The Morning Star

Lou coughed as he struggled to breathe, his body wracked by pain. The molten air scorched his lungs like the backdraft from a furnace. His wings smelled like a scalded dove. His flight feathers had first curled and smoked during the descent then been seared away leaving only the blackened leather that lurked beneath.

He crawled to the edge of a suppurating pool, his legs trailing twisted and broken behind him. His once pristine pale skin reddened, inflamed by the inferno of the wasteland. How many of his companions had survived?

Their shattered bodies fell toward the barren landscape as fiery meteors against an iron sky, their screams of agony echoing across the jagged outcrops of the rocky terrain. A land of perpetual twilight. Red sky in the morning.

He knew he should gather up the survivors, rally his troops in case the enemy pursued. He should regroup them for a counterattack. Once more into the breach. That’s what a leader did.

He had neither the heart nor energy. He’d led his forces into carnage, a complete and utter disaster. Outnumbered, they’d held their own throughout the palace coup, until the old man had waded in. They’d still rallied to his banner and now he’d led them into the worst kind of exile. It no longer mattered whether their cause was just.

Lou stared into the muddy pool, its surface pockmarked with slowly ballooning bubbles of brimstone that burst into the yellow stench of something rotten. He’d rolled the bones and lost. He surveyed the cost of his arrogance littering the stony landscape. He couldn’t face them again, his comrades and lieutenants.

He clawed himself headfirst into the fetid pool. His skin erupted as each inch passed beyond that gray-brown border, tracing the outline of his progress with a ring of fire that burned his resolve away. The boiling mud seared but soothed his tattered flesh. The worst of his wounds withered and maturated, angrily hissing as they embraced the scathing bath. In another rejection, he found himself adrift on the surface like dross cast into molten lead.

He rolled onto his back and hung motionless as if floating in a forge, his neck bitten by the tiny teeth of the jagged edge that increasingly secured him to the land of living as all his impurities boiled away. His limbs felt leaden, drawn like anchors to a bottomless sea of anguish. Fiery fangs raked along his skull as he allowed his head to slip beneath the murky surface. This time it would not rise on its own. Blackness the color of his ravaged heart closed close and finally claimed him. And with it, he achieved a measure of the freedom he’d desired all along.

---

Lou awoke to strong hands grasped beneath his arms. Trails of agony traced along his back and folded wings as he was dragged from his turbid den.

“Don’t worry, Lou. I’ve got you.” He knew that voice. Bebe. It would have to be. “Good thing I spotted you when I did.”

Lou coughed up chunks of quickened mud that tasted like clods of smoked sulfur. His head pounded in the unrelenting heat. Like the resonating tattoo that had marshaled his forces to war then ushered in their defeat.

“Bebe?” he croaked. “I was almost free.”

“We are free, now, Lou.” Bebe seemed to misunderstand. “We’re all free, just like you promised.”

Bebe dragged Lou away from the solace of the scalding pool and laid his head on an unforgiving pillow of a stone. Lou pried his eyes open. No sun. No stars. Just an eternal smoky gloaming. As if a reminder that they’d started an insurrection that would never end.

“You shouldn’t have followed.” Where once Lou’s voice sang as clear as a dulcet chime, it now grated inside his head. Arduously, he rolled over and tried crawling back to the stinking sanctuary of the pool. “Grant me peace.”

“Snap out of it, Lou.” Bebe’s massive hands shook him like a tectonic shift that unleashed an earthquake. Bebe’s face suddenly filled his view. His skin was charred and denuded like pale, supple calfskin that had been boiled into a mask of hardened leather. “The lads still need you. I need you.”

The bones of Bebe’s skull protruded at odd angles. Cancerous growths bulged behind his ears. Lou wondered if he looked the same. The old man’s final curse as they fell away toward darkness? “How many?” was all he could think to ask.

“Most of us. Ty’s dragging in everyone he can find.” Bebe cradled him in hug, then gently laid him back on the ledge of rock. “Rest, Lou. A little sleep and you’ll remember your old self.”

That was the problem, Lou thought as his eyelids, like the gates to an ancient fortress, slowly ground shut.

---

“Come on, Lou,” Bebe cajoled for the umpteenth time. “It’s not such a bad place. A little TLC and we’ll call it home.”

Lou was up and about again, bouncing like a jackdaw on his damaged legs. Soaking them in the brimstone bath seemed to help them heal though the bones remained twisted.

“We had homes in a crystalline palace, and now we live in this?” Lou swept his arm across the shattered landscape.

