"Abaddon is a good man," Jophiel sighed, "if a bit of a war hawk. Maybe the Emperor should have elevated him to Supreme Commander-General when he returned from the Ascended Realms instead of me?"
Raphael pulled her closer with his free arm, ignoring her squirms of protest until she melted into his golden wings.
"The Emperor must have had his reasons." Raphael kissed the top of her head. "Perhaps he sensed Abaddon had grown too supportive of Lucifer in his absence?"
"Lucifer is dead," Jophiel hissed. "Parliament's authority to exist became null and void the moment Lucifer died without an heir."
"We don't know that for sure," Raphael said. "They found no wreckage, nor were they able to recover any bodies."
"Shay'tan destroyed the Prince of Tyre while it was orbiting the borderlands," Jophiel snapped. "The old dragon won't let us into his territory to gather evidence of his crime! He refuses to budge even with the Jehoshaphat moving into position to engage!"
"Lucifer's crimes?" Raphael asked. "Or Shay'tan's?"
"So you side with them now?" Jophiel tried to pull away.
Raphael curled one large, golden wing around her and used his free hand to tilt her chin up so that she had to look him in the eye.
"I'm an intelligence officer," Raphael gave her an apologetic grin. "Remember? I'm only pointing out what the news outlets are saying."
"What does that matter?" Jophiel pushed against his chest to break his hold. "Hashem is their Emperor and god!"
The withdrawal of her affection hurt him. Physically. As though she had cut off the supply of his own life's blood. Mated pairs. Being this close to somebody emotionally would take a period of adjustment, coping skills the Emperor had deprived his species of learning when he'd forced his armies to pretend a soldier had no need to understand any love except for a love of him.
"The Emperor has lost the people's trust," Raphael sighed. "Whether or not we find Lucifer's body, until the Emperor acknowledges he needs to win back his subjects' hearts and minds, he shall make no headway getting back control of his empire."
Jophiel burst into tears. Uriel chose that moment to awaken and entangle his fingers in his mother's long, white-blonde hair, delighted she no longer kept it coiffed in a regulation bun. Jophiel forced a smile as she carefully untangled their baby's fingers from her tresses.
"Gi!"
Uriel gave them a broad, pink smile. He was a beautiful infant, with bright red hair, auburn wings, and a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Instead of blue like most Angelic eyes, Uriel's were a deep shade of jade. Raphael had faint red stripes running through the underside of his buff gold wings, but not for thousands of years had the recessive gene for red manifested into his bloodline's plumage.
"Gi!"
Uriel reached past his mum with a chubby little hand.
Said 'gi,' Uriel's name for his pet gorock, wiggled at hearing his name and rammed its long, slender body between Raphael and Jophiel. Gorocks were supposed to grow no larger than a small canine, but at six months old, Raphael swore the miniature water dragon had grown large enough to ride to work if one day his shuttlecraft ever ran out of fusion power.
"Enough! Enough!" Jophiel threw up her hand to shield her face from being licked. "Down Gi!"
Uriel squealed with laughter as the creature's long, pink tongue darted out to slobber all over his mother's face. His tiny, red wings pounded against his father, scattering red pin-feathers all over the palace as he tried to wiggle out of Raphael's arms.
"Why did the Emperor insist we bring him along?" Raphael laughed as Jophiel tried to contain the exuberant gorock.
"Because the Emperor declared it be so!" She grabbed Gi's long, serpentine neck and tightened up its leash so the creature had no choice but to heel. "This gorock is one of the Emperor's failed genetics experiments. It pleases him to see the creature has found a purpose other than the evolutionary niche he failed to adapt him to fill."
"I thought you said he was supposed to grow no larger than a madra," Raphael said.
Jophiel gave him an enigmatic smile that, just for a moment, made Raphael forget to breathe. Instead of the happy feeling he would have expected, all he sensed was sadness. Whatever troubled her, she chose not to share it with him. Was she sad because he needed to report back to the uncharted territories?
"Sometimes the Emperor's experiments don't turn out as planned," Jophiel said. "Us, for example?"
