by Nana Malone
“What?” Azrael choked. He wiped his eyes as he hurried away so the others wouldn’t see his tears.
“Don’t pay them no mind,” Zarif tasted the air with his long, forked tongue. “They’re just a bunch of jarheads.”
“Did he have to yell it for the whole base to hear?” Azrael's voice filled with anguish. “You have no idea what it’s like, not fitting in!”
“You’re right.” Zarif grabbed Azrael by the shoulder and forced him to stop. “I don’t know what it’s like. I’m one of six hatchlings from a single clutch, from a mother who’s laid dozens of similar clutches, from a father with five wives. But I do know what it’s like to have one of your own brothers embarrass you in front of the others.”
“Why did the Emperor even give me this assignment?” Azrael cried out. “I’m just a geek from the science academy. If he’d … if he’d asked me to study amoebae, I could understand. But just … watch? And do nothing? Why?”
“The gods work in mysterious ways.” Zarif touched his clawed hand to his forehead, his heart, and then his lips. “Shay’tan be praised. Perhaps it’s some sort of test? Our emperor loves tests. Maybe yours does as well?”
“More like a big fat wager,” Azrael scowled. “I’ve heard about Shay’tan's bets. But Hashem is too idealistic to be cruel!”
“Maybe he’s thinking of advancing you to some other position and wants to see how you’ll perform under fire?” Zarif suggested. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“Maybe. At least it would mean the Emperor isn’t simply being sadistic. I don’t think I could bear it if he went around toying with people.”
“I don’t think they mean to be cruel.” Zarif's serpentine eyes turned serious. “They’re immortal. They don’t think about how using mortals as pawns upsets our lives. To them it’s just a game.”
“Well I hope there’s a reason he wanted me here,” Azrael said. “In the middle of east butt-crack, twiddling my thumbs. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing!”
“Sure you do,” Zarif said. “The C.O. just told you. Remain a hidden observer. Watch how people act. Get to know the one you’ve befriended while maintaining your cover. And don’t interfere. If that doesn’t sound like an anthropological experiment in the making, I don’t know what is.”
“Oh?” Azrael's perspective suddenly changed. “You think I was sent here to … observe? For scientific purposes?”
“You are from the science academy, nimrod!” Zarif slapped him on the shoulder. “Send a budding scientist whose mother is an expert in studying pre-sentient species to replace the jarheads to observe behavior? Sounds like a post-doctoral fellowship to me.”
“Hey? How’d you know my mother is an expert in her field?”
“Um,” Zarif hedged. “Word gets around.”
“What word?
“They’re … um … saying the only reason you got this assignment is because your mother bribed someone in the royal palace to put a bee in the Emperor’s ear.”
Anger boiled up in Azrael’s veins and dissipated. Now that made sense. His mother had always kept him and his little sister firmly under the protective arc of her enormous white wings. She’d homeschooled him while out in the field collecting data so he’d get into the science academy years ahead of his peers. In the regular educational track, he wouldn’t even be old enough to go to the science academy, much less graduate from it and also get through boot camp. It would explain how he, a mere cadet, had suddenly been sidetracked to where the action was. Hashem wanted him to follow in his mother’s footsteps.
And so did he…
“Thanks, Zarif!” A smile lit up Azrael's face as he resumed his hurried pace, trying hard not to flap his wings lest he float through the halls. “I think I know what I’m supposed to do now!”
“Where are you going?” Zarif shouted as Azrael disappeared around the corner.
“To go get de-flead!” Azrael shouted. “I’ve got to get back down to the planet. The Emperor has entrusted me with figuring out what makes his pet project tick!”
‘Notebooks to track data,’ Azrael said to himself, his mind spinning joyfully as he thought through the list of supplies he would need to bring with him. ‘Binoculars, to observe behavior at a distance. Recording device to record conversations that may prove significant later. And … some sort of treats to reward desired behavior…’
“Glad I could be of assistance.” Zarif watched the young angelic bound down the hall, practically taking flight as he ran.
