Sumer—Third Millennium BC
It was the gentle hum of a woman's chant that stirred Lugal Damu-zid from the oppressive fog of shadowed darkness. Calling upon his warrior's strength, he fought to fully rouse himself from the dream—the commanding trance that had imprisoned his awareness. His head was thick and heavy as he tried to shift position, the weight of his eyelids hindered him from opening them to scrutinize his surroundings.
How long had it been since he'd been trapped between worlds, drifting amid the living and the shades? The last thing Lugal remembered was defending the mud-brick walls of the Sumerian cities against the siege of Sargon of Akkad's army. On the bloody banks of the Euphrates he ordered his men into phalanx formation, shouting the battle cry to protect and defend at all costs as he led them forward.
Wielding his great penetrating axe with its narrow blade and strong socket, Lugal had just pierced the bronze plate armor of yet another Akkadian soldier when...He struggled to remember what occurred next. There was the ever-present metallic tang of blood is his nostrils...hacked bodies stacked all around him...the anguished cries and groans of dying men roaring in his ears...and then... And then there came the pain. The searing sharpness of a sword slashing his back, his ribs, his shoulder.
By gods, he—the great Lugal Damu-zid—had been felled!
Agonized by the realization, Lugal once again found himself focusing on the soothing sounds of the woman's song...
Nay, there were no women on the battlefield to offer the comfort of a sweet melody or the tender warmth of a soft breast. It could only be— Lugal's body tensed as the unsavory prospect of his own death assailed him. The alluring voice tempting him back from the abode of the dead no doubt belonged to Ereshkigal, goddess of the underworld.
Owing to his rank and reputation as the bravest, noblest and fiercest warrior throughout all of Mesopotamia, the dark queen had come personally to escort him through the seven gates of Kurnugi, the land of no return.
"O my mighty, magnificent Lugal," the woman's voice said, interrupting his introspection. He felt the cool, bracing touch of a damp cloth dabbed against his face. "Under your fearsome radiance, your terrible glare and storm, the Akkadians turned their steps away from you and your men in mute dread."
"Ereshkigal?" he managed to speak, his voice sounding dry and raspy to his ears. "Is it you, come for me?"
"You awaken!" the woman said. "At last."
On her sharp intake of breath Lugal's eyelids parted. His unsteady gaze was met by a softly lit room and what appeared to be an abundance of voluminous veils hanging around him. It was then that Lugal understood he was flat on his back on a padded platform, a bed far softer than those to which he was accustomed.
"The gods be praised. Fear not, Lugal, for it is only I, Sabit the priestess, who calls you back from the brink of the underworld."
He listened to her words, which only brought more questions to mind. Her voice and her countenance were indeed familiar, but he could not remember from where or when exactly. "Do I know you? Why am I here?"
Shushing him and forcing him to remain still as he struggled to sit up, Sabit hummed the same haunting melody Lugal had heard earlier. "You have been in my care for near half a lunar cycle." Her small hands roamed his thighs as she removed the large fur covering him. "We have come to know each other quite well, I think, as you lurched back and forth over the threshold of the living and the dead."
With considerable effort, Lugal finally pulled himself up far enough to brace himself on his elbows. A glance left, right and ahead brought a series of food, beer and wine-laden altars into focus as well as precious gold, lapis, ornate mosaics, harps, pottery and decorated clay tablets. These sumptuous accouterments were found only in the dwellings of royalty, abodes of the upper class or in ziggurats, the towering temples to the gods.
His brow furrowed in confusion. "I am in a ziggurat?"
"The tallest in the city," Sabit answered proudly. "Because of your rank and extraordinary service to Sumer and the gods, Ibi-Utu deemed you should remain here for the duration of your mending." She smoothed her soft, cool hands over his body from the top of his head to his feet.
"Ibi-Utu..." he repeated. "The name is familiar."
"He is patesi of this temple," Sabit explained, her fingers traversing the path of dark hair from his chest, down his belly to beneath the flax cloth covering his cock. As she spoke, Lugal remembered Ibi-Utu, named for the sun god, Utu, was the powerful and revered high priest. "Do you remember what happened to you?" she asked.
Lugal glanced at his body and the new set of jagged marks zigzagging across his flesh, adding to the extensive assortment of previous battle scars. "I was felled from behind," he surmised.
"Yes, you were sorely wounded in battle. Most feared you were doomed to be whisked away to the nether regions in the arms of Ereshkigal but I saved you from that fate, Lugal, my beloved." She combed her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead.
She was a pretty young thing, if somewhat plain, boyish and certainly too young for his tastes. She wore the traditional gown baring one shoulder, which appeared bony. His gaze fell upon her breasts. They stood firm against the softly draping cloth of her garment but were far less than a handful. As Lugal lifted his gaze he noticed that she stared at him as if she wanted to devour him lick by lick.
