by Libby Doyle
“Well, it was a long shot anyway,” Zan said. “We probably wouldn’t have pursued this avenue if not for my interests. And I got to see all your cool swords, so I’m happy.”
Barakiel nodded. He felt as melancholy as the piece he’d been playing earlier.
“Thank you for your time, Rainer. If we ever find more old blades, I’m sure we’ll ask for your help again.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
He showed her to the door. For a moment as she turned from him, he saw disappointment on her face. He wanted to tell her that he was disappointed, too. He wanted to tell her how much this surprised him.
“Have a good evening,” Zan said. He wished her the same. She got in her car and drove away.
Her tail lights had been gone for some time when Barakiel finally turned from the door. He sat in his winged leather chair and wondered at himself, more conscious of his solitude than he’d been since his earliest days in the Earthly Realm.
Saxony, Earthly Year 804, Phase 8509
Barakiel stood on the low hill observing the battle on the plain to the north. He watched his adopted clan and its allies be gutted by the Frankish hordes. The flags bearing the proud emblem of the tribes of Saxony could no longer be seen. The men who had welcomed him as a brother had fought and defeated the Christian tyrants before, but this time their numbers were too great and their weaponry was forged with the wealth and power of the Church.
He wiped the tears from his face. He could step onto that plain and slaughter hundreds of Franks, mow them down with a power beyond their understanding. Perhaps it wouldn’t be enough, but it would be in the service of his heart. For eighty years he’d moved among these fiercely loyal and brave people.
Now I can only watch them die.
At first, he’d observed them as Pellus suggested. The language was an easy matter for a Covalent, but the Saxons mistrusted strangers. He found his way into his latest clan by saving the life of a chieftain during battle, concocting a story of how his whole family was exterminated by the Franks, who enslaved him until he was able to escape. He proved his worth by bringing them more game than they had ever seen, and wielding his sword with such speed and skill that marauding clans fled before him. His clan grew in number and influence and its warriors gained allies. They looked to the south, hungry for land and chattel. They became as aggressive as the marauders he had once slaughtered in their defense.
To continue in that way was a perversion of his purpose. He could not fight on one side or the other of internecine human battles. If he continued to slaughter the weak as he grew older and more powerful, he would lose Balance. He would become weak himself.
Balance was the wellspring of Covalent power, the equilibrium of Creation and Destruction, order and entropy, attraction and repulsion, love and hate. Balance allowed Barakiel to gather any energy he encountered, to bring it inside himself and transform it into unassailable strength and speed. His enemies fell before a hatred so strong and pure it guaranteed the sureness of his blade. His Saxon family enjoyed his love and loyalty, equally strong, equally pure.
Barakiel was born to slaughter the demons his father sent to kill him, but humans were not worthy adversaries. The time had come for him to choose. Leave his Saxon family or abandon Balance to live as a crippled warrior, good enough for the Earthly Realm, but a mere shadow of what he was meant to be. Abandon Balance and risk dying at the hands of Lucifer’s slaves.
As a Warrior of the Rising, Barakiel’s power called to him as surely as he knew the world through his senses. He did not want to betray his nature. He’d chosen to leave.
The death rattles of his Saxon brothers hung over the plain. The sound haunted his decision, as did the words of the fine woman with whom he’d shared his bed. In the gray dawn, she’d condemned him.
“You coward!” she spat. “We accepted you, a stranger! And you will leave us now, in our greatest need?”
“I am sorry, Eadgyth.”
“I do not understand. I gave myself to you. I could have had any man.” She busied herself rearranging the skins on the bed in their hut before she jerked herself around to glare at him. “Do you not care for me? For my clan?”
“I do.” He cupped her lovely face within its wild mane of reddish-blonde hair. “I wish I could explain.” A visceral temptation curled in his chest to tell her everything.
Would she come with me? Would she leave her family?
He already knew the answer. For a moment he thought she might cry, but she knocked his hand away.
