Beneath Ceaseless Skies #79
Page 8
We come to the place where the trees over the ravine change from pine to aspen, and the air goes golden from the light in their autumn leaves. And a voice like a bell at night says, “Halt.”
The Seraph is at the lip of the ravine, his silver mask shining like the moon. The brambles in front of him spark into brief white flame and wither away at his touch. He begins to descend the rocky slope.
“Go!” I shout. We forget caution. Loren clasps my neck in terror, I scramble over the mossy river rocks, and Cate’s heavy breath follows us. The sound of our splashing in the water mingles with the horrible crackle of brush burning in the Seraph’s wake.
A cry of pain stops me. Behind me Cate has sprawled on all fours, our knotted sheet fallen into the creek bed. Her hands are bloodied where she caught herself on the stones. The Seraph is a step behind her, reaching out to seize her neck, and his hand is white with power. I drop Loren and stumble to Cate’s side.
“Stop,” I say. I try to grab his wrist, but the touch of his glove scalds me like a brand. He pauses. The silver gaze turns to me.
“Let her go,” I say. My voice cracks. “I ain’t too proud to beg. Let her go. I’m already a dead, but she don’t deserve what I’m getting. And the boy ain’t done nothing. I’ll go with you if you let her go.”
The Seraph watches me, and I imagine he’s looking at Death on my forehead. “This is your wife and child?” he asks, and all the trees quiver at the tolling of his voice.
I don’t know what to say. I ain’t never heard of the Seraphim giving ear to the pleas of those under judgment, and he knows I’m a dead man. But there ain’t nothing more for me to lose, except hope for Cate and Loren. So I gotta try.
I tell it to him straight. “She ain’t my wife, not proper, but she’s been my woman, and that’s my boy. If they go to judgment, she’s gonna get Death on her forehead, too, and then my boy’s gonna be orphaned. They don’t deserve none of that. It’s all my fault, and I don’t want no one to suffer no more on account of me.”
The Seraph is still for a moment. Then, as quick as lightning, he seizes me by the shoulders and begins to carry me away. He don’t look back at Cate and Loren. His footsteps make no sound, so I can hear real well when Cate gathers up the bundle and quiets Loren’s sobs and continues on up the ravine.
* * *
The Seraphim guard me all that day and the next, until everyone in Silver Falls has been judged. The whole town gathers to see them plunge their silver hands into my chest and crush my beating heart.
* * *
The Judge calls out: Arise.
His voice crashes down like a mountain falling into water. There ain’t nothing you can say to a voice like that except you do what it says, not even to wonder what in Hell is going on and why you ain’t dead.
I’m wrapped in a soft cloth that feels flimsy and wet like old leaves, which I tear away like rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. There’s a stone in my mouth that I spit onto the ground. And that’s when I get my first thought that something else ain’t right, because the shreds of cloth that I tore through are lying all around me, and they ain’t rotten burlap like I thought, but heavy canvas you’d be hard up to tear with a knife. The stone from my mouth smokes like a coal on the ground.
And then I see my hands are silver and ripple like water under moonlight, and I touch my face, which is hard as steel and hot as fire. I start to scream. At first I scream from terror. Then I scream from pain.
Stone knives are splitting open my back. My shoulder blades are broke and reformed. My ribs groan. My spine is hot as a blacksmith’s fire. Soft, human hands lift me off the ground where I’m writing, and I hear whispers of help, encouragement. And with a blast of blue something breaks free: wings, my wings, beating the air like a hawk taking flight.
I am lying in the Tabernacle, held off the ground by a crowd of Seraphim. Their hands are human and kind, and when I look at them I don’t see silver masks, but men and women. Every one of them has Death on their foreheads.
The ones holding me aloft help me stand on my own feet, and I turn to see the Judge.
“Welcome to my host,” he says. He has a face like a man, but where his eyes would be there is darkness filled with lightning.
I waver on my feet like I’m drunk, but I find my voice to ask, “What’s going on here?”
“You sought mercy for your family,” he thunders, “and you received it. Now show mercy to others.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Seraphim are my right hand.”
“What are you talking about?”
The Judge don’t explain. He turns and walks away, and when I try to run after him the Seraphim crowd forward and seize me, and take me back to their barracks, and hold me until I stop struggling.
* * *
After a few weeks I stop fighting, and things get a little easier. I learn my place in the rituals of judgment. People confess their sins to the Judge, and I give them their brands as sentenced.
One day I’m holding the brands in the Tabernacle when a faithless woman comes through, one who’s run off from her husband to take up with a man that don’t slap her around so much. By rights she ought to get Adultery on her cheek, and the Judge shows his left hand to say just that. I’m supposed to carry out the sentence, but when the woman comes to me I realize what I’m really supposed to do.
I am the Judge’s right hand.
Copyright © 2011 J.S. Bangs
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By day, J.S. Bangs works as a mild-mannered computer programmer somewhere in the American Midwest. By night he slays princesses, rescues dragons, and writes stories. You can see more at his site http://jsbangs.wordpress.com.
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COVER ART
“New Lands,” by Rado Javor
Rado Javor is a Slovak artist who splits his time between Bratislava and the UK. His favorite subjects include gothic Colonial America, WWI aircraft, dark science-fiction, and Napoleonic naval engagements, many of which were featured in the game Empire: Total War. See more of his work at http://radojavor.com/.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1046
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Copyright © 2011 Firkin Press
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