The gorock chose that moment to slip out of its collar, committing the ultimate blasphemy of running through the Eternal Palace, barking. Uriel shrieked in laughter at his mother's attempts to recapture the awkward creature. Its webbed feet slapped against the floor as Jophiel just barely managed to save a priceless relic from an inopportune slap of the creature's paddle-like tail. They were still laughing when they reached the final checkpoint. The guard captured the wriggling water dragon and held it while Jophiel slipped its snout back into its collar.
The burly, grey Rhinocerin gave them a crisp salute and asked them to peek into a box with blinking colored lights. Raphael patiently answered questions as the machine measured his brain's electrochemical responses.
"Squeaky clean, Sir," the Rhinocerin said. He jerked his head so his horned snout gestured up the hallway. "You're clear to go, Sir."
"Do you have any idea what the Emperor is looking for?" Raphael asked as he straightened out his clothing.
"Nobody knows," the Rhinocerin shrugged. "My job is to make sure no one gets past this point without being inspected by the hive mind."
They moved into a beautifully frescoed rotunda where five hallways met. Painted at the apex of the rose dome, She-who-is reached down with a beneficent smile. All manner of creatures cascaded from her fingertips, solidifying into recognizable species the closer they came to the floor.
Four of the walls depicted a separate branch of the military. Hybrids. Genetically engineered super-soldiers spliced together by the Eternal Emperor from a root race of Nibiruians … humans as they'd come to be called in modern mythology … and animals: eagles, horses, aquatic mammals and lions. Each hybrid, Angelics, Centauri, Merfolk, and Leonids, had been created to fill a niche within the Emperor's army: Air Force, Cavalry, Navy, and Multi-Purpose fighters. Each hybrid stood between the viewer and the loftier, naturally evolved creatures the hybrids had been created to protect.
Raphael paused before the fifth wall which, unlike the other four, had burn marks which still bled through the paint even though it had been painted over many times. Hastily dabbed splotches of weeds and vermin marred what would have otherwise been a breathtaking room. Raphael had been through this hallway twice before, but both times he'd been so excited that he'd never noticed the fifth wall depicted a missing species.
"Who were they?" Raphael asked.
Jophiel's eyes were troubled. "Nobody knows. The Emperor refuses to talk about them."
They moved down a hallway to where two fierce Cherubim guards stood before an enormous door, their long, bladed naginata crossed to bar casual entrance. Raphael's feathers rustled in a nervous shiver. Even though he had committed no act to fear the defenders of the Eternal Emperor, they still made him want to soil his britches. At thirteen feet tall, the ant-like Cherubim possessed six limbs, two for walking and four for fighting. Their armor only accentuated their hard exoskeleton, polished to a glossy sheen, but nothing could cover the weapons dings of countless battles. Instead of pulse-rifles, the Cherubim carried twin curved katana swords and a shorter tantō tucked into their belt.
Uriel buried his face in Raphael's shoulder and whimpered. The gorock heeled, wrapping its long, serpentine body around Jophiel's legs.
"Kon'nichiwa," Jophiel saluted them. "Master Higahaki," she bowed to the first one, "Master Guyjin," she bowed to the second, "I would like for you to meet my maité saoil, Brigadier-General Raphael Israfa."
Raphael's heart swelled at hearing her acknowledge their status, publicly … to the Cherubim guard, no less! Maité saoil. Lifemate. Jophiel had just ma
de it official they had knowingly flaunted the Emperor's anti-fraternization laws.
If he expected any reaction, he was disappointed.
"The Emperor has just arrived, Supreme Commander-General." Master Higahaki clasped two of his four hands together and returned the bow. "Empress Jingu congratulates you on your choice of consort."
Empress Jingu? The Cherubim hive queen? Knew. About. Them? Whatever was going on, the only emotion Raphael registered from Jophiel though their newly-forged bond was a profound sense of relief.
"Convey my gratitude to the Empress for her blessing," Jophiel gave a deeper bow.
"Hai, yoake hoshi," the two Cherubim spoke with a single voice. With a clank of swords, the guardians stepped aside and pulled open the enormous wooden door unto which had been carved a likeness of the Eternal Tree. For the first time, Raphael noted the tiny carved 'Happy Bird,' the cheerful little song thrush who had come to their window and sung the day they had first declared their love.
