Incarnation: Wandering Stars Volume One (26 page)

Now the murmur rose to a din as the other angels expressed their confusion about the presence of a human within their city.

“I found him standing on a ridge to the south of our city.  He apparently found his way
here
t
hrough no means other than direction from the Holy One
.”

“Did you bring us another message?” someone asked.

“No,” Ananel answered quickly, before Enoch could say anything.  “
He brings the same message, but now that we are free of the complications of Semjaza, we
will
hear him
.
”

In the awkward silence,
Enoch looked around
at the surrounding faces and recognized
some of them from
months ago.  But now he felt better-equipped to understand what he saw and noticed more details. 
All of them were large, but thinner and less muscular than Semjaza’s soldiers.  He saw a variety of skin and hair color,
vibrant and diverse compared to humans.  Blues and greens, oranges and yellows.  E
yes
brighter than
the color of flowers
.  Their graceful
beauty
was
beyond anything he’d ever witnessed. 
And
most surpris
ing was the presence of
several
who appeared to be
female
.  The perfect shape of their faces made Enoch stare in disbelief.  Their long, flowing hair seemed to move as if blown by the wind, though the air was perfectly still.  Beneath their loose flowing clothing, Enoch caught brief glimpses of their outlines as they moved, sending shivers through his body that made him blush.  Immediately, he thought of Zacol and
Methu
and closed his eyes in shame, trying to shut out the vis
ions of perfection before him.  He wondered if these magnificent creatures ever married and had families
of their own
.

When he opened
his eyes
again, the Myndarym were assembled around the perimeter of the meeting area.
  Enoch felt their perceiving gaze staring into his very spirit.

“Enoch of the Shayetham,” one of the women began.

Enoch immediately averted his eyes to keep from being distracted.

“…you must know that Semjaza lied to us.”

Her voice seemed to soothe every part of him, washing away months of exhaustion.  He took a slow breath and tried to compose himself.  “This is what I’ve
heard
, but I do not understand the nature of your relationship with
him
.”

The voice of another joined the conversation, this one decidedly male. 
“
We all wished to live
in
the
T
emporal
R
ealm.  He offered us a way to come in secret in exchange for our help.
  But now the
Amatru
know we’re here.  And we will be held responsible for what Semjaza has done.
”

Again,
Enoch
heard the shifting of blame to Semjaza, but there was clearly more to the situation than what they were revealing.  When he looked out across the faces in the crowd, he
found
pleading, distraught
looks
.  “Please.  I am merely a human who listens for the voice of the Holy One,” he begged in return.  “I know
very little
of your world or the things you’ve
done
.  I don’t wish to show you disrespect, but I
don’t
understand
what you are telling me. 
Please ma
ke your speech plain so that I
may understand and answer you accordingly.
”

Ananel
stepped forward from his place beside Enoch.
  “I have a suggestion.  This Prophet has told me that the Holy One gives him visions.”

Immediately, a look of understanding crossed the faces staring at Enoch.  Again, he seemed to be the only one who
was confused.

“Perhaps
even the angelic
language of this realm is
insufficient.
”

Enoch shrugged his shoulders, unsure if he was supposed to respond.

Ananel
knelt down and looked Enoch directly in the eye.  “Would you allow us to speak to you in another way, and to make that way known to you?”

“I…  Yes, I suppose,” Enoch replied cautiously.
  “Like
the language we are using now?”

“No,” the angel replied with a
reassuring
smile.  “This other way is quite different.”

Enoch nodded.

Ananel
stood up and opened his mouth.  Slowly, the meeting area was filled with the sweetest of sounds, a gentle song that drifted among the blades of grass and the gently
swirling
water of the pool.  It gradually built in volume and complexity as others joined in.

Enoch felt
a blanket of peace cover him, and the strong need to close his eyes, which he promptly obeyed. 
One moment, he was thinking how beautiful their singing was, and the next he found himself seeing, feeling, hearing, touching, and even tasting things that he was sure
he had
never experienced.  It lasted only a few minutes, but when the sensation passed, he understood exactly what had happened.

In the following silence, Enoch opened his eyes.  “This is your language which cannot be spoken in this realm.  How then did you speak it to me and how did I understand it?”

Ananel
, now standing at his full height, looked down.  “
Though our realms have drifted apart, there
is a portion of
the Eternal still attached to the Temporal. 
We
moved
you
into this place
where our language can be spoken.  We opened your ears
by singing a Song of Understanding.
”

Enoch looked down at the soft grass beneath his feet
and
slowly rubbed his palms together
.  His mind
now
raced with ideas
that
had been
planted in his mind
—memories
so complete that he felt as though they were his experiences.  Now he understood that words were but a pale shadow of how these creatures communicate
d
.  Spoken language seemed terribly inadequate.  But
he gave them words
anyway.

