Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (77 page)

"Just remember that sometimes a pet needs to be put down," Lucifer said. "If they're too much trouble, or you can't get them to do what you want."

"Yes, Sir," Eligor said. "Thank you, Sir. I'll make sure he doesn't do it again."

"Very well, then," Lucifer said. "Go prepare my shuttle. I have a trip to make. Tell Captain Marbas to set a course for the Tokoloshe Kingdom."

A sense of horror rustled through Eligor's feathers.

"The Tokoloshe … Kingdom," Eligor whispered.

"King Barabas wishes to discuss Tokoloshe support of our endeavors," Lucifer said. He gave him a feral grin, no doubt enjoying Eligor's fear.

'More like -we'll- be the treats,' Eligor thought to himself.

Lucifer's grin grew broader.

"Now run along," Lucifer shooed him with his hand. "Go secure your pet and put him on a leash. We have a feast to attend. King Barabas has invited us for dinner."

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! The
last
thing any Alliance citizen ever wanted to hear was that the Tokoloshe had set a place for them at their table. The Tokoloshe were cannibals! Who ate their victims alive!

Eligor backed out of the room. He couldn't mean it! Lucifer wanted to fluster him, that was all.

The minute he closed the door behind him, he made a beeline for the harem. It was time to eliminate the trouble at the source. The self-proclaimed human 'healer' who'd been playing Lerajie for a fool!

~ * ~ * ~

December, 3,390 BC

Zulu Sector: Prince of Tyre

Ninsianna

For almost a year the lizard-demons had inhabited Ninsianna's nightmares, but as she bit off the sticky-cloth called
tape
and used it to secure the soft, porous bandage covering Apausha's belly, it was hard to hate the creature. She finished up, then turned her attention to his hand.

"Let me massage your fingers."

She tried not to flinch as Apausha held out his healing fingers. Not quite talons, the creature had long, sharp nails which he could partially retract like a cat's claws. She placed his hand between her own.

"Let me know where it hurts," Ninsianna said, "and where it's merely uncomfortable."

Apausha stoically flexed each finger, and then flinched when she bent one a little further than it wanted to go. He'd barely cried out when she'd re-dislocated each broken bone in order to reset it properly, but he
had
fainted after the third one. Five weeks of recovery had put his bones on the mend, but she worried he might never regain full mobility of his hand.

"Does that hurt?"

"I am grateful for your efforts," Apausha said with far more
hiss
in his voice than usual.

Ninsianna scrutinized the lizard man's body language.

"That wasn't what I asked," Ninsianna said. "I can't tell whether it's healing properly unless you tell me where you're still in pain. My husband did that, didn't tell me that his wing still hurt, and because of it he remained flightless for months longer than was necessary."

It was an injury she now realized was a blessing. Had She-who-is not stolen his flight, Mikhail would have simply flown away rather than become entangled with her … or her
primitive
village.

"Tell me stories about your husband," Apausha asked. "It will distract me from the pain."

His gold-green eyes waxed greener, his expression sincere. At least she assumed it was sincere. It was hard to tell, but the longer she got to know him, the more human Apausha seemed.

Ninsianna unconsciously rubbed the swell of her abdomen.

"Mikhail is dead," she whispered. "What's the point of talking about him?"

Apausha's snout curved up in an expression of sympathy. He placed his hand over hers.

"Because you carry his child," Apausha said gently. "He would want you to sing stories of his heroism so that his son grows up knowing his father's name."

Ninsianna's lip trembled as stray tears escaped her now-ordinary tawny beige eyes. She missed him. Oh how she missed her husband! She looked away, into the midst of the women who yowled and fought like hyenas over a carcass. Primitive. In their base state, all humans were
primitive.
All this time she'd been pushing her husband to be more like
her
when, all along, it had been
she
who'd been unworthy!

"Mikhail
hated
being the center of attention," Ninsianna blurted out, half in laughter, half in tears. "The last thing he would want is for people to turn him into a hero."

"And yet the Colonel
was
a hero," Apausha said. He shifted his awkward bulk, grimacing as he bent his tightly bandaged ribcage. "Do you know how many planets he freed from Emperor Shay'tan?"

"No," Ninsianna sniffled.

"Dozens," Apausha said. "That we know of. And dozens more that we suspect. We don't know for certain because his Emperor never acknowledged his heroism with a public awards ceremony."

In a way she found that reassuring. At least she wasn't the
only
person who had ever taken Mikhail for granted. He'd freed dozens of planets? Like hers? She glanced down at her swelling abdomen, the only thing she had left of him.

"Did he … ever … take a …" She let the question trail off without speaking the word she feared,
'another wife.' 
With no memory of his past,
had
he taken a prior wife, well … she'd acted jealously before and look where it had gotten her? Widowed.

"Not that we're aware," Apausha said. He squeezed her hand. "The Colonel was secretive, just like the Cherubim who trained him. But one of the things that always made him unassailable was the fact he remained unconnected to any person or planet. So far as we know, his only allegiance was to his Emperor and god."

