*This story plays fast and loose with Ancient History, numerous Mythologies and Linguistics; be warned*
*Professional, conscript, or volunteer – they all have run away from battle.*
*Editing magic performed by KJ24 and Shyqash, plus contributions by the regular gang of brigands and neer-do-wells*
A Note on terminology and the metaphor of Cael's World
The terms Weave of Fate and 'Weave ' are interchangeable. Weave expresses the intersection ~ the sieve that all the possible futures entered to create what we perceive as this 'now'. Fate is the keeper of the sieve. The Present is what is happening right now. It is that infinitesimal which we interpret as Reality.
The Legend is what happens when the present is pulled back through the weave and becomes the past. It is called the Legend because, as the former presents fade into the past, they blur; each becomes less precise and more open to interpretations. (It is as if you were looking at one thing through a prism; as you shift your stance, what you see appears to change.) Within the Legend exist mystic creatures, divinities, demons, spirits, all the Paradises and Hells.
The Endless Black Sands is the final resting place for all failed legends. It is the place where all is forgotten until even former realities break down into the Black Sands. That Alal found a way to cheat this doom and retrieved Shammuramat, was truly remarkable; even though Fate 'balanced accounts' with him by sending Ajax and his war band along that path as well.
If you wonder how that was a balancing, consider this:
The only people Alal cares for (in his own brutal fashion) are Shammy, now Sakura, and his only true offspring in 5,000 years, Cáel.
Fate sent Ajax.
With Ajax available to test Cáel, how could Alal resist the temptation to place one of the planet's greatest killer on a collision course with both of his loves in order to test Cáel?
The Veil is a function of the Weave that protects sentient perception from perceiving the Weave and disguises the otherness of creatures of legend, unless they willingly allow themselves to be seen, which they usually do only so they can 'physically' interact with the Present. Some sentient minds, through horrific trauma such as the Augurs' self- poisonings , through the quirks of Fate via Holy Men, Mad Prophets and Doomsayers such as Temujin, or through the touch of legends such as Ishara, can sense the fluctuations in the Veil and the things behind it. Cáel, in truth, has been shaped by all three vehicles (Ishara, the Augurs and Temujin's legend.)
Oblivion is what awaits Reality if the Weave ever fails beyond its ability to heal itself. This threat is what keeps the creatures of legend from constantly traversing the Weave. They have to weaken the Weave to do so or to use powers in Reality – the greater the distortion they create, the greater the weakening that occurs.
End Note
(Two days ago, with thirty days left)
"That was fantastic, Lady Yum-Yum," I sighed.
"What did you just call me?" she panted softly. We were naked in one of our Task Force bedrooms that was actually used for sleeping...and now sex. My cock was still inside her love box, despite our recent exertions. She was on her stomach, arms stretched down her sides.
She was sweaty and short of breath. She still had her wits about her and an awareness of our situation: victory sex, me still aroused and her fingernails scratching my thighs and buttocks. My equally sticky body was pressing down on her, even though I supported my weight with outstretched hands placed on either side of her shoulders.
"Lady Yum-Yum," I mumbled as I kissed the back of her head. "That was the first thing that sprang to mind when you introduced yourself." I could see her working that through her highly complex mind.
"When writing your memoirs, please remember to me refer to me that way," she began to flex her thighs and abdominal muscles, so that her ass was pumping against my hips.
"Only if this helps persuade you to give me a repeat performance."
"I'll consider ...," she purred, then paused to catch her breathe. "You are in phenomenal shape, young man. Do any of your other lady-loves have pet names?"
"Nope," I grunted as I withdrew my cock and eased it upward so that my shaft was rubbing up and down on her anus.
She had teased me with anal sex hints repeatedly, yet never delivered. She liked the game and the power she wielded. My body being on top of hers was only an illusion of a tactical advantage. She knew me pretty well already. I wasn't the kind of guy who would use physical strength to overwhelm her vulnerable position. This being so, a cerebral skirmish only excited her more.
We waged a war that was based on intakes of breath, the shimmying of muscles and the trembling of fatigued flesh. The prize for me was the winning. Lady Fathom Worthington-Burke played tricky-clever, but I was better. And at times like this, she admitted it. She gave me what I wanted. I rolled her over and slid my cock back between her drenched labia.
Straight, face-to-face fucking. The Lady's pulsar gaze trapped my vision. She smiled, grudgingly at first, then more and more sensually as my glans returned to her g-spot that it had scouted out earlier. This was 'surrender by the Fathom method'. She gave me what I wanted, so I took what I wanted ... and pleasured her at the same time.
"Mmmm... you are a bad, bad boy," she lapsed into her trashy West-End Londoner accent. It was perfect and an erotic whiplash when added to her native, refined manner of speech. This wasn't a trick this time – it was a treat. It was a gift, reciprocated with my best cock-throb as I plunged all the way in. The tactile sensation of her cervix becoming a soft, spongey chalice for my final penetrations was icing on an all-so-luscious cake.
I tendered her a tribute worthy of my first love, Dr. Kimberly Geisler. It was strange to find a woman like her. Outside of Kimberly, I had found only one other woman who graciously offered her ultimate pleasure paean to the hundreds of lovers who had become before. That other woman ... it still floored me ... was Buffy Du ... no, Buffy Ishara, First of my House.
"Oh!" and several heartbeats later, "Cáel!" several hissed series of breathes and then, "GODDESS, YOU ARE BETTER THAN GOOD!"
Two thoughts collided within me:
A) I had never seen a more controlled orgasmic explosion in my life. I was going to have to tell Buffy about this ...once we were safely in bed. If it was office talk, she'd punch me through a window and that would make Aya cry. I couldn't have that.
B) Goddess? I thought she was Anglican. This needed further study. This treatment was really nice. I leaned in, kissed her. Lady Yum-Yum smiled. "Take me to the shower. Play time is over, Cáel," and she was back to all business.
"You are treating me like a fleshy vibrator," I pointed out.
"But you are a very finely-trained, fleshy vibrator, you wonderful boy," she stroked my cheek. "Shower! Now!" So, like a Good Boy, International Merchant of Death and Chosen Son of a Divine Amazon Goddess, I slid off her, then cradled her in my arms as I rose from our totally trashed mattress.
I didn't smile when it was confirmed that I wasn't carrying her out of any romantic after-coitus gesture. She couldn't walk. Woot! It took a bit of effort to get us into the walk-in shower and to get the water just perfect, all while keeping her cradled. She helped out by keeping her arms tightly around my neck.
"Cheeky bastard," she whispered in my ear. "You are gloating." Then she nibbled on my earlobe for good measure.
"Damn right," I did gloat as I let her slide down to her feet. "You are pretty sweet for an Old Chick." She wasn't angry – oh no.
"If you were trying to get me to say, 'I'll get you next time," she licked, nipped and sucked on my nipple as if I was the one with the mammaries in this relationship, "it worked." Double-Woot! I was going to get that damn four-way! I did coax a vigorous shower-quickie out of my Lady. Afterward, she shifted herself so she could get under one of the steaming showerheads.
"Cáel, why didn't you use a condom," she mused. Gak!
"You aren't on Birth Control?" I panicked. She laughed at me.
"No. I've never been a fan of hormones replacement. I like the way I am. Do you expect the women to do all the anti-pregnancy measures?"
"No," I gulped.
"Don't' be so worried," she laughed. "We had unprotected sex one time. The odds are astronomical that an 'oops' happened, right?" Yes, it was a single sexual encounter, but included three firings of the one-eyed hydra ... sigh.
"You are asking a man who has five children on the way, Fathom," I cautioned her.
"Oh ... I'll update my files and make an appointment to seen a local, reliable OBGYN," she slipped back into her unflappable British resolve. "Get along. I need to get cleaned up," she cupped my scrotum, "... again. So scoot." I scooted.
I had updated my condom supply despite the forbiddance Dot Ishara, my Matron Goddess, beamed to me from the Other Side. She could only complain so much. I'd upped my selection of fortune cookies and added a fresh raisin chocolate brownie for my next visit with her. I had to get over to the other side of the floor to get a fresh shirt ... and boxers.
Yum-Yum had ripped off my shirt (a little kinky) and boxers (a little painful). I wasn't going commando, so I decided to quick step it before something important happened that required me to yank yet another solution out of my sexually-fueled creative imagination.
(How Lady Yum-Yum and I ended up in bed)
The Secret Societies' long awaited war had begun in Africa and in India. The Amazons couldn't effectively reinforce these two homeland regions. No, my people's edge came from my stupid stunts (e.g., the fight outside that club in Chicago), the judicious application of a few kind words and a whole lot of targeted killing on my part along with that of my Amazons.
Those actions convinced the Booth-gan (aka the Thuggee, but we no longer say that because it irritates them) and the Coils of the Serpent to toss in their lot with their local Amazons. They did the whole 'hostage exchange' thing as well. Two children from each side. That was a no-brainer on my part. All three concerned parties were willing to let their adults die if necessary. Their children were another matter.
In Asia, the Seven Pillars had made only minimal progress. We now suspected the 7P had planned to roll over the three of the 9 Clans that were in their Sphere of Influence – the now 6 Ninja Families, the Black Lotus and the Booth-gan in rapid succession. A preemptive strike against both the Khanate and the Ninja were supposed to cripple those two factions.
Against the Khanate, that had been a dismal failure. In Nippon, the Ninja were in dire straits and would be decades recovering from the original 7P blitz. But the combination of US black ops help and the infusion of Amazons and Okinawans had staved off extinction for the moment. Strategically, these failed actions were tying down 7P resources that the largest Secret Society had planned to move elsewhere.
In China, the Black Lotus exhibited the same resilience and deceptiveness they'd shown in combating the Seven Pillars by themselves for the past 65 years. The chaos gripping the PRC was a blessing from the Ancestors, the four sacred spirits (lung/dragons, phoenix, unicorn and tortoise), and the nine entities (I now really had to know this stuff.) Word that a 'dragon' had appeared in the West had only heightened their desire to aid in our new alliance.
Those factors meant a reprieve for India. As the 7 Pillars began ramping up their operations ~ increasing racial tensions, minor terrorist action and military and industrial sabotage ~ the Booth-gan and Amazon united resources and purpose. The Booth-gan would assassinate 7P operatives and pawns while the Amazons would hit 7P front companies and businesses based out of the People's Republic of China. (This activity also helped ratchet up India-PRC tensions and anti-PRC public sentiment in India.)
In Africa, the Condotteiri had squandered precious hours reallocating resources before launching their assaults. Like everyone but the 7P, they had been caught flat-footed by the renewal of the Secret War. The Coils of the Serpent had never been overly antagonistic toward the Condos, since their interests rarely collided. The same went for the Coils and the Amazons.
Two factors inspired a deep Amazon-Coil bond. They were both groups with deep African roots and a shared Central-Western African spirituality. Added to that was the growing power of the Coils of the Serpent in the past fifty years. Their main opponents had been the Illuminati who had a Eurocentric view. Pan-Africanism was in the Coil's best interest, but ran contrary to European economic interests.
Long term, allying with the African Amazons was a good investment for the Coils. The 9 Clans relationships had already proved to be advantageous on multiple occasions in the past. The leaders of the Coils knew their power was rising with the fortunes of Sub-Saharan Africa. To them, the rise of the PRC and the Seven Pillars was a looming threat in the East.
They had been handed a golden opportunity to deal with this enemy before the enemy was ready to deal with them. They had been 'gifted' with over 2000 highly-skilled, fanatical Amazon warriors as stealthy muscle to add to their own, more subtle arsenal. For the Amazons, it was access to continent wide clandestine intelligence network that could unmask their enemies' hiding places.
The Condotteiri wiped out an Amazon freehold in Cameroon and a few Coils safe houses in Lagos, Nigeria. In the Republic of Mali, over 250 Condo mercenaries were slaughtered at a 'secret' installation and their armory was looted. Ebola kept breaking out in the West. The dominant regional powers, the Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, were tottering as a result of decades of economic mismanagement, civic, ethnic, tribal and religious strife, corruption and unreliable militaries.
The scene was ripe for a secret conflict as well as public carnage. For the Joint International Khanate Interim Taskforce (JIKIT), this presented a dilemma. They were involved with a growing global struggle that went far beyond the Khanate and Central Asia. Their secret society allies strenuously objected to bringing any more 'outsider' people into the group.
Handing over covert intelligence to other governmental agencies in the US and UK, then telling them they wouldn't divulge their sources went over like scuba diving with cement goulashes. Explaining to upper level bigwigs that they had a 'trust-based' team went nowhere. Those officials didn't care about a bunch of domestic/international criminals' sensibilities.
They wanted names and faces. They wanted addresses, phone taps and bank account numbers. It would all be 'Secret', 'Top Secret', or 'Eyes Only'. It would all be vulnerable to all kinds of governmental subpoenas too. No threats were made from 'my' side. They'd killed more people than the Black Death and the lives of a few thousand bureaucrats (and their families) in London and Washington D.C. didn't mean shit to them.
Selena did offer to kidnap some family members to get the message across. Javiera put her hands over her ears and began singing 'la-la-la' as she stormed out of the room. Lady Fathom suggested that we arrange a private meeting with the UK Prime Minister and the US President. It took a few seconds for Mehmet and Javiera to realize she wasn't kidding.
That was a nearly impossible task ... which on this taskforce meant we had to give it a shot. Let's just say that the US Attorney General, Eric Holder and Chairman John Jay of the British Joint Intelligence Committee thought their respective representative had lost her God-damn mind. I went to the Khanate for help.
Twenty-four hours later Azerbaijan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Armenia and Georgia (yes, two tiny Christian nations) joined the Khanate. The integration of the first two nations had been in the works since the formation of the Turkic Council in 2009. For me, Temujin upped the time table strictly for our benefit. Turkey and Azerbaijan became the two newest states within the Khanate.
The third, Tajikistan was different and the shakiest addition. The unoccupied title of 'Khwarazm Shah' was created, suggesting the Iranian Tajiks had a special status inside the Khanate. 'Khwarazm' referenced the Khwarazmian dynasty that ruled the last of the great, Persian-led, Iranian Super-States and dated back to the 13th century AD. 'Shah' was Persian for King.
The announced status of Armenia and Georgia was quite a bit different. They become 'Protectorates', i.e., semi-autonomous states within the Khanate who were 'vassal' states ... responsible only to the Great Khan and his personal representative in the region (ah, that would be me.)
So, the first three entries made sense – strong geographic, ethnic and/or religious ties, plus this was part of the Khanate's agenda anyway. But Armenia and Georgia? That was the doing of the other regional secret society – the Hashashin.
The Caucasus Mountains were the backyard of the Hashashin. They knew who to blackmail, pinch and kill to make the 'take-over' possible. The main stumbling block was the long Khanate-Hashashin history: the Mongols had destroyed the historical stronghold of the Hashashin, Alamut, in 1256 CE. In a way, that disaster had transformed the sect, making it move away from their strict Nizārī Ismaili roots and into a more ethnically and religiously diverse group that was centered in the Caucasus region.
Temujin made it clear to this group that he was making a deal under my auspices. Both Armeni and, Georgia (as well as the future Kurdistan, his plans for the creation of that last state were told to me under condition of secrecy) would be part of my palatinate principality (along with Hungary ... if we ever got there). Riki Martin defined the terms for me: I was the voice of those three regions in the Khan's court.
They wouldn't have to deal with Muslim Khanate officials. They would deal with me and 'my officials'. If the Khanate had a problem with my principality, they came to me to resolve the issue. That translated to me giving a nod to the existing regimes ruling in Armenia and Georgia (along with the infusion of a few Hashashin supporters.)
Publically the future of those three political and ethnic entities would be confirmed later. The existing governments knew three things.
1) I was that madman who had led the charge in Romania, clearly a man of bravery and humility. The odds were good that I was going to be a man they could rely on to adequately represent their interests with the government that currently mattered the most (aka The Khanate.)
2) The Great Khan thought the world of me and in this nascent New World Order that meant way more than membership in NATO, or begging the United Nations to apply sanctions of dubious value.
3) There would be a change of leadership by about 2040. Children of excellent ethnic parentage would succeed me in this ceremonial role in the region. These new princes and princesses would be the scions of the line of Nyilas and representatives of the various states [translation: I was going to be sexing it up with Georgian, Armenian and Kurdish members of the Hashashin].
That would establish the three 'cadet' branches of House Ishara (Nyilas) [which I've listed because all three alphabets are so freaking beautiful] that could weave the Amazons, 9 Clans and the varying ethnic identities into a quilt that could stand together as a force in the Great Khan's inner circle. This new spate of aristocratic, 'Archer'-themed lineages would be:
მოისარი {pronounced Moisari} – in Georgia.
