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Sixteen

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16

    "It is not Eden, but it is a fine start."
    Azazel beamed as he looked out upon the terraced fields, painstakingly etched into the hills over a period of many, harrowing years.  His hand fell instinctively to Cain's shoulder as he beheld the man's work, the clasp communicating equal measures of pride and disbelief.
    "I never thought you could do this on your own," Azazel admitted at length. "The years you spent denying my aid seemed spiteful then. But now? I look upon the works of your hand and the labors of your back and I marvel at your tenacity."
    "Thank you, Watcher."
    Cain breathed deeply, closing his eyes and letting the fragrance of the nearing harvest fill him with its verve. Wheat, peas and lentils grew fat on the stalk, nourished by the sun and the great furrows that brought water from the nearby rivers. It had taken a year to dig the first trench; a span of bitterness and toil unprecedented in the history of Man. Cain recalled days spent with his lower half mired in silt while the upper parts of him baked to cracking under an unrelenting sun; felt chapped hands slipping from a mattock handle slick with blood.
    And yet the project was finally complete.
    "I will accept your help now, Azazel." Cain said, smiling up at his tribe's guardian.
    "The millstone?" Azazel asked, "and the mechanism to turn it?"
    "That would do nicely, if what you say of these crops is true."
    "Ah," Azazel said, "you will know the beauty of bread before the end of the season, Cain. You will know it and you will thank me with every ounce of your being."
    "Is it that good? Truly?"
     Azazel nodded. "On its own, it is divine. When coupled with other foodstuffs, it becomes better still. It may take me a while to isolate the necessary yeasts from the wild grapes on the far side of the basin, but once I am able, there will be much rejoicing indeed."
    Cain exhaled slowly, smiling broadly as he swept his gaze back and forth across the land that had so fought him. He loved the place, and saw himself in its unrelenting fight against his subjugation. To catch his eye was to behold the ledger of the land - the canny tenacity there proof of Man's victory over his surroundings.
    "Abel's flock is becoming quite magnificent, don't you think?"
    Azazel looked to the swale near the bottom of the gentle slope and counted until he lost track. What had initially been a group of lambs and two ewes had become more than seven score, and he watched young Abel move amongst them with the grace and compassion of a doting parent. The sheep adored him, and that love was borne out in the successive generations of animals, each more healthy and productive than the last.
    "And to think," Azazel commented, "many of you went completely naked just two years past."
    "Indeed. Where the crops have brought survival, Abel's work has brought comfort. Well, Abel's sheep and your lessons on the loom."
    The angel nodded. "Would that I could do more for your tribe, Cain. You know I would."
    "I do, Watcher, but we need to gain an understanding of our own abilities before we lean upon the abilities of others. We must demonstrate an agency of our own lest we condemn ourselves to be agents of another."
    "Your wisdom astonishes me, child."
     Cain bowed his face to the compliment. "You are our Watcher, but you are not the only one who watches, my friend."
    "I cannot possibly accept credit for any part of your intellect," Azazel said, laughing. "It is your birthright by way of our Father, though the strength of your mind seems well beyond your kin."
    "Harbor no contempt for the mountain peak," Cain quipped, "for he chose not his foundation."
    "Nor disparage the foothills for a destiny bequeathed," Azazel finished.
    "Such heavy thoughts," Cain said. "Let us gather our things and make ready our offerings to Yahweh. This is a day for levity and gratitude; not blue introspection."
    "Amen," Azazel agreed, and they walked the short path back to the village, together.

*     *     *

    "There is no quantifying the act of creation."
    Adam's voice boomed from the hillsides and echoed through the cleft where the tribe had been gathered for the tribute. The First Father paused between every sentence, looking from face to joyous face, allowing the reverence of the moment to build as he spoke of the Awakening of Man.
    "For, in creation, immeasurable labors are whelmed against the capriciousness of circumstance and made to stand on their own merit."