Ninsianna wiped her cheek using her sleeve.

"That I can believe," she said. "It took a long time before he began to let down his guard. He trusted
me
because I saved his life, but everyone else?" She stared beyond Apausha's shoulder to a past which lived within her mind. "Maybe he shouldn't have trusted me so much," she mumbled. "After all, I'm the reason he got himself killed."

"In our culture," Apausha said, "it is said that so long as you remember your loved ones and never forget their deeds, they will always smile down upon you from the dreamtime."

She did
not
tell him about the one-and-only time that Mikhail had found
her,
briefly, at the moment she now suspected he had died. She had cast him off, severed all connections, not caring whether it was really him or the Evil One's illusion because she'd always viewed his need to feel connected to her with contempt. In doing so she had broken something precious which would not be so easily repaired … even if he
had
lived.

"I cannot
see
him anymore," Ninsianna wept. "Ever since the Evil One kidnapped me, I can't journey any further than the confines of this room."

"Describe this journeying that you do?" Apausha asked, intently curious. "Have you always had this gift? Or was it given to you by She-who-is?"

"I've always had the ability," Ninsianna shrugged. "When I was little, my Mama says I used to leave my body all the time. But it was never intentional. I just … did it."

Apausha leaned towards her, forgetting whatever strange social custom made him reluctant to make eye contact with a female.

"So you had this gift
before
She-who-is chose you?"

"Papa thinks I was
always
Chosen," Ninsianna said. "We just didn't realize it until Mikhail's sky canoe, uhm, I mean his
ship
fell down from the heavens."

"Is it possible you possess this power for yourself?" Apausha asked.

"No," Ninsianna said. "Papa says there are two sources of power, that which is a gift from the goddess, and that you steal from another living creature. And your
own
life-energy, of course. But using
that
would be stupid. If you use your
own
energy to heal another, you will become so depleted that
you
will die along with your patient."

"We know of She-who-is," Apausha said, "but Shay'tan teaches we are forbidden to ask for intervention from any god except for him."

She silently re-bandaged Apausha's hand and then went to work massaging the other one, automatically reaching upwards to find that thread which had always connected her to She-who-is. She found nothing. Nothing at all. It was as though somebody had cut her connection to the goddess with a knife the same way
she
had severed all connection to her husband. She finished splinting Apausha's hand.

"I'm sorry that I no longer possess the power to alleviate your pain," Ninsianna said. She gave an exaggerated sigh. "Once upon a time, all I had to do was
touch
someone and they would tell me they felt much better."

Apausha's brow-ridges both rose in surprise.

"Aren't you aware of it?" Apausha asked.

"Of what?"

"Feel your hands," Apausha said.

Ninsianna felt one hand with the other. "They feel the same way they always have."

Apausha gripped her hands in his.

"Whenever you smile, your hands grow warm," Apausha said. He turned her hands over and peered at her palms. "And when you are angry," he continued, "it feels as though your hands are made of ice, as though your very mood is transmitted through your hands."

"I get that from my Mama," Ninsianna said. "She calls it a healer's touch." She thought of her Mama's brusque bedside manner. "Though Mama
is often grouchy, and her patients know it."

"I thought you inherited your gift from your father?"

"I inherited the ability to
see
from my Papa," Ninsianna said. "It stretches through his bloodline for as far back as there are stories about his ancestors. But from Mama? Mama, she…"

Ninsianna trailed off. How many times had she looked down on Mama's gift because Mama could not
see,
and here she was now, every bit as blind!

Apausha blinked at her, his eyes impossibly large and green.

"I have an uncle who is a war hero," Apausha said. "One day he came up against the Alliance's fiercest general, Abaddon
the Destroyer."
The lizard-man shuddered. "He is the only mortal even Shay'tan fears."

"What happened?"

"Abaddon cut off my uncle's hand with his sword."

"A sword?" Ninsianna blurted out with surprise. "The only Angelic I've seen carry a sword is my husband!"

"General Abaddon is
infamous
for his swordplay!" The lizard-man's voice warbled with a strange mixture of hatred, fear and awe. "He is the most feared general in the Alliance. Even more feared than your husband."

Ninsianna leaned forward. "Go on?"

"When my uncle got home," Apausha said, "he was very depressed. In our society, a man's place is to support his family, and with only one hand, he could no longer be a soldier."

"What did he do?"

"At first he felt sorry for himself," Apausha said. "But after a while, he began to teach himself to do everything he'd done before, only he did it using his less-dominant hand."

"Really?" Ninsianna said. "How well did he do?"

"It was awkward at first," Apausha said. The lizard-man's snout curved up into a toothy grin. "His handwriting was so terrible that we used to tease him that perhaps he'd have better luck writing with his toes!"

Ninsianna frowned. "That wasn't very nice."