The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix

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  A cloud of choking dust consumed Jonathan when half a dozen flankers galloped past to take up position north of the main caravan body. His lungs revolted at the infusion of filthy air, sending the man into a coughing fit that only gradually subsided. Covering his mouth with a kerchief, he followed the horses with his eyes, watching the ever-growing dust storm left in their wake, observing others who were victimized by the dirt as was he.

  Jonathan shook his head. This was certainly an evil land… well, at least a very unfriendly place. Every step made by man or beast in these powdery talc beds filled the air with reddish-green clouds of blinding, intolerable dust. Breathing a sigh of relief upon considering he was on the windward side of the van, Jonathan felt pity for the others riding further off to his right. At least he was saved the continual onslaught of these manmade dust storms that those in the center columns and opposite flank must suffer.

  As his eyes wandered over the distant riders he cast his gaze upon Lowenah. Oh, how beautiful, Lowenah, sitting tall and straight, proud. No, majestic! Yes, that was it, majestic. Riding bareback, her flesh naked as the back of the horse, except for the sheerest of silken capes that did little more than accent her golden, flowing tresses that fell like mystic waterfalls over the woman’s shoulders and down her back.

  Proud and determined, yes! Lowenah’s piercing eyes and set jaw, her hand held high holding the reins - a warrior priestess – no, a warrior goddess! Jonathan sighed, troubled in soul and heart. He could not tear his gaze away from this most dazzling of universal beauties. His ardor rose in passionate desire and then as quickly subsided while his heart sang out with the rapturous joy of a blind man seeing his first sunrise. Jonathan soon found himself struggling with countless emotions racing and roiling within. Lowenah was certainly a witch, master of bewitching powers.

  Jonathan’s face flushed red, remembering once, some time ago, shortly after his arrival to this world, one time when Lowenah had been in a playful, flirting mood, he had brazenly reached out and caressed one of her breasts. She spoke not a word, only staring into his yearning eyes with her own mesmerizing, dancing, green orbs. ‘For another time, my lovely one, for another time...’ her voice echoed in his head, sweet and desirous, until it cooled his growing flames of passion, they quickly passing away into fond memories of wistful delights.

  Shaking his head again to clear away the embarrassing vision - because it betrayed him for being a man - a man who lacked the self-control he so much prized, wished to possess, Jonathan still could not drive the thought of Lowenah from his mind. He stared, pondering. God of gods, really? Maker of Worlds? Creator of the universe? Possible? How could this mesmerizing treasure, most feminine of womankind, be the Never-ending One? Innocent like a playful maiden, Giver of precious gifts, Maker of life and Bringer of destruction and death, who was this person so enchantingly sublime?

  Jonathan was told of Lowenah that she bound the universe together by the power of harmonics, a force, it was said, that was borne of her inner soul, her very immortal essence, a force woven into the shape of a giant web that captured all the galaxies in its countless threads, binding them in its unbreakable grasp. This essence was alive with the very fiber of Lowenah’s heart and mind. It lived with an intelligence very much its own, and that it needed no other sustenance to feed upon for it nursed at the breasts of the very Giver of that life until it, too, breathed in the shadow of her immortal glow.

  Jonathan was no fool, nor was he ignorant of Lowenah’s feelings and trepidations. She, herself, was honest with her trusted children, revealing to the observant some of her fears and uncertainties. Today she must feel a little uncertain about the future. The roads of Fate were filled with freedom, - the freedom to choose the course of heart or mind, or to even dart from the path and forge anew the road into the future. Mihai was a creature of freedom, and Mihai could be very unpredictable when the mood was upon her.

  He looked toward the head of the advancing column. There rode Mihai, tall, proud and majestic, her long tresses loosed from under her golden helm, dancing with the dusty breeze in rhythm with her horse’s flowing mane. It was such a joy to watch the woman ride, she and the mount moving as if one body, one soul and heart. As were most of the children from this universe, Mihai was a horse master, born and raised upon the backs of these beasts.

  Jonathan mused if heaven could be described in only a few words to the sons from his old world, he would call it ‘the kingdom of the horse’. The children ate, drank, and breathed horse. Tapestries, art, murals and statues abounded everywhere of this Equidae and equestrian delight. Winged horses and unicorns were not the dreams of the men of his worlds. No, for Jonathan had been amazed at the countless representations of these mythical animals that abounded in this world, even upon the palace walls of EdenEsonbar.

