Haven-1
Supreme Commander-General Jophiel
Jophiel
"Supreme Commander-General," Master Ubijetso bowed. "The Emperor is expecting you."
Jophiel nodded to the two fierce, ant-like Cherubim, intimidating in their full battle regalia, who guarded the door to the throne room. They were a noble species, but painfully few in number. How much longer until they escaped into the higher realms as the Wheles had done and left her solely responsible for keeping the Emperor safe?
Two Angelics also lurked in the entry hall, their pale wings flared to look intimidating. They might have achieved that effect if they hadn't stood next to the enormous Cherubim, their efforts coming across more as two small dogs who growled to protect their master rather than any real threat.
Across the aisle, two of Ba'al Zebub's Sata'anic guards looked similarly ridiculous, sizing up the Angelics. Lizard people were the same approximate height as an Angelic, but more muscular, their claws, dorsal crest and tail counter-balancing the advantage of Angelic's wings. What gave Angelics an edge over Shay'tan's armies was not sheer brute strength, but the fact their species had been engineered for agility.
The guards eyed each other with distaste, a reflection of their master's sentiments. She might have greeted all four of them if they hadn't served the two most loathsome creatures in the universe as far as she was concerned. Ba'al Zebub … and Lucifer. Instead, she gave them her trademark icy stare.
"You may go inside," the Cherubim said as they pulled open the enormous gilded doors. Twenty-five years she had been coming here and still every time she entered this hall it felt as though she were coming home. Blinding light streamed into the darker hallway from the throne room, causing her to blink. She stepped inside.
"Jophiel!" the Emperor called from the end of a red carpet so long he was nearly a speck on the horizon. "Glad you could make it."
She had once joked the Great Hall was so large she could fit her command carrier inside of it. The Emperor had laughed and said in all things a god must appear to be larger than life or his subjects would have no respect for him.
"Thine will be done," Jophiel murmured. Some hybrids joked the familiar answer had a double meaning. 'And what else I was I supposed to do when you issued a direct order, Sir?' But for her, each time she carried out an order for him it was a privilege.
The lush crimson runner muffled her steps. The two diplomats had heedlessly crushed their footprints into the lush pile, darker against the freshly-vacuumed perfection. It seemed sacrilegious to mar this carpet with her dress shoes, but it was all part of the game.
“Your Majesty,” Jophiel bowed, “Lord Zebub,” she placed her hand on her forehead and her heart as was the customary greeting for his kind, “and Prime Minister Lucifer.” She eyed Lucifer with contempt.
"Supreme Commander-General Jophiel," Lucifer greeted her warmly as though she were someone he liked. "Such a pleasure to see you again."
She schooled the bland expression she knew drove Lucifer nuts. The alpha-stud was used to having females swoon at his every word. It goaded him that he'd never been able to get her to drop her guard a second time.
She pictured a wall between them. Thirty-five years it had been since he'd seduced her, and for thirty-four of those years not a single day had passed that her subconscious had not pleaded with her to give him a second chance to sire a child. Never!
She had been young and naive when Lucifer had taken her innocence straight out of the Air Force Academy. A nobody, with both parents dead and no family except the military to rear her. A sucker for a story about a lonely boy who'd climbed the branches of the Eternal Tree to listen to a Happy Bird sing every time he feared his father didn't love him. Thank the gods Raphael had finally erased the feel of that bastard's hand upon her flesh from her soul!
Raphael … now that was a whole other problem…
“General Jophiel.” Ba’al Zebub's pink tongue darted out to taste the air. His mouth widened into an insincere smirk, flashing sharp, pointed teeth. “You’re looking well.”
He was a portly lizard, grown fatter in the 25 years she'd been forced to deal with him, with a taste for excess which rivaled even Lucifer's. Sata'an lizards had lifespans that could reach 350 years if intrigues … or being used as Shay'tan's cannon fodder … didn't cut short their lives. He wore the plush, jeweled robe typical of the Sata'anic species, for despite being warm-blooded, they still carried the evolutionary echo of some cold-blooded ancestor's love of warmth.
