1.9 & 1.10

-9-

Zadkiel stood in his doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed with anger.  Azrael stood on the other side, his expression stern and unyielding.  He had come to advise Zadkiel that Raphael would be by in the morning to collect Lord Ishitar so that he might leave Zadkiel’s care to move in with Lord Loki.

Zadkiel was more than grieving over the matter.  He was furious.  He had raised Lord Ishitar from a babe and he saw no reason why the young God couldn’t continue his studies during the day whilst still residing in Zadkiel’s care at night.  That had ever been the arrangement whilst the boy was learning what he must from the Quorum.  Why, now, was that arrangement required to change?

“This isn’t my doing, Zad.”  Azrael replied, shaking his head.  “It is what Lord Noliminan wants.”

“If that is so,” Zadkiel seethed, bent over the staff that had supported his weight since he had been crippled for expiring a Goddess that Lord Noliminan had created at Lord Lucias’ order and in defiance of Lord Noliminan’s wishes, “then he can summon me to his library and tell me so himself.”

“He won’t do that.”  Azrael replied, his expression now one of guarded pity.  “You know that he can no longer bear to look at you.”

“That may be.”  Zadkiel shrugged.  He had long ago lost any love that he might once have felt for his Lord and Master.  His feelings toward Lord Noliminan now boarded between loathing and disdain.  As for his eleven brothers, who had abandoned him on Lord Noliminan’s order of his exile, his feelings toward them were that of cold brewing fury.  “But I don’t take orders from the likes of you.”

Azrael, sighing, lowered his gaze.  “This isn’t my fault.”

“Yet you’re willing to rip that boy away from me without a thought or a care to how he will feel about it.” Zadkiel snapped at him.  “As if he doesn’t feel abandoned enough by his true parents.  Now you intend to rip him from my arms as well?  I won’t stand for it Azrael.”

“You don’t have a choice.”  Azrael raised his gaze.  “You do know that?”

“Again,” Zadkiel shrugged.  “If I am to be issued an order by Lord Noliminan then Lord Noliminan can damn well summon me and issue it himself.”

Azrael, sighing, gave him a tired nod.  “As you wish, my brother.”

Zadkiel snorted at that and slammed the door in Azrael’s face.  Brother indeed.  When have any of you ever treated me as a brother?

Spinning around, his mind racing with his fury, he found himself stopping short.  Standing in the hallway, clearly having heard the entire heated conversation, stood Ishitar.  His expression was dour and his nostrils were slightly flaring. 

In order to deflect the boy, Zadkiel growled.  “I intend to make pie.  Have you harvested the apples like I asked you to?”

“I did.”  Ishitar replied, his light brown eyes dancing over Zadkiel’s face.  “What was that about?”

Zadkiel shrugged.  “Who can know?”

“You can know, you crotchety old man.”  Ishitar replied, though his lips began to dance with a smile.  “Where am I going?”

“Nowhere if I can help it.”  Zadkiel shrugged.  “You belong here.  With me.  I’m not letting you go without a fight.”

Ishitar’s brow furrowed.  “You can’t possibly expect that my father will allow you to defy him.”

“That’s Moira’s business.”  Zadkiel grumbled at him.  Moira was the God of fate and was constantly referenced when matters of fate were being discussed.  “Not yours.”  Wincing with every step he walked past Ishitar toward the kitchen.  “I need potatoes.  Go and dig me up some.”

Ishitar sighed.  “Zadkiel—“

“Don’t argue with me, boy.”  Zadkiel replied.  “I asked you to—“

He stopped short.  The bell on his ankle began ringing angrily and persistently.  He raised his gaze to meet Ishitar’s, fear coursing through every one of his veins.

“Well.”  Ishitar muttered.  “I guess that you got your wish.”

“I guess that I did.”  Zadkiel replied, swallowing.  He didn’t get his wish.  His wish was that Lord Noliminan would see the sense in Ishitar staying with him.  If he were calling Zadkiel to his library then not only did he not see the sense but he was furious with Zadkiel for his defiance.  “See to the potatoes.  I’ll make you some supper when I get home.”

Ishitar, who knew as well as Zadkiel that Zadkiel was about to be punished for his disobedience, lowered his gaze and gave Zadkiel a perfunctory nod.

-10-

After searching in all of their usual places, Faunas finally found Prince Iladrul sitting by the river that ran along the south border of the meadow that lay just past the stables and which ran along the great road that led from the castle proper to the village where the servants being bred for doxy were housed.  His prince sat on the very edge of the bank with his long robes pulled up and his bare feet dangling in the deep water below.

            Relieved, Faunus let out a grateful sigh and quickened his pace so that he might speak to the other boy.  He called, “Prince Iladrul!  There you are!”

            “Here I am.”  Iladrul agreed, not looking away from the river. 

            “Tarna and I are going to play at swords.”  Faunas told Iladrul as he reached him.  “Do you want to join?”

