Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (69 page)

"What separates
us from our enemies is that we remember what it's like to feel compassion. 
It's what enables you to turn old enemies into allies.  Remember this gift, for
I-That-Am love all of my children, and you must unite
all
tribes to
preserve the balance from those who would plunge the galaxy into entropy.”

Ninsianna swooned. 
Her father caught her before she hit the ground.  Mikhail rushed forward and
held her up until she could stand on her own.  Everyone who was present
understood it was not Ninsianna who had just spoken to them, but She-who-is. 
The cloud dissipated as mysteriously as it had appeared, bathing the gravesites
in sunlight once more.  The warriors broke up and went home, the battle-rage
purged from their bodies.

Silently, Mikhail
placed his large, strong hand over her small one and walked her home.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

July – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Jamin

He lingered at the
back, as far as he could get from Ninsianna and her eerie golden eyes.  Any
minute they would figure out what he had done!

No.  Of course not. 
Whispers had gone through the village.  A traitor.  Someone had passed
intelligence to their enemies.  But so far, no one had traced their suspicions
back to
him
.  How could they?  This was not what he'd intended when he'd
cut a deal with the Halifians to lead the winged one into an ambush.

They'd double-crossed
him!  All the Halifians were supposed to do was rid his village of whichever
female archers they could lure far enough away to kidnap without incident. 
Pareesa.  Homa.  Gisou.  And Kiana.  Females the age the Amorite slavers
wanted.  A surgical strike to remove a cancer from their midst.  Attack had not
been part of the bargain! 

Eleven dead!  Eleven
dead and forty-five Halifians.  And eight Amorite slavers.  The Halifians were
supposed to back up the slavers in the dense foliage of an acacia grove. 
They'd chosen that as the kill box because trees would hamper the winged
demon's ability to fly.  They weren't supposed to attack the village!

Eleven Assurians were
dead!  Their stone cairns stared at him.  Accusing him.  Taunting.  Screaming. 
Murderer.  Murderer.  Murderer
.

The Halifian leader
had given
him
intelligence, in return.  Ninsianna was not the
only
person to have delusions of lizard people!  The Amorites had told them the
lizard-demons were only middle-men.  The ultimate slave masters buying their
women were none other than Mikhail’s own people!    He'd been right all along! 
Mikhail was here to find their weaknesses! 

He couldn't tell.  If
he told his father what he knew, they would know
he'd
been the one to
sell them out to their enemies.  He hadn't expected them to send a raiding
force against the village.  The mercenaries were supposed to stay with Pareesa
and kill Mikhail!  Not attack Assur!

This was not his
fault!

His cheek twitched, a
nervous tic which had grown worse ever since the winged demon had stolen his
girl.  He could fix this.  Yes … there was a bigger threat afoot.  It was up to
him
to figure out a way to fend off the bigger threat.  Maybe he could
get the Halifians to side against their common enemy?  Mikhail’s people. 
They
were the enemy.  They were the ones who demanded Ubaid women for slaves!

How to fix.  How to
fix. 
Could
he fix this?  Yes … he was the chief’s son.  He had
to
fix this.  Only
he
could fix this mess.  He was the only one who knew…

“Jamin,” Shahla
interrupted his whirring.  He jumped, glancing to either side, fearful the
others would see them together and put together the pieces of the puzzle.

No.  Nobody knew. 
Nobody knew he'd done this.  Nobody except for
her.
  His fists clenched
as he contemplated whether he should kill her.

“This was not supposed
to happen,” Shahla wept.  “This is all my fault!   If I hadn't told them where
Pareesa liked to hunt deer, this wouldn't have happened.”

He should kill her. 
She was the only one who knew.  How?  He thought of ways to lure her away from
the village.  A spear?  No.  Her screams would alert the others. 
Strangulation.  Yes, strangulation would be silent.  But where would he hide
her body?  And who could he blame when her parents came looking for her? 
Another kidnapping?  Yes.  That was it.  He would make it look like she'd been
kidnapped.

Perhaps he could just
sell her to the Amorites himself?

No.  For all her
sleeping around, Shahla had never conceived a child.  The Halifians said the
slavers wanted breeding stock, not farm labor.  Defective merchandise was
turned out into the desert and allowed to die.  What would happen if she
escaped and made her way back to Assur?  Now, or years from now, the other
villagers would stone him to death for his complicity in causing the deaths of
eleven of their own.  He had
to kill her.  It was the only way to
guarantee her silence.

Shahla leaned into
him, her head against her shoulder.

“This was not your
fault,” Shahla said with a sniffle.  “You were only trying to do what is best
for the village.” 

Her arms slid around
his waist.  So trusting.  So … loving.  Shahla was in love with him.  Even if
he was not in love with
her.

'You're not a
murderer…'
the wind whispered.

