The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (18 page)

Hanna smiled at Symeon. “I don’t ever want
to be old again. It makes a person feel so… so… ugly. That’s why I
always hid myself in all those heavy robes. I guess I was vain, but
I did really feel ugly when I got old.” She looked over at Drorli.
“The proverbs telling about dying old and satisfied might have been
inspired, but was not written by the aged, that I know. I was
satisfied only when my decrepit body was finally surrendering to
death and letting me leave life with what little dignity I still
possessed.”

Drorli frowned. “Life is such a precious
thing…”

Hanna shook her head, disagreeing. “I’ve
watched your kind clinging to life when their body was in a
frightful state, the hope being that, as long as power coursed
through their veins, there would be an eventual return to a healthy
life...”

Hanna let out a sudden cry of surprise as an
attendant applied some very cold paste to exposed skin just below
her armpit. The attendant apologized, grinning as he continued to
apply the goo. Drorli and the others laughed. Hanna fussed about
how it reminded her of other unpleasantries she wallowed in when
she prepared for her visit to Symeon long ago. Raising her hands
high, with curled fingers, she bared her teeth, threatening, and
whined with a hiss, “Not hungry now. No! Not hungry now.”

Everyone laughed, recalling the tale of the
little stinky creature.

When the laughter subsided, Hanna finished
making reply to Drorli’s comment. “That was fine for your kind. Our
kind, on the other hand, saw there was no renewal for our old age.
We saw nothing but a relentless sickness steadily eating away at us
until we became weaker, uglier, more forgetful, and… and when your
breath smells like rot and you can’t even control you bladder
anymore… well, maybe you get the point.”

“Anyway, for my kind, the cancer of old age
only offered us certain death. Our hoped for renewal came for us on
the other side of it… death I mean. Death then became something to
search out, at times to yearn for, but it had to be hunted down
discreetly so that others – the foolish younger ones who still
valued life - would not believe you callous over such a wonderful
gift as living in a body that was slowly decomposing around
you.”

She raised a hand, pointing toward her
heart. “I was still a blushing maiden here, when I went to my final
rest, but up here…” She placed a finger to her temple. “I was a
deplorable old thing that was happy to leave all Hell behind…
whether there was a future for me or not.”

Waxing romantic, Symeon offered his
response. “My dear Hanna, should you be ever as beautiful as you
are looking now, I would still find you the most attractive of all
female kind. I loved you from the first day we met, although I
never spoke of it because you were with a husband. Later, when you
were widowed, I so much wanted you as a companion, but alas I had
duties and obligations that led me far away from your company. My
hope was for us to meet again on the other side of the universe.
And look! I hope no more.”

Hanna eyed Symeon, her mischievous gaze
aflame with jealous suspicion. She hissed accusingly, “It says it
loves me. It does. It does. I sees it look at her… and the other
beauties. It says it loves me, all old looking, but I sees it
desire the other pretties, the nubile, sweet ones. Ifs it really
loves me, come prove it with a kiss on these old woman’s lips. Make
it real, my lad, or I’ll say you’ve the tongue of a cad who weaves
music to suit his own fancy. Now gives this old lady a kiss.”

At first, Symeon thought Hanna was seriously
jealous. When he caught sight of the others smirking, he began to
catch on. He defended himself, exclaiming, “Well I do love you!
Always have.”

Drorli chimed in, motioning toward Hanna.
“Well then, give the lady a kiss, or I’ll take her up on the offer
and you’ll be outside in the cold.”

Symeon harrumphed, “You’ll do no such
thing!” And, with that, although he was embarrassed to express such
forms of endearment so openly, he got up from his chair, walked
over to Hanna, took hold of her arms, and planted a huge kiss right
on her lips.

“There!” He declared. “I told you I loved
you, and now I’ve proved it right in front of everyone here.”

Hanna looked deeply into his eyes, her face
so serious, and pouted, “You needed to be shamed into admitting it,
though. My dear Drorli sounded so much more sincere when he said
it.”

“You’re impossible!” Symeon sputtered as he
glared at Drorli. “This is
my
woman, at least for the time
being. Keep your distance if you know what’s good for you!”