If he wasn't feeling so vague at the moment he would have chuckled. He was used to women seducing him, throwing themselves at him. His reputation as an exceptionally skilled lover perhaps even exceeded his celebrated standing as a great leader and warrior. Of course, his rumored heritage as half-god only added to his apparent appeal.
"My thoughts are hazy, Sabit," Lugal said, still trying to regain his senses. "You call me your beloved, and yet I don't recall the two of us ever..." He arched an eyebrow in question.
"Nay, you have not yet moored in my new moon crescent, Lugal, but I wish nothing more than for you to take my chaste cunt and make it yours forever. I have fallen in love with you."
Lugal's thoughts reeled. The bold, lovestruck young wisp of a woman, this seemingly naïve virgin priestess loved him? Wanted him to bed her? He felt his cock stir at the thought. Not because she was particularly alluring, but simply because she was there, available and evidently more than willing.
Moreover, it seemed to Lugal it had been a near eternity since he'd...how had Sabit phrased it? Ah yes, since he'd moored himself in a new moon crescent. He clamped down on his tongue to keep from laughing at the lustful girl and her romantic, poetic terms.
"Didn't you say you were a priestess, Sabit?" he asked gently.
"Yes." She breathed a melodious sigh. "I am priestess of Nanna, the Moon God of Ur. He is my betrothed. Symbolically, of course," she added quickly. She locked her gaze on Lugal's cock swelling beneath the cloth covering his groin, a look of anticipatory bliss across her features. "Now that you are awake and well, Lugal, we can join."
To Lugal's amazement, the young woman tore the bed covering from his body and straddled him. By gods, she was preparing to mount him!
"Sabit!" he said firmly as he held her in place. It was then that he felt how much of his strength had yet to be restored, for he was near as weak as a lamb. "Sabit," he said more softly this time, "you must know it is against our laws for you to bed a mortal man once you are betrothed to a deity."
"But once I take my sacred oath I shall never have my hungry cunt soothed. I must experience a proper bedding at least once in my life. And who better to do it than the brave warrior whose wounds I have tended—the man I have come to love?"
"You could be beheaded if it became known you seduced a man, Sabit." Memories of her benevolent and loving ministrations flooded his thoughts. She sang to him, spoke incantations, fed him, dressed his wounds with herbs and poultices as he lay immobile, battling his way back from the clutches of eternal darkness.
"You have been good to me, Sabit. Kind, sweet and caring. You are far too lovely to lose your pretty head." Lugal stroked her arm, patting it with brotherly affection.
"Oh, Lugal, must I resort to tearful pleading, lamenting and wailing before you will agree to bed me?"
Lugal groaned as his cock strained at her provocative words.
"I long to feel your mighty essence inside me," she continued. "Your powerful arms around me as, enraptured, we take wing to the stars together." Sabit leaned forward, clutching his biceps with one hand while resting a finger on his bottom lip and tugging down with the other. She smoothed the tip of her finger over his teeth and gave him a wistful smile.
"With your legendary strength, a tooth can even crush flint. Crush me, Lugal. Pierce me. Let me bear your babe."
"My babe?" Lugal said, startled.
Sabits eyes became wide. "How could the gods be angry if a priestess bedded one of their own?" she reasoned. "Are the stories not true that you have a mortal mother and were fathered by Enlil, the great god of air and storms?"
Lugal closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Women oft sang praises and composed poems about his supposed, yet unconfirmed, half-god heritage and striking masculine beauty. They seemed to favor his long, below-the-shoulder locks of dark-as-night hair, his firm jaw and bark-brown eyes. It was both a blessing and a curse to be so favored.
Sabit's eyes were still wide when he opened his eyes again. Her cheeks pink with expectancy.
"My mother has said it is so," he told her, "but—"
Before Lugal could stop her, Sabit drew up her skirts and sank fully onto his engorged cock, yelling out in pain as the membrane in her virgin channel tore.
The sweet feel of her chaste tightness wholly clasping his cock was overshadowed not only by the shock of what Sabit had done but by the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the chamber in answer to her anguished cry. Gathering every measure of his strength, Lugal switched their positions, fast withdrawing himself from her depths as he now kneeled astride her.
"Lugal Damu-zid!" Ibi-Utu's thunderous voice rang out as he raced to the bed, eyeing in horror the lightly bloodied bit of cloth between Sabit's thighs. Soon three other priests had sped into the chamber, all staring with revulsion at the incriminating scene. "Is this how you repay me and my priestess for the healing care we have given you? What say you, man?"
"Nay, Ibi-Utu," Sabit said. "It is not as you suspect. Lugal is innocent. I am the one who—"
"Silence," Lugal roared, interrupting the death sentence the foolish, callow girl was about to draw upon her head. He had led a good, mostly honorable life, had led many brave Sumerian men into battle in honor of their king and the mighty gods. While his heart spoke of breathing his last as a white-haired old man, blessed with a good wife and many grandchildren at his knee, as a warrior Lugal never really expected he'd live that long.
