“Tá sé tugtha síos trí na glúine a lán,” Papa ground out each word, painfully slow, as he paused to search his memory and articulate properly each word he translated.
Ninsianna realized what she was seeing. Not only had Papa memorized a song in Mikhail’s language. Shamans memorized many old songs handed down from the time legends said a great canoe had carried her people across the ocean to the fertile banks of the Hiddekel River, secret songs only shamans were allowed to learn. But Papa actually spoke Mikhail’s language?
When had Papa learned to speak the language of heaven?
Chapter 14
February – 3,390 BC
Earth: Crash site
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
Mikhail scrutinized the man Ninsianna had brought onto his ship. The song he sang was a very old dialect, but if he listened carefully, he could understand every word. The song seemed familiar, as though it was a variation of a song he must have heard many times as a child. It was like a lullaby, half-remembered from the cradle and hummed subconsciously over breakfast.
“Can you understand me?” Mikhail asked.
The man listened intently, translating the words in his mind. In heavily accented Galactic Standard, he answered. “Some.”
“Where did you learn to speak my language?" Mikhail used his hands to accentuate his words as Ninsianna did to get his point across.
“It has been handed down through many generations,” the man said. “The highest level shamans are taught these songs so they can help the winged ones once they return.”
“How many of you are there?"
"Only a few of us remember the oldest songs.”
Middle aged, the man had the sturdy build of someone who did more than simply sit around studying arcana. A shock of chestnut hair, peppered with the same color titanium steel as the exterior of his ship, jutted helter-skelter out of the man's head, as though he ran his fingers through it often. The man's eyes niggled at his subconscious, but for the life of him, he couldn't pull up the memory about what he found familiar. Perhaps it was the family resemblance? Although the man was not handsome, he had the same tawny-beige eyes as Ninsianna.
“What is your name?”
“I'm called Immanu," the man said. "I am shaman of my village, Assur." From the elaborate bone necklace the man wore around his neck and fringed kilt made of animal hide, if ever Mikhail was ever to point to someone and say 'this is a shaman,' this man would be the person.
While they were speaking, Ninsianna moved to stand at his shoulder, and placed one hand upon his broken wing. Was she protecting him? Showing him off? Or hiding behind him for protection?
“Who is Ninsianna to you?"
“Ninsianna is my daughter." Immanu's mouth parted in a proud smile. "When she didn't come home, I was worried."
Ninsianna perked up at the words “who” and then her name. “Papa?”
Immanu reassured his daughter in the unknown language, and then translated it so Mikhail could understand what he'd just said. “This creature has been sent to protect us by She-who-is.”
Ninsianna replied in her own language, which Mikhail only knew a handful of words. By her expression as she spoke and her father’s reaction, Mikhail gathered she said something along the lines of “I know.”
Immanu looked at his daughter with an odd expression. “Ninsianna is rather … special.”
“She saved my life." Mikhail pointed to the bandages wrapped around his chest. “Do all of your people possess such talent to heal?"
“Some." Immanu shook his hand in a gesture of 'so-so.' "Not many are as talented as Ninsianna is. Or her mother, for that matter." The shaman seemed to be turning something over in his mind. "I don't know if she is the Chosen One whom you seek. I will not tell you something unless I know it to be true.”
“I can’t remember what I'm supposed to seek!" Mikhail pointed to his head wound. "I know I'm here to complete a mission, but ever since I got this, I have trouble remembering the simplest things."
“Ninsianna?" Immanu switched to his own language. Mikhail couldn't understand what he said, but by the way Immanu pointed to his own head, he assumed the shaman questioned his memory loss.
Father and daughter bantered back and forth. As they did, Mikhail studied their non-verbal language, much less subtle than the carefully controlled body language he assumed his own species must be taught from birth. The fact somebody spoke his language was not puzzling. Even without his memory, he had the feeling many people spoke his native tongue. What amazed him was the fact the shaman spoke such an ancient dialect of his language.
“Please, Immanu,” Mikhail interrupted them when Ninsianna started poking at his injured wing as though he were a prize rooster. “Do translate. I wish to understand what your daughter has been trying to tell me.”
“She said the goddess sent her a vision of you before you fell from the sky,” Immanu said. “It's why she sought out your sky canoe."
Mikhail raised one eyebrow in surprise. Shamans? And visions or prophecy? Although he couldn't remember who he was, he did have a gut feeling that the song the shaman sang was little more than a fairy tale. However, with no memory to guide his judgment, he had no choice but to take Immanu’s assertions at face value.
“I have suffered serious injuries,” Mikhail pointed to his broken wing, “and I can't remember who I'm or how I got here. Although you may have legends about my people visiting your planet at some point in your past, I do not think I am your sword of the gods.”
Chapter 15
For in the resurrection they neither marry,
Nor are given in marriage,
But are as the angels of God in heaven.
Matthew 22:30
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.02
Command Carrier: 'Light Emerging'
Colonel Raphael Israfa
Raphael
“Colonel Israfa,” Major Glicki announced, “we have a hail from the Eternal Light. Supreme Commander-General Jophiel would like to converse with you in 10 minutes."
