Incarnation: Wandering Stars Volume One

by Jason Tesar

  “I’ll fight!” Batarel announced.

  A long moment of silence passed. Sariel began to worry that his carefully constructed plan may fall apart before it ever began.

  “I’ll fight,” said another. This one had a human standing next to him.

  “I will,” said the female.

  One by one, they all chimed in, adding their commitment to the effort.

  “Very well. Myndarym, we have a tough road ahead. But my hope is that on the other side of this momentary trouble we will be greeted by freedom. Think about what you offer; what you’re capable of. We will reconvene in the morning to discuss preparations.”

  The mood of the gathered angels seemed elevated as they turned to leave, but the ache in Sariel’s heart persisted.

  This is all taking too long! Hold on, my love. We’ll be together soon!

  * * * *

  As the group began to disperse, Enoch looked up at Ananel. “I want to speak with him.”

  Ananel looked down and nodded. “You don’t need my permission.”

  Stepping from side to side to avoid being crushed by the giants around him, Enoch worked his way through the exiting crowd and approached Sariel.

  The winged angel had returned to a kneeling position to refresh himself from the pool at the center of Kiyrakom. His head turned slowly as Enoch approached.

  His brilliant blue eyes seemed to look straight through Enoch, just like the first time he met Ananel. But this angel reminded Enoch of the ones who guarded Semjaza in his throne room. He was roughly the same height as a Myndar, but more muscular, with coloring closer to that of the Speaker’s winged escorts.

  “Can I help you?” he asked in a ragged voice.

  “You lived among the Chatsiyram,” Enoch stated.

  The angel closed his eyes for a moment, the extended blink of a weary traveler. “One of the women told you about me?”

  “No,” Enoch answered truthfully.

  Sariel turned his head slightly. “There is something different about you. Who are you?”

  “I am Enoch.”

  Sariel lifted his head as if he’d just pieced something together. “That’s why they let you in here. What can I do for you?”

  “Well,” Enoch paused. “If you’re all Shapers, why can’t you just take a form that is more powerful than Semjaza? Something big.”

  Sariel’s face curled into a lopsided grin and his eyes quickly lost their intensity. “Taking a form is not as simple as you might think. When we do so, we are bound by its limitations. Everything must be considered. What food will it eat? How will it use the food for energy? How will it breathe? How must the body be constructed and in what environment will it live? And many more considerations, all of them far too complicated to explain. It takes years to learn a form; generations of your time to master it. Forms are not chosen lightly.”

  “Oh,” Enoch mumbled.

  “Most Myndarym take the forms they are most familiar with. There simply isn’t enough time to do what you suggest. But it is a good question.”

  “I see,” Enoch said softly.

  “Now what did you really want to say to me?” Sariel asked, scooping up some water and drinking from his hands.

  Enoch smiled, realizing that his ploy of easing into conversation had been completely transparent to the angel. “I’ve seen you before.”

  “You’ve probably seen many of my kind,” Sariel replied, sipping more water from his hands.

  “No,” Enoch said, shaking his head. “You. When I was child. The Holy One showed me.”

  Now Sariel straightened to a standing position. “Me? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Enoch replied, looking up into the sky above the angel’s head. “But He sees you.”

  Sariel turned his head and looked up as well. When his face returned, his eyes looked distant. “Yes. I suppose He does,” he mumbled. “So, He speaks to you?”

  “He does.”

  “And you speak to Him?”

  “I do,” Enoch admitted.

  “What does He think about me?”

  Enoch rubbed his hands together, carefully considering the question. “I don’t know yet.”

  Sariel raised his chin and looked down at Enoch. “What do you think of me?”

  The words were already on the tip of Enoch’s tongue. “Though you have abandoned your home and have disobeyed your elders, you still believe that you are doing the will of the Holy One.”

  Sariel looked at the ground for a moment. “I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but yes. I suppose you’re right.”

  Enoch nodded, then turned slowly and began walking away.

  “It wasn’t just a vision,” Sariel called after him.

