The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (68 page)

Get away she did. Late night found her
huddled under an ancient oak deep in the woodland, a drizzling rain
soaking her to the skin. Already, Ishtar was chiding herself for
acting so foolishly - not for running away, but for not planning
her escape. Remembering the bowl of tumbled fruit she had thrown
upon the floor only increased the girl’s hunger, and her bruised
feet made her long for the slippers sitting at the foot of the tiny
bed. And the fire… and the warm milk… and the pretty little things
tucked about her cozy room…

“
Oh shut up, you!”
She cried, and
then began again mumbling aloud over her present dilemma. “Stupid
thing, running away with nothing but a long blouse! No food,
nothing..” She rubbed her feet to ease the cramping pain caused by
previous injuries.

Looking out from under the low-hanging
boughs of the giant tree into the deep forest’s shadows, Ishtar
thought about the morrow and what it might bring. Where was she,
how far from home? Yes, home. Which direction was it, and would it
be safe to go back there? After all, she must have been taken from
her home, but by whom and why?

Too many questions, at least for the moment,
too many questions for this lost, lonely child. Tomorrow, yes
tomorrow was a good time to search for those answers. The girl
leaned back against the tree’s gnarly trunk, closing her eyes,
beginning to cry anew. Gradually the night passed into fitful
dreams, catching Ishtar up in worlds lost between fantasy and
reality. Little did she remember other than her mother’s gentle
voice calling her for a breakfast of sweet cakes and honey.

Shivering awake in the early morning chill,
it took a while for Ishtar to gather her wits about her, forgetting
for the moment the previous day’s adventures. Staring dumbly into
the ghostly mist as it slowly twirled up through the shimmering
sunlight, the girl gradually came to recognize her surroundings.
She was wet, cold, hungry, and ached from head to foot, but
especially in her feet. Looking down at them, she let out a gasp at
seeing two swollen stumps with ten purplish toes sticking awkwardly
from them.

The girl began to cry remorsefully over her
previous actions. Maybe the people holding her captive had meant
her no harm. After all, they had gone to extensive trouble to fool
her into believing she was still in her little room and that Hanna
and her uncle were tending to her needs. The thought of such a ruse
was troublingly curious. Why? Why go such extreme? Never was such a
thing heard of before. Oh, yes! Deceit and treachery were common
tales told by her father as the family sat about the dining table,
but nothing like the things Ishtar was experiencing.

Her remorseful cries were soon replaced by
indignant howls of angry frustration. If she was such an important
prize, why had the guard not already come to recapture her? What
fools
governed this place? A one-legged sailor drunked up on
new wine could have managed an escaped from the prison she was in.
At that, she began shouting out insults and derisions against her
former captors, the girl’s vernacular far more fitting to be heard
on the deck of a ship in a following sea than from the pious lips
of a person such as her uncle.

Eventually, Ishtar’s boisterous rants
weakened into heartfelt mutterings, and finally deteriorated into
quiet mumbles until the girl gave up and began a gloomy silent
pout, wrapping herself in folded arms while sitting cross-legged in
the damp grasses. Well, she would show them! When they finally came
in search of her, nothing but a shriveled carcass of a starved and
bloodied prize would they discover! The very thought of such a
happening made the girl smile, that is, until she heard strange
noises coming from the deep wood to her left.

Ishtar’s eyes popped open as her ears
strained, listening. Then she heard the noise again - a screechy
chatter the likes of which sent chills up her spine. Could it be
the little beasts her father had once spoken about, short-armed,
fiery little dragons that ran about on two long legs that father
said screeched like giant trees mourning in distress? “They’ll
sneak up on you unawares and strip the living flesh off you with
their sharp teeth afore you know they are even there!” He had told
her as they sat about the hearth fire. Stories like that, and even
greater dangers the outside world harbored flooded the girl’s
mind.