Աղեղնաձիգ {pronounced Aġeġnajig} – in Armenia.
رامي السهام {pronounced ramî alsham} – (using the Arabic Alphabet in the Sorani Kurdish style) in Kurdistan.
This fiction made the key named entities happy. The combination of all these events applied another jolt to the heart of the global power structure (after all, Turkey was in NATO) and made the US and UK governments back off.
By tidying up the world map, we'd brought our governmental chiefs to the chilling revelation that their sole conduit for insider information regarding the ongoing global calamity had reacted to their intransience by simply letting them be blind-sided by events. After the fact, Javiera and Lady Fathom relayed that message very clearly.
This wasn't 'bargaining with terrorists', or blackmail. This was a reminder that the secret societies didn't have to work with the allied governments if they didn't want to. Our elected leaders still wouldn't agree to high-level talks.
They didn't stop asking for full-access either. What they did do was make those requests 'pro forma', with Javiera being allowed to 'prioritize' the handling of requests...which was bureaucratic-ese for they were covering their asses ('See, I gave instructions that our representative should forcefully raise this demand at the most appropriate moment') and thus dumping all the heat on Javiera when the inevitable Congressional investigation happened. It amazed me how 'my' bureaucrats were selflessly throwing away their professional aspirations for the sake of a nation that could never know what crimes they were committing on their nation's behalf.
None of that led to my current, surprisingly happy, circumstances. No, my most recent new experience was bought with the death of two members of the Black Lotus, two Gurkha and one member of the British SAS. They had been members of the two teams sneaking around the PRC looking for Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama.
They had found the guy, killed his guardians and then whisked him and his family away to a Chinese military base. Those five team members had died stealing a PLA Harbin Z-9B helicopter. The other three members of the teams flew their packages over to the PLA/Khanate battle lines and delivered him to the lead elements of the closest Tumens. Disorder was the watchword of the day in Tibet.
JIKIT operators were coordinating Khanate drone and air strikes on the Chinese military and paramilitary formations. Independence fever was in the air and any Tibetan with a grudge and violent inclinations was taking out his or her wrath on the isolated Chinese troops. Lhasa, the capital, was in chaos.
Already radio and TV stations in the city were declaring a Free Tibet and a general uprising. The Dali Lama was in Katmandu, Nepal. Nepalese helicopter pilots, familiar with flying over the Himalayas were prepped and ready to fly him and the Government in Exile to Lhasa the moment they got the 'All Clear' from the Khanate land forces. That was why I was getting laid.
(Current time)
I exited my temporary love nest, freshly showered and in a thigh-length white robe, only to discover five Amazons, either House Heads or 'Apprentices', waiting there to see me. Gathered there were Beyoncé of Hanwasuit, Arwen of Epona, Oneida of Arinniti, Kohar of Marda and Febe, the Head of House Mielikki. Their unease, while concealed, was tickling at my senses.
"Hello," I walked over to the mini-bar for a grapefruit juice.
Odette opened the door leading to the main office area ... Odette? WTF?
"Sorry, Boss," she grinned. "Buffy wanted to ..."
"Odette! – excuse me one second, my Sisters," I addressed my fellow members of the Council. "Odette, what are you doing here? I told you that you couldn't get involved in these troubles."
"I know," she grinned. "Pamela hired me as her [OKH] 'Girl "Celebration Day" (aka Friday); whatever that means."
Of course Odette didn't know the Amazon Mother Tongue and Pamela wasn't teaching Odette it, thus not breaking any Amazon laws.
"What are your duties?"
"I'm the taskforce's Morale Officer. Apparently Havenstone is paying me handsomely too."
I groaned, rubbed my forehead which Odette took as her cue to leave.
"Oh, Buffy wanted you to know that some important Amazons were here to see you," she gave me a parting gift before the door shut.
"So, my Sisters, what can I do for you?" I addressed my audience. If it was sex, I still had seven good shots left in me. Beyoncé, my second longest running ally, stepped forth to address the issue.
"Cáel Wakko Ishara, I and other of your allies have become worried about the issue of the scheduled hunt that is supposed to take place at the end of your internship," she stated. "We are wondering if you would now view this hunt as 'inappropriate,' since you are now the acknowledged Head of a First House and our Chief Diplomat?" she stabbed at the heart of the matter. This surprise wasn't all that bad, since I had already considered that very question.
"My Sisters I can answer that better if we step aside from our offices and titles and speak as simple warrior-sisters. Can we?" I asked.
The Amazons looked at one another. "Of course Cáel," Oneida piped up before a true consensus was reached. I gave the others a chance to protest. When they didn't ...
"Good, I actually have given this a great deal of thought myself," I began. "As I see things, I can't embrace prestige without sacrifice, or integrity without reverence. I made a commitment within a week of being here – jokingly I admit – to be hunted. That myth has taken on a life of its own ... and that is my fault. I feel I must keep to this hasty pledge because I am Ishara and my house must maintain oaths, even to the death."
"That is my first concern – that I honor my ancestors... who I also think, would appreciate an oath made in jest and then kept in sisterly solidarity with the rest of the Host. I also think it will be fun for everybody. We are in for a tough time in this war and it falls to each of us to do what we can ..."
"You do so much already," Kohar blurted out. Since we were 'outside' our official status there was no insult.
"Kohar, none of us can do too much for the Host. All of you have taught me that. Sometimes painfully and sometimes with passion, but always giving me something that's made me a better person. If I can do something to inspire our People, I am willing to risk it. Then there is ... Hayden."
"Hayden, Katrina and Tessa have all put a great deal of faith in me at some point in my career at Havenstone, risking and even losing their lives. I owe a debt to them and the New Directive. I owe it to the members who supported it. Finally," I sighed then grinned, "this is something the men of Havenstone have that is our own."
Five startled looks faced me.
"You see us as being hunted. I see it as a chance for men to prove we can be just as resourceful as our Amazon sisters," I explained. "This won't stop with me – and Felix. From this September on, a handful of men will pit their wits and skills against the best the Host has to offer. The men who succeed will be valued. Even if any are eventually captured, they still will have proven their bravery.
"You think of the men as prey. That is normal for you. I see this as being an important chance at change that you will not give men in any other way. There aren't going to be any other males resurrecting Dead Houses. How can men then gain your acceptance and respect? The Hunt. It won't be demeaning to us because the Head of House Ishara has done it as well.
"If a House Head does not find it demeaning, it isn't. If I don't keep my word and do this, there will be no more Great Hunts. All we'll have is yet another declaration of Amazon superiority over all male-kind. What's in it for us men? Even if they stay free, you still won't respect them. I cannot be disrespected while I keep the faith with the Host."
"When I win, I will set the hallmark for the next Hunt and the next," I smiled. "See?"
"You can't really believe you are going to win?" Febe tried not to sound too incredulous.
"Why not?" I laughed. "I'm going to cheat like a Mother-fucker." They didn't know what to make of that.
"Ladies, I'm racking up favors with people back from the dead, Goddesses and gaining the best on-the-job training Fate can provide. I'm going to kick ass."
"That's cheating!" Arwen exclaimed.
"Why?" I teased her. "There are no rules for hunting a House Head for recreational sport that I'm aware of."
"This is my baby and you bitches are going to learn that this is going to be as much a mental challenge as physical. I'm cheating because THAT is the Amazon way. You have been looking at this as if I'm some outsider male who's not protected by your Laws and not as a tool I can use against you all."
"Damn ..." Arwen muttered. "Katrina told me this was a Fool's Errand. I thought you were the fool and now it seems we are. I am ... impressed Cáel Ish ... Wakko Ishara." Lady Yum-Yum, still drying her hair, strolled out of the bedroom, ignored everyone else and walked up to me. She wrapped a hand around my head, grabbed a handful of hair on the back of my head and then pulled me down for a French Revolution Kiss – the kind you could lose your head over.
"Hurry up," she smiled after she came up for air. "We have an intelligence briefing on Iran in fifteen minutes." And then she left without a word to my guests. I understood that. The Amazon Council refused to talk with our allies, choosing to operate through myself and Katrina. She was merely returning their snobbery (in her opinion).
"Cáel, who is that?" Oneida was clearly perturbed.
"One of our allies ... British, I think and a Hell-cat in the sack," I sighed happily with the intent to incense my young lover. "I've got to keep my sexual skills honed to a razor's edge because I know I'm not going to beat you ladies with either my outdoor skills or animalistic cunning."
"How was he?" Javiera asked in a conversational tone from the other room.
"Fantastic," Yum-yum exulted. "You two are a fool for keeping him at bay. Now, where can I get my next victory? I'm already plotting out my strategy for round two in the bedroom. I'm not going to let him come out on top of me next time." The closing door shut off the possible responses.
"You look tired," Febe noted. It wasn't an insult, or an aside to my recent sexual adventure. She was noting my energy was waning and that an emotional fugue was taking hold.
"We are fighting a war," I shrugged. "I'll gladly lose hours of sleep to save my sister's lives."
"You are not us," Beyoncé said somewhat sadly.
Again, it wasn't an insult. Every woman in this room with me could have kicked my ass at every step of my life, until the last two months. Even then, the odds were that the best I could do was make them pay for their victories.
"You have been fighting your own private war for fifty-two days," Beyoncé stepped up and offered me her arm.
We clasped in the way of the Sisterhood.
"From the second day among us, you fought both Rhada and Madi ... and won – three times," Kohar stated. She had been there for the fight, but who was the third.
"Third?"
"When you went to Europe, Katrina gave us a full briefing on the interactions between you and her: when you knew, what the two of you talked about that Tuesday night," Febe grudgingly admitted.
"Coming back to work was stupid. If I had to been in your shoes, I would have made a run for it," Arwen added.
"No you wouldn't," I toasted in Arwen's direction. "As an Amazon, you fight to survive," I said after a long draw on the glass. "If I ran, I could not win. Katrina would have been punished, the New Directive would have died and the Host would have been doomed."
"What about hitting that little button and making every Amazon dead that you mentioned at the Archery range," Beyoncé reminded me.
"That hasn't changed. I still think you are barbaric, hateful savages who murder your offspring and the sires of your children," I explained. "Had I run, I would have been just as bad as the rest of you. I would have sanctioned the murders of the innocent. I wasn't absolutely sure, until the Thursday ... but all that really did was confirm what I already knew in my guts."
"Now you are the Head of a House and holder of a high office," Febe questioned, "so why do you feel we are misguided? You have done nothing to change our ways."
"Bitch," I chuckled. Febe bristled slightly. "I've been in this job for how many days? Besides, all the past few weeks have done is prove me right."
"How so?" Oneida was edging in. For Pete's Sake, she might have well stripped naked, tied a red ribbon around her belly, stuck bows on each tit and worn a Santa's Helper Hat with a bright neon sign over head proclaiming 'Open Before Christmas'.
"Your Ash Man isn't going anywhere, Oneida," I caressed her cheek.
"How so?" I returned to Oneida's question. "Ladies, I am not only right, but I've been right and you've been wrong every day since the Second Betrayal. It was a betrayal alright, but it was your loyal males who were betrayed and that is a disease that has been eating at the Host for 2,500 years."
That shut them up. Not only had the Keeper of the Records said so, but so had the Goddesses and, in a way, Hayden's passing had only added to the weight of Amazon sins.
"Thank you for coming by to discuss this with me. And one day I hope you understand how thankful and honored you have made me feel by all five of you being here," I grinned.
"I may not be a 100% Sister yet, but you have shown me a degree of respect that was impossible for any of you three months ago. I am humbled and honored. Please don't take this the wrong way. The Host has completely changed my life. I think that coming here today, you have shown that I have changed you."
"Oh," Febe looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Cáel, by August 17th, the entirety of the Amazon male breeding population will have been put down. No one has stopped the process." The glass dropped out of my hand. Of course not. I had been so busy thinking I was making a difference, winning my own little battles, I had not asked them to stop sending the trains to Auschwitz.
(Monstrous Reminders)
Two days later, I had been exiled from the team. Honestly, they really could spare me from the goings on. Our people on the ground in Tibet were working with Hana, finishing the details on the planned meeting between the Dali Lama and Temujin. It would be the first public appearance of the Great Khan. The world had never seen his face before. Now he was going to put a human face ~ a young, energetic Mongolian face ~ to his crusade.
I had pleaded to any Amazon who would listen that the Council be immediately summoned from their working groups in order to meet on the matter of the executions of the males. Finally the Golden Mare allowed me fifteen minutes at the 7 am meeting the next day. That was appropriate, it was all the time any of the House Heads were allowed.
I debated late into the night with Buffy and Helena on who would be better to present our case. I wanted Buffy because she was a woman and I'd use any aspect of political advantage to gain those males a reprieve. Three hours before the meeting, Buffy and I agreed that my passion would mean more than her bosom.
Hearing my appeal was the first order of business before the Council. I spoke for fifteen minutes in what I hoped would be the most eloquent, stirring speech I'd ever given. I politely stopped when given the signal that my time was up. A call was made to debate the issue. Messina gave the rebuttal: 'The council couldn't overturn the decision of a High Priestess unless an overriding concern for the Host was evident.' (Concern meant 'Amazons were in danger of dying')
No one else spoke. A vote was called. Not one member voted in my favor. I, of course, could not vote. I knew politically why Katrina and Beyoncé hadn't voted my way. The Law was the Law; and bucking the traditions while a war was ramping up wasn't prudent. I was even shown sympathy by several members. They weren't concerned for their males. No, I was one of 'them' now and my distress bothered them.
I stood there for forty-five minutes. I couldn't sit down. I had given them my word. Tears? None came. I don't recall what was discussed. When the meeting adjourned, Shawnee addressed me before Buffy could make it to my side. "Are you seeing spirits, Cáel Wakko Ishara?" Shawnee asked softly.
I looked at her and then the tears came. I am told that that by a trick of the light, my silver tears looked like a weak trail of blood down my cheeks. I was powerless and I felt like a hypocrite. Here I was bleeding for Amazon lives, bleeding for the lives of our allies in our joint struggle, yet in this Council, I couldn't even make them understand the basic concepts of humanity and brotherhood.
I was angry. I wasn't angry with them. I was angry at myself for not remembering who they were and that we were all prisoners of their twisted ideology. I had deluded myself into thinking they were any different at their core. I turned away from Shawnee. Several of the SD were watching me warily. I was armed, acting irrationally and had killed Ajax the Unconquered, or so they believed.
A hundred insults boiled forth in my mind. I had some goodies. I knew what these bitches valued and I knew ways to verbally stab at them. Amazons had no honor. They were survivors and because of that, they expected me to let go of this insane deviation from their society. The Golden Mare was the first to stand in my way. Buffy hovered, cloaked in her own fury, behind me.
[OKH] "Ishara, are you well?" she asked. I had to think about that and bite down on the stupid comebacks that would mean nothing to any of them.
[OKH] "You are my Golden Mare, St. Marie. I will follow you into battle and die if I must," I gulped through my tears. "I swear to you, if I die first, know I will be waiting for you in the halls of our Ancestors. If you die first, know I will not forget this and prepare yourself for me. Because if I have not found forgiveness in my heart, I will hand you my hate, – with interest," I pledged.
[OKH] "Restrain yourself, Ishara," she ordered.
[English] "You are correct, Golden Mare," I swallowed my rage.
"Good," she nodded.
"Yes. I need to restrain myself. I need to get with the program because, Dot Ishara knows, I've been shirking my responsibilities up til now. I know what I need to do. I need to feel like a true Amazon; the warrior breed with the blood of the Ahhiyawa on our hands."
"Mine is fresher than most and that is the problem. I need to get back to the real 'us' because going facing to face with the Ahhiyawa has definitely confused me over the true fighting spirit of the Host that I have just been reacquainted with. I need to go out and kill helpless old people and infants."
"I'm sure that will help me strengthen my solidarity with all my Sister and be one of the team once more." I replied in a patently false-reasonable voice. "Don't worry. I will only kill those who have no value to the Host."
"Correct yourself," she growled.
"I hear and obey, Golden Mare," I sniffed. "I was the one who forgot that it is the duty of every Amazon to strangle tiny newborn boys with their umbilical cords and butcher the males they no longer have a need for ~ you know; the helpless old people," I laid on a different interpretation of their own, sick practices.
"While I'm getting back to our roots, I will hopefully find a clearer perspective on the last 317 ... beasts; those who are waiting to fulfill their own role in our great tradition. I will think of them ... in their stalls, or cages, or wherever it is you keep them. I will think of them, looking up to you as you enter their tiny little world.