Jophiel was the Alliances highest ranking military authority, second only to the Eternal Emperor himself, and the social equal of Prime Minister Lucifer, the highest ranking elected civilian authority.
“Thank you,” Raphael said. "Send it right through."
He glanced in the mirror and straightened out his uniform, fussily tucking a few stray golden feathers into alignment so that his wings appeared glossy and smooth. It felt as though he had a mouth full of pinfeathers, his hands growing clammy as he broke out in a cold sweat. He practiced first his most serious expression, and then a welcoming one, trying to decide which would best communicate what he really wished to say. Neither felt right. He gave his reflection a wistful smile, an expression he'd been wearing a lot lately, and not simply because his best friend had gone missing.
The video conference monitor beeped at precisely the appointed time. He made a panicked grab for the photograph he kept prominently displayed on his desk and shoved it into a desk drawer just as Major Glicki sent through the hail.
“Colonel Israfa,” Supreme Commander-General Jophiel's ethereally beautiful face was professional and cold as she got right to the point. “What have you discovered?”
“He was scouting reports of Sata’anic incursion into this sector when his ship was hit." Raphael masked his disappointment that this would be another one of those conversations. “We can take that alone as an indicator the intelligence has some basis.”
“You have a week to find him,” Jophiel said without emotion, “but I can't justify the deployment of resources to hunt down one man any longer than that. Not even for your friend."
Raphael frowned, and then grinned with pride as Jophiel shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The bulge in her midsection was so large it was impossible to hide, even in the head-and-shoulders only video transmission.
“Jophie, how fares our son?" Raphael allowed the tenderness to register that he k
new he should hide, but couldn't.
“He fares well." Jophiel's expression softened. “It won’t be much longer."
She was beautiful under any circumstances, but when she let the icy mask of a general slip, Jophiel took his breath away. Wavy white-blond hair, cerulean blue eyes, porcelain skin, ruby lips, high cheekbones, straight nose, and snow-white wings, if ever the Eternal Emperor were to point to a single specimen of his genetic tinkering and say, ‘this is perfection,’ it would be Jophiel.
“I want to be there with you!" Raphael tried to make it come out as an offer of support rather than the pathetic plea it really was. “Let me come to you when our son makes his appearance into this world?”
“You know the laws of our people." Jophiel's features composed back into the controlled mask of a general. “Besides, we can't spare you. You're needed there." She abruptly ended the transmission.
Raphael’s wings drooped. He hoped the limited range of the monitor had hidden the traitorous appendages from the view screen. His kind was not supposed to care that marriage was forbidden and sexual relations for any purpose other than to replenish the Emperor’s ranks discouraged. They were artificial life forms, created solely to perpetuate the glory of the Emperor, but damantia! He was disappointed!
He pulled the photograph out of the drawer and gave it a wistful caress. Jophiel had made it clear from the outset that she only entered into a five day union to fill the Emperor’s ranks. Once he fulfilled his duty, she would have nothing more to do with him. All offspring were to be deposited in the Emperor’s youth training academies hours after birth to be raised, as all hybrid children had been reared for hundreds of years. Including him.
Mikhail, who knew her well, had warned him that she meant it, but Raphael had not listened. He'd been … star struck.
A sad smile tugged down the corners of his mouth. For one so icy and distant, the general had thawed during her heat cycle. He'd pulled out all the stops not to just contribute the necessary genetic matter, which was all that was expected of him, but to imprint himself upon her very soul so she would never be satisfied with anyone else. And she'd appeared to respond. Right up until the test had come back positive. A successful mating!
She'd instantly banished him to the remotest sector of the galaxy, giving him command of the Light Emerging as a consolation prize, and had not had any in-person contact with him since. Just as Mikhail had warned him she would do! A command carrier was a high honor for a mere Colonel, but he would have much rather have had her.
“Major Glicki,” Raphael called up to his second-in-command. “You get off shift in half an hour, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Who’s up there on the bridge to take over?”
“Lieutenant T’trk should be here in twenty minutes.”
“Good,” Raphael said. “Meet me in the officer’s lounge in forty-five minutes. And bring the good stuff.”
“That bad, huh?” Glicki knew Raphael only ever imbibed the potent Mantoid beverage when Jophiel had shot him down. Again.
“That bad,” Raphael said.
Chapter 16
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.02
Haven-3
Prime Minister Lucifer
Lucifer
“What's her name and who is she stationed under?"
Lucifer paused, one hand on the door knob to the chamber where these particular types of ‘appointments’ were kept. Depending on his schedule, sometimes he spent more time in this office than his real one.
“Hemaniel." Zepar rattled off the particulars. “She is under the command of Colonel Gavreel on the battle cruiser Emperor’s Eye."
“Is this her first mating attempt?”
“She is fresh out of the academy." Zepar peered at the smart board he always carted about with exaggerated obsequiousness. “She claims to be a virgin, although we don't verify the veracity of the pre-mating questionnaire. All we care about is that she is coming into heat.”
“The Emperor has them all so brainwashed they can only form relations to bear offspring that she probably is a virgin." Lucifer's wings flicked with irritation. “It will take extra time to break her in. How long do I have?