            “Not really.”  He replied, never looking away from the rushing water of the river.

            “Then bow?”  Faunas suggested.

            “No.”  A little more irritably.                 

            “We could go spy on the doxies.”  Faunas offered.  “There’s that pretty female one that you like that—“

            “I don’t want to.”

            Faunas frowned at that.  Iladrul had been the first of them to brave sneaking into the doxy village unaccompanied by his father.  And he had been the one to show them where they all bathed.  Since then, he and Faunus had taken every opportunity afforded to them to sneak into the forest and around the village so that they might hide in the trees and watch.  “We could go and tease the kitchen girls.”

            “I don’t want to tease the kitchen girls.”

            “Then the kitchen lads.”  Faunas offered.

            Iladrul rounded on him then, his emerald green eyes dark and brooding.  “I don’t want to play with you today, Faunas!  I have other concerns besides you!”

            Faunus recoiled.  Prince Iladrul’s words had hurt him but he seemed either not to notice or to care. 

            “Fine.”  Faunus told him.  “But you should at least let my father know when you leave the castle grounds.”

            “Your father is not my father.”  Iladrul snapped at him.

            “Maybe not.”  Faunus conceded.  “But he is your General at Arms.  And he can’t protect you if he doesn’t know where you are.”

            “Maybe I don’t want to be protected.”  He continued to stare up at Faunus.  But that brooding look was now replaced by something else.  It wasn’t fear, exactly.  But it was a close thing.

            Whatever it was, Faunus didn’t like it one bit.

            Having shared the cradle with Iladrul, however, Faunus knew when to question the boy and when to let things bide.  The expression on Iladrul’s face called for the latter.  So he didn’t ask.  Though he hoped Iladrul would come to him in his own time. 

            What he said was, “As you will, my Prince.”

            A strange shiver passed over the older boy’s face, and then he looked away.  Iladrul was done talking.

            Faunus bowed to him again, though Iladrul didn’t see it, and turned away. 

            He hesitated for a moment, wondering what the right thing was to do.  He should speak to his father about his concerns regarding his Prince and he knew that.  But this was his father’s day off and he knew that on his days off his father spent his time in the doxy village.  To go there without his father accompanying him could get him into grave trouble.  To interrupt his father if he were rutting with one of the breeding angels could get him into greater trouble still.

            He looked over his shoulder to his friend, however, and he realized that he had no choice.  Something was bothering Iladrul—had been bothering him for weeks—and Lord Wisterian needed to know that. 

            Faunas was just a child, however.  It wasn’t his place to approach Iladrul’s father with his concerns.  Only Faunas’ father could do that.

            Hoping the beating that he was liable to earn was worth the effort, Faunus stepped onto the Great Road and began walking away from the castle grounds. 

            From where Iladrul had been sitting, the doxy village was two miles to the southeast.  It was a pretty walk, with the river on one side and the forest on the other.  The forest also resumed on the other side of the river; that was the side where Faunus and his friends usually approached on their ventures to spy.  With the urgency of his task in mind, it was less than an hour after he had left Iladrul that he came to the bridge crossing the river into the village. 

            Faunus stopped on this side of the bridge, looking over it at the many rows of cottages built neatly together with only small gaps to separate them.  Most of them had small back yards where the inhabitants could grow vegetables and many had flower beds neatly planted in front.  Each cottage looked virtually the same, the only distinction being the odd porch swing here or there or personal bric-a-brac chosen by the inhabitants to liven up what Faunas had to assume was a very dreary existence.  There was no luxury here, as there were for those born of the freemen and warriors.  What pleasures these folk found they made on their own.

            While his father didn’t own any of the breeding angels—purchase was being saved for their children by the freemens’ heirs once they were old enough to bargain for them—he did have one that he preferred.  Faunas had only met her once, but it had been in her cottage so he knew exactly where to go first.

            He knocked and waited.  Eventually she answered, at first curious and then smiling.  Faunus smiled in return—an easy thing to do (she was beautiful with long black hair and dark blue eyes)—and gave her a bow.  “Is my father here, my Lady?”

            “I’m sorry, Faunus.”  She shook her head.  “I believe that he’s with Jeanir this afternoon.”

            Faunus continued to smile politely at her.  “Where does she live?”

            She chuckled.  “He lives just about four cottages down on the left.”  She stepped out and pointed in that direction.  “There.  The one with the rose bushes.”

            Faunus felt his brow furrow as he followed her finger.  He hadn’t been aware that there were male angels that lived in the doxy village.  He had always assumed that given the purpose of them was to breed the elves that would make up the actual doxies when the time came that they were all female.  Even more confusing, he’d never seen his father in the kind of company one might expect in this village when it came to other males.

            “Thank you.”  He said and turned away from her, stepping off her porch and walking, extremely baffled, to the cottage that belonged to the angel named Jeanir.