"They will expect food, perhaps a look on your faces that tells them they have done well today and they have made you happy. They will expect you to give them orders ... because you allow them nothing else to look forward to. Sometime in the next four days, you will come to these beasts who trust you for every aspect of their survival and you will lead them to some place of disposal and slit their throats.
"You will let them fall to the ground and bleed out. I am curious how many of them will look up at you and wonder what they did wrong to make you that upset with them. They will blame themselves while you patiently wait for their hearts to finish pumping blood out those severed arteries. After that happens, you will dismember them. You will burn the parts. Then you will bury the bone shards and ashes in a trash heap.
"For them, there is no Afterlife – no cliffs – no ancestors. Their souls will awaken all alone in the Black Sands. For most of them it will be the first time in their lives they have ever been truly alone ... They will be scared because they love you and they will want to know what horrible thing they did for you to leave them here alone.
"If there is a blessing, it is that you have not reciprocated a single ounce of their love, or given them no reason to exist without you so they will soon be ground down into the sands they will so briefly trod upon. Then, they will have never been. They will not be remembered. I am sure that by the end of that introspection, I ... I don't know how will feel then, Golden Mare.
"What I do know is that on August 18th, I will be the only one who has a chance of feeling different about what hasn't been done here today." I was still successfully fighting back my true cyclone of emotions.
"How could someone like you kill Ajax?" she shook her head.
"Because none of you could," I frowned. "Because for the past 2500 years, the Host has forsaken the sole prerequisite necessary to ..."
"Shut up," St. Marie glared. "Weep elsewhere. We have work to do."
"I weep for Charlotte ..." I replied.
"Like any one here believes that," she growled ... and then everyone around me had their guns out. St. Marie's wasn't pointed at me. It was pointed past my right elbow. Buffy.
"Buffy, what have I told you about ..." I sighed.
"Buffy Ishara, lower your weapon right now," one of the SD chicks behind me threatened.
"Cáel, she ..."
"Weapon – down – now," I commanded without looking back at her. By the relaxed stance of one of the SD Amazons, Buffy had complied.
"Take her into custody," St. Marie said as she kept her gun pointed at Buffy.
I didn't protest, pout, or threaten a work stoppage. My words would be useless; they didn't understand my tears and I was the Head of House Ishara and Chief Diplomat of the Host, not a self-indulgent prima donna. I believed both St. Marie and Buffy expected me to say something.
"Cáel, she called you a liar," Buffy protested. By the grunts I heard, she was already being restrained.
"Buffy, didn't it occur to you that, despite consistently proving her ignorance of men's emotions in general and being prejudiced against me in particular, the Golden Mare must have been divinely inspired to suddenly know precisely what was on my mind?" I inquired. Sorrow and fury were not the weapons for this task. Mockery was.
"I will let you know what fate I have decided for your Apprentice," St. Marie deigned to inform me. She gave me a dismissive wave of the head.
"Buffy, you should have never believed that that woman's personal opinion of me matters to House Ishara in the slightest," I announced without turning around. "She doesn't have our pedigree."
"I apologize," Buffy responded (to me). I'd tossed her an 'atta girl' in a way that St. Marie couldn't acknowledge as insulting, though it clearly was. The Amazons of House Ishara, to a woman, were all former-Runners.
They loved being members of a First House of the Host, yet they all felt it was a reward for years of struggle and exemplary service, not something that had been handed to them as a birthright. We had turned our weakness – being born outsiders – into our unifying strength. We felt worthy of our honors. Having been dimsissed, I took the opportunity leave without further complications.
Katrina was waiting for me at one of the elevators. She warned the others off, indicating she wanted a private chat with her most notorious intern. The elevator opened. Katrina stepped in and I followed. Nothing was said. She made a quick call and said three unrelated words. She waited for a confirmation before hanging up. Our conversation wouldn't be monitored, or recorded.
"Cáel, I know you are upset and you are disappointed in us," Katrina forced me to look into her eyes. "As someone who cares for you and considers you a friend, I am advising you to let this one go. You have done many incredibly good things and there is still much more you can accomplish. You have always known you can't win every fight."
"The important thing is that you stay in the fight. Please try?" she looked honestly upset. I had to think about that. I had spent much of my life 'letting things go'. I hadn't let things go with Rhada and Madi and look how much that had fucked up my life. I hadn't said 'no' to Rhada when I should have. Brooke ... Casper. I'd been screwing the pooch big time by allowing myself to give a fuck about anyone else.
"Maybe Alal was right?" I whispered. "People want their needs met without sacrifice. They want to blame someone else for their misfortunes. They don't want to be held responsible for their own actions. There will always be wolves and there will always be sheep." he had told me when we parted in Rome.
"We have just left a chamber full of sheep, not wolves," I turned fully toward Katrina. "Like good little sheep, the leadership of the Amazon Host bleated the Party Line and refused to take responsibility for mass murder. They hid behind tradition, Katrina. They hid behind this absurd idea that there aren't other males out there who could be the next Cáel."
"Every man brought into Havenstone should be given the same opportunities each and every 'Runner' has. We all deserve a chance."
"That is bludgeoning a lie with another lie, Cáel. There is no 'other Cáel' out there. You are the last chance the Amazon Host has. Those men have been bred to be the opposite of you."
"When we feel we have passed our usefulness, we end our own existences. It is unfair to think we would keep useless, inbred males around out of some sense of a communal society we have never shared with them. You see this as an evil, callous and brutal gesture. We are an evil, brutal race that hasn't the luxury of being sentimental," Katrina counter-attacked. That she was capable of such unvarnished honesty was something I loved about her.
"We are the smallest Secret Society in the numbers we can bring to bear in a fight. We do not have an extensive network of proxies to work through. Our history, until today, has taught us to be lean in the compassion department. If you battle the past, you will get nowhere. Besides, you did do two thing of value today," she offered.
"You put the fate of our males and the responsibility for their deaths in our Records. Your protest was heard, Cáel. Yes, it was heard because it came from you, Cáel Wakko Ishara. No Amazon has protested the fate of males since the Second Betrayal. Today, someone did. You have to know that means something to us."
She was right, damn her. To the Amazons ... they had allowed me my protest and it was infantile to think they did so to humor me. That wasn't there style. In their cold, heartless eyes, my proposal was worthy of 15 minutes of their time. A tiny number until you considered how much every minute mattered to them.
"What was the other thing?" I asked her.
"You kept to your oaths with us. You didn't even try to vote," she pointed out, "even though you clearly felt passionately about the issue. Amazons expect that from their fellow female Amazons. They are not used to expecting that from males."
I thought about that. In the Amazon mirror-view of society, men were the irrational half of the species, ruled more by passions and illogical aspirations, while Amazons (females) were the creatures of controlled, rational thoughts and actions.
"You also vocally reminded them that you are a man, not some bizarre icon from the Goddesses."
I had a few things beaten into my skull as well. I worked with monsters. Thanks to Katrina, I was also remembering why I did what I did for the Host: – Aya, Daphne, Yasmin ... those three. Maybe Europa. Lorraine was a long shot. Oneida and Rhada ... they were still their mother's daughters.
"Katrina, I apologize. You are right. Short of the sending House Ishara into battle against the other houses to rescue those men, I cannot save them. I can not forget them. I am okay with hating you and all the others for your perpetuating this crime. I'm also okay believing that one day, I'll forgive the Host too.
"It is in my nature and I shouldn't let your crimes inspire so great a hate in me that it poisons my soul. You are still going to atone, Katrina, Head of House Epona," I bolstered my sense of the perverse that passed for strategic thinking. "I want you to retrieve Kwenhamai – Death Song – for me. I've decided I don't want the Amazons you consider virtuous. I want your Sinners. Make it happen."
When I returned to the taskforce, I garnered the same kind of worried stares I'd gotten at the Council meeting. At ten o'clock, Elsa gave me a ring. St. Marie had decided on Buffy's punishment for her crimes: drawing a weapon on the War Leader, and drawing a weapon in the Council Meeting. They were going to sear her left eye socket with a hot poker.
That would allow her to remain a useful Amazon in my House while sending a strong reminder for Amazons to remain civil with one another. I was being informed because, as her House Head, I could appeal the ruling ~ to the Golden Mare, the one who had just passed judgment.
"Let me talk to the Boss," I requested. Elsa patched me through twenty seconds later.
"State your appeal," St. Marie said in an unwelcoming voice. "It won't make a difference, but tradition is tradition."
"Immediately erase the incident in the Council Chambers between you and Buffy. I wanted it erased from the records. You must then repeal the punishment because it is now groundless. If you do that for me, I'll tell you how I killed Ajax. I'll even show you what I did," I offered. Pause.
"I am the War Leader of the Host, Ishara," St. Marie heated-up even more. "You should be telling me this anyway."
"As Chief Diplomat, I only have to tell you, Katrina, or the Council something if it is of relevance to the Host. I deemed that the information wasn't relevant at the time," I countered. "I asked Pamela. She's really good with all your inbred ilk and your damn laws," I kept my voice steady. "Do we have a deal?" I could almost hear her teeth grinding.
"Very well, but don't think I will forget this," she seethed.
"Do I have your word that you will do as I requested for Buffy?" I double-checked.
"Yes, you have my word," St. Marie snapped. "Now how did you kill Ajax?"
"I'll tell you," I relaxed. Pause.
"I'm waiting, damn you," she grumbled. "Let's get this over with. I have important work to do."
"I promised to tell you, St. Marie," I got my measure of revenge. "I never said when I'd tell you though, so you might want to get back to that important work."
"You'll get Buffy back when you tell me," she snapped.
"St. Marie, you gave me your word she would be released immediately," I explained. "While you failed to apply any time table to my side of the bargain," came the kicker.
"You violated the spirit of that oath. It is not binding," she simmered.
"I'm not going to bore you by rehashing the last time Amazons broke an Isharan Oath. I have been spiritually pure with this pledge that I tricked you into for a very good reason, St. Marie. You are not an idiot and neither am I. You did call me a liar in public and you knew I wouldn't lash out ... because you know I didn't give a flying fuck about your opinion of me. No, you knowingly insulted me in in English so that Buffy could understand," I said in a low, steely voice.
"You are more than a match for me as a tactician. As a provocateur – you are not in Katrina's league and she's the Amazon I rate myself against. You have never liked me. I'm fine with that. Taking it out on Buffy ~ don't do it again as it violates the spirit of our Oaths of Sisterhood," I reminded her. I could hear St. Marie's tooth enamel cracking. "Do I have to call every other Head of House over this breach? I believe you've established that threatening to harm another Amazon officer in the Council chamber is punishable by the removal of the secondary eye."
"I am not afraid of pain, Cáel," she growled. "I am afraid that your deceptive ways will cause the Host irreparable harm." Considering she worked closely with the most deceptive woman I'd ever met – Katrina – I felt that was high praise indeed.
"Though I don't think you knew it at the time, St. Marie, you chose me for your Chief Diplomat because I am a slippery fish. Most importantly, I am your slippery fish. Honest, trustworthy diplomats are very limited in their utility."
"I will honor my promise to you," she calmed down slightly. She was conceding the point that she'd chosen me for my untrustworthy ways. She had hoped I'd keep them focused on our enemies, not her.
"I will offer to step down if you desire," I added out of the blue. A few seconds passed.
"I want a time table for you telling me what happened to Ajax," she countered.
"When I get back from Brazil," I promised. "I'll tell you then."
"Why wait?"
"I'm still trying to figure out who the traitor inside the Host is," I answered. "Someone helped the Seven Pillars find our Summer Camp. Someone helped the Condotteiri find the Hylonome as well. Budapest and the fight on the Tisza were the Black Hand's fault and those two loose ends have been dealt with," I related my worries.
"Who do you suspect?"
"I'll have a better idea when I get to Brazil and see what kind of ambush they have waiting for us. The more they are prepared, the smaller the list gets," I said.
"You are knowingly walking into an ambush to find out what our foes know about us?" St. Marie sounded caught unawares by both my cunning and my devotion to our cause.
"Can you think of a better way?"
"No ... when you get back from Brazil?"
"Yes, I will keep my promise then," I reaffirmed. "I promise this to you as well, St. Marie. If you come gunning for anyone else in House Ishara except me, you will never be able to prove that I arranged for a member of the 9 Clans to remove your daughter.... That is not a petulant threat, Golden Mare. The only one acting vindictively against the current interests of the Host this morning was you. Since your own oaths don't seem to be constraining your behavior, I'm giving you my personal promise to consider before you deliberately strike at me through my House Isharan sisters again. Can we both get back to fighting the war now?"
"Katrina has poisoned your thinking, Cáel. Her threatening my offspring was as stupid for her as it is for you," she menaced.
"Parroting your words: 'Your arrogance' has poisoned your thinking of me, St. Marie. Threatening my Buffy was stupid'.
"Your daughter deserves to be treated in the same manner as Buffy and vice versa," I explained. "I will extend to you my offer to replace me as Chief Diplomat. I'll leave quietly if you think you cannot work with me, or trust me to do the best job that can be done."
"No. Both you and Katrina are twisted mockeries of true Amazons," she sighed.
"You are also the right Amazons for the twisted tasks that need to be done. If you ever threaten my daughter again, I will deal with you personally and deal with the fallout when it comes," she cautioned.
"I'll take your word for that." A few seconds passed, then St. Marie hung up.
That was that. I'd get Buffy back, though she wasn't sure why she wasn't out shopping for an eye patch. She would have to understand that I wasn't going to tell her the details of her release this side of some serious pain.
Late that afternoon, I had another meeting with OT. The news was critical, as it all too often was. The largest armored combat action since Kursk was about to begin. In the balance was not only the Khanates only real hope of forcing a ceasefire, but the fate of Tibet as well. That wide right hook across the Tibetan Plateau was reaching its final destination.
On the Southern Flank of the PLA, six of the eleven Khanate Tumens plus six supporting Mechanized Divisions were trying to turn the Chinese Southern Flank. Against them, the PLA had mustered three Reserve Armored Divisions, three Reserve Mechanized Brigades, one Regular Armored Brigade and nine Reserve Infantry Divisions.
The Tumens' goal was Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province and the southern supply artery to the PLA's Western Army Front. On the Northern flank, two of the four remaining Tumens, one armored brigade and one infantry division had to punch through along a shorter front against one Regular Mechanized Division, five Reserve Infantry Divisions and one Regular Armored Brigade. Their goal was the town of Gulang in Gansu Province, the nexus of the northern supply artery.
If the powerful Southern thrust could link up with the Northern attack, they would isolate 350,000 PLA troops (20% of their current army) in a pocket they couldn't fight their way out of. If they failed to link, the Khanate was done for. Unless they could cut off that Gansu/Qinghai Salient, the Khanate would be left with an untenable border and not nearly enough troops left to hold it.
The majority of my concern for that Wagnerian Cauldron was taken away from me. When I unloaded the latest info on Riki, Fathom and Javiera they all smiled, nodded and informed me that I was taking the next 24 hours off. I didn't want to because I really didn't know what to do with my life, at the moment.
Then they informed me that I was going to spend the morning with Aya and her Fatal Squirts. That, I could do. I called Aya to make sure this was something she wanted to do. I had the feeling she might not have been consulted. She had been 'told' that I was coming by to see her tomorrow morning at the park adjacent to the private school she attended.
We'd hang out for a few hours, catch some lunch then drive out to Doebridge for some Amazon-style training. I told her that I couldn't wait to see her. Sagely, she said that meant I must be in a bad way. I laughed, she beamed a happy 'see you soon' and I crashed out for some much needed rest. In the morning, over breakfast, we got some good news.
India's two carrier fleets had set sail. They were marshalling near the Nicobar Island in the eastern end of the Bay of Bengal. Beyond that lay the Malacca Straits and the much disputed resources of the South China Sea. Her diplomats were burning the midnight oil with their counterparts in the Vietnamese and Malaysian governments and armed forces.
In New Delhi, the Chinese and Russian Ambassadors to India were both trying to woo the Worlds' largest democracy to their differing sides. Alerted to this through Booth-gan operatives, the US and UK (through the offices of the EU) were doing a bit of wooing of their own. Once more, it was the same for Nations as it was for people; India's Intelligence Service was on the 'inside' of the information curve, thanks the JIKIT.
For me it was bed. Around nine pm Javiera Castello showed up in my room. She was kind enough to leave the lights off, letting the passive light from the cityscape provide the illumination. Before she could say a word, she started to yawn.