    Abel leaned forward and looked across his mother and father, catching Cain's eye with a twinkling smile. The elder brother beamed, the love he carried for his sibling too much to cloister within the shell of his human heart.
    "And in standing, such creations are given life."
    A pair of children walked the length of the valley floor, one leading a snow-white lamb, the other carrying a woven horn of the best the fields had to offer. Peas and lentils tumbled from their container in a haphazard stream, much to the lamb's gratitude. Adoring eyes followed the procession toward the shelf whereupon Adam and his family stood.
    "And life," Adam breathed the word as if it were sacred in and of itself, "life is a gift with no equal."
    The children stood obediently at the foot of a monolithic natural step, one balancing with bitten lip as food swayed back and forth on her shoulder, one tugging gently on a leather lead as his tiny lamb nosed the ground. Adam allowed the silence to protract for several more moments before motioning them forward.
    "See them step forth in innocence. Witness, each of you, the willing heart of the child. Know that obedience and appreciation pave the truest path."
    Adam collected the cornucopia from the girl and the lamb's tether from the boy, dismissed them both with a smile and nod.
    "Abel," he said without looking to his youngest son, "tell me of this lamb."
    "This is the best of my flock," the boy said. "He is the product of the largest ram and the strongest ewe. I dreamt of him through three seasons as I prepared his parents, nursed his mother through the dry months and delivered him with my own hands. He is the culmination of my craft. This is the best of my flock."
    "Cain," Adam spoke the name and summoned his eldest son, "tell me of this harvest."
    "This is the best of my field," the man said. "It was sown in the richest soil and quenched by water from the greatest river. I gouged the world to give it a home and to slake its thirst, tore weeds from its proximity to ensure its growth. It was nourished by ash and sun and wind and the plaintive exultations of my voice. This is the best of my field."
    "And so we give of our best," Adam concluded, sweeping his arms out to encompass the gathered masses, "as a sign of gratitude to He who gave the precious gift of life."
    The first father placed his son's horn on a block of rough-hewn stone and then gently lifted the lamb and placed it upon another. The small creature paced in a small circle, bleating nervously.
    Cain stepped forward and poured a skin's worth of aromatic oil over the harvest, watching as the liquid turned dry kernels into twinkling gems. A torch found its way to his other hand as he waited for his brother.
    Abel pressed his forehead to the skittish lamb's, tucked a hand behind its skull and swept a flint knife across its throat in a motion so fluid the creature didn't so much as flinch before it collapsed. Blood pooled in small jets of red that found the edges of the stone and dripped like candle wax to the rock below.
    "From dirt and smoke were we formed," Adam called, pausing for the crowd to echo his words. "And to dirt and smoke do all of us return."
    Fire leapt from the bounty of the field and curled black the burl of the lamb's wool. Faces turned to the earth and prayers were mouthed as the crack and hiss of the sacrifice charged the air.
    "What is this?"
    The voice struck the wind from every lung; bent every knee to the ground. To eyes that yet saw, Yahweh stood between the altars, holding the burning cornucopia aloft.
    "This is young Cain's offering, Father."
    "Yes, Adam," Yahweh agreed, "but what am I to think of such a gift?"
    "I beg your forgiveness, Most High," Cain leaned back onto his heels, spreading his arms and keeping his face downcast, "but this is the fruit of our labor in the fields. This symbolizes three years of war against stone and dust to bring forth life. We offer it to you in a spirit of gratitude."
    The Creator set the object back on its pyre. "Are the fruits of the Earth not abundant enough, that you would seek to defy the natural order of things with such agriculture? Have I not provided the flesh of the beasts and the nourishment of the vines for you and your family?"
    "Such was not his inten-"
    "Silence, Adam," Yahweh rebuked, though softly. "I speak to your son. He has his own tongue, I think."
    "I throw myself upon thy mercy, Father," Cain said, pressing forward until his face touched the stone. "It was never my intention to usurp your generosity by tilling the fields. I simply saw it as a means to describe the boundaries of our home - without a more plentiful harvest, we were forced to make larger and larger circles of our search. It was only a matter of time before we would have depleted the area's bounty."
