Shemyaza had flown a thousand times in his mind, during trance. But never had he attempted the practice in reality. The smell of the wings surrounded him. He could feel the sharp ends of pinions digging into his flesh. This was no vision, but truth.
Now fly! Now come to me! The figure on the shore was glowing like the bilious clouds with a wan, greenish-yellow lustre.
Shemyaza flexed his wings and stepped from the cliff into a void.
The ground rushed up to meet him, each detail of the rocks below brought into sharp focus. Nano-seconds stretched into eternity. He knew he was falling fast, yet it seemed to take forever to reach the ground. I was tricked! I am dying! The scapegoat. Pushed from the cliff. Panic surged through his body, almost occluding consciousness. Then the ground disappeared, and he was falling into a black abyss. Down. Down. Through time. It could only be backwards.
Shemyaza fell from the sky, a burning angel. The sun was hot upon his wings and below him stretched a range of spiky mountains, which he knew were of the lost land of Eden. He thought he would fall straight to the ground and threshed his pinions in terror, but soon he remembered the technique of it, and soared upwards, riding the sizzling thermals. He flew over the mountains, until he saw the familiar landmarks of the Garden, Kharsag, a valley of fertility concealed by the punishing crags. This was the settlement of the Anannage, whom humanity called the Serpent People, the Feathered Serpents, the Angels. It was the place of his birth, his torment and his death. In this place he’d held the office of Watcher, and humans knew him as a son of God, a son of the High Lord Anu. The Lord called all the Watchers his sons and claimed to love them.
Shemyaza circled the Garden several times. On the southern side, the mountains descended into the lush fertile lowlands, where the Anannage had conducted their education programmes with humans, whom they considered to be a primitive race. On the northern side, cliffs shielded the Garden from a barren wilderness where only savages lived. Instinctively, Shemyaza was drawn to this direction.
Half a day’s walk north from the Garden, there was a place holy to the Anannage. They called it the Bowl of Giving and Receiving. Here, they offered sacrifices to the Elders, the source of their intelligence that existed beyond the universe. The Bowl was a large flat plateau on the mountain-side, which hung out over a tortuous slope of scree that led down to the desert wilderness below. Shem recognised it immediately, and his wings faltered. He knew what he would see at this place, what he’d been brought here to remember.
A large amount of people had gathered on the Bowl, all dressed in ceremonial robes. A ritual was taking place there. Shemyaza flew lower, aware that no-one could sense his presence. He felt he should be reluctant to witness what he knew to be happening, but was empty of feeling. Then he saw himself down there.
The young Shemyaza: a foolish romantic, being led to the place of sacrifice by a phalanx of Serafim.
His older consciousness looked down in revulsion and despising. Stupid idiot, he thought. You believed you were honoured and that your sacrifice was holy, but that was only a disguise for punishment. You fell for it, and then took the hardest fall.
Ultimately, he had died because of his love for Ishtahar and the fruits of his bitterness, which had burgeoned from the punishment he’d suffered. But the events taking place below him now preceded the sentence of death by many years. This was the information that Daniel had not recalled and which had existed in Shem’s memory only dimly. Now, it came gushing back with harsh clarity.
Long before the events that led to Shemyaza’s execution, Anu’s viziers had loosed their poison tongues in the Mountain House where Anu sat upon his throne. They had told the High Lord that Shemyaza and his colleagues had taken human lovers and were revealing Anannage secrets to the women. Anu had been astounded and angry, but his full wrath had not been invoked. He had been prepared to be lenient and had withheld the sentence of death. As Shemyaza was seen as the ringleader in this carnal cabal, Anu had held him responsible for his brothers’ actions.
‘You must be shrived of your sins, my son,’ he had said. ‘You shall be banished into the wilderness, and through your suffering shall expiate the transgressions of your brethren. Your sacrifice shall be that of comfort and warmth, and the love of your people. But when you have suffered enough and have learned true humility, you must return and instruct the Watchers in piety.’