"Get in," I pulled the covers half aside as I scooted to the middle. She hesitated a second before coming over.
"I came in to see if you wanted a bite to eat ... and to tell you Buffy came back and she was pissed. She wanted to see you until we told her you were asleep," Javiera told me.
"Is she still here?" I stifled my own sympathetic yawn.
"No, she stormed out," she sat down on the bed beside me. I let my head fall down on the far pillow. "Care to tell me what that was about?" she added.
"Internal politics," I was losing interest in this conversation fast.
"Cáel, if you want to talk with someone ~ semi-normal and off the record ..." she trailed off. "I'm already going to spend the rest of my life as a fugitive, or in a deep dark hole," she tried to joke. "Keeping a few of your secret isn't going to ..."
All I did was stare at her. She was an experienced and gifted criminal prosecutor and that made her a good judge of a person's soul. My soul had been taking a serious beating and she knew it. For that matter, Javiera had never seen me far from pain – my Father's murder, Charlotte's death and now this latest unspoken malady.
"I'll lay down for a bit, if you don't mind?"
I raised the sheets halfway up once more. She kicked off her low heels then sidled in.
"You are naked," she stiffened slightly. I knew the source of her misconceptions. I wasn't a neatnik and I certainly didn't act like one.
What I was, was a man who didn't think his lady friends wanted to be walking all over his dirty undies. Given a chance, I put my clothes in the hamper unless I planned to put them on ~ in say, a few hours. I had decided to sleep until morning, I had my jeans, t-shirt and tennis shoes already set aside and had already showered.
Sneak out without too many complications was my plan, so I had tossed my used clothes into the laundry basket. That meant when Javiera didn't see my clothes scattered about, she assumed I had something on.
"You are getting arou ... hard," she noted with tired playfulness.
"I don't mean this as an insult, but you don't want to imagine the female form that doesn't get the same reaction from me, Javiera. I'm tired and unless you initiate something, I'm going back to sleep.
"Okay." It took her a few seconds but, she put her head down on the pillow beside me.
She was even getting the warm spot where I had been sleeping. I noisily stretched my arm out, up and around, giving her plenty of time to roll on her side, facing me, and rest her head on my shoulder. I thought she was worried that her hand resting on my chest would ... and I slept. An hour later, Riki showed up.
Without the lights on, she initially mistook the sleeping Javiera to be a sleeping, post-sex Javiera.
"Cáel?" she whispered.
"She's asleep and totally clothed. Do you need me, or her?"
"You," she came and sat down on the side of the bed opposite Javiera.
"The Georgians and Armenians are sending separate commissions to meet with you," she began. I must have looked really tired. "You are their Prince, right? They want to make some ground rules and bring some issues to your attention. I'd like to bring in some of the UK and US experts on the region to help out."
"Make it so," I proclaimed loftily and quietly. She got the reference.
"Aye, aye Captain," she smiled compassionately. The 'Beat Puppy' look is a serious lure for any babe with a mothering instinct.
"Come on," I yawned. "Crawl in."
"I shouldn't," she demurred.
"I'm about to fall back to sleep and I don't want to do it alone," I moped. Yes, I had a woman asleep on the other side of me, but Riki had her sight-inhibiting 'sex goggles' on.
"I'll be right back," she kissed me (on the cheek). Off she went and quickly she returned. I barely registered her snuggling in on the other side. Sleep took us.
"The Dali Lama is currently meeting with The Great Khan and it's going out over the BBC, Aljazeera and CNN!" Lady Fathom loudly proclaimed as she flipped on the lights while the grey-black skyline showed the first signs of pink. "I've proven my diplomatic brilliance yet again. Cáel, you know what this means," she began stripping. "The rest of you can stay or go, your choice."
So I got my four-way.
(Monday, August 15th ~ 28 Days to go)
My kidnappers' plan was equal parts sinister and simple. The only item that tipped me off that anything untoward was happening were the blank lenses worn by the little girl walking my way. Ten years old is a bit early in life to be exploring your beatnik heritage. Only when she got close did I pick up on her tear streaked cheeks and the white-knuckled hold she had on her book bag.
Before then, I had been the anchor point/mom-teacher distracting device that allowed Aya and her Squirts to become unsworn peace officers for the first through six graders who were at the park, pool and outdoor athletic facilities attached to the private school. There were a few kids actually attending summer classes, but most of the youngster hanging about were doing so because this was a 'public' place.
That meant that only the right quality of people were allowed in. The other security guards asked me about Yasmin. I told them she was finished with her orientation at Havenstone (a lie, the real 'Runner' orientation took a minimum of one year) and would soon be working on a temporary project in her native Brazil. I neglected to mention that we would be engaging in nefarious activities that would very likely involve varying levels of pain and death.
Even though they knew me, I was still searched. My Conceal Carry permit didn't cover me leaving the vehicle, so they took my boom-boom. They missed my knife in the arm sheath. I didn't care.
I managed to bring in four 'sweet' water pistols so I could dispense summary humiliation to any mouthy punks who thought they could pick on Aya and I couldn't stop them because I was an adult. I'm not much of an adult. I'd also tricked the Martial leader of the Amazon Host, so these entitled bullies seriously hadn't a clue who they were screwing with.
I could place a wet spot on a crotch (guys), or shoot them in their mouths (girls) form ten feet. Turning around only meant you got a soaked butt instead. Sadly, that brought me to the attention of two Eight grade girls who liked to play Call of Duty (there is a video game that doesn't have scantily clad babes? And people play it? Just kidding.)
Anyway, these were two girls who knew Aya by reputation (her Father was a spy), and Europa (because she was a bad-ass.) It was all harmless fun until one asked me if I'd ever been to Romania. I knew what was coming. They showed me some video, included shoulder cam footage from my team, the Romanian Mountain Hunters and the Mycenaeans.
Yes, I was that guy. Yes ... the strange girl showed up and my Spidey senses were tingling. I had four security types (2 Amazons and 2 FBI HRT members) in separate locations outside the school grounds. There were eight security types on the ground and four NYPD patrol cars within two minutes. I should have been safe.
With shaking hands, she handed me her MP3 player. She was clearly sniffling with near hysteria. The MP3 had five files with my name on them Instructions #1~5.
"Please," the little girl pleaded softly. "Please, do what they say, or they'll kill my Mommy." Aya and one of her Squirts, seeing one of their classmates standing next to me were on their way over.
I was about to wave her off then I took a second look at her glasses. They had spy cams on each side. I was already being watched. The rest was basic. The little girl was wired to explode. The girl's backpack had the equivalent of an omnidirectional child-size Claymore mine – kill radius 5 meters, or so they claimed. Aya was within three meters already.
I was being observed. No direct communication with the kidnappers was permitted. Either I complied with each and every step laid out on the MP3 player, or the child and mother detonated. It got better; they wanted Aya and me, not just me. Worse, it was all very solid spycraft. I would only communicate a given message to my guardians while a second phone was also on, so they could listen in to what I said.
The mom and her minivan were waiting for me at the school U shaped drop off station. I waved good-bye to the guards. I contacted my security to let them know I was on the move. They were concerned. I was insistent and they followed along. At the appropriate moment, an auto accident separated my team and Mini-van Mom sped away.
At stage #5 of the instructions, Aya and I stripped naked with remarkable aplomb. It wasn't that we weren't afraid what would happen to the mother and child (and a tad worried about ourselves) ... but we had one another and that was what mattered most. We were given fresh cloths and a time table to get ready to depart.
At the parking garage exchange point, I was happy to see that while they were binding up me and Aya (hands behind our backs, ankles and gags), they were also binding up the mother and child, plus removing and disarming the explosives. We'd never know if they were fakes, or not. They stuffed us in the trunk of a new sedan.
That vehicle only traveled a few more blocks before we took a sharp incline then came to an abrupt halt. The sedan's engine cut off and a different sounding engine – a diesel – started up. After that, I was in the Land of the Lost. I'd lost all bearings. The thing was, I already knew the identities of three of the four kidnappers – I'm an ass man and no two asses are the same.
None of that was helpful at the moment. We were taken out of the trunk at our final destination. The kidnappers' sedan was in the back of a large panel truck. That had shaken off all immediate chances of being tracked by traffic cams. There were four Seven Pillars Commandoes present who cut our feet free and removed our gags before taking us out of the truck. Those four took us down the ramp, exposing us to our new setting; an aircraft hangar with close to thirty 7P's.
There was only one of the old kidnapping crew in evidence – Felix Melena unmasked. I looked at him, he looked at me, snorted, grinned then shrugged. "It pays to be on the winning side," he joked.
"Turning traitor will only make you their dog instead of Havenstone's," I countered calmly. I was raging ... Goddess, I was dying for a chance to be in a situation where unleashing my rage would do some good. This wasn't it.
"Yeah, but I'll be a dog who can fuck bitches, not some lap pet like you, Nyilas," Felix snorted. To an outsider and a person who only looked at the superficial Melena, his actions and attitude were plausible, even expected.
To an insider like me, this was an impossibility. There was no way Felix could have gathered the access to pull this off. A Havenstone insider would never trust Felix as a pawn. And Felix wouldn't betray me for the most important of all reasons (to Felix). How could he reverse his martial defeat at my hands if I wasn't around anymore?
He was a bastard and a huge prick, but he was a self-confident machismo kind of man too. I shouldn't have been surprised that Katrina would risk her own niece in whatever ploy she was working on. I still didn't know if she, or Alal, was the smartest, most convoluted thinker I had ever known. Felix's other three assistants weren't around because they were Amazons and that would have looked fishy.
In the crowd of Han, five people stood out. Of least importance was the grizzled looking Chinese fireplug with grey-white, short-cropped hair and a scar running through his right eye. It was milky and blind. I had little doubt he thought Spetsnaz training was for pussies too. He led the twenty-four other Seven Pillar Commandos. I recognized the gear.
I surveyed the next four ~ I'd get to the girl last. Two were a bald, senior-junior member team of Gong tau necromancers. The younger guy looks like he was happy to be past the 'twisting the heads off heads of kittens' phase of his training and into the true, 'I get to help humans suffer and die' main program.
The older guy had far more extensive tattooing: much more than the junior member and more than the guy Saku had killed for me at Summer Camp. He looked at Aya and I as if we were nine year old virgins on a pedophile auction block. He was unhealthily happy to see us.
The last duo were fraternal twins. Without a doubt, Han Chinese. The woman was tall for a female of the type and as tall as her brother ~ 1.75 meters and slight-muscular builds (f 58/m 64kg). They had tight black bodysuits on, hip-holstered pistols and twin Jian swords on their backs. Both had their long black hair braided down to their belt loops.
Everyone looked down on Aya, both physically and socially. I earned a greater level of hostility from the commandoes ~ I'd turned some of their buddies into briquettes. I was a curious skin rash to the warlocks; an unexpected infection they meant to scrape off the flesh of their Pure Han world. The twins were intense and not my biggest fans.
Felix stepped up to the leader, who clearly looked as though he was dealing with a form of life even lower than me. I was loyal to my side, no matter how misguided. Felix was a traitor. He handed four objects to the guy: my Amazon honor blade, a clear baggie with one brownie and five fortune cookies, and two tiny objects – memory cards.
"What is this?" the male asked. His English was 'English', not 'American'.
"The chips from their phones and this is his 'Amazon' token. I believe it has some value to him," Felix explained. "The treats ~ he values them for no reason I know of, yet he is never without some."
"I did not ask for these, Traitor," the boy-twin sneered. Then he tried to punish Felix by stabbing him in the chest with a two-fingered strike. He was fast. Felix was an eye-blink faster and parried the blow. Felix took two steps back before setting his fighting stance. My co-worker was grinning evilly.
"If that's the best you got Chang, Chung, 'whichever frying pan noise you are'," Felix laughingly mocked him, "you had better keep Cáel's hands and feet bound, or he's going to escape and be coming back for me by day's end."
That bravado was a risky play on his part.
It would help the 7P's believe Felix was a cavalier savage overlaid with a thin veneer of civilization. Obsequious traitors would be the norm, thus easily to consider suspicious. Felix was playing the role of a revenge-oriented opportunist. He was making it easy to want to kill him, which no sane double-agent would do.
To prove my point, six commandoes pointed their QCW-05 Chinese Suppressed Submachine Gun his way.
"You are a poor judge of my tolerance, Rat," the man glared, "and remarkably incapable of accepting your miniscule worth."
"I know me and my partner delivered the man and Katrina's niece when you couldn't get close, Chuckie," Felix taunted him. "Was that the Dali Lama and the Great Khan chatting away this morning? With Cáel's fiancée sitting in the background?" he continued happily.
"Go," the man dismissed him. They waited until Felix mounted up on a motorcycle I hadn't seen before and departed before another word was spoken.
[Mandarin] "His time will come, Brother," the girl spoke up (girl as in a woman in her late 20's). "You will feed him each word – each insult." He looked her way. There was some true affection there. It wasn't incestuous, just familial respect and love. "Do you know what I am saying," she looked my way.
I kept looking at her because that was natural. They had my life in their hands, so observing the two people clearly in charge was logical. I didn't even indicate that I knew she was asking a question.
[Mandarin] "Kill the girl. She is no longer of any use to us," she said next.
This wasn't even a stress on my acting ability. Aya had multiple uses, so verbally threatening her as a lure was idiotic in the extreme. No one was moving to follow those orders, so I maintained my 'confused' face.
"My Sister wished to know if you speak Mandarin," the brother translated for me.
"Hi, I'm Cáel," I greeted him. "Who are you guys?" He looked to one of the two goons holding on to me. I received a painful kidney punch. I discovered a whole new super-power. It hurt for about two seconds then nothing.
"I asked you a question," he repeated.
"No, I don't speak Mandarin," I lied so well it came across as a dour confession.
"Yet you know the secretive language of the Earth & Sky," he stated.
"Yes, I do. I have a thing for dead languages. Maybe in a few more years, I'll pick up your Mother Tongue as well," I bantered.
No punishment was immediately meted out, so I suspected no one close to me, besides him, spoke much if any English. Jian Bob (my new name for him) didn't relay my insult. I wasn't worth it. He went straight for the reason for our get-together.
"You are going to die, Mr. Nyilas. That is a given," JB began.
"We both know you have done enough damage to our cause to be worthy of elimination a hundred times over. I'm going to show you respect by not lying to you about your possible fate. What you can do is save your young companion. We understand you two are close," he appealed in a very polite manner. Aya snickered.
"Cáel, these people are mentally challenged," she giggled to me, "or hideously misinformed."
"I know, I know," I smiled down at Aya. "Still, they have gone through a great deal of effort to insult our intellect today, so let's humor them a little longer." Jian Bob issued several casual orders.
In short order, a third man had hold of me by the jaw with one hand while trying to hold my eyelids open with the other. One guard held her by the shoulders. A second held her right hand, extending her ring finger. A third man held a knife to her top knuckle. A forth stood close with a small blowtorch.
"She may be a small person, Mr. Nyilas, but she can still die by the Death of a Thousand cuts," he explained.
"I love you, Aya," I told her softly.
"I love you too, Fehér mén," she succeeding in keeping most of the fear from her voice.
Neither one of us could stop this. Aya certainly didn't expect me to compromise the Host for her benefit. She was as much an Amazon as the first Epona.
"First, I wish to know what alerted you to the attack at the Summer Camp," Bob began the interrogation.
"We know you were responsible. We want to know what happened." I looked into his eyes and waited patiently. He nodded to the guard, who shoved my face toward Aya's extended finger until I was less than a foot away.
[Mandarin] "Do it."
The guard cut the top part of the digit off – one knuckle. I looked at the flesh and bone being cut away. In a clinical manner, I noted how sharp the blade was. I saw the blood shoot forth and heard Aya's little voice cry out in pain. I was pulled back and pointed at Jian Bob again.
"Do I need to repeat the question for you?" he said.
"No, I caught it the first time," I grimaced. "It tells me that you haven't the slightest idea who you are fucking with." Bob made a slight hand gesture and the blowtorch cauterized Aya's stump. Her little lungs belted out a terrible screech that wound down as her feet gave out and she hung limply in the guard's grip.
[Mandarin] "Revive her." The blowtorch guy, clearly not his first day on the job, snapped some smelling salts under her noise. Aya revived, sobbing and in a great deal of pain.
"Cáel," she whimpered. "I have found my stillness. I'll be okay now." Her sobs subsided.
"Shall we try this again?" JB remained coolly polite, almost urbane.
"Nah," I joked, "we are both pretty good over here."
[Mandarin] "Again." Off went another digit of her ring finger. This time her scream was much more exuberant and forceful. We all know it hurt like Hell, but the world had turned.
