Chapter Three
Sargon scraped away at the bronze doors after the woman had left, though the last things she’d said stayed with him. They reminded him of what once was, what could have been—and could never be again. It grated on him to hear those thoughts voiced aloud. Notably, by that woman with a cream-and-peaches complexion unblemished by scars, with a youthful face untouched by marks of pain, with piercing eyes free from existential doubts.
Sargon had a reason for avoiding machinery. But then again, how could the agent have known it was anything other than a pavilion in need of a polish? Now, though, Sargon was happy it had happened.
It turned out the mouseion was originally a center of creativity and innovation. How he would have loved it, had it still been the case. Restoring the artifact was the least Sargon could do. But that wasn’t the reason he made that spur-of-the-moment decision last night to restore the clock. At least it wasn’t the main reason.
His thoughts kept returning to the mouseion director, with her proud bearing, tousled hair, and intelligent, defiant eyes. She made him feel seen in a way he hadn’t before. A long-dormant part of his soul stirred under her gaze, drawing him to her. But that wasn’t the reason he made that spur-of-the-moment decision last night to restore the clock. At least it wasn’t the main reason.
He toiled until the distant wail of a ram’s horn from a signal tower across Maradam marked the end of the workday for many, its notes lingering in the air. Soon, the chatter of townsfolk melded with the whirring of pedaled di-wheelers.
Wagons laden with olive oil, their iconic lanterns casting a warm glow, rumbled down the meandering avenues paved with large limestone slabs. The thoroughfares, smoothed by years of use and kept clean, were lined with single-story houses of the same pale stone, their flat rooftops adorned with greenery and vines trailing over the edges.
The streets bustled as people headed home or to the outdoor market. Sargon, meeting up with Azai, Elam, and Tamuz as was their habit, made his way to the commissioning house. His three friends shared a dwelling, as was customary for unattached men on Areta. They did so to share household chores, but mostly for the camaraderie it offered and the elaborate tabletop games they played at night.
The interior of the commissioning house offered comforting familiarity as the four men entered, taking seats on elevated cushions around a low table. A papyrus reed partition provided welcomed privacy, allowing the quartet to talk without the distracting hum of neighboring discussions. Daylight, channeled through reflecting shafts and tinted glass, bathed the room in purple hues interwoven with soft shadows.
A prismatic skylight focused daylight onto a cast-iron plate, warming the kettle. Sargon added mint leaves and a piece of the sweet jaggery to his cup of hot water, then stirred with a spoon. His three friends followed suit.
“It seems that a water clock has been rediscovered at the Mouseion,” said Azai. His weathered hands, curled around the warm cup, betrayed a lifetime of metal work. The old man looked at Sargon with a hint of pride, his eyes sparkling against his dark skin.
Elam laughed out loud, his bulky shoulders shaking. His rich laughter never failed to bring smiles to the faces of his friends.
Sargon sipped his tea and regarded meditatively the steam that rose from the cup.
Tamuz clapped Sargon’s shoulder. “Truly, who else but our companion here could’ve unraveled this riddle and restored the clock?”
Sargon offered only a noncommittal grunt before taking another contemplative sip of his mint tea. From outside, a sudden gust of warm wind carried the fluttering sounds of the fronds from the neighboring date palm grove.
“I thought you vowed never to touch machines again,” said Elam, “so as not to be tempted.”
“I polished it, not realizing it was a contrivance of some kind,” said Sargon. “Evidently, no one did.” With a whimsical expression, he looked up at his friends. “But enough about me. Elam, Tamuz, are you still working on that broken shaft at the gristmill?”
Elam and Tamuz chuckled, and the conversation shifted to their day at work. The two were master millwrights, mostly hired by the factories on the shores of the Thyamis river, which utilized numerous waterwheels. The gristmill, the sawmill, the paper mill, the textile mill—through the years, Elam and Tamuz were commissioned by all of them. For his part, the elderly Azai was a master machinist whose services were in demand wherever intricate or exact metal components were needed—whether to replace a part on one of the weaving apparatuses or to reconstruct a gear assembly. The reputation of these three men had allowed them to work on the most sophisticated mechanical projects, often fetching them handsome fees.
They swapped anecdotes from work, teased Elam about not talking to women, and listened to Azai threaten again that he would retire next year.
At some point, Sargon downed the rest of his tea. “Time for me to go home and spend time with the girls.”
His three friends simply nodded. They’d expected him to say that, but hearing it had never grown any less disconcerting through the years.
“If not before, I’ll see you for our Tishrei eve game,” said Sargon, getting to his feet.
“I’m looking forward to it, my friend,” said Tamuz and raised his cup in farewell.