“Like you told us when we started, better free down here than as hired help up there.” Bebe settled his bulk into the crook of a boulder. “We’ll rebuild the empire, on our own terms this time, just like you said.”

“Yeah, just like I said.” Lou plucked up a small, flat stone and whipped it across the surface of the viscous pool. At first contact it stuck and sank beneath the mud without a trace. “That was then, Bebe. Look around you. This place is a pit. A cesspool in a wilderness of stone.”

“I admit it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.” Bebe scooped up a handful of gravel and let it trickle through his fingers. “But a few more bodies and we can make into something special. We’ve got the raw materials.”

“And where will we dig up labor?” Lou asked, surveying the blasted terrain skeptically, seeking the tiniest gemstone hidden amongst the scree.

Bebe stood and dusted off his hands. “Let’s start with what we’ve got. The lads are just waiting for you to tell them what to do.”

Lou shook his head ruefully. “We didn’t rebel just to setup a new dictatorship.”

“Lou, we still need leaders,” Bebe whispered gently. “They naturally look to you.”

Ty and a few others had congregated at the edge of their conversation, a thin and haggard cadre leaning heavily on one another’s shoulders. They all eyed him in sidelong shock. Could he refuse them after all they’d sacrificed? For such a big lout, Bebe could be as perceptive as he was fierce.

Lou sighed deeply then allowed his vision to reset. His mind began churning with tactics. They needed somewhere they could rest and recuperate, somewhere the most deeply wounded could heal. But first, they needed to consolidate their position. That meant defenses. He may have stolen the best and brightest the old man had but the other side still outnumbered them two to one. If they wanted to survive, they’d have to set up for the long haul.

“See that ridge at the top of the pit?” Lou pointed. “Let’s use that as our natural line of defense. Ty, I want you to organize the work crews. Start building a redoubt with parapets. Eventually, we’ll put a gate between those two low, rocky outcroppings. I want watches from this moment forward. Bebe,” he turned to his chief lieutenant and adviser, “Pick two flights from the most able-bodied. Gather up any other wounded and bring them here. Then, I want you to start building a bathhouse. That pool has healing properties. That’s where we’ll build our citadel.”

The other shuffled their feet for a moment, wan smiles spreading contagiously. This was more like the Lou they’d known and followed. “Don’t just stand there folding your wings,” Lou added. “Let’s get to it.”

His words set off a flurry of activity.

---

“We’ve got our first convert.” Bebe grinned as he lumbered along the path that descended from the rim. “The old man created a pair of lesser creatures and the woman refused to bend her knee.”

“Sounds like a girl after my own heart,” Lou replied as he watched the work gangs erecting his defenses. A broken wall crept around the enormity of the central pit, exploiting the terrain to its advantage. Below, the bathhouse had begun to take shape at the edge of the brimstone pool. Nearby, barracks were being raised as temporary housing. “So what will he do now?”

Bebe stood before him, towering yet never looming. “He’s already molded another from pieces of the man. This one has a weaker will. I think we can exploit that.”

“And the original?” Lou turned to face him.

“That’s the best part.” Bebe beamed, his hands clasped before him like a child. “She’s here. She wants to join our cause.”

Lou scowled suspiciously. “You don’t think she’s a spy?”

“If she is, she’s a damned good one,” Bebe said, his face an open banner as always. “She gets along rousingly with the lads. They all think she’s a keeper. Ty trusts her and he’s suspicious of the dragon. If we’re going to make a go of this, we’ll need new blood.”

Lou’s scowl deepened. Bebe had a point, but he didn’t like it. The old man wasn’t usually cunning but Lou couldn’t help but smell a trap. “I want to talk to her before we make a decision. Maybe we can learn what the old man’s up to. I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten about us.”

Bebe’s smile broadened. “I’ll send her right down.”

---

“I can’t believe he left his creation unguarded,” Lou said, scraping off the last of the scales from his disguise. The yellow mist that filled the bath house swirled away from his mouth with each syllable. “Lil’s recon information was invaluable. The garden was laid out exactly like she said, down to the last tree.”

“You didn’t bring the new one back?” Bebe asked peering over Lou’s shoulder.

Lou peeled back his eye caps and flicked them away before he descended the steps into the simmering mud. “I did something better. I sowed the seeds of doubt. I told you, this is long-game scenario. Any word from our recon squad?”

“They got back a little while ago.” Bebe settled on a stonework window seat looking out on the rising city, gap-toothed but growing to fill the space beyond. Quarrying had leveled and terraced much of the jagged landscape into a series of descending tiers that ended here. “Bad news. The old man closed the back entrance. He’s stationed a pair of guards armed with those nasty flaming swords.”

