The Sun Gods Woman Read online

  Merlin didn’t deign to respond.

  “I’ll have some things to say to you when I get sorted out, don’t think that I won’t,” promised Kyle, turning away.

  Mark Everton returned, and within moments Kyle and Annie were covered and being ushered out to resume their lives in their own time.

  “So. You two, you’re a couple, huh? That’s a surprise.” Everton awkwardly attempted jovial social interaction. “How long have you been married?”

  Kyle and Annie shared a speaking glance. Or at least what Annie imagined a speaking glance should be.

  “Oh, sometimes it feels like thousands of years,” she laughed.

  “I hear you,” agreed Everton, blissfully ignorant of the reality.

  Kyle grinned at Annie and politely ushered her before him to the door. But before he left, Kyle spared a backward glance at Merlin.

  “Thank you,” he mouthed.

  They left the lab.

  They all missed the soft light that glowed on the large monitor and the words that appeared in an old-fashioned font…

  “YOU’RE WELCOME, DOCTOR PENDRAKE.”

  Epilogue

  Four thousand years before…

  The storm was one of the strongest she could remember, and although it would aid her escape from her mother’s prison in Akkad, it was still scaring the wits out of the girl running beside the river.

  Her breath was rasping through her lungs, and her heart was lodged somewhere in the back of her mouth as she wove through patches of reeds and splashed in and out of the river’s edge.

  She was afraid someone had noticed that her bed was empty. That the latest tool in her mother’s quest for power and land had fled. She was afraid that her mother might send her guards to hunt her down, and she’d heard tales of what happened to their captives.

  Her ankle burned and her muscles screamed at her to stop, yet still she kept on, running south, always south, toward Sumer.

  Toward freedom.

  Clasped in her hand was the only thing she knew was hers and hers alone. The only thing her brother had left her. It was a necklace, but she didn’t dare wear it. If she did, it might break or her mother would certainly have taken it. It had been well hidden for three years and it was hers by right and by love.

  It was an unusual design, just an eye shedding a single tear. But it was all she owned, all she had to remember her brother by. And if she didn’t escape she wouldn’t have that either.

  A huge flash of lightning pointed the way to the town below her. It was Kushuk and there seemed to be lights everywhere, glittering, sparking and challenging the lightning in their brilliance.

  A mighty thunderclap deafened her and she clapped her hands to her ears as a burst of incredible brilliance from the town temporarily robbed her of her sight. Too late she realized how close she was to the riverbank. Her balance failed her and she went in.

  The rushing waters, swollen by the rains from the hills to the north, swept her along, refusing to allow her feet to scrabble through the riverbed for a foothold.

  Sighing, she let the river take her, whether to her death or her destiny she didn’t know.

  The necklace, however, remained clasped tightly in her hand. It was her past, her wealth, her only possession. It could well have been described as her very soul…

  And although this marks the beginning of a different story, it is also an ending, in a way. A magical necklace has found a new home. If you’d like to read what happens next, look for “Visions”, part of an anthology titled “Mystic Visions”, coming in March , 2003.

  Also by Sahara Kelly at Ellora's Cave