Bookshelves climbed the walls like weeds, rising three-fourths the way to the domed ceiling. Several library patrons milled about, searching or browsing, but not as many as she had anticipated. The multitude of bookshelves turned the room into a maze. She wondered how anyone found anything here.
Below, several more levels were stacked, and the Tower even plunged far below ground level. It even reached the sett where the humans were. They had their own libraries, filled with books and media of their own worlds. They had a peculiar taste for books that were nothing but lies, telling of adventures that never happened, not unlike the reliefs on the side of the Tower.
A lone flightway along the side of the dome led to the next higher level. She took to the air, soaring above the bookshelves and the patrons. Up the tube, and she entered the lair of the Sphere.
The room was about the same size as the one below it, but it contained no books or shelves. No artwork adorned the walls. It would be wasted here.
Four mighty pillars, monstrous enough to be buildings themselves, connected the ceiling and floor. There was little space between the colonnade and the wall, leaving a great area in the center. Floating within this gap was the Sphere.
Swirling blackness filled the glass orb, and within these eddies and currents thousands upon thousands of tiny white, yellow, and blue lights blinked off and on.
It scared her, like a chained beast. The glass was crawling with angels, mostly Virtues who could travel within it with a special power. Any angel could go into the Sphere it was said, but only the Virtues and above could get back. One absorbed herself into the glass as Tamael watched, likely off to some random world to avert an apocalypse or run an errand. She would return via a beacon. She saw a Cherub in angel form watching something through a small, round scope. Only the blue fringe on its robes signified its rank.
Then she saw him, a single Power, still wearing his armor and uniform like he had just gotten off duty. A colonel. He was well-developed, even for an archangel. He studied the Sphere intently with a scope, and she yearned to know what enraptured him so. His skin was fair, but his long hair was black like the Sphere. He transfixed her. She had the urge to go to him, ask him his name, ask what in blazing hell was a Power doing studying the Sphere?
Tamael was torn between approaching the enigmatic angel and going up the several more levels before she found the Cherub she needed. She paused. What would she say? No, she decided. She should probably just collect the history. She was late as it was.
As it happened, she never did either.
Brawwwwwwww! Braw! Braw! Brawwwwwwwwww!
The blasts of the dual shofars filled the air. It came from far, far away, but it blared as if the giant horns were being blown only inches from her ears. She clasped her hands to her head, wishing instantly she had brought her helmet with her.
It took a moment to realize what the blasts meant. A long blast, two short ones, and a long one again.
It couldn't be. Impossible. It had to be a mistake. It had to be.
Cibola was under attack. More than just a small raid. More than just an army attacking a single beacon. This was an all-out call to defense. The notion was so ridiculous they had debated whether or not to even have a clarion call for the eventuality.
A flurry of confused activity burst all around her. She looked up, and the Power was gone, as was the Cherub. The Virtues looked around, frozen. Some began to absorb themselves into the Sphere. She was pushed out of the way as angels fled.
She launched herself down the tube, through the main entrance of the Athenaeum, and out into a world that was about to forever change.
I have to get back to my battalion, she thought desperately.
She felt naked. She wasn't armed, and she certainly wasn't armored for combat.
Flights upon flights of angels streaked above her as the common angel fled deeper into the city. A formation of Forays blasted by, staggering her in their wake. A majority went south toward the Tree of Eternity and the Propylaeum.
In the distance came the sounds of explosions. Like the sky itself was being rent apart, shaking her.
“You!” a voice called. A standard wing of 144 Powers rushed by, followed seconds later by their drones, humming loudly. A major general, an archangel wizened to the point of almost looking like a Hashmallim, called at her. “Where do you belong?”
“I'm on my way back to my station, sir. The 701st Battalion of Subterranean...”
“All the way up there? Absolutely not.” Another wing coasted through below them. Several more explosions filled the air. “Go with a wing here and fight.” He pointed toward the distant south wall. Toward the battle.
“But sir...” Lieutenant Colonels did not fight in wings. They led companies and made their commands from safe distances.
“That is an order!”
She raced after them, cursing. What else could she do? Below, she spotted a small military strip, floating a few hundred feet off the surface. Transports were being loaded with crates of supplies. The scene was chaos. A soldier screamed at an anima bot of a major, who screamed back, then exploded. She cringed as two angels crashed into each other, and one dropped a crate. It smashed against the ground far below, rocket charges spilling along the ground. Dear God, are we this ill-prepared?
She landed on the chaos. The soldiers all paled at the sight of a lieutenant colonel. “Find me a weapon,” she screamed. “And proper armor. Now! ”
A single angel ran to comply, and another came forward, a female corporal with yellow hair. “Ma'am, we only have weapons to spare. No armor.”
Indeed, even the soldiers working to prepare the ships were barely in uniform. The private reemerged, holding a Stiletto, one of the newer model assault rifles. She grabbed it and launched herself back into the fray. She flew long and fast toward the wall. It took longer than she expected, and she began to tire. She had never been this far south before. This was the oldest section of the city.
A whole company of light infantry, three million strong, filled the sky, spanning far beyond her vision. It was reassuring. She angled toward the massive force. With so many soldiers, so much firepower, what could possibly stand in their way?