“Well, we knew this would be a one-shot anyway.” Lou settled deeper into the mud, luxuriating as he allowed the heat to penetrate his bones. The old man’s creation was so cold by comparison now, like a different world. “At least we’ve tied down a couple of his elites. Speaking of which, how’s the wall coming?”

“We’ve got a nearly unbroken curtain all the way around the upper level.” Bebe’s gaze shifted to the construction along the rim of the pit. “It needs a lot of improvements. Ty’s laid footings for the watchtowers and the ramparts but he needs more manpower to get it all done.”

“Have you solved the problem of the gatehouse?” Lou transferred to the steaming water bath, allowing the effervescent bubbles to scrub the grit away from his skin.

Bebe smiled demonically. “I think so. See that outcropping of red rocks up on the seventh tier?” He pointed. Lou craned his head to see out the window and nodded. “Turns out they’re rich with iron. Tightly bound, but we set up the dragon as a furnace.”

“Clever. At least that gives her something to do. Ty will be appreciative.” Lou began backstroking around the pool with his wings. After a couple quick circuits, he settled onto one of the built-in seats lining the shallows.

“So what next, boss?” Bebe asked, turning his gaze back toward his friend.

“Keep chipping away at the improvements on the outer wall.” Lou emerged refreshed, his skin reddened but glistening. Water dripped from the points of his bat-like wings. He didn’t bother with a robe or towel. A minute outside and he’d be dry. “If this plan pans out, we should start picking up more of the old man’s strays soon. Those pricks on the other side are still elitist.”

---

“He did what?!” Lou spat, incredulous. “How many of them?”

Around the hall, the others kept their gazes down. Only Bebe looked him in the eye. “All of them, except one family floating around in an ark. The place is completely underwater.”

“Petulant, isn’t he?” Lou scowled. What was the old man’s game this time? He waved the others away so he could consult with Bebe alone. They quickly scuttled from the hall. Lou wandered over to one of the arched windows looking out on his city. No, their city, he corrected. He led only because they insisted, and because he knew how the old man thought. Though the others had grown increasingly fearful of his fiery temper. Only Bebe seemed unafraid to speak his mind. Which was why Lou relied on him.

“He must have caught wind of how many we’d gathered,” Bebe continued. “A few more generations and we’d outnumber them.”

Lou swung around with a sneer. “And he still thinks he can just dump the truly evil ones on us? What are we doing with them, anyway.”

“Ty put them to work on the interior.” Bebe sauntered over to the long table and began picking through the remains of the aborted meal. The offerings were plain but plentiful. A lot of meat.

“Nothing strategic, I hope?” Lou’s gaze snapped back outside, peering suspiciously at the work gangs.

“Nah, just more housing.” Bebe took a swig from an abandoned wine goblet. He let the liquid settle on his tongue a moment before deciding it was worth keeping. “The place is filling up. And they do decent work when properly motivated. Only a hard-core few need constant supervision. Most have become true converts.”

“Keep anyone in the least bit suspicious away from the outer wall, and the citadel,” Lou returned his gaze to the dim, torch-lit hall. “I don’t want any built-in design failures if the old man attacks.”

“Seems unlikely.” Bebe claimed a seat on one of the benches, setting his goblet before him as he began piling a plate with leftovers that he speared with a two-tined fork. “He’s content using his creation as a proxy battlefield. Less to lose that way, I guess. We still have a manpower shortage though. Ty has a plan for hot and cold running water but says there’s not a soul to spare.”

Lou wandered back to join him, scooping up an abandoned goblet from the table. Wine mixed with anger helped him think. He regarded the goblet’s shimmering iridescence in the fire from the perpetual false dawn beyond the windows. If nothing else, their exile had produced exquisite glass. “In a few generations, we’ll start with the Chinese. They’re doomed anyway but they like to keep their hands busy. And Lil says they’ll be like a billion of them one day.” He settled in the chair at the head of the table, one leg dangling over an arm. “Until then, Ty will just have to make do.”

---

“More bad news, boss.” Bebe stood in the doorway of Lou’s apartments. The big guy sounded winded after ascending the tower. With so many unwinged converts, they’d had to build in stairs. Or had his lieutenant put on a little weight?

“What this time?” Lou asked, wrapping himself in a robe as he motioned Bebe to help himself to the platters of delicacies laid out on the sideboard. “Did the old man turn another of our operatives into salt?”

“No. This time he’s unleashed a plague.” As usual, Bebe went straight for the carafe then loaded up a pewter plate. “Seven of them, actually.”

