Chapter 1

Dream, but dare not hope to break the passages that bind;

Unspoken lie, cruel origin of Promises Divined.

 

 

  Chapter 1

 

 

Cilanthria, Fallen Capital of the Realm of Dirajo

Universal Creation Standard Year 989-393-028-283-048-272-930

Morning Star worked to portray a reasonable degree of attentiveness as the Dark Gods laid out their plans for taking over his father’s realm.  It wasn’t that he lacked interest in what they planned to do there.  It was just that some of them, like gods of his father’s long-ago Combined Realms, appreciated the sounds of their own voices a great deal more than he did.  The gods’ booming pronouncements echoed in the high-ceilinged white conference hall, harsh sounds assaulting him from all directions.  Why couldn’t they just get to the point?

A three-dimensional model of the realm spun above the marble conference table, a visual aid for their strategizing.  He’d made that for them, at Logram’s request, and was rather impressed with his handiwork.  It even featured a miniature version of his father, an ancient visage in white light, buzzing around the realm’s perimeter. 

Morning Star slumped in his seat to the left of Logram’s spot at the head of the table, his arms folded across his chest, except for the seconds it took now and then to half-cover his yawns.  His eyes were on a level with the edge of the table, which had been crafted to fit beings of the average god-size, which he, being an angel, was not.  The Dark Gods were not, either, but they were at the other end of the spectrum.  Because they didn’t expend energy creating, as Light Gods did, they were huge.  They spilled over the delicate conference table and chairs, which they’d taken with the rest of the planet of Cilanthria, looking like nightmare monsters at a child’s tea party setting.

Morning Star’s raised brow and quirked mouth revealed disgust as Blatok ranted about how they’d attack from the outer edges, working their way toward Earth, the crown jewel of his father’s realm.  Nonetheless, he performed his duty, making the Earth flash red and highlighting it with a green arrow for the benefit of those too stupid to know where it might be, and adding black arrows at the appropriate places to showcase the outlined points of entry to the realm. 

Blatok finally ended his presentation, to much applause.  Morning Star kept his arms crossed.

Logram joined in the clapping, but not as enthusiastically as did the others.  The dark giant’s eyes were on Morning Star.  As the applause began to die down, he spoke.  “Lucifer, was there something you wished to say?”

“Not particularly.”

“Indulge us.”

“As I have said before,” Morning Star answered, “if you ever intend to take the realm, you must take Earth first.  Not last.”

“No!”  Hodart said, slamming his ham-sized fist onto the table. 

Morning Star thought he’d cracked the table and leaned to view it from underneath.  He watched the crack begin to spread while Hodart continued. 

“We start with the outer edges.  We add the conquered planets to our forces.  We grow stronger as we move toward the center.”

“And what do you think my father will be doing while you do that?”  Morning Star asked, sliding from his chair.

Logram snorted.  “Your father is weak!”

“That may be so,” Morning Star said, backing away.  “But he is strong enough to flee if he knows you are coming.  There is no telling where he might go or how long it might take to locate him again.”

The table collapsed.  Logram gave his end a shove, saving himself as the irregular slabs slammed onto the gods’ knees and feet, making them roar, while Morning Star finished, “Do you want him running?  Or do you want him dead?”

 

Earth, Samaria Layer 12866

Cherokee Territory, March 1820         

“Don’t shoot me, Mark.”

“Shut up!”

David gazed deeply into his brother’s tear-glossed eyes, desperate to find a trace of love, something he could hold onto.  All he found was the hatred.  He swallowed, but his mouth was dry, and it clicked in his throat.  No, he told himself, that could not be all.  He moved a half-step forward, closer to Mark, and even closer to the gun trained on the place between his eyes.  He could smell the metal, heated by Mark’s skin.  It burned in his nose. 

The gun didn’t worry him half as much as the rage that had caused Mark to draw it.  Love for his brother, along with confusion and fear, showed in his eyes as he tried to make sense of a danger he’d never foreseen.

Mark lowered his eyes, fixing them on a level with David’s mouth. 

David spoke again.  “Look at me, Mark.”

Mark’s only answer was a tiny jerk of his head. 

“Look at me.  I’m just David.”

“I know who you are,” Mark hissed.  “It’s what you are I don’t know anymore.”

“I’m the same I always was.”

Mark snorted.

 

 

 

The Place of the Spirit Walkers

Ghost in the Wind leaned closer to the sacred fire, its flames enabling him to study Mark through David’s eyes.  Once upon a time, he’d had a little brother just like Mark.  But his brother had never looked at him the way sixteen-year-old Mark was now looking at David.  Every muscle in Ghost’s body ached from the tension as the two young men faced each other in the clearing.  He was almost glad he’d died at sixteen.  He hadn’t had to live to see his brother hate him.

Colt, Ghost’s best friend and near-duplicate, spoke into the silence.  “I haven’t felt this anxious since the night we all waited to see whether Sleeper would wake Edge up.”

