Dragonsword

by Chloe Garner

  The surface tension was very high; it would only pour for a few hours before it hardened, unless it were used in opening a gate. She could adjust it back into its intended path with her hand as she poured it, as was the intent. The pitcher acted as a method for controlling the thickness of the lines, and to keep her from having to handle it any more than necessary. She poured and backed across the space, hitting the first curve. She stood, looking at the curve. Eleven more.

  And so it went.

  The angels, Sam, and Jason watched in silence as she worked. Even the trees and the birds seemed quiet and distant. The sevens went, finally, and she began the ones, a headache forming from the intensity of her focus. Every line.

  What would the demons say if, in the end, she leveled New York?

  Her hands were silver with mercury and whatever they had used to thicken it, and her back was hot from the lift and from the effort of controlling her motion as she walked around and around the circle, bent at the waist.

  She drew the last of the curves and stood.

  Realized she was done.

  She set the pitcher down and turned to face the gate. There shouldn’t have been any rules to which posts she could pass through, but she turned to Mahkail anyway. He motioned her forward, and she went into the circle. The rest of the angels followed. Sam and Jason stood at the bars. Samantha looked at Mahkail, and he turned to face them.

  “Sam cannot follow her. Psychics have a connection to the darkness that is attached to their bodies. Jason may come if he wishes.”

  Samantha went to stand in front of them.

  “You’re welcome, if you want to come,” she said. She looked at Sam. “I’m sorry. It’s possible crossing would kill you. I hadn’t thought about it”

  “You should go,” Sam said to Jason. “You can tell me stuff she can’t.”

  Samantha nodded.

  “That’s true. But it will make faith that much harder. It’s easy to believe things you’ve seen. Faith is…” she paused, remembering the struggle she’d had since she’d died. “Faith is tricky.”

  “I’m going,” Jason said. “You’re not talking me out of it.”

  She stepped aside and he took the step through the posts, glancing back at Sam.

  “Sorry, dude.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Don’t get smite-ed. When in doubt, shut up.”

  Jason laughed.

  “You got it.”

  Samantha rubbed her back and turned to face the center of the gate again. She could see O’na Anu’dd on the other side. He bowed to her, respect.

  “You will stay and guard the gate,” Mahkail said to Kelly. “This is your final responsibility.”

  “Yes,” Kelly said. The angels formed a short column for Samantha to walk down, through the gate, and back onto the Paradise plane.

  <><><>

  Jason paused for a moment before he followed Samantha across.

  “This is an invitation not many will get,” Mahkail said, standing at Jason’s left. “Go.”

  In the first instant across, it was as if there were a thousand silent trumpets blaring in his head. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see. And then he was standing in a room of brilliant white marble that stretched dozens of feet above his head. Samantha hugged O’na Anu’dd in her peculiar way, and Jason stood aside to let the rest of the angels through behind him.

  “Thank you, my friend,” he heard Samantha say, and he stepped further away, feeling intrusive and out of place. He found a doorway through the marble and stuck his head into a long hallway, lit down one side by gargantuan windows. There were no shadows anywhere, but the windows themselves glowed with the white light that Samantha had once described as the reason she wore sunglasses all the time on the Earth plane.

  Angels walked past, the men in white skirts and the women in floor-length dresses with deeply-scooped backs. They all had wings. Behind him, the angels from the gate had all come through, and they stood around O’na Anu’dd and Samantha. All of them had wings, now, too.

  “I have work, my friend,” O’na Anu’dd said. “Thank you.”

  “You honor me,” Samantha answered. She emerged from the circle of his wings and found Jason. She grinned.

  “Welcome.”

  “Place is freaking me out,” he said. “Where are we?”

  “The front courts,” she answered. “This is as far as I ever got.”

  He raised an eyebrow, and she glanced at the four angels, making sure they were following. She walked out into the front hall and motioned down the expanse.

  “Humans normally pass through here quickly. The greater portion of paradise is on the other side. That isn’t actually true, because it doesn’t have ‘sides’, really, but it’s an okay way to think about it. He asked me to stay, so I did.”

  “You hung out here for eighty years?” he asked.

  “Better than being tied to a chair,” she answered, then twisted her mouth to the side. “Sorry.”

  “Fair point,” he answered. His peripheral vision caught Anadidd’na, and he put his hand up to touch the dragon head. “Should I have left her?”

  “She is just a thing. She has no power here,” Samantha said. Mahkail appeared next to Jason, looking down at the sword.

  “He is a rebel,” he commented.

  “We all are,” Samantha answered.

  “Some more than others,” Mahkail said.

  “You’ve spent too much time on the other side,” she said. Mahkail snorted.

  “Doesn’t make it not true.”

  “But you’re talking like a human.”

  “I thought you preferred angels who thought like humans.”

  “Do you need a new name, Parroah’na Anana’nae?”

  “I have enough, Anadidd’na Anu’dd.”

  She grinned, and Jason wondered what he had missed.