  Enoch stopped and turned.

  “When I met with the Fer-Rada, I overheard some soldiers speaking of a rumor. It hasn’t happened since the first of your kind, but the Holy One apparently allowed a human into His presence. The soldiers were quite offended. A human. Can you imagine that?”

  Enoch couldn’t help but grin at the answer to the question that had plagued him for weeks.

  “Good evening,” Sariel offered, then walked past Enoch and left the Place of Meeting.

  CHAPTER 23

  DALEN A-SORGUD

  Four hundred miles southeast of Senvidar, at the eastern end of a narrow channel of water, Batarel stood in a small clearing amidst a dense stand of trees. The soldier in front of him was also a Shaper, but had been operating as an Anduar for many years, not unlike the direction Batarel had been heading before Semjaza found him. The soldier was looking down at the bundles of weaponry lying on the ground, taking inventory in order to relay the Myndarym’s state of readiness to the Amatru.

  “Fifty vaepkir. Fifty vandrekt. Thirty vanspyd. Fifty light keskyd. Thirty heavy keskyd. And forty skoldur,” the angel mumbled to himself. “This is not enough. How many more are being made?”

  “Two, maybe three times what you see.” Batarel assured him. “They are en route now.

  The soldier looked up to midday sky in search of the moon, which was nowhere to be seen. “How far away? We only have one day left.”

  Batarel noticed the way the soldier’s eyes darted back and forth along the grass, looking for other information that may be useful. Most likely, to identify the location of the Myndar city. The arrangement with the Amatru was fragile, and Batarel didn’t think the answer to the question was relevant to their mission. At least, not their primary mission.

  “We’ll worry about that,” he replied. “You just make sure you bring enough soldiers to get the job done.”

  The Shaper suddenly turned his head toward Batarel.

  Behind his eyes, Batarel could almost see his disgust at having to work with unholy traitors.

  But the soldier held his tongue.

  “And next time you cross over, do it here. Not in the open again. Semjaza’s eyes are everywhere.”

  Again, the Shaper held his tongue. But his displeasure at taking instruction from someone outside the Amatru was obvious. Finally, the soldier nodded. Then, the objects around him appeared to distort. Trees and vines bent inward. The grass bowed toward him. But it was only an illusion. It was the light from these objects that was warping, fragmenting into bands of color as the Shaper shifted his existence out of the Temporal Realm.

  And then, he was gone.

  In the following silence, Batarel smiled. The plans were moving along quickly. Soon, Semjaza’s fortress would be infiltrated. And the wicked Pri-Rada would be overthrown.

  A faint scraping noise rapidly brought him out of his thoughts. At once, his heart sunk in his chest, for he knew the sound to be abnormal. Perhaps it was a residual benefit of spending time in an animal form. Even in his angelic form, he could almost feel the rhythm of life in his surroundings—their sounds and smells.

  Shifting his consciousness toward the sliver of Eternal existence which clung to the Temporal, he looked outward with different eyes, seeing beyond the orderly structure
of this realm. To the west, he counted fourteen spirits, spread out into a loose crescent-shaped formation. The fiery nuclei, visual representations of the spirit within each temporal being, hovered just above the ground, moving cautiously toward him. As they passed over the earth, they came closer to each other, converging upon Batarel’s location. Judging by their size and movement, they were Semjaza’s Anduarym.

  Batarel stepped quietly to the north and began making his way out of the clearing, hoping to lead the attackers away from the stash of weapons and armor. Instead of shaping himself, he stayed in his angelic form. It was slower than his animal form, but he wasn’t planning on trying to escape. Instead, he felt a mixture of fear and hatred building in his heart, and he allowed it to grow and consume his thoughts and actions. As his feet moved more quickly with each step, now running over and around the thick vegetation, a discordant melody wove itself into his mind. It produced a sense of pride and pleasure that intertwined itself among the other emotions, taking control of them. From his lips, which were now curled into a grin of delight, a Song of Unshaping began to emanate.