"He's going to kill all of you," Aya snickered while she sobbed. "You are all going to die."
[Mandarin] "Mu, what is the little girl saying?" she asked Jian Bob – real name Mu.
[Mandarin] "She is stating her belief that Cáel will somehow kill us all," he and his sister shared the joke.
[Mandarin] "Let us see what her tune is when they start in on her left hand," the woman smiled at her sibling.
That implied they'd cut off her right thumb and fingers, digit by digit, until one, or both of us cracked. The man nodded and Aya's nub was burned again. Her scream was more of a cleansing shout.
"Cáel, do you think I will have a nice horse to ride when I join Epona's herds, or will I get a pony?" Aya whimpered.
"Not a clue," I began before Mu had the face-hugging guard apply a finger strike to my solar plexus. Alal's gift had allowed me to partially organize my brain functions. Coping with pain was a whole lot easier now, but I had to be careful to monitor it because pain was Nature's way of letting you know that there was something wrong with your body.
"What color would you like me to pick up and have waiting for you," punch, "when you finally take yourself to the cliffs?"
[Mandarin] "Again."
[Mandarin] "This is accomplishing nothing," the senior bald Mo-Fo grumbled. "He clearly cares nothing for the child and has been trained in counter-interrogation techniques."
[Mandarin] "There is nothing to indicate that," Mu bristled.
[Mandarin] "Xiàshì (下士), burn the tip of his left forefinger," senior necromancer commanded. The guy holding my face coordinated with the men holding my arms to free me of my bonds and wrestle my left arm forward. I didn't bother resisting.
It didn't take the commandoes long to figure I had stopped caring. On came the flame and the pain. Oh, I screamed. The pain was real. What had changed was my ability to shuffle it off to an isolated memory file to be tackled later. The bald creep stepped into my field of vision. His eyes were windows to the abyss. My "spirit" sight opened my eyes to the truly inhuman sections of his mind and soul.
[Mandarin] "See, normal techniques will not be affective. We will do it ..." and they realized the enormity of their mistake by assuming I was paralyzed by the pain. I broke free of the guy on my left and began twisting around the guy on my right. I wasn't getting away, I was going for his QCW-05. I knew their favorite martial arts styles and their weaponry now.
The guy I was rolling behind realized what I was doing (going for his gun), but mistook my intentions. I wasn't trying to get away, or steal the gun (still strapped to his body). That dickhead even helped me out by lurching ground-ward. I swung the gun up, hit the selector and fired two quick bursts.
The first three rounds hit Mr. Blowtorch in his right thigh, shredding it. The second burst caught Mr. Knife guy in the crotch – a triple 5.8 X 21mm castration. Had Blowtorch Guy not been busy trying to keep the strands of his right hip connected to his right leg, he could have stopped the blood fountaining from his buddies shattered groin. That was the end of my joy.
I was born to the ground and the guy whose gun I'd borrowed pulled away. I hit the concrete surface hard. That was only the beginning of my issues. Radiating from the floor was cold beyond cold. I had the sensation of falling into the heart of a cold, dead star. How I even knew what the felt like was an impossibility.
[Mandarin] "He feels very cold," protest one of the two guards pulling me back to my feet groused.
[Mandarin] "If your incompetence has led to his terminal condition," the male twin threatened. I felt the approach of the female twin – her reaching for me. A new intense pain seared me to the cores of my bones. Before she yanked my hair up, my body reignited.
I found myself stared into her pitiless eyes that regarded me with the casual callousness of a veterinarian preparing to put down some rabid stray dog. She ran three fingers over my cheek.
[Mandarin] "What are you babbling about?" she snapped at the two commandoes. "If anything, he is feverish."
[Mandarin] "Zhen, have him sedated," Chief Necromancer demanded. "Mu, now we will do this my way." Once more I was bound. Someone stabbed a needle into my right triceps. That was a mere discomfort. If I had any consolation, it was hearing Mu ordering the execution of the two men I'd shot.
They didn't have the time and facilities to tend to their immediate emergency needs and taking them to a trauma center wasn't going to happen. Those two went into body bags. I had to assume they would be joining us on the plane, though they'd be in the cargo compartment.
[Mandarin] "What are you smiling at?" I heard Zhen snapping before my world collapsed down to a pinhole of light.
"Lady, I don't know what you said," Aya declared happily. "You are probably angry that Cáel has already killed two of you and we haven't even got off the ground yet." I heard a sound I couldn't make out followed by another and finally a third. That resulted in an Aya-squeak. Ah, she'd tried to hit Aya and Aya had dodged the first two blows. Good girl.
"Cáel isn't going to like you doing that," Aya chirped.
"Aya's a winner," I mumbled. I wasn't in control of my senses when they dragged me onto a waiting jet. I wasn't worried. With Aya at my side, I was invincible.
{Dreaming}
I looked at her face, so youthful, beautiful in her own way, yet far from innocent. She bore a terrible weight. The armor she was wearing – that of a heavy horseman of the steppe, was a leather coat, chain links over her vulnerable regions (throat, underarms and skirt), with the rest being covered by darkened bronze plates.
Her iron helmet was open-faced with mobile plates covering her cheeks as well as the sides and the back of her neck; it bore a white horse-hair plume – it was the only feature of her panoply that would draw any special attention her way. She carried no shield. Instead, she wielded a powerful horn & sinew composite recurve bow. She used her knees to rise up on her mount and fire over the mare's head.
Similarly attired women rode close to either side of this young woman. Both were older; one in her early forties and the other ~ late thirties. The one to the left bore a lance, not in the couched fashion most people today are familiar with, but used in a double-handed over-head fighting style.
The woman to the right fought with a strange blade. It wasn't saber ~ an ancestor of that blade perhaps. It was about a meter long, no hand guard, single-edged except for the top 4 cm on the back side which was equally sharp. Her left hand remained free. I think I saw her purpose. If the young woman got into difficulty, her guardian on the right could pull her horse away and lead the woman to safety.
Behind and beside those three rode perhaps three hundred of their sisters. Those in the center were as heavily armored as those three. On each flank were the lighter, faster bow-women, on smaller steeds. The women in the center rode larger mounts that were good for carrying weight and pushing home a charge, while the flanking steppe ponies were virtually tireless.
In the center, identified only by her long golden-mane helm, was the Golden Mare ~ War Leader of the Host. The Amazons didn't fly pennants or carry banners. They judged the course of battle by that woman's head movements (the mane was quite long) and the shrill horn blasts unique to the Amazons.
Let the barbarians have the all too common deep booming horns calls and their totems raised high for the world to see. Let the Romans keep their trumpets and Legion standards. Amazons had been putting those fools in their graves from time immemorial. Right now, those horns had summoned the Host to a trot.
The Hun, Attila, had tasked the Sarmatian Chieftain, under whose banner they rode, to deal with another crisis – the third this short day. Once more, they directed their horses over Catalaunian Fields. The Ostrogoth had gotten themselves into a world of trouble, those filthy, stinking Germans (why was I even thinking that way?)
First the Amazons had ridden forth on Attila's right, reinforcing the allied Germanic tribes on the Right Wing in their attempt to force a wedge between Aetius' Romans and King Sangiban's Alans. They'd shown the fools the way, but the supporting Gepids cavalry was too timid and by the time they began to approach, the Golden Mare had been forced to sound 'retire'.
The Roman auxiliary cavalry, though of poor quality, had plugged the gap. The Host were too few and too valuable (in their estimation) to die holding a position that their 'allies' might not rescue them from. Next, they had been directed to attack the center of the Alan cavalry line in support of the Huns.
Despite the cowardice of their king, the Alans were hardy fighters and too accustomed to the style of steppe warfare that the Host practiced to be lured away from their position. Arrows were exchanged and brief, brutal skirmishes developed, but no advantage was gained. With their mounts exhausted, the Golden Mare had ordered the Host to retired to their camp to water their horses and refill their quivers.
That bit of common sense and tactical wisdom placed them in their present crisis. Their Ostrogoth allies had been beating themselves against their Visigoth cousins all afternoon, charging up the same cursed slope that any sane commander would have found a way to flank. No, the Germans had failed seven times using the same plan, so they tried an eighth.
Miraculously, they had gained a toehold on the ridgeline and killed the Visigothic King. Like a mob of mindless farmers, the Ostrogoths stopped to celebrate their 'victory' and taunt the Visigoths with the mutilated body of their fallen leader. The Visigoths had been properly incensed and counter-attacked. That's what Princes were for – to avenge their fallen Sires.
As the Host exited the Hunnic laager, they'd seen the calamity unfold. The wavering Visigoth infantry had stiffened their line. Believing the Ostrogoths would press forward, the Horse-tail banner of Attila himself broke away from the central Hunnic body, pivoted to his left and thundered into the Visigoth's exposed flank.
In the din of battle, it may have looked to the Great Warlord that he had a vanishing opportunity for victory. From the valley below, it was much clearer to the Amazons that the moment to break the Visigothic infantry had passed. The Huns were too tired; their mounts frothing from a long, hot afternoon of battle. Without a swift follow-through, the attack was doomed.
At that point, headlong flight for the Amazons wasn't possible. Their long term survival hung on the Hunnic King keeping his Germanic 'allies' in line. They were still somewhere in eastern Roman Gaul, with the Rhine to ford and a land thick with perpetually vicious, blood-thirsty, crotch-scratching, flea-bitten Germanic barbarians to cross before they saw the green rolling hills of home again.
No, the Golden Mare, and that young lady knew they had to do something to stem the tide of this disaster for another hour, then darkness would force the combatants to separate so they could try their hand at battle the next day. As the Golden Mare rode to the Sarmatian Chieftain, a rider came through the dust from Attila. The Visigothic cavalry had returned with a vengeance and the Ostrogoths were folding up.
The Sarmatians (with their attached Amazons) were to 'somehow' repair the situation. As the Chieftain, the Golden Mare and three Sarmatian tribal leaders hastily discussed the actions. They saw the Hunnic Right, under hard pressure from the Roman attack, beginning to disintegrate. Of immediate concern was the rift opening up between the retreating Hunnic Gepids and the Hunnic horsemen holding the center.
King Sangiban had finally discovered his manhood. The Alans attacked through that gap in the Hunnic lines and a rout was in the offing. The Sarmatian Leader decided he had to answer Attila's call. The Golden Mare offered to take her Amazons and whichever tribal leader volunteered first to ride with her against the Alans.
She drew her sword and held it aloft then motioned the Sarmatians to look at her shadow.
"We will hold them off until the length of our swords double (the shadow). Then we are all on our own," she offered. There was no further discussion necessary. There was nothing else to say. The Host and their allies had the fresher horses and full quivers.
The Alans had numbers but no heavy horse present – yet. The Host had answered Attila's call to war and now, nearly a year away from their homes in the forested steppe lands of modern-day Bukovina. At that moment they were wondering how few of them would ever see their horse herds roaming free this side of life.
That was where my vision came in ~ that woman was 'Ishara', the last of my major bloodline of the first Ishara and this was the last hour of her life. The other two women were the only other two members of that vanishing bloodline. One was her aunt and the other a cousin. Despite the dire peril to their lineage, they joined their sisters in battle.
Even though they were outnumber 2:1, the Amazons swept aside the first burst of Alans, scattering their bands and hunting the slowest of them down. Rushing alone to fill the gaping hole in the main battle lines was to abandon all tactical sense. Eighty Amazon heavy horse and perhaps twenty more Sarmatians ~ they were integrated now ~ alone simply weren't enough.
For the roughly 300 lightly armored horse-archers, it would be a pointless suicide and that was not the Amazon way. Instead, they scattered the initial Alan rush then gently trotted back down the slope. Of course, the Alans regrouped and followed. It was the battle pulse of steppe skirmishing.
By simply existing, they turned the rushing wave of that first Alan charge into a slowly strengthening tide. The Alans' mounts were tired and in need of water. Their quivers were nearly empty and some were seen at the top of the slope looting the quivers of the fallen. Whenever they could, the Amazons killed those clever souls.
Killing an archer closer to you who only had two arrows left wasn't as economical as killing the one who was both dismounted, thus an easier shot, and about to have fifteen bolts to use against you. Without the constant harassment, the Gepids were able to keep their retreat orderly. In turn, the other Germanics farther to the right kept their mobs relatively intact as well.
Their success earned them the inevitable enemy reaction. From his vantage point, the Roman Aetius saw the vulnerable and unsupported position the Amazons held. If he could push past the Amazon screen, he could still achieve a route instead of accepting a mere victory for his side. The solution was a force of over two hundred Roman Heavy Horse – many of them Sarmatians in Roman service. The troops may have been Sarmatians, but their commander wasn't.
Pro forma, when the larger Roman force advanced downslope, the Amazons obliged them by slowly zigzagging down slope away from them. To a warrior born to the steppe, the Amazons weren't running away, they were simply increasing the numbers of arrows they could fire before the final contest of arms began.
The Roman commander sounded the 'full advance' and obediently, his men rolled forward. The Golden Mare looked to the last Isharan and smiled. Surely the Seven Martial Goddesses (one of which was Ishara) had given them a great gift ... a stupid enemy. The Amazon light cavalry scattered to the flanks. The heavies bunched up tightly and went to a trot while still moving away.
By that time, they were on the flat, somewhat muddy floodplain and the Romans kept coming ... right along the stretch of ground the Amazons had been churning into mud with their own mounts. Belatedly, the Alan horse-archers realized the catastrophe the Romans were riding into but they hadn't the discipline to form up fast enough to do much good.
When the Romans had cut the distance between them and their targets in half, their commander realized that the Amazon heavies had bows and his men didn't. At that point, had he finally realized he was in trouble, there wasn't much he could do to save most of his men. He ordered the charge – full gallop. When the distance close to around twenty yards, the Amazon heavies broke into thirds.
Two groups kept retreating straight away, toward the Hunnic camp. The third broke off to the left at a 45% angle from the other two. The Romans kept their discipline. The commander was able to dispatch 70 of his men to chase down the third group. If this secondary Roman group noticed that when they left the already well-trodden muddy ground they picked up their speed ... there wasn't much they could have done about that as well.
As the distance closed down to those last ten yards, the first group turned rapidly, formed into a tight V-shaped formation and counter-charged into the main mass of Romans. They didn't have much time to build up momentum. They didn't care. In fact they wanted to keep their tight wedge. 130 tired Romans steeds collided with roughly 30 Amazons, my ancestor included.
The Roman Commander found that his men hadn't impacted Amazons hard enough to shatter them. His men surrounded their enemy quickly, but their preponderance of men profited them little. It was of great use to the Amazon and Sarmatians horse-archers now swarming in from all direction.
The Roman charge had ground to a halt and they made excellent targets with little fear of hitting the Amazon trapped in the middle. The second Roman group had something similar thing happen. The group of 35 they were chasing turned to face them. This group, though, formed up in a line, clearly intending to absorb the attention of as many of the Roman attackers as possible.
Charge met counter-charge. The fighting become confused with both sides losing some of their cohesion. The Romans were going to win this uneven struggle, given enough time. Less than two minutes after the first clash of arms, the 'missing third' of the Amazon/Sarmatian heavy cavalry slammed unimpeded into the second Roman group's rear, doing what Heavy Cavalry did best – running over things.
The second Roman group shattered on impact. Those small groups that recoiled from that initial shock began running upslope mistakenly thinking they were being allowed to escape. When they saw the enemies forming up and heading the other way – to the main body of Romans, they had cause to hope. Only when the Amazon horse-archers closed in on those survivors did they realized how wrong they were.
One Armored Roman was more than a match for any one, or two horse-archers, but FIVE? Due to the actions of a double handful of brave Alans, a few Romans managed to stagger back to the top of the slope that so many had advanced from less than 30 minutes earlier. For the main Roman body, there were no happy endings. The Roman Commander wasn't some Germanic hero. He was an officer and tactician.
He realized that the horse-archers were whittling away on his men on the outside faster than his men on the inside were crushing the group he'd 'trapped'. From his point of view, he'd accomplished his mission – driving the 'Hunnish forces' off the slope. He was wrong to believe that. He hadn't 'driven off' anyone.
Even as the Roman call to 'Rally' sounded, the victors of the 'secondary' fight rolled into his men. Within thirty seconds, the Roman rank and file realized they'd lost this particular fight and began to break off in the only direction left open to them – moving diagonally between the retreating Hunnic and Ostrogothic forces and the Hunnic laager.