  Thinking again of their new king, Jonathan sadly frowned. He loved Mihai, owed her everything, would follow her without question, die for her if only asked, and he understood that Mihai might well ask such a favor, though unwittingly, from the very ones she cared for the most. Impetuous, brash, impulsive she was. Get her dander up and she might do just about anything, and often it might well be the regrettable anything she would decide to do. His friend, Paul, once said of Mihai, ‘As unpredictable as a tempest upon the open sea she is, for in her fury, she may well save you by blowing a favorable wind to safe harbor or instantly, without warning, drive you upon the rocky shoals that will tear you apart.’

  The purveyor of those words rode off to Mihai’s left. Though he sat his saddle well, it was obvious that the man was not as comfortable in the stirrups as were his companions. He also did not enjoy the marshaling aspect of this world. The armor he wore ill-suited him and the weapon he carried at his side suited him still less. Paul preferred the robes of state, and dallied only enough with the arts of war to satisfy the request of Mihai. He had been heard to say more often than once, ‘I prefer the tools of diplomacy over those of hostility. Should our worlds collide in mortal conflict, may it be won with the sword of the mouth over that of the hand - something, I sadly doubt, can be the case.’

  Looking to Mihai’s other side Jonathan chanced upon person of the newly appointed field marshal. The man marveled. Now there was a warrior divine! Sat a horse as if born to it... No, sat the animal as if lord over it, bending it to her will. As much as he admired and loved Mihai, Jonathan’s heart burned with a passion for Trisha. Not that he felt he was sensually attracted to her -which he, though, refused to admit to himself - he sensed the power and might hidden within her, as if she was bred from pure warrior stock and was now released to deliver to the world that power.

  During the days before the departure for the Prisoner Exchange, Zadar had cajoled his friend into accompanying him and Trisha on one of their practice sessions. The afternoon was spent with the horses. There was nothing Trisha could not, nor dared not do from the back, or often under the belly of a galloping horse. The woman repeatedly hit tiny, hanging targets - with bow and arrow, or one of the magnificent shooting weapons gifted her by that Jebbson fellow - some of them at nearly 12 rods.

  Trisha could hook her feet in the saddle in a way that allowed her to hang upside down and shoot from under the belly of her mount, and do it with equal accuracy as when riding atop the beast. Also, with the lance she was matched rarely by the others, skewering small fruit with one while riding at full gallop. And don’t count her down while she carried a sword in her hand! Jonathan believed few would survive one of the woman’s determined onslaughts while hefting that weapon.

  The field marshal rode close beside Mihai and a little behind, she restraining her huge red roan gelding from its desired pace. Unlike most of the advanced color guard, Trisha was rather plainly attired. Her armor was burnished bright, but carried little ornamentation, and other than the long horsetail flowing out from a plume holder at the top of her helm, there was little to make her stand out ap
art from an ordinary cavalry officer. Her final distinguishing accoutrement was a sand-colored cape that covered her shoulders and draped down along the flanks of her horse. It suddenly caught Jonathan’s attention that some two dozen other mounted soldiers scattered about were adorned with similar capes and helms. ‘Curious...’

  And what was more curious was the body language between Mihai and Trisha. It was nearly imperceptible at first, but Mihai was riding continually in a gradual cant toward her left until she and Paul would be nearly touching. Then quickly, as though she had not noticed what happened, she would pull toward the right, glancing over her shoulder just before correcting her course so as to not get too close to her field marshal, Trisha.

  At the same time that Mihai would make this first correction, Planetee would pick up her horse’s gait until she was tucked in just to the left and behind Trisha. Also, but apparently unobserved by the others, Eutychus would saunter in beside Planetee, keeping a constant distance between himself and his riding companion.

  Jonathan - more often called ‘John’ by his acquaintances - puzzled over these observations after he watched the same routine play out for the third time. Recalling a red-faced, angry Mihai reentering camp this morning, he concluded there must be some kind of a rift developed between her and Trisha since the early morning’s council meeting. He had heard some quiet rumors regarding a tiff between the two, though uncertain what it was about. Still, it was apparent to him something was amiss, and he wondered, with concern, if it could affect the day’s events.

