Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (85 page)

"How fares your lessons with the art of shinobi-on-mono? Jingu asked.

Color warmed Mikhail's cheeks, but he forced his features to remain emotionless.

"The results are mixed," Mikhail said. "I do well enough when paired against a novitiate or non-Cherubim, but against a master, I fear that I am always seen."

"That is because you were engineered to -be- seen," Jingu said. Her green mandibles spread wide with amusement. "And what of your skills as a seeker?"

His shame subsided. "At that I am significantly better. Novitiate, or master, I am usually able to find that for which I search."

"That is good," Jingu said. "For I am about to send you on a mission. A mission in which you are required to seek."

"I am only Nidan," Mikhail said. A third-tier junior master. "It will be many years before I achieve the rank of Yondan (fifth tier)."

"You fear your inexperience will disgrace the hive?" Jingu asked.

"I only point out that there are Masters far more adept than I am, my queen."

"This mission is unique to -you-," Jingu said. She pointed at a map of the galaxy which was painted on the ceiling, her only concession to decoration because the mural happened to be practical. "Our esteemed Eternal Emperor has once again requested your assistance."

Mortification flooded his cheeks, turning them a very un-Cherubim-like magenta.

"I told him no, my queen," Mikhail whispered. "Please do not ask me to do that which my people consider abominable."

"Your people are all gone."

"Which is why I must keep alive the memory of what they stood for."

"Not even if you were allowed to send them -here-?" Jingu asked softly. "Think of it. You will no longer be the last of your kind."

"No."

"Hashem's armies are your people as well," Jingu said.

"They are -not-!" Mikhail's voice rose in anger. He remembered how cruelly they had treated him at the Youth Training Academy until the Cherubim had sent for him. He forced his expression to remain neutral. "-This- is my home."

"Your species was meant to flock together," Jingu said. "Do you not wish for the company of your own people?"

"No."

"Not even if I order it?"

His eyes wandered up to the map painted on the ceiling, a gentle swirl of stars circling around a vortex. His eye drifted, as it always did, to a small, broken spiral arm, adrift amongst its peers, the remnant of a galaxy which had been devoured. Sometimes he felt like that spiral arm, adrift in a galaxy where he didn't belong.

"I will perform any duty that you ask of me, my queen," Mikhail said. "Train the novitiates? Go on missions? Battle Shay'tan and bring you back his tail? But I will not defile what it means to be a Seraphim."

Jingu pressed all four hands to cover her thorax, perpetually swollen with egg. Her consort had been dead for centuries, but a Cherubim queen only needed to mate once to bear as many drones as the hive needed to survive.

"You were very young, sukoshi washi," Jingu said. "Too young to throw away the rest of your life on a betrothal that was never consummated."

A lump rose in Mikhail's throat. "I felt her death wound, and to my shame, I did not follow her into the next world."

Jingu sighed.

"You were nine years old, and you'd only known her a few months. Your betrothal was merely a statement of intent."

"You don't understand," Mikhail said. "She had this gift." He stared up into the stars painted on the ceiling. "We had known each other before, and in that lifetime, our love was thwarted by my death."

Jingu shifted on her throne, no longer the queen, but the old woman who used to weed with him in the garden.

"You know the Cherubim are evolved enough to see into many lifetimes?"

"Yes," Mikhail said. "It is very disconcerting to watch two novitiates meet for the first time and start talking about things that happened seven lifetimes ago."

"We are all born with an agenda," Jingu said gently. "Sometimes, when a Cherubim dies young, they will come back as quickly as they can, into the same family, or the nearest family they can find that will enable them to carry forward their unique genetic traits, so they can -complete- that agenda, the one which will help them finish evolving."

"There are no Seraphim left to carry her bloodline," Mikhail said.

"No," Jingu said. "But there are shipboard Angelics. Amongst their ranks are some who are descended from Seraphim who left your homeworld within the last few generations. While -you- have been here, perhaps there is one born who carries the lifespark of the one you lost?"

Mikhail stared up at the ceiling, the whirling stars, and the small, broken spiral arm which sat in the middle of nowhere. Yes. They had crossed paths once before. If she still existed, it was unlikely he would find her -here.-

"I will go, then," Mikhail said. "But if I -do take a mate, it shall be on my own terms. Not Hashem's."

"That is all we can ask, sukoshi washi," Jingu said. She pulled out a flatscreen, technology the Cherubim kept hidden as they believed technology disrupted the natural order, and handed it to him. On that screen were official orders signed by the Eternal Emperor to report to Alliance basic training.

"I never had a choice, did I?" Mikhail asked.

"You -always- have a choice," Jingu said. "You are being sent on a mission. A mission to embed into Hashem's armies and subtly teach them our ways. Whatever else you do while you are there, that is entirely up to you."

His breathing grew more ragged, labored. Pain radiated out of his chest as he pushed away a hand which was not
hers
. How could he find anything when every single breath was agony? The bickering continued.

"The entire village mocks us, this farce we perpetuate, pretending our daughter is still alive!"

"How do we know she is
dead
? We never found a body!"

