The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (67 page)

Taking a step away from the table,
Apollonius turned, seeing a distraught face. He stopped, raising a
hand. “I will give you this little bit of advice, my friend. Cast
away the old world. Grow a beard...” At that, Apollonius bounded
away, catching up a pouting Suan in his arms as they hurriedly
parted the company of the tavern for other adventures.

* * *

Mihai’s return from the Prisoner Exchange to
Palace City was celebrated in grand, holiday fashion, the streets
converging upon the spaceport packed with jubilant merrymakers.
Countless thousands pressed ever forward, seeking to add their
voices to the grand chorus of the happy throngs gathering to greet
their victorious king, she having bravely forced Asotos’ hand into
surrendering up the hostages to her. Everything was come to a
standstill with everyone abandoning home, hearth and business to
attend this glorious festival.

(Author’s note:
Other than the military
with its established protocols, there was no official organized
volunteer corps in those days, such as exists presently. At best,
there was a loose amalgam of people who offered whatever times and
energies they were willing to, to assist with maintaining Palace
City’s infrastructure. More as you might see at a community
barn-raising, there was an air that permeated the spirit of
volunteerism of that day - whatever the mood, so would go the
action. Thus, when Mihai returned to Palace City, most of the
people currently serving in support of the city, its maintenance,
transportation and so forth, took their leave to join with the
partying public, leading to a temporary, massive gridlock
throughout the region.

Although being little more than a minor
inconvenience that day, the potential danger at more crucial times
was obvious. To prevent such breakdowns during times of emergency,
it was common practice for the military to take over the civil
operation of transportation, communication, and other essentials
within the people’s governance. Under these circumstances, the
military machine of the Children’s Empire took up the role of
public servant, not that of a military dictatorship, such as was
found within the League of Brothers.
)

The orderly procession begun by Mihai and
her entourage after stepping from the DishonPele had quickly
dissolved into a confused throng of merrymakers slowly progressing
toward the grand review stand set up in front of the spaceport’s
main terminal. The crowds crushed in from every side upon their new
king, jubilant voices crying out praises while hands reached out to
touch even a strand of Mihai’s hair or just her outer garment.

The people’s new king attempted to accept
the adoration as well as any royal person should, but it only
deepened the guilt pangs of her troubled heart. Long had the
accounts of the Prisoner Exchange been revealed to the people. No
matter the facts or explanations offered by herself and others,
Mihai was the grand architect behind the well-orchestrated events
that played out, leading to the greatest public humiliation of
Asotos since Gabrielle’s violent denunciation of him so many
millennia ago. Every act of intrigue up through her field marshal’s
departure had been part of Mihai’s detailed battle plan, and no
matter her personal confessions - which she did attempt on several
occasions that day - her ardent admirers would have none of it. She
was the
grand star
, the people’s shining light.

With every word of praise and every pat on
the back declaring ‘Well done!’, Mihai sank further into despair
until she broke down and wept, covering her face with her hands as
tears flowed like rivers. The crowds reacted to this by louder and
more fervent declarations of adoration. Soon the woman was being
carried along by them toward the spaceport’s review stand, where
there would be hours of obligatory speeches and orating, providing
a much needed festival of the soul for a people long tired of this
never ending Rebellion.

Gradian’s Clock had chimed well past the
midnight hour by the time Mihai escaped and made her way to the
Palace. Arriving alone, she avoided any chanced contact by taking
little-used passages that delivered her to the younglings’ quarters
instead of the staterooms of the First Born. Spying the small bed
in the corner of the darkened room, she flung herself across it and
began to weep. So much the woman attempted to confess her rueful
delinquencies of character and utter failure of duties, declaring
that others had carried the day despite her
heroic
incompetence, but all to no avail. Through fitful sobs, the
despondent child eventually drifted into a troubled sleep.

