Faith Hunter - Seraphs

Without thinking, I called on the white onyx fish that held my sphere of shielding. I didn’t snap it into place, as it would be like building a wall between the assembly and me. But I got it ready. And I watched Tobitt’s eyes as I spoke.

“They don’t hear Godless, heathen whores!” someone else called.

“The Most High don’t see no mages,” another said. “That’s why they’re in prisons!”

Watching Tobitt, I whispered, “Neomage children, the teenage children of humans, called on the High Host of the Seraphim, and upon the Most High. ‘Mage in battle, mage in dire, seraphs, come with holy fire.’ It was a child’s nursery rhyme, chanted by innocents filled with fear. And the seraphs came.” I raised my voice. “A dozen of the Holy Ones appeared in the air above the battlefield. One reached out his wings and caught the bomb as it plummeted. Another took the bomb and departed with it. It did not detonate. But the neomages had built up power while defending themselves. Much power. My ancestors were foolish, afraid and untaught, facing an army of well-armed, angry, frightened humans. They didn’t know what to do with so much gathered might, or how to control it.

“In their inexperience, they released the power. And the human army fell. Thousands died. By accident, not by intent. And the children of man screamed and mourned even as they tried to draw back the might that escaped from them. But there was no tool on earth or with the seraphim, to pull back so much power once released. And the energies rained down on the human army, on their own fathers and mothers.” I shared a small, sad smile. “A great anguish went up to the Most High with the souls of the human dead.”

The mage account listed all the names of loved ones they had killed that day. I mentioned only the best-known one. “General Bascomb, the human who ordered the nuclear bomb dropped, was the biological father of one of the mages he battled. Bascomb died that day. His son was orphaned. His son grieved.”

The church full of people had fallen silent again. Tobitt’s gun wavered from me, dropping to dangle, pointing at the floor. Truth, the sigil had suggested. Well, here it was. Truth that the human and neomage communities had never shared.

“In punishment, the seraphs gathered the mages they had saved, forcing them into the first Enclave, the shielded haven now universally called the New Orleans Enclave. All around the globe, seraphs collected embattled neomages and established Enclaves, where the few still alive could work and study their gifts in safety. Where they were imprisoned. Nearly one hundred years have passed, and still we are captives. We may not depart without seraphic approval, visas, and scrutiny by the Administration of the ArchSeraph.”

I looked around the hall. There was a lot I hadn’t said. I hadn’t mentioned that proximity to each other set neomages and seraphs into heat. Only recently had the Most High and the High Council of the Seraphim produced the sigils that controlled mage-heat for a few hours at a time. All that I kept to myself. “Even today, we mourn those we killed. Even now, we do penance for the death of humans, the death of our parents, in the Mage War.” This was truth untaught in human schools. Truth that might disarm the angry and contain the vitriol.

“To atone, we help where we can, where asked. We accept payment, yes, as each of you accept payment for services and goods. Yes, we have power, but it’s sealed inside the Enclaves with us, so it won’t harm humans by intent or accident ever again.”

I looked at Tobitt. Orthodox, weaned on mage hate, taught by elders focused on cementing their own political power. “You’re right. We have no souls. When our spark of life is extinguished, we die forever. There’s no afterlife for us. Don’t fear us; pity us. We’re empty vessels. We are the unforeseen.”

“So how did the seraphs hear the mages?” Tobitt asked, curious at last.

I shrugged. Bells rang softly, a funeral cadence. “We think it was innocence that called to them. Since that time, seraphs always hear the call of mages in dire. It’s their pact with us, though to call the capricious and volatile seraphs is always a danger to nearby humans.”

Audric touched my shoulder and gestured to the chair set aside for the accused. I walked back across the small stage, my boots and bells loud in the quiet church. When I was seated, my champard asked, “Are there more accusations?”

Derek Culpepper raced up the stairs to the dais and shouted to the crowd. I had forgotten him and was almost surprised when he spoke, his face filled with rage, a finger pointed accusingly at me. “Don’t listen to her wiles. Can’t you see she’s trying to seduce you with words? She’s spelling you all right now!” When no one agreed, he said, “They take our money and make us dependent on their trinkets. We’re humans, the highest creation of the Most High, beneath the seraphs. We don’t need mages or their conjures or amulets. They’re immoral and depraved.”

“Is there no good to be had from mages?” Audric asked. “No good at all from the conjures and amulets that humans buy and use?”

“No!” Derek shouted.

“Then the accused requests that you empty your pockets,” Audric said.

Derek paled and clenched his hands. Shocked, he looked to his father, and I followed the glance. The elder raised his eyebrows. Derek turned to me, taking in my small smile. I didn’t know what kind of amulet he habitually carried, but I’d seen him worrying it during a previous town meeting, his fingers caressing it like a lifeline. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut, a crafty glint in his eyes.

“She spelled me with it,” he said.

I didn’t know exactly what kind of amulet he carried, but to my mage-sight it glowed a yellow-green of earth-magery, the gift of life and all things growing. It had been quite powerful the first time I noted it on him. I breathed deeply and caught the scent of the conjure. It smelled warm and verdant, like sunlight on spring leaves.

“Show us,” Audric commanded.

Derek’s triumph grew. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the amulet. He held it between thumb and forefinger so the crowd could see. The audience sucked in a collective breath, swept back from the truth of the Mage War story into habitual, ingrained fear. Ignoring them, I studied the amulet from my seat, smelling oak and age and the working of a powerful mage. The amulet was made from the root of a live oak, a thin disc about two and a half inches around and a quarter inch thick, like a large coin, carved through with symbols. To my mage-sight, its energies weren’t beautiful, but it was powerful. The fact that it glowed with power was significant. It had been recently charged.

“What say you?” Shamus asked me.

“I can’t use that amulet,” I said.

“Say what?” Shamus asked, surprised.

“There are different kinds of mages and energies. I’m a stone mage. That’s an earth mage amulet. I can see the working of the conjure but I can’t use it, make it, or alter it.” I lifted a carved quartz rose on the necklace I wore. “This is an amulet for peaceful thoughts. This I can use because it’s made of stone and mineral, but not that. The amulet carried by Derek Culpepper is a kamea, an oak-carved, Oriental-style amulet, likely inscribed with the name of the seraph Garshanal. It brings success in financial negotiations to the one who carries it. He bought it from a licensed mage and had it recharged on a recent trip. Didn’t you?” I asked.

Before Derek could answer, Shamus said, “You’re still under oath, Derek. We’ve had one witness lie on the stand today. I ain’t gonna abide a second one. If you lie and survive it, and if I can find the mage you purchased that thing from, I’ll have you tarred and feathered. And you know I mean it.”