Aya's Reach - Harriet Lynn (recommended ebook reader TXT) 📗

Prologue

Approximately 2000 BCE

 

Aya, the goddess of dawn danced through the sky. Aya, the goddess of youth, taunted the sun. With her naked skin, wrapped in the clouds, the sun followed her. It chased her through the sky every morning, attempting to catch the goddess.

 

But Aya was fast and swift, and she would never get caught.

 

In one last spin, the sun was up and she was free of her duty. She turned, ready to make her way back to the heavens, when she caught sight of a dazzling flame in the sky.

 

A chariot of fire, thundered toward her through the sky. Three lions drew the chariot, each mane it’s own blinding sun. Upon the chariot sat a driver, a small man, and behind him sat a god, blinding as the midday sun.

 

The sky had been Aya’s domain, and now she ran from it as the chariot gave chase.

 

Through the sky they ran, and the sun followed, until at last the sun set and Aya was free. But the god in the chariot maintain the chase, and the restless sun rose again, and with the dawn came her duty.

 

Aya danced through the clouds, and without her consent the chariot was upon her. The lions panting their exhaustion and the sun god smiling.

 

“I am Samas, the god of the sun and truth, overseer of the day,” he climbed from the chariot and drew her to him. Once firmly in his grasp, he drew her into the chariot to the place of honour beside him.

 

“And I am Aya, goddess of the dawn and youth,” she spoke with awe, the god’s divinity shining stronger than she had seen before. “But I am afraid I am the goddess of these parts, you I have never seen before.”

 

Samas laughed in mirth. “The Sumerian people have chosen new gods. My family have taken the heavens as their home.”

 

“But what of my family? What of the dawn?” Aya cried in horror. “The sun does not travel through the skies unless it rises!”

 

Samas held her hand beneath his own, trapping her to his side. “The people have already chosen. Are we not enslaved by them? But you are correct, there is no sun without the dawn and so I have need of you.”

 

Aya could feel her powers drain, gone was the energy to dance, her ability to entice the sun from his sleep. Aya was only held to the chariot by Samas’s hand.

 

“You will be my consort, the goddess of dawn, youth, and sexual enticement. You will be worshiped in my temples as a goddess of new and we will forever worshipped.”

 

As Aya gained her new powers, as the people of the land prayed tenfold to her, she made love with her new consort during night. Every morning she rose from her bed, danced through the sky as her consort watched, and then travelled to the heavens to befriend her new family.

 

As centuries passed, Aya learned her new role as the consort of the sun. She was no longer acknowledged for rousing the sun, no longer an image of innocent youth.

 

Samas gained power, prayed to as lord of the sun, and he shared with her his energy when she was too weak to rise.

 

The only blessings she received herself was on the New Year. Hasadu was a ceremony practiced by the High Priestess and King of the year. The palace had a single room set aside, with a bed fit for the gods as its only feature. For a day the High Priestess and Her King would be there confined, with the statue of Samas and Aya as blessings.

 

In corporeal form, Samas and Aya would join the two, ensuring the sun would rise and the blessings of the gods for the year to come. Aya, as Samas pleased himself with the two lovers, would watch over the day, feeding from Samas’s worshipers and protecting the High Priestess from the seed of either of her two lovers for that night.

 

Samas, god of truth, remained monogamous with his consort, but his inability to impregnate his youthful wife left him unsure of their union.

 

Aya, always fearful of the new gods who had so easily over thrown her family, travelled each day after raising the sun, to visit Samas’s sister, the goddess of the underworld, Ereshkigal.

 

Ereshkigal, a wife of the plague god Nergal and Gugalana, the bull of heaven. Ereshkigal, skilful with poisons, gave Aya a broth that would ensure no foetus took root. The broth would not always work, she was warned, and Ereshkigal took such drink every day but still birthed three children.

 

Nungal, her first daughter, was a goddess of the underworld who carried out judgement. Her son with Enlil, Namtar, was the god of death and disease. Her son with Gugalana, Ninazu, was a god of the underworld and healing.

 

Ereshkigal warned Aya that although she feared children, and some, such as Nungal and Namtar, she might regret, a child may bring her happiness, such as Ninazu would bring her joy.

 

Aya took her advice, and when Samas became desperate and Ereshkigal more joyful, Aya began to sway. A child could be a blessing.

