by C. L. Roman
“If a home is what you seek, my friend, I’m sure we can come to some agreement.” A crafty look slid into his eyes and he sat back on the cushions, examining his nails speculatively. “Of course, there are risks to such a concession. Allowing strangers to settle so close is a tricky proposition,” the heavy shoulders lifted and he gave an apologetic smile. “One must protect one’s own, as I said.”
Crossing to sit across from his host once more, Fomor lifted an eyebrow. What new twist was this?
Nephel’s heavy lips tipped upward in a real smile for the first time since the beginning of their conversation as he continued, “Of course, if you were family that would be different. One likes to keep family close, whenever possible.” His dark eyes lit and he chuckled at the flush that crept up the other man’s cheeks. “You, perhaps, have an idea of how you might become family?”
Fomor did not reply, his flush deepening as he tried to return his new friend’s grin. The talk turned to the plans necessary for turning the encampment into a permanent community and Nephel said nothing more of “becoming family.” The phrase would not lie still though, dancing its way through the angel’s mind and lodging finally in the deepest layers of his heart.
That evening around the campfire the mood was cautiously hopeful. The possibilities raised by Fomor’s discussion with Nephel were being debated in quiet conversations between ever-changing groups of two or three. Fomor sat apart, partaking in none of the discussions but hearing all of them.
The light from the fire flickered over the circle of faces, shadow and flame hiding one visage even as it revealed another. The captain hoped he had made the right decision in asking for living space so close to the village.
If I am wrong… he thought, and stopped himself. The consequences to human and angel alike did not bear thinking about. Already the damage was irreparable, and despite his certainty that Bansh had not been drawn here by the unit’s presence, he could not escape the conviction Nera’s death might have been avoided had they moved on instead of staying. He shifted his weight, rolled his shoulders. It seemed strange that the loss of one so small could place such a heavy weight between his wings.
The maimed wreckage that Bansh had become deserved no remorse. Still, something uncomfortably close to grief added to the burden he carried. His stare fastened on the warm drink in his hands, some herbs mixed with hot water and steeped until a sharp, clean fragrance floated free. Tea, Danae called it. He smiled slowly. It had seemed strange to drink something fashioned of leaves and twigs, but he found it soothing now, if only because it brought her to mind. He had not supposed a human could be so bright inside, but Danae carried a light within her that fascinated and drew him. She laughed at the oddest things – a bird in flight, a cat playing with her kittens – as if the very sight of them gave her such joy that it had to spill out somehow. She was kind and gentle too, but there was a core of steel in her that convinced him he could trust her, count on her when he needed to.
Across the oasis, Danae was helping to clean up after the evening meal. Suddenly her head came up sharply, setting her long black curls dancing. Without thought she turned toward the path that led to the encampment and tilted her head as if listening to a voice only she could hear. After a moment she turned to her mother.
“We have extra bread tonight Mother. May I take some to the strangers?”
Naomi looked at her daughter sidelong, hiding the gleam of approval that lit her eyes. “Of course, daughter. They are not strangers now, after all. It is only right to be kind to our neighbors. Take some of the fruit too, your father is not fond of the yellow ones anyway and the harvest was plentiful today.”
It was but a moment’s work to gather the bread and fruit into one of the large woven baskets Nera had made. Handling it, she remembered, and tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away but could not as easily rid her mind of the pictures of those hideous moments in the cave. Once again she lived through the stench of blood and the harsh ringing of steel against steel, the dull crunch and inhuman shriek when sword struck bone. Her mind filled with the images of grotesque shadows locked in mortal contest and of her own hands covered in dark red futility.
What had that thing been? What really happened that day? A whirl of confused images and impressions pressed on her mind so that she was barely aware of the steps she took and came to herself only as she stood before Fomor, and found her smile answering his once again. Behind him she could see the others sitting around the fire, talking. It did not surprise her that he had met her where the path between her village and his encampment broadened near the first pool. That he always knew when she was coming and met her somewhere along this path felt natural to her now. In his presence the questions and confusion always faded away but today, she held onto them with both hands.