With the morning sun, the city began to take
its ease, the partiers having tired of the celebration, many
casting their exhausted bodies down wherever the mood took them.
Peace was returned to the world, the lonely footsteps of the
changing of the morning watch being the few sounds disturbing the
early quiet. In a small village some leagues to the east, the
morning sun was rising upon a far different scene. There, in
another room, a young heart was growing restless, tiring of the
endless
game of patience forced upon it.

* * *

Ishtar looked up from her half-eaten bowl of
fruit, angrily glaring at Symeon. “
Enough!
You are playing
folly with me. That I know. This...” She threw the bowl on the
floor. “grows nowhere near my home! The sun warms not my wall in
the heat of high day. Indeed! Does the sun rise at all in this
darksome place, the fire and wicker lamp my only lighted
companions? Oh yes, the cock crows beyond this room. Or is it but a
game played in my mind? Give me answers, for my patience is frayed
to the limit!”

Symeon motioned down with outstretched hands
as he attempted to calm the moment. “Look, please my little child,
you were asleep many days. The healers recommend just another day
or two, and you shall be up and about as good as new. Just…”

Ishtar jumped up shouting. “I
am
as
good as new! Better! You are not truthful with me. My mother you
have not delivered here. The door is always locked after being
lovingly
shut behind you. Every time I request my leave, you
feign excuse.”

Symeon begged, “Please, just a little while
longer.”

“
No
little while longer!” Ishtar
screamed, charging Symeon. “
Outta my way!”

Symeon reached out, attempting to block the
girl’s advance. Ishtar slammed up against him, her eyes bulging in
surprise when Symeon’s resistance stopped her up short. Wild-eyed,
the girl backed up, hands high as if preparing for combat. She
squinted, suspicion echoing on her tongue. “An old man I see, but
with the strength of a stallion. Have the healers also cured you of
your joint pain that has so long crippled you?”

Excitedly motioning Ishtar to stand back,
Symeon tried to calm the child. “Only a day...! A day! I promise.
Only a day...”

Hearing the commotion in the other room,
Hannah opened the door to see what the matter might be. “Hello.”
The woman called out cheerfully as she swung the door wide.

Symeon glanced over his shoulder at hearing
the door creaking upon its hinges. Ishtar wasted no time, taking
advantage of the distraction. Plunging forward, she shoved her
uncle aside and dove for the doorway, piling into Hannah and
slamming her back against the doorpost.

Hanna grimaced in pain from the hit, but
kept her wits about her, preventing the girl from escaping. A
struggle soon ensued. Ishtar was not going down easily, and Hanna
refused to surrender to the onslaught. Determined to get away at
all costs, the child held nothing back, clawing, slapping and
punching her attempted way to freedom. Hanna took it all - a
bruised rib, bleeding lip, and other minor injuries - holding back
in her defense for fear of harming Ishtar. She planted herself
firmly across the doorway as the girl continued to pummel her with
fists and screaming abuses.

In desperation, Ishtar grabbed hold of
Hanna’s upper garment and yanked backward, throwing Hanna off
balance. As the woman stumbled forward, reaching for the door to
keep from falling, the garment tore from her shoulders, ripping one
of the prosthetic breasts away in the process. Catching herself up
by clutching the door handle, Hanna looked into a shocked face of a
young girl seeing for the first time the woman’s youthful
beauty.

Ishtar might be shocked at what she saw, but
not into inactivity. Seeing an opened doorway, the girl charged
past Hanna and bolted into the adjacent room, only to be stopped up
short at seeing a half-naked man sitting at a table with bright,
blazing fires of every color on it and upon the wall in front of
him. Screaming, terrified, Ishtar lunged for a knife lying on a
table in another corner of the room.

Holding it high, she threatened,
“Get
outta my way, or I’ll stick ya!”

The man threw his hands up, smiling, as he
nodded toward the further door. “No harm, missy. No harm...” He
shot a warning glance back at the other doorway for Hanna and
Symeon not to interfere. Ishtar did not hesitate. In a heartbeat,
she was out the door and away.

