Sword of the Gods II: Prince of Tyre

Prologue

Prologue

Galactic Standard Date: 152,183.02 AE

Haven 1: Eternal Palace

The Eternal Emperor Hashem

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240 years ago…

HASHEM

The Eternal Emperor Hashem paced the back room of his genetics laboratory as though –he- was the expectant father. “You must keep this child's existence a secret.”

“He has a right to know!” The dark-winged Angelic screamed as her labor pains intensified.

“She-who-is forbids it.”

“You and your stupid game of chess!” Asherah hissed. “Shemijaza is my husband!”

“He should have thought of that before he launched a rebellion!”

For millennia he'd played chess against his ancient adversary, Emperor Shay'tan, to resolve their differences, and if that didn't work, then they gathered their armies and went to war. Neither old god had gained dominion over the galaxy until his greatest general had declared himself to be the leader of a 'Third Empire' and seized a string of planets too close to the old dragon's border to quash without igniting an intergalactic war.

Dark-haired and raven-winged, with eyes so blue they were the color of the Haven sky, Hashem had thought it a stroke of genius to send the beautiful, soft-spoken Seraphim as an ambassador to entice Shemijaza into rejoining the Alliance.

“You were sent to negotiate a treaty!" Hashem jutted his finger at the foolish woman. "Not to marry him! I cannot let the Third Empire gain legitimacy by allowing Shemijaza to produce an heir!”

“I am half-Seraphim.” Asherah panted to control her pain as her contraction intensified. "When we consummated our marriage, my life became tied to his. I should be dead already!”

“You are half shipboard Angelic,” Hashem said. “You can survive if you so choose, as you have already demonstrated by coming here!”

"We're not farm animals to be bred and used as cannon fodder in your endless war against Shay'tan!" Asherah clutched her belly. "Our species is going extinct and you do -nothing- to help us! It's the only reason Shemijaza rebelled!”

Hashem's wild, white hair and bushy eyebrows jutted outwards as though he were a mad scientist. What had once been a symbol of his brilliance as a geneticist, his ability to splice together disparate life forms to create new ones, had become an embarrassing monument to his own incompetence. The genes which carried his army's animal features were recessive. To maintain them, he'd been forced to inbreed them until they had lost the ability to reproduce. Nothing, not his ascended powers, not the best in vitro fertilization methods his teams of scientists could dream up, had been able to fix it.

“Moloch is using your husband to gain a foothold in this universe,” Hashem warned. “Do you have any idea what will happen if the Evil One punches through? Shemijaza's child will be even more genetically evolved than he is! You must keep the child’s existence a secret!”

“I saw no sign of this Moloch.” Asherah gripped the bed rails as her contraction built to its crescendo. "Shemijaza had blackouts. Times he seemed a bit … callous. Headaches. He is sick! Not evil. The only evil I see is a selfish old god who would deprive a child of his father!”

Dark feathers flew everywhere as Asherah's instinct to take flight warred with her need to remain Haven-bound because a newborn could not fly. The child was coming, whether he wished for it to exist or not.

“The child’s head is crowning, your Majesty” Dephar interrupted, his chief geneticist who was acting as midwife. He grabbed a scalpel and clamps with the same practiced ease he used whenever he delivered any other genetics experiment Hashem had cooked up.

"Shemijaza!!!" Asherah threw back her head and screamed her husband's name.

Her cries awoke something Hashem had never felt before, perhaps it was pity? Yes. He wished to alleviate her suffering so he would not have to feel it himself. With no words to convince her this was the right thing to do, he resorted to something he had not done since he had ceased being mortal.

"Take my hand, Asherah," Hashem moderated his power so he could safely touch her, "and let me help you bear this pain." His hand grew warm where it brushed her skin, the sensation igniting some mortal need he had long forgotten existed.

"He has a right to know!" Asherah slapped away his hand. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she focused her attention inwards, seeking to make contact through the bond purebred Seraphim formed with their mate.

Asherah was only half-Seraphim, but he had reason to worry she had formed the bond which granted her kind telepathy, no matter how far apart they were in the universe. He'd gone through great lengths to make the rebel leader believe she'd committed suicide. If Shemijaza found out Asherah had just borne him a son, he would raze the Alliance into dust to get her back. With Shay’tan sapping his resources, there was no way he could withstand war on a second front.

“Goddess!!!” Hashem shouted, not with his voice, but with his mind. “I don't know how to prevent this!”

