Enraged, the fiend scampered towards the commander, teeth bared and claws extended. Sett hurled his axe at it, burying it into the yetzer’s middle eye. But it kept coming, and then it lunged. Sett dove out of the way, came out of his roll, and dashed back to the slayed Victim Yetzer.
The Grass-is-greener beastie wheeled and charged again. Sett yanked out the Zweihänder sword from the dead Victim Yetzer, and thrust it into the rushing Grass-is-greener’s howling mouth, and into its brain. The creature went rigid, and then it toppled over dead.
Sett whipped around to check on Volk. He saw him slice the head off the Commitment Yetzer with his sapphire-edged katana sword. Strewn on the ground was what remained of the Shallow Yetzer—head, trunk, and one leg cleanly severed.
Sett sniffed at the air. “Gawd they stink.”
The guards were engaged in a full-on shouting match, accusing one another of various improprieties.
“…The hell you weren’t, Roy,” the redheaded lady guard snapped. “Your eyes were glued to her ass.”
“Shut up, would ya Gretchen?” Roy retorted. “Face it, she’s not into you. She doesn’t go that way. Get over it already.”
“Hey, hey,” the other male guard hollered, cutting short his search of the van. He slammed the door shut and stomped towards the quarreling guards. “Would you two grow up?!”
The blond gave up on her search as well and marched over to the others. “Don’t speak to Gretchen that way, Roy,” she said, shoving him in the chest.
“Oh, so you’re—”
“Um, excuse me,” Cyrus said. He pointed at his wrist as if at the time. “We’re already twenty minutes late. Mr. Rosso is going to be extremely upset if we don’t have everything set up in time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said the guard with the mustache, waving Cyrus and Gideon away. “Go on, get out of here.” He returned to the squabble.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Gideon said, “What the hell just happened?”
“I told you not to worry.”
“But how…? What did you do? You said you don’t know any Jedi warrior mind-trick crap.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, I don’t.”
“Then how the—?”
“Dumb luck?”
“I don’t believe in luck and neither do you. You said you’d handle this situation—”
“And it’s handled,” Cyrus said.
“But how did you do it?”
“A trick of the trade. Let’s get out of here before they change their minds.”
“Yeah, well what exactly do you trade in?”
“Emuna.”
17
Show Time
Captain Volk and Commander Sett whirled into sight behind the disgronifying terminal a minute before the arrival of Judges Minos, Busiris, Danaos, and Pelops.
A contingent of cupid soldiers marched up. They pulled behind them an ornate wagon, upon which sat the judges and a statue of Eros. Dressed in their ceremonial uniforms, the cupids blew trumpets, beat drums, and held up Academy banners. The judges wore their finest white silk robes, the hems trimmed with royal purple and gold.
We stood at attention and saluted the judges. Reading the minds of the recruits, I saw that they were having as difficult a time as I was trying not to laugh at the pomposity of it all. It was a good thing that Volk had warned them that what they saw might strike them as spectacularly ridiculous.
Judge Minos stepped off the wagon and held up his hand for silence. He glanced at Sett, signaling him to approach. Sett walked up and bowed.
Minos seemed to have aged considerably since I last saw him. His dark eyes were glazed more than piercing now, and his skin looked like mottled, sunbaked parchment. The pressure over what he was about to do must have worn on him.
Minos leaned on his ivory-handled cane and acknowledged Sett with a nod. “I’ve been trying to contact you for the past twelve hours,” he said angrily. “Why didn’t you answer?”
“I’m sorry, Sir. My team and I were practicing our marching. I accidentally left my communicator in my other uniform.”
Minos looked us over, a queer squint in his eyes. “This is your uniform?” he said, more puzzled than insulted.
“Yes, Sir. They are a replica of the uniforms worn in the old days at the start of the new republic, just after the war,” he lied. “Do you recall?”
“No.”
“Yes, well, we thought it would symbolize our new beginning as it did back then.”
“They are ugly.”
