The Ancients and the Angels: Celestials

by M.C. O'Neill

  ***

  In an abandoned ruin of the Sea and Shell Trading Company, Minn’dre Harvatt’s body cried in frustrated sorrow as the devil in her was crushed. Never before had his anger almost split his possession at the seams. The elfmaid’s eyes were not dripping tears, but her blood. The dark lord’s only company was a cherrywood sculpture of a giant squid that hung from what was left of the ceiling. How such a feeble construction managed to stand unmolested in a war zone would have baffled any mortal investigator, but Lucifer could have cared less.

  “WHY!” he screamed at it as if it could answer him in some strange colorspeech. “I had ALL my eggs in the basket, but my forces are FOOLS!”

  Her bloodied eyes were wild and mad. She looked around for her exit and it came to her in the form of some costume rope which the establishment had used to accentuate their nautical theme. Cinching it, he figured that it would hold her emaciated frame.

  “I want out of this slag’s body! I want to go home!” she slumped to her knees as the sobs heaved her entire form. Minn’dre’s body cried, as did Lucifer’s black soul.

  Tying the noose was easy, and Lucifer took the time to curse every one of his cohorts who were either foul swindlers or just plain stupid. Hell was going to get a lot darker when he came back home, he gnashed her teeth until her incisors chipped.

  A perfect loop was awaiting the unwary maiden’s neck. Lucifer slung the thirsty hemp over the faux tentacles of the giant mollusk for the final swing.

  “ARE YOU LAUGHING NOW, UI?” his bellow shook the quiet ruins. The squid failed to react to the outburst and continued to gloat in its simple joy at the elfmaid with its dead, glass eyes. “Here! Have another…eh?”

  A new scent never to hit his senses on the earth did so from the northeast. Far away, deep in an icy nowhere, it sung to Minn’dre’s nose. It was the smell of raw power and Lucifer took another look at his fibrous escape vehicle and began to laugh. Perhaps Mammon wasn’t all that useless, he considered. Debt paid in full.

  “Black mana, Ui,” he purred a challenge under her breath. The punishment to his failure of a throng would have to wait for a while. “YOU SHUT UP!”

  “I’m still in business...”

  We’ll Cruise at Hyperspeed

  The world over celebrated their shared victories against the infernals. Such festivities were short and almost functional as reconstruction needed to get underway as soon as the communities of the earth could muster the effort. At these makeshift ceremonies, pomp and circumstance were not the order of that day. After the cheers had died down and the working days had again begun, some provinces had excelled at rebuilding while others languished and never quite got back to normal; almost like a champion runner who broke his or her leg at some point and could no longer go the distance.

  Corosa City had sustained such grievous damage. The behemoths had made a mess of the place and the collateral destruction of the counterassault only added to the debris. As expected, the Royal Palace needed a new structure, but her mighty foundation remained intact. On the fifth of Tenthmoon, elfdom, from then on, would celebrate E-Day, or Eviction Day; the day when the last infernal was cast off the face of the planet as well as the mortals’ very dimension.

  The angelics left with the pyramids by the same speed in which they had arrived. Once every one of the arks (save the Royal Duck) was cleansed of infernals and their captives freed, the hulks had disappeared from the horizon in silence and without ceremony. Some of the arks had discorporated in haste with their commanders even whilst demonic stragglers still fluttered the skies of the earth. Mavriel was amongst those who left, Quen’die guessed, and he spirited away with no parting message after he had thwarted Puloman in Kumari. He was gone without any notice, and it was as simple as that. That dry fact hung over Quen’die like the black expanse of space rushing above her head.

  As for Quen’die Reyliss, all of her charges regarding the docks’ bombing and her prison escape had been dropped. Seeing as they had been crimes against the enemy, she was exonerated in full; they had never happened. Much to her misfortune, her worldwide-broadcast beating of Venn’lith Mitlan after the fact had not been ignored as that was considered an elf-on-elf crime. Her punishment - one year of assisted labor on Mars.

  Quen’die lounged on the reclined seating of the Bonn’fyr One godswheel. Above her, the cured-glass roof was on transparent mode and she was treated to a criminally-wonderful stellar lightshow. As the Bonn’fyr sped toward Martian orbit, the heavens streaked past over her eyes and she tried to drown out all thoughts in her mind as the scene soaked in her brain. All thoughts but one - Mavriel.

  With every spark, twinkle or glint in the heavens above, she squeezed her retinas in hopes that they held his winged form. He had to be out there somewhere, she pined. In the back of her mind, she knew such hopes were impossible and that his body, to her sorrow, was not the light of any of those stars. He flew amongst the heavens of an altogether different dimension, but in some ways, she loved to torture herself.

