Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (21 page)

The next fire he
passed had only Garnet and his father enjoying its light and heat. Danner
deliberately walked just close enough to hear what they were saying, expecting
to overhear logistics of their journey or battle deployment plans.

“We’ll be near
the farm tomorrow,” Garnet said.

“I know.”

“Do you want to
go visit mom?”

Garet sighed.
“With all my heart, son. You haven’t been to see her since you became a
paladin, have you?”

“No.” Garnet
hesitated. “What’s wrong?”

“I guess I’m
just not looking forward to facing your mother,” he said finally. “It’s one
thing to see your husband go off time and again to face death, but it’s something
else to watch your son go with him. She knew what I was and the dangers
involved when she met me. I have always been a paladin to her. You however,
son, she’s watched grow up from the moment of your birth. Some part of you will
always be that little boy running around the farm chasing chickens with a
stick.”

Danner chuckled
silently at the thought of his mountainous friend as a little boy wielding a
switch and terrorizing farm animals.

“Mom’s known
what I was going to do longer than I have, dad,” Garnet said. “I think she’s
been preparing for this for a long time now. I don’t think it’ll be as bad as
you think.”

“I hope you’re
right, son,” Garet said melancholically, “because if something happens to you
while we’re gone, I’d rather be dead first and face eternal judgment than go
home and face your mother.”

Danner wondered
how Garnet’s mother could be such a terror so as to intimidate Garet, whom
Danner had always viewed as such a strong, powerful man. Some of that was
carry-over from how Danner viewed Garnet, he knew, but still, Garet was
impressive in his own right. Was Garnet’s mother that much of a shrew?

The conversation
between father and son moved on to other matters, and Danner moved on to yet
another fire. This time, he strolled over to where several of his friends were
sitting with Mikal. Marc, of course, was there, asking all manner of questions
that only an Orange paladin would ever truly appreciate. Mikal had dekinted his
wings and wore a thick robe to hide his features whenever possible. The presence
of the angel was still not a widely known fact to the paladins not in or
friendly with Shadow Company, and they preferred to keep it that way.

Having Marc
on-hand all the time was bad enough, but Danner shuddered to imagine a crowd of
Orange paladins clustered around their Seraph guest asking questions and
arguing with each other over academic trivialities.

Danner
approached the fire quietly, listening in.

“…truly a
beautiful place,” Mikal was saying calmly, “and the city of Medina is the most
wonderful sight of all to behold. The city of crystalline towers is bordered on
one side by a river of pure music, and on another by a river made of light
itself.”

Deeta was
stretched out on a log near Flasch, idly running her fingers through his hair.
She sighed at the descriptions of Heaven, no doubt picturing them in her mind.

“The Mustion and
the Alethion,” Marc murmured.

Mikal nodded.
“Indeed. With the Philion, they are the three rivers of Heaven.”

Marc started to ask
something, but Michael cut him off with a question of his own.

“You mentioned
before that you and several other immortals were close friends,” the Yellow
paladin said. “I’m curious to hear more about them.”

“Kaelus you
know,” Mikal said, motioning toward where Birch was seated at the adjoining
campfire, still listening to Hoil. “He was always the most courageous of us,
and he kept his head even when his temper flared. And such a temper,” Mikal
said with a smile, “even mighty Gabriel was known to tread lightly when facing
Kaelus’s ire.

“Gabriel was a
force and power unlike any I’ve seen. He was pure of purpose and absolutely
firm in his devotion and vision. He was, without a doubt, the closest of us all
to the Almighty, and a bold leader and friend for us all. Raphael, by contrast,
was quiet and tender-hearted. She healed many of the angels who might otherwise
have been destroyed during the Great Schism. Her loss was a terrible blow to
all of us.”

Mikal was quiet
for a moment. Danner had the wild, irrational thought that perhaps Mikal had
been involved with the female angel, then he quickly banished it. Angels didn’t
do that sort of thing with each other. Did they?

“And the
others?” Michael asked, interrupting Danner’s thoughts before he could explore
them further.