“Really?” Sett said, looking down at his camouflaged outfit. As our uniforms adjusted according to the surroundings, they were currently a chalky bluish-gray pattern. “Would you like us to change?”
“There is no time for that,” Minos said, peeved. “Why didn’t you wear the normal ceremonial uniform like them?” He pointed his cane over his shoulder without turning.
“All the pins and medals are a danger in the disgronifier. Also, as we are bound to be scanned by metal detectors at the Anteros base, they could pose a problem.”
“Fine,” Minos grumbled. “Too late now. Do you have any other surprises that I should know about before we arrive?”
“No, Your Honor. Nothing else that you should know about, no. Shall we proceed to the disgronifiers?”
Minos nodded and signaled with his cane for the other judges to follow. We entered the building and advanced down the corridors to the pod room. All of the engineers and other staff at the disgronifying terminal were dressed in their ceremonial uniforms. They saluted as the judges doddered past.
Two of the guards were the same commandos that I had encountered months earlier when I snuck into the disgronifying terminal in search of Captain Cyrus. They too were dressed in their ceremonial uniforms, their numerous awards and medals pinned to their massive chests and shoulders. I paused.
“Hello, boys,” I said. “Remember me?”
The two titans exchanged stumped looks. “No,” grunted the bigger of the two, a blond beast by the name of Deimos. “Should I?”
“You threatened to kick my skinny ass once.”
The soldier smirked. “Did I? Kick your ass, I mean.”
“No.”
“Did I try?”
“No.”
The commando snorted. “Too bad.”
The other soldier, a brute named Styx, looked me up and down and said, “I remember you. Looks like you took our advice and started doing some pushups.”
“I did, and I’d like to thank you.”
The two soldiers exchanged puzzled looks. Deimos said, “Well, kid, then I suggest you do about a million more, because we can still kick your ass.”
“For your sakes, fellas, I hope you never have to try.” I grinned, saluted them, and continued on my way.
As we proceeded down the hallway I said to Virgil in thought mode, “Virge, are you getting what I’m getting?”
“Half the soldiers here are laughing to themselves. They know we’re not coming back alive.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Anteros loyalists. I had no idea we had so many of them up here.”
Virgil kept his eyes straight ahead. “They have a cache of weapons waiting in a store room down the hall on the right. See that soldier at two o’clock, the one with the blond beard? His name is Menoetius, a real hothead. He just returned from checking that everything was in order.”
I turned my mental attention to the cupid soldier. Private Menoetius wasn’t observing our little parade. Instead, his cold, cobalt-blue eyes were fixed on First Lieutenant Cronus, the officer in charge of the pod room. The Anteros plant was thinking how he looked forward to blowing his commander’s head off with his demon duster.
“All these cupids are goners once the Anteros commandos are brought up,” I said. “I wish there were a way we could warn them to at least give them a fighting chance. I fear they will all be mowed down.”
“I know,” Virgil said lamentingly. “Some of these cupids are friends of mine.”
Captain Volk’s voice chimed in. “There is nothing we can do about it, boys. Focus on the mission at hand, you hear me?”
“Yes, Sir,” Virgil and I replied.
We turned a corner and then filed into the launching room. The pods were already warmed up and ready to go.
The only judge to have ever been inside a disgronifier before was Minos. The others needed some instructions and advice on how to relax and best handle the disgronifying experience. Disgronifier personnel placed nylon sheets like those worn at a barbershop around the judges in case they threw up or had nosebleeds. If they wet or crapped their robes during disgronification, then that was their problem, apparently.
I looked over at Virgil in the next pod and nodded conspiratorially. He slipped me the thumbs up. “It’s show time, Kohai.”
We manifested in the central courtyard of the Anteros compound as scheduled. Judges Danaos and Pelops fainted during disgronification and Sett had to wave smelling salts under their noses.