    "Is not the whole of creation your home?"
    "Yes, Father, but-"
    "Do you fear to go out into the wilderness, even under my watchful eye?"
    "No, Most High."
    Pale in the fading daylight, Azazel entered the stony cleft, his shining eyes wide with wonder or terror or some species between.
    "May I serve, Father?"
    The angel's booming voice was reduced to a whimper in Yahweh's presence, comical in comparison to his towering stature. Yahweh regarded him for a moment before turning his infinite gaze back to Cain's prostrate body.
    "You may record this moment and bear witness to my mercy," the Creator said. "This offering will not suffice. Abel brought me the best of what was given to him to nurture, and I am pleased. Cain brought me evidence of his lack of faith in my providence. In this, I am far from pleased.
    "To step beyond the reach of my providence, Cain, is to spit upon my magnanimity. You have disappointed me this day."
    Azazel opened his mouth, but closed it again. Cain looked up at the Creator with streaming eyes, pleading with every muscle in his face.
    "Forgive me, Father," he hissed around sobs. "Forgive me."
    "To have committed a trespass in a spirit of good intention is still a trespass committed."
    And then he was gone. Gasps turned to murmurs that turned to questions and plaintive prayers, hastily uttered. Azazel shook his head, disbelieving, unsure as to what succor he could possibly offer in the wake of such a declaration.
    "My son," Adam said, reaching down to comfort Cain as he wept, "I hold you in no lesser regard. This was unintentional, was it not?"
    "I will fix it," Cain muttered, "I will make it right."
    "How can I help?" Abel's voice was tiny, but unwavering. When Cain looked up, the loyalty in his younger brother's face was heart wrenching.
    "Take your sheep far from my fields, Abel. Take them to the village and pen them there."
    "What will you do?"
    "I will fix it."
    The dust on his palms became streaks of black paint as Cain swept tears from his cheeks. He rose slowly, brushing away his mother's reaching hands.
    "Cain, Please! Talk to us!"
    "I'm fine, mother," he said. "Everything will be fine."
    A strange calmness came over him as he walked away. His thoughts turned inward and he convinced himself that he understood what he had done wrong.
    "My sacrifice was not enough, Watcher," Cain said as he passed Azazel. "I need to prove my contrition  to Yahweh."
    "Please, Cain. Please do not do anything rash."
    "You must promise to stay away," the man said. "You are bound to allow us our own movements through this world. You must stay away. For me."
    "Cain..." Azazel pleaded. "I have watched over you since you were a thought. I gloried in your birth, child: please do not force me to stand idly by as you walk this path."
    "You do not know what I am about to do."
    "I know very well what you are about to do," Azazel replied. "Your eyes scream to me."
    "Then look away."
    Azazel lowered his face and let the man disappear around the bend. He could not interfere with mankind's willful decisions within the context of their freedom. In this moment, the angel felt a spiritual impotence that made him small enough to disappear entirely.
    "What would you have me do?"
    Abel's small voice brought Azazel back from the brink of melancholy and the Irinim sighed heavily.
    "You must reach into your blood and summon the rain, little one."
    "Why? You told me never to do that again."
    "Because," Azazel explained, "Your brother is going to burn the fields. And himself with them."

*     *     *

    It seemed, from a distance, that the setting sun had changed its mind and once again ascended behind the village. Golden light and licking flames spiked skyward under white towers of smoke as the fields began to burn.
    "How did he get here so quickly?"
    Abel looked down upon the terraced slopes with mouth agape, Azazel at his side.
    "He knows this land better than any of us," the angel said. "but now is not the time to logic through his movements. You must bring the rain."
    "I will try."
    Azazel stepped back from the boy and watched as he should the muscles of his shoulders and neck loose, rolling his head back and forth to a chorus of small pops. Abel breathed in deeply and closed his eyes, looking skyward as he exhaled, allowing his arms to rise from his sides, palms up. He began to hum, the pitch and tone changing abruptly several times as Abel sought with his throat to recall the impossible words that had come to him so readily those long years past.