 

She travelled to the underworld to tell her step-sister of her hope when she heard of Gugalana’s death. Ereshkigal’s first husband, the bull of heaven had been sent to kill a demigod and had been gutted instead.

 

Aya had stood by Ereshkigal as the goddess had sat beside the bull, running her hands through his coarse fur and along his horns in sorrow. Ereshkigal’s love was gone, and with it went her generosity to Aya.

 

Ereshkigal named Namtar her favourite son, cursed her own sister to the underworld and plague.

 

Aya left the underworld, to be with her husband, even without the poisons she never took the seed her husband blessed her with every night.

 

Chapter One

Approximately 2000CE

 

“How about Maya?” Aya asked Samas. “And you can be Samuel? I think they sound similar. And they’re common.”

 

Her husband lay naked on their bed, reading something that Bunene had arrive with at dusk. Aya had only a few minutes before she would have to bring in the dawn, but for the first time Aya felt she was too busy.

 

Anu had made the gods agree to limit their interference in the human’s world but yesterday the law had been rescinded. Humans had stopped their worship now, and the world was deteriorating.

 

Samas rolled to face his wife. “Where did you learn that?”

 

Aya laughed. “While the overseer of the day has forgotten what his ears are for, I have listened to what the dawn hears. Never has a day gone by where I do not hear something new and fantastic.” Aya spun around, flinging her arms wide and letting her silken blonde hair fall to her waist.

 

Samas smiled at his consort’s antics. She was ready to entice the sun, the dance already flowing into her, just as he was ready to chase his lover through the skies so that they may have the night together.

 

Her flawless golden skin glowed, her naked body shimmering as it faded from corporeal into the dawn light. And then she was gone, leaving the room dark and empty.

 

Samas rose to his feet, pulling his toga from where he had last left it and shrugging it on.

 

“Come, Nasaru, Sarrum, and Narum,” Samas called out as he walked from the chambers.

 

Behind him followed the yawning growl of Sarrum, the largest of the lions. The heavy thud of the male as he followed Samas into the gardens. The two smaller of his lions followed after.

 

It took Samas little effort to harness his lions to the chariot; the light each emitted allowing him to easily latch them together.

 

Through the gates of their heavenly home, Samas could make out the sun rising. His consort, a rainbow of dancing light, tempted the sun. She was sensual and innocent all at the same time. Begging for the sun to advance on her while at the same time calling out for someone to protect her.

 

Samas was her husband but also the sun. As the sun he would follow her through the sky, always wanting but as her husband he would protect her. He was always scared of accidently stepping over the line and scaring his consort away. Beautiful Aya could not survive without him, not in the heavens and not on the mortal earth.

 

Despite her taunting, she knew he had listened as closely as she had. She knew it was impossible for him to not have. And that was one of the reasons why Anu had chosen them to travel to earth. Of the three thousand gods who still called lived under Anu’s rule, only twenty had been granted permission to test the waters of earth.

 

Samas and Aya had been one of the first chosen. Then there was Enki, the god of wisdom, who had managed to persuade his father to grant him this boon. Samas had a hard time understanding how the troublemaker had been let in. Dumuzi and Inanna had they been granted a place, as they had often lived in the company of humans. Ninurta had argued his way in, as a god of both war and agriculture he had persuaded Anu of the knowledge he could use on Earth. Anu had yet to decide the rest of the gods who would travel to Earth but Samas assumed they would be the minor gods.

 

When Aya’s dance was almost at its end, Samas sat in his seat, allowing his chariot driver and advisor, Bunene to snap the reins. They followed the trail of Aya until, at last, they reached the sun, by which point Aya was already gone. Samas settle into his task, his power drawing the sun on with sheer strength and overseeing the humans below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 Aya, now Maya, had woken this morning before the sun rose. While Samas lay asleep in bed, she had waited warily for the sun. Never had she watched the sun rise from such a view. She held her breath until the first rays of sunlight broke across the sky.

 

She smiled.

 

They had all arrived on the continent of North America, where Anu had claimed the greatest powers were most likely concentrated. But beyond that, they had little idea were they were.

 

Her, Samas, Ninurta and Enki had arrived together, just outside of a small town called Lame Deer. The rest of the twenty,