Dawn of thirst

Eridu, Mesopotamia
22 kilometres south of present day Nasiriya, Iraq

5400 BCE

The moment was real. In an instant of pure clarity, Ul found that she was aware of everything: The small stones lumping under her bare feet, the distant bleating of a goat, the rich aromas of burning fish and lentils, the ambient heat causing the blood vessels under her skin to expand…
Ul pressed her heels into the raised platform of mud-brick, and watched as the priests placed the last of their offerings into the niches around the central stone altar. Although the sky was clean, and the sun poured its warmth directly down on them, the colours of the world seemed oddly diminished in that moment. It was as if she were seeing things through a boulder-grey filter. It added something primal to the ceremony. Ul felt that she was somehow at the very beginning of things. It was a strange sensation.
She arched her back, sensing the eagle that had cut across the spokes of the sun, high above her head. Leaning back, she murmured a breath, upward to it. The black wings ruffled, and Ul smiled. The Sky Gods were pleased.
After the prayers were complete, Ul descended the steps of the temple to village level. The sounds of life steadily worked their way back into the morning’s consciousness: the pounding feet of children, the quarrels of adults, the baying of animals, the distant thud of metal tools against compacted soil. She wound her way through the cluster of low mud-brick houses, taking her time. The city grew increasingly animated around her. The potters were up and about, with their glazed ceramic wares on display: black glazed jars, adorned with all manner of abstract patterns, and the occasional stylized animal form. Men with muddy feet brought creaking baskets of shellfish into town on their shoulders. Sheep, goats and dogs darted between the legs of their human masters.
Ul ignored them all and walked her trail, as she did every morning. She knew every dip and twist of the path that skirted the wheat and worked its way to the top of the hill of broken rock.
She reached the base of the hill, where a delta of yellow dust spilled out of the rock and mingled with the richer brown soil of the plain. Flicking her sandals on, she ascended to the summit and stared, for a moment, out at the rumpled green-grey valleys, and the dull mountains of sand beyond.
Ul smiled with expectation. She knew that she would be visible from the fields here, with her back to the village, cut out in hard relief against the fragile blue. She knew he would see her and ache for her, and that he would come. He always did.
Amongst the grunts and metal sounds from the field, Ul picked out a break in the rhythm. Her smile broadened. The Gods were pleased, indeed. She walked to the shady side of the hill, out of sight of the village, and closed her eyes as she waited.
Scuff-sounds came from the trail behind her. Ul didn’t need her eyes to know that it was Aran who approached. She sensed the pause in his stride, the uncertain stirring of gravel as he picked her out and came down. Ul felt the hot, sliding embrace, and leaned back as he melded himself to her. He grunted softly and settled his chin into the kink between her neck and shoulder. She gave herself to the moment, letting the tide of sensations break and wash over her. The hot smell of his body enveloping her. The sweat-slicked hairs on his forearm brushing against her skin. The frantic thump-thump of his heartbeat against her back, slowly settling into a placid rhythm.
“I should go back,” Aran said, breaking the moment. “But I want to stay with you.”
Ul peeled herself out of his embrace and turned to face him. There was something so incredibly honest, so exposed about the look in his grey eyes that made her want to cry and smile at the same time.
Aran felt the power in the look that she gave him. His work-weary muscles tingled with new fire, and he tugged her back to him. No word had yet been invented that could do justice to her beauty, or how he felt in her presence. She could but look at him or smile at him, and he would feel empowered and helpless in the same instant. The flowing black hair, the clear, soft lines of her face, the curve of her lower back, the grace of her walk… these things enthralled him. But her eyes were something else. Green like the waters of the Gulf, yet so much more intense. They were the focal point of his world.

Aran and his people were special. They had powers that were perceived as being magical to the tribes living to the north and east. Aran’s people could touch each other, animals, the world, the elements, in a way that went beyond the physical. Outsiders found these gifts unsettling, impossible to comprehend. Aran saw them as a natural reward for a people who had dedicated their lives so completely to the service of the Sky Gods. He also knew in his heart that, in a few months time, his people would suffer an invasion by the jealous, hateful outsiders who occupied the opposite side of their river valley. Aran and his people were strong, yes. But they were so few in number…
Ul was in a completely different spectrum to Aran. He had caught glimpses of something hidden behind those Gulf-green eyes, something far and above his own meagre abilities. She saw and heard things that no-one else did. But she was also naïve. Aran feared deeply for what would become of her, when the dark times descended.