  (Author’s note: Gossip was a most favored form of entertainment for Lowenah’s children in those days. Though often innocent, it could have unintended negative consequences, so was not encouraged during that violent age, yet it still persisted. Since it was so commonly practiced by all, its roots going back countless millennium, it was used often as a conduit for misinformation, by both sides, during times of war, or for clandestine purposes. As PalaHar once stated, ‘There is not faster a line of communication in existence than when one has a juicy bit of a tale to spell for comrades with wanting ears.’)

  Recalling earlier gossip, Jonathan wondered about Darla, turning his curious gaze upon her. Riding upon a fiery, crimson warhorse she had personally procured from the Palace stables, the woman adorned it with a blazing red saddle along with burnished golden head and breastplates. A decorated sword and scabbard belted to the saddle bounced in unison with the animal’s stride. Darla’s flare for the overly ornate when opportunity provided was fully evidenced this day, she appearing more to be a performer in the circus than someone going to a prisoner exchange.

  (Author’s note: What Jonathan did not know was Lowenah’s insistence on the garb Darla was attired in. Darla merely requested of her mother to dress the part to the full, thus the glitz of her mount.)

  At that instant, Darla turned and shouted something to Lowenah, who was now several paces away. After receiving nodding approval, she galloped forward toward Tizrela and PalaHar, Lowenah’s honor guard. Ardon started his horse and then thought better of it, quietly sitting his mount, slowly shaking his head. Lowenah, though, followed every move her girl made, smiling in shining contentment.

  It was then that Jonathan lost himself in a moment of fanciful visions. Staring at this oh, so beautiful of rapturous forms, he became lost in his unbridled thoughts. For little more than an instant, he allowed his heart the guilty release of honest emotions, freed from its forced restraints.

  ‘How beautiful!’ the man’s heart shouted. ‘How majestic and mysterious! But to be with her for an hour, to feel her touch, to touch her, to gaze into those fathomless eyes while entwined in passionate embrace...’

  Jonathan leaned back in his saddle still lost in fantasy’s visions. ‘Who really is this person? Who can really come to know her should they have an eternity beside her?’ As a desperate ache of longing desire pummeled him, his heart cried out to his mind, ‘How does a mortal sing a heartsong to one so deserving yet so unreachable?! Can a man of dust really expect to achieve the love of one so pure in beauty and unfathomable in soul?’

  A head spun around at that instant. Shocked, Jonathan found two piercing, emerald-green eyes staring into his hazel orbs, setting his heart ablaze with passions fulfilled. Suddenly his mind was swirling with countless sweet refrains of love’s desires, as a voice echoed above the musical tumult. ‘Most comely is the man who confesses his flirtatious desires from afar. He is not the only soul desiring love’s feasts. You do make my heart sing with the joy of a maiden in the chase. One day, you and me, yes! One day… thank you.’

  For some time, Jonathan basked in the afterglow of this most unexpected encounter, dreamily lost in a future time and place where all these fantasies were to become fulfilled. At length, the sweet visions faded and he returned to pondering the contradictory world of men and machines surrounding him.

  The sound of pounding hoofs roused him from his vexing daydreams. Jebbson rode up fast on Jonathan’s left, reining in hard as he came close beside him. “Hey, old fellow!” He shouted, grinning. “Or should I ask, ‘why such a sober sides?’ This is our big day! Got a feelin’ we’re gonna do some serious butt-kickin’ today. Don’t be so glum!”

  Jonathan half smiled and then frowned. “I’m not glum!” Raising an eyebrow, he sputtered, “I was thinking… pondering - something I doubt you do much of. Seems all you can manage is to speak like an uneducated ruffian who’s been in the sun too long.”

  Jebbson’s grin broadened as he waved his hand about in confusion. “Gosh and all, now I’m completely befuddled, nearin’ an upset. All them big words sort ‘a confuse the likes like me. Wish you’d talk simpler to my ignorant ears, Captain.”

  Jonathan threw his hands up in disgust. “O shut up, you! Don’t call me Captain… and I’m not talking big words, and you’re no ignoramus. What do you want, and why have you arrived to pester me and disturb my mind?”

  Letting go an uproarious laugh followed by a sound slap on Jonathan’s shoulder, Jebbson hooted, “Now that’s my boy! Yep, I just came over to stir the pot a little… and to say hello. All right! All right! I’ll be good… for a little while. Tell me, now, what’s goin’ on in your head? I’ve been watchin’. Why so somber? What you been thinkin’?”