Perhaps he had been meant to die in this last, fierce battle against Sargon's army. Sweet, idealistic Sabit had given him life...it was only fair that he reciprocate in a like manner. He'd butchered many a warrior for Sumer, not out of enjoyment, but out of necessity. But he couldn't imagine living with the knowledge that this young, naïve girl he'd unintentionally sullied had met a fearsome death simply because she was enamored of him. Nay, Sabit did not deserve to have her life cut short on his account.
"Do not try to protect me, Sabit," Lugal soothed, gazing down into her terrified eyes. "I alone am responsible, Ibi-Utu. I-I awoke with a start from my long sleep between worlds and, in my clouded mind, somehow mistook the innocent young priestess for one of my consorts."
Ibi-Utu's gaze again fell upon the blood-spotted cloth. "You have ruined Sabit for her betrothed. Nanna, the Moon God of Ur demands his wives be virgins. She is no good to him now, nor to this sacred temple. Both of you must die."
Sabit gasped, a strangled cry escaping her lips as her small hands flew to her throat.
"It is not Sabit's blood," Lugal lied, unobtrusively digging his thumbnail into one of the still fresh scars at his side and slicing along the tender ridge. Once he felt the warm trickle of liquid he continued, "It is mine. You see?"
Rising from the bed and gesturing to his side, he held his bloody fingers out and away from his ribs. "The wound still oozes blood. You arrived just as I was about to thrust into her but her cry of terror brought me to my senses before I could enter her channel. Sabit is still pure."
"Is this true, Sabit?"
The petrified girl looked up at Lugal, who did his best to give her a reassuring nod and smile. He saw the pain in her eyes, the deep sorrow, the longing, fear and dread. She turned her head to face the priest. "I-yes," she said, collapsing into tears. "Lugal speaks the truth."
"Make peace with the gods, Lugal. Your beheading will take place first thing in the morning." Ibi-Utu spun on his heel to leave.
"Patesi, spare his life, please!" Sabit cried out. "You must know it was not Lugal in his right mind who came upon me in such a crazed manner. He was fevered and under the influence of the potent healing tonics we have forced him to swallow." Rising to her knees, gesturing with one hand outstretched to Lugal and the other to Ibi-Utu, she pleaded to the high priest, "You know this man. You know his reputation. He has fought and won many wars for our people, our king, the gods, has he not?"
Arms crossed over his chest, Ibi-Utu was silent, although he remained in place, evidently digesting Sabit's beseeching words.
"Stories of queens, maidens and wives falling to Lugal's feet, offering themselves unto him abound, Ibi-Utu, do they not?"
The priest frowned at Lugal. "They do. But that does not mean he has the right—"
"It is clear," Sabit forged on, "the mighty warrior Lugal Damu-zid can have his pick of the fairest and most succulent women of the land—of any land, for that matter. Look at me, Ibi-Utu." She swept a hand from her head downward as tears coursed down her face.
"Do you really believe a man of Lugal's uncompromised beauty would have any reason to even glance twice at a plain, unappealing girl like me when the temple and streets are filled with dazzling, full-breasted, fair of face women only too willing to bed him at the mere crook of his finger?"
Until that moment, Lugal had forgotten he still had a heart buried deep within his chest, but he was reminded of the fact now because he felt sure it broke just a bit as he listened to Sabit's harsh depiction of herself.
It seemed as if a small eternity passed as the priest stood silently, gazing from Sabit to Lugal and back again.
Finally, he spoke. "What you say is true, Sabit. I have followed Lugal's exploits since he was a boy just entering Sumer's army and never was there a time when I did not believe him to act with honor. However, his past actions do not excuse his present. The gods are clear on that. Our laws state directly that Lugal must pay with his head for the intended ruin of a virgin priestess. Unless..."
Ibi-Utu's frown grew deeper still while Lugal's heart pounded out a hasty beat as he awaited his fate at the hands of the pious high priest.
"Unless?" Sabit asked, a glimmer of hope lighting her eyes.
"Imprisonment," Ibi-Utu finally muttered. "For the rest of his days."
Both Lugal and Sabit gasped. "By gods, I would rather die," Lugal spat. Folding his arms over his chest he stood tall, bracing his still-weakened body against a pillar as he elevated his chin in a proud manner. "Just lop off my head and be done with it so I may accompany Ereshkigal to the underworld. I am ready to die."
"Nay, Lugal, do not speak that way!" Sabit implored. "What about the incantation of service to womankind, patesi?" she suggested. "It is more deserving than death and more humane than watching a valiant warrior rot away in chains."