Drorli threw his hands up in mock concern.
“Yes sir! Yes sir! I’ll be sure to keep my distance. Don’t wanna
come between a man and his woman!”

Hanna was not pleased, the woman’s voice
reflecting her not finding any humor in the men’s jousting.
“Enough! I’m not a
piece of meat
seasoned to titillate your
tastes...
either one of you!
I live not in this universe to
please a man. To satisfy
my heart,
I was delivered here… at
least when we have returned sanity to this Hell. In the meantime,
I
shall choose whom I have an affair of love with.
My
choosing!
”

She eyed Symeon. “Don’t call me ‘
your
woman’
again, or I’ll take the next man I find and give him my
love in front of your eyes, making you watch the rich romance he
can offer me and my impassioned cries in response to his
lovemaking. I love you because I want to love you, always have. I
love Drorli, too. He mentored me long before you entered this
world.”

Hanna now turned her attention to Drorli,
chastising him. “Stop encouraging this fellow! Symeon always was a
bit jealous over me and you don’t need to stir those feelings up in
his heart. I’ve had many suitors that equal your manly
abilities...and a few that make me swoon just thinking about their
endowed majesty and their mastery of such gifts to deliver a woman
to an intoxicated state of ecstasy. It is not your size nor
abilities that have made me fall in love with you, and love you I
do… very much.”

She frowned, looking back and forth between
Drorli and Symeon. “I do not fall in love with a man who stirs
passions between my thighs… any man with a tool has that power.”
Touching her heart, she exclaimed, “I fall in love
here!
”

“Now...” Hanna pointed at herself. “if you
two do not learn how to treat
this woman
with a little more
care and respect, she’ll gather herself back to the arms of someone
who understands her feelings…” She motioned toward Eurawha, “and
does not attempt her possession.”

Eurawha blushed, not from Hanna’s reference
to their occasional romantic interludes, but to have someone so
openly confess such deep love for her. She smiled ever so faintly.
“Of your kind, only with you have I shared the blood grape. My
heart aches for the hour when again we share that wine of love and
dream wild visions of a maiden descended from the Daughter Dragon
Who Dances on the Stones.”

Hanna puzzled, curious. “What…?”

Eurawha turned away, pretending to examine
some of the equipment while checking the viewing screen.

Drorli apologized. “My lady, I was
insensitive concerning your feelings regarding this matter,
forgetting, in the merriment of the moment, the oppressive world
from which you have arrived. My deepest regrets for acting so
uncouth...”

Symeon was about to also apologize when
screams and panicked cries came from the nearby room. Drorli and
Eurawha glanced around at the various gauges and then up at the
viewing monitor while Hanna and Symeon bolted for the door to
Ishtar’s room.

“Stop!” Drorli cried. It did little
good.

Eurawha was out of her chair in a flash,
catching Symeon by the wrist before he could turn the door’s latch.
“Don’t do that!” She chastised, anxious. “Leave the girl be or she
may suffer in abhorrent ways!”

Symeon stopped, but held his grip while
looking around into Eurawha’s face, dumbfounded. In desperation, he
excitedly exclaimed, “She’s suffering now! Something must be
wrong!”

Shaking her head, Eurawha ordered Symeon and
Hanna to go back and sit down. “We’re in charge here, you being our
assistants. Finish your duties and we will ours. Do as you’re
told!”

As the two hesitantly retraced their steps,
Eurawha explained again to them the process of the reawakening. “Do
not tempt Time. It is a most vicious foe. As you both should
recall… for Drorli and I thoroughly explained this to you… Mother
sometimes dabbles with her children as they sleep in the Web of the
Minds. This creates a dilemma in the person’s subconscious. Now,
during the flesh’s waking hours, the subconscious has to assimilate
all that new information with life experiences recorded while awake
in the flesh.”

