like human speech.

“It will pass,” I told him.

The forest was silent – no bird song disturbed its gloomy peace, no animal scampered through the dull grass. The dark canopy of trees obscured the sky.

He reached down and pulled the broken lance from his side, grunting as he did so. Only a little blood flowed.

“I was dead,” he said.

“No longer.” I turned and walked away, moving with certainty along a trail that only I could see, covering hundred of miles with every step. There are pathways of which mankind is unaware, places that exist above and beyond the tawdry realms of humanity. Every one of them leads to the Heart of the World, the place to which I must ever return.

He followed, having no other choice, and with passing moments his strength returned, the terrible wounds on his body closed and the colour returned to his sculpted face.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Nieander.”

“Do you know me, Nieander?”

He stared at me. His eyes were violet, bloodshot: the eyes of a man who has seen, and been snatched from, hell itself.

“Yes, you are Asharru, the Lady of the Heart of the World.”

“Then you know, too, what I wish from you?”

He nodded. “To destroy the Mad God.”

The trees had begun to thin out, bright stars showing through their branches. The ground beneath our feet grew drier, full of salt, until at last nothing grew and we had reached the desolation of the Heart of the World.

Hurum came bounding from the Tower, the silver bells on his cap jangling as he ran.

“Another one, my lady?” He drew himself to his full height and sniffed Nieander like a dog. “Strong,” he said. “A champion beyond doubt.”

Then he stared directly into Nieander’s face. “But are you strong enough?” He took him gently by the arm and led him forward to where the shadows clustered around the Tower. “They were strong, too. Will you succeed, champion, or will you join them?”

“Enough!” I snapped, and Hurum scampered away.

The sun began to set and with it the shadows herded together, moving toward the Temple.

I drew my bronze sword and handed it to Nieander. He hefted it in one hand, testing its weigh then, satisfied, said:

“Where is he?”

“You will see him soon,” I said.

As if by way of confirmation a wild, animalistic screech came from the Temple, followed by a peal of hysterical laugher.

“Quiet, all of you! I cannot answer your prayers. Find other gods, why can’t you? Leave me in peace!”

Then the Mad God appeared at the Temple doors. There was blood on his face where he had clawed at his eyes and ears with long, yellow fingernails, specks of spittle flew from his mouth.

Poor Xisuthros, assaulted day and night by the prayers of the faithful - their hopes and fears, their secret confessions and supplications – an endless babble inside his head that scattered his thoughts like pigeons before a hawk.

It pained me to see him. Worse than that, it revolted me.

As Nieander approached the Temple the shadows flew to meet him. They curled and coiled around his limbs; their dim lips moved, but no sound emerged.

He pushed past, scattering them. If he saw that their indistinct faces bore a resemblance to his own – like a reflection in a distorted mirror – he made no sign.

Xisuthros saw him and laughed again, laughed harder still when he saw the sword in Nieander’s hand, then fled back into the darkness of the Temple, wild shrieks following in his wake.

We found him kneeling before Enlil’s idol, sobbing and tearing at his own flesh. There was no pity in the idol’s eyes. How could there have been? It was a thing of stone.

Xisuthros turned and stared at us. His face twisted and grimaced as he fought to subdue the voices in his head and give himself a moment of clarity. His battle won, he finally spoke:

“Asharru, my love, whom have you brought this time?”

“One who would set the Lady free,” Nieander said.

Xisuthros stood, his head bowed, the filthy curtain of his hair covering his face.

“Free?” he used the word like a curse. “She was free – once. Free to pillage and torture and maim. Free to love and to hate. Is that the freedom you would offer her now?”

Nieander frowned. “The Lady is your prisoner.”

Xisuthros laughed again, a wild cackle that verged on hysteria. “So that is the legend now, is it? Well, it is as good a story as any, and if you believe it then so much the better.” His hand went to his face and he scored his forehead with a filthy thumbnail, using the pain to maintain his lucidity.

“Kill me if you can, little champion! Strike and break the Heart of the World.”

The bronze blade rose. Then fell.

Its edge bit into the Mad God’s neck with a sudden, jarring force. Xisuthros screamed – eternity is no guard against pain – and fell to the Temple floor. He twitched once and then lay still.

“I give you freedom, Lady,” Nieander said.

“Perhaps.” I broke the thread that bound us together then reached out to touch his face. My hand passed through his features as easily as it would pass through smoke. Or shadow.

His lips moved but I could not hear what he said, the sound was too far away, too indistinct. With the space of a dozen heartbeats Nieander was nothing more than a shade. And with the thread broken he drifted away, out of the temple to join his comrades, another of the numberless champions who over the eons have tried to revoke the dark blessing.

As I knelt beside him, Xisuthros opened his eyes:

“When will it end, Asharru?”

“Soon, my love. Soon.”