Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (27 page)

Immanu grunted
approval.  “The dead are honored by what you've done.  But I must perform my
own people’s rituals to ensure their spirits don't plague Ninsianna for her
participation in their death.  Will you help?”

Mikhail nodded.  Death
rituals were as much for the living as the dead.  Soldiers who won in battle
risked two things.  Overwhelming guilt.  Or desensitization to the fact they'd
just taken another life.  Neither was desirable.  Strict customs requiring the
victors to treat the bodies of the losers with respect helped them cope without
becoming inhuman.  From what he'd seen, Ninsianna’s people shared similar
beliefs.

“We'll build the fire
here,” Immanu said.  They piled the fire wood and placed the ember into its
midst, blowing until flames licked the pile with hungry tongues.  Mikhail
stared into the fire, his eyes avoiding the gravesites.  Immanu pulled items
from his satchel and arranged them upon the points of the compass.

“To guide the dead
into the dream world,” Immanu said.  “You must enter the earth yourself.”  He
unwrapped a cloth loaded with wet, ochre-laden mud dug out of the stream. 

Unwrapping the shawl
Ubaid men used in place of a shirt so that it wouldn't get muddy, Immanu used
the mud to paint symbols onto his own body.  As he did, he sang a chanting song
in a low, frog-like bass voice similar to one of the songs Ninsianna sang when
she performed the ritual he thought of as 'laying on of hands' to massage his
broken wing.  Immanu handed Mikhail the packet of mud and gestured for him to
do the same.

“I'm not familiar with
this ritual,” Mikhail said.  “You will need to show me.”

“Like this.”  Immanu
scooped a chunk of the pasty yellow ochre with his index and middle finger. 
“Allow me.”

Mikhail stiffened as
Immanu painted arrows and other symbols upon his face, chest and arms.  The mud
was cool and gritty, but no more uncomfortable than the sweat which had
accumulated from carrying wood up to the gravesite.  Mikhail watched as the
shaman painted asterisks, diamonds, squiggles, and sheathes of grain.  Immanu's
finger paused on the final symbol, a winged creature he'd been painting on the
unbandaged side of Mikhail’s collarbone.  Mikhail glanced at the identical symbol
Immanu had painted on his own chest.

The image of a winged
man…

“I guess they skipped
the intermediate trader,” Immanu glanced towards the graves where Mikhail had
planted a single gigantic feather on each, sticking out of the rocks like a
tree, telling the world who had smote these men. 

Mikhail was relieved
Immanu didn't prostrate himself as he'd done that first day in the ship.  It
had taken the better part of the afternoon to convince the shaman he was no
demi-god.

“Now we must pray to
the earth to accept the bodies of the dead back into her womb,” Immanu studied
his face. 

Mikhail hoped the
shaman could not discern it was not a lack of emotion he hid beneath his
impassive mask, but entirely too many emotions that would be destructive if
unleashed.  He felt as though he were hanging onto sanity by a single thread. 
Immanu gave him leaves from the qat plant to chew and ignited a bundle he'd
gathered so they smoldered.  The shaman circled each grave, invoking a
different name of She-who-is in every direction, praying for safe passage into
the dreamtime. 

“Now we must offer the
dead water to bring on their journey,” Immanu said, holding out the plastic
container he’d had Mikhail fetch earlier.  “And ask the goddess to grant them
pleasant dreams. 
You
must perform this part of the ceremony.”

“I think we have a
similar tradition,” Mikhail frowned in concentration. “I have recollection of …
someone … anointing the foreheads of the dead with water.  Or oil.”

Eighteen graves later,
Immanu took the container and scooped a handful of water himself onto each
grave.  “I offer safe passage and pleasant dreams on behalf of Ninsianna so
their spirits will bear her no ill will.”

They sat and stared
into the fire, silence stretching between them until the sun began to set. 
Prayers leaped into Mikhail’s mind … prayers in that third language he hadn't
even been
aware
was a separate language until Ninsianna had asked him
about it.  Prayers offered on behalf of the dead to some deity he couldn't
remember having ever worshipped.

The scent of cooking
fish wafted from the campsite.  And … onions?  He definitely smelled onions. 
Mikhail suppressed a smile.

“Let's see what
Ninsianna prepared for supper,” Immanu said.  “We have paid these jackals far
more respect than they deserve.  ”

It was too late for
Immanu to hike back to the village.  He reassured his daughter his wife knew he
would spend the night.  Over the next few hours, Immanu and Ninsianna took
turns telling funny stories about their village.  Stories which made the
village sound inviting … not the kind of place which would launch an attack. 
They sang songs long past the time decent folk would have gone to bed and
whispered to each other across the tight confines of the sleeping quarters,
father-to-daughter stories no doubt, in the dark.  A close-knit family. 

The doubt which
gripped Mikhail gradually loosened its hold.  Death ceremonies were for the
living.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.03 AE

Alpha Sector:  Command Carrier ‘
Eternal Light
’

Supreme Commander-General Jophiel

Jophiel

She knew it was a bad
idea, but why ascend to the position of Supreme Commander-General if you
couldn't bend your own rules?  Beneath her, the
Eternal Light
hummed
with reassuring power, a constant reminder she had a bigger mission to
oversee.  She allowed the medics to change her into comfortable clothing before
succumbing to the temptation to take a peek…

"Let me hold
him," Jophiel ordered the frog-like Delphinium midwife who'd been about to
wheel him out of there before she'd a chance to even see him.   It served
everybody’s interests if the mother parted with the child without tears, but
Jophiel insisted on holding each infant once before she sent them away to never
be held again.