            When he reached the door to that cottage, he hesitated.  He wasn’t sure why but he somehow felt that it was ruder to interrupt his father if he were with a rutting with a male angel then if he were to be doing so with a female angel.  But then he thought to the dark fear in Iladrul’s eyes and he knew that he had no choice.  He had come this far; he might as well see this through.

            He knocked.  And he waited.  For five minutes he waited before the door opened and a very tall, very muscular angel opened the door, looking upward and then, surprised, lowering his gaze to meet Faunas’.  He wore nothing but short skirt that barely extended its courtesy to his knee.  He must have misunderstood who Faunus was because he growled, “Where’s your mother boy?  You shouldn’t be knocking on a stranger’s door.  Weren’t you taught better?”

            “I’m . . .” Faunus shook his head.  “I’m sorry, sir.  I’m looking for my father.  I was told that he might be here.”

            “Who’s your father, then?”  The angel asked gruffly.  His dark brown eyes were narrowed as he ran his strong, warrior’s hand through his long blonde hair. 

            What are you doing here?  Faunus thought as he looked upon him.  You belong in the army.  Not breeding as a doxy.

            “General Balean, Sir.”  Faunus swallowed.  “I need to speak with him.”

            The angel snorted, looked over his shoulder, barked his father’s name and then returned his gaze to Faunus.  “Wait here.”

            The door slammed closed in Faunus’ face.  He took two steps back, surprised at the rudeness, and then turned his back to it.  He supposed that if he were an angel such as that one and he had pulled the wrong lot when the time for the dividing duties had come when the hierarchy had first been decided that he would probably be just as angry and, thus, just as rude. 

            But for the color of stone that your own mother had pulled, it might just as well be you living in this village.

            He shivered at the thought and put it out of his mind.  His mother hadn’t drawn the red stone.  She’d drawn the silver one.  As such, she was a freewoman and, so too, were her children.  That his father had pulled the gold stone and then battled with the other warriors to earn his title as General was nothing more than a simple turn of luck and fate.

            It was a good fifteen minutes before the door opened again.  By then Faunus had lowered himself into a seated position on the porch stairs.  The sound of his father’s voice, however, brought him immediately to his feet.

            “What is the meaning of this, boy?”  He sounded angry.  In fact, he sounded angrier than Faunus had ever heard him sound before. 

            He braced himself for the blow as he turned to face his father.  “Forgive me, Father.” He swallowed back his fear.  “I wouldn’t have come, but I think it’s important.”

            “What do you know of important?”  His father growled at him.  His dark eyes were brooding and every line of his face was drawn in irritation. 

            “It’s Prince Iladrul, sir.”  Faunus forced himself to hold his father’s gaze.  “Something is wrong with him.”

            His father’s face transformed from one of anger and irritation to one of deep concern.  “What is wrong with him?”

            Faunus shook his head.  He didn’t know how to voice what he suspected.

            “Out with it boy!”  His father, not always a patient man, snapped. 

            Faunus shook his head again.  But this time he found his voice.  “He’s been distant.  He won’t train with us anymore.  He won’t play with us either.  He only sits by himself and broods.”  He lowered his gaze and swallowed.  This he would be punished for and he knew it.  “I even asked him if he wanted to sneak to the river and watch the doxies bathe and he didn’t even have interest in that.”

            He braced himself, but the blow never came.  When his father spoke, his tone was bemused.  “You shouldn’t sneak about the doxies.  You aren’t ready for that.  And nor should your eyes fall on any but those that I buy for you.”

            Blushing, Faunus nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

            “Don’t do it again.”  Still bemused.  But the order buried within his words was clear.  If he disobeyed he would regret it.  He knew that and so promised himself that he would no longer sneak through the forest to spy.  “And tell your friends the same.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “How long has this been going on?”  Now his voice was filled with concern.  And then as Faunus was about to answer, “Iladrul, I mean.  Not your peeping.”

            “A couple of days, I think.”  Faunus answered, relieved.

            “Since the demon came?”

            “I think so.”  Faunus nodded.  “He seems . . .” He hated himself for saying the words.  But he knew that there was no choice.  “He seems scared, sir.”  Faunus’ father sighed.  “I thought maybe you could . . . maybe you should speak to his father?”

            General Balean didn’t answer, but he did nod.  “Go home, boy.  You don’t belong here.”

            “Yes, Sir.”  Faunus bowed to him. 

            His father turned away from him, ready to return to the angel within, and then froze.  “Faunus.”

            “Yes, sir?” Faunus, who was leaving, turned back to him.

            “Best you don’t tell anyone where you found me.”  He muttered, and then cleared his throat.   “Especially your mother.”  Faunus, taken aback by this request, stared at him with wide eyed confusion.  His mother knew that he visited the doxy village.  Why would she care today? “Do you hear me?”

            “Yes, Sir.”  He nodded, promising his father, deciding whatever his father’s reasons where they were his own.

            His father nodded in response.  “I’ll see you at supper.”