The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (79 page)

She then cupped Ishtar’s face in her hands,
giving the girl a tender kiss on her lips. “I am your servant, to
assist you in whatever way I can to make your stay here as pleasant
as may be, at least for a little while. The hour is coming when we
must both face the Dragon again, you in your way, and me in mine.
Until then, whatever is your pleasure…”

Ishtar reached up, resting a hand on one of
Darla’s breasts. Pulling it back in surprise, she found her fingers
wet, a soaking stain growing on the gown. Darla was shocked by the
girl’s expression, and then she felt it. Looking down while lifting
the shirt of her gown, she saw milk oozing from her nipples.

“
Impossible!”
Darla muttered,
perplexed.

Ishtar did not feel the same. She reached
up, squeezing the woman’s round, firm bosom, her eyes revealing the
rising passion in her heart. “Whatever I want is for you to come
back to my room and share with me so many pleasant dreams and
memories. Give me the touch, please, of a womanly touch, so that my
heart does not erupt in disappointment. Let my lips taste your
lips, my tongue refresh itself with the sweetness of your
life-giving elixir. Wake my desires in your loving arms. Teach me
what it means to be an angel.”

Though surprised at first by Ishtar’s
amorous request, Darla did not hesitate to obey. Together, arm in
arm, the two retreated to the quiet of hidden rooms, this time
bolting the doors securely behind them.

* * *

Summer was waxing delightful, filling the
valleys west of the Silent tombs with a lazy, warm breeze and the
cheerful music of countless songbirds. The orchards of fruit trees
hung pregnant with a rich bounty of their still unripe delights. In
a few weeks, a rewarding harvest would fill the larders of Palace
City, providing a tasty reward to please the palate during the
coming cold winter months.

Lowenah lifted a hand, lovingly stroking a
green fruit as though it was darling child. “There, there, my
little one. Grow for me and I will reward you with a royal seat at
my banquet table.”

The sound of footfall stepping through the
tall grasses drew Lowenah’s attention away from the fruit and
toward the person approaching. Lowenah grinned. “My Tolohe, I
feared you would not make it. So much I’ve wished for your company
this day, and for so many other days.”

Tolohe took Lowenah’s hand. “My Meter, could
your child ever forget you? My heart pines whenever I am away from
you. So close you are to me that you and I are one.” She raised an
eyebrow. “Still, I do not believe your wistful fears at all. Do not
play the innocent child with me. As I said, are we not one?”

Lowenah laughed. “True, true, I did not
doubt your arrival, but I still longed for it, like one does for
the light of day during a dark winter night.”

After giving each other a tender kiss and
warm embrace, the two began to wander through the endless orchards.
At length, Tolohe took Lowenah’s hand. Looking her deeply in the
eyes, she remarked, “You speak of lighthearted and frivolous
matters. Others may be fooled by such casual speech, but not I. You
heart sings not the melody of a bright summer day, but that of
distress and remorse. Tell, please, to your daughter, what weighs
so heavily upon you.”

Lowenah looked down sadly, playing with her
fingers. “Never could I keep a secret from you, could I? Yet easy
was it for you to hide your own pain from me. Foolish thing I was,
wasn’t I? You deserved better, you know. Your father I refused to
listen to. Had I…? Well, I guess we’ll never know.”

“It is all in the past, my Meter.” Tolohe
replied. “Innocent we all were in those days. So I ask again, what
weighs so heavily upon my Meter’s heart?”

Reaching up and fondling a nearby green
apple, Lowenah sighed. “This will be the last harvest from these
orchards. Already the axe lies beside the tree. Soon there will
come another war, this one bigger than any before it. All the land
for as far as your eye can see will become a home for so many of my
children. Ever grows the tentacles of the Silent Tombs until
EdenEsonbar will become known only as the ‘land of the dead’.”

Tolohe sadly nodded. “It is worth the cost,
for I see that through their death shall the rebirth of this
universe arrive.”

Lowenah looked up into Tolohe’s face,
asking, “Do you count same the value of your own life, for I have
seen its demise should Shiloh succeed to glory.”

