Wings to the Kingdom (Eden Moore 2)

Those lizard-hued orbs narrowed, and glanced away from me, as if he was thinking. I felt an almost tangible pressure lift when his gaze was removed.

A sentry follows orders.

“Is that what they told you? Is that why they gave you this name?” I asked, and then I did the dumbest thing I’d ever done in my life. I took a step towards him, even though every instinct in my body told me not to. Every primal nerve ending screamed at me to stay away, but something more modern made me press on. I didn’t touch him; I couldn’t offer him a gesture that human. But I inserted myself beneath his averted gaze.

“You know,” I continued, barely able to breathe for how intimidated I was, “sentries—the soldiers they named you for—they don’t follow orders forever. They sign a contract, an agreement like yours, and then when the contract is up, they choose their paths for themselves. They can go away if they like. Or…”

Or they can stay?

“Or they can stay. They can do whatever they want. What do you want to do?”

He met my eyes, and again I felt the weight of his stare. It pressed down into me, pushing on my face as if to warn me away from something more dangerous than I had ever touched before.

I want…, he began, though the assertion sounded strange. He seemed to find it strange too. He was not accustomed to the freedom to want.

I want orders to follow.

Dana was most surprised, I think. “What?” she said, or almost demanded. “What? He wants what? That doesn’t make sense. ”

“Who cares?” I argued. “I want a car that flies, and that doesn’t make sense either. He wants what he wants. ”

“He wants a purpose. ” Benny called it. I was suddenly proud of him, almost beyond speaking. He nailed it, with four words—what I’d been thinking my way around with hundreds.

I was summoned. Now those who gave the tasks are gone. And I do not know where I came from. I cannot return.

It was the longest he’d ever spoken, as if the need to explain himself called for more sentences than merely answering questions.

“You don’t know where you came from, but do you know who summoned you first?” I asked.

He thought about it hard, turning and walking a pace or two, then returning his attention to me. His legs folded beneath him, sitting his immense bulk squarely in front of me, and putting us nearly on eye level. I still looked up at the underside of his chin.

I sat down too, crossing my legs.

A holy woman. I helped her people win a great war.

“When?” Dana asked. “It must have been a long time ago. ”

He didn’t seem to know, but after considering the query he tried to answer it.

There were more trees then. And no people with yellow hair. As he said this, he gave Dana a glimpse. This was before they came. A long time before. Many, many seasons.

With a swiftness that surprised me, I felt very, very sorry for him. I wondered if he wasn’t projecting his sorrow to me, augmenting his attempts to communicate.

“But those people are gone now. They’ve been gone for hundreds of years. And after they were gone, there was another great war. ”

The light-haired men fought there. Many of them died. But they were not honored. The dead were left for the animals, and the black birds came to feed on their eyes.

The dead did not understand. They had no wings, and they stayed behind. They did not fly, and they did not sleep. Then the old men came, and they asked me to watch. I told them I would watch, until their last heir had passed. I would harm not the living, and I would tend the dead.

“And you did. For over a hundred years, you watched them well. I know your bargain is over,” I said, “but there’s no reason for you to leave if you don’t want to. You are welcome there. You have a home there. ”

“You’re missed there,” Benny added. “They need you. ” I thought maybe he wanted to say more, but he bit it back, whatever it was.

Dana put her camcorder and her tape recorder down on the ground, and came to stand behind me. She was a small woman, even when she stood above me. I was acutely aware of her size, and her vulnerability, and…her grief. Even though I couldn’t see her, she was larger than life, and unnaturally complete.

I saw her from all sides.

And I saw Benny too, my old acquaintance and newer friend who once rolled on a battered skateboard through parts of town that have since been paved and refurbished into blandness. I was proud of him for holding his ground and not running, when other, saner people might have made for the hills. I was deeply glad that I had a friend like this, one who did not know, but who believed enough to trust.