Ashamed at having been caught with his human lover, Shemyaza, young and devout, had thanked Anu for his mercy. He forced himself to view Ishtahar, his beloved, as a wicked seductress, who had tempted him with evil. He expelled from his mind all memory of their love and the happiness it gave them. She was a black and crawling thing, greedy and corrupt. Only the privations of exile could burn the contamination of her from his body and soul.
On the day of the sacrifice, Anu’s serpent priests had stripped Shemyaza naked and rubbed his body with golden dust, so that he shone like the sun. They led him to the plateau that overlooked the savage lands and there a goat with gilded horns was sacrificed in his honour. They anointed the shining body of Shemyaza with the goat’s blood, to give him the speed and agility of the animal as he roamed the wilderness. The blood also represented the sins of himself and his brothers, and those of the humans who had transgressed with them. Maidens sang and rattled bells as the blood was painted onto his skin. He had been drugged with the secret of the poppy, and smiled like an imbecile, his heart full of love and joy and the fierce desire to transcend his sin. The highest lords and ladies of the settlement came one by one to kiss his gilded lips, until Anu himself stepped forward. He took Shemyaza’s chin in his hand and said, ‘Carry these sins out into the barren land, my most beautiful son. Purge yourself of them, and all who sinned shall be likewise purged. What has begun may be reversed.’
‘I will, Father.’
Anu smiled gently and brushed his lips over Shemyaza’s mouth. ‘Most beloved of my children,’ he said, and lifted Shemyaza in his arms. The Lord was taller than all other Anannage. In his hold, Shemyaza seemed no larger than a child.
There was no struggle. Anu carried his son to the edge of the plateau and then, as if releasing a captive bird, threw him into the air.
The gathering hurried to watch Shemyaza’s fall. His drugged body bounced and jerked down the long slope of loose scree that led to the wilderness. Presently, all that could be seen was a smudge of gold and red, and the body lay still, its limbs sprawled out like a discarded puppet. Anu raised his arms, ‘Rejoice my people. Take meat and drink in my son’s honour!’ And the sacrificial goat was skinned and gutted, spitted and placed over a fire. Servants carried great barrels of wine out into the open. Soon, the plateau rang to the sounds of merriment and celebration.
Shemyaza, hanging onto life far below, heard these sounds. He had expected a beatific experience, something like astral flight, but now he lay broken and bleeding, discarded upon the rocks. He resented the sound of feasting above him. No-one knew whether he was dead or alive, and he realised it didn’t matter. He had made the sacrifice. Now they could breathe more easily, sure that Anu’s rage was appeased. I will not die, Shemyaza thought, energised by rage. I will survive and return.
He lay there, unmoving, until the sun sank behind the mountains. His mouth was dry and he was delirious with thirst. His skin had been blistered by the relentless heat. His brain and body throbbed with indescribable pain. His soul was withered with grief and stupefied amazement at what had been done to him. Only his will could keep him alive. As a cool tongue of breeze whispered over the desert, promising the sharper fangs of chilly night, Shemyaza crawled from the scree. Naked, he went out into the wilderness, a bitter, desolate and lonely creature. He was beyond pain and his vision was stripped of its serpent scales. There could be no illusion. He had not been honoured, but scorned. Others feasted above him, as guilty as he of transgression, yet he had held out his arms to carry all of their sins. Without remorse, they had handed them over. Take our shame, take it, that we may live and ea
rn our father’s pleasure once more.
Like Cain, Shemyaza haunted the desert. For many days he staggered brokenly through day and night, burned by the sun, scalded by the ice of midnight. His wounds festered and raged upon his body. His cracked ribs screamed their fury. Each dawn, he licked scant moisture from the leaves of spindly plants and occasionally fell upon a small, desert creature and devoured it.
Eventually, he came upon a tribe of primitive people. These were not like the lowland folk, whom Anu’s people had adopted and educated. They were violent, ignorant creatures, true savages. They were nomadic and fought brutal wars with other wandering tribes. Being close to animals, their instincts advised them not to kill the blistered, blackened figure that lurched out of the heat-haze towards their huddle of tents. He was abnormally tall, and an invisible fire burned all around him. The people knew the legends of the angels who lived in the High Place beyond the desert. When an angel fell from the clouds, the speed of his flight burned his skin and seared away his wings.