“Go then, coward.”
The battle would not be long, now. Already the Franks were rounding up the women to enslave them in the name of the Holy Roman Emperor. Even from that distance, Barakiel’s sharp eyes could see his clansmen falling bloody to the dirt. His sensitive ears heard their grunts and screams and the wails of the women who tried to reach them, to fight for them or die by their side.
I will save her. Maybe her sisters. I will take them to the nuns. They will show mercy.
Barakiel sped down the hill into the battle, so fast his movement could barely be detected, like leaves blown by a strong wind at the edge of vision.
Philadelphia, Earthly Year 2014, Phase 18997
The next morning, Pellus emerged from the kinetic rift in a flash of ultraviolet light far beyond the visual spectrum of humans. He sauntered across Barakiel’s yard, enjoying the much prettier light of a sunny earthly morning. When he entered the house, Barakiel gave him a curt greeting and then ignored him, sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee, his sword beside him, staring into space.
“What is the matter with you?” Pellus asked.
“Nothing. We can leave as soon as I have finished my coffee.” Barakiel had the blank look on his face he got when he was trying to keep his temper.
“All right, out with it,” Pellus huffed. “I do not think you should venture into a two-turn battle with something unpleasant on your mind.”
The warrior’s eyes blazed momentarily before he settled into a scowl.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Pellus asked.
“I acted like a cretin towards that FBI agent last night and it is your fault.”
“My fault? Why is it my fault?”
“You told me to stop flirting. You told me to get rid of her. I must have seemed like an ass.” He spoke more and more quickly. “But you know what? I like her. She is interesting and beautiful and I like her, and now I regret listening to you. I usually listen to you, Pellus, because I am grateful to you for many things, but you do not know what it is like to be me.”
“Barakiel, I—”
“Do you know she plays the guitar? She invited me to go see her play. I said something noncommittal and bland and she felt foolish. I made her feel foolish and that annoys me. It seriously annoys me.”
“Barakiel, I—”
“I am going. I am going to see her band. I do not care what you think.”
The two Covalent eyed each other.
“May I speak?” Pellus asked. Barakiel turned his hand, palm up.
“I know you do not have to listen to me and you think this would be harmless, but I am afraid it would create problems. Especially because this woman is some sort of authority figure.”
“What difference does that make?”
“You said this FBI, it investigates things. What if she investigates you? Looks beyond that cursory background check? We cannot have that. Do you want the FBI sniffing around your companies and their preternatural ability to make money? Do you want them to scrutinize me? How can you say such a thing would not happen?”
“For the sake of Balance, Pellus.” Barakiel abruptly stood and slid his sword into its sheath on his back. “The FBI investigates crime. I am a law-abiding citizen. She is not going to investigate me.”
“You are not exactly a law-abiding citizen.”
“As far as she knows I am. As far as she knows, my existence is not possible. Do not conjure problems where there
are none.”
Barakiel ran his hand through his hair and forcibly exhaled. When he spoke again it was in a much softer voice. “I like her, Pellus. I want to spend time with her. Is it so wrong for me to enjoy a little companionship?”
Pellus almost winced at the ocean of pain suddenly visible in Barakiel’s eyes. He usually kept it hidden. Though it made Pellus feel small, he was relieved when the warrior locked his pain away once again.
Guardian save me, I do not know how to help him. I wish I did, but a human woman is not the answer.
“We are not going to resolve this today,” Pellus said. “You have a battle to deal with. If you are distracted, I will worry like a fool.”
“I will be fine. Battle always clears my mind.” Barakiel gulped the last of his coffee. “We should go.”