  * * * *

  SOUTHEAST OF ARAGATSIYR

  “And what are those?” Enoch asked, pointing ahead to the bundle of weaponry hoisted on the back of a nearby Myndar.

  “Vandrekt,” Ananel replied. “… for the Anduarym. They are the closest approximation of the weapons they use in the Eternal Realm. They hold the wooden shaft and thrust the sharpened, metal point toward the enemy.”

  Enoch couldn’t keep his face from wrinkling at the thought of such violence.

  “I know. Your kind is not familiar with war,” Ananel stated, “or the art of working with metals.”

  “How long has your kind been at war?” Enoch asked, looking up.

  Ananel stepped high over a rock and kept moving ahead. “Since before humans were created.”

  Enoch looked ahead to keep from tripping over a bush. “Why can’t the Amatru bring their own weapons?”

  “That’s a good question,” Ananel replied. “When the Myndarym shift from one part of creation to another, it comes naturally, for that is how we were created. It is much like when humans learn to walk. Once the skill is mastered, it is rarely given much thought afterward. But clothing, armor, and weaponry—these objects are not part of us. So, it takes a great deal of practice to shift these things with us. And when creation was sundered into our two realms, this task became infinitely more complex. But the weapons and armor used by the Amatru are a different matter altogether. They are not like other objects. They are purer, crafted solely from the light of the Spirit. And only the most skilled Shapers even know how they are made. Such objects have no Temporal equivalent. They cannot exist in this realm. So, when the Amatru arrive, they will be without weapons and at a great disadvantage against Semjaza.”

  Enoch kept his eyes forward, but nodded, trying to take in the wealth of information that Ananel seemed pleased to offer. When he looked up again at the angel, who was now smiling, he realized suddenly that he had made a friend. It was something that Zacol had been trying to get him to do for years among the Shayeth, but somehow it never worked.

  How strange to befriend an angel, but feel so distant from my own kind!

  After a long silence, Enoch spoke again. “If it is so difficult to shift objects other than yourselves, then how did you bring Semjaza and his soldiers here? Surely another living being is more complex than clothing. How did the Speaker and his angels come here? How will the Amatru be brought here?”

  “The Speaker and his angels were Myndar. But to shift others, well, it is quite complicated,” Ananel admitted. “Few among the Amatru can do it. In fact, when we shifted Semjaza, there was only one among us who was capable. Ezekiyel. He is a master Shifter and Shaper. It is he who taught the rest of us.”

  “Hmm,” Enoch mumbled, trying to concentrate on Ananel’s words. But his thoughts were drifting to Zacol and Methu.

  Ananel continued. “Each of us had to sing a Song of Naming to comprehend all the individual pieces which comprised the angel we were shifting. Then, in order to move the pieces, I had to find suitable forms for each one to take as I brought them across. You see, this realm operates differently. So, if I were to just move the pieces here, they would perish. They had to be constructed properly to exist within the laws which govern this realm. Then I had to reassemble the pieces into yet another structure that could exist and function here as intended. And all of this had to be done at once, in transit. For the very moment one piece is changed, it is also no longer able to survive in the other realm. And so, the ever changing location and complexity …”

  Enoch looked up at Ananel who had trailed off.

  The angel was looking out across the fields. His eyes were narrow with suspicion.

  Enoch followed his gaze and could barely make out something lying in the field, just before the shoreline of the water they were approaching. He couldn’t see what it was, but immediately felt that something was wrong.

  * * * *

  Sariel dropped the bundle of armor he’d been carrying. In one swift movement, he unfurled his wings and leaped into the air. Seconds later, he glided to a running landing, then slowed as he reached the dead body.

  Batarel’s angelic form lay on its side, with arms stretched out in front of him. Two spears had been run through his chest, and another protruded from the side of his ribcage, sticking into the air like a standard carried before an army. His pale skin was covered in blood from head to toe. And though his fatal wounds had obviously been gruesome, Sariel’s trained eyes could see that not all the blood was his own.

  “Check the weapons!” Sariel yelled, pointing into the nearby forest as the other Myndarym came running.