Forgetting her death wish, Ishtar jumped to
her feet and began a hasty retreat away from the dark, foreboding
woods, a path taking her back in the direction of the little
village from which she had earlier escaped. As she made her way
westward, the wood began to thin a bit until she found her trail
opening into small clearings, some of them filled with spiny bushes
filled with luscious, sweet fruits full to their rich summer
ripeness. The temptation soon became too great for the child, the
fruit too generously offering itself up to her reach. In little
time, the delicious taste of mouthfuls of scrumptious delights
filling a hungry belly cast a forgetful shadow over the earlier
eerie forest sounds.

With a full stomach and the warm late
morning breeze wafting below a bright blue sky, any previous lonely
trepidation Ishtar might have been feeling drifted away on the
dreamy day. Emboldened with renewed curiosity, the girl was
determined to explore this new and strange world in hopes of
discovering where she might be. After all, she could not be many
miles from home, could she? A journey of two or three days would
well take her into unfamiliar lands. Far from her home had the
child not ever traveled, except along the broadways leading to
nearby cities. So off she went at a casual pace, always alert to
finding other tasty delights growing along the path.

After passing through an exceptionally thick
grove of young basswood and aspen, the girl came into a tiny glade
of tall grasses that opened downward toward the west, giving her a
glimpse of distant hills and valleys lying further off in that
direction. The rich greenery of forests, cut with a patchwork of
small meadows and fields, was truly beautiful, filling her eyes
with wonder and concern. Nowhere in her world did she remember such
blue-green rich hues of colors, nor was the land so heavily
forested as here. They said there were countless olive groves and
fields for cattle far to the north of Ephesus, but no olive groves
did she see here, still…

At that instant, a movement in the distant
sky caught her eye. A covey of birds far away appeared over the
horizon, and large birds they must be, too. As the girl watched the
birds, she could not help but wonder what kind they must be.
Suddenly she let out a cry of frightful dread, shrinking back into
the shadows of the nearby trees. What kind of birds were these,
creatures without wings or heads that could be seen?

Her heart pounding from fright, Ishtar
recalled a tale her father told long ago. Fanciful though it might
be, it appeared to be far less so now. Waving his hands about, his
face grave, he exclaimed, ‘I was standing upon the southern bridge
tower, observing the workers at the far end of the bridge, when two
shining, wingless birds - or what I thought to be birds, but later
came to believe were machinations of an evil wizard - swooped out
of the distant clouds and down upon a band of soldiers marching
along the road leading toward the bridge we were repairing.’

‘Suddenly, fire shot out from the mouths of
the flying beasts, consuming the entire band of marching men! As I
stood there stunned, in horror, the beasts turned and approaching
the bridge tower across the river from me, rained fire and ruin
down upon it, causing that tower and main causeway of the bridge to
collapse in smoke and rubble, casting several of my work crew also
into the foaming chasm below. Then, as quickly as the terrifying
flying beasts appeared, they were gone, making no sound at all in
their departure.’

The wingless birds or inventions of some
wizard Ishtar was observing finally drifted from sight off to the
south. Taking no chances, the terrified girl remained hidden
beneath the trees until the sun had moved high into the sky and
begun its slow journey toward the west. Several more times, Ishtar
witnessed such strange flying beasts in the sky, her fear of them
gradually diminishing as day wore on. Whatever the things might be,
they appeared to have no interest in her. None approached or drew
close, but continued whatever journey they were on. In time, the
girl paid little more attention to their presence other than to
gingerly stepping into the shade of a nearby tree to await their
departure.

As early afternoon lazily advanced toward
the evening hour, the girl continued her wandering stroll on toward
the west, first following the glen down into a shady valley and
then up across a low ridge and down into another draw, eventually
coming to a low, wooded rise that overlooked the tiny village from
which she had earlier escaped. Crouching down until finally
crawling on hands and knees, the girl stealthily slipped down the
rise, stopping at the edge of the wood.

Peeking out from behind a thorny hedge of
nettles and briers, Ishtar carefully studied her former prison some
two furlongs’ distance. Very strange it was. Everything about it
was strange. Still high enough up the rise, she could see over the
thickets at the stream to have a clear view of the streets and
buildings comprising this little town. Such a town as this the girl
had never imagined existed.