“Fomor, I’ve brought bread and fruit.”
He smiled at her and signaled Adahna to come forward and accept the basket.
“Thank you,” the other woman said. “You are always generous with us.”
Danae smiled at her but as she turned back to Fomor, her eyes were troubled. “Fomor, I…” she got no further as several of her brothers and sisters came singing through the trees and were greeted by Fomor’s people. Danae watched, and for the first time, saw. Shahara, blond and delicate, dancing across the grass into Volot’s laughing embrace, Zam, broad shouldered but graceful and reserved, talking softly with Adahna as they wandered into the surrounding trees, sweet faced Gwyneth smiling shyly up at Jotun, rough natured Magnus, spinning a surprised Phaella in an impromptu dance that somehow ended with her in his lap and the two laughing convulsively.
Gant and Sena were indulging Kefir and Ziva, the babies of the group at eleven and ten, in an energetic game of hoops. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the younger pair display their skill at making the wooden hoops dance and spin back and forth between them. Despite their youth, it took little imagination to see that the childhood playmates were destined for each other. True, there was no blood tie, but Nephel had welcomed the little girl into his family as a daughter when he took her mother as his third wife. Danae did not think her father would approve of a match between the children, but the two were already inseparable. In a few years, Kefir would be old enough to claim Ziva as his bride, and what would Father do then? How would Nephel feel about the rest of these pairings? About her and Fomor?
Fomor followed her gaze and raised a questioning brow. “Is something wrong?”
“Father will not be pleased about them.” She nodded towards the four around the fire pit.
Fomor’s eyes widened and he looked at the other couples. “Surely there is no harm in building friendships between our two families?”
She smiled up at him in a distracted fashion, keeping her eyes on her siblings. “It is not friendships that will worry him, but love matches that should not be. Ziva is the daughter of Anna, third wife of Nephel. Kefir is my brother, son of Naomi, first wife of Nephel.”
Fomor stared. “They are siblings? But surely…”
Danae shook her head. “It is more complicated than that. Ziva is the daughter of Anna, but she is not a child of Nephel. Anna was attacked, long ago. Ziva is the result.”
“Ziva is not at fault for the way she came to be,” he kept his tone neutral, not wanting to overstep or offend, but Danae just nodded in agreement.
“This is true, but the evil one was never caught. It is said that when the men of the village surrounded him, he faded away, like smoke. The attack was vicious, brutal. Anna nearly died of her wounds and later, when Ziva was born…” she hesitated and glanced up at Fomor to gauge his reaction before continuing. “The birth was difficult and we nearly lost Anna again. Whispers echo, even now after all these years, that he was a demon. All watch her to see if she will be like the one who fathered her.”
The two stood in silence for a time, each lost in their own thoughts. Then, as if by silent agreement, their hands touched, fingers laced and they walked away from the group laugh
ing and talking by the fire, towards a secluded place by the deeper of the two pools.
Danae gazed around her, gathering the words for what she wanted to ask. A slow breeze drifted through the upper branches and the leaves whispered sleepily to the murmuring birds. Close by the path something small and furry scurried homeward through the fading light of evening. In the darker shadows of brush and boulder something slithered through the leaves and then was silent. Danae decided she would start with the easiest, the most expected question.
“You asked my father for living space?”
He nodded, “Yes. It is a good place. We found alabaster deposits in some caves to the west of here. We are artists and merchants. It seems a good fit.”
“Artists and merchants?” she replied with an edge to her voice that pulled his gaze toward her. She stopped walking and turned to face him. “Perhaps you are, but that is not the whole truth, is it?”
“What do you mean?” he looked away from her, out over the water.
