Lay back. Lay back. He needed to lay back. He did so, trembling. How many days had he endured this ritual as his mother-in-law came to hurt him and lied to him and told him that he'd be alright?
Cruel hands pressed against his chest and shot daggers through his violated flesh, making the burning worse. He cried out. The voices grew softer, further away as he drifted. It was just him now, him and pain.
The darkness opened up in front of him, consuming everything it touched. It felt like … hunger. The hunger to destroy. The hunger threatened to devour him alive. He opened his eyes and a black-winged Seraphim stood in front of him.
"Seanmháthair?"
She tussled his hair. 'Come. Today is your big day.'
"Where are we going, Seanmháthair?" he asked in a voice that sounded like a little boy.
'The Abmháthair has summoned us. She thinks she has found the one.'
"Which one?"
'The one you have been searching for.'
Hands touched him, pushed him back into the bed. He struggled against them, but there were too many of them, hands, hands which held him and pinned him on his back. Pain! Sharp! A different kind of pain. Little pins and needles. The scent of something astringent wafted up to his nose as wetness stung the open wound.
"Seanmháthair!” he shouted.
"Who's he talking to?"
"He's delirious," Immanu said. "I think he's talking to people beyond the veil."
"Seanmháthair? Why does it matter if I find the one?"
'So you never have to be alone.'
Fear gripped his gut. It had always been his greatest fear; to wander eternity all alone.
The voices resumed, but they were far away as he drifted in the nothing. Drifting. Drifting. Drifting in the darkness. Drifting in the void which threatened to swallow him alive.
A guide showed them into a room where a great, stern Seraphim sat upon simple wooden chair. The Abmháthair was an ancient woman, her face wrinkled like dried fruit, and through her dark wings were speckled hundreds of gray feathers. The most remarkable feature about her was her clear, blue eyes. Not blue as -his- were blue, a blue iris floating in a sea of white, but solid blue with no sign of a pupil. The eyes of a seer. The eyes of one who could see into the void.
"I found her."
"Send her in."
A lizard man, like the ones who helped Mama and Papa manage the farm, walked in cradling a black-winged girl, small for her age, perhaps four or five years old. The child buried her face in the lizard-man's uniform, the type some of their farm helpers kept tucked away in boxes and sometimes pulled out to tell him scary stories.
"What happened?"
Mikhail's heart beat faster at the sound of her voice, rich with undertones and mellifluous like a symphony.
'What's this?' Seanmháthair asked with indignation.
'This is Banphrionsa Qaspiel’s only surviving child,’ the Abmháthair said. ‘Private Haris saved her from the Tokoloshe.’
'This child is an abomination!' Seanmháthair said. 'How dare you propose my grandson be betrothed to such a ... thing?'
“Don’t speak to my wife that way!”
“I only asked what happened.”
"YOU happened!" Immanu hissed with hatred.
"Immanu! Out!"
"But…"
"Right now! Out! Or Pareesa won't be the only one teaching herself to use a sword!"
A sword? That peculiar sense of drifting solidified beneath his wings to remind him he was supposed to protect his wife. He reached under the bed to the place he always kept his sword, ready to wield in case a raid came in the night. He felt around, unable to find it.
"My sword!"
"It's right here," Pareesa said. "I was using it to teach the others."
"I have to protect her I have to protect her I have to protect her," he chanted, his hand aching to feel the weight in his hand. The room spun, all of it dizzy, all of it unreal.
'Give her to him,' the Abmháthair gestured to the lizard man.
"Give it to him," she said. Her. The one he had been crying out for. "He needs to feel things. Not just see them."
Pareesa pressed his sword into his hand. He gripped the hilt, but his hand was too sweaty to hang onto it. Pareesa clasped her hand over his.
"It's too dangerous to let you hang onto it when you're hallucinating, sensei," Pareesa said. "But I'll put it right here under the bed so you’ll have it in case you need it. I promise."
Pareesa. He could trust Pareesa. He relinquished the cool, familiar steel, trusting her to keep it safe for him. It was not steel he needed, but her. He reached for her.