    "I can't touch it," he whispered, deflating. "I can't feel the flow of sorcery around me."
    "Try harder," Azazel coaxed, matching the wrinkles in Abel's forehead with his own. "I cannot go to him now. You are his only chance at salvation."
    Abel closed his eyes and looked skyward once more, humming a long and drawn-out note that cut through the crackle of the flames with its clarity.
    "Yes, you have it!" Azazel cheered.
    The moon disappeared behind a swell of storm clouds and the air grew cool. Abel opened his eyes and a soft radiance was beamed into the heavens. Words then fell from his tongue, youth turning the thunderous angelic syllables and sonorous vibrations into a light and haunting melody. He began to walk down the slope as the first drops hissed against the hot soil, dragging part of the sky behind him like the sum of a thousand kites.
    Azazel watched him go, watched the field quenched of Cain's fury as the younger brother passed through its midst. Though broken over his inability to help, the luminary took solace in the boy's courage.
    It was only after Abel was swallowed in the steaming wheat that the Watcher turned and moved from the edge of the hillside, pained only slightly less by the thought of leaving than the reality of watching things unfold below.

*     *     *

    Folded in upon himself like the bulb of a slumbering flower, Cain wept as the circle of flames inched closer. Through tear-filled eyes, the world was a maelstrom of withering stalks and drifting motes of burning ash - a pyre of apology for a sin he hadn't known to commit.
    The smoke was appropriately sweet.
    "Brother!"
    Cain's head snapped up. Across the smoldering ruin stood Abel, wreathed in steam from the downpour around him. The boy dragged the sky like a cloak, rainfall stopping sharply in line with where he stood. Behind him, the fields bowed in relief where they hadn't been ruined by the heat; in front of him was the one he loved most, encircled by peril of his own making.
    "Go away," Cain sobbed. "Leave me to die. I cannot bear the agony of Yahweh's disappointment. Not after all of this."
    "No."
    Abel's face flashed with a blinding radiance and clouds swept the dome of the sky with such savage momentum that the wind shrieked. With a piercing hiss, the field was absolved of fire, left to groan and whimper within a blanket of white ash.
    "No!" Cain roared, slamming his fists into the dirt. "No! You cannot take this from me!"
    "I can't let you do this!" Abel screamed, the light in his mouth making dreadful his aspect.
    "You will! You must!"
    "I cannot! I love you too much! You cannot leave me!"
    "Let me die! Let me go! Stop it! Stop it!"
    Cain hadn't realized that he had moved until he felt Abel's pulse in his palms. He blinked and the world spun, Abel dangling by the throat from hands that disallowed breath.
    "Stop it! Stop it, Abel!"
    He shook the boy's body as small hands battered his face like the wingbeats of a sparrow.
    "Don't ruin this for me! Please!"
    The raking of tiny nails. Lines of electric blood drawn on the parchment of ashen forearms.
    "You are the last hope for me! You cannot turn upon me in my hour of need!"
    A great, heaving sigh accompanied the dismissal of the rain and Cain blinked again.
    Stillness. He looked around at the devastation of his fields; smoke and ash where there had been life. He looked at his hands, at the creature clenched there. Abel's light had gone, his tongue lolling from a mouth slack with release. He was wet. Wet and so very, very little.
    "Abel?"
    Cain recoiled, dropping his brother's body into the ash.
    "Abel?"
    He knelt and stroked his brother's cheek.
    "Wake up, Abel."
    His hands gripped slender shoulders and shook gently.
    "Abel, wake up."
    His eyes became lidless with panic. He shook his brother's body until the boy's teeth began to clack together.
    "No no no no no no no no no no..."
    He hugged Abel to his chest and felt time stop.
    "No. Please."
    "Cain."