“So, is he the one behind the clock restoration?” asked Azai quietly, regarding the retreating figure of Sargon.
“Oh, undoubtedly. No one else could’ve accomplished that. He just doesn’t want to talk about it,” said Tamuz. He sighed. “What a waste of a life that was meant for true distinction,” he added softly. “Sargon could’ve done so much good. Blazes, he wanted to do so much good. Instead, he clings to the fantasy that his adopted daughters are still alive, keeping a low profile and burnishing metal artifacts for a pittance, lest he’ll be declared an outcast and forbidden from interacting with them.”
“I tell you, it all started when he got slapped down for that contraption idea in his younger days—” started Azai.
But Tamuz shook his head. “It happened years later. Whatever he ran into truly unsettled him; it changed everything.” Sargon had never spoken of what he’d stumbled upon. All they learned was that he’d dug deep underground, an incredible thing in itself, and then he’d run into something.
The old man exhaled heavily. Who could tell, with Sargon being so private? For a long moment, the three friends sat in silence, their contemplation punctuated by distant calls of gray hornbill birds.
“It’s unnerving how Sargon keeps talking about Lilit and Norea as if they were growing,” commented Elam, shifting his considerable bulk and adjusting his cushion. “Not a fixed point in his delusion.”
Azai nodded. “A few months ago, he mentioned that they’d become adults.”
“Sounds about right,” said Tamuz, “considering the year the two drowned. Around now they would have been of age.”
Tishrei eves were the most awkward in that respect. Sargon would remark that the twins were around or that they’d just left. And as far as his friends could see, there was no one there but Sargon. They’d tried once to broach the subject, and he hadn’t talked to them for weeks after that. They’d never challenged him on that point again.
Chapter Four
As Sargon walked on, the stone pathways in the heart of Maradam gave way to open, hard-packed dirt roads, widely dispersed dwellings, and trees.
Nearing his residence, he noted the tall palms swaying gently overhead, their thick date clusters gleaming in the final hour of daylight. It was twilight, a time when inky, lengthening shadows juxtaposed with amber light that bathed the reddish-brown earth in an ethereal radiance.
As his home came into view, he felt the deep, grounding pulse of the world beneath his feet. Dik-dik antelopes paused browsing the small myrrh trees, lifting their heads before resuming their activity. His path took him downhill, though the slope seemed to rise again in the distance, creating the illusion of an upward arc.
The view was familiar. Yet, the comforting joy it once held had been tinged with unease these past two months. The river current subtly waned; the night cycle shortened slightly; a faint tremor now accompanied the pulse of the world. And probably no one noted these changes. But with the ever-brightening star Talith Na’amat, a knot had been lodged in his stomach for many months, and he had been on the lookout for shifts in the environment. He felt that something was askew, something… foreboding.
Sargon believed that answers might lie in the ancient past, and if anyone could uncover them, it would be Angora, Maradam’s foremost scholar on antiquity. That was the main reason why he restored the water clock and left a calling card behind—to get her attention.
It was an impulsive decision, and now he regretted it. What had made him think she had the courage to unearth unsettling truths from the past and the integrity to keep his secrets? How could he trust the daughter of the Iskandar not to betray him and bring down the hammer of exile upon him?
He glanced up at the ever-present silhouette of Kadesh Barnea, an unreachable construct hovering a mile above. Always there, an enigma. From the distance, it appeared deceptively small, no larger than a coin held at arm’s length.
A contoured clay wall surrounded Sargon’s residence. He opened the outer door and entered the tiny anteroom, setting off gong sounds, each deeper than the previous one.
He reflected on the many feet that had crossed this threshold before his. The dwelling he called home—though repeatedly revamped, redecorated, retouched—was essentially the same one occupied by generations past. Someone from a prior century would find little unfamiliar in these surroundings.
As he shed the dust and weight of his workday sandals, the inner door opened. Two breathtakingly tall, identical twin girls in their late teens rushed out to greet him, long black hair streaming, amber eyes alight. “Father!” Lilit cried with affection, and Sargon stood up, smiling. She leaned low so their adoptive father could kiss her cheek, while Norea embraced him, her warm hips and flat stomach pressing against his chest.
As he stood there, basking in their affection, Sargon couldn’t help but marvel at the young women they’d become, with the pronounced contours of their figures at an eye level—a bittersweet reminder of time’s steady passage.
Kisses and hugs exchanged, the twin sisters made their way to the kitchen, within the walled enclave of their dwelling. Sargon headed down the curved stone path that led to three yurts, each ringed with a gravel barrier and fragrant plants to deter creeping insects, each modestly elevated off the ground on sturdy pilings.