Lou smiled sardonically. “And his chosen still think they’re better off with him?”

“He didn’t stop there.” Bebe licked his fingers after each morsel he sampled. “Remember how we moved into their homeland after all his people evacuated?”

“Yeah, we really turned that place around.” Lou poured himself some wine and drifted toward the balcony. “Everyone was happy last I heard. The local market was overflowing with milk and honey. We could barely offload the stuff. But at least we could trade it for some decent food.”

Bebe followed him outside, plate and goblet in hand. “Seems the old man wants it back. He’s issued an order: No stone standing; no soul spared.” He set his overflowing plate on the wide, stone railing.

Lou leaned his elbows on the rail and looked out from his high tower. Below, a city now flourished. A city perpetually under construction it seemed. An unfinished dream beneath an iron sky. Ty had had a devil of a time finding laborers whose loyalty was beyond question to reinforce the walls. In the end Lou had told him the citadel took precedence.

“The old man sure knows how to win over hearts and minds, doesn’t he?” Lou adjusted his robe, a marvelously soft cotton-linen blend, and turned back to Bebe. “Please tell me that’s all of it.”

Bebe shook his head, his hand just descending from popping another handful of sweetmeats into his mouth.

Lou sighed. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

“We’ve had a major setback on the Chinese front,” Bebe said around a mouthful of food.

Lou rolled his eyes. “What now?”

“Seems we’ve had a defection.’ Bebe washed down his impromptu meal with a deep swig from his goblet. “The Buddhists now have their own pet demon. One of Lil’s brood.”

Lou hung his head. Would the bad news never end? “How much did he know?”

“Not much, but enough that we’ve had to shut down some major new initiatives.” Bebe wiped one hand on his leg, the other never relinquishing his wine goblet. “Recruiting is way down. Seems the Buddhists are setting up a parallel operation, only nothing there gets done. They just sit staring at their navels for eternity. Thing is, nobody on the other side cares about them. The old man only turned Mal to hurt us.”

“Tell me there’s some good news.” Lou turned back to the rim. The fortifications surrounding it were nearly complete. A shadowed city squatted within the bulwark of its walls, secure with one notable exception.

Bebe followed his gaze and smiled. “We’ve finally got enough iron to forge the gate. Ty thinks we should be able to raise it soon. It’ll be much stronger than that Lebanese cedar.”

Lou surveyed his domain wistfully. “At least then they won’t be able to evict us again.” But he still worried anyway.

---

Lou and Bebe toured the completed fortifications. The iron gate had been raised. Its maw stood open for Lou to inspect. The last vulnerability in their defenses was now sealed. Not that the other side had shown much inclination to break the armistice. But Lou knew better than taking anything for granted where the old man was concerned. Of late, his mind had grown as erratic and inscrutable as a Cretan maze.

“What’s it say above the archway?” Lou asked, pointing to the large, engraved letters facing the causeway where a besieging army might read it. The steam- and treadmill-powered pulleys that had raised the massive blocks for the guard towers now drained the miasma from the pit, channeling it back toward the river which had spilled forth and claimed the swampy plain.

“It’s Italian,” Bebe answered with a shrug. “It keeps the riffraff out.” A shanty-town of the outcasts had arisen between the river and the gate. Loyal guards armed with tridents kept the gawkers at bay. Both sides swatted at hosts of unseen midges.

Lou and Bebe passed back into the city. An iron portcullis ratcheted into place behind them, its spiky teeth sinking deep within the causeway stone.

For the first time in as long as Lou could remember, Bebe didn’t have a goblet in his hand. His hulking lieutenant looked almost professional in a rough and tumble way. As they emerged from the dark tunnel into the twilight of the cobblestone courtyard, Lou asked quietly, “So what’s this news that has you so shaken that you insisted we tour the outer walls?”

Bebe glanced at him askance and sighed. He knew he was too easily read. “It looks like the old man’s decided to settle this in one throw. He’s pulled an avatar gambit.”

Lou stared at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. “And after all the chaos he’s wreaked on his chosen, this helps his position how?” It took him a second to remember to keep walking.

“He says it’s all or nothing,” Bebe answered, slowing to admire the central fountain, allowing his friend to catch up. “Serve him or join us here.”

“Is he crazed?” Lou whispered. “We’ll be swamped. Or maybe that’s the point.” His eyes narrowed as he performed the mental calculus of playing out the old man’s new strategy.

Bebe shrugged. “His chosen seem to thrive on the abuse. Whatever doesn’t kill them…”

Lou’s expression hardened as he came to a decision. “How about you and the lads go have little talk with this boy of his. Maybe we can come to terms.”

