Twilight Fulfilled by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page B

in his arms the night before. Just as he had against her brother. And he wondered if it mattered, given that he was going to kill them both in order to fulfill the dictates of the gods. And yet he felt in his soul that what he had done was wrong. And he wondered if Brigit had yet discovered his crime.
    The notion made him uncomfortable with guilt. She had hated him already. She would hate him more once she knew—if there were more hatred in her. And even as he acknowledged that, he remembered the way it had felt to hold her while she slept. The weight of her head upon his chest, and the warm whisper of her breaths against his skin. The scent of her.
    An odd yearning seemed to open like a gaping hole in his chest, longing to be filled once again with her presence. Her nearness.
    He put a stop to his thoughts. The feeling was doing him little good, and moreover, it was distracting him from an opportunity to speak to the gods from a place nearer to them than he had ever been before.
    Easing himself from his seat, Utana faced the small row of windows and dropped to his knees, shifting several times before finding any comfort at all in the strange garments he now wore. Mankind had made many advancements since his time. “Pants,” however, were not among them.
    Bowing his head, he closed his eyes and spoke in his own tongue, that the gods might understand him better. He hoped they would recognize him in this strange land, wearing this foreign garb.
    â€œAncient and Mighty Ones,” he said in the ancient tongue of his ancestors. “The Seven Who Decree the Fates. Enlil of the Sky, Anu of the Heavens, Enki of the Great Abyss, Nanna of the Moon, Inanna his daughter and Queen of the Gods, Ninmah the Lady of Earth and Mountains, Utu of the Fiery Sun. Gods of old, I call upon you now. It is I, Utanapishtim, whom you first knew as Ziasudra, your loyal priest and servant, the Flood Survivor, the Immortal One. Yes, it is I.”
    He paused, waiting in silence, giving them time to recognize him, to remember. Until the past few days, it had been a very long time since he’d prayed.
    When he thought enough time had passed, he dared to open his eyes and stared out the portholes before him, almost expecting to see them staring back at him. But he saw only clouds and blue sky.
    Again he bowed his head, closed his eyes. “Mighty Ones, I beg your forgiveness for my sins. Long have I suffered your wrath, but now my suffering is compounded anew. I beg of you, set for me some other task of repentance. Remove from me the burden of this path I walk upon. Do not forceme to murder the children of my soul. The golden one, in particular, the beautiful Brigit, who is like the sun to me. Surely she is blessed by Utu, to shine as she does, and by Inanna, to fight so fiercely and possess so much passion. Surely you cannot wish for me to destroy a being of such splendor, such fire. For to do so would be a sin against life itself. Please, send me a sign. Please, ask of me anything else. Anything but this.”
    The man, Nashmun, emerged from beyond a small door near the bill of the great bird. “I’m sorry to interrupt. We’ll be landing soon. You should sit, my king, in order to be safe.”
    Utana did not lift his head, for to reveal the tears that stained his cheeks would be to show far more weakness than he would ever reveal to another male. Instead he only nodded and returned to his seat, relieved that they had not traveled so far as he had feared they might, for only a very short time had passed since they had left the earth behind.
    Nashmun took his spot beside Utana, retrieving, before he sat, a small black box that he had left upon the seat. Yet another of this time’s amazing electronic devices. This one had buttons and a small glowing red light. Nashmun pressed one of the buttons, and the light went out. Then he dropped the device into his coat pocket. “You should buckle your seat belt, Utana. Just as