He entered the center yurt, which served as their dining space. Fading daylight filtered through the canvas and the meshed screens, casting a warm glow onto the floor—a mosaic of interwoven natural mats. Sargon lowered himself and lounged on pillows, enjoying the rest after being on his feet most of the day.
It was only a few moments later that Norea and Lilit entered the yurt, wheeling in small carts that held several trays and set the table.
Sargon sighed with pleasure, eyeing the mouth-watering freshly baked stack of flatbreads, a steaming bowl of lentils, and a plate of hummus liberally garnished with olive oil, chopped parsley, and dusting of paprika. Lilit smiled at him, signaling that dinner was ready. He joined them. The three of them chatted about nothing in particular as they tore into the food.
“So, what did you work on today?” Lilit wanted to know. Her long, smooth black hair spilled onto the table as she poured hot spicy apple cider for her father, then her sister, and finally herself.
Sargon made a dismissive gesture. “Today was not that interesting.”
That must have meant scraping a door or windowsill. “And yesterday?”
Her father shrugged. “Polishing some dusty old thing at the Mouseion.”
She wrinkled her nose; books weren’t her preferred spice. But then she recalled something she’d overheard in the marketplace. Last night, someone had entered the Mouseion, or rather its open lobby, and restored its large water clock. Many were commenting on it. And to think that her father could have had a chance encounter with that enigmatic person had he stayed a few hours longer.
That reminded her what she’d been curious about earlier in the day. “Speaking of old things,” she said, “is it true that in the olden days, fathers were also...you know...the sires?”
“Yes,” he said and regarded her with mild surprise. Lilit ordinarily didn’t express interest in things that extended much beyond last week’s events or strayed too far from her passions: cooking and theatrical plays.
“When did the decoupling of siring from fatherhood happen?” she asked, pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then breaking off a piece of flatbread and scooping with it some of the hummus.
“You know that originally everyone on Areta belonged to one or another of the seven lineages.”
It was impossible not to know. “Things were so fragmented in the ancient days, weren’t they?”
“They were,” her father agreed. “Imagine if everyone with your coppery skin and amber eyes ruled a district, while in the next were those with red-hair and fair skin. All those rivalries boiled over. They almost destroyed everything in that all-out intertribal war.”
“The Age of Shoah,” Lilit said.
“Indeed—a century of blood and fire,” he said with a pensive expression. “Towns reduced to ash, fields choked with the unburied... When they eventually stopped, it was due to exhaustion.” He took a long sip. “Nevertheless, clannishness lingered and animosity festered. The leaders knew—a generation, maybe two. It was to be just a matter of time until fights would break out again.”
Sargon studied them as he said that. The twins were listening, truly listening—a sure sign they’ve come of age. It seemed like yesterday they’d swallowed the rite’s black brew, marking their transition into adolescence.
“They had to unite,” he told them. “Yet, members of the various lineages didn’t want to lose their distinct physical traits. If they had begun interbreeding, within a few generations the lineages would have faded away, and a more physically homogeneous population would have emerged.”
“Sires,” Norea said, her voice betraying a hint of surprise.
He tilted his head in acknowledgment. She understood, he thought. “The choice of sires was strictly guided by lineage,” he said. “Choosing an adoptive father later transcended those lines, focusing on personal connection rather than bearing more children. This arrangement eliminated the risk of future conflict and preserved the distinct characteristics of each lineage through the generations.”
For a few moments, the twins busied themselves with the food, but Sargon could tell that Lilit was still sorting through it.
“So why are there so few pure-breds right now?”
A soft chuckle escaped Sargon at the irony. “Over time, people started valuing individual traits over lineage purity when choosing sires. That’s how two of the seven lineages died out.”
“You’re of pure Svear lineage,” Norea stated, a touch of pride in her voice. Her adoptive father might have been a simple man, a day laborer, yet he was true bred. Her hand reached out and stroked his arm, then the fingers curled back, settling obediently in her lap.
A wry smile tugged at the corners of Sargon’s mouth. “Well, the blond hair darkened over time, but yes, Svear through and through. All my ancestors are.” He winked at her playfully. “The real item.” Privately he thought that this was the least important thing about him. However, his adopted daughters knew nothing of his past or his passions. It was the only piece of pride they had about their supposed failure of a father, and he’d been indulging them on that count.
Lilit regarded her father. His seeds had been dulled by that edict long ago, and she felt pang of sympathy. She’d inquired about it through the years, and “youthful indiscretions” was all he’d ever offered in reply. Then again, while all men were more than willing, only one in three or in four ended up siring, she admitted to herself. When a woman could select for traits of her future offspring from any man of her choosing, why would she settle for anything less than her notion of a perfect complement?