“Semjaza wanted to come to this realm, but he was held back by the limitations of his own ability.  He and his soldiers are not Myndarym.  They could not
shift
.”

Enoch could see nods of affirmation from the Myndarym as he began pacing, the thoughts coming
more quickly
than he could speak.

“
He desired to set up an earthly kingdom
without opposition
and needed your
help to get here, and your
knowledge of humans to g
ain control of the
Kahyin people
.  Your role as Shapers had
already
come to an end and
you
were facing military service under his leadership.  He offered to give you another existence among the creation you knew so well, to take you along and make it appear as if you
perished in battle
.
  But he failed in this.  My coming, and that of the
Speaker
, revealed that the Holy One and the
Amatru
knew what had transpired, and what Semjaza
was
attempting to do.”

Enoch slowly looked up at the faces he once feared.  Now, as he wiped the tears from his eyes, he no longer feared them, but feared for them.

“
You are not supposed to be here.  The heart of the Holy One is broken by your
actions
.  His tears come now from my eyes,” Enoch whispered.

“You can see now that we have hid nothing from you,”
Ananel
admitted.  “And this is our plea to you—that you take our petition for fo
r
giveness before the Holy One
.  Present it to Him and make
H
im understand our unfortunate position.  We desire peace and not war.
  We do not align ourselves with Semjaza any longer.
”
1
2

Enoch opened his mouth t
o speak, but nothing came out.  There were too many conflicting thoughts and emotions.  Again and again, he heard the Myndarym’s refusal to accept their own disobedience.  Again and again, they shifted the blame to Semjaza.  And now they asked him to go before the Holy One and
make
H
im understand
, as if He needed to.  As if His perspective was wrong
and He needed some missing piece of information to reach a just conclusion
.  And yet,
Enoch
also shared their memory of Semjaza’s manipulation.  By what they placed into his mind, he experienced the
ir
betrayal.  He felt their helplessness and he sympathized with their
situation. 
Fi
nally, he managed a few words.

“I don’t know how to take you
r
petition before Him.”

Ananel
knelt down again.  “
You said He speaks to you.  Don’t you also speak with Him?”

“Yes,” Enoch admitted.  “But it’s not the same as we are now speaking.”

Ananel
hung his head.  “We do not understand the fullness of the Holy One’s love for your kind.  From the beginning, He has favored
humans
above all other creation
s
.  Even above us.  None of the Myndarym have ever spoken or heard directly from Him.  Yet you experience this daily.  We can see that you are special, even among humans. 
If you are unable to take our petition before Him, then surely all is lost.  We are without hope.”

Enoch looked from
Ananel
to the other faces among the meeting area.  He couldn’t stand to see them this way. 
For such magnificent creatures, they now appeared pathetic. 
From some unknown place inside him, confidence welled up
—a confidence propelled by mercy. 
“I will try,” he offered.  “I will try.”

Sariel traveled north along the
stream
, following the same path that
he’d taken previously to
Arar Gahiy
, but t
his time he was alone. 
T
he day
after leaving
B
ahyith
, he shaped into his Iryllur form and flew
east into the foothills of
Bokhar
.  Crossing over the
Morning Mountain
, he descen
ded into flatlands that were
choked
with towering trees and dense undergrowth. 
According to
Yeduah
’s
instructions, the People of the Trees lived in the forests which grew thickes
t
between
the eastern slope of Bokhar and the Great Waters.

For several days, Sariel flew in a methodical search pattern over the land, always
shifting
his consciousness toward the Eternal and back.  Each time he perceived the glow of a living being’s spirit he descended to the trees for a closer look with his physical eyes.  But he found nothing except animals of all kinds—reptiles, and mammals—moving in herds,
or at
other
times alone. 
Occasionally, a school of fish swimming through the abundant streams would appear from high above as a gathering of human
spirit
s.  But the
Aytsam
were nowhere to be found.

Gradually, Sariel made his way south and east.  There, on the narrowest section of land that separated the Great Waters from another body of water
to its northwest
,
he noticed a difference in the pattern of the trees.  With caution, he landed and approached the area on foot.

What he had barely noticed from above turned out to be human dwellings suspended in the
thick
braches. 
Platforms of bundled saplings were connected by rope bridges, creating an entire village high overhead, just beneath the underhanging foliage.  But it was
deserted
.  Sariel flew up to the braches and walked along the platforms, looking for clues.  Then he searched the ground beneath the village, but it looked as if it hadn’t been used in months.