11Chapter 6
I woke up to blinding pain. It could have been the brightness of the sun in my newborn eyes or the pain of re-growing my wings. Either way, I could have done without it.
There was also a deep burning feeling in my chest, and I couldn't remember what had happened to me to cause it. I drew open the drawstrings keeping my loose linen shirt tied at the front and gasped at what I saw.
A long, red, nasty-looking scar was spread in a line down almost the full length of my sternum. A flash of memory came back to me.
Just as the lightning hit my drenched body, Yallekia threw her axe and it buried itself inside my chest. I flung back my head and screamed. I fell back, my knees bent at and odd angle beneath me, and I saw Yallekia standing over me. She leaned in close to my convulsing body and whispered in my ear, 'I am His daughter. No one can kill me. I was never alive to start with.' And with that done, she dislodged her bloody weapon from my chest.
Pushing myself up from the ground using weak and trembling arms, I looked around. I must have been reborn into a different part of the woods because I didn't recognize anything that I was seeing. Just as I was stumbling to my feet, a shadow fell across the ground in front of me.
For a few seconds all I could hear was my heart pounding against my ribcage in protest to the fear of looking up to see Yallekia. But I had to look- I had to know who was standing above me, looking calmly at me.
I made myself stare into the face of the person who possibly held my afterlife in their hands. It was all I could do not to gasp.
'Please, please don't kill me again! I'm sorry- I didn't know! No!'
Yallekia stared down into the now lifeless face of her victim. She had used the poison from her father's private store cupboards to coat her gleaming sword, and make sure that the one He was displeased with would never live again.
The victim's soul would always wonder the Earth- never again allowed to take form, either in Heaven or Earth. It was worse than never being reborn onto Earth from Heaven. It would always drift from place to place, never speaking, never touching, never feeling.
Why did the souls of mortals never learn that if you double-cross Him, forgiveness could never be found?
'Hey. You're Sennadien, right?'
The young fairy standing in front of me was beautiful. He wasn't simply handsome like Prince Charming in a Disney film, but absolutely breathtaking. My own good looks could have been considered mediocre, possibly even ugly, compared to his. True, we were of different genders, but that didn't seem to matter right now.
His face registered confusion when I didn't answer him after about a minute. Oh right, that was a question. Um, insert answer here.
I nodded dumbly.
'Well, I'm Hoddim, and I'm apparently your new guide,' he said informatively, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
This comment sent off alarm bells in my head. 'But I thought that Tedria was my guide.'
A flash of regret passed over his face. 'She was, but He found out that she was spying on Him for the opposition, so He had Yallekia kill her once and for all.'
'What? When?' I paused and considered anew thought. 'How?'
'Yallekia killed Tedria because she was spying on Him. When? Yesterday- well, if we take into consideration the fact that she was reborn into the future kingdom of Heaven, Yallekia killed her about a thousand years from now.' Hoddim grimaced, bringing a frown to the smooth, golden skin of his forehead and a crease to the top of his aquiline nose.
'But this is Heaven! Surely she'll be reborn, like I was!' Nothing makes sense to me; this alien world was too complicated to keep up with.
Hoddim expelled a sigh, and his green and blue wings fluttered. 'It isn't always as simple as that. Yes, Tedria was reborn, but there is one way to make sure that a soul will not take another form after its host's death. If you coat a weapon with a certain poison, known as Draygon poison, it will sear the soul so that it is not capable of coupling with a human- or any other- form.'
My knees had been threatening to give way, and after hearing something so terrible it came as no surprise to me that they finally did. I crumpled to the floor in a heap and covered my face with my hands. It was all too much; I had only been in Heaven five minutes and already souls were being separated!
Hoddim crouched down beside me and lifted one of my hands away from my face. It was the hand that had had a key carved into it. 'Who did this to you?'
I sniffled attractively and shrugged. 'No idea. One minute I was walking and the next some guy was threatening me, slitting my throat and chopping off my hand.'