“I scheduled one hour." Zepar tucked his dirty white wings against his back. “You'll need to use your gift to get her to perform within the allotted time. You have an important meeting with the Ministry of Defense at 4:30 and you need time to get cleaned up beforehand.”
For all but the first fifteen years of his existence, Chief of Staff Zepar had run every aspect of Lucifer's 240-year life. He was the one in front of the cameras, but it was Zepar who really ran the show. But wasn't that the way things always were for men of power? Zepar got the dirty work done for him the same way that he performed all of the dirty for the Emperor.
He spied a senior Ramidreju delegate walk out of an adjacent chamber with his arm around his wife's shoulders, the disheveled nature of their pelts indicating they'd taken advantage of the temporary sleeping quarters to have a little 'appointment' of their own. The wife smiled up at her husband, chattering about their latest litter of kits. A feeling of jealousy clenched at Lucifer's gut.
“Just once I would like to have enough time to get to know some of these females instead of these constant, meaningless fucks." Lucifer gave a bitter sigh. "If you ask me, that's why our species is dying out.”
“You know that's forbidden, Sire,” Zepar reminded him. “You're the highest ranking civilian authority in the Alliance, and also the Emperor’s adopted son. You must produce an heir. The example you set is followed by the rest of your species.”
“Like I give a crap about what my father forbids?" Lucifer closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the door, allowing the coolness of real wood to sink into his skin. With his genetic enhancements, his hearing was far better than most naturally evolved creatures. He could hear the anxious rustle of feathers from behind the door as the nervous female paced.
“You know the consequences of forming an emotional attachment during sexual relations,” Zepar warned. “You're one quarter Seraphim. The Emperor has refused to disclose whether or not you inherited their defective genome.”
That small, sarcastic inner voice that Lucifer hated, but which was always maddingly, irritatingly right all the time, parroted his Chief of Staff's warning.
'It will kill you. Just like it did your mother...'
The Seraphim! Lucifer's wings trembled with the anger and sorrow that very word inspired. With a genome spliced together from two monogamous species, full-blooded Seraphim Angelics took one mate, for life, a genetic defect which had resulted in losing two Angelic super-soldiers every time one of them had died in battle.
Long before Lucifer had been born, the Emperor had segregated out the worst offenders and banished them to their own planet, far from the Alliance so they would stop muddying up the gene pool of his armies. Since then, Hashem had done everything in his power to eradicate the troublesome gene and discourage close interpersonal relationships so he would stop losing mated pairs.
Only Lucifer knew it was the real reason for the law against fraternization for any purpose other than to fill the ranks. Despite the Emperor's best efforts, Hashem had only been able to weaken the instinct to bond, not eliminate it. A bonded hybrid was reluctant to take any action which would result in not only its own death, but also the death of its mate, rendering Hashem's armies useless the moment they got married. By the time hybrids served their mandatory 500 years and were honorably discharged, freeing them to settle down, they were too old to bear offspring. He glanced down the hallway towards the disappearing back of his Ramidreju colleague and sighed.
“Remember what happened to your mother,” Zepar said. “It didn't matter that she was only one-half Seraphim, or that she had not seen your biological father in more than fifteen years. She bonded with him when she conceived you, and when he died, it killed her.”
'Asherah abandoned -you- that day as well…'
&nbs
p; “This isn't fun anymore," Lucifer sighed. "Maybe it's time I admitted it just wasn't meant to be and adopted a child? Like the Emperor did when he adopted me?"
"The Emperor's edict was bequeathed upon a bloodline," Zepar said. "If the child is not of your loins, the charter becomes null and void."
Lucifer's wings settled into a weary arc. What had at first been an exciting perquisite of the job had turned into a never-ending chore. Zepar scheduled appointment after appointment with Angelic females who were only too willing to throw away one of their precious biennial heat cycles on a futile attempt to bear the Eternal Emperor's adopted son an heir.
"Can't we just pick one out of the academy and bribe somebody to say the kid is mine," Lucifer half-joked.
“The stability of the Alliance depends upon your producing an heir,” Zepar gave him an unsympathetic look. “Do you want the Emperor to revoke Parliament's charter upon your death?"
"No," Lucifer sighed.
"Our species is dying," Zepar said, "and your genetic profile is too unique to simply throw away. The Emperor himself has decreed that you must keep trying.”
'And you –do- so enjoy the conquest. You know you do…'
A sultry image of an Angelic female, her back arched in ecstasy as she cried out his name, danced through his mind. Lucifer squirmed as blood rushed to a certain part of his anatomy. As much as sexual conquest had long ago lost its luster, he had a reputation to uphold. Males of every species aspired to be like him, while females swooned at his feet. He was duty-bound to set a good example.
“Lucifer, we have had this talk before." Zepar put a fatherly hand upon his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice a little personal happiness to obtain the greater good. Especially you. Like it or not, you're a symbol of the vitality of our great Alliance." Zepar's voice was warm and hypnotically reasonable.
'Are you so selfish that you would abandon your species to die out?'
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 8