Her hands fluttered up, clasped and unclasped. Now that she had brought it up she wasn’t sure what, or how to ask the questions that had been tumbling in her mind. Finally she gave voice to the only one she was sure she wanted answered.
“That thing in the cave,” she swallowed hard against the knot of remembered pain and fear that lodged in her throat, “what was it?”
“I don’t –” Fomor turned back to her, meeting her eyes with questions in his own. What do I tell you and how much? He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Please don’t lie to me. You spoke to it. Argued. I didn’t understand all the words, but I know the sound of a threat, and of pleading.”
He took her hand in his and sank down onto a fallen log, pulling her down beside him. He stared at the pond as if it might hold the solution to his dilemma. If she only knew how much he wanted to tell the truth. Lies and half-truths cut against the grain of his spirit, leaving him feeling shredded and hopeless.
“It’s complicated,” he began, and his use of her phrase pulled a small smile across her lips. “Its name is – was – Bansh. He was my brother.” Her mouth dropped open, but she didn’t shy away, or run screaming, so he continued. “I hadn’t seen him in a very long time, not since – not since I left home.”
She considered this as he fell silent. “He was your brother?”
Fomor hesitated, then nodded and Danae let out a long slow breath. “Then I think you need to start at the beginning because if that thing was your brother, Fomor, then you cannot possibly be human. I need to know what it is I’ve given my heart to.”
It was his turn to have his mouth drop open and her lips trembled into a thin, joyless smile. Silence stretched between them, broken only by the breeze winding through the branches above as the pair below struggled, her for quiet and him for words. Finally, Fomor’s voice broke the stillness, low and raspy as if his vocal cords were protesting.
“It is, as I said, complicated and a long tale in the bargain,” he paused and cleared his throat. “But you are right. There needs to be honesty between us, for I fear I have lost my heart to you as well.” He fell silent, searching for the right words, felt her hand steal into his and held it tight. “I told your father that there had been a war between two sides of my family. I did not lie. But neither did I tell all of the truth.”
He stood and walked to the water’s edge where he knelt, scooped water and drank. The silence grew, punctuated by birdsong and the small scurrying of creatures too shy to come out of hiding to drink. Staring out across the water, he sighed and came back to sit beside her again.
“My father, my maker, is Sabaoth, the great I Am, just as he is yours. But you are right. I am not human. I am a warrior and a messenger, what humans call an angel.”
Even with what she had seen and heard, disbelief clouded her eyes. “You are Seraphim? Cherubim?”
He shook his head. “No, nothing so exalted as the elite guard of Heaven. I am simply one of the Host. Captain of a squad of seven. Bansh was my brother, just as all the Host are brother and sister to each other. Some of us are even closer, made as direct siblings to complement each other’s strengths, like Phaella and Gant. Others, like Sena and Gant, form deeper attachments. But we all have the same maker, our Father, Jehovah-Sabaoth.”
“Your brother then,” she accepted his answer with a deep breath, gathering courage for what she must ask next. “What happened to him? He looked –” she did not have the words to complete the sentence.
“Damaged? Yes. I’m guessing that he was wounded and did not heal properly.” He suppressed a shudder at the sudden vision of melted, twisted flesh and crippled wings. The pain must have been immense.
“I thought angels were eternal. I thought they were invincible.”
Fomor tried to grin but failed. “For the most part, we are. But even for us, there are limits. You will know that there was war in Par-Adis, what you call Heaven?”
She nodded. “We are taught that the evil one rebelled and was cast out of Heaven with his followers when Adam and Eve betrayed El Elyon.”
“Yes, well, when the traitor began his attack, El Elyon, whom we call Sabaoth, fought back. He sent the Archangel Michael with a contingent of the Host to confront the enemy’s main force. Not all of the Host were needed for this and many were held in reserve. My squad did not receive orders.”
