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= FAR WARS =

a novel in the Empire of Time series

by John Argo

5.

This evening of remembrances, the spiritual and civil ruler of all humankind has come to offer respects. The Holy Mother sits enthroned on a high platform, surrounded by magnificent banners and flags, as well as a large retinue. She holds the twin slender ivory scepters of her sway—the one civil, the other spiritual. She is surrounded by battalions of military priestesses, as well as sacred agents, our own Civil Defense in uniform, and citizen families dressed in their finest. The sacred agents, male and female, wear drab, but the uniform of the military priestesses is black as night—right as might, all tight and fight—including high boots and short tunics with hoods thrown back, with daggers and pistols on their matte web belts; on fluttering pennants held high, their totem bird is the crow, color of night, smart and deadly, a sephir of the Holy Wisdom.

So then comes the surprise, and you will understand this shortly, in due time, for I promise to make this story no longer than your patience will hold out. When we arrived at the throne of Menemet VIII, I felt a shudder of surprise. I had not realized who she was, this sister of us all. The woman sitting on the throne was special—heart of my heart, skin of my skin, eyes of my soul. I had not realized that there was a new popess in the Rifraf Arm, Sea of Colored Glass, in whose stellar clouds which Tellerine world and Corduwaine system are but glimmering atoms among the myriad. Life made all the more sense now. Surrounded by her fighting men and women, the sacred agents and military priestesses, the sister of humankind, servant of the servants of the divine, was a study in reserve and majesty. I genuflected before her. She barely moved her eyes, but I read the emotions roiling behind all that reserve and majesty. My wife and elder daughters brought my family to their knees around me. The woman sitting above us, with her twin scepters and regalia of power, looked upon us with god-love. There was an expression in her eyes as ancient and powerful as the long history of humankind. Her love for us all was our starlight and sunlight. It was no longer personal. It was about our entire race, and its existence, and its rightful but peaceful place in the universe. The assembled mix of important humansh, manoid, alienian, and other dignitaries on the platforms beyond her testified to how we had together made peace, and driven the Kaarrk back to their corner of hell with the promise: Never Again Like This, meaning the thousands of names on the obelisk that we honored this evening.

When the music of massed marching corps rose from below to summon our attention, we stepped to the railings near the Holy Mother, and looked down as special ceremonies began on the plain, on the Bay of Lue at the Sea of Blue.

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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.