A shudder ran through Ghost at the memory.  He hoped they wouldn’t lose another Spirit Walker that night.  He told himself to relax.  Mark would put the gun away and all would be well.  It would have been a lot easier if he didn’t have to feel David’s tension in every fiber of his being, hear David’s blood pounding in his ears.  Clearly David considered it within the realm of possibility that Mark might make good on the threat.

Ghost and Colt weren’t the only ones feeling the moment.  Several hundred Cherokee men and boys crowded around the fire in their clearing, watching Mark, and all of them were tense.  Sleeper, to Ghost’s right, sensed the discomfiture around him.  He rocked more vigorously than usual, his keening further aggravating the others.  The baby lying in the sling against Ghost’s chest fussed, kicking his little legs and gnawing on his tiny fist.

The only one who seemed oblivious to the magnitude of the event was old Lake Dweller.  He bounced on a tree limb at the edge of the clearing, his long hair a riot of silver in the light of the fire and moon.  He clapped his hands in time with his words.  “All around the cobbler’s bench the monkey chased the weasel.  The monkey thought ’twas all in fun.  Pop goes the Night Walker!”

“I said, ‘Shut up!’” Diamondback roared.

He was in charge but Lake Dweller didn’t always listen to him.  Lake Dweller stuck out his tongue and sang more loudly.  This time it was “Blaze of Glory.”  For someone who could barely remember his own name half the time, Lake Dweller had a remarkable ability to parrot songs.  He also had a keen sense of irony, Ghost reflected.  For all the excitement of their living, Spirit Walkers rarely got the privilege of dying in acts of valor.  Ghost had died of fever, a far cry from the spectacular death scenes he’d envisioned for himself.  Of all the ways they’d died, though, being shot by Mark would be among the absolute most ignominious and heartbreaking.

 

 

 

The Cavern of the Souls

The great gray wolf Adanata stared into his fire, feeling the weight of his responsibility. 

He had the distinction of being The Last Soul on Earth.  It wasn’t that he was the only one.  There were many others, scattered in secret caverns, all of them dating back to the time of the Great Purge.  But of all of them, he was the very last to come into being.  He was also the only one stuck in the form of a wolf.  The others had human shapes, just as he had in the beginning.  He still did not know who to blame for turning him into a wolf.  Though the first suspect was Vgatahvi, The Spirit had steadfastly denied any responsibility.  Vgatahvi seemed to draw no pleasure from Adanata’s predicament.  Morning Star did, though, which made him the primary suspect.

Adanata was greatly revered among the Souls of Earth.  In the early days, when The Gods decided to destroy all the humans, Adanata had survived to fight the longest—until The Spirit Vgatahvi hunted him down.  Adanata knew it was luck as much as anything that had enabled him to survive and he’d told the others that.  Still, the Souls of Sanara, The Spirit Lands, had made him their leader.  His word was law.

“Galen!” he called, raising his voice to be heard in Galen’s chamber.  “Will he shoot?”

“I am sorry, Adanata!” Galen called.  “I do not know!”

Adanata growled.  That was the same answer he’d gotten the first time he asked.   Just because the other souls wanted to give him what he wanted didn’t mean they always could.  He paced his chamber, his claws clicking on the stone floor. 

 

“Mark, look at me.”

“No!” Mark said.  A cloud darkened the moon.  Mark jumped, skittish in his nervousness, and then shook it off.  “I ain’t gonna fall for none of your tricks.”

A blue-gray tendril of Smoky Mountain mist seeped into the air between their faces, the night mocking David with the tangible reflection of the distance between him and the brother who’d once idolized him.  Even now, he didn’t know exactly why or how they’d come to be so broken.  He’d sensed the growing distance and had taken small steps along the way to slow its progress but had been too busy with other things to give his relationship with Mark the time and attention it evidently needed.

“I’m sorry, Mark,” he said.  “I’m sorry I let things go so long.  But we can fix it.”

“There ain’t no other way to fix this but you dying, Night Walker,” Mark said, hissing the name as if it were a curse.

It felt like a curse, as often as not, to bear that name.  If only he could have made Mark see that, maybe things would never have gotten this bad.  But it wasn’t only David’s status that had come between them.   Mark had never looked at him the same after that time he’d seen him kiss Kitty.  And things had really gotten bad since David married Robin.

David sensed movement in the trees at the edge of the clearing.  The wolves were closing in.  He sent them a silent command to go about their own business and hoped they’d obey.  Wolves could be ornery.  Beyond that, they’d take commands from The Spirits above any from him, and he had little doubt The Spirits would sacrifice Mark if they thought it meant keeping him alive.  They’d done all kinds of things to people David loved, in the name of keeping him alive.  They probably wouldn’t kill Mark because they had plans to use him in the future, but they could make him hurt enough to wish he were dead. 

He realized now he never should have given in to Mark’s pressure to talk about his powers at a time when Mark was drunk.  He’d tried to give Mark what he wanted but instead had evidently turned him crazy.  David hoped it was only temporary.  For now, he thought the best approach was to back up a bit and try to get Mark’s mind off the subject.  The talk of the powers had sent Mark over the edge.  Even before that, though, things hadn’t been right.  Mark had been angry all evening, simmering after David told him he didn’t want to talk about his problems with Robin.