“You look well, also, Lord Zebub,” Jophiel held her icy mask. 'Well' wasn't the correct word, but she didn't dare use a more accurate descriptor such as 'obese.' She'd learned early on that if she showed a hint of emotion, even if that emotion was only snark, a good ol' boy such as Ba'al Zebub would walk all over her.
“Ba’al Zebub and I were just discussing the Sata’an Empire's policy on opening pre-technological homeworlds to trade." The Emperor eyed the Sata'anic emissary like a mouse sizing up a cobra. "It appears Emperor Shay'tan thinks he has something we might desire."
Jophiel scrutinized Lucifer out of the corner of her eye, watching his reaction. What in Hades was he doing here? The Emperor had said he didn't want to bring Lucifer in on the loop any more than her four subordinate generals. Had he changed his mind? Or was Shay'tan toying with them, demanding the Prime Minister's presence? Probably the latter.
“We were just positing a ‘what if’ scenario,” Lucifer's eerie silver eyes sparkled with interest. "What if Shay'tan had something we really needed, but the planet it resided upon was one we would consider a protected seed world? Would we enforce the same laws upon the Sata'an Empire that we would our own?
"What kind of resource?" Jophiel feigned obtuseness. "Are we talking about the species itself? Or a resource which happens to lie on the same homeworld as a protected species?"
Ba'al Zebub's green-gold eyes narrowed into slits. Once. Twice. Three times his sensitive tongue darted out to taste what stress hormones she was producing during this conversation. Those perceptive gold-green eyes darted between her and Lucifer, searching for nuances that would betray important information. Shay'tan had sent him here to see how much they knew about the human homeworld, of that she was certain. The Emperor gave her a subtle nod. He knew the game.
"The answer would always be the same," the Emperor hedged his answer. "A seed world is a seed world."
"If the species is worthy of protection in our own empire," Jophiel picked up on the Emperor's lead, "then it is worthy of protection in any empire."
A look passed between Lucifer and Ba'al Zebub. Those two were up to something. But what? She entertained the notion that Ba'al Zebub had spilled the beans, but immediately rejected the idea. Lucifer was the Alliance's highest-ranking elected official and also the most visible symbol of the pending hybrid extinction. If he caught wind Shay'tan had a solution to their problem, he'd have a petition before Parliament in a heartbeat. It was why the Emperor had decided not to brief his son about Colonel Mannuki'ili's transmission until he actually knew where the last bastion of humanity was located.
“Let's up the ante a little," Ba'al Zebub paced. "What if the Sata’an Empire possessed a solution to your hybrid infertility problem? What concessions would the Alliance be willing to make to ensure its own survival?”
He stopped pacing directly in front of Lucifer. She expected Lucifer would demand more information, but he was uncustomarily silent. His pale silver eyes watched the Emperor with calculated interest. Cahoots? No. Ba'al Zebub watched Lucifer closer than anybody. But Lucifer knew something. Did Shay'tan have some other chess piece up his sleeve in addition to humans?
"Shay'tan overestimates the scope of the problem," the Emperor laughed. "He's been saying the exact same thing about the Cherubim for the past ten thousand years, and yet their population has remained stable."
Lucifer stiffened. His wings swung up like a raptor moving into a dive. She had often seen him move in for a political kill, bu
t there was something primal in his expression that gave Jophiel a chill.
"You did not answer his question, Father. What would you do if our esteemed colleague came to us with a solution to our problem?"
Jophiel gasped at this breach of solidarity in front of their enemy's ambassador. The Emperor's eyes glowed fiery copper, scrutinizing him as though he were a demon.
"I did not realize there was a question," a cold chill came into the room as the Emperor spoke. "Son…"
"There was, Father," Lucifer's wings trembled with anger. "Would you compromise your seed world policies if it meant our species would survive? Or would you allow the armies that defend you to die out so you can continue your pissing contest with Emperor Shay'tan?"