"Ki!" Uriel pointed at the enormous carved wooden tree.
"That's not Ki," Raphael whispered into his son's bright red curls. "That’s a tree."
"Ki!" Uriel pointed at the tree a second time.
The gorock chose that moment to yank its leash, dragging Jophiel into the Great Hall, a room so large it was rumored the Emperor could park a command carrier inside of it. Raphael blinked as his eyes adjusted to the blinding white light. A plush, red carpet ran across the marble floor straight up to the throne where sat the Eternal Emperor. Trills of electricity rippled through Raphael's feathers, a manifestation of the primordial lightening the Emperor wielded.
"Raphiel," the Emperor called like the rumble of a distant thunder. "Come! Master Yoritomo doesn't bite!"
Master Yoritomo stood beside him, the Emperor's Cherubim Master of Arms. For as long as there had been an Alliance, the Cherubim had stood vigil to protect the Emperor.
"Are you certain he won't smite me on the spot?" Raphael whispered.
"He's an old softie," Jophiel said. A shadow clouded her brilliant blue eyes. "Usually."
Jophiel's assurances weren't very reassuring. Raphael may have been out of touch when Lucifer had split the Alliance into factions, but all he'd seen since he'd answered Jophiel's summons was nonstop speculation about how wrong the Emperor had been to burn off Lucifer's wings. From a propaganda perspective, with Lucifer presumed dead after being attacked by Shay'tan, not only was the Alliance now at war, but Lucifer had been elevated to the status of martyr. It wasn't one enemy the Emperor fought now, but billions of them, from the eldest granny to the littlest child.
"Your Majesty," Jophiel gave a deep bow.
"Sir," Raphael bowed.
Uriel giggled and reached up to the comical-looking old god who'd forgotten to take off his laboratory coat and not quite hidden that error beneath his magnificent robe of state. The Eternal Emperor could assume any form he wished to take, but his favorite visage was of the Nibiru source-race before their planet had been destroyed. Wild, white hair and bushy eyebrows stuck up in every direction, giving the Emperor the air of a mad scientist which, technically, he sort of was.
Raphael met the Emperor's luminescent golden gaze: the eyes of an ascended being. They were the same golden eyes the wingless, dark-haired woman standing next to Mikhail had possessed in the truncated message he'd been able to get to them telling them he was still alive…
"Come, Uriel," the Emperor gestured for Raphael to hand him up his son. "Jophiel … did you bring the book?"
"I did, Sir," Jophiel said.
She reached into the side-pocket of the satchel she'd refused to let him carry and pulled out a slender, black picture book with an eleven-pointed star and silver lettering engraved into the cover. Song of Ki. Jophiel handed it to the Emperor. Uriel gurgled as he settled into the Emperor's lap as if being read a story by a god was the most natural thing in the world. The water dragon curled up at their feet.
"Please brief Brigadier-General Israfa about our real mission," the Emperor ordered, using his formal military title.
Jophiel pointed up at the vaulted ceiling. "Come, Raphael. It's time for you to see what has always been before your eyes."
She led Raphael back towards the door where the carving of the Eternal Tree stretched upwards into the ceiling. In the first rib-vault a blue, fairy-like creature crawled out of the primordial chaos and took the hand of a powerfully muscled bull-god. The second rib depicted Ki holding out her hand and birthing all the gods and goddesses who once each ruled their own, separate universe. In the third rib, the bull-god's universe began to collapse inwards upon itself. Ki's husband devoured his own children to perpetuate his continued expansion. It was a fairytale every Alliance child was taught … if they weren't good little boys and girls, the Devourer of Children might come and eat them.
The fourth rib-vault depicted the grief-stricken blue fairy gathering up the fragments of her devoured children and clutching them to her breast. Raphael stared up into the fiery red eyes of the bull-god they called Moloch. Eyes so malignant that, even painted, Raphael felt as though the bull-god might consume his spirit.
"The Evil One," Raphael whispered.