Those roughly 50 men had to run a gauntlet of 25,000 enemies to make their exit from battlefield's farthest point. The Amazons didn't keep track of them. They reformed their ranks, tended their wounded and gathered their dead. After dark, they would return to those piles to give their sisters a proper burial. Currently they had to return upslope to continue screening their allies from the Alans as the Germans fell back.
The Golden Mare held up her sword to the Dying Light and judged her women had performed their duties long enough. The shrill horns unique to the Amazons sounded 'retire'. My ancestor, proud that she'd fought well in her first battle with all three of the housemates surviving, turned to tell her aunt something. The arrow from an Alan bow pierced her chainmail coif and slashed through her throat.
She spit out a gout of blood. Her aunt grabbed her niece's reins while calling out to her other kinswoman. They hurried her to the rear until she was sheltered by the mass of horsewomen. A warrior, more skilled in the healing arts than most, rushed to her side. My ancestor was still conscious, though she could not speak. The look on the new woman's face said it all.
As her mind slipped into darkness, she felt herself falling. Was she falling out of the arms of her guardians, off the back of her favorite mare, down to the trampled muddy earth? Or was she falling into the arms of her ancestors, the last of her line? As she passed from this world into the next, she heard the whispering of her Goddess ~ 'this is not over and you have not died in vain'.
(Three Goddesses Bad)
The medically induced fog was being dissipated by something foul smelling being waved in front of my nose. My muscles ached from me sleeping in an uncomfortable position for far too much time.
"Aaahhh ... I croaked. My throat was parched. "What the ...?"
[Mandarin] "He is waking up."
[Mandarin] "You three leave us," one of the necromancers spoke. "You, go get cleaning supplies and return in 30 minutes. You – stay by the door."
I opened my dry eyes to take in the scene.
I remained a certifiable threat. Out of the corner of my eyes (I couldn't move my head), two commandos were leaving out one door along with some guy in a pseudo-uniform who first bowed, then left with them. One guy in another pseudo-uniform bowed and was heading out the other door. The last man, the one told to stay, was the commando remaining on guard by the door the first three exited.
As for me ... I was stripped naked, spread-eagle on an onyx table. It was man-shaped with its greatest dimension being close to 3 meters. I've fucked women on a variety of stone objects. (Volcanic rock has its own textures.) My ankles and wrists were held in place by metal shackles. My head, quite literally, was in a vice. The only restraints I could see were on my ankles.
No Torquemada chains for these guys. They'd shelled out for the very best – some sort of a magnetic job with a handy dandy green light that informed me I was screwed.
"Where is Aya?" I croaked.
[Some funky Sino-style language I didn't know I knew] "Beginning marking his head."
The junior Gong tau priest began to draw something on my forehead. I flexed, accomplishing nothing.
"WHERE IS AYA!" I screamed. The senior Necromancer who had done all the talking until now, looked to the remaining commando.
[Mandarin] "What is the stinky barbarian saying?" he asked the guard.
[Mandarin] "He is inquiring the location of the child he was captured with," the man translated. Shit-head Honcho didn't speak English, didn't know I spoke Mandarin (or his sorcerous tongue), so believed there to be a language barrier which might be a problem if they interrogated me.
The twins were nowhere in sight and only the brother had spoken English before. My 'where' was a source of curiosity to me. I felt a slight, continuous tremor coming through the table. The space was slightly curved inward toward the top. The room was shrouded in black silk hangings. Then the whole room shuddered. We were still on an airborne aircraft.
Well – fiddle sticks ... I was still a bit dopey. Pamela wasn't likely to be busting in to save me anytime soon. I was on my own. How long had I been out anyway? No chronometers were visible.
[Mandarin] "Ha (the guy's name)," the scumbag laughed. "Tell him the child – his Aya – will be trained in the arts of a concubine, serving the lusts of my temple for many years."
Dick-cheese guard translated. I grew introspective. Apparently this lack of response irritated the current lead bad-guy.
[Mandarin] "Since he has not bothered to take her virginity, I will," the necromancer grinned like an eel ... if eels could grin, "once you are my slave." The guard translated. He got creative too.
"Once the Honorable Tsu (Chief Sleaze-Douche's name) has taken her flower, myself and another will take her other holes," the guard added. An angry retort was pointless and would only make feel them powerful. Pleading was even more useless.
"With the 'itty bitty' size of your erect penises, I'm not worried about her or any of her 'blossoms' being un-blossomed," I relaxed. Aya was alive and not 'deflowered'. They really should have killed her. Now there were two Amazons on the plane. They didn't understand that Amazons trained to fight all their battles outnumbered. Idiots.
I had Aya and she had me. These bastards were doomed. Exactly how they were 'doomed' I hadn't figured out yet. The guard said nothing for several seconds.
[Mandarin] "What did he say?" Tsu asked. The guard told him. Tsu didn't like that. He held out his horrific looking fang-like blade for me to see then dragged the tip along my erect cock.
[Mandarin] "Tell him if my Scepter of Manhood is not enough, I will animate his and use it on her instead."
My, that was rude. Any man who refers to his pecker as a 'Scepter of Manhood' had serious a serious size-phobia going on.
My cock was unimpressed, remaining tall, full, loud and proud. The commando translated while attempting to remain utterly emotionless.
"Oh ... let me think ... how long is this ritual going to take?" I inquired. Translated.
[Mandarin] "Tell him it will last the rest of his life," Tsu sneered. Translated.
"Cool," I chuckled. "Do you have a phone?" The commando mulled that over.
"Who could you possibly call, Dog?" he glared.
"No," snorted. "You've got me all wrong."
"I want you to call your mother and let her know you won't make it home – ever again. I'm going to end all your lives," I promised.
That finally earned me a sliver of emotion from the guy – anger.
[Mandarin] "He brags the he will kill us," the guard told his master.
That wasn't what I said! I said I'd 'end' them. Like most great potentates, I had others do my killing for me.
[Mandarin] "Better men have tried," Tsu scoffed. "They have all fallen before our Mandate in the end. Even in death, this one will serve us."
Wow, flashback to the Witch-King of Angmar.
'All the killers I have in mind are women, you misogynist freak'.
The goo on my forehead began to get irritating – alternating rapidly between hot and cold. Tsu began doing the same thing on my thighs.
His mixture of designs and Chinese characters was only partially visible to me. His buddy was working down my cheeks then onto my neck. They met at the bottom of my ribcage. Half were whole 'unspeakable' runes and blasphemous prayers to 'entities' whose names were the fantasy handles of every 14-year old geek overdosed on sugar and caffeine, deluding himself into thinking that hacking Mario Cart made him the next Cyber-Enigma.
The others; they were mapping me out like a side of beef. My skin felt electric. The duo began chanting. The nameless guy on top pressed the tip of his blade against my widow's peak (as much as I had one). Tsu pressed his point against my inner thigh. Beyond the painful scalping I was about to endure, he was going to start bleeding me out. This definitely wasn't torture.
They had promised to cut my soul out of my body and rip all of my secrets from my dead flesh. A piece of etiquette unknown to me until that moment reared its ugly head.
'Cáel,' Dot Ishara whispered. 'Swallow your tongue.' My first thought was 'Ishara shouldn't be expending so much of her energy trying to push herself through the Weave' then it occurred to me these dumbasses were doing all the heavily lifting for her.
They were parting the Veil and severing the Weave with their necromantic incantations and symbolism. I swallowed my damn tongue, or I truly tried to. I was choking alright. Just in time, Tsu began applying the cutting edge to my inner thigh. I felt that horrible chill that had every hair on my body standing tall.
A divine warning in Sumerian telling the Gong tau priest to stop what he issued forth from my mouth sans any air to let it be heard. Two small lines: 'This one is inviolate. Stop right now'.
No reaction from the necromancers. My lips formed a second warning, 'You have been called forth and warned. Cease at once.' I think ole Tsu began sensing something wasn't right, so whomever was moving my lips rattled off the third and final warning as quick as she could.
'One sliver of flesh, one drop of blood, one tear of sorrow and I will have my revenge'. It was something beyond my unintelligible gaks that alerted Tsu he was about to be boned. His assistant wasn't all that much in tune with the mojo. His blade sunk into my forehead maybe a centimeter.
[Mandarin] "STOP! Tsu screamed at the man. Too late. I felt a drop of blood ooze forth from the wound. It was 'SO ON!'
That point of etiquette? When a spirit owns, or possesses someone and it comes across a power, or a minion of a power ~ like Gong tau practitioners who work with demons ~ the possessing entity was required to give fair warning.
It wasn't Sarrat Irkalli, Sumerian Goddess of the Netherworld's fault that I'd swallowed my tongue (I'd done it on Ishara's orders and was hers to command) so that my word of caution were rendered soundless.
She'd met all that was required before an epic ass-whooping was going to be handed down, you know, the 'Old Testament, Wrath of God' kind of shit. Remember how I felt that the Gong tau adherents were doing something wrong? I was right. They were. This wasn't a 'slap on the wrist', or even '15 years in an Angolan prison where your nickname was Sweet Meat' as the necessary atonement either.
This whole room howled out its violation of the Weave. It was unnatural in a supernatural kind of way ... if that made sense? Magic was bad for a reason. Even though magic existed, the Universe still operated on Scientific Principles; things like conservation of mass and thermodynamics. Creating, or removing mass in Reality bashed the stability of the Universe over its head.
The same went for energy. If you threw lighting you were pulling electrons through the Weave, weakening it. Whatever they did in our reality, they accomplished by stealing from the legends and echoes of the past and all the potentials from the future. That was why Gods could appear so tough – they were devouring random possible futures.
Stealing souls was much, much worse; it stole parts of the present (the living souls) and pushed them to the other side of the Weave, where they didn't belong yet. Those stolen souls allowed entities on the wrong side of the Weave to tap into that 'real' power in our world without immediate repercussions (the bad karma).
It was short term power that put the long-term survival of the Weave in danger. The energy of that soul was supposed to power the Weave, but it wasn't doing that anymore. Tsu was about to be way overdrawn with some nasty-ass fuckers whose runes he'd scrawled on my flesh. Whoops. He'd promised them something that was someone else's property. In this instance – it was the Cáel soul shard triplet of the Alal-Baraqu-Cáel trio.
It belonged to Sarrat Irkalli and I had the feeling ever since she, Dot Ishara and SzélAnya had leapt inside my back in the warehouse, they'd been waiting to come out and play. I was Dot's House Head. I had made a pledge in SzélAnya's name before the Amazon Council, making her a candidate to rejoin the Host's Goddess and to use the Amazons to protect her mortal offspring from whomever was hunting them to extinction.
'Yours Truly' being in mortal peril (yet again) was as good a chance as any for SzélAnya to lay down the required miracle-working on the Amazons' behalf to advance her house down the road to acceptance. It was SzélAnya, daughter of the Cosmic Dragon, who's shared parental memories had enlightened me so I 'knew' what the heart of a dead star felt like. Through her sire, she shared his Legend. I felt so cold all over again.
In a non-Cáel encounter, Tsu had three normal safe-guards to keep himself alive.
I) Set up wards dedicated to his demonic Allies/Masters. He had created them – this room – but he'd put me INSIDE them to perform his soul-stealing ritual. Hadn't any of these bozos heard of the Trojan Horse? We were talking about the freaking Amazons here. The Iliad was our primer for why we'd had an undying hatred for all things Hellas going on for the past three thousand years.
II) He could have prayed for the Pacts (in which he pledged his soul to the Demon Kings) would ward him in the same way Sarrat Irkalli's actions 5000 years ago safeguarded me. This could only be voided if he refused to obey the three required warnings. Except Sarrat Irkalli had warned him the required three times, and he'd missed it.
Unless the Demon Kings wanted to have an occult showdown with around three dozen pantheons full of deities in an airplane in mid-flight, they wouldn't respond. Their idiot minion had violated the terms of his warranty. His were not the kind of Bosses who followed the 'spirit' of the agreement over the precise wording.
III) The Last Chance? The Goddesses had established a nexus point piercing the Weave locked inside my body and only a ritual wound unlock it. Don't bleed me and the damn spiritual door couldn't open. As long as he could keep the three goddess on their side of the Weave, he could fight them through their proxy – me. His buddy, by drawing blood, had initiated the soul-stealing ritual. The door was opened and the Goddesses stepped through.
Two final notes : Don't fuck with the Weave. IT will get you. Also, all that bad karma that normally stops Divinities from interfering? Well, all that bad karma was still accumulating ... for the side that had started the fight = the Demon Kings. Oh, when/if Tsu ever got back to his Masters ~ them being displeased would only be compounded by them being called Demon Kings.
Round One
Sarrat Irkalli : Since I could actually see spirits, I saw her spring forth from my body, looking like a Harry Potter Dementor on Slimfast. Seriously man, the chick needed to hit an 'All you can Eat' buffet, chomping down on a heaping helping of ... of something. She was all skin and bones. I'm not saying I wouldn't do her ... but I have abysmally low standards.
SzélAnya : She went down through the floor transforming from woman into dragon, still spiritual invisible to almost all. The two other people onboard who could see her were otherwise occupied. Before she left, my bonds' green lights turned red as they flipped open. The sole commando guardian was on the ball and went for his pistol. Whoops again. That was made of metal. A lightning bolt arched out of my chest and played Old Sparky on him for about thirty seconds. Ugh ... burnt pork.
Dot Ishara : She decided to sit this round out. The other two seemed to have my salvation well in hand.
Round Two
Sarrat Irkalli : I'll tell Alal he can go plug his dick into one of those turbines inside Hoover Dam if he ever asks me to help him get revenge on this Monster. I am NEVER going to piss this Bitch off (and Thank You Dot Ishara for making it so those two couldn't read my mind either). Tsu was ... immediately exsanguinated which is an unimaginative way of saying she forced every bit of blood in his body out of every orifice and pore.
I think he was alive for several seconds after that ... not that he's really dead even now. More on that later. The second necromancer started to scream which clued me into this whole space being sound-proofed.
Dot Ishara : 'Let her have her fun,' she whispered to my resurgent spirit.
"No shit," I mumbled. Since she was an intelligent & capable divinity and knew I wasn't stupid ... no wait, it wasn't that her pussy itching. She couldn't read my mind and it was making her overly protective. "What did SzélAnya tell you about me?"
Round Three
Sarrat Irkalli : The sole survivor, being gripped by boundless, and totally justified, fear that he'd backed the wrong side all his life (or so I hoped), retreated to the far cabin wall. I was sitting up, so I got the full splendor of Sarrat Irkalli coagulating Tsu's blood into some horrific crimson, liquid doppelganger of her true shape. I looked away and found myself staring into his terrified eyes.
[Mandarin] "You are on your own, Buddy," I addressed him. Yes, here at the end of his existence, I was letting him in on the fact that I did know his language and knew every evil thing he and his cohorts had said when they assumed I was both powerless and ignorant.
SzélAnya : The plane bucked abruptly. A peel of thunder vibrated the whole craft. When my feet swung off the slab small arches of electricity beat my feet to the floor. Great. More than one girl had jokingly called me the 'Energizer Bunny' ... and here I was, a lighting jar. Close enough.
Dot Ishara : 'That was uncalled for and mean. Still, I accept the fact that we have used you as a lure to kill them and steal their souls.' Oh yeah. I should have realized that in one fell swoop, Sarrat Irkalli could gather up the soul, shade and essence of a major Gong tau necromancer without violating the shaky agreements that kept those factions on their side of the Weave.
That was pretty much it. Oh, the unnamed Gong tau mook went down screaming. His fists splashed through her liquid body while the talons she formed tore chunks off his body. It took about forty-five seconds for Sarrat Irkalli to finish a fight that should have taken five. Oh, she wasn't done with him – OH NO! She motioned me off the table. I rapidly complied.
She dragged his corpse onto the slab, taking my place. When she did so, I noticed three things. Tsu's, his henchman's and bodyguard's souls were all trapped in this room with us. None of them had SzélAnya' power to penetrate the wards – from the inside. The commando's ghost was slowly sitting up, clearly confused with his new state. Not Tsu though.
His specter flitted around the room, desperately trying to find a pinprick in his wards and failing. The henchmen's soul was still cowering over the place where his body had died. Sarrat Irkalli began her own ancient Sumerian invocations. Within seconds, the henchman's ghost was screaming as the ritual dragged his essence back to his corpse.
The Netherworld Goddess began to 'compact' the body. With her hand on his chest, she was exerting gravitational pressures that were collapsing spirit, flesh, organs and bones into one 12 cm long carnivorous creature's incisor. I could still hear him screaming inside his prison. She picked up her handiwork.
