The Call of Eternity

70 | TO SAVE A GOD

Her hand caught in Meresamun's, Istara hurried after Marduk, who shouldered Sethi down the corridor, Sethi's bellows drowned out by the thunder of the Etemen'anki's collapsing ashlars. She looked back at the locked door of the suite, her heart clenching. Dull thuds came from behind it, followed by roars of frustration. There was only one man stubborn enough to try to break down a solid door. Urhi-Teshub. His defiant, desperate look as Marduk escorted her from the room; his rush to the door as it closed, the beat of his fists against it--his shouted promise through the thick wood to come after her, to protect her--his vow not to lose her again. Please, she willed, as another tremor shuddered through the ziqquratu, let him break down that door.

Baalat followed in numbed silence, never once crying out, even when the roll and heave of the floor slammed her against walls and tossed her into furniture. Another heavy undulation shuddered through the monstrosity. A thick rain of dust silted from the widening cracks in the ceiling, falling in blinding sheets. Her eyes watering, Istara waited, coughing back dust as Marduk kicked open the door to the room where the regeneration device lay. The thing lay at a wild angle, half-buried in a widening split, its once-perfect surface sheared and gouged. Deep cracks in the floor sliced away from it, devouring the ancient rock.

Istara hurried past its wreckage into the corridor leading to the ships--to where Meresamun promised another regeneration device awaited on Marduk's ship. As they bolted down the turns of the corridor, Marduk delivered a series of sharp commands into the device in his wrist, his language indecipherable. Along the walls, the white globes flickered and dimmed, threatening to leave them in impenetrable darkness.

Marduk burst out from the corridor and crossed the cavern's enormous space at a near run, despite the weight of Sethi stumbling beside him, drifting in and out of consciousness. In the cavern's center, waiting before the open gate, a massive black ship hulked, at least ten times the size of the ship in which they had arrived. Brilliant white lights glowed from under the canopy of its outstretched wings. From its underbelly, pulses of steam hissed, sharp, angry.

The ship's door was already open, its stairs beckoning. Istara scrambled up the impossible floating steps and reached the doorway just as another heave sent her tumbling sideways. Her shoulder clipped the door's unforgiving frame, its bite deep, harsh. Close by, a cluster of ashlars slid from the ceiling and slammed into one of the other ships. A scattering of metallic debris and pieces of rock exploded outward, hurtling toward her. With a cry, she threw herself inside. The door slid closed behind her. Debris slammed against the ship--heavy, dull thuds, followed by a thick, angry silence.

Her shoulder aching, Istara pulled herself to her feet, struggling to see in the sudden near-darkness. Near the front of the ship, Baalat and Meresamun ascended a circular staircase. From the stairwell's meager light she made out the shapes of the things surrounding her, realizing unlike the previous ship, this one, or at least this level, was not made for comfort, but utility--or war.

Further down, along a narrow corridor lined with stacks of metal crates lashed to the floor, Marduk dragged Sethi, rough, toward the rear of the ship. He reached a wall and punched a series of blue lights on a panel. A door slid back. Istara hurried after him, unwilling to let Sethi out of her sight.

Within, a small square room sheathed in dull silver metal. Against the furthest wall, four rectangular metal boxes stood upright, as big as sarcophagi, bearing complex, engraved symbols on their exteriors. Marduk went to the nearest one and pressed on an indentation. The front of the box eased open with a quiet hiss. Within, a kind of bed, just like the one used to save Meresamun, except this one contained a harness. Marduk propped Sethi inside and strapped him in place, deft. Sethi groaned, his eyes flickering open for a heartbeat, unseeing.