Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (39 page)

“Come,” she
regretfully broke the contact.  She took his hand and tugged him towards the
widow-sisters.  “We are done planting for today.  Let me introduce you to our
neighbors.”

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

End-April – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Jamin

“Harlot!”  Anger
turned his cheeks so red it made him sweat.  How dare the winged demon flex his
wings and show off like a cockerel greeting the dawn in front of the entire
village?  Any minute now Mikhail would start scratching the ground and
crowing!  Oh, how he obsessed about plucking those wings and turning them into
a feathered cape!

“Let’s go,” Siamek
glanced to where Ninsianna stood in intimate proximity to the five cubit tall
winged creature who had now taken up residence in their village.  “We are
finished planting for today.  Let’s go practice someplace else.”

“She deliberately
makes a spectacle of herself to dishonor me!” Rage shuddered through his body
as the winged demon reached out to tangle his fingers in
his
fiancé’s
hair.

“Did you see the way
he spread their seed in only a few minutes?” Firouz said with admiration. 
“That would have taken me all day.”

“Look!” Dadbeh said. 
“He's helping Yalda and Zhila plant
their
fields now.  The mead will be
flowing tonight!”

“I wish he would come
plant
my
field,” Tirdard looked forlornly at the basket of seed he'd yet
to plant.  “I can’t go with you until I finish planting my parent's field.” 
Tirdard was the youngest warrior in Jamin's elite group.

“That’s because you
daydream about Yadidatum all day,” Kiarash said.  “Instead of focusing on what
you
should
be doing.”  Kiarash was one of the older warriors from the
Chief's generation.  He referred to the young woman to whom Tirdard was
betrothed.

“All that Yadidatum
daydreams about these days is the winged one,” Tirdard said mournfully.  "
She said I should strive to be more like him."

“Just like every other
female in the village,” Siamek laughed.  “A guy can't get any action since
he
showed up.”

“Oh, beautiful winged
one,” Dadbeh said in high-pitched voice.  “Carry me into the sky with those big
dark wings of yours.”

“No, fair maiden,”
Firouz donned a respectable facsimile of Mikhail’s unreadable expression.  “I
must follow Ninsianna around like a large, winged dog.”

“Sit, boy,” Dadbeh
changed his mannerisms to mimic Ninsianna at her bossy best, “Stay.  Fetch.  Go
plant my neighbor's fields so Yalda will bake me some bread.”  For emphasis, he
reached out and touched Firouz’s cheek.

“Yes, my love,” Firouz
mimicked Mikhail’s stiff stance, “anything to avoid eating your mothers
cooking.”  Firouz walked in lock-step behind Dadbeh as he mimicked Ninsianna
leading Mikhail around by the nose.

“He is only here to
gauge our defenses so he can attack us!”  Jamin snarled.  How could they all be
so
stupid?
 

“Come, now, Jamin,”
Kiarash said.  “The only reason he is here is because of Ninsianna.  You don't
go from riding a sky canoe to planting fields unless you wish to win over the
girl.”  Kiarash was a warrior from his father's generation, the Chief's
watchdog assigned to babysit the younger warriors.

“Enough!” Siamek had
been friends with Jamin long enough to see when he was about to lose his
temper.  "What Ninsianna does is of no concern of ours.  Only that we train
as Jamin has asked!"

“It's time to face the
truth,” Kiarash said.  “Ninsianna strung
you
along because you were the
biggest dog in the village.  Now she has found an even
bigger
dog to
grant her every whim.” 

“You're better off
without her,” Siamek said.  “Let’s go practice someplace else.”  He reached to
turn Jamin away from the sight of Ninsianna and her two elderly neighbors
buzzing around the winged one like bees to honey.  In the air above them, two
enormous golden eagles circled the fields, looking for a mouse.  The wind
carried them higher in an updraft.

'Jamin … it's time
to let her go…'

“Get your hand off of
me,” Jamin snarled. 

Jamin stalked off,
leaving his friends wondering what they'd done to become the focus of his ire. 
Moving off into a grove of date palm trees, he hid, watching Ninsianna coax the
demon to do her dirty work for her.  His friends were right about that much! 
Ninsianna had found a bigger dog to do her bidding.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.05

Haven-1:  Royal Palace

Prime Minister Lucifer

Lucifer

Lucifer stared down at
the magnificent white palace which had been home for the first fifteen years of
his life.  The Eternal Tree the Emperor had planted the day the Alliance was
founded, which tradition said would flourish so long as the Alliance did, was
in full blossom, but for so long as he'd been alive, the tree had never set any
fruit.  Sterile.
  Like him…
  The pilot circled around to the small
landing pad located at the rear, as far away from the garden as the Emperor had
been able to design it.

When
he'd
lived
here, everything had been an adventure, each moment more delightful than the
one before as he'd helped the Emperor beat the socks off of the old dragon in
their eternal game of galactic chess.  Nowadays, when his father wasn't in the
ascended realms matching wits against Shay'tan
,
he was in his genetics
laboratory.  It was to this series of buildings, jutting out the back of the
palace like the tail in the letter 'Q', which he headed as soon as his shuttle
landed.