  “Good evening, passengers, this is your captain,” the Kumarian voice sang through the obelisk-shaped fuselage. “I trust that your recorporation from attunement was a pleasant experience. If you will look now off to your right, you will see the surface of Mars, and if you look over to your left, you will be treated by his little sisters Phobos and Deimos. Depending on your seating, you may even get a peek at tiny Catharsis. Don’t worry folks, I am an accomplished pilot and I promise you that I won’t crash into any of them.”

  The maiden rolled her eyes at the pilot’s droll humor. Her father, on the other hand, widened his pair to the size of saucers. “I certainly hope he doesn’t crash!”

  Ferd’inn Reyliss was not enjoying the flight. Just in case, he had devoured two sleeves of peanuts before attenuation back at the godsrail. His daughter could see that he was perspiring from his nerves despite the rather cool temperatures of the ship’s climate control. The vehicle was of a posh design and he looked out of place as he hunkered within the lavish cabin.

  During his days in the great battle, Quen’die’s father had been, after some time, relocated from the relatively cushy environment of the Morning Star to a dingy, downtown underground shelter and drafted into the canine division of the ADF. It had been all due to some logistical command error made not long after the captive elves of that ark were released, but it tore him from his friends and family nonetheless. He didn’t mind tending to the wolfhounds and his duties were rather easy on his volatile nerves. At night, however, was when the tensions were at their highest. That was when the demons were most apt to try to infiltrate the bunkers and shelters. Whenever the clock had struck 6:00 p.m., Lord Reyliss would feel his heart sink. He was never certain what night would be the night when his hounds would howl and quiver at the intrusion of a flock of fiends. As his luck would have it, his unit only had detected an attempted breach once during his duties. He never even saw the ADF forces drive the interlopers off as he and his four-legged friends were huddling (and whimpering) in the back of the shelter.

  What really took a toll on the lord’s nerves was his fearing for his family; estranged and otherwise. He knew very well that his wife and son were bunkered in the lap of luxury, but Quen’die was another story. Those angelics demanded so much of her and he wondered if she were up to their lofty expectations. It was so soothing to his system to be reunited with her after Eviction Day.

  “Father!” she exclaimed as she pointed to the northern Martian hemisphere below. “Look way down at the surface! Doesn’t Cydonia kind of look like a big face if you squint your eyes just right? C’mon! Take a peek!”

  Lord Reyliss clutched his stomach at that. “Oh, please, Quen’die, don’t make me look down. My nerves can’t take it! You know I hate heights!”

  “Okay, I’ll knock it off,” she relented as she bounced in her seat in mischievous play.

  He let out a gust of relief. “Thanks. I just wish the captain would turn the walls back on.”

&nb
sp; “Father, did you say that Tam is going to be there already?” she tore her eyes from the galactic panorama above her.

  “This is true,” Ferd’inn intoned. “She and her father will be there. They landed with the advance crew. I thank the gods that Banda convinced Lord Mitlan to let me back on the project. There was no way I was going to sit around a gutted youth hostel and stew for the rest of my life.”

  Colonel Na’rundi had gone through his official military channels to lobby for his old friend. Centeo, of course, was hesitant to give Ferd’inn his former job back, but after some prodding by the top brass of the ADF, the magnate had conceded to the elder gold elf’s wishes. Since Ferd’inn’s daughter had been dubbed a war hero twice over, old Lord Mitlan would have received a healthy dose of public backlash had he not shown a little heart; even if it was true that he had never had much of one. Besides, the mogul supposed, it was a tactic that would prove to keep Ferd’inn separated from his wife.

  Quen’die’s father was, to be honest, eager to leave Earth. He wanted a fresh start and the opportunity to be away from Glynna for a while. Even after the victories of E-Day, she remained unwavering with her feelings regarding her estranged family and Ferd’inn just wanted to give earthly society a break. The only time he would have to be reminded of her existence over the course of the next year would be on a viewscreen and, with the brightest of hopes, someone else would pick up those transmissions.

  Banda and Tam’laa were to supervise Quen’die at the Cydonia site, and the familiarity of good friends would help both Ferd’inn and his daughter with their adjustment to such an alien place. Everything on Mars was different. Oxygen, gravity, temperature and flora and fauna were not of their world. As far as civilization went, one only had the home base and Olympus Mons traffic control to visit. Not much for an elf to do other than work and wait.

