So, first off: Happy Birthday MJS! We miss you! And love you! And your beautiful, gracious, thoughtful wife, who in turn gave me a gift by asking me to give you one. I hope you enjoy your book. Secondly, I'm too heartbroken to explain Tel Asmar; just google "Tel Asmar UChicago dig house" and you'll understand- it's gone. My pain is nothing to the families of the dead who have lost infinitely more than that thanks to a reckless war of lies and greed.

Seeing as how Corrente is now a High Literary Society, I thought I should contribute something. The background on this short fiction is this: it's "historical" in feel and tone, but in no way up to the scholarly standards of my past. I feel badly I'm fuddling some historical and philological fact for the sake of fiction, so to my Assyriology friends: take it easy on a sister, yo? Also, due to a mix-up on the due date, I wrote this in exactly one morning and gave it all of one look-thru before publishing it for MJS' gift. So forgive the slightly choppy and unfinished element to it, it's essentially a first-draft. Someday, I may go back and clean it up and turn it into a long book; I've been sitting on a larger story of which this is part for some time. Anyway, here you go, Birhtday Boy and Gentle Readers.

"The Ashes of the House of Ur"
I

The tall brute looked and sounded exactly like his name implied; son of the war goddess indeed. Hulking over Ibrahim’s second wagon like a trained ape at the temple fair, he could hardly articulate the goods of passage, let alone write them. Lucky for him, a clever palace scribe was there to cover his ass and get the job done.

“Twelve woven blankets,” the brute slurred.
“Actually, your honor, “ said Ibrahim. “That’s ten. The other two are for the flooring.” He tried his best to look unconcerned, but the high ranking palace scribe's presence implied that the political scene was as dangerous for him as ever, perhaps more so. “That looks like more than ten to me,” the hulking mass of a beer-guzzling Akkadian said. “Are you saying I can’t count?” His muscular concern mirrored the urgency with which his scribe sought to insert herself into the conversation. Ibrahim took advantage of this.

“Lady Lali,” he said to the skinny scribe and using her nickname, which was known to him because they shared the same blood of the old families. “What say you of these blankets?” His deep, liquid eyes pleaded with her. He knew she knew all he wanted to do was leave; to escape the increasing burdens of all merchants of the Old Blood in a crumbling empire. To take his family, herds and goods to a new land; one long since abandoned by the ancient people of the sea, where the hills where green, and lightly populated by wild flocks or predators. The rumors of the place had spread in the last famine, when the empire had failed to provide for the people. Ibrahim had spoken out against the temples and their increasingly anti-traditionalist leadership then. He had paid for it ever since.

Lali looked at the small herds and poor-quarter quality of Ibrahim’s carts. Another reject of the new order, refugees taking flight, she thought. They were so common these days, what with the empire restricting its support to the “loyal families” and all. Sad, she thought. In the old days, merchant princes like Ibrahim would’ve been invited to compete for choice temple bids, their herds culled for the finest representatives for use at the city festivals and temple competitions. But no longer; the young prince was woefully easy to sway, and mostly a fool. His advisors had convinced him that a “loyalty” purge was long since due, and that the gods demanded it.

“Geb,” she called to her co-worker. “I’ve got to get some beer, and take a piss. It’s too fucking hot for this shit.” It was true, the midday was nigh, and they’d been processing passers at the gate for six hours. Some beer and dates, and an indoor break, were long overdue. Read more…