  Jonathan looked Jebbson up and down, curiosity growing at what he was observing. He sputtered politely, “I’ll tell you some of what I’ve been thinking if I can ask you something afterward.”

  “Deal!” Jebbson shouted.

  “All right, I’ll tell you, and no making fun about what I’m thinking.” Jonathan warned.

  Wearing his big, toothy grin, Jebbson made a motion with his hand over his chest. “Cross my heart and…”

  Having no idea what Jebbson meant, Jonathan sputtered, interrupting, “Oh you! You’re hopeless! But I do look for you to be respectful.”

  Jonathan turned his gaze upon the procession of wagons and mounted travelers, carefully studying them. Looking back at Jebbson, he began, “This is such a queer world… so queer. These people travel in giant ships across endless expanses of space to strange and exotic planets in star systems so distant an ordinary telescope cannot see them. They have machines that think and serve them in ways the servants of my day served their masters. They have fast wagons that quietly float above the surface of the ground, and weapons that can destroy the enemy many leagues away. And, yet, here I see these people, on a very serious quest, riding upon horses and carrying weapons of swords, axes and arrows. Suits of armor a thousand years old they cover themselves with, beasts of burden pulling giant wagons that float above the ground, horse maidens, campfires and torches, and the like.”

  He sighed. “These people carry on with saintly processions of serious sobriety followed by bouts of unbridled emotion filled with intoxicated merriment and unchecked flirtations. They blush red with the revealing of the slightest of innocent naivete while openly practicing intimate c
onjugal acts beside the heavily traveled thoroughfare.”

  “What is it with these people? I do not understand them at all. Look at them. They love the past so much they refuse to see the present. I have read their history, the history of these wars. Their captains lead from the front, surely to be killed in battle. They charge the most fortified of positions with sword and pike, facing missiles and bombs as they would a helmed knight. Their chariots of steel race through the skies above, raining down destruction while they butcher one another with axe and blade on the horrid fields below.” He shook his head sadly. “Knowledge does not make for wisdom. Indeed, should a people refuse to change, how will they survive?”

  Jebbson patted Jonathan on the arm. “That, Captain, is the reason we have come here.” He looked into Jonathan’s face. “We, the Children of the Damned, seek what is always new when it comes to killing our foes. The newest and the best, that’s what we do, obtain the newest and the best. We glory in the extermination of our enemy on the field, wishing for none of them to have a returning home. Why, our history shows that we murder the sick and wounded upon the field, and then butcher the camp followers accompanying the enemy host, and then destroy their cities and ruin their people as best we can when there remain no defenders to protect them. Yes sir, Captain, we practice at war differently than our brethren do in this world.”

  He grinned garishly. “Oh yes, these people have devised hideous ways to exterminate their fellows, and torture is all too common, primarily in the enemy camp, but deep within their hearts they detest the violence, even some of the enemy do, I believe. On the other hand, our kind revels in destruction. Our righteous indignation permits us to commit the most abhorrent and unspeakable atrocities upon anyone we call our enemy. Rape, pillage, torture, and murder are what is meted out upon those who have offended us.”

  Looking about at the surrounding troop, he wryly commented, “We have been delivered here by the Maker of the universe to convert this world to a new religion, a religion that glorifies war, making it holy and acceptable. We are to teach these people how to revere the murder and destruction that we hold so sacred.”

  He turned his gaze and stared into Jonathan’s eyes, his smile having fled from his face. “We must rape and pillage… destroy the hearts and spirits of this childlike lot, pervert them to our way of thinking. Forever will innocence be gone from this world, at least for these people. A shadow of darkness sweeps over this universe even now, a darkness that shall never fully be removed. We - you and me, and the others of our kind brought to this wretched place - are the goblins and demons who will forever haunt this puerile world, continually reminding it that by evil was evil destroyed, and that by evil immortalized does the universe eternally remain at peace.”

  Jonathan did not fully grasp the extent to which Jebbson confessed, but he did understand enough to nod his head in agreement. It saddened him to think that he, too, was delivered to this place not to speak of peace and love, but to bring about violent destruction, something he had been spared from doing up to this time.

  Jebbson leaned forward and patted his mount. “Yes sir, this here Prisoner Exchange ain’t what it’s all talked up to be: to exchange prisoners and all, and get our hostages back.”