"A fair solution." Ibi-Utu nodded. "It shall be so," he said, walking to one of the small altars and selecting a clay tablet inscribed in cuneiform.
"Nay!" Lugal said, not even understanding what an incantation of service to womankind was. But whatever it was, he had learned long ago to be wary of the spells, rituals and incantations of those in devout service to the ferocious and mighty gods.
"Do you have an appropriate vessel, Sabit?" the priest said, ignoring Lugal's protest.
Sabit scanned the chamber, pointing to a small stone box secured with metal strappings atop one of the altars. "There, patesi. Inside there is a bottle of the finest spun glass brought as an offering by one of the city's wealthiest matrons. It was meant to hold perfumed oil or for use as a tear vase, but is still empty and should be a perfect vessel."
Ibi-Utu gestured to one of the lesser priests who immediately brought the box forward, opening the latch for Ibi-Utu's scrutiny.
"Yes, this will do," he said. "It has significant weight, appears strong and sufficiently protected to survive at least one lifetime." Nodding to Sabit, he stated, "We can proceed quickly because our altars are already set with lambs for sacrifice, lard and roast meat, as well as dates, fine meal, dried fruit and a confection of honey and butter. The goddess will be pleased."
Lugal's mind whirled. How he wished he had both his strength and his full senses about him to help him comprehend what was happening. Stories from his childhood of men imprisoned in jars and bottles, trapped in the abomination of perpetual servitude, slowly surfaced. Surely this is not what the patesi had in mind?
As the high priest and his subordinates examined the clay tablet bearing the incantation, Sabit rose to stand at Lugal's side.
"Fear not, brave and honorable one," she whispered, "for I shall discern a way to free you from your servitude as soon as it is possible. I shall never forget that I owe you my life as well as my eternal gratitude, dearest Lugal." With that she crossed the room to join Ibi-Utu, who held his right hand aloft and began to read aloud from the tablet.
"O great Inanna, Queen of Heaven, goddess of love and war, I summon you. I am Ibi-Utu, he who withdraws the first fruits from the temple. He who has received divine powers from the most elevated dais. You are the great lady of the gods. Your terror is fearsome as it weighs on the land. No man anticipates your commands. The heavens fold themselves in your presence like a mourning garment. You are she who hastens like a north wind storm into the midst of the people. You are she who hears prayer and pleading."
He looked to Sabit and nodded. She took the tablet from him and continued.
Lugal released the pillar when he felt the room shake. He tried to take a step forward but realized he was frozen in place.
Drawing upon his warrior's courage, he steeled himself for whatever may come, for he would not cry out in fear. Never! Lugal Damu-zid feared nothing and no one! Even to the gods and demons who toyed with the lives of mortals, he feared not. Given that he no longer had the power of speech, Lugal kept repeating those words inside his head, fortifying himself as the incantation continued.
"Great Inanna, I, Sabit, priestess of Nanna, the Moon God of Ur, summon you to intern Lugal Damu-zid, mighty warrior who has fought many battles in your name, into this sacred vessel." She motioned to the open box containing the bottle, which Ibi-Utu held aloft, bowing as he did so. "So that Lugal Damu-zid may obliterate his transgressions to womankind by serving them for all eternity..."
Eternity. The thought of ceaseless captivity rose in Lugal's throat like the bitter tang of bile. Sabit's words seemed to drone on forever as she delineated Lugal's verdict of indentured servitude.
"The language of his possessor will Lugal Damu-zid speak and understand," Ibi-Utu added, as the lesser priests chanted in the background while lighting fragrant incense.
"The matter of pleasing his female possessors and satisfying their every urge shall be Lugal's sacred duty," Sabit read.
"Within the period of six lunar cycles," Ibi-Utu, said, "will Lugal grant his possessor three wishes..."
As the priests chanted and Sabit and Ibi-Utu spoke the endless words of the incantation, Lugal became aware of a pervading heaviness seeping into his being. Servitude to women. By gods, Lugal, the great and mighty warrior, the sought after lover of queens and woman of the greatest beauty and wealth would be reduced to no more than a slave to women's peculiar impulses, which, he knew, could shift with the mere blink of an eye.
Lugal would have shuddered at the thought had he not still been frozen in place like a great pillar of salt. Truly, it was a foul fate worse than death to which he was being condemned. He only hoped Sabit would be true to her word and quickly discern a method for his liberation.
"O make it be, great and wondrous Inanna! Let it be so!" Ibi-Utu nearly roared as he pulled the stopper from the bottle, again elevating the container high above his head.
The ethereal visage of a woman, as beautiful as she was fearsome, suddenly loomed over the proceedings.
The last thing Lugal remembered seeing before feeling his body curl and contort into naught but a vaporous substance that voyaged through the air of the temple chamber and into the bottle, was the tortured expression of repentance mixed with gratitude on Sabit's tear-stained face.
