The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (89 page)

“My darling! My little darling!” Mihai
cried, becoming frantic. “Look! The Admiral of the Fleet,
Gabrielle, is departing Palace City next week to take the new
carrier, Sophia, out for its shakedown cruise. Three weeks
following, it will return to make report and take on provisions for
extended duty. If I can procure a writ from the Admiral that you
will be allowed to ship aboard before it leaves, then will you
linger here a little while longer?”

Sirion trusted Mihai, but dared not trust
only to her words, not this day. She tapped her opened palm with a
finger. “You hand me that writ, signed by your admiral and sealed
with your kingly ring and I’ll consider it. A paper in writing
signed and sealed!”

Mihai nodded, promising she would, her tears
falling freely. Sirion was changed, full of venom and hate. Better
to let her burn some of it off while walking the deck of a warship
than to be consumed by it behind these walls. “I’ll contact
Gabrielle on my return to Palace City. It will be done.”

Sirion relaxed, resting her head on the
chair back while closing her eyes. “Thank you...”

The two sat there in silence as the morning
sun gave way to early afternoon. Mihai eventually offered her
leave, assisting Sirion back to her room before going. As she
walked toward a waiting carriage, the new king pondered what she
had earlier witnessed. It was very troubling to see her comfortable
world crumbling about her, and not just with Sirion. No, like
ravenous beasts after a long, hungry winter, her people were waking
to seek the blood-feast of war. Every day the wolves were
congregating in increasing numbers, to the taverns and gathering
places in search of old comrades, or to outright reenlist.

Too long they had waited to rid the enemy
from this Realm. It was no longer a matter of if but when war would
come, and if Mihai did not bring it soon, the people would take it
up without her. She was their goddess king, but now only a
figurehead who would declare their day of damnation. A new leader
stood before the crowds, her bloodlust clearly defined at the last
council. It was her that the people worshiped, or what she stood
for - complete and total war, no parley, no debate.

This time it would be a fight to the end.
Death or victory, it mattered little to the people at the moment.
The boilers were dangerously hot, the fires burning wild. Mihai
must release that pressure, no matter the cost or her world would
explode in uncontrolled mayhem. She must pick the hour, but it must
be soon and for the right reason.

Oh, how she hated her very existence at that
moment! Oh, how disgusting her very birth...

* * *

The raucous merrymaking from the evening’s
dinner was long since quieted down, several of the partiers having
already departed via the Oros rail-stage for the leisurely ride
over the ObebBailSoar Mountain Range west onto Palace City. The
tavern near the Oros Low Station was slowly returning to normal
with the comings and goings of its regular patrons, leaving the
three lingering partygoers sitting quietly in a corner booth by
themselves.

After lamenting Anna’s absence, Jonathan,
one of three at the table, wondered at just how crowded Oros was
becoming. “Just since my last visit two months ago, there seems to
be a fabulous gathering of peoples here. And all this talk about
war! Has our new king been busy with proclamations I haven’t heard
about?”

Planetee, who was nursing a hard drink,
swirled it about in the glass, wryly commenting, “That Anna gets
under your skin if you’re not careful! Let me warn you, little does
that girl wander from home if it’s not for some
personal
reward! You’ve not yet learned the arts of romance she’s accustomed
to. If that woman seeks your manly ways, it’s for devious reasons,
not for your benefit.” She looked up, staring into his face. “Keep
it in you pants when around her if you wish for secrets to remain
in your head! You’re not in short supply of willing lovers in this
world. Just let them know your need to rut and the roe will
stampede you to distraction.”

Jonathan’s face reddened to crimson,
stuttering in an attempt to make some coherent reply.

Jebbson, sitting across from the other two,
began to laugh. “My dear fellow, if one does not wish for the sting
of the bee, he must learn not to yearn for the honey.”

“But I was only speaking about missing
Anna’s companionship, not bedding the woman.” Jonathan declared,
defending his honorable intentions. “We’re...well, friends. I miss
her company.”