They circled Shemyaza cautiously as he staggered forward, and watched him, curious and patient.
For three days, he sat upon the parched ground just beyond their settlement, and refused to utter a word. The women brought him bowls of goat’s milk, which he picked up with his withered hands and gulped from greedily. His face was scored with the wounds of the elements, but his eyes burned fierce and blue, like a mad child’s eyes. His hair was bleached white and hung to his waist in coarse tangles. It was his only garment. In places, his blackened skin shone gold, as if the pollen of his ruined wings still clung to him. One of the young men was brave enough to approach him and poke him cautiously with a wooden staff. Shemyaza bared his frightening white teeth in a snarl and the young man’s staff burst aflame. All those who saw this put their faces against the ground.
There was no doubt now that this man had come down from the High Place where the angels lived. He had come to them.
On the third day, Shemyaza grabbed hold of one of the girls who brought him food, threw her down upon the dusty ground and, in full view of her astonished playmates, stormed the gates of her body’s temple. A group of tribesmen ran up and down like anxious jackals some feet away from him, unsure whether to intervene or not. The girl, who was already used to such treatment from her brothers, lay quiescent beneath him. When he was replete, he tossed the girl aside and stood up.
‘I am naked!’ he said in the human tongue. ‘Bring me garments.’
After this, the women brought him a dark robe and gave him meat to eat. The whole community sensed his power and his energy. He told them to build him a dwelling, and gave them specific instructions on its dimensions. It must be ten cubits high, thirty cubits long and twelve cubits wide.
‘I do not want to stoop and cower in my own tent,’ he told them. ‘I want to stand up straight.’
The dwelling was constructed of wooden frames, fitted together to form a rectangular structure. It was covered in swathes of finely woven fabric, over which were stretched goatskins and the hides of rams, which were dyed red. It was open at the eastern end, but screened by a heavy curtain. Within, drapes of fine linen created a private sanctuary for him, where his took his sleep. Around the dwelling, was an open courtyard, surrounded by linen curtains on a framework of bronze posts and silver rods.
While his new home was being constructed, Shemyaza lived among the dry rocks, some distance from the settlement. He would speak to no-one, but accepted food from the people. Once the dwelling was built, Shemyaza moved into it. He washed away the grime and dust of the desert and the crusts fell from his wounds. Beneath it, he was a man of bronze, whose hair was a halo of light. The tribes-people, being dark and swarthy, had never beheld such beauty. Shemyaza became obsessed with fastidious cleanliness. He required all those who attended him to wash themselves in ritual fashion, and gave specific instructions concerning the preparation of his food. Occasionally, when someone angered him with inattention to detail, he remembered how to summon a blaze of energy, and blasted the miscreant on the spot. The people believed that he called down fire from heaven. He became a hard, dark god, and the people revered him.
After a year, Shemyaza’s hot madness cooled, and he decided to make his adopted people great. Anu had nurtured the lowland people; Shemyaza would evolve his own race of followers. Like the gentle lowlanders, they needed to be educated and brought on. First, he taught them about weapons and the arcana of forging metal. Then he instructed them in the strategies of battle. During this time, he took their women to his bed and spawned monstrous children with them. It became necessary to teach the wise women of the tribe how to cut open a woman’s belly, so that a child too large for natural birth could be delivered. In his dwelling, he heard the screams of the women as the knives cut their flesh, or the screams of those who were too afraid of the knife and allowed the child to tear them apart as it fought its way into the world.