“What’s wrong?” She whispered, cutting into his inner bubble of thought.
“Nothing,” Aran said, but he knew she had detected some of his doubt. He let his hands wander over her lower body, and he sighed. “I am completely in awe of you.”
She laughed, and he felt suddenly foolish. The words had sounded so blunt and awkward when he voiced them. They were better left unspoken in his head, where she could read them in their pure form.
Ul ran a circle around his mouth with her finger, stopping to flick playfully at his upper lip. “Run away with me, Aran.”
She watched as the acid look of panic etched itself into his face. “Ul, I’m needed in the fields all day. And your mother won’t like me if I go off with you again.”
She tried to smooth his crinkled expression with the palm of her hand. “Don’t worry about that. My mother doesn’t like you anyway.”
He started to protest again, but she muffled him with a kiss. Then she drew back, and regarded him with a playful glance. “I’m sorry. You were about to say?”
Aran cast his gaze out to the horizon, and back to Ul. He felt his limbs slacken, and the inner glow he had felt all morning expanded to fill his mind and body. It was impossible to resist her. Ul perceived the change in him, and she rewarded him with a smile that melted all his doubts away.

Hand in hand, they left the smelly knot of humanity behind, and strode out into the untamed world. “I have enough water for both of us,“ she said, when they had reached the first smatterings of sand. Aran noticed the bulging skins dangling from her waist. It was in that instant that he realised just how completely dependant he was on her. It was as if his cone of vision had steadily narrowed since the day of their meeting all those months ago, and now he had eyes for her alone. A look from her told him that she felt the same, and his inner glow was set alight in an explosion of triumphant joy.
Totally absorbed in one another, they journeyed across rivers of sand that fed into rocky gullies, past immense gravel pans and salt flats, and into the deeper red wild of the desert.
After a time, Ul and Aran stood at the summit of a colossal, ribbed mountain of red sand. Looking back, they could see only a vague shimmering that might indicate the mighty Euphrates river, away in the distance. “We’ve come so far,” Ul breathed. “I had no idea.”
She closed her eyes and directed her face at the sun. The light turned her eyelids translucent. It was like being in a red cocoon. She saw a shadow soften the brightness, and felt Aran‘s mouth over hers. In an upheaval of passion, his consciousness fused with hers, and she felt his delight as he found all the warmth and wonder inside her.

Blind in their rapture, Aran and Ul failed to notice the setting of the sun. Entwined, they were lulled to sleep by the murmuring of the dunes…