Her heart lifted up
into her throat as the midwife deposited the sleeping infant into her arms. 
Like all Angelic newborns, his head, wings and back were covered in downy fuzz,
like a little golden chick.  Nuzzling him with her cheek, she inhaled his baby
scent.  It was too early to tell for sure, but he bore a strong resemblance to
his father.

“What shall you name
him, Sir?"

“Uriel,” Jophiel
beamed at her crowning achievement to a species facing extinction.  “Light of
the Eternal Emperor.”

“He's overdue for the
transport shuttle, Sir,” the midwife reached out with her short, froglike arms
to whisk the child away to one of the youth training academies where hybrid
children were raised, educated, and integrated into the Emperor's armies.

“Can’t I have a little
more time?”  Jophiel's lip trembled.

With each passing
pregnancy, giving away her offspring had become harder.  Especially
this
one.  Although she tried not to form emotional attachments to her children’s
sires, she’d had a hard time letting Raphael go.  That he'd formed a similar
attachment to
her
and wished to have a relationship with their son made
things even more difficult.  Sentiment was a weakness no military leader could
afford. 

“You know what a bad
example that will set, Sir,” the midwife's transparent inner-eyelids lifted as
her pupils contracted into a concerned slit.  “If the highest ranking general
in the Alliance fleet refuses to complete her duty to fill the ranks, the lower
ranking females will follow suit.”

“I know, but….”

“You know the
consequences, Sir,” the midwife harummed with concern.  Jophiel was not the
first hybrid female she’d had to coax into giving up her child, but she was the
most powerful and visible. 

Yes.  Jophiel knew
more than anybody what the consequences were.  The feat of science which had
brought their races into existence had come with a fatal flaw.  Although
hybrids had the desirable traits of their DNA donors, they were plagued with
the problems which occurred whenever hybrid species of any ilk were created. 
Whether plant or animal, hybrids came with an astronomically high rate of
sterility.  The more the Emperor had inbred his armies for their abilities as
soldiers, the worse that defect had become.

Their only hope to
avoid extinction was to be
outbred
again…

 “Can’t you make an
excuse?” Jophiel pleaded.  “Say the infant is experiencing some problem that
makes transport impossible.”

“You're in command,
Sir,” the midwife said.  “But remember the consequences.”

“I'll put him on the
next shuttle,” Jophiel reassured her.  “Please … his father asked for
pictures.  Could you take one of me holding the baby?”

Jophiel imagined what
it would be like if circumstances were different.  What if she raised her
children herself as other species did?  Would she have to give up her career? 
She loved the Emperor, but her child pulled at her heart like a sun tugging a
planet into orbit.  And Raphael?  What would he be like as a father?  He'd been
a sensitive and thoughtful lover.  The only one who had ever asked what
her
dreams
were instead of using the access granted during the heat cycle to tell her
his
career aspirations.  Yes.  Raphael would make a great father.  And a
thoughtful mate.  If only…

The sharp flash
brought her back to reality.  She dismissed the midwife with orders to transmit
the photograph to the lover she must never see again, so close had he come to
breaking her resolve.

“Maybe it would be
better if the Emperor confined us to a single homeworld until our numbers
increase like Shay’tan does,” Jophiel whispered to her baby as soon as the
Delphinium brunhilda waiting to snatch her child left the room.  “Some free
will!  Hand you over or we go extinct!”

Uriel looked at her
trustingly, his eyes already showing the brilliant blue-green color they would
someday become.  He reached towards her face, entangling his tiny baby fingers
in her golden hair.   If
she
wavered, every female hybrid in the
Alliance fleet would follow suit.

“In all of my years of
military service,” Jophiel whispered, “I have never come across a single
Sata’an female.  I don't agree with females being the property of their
husbands, but their birth rate far surpasses ours.”

Uriel yawned, giving
her a good view of his little pink mouth.  He closed his eyes, content, the
beginnings of a tiny dimple showing on one cheek.  It was the dimple which
nearly did her in.

“If we weren’t going
extinct,” Jophiel said.  “I would keep you.  And your father, too!  Out of all
the males I've chosen to sire offspring, I like your father the best.  Giving
him
up was almost as hard as giving
you
up, little one.  It's why I had to
send him so far away.  If he was near, I wouldn't be able to go through with
this.”

Jophiel began to cry. 
A lot more was at stake than her own personal happiness or that of her child.

She cuddled her baby a
little while longer, then summonsed the midwife.  Uriel, who had been sleeping
peacefully, began to squall as soon as he was taken from her arms.  Jophiel
suppressed her tears until the midwife left.  Uriel’s cries faded as he was whisked
down the hallway to a waiting shuttle to take him away as quickly as possible
lest she change her mind.

She curled up in a
ball and cried, the reassuring hum of her command carrier assaulting her ears
like the screech of harpies flinging insults at her cowardice.  Sometimes she
hated being the boss…

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~