    The voice was quiet, yet it filled the entirety of the space around the brothers. Cain looked up and into the face of the Creator, too dissociated to be concerned.
    "Cain, what have you done?"
    "I've made for you a sacrifice, Most High," he replied into the breeze.
    "You have burned your fields and murdered your brother. I find this display to be a sacrilege of the greatest magnitude."
    "But he is the most perfect of the flock," Cain said as he raised Abel's corpse skyward. "He is the most beloved and least tainted of all of us. How could this be anything but the greatest of offerings?"
    "Be gone from this place, Cain," Yahweh commanded. "Take your woman and your plow and your seeds and be gone. I care not to look upon you anymore. I am ashamed to have allowed a soul such as yours to walk the Earth."
    Cain sobbed, placing Abel's body atop the ash.
    "Not once, in three years, did you or any of your servants suggest that the works of my hand were an obscenity. You could have stayed my hand and spared my back the agonizing labors to which it was bent with a single word, but you did not. Azazel watched me cut stone and move dirt under the glower of a cloudless sky, cheering my efforts and offering help. How could I have known?"
    "Perhaps," Yahweh replied, "your heart is so filled with arrogance and ambition that it never called out to you that you should reconsider the trajectory of your actions. I take responsibility for this shortcoming in you."
    "I will die out there," Cain whispered. "I cannot wander in safety. I have seen the eyes in the night."
    "Azazel will follow you."
    "He cannot, as is evidenced here, stay the hand of other men who would come against me in my shame and my dejection!"
    "Then be at ease," Yahweh said, "for I shall mark you to the exclusion of death. That any man who presumes to lay a hand upon you will be revisited his intent sevenfold. You may walk this world freely, but you will see everyone you ever love pass away in the stream of time, and you will incur grief such as no other man will ever know. This is your punishment for Abel. This is my Word."
    A thumb pressed against the slick flesh of Cain's forehead, and he winced as light burst forth. He dropped his eyes to a puddle and stared at his face; at the pale, downward crescent frowning from his scalp.
    "Cain, I would have you know that your actions break my heart," the Creator said, "but also that you are important to me, and to this place."
    Cain wept softly, pulling his brother's face to his neck.
    "Go now, child." Yahweh commanded gently. "Gather your things and go."
    "I hate you," the man hissed with unabashed fury. "I would have you know that I hate you."
    Yahweh nodded. "I know."
    There was a soft sigh, and then nothing to tell of the Creator's passing. He was gone, as he so often was, and Cain let the wrack of his sorrow bloom in that absence.

*     *     *

    "Azazel?"
    "Yes, Father."
    "It is done."
    "I know, Father."
    "You will accompany him to the ends of the Earth, if you must."
    "I will."
    "You will teach him, educate his tribe on the banalities of survival."
    "I will."
    "Speak your heart, child. I see your torment."
    "I do not understand why."
    "Why does the lamb bleed for me on the altar?"
    "Because sacrifice is a display of trust. The best is offered up to you in effigy."
    "So, too, does Cain lay on an altar for me."
    "But unwillingly!"
    "Humanly, child. Simply as a human must."
    "It seems unfair."
    "All sacrifice is unfair: that is why it is sacrifice."
    "I hurt for him, Father."
    "Know this, Azazel. As you watch men upon their trajectories, I watch the heavens. As your eyes logic where the footfalls of people will lead them, so too do my eyes presage where a planet will be among its brethren, among its stellar system, among its galaxy and universe and dimension. As you find Cain's treatment unfair and without reason today, I see how the echo of this moment will affect every generation to come.
    "The future is built on a foundation of the grief and loss of those who lived and died without knowing the extremity of their value. Every soul, Azazel, is precious to me. Every heartbeat. I am the ledger of every being's beginning and end. You must trust me."
    "It is difficult, at times."
    "I know, my Shemulur. I know."
    "Why do you call me that?"
    "Because it is your name."
    "Father? Wait! Father? Where..."