The lizard man put the black-winged child down and turned her to face him. She was a scrawny child, with unnaturally pale skin and a face which looked as though she had not eaten in months. Her most amazing feature was that her eyes were not blue like the other Seraphim, but purest black, with no sign of whiteness or a pupil. Her eyes were haunted, as though she had witnessed terrible things.
He looked over to the Abmháthair with her blue, sightless eyes, and then at the black-winged child. Could this child be a seer, too?
"Ninsianna?" He reached for her.
"Go to him, child," Needa said.
'Go to him, child,' the lizard man nudged her forward.
He rubbed his eyes, not certain what was real and what was a hallucination. All he could feel was the burning that originated in his chest and the malevolent sound of his own heartbeat feeding the poison which was eating his flesh alive.
The child touched his hand.
Her hand slid into his. Warm. Familiar. Agape. Love. A pleasant coolness slid up his arm and into the heart which spread the poison with every heartbeat. Not so fast. Not so fast. Not so fast. Not so fast. Wherever she touched felt cooler, as though her touch could neutralize the sickness raging within his body.
"Lay down with me," he begged, "please. Lay down with me and make the burning go away."
Silence. She touched his arm, her touch conveying she was sorry.
"That's not possible, son," Needa said. "Your wound seeps poison faster than we can change the bandages. We're afraid…"
"We're afraid it might be contagious," Immanu said. "We've never seen such an injury. We have no knowledge of how to treat it."
The child stepped back and threw herself into her protector's arms, burying her face into the lizard-man's chest. She stared at Mikhail with her enormous black eyes, curious, but apprehensive.
'See!’ Seanmháthair said victorious. 'The child has rejected him! She does not want him!'
Alone. He was condemned to die alone.
Mikhail let go and cast himself into the void.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 29
December: 3,390 BC
Zulu Sector: Prince of Tyre
Ninsianna
Ninsianna stared at the green-scaled mountain of a lizard that lay huddled beneath a blanket. This was her husband's enemy. A monster. One of the creatures that had awoken her, screaming, every single night since the evening She-who-is had Chosen her. By his own hissing tongue, Apausha had admitted he had delivered these women into his enemy's hands. And yet, it was rather hard to hate a creature who now suffered the same fate as the women he had enslaved.
The exterior door opened. The scent of fresh baked bread, ripe fruits, and other delicacies wafted into the room. Ninsianna's stomach grumbled. It was feeding time in the Evil One's menagerie. It was time to play the game she'd played the past few weeks to fend off the curiosity of Ruax and Procel. Pretend … you are … insane.
She was surprised to see it wasn't the two crude-mannered buffoons who brought their food today, but a different Angelic, one with reddish-pink speckles in his wings. He pushed the cart next to the table then came right over to stand beneath her bunk as if she was the reason he was here.
"Hello?" the unknown Angelic said.
Ninsianna averted her gaze and made the same finger movements that ebony skinned woman did, whisperi
ng ibilisi, ibilisi, ibilisi. She suspected the words meant, 'stay away from me you devil.'
"My name is Lerajie," the Angelic said. "I won't hurt you."
Ninsianna snuck a glance at the earnest-featured Angelic. Her heart beat faster as she pretended to rend her dress.
"Ruax and Procel swear you spoke to them," Lerajie said. "The other guys on the ship, they all think your people are too stupid to have a language. But I was on Haven-3 when Abaddon's wife addressed Parliament. I heard her speak."
Lerajie reached towards her. Ninsianna scurried back and issued a cry of fear.
"It's okay, it's okay," Lerajie took a step back. He raised his hands in a universal gesture of apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. It's just, I can't help you if you don't speak to me."
Ninsianna glanced over at the ebony-skinned woman. She did not respond to this man, so neither would she.
"I don't care what Zepar claims about neural implants and intelligence-enhancing drugs," Lerajie sighed. "I know what I saw."