Planetee looked back down at her drink,
swishing it about, chiding the fellow. “Anna can raise the ardor of
Ardon, even if he’s in a drunken stupor. Your eyes betray the lust
you have for the woman. Lust? Yes, I say, for she leaves little
room for love. But she can put your head in a tizzy - man or woman.
She’s a witch, an Ancient with outstanding powers. Now I warn you
again, if you wish to keep any innocence about you, avoid that
woman! She doesn’t make love. She
fucks
, and for
her
benefit.”

Poor Jonathan was embarrassed and becoming
flustered. Jebbson laughed again and lifted his cup of hot buttered
rum. “Enough, my friend! This lady is providing an honest opinion.
Thank her for her candor and let’s be gone with it onto other
matters, like why the gathering of the birds.”

Jonathan slowly nodded, agreeing, thanking
Planetee for her advice. He then looked a Jebbson. “So then,
professor, tell us why the crows of war have not been declared, or
even hinted at.”

Jebbson grinned. “Oh, I didn’t say
hinted
. Does one need to wait to see the driving snow and
hear the howling winds to know that winter is nigh? Not at all,
because all around are the would-be signs, warning that season’s
hour. The flight of birds, the color of the leaves, the chill,
frosty mornings are but a few of the signs of warning, telling the
wise one to prepare.”

He watched two officers leaving the tavern.
“War is coming, the signs of its nearing arrival all about us. The
breeze carries a tune foreboding of it as cold as an autumn frost.
So the birds’ gather to the last great evening meal into death and
destruction, the final celebration of unbridled living.”

Extending a hand toward some other uniformed
soldiers sitting at a distant, crowded table, Jebbson explained,
“The gathering together and renewing of old acquaintances is the
beginning of the celebration. Snappy music, jubilant slogans, wild
parties filled with boasting and heavy drinking, and exuberant
merrymaking are but the beginning of the ritual. It will be such
fond memories, the hearty handshake, passionate lovemaking, hushed
confession, and…and all the things carried on at this early time
that will warm the soul while the insanity of war crashes all about
them.”

After taking another sip of hot drink, he
continued. “What you see now is not the storm surge of new recruits
who will later rush to the colors when the cry for war is made.
Currently it is the gathering of the veterans you are witnessing.
Death and destruction, pain and suffering they well know, yet come
to the blood feast to experience for possibly one last time the
excitement and glory of living life to its highest…or is it
possibly to make amends to the already dead for having wickedly
lived through the last holocaust while the others did not?”

He shrugged. “Whatever it may be, they
reunite for this one last hurrah with old comrades who also
remember the last conflagration who with just a look or a nod
reflect their understanding for what was, is, and will come.”

“Yep!” Jebbson took another swig of his
drink. “It is this moment, or others like it, that make all the
other mayhem worthwhile, the sitting and staring into the face of
another soul who’s been to Hell and back and
understands…understands what its all about. It keeps your sanity
about you.”

Leaning toward Planetee as he looked into
her face, Jonathan asked, “Was that also that way with your kind
before the Great War?”

Planetee peered into Jebbson’s face. “Your
tongue is like that of an Ancient who has seen the world’s ending
from Lagandow’s peaks.”

Taking Planetee’s hand, Jebbson replied,
“Nay, my lady, but I perceive the feeling at Lagandow, wherever
that may be, was little different than standing below Marye’s
Heights, or in front of Lookout Mountain.”

Planetee smiled sadly. She then looked at
Jonathan, answering his question. “No, my friend, the jubilant
celebration is far more subdued now than then, the numbers of
recruits filling this city to overflowing so much so that many were
forced to sleep in the streets in those days before the war. We all
believed the Great War was the final war of retribution, and few
wished to miss out on it. The songs of celebration at that time
filled the heavens with joyous melody.”

Gripping her glass with both hands, Planetee
closed her eyes. “It was not the final war, but certainly the
costliest up to that time. My people were swept away during those
years of destruction like wheat before a reaper’s blade. Why, at
Stargaton, in a forgotten little battle of that war, we lost more
people than are currently assembled at the Army base east of Oros,
in one hour losing twenty thousand.”