She motioned Hanna to go back to her
attendant to finish preparations while at the same time sitting
Symeon down in his chair, cautioning, “We showed you how the brain
functions and described how the mind works. Ishtar’s mind must
incorporate all her former logic with the new logic given her while
she slept in the web. This cannot be accomplished until the child
returns to her living sleep, which only began a few hours ago. If
anything interferes with her current sleep cycle, she may be
stricken with nightmares, or even worse night-terrors. No matter
what happens, we must leave the child be until she wakes on her
own.” Then wagging a finger at both of her wayward assistants,
Eurawha threatened, “If you go near that door again, before my
permitting it, I’ll throw you both out of here until the girl is up
and about. Got it?!”

Symeon glanced at Drorli for solace. Drorli
shrugged. “I’d listen to her if I were you. She runs things around
here. I’m only aboard for the ride.”

Over the next few hours Drorli and Eurawha
monitored Ishtar’s progress while Symeon and Hanna nervously
finished preparing for the girl’s waking. It was difficult for
Symeon to do nothing while hearing the crying moans and whimpers
coming from the adjoining room, but he dutifully obeyed Eurawha’s
admonition to leave the child be.

(Author’s note:
Queen Ishtar remembers
little of those frantic hours when her mind and heart were
assimilating all the information given her with that of her living
days’ memories while she slept in the Web of the Minds. “Fitful and
frightening, to say the least,” has been the woman’s common
statement. Her most vivid recollections during these waking hours
were recently revealed to me when seeking information for this
book.

“
I remember well the baker - Travet, I
believe his name - being shoved headlong into the animal pit. The
few seconds he writhed in agony appeared to last for hours for me,
the man’s screams piercing my ears to the point of head-wrenching
pain. And then there was the chilling laughter of Governor
Claudesius… to this day I have not been able to forget it, though a
thousand times he has begged my forgiveness.”

“
Oh yes! Merna, sweet Merna and her
little one, Hilen… Hilen is a beautiful woman, as much so as her
mother. She tells me she has no recollection of that time at all.
To this day, my heart shudders when I think of those terrible
events.”

“
Anyway, those are the most memorable of
the dreams I recall from those hours. Eventually, my fits of terror
and panic eased, my heart calmed down, and I drifted off into a
quiet slumber. My following dreams, I recall with greater
intensity. They, I believe, were intended to be so, Lowenah wanting
me to remember them.”)

As the time slowly passed, Ishtar’s frantic
cries and distressful moans gradually subsided. After a bit, she
drifted into another deep sleep that would last several more hours.
Symeon and Hanna watched through the viewing screen as their little
girl rolled on her side and began a quiet snore.

For the time being all was peaceful, the
attending company patiently waiting for the girl’s wakening. But
across that universe, another treasured child was being prepared
for a far different role that she was to play a part in. The Singer
of Songs and Laments, Sirion, a child so dear to Mihai’s heart, was
being readied for her grand entrance at the upcoming Prisoner
Exchange.

* * *

Sirion crashed into the steel wall of the
prison wagon and then collapsed, crumpled up on the floor on her
side as if dead.

“
I know you’re alive!”
Legion
screamed. He hurried over and kicked Sirion in the midsection,
slamming her back against the wall, cracking several of the woman’s
ribs.
“Tell me you’re alive or I’ll put my boot through your
face next time!”

Vomiting blood from a broken mouth, Sirion
cried out in pain, lifting a hand beseechingly, begging for mercy
from tortured lips as she wheezed, gasping, “Brother...please... My
brother…” Another swift kick silenced the woman.

“
Bitch!
Little worthless bitch!”
Don’t you dare call me that again! Your
brother
died long
ago. I am
Legion
,
ruler
of kingdoms and empires,
second
in power and glory over this universe! You are a
worthless
nothing
! Not fit for dog meat!
Nothing!
” He
stormed across the tiny cell. Turning around, he sat on a small
stool, silently glaring at the disfigured pile of living flesh
lying on the floor.

Legion frowned, concerned. Oh, not over the
deplorable condition he had left his charge in. Indeed, he rather
enjoyed this kind of entertainment, practicing it often when
opportunity afforded it. No, he was concerned that the woman
refused to be broken. For weeks, Sirion had been starved, beaten,
tortured and abused. Never once did she surrender to the
punishments dished out to her and deny her loyalties. Few of the
others had remained so loyal, and those who did no longer
lived.