  He grinned, angry. “Oh, we’ll get ‘em back, all right - those still alive. I bet they’ve had quite a time of it, not like the cushy life Salak and his crew has had of it. Legion and that fat little girly-man of his, Godenn, wouldn’t allow such fun things to pass their attention by, been workin’ those poor bastards since the Zephath was taken, I imagine.” His steely blue eyes narrowed as his face hardened. “No sir, I know exactly where this show’s a goin’. Today’s a new day, Captain, and I intend to welcome it with a little appropriate celebration of my own.”

  Surprised, Jonathan queried, “What are you up to? Our king, Mihai, runs this show, and she cautioned us to act civil and keep our place. Let the experienced councilors negotiate for the prisoners. We’re here to learn, to see how it’s done.”

  Jebbson nodded. “That’s right, we’re here to learn, do the learning, I mean. Gonna be a lot ‘a lessons learnt this day, a lot ‘a lessons taught. That ol’ snake’s gonna be put on notice that he ain’t dealing with those who ascribe to the pen and handshake. He’s gonna learn that this new breed of chil’en sign their agreements in blood, their opponents’ blood.”

  Taken aback, Jonathan stared into Jebbson’s face, seeing the man’s stolid determination. ‘Strange, so strange...’ He thought to himself. In his world of old, a king’s command would have gone unquestioned, there being no debate whatsoever concerning its wisdom or valor. And the histories he had studied of his own kind supported that to have been the case for the greater part of man’s existence. But this Jebbson fellow was born into a world so different from any that had come before, so different that it created a race of men boldly stubborn, arrogant, independent, and… and freedom-loving, who would chance to defy even the ruling king of this universe should their freedom be threatened.

  Jonathan puzzled. He was well learned in the history of this nation of Jebbson’s that based its political beliefs upon the right of the individual, creating a bill of rights and set of laws that allowed its citizens to depose their ruler by voting him out of power. The stories of the savagery and tenacity that drove the people of that new nation to conquer a continent from one ocean to another amazed him, and this done not by a giant army led by some outstanding captain, but by the sheer willpower of the masses as they pushed ever westward into their new world.

  Much to his enjoyment, Jonathan had absorbed himself in the studies of this period of time in man’s history, this one nation in particular. The thought of a civil war being fought over the right to choose one’s own destiny, and to free the souls of strangers enslaved to cruel taskmasters was almost overwhelming, but to be staring into the face of a man who had been part of that movement, who charged into the jaws of death merely because he believed it the right thing to do… well, that was entirely a different matter.

  A shudder ran down Jonathan’s back. The race of men Jebbson encapsulated took pride in their explosive independence almost to its becoming a madness. They were as wild as the new land they explored, and as proud of their recklessness as his own people had been of their refined culture. Books and tales of this race of people were amazing enough, but to observe someone who lived there, and believed in that kind of freedom… well, Jonathan just did not have words for it.

  When comment was ever made regarding this lot, Lowenah always remained silent concerning the wild, independent spirit displayed, a spirit that often bordered upon being rude. Jonathan had occasioned to meet a few others from that strange land of Jebbson’s. They all acted like they carried a chip on their shoulder, had a right to, and were proud of it. Sometimes their actions were offensive to him, what with all the peacock struttin’ around they did. He never figured out why such crass, even uncouth characters were delivered here, other than to test everyone’s patience.

  Now, he sat his horse only an arm’s length away from one of these wild people. He liked Jebbson a lot, always had. Jebbson was full of a contagious energy that made him naturally likable, but he also carried a dark side to him that could chill the bones. Yet, as much as Jonathan enjoyed Jebbson’s carefree side, it was the darkness he felt coming from the man’s heart that drew him to the fellow, making him wish, in a little way, that he had been born and raised in his world, filled with violence, risk, and… and freedom.

  Freedom? Was it a disease brought upon fallen men? No. What was it, then? When smitten with it, a person would willingly die to keep it. He recalled the tales of Ishtar as told him by some of the older men who witnessed the girl’s actions in the arena at Ephesus. Freedom...what a wonderful and terrible thing it must be to feel it and live it the way that Jebbson fellow did! In a way, Jonathan wished that he, too, could, for just a moment feel it, to breathe its intoxicating eli
xir so that he could sit a free man in his own heart, become the fearless commander of his own destiny.

  Growing impatient with Jonathan’s pondering silence, Jebbson piped in, grinning, “All right, old fellow, you’ve wasted the moment in too deep a thought, or your brain slipped a gear and you’re spinnin’ in neutral. What’s the question twirlin’ ‘bout in your head?”