Fomor unconsciously took Danae’s hand again as memory washed through him. “The traitor was cunning though, and had his own spies and reserves. He sent small units to recruit or destroy those squads that had not been called up. Soon battles were raging all over Heaven. For many of us it was an agonizing choice; to fight for our Father against our rebellious brothers and sisters, or against Him and our siblings still loyal to Him.”
“Either way, your family would die by your own hand.” Danae’s eyes were bright with unshed tears.
Fomor hunched his shoulders and went on, “We were not called and I chose to leave Heaven before the choice was put before me. I took my squad with me. I am a traitor.” The flat words fell to the ground like hot stones.
“No.” She reached out and gently touched his arm, felt the tension there, offered comfort as he shrugged away her denial and continued.
“We knew when the fighting was over. We knew Lucky—” he shot a sad grin sideways to her, “that’s what we call him as saying his true name tends to draw his attention and very likely the violence we sought to avoid. Anyway, we knew he had not been destroyed, but rather cast out, along with his forces. It is a long way down from Par-Adis. They would have been damaged as they fell, cut off from the power of the Father for the first time in their existence. Fallen, in all the ways that matter, and so we call them.”
“You say you knew. How did you know?” she asked.
He looked at her in surprise. He had never thought about this before. “I don’t know. We just – knew. We saw the long streaks of fire in the sky, like comets hurtling to Earth, and we knew.”
“And the thing that killed Nera? It was one of these Fallen?” she asked. His eyes were blue black coals as he jerked his chin down once in assent, and she drew in a shaky breath. “Then there are more of them. He will not be the only one that survived.”
He choked out a rough laugh, “Undoubtedly. We are not indestructible, but it seems we are extremely hard to kill.”
She touched his hand, “I am glad of that,” she said. Then another question occurred to her, “What brought him here?”
Fomor surged to his feet. The wind picked up, whipping the sand into agitated, tiny spirals around his feet while he paced fiercely before her. “I don’t know. He was surprised to see me, so I do not believe he was looking for us in particular and from what he said –” a shudder rippled through him at the memory, “I don’t think he was with Lucky anymore. He had struck out on his own.”
Sickness clogged her throat as her own memories attacked. Still she forced the words out, “He – it had bitten her, she was so pale – it
looked like he was – was feeding on her somehow.”
Fomor could only nod, nausea roiling in his own gut. “We think so too. Angels are forbidden – the law prevents us from harming a human. They are Sabaoth’s and only His. We are prohibited, as you are, from drinking the blood of any living creature, it is sacred. But Bansh – somehow he was able to do it. And if he could, so could any of the Fallen.”
The evening settled around them, the night breathing over their quiet as they thought this through.
At length Danae said, “When you were fighting it, you were different.”
The wind gentled, puffing playfully through the tree tops. For the first time a glimmer of amusement lit his eyes, “I should hope so. I’d rather not go about in full battle rage all the time. Might scare the children, or at least the smaller animals.”
She didn’t smile. “No, really different. You got bigger – and there was this glow around you. What was that?”
His brow furrowed, “I couldn’t have gotten bigger. The glow is easy, all of us do it to one extent or another when swords are drawn but—”
“He didn’t.”
“Of course he did, we all – ” he stopped, remembering. “He didn’t. That was one of the things that made the fight difficult. I could barely see him; it was as if he became a shadow.”
“Or smoke,” she amended.
“Or smoke,” he agreed.
“And you did get bigger. So did he, but not as much. There were four of us in the cave, but once you started fighting, there was room only for the two of you. If I hadn’t dragged Nera into the light, we’d have been trampled.”
He stared at her. Around them the forest went silent and even the wind ceased to blow. The twin pools of the oasis went still and smooth as water washed stones.
“Surely something like this has happened in the past?”
He shook his head slowly. “I’ve never fought a brother before.”
Danae gave an unladylike snort of disbelief. “You’ve never fought before? I find that hard to believe considering how quickly you were able to—” his wince cut her short and she changed the words she had been about to say. “You seemed to win easily. It seemed to me that you must have done this many times before.”