Ul awoke and reached for him, but the depression he had made in the sand beside her was empty. “What is it?” Ul said, rising lightly to her feet. Aran was staring out at the endless march of sand. “I don’t like the way the sky looks today.”
She touched his hand and looked. The Euphrates was invisible now, and all the land they had travelled across was lost behind a shroud of dirty orange. It was like a wall, extending kilometres into the sky in every direction. Ul had to strain her neck to see the tiny disc of unspoilt blue that still existed in the centre. Ul stood still and extended her awareness into the folds of the land. The air felt charged today, expectant somehow… She frowned. She didn’t have to extend into Aran to know that he felt it as well. “We should go back,” she said. Seizing her hand, Aran slipped and skidded down the face of the mountain. When they reached level ground, they found themselves in a canyon between two more of the monolithic dunes. Ul felt a touch of the surreal. She had no memory of coming this way at all. The winds came. They saw coils of sand tear away from the bluffs to either side, and the sky fill with howling ribbons against a burnt haze of finer dust.
Ul kneeled, and Aran clamped his arms around her, sheltering her with his broad back. They stayed that way for a long time, unable to speak or to see, lashed by demonic swirls of sand. When the side of the dune to their left suddenly shifted and spilled, Ul was almost taken from him. It was only by the tenacious strength of his right arm that he was able to pull her free of the sand’s sucking motion. She came away making rasping sounds. She had lost her sandals and her water skins. He touched her with a desperate thought; we have to leave. To stay is to die. Bent double into the gale, they stumbled forward. There was no sun to guide them; only the memory of light, a broad supernatural smudge hidden behind the dust clouds. The storm harassed them for a further two days, by the end of which they were both nearing exhaustion. And then the next morning, as suddenly as the winds had come, they abated. Aran extended his consciousness far into the direction they were travelling, and despaired. He saw nothing but dunes, hundreds of metres tall, and soaring temperatures, as far as his mind could reach. They had come too far south. Taking Ul’s wrist, he steered them East. If they went far enough in that direction they would meet the Euphrates where it emptied into the Gulf; water, life. The sun beat down. They crested dune after dune, finding nothing on the other side but heat-wrinkled air and another sandy slope. Aran became fearful that Ul was reaching the limit of her endurance. She stopped speaking, her mouth hung open, her feet dug deep into the sand. “Not far now,“ he kept saying. Another day rose and fell. The shadows between the dunes reached out and touched one another. At dusk, Ul sagged to a sitting position and did not move. Aran touched her with his mind and body, but he could find no way to stimulate her. “Ul, we can’t stay here another night. We need to find water.” Ul’s green eyes seemed drained of their vitality. She tried to take his arm and get to her feet, but failed and fell back. “Thirsty, Aran… so thirsty. I can’t go on.” There was nothing else for it, so he scooped her into his arms and stumbled onward. He carried her for hours, even though his feet kept tripping him in the sand and his calves and ankles burned. Finally he was forced to drop her on the concave side of a dune. “I’m sorry, my love. I don’t have the strength.” He dragged in breaths, but his lungs seemed unable to replenish him. His hand sagged to her breast. “Ul?”
She was no longer breathing. “No, Ul,” he panted. “We’re nearly there. I can smell salt on the air. Wake up!” He reached into her consciousness, and was startled by the enormity of the void he found there. The tide of her pulse was dim and dry, her heart was shrunken. She was barely alive. Shaken, he recoiled. He gripped her by the shoulders and shook. Her beautiful raven hair mingled with the grains. A wheezing moan issued from her throat, and Aran silently thanked the sky gods. “Ul.”
“Thirsty,” she whimpered, in a voice like a child’s. “Aran… I need water…”
Reaching out with his powers again, he felt her slip further. In desperation, Aran spat into his hand and tipped the contents into her mouth. But it was a pitiful trickle; his mouth and throat were as dry as baked clay. “I’m so sorry, Ul,” he sobbed, stroking her brow. “I have no water left.” Please, don’t let her die, he begged the sky. Aran clawed at the things he had left scattered in the sand when he dropped her. A shell she had given him, now long dried out in the sun. A chain of beads she had worn around her wrist. A tiny flint knife.
He scooped up the sharp little thing, and, driven by the logic of panic, slashed its point across the tip of his finger. Holding the cut over her mouth, he waited for the bulge of liquid to separate, and drop between her flaking lips. “This is all I can give you.”
Her saw the muscles in her neck spasm, and then relax. “Ul, please.” He jabbed the flint deeper into his finger and turned it, opening the network of capillaries. The wound bled more freely now. Drip-drip, drip-drip. The drops landed around her mouth and on her tongue.
She made a gagging noise, then swallowed with a gulp. He felt her pulse awaken with a bang. “More,” she wheezed.
“Yes, my love.” Aran lowered his finger into her mouth, and let her suck the moisture that leaked from him. But her heartbeat was dangerously erratic. It still wasn’t enough. “Hold on.” Taking the flint again, he raised it to a place he thought would have more freely flowing blood. Ignoring his own pain, he jammed the point into the back of his neck, and dragged it through the flesh, around to his collarbone. The warmth of life swelled and trickled across the curvature of his chest and fell, darkening the ground. Ul moaned. Aran gently took her beneath the arms and raised her. She curled her arms around him for support, and her searching tongue found the dark river of his life force. She tracked the flow up over his bare chest, across the plane of his shoulder, and back to the great welling source of moisture at the base of his neck. He clamped her tightly to him as she drank, reassuring her as she made plaintive sobbing sounds. “More,” she moaned.
“It’s alright,” Aran whispered into her ear. “Take all that you need from me. I have enough strength for both of us.”
Something screamed inside Ul, a voice that said, “stop! You’re taking too much!” But she swallowed hungrily, unable to stop. The thirst was just so terrible! Her teeth collapsed into his flesh, widening the cut. She drained and drained. Aran’s grey eyes closed to the world. He lay down on the dune, pulling her with him in a tight embrace, his hand rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s alright. Take all you need…”
She tried to pull her lips away from his wound, but the gulf inside her screamed with a shrill wind that begged to be filled. And still she drank. She drank until his heartbeat softened, ebbed, and vanished. With a final sigh, she felt him slip into the unrecoverable sleep. And yet she continued drinking. When there was little or no warmth left in his body, she pulled away. There was a smile on his lips, as if he were in the middle of uttering a word of reassurance. “Aran,” she cried. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” She tried to reach into his consciousness, but there was a wall there now that she could never surmount. He was gone.

Puzzlement and denial carried her through half the night. She whispered to him, stroked his cooling skin, reached for his unresponsive mind.
Anger saw the moon caramelise and melt into the desert sands. She thrashed and screamed, blasting the dunes with gusts of dark emotive energy.
Grief, given voice by dry, raking sobs, lasted until the grey light of early dawn.
“Aran…” With the last of her power, she buried him in the dune. The sands tumbled and collapsed over his body, taking him to a cool place away from the ravaging sun. His face sunk below the rippling sand. His eyes were closed… those beautiful grey eyes that would never again dazzle her, admire her, or share a knowing glance with her…gone…

With Aran‘s lifeblood inside her, Ul had enough strength to walk out of the desert. She came back to the fertile river valley, taking shuddering steps. She almost walked right into the sea, as if she expected to continue walking forever. But the villagers took her and nursed her. She spent days in a delirium. She complained of a terrible thirst, but she would take no water. And yet she survived. In time, she would take food and drink, and her belly would swell with Aran’s child. The fever passed. The thirst remained. It became so great, so all-encompassing, that it engraved itself into the fibre of her being. It was a legacy that would affect Aran and Ul’s child, and all of their descendants through the ages. Ul would never speak again. Giving birth would be her final act. The sun had set on Ul and her people. But for the child, a tiny, delicate thing with terrible potency in her grey stare, it was only the dawn.

© Andrew Proverbs 2009

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Tags:

beginning, dawn, love, thirst and vampire