*     *     *

    Toward the rising sun they marched, a handful of human beings with as many animals, flanked only by pale shadows and the long strides of their guardian angel.
    Cain walked in silence, hand-in-hand with his Shira, dragging a mule long beaten of its stubborn tendencies. Balanced upon its back were three months of provisions that would be stretched through nine months of hunger and suffering. If the earth was fickle, the entire tribe would be dead and scattered within a year.
    "Asaana!" one of the men shouted. "What are you doing?"
    So named, the woman stood still in the calf-high grass, eyes unfocused, hands worrying about her lower abdomen. Cain looked over his shoulder without stopping, watched Azazel minister to her with a length of wet cloth. Her pregnancy had become quite troubling of late.
    "Cain?" Azazel moved with urgency as he approached. "It should not be long now. The quickening has peaked. The child will be born before sunset."
    Cain nodded and held up his fist, stopping the remainder of the party.
    "I will tend to Asaana. See that Shira is comfortable. Your child is not long in coming either."
    The angel smiled warmly, but Cain turned and walked away, pulling gently on Shira's hand to keep her moving. Azazel's face darkened with concern as he watched the man go. He had not spoken since Abel had been buried, nor had he exhibited aught but the bare minimum of effort in keeping himself and his meager following alive. The fugue that followed him was impenetrable.
    Still, Cain's spirit of industry seemed undamaged. With simple gestures and the occasional scowl, he was able to mobilize four other men and three women into erecting the lean-to's that served as their nightly shelter. One of them finished before the others and her footsteps were swallowed around a corner as she hunted firewood.
    "It will be alright, Asaana," Azazel promised, gathering the woman in his arms, "I know of herbs that will dull the pain."
    She whimpered in reply. The sound made Cain clutch instinctively at Shira's hand, as if the rigors of birth were contagious. He watched as Azazel ministered to the woman, laying her among clover blossoms and whispering encouragement as she writhed to find comfort among contractions that claimed all of her focus.
    "I will find a place to sit," Shira said to her distracted husband, stroking his hand even as she slipped hers from his grip. "See that Asaana has water and anything the angel suggests. Do this for me."
    Cain nodded into her smile. She made no demands of his voice, he knew, because she understood his pain. She had awakened after their first coupling, her bright eyes shining all the more for the intellect behind them, and her loyalty to Cain was absolute. The compassion she embodied was all that kept him from insanity.
    He leaned down and began to rifle through his pack, pulling out a rough-hewn wooden bowl. He put his fingers to his lips and blew a shrill whistle, holding it out to the first of his tribe who answered the summons. The man took the bowl from Cain and headed down the path in the direction from which they had come. There was a river two miles back. It was a long walk, but necessary.
    "Sit with me, love."
    Cain surveyed the area, appraised the efforts of his kinsmen as sufficient, and took a seat next to his wife. His hand went instinctively to her belly, and his heart leapt at the squirming press of an infant limb from within.
    "He knows your touch," Shira said. "He loves you as I do."
    Cain closed his eyes and held back the tears that threatened to bleed away any of his pain. The tiny tapping continued, faster and slower; urgent and then calm as if to assuage the torment of a father the child had yet to meet.
    "I have only one request, Cain."
    He looked into Shira's eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. The smell of her sweat was like a field of flowers in his nostrils.
    "We must name him something," she continued, "and I know what your heart cries for. I do. But, please. Please, my love, do not name our son Abel."
    Cain sobbed silently as Shira wrapped him in her embrace, pulling his head to her chest.
    "I would not have you relive your pain every time you hear the name of our son. Nothing will take the place of your brother, but, perhaps, this little one will be enough. Enough to salve your wounds. Enough to balm the injuries of your spirit. Please, my Cain. Please do not project your sorrow onto this beautiful creature that we have created.
    "He was made for more than this."
    Cain felt tears trace the dusty creases of his face and wick into the fur of Shira's shift. He knew her words to be true, and he also hoped that their child would be enough.