  Shaken from his inner thoughts, it took Jonathan a moment to recall what he wished to ask. Meanwhile, Jebbson playfully chided him for such memory loss.

  Finally he recalled, and after giving Jebbson severe chastisement for his inconsiderate remarks, asked, “All those grand things you may say about it being a new day and all might well be true. Still… we are supposed to be attired in the finery of statesmen, not going to some kind of a hoedown or shindig. What is this with you? You look no more the part of on a diplomatic mission than a Cretan, a royal senator. You were on the Council if you recall, and should act the part… as our king requested.” He shook his head. “Look at you, wearing clothes from some forgotten time and place and from a world that no longer exists. Then you cloak yourself in that gray cape as though to hide your appearance because of embarrassment. I know you’re not that out of touch. You’re too smart to do such things. What’s up with you, and why no protective armor?”

  Jebbson roared with laughter, tipping his head back as he exclaimed in question, “So that’s all troubling a great mind the likes of yours?!”

  Waiting for no reply, he looked Jonathan in the eye, grinning while answering, “What one wears on the outside means nothing compared to what clothes the heart within. Look, old fellow, you and I… that girl Darla over there, and our new king, Mihai, take a good look and see that none of us, ‘ceptin’ possibly me, are comfortable with the duds they’re wearin’. Oh yeah, they all look the part… that is ‘til some one of them opens their mouth or moves around.”

  He pointed at himself. “Me - you and me - we don’t fit into this world. We don’t - can’t walk the walk or talk the talk. Oh yeah, sure, we put on all the garments and read ‘bout all these peoples’ history, but it ain’t us, not us. You and me are still stuck in our past, our bringin’ up culture, so to speak, ‘ceptin’, unlike you, who’s always trying to fit in with everyone up here, I like my past, am proud of it and the things I did. I lived my life as best I could and have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothin’!”

  Stretching his hand out toward Darla, Jebbson offered his observation. “Now that girl is the most uncomfortable person here. Ain’t cuz she’s almost naked. No! Not at all! Loves being naked, prances ‘round that way most the time when she ain’t off soldierin’. No, she’s uncomfortable because of the clothes she’s got on, or I believe that’s the reason. Honest person she is and doesn’t like to see herself as a loose woman, someone sellin’ her body for another’s pleasure, and that’s how she feels ‘bout things right now. Least that’s the way I understand it from watchin’ her body language.”

  He then drew Jonathan’s attention toward Mihai. “And she’s the second most uncomfortable person here, doesn’t like all that king stuff, doesn’t like her new field marshal… doesn’t trust her I suspect, and doesn’t like what’s comin’ up down the road. Not ready for this meetin’ up thing with that evil brother of hers.”

  Looking back at Jonathan, Jebbson added, “Could say a lot more, but I think you get my point. You have to be comfortable with your own skin and what’s in it - who you are. I’m the odd man out this day. You are, too. Difference is, I’m shoutin’ out to the world who I am. No mistakin’ that I’m not from around here. That old demon will see the fire in my eyes this day and know I’ve come here to put him and his kind on notice, not the same game anymore.”

  He then pointed at Trisha. “Though that girl is all duded up in the armor of this world, the observant eye can tell she ain’t no child of this lost world. She’s come here for a reason that’s a whole lot different than just retrieving a bunch of captives. She’s makin’ to be noticed, to put on notice that there’s a new game in town. She wants the world to know there’s Hell to pay a comin’ down the road, and she’s gonna be the one deliverin’ the bill.”

  Jonathan fussed that he was quite comfortable. Jebbson said nothing in reply, just smiling. Jonathan countered, readdressing his previous question, “You’re still out of line with the king’s protocol. Her requests were very clear, and you are obviously not honoring them. And… and…please stop your foolish hillbilly prattle. You hurt my ears and make my brain spin in confusion.”

  Jebbson laughed, shaking his head. “Alright, I’ll talk gentlemanly. In principle, I am line with orders. Went to Mihai, myself, and put my case before her Worship. Although she wasn’t happy with my choices, the woman graciously relented when I showed her that I was protected with armor…soft armor.”

  Jonathan groused, disgusted, “Armor?! Soft armor?! Don’t take me for a fool. You’re just saying that so you can wear what you want, knowing that our king is trusting of another’s word. What did you tell our king, that your armor would scare the arrows away?”