“Uriel was once
the Angel of Death, perhaps the most grim of offices in all of Heaven,” Mikal
said, “and until recently almost a wholly symbolic one. Uriel and Abdiel were,
however, the two most disruptive immortals in all of Pleroma. Uriel’s tricks
tended to be almost vicious at times, but never truly destructive. Abdiel was
mischievous yet likeable in the way of a child. I can think of few things more
tragic than his fate.”

Danner felt
something rub against his leg, and he looked down and saw a gray-scaled drann
peering up at him. Selti crooned softly at Danner, who leaned down to scratch
beneath the creature’s eye-ridges. After a moment, he sent the cat-sized
reptile scampering back toward Birch.

“His
āyus
was that of what you would now call a demon, but his spirit was pure and his
mind almost innocent at times,” Mikal was saying as he shook his head in
remorse. “I don’t think he ever considered he might be harmed when he suddenly
found himself on the wrong side of the war, he was too absorbed in abstract
theory and philosophical conjecture. After Gabriel was killed and the Great
Schism erupted, Abdiel spoke out against his fellows, trying to convince them
that violence was not the way and would only lead to our mutual destruction.

“One of the more
powerful and cruel of demons, Nisroc, struck Abdiel down, and a crowd of demons
tore him apart. Nisroc sent us his severed wings to taunt us,” Mikal said, his
voice grim and his face a mask of remembered anger. “I personally stalked and
slew Nisroc during the Great Schism, and I sent his claws back to his fellow
demons for their own memento.”

“A fitting act,”
Flasch said, his voice almost awed as he listened to the angel’s tale.

“It was Uriel’s
idea,” Mikal confessed. “He always did have a sense of appropriate justice to
him.”

“Interesting,
the ascribing of one of the virtues to an angel,” Marc said, breaking in. “You
know, I’ve read all the texts on angels we have translated in the library, and
I have a theory that….

 “Oh, God
save us, not another one of your
theories
,” Flasch said. Deeta giggled.

“I prefer to
think of them as unproven facts,” Marc said with the bruised dignity of someone
who knows he’s being teased.

“Well, just
think, Marc,” Danner said, stepping forward. “In a few days, you’ll be able to find
out the answers to so many of your questions and prove all the
facts
you
can think of.”

Mikal stiffened
slightly as Danner moved into the firelight.

What’s that
all about?
Danner wondered, frowning slightly.

He’d loosened up
considerably since his fight with Kaelus, but the Angel of Death had always
been a little strange around Danner, ever since they first got him to start
talking to them. He avoided Danner whenever possible, even to the point of
ignoring him at times, or so it seemed to Danner. Thinking back, Mikal appeared
uncomfortable around the denarae, too.

How had he not
seen it before? Danner hadn’t noticed the Seraph acting that way toward any of
the other humans, and the only thing Danner could think of that set him aside
from the others was, of course, the most obvious. He was half angel. But why
should the angel from Heaven treat him any differently because of that?

The virtues are not isolated concepts, but rather rely
on each other inherently. Each requires courage to maintain in the face of
adversity. Piety leads to faith in the virtues themselves. Love promotes the
others and gives them a reason for existing.

- “An Examination of
Prismatic Virtue” (801 AM)

- 1 -

Garnet passed the
word through Brican that he was going to be leaving the company for a short
time to visit his home, and he invited any of the officers to come along who so
desired. Danner immediately leapt at the opportunity, and he was quickly joined
by Brican and Flasch. Marc and Michael decided they’d better stay behind and
keep an eye on the unit. Guilian just gave a vague, negative response and left
it at that.

“Besides, our
old family farm was near here until we lost it when our parents died, so I’ve
already met Garnet’s mother plenty of times,” Marc said. “So has Flasch, he
just thinks Garnet’s sister is cute.”

Flasch grimaced
and turned away.

Marc grinned and
leaned close to Danner to murmur, “Garnet’s little sister has a huge crush on
Flasch, but she’s as ugly as Garnet is big. Drives him nuts.”

“Why is he going
then?” Danner asked.

“I think she
talked him into some promise years ago that whenever Garnet came to visit,
Flasch would come, too,” Marc said with a chuckle. “The one time he didn’t go
with Garnet to visit, little Anolla followed Garnet back to Nocka and whined at
Flasch for a week straight until he vowed to never again break his promise. She
has a very… ah,
piercing
voice. Fortunately for him, Garnet hasn’t gone
home since at least a year before we joined the Prism. I think Flasch views
that as sort of an answer to his prayers, and that, more than anything, started
him on a life of faith as a Violet.”