The Emperor's voice filled the Great Hall as he read to Uriel the slender black book:
In Ki’s most sorrowful, desperate hour,
When all was lost to blight,
She sang her Song of Creation,
And enticed Darkness to protect the Light.
Jophiel pointed at the fifth rib-vault. The blue fairy sat with a tiny golden star upon her lap and faced the darkness, singing into creation a monster to protect her daughter. A creature of nightmare, a horrid, shapeless mass, overpowered the bull god and prevented it from devouring Ki's last, remaining child. In the sixth rib-vault, the tiny golden star, now recognizable as She-who-is, touched the dark creature with one hand while, from her other sprang forth all the stars and planets of which this universe was comprised. The Emperor continued to read to Uriel.
Primordial Light, the architect,
Ki’s daughter, She-who-is,
Spun the darkness of He-who’s-not,
To create life, All-That-Is
But then one day, the sickness returned.
Moloch. Enemy of Ki.
The Evil One. The ex-husband spurned.
Collapse. Entropy.
He spread his evil, throughout the worlds,
Undoing all in his path.
Devouring his own children,
To make Ki feel his wrath.
But He-who’s-not, the Guardian.
Lord Chaos. The Dark Lord.
Sang the Song of Destruction,
To protect the Light he adored.
The vaulted ceiling depicted, again and again, the guardian Ki had created ripping apart putrid green vortexes filled with infection. A sense of fear settled into Raphael's gut. Protection? For whom? Not for them! Whatever He-who's-not touched, he destroyed.
She-who-is wept bitter tears,
To see her playthings broken,
The Dark Lord couldn't bear her grief,
And offered his mate a token.
To keep the balance so he could protect her,
They would play a game of chess.
She-who-is would create new pieces.
He-who’s-not would reclaim the rest.
"Is that where the legends that says the Emperor and Shay'tan play chess together comes from?" Raphael asked.
"The Emperor and Shay'tan really do play chess." Jophiel pointed up at the chess board on the ceiling. "As does every other pair of guardians the two appoint to watch over their galaxies. It keeps the old gods busy and out of trouble."
"You mean that legend is real?" Raphael raised a golden eyebrow in surprise.
Jophiel lowered her long, blonde lashes. "I have seen it with my own eyes." Her lips curved up in a breathtaking smile. "Though to call the galactic resource map a chessboard would be like calling the Eternal Tree a twig.
Raphael glanc
ed out the glass doors which opened up into the Eternal Garden. At its center grew the real Eternal Tree whose branches rose above the palace like a beautiful, many-armed woman who reached skyward to touch the sun. It was rumored the Eternal Tree had been planted here the day the Eternal Emperor had founded the Alliance 152,000 years ago and that, so long as this tree grew here, the Alliance would thrive. He studied the ceiling which he now understood was a history of their universe.
The Emperor resumed his story for Uriel about She-who-is and the Dark Lord.
But both must remain ever-vigilant,
Against Moloch’s eventual return,
He sends forth Agents to pave the way,
To escape the hell whence he burns.
When Moloch gains a foothold,
And desires to be fed,
She-who-is shall appoint a Chosen One
To warn of Moloch’s spread.
HE shall send a winged Champion
A demi-god fair and just,
A Sword of the Gods to defend the people,
And raise armies from the dust.
As Moloch corrupts Agents to do his work,
So shall Ki appoint Watchmen to do HERS,
From the ashes of despair,
When all appears lost,
Hidden Agents shall choose to serve HER.
"Agents?" Raphael's ears perked up. "What agents?" As a high-ranking officer who worked within the intelligence community, he was intensely interested in the fields of insurgency and counter-insurgency. Why hadn't he ever heard this portion of the Song of Ki? Had it been, like that fifth species which had been painted over in the rotunda, part of Alliance history which had been suppressed?
"Those green things are Moloch's agents." Jophiel pointed up at the putrid green blotches that preceded each incident of the Dark Lord destroying swaths of the universe. "They're cohorts, supporters, people who worship Moloch and try to help him gain a foothold here so he can get at She-who-is."
"And where are these Watchmen?" Raphael scrutinized the frescoes. "Ki's counter-agents."
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 7