I was busy gathering up stuff and taking what I could from the deceased commando because someone would be coming back soon. I realized that my finger was no longer chard. I mumbled a quick thanks to Dot Ishara for healing me. SI put a squishy hand on my right shoulder. I slipped out from under her grip and stood away from the corpse ... and its soul. Quick as lightning, she skewered the guy's phantom with her new dagger. The spirit wailed as it was sucked completely into the blade.
[Sumerian] "Hold this for me, mortal. Don't stab anyone with it because that will expend its power. To recharge it, I'll need another soul. Do I need to repeat myself?" SI enlightened me. I shook my head. She flipped the blade around so she held the curved blade and I had the hilt ~ which resembled the bleached root of an ancient Smilodon fang.
I gingerly received the blasphemous weapon. It's oily, foul texture was more psychosomatic than real. It didn't make it any less creepy. But it got worse.
[Sumerian] "I'm I going to need this?" I asked her. She'd already turned to her next task. Her blood flowed back into Tsu's body.
When she finished 'inflating' the corpse, she began chanting using his pale bluish lips. Tsu howled out his mind-numbing fear as he began being dragged back 'home'.
[Mandarin] "Help me!" he screamed. "I'll do anything you want. Break a ward. Any ward."
[Mandarin] "I find your lack of faith disturbing," was all that came to mind.
He looked both terrified and confused at the same time. Who didn't know that classic line from Star Wars, especially this ready-made minion of the Dark Side? I didn't have a chance to ask him as Sarrat Irkalli drew his soul back into his body as if she was some sleazy time-share saleswoman who had tricked him into a ten year lease on a condo overlooking scenic Porte au Prince, Haiti.
(A brief glimpse of why Weave of Fate is a good thing)
Of greater import to me was that I'd been handed a tool to cut the Weave of Fate and breach the barrier between the dimension as we knew them – the Current Land of the Living and the detritus, dreams, nightmares, and births not yet recorded in the Once Had Been and all the Might Yet Be's.
These were fractured, incomplete mirrored realities that existed parallel with our Earth. Realms of demons, divinities, spirits – Paradises and Hells – all intersected in the Weave. The Weave of Fate bound everything together in order to keep Oblivion at bay. Stars were born. From their inferno's cradle, planets came into being and failed or prospered, yet all would perish.
Either the Great Fires that birthed them would consume them when their Star surrendered to Death, or they survived the death of their parent only to die inside and crumble into nothingness. But presence of Life was never completely extinguished. It flickered here then there. Sometimes in many places and in more than one instance hung on by a slender promise not yet unborn.
Life had found a way. I had been stupid to see the Weave as being solely concerned with the fates of Terra, or Sol. We terrestrials were mere a cresting of the waves of Creation ~ a minor summit in an ocean that had a history so long forgotten even the Weave could not comprehend its origin.
Divinities ... they were not caretakers of the Weave. They husbanded, pampered, punished and marshalled the forces of sentiency. It was blind, deaf and dumb humanity who by the very pulse of our hearts and the firing of our synapses, repaired and revitalized the Weave.
With our faith in our existence, on our belief in Science and a Universe that made sense, we fed a construct we could not classify with the normal five senses. We would provide, until our last breathe as a species, the vitality it took for Life to spring up somewhere else and continue on when Sol gave one last explosive impulse to the Universe and consumed Terra ~ devouring her child in her death-throes.
At some later date, in a twisted bout of insanity, or a fevered dream, this new life would see me, my shadow, my legend. Sanity would return – the Veil would reassert itself – they would wake-up and the truth of the Weave would fade from their conscious minds ... for most of them. For those tiny few ... they would become magicians, prophets, messiahs and powers so dark they would bring nightmares to life.
(The Plan ... then the other plan ... then whatever works)
Speaking of nightmares, I was living one and I was seriously in the mood to share. My assets were formidable.
-Three dead bodies ~ one violently exsanguinated then reanimated / one ripped to pieces then turned into a dagger / one electrocuted which qualified him as the 'least-freaky' dead.
-The aforementioned person turned into a new horrific device of destruction
-The aforementioned animated corpse
-One QCW-05 Chinese Suppressed Submachine Gun [DCV05 5.8 X 21mm subsonic round – 50 rnd. Mag.] (with 4 magazines)
-One QSW-06 Chinese Suppressed Pistol [DCV05 5.8 X 21mm subsonic round – 20 rnd. Mag.] (195mm/390mm with suppressor) (with 3 magazines)
-One regulation, single-bladed combat knife
-Miscellaneous bits of useful body armor
The make, model and especially the ammunition were important because normally, you didn't want to fire ANY firearm on plane. Those two Chinese death dealers were 'subsonic' rounds and I was about to gamble they couldn't punch through the plane's fuselage. Since I didn't want to die and was far more opposed to killing Aya while she had a chance left, I had to bet on that.
I had put on the Chinese commando's armored vest. He was a big Han, but that didn't equate to being as big as me. He also had tiny feet ~ a freaking 7 ½ ... what had he done? Cut off the feet of a midget and sown them on? Oh ...his package was rather insignificant. I wasn't going to put on his underwear and his pants didn't fit. I did put on his armored knee pads and forearm guards.
The clothing of both necromancers were no longer available so I ended up removing a black veil covering one of the windows and created an impromptu kilt; definitely not a man-skirt. I didn't care how Gaelic the Irish thought I was; I wasn't running into battle with my Family Jewels on display. The bastards I was going to kill had swords ... and guns.
My plan was very basic. Using a dash of surprise, I was going to sprint from my compartment over an unknown distance to the pilot's cabin and kill the Mo-Foes – the pilots that is. Why? I was betting somewhere in my plethora of Alal-induced skills was that of a pilot. Hopefully a jet pilot. When my life was imperiled, one of my funky brain patterns would reference the skill.
Then, as the only pilot left on the plane (I hoped), I could crash land this pig on some neutral location. Obstacle One: out of the window on the side I'd already exposed I saw nothing but water ... way, way down. I checked out the other side. Tons of the blue stuff.
I took the commando's watch. It was a fancy rig that covered a multitude of time zones. It still was set on New York time – 1:20 a.m. Wednesday. I hit 'reset'. Now it was 8:20 pm Tuesday. Considering I had been knocked out on Monday morning, this was so not good. Hmmm... it seemed to be almost ... the snazzy little toy had GPS. It happily reported that I was at 16.72N, 169.24W which put me ... OVER THE FUCKING PACIFIC OCEAN.
It had an altimeter setting. It was at 12.75 km ... I wanted to vomit. I calmed myself down. New plan ... just like the old plan. Nothing had really changed. I was going to crash land in the ocean. The Pacific Ocean. With a planeload of people who wanted to kill me. Well, planeload might be an exaggeration.
There was nothing to indicate to me the size of the plane except that it was a commercial passenger plane. Tsu sat up. The lack of any sustenance in the past ... 36 hours meant I didn't poop on myself.
[Sumerian] "Give me back my dagger," 'Tsu' extended 'his' hand.
'Say what, Bitch? It's mine now! Finders keepers, Losers weepers.' I returned her blade in the manner it was received – hilt toward her. I could see Tsu's soul trapped within his pupils.
"What does it do?" I inquired.
[Mandarin – haltingly at first] "It transfers energy cross the Weave." She was 'plucking' Tsu's mind.
That wasn't too helpful.
"What is the plan?" Not-Tsu asked me. That was even less encouraging.
"What was you three's idea for saving my life?" I requested.
'Render this aircraft's control systems inoperable, decompress the plane by blowing out all the available portals, whisk your body safely outside then deposit you on the closest landmass that promises further ... an inhabited island,' Dot Ishara answered from inside my head.
"What about Aya?"
"We are not here for Aya," Not-Tsu informed me.
"Well, that's not going to happen," I responded in the negative. "Saving Aya is Priority #1. So, what can you three do? And where is SzélAnya anyway?"
"She found a cyclone close by and is bringing it to us. Then she's going to harness its natural forces to fry the plane's avionics, communications and flight control systems," Not-Tsu reported with all the passion of a person recalling the number of brown crumbs on her plate after eating some toast.
"How many enemy are on board?"
"I take it you mean how many people are on this plane that are not Aya – Forty-seven," Ishara replied. "I can tell you where they are, but not what they do."
"Why not? You are a Goddess?"
"That would violate our policy of non-interference directly in mortal affairs," was her comeback.
"That policy isn't stopping SzélAnya," I reposed.
"She has been driven insane with loss, hopelessness and grief," Not-Tsu told me.
"You saved her," my Matron Goddess added. "If you let me back into your mind this could go much faster."
"No. I'll live within my self-imposed limitations. What can the two of you do for me ... and thank you, Sarrat Irkalli, for saving me while looking after your 'fucking with my family for your own goddess-damn reasons' personal agenda?
"I can guide you and heal your body," Dot Ishara stated.
"I can walk around in this mortal shell," Non-Tsu shrugged. "I can also access Tsu's memories and pretend to be him. I can fight using his native abilities as well." Eureka!
"Can you take a pistol, go to the cockpit and kill the pilots?"
"Yes."
"How much damage can ... Tsu take?"
"As long as the muscle and connective tissue is functioning, I can work the body. The level of physical trauma is otherwise irrelevant. This body cannot die," she let me know.
"Didn't you make the same mistake with Grandpa?" I suggested.
"It was not a mistake and this is different. Alal's physical form can quickly regenerate from any level of physical damage. This body doesn't do that. Until the last of the living matter perishes, this body will remain Tsu's tomb. It won't even enjoy the normal levels of human healing."
That's what I meant about Tsu not really being dead. I had to wonder when the last bits of DNA rotted inside bones and teeth.
To see if my plan had even a miniscule chance to work, I snatched up /tore the Velcro on one of the seat cushions. I buckled myself into the seat across the way, braced ... and fired into the opposite (exterior) wall. Pop! (The sound suppressor worked like gangbusters). Nothing. I could do this.
Then I heard the low hissing noise. New-new plan. Just like the old-new plan, but things had to be happen RIGHT NOW. The door opened and in came the 'mop and bucket' guy. I was still buckled in and the only one clearly visible since not-Tsu was still on the ground. His mouth opened and his lungs inflated. He was going to call for help.
I put a bullet into his chest, right of his sternum. He pitched backwards and his accoutrements went crashing behind him. I tossed not-Tsu the pistol.
"Go kill the pilots. I'll keep as many people occupied as I can," I hissed as I unbuckled myself. The bucket and cleaning supplies were falling down ... stairs?
[Mandarin] "Ho?" a voice called out from below. "Ho, don't screw around." I had a few seconds to master the situation. I had to open not-Tsu's door – break the wards – then race to the sound of the voice. "He's going to get his tongue ripped out, just like the last guy," I heard some woman bitch about the imagined fate of ole Ho.
As I leapt over his body, I realized that there was a narrow, spiral stairwell going down. I rushed to the bottom super-quick. The six people (four men and two women) I came across in what looked to be the plane's galley were stun-fucked to see me, that's for sure.
[Mandarin] "No sudden moves," I kept my voice calm yet lethal. "No one has die."
They all snuck peeks up the stairwell.
[Mandarin] "Ho won't be joining us for the rest of the flight," I scanned the room. No one had a gun, but two of them had nice ID badges. One said Senior Pilot and the other said Secondary Flight Engineer (aka Co-pilot). They also had a medical cabinet.
Well, they had kept me sedated for over thirty-six hours. They had to keep that somewhere.
[Mandarin] "Who handles the medicine here?" I asked. No takers.
[Mandarin] "Either someone is going to be honest, or I'm going to have to kill all six of you," I explained. No takers.
[Mandarin] "Last chance. You might want to consider that I'm down here which means the people upstairs were in no condition to stop me.
[Mandarin] "If we help you, they will kill us," the pilot weaseled. Didn't care. These people knew the kind of monsters they worked for. I shot that man in the heart. The rest jolted.
[Mandarin] "I killed him because I knew he wasn't the medical technician. I'm going to count down from 3 – 2 – 1" Pfttt! There went the co-pilot.
[Mandarin] "It is me!" the older of the two women exclaimed. "I'm the medical technician." The plane jolted, lurched then the engines began to race. That would be the pilot and co-pilot on duty dying.
[Mandarin] "Inject everyone with the drug they gave me and make it snappy," I barked. I heard mumbling in Mandarin and the sounds of feet hitting the floor from the 'rear'. "What's down there?" It seemed that we were 'In for a Penny, in for a Pound'.
[Mandarin] "The sleeping coach," a steward volunteered.
"Danke," I said as I steeled myself. The plane lurched again and I heard several suppressed weapons being fired from the front of the plane. I popped out into the hall, facing the rear in a crouch. There were two commandoes coming my way. I went full auto. The first two were caught flat-footed with their ballistic vests in hand. I cut them to pieces.
A third guy jumped back into his bunk, but dropped his QCW-05. I was pretty sure the walls of the sleeping cubicle weren't nearly as thick as the fuselage. I gave that bunk eight slugs and made two other guys duck for cover. I exchanged magazines before taking the reprieve to rush the two men I'd fatally wounded. I snatched up their pistols, submachine guns and one ear piece then dodged back to cover.
No one was in a rush to shoot back with their QCW's ~ maybe because they knew the rounds could fuck up the plane? The woman had pulled out two small vials and one needle. Screw the hygiene and cross contamination issues. I slipped the earpiece on.
[Mandarin] "How many pilots are on the plane?" I glared at the steward.
[Mandarin] "Ta-two," he stammered. I pointed QCW down the hallway and fired one blind burst.
[Mandarin] "Here," I handed him a fresh QCW. He didn't know what to do about that. "See, with those two dead here and my ally killing the two in the cabin, I'm the only one left who can fly this plane. It would behoove you to not let your friends kill me." He didn't believe me. "You, I pointed to the other woman. Call the cockpit."
For a second she was fearful of the possible reaction of her masters. Then the plane took a savage lurch and began descending rapidly. She was punching the call button like crazy. I popped off a few round in the hallway.
'Behind you!' Dot warned me.
I zipped back right before to QSW-06 rounds went racing through the space my head had just occupied. I poked my borrowed QCW and shot blindly back.
[Mandarin] "Send the two pilots up immediately," Zhen seethed.
[Mandarin] "Lady Duan (Zhen and Mu's family name), they are dead." Silence.
[Mandarin] "What do you mean? Speak carefully," Zhen's voice became utterly emotionless.
[Mandarin] "I ..." the female steward looked at me. I nodded. "The barbarian has broken free, murdered them and multiple warriors too. He also claims he can fly the ..."
The power died. We were all plunged into near darkness for several seconds.
What little illumination that reached us was from a handful of uncovered seat-side portals in the front of the jet. All of that was secondary to the plane nosing more and more.
[Mandarin] "Cease-fire! Cease-fire!" Mu shouted. Then, over their commlink, "We must take the barbarian alive. Teams – identify." The emergency lighting kicked on, giving the area an orange-ish glow.
[Mandarin] "I'll make it easy on you, Duan Mu," I interrupted the roll-call. "I speak your language, you Monkey. Drop your weapons and I'll fly this plane for you."
[Mandarin] "Surrender, or we will kill the girl."
[Mandarin] "Surrender, or I'll end you all," I countered.
[Mandarin] "You are bluffing. You wouldn't let the child die if you could help it," he started. The plane began to seriously nose over.
[Mandarin] "Mu, the controls are dead," Zhen called out. "We need get to the parachutes."
Fuck ... I hadn't counted on that.
'Dot?'
'We are ahead of this issue,' her psyche snuggled my mind. 'Hang onto something. Wait for it.'
[Mandarin] "Mu, you might want to hold up on killing Aya until you actually have a person successfully exit the plane first," I called out. The plane tipped forward then a thunderous boom went off beneath us resulting in the craft violently shooting up and knocking everyone into the ceiling as the plane righted itself.
The man's scream was almost lost in the explosive decompression. Two more screams followed in quick succession. Then the jet began to pitch forward and rolling to the left at the same time. I threw away my more animalistic fears of being ripped out the plane as a prelude to a 10 km fall and propelled myself forward. Despite the craft's roll and the aisles 10% decline.
I passed several 7P commandos who were clutching their seats with white knuckles. A few where keeping their companions from being sucked out of the open door near the cockpit. I floated toward the yawning abyss. On the third row from the door, Mu was crouched down, one arm around a seat belt and the other clutching Aya to him, an arm around her chest.
I arrested my progress for a second to pull close with them both.
"Hi Aya," I kissed her forehead. I had been aiming for her nose, but – you know, turbulence. "Are you ready to start killing people?"