Hamanaeus and his retinue waited back until the judges had regained their sensibilities before welcoming them. I looked around and noted the suppressed chuckles of the Anteros soldiers that surrounded us. As dictated by the Solow protocols, the soldiers appeared unarmed, and there were no yetzers in sight.
Out of sight, but not out of smell. Their stench reached our sensitive noses, and so we knew that although they were not visible, they weren’t far off either.
Hamanaeus with his trimmed beard, beady black eyes, and slightly pointy ears, wore a dapper blue suit and tie. He was all smiles. Like Judge Minos, he held a walking cane, the gold-plated handle of which was in the shape of an eagle.
Behind Hamanaeus stood two Anteros soldiers, one of whom was Lieutenant Phorcus, the same soldier who had beaten Virgil to a pulp while he was strapped defenseless to a chair as his captive. Phorcus sized up our group, and when he spotted Virgil, I noted his narrowing eyes and the sneer that passed across his lips. Virgil noticed too, but he expressed only Stoic calm.
Hamanaeus stepped forward and approached Judge Minos. He extended his hand. The judge looked at it, but did not take it.
“Yes, of course,” Hamanaeus said, lowering his hand. “Forgive me, Your Honor. I forgot that a judge is not to be touched.”
Minos nodded, intimating that no offense was taken.
Hamanaeus said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get past the pesky business of security right away so that we may proceed without any uneasiness.”
“Understood.”
Hamanaeus glanced towards a throng of guards standing next to a large fountain, in the center of which stood an eight-foot statue of Anteros taking a whiz. Six Anteros soldiers hustled over, metal detectors in the hands of three of them. They split up into pairs to perform their searches. We handed over our side arms as agreed upon, and then one soldier patted us down as another scanned us with a detector.
Satisfied that we were unarmed, they offered us the metal detectors and the opportunity to conduct our own pat downs of the fifty Anteros soldiers that surrounded us.
Minos waved away the offer. “That will not be necessary.”
Hamanaeus bowed in gratitude. “Your confidence is much appreciated. Now, if you will follow me, we have a table set up inside the gazebo just a short distance from here.”
He turned and led the way. Judges Danaos, Busiris, and Pelops followed a few deferential steps behind Minos.
We kept pace behind the judges in two columns of six, one column headed by Commander Sett and the other by Captain Volk. The Anteros soldiers kept their distance and fell into two parallel lines beside us.
We made our way from the plaza down a path lined with cherry trees to a freshly manicured, grassy common. A roofed, open-air gazebo with a table and two chairs stood in the center of the lawn. It was a chilly morning, and the sun, barely visible through the gloomy, overcast sky, was but a daub of light. Though we were essentially immune to temperature in the human dimension, rain would still be rain, and wet would still be wet.
Hamanaeus stopped in front of the gazebo and faced us. A microphone had been set up, and he tapped it to make sure it was on. Satisfied, he began to speak:
“It is indeed a glorious day we are about to share together,” he held forth. “After centuries of distrust and bloodshed, the Academy and the Anteros Brotherhood is just minutes away from embarking upon a new era of peace. Eros and Anteros—brothers once more! A peace not just between ourselves, but also between Heaven and Earth, the gods and mankind. United as one we shall vanquish the forces of evil.
“I understand the sacrifices that you have made to get to this point. History can be a burden. Change is never easy. Traditions and customs can be like manacles chaining us to a past that exists primarily in our imaginations, keeping us from grasping a future that our fingertips are already touching.
“You know,” Hamanaeus continued with a chuckle, “it has been said that there was once a time when we all, you of Eros, and we of Anteros, shared a common belief in a God with an unpronounceable name, a God beyond time and space; an incomprehensible being who, the story went, actually interacted now and then with the humans, even performing great wonders before their eyes!
“Don’t laugh! I kid you not. The humans have tales of this sort. They are written down in a book that the most ignorant among them still venerate. Rather than laugh, we ought to feel encouraged. For if the majority of humankind could finally reject such mulishly enduring doctrines, then surely, we—who are so much more enlightened than they—can move past our own dogma and squabbles. We can progress. We can evolve. We can bring Heaven to Earth, and Earth to Heaven. Together, united again, we are just days away from fundamentally transforming the world!