“I'm not a murderer,”
Jamin said.  His arms slipped around her shoulders as he sighed.  “This was not
supposed to happen.  My father is blind.”  He pointed to where the winged one
stood silently amongst the crowd.  Watching.  Watching every move the Ubaid
made so he could report their weaknesses back to their
real
enemies.

The Angelic race…

When Mikhail had flown
back into their midst to defend his father, he'd looked into his inhuman blue
eyes.  Although not black like the first time, what had stared back at him had
still
not been mortal…

“
He
is the
threat to our village,” Jamin said.  “That's why they've been trying to take
him.”

“I'll do whatever I
can to help,” Shahla searched his eyes.  “That's what the wife of a future
chief would do, wouldn’t she?  Do whatever is necessary to support her
husband?  Even when everyone around them is too blind to see what is really
going on?”

'You're not a
murderer…'

“Yes,” Jamin kissed
her.  Even if he didn't love her, he was not a murderer.  He wouldn't hurt her.

But he
did
have
to keep her silent…

“Let’s go,” Jamin
nuzzled her neck.  “I want to make love to my future wife.”

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.07 AE

Haven-1:  Palace of the Eternal Emperor

Supreme Commander-General Jophiel

Jophiel

A brown dragon-like
snout peered out the door where she stood waiting, flanked by the two Cherubim
guards who had been instructed to usher her inside the moment she arrived.  The
moment he spied her, a pleased grin appeared on Dephar's face.

“Come in!”  The
Muqqibat dragon held open the door as his golden eyes glowed brighter, the mark
of a pre-ascended creature.  "You'll find him in the usual place." 
He pointed down the endless rows of cages, piled floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall
with life forms the Emperor tinkered with. 

She thanked the
wingless dragon, slender and tall like the serpents that flanked both sides of
Asclepius's caduceus, a symbol of knowledge and wisdom.  Dephar had always made
her feel welcome here, even when she showed up unexpectedly to disturb the
Emperor's research on an important matter of military urgency, and she enjoyed
his company.  She shifted the sleeping Uriel to her hip so she could give the
Emperor's top research genius a proper salute, and inquired about Dephar's
own
research before making her way through the labyrinth of narrow cages, all
piled helter-skelter despite the best efforts of the army of laboratory
technicians and scientists the Emperor kept in his employ to keep things
organized. 

The Emperor's
laboratory was a vibrant place, resisting organization or classification, and
no matter how hard his subjects tried to pigeonhole his work, things just
turned out the way they were meant to be.  She found him bent over an
experiment, laboratory coat buttoned up wrong, but Jophiel didn't take
offense.  His work required absolute concentration.  She waited for him to
finish pondering whatever great thought occupied his considerable genius and
glance up before announcing she'd arrived.

“Reporting for duty,
Sir!”  She grabbed the sling to make sure Uriel didn't drop out onto his head. 
She'd not yet adjusted to the way his weight tugged her off-balance.  Twelve
babies she'd borne the Alliance, but this was the first time she'd actually
needed to care for one of them.  It was a lot more work than she'd anticipated!

“Shhhh …. it's about
to hatch.”  The Emperor motioned for her to step closer to the incubator so she
could see creation in progress.  Hashem was fully manifested into the material
realms at the moment, wearing his usual form of a wingless human male. 

Fist-sized leathery
eggs, perhaps belonging to a lizard, turtle, or snake, wiggled as they began to
hatch.   Although most subjects thought of the Emperor as a god-like creature
sitting on his magnificent throne, this is how Jophiel loved him best.  In his
lab, wearing crumpled clothing that looked as though it had been slept in,
white hair and bushy eyebrows tussled like a mad scientist, up to his elbows
creating variations of life.

“What are they?”  She
watched what could be a beak or a claw begin to chip through one of the eggs.

“Gourocks
^[6]
from
Gemini-28.”  The Emperor focused intently on his new creations as they pecked
their way into the world.  “Miniature water dragons.  Nearly extinct.  I'm
giving them a little enhancement.  We shall see if that pushes them over the
top so they can survive.”

“What is the
enhancement?”

“Look and see,” he
said.  “You tell me.”

Jophiel studied the
first baby dragon to push its way out of the shell and give a little squeak. 
Soon, two dozen more followed.  All were identical except for the last one,
which didn't hatch.  The Emperor took the egg and studied it.

“It
should
hatch…” he said perplexed.  “My tests showed all of the eggs were viable and
had developing embryos.”

“I don't see what the
enhancement is,” Jophiel said.  “I'm not familiar with gourocks.”

“Let’s see how their
mama reacts to them.”  The Emperor rolled over a larger cage until the doors
lined up, then lifted them so the dog-sized adult gourock whose eggs had been
enhanced could view her offspring.  “C’mon, mama….” Hashem coaxed.  “Let’s see
how you like your new babies.”