"Of course, Fehér mén. Where did you get the zombie and the dragon?"
"Book of the Month Club ~ Young Adult Section," I shouted. "Gotta go."
As I left, I heard Aya hollering at Mu,
"I told you if you didn't leave him in Mexico City, you would all regret it," Aya reminded her Chinese captor of a conversation I hadn't been privy to.
I was half way out the door when a silverish-gray, serpentine tail encircled me and deposited me half way into the cockpit. Zhen was futilely struggling with the unresponsive control panel and dead stick. I instantly identified her problem. Non-Tsu had rammed her dagger into the pilot's console. As an isolated action, the multiple redundancies would have survived the damage.
As a locus for all sorts of yucky energies involving death and decay ~ this was a NTSB technical reconstruction nightmare. That was assuming they could locate us with the most advanced deep-sea investigating techniques. She was in the co-pilots seat. A commando was in the pilot's seat. I touched and imparted 100 kA to the minion of all things impure and foul.
Perhaps my sense of urgency overwhelmed SzélAnya. The man cooked and exploded into man-bits. My seat was now empty. Before Zhen could completely make out the coiled white-maned tail keeping me in place, the appendage withdrew. A second later, something slammed into the side of the aircraft and a smell of burning metal and rubber permeated the cabin.
We were in a bad way, but the door had been shut and sealed. I was busy waiting for Alal to show me how to fly a plane ... hmmm ... okay .... I wasn't sure what a DC-7 was, but it wasn't a commercial jet airliner. Mother-puss-bucket, I finally found something the Old Man didn't know and it was when my life literally depended on it.
I also find the edge of a Jian blade against my throat.
[Mandarin] "How did you get here?" Zhen seethed.
[Mandarin] "I'm here to fly the plane."
[Mandarin] "The controls are dead. All the systems are fried. Even if they did work, I've never flown something this big. No, I repeat, what are you doing here ... and since when do you speak our language?"
[Mandarin] "Controls ... ah hah ..." I looked over the darkened controls. The dagger!
Why the fuck would she leave it there? I looked at the non-Tsu ... whose blood was draining away at a too rapid rate. I placed my hand on the dagger. The lights came on. The instruments weren't at 100% - Hell, they were barely at 50%, but it was better than several seconds ago. Zhen had one hand on the co-pilot's joy stick. She had some minimal level of control.
By the look on her face, she couldn't believe my hand on the dagger and the controls coming back was anything more than a coincidence. I let go. The lights went out again.
[Mandarin] "By all means," I offered her the chance to grab the dagger hilt. "What? Did you seriously believe that yours was the only mythology that mattered? You sent some sick fuck to rip my soul out of my body and hadn't thought that my deities would protest?"
She twisted the sword around in a rapid flourish, then drove it into Non-Tsu's chest. She grabbed the arcane dagger, but nothing happened. She looked pissed. As for Tsu, he was already missing his right arm at the elbow, his left arm was gone at the shoulder, his right leg was off at the knee and his skull was partially split and then he'd been decapitated. His blood/ichor was rushing off elsewhere. I didn't have time to worry about where.
A quick look at his ruined face showed one haunted eye staring back. His soul was still trapped inside his ruined mortal clay. Good for him. In my panic, I had zoned on the two necklaces with the bone reliquaries. The plane began to nose over to the left. If there was any positive news going on it was that we'd dropped under 7 km.
[Mandarin] "Do something," Zhen demanded as she yanked her hand away. I put my hand on the dagger and we had power once again. My other hand rested on the pilot's joy stick. The basics like airspeed, altitude and direction were easy enough. Things like 'thrust ratios' and 'engine temperatures' were something I was still trying to decipher.
[Mandarin] "Okay. I have some conditions before I save any of you," I looked at her.
[Mandarin] "You will die before we do," Zhen threatened. I laughed. She looked furious so I laughed harder.
[Mandarin] "Listen you stupid cunt ..." and she aimed a hand-chop at my Adam's apple. I let go of the dagger and we began to spiral out of control once more.
[Mandarin] "Put your hand back on the dagger," she yelled.
[Mandarin] "Why?" I shifted back in my seat and relaxed. "In case you missed it, you gave me over to a cretin who was going to take my soul and sell it to some demon as if it was Gatorade (I was making that up). This doesn't not inspire me to place my life in your hands."
[Mandarin] "The girl will die too," she tried to get clever. She was scared and it was clawing like a wild animal behind her eyes.
[Mandarin] "So will your brother," I grinned. "Under your tender mercies, you were going to try and pervert a smart, wonderful little girl and turn her into one of you sex slaves. We are both better off dead than putting our lives back in your hands."
[Mandarin] "Very well," she mulled that over hurriedly. "I will give you my word that we will return the girl alive and unharmed to her people if you put this plane down in one piece. You must still come with us." I was distracted by something.
'Wakko, SzélAnya tells me there is an island about 20 kilometers away. You can get there before this cyclone tears this craft out of the sky,' Dot told me. I even got a visual of the landing strip.
Honolulu it wasn't. In fact, it looked like a big slab of concrete at one end of a lagoon; a tiny speck in a hugely angry sea. Problem: the runway ran from North-northeast to South-southwest and we were approaching form the Southeast. I'd have to circle the landing strip in this POS, battered by 80+ km winds ... out of the Southwest.
The Alal-pilot strongly suggested I wanted to come around from the North, into the wind as opposed to it pushing me down the runway as a tail wind ... since the North end of the concrete was awash in the waters from the lagoon. The South end was awash in waters form the Ocean. Choices – choices.
[Mandarin] "You are a woman in the Seven Pillars – your word is useless. The only people who value you are your brother – definitely – and possibly your father, since you have some skills and you aren't a brood mare for a man thirty years your senior. You are on the right track with you and yours making a pledge though," I finished the first round of emotional Ping-Pong.
[Mandarin] "What is going on?" Mu staggered into the cockpit, stumbling over Tsu's mangled corpse. He was back to being Tsu since Sarrat Irkalli had slithered her bloody ooze elsewhere.
[Mandarin] "If he doesn't touch that dagger, we are going to slam into the Ocean, Brother," she snarled.
[Mandarin] "Put your hand on the dagger," Mu demanded.
[Mandarin] "Fuck you," I laughed at him. "Where's Aya?" Mu's hands went for the back of my neck and my right elbow. Bad move. I twisted, and as I did so, I brought my QCW-05 around and fired off a round into his thigh right above the knee.
Since it had been in my lap, he hadn't perceived it as a threat until it was too late. Mu manned up and didn't scream. He certainly had a nasty, bleeding wound. He did slump back toward the cabin door.
[Mandarin] "Brother!" Zhen exclaimed. She went for her sword. I pointed the gun at her.
[Mandarin] "Do it and I'll put a bullet in you too," I challenged her. She was about to say something. "The only person coming into this cabin before we land is Aya and your brother isn't leaving until I say so."
[Mandarin] "He'll bleed out," Zhen pointed out. Mu was busy turning his sash into a tourniquet.
[Mandarin] "You catch on quick," I glared. "Mu, if you patch up that one, I'll shoot you in your other leg, or your stomach. Either Aya comes in here alone with a medical kit ..." I grabbed the dagger because Alal-pilot was STRONGLY suggesting we were about to be entering a dive too steep for this crate to recover from ... or maybe for a DC-7 to ...
[Mandarin] "What is going on?" Mu grimaced.
[Mandarin] "Brother, as I told you ... when he touches the dagger, we have power for controls," she was caught between concern for her brother and a desire to establish some power. "Give the hostage a medical kit and send her to the cockpit. Mu has been shot."
[Mandarin] "Duan Mu; what are your orders," came the response. I was right. If Mu was dead, or incapacitated, the Seven Pillars troops wouldn't be looking to her for leadership.
[Mandarin] "Hold on," Mu rumbled to his troops. "Why shouldn't I have you killed now and be done with it – let us die as true warriors of the Seven Pillars?"
[Mandarin] "Because all you will succeed in doing is killing Aya, Mu". I was keeping it civil for the nonce because I had renewed faith that I could save Aya. "My Goddesses are here, with me. The storm? She's mine. Your buddy lying on the ground? Take a good look into his left eye and wait for it to blink. Comrade Tsu brought a toothpick to an ICBM exchange and now the rest of you are paying the price."
[Mandarin] "His eye moved ..." Mu mumbled. He really need to get that leg looked at.
[Mandarin] "Brother, let them send the girl in. You are bleeding out."
[Mandarin] "One condition, Mu," I stopped him from doing as his sister requested. "You and everyone else on the plane who works for you is going to swear an Oath to my Goddess."
Mu sneered over the reference to my 'Pagan' Goddess.
[Mandarin] "Do it, or I'll knee-cap your sister. We'll still land the plan, but she's going to be getting around on one leg for the rest of her life ~ as short as that may be. Swear by Ishara that neither you, nor anyone you command will lay one finger on Aya; not harm, or restrain her in any manner ... and you won't shoot at me either."
[Mandarin] "And if we do?" Zhen asked. Oh, I like clever people. I much more prefer people who think they are far cleverer than I. I was a liberal arts major and knew the value of proper word placement. They thought they would both lie to me and trick me even if they didn't lie. I hadn't ask them to not attack me ~ I hated butchering defenseless foes.
No, I wanted Aya safe – my main goal. They assumed I had missed out on not completely guaranteeing my own safety. They were also forgetting that Aya could still kill them and I doubted she had my overly-masculine honorable inclinations.
[Mandarin] "I'll get your brother medical attention.
[Mandarin] "Fine," Mu grunted. "We swear."
[Mandarin] "Order your men to say these exact words: 'Swear by Ishara that neither you, nor anyone you command will lay one finger on Aya; not harm, or restrain her in any manner ... and you won't shoot at me either'."
[Mandarin] "This a magical oath," Mu hissed out his pain.
[Mandarin] "Brother, do it ... please," Zhen begged her twin. Mu relented, the order went out and the oaths of every Seven Pillars of Heaven society members was duly noted by my Goddess. None of the Goddesses could be around too much longer. The Gong tau threat had been neutralized.
The Weave would want to shut this running sore and fix this fuckup Tsu had created. Good Guys – Bad Guys – the Weave didn't care. Currently, the fear that they were close by was my greatest tool. Aya came forward. She was about to leap into my cluttered arms when she noted Mu looking in a bad way.
"Mr. Mu, it is not too late to say you're sorry," Aya counseled him. "Cáel is a wonderful Father and I'm sure if you really mean it, despite all you've done to us, he'll spare you." She opened her kit and got to work using her basic Amazon First Aid skills. While Zhen and I formulated a plan ... all our communications were gone and our avionics was unreliable, Mu helped Aya tend to his wounds.
"Aya," I spoke to her when she'd finished up by giving Mu a strong dose of a pain killer, "Now go back to the galley and find the nice medic-lady there. She has a bottle filled with some of those kick-ass sedatives. Inject everyone else but me, you, Zhen here and Mu ... Mu's had enough drugs for one day."
"Okay," she popped up. She turned fearlessly to face her former tormentors and jailors.
"I had them all swear an oath to Ishara to not kill, harm, or restrain you in any manner, so have fun hunting them down. You've got about thirty minutes."
"Is Dot with us right now?" she gave me a bone-tired smile. I nodded. "This is going to be fun," she shouted and off she went.
'I'll be by her side', Dot whispered to me. She rose forth from the seat within me and followed Aya out into Seven Pillars Hell. Technically, I believed it was the Diyu of the Fiendish Child. Those malicious bastards suffered every accident, misfortune, and nearly-impossible odds malfunction in the process of being subdued by a 9 year old Amazon.
Four of them died in the process of trying to kill her, when stopping her became obviously impossible. Two had their guns blow up when they tried to shoot her, dismembering their hands and wrists. One guy was strangled in his emergency oxygen supply mask. The last guy lunged forward, slipped on a cup and broke his neck when his head was caught in a folded armrest.
Twenty-eight nerve wracking minutes later.
"All done," she gave me an exhausted yet triumphant chirp. "Should I strap Mr. Mu into a chair? He's passed out."
[Mandarin] "Zhen, buckle your brother into a chair and hurry back. I'll hold us steady until you get back."
Remember, I had only the use of my left hand. My right had to stay on the dagger to keep things powered up.
"Buckle-up after you've gotten Duan Mu secured, Aya. That's his proper name."
"I know that. I was trying to keep them irritated so they would act irrationally. You taught me that," Aya bathed me in her sinister ways and means.
Finally, it was down to me and Zhen.
[Mandarin] "Do you think we will succeed, Cáel Wakko Ishara?"
[Mandarin] "I'm giving it my best shot."
[Mandarin] "The little girl was right," Zhen groaned. "She told us we'd regret not killing you in New York when we had the chance. I thought she was being a annoying spoiled brat. I was wrong." Pause. "I know you have no reason to answer me truthfully ... but when we – the rest of us – die ... could you make sure my brother's body is returned to my father so that he can join our ancestors in the family grave?"
[Mandarin] "Why do you think I would lie to you now that we are alone?" That was a loaded question. I did the majority of my lying when I was alone with a woman.
[Mandarin] "I ... will you give me your Oath, in your Goddess's name?"
[Mandarin] "Nope. My Goddess has pretty much been exhausted by your boys trying to break their vows to me and Aya. I'll tell you what I will do ..."
[Mandarin] "What?"
[Mandarin] "Show me your tits and I'll promise to do my best."
[Mandarin] "What? You want to see me naked?" she grew indignant. "NO!" It was her being a vaginal virgin (I knew the type ~ good oral technique and bed play, but no 'go-uppy' the pussy, or ass) and me not being Han Chinese, therefore being a 'Stinky Barbarian'.
[Mandarin] "Listen, I've never flown a commercial jet before and neither have you. Odds are we are both going to be dead in the next ten minutes. After all the hell you have put me through, can you at least give me some fucking inspiration. No one will ever know. Besides, imagining the perfect swell of your breast and the smooth tautness of your stomach ... well, you are so damn perfect it is distracting!" I protested against the World's grand injustice (me not being Han and thus not worthy of seeing her goodies).
[Mandarin] "Do you really think we are all about to die?" she studied me.
[Mandarin] "I'm doing my best ... but, yes, I believe we are," I stared deep into her dark brown orbs.
'You are despicable,' Ishara chortled. 'I promise you – plant your seed and she will bear you a son.'
[Mandarin] "Very well ... hold onto the controls," she said as she released her joystick. She rolled up her padded (high-tech body-weave) shirt carefully. I was a past master of looking while pretending not too look. Still ...
[Mandarin] "Can I look yet?" I hesitantly questioned. Sure, we were about to slam an Airbus-350 into the Pacific Ocean, or a concrete runway – no lights – in a cyclone, but she was 'working it'. For all she knew, this striptease would be her last living memory.
[Mandarin] "No." A few seconds passed.
[Mandarin] "Now?"
[Mandarin] "No." Oh, her top was just cresting her highly aroused nipples – she had tiny, erect nipples. The smallest I had ever seen, but long ... almost like tiny awls. Finally she'd played it out as long as possible.
[Mandarin] "Okay."
[Mandarin] "No, wait," I begged. "Let me make sure everything is stable. I want to look at you for as long as I can. This will probably be the last happy moment of my life, so I want to make the most of it." That made her happy. I puttered around for five seconds, then pivoted around to take in her full, topless view. I didn't say anything for the longest time.
[Mandarin] "Aren't you done yet," she grumbled. "We are about to crash."
[Mandarin] "Oh ... sorry," I turned away. She rolled her top down quickly and we returned to trying to keep the people we loved most in life alive. I sensed as sense of disappointment in her nonetheless.
"Perfect," I whispered. She caught it.
[Mandarin] "What did you say? Is something wrong?" she worried, studying her crippled command console for any errors she might have missed.
[Mandarin] "I said 'perfect'. I knew it, your body is perfect," I confessed. Pause.
[Mandarin] "Oh ..."
[Mandarin] "Now I have something to live for," I declared.
[Mandarin] "I will never let you see me naked again. This was a one-time thing!"
[Mandarin] "That's two things I have to live for then," I countered.
[Mandarin] "Bringing us in alive and seeing me naked once more?" she had to be sure.
[Mandarin] "I was going to say 'seeing you naked again' and 'living', but I can see that your priorities make more sense," I conceded.
[Mandarin] "Ah, you are right ... that I am right." Pause. "Good luck."
[Mandarin] "On seeing you naked again, or surviving our landing."
[Mandarin] "Let's start out by landing the plane.
[Mandarin] "And then, Duan Zhen?"
[Mandarin] "We will see, Cáel Ishara."