At the inner door, he
met the first of three sets of Cherubim guards, the thirteen-foot-tall ant-like
warriors fierce and resplendent in their armor which accentuated their
naturally armored bodies.  He was known here, but they
still
made him go
through a retinal scanner and answer a series of questions to prove he was who
he said he was, searching for the signs of oddity or delay which signaled the
presence of a 'squatter,' whatever the hell
that
was.  If such a thing
existed, the Emperor had never enlightened him.  Just outside the main
laboratory he was stopped a second time. 

Once upon a time, the
Cherubim had been under orders to simply let him in, a boy whose curiosity the
Emperor liked to pique.  Nowadays, it was all he could do to get the Emperor to
return his calls.  He'd left more than a dozen messages, not one of them
returned.  The Emperor was angry he refused to rescind the trade deal and was
giving him the cold shoulder.  He'd come in desperation because what he had to
say couldn't wait. 

That small, nasty
voice that always taunted that his father didn't care about him had grown
louder since leaving 51-Pegasi-4.  His subconscious whispered to quit making
excuses, but the first fifteen years of his life had been so happy.  The
Emperor
had made him happy.  No matter how many times the Emperor now pushed him
aside, blew him off, pooh-poohed his requests and minimized his concerns, that
part of him that had grown up adoring the man he called 'father' refused to
die.

Even the small, nasty
voice was silent today…

He waited while they
forwarded his message requesting an audience, his white wings snapping with
irritation.  The door to the laboratory opened.  His stomach sank the moment he
lay eyes upon the person his father had sent to answer.

“I need to see him,”
Lucifer said.

“He is running a
genetics experiment and can't be disturbed.”  Dephar was Muqqibat, a long-lived
species of wingless, dragon-like creatures.  He'd served as the Emperor's chief
geneticist for longer than Lucifer had been alive.

“He can't just bury
his head in the sand and not deal with this problem!”  Lucifer's white wings
flapped with frustration.

“He's busy!”  Dephar
tasted the air with disgust.  “He doesn't have time for your little … intrigues.”

“I'm his son!  I have
a right to see my own father!”

“You are
Asherah’s
son,”
Dephar said coldly.  “Not his!  He never legally adopted you.  For 225 years
you and that slimy assistant of yours have been lying to the press.”

Lucifer felt as though
he'd just been punched in the stomach. 

“He is the only father
I have ever known,” Lucifer said.  “He always insisted I call him Father. 
Zepar said the adoption became official after both of my biological parents
died.”

“Well it didn't!”
Dephar snapped, hatred flashing in his eyes.  “Why do you think he's avoided
you ever since he got back?  He doesn't want
you
any more than your
mother wanted
him
.“

He'd always known that
Dephar didn't like him.  Not even as a little boy.  The Muqqibat were one of
the old races who fought tooth and claw to prevent the genetically engineered
hybrids from gaining the same legal rights as the naturally evolved species and
there had always been some sort of tension between the wingless dragon and his
mother, but he'd never realized until now that his father's chief geneticist
hated
him.

“I need to see him,”
Lucifer pleaded.  “Dephar, please.  He can't just continue to pretend there is
not a problem.  I was on a Leonid battle cruiser yesterday.  There were no
Leonid’s on it!  Only Spiderids.”

“The Spiderids are
taking over for the Leonids,” Dephar said, “just as the Leonids took over for
another race that's now extinct.  The Leonids are defective creatures who are
being replaced.”

“Don't you even
care
that the Leonids will all be gone soon?” Lucifer shouted.  “There are less than
3,500 left!”

“Your species are
tools,” Dephar's snout contorted into a snarl.  “Created to serve the naturally
evolved races.  Not the other way around.  The Emperor doesn't make time to fix
you because your species are not
real.
”

“That’s not true!” 
Lucifer felt sick.

“You're nothing but
another one of Hashem’s failed experiments!” 

With a disgusted
snuffle, Dephar turned and disappeared back into the genetics laboratory,
signaling the two Cherubim guards to evict him from the palace.  They silently
escorted him back to his waiting shuttle.  As it took off and cleared orbit,
hopping between terraformed worlds to where Parliament sat on Haven-3, that
small, wise voice which was always heartbreakingly right returned to taunt him.

'You have always
known this to be true…'

He made his way to his
office in a fog, oblivious to the reporters who hounded him and the
constituents who rushed up asking for favors.  All he could think about was the
adoption.  Never completed?  Could it be true?  Zepar had always insisted he
leave the past alone.  He'd ceded those kinds of details to his Chief of Staff,
always too busy to go digging on his own.  Every time he'd tried, Zepar would
reassign whoever he'd sent to dig and loaded up his schedule until he wondered
why he even cared.  He sensed that if he wanted to know
now,
he would
need to go through alternate channels.