He stiffened next to me and straightened, bringing me with him. 'We have to get you to my council.'
'Why?'
'Because this-' he pointed to the scar on my hand- 'is a way to identify the keeper of the key. You were murdered by His contact on Earth, who made sure that He would always have a way to identify you.' Hoddim shook his head firmly, the light glinting off of his shaggy blonde hair. 'We can't let that happen.'
I frowned. 'But I don't understand anything. Why am I the keeper of the key? Why am I so special? I mean, I can't even keep my goldfish alive for two whole days!'
'I shall explain it all on the way, but right now we need to get moving. He probably already knows where you were reborn.'
'She's been reborn in the forest again, m'lord.'
'Excellent. Do we know who her new guide is? Perhaps they can be swayed by the sight of a full bag of gold.' The servant shook his head. 'Well, that does not matter. Send out the dogs again, and make sure they are rewarded for their previous work before they go.'
The servant bowed deeply and left discreetly, as all the servants did.
He pondered the various methods He could use to make the charming Sennadien share her knowledge of the key's whereabouts. He hoped that they key wasn't on Earth, it would be much harder to obtain if it was. But there was no doubt in His mind that He would eventually get hold of that key.
If He had to use serious measures to make her talk it would be a shame, yes, but necessary.
Just then, Yallekia flung open his door and strode in while servants scurried to close the heavy duty double doors. She knelt at His feet and bowed her head, waiting for his acknowledgment. He kissed two fingers and pressed them to her forehead. 'My daughter, have you done what you set out to do?'
Yallekia rose from her place on the ground until she stood level with the top of His throne. 'Yes father. The traitor's soul shall not find a new form to experience the five senses once more.'
'And did you happen upon the key keeper on your travels?'
Yallekia grimaced as she became the bearer of bad news. 'I found her trail in the forest where she had been reborn. Unfortunately for us, she has a new guide and I believe you know him personally.'
He picked His fingernails clean and studied them with a bored expression on His face. 'And who would this new guide be?'
'Hoddim of Circle Horizon.'
'So why are you helping me? I thought no one went against His Holy Lordiness, or whatever people call him.'
Hoddim had known that this question was coming; I could see it in his eyes. I never used to be able to tell what people's emotions were by looking at their eyes before, but since coming to Heaven people seemed to be more open with each other. Eyes being the key to the soul, and all that jazz…
'Erm, you see, I, err, belong to this kind of group, and we have dedicated our afterlife to ridding everyone of, err- what did you call him?- His Holy Lordiness.'
'But why? I mean, everyone on Earth- well, almost everyone- thinks he's brilliant. They worship him.'
Hoddim shook his head, something that he had done a lot on this short trip. 'No they don't.'
'Yes, they do!' Men! Always thinking they're right…
'No, they don't. They worship the real ruler of Heaven and Earth. But we don't know where he is; he went missing two centuries ago, and He took over. He rewrote the history of the Earth and granted his offspring special places among it.'
This didn't seem to make sense to me. I had only read little bits of the bible back on Earth and something wasn't quite right. 'I've never heard anything about Yallekia in any piece of religious history I've ever read- only Jesus.'
He nodded. 'Yes, Yallekia controls the weather in Heaven and on Earth, but she chose to be anonymous. And as for the man you call Jesus, his name was once pure and strong but His son chose to overtake his name and take the glory for the wonderful deeds he did.'
We walked in silence for a while, until Hoddim pointed to a place nearby. He didn't say anything.
'What is it?'
Hoddim held a finger to his lips, begging for silence, and used the same digit to draw symbols in the air. They appeared in the air in front of me as bright as the midday sun in a hot summer. Our surroundings shimmered, tentacles reached for something unknown to me and the bright swirls connected with hidden objects.
I blinked slowly and when I opened my eyes there was a rolling landscape of green grass, covered in beautiful metallic buildings.
'Home.'