“Comrades, Eros and Anteros are not so different. We both want the same things. We both desire peace and love and a world free from fear. We are not the generation that was; we are the generation that will be! We are the cupids that we have been waiting for! Let us not look upon our past strife and the brave soldiers who fell during it with regret. Rather, let us see them as martyrs of peace, the peace we will sign and bring into being this very day!”
A roar went up from the Anteros Brotherhood as the judges clapped demurely. In order not to draw suspicion, we too put our hands together in polite applause. It was excruciating.
“What a load of crap,” Virgil groaned in thought mode, as disgusted as I by the speech. “Does he truly think we’re that stupid? Have we really fallen this low?”
“I’m afraid so,” I answered.
Hamanaeus nodded to Judge Minos, intimating that he surely had a few words he’d like to deliver.
The old judge stepped forward and leaned into the microphone. “Thank you,” he said, his voice heavy with defeat and resignation. “Yes, a new future is at hand. Centuries of conflict are about to be laid to rest. Now, finally, we will all be able to dedicate ourselves to the jobs we have been charged to carry out—the making of matches on Earth, and the bringing of love to mankind.
“The humans are a sad and sorry lot, as we know well. It is so easy to despise them: to think only of their ignorance and ingratitude; their penchant for evil and abuse; their selfishness and their lack of moral clarity. But, they are not wholly to blame. We have not carried out our duties well. We have let down the gods. Eros and Anteros are both surely disappointed in the way we have conducted ourselves.
“Let us now, today with this fresh start, rededicate ourselves to our mission. If we do so, I am confident that they will recognize and appreciate our newfound devotion, and reward us accordingly. For whatever reason, Eros and Anteros have determined that our fates be fused with that of the miserable humans so that their demise would ensure our own.
“This unfortunate circumstance is not something we can or should lament. It is our mission to help the humans, and we will do so. We must save them in order to save ourselves, and only by working together—the Anteros Brotherhood and the Cupids of Eros arm in arm—can this b
e achieved.
“Therefore, let a new era of friendship and trust be initiated today. We have much work ahead. Our new peace is just the beginning. We cannot count on the fear demons being satisfied forever with the souls that are being sacrificed for peace. But no longer divided, we will be able to protect those who survive the coming cleansing.”
“Good grief,” Virgil moaned again. “Kohai, we have to stop these maniacs.”
“Or die trying,” I said.
Hamanaeus motioned to Minos with a guiding hand to step into the gazebo. Minos entered and took a seat at the small wooden table. Hamanaeus followed him in and sat across from the judge. On the table rested a scroll, an ink pot, and a feather pen.
“Before you is the treaty,” Hamanaeus said. “Please have a look at it.”
Judge Minos took up the scroll, unrolled it, and scanned the bullet points. Satisfied that the treaty was the same as that which he had agreed upon, Minos nodded and set it back down.
Hamanaeus picked up the quill, dipped it into the inkwell, and then held it up for all to see. With a quick flourish, he signed his name and passed the pen to Judge Minos. The judge also dipped the quill, and without any grandstanding, scribbled his name. The two stood and bowed to one another, setting off a round of cheering applause.
The ugly deed was done.
I glanced over at Captain Volk, expecting to see in his face the same disgust that I felt must have been etched in mine. But he wasn’t watching the signing. His attention was drawn to a nearby lot with its parked utility vehicles and golf carts used by the estate’s maintenance crews. By the furl on the captain’s brow, I sensed that what he was looking for was nowhere in sight.
18
The 300
Gideon and Cyrus backed their vehicles towards the kitchen’s loading dock. As soon as the catering vans were unloaded, they were expected to return to town for a second trip later in the day, but as far as Gideon and Cyrus were concerned, there wasn’t going to be a second trip.
Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3 Page 72