Frowning, Tolohe replied, “Already the crow
calls my name. It is as you have confessed to me: better by the
sword stroke than the ever-growing cancer. By the blade have I been
weaned, come to womanhood, given birth, and seen my children die.
Better my lover to strike my soul into death than the siren’s fatal
music.”

Lowenah could only smile weakly.

Squeezing her mother’s hand, smiling
sweetly, Tolohe continued. “Not even the Maker of all Things can
stop the chiming of Gradian’s Clock. Shall we pander to sadness and
remorse while the sun floats high in the sky, and summer’s love
songs waft upon the breeze?”

Agreeing, Lowenah pulled a green fruit from
a tree. “Can you come visit me when the harvest is in its full? It
would be so grand to have you by my side in that hour of
celebration.”

Frowning, Tolohe patted Lowenah’s hand. “The
fall… the fall… where shall we be when the hour of summer ends? How
can one promise something when even the Cherubs know not what the
future will bring? The fall may as well be on the other side of the
universe. Soon I shall step through the looking glass, and then my
returning will be so uncertain.”

“Well, if that should be the case…” Lowenah
held the green fruit high in opened hand. “Then we must celebrate
the fall harvest now.” In moments, there was a fat, red, luscious
delight sitting upon Lowenah’s palm.

Splitting the fruit in two, she gave half to
Tolohe. “There!” She then happily declared, “We shall enjoy the
first fruits of fall, just you and me together.”

It was such a beautiful day - too beautiful
to have it wasted upon sullen and morose feelings. Lowenah and
Tolohe became little children again, playing and frolicking through
the tree-filled fields, chasing dragonflies and catching
grasshoppers. So much fun it was to be forgetfully carefree, even
if it could only be for an hour or a day.

As the sun settled into the western sky, the
two found themselves far from Palace City, near the very edge of
the fruited orchards. Off in the distance, the dark, foreboding,
evergreen wood cast its shadowy gloom ever outward, warning any who
approached that it did not care for casual visitors.

Before the Third Age, EdenEsonbar was
sparsely populated, most of the children having chosen long ago to
wander the surrounding star systems in search of homes for
themselves. Palace City was often little more than a way station
for wanderers tiring of the chase in the wild lands, or those
seeking a temporary respite in the refined wonders EdenEsonbar
offered. Before the Rebel Wars, less than ten million of Lowenah’s
children called this planet their home.

For this reason, there still remained vast
territories on EdenEsonbar that were uninhabited, save a very few
of Lowenah’s more wild children who chose to live with flint and
fire, the jungles of EthoHule one such place. The dark forests to
the west were another such place, but even more so, Lowenah having
long ago cast a spell upon those lands. The forests of oak,
hickory, maple, cedar, beech, and other less friendly vegetation -
some said made by Mother’s witchery to keep the uninvited out -
stretched for a thousand leagues west until reaching the cliffs of
a great inland sea. Only the wildest of the wild ventured into
those forests, and few lingered.

Lowenah looked to the western hills, asking,
“Do you remember our last visit there?”

Her eyes twinkling, Tolohe nodded,
answering, “A haunted, spooky land filled with necromancy and
witchery it is, scarier than the HootinSmokers! Such a wonderful
fun place to be, especially when you are by my side...”

Taking Tolohe’s hand, Lowenah asked, her
eyes pleading, “Does my darling daughter have an hour or two to
spend with her Meter in that haunted forest?”

Tolohe laughed uproariously, “Do you believe
I have crossed star systems to spend only an hour or two with my
dear sweet lover? No, I do not believe you do.” She cupped
Lowenah’s hands in hers, touching noses. “Tomorrow or the next day
I must step through the looking glass again. When I return, I do
not know, in this world or the next. That answer lies hidden in
hands of the Fates. So today, and the next, and the next - for as
long as you desire - I am come to play in your gardens.”

Lowenah grinned. “Should I have my will
done, we would hide ourselves away in those forests until time
comes to an end.” She pouted like an unhappy child. “But that is
not to be...”

Both women stared off toward the shadowy
forest, pondering the past, present, and possible future. Lowenah
finally broke the silence. “Other secrets are hidden in that wood
my daughter has not yet witnessed. Frighteningly scary they may be.
Not for the faint-hearted they are. I don’t know... I don’t
know...”