"We never found Shahla's body either. That doesn't mean she's any less dead."

"The lizard demons came back for their dead. They did not touch
our
dead. Nor did they gather the bodies of the mercenaries."

"Ninsianna is dead!" Sobbing. "And I … I cannot find her in the Dreamtime. We have to let him go so he can find her!"

"Over my dead body!"

"You're irrational, woman!"

"
You're
irrational! You've never listened to a single word the girl said!"

"Fine. You want irrational? I'll override Kiyan and the Tribunal."

"How?"

"The vote."

"The vote? You wouldn't dare!"

"Watch me…"

A door slammed.

Mikhail stared up at the Cherubim queen, a wise old woman who had quietly co-ruled Hashem's Alliance for nine thousand years. If there was a question to be asked, chances were that Jingu knew the answer.

"How will I find her again?" Mikhail asked.

Jingu pointed up at the map of the stars painted upon the ceiling.

"Just follow your heart."

~ * ~ * ~

December, 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Pareesa

Pareesa clutched the ceramic urn to her chest as she walked, as slowly as she could, flanked on either side by Siamek and Chief Kiyan. It was not an especially heavy urn … a year of war had reduced their numbers such that there were far fewer adults to cast a vote, but it might have well have been a boulder. The sky roiled with piss-yellow clouds, a sure sign there was a sandstorm brewing. She glanced to either side, wishing fervently some enemy would run at her that she could smite, but not even a sword could defeat the enemy she had to welcome now.

She hesitated at Immanu's door.

"Go inside, child," Immanu said. His eyes were serious and, for once, not tinged with that copper edge he'd possessed for the past few weeks. It made Pareesa almost want to forgive him.

Almost…

She knocked anyways, and when Needa did not answer, lifted the latch to let herself in. Pareesa glanced back at the somber group which had escorted her here to make sure she didn't shirk her duty. Why had they appointed
her
? She, who was most adamant that this was not the way things were supposed to
be
?

She stepped across the threshold into a room where Needa stood in front of a dying cook fire. Needa's expression softened when she saw they had assigned
her
to be the messenger. Cowards! Why had they all hidden behind a thirteen summer girl?

Neither woman spoke. Pareesa set the urn down upon the table and removed the lid. The scant light glistened off of the three white pebbles, arranged neatly on top of the hundreds of tiny black ones which made up the rest of the tally. Two had been cast by
her,
even though technically she was too young to vote. Needa had authorized
her
to cast her pebble in her stead. Nobody had caught her when she'd slipped
two
white pebbles into the tally instead of one. Needa's … and one she'd spent all morning searching for in the riverbed.

Who had cast the third white pebble? Ebad? No. Ebad said what they were doing to Mikhail was cruel. Yalda and Zhila? Maybe…  But how one sister voted, the other always did, and Immanu had made them give evidence in his favor, weeping, as they related how very much Mikhail loved Ninsianna. No. In the end, Immanu had swayed them all. All except for one. But who? Who had cast the third white pebble? It wasn't Gita, because as an accused, she had no right to vote. They hadn't even allowed the girl to testify.

Needa's mouth tightened into a grim line.

"What lies did he say to get the villagers to agree with him?"

"He said it was a vote of mercy," Pareesa said. "That Mikhail was still alive because we had told him a lie, and without that lie, might he choose to join Ninsianna in the dreamtime. He asked…" Pareesa stared down at her hands. "He asked them … he asked them to make
me
tell Mikhail the truth, and let
him
decide whether or not he wished to fight to live."

Needa picked out the three white pebbles and held them up to the fire. There were tears in her eyes, but for six weeks she had wept, and there was little more anyone could say or do.

"I will keep these," Needa said. "To remember how little my years of service as a healer meant to the people of this village."

She tucked the three white pebbles into her healer's basket which sat on top of her worldly belongings, packed up neatly, ready for her journey back to Gasur. Needa had sat bravely through countless death-watches, but when Mikhail died, so would her marriage.

"How much longer does he have?" Pareesa's voice warbled. "I mean … after he decides to stop fighting?"

Needa dabbed at Pareesa's cheeks with the back of her shawl.

"An hour," Needa whispered. "Maybe two. The only reason he's held out this long is because we told him Ninsianna was
here.
"

Pareesa's nose twitched, trying to keep the tears inside. This was her teacher they asked her to give up for dead, the man who had been her guiding star. Mikhail fought to live because
she
had lied to him.

The door latch lifted and Chief Kiyan stepped inside. He walked like an old man, dispirited and scarred with burns. His eyes sank deep within his skull from lack of sleep and, if she didn't know better, he'd been weeping when nobody was there to watch.

Needa's expression softened. They both understood that, while Chief Kiyan had cast a black pebble, there was no malice in that decision. He was just as sad to see Mikhail go.

"I want Gita to stay until the end," Needa said. "Her presence comforts him, and no one should have to die alone."

Chief Kiyan nodded, and then he turned to Pareesa.

"Go get Mik
hail's sword and bring it to Narduğan ceremony. We must give our people hope that some part of him shall live on beyond his death. It is fitting that we memorialize him on this longest night of the year."