Angelslayer: The Winnowing War

by K. Michael Wright

  Eryian noticed that the ships were pulling away, their keels slowly easing off the shore. “You are sending the ships back?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I doubt once we find Azazel we will have further need of them.”

  They did not navigate the waters, nor was there any attempt made to hide their true nature. Their silvery bulwarks curled upward, like great wings, until they sealed the ships into sleek, narrow spears and the bulwarks smoothed until there was not a mark or a scratch. In one moment they were hovering above the waters and in the next, with a sudden brilliant flash, they were gone. They had moved with such speed, he had not been able to track their path.

  She was watching for him to look to her for an explanation, but she offered none at all; she merely smiled.

  “You are their queen,” he said, “and they face certain death on the plains they so aptly name the killing fields. Yet it is your choice to stay, Cassium? Should you not have returned with the ships? Should a guardian’s first duty not always be to ensure his queen be protected?”

  She narrowed one brow over the icy eyes, almost in a gesture of anger. She stared at him a moment, and Eryian saw something spill from her eyes, as though in chastisement. They had scattered crystallized starlight against him, like ice drops. He suddenly felt foolish having said what he did.

  “He may think he comes for the slaughter, Eryian. But he is wrong. You have, without choice, clothed yourself in flesh, but I have always been flesh. Now that you have taken me from the home you left me so very, very many years ago, the cold, almost lifeless ice moon I shall never miss, behold: I began to age. I would in time now grow old and die. You taught me that; you also taught me that it was a great and precious gift.”

  “I am afraid I no longer am keeping up, Cassium.”

  “It does not matter. What matters, you see, is that I have my soul. I am not undead. You, as well—we have our souls, Eryian! We should dance; we should scream to the night, throw off our shoes and run into the waters, singing. Great sacrifices you made to give us these simple gifts—the gift that we both may die.”

  The confusion in his eyes only made her smile that much more. “You may not understand, but you saved me, at great cost, from Winternight.”

  “Winternight, yes, the curse of the Sky Walker Queens.”

  “They grow terrible from their knowledge; they take the blood of the innocent and the youth to keep their beauty. You spared me that, Eryian. I have not the imagination to understand how much I owe you, but remember my words—days from now, years from now, whatever may be, remember that I look in your eyes this moment and I offer you my thanks. Wait, here, look!” She grabbed his hand and laid hers over it. “The skin of this hand, though we do not see it, begins to grow old, even as we speak. In twenty, thirty years, it would grow wrinkles and age spots. If I were to live long enough, I would become an old woman, bent over and wrinkled. All my beauty would fade, my ice-eyes as you always called them, would fog with coming blindness, the cream color of my skin would wither to a gray mold, the white-gold hair would be left only white. And all thanks alone to you.”

  “It does not sound like something you should thank me for, Cassium.”

  “But it is! Oh, how it is. More than you are able to understand—given your veil.” She set her hand upon his cheek, though he was left utterly confused. “Thank you, my love,” she whispered. “You know what I thought so long ago when first they came, when I saw their streaks through the heavens. I was young, ten and two years, so young, so long ago. I saw them as they were when they stepped from the heavens and my father explained what was happening. I remember feeling such excitement that I leapt; I literally danced about. ‘The angels are coming!’ I cried out.”

  She smiled, remembering, but then her eyes swiftly changed, growing dark and serious. “Mark this, Eryian, warlord of Daath; it is not Azazel who comes for the slaughter of these boys, the sons of Righel. My ships depart without me because it is I who have come for him! And if I accomplish nothing else with tomorrow’s dawn, I will remind him of what he was before the Oath of Ammon was ever uttered. They have forgotten, all of them. In a different way than you—it is not a veil that blinds their memories; it is ego. But with just as much guilt on their souls as you or I, they have let Earth become their world, their entire domain. He comes from the south where he fled the Light Bearer over a woman. A woman, Eryian! Oh, if I could somehow make you understand how absurd that war! The Light Bringer, the most beautiful being ever created in all the universe, one of the very firstborn of our Lord and Father, Elyon; and Azazel, the second to fall, he was the reigning king of the celestial choirs. And what do they do within years of stepping from their oaths and their covenants with Elyon? They squabble like two children over the daughter of a man.” She turned away, shaking her head with the absurdity of it. “He holds the mighty gate of Hericlon, does he?” she said, mockingly. “He comes now leading his unnumbered armies, his terrible warrior sons, in a battle that borders the very ending of time. And you, Eryian, you see the ships leave and you worry that these warriors of Righel should protect their queen by stealing her away back to the stars?” She half-chuckled at the thought and the sound of her laughter; he remembered that; it trickled down him as if her fingers were playing over the skin of his back. She grew serious and turned to touch a finger to his cheek. “Forgive me, of course. Forgive that I do not fully understand how different it is for you.”