  Jebbson chuckled. True, he did look the part Jonathan described, his shoulder-length blonde hair covered by a dark blue officer’s kepi and long, flowing mustache with a neatly trimmed two inch beard - and that was only part of his appearance that Jonathan was referring to. Jebbson’s clothes were designed in the style of those he wore in his younger years mixed a little with the style of the day. His blue cavalry jacket covered a red plaid, flannel shirt decorated with hundreds of brightly colored glass beads woven into designs reminiscent of the western aborigines Jebbson often spent time with in those earlier days. Then there were the modern military Khaki trousers Jebbson was so fond of, covered by highly decorated leather leggings. He topped this all of with a giant eagle feather in his cap and soft suede moccasins on his feet.

  “Yes sir, Captain,” Jebbson pointed at himself. “I’m armored all right. Under this here coat of mine, I have a doublet made of soft, repellent armor, the kind of stuff that absorbs and disperses energy away from the kill spot, spreadin’ out the blow ‘cross a wider area. Works pretty good. Fact is, most of my clothing has threads of this kind of armor woven through it. I’m tryin’ to get the military to accept this new design so as to get rid of the clumsy trash they are wearin’ now.”

  Whereas most weapons carried by the gathering this day were ornately decorative – a common custom of these people - Jebbson’s tools for war were utilitarian nearly to a fault. Strapped to his belt on the left was a small fighting axe, what he called a ‘spiked tomahawk’. On his right was holstered a double-action revolver with a quick-load cylinder – an invention of his that he claimed was copied, conceptually, from an older Colt design. And, in a saddle scabbard there was housed a breach-loading, double-barrel, rifled weapon that supported several different varieties of cartridge ammunition. Other than a few small engravings and stampings on the metal actions of the weapons, they were rather stark, deadly simple stark. “Came for war, not for struttin’ my stuff!” was Jebbson’s sharp reply when asked by Jonathan about them.

  Secretly, Jonathan wished he, too, carried such armament. He had been a guest at one of Jebbson’s demonstrations before the War Department. The show the man put on convinced Jonathan of the need to accept these inventions should war come again to the empire. When confronted by some observers with the argument that skill with the sword and bow would win the day, Jebbson curtly retorted, “With these, I can put down a field of fire thick enough to walk on and then, if necessity forces me, I will lift my sword to finish the task. It’s not gallantry that will win the coming storm, but iron and lead!”

  Through the urging of PalaHar and Gabrielle, along with Lowenah’s unwavering support, the Council finally convinced the War Department to adopt Jebbson’s recommendations and begin production on many of his designs, also placing him in charge of research and development. Though few had accepted these
new weapons for their use, warehouses were beginning to fill with these tools of destruction, which proved fortuitous.

  Jonathan looked up, gazing into the sky, his eyes following the reddish haze darkening off to the east. Somewhere, many leagues that way, a dust storm raged, sending evidence of its angry wrath miles into the blue of the sky, turning the horizon a dull, blood-red. For the longest time, he stared at the crimson tide floating about the landscape, his face somber in reflective thought.

  Finally he turned to his friend who had been quietly observing as he rode beside him. “Tell me, please, if you can…” Jonathan asked with subdued curiosity, “How does it feel, I mean, killing someone...knowing that you have taken the life of a fellow human?” He waxed apologetic. “You have killed before, haven’t you?”

  Jebbson grimly nodded, looking off toward the reddened sky.

  Jonathan suddenly felt ashamed. “I’m sorry to have been so bold…”

  Jebbson interrupted, breaking into a stoic smile. “No need to apologize.” He looked into Jonathan’s face. “I’ve done what I’ve done, being neither proud nor loathing of my actions. I did what I did because of what I believed at the time. I have some regrets, but little remorse...regrets at times because I chose a road that led me to those choices, but no remorse, because I did what must be done at the moment.”

  “Do not style me evil unless that is what you choose. I care little. Yes, I’ve killed men, women, children. I don’t know the number. After a while, their faces blur into an indistinguishable mass, uncountable, unrecognizable. Oh yes, there is the occasional one I can clearly see, but it is a rare person that I can so recall.”

  “W… w… wo… women and ch… chil… children?!” Jonathan stuttered.