  They covered a great distance in a short time, and Jason realized he might not have been able to find his way back, if he had needed to. There was a short trill of alarm, as he considered how much trust Samantha was showing; how much trust he had assumed when he crossed. He wasn’t in control here. Samantha was smiling, though, and it was hard to worry, here. The angels were powerful, graceful creatures, and many of them paused to look at him as they passed him - he and Samantha were the only ones wearing any color - and some even showed open disdain that he would invade their sanctuary, but there was a sense of long-settledness to it that made it feel like conflict and change were something that had been long forgotten.

  Finally, they stood before two great doors. The angels stopped and looked at Samantha.

  “Give me a moment,” she said. One at a time, they bowed to her and slipped through the doors. They were alone. She chewed the inside of her cheek for a second, then looked at him.

  “So…” She paused. “Yeah. It is what it is.”

  She turned and pulled both doors toward them, letting them glide open past her armspan on their own momentum, and stepped into the biggest room Jason had ever seen in his life.

  There were two stories, the second floor supported by pillars that went through the floor and up into a misty loss that his eyes told his brain was infinite, and his brain told his eyes couldn’t possibly be and that they should get it together.

  The columns marked the edge of a vast floor, also marble, and at the far end - again, infinitely far away - he could see thrones. Three. They were too distant in the glowing light for him to see anything other than the shapes there, and his brain rebelled against his eyes, demanding better information.

  In the first moments, there had been general commotion of bare feet on marble and voices speaking at respectful levels, but when Samantha stepped onto the open floor, a hush fell. Angels came to stand at the balcony rails and stood against the columns to watch her as she walked across the floor. Jason found that he had stopped at the line of columns, by instinct. He was invited this far, but no further.

  Samantha’s clothing had changed.

  Sh
e wore a short dress, form fitting to mid-thigh like a tennis player, and she had short wings that attached at the points of her shoulder blades, just to either side of her spine. Her entire back was exposed by the deep cut of the dress. The angels all had wings that extended above their heads then folded back down to nearly brush the floor with the wingtips. Samantha’s were just even with her head and extended to her knees. She knelt, one knee coming up to touch her shoulder and her other leg far behind her, toes holding her weight and knee just off the floor. She put her hands out to either side, fingertips poised on the floor, and drew her wings out to either side on the same line, the feathers settling flat along the floor behind her.

  She was beautiful.

  “Rise,” a voice said. She slowly stood, folding her wings and dropping her arms with a practiced grace. “What do you bring?”

  “I bring the ash of angels struck down in battle,” she answered.

  There was a stir among the angels around Jason, and he looked up at one of them, a stranger to him with thick, dark hair.

  “Welcome, friend of Anadidd’na Anu’dd,” the man murmured. “Do you know what happens?”

  “No,” Jason answered.

  “Well done,” the voice answered after the stir died down. “You are faithful in this and many things.”

  The dark angel smiled.

  “A good blessing,” he said. “Now they will take the angeldust.”

  “Where is my warrior?” the voice asked. Mahkail stepped forward.

  “I am here,” Mahkail said. He approached Samantha and knelt, drawing his sword and offering it to her. She took the blade with a small motion and held it by the pommel, up for the angels around her to see.

  “Mahkail honors her,” the dark angel said softly.

  “It is mine,” she said, turning. “Mine by right of the burden I have carried. He asked it of me, and so I take it as my payment.” She dropped the point of the sword down nearly to the marble floor and put one hand on Mahkail’s head. There was another round of quiet whispers, but the man with the dark hair waited. “But what would the cost be, to deprive mankind of the great sword of God? And so I take my prize and return it, a gift on behalf of my race. Rise, Sandi’dd Anana’nae, and accept my offering.”

  Now Mahkail stood and Samantha knelt. The sword returned to the angel and she stood.

  “Now get this thing off me.”

  The dark-haired angel laughed softly.

  “She has a gift for our customs, but she is always impetuous.”

  “That’s my girl,” Jason said. The angel looked at him sharply.

  “You are Anu’dd Anadidd’na?”

  “No. That’s my brother,” Jason said. There was a look of dawning recognition and perhaps respect.

  “The Dragonsword,” he said. Jason reached up to touch the dragon, and the angel shook his head. “No. That’s you.”

  “I thought only the demons called me that,” Jason said. The angel shook his head slowly, then turned his attention back to Samantha and Mahkail.

  Mahkail was cutting the gold chain from around Samantha’s waist. It fell away and disappeared, leaving Mahkail holding only the brown leather satchel. He reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of dust, throwing it into the air with a string of words in the slippy, silvery language that Jason didn’t understand. The dust swirled and grew thicker, and then Jason saw five angels become visible through the cloud.

  And then the cloud snapped into them, and they stood, the same as any of the other angels, on the vast floor before Samantha and Mahkail. There was a moment of realization, as they looked around, and then each of them took Samantha’s hands and whispered something to her.

  “A bitter pill,” the angel at Jason’s elbow said. Jason looked up at him.

  “Hmm?”

  “The blond woman. She and Anadidd’na Anu’dd were not friends.”

  Jason watched as a curvy woman with long blond hair bowed before Samantha and took her hands. Jason smiled to himself. Samantha gave no sign of any history between them, but the sharp look the other woman gave Mahkail clearly communicated her opinion of his choice.