Static electricity built in the air as reddish-gold eyes locked with silver ones, causing Jophiel's hair to stand on end. She had only ever seen the Emperor's benevolent side, but she had heard about incidents of Hashem's temper … classified reports … histories that only she was authorized to see. Terrible things. Some every bit as awful as when Shay'tan was on a rampage. This shakedown had been a long time coming, but did it have to happen in front of Ba'al Zebub?
"Lucifer," she voiced a desperate plea.
"Well, Father," Lucifer pushed past Ba'al Zebub and stood defiantly beneath the Emperor's throne. "Will you answer the question?"
Lucifer was not a military man, but a politician, with a politician's tastes and weaknesses. He did not look like a politician now. Jophiel saw the echo of the man who had sired him, the man who had been Hashem's most brilliant general until rebellion had cast him down from grace and Abaddon had risen up to fill his roost. The man whose picture had been erased from the history books, but whose face she had seen videos of because only she possessed a high enough security clearance to peek into the records of hurtful histories the Emperor wished to keep suppressed.
The Emperor saw that echo, too. The temperature in the room dropped thirty degrees as Hashem's control over the illusion he wore of a mortal creature slipped and that wrathful, dark-haired visage of the God of Lightning which dominated the Great Gate made its appearance for the first time since Jophiel had been alive.
"I would let your species rot in Hades," the Emperor spat at the echo of the man who had stolen the women he loved, "before I would compromise one bit with Emperor Shay'tan!"
Lucifer's white wings trembled as he closed his eyes, his lip twitching as he took a breath. For thirty-five years she had dreamed of watching somebody rip out Lucifer's heart the way he had torn out hers. Now that she was watching it, she wanted to make it stop. Oh, gods! Please, goddess! Make the Emperor stop! Those silver eyes opened and met hers, far too bright.
"That's what I thought," Lucifer said so softly Jophiel wasn't even sure she'd heard it. "At least now I know the truth."
"Gentlemen!" Ba'al Zebub stepped between them and slapped Lucifer on the back of his wings as though he were an old friend. "This question is just a hypothetical. Nothing more. Let us not quarrel about matters of no importance!"
Jophiel expected Lucifer to turn on Ba'al Zebub and demand to know whether Shay'tan really did have a solution, but he did not. His cheek twitched as he forced himself to get his emotions under control. Wings tucked tightly against his back, he clenched his fists at his side and bowed.
"If you'll excuse me, Father," Lucifer's eerie silver eyes never left the Emperor's fiery gold ones. "I need to go get some air."
An image of Lucifer sitting in the branches of the Eternal Tree, listening to the Happy Bird as he waited for the man he'd been raised to believe was his father to come out and tell him everything would be all right, came into Jophiel's mind. That same loneliness she'd empathized with then resonated with her now. The Emperor had wounded him, and she took no pleasure in his downfall.
"You're dismissed," the Emperor's words were clipped.
Lucifer wheeled around and headed, not back down the red carpet, but towards the side-door that led into the garden and the Eternal Tree. All these years she'd thought that story had been a lie! Lucifer had almost made it to the door where salvation lay when Hashem spoke to him again.
"That way is blocked, son," the Emperor gloated. "Only the purest hearts may enter Haven's garden."
Lucifer stiffened, his back to the Emperor, and did not turn around. Jophiel's mouth opened and closed, her instincts screaming that this thing that was happening must be stopped, this final rift between Lucifer and his father that she knew must never come to pass.
She willed her mouth to form the words, to call his name, to rush to his side and stand with him against his father's pride. If she stood with him, favorite daughter, Hashem would back down. Two flawed stars whose light could illuminate the way when the other faltered. Yes. When cooler heads prevailed, they could approach the Emperor together and heal this wound she sensed had very little to do with Lucifer, but with Hashem's unresolved anger at his dead sire.
Lucifer did not know the Emperor was, even now, assembling an armada to take on Shay'tan. If she told him…
Ba'al Zebub eyed her like a cobra scrutinizing a mouse, watching to see what she would do. Lucifer had just dishonored the Emperor in front of his oldest enemy's ambassador. If she did so as well, Hashem might give up on all humanoids, wash his hands of them and disappear back into the ascended realms for good. As he had already done once before…
She kept her mouth shut.