    He nodded, and the little life within her rejoiced in a dance against his father's pressing cheek.
    "I will do this," his voice promised, startling in its foreignness, "because he will be enough."
    Shira's tears of joy fell softly onto his brow, and a part of Cain's heart seemed to unclench.
    "Thank you, my love."
    Cain clutched at her, holding tightly to the woman that allowed him to continue braving the storm his life had become. Her delicate hands held him softly, but they made him feel safer than even Azazel ever could.
    The shrill cry of a child startled them, and they jumped simultaneously. Cain rolled to his feet and ran to where Azazel had been kneeling only to find the angel standing with a small object in his hands. His arms were slick with blood, and Asaana was unconscious in a puddle of red life; the look on the Watcher's face was one of concern.
    "What happened?" Cain's voice rasped from vocal chords long unused.
    "The child came suddenly," Azazel said. "I did what I could to stop the bleeding, but she will need much rest if she is to recover."
    "And the child?"
    Azazel lowered the infant so that Cain could see him, and the man narrowed his eyes.
    "When will it end?" Cain hissed, looking back up into the Irinim's eyes. "Why must your brethren continue to debase us? I thought this was taken care of."
    "As did I, though perhaps I was naive in my hope," Azazel replied. "This one was made with less care, it would seem."
    "So it would seem," Cain growled.
    The child was beautiful, but alien. Its dark hair waved about its tiny head as if immersed in a tide-pool, and its eyes were as white and empty as Azazel's. Its skin was the color of copper; nearly metallic in the light of the setting sun.
    A long moment passed where nothing was said. In that time, the remainder of the tribe had gathered, some to care for Asaana, some to gawk at the newest member of the clan.
    "What shall we do with it?" Azazel asked, tracing a gentle line through the gore on the child's face. "You lead this tribe, Cain. It is your decision."
    Cain reached up and took the child into his hands. He looked into the expectant and fearful eyes of his tribesmen and nodded. He lifted the infant above his head and his arms tensed as his lips pressed together into a thin, white line.
    "Welcome, Caelifor!" he shouted at last, his cheer echoed by the gathering. He smiled at his wife, at the suddenly joyful faces of those around him, and he pulled the child in close to his breast.
    "Welcome, Son of the Sky!"

*     *     *

    How?
    Cain's eyes opened to the rising sun and Azazel's silhouette hacking ruin into a larger shadow. Unearthly sounds shivered the stillness as the pair did battle; shrieking metal and beseeching voices calling out in a cacophony inutteral by human tongues.
    His hand wicked moisture from his face as he rose, time flowing in somnolent counterpoint to the speed of his thoughts. Cain felt his entire body clench as he sprang forward, arms and legs pumping through the distance as he closed the gap between his tribe and their guardian angel.
    What is happening?
    He looked down at his flesh, light reflecting liquid red from the palm with which he had mopped the morning dew from his face.
    Blood?
    His footsteps faltered. He looked back to the shade of his shelter; to the still shape nestled there.
    No.
    He turned, suffused with panic.
    No.
    His body lost all mass. Footfalls became the churning of froth.
    Please, no.
    Cain fell to his knees and pulled Shira to his chest.
    No. No...
    Ear to her mouth, he listened past the pounding of his own heart. Her lips were cold as the stone upon which he knelt.
    Please. Please. Please. Please. Please...Please, no. Please.
    Azazel's voice was suddenly silent; its absence the only detail that registered beyond the circle of Cain's dread.
    "Shira?"
    Morning luminescence crept along the ground like a liquid that revealed what it puddled upon. Cain pressed his forehead to his wife's and mouthed prayers he had promised never to implore. Any betrayal of self, any indignity was better than being without her.
    And then a hand grabbed the tangle of Cain's hair and ripped him from the earth as if he were a weed to be plucked from a row of wheat. Shira's body lay peacefully in the sunlight, one arm outstretched, a single drop of blood chasing the soft line of her jaw as she stared into the fathomless blue of the sky.