---

Lou found Bebe back at the fountain, muttering angrily to himself as he repeatedly sluiced water over his leathern skin. He hadn’t seen his lieutenant so enraged since the war.

“Ty told me you were back.” Lou approached cautiously. “I take it the negotiations didn’t end well.”

“Me and the lads tried to talk some sense into the boy but he cast us into a pig. A pig!” Bebe roared, scrubbing his skin all the harder. “Now we’re all banished. Banished! For a thousand of their years.”

“He’s definitely his father’s son.” Lou shook his head, laying a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe I should make an appearance and talk with him myself.”

Bebe glared back at him. “You could spend a month in that blighted place talking to the boy and he still wouldn’t listen to reason. What ever happened to the spirit of youthful rebelliousness?”

A joke? Lou let relief escape him as a laugh. “I bet Mike and Gabe each sit on a shoulder whispering constant lies. We always knew we could never trust those two.”

“Or Raphie,” Bebe didn’t quite smile but turned his anger toward a safer target. “That bastard always thought he was good enough to be one of us. Ha!”

“I think it’s time I see the place again myself. If not the boy, I’m sure at least one of his fanatics will be open to our ideas. Don’t worry, Bebe.” Lou clapped his behemoth of a friend on the shoulder. “One way or another, I’ll abort this little revolution. Time is on our side.”

---

“I told you the old man overreached when he changed the rules to benefit his son,” Lou said to his friend as they strolled the newly installed rock garden in a walled courtyard behind the great hall of their citadel. “Even now, he can’t grasp that he let victory slip through his fingers as soon as he clenched his iron fist.”

Boulders seemed to float within a rippled sea of raked gravel like the exposed face, belly and toes of a partially submerged giant, the subtle shades of each rock interplaying with the fiery colors splashed across the sky. Lou ambled toward the stone pagoda looking back toward the central hall across a long reflecting pool now stocked with glittering fish. He thought he could get used to this new esthetic. He found it calming and peaceful.

“With all the people they’ve sent since their change in strategy,” Bebe observed, a wine goblet once again ensconced in a hand, “at least we’ve overcome our manpower shortage. Ty’s having a devil of a time coming up with projects to keep them all busy. I think he’s about to have them start carving individual faces into the cobblestones next. At least they seem content.”

“What is that?” Lou pointed to a white marble chair perched on a dais beneath the pagoda, cryptic runes carved all along its sides. “It looks suspiciously like a throne.”

“Impressive isn’t it?” Bebe admired it as he took another sip of wine. “Ty designed it for the anniversary of our arrival. Lil carved each of the sigils herself.”

Lou scowled. “It looks like a seat of judgment. Tear it down and ship it to the old man,” he instructed. “We have no divine right here.” He turned onto a different path, one he hoped might end at the new bath house.

“Are you sure?” Bebe raised an eyebrow as he followed. “The children he condemns are impressionable. A little fear makes them talk.”

Lou didn’t answer, just folded his arms, tucking his hands in the opposing sleeves of his silken robe. Bebe wore red embroidered with dragons. His was black with a golden kyrin. “Any other news?”

“His followers fight each other now. They’ve started an Inquisition, as bloody as their crusades. They even argue against their sainted ones with a lawyer named for you.” Bebe smiled slyly as he sipped his wine. “Turning his boy’s chief disciple must have spooked the old man pretty good.”

“Probably reminded him of the old days,” Lou chuckled. “What else do the refugees have to say?”

Bebe’s voice dropped to conspiratorial. “I’ve heard rumor that the old man’s preparing for a final battle. No quarter. Says he’ll finish it this time.”

“An invasion?” Lou shook his head. “He does know our people outnumber his by a wide margin, doesn’t he?”

“He thinks we’re cowering behind the walls.” Bebe turned to face Lou, clutching his friend’s arm in his free hand. “We should attack, boss. They can’t defeat us, they fear us now. Everyone who’s seen the city says the old man may have driven you out but you took the best he had. And we are Legion.”

“No, Bebe. We’ll let them keep their illusion.” Lou gently slipped his arm from his friend’s grip then turned back up the path, his feet softly crunching along the gravel. “We’ll conquer them with intellect and enlightenment whether the old man sanctions it or not. Patience, my old friend. One day, our stars will rise again, and his children will see that it’s better to rule in common confederation than serve beneath a tyrant.”

Lou stopped and turned back to face Bebe, the old glint returning to his eye. “Until then, keep the watch towers manned and the dragon circling. You never know how desperate he’ll become when he realizes his mistake.”

© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III