Chapter 10 #3
Finally, she lifted her hand, stopped their operations, and gestured to one of the offensive wooden boxes. “Open it.”
The workers killed the engines on the heavy machinery, and the stillness of the moment unnerved me.
One of the burlier men, similar to the man who’d kidnapped me in the Pearl Ward, grabbed a crowbar and went to work prying open the crate, revealing a small coffin within, made of rough, splintered, and cracked wood.
Within rested the body of a dark-skinned child, several days into decomposition, a little girl as far as I could tell through her bloodied attire, a torn hospital gown.
I could only assume she had been one of Madame Merorie’s experiments, yet another failure in her quest to raise her son from the dead.
Bracing for the worst, I reached for the child in search of answers.
* * *
The Third Month, 4020 BCE
Uruk
Sumeria
Time ebbed and flowed, and the precise date eluded me, although I got the sense that it was due to differing measurements of time and my lack of understanding regarding what the magic wanted to tell me. The year, so far beyond anything I had even considered, stunned me.
One fact settled in: winter faded and spring drew its first warming breaths. After struggling with the concept filtering into my head, I determined it to be the third month of their year, whatever that meant.
The girl from the warehouse gathered some form of reed from the banks of a river while an angry sky growled its discontent for the world to hear.
She wore simple enough robes secured with a rope sash, and she worked with a small bladed hook, a sickle as far as I could tell, taking hold of a plant’s thick shaft and shearing it off at the base with a practiced swipe.
As I took in the lush riverbanks, marveling at the difference between my conceptions of the past versus the verdant reality, the girl paused, glanced up at the first crack of thunder, and sighed.
She called out, the meaning of her words lost to my ignorance, although I interpreted her tone to be of warning.
Several people replied, and she turned her attention to her next task, which involved moving the reeds from the river’s shore and up the banks to where palms grew, offering shade from the relentless sun. There the girl deposited her collection, waiting for the others to join her.
Two men, a woman, and several other children likewise placed baskets of reeds, herbs, and roots nearby, and they murmured among themselves, eyeing the clouds with wary regard.
Then heeding the sky’s warnings, they left, taking their bounty with them, giving the river ample space.
Behind them, the waters began to swell, and with a sinking feeling, I guessed at what would come.
* * *
The Third Month, 4020 BCE
Uruk
Sumeria
The flood came with startling rapidity, beginning with a white line of turbulence over the waters before rushing up the banks and destroying all within its lethal grasp.
Nothing proved immune to the storm’s fury, and the sky opened with a crack of lightning, and a deluge cascaded down upon those unfortunate enough to be outside.
Hundreds gathered on an incline overlooking the river, and a massive city of stone and clay loomed behind them, one resplendent with color and plants, as though someone had decided to build a tiered garden for everyone to live within.
I had heard of Uruk before, but it had been portrayed as a primitive place compared to our own.
The blues and reds and golds would remain with me long after my magic faded and returned me to the present I knew.
I forced myself to focus on the child, wondering how she had been preserved over thousands of years to fall into Madam Merorie’s clutches, becoming a mere pawn in her game of life and death.
In the time since fleeing the river’s bank, the girl had changed her clothes, wearing an ornate white robe with a black, gold, and silver sash over it, and an elaborate series of runes was embroidered into it in crimson thread.
She held another hooked blade, one with runes etched onto it.
I eyed the weapon, and it occurred to me I recognized it from ancient Egyptian pictures.
It amused me I’d recognized the sickle for what it was without the runes, but it had taken the ornate weapon to allow me to connect the dots between the ancient art and reality.
If I were to name a single tool that many civilizations had cultivated so they could develop and grow, it would be the humble sickle.
There was nothing humble about hers, and each time the lightning flashed, its runes glowed white.
She said something to those around her, listened to their replies, nodded, and stepped forward until the raging river splashed her slippers.
She leaned forward, sliced with the sickle, and drew a line in the fertile soil. When she straightened, she held out her left arm, her palm facing the sky, and drew a deep breath.
Then she made one final slice across her wrist so that her blood dripped and fell into the gash she had cut into the land.
A red barrier snapped up, forming a wall against the flooding waters, engulfing the entirety of the city behind her in a shimmering dome.
The sickle fell where the waters could no longer flow.
The girl’s body pitched forward, the last victim of the storm’s fury, swept away and never to be seen again by those she had protected through the sacrifice of her own life.