In her heart, she knew it was the wrong thing to do.
Lucifer clenched his fist. Wings pressed tightly against his back, he turned and walked out of his father's throne room without uttering a sound. Ba'al Zebub had enough sense to keep his mouth shut until the Emperor felt like speaking.
"So," the Emperor said with forced interest. "Was there anything else my esteemed brother wished to discuss with me today?"
"There is the matter of the mineral rights of those star systems located in the Romeo Sector," Ba'al Zebub gloated.
"Jophiel," the Emperor engaged her in the negotiations to prevent her from going after him. "What do you think? Is there some way we can buffer the presence of two armies in that sector to mine those planets without constantly firing upon one another?"
The thud of the door closing echoed through the Great Hall. Duty instructed her to answer the Emperor's questions rather than to give solace to the lover who had not been lying when he'd laid in her arms and told her, tears in his eyes, about how he used to sit in the branches of the Eternal Tree and let the Happy Bird fill the hole in his heart as a little boy because, deep down, he'd always known the Emperor did not love him.
Chapter 30
October 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili
Mikhail
As much as he'd tried to disabuse these people of their curious notion that, just because some people were born with male reproductive organs and others female, that therefore one gender was incapable of performing the functions of the other, the truth was, it had become such an uphill ordeal that he'd begun to pick his battles. The group that had been called into the Chief's house was not unusual for who gathered here, but rather who was missing.
Needa.
Pareesa.
Alalah.
Yalda.
All four women were the foundations upon which the Chief was built his army, although each in a different capacity. Without Needa, a scratch could fester and kill a warrior. Pareesa was the fire who inspired his warriors to become more. Alalah trained new archers now that he was occupied elsewhere, and Yalda, his adopted grandmother, was the senior-most elder on the tribunal, the law-giving body of this village. It seemed wrong not to invite them and seek their counsel.
Had it simply been a meeting with the Chief, Mikhail's opinion would have prevailed. Chief Kiyan's treatment of women was not perfect, but he was a pragmatic man. The other village chiefs were not so practical. What the Chief could get away with amongst his own people would make him look like a fool amongst alli
es who whispered he let the women wear the kilts.
Ninsianna had been invited.
The others had not.
Mikhail pressed his wings against his back in a tight dress-wings formation as Chief Kiyan, Chief Jiljab from Gasur, and the chiefs from the nearest allied villages of Nineveh and Arrapha squabbled over his latest proposal. Jamin sat at his father's side, his black eyes glowering with hatred. A chill crept down his spine, causing his feathers to rustle like dead leaves. If looks could kill, he'd already be dead. Whatever the Chief held over Jamin's head to get his son to attend, it was as though he held an angry lion on a short rope, hoping nobody would get devoured.
"Individually we are an easy target," Chief Jiljab said. "But together we are strong." Jiljab had come wearing fancier attire than he had worn in Gasur, but his ceremonial finery was a poor step-sister to that of the other three chiefs.
"You are being attacked by a different enemy than us," Sinalshu said, chief of Nineveh. "We have no problems with the Uruk tribe! Why should we create enemies where we have none?"
A stout man in his mid-fifties, it appeared as though Chief Sinalshu and Chief Kiyan ran a constant wager to see which one could wear the most fringes on their kilts, the thickest gold bracelets, the most elaborately embroidered shawls, and the tallest hats. Chief Kiyan had an edge over Sinalhsu by virtue of his elaborate golden torc, but not by much.
"Uruk has nipped at our boundaries in the past," Chief Kiyan rebutted Sinalshu. "Although not lately. Let's not forget the reason they stopped harassing our village is because the Ubaid united and stopped their advance. We must remain united, or we shall all find ourselves paying tribute to an Uruk chieftain."
"Uruk is not our enemy," a new man spoke, Laum, a trader of cloth and, if what Ninsianna said was true, soon to be Jamin's father-in-law. "Normalizing trade would benefit all Ubaid tribes."
Laum was a tall man, dark-haired and well formed, but not muscular like one of the warriors. Mikhail could see where Shahla got her good looks.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 30