  Tam’laa was to personally oversee Quen’die on her assisted work sentence. It was the best deal her legal warden could cut and, to be frank, the grey elfmaid was looking forward to a change of scene along with her father. The best part about it, the maiden considered, was that she wouldn’t have to see Venn’lith Mitlan’s ugly face.

  “Ladies and Lords,” the captain chimed again. “We will prepare for our orbital reentry. Please remain seated for the call to board our landing limmer and await instructions from your new pilot once aboard. Thank you.”

  Venn’lith was dubbed an even bigger celebrity than before and a hero all in one, and this made Quen’die sick. Even though the sun elf had raised not a finger during the grand counter, her revelation of the demons’ true nature the world over had been the message that saved elfdom. Venn’lith’s and Cadreth’s broadcast had gone viral and it was remembered by rote in every language and every nation. Quen’die was a hero of the kingdoms of Atlantis, but Venn’lith was a hero for the entire earth and the maiden had realized after a while that she would just have to suck it up and deal with it.

  “Whoa, Father,” Quen’die teased. “Did I mention? If you hated attenuation, you’ll detest reentry! Why, we could burn-up if something goes wrong!” She couldn’t resist getting the old lord’s goat; it was too easy no matter how annoying.

  “I know, don’t remind me,” he stared straight up through the roof at the belt of the Hunter constellation just so he could focus on a grounding point and stave off the wave of sickness. He turned over to his daughter with a devilish grimace. “But not as much as you’re going to hate assisted labor…”

  Assisted labor detail was the Circle of Law’s juvenile’s answer to the much harsher hard labor reserved for the adult population. The hours were shorter and each convict had a job coach. Quen’die’s assignment was to join a construction crew for the erection of a visitor’s plaza to be built in anticipation of future tourists to the planet. Upon hearing the details of the work, she knew she wasn’t going to like it as the complex was to be a perfect replica of one of those pyramids. Worst of all, it was not only funded by Venn’lith’s mother-robbing father, but it was named after his bestial spawn as well. The Venn’lith Mitlan Temple of Welcome. How horrid, she fumed. Although Quen’die was assigned to a golem team, she would have much preferred to be on a demolitions brigade in that case.

  “Okay, you win.”

  During her trial, Mother was a hostile witness to the maiden, yet the lady didn’t sing much in Venn’lith’s favor either. Quen’die had lamented that her dearest Mavriel or even Commander Uriel were not present to put in a good word, but she had learned over time that meddling with elven affairs was just not the angelic way; unless it was a drastic circumstance. Their lot tended to help those who helped themselves.

  No matter what Quen’die did, Mother would not return to being that person whom she had relied on for the first sixteen years of her life. The elfmaid supposed that her mother just didn’t believe in revisiting older chapters of her life after she had read through them. As far as Glynna was concerned, Venn’lith Mitlan and her foul father had written the maiden’s final entry for her, and she had finished reading Quen’die’s bittersweet story some short time ago.

  The maiden knew very well that once the doldrums of colony life had eaten into her nerves that she would miss Mother and Kaedish like crazy, and the grief and guilt would fire through her like one of those iron miniballs. She feared that day when everything would become routine again and, throughout those days, she’d have the blocks downtime to think about them. Kaedish would, without a doubt, pine over her in between his AYP drills and the good times spent with his new friends (anyone was better than Noopy), but would Mother?

  “Ladies and Lords,” the pilot intruded her thoughts. “We are now in orbit around Mars. This is our cruising altitude as we are circling overland at the ready to approach the lander’s departure threshold. You are free to move about the cabin and an attendant will assist you with directions to the landing limmer. Please remember to return your recliners to their upright positions and check your overhead compartments for any items for carry on. Thank you for flying the Bonn’fyr One and I wish you all a safe landing to Cydonia.”

  As Quen’die hopped out of the recliner, it folded back into itself with an automatic pop. She peered out the side of the panoramic transparency surrounding her and looked down at what was Earth. It was so far away and there really wasn’t anything spectacular about it to the elven eye from that distance. What was most important about that world was that her family was on it and one day she hoped to become a part of them again. That hope seemed about as far flung as her home planet.

  While the little earth glided across the immense glass wrapped before the maiden, a tiny flash of white light pulsed over her unwitting head from a source unknown. Had she been lying down on the recliner mere moments before, she would have caught it alive in the very center of her sights. The earth left the amazing spread before her as if it didn’t want her to see it anymore. As she looked to either of her sides, she realized that she was standing alone with nothing but the gentle ping of the landing limmer’s boarding alarm for company.

  EPILOGUE.

  MARTIAN HOLIDAY