Shemyaza sent his armies out into the desert wilderness and beyond, and many cities fell before them. He taught them how to shatter the thickest walls with the sorcery of sounds. He taught them how to instil panic and fear in the hearts of their enemies. When his people angered him, he punished them with leprosy and pestilence, instilling the thoughts of disease into their gullible minds, so that they took root and blossomed in sores and sickness. But when his people pleased him, he gave them the gift of euphoria and victory in battle. He bestowed dark wisdom and made legends of their warriors. All the time, he kept his identity secret. The tribespeople guarded the mystery of their powerful god, held it close to their hearts, and although rumours of their sorcery abounded in adjacent lands, no-one uncovered the true source of their power.
After seven years, Shemyaza knew it was time to return to Kharsag. He told his people that, wherever they travelled, they should continue to erect his tent for him, but that henceforth only his spirit would dwell within it.
‘I have made of you a great and powerful race,’ he told them. ‘Now, you must learn to rule yourselves.’
He wrapped himself in a dark robe and covered his face with a black scarf. Carrying only a staff and a water leather, he walked back towards the mountains of his birth.
At first, Shemyaza was welcomed by his people like a Prodigal Son. Anu wept when Shemyaza came to him in his Hall of Meetings. They embraced as father and son, and Anu ordered that a great feast be prepared. But although Shemyaza smiled and kissed his brethren, who all seemed so joyous to see him alive, his heart was no longer the molten gold of love, but the hard rock of experience. He gazed about the Garden, which once had so delighted him, and saw it for what it was. The Anannage danced and feasted in delusion, ignoring the hard, bitter reality beyond the mountains. Famine, disease and war raged out there, but the Anannage chose to believe that all humanity were as the meek lowland folk, who humbly obeyed the commands of the serpent people. Their oasis of learning, with its bright water and viridian fields, was a hollow conceit.
Anu sensed a change in Shemyaza, but put it down to maturity. Physically, he was very different from the pale, attenuated creature who had been hurled over the cliff. His skin was no longer soft and white, but seamed and weathered. His beauty was no longer puerile, but fierce. His mind was like an armoury now, and his tongue was the sharpest blade. Although he did not contradict Anu and his viziers outright, he earned a reputation for asking awkward questions. Subtly, he brought their attention to issues that the Lords of Kharsag would rather ignore. Anu was entertained by this, although others at the Mountain House were nervous of Shemyaza’s bluntness. One day, Anu would take offence.
For another seven years, Shemyaza existed as a bright but challenging star of the Anannage. During this time, he took a vizier for himself, the boy Daniel, who had been groomed from infancy for his role. Daniel had been marked for the Mountain House, but Shemyaza asked Anu if he might take Daniel for himself. Anu agreed to this, perhaps thinking his dour son needed company, and that Daniel, being lovely, might bring perfume back to She
myaza’s barren bedchamber. Since his return, he had lain with neither male nor female, spending all of his time in trance or speaking with the Elders, who were beyond this world.
When Daniel was sixteen, and convinced his Lord would never touch him in love, Shemyaza initiated him into the ways of the flesh. His friends, privately, rejoiced. Perhaps soon some of Shemyaza’s former carefree abandon might reappear. He never went down to the lowlands.
Then, one day, perhaps as a test, Anu sent Shemyaza down to the house of Hebob, the father of Ishtahar. Shemyaza did not appear concerned about this request, exhibiting neither eagerness nor reluctance. In his heart, he felt safe, for he did not expect to find his lost love still living in the house of her father. Fourteen years had passed. Now, she would be married, with a host of brats around her skirts, her beauty all used up and withered away. But as he stepped into the courtyard outside Hebob’s dwelling, with Daniel at his side, he saw her come round the side of the building. She held a pannier under one arm, and her long black hair hung loose over her linen-swathed breasts. Although she wore her years on her face, her beauty had intensified. Shemyaza’s heart stopped in his chest for the space of two beats. She saw him and equally started, her eyes widening, although her mouth became a grim line. Words passed between them without sound. She was a prisoner of her father’s house, a slave to the temple because of her power as an oracle and channel. Her commerce with Shemyaza had brought her a strange reputation; she was both feared and shunned. No man would marry her, or wanted to plough the ground where Shemyaza had sown his seed.