    "Your guardian was pathetic," the interloper's voice chided. In the glare, Cain could not make out features beyond eyes that glowered like stoked coals.
    "I was able to kill nearly everyone before he heard me. What kind of God leaves so fragile a shield to safeguard his creations?"
    Cain kicked frantically at the creature's face and it dropped him. The laughter that followed was genuine.
    "My master suggested that I kill you last."
    The angel, for that is what Cain knew it to be from his new perspective, summoned a knife to his hand and leaned down to press it against the soft place under his jaw, articulating Cain's head back painfully to avoid its sting.
    The thrust followed swiftly, but the gouts of blood were nonsensical. Cain turned his head sharply as spurt after spurt of hot ichor fountained against his face, scrambling backward as the creature sagged forward, hands clutching at a wound in its own neck.
    Cain stood and found himself at eye level with the angel, watching as the whole of its lifeblood painted the dust. It gurgled what was meant to be language and reached feebly for the human. Cain slapped its hand away and kicked it savagely in the chest. He looked to his right, at the figure of his wife, and then back to the dying angel.
    Calmly, Cain reached down and picked up the knife that had fallen from the thing's hand. He knelt over it, pressing aside its warding hand and pushing the entire length of the blade, very slowly, through the creature's eye socket. Wings flapped once, twice behind it, throwing dirt and stone skyward before it went still.
    The shriek of an infant startled him. He rose and walked to the sound, finding little Caelifor pinned under his mother's body. Asaana breathed, but raggedly, and the wound in her back showed all of her ribs. Cain picked up the child and stroked its mother's cheek, whispering hollow words of support from a mouth gone numb with shock.
    A hyena chortled from the high grass.
    Cain took the child to his shelter and sat down next to his wife's corpse, running his hand over the swell of her belly as the baby's screaming calmed to the moaning discomfort of soiled clothing and hunger.
    Something pressed against his hand.
    Cain jumped, dropping Caelifor into the blankets of his sleeping mat as he scrambled to place his cheek to Shira's abdomen. An effusion of bubbles or kicks met him. A wrenching bolt of hope cut the grey of his sorrow. There was no doubt - his son yet lived.
    He ran to the angel he had killed, head swarming with every conceivable thought, and he pulled the knife from its face. Quickly, he returned to his wife, shaking his head back and forth in desperation. Caelifor's cries again filled the air.
    "Along the line describing the upper third of her uterus," a new voice said.
    Cain turned to see one of the other Watchers: a lanky, blue-skinned giant of a creature, calmly watching what transpired.
    "Go on, Cain. It will be safest considering the size of the knife and the positioning of your son."
    Shira's skin parted like white flower petals in the sunlight, fluid and precious little blood spilling from the cavity. Cain looked back at the newcomer, waited for him to nod a small encouragement and then slipped his hands down into the opening. He closed his eyes as he pulled, unwilling to watch how he distended his wife's lifeless body with his clumsy ministrations.
    A second cry joined the first.
    "He is arrived," the angel said, placing a hand on Cain's shoulder. "Your son is safe, human."
    Cain stared at the tiny thing in his hands, smaller than Caelifor but not by much, and gasped out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. The blue Watcher placed a wooden basin of water beside the new father.
    "Clean him as best you can, and keep him warm. I will tend to those yet living and see that they remain as such. I will also find sustenance for the infants. Be at peace, if you can. You are safe now."
    Cain pulled his son to his chest, noticed how differently the child fit compared to its mother. He looked at her body, felt tears whelm at the corners of his eyes and blur his vision as he cradled what remained of her.
    Perhaps this little one will be enough.
    "Watcher," Cain breathed past the knot in his throat, "how do you say 'enough' in the first tongue?"
    "Hennikeh."
    Cain nodded.
    "I will call you Enoch," he said to his son, "and you will become all that I need in this world."
A chapter from my novel. A portrayal of Cain and Abel in their last moments.
© 2014 - 2024 Irixian
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