  A few dropped their bundles and ran away from the crowd, while the remainder of the angelic population of Senvidar approached Sariel with caution.

  Before they arrived, Sariel followed the trampled grass westward along the shoreline. A short distance away, he found a blackened Anduar lying on his back. The skin on the front of his body had been burned so that it seemed to peel backward away from its bones. On either side of the dead soldier, two swaths of bare soil extended to the west for thirty feet. At their edges, the charred roots of dead vegetation jutted upward to the sky, while the surrounding grasses bore the unmistakable wilting and discoloration of proximity to fire.

  Sariel continued walking west, finding two more dead Anduarym a hundred yards away. One was completely missing his upper body, while the other looked as if something had exploded inside his chest cavity. The gore was scattered for several yards in a half-moon shape in front of the body. Bare ribs were exposed to the air, like fingers of an open hand.

  “They’re gone. All the weapons are gone!” someone yelled from behind.

  Sariel turned and walked back to the group which had gathered around Batarel’s body.

  Most of the Myndarym stood motionless while several knelt close to their fallen friend.

  Ananel, who always seemed to be accompanied by Enoch, pushed his way through the crowd. His face looked grim, but there were no tears in his eyes, unlike the others. “Were they watching us the whole time?” he asked in a low voice.

  “I don’t think so,” Sariel answered him. “It was probably just a scouting party. But if they get back to the fortress with the weapons, we’ll have lost the element of surprise. Semjaza will have time to prepare for the attack.”

  “And they’ll know we’re working with the Amatru,” Ananel added.

  “What can we do?” one of the females asked. “The Amatru will not arrive until tomorrow.”

  “By the look of things,” Sariel said, glancing back to where the dead Anduarym lay, “Semjaza’s soldiers have a half-day head start. Maybe more.”

  “We can’t afford to wait,” Ananel concluded.

  Sariel noticed that the expressions on the faces of the other Myndarym began to change. No one said another word. But he could see their sadness over Ba
tarel’s death being replaced by fear, and he spoke quickly to put an end to it.

  “Like it or not, we are already at war with Semjaza. Hiding from him is no longer feasible. So we have two options. We can wait for the Amatru, forfeit the majority of our weaponry to the enemy, and give up our element of surprise. Or, we can go after the weapons and risk our lives to keep the plan intact.”

  “But how many soldiers are we talking about?” one of the Myndar asked.

  “Three of them are dead. But they were able to carry off the weapons, so it was probably more than one scouting party,” Sariel answered. “If it was two parties, then there should be eleven left.”

  Ananel turned to face his fellow angels. “I say we go after them. We can catch up with them. They’ll only be walking on two legs.”

  “But what will we do when we catch up?” another asked.

  Sariel ran through the scenarios in his mind, then quickly verbalized his thoughts. “Those of us who can fly, can probably catch them within an hour, if we push hard. Those who travel by land … perhaps two or three times as long. If any of you wear forms accustomed to water, you’ll be somewhere in between. But I’m the only one who knows how to use these weapons, so we may only be able to slow them down.”

  “If we’re going to go after them, we’d better do it quickly,” Ananel pointed out.

  Sariel looked from angel to angel, still seeing fear in their eyes. But now, at least they realized the gravity of the situation and the consequences for waiting. From years of battle, he knew this look. He’d seen it on countless faces. Many times, it was the last he ever saw of the soldiers. But he also knew that action must be taken. And sometimes, the only way to initiate it was to make the decision for them; to push their wavering courage over the edge.

  “Alright. Those of you who can fly, follow me. We’ll move fast and try to slow the Anduarym down when we reach them. The rest of you, catch up as quickly as you can. The greater our numbers, the better chances we have. Where’s Enoch?”

  “Right here,” the human said, stepping out from beneath the crowd as a child among adults.

  Sariel knelt to the ground. “Wait here for the Amatru. When they arrive, tell them what has happened. Give them the weapons and tell them to follow us. Do you see this mountain range here,” he asked, pointing to the south.