  A garish grin crossed Jebbson’s face as he nodded. “Does it shock you and surprise you, a man whose entire civilization slaughtered millions of innocents in arenas for sport, to think someone could take up the slaughter for what he believed a proper cause? Look, I didn’t just kill like one might do in combat. I murdered my enemy - or those I believed to be my enemies - hiding in their homes or running away, nursing mother, infant, old man. I murdered ‘em all.”

  He looked toward the sky. “I joined the scouts after hearin’ stories of savages a burnin’ and plunderin’ innocent homesteaders. After seein’ what they did to my people, I took up the cause and became a real Injun fighter. For over three years, I terrorized the countryside, burnin’ villages and killin’. In what they called the ‘West’ in those days, I made quite a name for myself among the locals as an Injun fighter in what later came to be called the ‘Indian Wars’. I never liked the killin’ but believed it was the right thing, only thing to do. I was defending what I considered my home.”

  Jonathan began to ask another question. Jebbson cut him off.

  “That’s nothin’! A few years later, there was this little feud ‘rose between some of my fellow countrymen...’War Between the States’. I believe you’re familiar with that history.” Jonathan nodded.

  “Well, because of my reputation and some connections back east, I eventually got me a cavalry post of major in the Northern Army. After two years of bloody fighting, my troop and I found ourselves in some little forgotten way-town with the whole enemy army comin’ down the road at us. Orders came up to hold our position. Five minutes later, the general was shot dead. Two minutes after that, the colonel was down, leaving me in command of seven hundred soldiers, me being the highest ranking officer on the field.”

  “Things got pretty hot after a while and we had to pull back or risk capture. I ordered two companies of my cavalry to attack the front of the advancing wing of the enemy on our right, and sent another company off to our left, giving the remainder of the regiment time to make an orderly retreat, what with our field pieces and all. I left three hundred of my boys behind that day, dead, half of those sent out attacking being shot from their horses. I have no idea how many of those kids on the other side my boys kilt before the day ended.”

  He rubbed his knee as if remembering. “By the time I left my unit… my leg shot all to Hell in some little skirmish… we’d lost ninety percent of our original troop. That’s war, my friend, killin’ and slaughterin’, that’s war.”

  Jonathan sat there, stunned speechless.

  Leaning back in his saddle, Jebbson drawled, “After a while, killin’ becomes a job, a means to an end, the end more important than the lives lost and ruined to attain that end. A little hill or rock, some position on a map, that’s what’s important. It ain’t the tally of the dead it took to capture that rock that counts for or agin’ you. You get the accolades for taking the prize, even if it kilt all of the men in your company.”

  Aghast, Jonathan blurted out, “How do you… does one live with the knowledge they have induced such death and destruction?!”

  Jebbson laughed bitterly, sardonically. “Death? Who can escape death?! Tell me, my friend, can one escape death? For how long did you retreat from its ever-search? A hundred years? You still lost. It found you. In our old world, it finds everyone. No one escapes. The lucky die soon enough to have no regrets, feel no guilt. Others go on until they go in search of death, for life has become too dismal to endure.”

  He tipped his head back again. “We are told that all those innocents who perished at the hands of people like me… and the likes of those in your day… will once again return when the universe is made a new.”

  “Well!” He slapped Jonathan on the leg. “It’s been put up for you and me to make that happen, to set things aright. We got a whole lot of fixin’ to do, and to get it done, we’re gonna have to do a whole bunch more killin’… murderin’, if necessary. Better get used to it my friend... for a slaughterin’ and a butcherin’ we will go. That’s what this whole Prisoner Exchange is all about, to set us up for the next stage, the slaughterin’ and butcherin’ and all.”

  Jonathan had paid little heed to Jebbson’s abuse of the language this time, his mind set in a whirl from all the things he heard. Yes, through the fog of uncertainty, Jebbson had shone a light on things to come. The man was beginning to grasp what his future here would eventually entail. No, his was not going to be that of an orator or statesman. Lowenah had delivered him to this place because of the savagery of his kind. Jonathan was also supposed to ‘deliver Hell upon Heaven’ one day, and in his own special way.

  He was shaken from these momentous revelations when a rider reined in close and shouted, “Mihai says to get up front on the double, wants your company for awhile.”

  Jebbson tipped his hat to the soldier, returning a salutation. Spurring his beast, he shouted for Jonathan to follow him. The blood-red dust kicked up from the horses was blown high into the air, drifting away in tiny, crimson clouds, silent harbingers, troubadours proclaiming the future.