The streets were paved with smooth, flat
flagstones. That she knew from not only seeing them from this
vantage point, but because of remembering well the cool feel of the
stones as she darted across them the day before. The buildings,
though, were entirely another matter. Simple in design they were,
too simple in fact. Most had dull, matted sides bereft of window or
shutter. Here and there was a door or, in some cases, huge
rectangular barred gates, dark, and also windowless. Three
carriages, or what looked to possibly to be carriages, were parked
along side the roadway, but there were no animals standing about,
nor people for that matter.

As time passed, Ishtar became more perplexed
at seeing nobody about. Oh, yes, twice the shirtless man made an
appearance in the doorway, always looking up the street, but never
once did his searching eyes wander in her direction. In time, the
girl tired of the adventure. Leaning back on her elbows, she stared
up at the sun as the breeze lavished its gentle warmth upon bare
face and arms. Soon she was laid back, snuggled up in the downy
grasses. It was not long before tired eyes closed and a quiet
snooze ensued.

Ishtar awoke with a start. Something had
roused her, a noise maybe. She looked into the sky, the lazy sun
hanging high in the western blue haze. What time might it be? How
long had the girl slept? Again the noise, a rumbling pop, pop,
popping, something the likes a copper lid makes over a boiling pot,
but it was far away, echoing across the valley from beyond the
village.

The wide-eyed child sat up and peeked over
the hedge to see what the commotion was all about. At first
nothing, and then she caught sight of movement on the road west of
the village. One, then two, then three carriages could be seen
rapidly approaching at a terrifying pace. The one far out in the
lead was making the noise that awoke her. How curious, for she
could see that at times little puffs of brown, sooty smoke would
rise in a swirl from behind it.

Maybe there was a chase going on, the two
carriages behind shooting flaming darts at the carriage in front,
catching it ablaze. The girl watched in amazement as the wagons
hurled down the road at their maddening pace. When the first
carriage careened around a sharp bend in the highway, Ishtar
gasped, realizing for the first time the rampaging carriage was
absent its horses! She glanced up the road at the pursuing
carriages and saw that they, too, were without any beasts in
harness.

Then suddenly, clasping hands over her
heart, the girl cried out in terror,
“No wheels! No wheels!
Angels of death they are! Angels of death! Oh God! Oh God! Save
your child from this wicked fate!”

Clutching her head while covering her ears
so as to hear no longer that dreadful noise, Ishtar sprang to her
feet and ran, screaming, up the hill and over the rise, not
stopping until she was hidden deep in the eastern wood.

* * *

Drorli hurried down the path, a wide smile
of greeting on his face. Approaching the noisy machine, he shouted,
“My friend, Jebbson, so good to see you again! I’ve heard tales of
your adventures at the Prisoner Exchange, but doubted them to be
true. ‘Not that old scholarly book worm, hopeless romantic and poet
of dreams.’ said I.” A wisp of burnt oil tingled his senses as he
sucked in a breath. “What deviltry did you deliver upon us this
day? Awfullist stink I’ve smelt in the longest time!”

Jebbson bent forward and pushed a lever near
the steering wheel. The machine grudgingly wheezed its silence.
Removing his goggles, a grimy faced Jebbson grinned. “Always
wondering what I’m about, you are. Snoopy, to say the least...”

He jumped down from the opened cockpit,
grasping Drorli’s hand and then motioning back over his shoulder.
“Have the assembly line running hot over at Oros. Up to two hundred
trucks a day coming out those doors. Hope to have it up to five
hundred a day soon. I brought my new prototype along for you to
have a look-see.”

Drorli examined the machine closely, asking,
“What’s it do,
scare
the enemy to death?”

Both men laughing, Jebbson explained, “This
is just a platform for testing out my new engine system. What’s
coming off the line right now are petrol burners, good machines but
in need of refined fuel. We’ve got a war comin’ that’s gonna
stretch across this universe, and clean, refined fuel might be a
little hard to come by, especially if it has to be hauled across
star systems to get it there.”