Lerajie strode back to the tray of food which, despite the women's hunger, not one would approach until the Angelic had left the room. He wiped down the aftermath of last night's meal, arranged the trays far more carefully than Ruax and Procel did, and swept the floor. Ninsianna watched, curious, as he set bowls out neatly at each place at the table, along with a cloth napkin and spoon, instead of merely dumping the implements into a pile as the other two Angelics always did.
Ninsianna watched the man through the veil of her eyelashes, a skill she'd always used to watch what effect her feigned lack-of-interest had upon a man she was flirting with … or punishing with her silence.
At last Lerajie finished cleaning up the mess the women had left the night before. He hesitated, and then picked up a large green fruit with a pink blush at one end, sniffing it and giving it a squeeze as though he wished to ensure it was ripe. Wearing an earnest expression, he strode over and lay it on her bunk.
"This fruit is my favorite," Lerajie studied her intently. "They're kind of messy to eat without a knife, but they're well worth the effort. You might want to use a napkin."
Ninsianna made eye contact with the pink-winged Angelic despite her terror. While Lerajie's features were not quite as chiseled as her husband's, he possessed blue eyes like Mikhail had, accentuated with a hint of green. Ninsianna's lip trembled. Oh, how she missed her husband! She grabbed the fruit and resumed her game of rocking.
Lerajie sighed. He retrieved a similar fruit and brought it to a brown-haired woman who was frail and thin, one of the few who didn't run with the aggressively insane Uruk pack-leader. He conversed with her until she stopped cowering in her bunk. By the way she grew less noisy, Ninsianna suspected Lerajie came here regularly.
Did this Angelic really care?
No! He was in allegiance with the Evil One! She must not trust him!
Ninsianna watched Lerajie's wings as he launched into a one-sided conversation with the brown-haired woman. Ninsianna felt a sad sense of deja-vu. As with Mikhail, Lerajie's wings twitched and betrayed what he was feeling as he spoke. He tried to touch the brown-haired woman's arm, but she skittered back in terror.
"I'm sorry." Lerajie stepped back. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
He retrieved a piece of bread and lay it on the brown-haired woman's bed, then backed up slowly so as not to terrify her any further.
"I'm just worried about you, that's all," Lerajie soothed. "You're losing too much weight. You have to remember you're eating for two."
The brown-haired woman hissed at him like a terrified cat. Lerajie's wings drooped into the same dejected formation Ninsianna had witnessed Mikhail do whenever she was angry at him. Did this Angelic possess feelings for the brown-haired woman? Or was he simply curious?
Lerajie next cleaned the bathroom, whistling as he worked, and then returned to the trays of fruit, dried meats, and bread to carefully pick out the exact same foods the ebony-skinned woman always selected for the lizard demon. He strode over to where Apausha lay huddled beneath his blanket. Ninsianna leaned forward to hear as Lerajie spoke to the lizard demon in a hissing language which she could not understand at all.
Apausha's head peeked above his blanket. Ninsianna cringed at the terrifying sight of his scaly green skin, pale dorsal ridge, and sharp-clawed hands. After months of nightmares about the lizard demons, even though Apausha went out of his way to hide his offensive visage, terror still tore at her each time the monster moved. The lizard demon's long, forked tongue flit into the air and hissed an answer to Lerajie's question.
Lerajie's stance was no longer sympathetic, but hostile as he spoke to the lizard demon. Nonetheless, he laid a sizeable portion of food into a clean bowl as well as a container of water and slid them over to the wounded creature that, truth be told, looked even worse today than the first day she had met it. Even without her gift of seeing, Ninsianna could tell the lizard demon was dying. The other two buffoons joked the creature wasn't dead yet, but Lerajie seemed compassionate even though it was obvious he didn't like the creature.
Should she take a chance and engage Lerajie in a conversation? She would almost cut off her own finger right now just to find out whether her husband was still alive…
No! They were all her enemies! Her safest course of action was to pretend to be insane. At some point a chance would present itself to liberate the Evil One's minions of a firestick; and then she could fight her way out of here just like Pareesa would do.