She frowned sadly. “I commanded the lead
squadron of fighters during one heated contest for the city. The
‘Rensselaers’ our name - a fighting hawk, our bird -painted on each
ship. By the end of the day, of my two hundred fighters, one
hundred seventy had tumbled from the skies. At role call the
following morning, only eleven of my fighter pilots reported for
duty.” She peered deep into her half-full glass. “Over two thirds
of those who rose to face the enemy with me on that day perished in
the contest. Of those still able to fly, few survived the war, and
they were assigned to different squadrons, the Rensselaers having
been disbanded.”

Quietly lamenting the past, Planetee’s words
carried a tone of bitter remorse. “The Great War was to be the
final
war. The Serpent was to be driven from these worlds
for good, or at least we believed it was to be. We put everything
into it, all our strength, energy, and might. We used ourselves up!
The flower of my people lay buried in the Silent Tombs, in
forgotten, rocky wastelands, or blown to ashes in some worthless
star-system.”

She looked up. “There are so few of us left
who remember what it was really like back then, before that
war...fewer still who share the memories of earlier times. To this
day there are cities void of life because their inhabitants rallied
to the cause, never to return home, clans, peoples and tongues all
disappearing beneath the wheels of war.” Planetee bowed her head,
appearing as if ready to weep, but no tears came. “Lovers and
companions known since the world’s beginning torn asunder and
trampled
into the mud and
filth
of that
evil
war
...”

Jonathan marveled, puzzling at the things
Planetee was telling them. His world had also been violent but, for
him, little of war’s mayhem had he personally experienced. Oh yes,
he could grasp in his mind the occasional ruined ship, a company of
dead soldiers, but to look upon a field of slain spanning a week’s
march? Too much! It was far too much for his mind to
comprehend.

Pondering the magnitude of the things he was
hearing, he asked Planetee, “What you have witnessed, my mind
cannot even imagine! Tell me, please, where does one get the
strength of integrity to carry on when surrounded by such
destruction? How did you keep your sanity under those
conditions?”

Planetee’s face hardened, her reply abusive
and bitter.
“You think me sane?! Fool! My sanity fled my soul
long ago!”

She challenged him with caustic rebuke.
“Tell me if you think me sane... The brains of sweet companions and
lovers I have callously scraped from my clothing while hiding
behind piles of rotting corpses and eating cold, maggot-infested
food. I have covered my own flesh with the entrails of fallen
companions to escape enemy capture. I have thrown lifeless bodies
to hungry sharks to escape their hungry jaws, clawed into the torn
bellies of horses to keep from freezing to death.” Shaking her head
in guilty remorse, Planetee mourned, “Few are the things I have not
done to keep this wrenched soul alive while others about me fell to
damnation. No, sanity belongs to the righteous lot. Long ago did I
lose that holy stature.”

Planetee picked up her glass. “No, my
friend, losing your sanity is the
easy
part. It’s better
that way...hurts less. The
tough
part is managing to survive
when the quiet is upon you. One way is to turn yourself into a
machine that thinks only when necessary and feels not at all.” She
then asked, “Do you know how long it has been since I sought out a
little romantic comfort? I confess, I do not recall. Oh yes, I do
ache at times for a man’s touch, but the pain is far less than to
ache over a lover’s tortured death, the shattered corpse of the one
who once so excited your spirit.”

The woman banged her fist on the table. “To
endure the evil, you must learn to feel nothing…
nothing!
Then, then you might just survive...”

Jonathan attempted to make some reply, but
he could find no speech coming from his mouth. Planetee twirled the
brew in her glass, warning ominously. “Listen well to my words, for
you will not escape my fate! You have not been delivered here to
preach or lecture in some public assembly. Those days are long past
for you. No, you are the
legend of prophecy
, one of the
Death Angels
, the Black Monsters arisen from the
belly of
Hell
to bring my world to ruin!”

“Your sword will rent the heavens with the
blood of all mankind! You will consign both the wicked and
righteous to Gahanna’s fires, their carcasses being cast along the
broadways across this galaxy! You will eat up our fleshy parts and
devour our youth! You shall eat the flesh and drink the blood of
rich and poor, old and young, man and woman, until drunk with
Death’s glory you are satisfied...”