  “I will, my lady.”

  “And do not call me that any longer! Love of Elyon, my name is Cassium. To you, from now on I am Cassium! Do you understand me? You can remain Eryian, the warlord of the Daath, but me, my name is Cassium.”

  Eryian nodded, tingling. Her words, her inflections, she was making it impossible to hide from her and she knew it. She knew her every word, every movement of her face, was cracking the façade he had erected to protect himself against the real Cassium.

  “Tell me,” she said, “did you know that it was my father who named the city of the Daath so many years ago?”

  “I did not.”

  “He was a master mason; his teacher was a Star Walker. My father learned everything taught him, and I do mean everything. He learned so eagerly that he literally thirsted for knowledge, and in time, before his death in the days of Yered, there was no mortal on Earth who could match his talent. My father was named Terith. The final act of finishing the city was the erection of the spires, and he was fascinated by them. Just before their final erection, he would spend nights standing over them, running his hands along their smooth, unblemished surface. My mother pleaded with him, trying to explain that if he did not sleep, he might err in his construction, but he firmly put her in her place and told her than in erecting the spires, he would make not the slightest error—this his work would be perfect, unparalleled; even in Etlantis there would found nothing to rival it. He marveled over them constantly, how they were so immaculate and yet appeared so fragile, how they could reflect light like the most delicate glass and yet they were almost immortal. He begged and begged the angel who was his mentor to teach him how to craft them before they were erected high above the city where he could no longer study them. But laughing, his mentor told him he would require a substance not found on this planet and that the miles he would be forced to travel to obtain it were far beyond his lifetime and ten more. So my father named the city Terith-Aire, because the substance of its magnificent spires could be found only among the distant stars—that it could only be dreamed of. Not to mention, of course, his own boundless ego in including his first name, as well.”

  Eryian chuckled, realized how rarely he ever did so, that if Rhywder were here, surely it would be mentioned, the chuckle of Eryian.

  She turned. One of the warriors had brought a horse and waited as Cassium took its reins. The warrior left. “Perhaps,” she said, “this angel of death who allows the people of Earth to call him Reaper cannot be truly destroyed. Perhaps, like the spires of Terith-Aire, he is incapable of destruction, bu
t I know one thing he may not suspect. I know that he can be turned.”

  “I am not certain I understand.”

  “His flesh, since he has lived here on this planet, so far distanced from Elyon and the hallowed palaces of heaven, no longer receives an essential nutrient required of a being of light, which once he was. He most surely has weakened—in fact, he weakens each day. It has been seven hundred years now, and it is just possible we can destroy this coil he shields himself in.

  Whatever state in which he now exists, certainly he has weakened. We can only imagine the extent. But if weakened, he can be destroyed. Still, it does not mean that much. Even if we managed it, to bring down this coil he houses his spirit in, we cannot hope to destroy the soul of a member of Elyon’s choir. Yet, think—if we can disrupt the coil he now inhabits, his soul will be thrown, turned. It would be cast from the body. He is not Uttuku, so he has not the capacity to wander the air and navigate the planet that spawned him. He was spawned of the mothering light of heaven and his soul would spin, out of control. It could cast mere miles, meaning nothing, aiding us little—or … or it could be thrown years into the sky, cast to the stars. It would take him a very long time to return should that happen. Amusing to imagine he would be lost out there, unable to even find his way back. Do you understand then, Eryian, warlord of Daath, if we can turn this being, this creature he has become, in essence, we sever the head from its body, and if—”

  “If one severs the head, the rest shall fold.”