“The stuff with Robin and me.  I’m sorry I didn’t answer your questions.”  He hadn’t wanted to say anything negative about Robin, but he hadn’t known then how badly he needed Mark to understand.  “I’ll tell you now.”

“I don’t need you to tell me!” Mark said, stabbing the end of his gun into the bridge of David’s nose. 

It dismayed David to see how vulnerable Mark was making himself, in wielding the gun.  It would take next to nothing for David to take it from him.  David didn’t want to do that; it would only exacerbate Mark’s resentment.  Still, Mark should know.  David had taught him better than that.

“Robin already told me,” Mark continued.  “You ain’t hardly ever home, you’re distant when you are, and she’s sure you got another woman.  And I got no doubt it ain’t no woman that’s keepin’ you away.  It’s that bastard Kit Gates.”

Anger roiled in David with those last words.  He swallowed it back.  “I have not seen Kit since I was in Tennessee.”

“Liar!”

“Kit’s dead,” David said.  He’d never said the words aloud and hadn’t known how much it would hurt.  Tears stung his eyes.  His stomach felt as if it turned inside-out.  His knees threatened to drop him.  Worse than all of that was the wrenching pain in his chest.  In that moment, he felt the same hopelessness he’d known in those first days of living in a world where Kitty didn’t live anymore, the same certainty that a person could, in fact, die from missing someone he loved more than life.  He swallowed, hoping to clear the catch in his throat so he could breathe again, but it was dry, and that hurt, too.  He drew a deep, steadying breath.  “He died, saving me.”

Mark was quiet for a moment, processing that.  A trace of regret clouded his eyes.  David had known always that Mark had developed some fondness for Kit, despite himself. 

“Well, if that’s true, you prob’ly been pining after him this whole time and feeling guilty.  And you had no business marrying Robin, anyway, since you couldn’t get it up with a woman, seeing as how you’re a man-kisser.”

David considered defending against that accusation but changed his mind.  He had no right to reveal a secret Kitty had spent her whole adult life protecting.  Besides, he’d thought she was a man when he first tried to kiss her.  She’d taken on the male persona both to make a hard break from who she’d been as a child and to establish a barrier to men’s attention.  The deception had also enabled her to attend medical school.

“Granted, he wasn’t much of a man,” Mark said.  “What with that pretty face and bein’ all soft-spoke.”

For a moment, David’s mind tortured him with the conjured image.  Kitty had been just about too pretty to be human, with her bright blue eyes and high cheekbones, her honey-colored skin and golden curls.  Still, it was who she was inside that had drawn him.  “He was the greatest man I ever knew,” David ground out.

“None of that give you an excuse for messin’ with him,” Mark said.  “That’s just wrong, David.  Besides which, you shouldn’t have got that close to somebody that was White.” 

David had believed that, once upon a time, and he’d fought his feelings for Kitty because of it.  He’d felt almost disloyal to his people for wanting a white woman when there were so many beautiful and intelligent Cherokee girls.  He’d blamed the white man’s blood that his blond-haired, blue-eyed father had caused to course through his veins.  He’d hated himself for loving Kitty, but that didn’t stop him from doing it.  If she’d been a normal woman, concern for her safety might have been enough to keep him away.  He knew the kinds of things that could happen to white women who associated with dark-skinned men.  But everyone in Kitty’s town thought she was a man, and no one had ever suspected the nature of their relationship.  They’d maintained two separate realities, one for when there were other people around, and the other just for them.  He’d believed they were safe.  He would give anything he owned to go back to the time of their innocence.  He never would have touched her if he’d suspected where it would lead.

Mark spoke again.  “Besides, he was way too old for you.”

“So he kept telling me,” David said.  Kitty had been more than twice his age but it had never felt that way to him.

Mark studied the ground for a moment.  “I’m sorry he died, though.”  He sighed.  His gun arm slumped a little.  He caught himself and re-braced his form, pressing the tip of the gun into the muscle over David’s heart.  From Mark’s stance and the amount of pressure, David suspected Mark was taking advantage of David’s proximity to help hold up the gun and his arm.  “I guess it ain’t been an easy time for you,” Mark said, raising his eyes to David’s.  “And I guess, after that, it’d be hard for you to get close to somebody else.  But all this stuff with Robin, it’s still your fault.  You should never have married her, with another person still on your mind.”

“I know that, Mark,” David said.  “I knew that then.  But the Spirits, they didn’t care.  They said marry her.  I had no choice.  They used Robin.  Same as they use me.  Same as they used Kit.  Same as they use every other man, woman and child to get what they want.  Because they don’t care how we feel.”

“See, that is your primary problem right there,” Mark said.  “Everything bad happens, you wanna blame it on the Spirits.  And how special you are that you got this calling from them.  Well, maybe it ain’t them that’s ruining everybody’s life around you, David.  Why don’t you ever stop to think maybe it’s you?”