A gentle tapping inside her belly reminded her she was in no condition to fight. If, as she feared, Mikhail had been killed by the Evil One's trap, this child might be the only thing she had left of him. That sadness she'd been keeping at bay choked in her throat and threatened to make her sob, but she fought it back. When she cried, it would be at night when there was no one awake to witness her grief.
Lerajie paused one last time in front of Ninsianna's bunk.
"Procel swore you spoke to him," Lerajie's bluish-green eyes were earnest. "I guess he's just pulling everyone's tailfeathers, huh?"
Ninsianna pressed her back against the wall. Compassionate, or not, she would not trust the Evil One's minion.
Lerajie tucked his reddish-pink speckled wings against his back.
"I can't say I blame you," Lerajie said. "If I was you, -I- wouldn't trust me. But if you do want to speak to me, just knock. I'll be on shift for the next twelve hours."
Without another word he turned, grabbed the cart he'd used to roll in the food, and rolled it out of there. The moment the door locked behind him, the other women rushed at the table and began clawing and fighting for their share of the food.
The lizard demon forced itself into a sitting position and bit carefully into the fruit, not the decadent one Lerajie had given his favorite, but a simple fruit which was tasteless but filling. The creature did not look well. The last vestiges of green had drained from its skin and its dewlap had faded to a sad bluish-purple. It held the fruit awkwardly, its fingers bent in bizarre directions from being dislocated by their Angelic captors.
Perhaps she should attend to the creature? It had, after all, stood up and defended her when that pervert Procel had tried to grab her breast?
No! The creature was her husband's enemy!
Apausha put down the fruit, only half-eaten, and lay its head back against the wall, closing its gold-green eyes with a pained sigh. For the past few days the creature had not eaten all the fruit the ebony-skinned woman brought for it, and this morning, it had barely eaten at all.
Should she just let the creature die? She, who even without the gift of She-who-is, had been trained by her mother to be a healer?
Ninsianna replayed all the conversations she'd eavesdropped on between her father and the Chief. There had been endless discussion about dancing with one's enemies and the proper use of spies. It was talk unsuitable for a woman, and yet, with no way to plead with She-who-is for intervention, perhaps it was time to consider the unthinkable?
'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' Chief Kiyan liked to say. Well, it was time to consider cavorting with her husband's greatest enemy.
She took the mango Lerajie had left for her and took first one step, and then another, until she stood in front of the lizard demon. It took a moment for the creature to open its eyes and recognize she stood before it, her hand trembling as she held out the piece of fruit. It immediately cast its eyes downwards.
"Hello," the creature hissed in weak Kemet, the language of trade.
Ninsianna forced her feet to remain firmly planted instead of indulging the urge to run away.
"I thought you might enjoy some fruit," Ninsianna carefully articulated the words in Kemet.
"Is it easier if I speak to you in Kemet?" Apausha hissed. He then switched languages. "Or can you understand me better if I speak in Galactic Standard."
Ninsianna spoke either language equally well, but the language spoken by her husband was far more pleasing to her ear.
"My husband speaks this language," Ninsianna replied in the language of heaven. "Although now that I hear it spoken by my captors, I must confess it has lost some of its allure. Which language is easier for you to speak?"
"I have had far more practice conversing in your husband's language," Apausha said. "Even though, to my ears, I find the language offensive. Perhaps we might speak in Galactic Standard in private as I am less likely to be misunderstood, but speak in your human trader's language whenever our captors are in the room?"
Ninsianna stood, not certain what to do next.
"You have brought me an offering of food," Apausha pointed at the bread. "A gesture of your willingness to engage me in a dialogue?"
Ninsianna stepped back from the movement of Apausha's sharp, clawed hands.
"How did you…"
"Our people have assimilated many worlds," Apausha said. "Offerings of food are common, no matter where you travel in the heavens."
Ninsianna hesitated, and then carefully placed the mango on the edge of the lizard demon's blanket.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 30