“Angelics!”
* * * * *
Chapter 3
And he said, take now thy son,
Thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest …
And offer him there for a burnt offering…
Genesis 22:2
Carthage: 311 BC
“Daddy says Bormilcar isn’t to be trusted.” Elissar's curls were a golden penumbra surrounding her rosy cheeks as she handed Azrael a flatbread to feed his doll. “Mommy thinks I’m too young to understand, but she’s really worried.”
Azrael checked to ensure his recording device caught their conversation. Elissar was a wealth of information about the inner politics of Carthage, the various political factions, their family dynamics, as well as those of the surrounding empires. The child was like a sponge, drinking up whatever gossip the adults around her foolishly presumed she was too young to understand and making her dolls chatter about the political intrigues of generals and kings, economics, and the movements of armies.
“Why?” Azrael pretended to play nursemaid to his crude doll, wrapping a bandage around its leg. Thank the goddess none of his barracks-mates were here to observe him playing dolls with a precocious eight-year-old. Especially because, truth be told, he enjoyed her company more than theirs.
“Agathocles … that’s the Sicilian general.” Elissar tied a tiny rag sling onto her own doll's arm. “Daddy says he’s too wily to stay contained with a simple blockade. But Bormilcar insists we'll be safe if we just pray to the old gods for salvation.”
“The old gods?” Azrael glanced down at the malignant statue of Moloch which dominated the family compound. “You mean that old god?”
“Nobody in their right mind really worships Moloch,” Elissar said haughtily. “We keep a statue of him in our yard because it’s expected. My tutor taught me the real history of our ancestors who came here from Tyre.”
“And what was that?” Azrael hoped to get something on cassette since his C.O. kept denying his requests for enough security clearance to learn about the real reason for the armistice.
“My ancestor,” Elissar said. “The one who was like you? He helped lock Moloch in hell. Hezekiah says we’re supposed to protect our cities from Moloch! Not sacrifice the children of slaves to him.”
“Wh-wh-what?” Azrael sputtered.
“Oh … everybody does it,” Elissar nonchalantly splinted her dolly's leg. “The little boy you sometimes see? The one Mommy won’t let me play with so I don’t get attached to him? He’s my Moloch-brother. Daddy bought him from a slave woman so he’d have a son to sacrifice the next time the citizens get nervous about some military campaign.”
Azrael’s eyes widened in horror. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. A shudder of revulsion rustled through his feathers, communicating to his observant young research subject that what she'd just said was not acceptable.
“All the noble families do it.” Elissar's lips trembled as she realized she must have said something wrong. “Otherwise, the priests would expect them to sacrifice me.”
“Elissar!” Azrael recovered his wits and flared his wings to their full 30-foot wingspan. “That’s … just … wrong!!!”
“But … all the gods demand sacrifice…” Elissar squeaked, trembling with fear.
“God doesn’t want those kinds of sacrifices!!!” Azrael shook with anger. “Not even the child of a slave!!! Such ideas are an … an … an abomination!!!”
Elissar cringed as thou
gh she expected to be beaten, fearful of him for the first time since he’d known her. Tears sprang to her silver eyes, instinctively clutching her baby doll to her chest. Azrael realized he was acting like a bully.
“I’m sorry, Elissar,” Azrael tucked his wings against his back and suppressed his anger. “It’s just … you humans have some really strange ideas.”
“You sound like my tutor," Elissar said. "Hezekiah warned me to never tell anyone he thinks the same things that you do. Not even my father.”
“Your tutor is right.” Azrael wondered why the tutor risked shaping the ideas of such a young student when one slip of Elissar’s tongue would get him killed.
For that matter, why did Azrael trust Elissar to do the same thing? One word would have archers hidden in the courtyard before dawn. General Hanno was their nation-states highest ranking military leader and Azrael was essentially a spy. And yet the child remained silent, even though she understood what spying was and how it undermined empires. She understood he played with her because he was here to observe, and yet she knew the difference between his observations and the washerwoman she’d turned in for eavesdropping when her father discussed naval blockade strategies with his admirals.
