The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

3.8 - Finish Line

Dear Readers: Let's see how Atropos has chosen to deal with darkness in the hearts of humankind...

FYI: the historical and mythical figures mentioned in this scene are true to this civilization's history and mythology, not my own invention.  And as with Egypt - the scorn expressed here toward their pantheon is from Atropos/Atria's standpoint, not mine ;)

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Scene 8: Finish Line

2020 B.C.

Back again. With a vengeance.

Vengeance against each dark heart on this earth, this damned and dismal earth, that put her mother’s life in danger. Leave it to the silly little sisters, to have sympathy for this despicable species. Leave it to her own sappy conscience, worse yet, not to claim a right to veto as the eldest. Since when were the three Fates a three-way democracy?

At any rate, this Fate was back on earth. But in a different place this time, of course—she had no purpose in the palace of the pharaoh, in whose court she had already said her piece. Her platform on capital punishment, surely met with shock at court, and surely disregarded…

Whatever. She couldn’t dwell on any lives she touched, or deaths she witnessed, on this earth. Just as Chaos had said, she had to set to work. The work would be easier if she played deaf to such memories.

Atropos’s plan for handling the darkness in humanity’s heart was simple: if she couldn’t snip all threads at once, she could at least discern which mortal souls were darkest, down on earth. And then, back in the Cave, she would make sure to sever those threads first.

This time on earth, she had landed atop some tall structure. A mass of sunbaked mud-bricks, stacked into a terraced temple. Surveying the scene below, she saw that this tiered pyramid stood amidst a temple complex, at the center of a sprawling city.

In many ways, this place struck her as similar to the kingdom of the pharaoh: vast lands, arid and spread with windblown sand, but also fertile by virtue of a wide river flowing nearby. Heavily civilized and populated, too—with city walls and small houses surrounding the central complex, framing a crisscross of close crowded streets.

She couldn’t focus on the cityscape too long. For a few men were beside her, frozen stiff—indeed, quite stiff, she inwardly snickered—at the sight of this stark naked figure suddenly in their sacred space.

When they finally spoke, it was in a different language from the one she’d heard in Mentuhotep’s realm. Of course, she understood this language just as easily. She gathered that, luckily enough, she would always keep this superhuman power while in human form.

“This must be Inanna…” one of the men whispered in awe.

“Or Ningal…?” another suggested.

“No, surely Inanna,” another inferred. “A creature of such beauty could not be anyone else—the goddess of love, and of lust…”

“But why has she appeared, upon the moon god’s shrine…?”

She had no patience for these flabbergasted fools, and so she shut them up. “I am Atria,” she announced, having settled on this name as the default for her human incarnation. She stepped down from the dais on which she’d landed, toward the trembling priests. “A mortal, flesh and blood. Sent from Inanna as a gift for your great king.”

She knew nothing of this Inanna character, but she figured that this introduction would quickly and easily get her into royal company.

“King Shulgi will return soon from his journey,” the high priest promised as he ushered her down a grandiose stairway, stretching from the summit of the temple to its base. “He sped off toward the city of Nippur this morning, set to return before dusk, for the evening festivities here. He is the swiftest-footed man who’s ever lived—you shall be a fine prize at the finish line of his amazing feat.”