Cradle of Destiny, page 27
Grant panted, holding up his counterpart, Enkidu. Malesh helped Shizuka and Domi to their feet.
“That’s obviously where we’d left him,” Kane said.
Brigid nodded. “Exactly the proper position. History is right where it’s supposed to be.”
They looked at the two couples, Grant and Shizuka and Enkidu and Malesh, embracing each other, eyes closed as they reveled in the contact with lovers and family.
Kane smirked. “We traveled through time, killed off a god, and Grant is back together with his woman. My work here is done.”
“But not theirs,” Brigid noted as Domi joined them.
“Tough times for them?” the albino girl asked, looking at the couples from different eras. With a nod, she indicated that she was talking about Enkidu and Malesh.
“The gods are going to separate them,” Brigid said. “And Malesh will quest to reunite with him.”
“She’ll find him, just like Shizuka found Grant,” Domi said.
“It’ll be without our help,” Kane added. “We have our own battles to fight.”
“Perhaps,” Brigid countered. “The story of Gilgamesh ends as he, er, she enters a deep sleep beside an unnamed river.”
“Sort of an anticlimactic ending,” Kane muttered.
“Or the beginning of a centuries-long journey in suspended animation,” Brigid surmised. “Gilgamesh’s tale ended on Earth. Perhaps it concludes back on Nibiru. A happier denouement than the one written for mankind.”
Domi smiled. “It’d be the only way either of them would let it end. Explains why Enlil still has a head in our time, too.”
“Should we tell them what might happen?” Kane asked.
Brigid shook her head. “Malesh has closed off her mind, and hasn’t touched mine to get any information. She’s going to face her destiny one day at a time.”
“Grant,” Kane said reluctantly. “It’s time for us to go home.”
Grant looked over his shoulder, then nodded. “A minute more.” He turned to Enkidu. “Good luck in your future.”
Enkidu shrugged. “I’ll take my knocks when they come. You do the same for yourself, and Shizuka, too.”
The samurai woman cupped Enkidu’s bearded cheek, smiling at him. “Do not forget that your goddess needs you, and you need her.”
Grant embraced Malesh, taking a deep breath. “Thanks for keeping Enkidu alive. Remember that I owe you a few favors.”
“Friends do not owe each other favors,” Malesh answered him. “Perhaps someday, in the streams of time and space, our paths will cross again.”
Grant winced as he felt every inch of battery and bruising he’d taken. “If so, I’ll have to stock up on painkillers.”
Malesh’s laugh was just as beautiful as Shizuka’s. Of course it was, Grant thought. They share the same soul, same as Enkidu and me.
Grant took Shizuka’s tiny hand in his and the lovers walked to join Kane, Brigid Baptiste and Domi. Baptiste was in the process of programming the interphaser’s recall code so that the time trawl could be directed to them.
Enkidu watched as the figures faded. “See you around, old friend,” he whispered to the space where they had been.
“His soul is as old as yours, my love,” Malesh said. “Who is to say that you will not find him here?”
Enkidu managed a smile. “Kane, Brigid…hell, maybe even Domi and Lakesh are bouncing around. We sure could use the help.”
Enkidu took his lover’s hand as Grant had taken Shizuka’s. “But as long as we have each other, I don’t fear any destiny.”
The goddess and her consort walked through the darkened hall, together and unafraid.
Epilogue
Thousands of light-years from the Earth, a relatively small interstellar ship hurtled through deep space. It had been on its journey for as long as Ullikummis’s prison. They had even passed within thousands of miles of each other, but the memory of a brief psychic contact between scions of Enlil was far stronger for Gi Malesh than for her half brother.
Ullikummis had been consumed by a hatred for Enlil, the mental anchor that helped the stone-skinned god maintain his sanity. Malesh shared that anger at her Annunaki father, but it was nowhere near as intense as Ullikummis’s.
What carried the sleeping goddess, resting in a coffin-like suspended-animation chamber, through her centuries of travel was not rage but love.
Among the stars, at the end of the interstellar journey, Enkidu waited, sharing the same millennia-long slumber that she did.
Her vengeful father had taken action in the one way that he could best torture her, keeping Enkidu in an eternal sleep that was neither death nor life.
Enkidu, however, had lived up to his promise never to leave Malesh alone.
Resting in the chamber next to Malesh’s was their daughter, Domigi, conceived the night before their swim into the palace of Urudug. She was named for the woman that Grant had loved as if she were his own child, and she had grown tall, strong and brave.
Together, they would write the end of a tale that Brigid Baptiste had only guessed at.
And perhaps they would reunite with the heroes of Cerberus someday.
For now, Malesh and her daughter crossed the gulf between stars, rushing to Enkidu’s rescue.
WHEN GRANT’S EYES fluttered open, consciousness seizing him once more, the first thing he saw was the tanned, soft shoulder of a beautiful, black-haired woman who breathed deeply in the peace of sleeping bliss. His dreams had been troubled with glimpses of the space between times, leftovers from his imprisonment in the time stream.
But he thought of his family back at Cerberus. He’d spent a few days recovering from his adventure at the beginning of human history, and drinking in the joy of Shizuka’s companionship.
He hated the thought of leaving her side, but he also missed the people who were the brother, the sister, the daughter he’d never had. Grant kissed Shizuka’s shoulder.
He would find his way back to New Edo easily.
But for now, he rested his cheek against the back of Shizuka’s head.
Cerberus, the Annunaki, the Millennial Consortium and all the rest of the inhabitants of the crazed world called Earth, they could all wait as Grant took his fill of the comfort of Shizuka’s embrace.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8510-5
CRADLE OF DESTINY
Copyright © 2011 by Worldwide Library
Special thanks to Doug Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.
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James Axler, Cradle of Destiny