The scent of ozone and fresh flowers supplanted the sterile, medicinal scent of the genetics laboratory. A buzz that felt like tiny jolts of electricity filled the air as golden light descended from the ethers and coalesced into a tall, slender female with pointed ears and gossamer wings. SHE rarely descended into material form because it made her vulnerable, but keeping this child a secret was paramount. With a rustle of wings which sounded like crinkling cellophane, She-who-is plastered a sympathetic expression upon her chiseled features and stepped forward to console the grieving mother.

“I would not ask you to make this sacrifice if the fate of the universe did not depend upon it,” She-who-is's tone was hypnotically reassuring. “Ki warned you of this when you sang her Song to conceive your son, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Asherah sobbed.

Hashem felt a twinge of envy. Why had a mortal been given access to the Song of Creation and not him? By Ki, no less? She-who-is's mother?

“Your Eminence,” Dephar's snout bowed with awe at the appearance of the goddess who ruled All-That-Is. “The child is stuck in the birth canal.”

“I shall deliver him myself," She-who-is lilted a perfectly shaped eyebrow in Hashem's direction. "He is that important." SHE placed her hand upon Asherah’s swollen abdomen to eliminate the Seraphim's physical pain. “Push, my daughter. I wish to meet this prince of Tyre.”

The child slid into HER waiting arms. He did not cry as others did upon being cast out of their mother's womb, but looked at HER as though he could already understand what she said. He reached for her face as Dephar cut the umbilical cord and gurgled a sound which sounded like 'SHE.'

The goddess's lips turned up in a smile, genuine this time as she recognized something in the newborn which pleased her immensely.

“You are Lucifer, Bringer of Light." SHE glanced over to the sobbing Seraphim, too grief-stricken to hold the son whose conception had forced her to abandon her husband. "Be grateful, young prince, that this mortal loves you enough to keep you hidden from your -real- father. All-That-Is depends upon you not falling into Moloch's hands.”

Asherah wept. She-who-is reached towards her temple to grant her the mercy of wiping Shemijaza from her mind, but Asherah slapped away HER hand. Even Dephar gasped at the Seraphim's audacity.

“Don’t you play your memory games on me!” Asherah hissed. She sat up in her child-bed as regal as a queen. “I shall do as you ask, but the soul does not forget! Someday Shemijaza and I will reunite!”

Hashem cringed. She-who-is might be all-powerful, but Asherah understood the rules of the larger game which bound even old gods such as himself. Not quite genetically evolved enough to achieve immortality on her own, the Seraphim was too close to perfection to manipulate against her will.

“So be it.” She-who-is wrapped the infant in a blanket and handed him to Hashem. “You must protect this child with your immortal life. Train him to lead his people on the path of balance or I will hand him over to someone else who will.”

“Yes, your Eminence.” Hashem bowed. “I will raise him as though he were my own son.”

The goddess's eyes burned gold with power. With a disdainful flick of her gossamer wings, She-who-is shimmered out of the material plain.

Hashem looked down at the child who had just been placed into his care. The infant did not cry. Not even a squeak. He had his mother's delicate facial features, but the snow-white wings and white-blonde hair of his father. Instead of blue, the child had inherited Shemijaza's eyes, so pale and blue they were silver like the moon, a genetic throwback to a bloodline they had all believed to be extinct.

Morning Star…

Would this child also inherit his father's intellect?

Hashem shivered even though he had long evolved past the ability to feel the cold. Shemijaza had outsmarted him. Outsmarted Shay’tan. Outsmarted every creature in the galaxy including She-who-is. Asherah had brought warning of a new threat snuffling around the rebel leader, one terrifying enough to cause the half-Seraphim to abandon her mate and flee.

Morning Star…

A bloodline that was even older than She-who-is. Heaven help them all if Moloch got his hands on Shemijaza's offspring!

“Asherah?” Hashem presented the infant to the grieving Seraphim, beautiful in her grief. “Your son…”

“Go away!” Asherah curled up in a fetal position and refused to look at her child. “You wanted him, now you’ve got him!”

The infant stared up at him, his eerie silver eyes filled with trust. It couldn't be good for the child to be rejected by his own mother. Hashem knew from his work as a geneticist that most rejected offspring simply withered and died.

Morning Star …

The most genetically advanced bloodline in existence!

Hashem glanced around at the cold, sterile artifices of his genetics laboratory. She-who-is had given -him- the prize, and neither Shay'tan nor the child's own father even knew it! All he had to do was make sure Moloch didn’t find out, either.

He took the infant and gave Asherah the space to grieve.