“I’m sorry,” Elissar wept. “Please don’t go away! You’re the only friend I have.” Her tearful eyes were those of a child forced to become wise before her time. She was only eight years old!
“This Hezekiah sounds like a wise man,” Azrael said. “But you must never repeat the things he teaches you to anyone but me or the bad men who kill children will have him killed, as well.”
“Hezekiah says one day I’ll marry a powerful nobleman,” Elissar said. “He hopes I’ll influence him to get rid of Moloch as the patron god of Carthage. Then children won’t need to be scared their parents will sacrifice them if they’re disobedient anymore.”
Azrael realized Hezekiah planted seeds of political change that would not flourish for decades, until Elissar matured enough to start wielding influence of her own. Who was this tutor?
“You’re just a child,” Azrael stared at his makeshift doll. “It’s wrong to force you to grow up before you’re ready.”
Guilt sat like rotten meat in his gut. He also used her, pretending to be her friend so he could pump her for information.
“But that’s what’s expected of me,” Elissar said. “None of the other nobles have daughters. They sacrificed them in return for favors from the gods. Mommy said it’s so they don’t have to pay the dowry to get rid of them. It’s why … it’s why you’re the only person who will play with me!”
Azrael realized he was no better than the humans! Exploiting a child for his own gain! She thought of him as her friend, while he deliberately tried to maintain his scientific impartiality by simply referring to her as ‘the subject.’ Well … it was all a lie. Truth be told, Azrael looked forward to the time he spent with her and had begun to agonize about how much he would miss her once this assignment ended. He clicked off his recorder.
“Come here.” Azrael held out his arms. Elissar crawled into his lap, bleating like a lost little sheep. Every bit as heartbroken as his little sister had been whenever he'd been cruel to her.
“I’m sorry I frightened you.” Azrael's heart filled with a feeling of protectiveness. “I would never hurt you. It’s just … your tutor is right. You shouldn’t worship the bull-man. Ever. He’s the most evil creature the universe has ever known.”
“Do you have stories of him?”
Azrael wasn’t supposed to divulge information that would interfere with human evolution. On the other hand, Elissar already had a source of information, the elderly tutor who came each morning to teach her reading, rhetoric, and reason. He would plant a listening device and shadow the man home. In the meantime, since his own knowledge was little more than legend, he’d tell her a story.
“Once upon a time, there were two gods. Ki … a goddess of chaos. And Moloch. A god of creation. They were married…”
“And lived happily ever after?” Elissar asked. Her face was eager with curiosity as she snuggled into his lap the same way his little sister used to sit with him to read a story.
“No,” Azrael said. “Moloch was a bad husband. Ki gave birth to many children, but when Moloch saw they were made of light, he devoured them. Then one day Ki gave birth to She-who-is. Ki didn't want to lose any more children, so she sang the Song of Creation to entice the darkness to protect her. He-who’s-not. Primordial chaos.”
“My tutor has told me of She-who-is,” Elissar said. “And her husband, the Dark Lord. But he’s warned me to never speak of them. He said she’s the real goddess who rules the universe.”
“Your tutor is right,” Azrael said. “But there are lots of other gods. People who were once like us, but were so good and pure they became gods, too. Like the Eternal Emperor. He’s a god, but he’ll be the first to tell you he’s not perfect. He tries really hard to always do what’s right.”
“I think I’d like your god,” Elissar gave him a shy smile. “Maybe someday he’ll come and rule our city?”
“In a way,” Azrael said. “He already does. But so does another god. Shay’tan. They’re always squabbling. They disagree on just about everything that can be disagreed about except for Moloch. The bull-god is bad. Your father shouldn’t be raising a slave child to sacrifice to him.”
“I’ll tell him that when I see him again," Elissar said. "Though Mommy says we aren’t going to see him for a while.”