Dinner came to an end. Lilit dabbed her lips with a napkin, the soft shadows playing across her face, her large eyes smoldering as they met Sargon’s. “Father,” she began, her voice eager, “we wish to go tonight to the amphitheatron. They’re performing the second part of Ashur-Banael.” Lilit would have happily attended every play at the open-air theater if money were of no concern.
She glanced at the water clock on the stand. If they were to catch the play, they’d better get going. Theatrical performances used to coincide with the moon’s journey across the night sky until it passed through the exit gate. This had changed as Thalith Na’amat waxed ever brighter, eventually outshining even the moon a few months ago. No one knew why, but it didn’t matter. The key point was that the star graced the night sky shortly after dinnertime, casting its silvery light for a couple of hours before setting. This made evening outings, especially outdoor performances, all the more appealing. It left just enough time to eat, chat a bit, and get ready.
Sargon’s heart constricted with the familiar twinge of conflicting emotions. Going out again? This would make it the second time that week. “Girls, it’s not that I don’t want you to have a good time, but three copper coins here and three copper coins there—it adds up.”
Norea looked down. “We know,” she said quietly. He could sense their unspoken disappointment and felt guilt. “We promise we won’t go out at all next week.” Her eyes, amber and deep, now held him captive, a tender trap he’d fallen into time and again.
He knew he needed to be firm, to set boundaries as the head of the household, but the thought of denying their simple pleasures pained him. He’d done what he could to support their modest requests, yet at times he had to take a resolute stand. This was one of those times. “I’ll have to say no,” he said. “And it’s high time, well past time, you two start thinking of acquiring a vocation.” When children reached adolescence, they began apprenticing—from sanding boards in a carpentry shop to mob grazing water buffalos to processing rags into paper pulp. “Why, when I was your age—” He stopped, puzzled by the sudden anxiety that flashed across their faces.
Was he just saying something? What had he just said? He couldn’t remember. A bit strange and had occurred more than once when he had conversed with his daughters.
“Please, Father,” Norea murmured, her voice a gentle breeze that filled the yurt. She moved with fluid grace, and her tall form slid beside him, the side-slits of her dress parting. He could feel the warmth of her thigh press against his, followed by Lilit’s as she settled on his other side. The modest yurt suddenly felt cramped, the air carrying the faint scent of their bodies. Sargon shifted uneasily, seeking grounding in the firmness of the woven rush mat underneath him.
He looked up from one face to the other, determined. “I’m sorry—” he started firmly. But then they got a hold of him.
A shiver ran down his spine, a touch of warmth at the back of his neck he couldn’t explain—and a new thought entered him. Wasn’t this what fathers were supposed to do, provide for their daughters? And yet...another expense... He felt a wave of unsettling vertigo wash over him, fogging his thoughts. It was not a problem to let them go; their basic needs were met, he realized. Now it made perfect sense; the three coppers wouldn’t change anything. “Very well, you two go and have a good time,” he said when they finally released him.
Sargon pointedly cleared his throat, the inexplicable thud of his beating heart slowly receding. “Come on, girls. Give me some space here.”
“Of course, Father,” said Norea, getting to her feet and smoothing her ankle-length dress.
“You know that we always do as you wish,” said Lilit, now also rising up.
“I do.” He nodded to himself. They were the most obedient daughters any father could have asked for. Why, he didn’t remember them arguing ever—not with each other, and never with his decisions. Obedient, respectful—their future spouses would be blessed.
Sargon had been earning the money, and Norea and Lilit made the family’s purchases, mostly food. Well of course he directed them; he was the head of the household, after all. Well maybe not quite directed them, though he could have directed them. That was the point. And whenever they bought a new article of clothing for themselves, which was most infrequent, they’d always made it a point to ask him. Such obedient girls, he marveled, as he’d marveled countless times before.
Sargon stood up, went to the small wooden chest, and took out three copper coins. He would just skip lunch tomorrow, he reckoned. That ought to do it. They didn’t need to know about that.
“We love you, Father,” said Norea, her voice soft and warm as she approached. “More than anything,” she added.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “I love you too.” He gestured toward the entrance flap. “Now, go on, enjoy the play.”
Today he made five coppers. That was a good day. If he would secure a job tomorrow, too, then a full breakfast was assured for Tishrei day. On some days he went out to work and didn’t take any food with him, making sure Norea and Lilit wouldn’t notice. Or ever go hungry. That was what mattered. That was all that mattered.
Sargon had adopted them when they were close to ten, shortly after the peculiar death of their mother. Poor girls. The moment he’d seen them, and Lilit coiled her slender arms around him with surprising strength, he fell in love. “Always and forever,” he had promised them, as they held onto him. And they cried a little in relief.
It was a year or two later when the two of them grew tall enough to loom over him.