In a flash, Symeon was across the room,
Drorli catching him up short. “Let her go, my friend. She’s not the
first to take that path.” Watching helplessly as his child
disappeared into the thickets across the street, Symeon cried out
after her, “No! Honey, please come back!”

Taking him by the arm, Drorli led Symeon
back to the small table that Ishtar had stolen the knife from.
“Sit, my friend. The girl’s fine. Gives her a chance to stretch her
legs a bit...”

Symeon whined, “She will get lost, maybe
hurt, or possibly hurt others.”

“Come, now.” Drorli patted Symeon on the
shoulder. “She may become lost, already is, but we won’t lose her,
not with all the preparations we’ve made.”

Hanna stepped into the room and over to a
mirror on the wall. Examining a swollen bruise and cut lip, she
mused, “Feisty one, she is! Hadn’t seen that coming...” Then
pulling her upper garment off, she began picking away at removing
the remainder of the prosthetics. “At least, I won’t be saddled
with these anymore. Ugly and old I once was, and never again do I
wish to be! I
like
the new me, or should I say the
young
me, like the way I look and the way others like the
way I look.” She chanced a flirting glance at both Symeon and
Drorli.

Symeon’s fear for Ishtar still flooded his
mind, he thinking of nothing else. Hanna looked up at him while
tugging at a sticky piece of the prosthetic, reminding him of the
earlier precautions taken. “She’s fine, dear. Eurawha explained all
the preparations that were made for your child, expecting her to be
a
pill
.”

“She’s no
pill
!
” Symeon cried,
then confessing he wasn’t sure what a
pill
was.

Hanna ignored him. “Eurawha has informed us
both that the entire district is prepared, designed for newcomers.
I’m sure that everyone concerned is, or will be notified of the
girl’s escape. Then there are all the hidden machines in yonder
fields and forests that will be watching and listening for
her.”

She placed a finger on the back of her lower
skull. “And don’t forget the little… little…”

“Chip...” Drorli volunteered.

Smiling, Hanna thanked him. “Little chip
that was inserted under Ishtar’s skin. Everything will be
fine.”

Symeon continued to complain, picking up on
blaming himself for the girl’s escape.

Drorli laughed, stopping him. “Come now,
friend, as I said, she’s not the first of your kind to have made
tracks across the stream and into the distant hills. It’s not your
fault. Truth be said, little hope we had that you could carry it
off with the girl. She’s a smart one, snoopy and suspicious, that’s
her nature. I‘ve studied her makeup and history.”

He patted Symeon on the back. “The village
is deserted, just the three of us here at present. Besides the
tracking systems, such as those machines there are doing at this
moment…” he pointed toward the viewing screen on the wall, “we have
all sorts of things we can do to keep your girl away from danger -
sights and sounds that will keep her where we want her.”

He pointed toward the opened doorway. “There
are strange and wonderful animals living in that wood which just
may give our girl the willies, but they are totally harmless, I
assure you. Ishtar will be fine.”

Walking over and closing the door, Drorli
invited Symeon and Hanna to take a ‘look see’ at exactly what their
recent charge was doing. As they watched her on the viewing screen,
he offered, “We’ll give her a day or so to get settled down a bit.
A few nights alone in the wild might make her a little more willing
to accept that we intend her no harm.”

* * *

Ishtar flung herself down in the tall
grasses at the edge of the field near the wood, her aching lungs
and pounding heart refusing to carry her any further. As she
regained her breath, the ache in her bruised and bleeding feet
began a throbbing that almost made her cry. The girl’s panicked
flight across the rocky stream had gone unnoticed until now.
Sitting, she frantically looked back toward the distant village,
half-expecting to see a horde of soldiers chasing across the field
in search of her.”

Sighing in relief at seeing no one, she
rested back on her elbows until her breathing eased. At length,
Ishtar got up on her feet and limped off into the wood. It appeared
to be late in the day. If she could make it far enough into the
forest, there was a good chance of escape, but to where? Such an
issue was not currently her concern. First, get away, and then she
would worry about where she was and how she might escape and return
home.