Danner laughed
as he turned away to find a mount to ride. It was pointless to unpack his buggy
to fit more people just so he could go on a family visit with Garnet, then
repack it afterwards. He glanced over and saw Alicia sitting in his buggy with
Deeta and Moreen, talking animatedly about something. The energy in her speech
and motions brought a smile to Danner’s lips.

Garet and
Perklet went along with them, so the group ended up riding triple on Garet’s
yellow and Perklet’s violet-scaled dakkan.

“Hey, Garnet,”
Flasch said as the runner-dakkans sped off down a small road, “when are we
going to get dakkans of our own? We’re paladins, after all.”

“When you’re old
enough to take care of one yourself,” Garet answered before his son could
reply. “You need to learn proper care and responsibility first. Start on
something smaller and more manageable first. Get yourself a cat.”

“I had a cat,”
Flasch yelled back over the sound of the dakkan’s footsteps. “He ran away.”

“Well, there you
go.” Garet turned and winked at his son, who laughed uproariously.

Danner twisted
about to look at the Violet paladin riding just behind him. “So, Flasch,
looking forward to seeing Garnet’s sister? What was her name? Anolla?”

“Annoy-a is more
like it,” Flasch grumbled.

Twenty minutes
later, Danner peeked over Perklet’s shoulder and saw a small farmstead coming
into view. The trail led to the front door of a large cottage, and Danner could
just see a sizable barn and an outhouse behind the simple home. Two smaller
barns were just visible tucked behind the larger structures. The buildings and
the surrounding land were encompassed by a stout, split-rail fence that came up
almost to the shoulders of their dakkans as they passed through the gate.

The paladins
slowed their dakkans’ pace to a trot, and as they approached the house, three
people walked out to greet them. Foremost was a young man almost as large as
Garnet and obviously related, but year or two behind their friend in age.

Following him
was a younger boy who was apparently still growing into his own size. His arms
and legs seemed a little too long for his body and slightly uncoordinated, as
though he hadn’t quite gotten used to them yet. The promise of size was there,
but his awkwardness made Danner think back on some of his more painful years of
growing up.

Last in the
group was what Danner took to be a woman, but she was covered from head to toe
in a thick cloak, despite the warm weather.

“Is she really
that
ugly?” Danner whispered to Flasch as they all dismounted.

“Danner, you
have no idea,” Flasch replied. “She once made a blind man flinch.”

Garnet and his
father moved forward eagerly to greet the trio. The younger boys quickly
abandoned all attempts at decorum and raced forward to embrace their father and
brother. Backs were pounded, laughs were exchanged, and seconds later Garnet
and his two brothers were all wrestling on the ground.

“Boys, boys!
Garnet, Brad, Bronk, what would your mother say?” Garet said with a mock glare,
but he quickly laughed when they paused their bout to stare up at him with
identical looks of innocence. Then Bronk elbowed Garnet in the side, and the
wrestling match resumed with full fervor.

“And Anolla,
come give your father a hug,” Garet said, casually stepping over a leg that
suddenly thrust itself in his path from the wrestling trio.

Father and
daughter embraced, then she turned almost immediately toward Flasch and
approached him. The Violet paladin shuffled nervously, and Danner was forced to
hide a smile.

“Hello, Flasch,”
Anolla said in a low, hushed voice.

“Hey, Anolla,”
Flasch replied with a too-bright voice. “I’d say you’re looking well, but it’s a
little hard to see under that clo…”

Flasch’s voice
faded as his jaw abruptly dropped almost to his chest in shock. Anolla lifted
the hood from her face, and even Danner couldn’t withhold a gasp.

Anolla’s hair
was radiant in the sunshine, and her skin was deeply tanned and beautifully
smooth. She had strong features like her father and brothers, but they were
softened by a definite femininity that gave her an absolutely stunning
appearance. She was no great beauty, but there was something open and honest about
her that made an impact. Sapphire eyes glittered as her cherry-red lips
twitched in suppressed mirth.