The edgy whistle of artillery rung out. It was being fired from deep within Cibola, aimed for the center of the demon advance.
They had fought Dahhak, Charun, the swarms of the tiny Mites. They had all been easily beaten back. What could it be? Another race of demons previously unknown?
She spotted a director and his flight of bodyguards. She made a line for the protective formation. “Lieutenant Colonel Tamael reporting for duty,” she called.
The Power turned his head grimly. “Where's your helmet? You won't be much good if you can't hear the orders.”
“I was away from my battalion, sir.”
“Very well. You're a colonel now. Congratulations. Take half the company and attack the right flank of the force we're approaching. Take a helmet from one of our casualties.”
“Sir?” she asked, shocked. She had only recently been promoted to lieutenant colonel and wasn't even eligible for promotion for another fifteen thousand cycles. He looked back at her, his visor not yet down. His gaze was cold, detached with a wild fury.
Shadows infested the distance. They filled the ground, the air, towering like a black wave.
They had machines, something they'd never had before. And enormous monsters of incomprehensible size charged forward like a pack of wolves, thousands of them. Some of the beasts were almost as massive as the wall.
But what surprised her most of all was the unity of the demons. The clear precision of the attack. She saw Dahhak, Pazuzu, even Shishi flying in their own formations. On the ground, flat transports and air cycles carried other demons, some she'd never even heard of.
We're going to be overrun.
She swept up, shouting at the assembled group of majors. They looked at her in surprise, but immediately began relaying her orders over the band. They spread into a v
ertical net formation, 1,500,000 angels filling the sky as far as she could see, the heavy gunners at regular intervals.
She swept upon the line, keeping a wide-eyed lieutenant with her to relay orders; she began shouting encouragement, words she'd never expected herself to say. I'm nothing but an assistant. I haven't led troops in battle. I shouldn't be here.
Then the terrible enemy was in range, and every plan for order she had carefully laid out was dissolved in a matter of seconds.
Shishi twisted through the air at them, flying faster than anything she had ever seen, corkscrewing, firing their weapons in every possible direction. Pazuzu dove from above, and from below, grotesque arch-demons with three arms and legs riding on grass-skirting transports fired cannons mounted on the backs of the machines.
The sound of an angel in the throes of death is enough to drive one mad.
The angels died around her. Tamael desperately grabbed at them as they fell, trying to get a helmet in her hands, but they kept slipping away. They were fired at from below, above, in front and behind. It was like trying to dodge rain. She pulled the trigger on her weapon, and a Pazuzu split in half before her.
Angels bunched together no matter how hard she yelled at them. A large group, about five thousand, began to rally. But they were too close together. A single blast from a towering monstrosity disintegrated the angels. It carried a tubular cannon on its shoulder that belched fire. The concussion sent her tumbling through the air, her weapon plummeting from her hands. The beast fired again, and far behind her a building within the city begin to tumble.
I only fired my weapon once.
She dove for the ground. Her lieutenant, who she had ordered to shadow her, was gone. She needed a helmet and a weapon. A strange sort of auto-pilot had taken over her senses and reactions. She was still scared, of course, but her training had suddenly kicked on, moving her limbs for her.
A smoking human transport exploded as she ducked. They were being evacuated from their quarantine at the beacons, no doubt. She spotted a smoldering helm and gun only a few feet from each other, and she moved in. Flaming chunks of metal spiraled around Tamael, connecting with angel and demon alike.
A platoon of thirty Dahhak pierced by. One aimed its gun at her, almost casually, and fired. Pain swirled, like a hand grasping at her chest, pulling her down, down, down.
* * * *
Tamael awoke knowing nothing but the razor edge of pain. An angel rushed forward, dabbing her forehead with a musty wet cloth. She passed out again. She had vague memories of waking, some horrible tasting liquid being poured down her throat.
“She won't make it.” The words were a dream. She heard them more than once.
The dreams were the worst. She knew what they were, had read about them and heard stories, but she never expected them to be so real. She understood the human affinity for fiction, then, still mired in the terrible dream world where the angels died around her over and over and over again. Anything to ease the pain of truth.
Tamael finally woke again, staring into the eyes of the angel from the Athenaeum. Those eyes consumed her, like the unimaginable, bottomless depths of the ether. For a moment, she thought it was still a dream. He smiled sadly. “We thought you were lost.”
She tried to sit up, pain shooting through her chest. Was it really him? It had to be. Same black hair. Same rank and uniform. Same intense stare. It was even more striking up close. She tried to be surprised, but she just couldn't. Not with the sound of a million angels still crying in her head. “Where am I?”
“An underground engineering outpost not far from where we found you.”
“The city?”
He shook his head. “From what we can tell, it's occupied. The communications towers have been destroyed. The entire grid is down.”
Tamael felt sick. “Who's in charge here?”
He frowned. “I'm the highest ranking officer. We also have a Hashmallim pair along with a few thousand civilians. The Hashmallim are in charge of the base, me the military.”
“You're a colonel?”