  “Yes. You heard that of Amathon, did you not?”

  “I did.”

  “Those are the words of his father. He remembers all his father’s words, no matter how insignificant.”

  “Then if we can turn Azazel, we gain time?”

  “Exactly.” Her horse danced a moment as she studied the dark skies over Hericlon. “Do you believe in them? These Angelslayers you have chosen? Do you believe in their hearts?”

  “I do not understand what you are asking.”

  “Are they valiant?”

  “They are. In fact, there are none so valiant on this Earth as the legions of the Daath, of that I have made certain. But why would you ask such a question?”

  “I have my reasons. Knowing your answer, the conviction with which you speak it, would that not imply some knowledge of scripture, Eryian?”

  “No, it would not. I have selected and trained them of instinct alone.” He looked up, meeting her eyes, and a half smile curled across her beautiful lips, even that leaving the tiniest of a shiver across his skin. Who was she?

  “Of course,” she said. “That would suffice.”

  He was not sure of the implication, but did not press further.

  “Would there be any harm in riding along the edge of these cool waters?” she asked. “Where I come from, these sounds—waters running free over their rocks as they fall for the Western Sea—there is no such sound. Or smell—the clean, clear smell of this crisp air, it stirs me.”

  “Of course we can ride its edge.”

  A second horse was brought for Eryian and both of them mounted. He felt the muscles of the horse’s shoulders and sides, uncommon indeed. Such horses as these could fly as the wind itself. All their equipment, their shields and armor, certainly their ships, had no earthly comparison. When first he rode for them, near Ishmia, he thought they were from Etlantis. The thought now seemed foolish.

  “Would you lead?” she asked.

  “Certainly.”

  They rode slowly. Night had fallen, the stars spilled about them. Other than the dark and ugly swirls snagging Hericlon’s peak this night, the rest of the sky was full and rich. It was the sky of harvest, not far from the equinox. For a long while, they said nothing, Cassium content to take long, deep breaths, smelling the richness of the air and the coolness of the night. Above them, what men called the star stream of the sky, a virtual river of stars that flowed each night overhead, was brilliant, and reflected itself against the wavering ripples of the river.

  “It came into being with a Word,” she said, marveling, “all of it, no time passing. I know that in Enoch’s writings he speaks of seven days, but that is just his penchant for counting. If you knew him, if you ever read his writing, they are endlessly filled with counting. Each movement of the heaven, the length and carefully measured time of each season, of each day, of an hour, of a minute—the numbers of bodies that circle the heavens. He must spend all his time counting endlessly. If you were to journey up the streams of the Western Sea and find his city, no doubt you would eventually discover him barricaded in some room counting and counting and counting again.” “You speak as if you know him.”

  “I follow the legends and the tales of this small blue planet. It hangs here in these dark skies alone, you know. In times beyond your own, should this Earth survive the shadow of Aeon’s End that now closes over its horizons—for that matter, if you have taught well your Angelslayers and there is a future—mankind will acquire the means to search for life out there. They will build endless machines, even primitive flying machines to aid their search. They will profess no greater goal that finding the others—certainly they are not alone. Certainly there are others? If they reach that future, they will endlessly search, but all in vain, never knowing that their world, their Earth, was built on the very precipice of all creation. Beyond them lies the utter dark, nothingness, an endless nothingness. On the other side, never in Elyon’s breath has there been life placed so far from heaven’s light. It was almost, in your language, something of an experiment, to see if it was possible to survive this far from the source. We all live on an outpost, the very edge of the end of all things known. It is partly why the angels came in the first place, arguing that if the Earth was to be so far from the source of its light, with no life about it, alone in its shining black void—then surely they needed to step down from heaven and ensure its survival. And now you are gripped in a war that may threaten even that. When finally your Earth passes through the shadow of Daath, it will be the virtue of the hearts upon it that will weigh its futures, all of them, though they are unnumbered.”

