They never intended to interefere with human society.
They never intended to teach them advanced technology.
They never intended to breed with the human specie.
They never intended to rule as gods.
So much for good intentions...
The Neph'lim have come to stay.
Chapter 5 Excerpt
(Enan, a Neph'lim governor, has recently crash-landed in Eridu and is placed under the care of a local priest, who considers him one of the gods. A slave girl is attending to his needs.)
A cool, gentle hand smoothed the hair from his forehead, wrenching Enan from his wild and disturbing dreams. He felt chilled to the bone, barely aware of the stifling heat radiating from the strange yellows, reds and oranges dancing in the center of the room. It seemed more hallucination than real.
He peered into the dimness through glazed eyes. Beautiful large eyes stared back at him, and then dropped.
"Ahi’ra?" he moaned, putting a hand to his head, feeling confused and disoriented, vaguely aware of his surroundings but unable to comprehend any of it. None of it looked familiar.
He weakly grasped the unexpectedly rough-textured fingers caressing his face, and laid his lips lovingly upon them. Losing Ahi’ra had been a nightmare, he reassured himself; nothing more than a disturbed dream.
The hand pulled back, and, being too weak to resist, his own hand feebly flopped down on his chest. In the haziness of the room, with nothing but his fevered wishes in clear view, she tucked his arm under the warm woolen covers. As he snuggled under the strange smelling cloth, a thickly accented voice murmured reassuring words as though from far away.
"Shhh, quiet. Sleep now. Fever demon in you."
He tried to focus; he tried to think, knowing, deep down, that it couldn’t possibly be Ahi’ra, but refusing to accept it wasn’t.
"Say sacred words. Capture demon in here, then you be better."
As his hand stupidly, obediently, clenched around the clay blob, she laid a damp cloth against his hot lips, wringing some of the water into his mouth, and murmuring, "Good. Good. Drink."
A strand from her braided coal black hair fell forward and lay against his cheek. It felt like silk and smelled of thyme.
"Feign! Who …?" he croaked. This woman wasn’t Ahi’ra and he wasn’t on the Pavilion. Closing his eyes, he faded away.
Chavah stared at his flushed face, so unlike her own or the Saggiga. Most men his age wore beards or at least had facial stubble, but there was no sign of either. His brown hair was straight, and his face long and angular, unlike her own. She reached out and caressed it curiously. No jewelry adorned his ears or hung around his neck. His coppery skin was hairless, soft, and flawless, unlike her own. Then there was his height. At least two feet taller than anyone in town. No wonder such men inspired fear and worship. In every way, he was an imposing figure. In every way, a dingir.
Four dingir-a-ne-ne lived in the gipar for the past moon, but she had made a point of avoiding them. As kitchen chef, that wasn’t too hard until Alulim demanded an audience with her under the pretense of complementing one of her vegetable stews.
In reality, he just wanted to look her over. Assess her skills for an entirely different task: caring for a newly fallen dingir. Japeth was given responsibility for the kitchen. A sorry choice, in Chavah’s mind, though she didn’t dare say it. She was to be the newcomer’s healer. He was already in her hut and his wound tended, but henceforth, he would be her responsibility.