  And then it was over. Samantha was walking back toward him and the angels resumed whatever it had been that they were doing before she got there. It suddenly occurred to Jason:

  “Why are all of you speaking English?”

  The dark angel shook his head, glancing at Samantha.

  “We aren’t.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Jason, then turned to Samantha, putting his arms out. She hugged him with not quite as much familiarity as she had with O’na Anu’dd.

  “Valdine,” she said. “Anadidd’na anan’ae.”

  “Anadidd’na Anu’dd,” he answered. “You have a very charming friend.”

  “Where?” she asked, pulling away and laughing. She was in her normal clothes again. “Forgive me our brevity, but I have duties that wait for me on the other side.”

  “From what I hear, they do not wait,” Valdine answered. “Go. We will speak in God’s time.”

  She bowed, and the angel turned to Jason.

  “Safe journeys, friend,” he said. He shook hands with Jason, then Jason turned to follow Samantha out of the vast room and back into the hallway. Mahkail followed them a few moments later.

  “Thank you, Anadidd’na Anu’dd,” he said.

  “I am honored,” she answered. “I must get back, though.”

  “I understand. I will come with you to see that the gate closes.”

  She nodded, and they walked back down the hallway together, turning at one of a numberless sequence of doors and into the room with the platinum posts. Samantha crossed without hesitation, and Mahkail followed Jason back across.

  The light was glaring, harsh, by comparison, and a range of smells that he hadn’t noticed before assaulted Jason. People. Life. Death. He turned his head to the side, overwhelmed.

  “There were demons,” Kelly reported. “The fence held them off.”

  Sam was inside the ring.

  “Everything okay?” Jason asked him. Sam nodded.

  “The one was here again. The one you keep fighting.”

  “She and I need to have sex and just get it over with,” Jason said, looking out at the trees. Mahkail made a noise.

  “No, I don’t actually screw demons,” Jason said without looking.

  “I need everyone out,” Samantha said. “I’m going to close it.”

  “So?” Sam asked as they went to stand under the trees. Jason drew Anadidd’na, just to be ready, but Sam seemed at ease.

  “Crazy,” Jason said. “Dude, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Oh, come on. You can do better than that.”

  “White. Everything was completely white.”

  “Like… clouds? Like nothing?”

  “Marble.”

  Samantha was pouring the bucket of blood over the clearing as Kelly and Mahkail watched.

  “Huh.”

  “And there are a lot of them,” Jason said.

  “Of who?”

  “The angels. Dude. And the chicks were hot.”

  Mahkail cleared his throat, and Jason nodded.

  “Seriously hot.”

  Sam rolled his jaw to the side and looked at Mahkail, then shook his head.

  “But what was it like?”

  Jason watched Samantha for a moment, then shook his head.

  “You know I don’t do this kind of stuff, dude. Ask her.”

  “She won’t tell me.”

  “It was big. It was white. It was full of angels. They’re weird.”

  “You’re weird,” Kelly commented. “We’re normal.”

  Jason pulled his eyelids up with his eyebrows.

  “Definitely weird.”

  Sam grinned.

  “She hasn’t got it anymore?”

  “Nope. They turned back into angels. Apparently one of them was pissed Sam was the one he picked to do it.”

  “Valdine has always been one to indulge curiosity,�
� Mahkail said. Jason grinned and nodded.

  “Pissed.”

  There was a breeze as the portal snapped closed and Jason put his head up again. Sam shook his head.

  “I’m watching the whole park,” he said. “As long as she’s in that ring, I can see around it. They aren’t here.”

  Jason looked at his brother, impressed.

  “Damn.”

  Sam grinned.

  “Thanks.”

  Samantha and Mahkail were speaking to each other at the center of the ring of posts, but it looked like they were done. Mahkail put his arms out and dropped them slowly, and the posts sunk into the earth. When they reached ground level, the grass started to creep back in toward the angel and the girl, until it was just the two of them standing in a small grassy clearing in a park.

  “Thank you, Anadidd’na Anu’dd,” Mahkail said. “You have done well.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She put on her sunglasses and looked up at the sky. “I’m going to be late for my own meeting, if I’m not quick.”

  There was a pause, and then Mahkail took both of her hands in his and put them to his forehead.

  “On angels’ wings,” he said. Her eyes widened, then she looked away. He let her hands go, and she stepped away.

  “Until we meet again,” she said. She turned to find Kelly standing in front of her.

  Oh.

  Jason hadn’t even paused to think that this was goodbye for him, too.

  “You’ve put more weight on him than I could have, in double the time,” Mahkail said. Samantha gave Kelly a wistful smile.

  “He survived the deep end.”

  Kelly knelt before Mahkail.

  “Do you have specific orders for me, sir?”

  “I do not,” Mahkail said.

  “Then I ask your permission to stay.”

  He raised his head and looked up at Mahkail.

  “She is doing good work, and…” he glanced at Samantha. “She isn’t careful, sir. She needs as many people looking after as she can get.”