  “You talk as if you are not a part of us.”

  “I suppose it is because of where you left me, Eryian.”

  “Where I left you? What do you mean?”

  “I have spent almost seven centuries—do you know how long that is?—seven centuries on a small ice moon. It was beautiful. We were left everything we could possibly want or need—but there we waited. And waited. And waited.”

  “I am sorry. It sounds almost cruel.”

  Her eyes took a moment to testify it was no paradise. She paused and inhaled deeply of the crisp mountain air.

  He paused abruptly. “Cassium, we are growing perhaps too far from your sons. Three are assassins in these trees. The past months along these ridges, there has been much terror, much bloodshed. We should be careful not to come too far.”

  “I have blessed our ride,” she said with absolute firmness, leaving no doubt of her intent. “You need have no fear of assassins.”

  He nodded, understanding. For a moment as they rode, she studied him carefully, almost leaving him uncomfortable.

  “When first I saw your talisman,” she said, “my heart leapt and tears spilled so quickly and freely. I just let them fall, blurring my vision. You had remembered after all. You cloak your world in the veil, as well you must, as I no longer question, but to see your signet across the sky on such a far place as the ice moon near the seventh star of the Pleiades—it left me weeping. We may die tomorrow; you know that, of course. I need not explain. But dying is meaningless. It is but a crossing, and the planes and futures on its far side are as endless as these stars you see overhead.”

  She pulled her horse up and glanced back. “We have come far enough,” she said. They were standing almost midstream. The waters were cool, but not so cold to cause the horses discomfort, for they were ankle-deep in the crystal dark waters.

  Slowly, carefully, with her eyes train
ed on his, she lifted her hand and spread her fingers in what he now realized to be the universal sign of the word. It was more than a gesture of greeting; he had learned in this short time with her that it represented the very utterance that had brought all creation into existence. He did not hesitate to lift his own hand in response, to meet her palm, to spread out his fingers, touching hers one at a time. Something passed between them unspoken, without sound or sight. It was love. She spilled it like pouring an urn over his head; she held nothing back. There was a filter, memories were blocked as he would have asked, scenes and passages of time were strained as if through a fine meshed net, but the love she held for him, and in reflection the love he held for her, was unrestricted.

  “It is important to protect yourself,” she said firmly, “but I have crossed futures and stars for you, Righel of the Seraphim, and though we share but a sliver of time, as it closes on us, whispering away into the night so quickly—I touch my hand to yours and I return to you my love. Flesh is weak, I know. I am flesh, Righel. I am the daughter of a mason, a man. I see what comes with tomorrow’s dawn and I give you your veil, but not this. Not our love! That part I let spill through my fingers like rain through a darkened night. Keep of your veil what you must, but I will not deny our love any longer, Righel. I have come too far.”

  The bright ice of her eyes bore into his now like no other he had known and for perhaps the first time in all his carefully hidden memories, in this life he held of Earth, Eryian suddenly wept. He had left her for seven centuries alone on an ice moon. How hard, how terrible must have been those years.

  “I am so sorry,” he whispered.

  She continued to let the stream fall. He remembered her laughter, her running through fields of grass kicking up bare feet, her ponderings over the depths of the stars above them, her sorrow over the death of her father, her tears, her touch, her smell. He had loved her so. If only life were simple that it could be lived that way, for in all of its complexities, in its politics, in its wars of life and death, its forgiveness and revenge, its pleasure and its rage—this one thing alone among them made sense; all else was madness, there was only one perfection: love. He leaned forward, embracing her, and they both slipped from the saddle, dropping to standing in the river, wading to its edge where they fell to their knees, stripping each other of clothes as if there were only seconds to spare. With their flesh bared to the chill of the night, he ran his fingers through her hair, then the length of her temple to her hip, watching her carefully. He curled his hand over a tender soft breast. But in a second he remembered Krysis, but that was unfair; that was another world, another time, and Cassium deserved this. She had waited for him seven centuries alone. They fell back onto the sand and made love as love was ever meant to be.