The two Covalent went outside and walked the fifty yards or so to the rift, where they slipped into the whirring stream of pure, dark energy. Pellus was relieved. Going home would ease his mind. He held the memory of the curves and waves of the fabric of existence within him, and for all the times he had passed to and from the dimension of the Earthly Realm with Barakiel, he still relished the task. The journey was like riding along the petal of an intricate flower to find the point it joined with other petals, their surfaces quivering with energy. He felt the vibration of the Covalent Realm and needed but to follow that sense, inevitable as gravity.
CHAPTER 4
Covalent City
THE BATTALION MARCHED in neat lines through the tremendous, amber-colored gates of Covalent City. Barakiel occupied the front line, a testament to how strong a warrior he had become since the Council allowed him to fight from exile.
His sense of purpose sharpened as he approached the Turning, a cavernous passageway through thick bands of silver and amethyst light that flowed and swirled, ever changing into darkness and back again. He savored its beauty, as well as the energy that surged through him. His power increased with each battle.
The rearguard had barely passed through the wall of light when a horde of demons appeared. It charged, and a phalanx of beasts headed straight for Barakiel. After he dispatched the first one, he understood their plan. Behind them came a group of fifteen or so Corrupted, their black armor shedding waves of energy, their ashen faces but a grim reminder of their former beauty.
“The Corrupted!” Barakiel shouted. A squad peeled off to come to his aid as he bolted to the left, seeking to put some distance between himself and the gang of dark warriors. Three were hard upon his heels.
“Why this pointless fight, Barakiel?” called the leader. “Join us. You would be unstoppable.”
Barakiel wheeled to face her, taking the opportunity to gauge their positions. “You stink of imbalance,” he said.
The three Corrupted hissed and cackled. “Balance,” the leader spat. “Nothing but rules. We are free, filled with the power that gave rise to time. You must taste it, wayward son. Destruction is your birthright.”
“I am Covalent. Balance is my birthright.” Barakiel’s every sense was focused on his adversaries. He listened to their breath and measured the force that infused their limbs. “You are shadows. Incomplete. We will hunt you down and kill you.”
The leader shrugged and lifted her hand, signaling for the attack. Barakiel threw himself at her knees as she came head-on. When she fell forward, he thrust his dagger through the seam in her armor. Shoving upward with a twist and a hook motion, he opened her gut, releasing a torrent of coal-black blood. He drew her dying body down to shield himself from the first blows of the other two.
For the most part, it worked. One foe managed to slice open Barakiel’s calf near the knee. Despite the deep wound, he leaped to his feet to ward off the attack from the left with his dagger. He slipped over the block of the Corrupted to his right and stabbed him in the neck with the tip of his sword. The wounded fighter clutched his neck as blood squeezed through his fingers. He staggered off.
The other Corrupted were engaged by Barakiel’s fellow warriors, who outnumbered them two to one, but demons were closing in. Barakiel had to dispatch these foes quickly or the horde would overwhelm them. He whirled to face one dark warrior, who circled slowly around him, trying to maneuver so that his wounded comrade was behind Barakiel.
The Corrupted did not get the chance. Barakiel charged and their swords met with a mighty clang. The dark warrior tried to run the bottom of his sword along Barakiel’s blade, pushing down in an attempt to weaken his grip. Barakiel pushed back for an instant then pulled away, dipping his sword, using his adversary’s momentum against him, leaving him slightly off-balance. It was enough. Barakiel rammed his foot into the side of his attacker’s knee, bringing him to the ground, then thrust his sword through his throat. The Corrupted died with a shudder and a few wet choking noises just as the last dark warrior attacked, the one who had already been injured.
Barakiel took the blow in his upper left arm. His hot blood flowed, but he could not let it slow him down. The Corrupted attacked again, but by this time his neck wound had weakened him. Barakiel parried the blow and brought his sword up quickly over his head to the left, his right armed crossed in front of his face. He beheaded the dark warrior with a quick downward stroke and turned to face the bellowing demons.
“Here!” his commander called. He ran into the fray.