“Why not?"
“The council appointed daddy and Bormilcar to go conquer the Sicilians together,” Elissar said. “Mommy’s really worried. She says Bormilcar will double-cross daddy the first chance he gets.”
Elissar's silver eyes filled with worry. She adored both of her parents and her two elder brothers. She couldn’t have chosen a better family in all of Earth to be born into, and yet with this privilege came acute loneliness. She slid out of Azrael's lap and resumed her play with her dolls.
“Don’t you worry,” Elissar told the doll, snapping a twig to make a makeshift crutch. “Azrael is our guardian angel. He’s going to make sure everything is all right.”
Azrael wished to reassure her, but he was forbidden to interfere. The only reason he spoke with this child at all was because the Emperor had ordered it. The fact this little girl reminded him of his little sister, the one he missed so terribly it made his heart ache, was irrelevant. He was here to do a job.
Azrael clicked on his recording device, resuming his friendly ‘interrogation’ under the guise of play. He did, however, decide he would contact his mother and request a certain item be included in the next mail shipment.
“Tell me more about your tutor…"
* * * * *
Chapter 4
And when the king of Moab
Saw that the battle was too sore for him …
He took his eldest son
That should have reigned in his stead,
And offered him for a burnt offering…
2 Kings 3:26-27
Carthage: 310 BC
“Elissar will love you.”
Azrael talked to his little sister’s cast-off doll as he flew under cover of pre-dawn murkiness. It was the simplest doll his mother had been able to scrounge up, one Gazardiel had long ago become bored with because it didn’t walk, talk, eat, or wear fashion clothing. It was more elaborate than any human doll, but could be explained using current technology. If anyone pulled it apart, they might notice the delicate wire that shaped the doll's wings. Steel. Not yet in use in iron-age Earth. But giving it to Elissar would only bend the Emperor’s prohibition against interference, not break it. It was, after all, only a toy.
“My thesis is complete.” Azrael recited to the doll the goodbye speech he was about to give Elissar. “A whole years' worth of data! The Emperor has recalled me back to Haven to present my theory to the Council of Thrones where, if I'm lucky, I'll be inducted into the Eternal Science Academy as a novice
member.”
The doll, of course, did not answer. Its soft cloth wings fluttered in the breeze, as though it were flying, too. He felt … good. Like an adult, finally! He’d just completed extensive research about the wars humans perpetually waged against one another and compounded credible theories about how their warlike tendencies might be tamed, research which had been helped, in no small part, by a precocious nine-year-old with unusual silver eyes. He would miss Elissar terribly, but already he had begun to think of fascinating future studies to get the Eternal Emperor to grant him leave to conduct another tour of duty here.
As soon as he reached the outer ring of houses he noticed the strange, lingering smoke overhung the city, offending his nostrils with a scent which sat on the back of his palate like burnt garbage mixed with overcooked meat. Off in the distance, a bonfire raged, along with the sound of drums, cheers, and singing. Azrael pushed the uneasiness which clenched at his gut out of his mind. It was most likely just a party which had lasted through the night. As soon as he circled Elissar's house to land, her tutor came running out and collapsed.
“Oh … please!” Hezekiah reached imploringly towards the roof where Azrael crouched out of sight. “Thank the gods you’ve come, Private Thanatos! She said you would come for her and you have!”
Azrael peeked over the rooftop. He smelled blood. The old tutor had been stabbed, but his blood smelled … odd.
“How do you know who I am?"
“She told me you were here,” Hezekiah said. “Please! There’s no time for questions! She’s been taken!”
“Taken?” Azrael's heart leaped into his throat. “By whom?” He’d only been on Ceres station a few days!
“Agathocles circumvented the blockade and invaded Megalopolis,” Hezekiah wailed. “His troops are on their way here!”
“Where’s Elissar?” Panic gripped Azrael's heart. Elissar was the daughter of the de facto ruler of Carthage. “We can get her out of the city so the Sicilian king can’t get her!”