He nodded. A colonel the highest ranking officer? This was absurd. The city overrun by demons. The whole idea was surreal. It chilled her as the enormity of it sank in. “I am too. I was promoted on the field.”
Looking back, she wished she had never said it. How she wished she hadn't.
He blinked with surprise. Something else, too. Relief? “That changes everything.”
She coughed. “Why?”
“Your uniform states you're 701st battalion, correct?”
She nodded. She realized where he was going. Her battalion was part of the subterranean military operations and defense brigade. If they were of equal rank, then the military command here was hers since the engineering outposts were underground. This isn't happening.
“No,” Tamael said. “I'm too weak.”
He laughed. “We're all weak, Colonel.”
She sighed heavily, the weight of everything heavy on her shoulders. It was crushing. Don't cry, she thought suddenly. You can't show emotion, not now. Not ever again. Still, the cries of dying angels echoed in her mind.
“Very well. I have an order.”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“Get me a helmet. Please.”
* * * *
Ungeo G'sslom stood upon her starting spot, a triangle at the back corner of the game board. Her hand gripped the curved sword tightly. She glanced up at the high ceiling. It was made of a clear glass, stained in spots with blood. She wondered briefly how the blood had gotten all the way up there. She decided she didn't want to know.
Dahhak jammed tightly in the room above, lying horizontally and watching the action below. They were squeezed together almost as tight as angels in the camps. At first she thought it would've been more efficient to have the spectators below and make the game floor of the clear glass, but after the first move of the game when the Daityas scourge stepped forward and beheaded her human piece with a single crack of a whip, she knew that, too, would be a bad idea. Blood pooled around the tip of her triangle, and anyone standing below would have their view swiftly obscured. The blood found a crevice dug through the center of the room and drained away.
Above, the Dahhak shouted their approval. Even through the thick glass, she could hear their roar.
I am about to die.
It wasn't until after two Dahhak had accepted her challenge that she learned the loser of these trials was the one who did not live. Since there were going to be two challengers, there would also be two losers.
It was no wonder Dahhak went missing so much. The temple had never offered an explanation. She wondered how much time she had spent searching after missing soldiers who were really killed playing this stupid, secretive game.
When Dahhak accepted challenges, they were given the opportunity to wait until some “Sabbath” so they could pray for their pitiful souls. Luckily for Ungeo, this holiday hadn't been for a while. The rector gave her a place to stay and plenty of books to read. She was brought small hunks of carrion to devour, and she knew better than to ask what it was. She craved human flesh, but they wouldn't part with any of their own slaves. Not even a little one. Her stomach constantly rumbled.
The windowless quarters were suitable enough, though she surely deserved something larger and more ornate. Being confined under a ceiling wasn't very pleasant, either, but she certainly couldn't go outside. It appeared as if they weren't advertising her presence, which was good. Still, every time the door opened, she half expected a terrible Wuj to burst in.
A young Dahhak boy, barely grown into his wings, attended her. His name was Ravi. It was rare to see young Dahhak, but inside the temple, they were everywhere. The boys were much more comely than the men, and they weren't so tedious, either. They hadn't quite learned that fear was a trait best left hidden, and every time this particular boy brought the tray of meat, she had an urge to caw at him, just to watch him squeal and run away.
It was Ravi who finally explain
ed the Dance of Libation to her. It had taken several mealtimes just to get the boy to raise his eyes and look at her, and many more to get him to respond to her repeated questions. When he spoke, he stuttered terribly. She knew it wasn't a birth defect. Just fear. The Dahhak didn't allow the inflicted to live unless they received their injuries in war. He quivered before her, and she enjoyed that.
“Have you ever witnessed this Dance of Libation?” she asked of Ravi when the boy arrived to take her tray. So far, he had only mumbled a few words at her, but this subject definitely piqued his interest.
“I ... I am too young to compete, but I've seen the dance performed.”
It was the most he had ever spoken, and she didn't want to scare him away just yet. She had an urge to strike forward with her beak and nip off his sharp nose. It would almost be worth it. “I bet you would be excellent at it, boy.”
He nodded. Dahhak weren't known for their modesty. “I w-w-would be tremendous at the dance. The rector has used my suggestions for moves for the scourge.”
“The scourge? What is that?”
It took some time, but the stuttering Dahhak explained it to her. The rector gets one piece on the game platform, called the scourge. They called it that because it often killed one of the players before they had a chance to even compete against each other. Sometimes it even killed both of them.
“So the scourge is another player? What race is he?”
Ravi shrugged. “Moloch's choice. It-t-t depends on the selections. Several sacrifices are p-p-picked, and the rector chooses his piece first. Then you go back and forth and choose your pieces. Challenger goes last. In your g-g-game there will be thirty-one sacrifices.”
It took some time, but the Dance finally began to make sense. It was much like a game of stones. A whole floor somewhere in the Dahhak temple was dedicated to the game, and before each match, it was re-drawn, so the spaces were unique every time. Three players meant the board would be three triangles with their tips meeting in the center, like a clover flower. Within each triangle, random triangular spaces were drawn, with no sense whatsoever other than that there were 100 total spaces each, making the game floor look like a children's puzzle.
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