After the battle, the warriors gathered on the Great Plaza, a broad expanse of bronze-colored stone spreading out from the colossal doors of the Hall of the Ancients. The doors stood in the center of the wide base of the Council Keep, which rose in a muscular tower of cream-colored marble shot through with veins of gold and ochre. Two stacks of residences sat on either side of the tower, diminishing in size until the topmost seemed to fuse with the thick walls that curved in wide arcs from the base of the Keep. The right-hand arc of the wall straightened to anchor the city gates and confront the approach to the city with a mammoth boundary of granite, pale and flecked with mica. The wall then marched into the hills to encircle the homes of the citizens, and to meet the left-hand arc at a distance too far to be seen.
The Keep rose far beyond the walls, so high that when viewed from the center of the plaza, the blade of its highest reaches appeared to fix the firmament, the point around which all else revolved. Beyond it, the institutions of Covalent City ringed the plaza, their stone facades by turn imposing and inviting.
As the battalion healers attended to his wounds, Barakiel admired the scene. He spent so little time in Covalent City he tried to make the most of it.
Before long, Commander Remiel interrupted his reverie to congratulate him on a battle well-fought. He basked in her praise. He had served in her battalion ever since the Council had given him leave to fight from exile.
Remiel was a formidable Warrior of the Rising, with eyes that shined like black diamonds and sinews that rippled with power under rich mahogany skin. Barakiel suspected he’d been assigned to her battalion because, before Lucifer’s rebellion, their mothers had been thick as thieves. Of course, such things were better left unmentioned. By this time, he considered her a friend.
“You know, Barakiel,” she said. “The way you dispatched those three Corrupted is the talk of the plaza, not to mention the way you charged into the hottest fight and killed two more. The quickeners have already begun their poems about your sword. They call it a deadly streak of blue fire.”
“They flatter me. I should thank the warriors for their help.”
When the healers released him from triage, Barakiel went with Remiel so she could conduct the roll call. The warriors cheered at the sight of him. He raised his sword and they roared again. As they broke formation, Remiel pulled him aside.
“I think the warriors will be drinking to you and your fearsome sword all night,” she said. “You should join us at our feast.”
“I cannot, commander. You know that.”
“Your agreement with the Council is unreasonable,” she said with an exasperated huff. “No attack will be forth
coming after the Corrupted lost such numbers.”
“The Council does not want me to get in the habit of enjoying myself here, I think. The members are afraid I will cease listening to them.”
“Perhaps you should.”
Barakiel inspected her for a moment. He couldn’t tell if she was joking. “I would, but the Council can easily take my duty away from me.”
“A ridiculous state of affairs. The warriors want to know you. They want to drink and laugh with you.”
“Please tell them I want to drink and laugh with them, too, but I cannot. I must return to my exile.”
“I am sorry.”
“So am I,” Barakiel said, although he tried to hide the extent of the feeling.
“What a waste,” Remiel said. “You should be commanding your own battalion by now.”
“Ha!” Barakiel flung his head back in a mirthful outburst. “Half the Council would drop dead with fear, tortured by visions of me marching my warriors by Lucifer’s side.”
Remiel set her mouth in a stern line. “I am glad you find it so amusing.”
“My way of holding onto sanity, commander.”
She offered a hint of a smile then, and the two said their goodbyes, grasping each other’s shoulders as warriors did when they parted company.
As Barakiel walked to the Healers Guild Hall to complete his healing, he grumbled at himself. He should have shown Remiel what it meant to him, to know she thought him worthy of command, even if it would never happen. It had been hard enough, those many phases ago, to gain the Council’s permission to fight from exile.
Ireland, Earthly Year 1465, Phase 14238
The humped limestone splintered with each blow of Barakiel’s fist. Cracks raced through the layers until the rock fell to rubble. The warrior expelled a ragged scream. Too easy. He had destroyed the outcropping in less than ten minutes and still his murderous agitation would not leave him. He stared down at the surf that crashed at the base of the cliff.