Tolohe pulled on Lowenah’s hand, laughing.
“The better for it... The better for it! Quickly, Meter, there is
little time to waste. If we hurry, we will make the forest by the
witching hour of evening - such a scary time to arrive.”

Together, the two children were off in a
rush, the
spooky
forest silently observing the approaching
adventurers.

* * *

The little carriage zipped down the street,
its engine making a pleasant ‘
pop! pop! pop!’
noise as it
pulled a small hill before coasting to a stop outside the northern
concourse entrance beneath the palace. A dapper looking fellow
gingerly stepped down, turning, offered his hand to the two women
exiting.

Looking about at the late morning hustle of
the crowded street, he mused, “It was so kind of Mother to offer us
her autocar so that we might arrive for the luncheon hour.” He
pulled Trisha close in a one-armed hug. “It feels good to be home
again...”

Trisha glanced at Sarah, both women
remaining silent.
Home?
For Zadar, maybe, but for them? What
was this
heaven
to them?
Home?

Trisha and Sarah had become close while
convalescing. They found a commonality in many respects, each
living in an abusive world polluted with mistrust, deceit and
treachery. Oh yes, Sarah’s was far more violent, filled with
constant danger and physical abuse of every sort. Trisha’s, though
less threatening for the body, was a living torment and just as
destructive to heart and mind.

Neither woman had been of great importance
in their worlds of old, Sarah a slave, fighting each day for her
life until an agonizing cancer consumed her, and Trisha, a lowly
wife and mother taken by scandal and humiliation, dying alone, an
old, decrepit outcast among her own people. What had changed here
for them that was so different, they still outcasts living violent
lives? Humble in origin, simple folk, illiterate as to written
speech, versed not in prose and promise of the new religion each
had embraced, they had struggled on because of the hope shone forth
for a better life, far away from the evil that engulfed their
universe.

Though both Trisha and Sarah had envisioned
differently the world beyond their old, what confronted them when
arriving here was not at all what they had imagined. The stories
told of Heaven certainly were not
their
reality. The beating
of plowshares into swords was the rule of the day. Treachery and
intrigues, ruined outposts and raided outland villages, death and
injury were the realities of the Heaven they had been delivered to.
To them, it was no gift to have been given smashing weapons to
destroy the wicked. John’s words of promise, penned years after
both women were asleep in the Web of the Minds, appealed not at
all. Peace and freedom from care remained only dreams for them,
both having spilt the blood of their enemies since arriving
here.

Then there were the words of that Cherub
fellow, RosMismar, that were so disconcerting and troubling. His
laugh and chiding remarks still echoed painfully in their ears.
‘You think you bested that Worm?! Let me tell you, for a fact I
know the truth, because it was I who bathed him in the witching
glory he possesses. No other mortal save Gabrielle…possibly… would
survive his concentrated assault! Should all three of the Swords
gather their might together, it would be a sorrowfully insufficient
defense against him.’

To Trisha he revealed, ‘Do not think it was
by wit or prowess that you humiliated your foe at the Prisoner
Exchange! If it were not for the distracting trickery of our Mother
Witch, your hide would have been flayed from off your flesh before
your hand had reached the Evil One’s belt. The music of the bells
that you could not even hear was all that saved you that day - that
and the gray cloak of mystery that the Mother Witch shrouded you
and your kind with.”

“The Evil One could have torn you asunder
with his very thoughts at any moment except for the fear and
uncertainty Lowenah flooded him with. She did so to fill his heart
with doubt, for a riddle far beyond the Prisoner Exchange was being
played out to the full that day. Should her ruse have cost all the
lives of those in your charge, it would have been a bargain price
for what was gained. Life in these worlds goes on because of the
contest won by another soul tested.”

Sarah faired his rebuke little better. “Oh,
great and powerful
the Mistress of Death thinks she is!
Foolish, I say, so foolish... Did you believe the white flame in
your sword was controlled by you? I say not, for the Cherub
residing there was placed in its power by my very hand. Should your
weapon have fallen from its owner’s hand, it would have still
cleaved an army of its attackers.”