Earnestly;
    Teth Border, senior librarian Republica University

    One Will Come

    We are a special breed, though our talents are eclipsed by those of the Protectors and discounted by those unaware of our true function. Thought to be nothing more than man-toys for the Galens' greatest treasures (though why any sentient beings would voluntarily discard creatures of such golden beauty speaks poorly of their wisdom), we Messengers are accustomed to the disparaging opinions of the average Velorian citizen. I, perhaps, deserve the disrespect.
    I lost my Goddesses, one in overwhelming odds to Arion Primes - though she may have welcomed death after the betrayal of one she loved more than any mortal deserved - and the other to the vagaries of an unkind universe. She was lost to me and to this universe, but is not necessarily dead. I hold out hope though - that Nova lives on elsewhere, but not of ever seeing her again.

    Nature is not generous, nor does she nurture her children. She spreads her seed wide, but most land on barren ground, others struggle against outrageous odds, a rare few are lucky enough to alight in lives of ease and comfort. I've noticed though; adversity encourages the evolution of marvelous beings.

    My Goddesses, though always creatures of lithesome charms, became ethereal by the misfortunes and tests that their lives held. Like steel, the tempering brought forth by trial and fire imparted a sheen that an easy existence would have not.
    It is a truism that the Protectors only go 'bad' if nothing around them does. And things on Gaugan went awesomely bad, indeed. Jemma said once in a moment of unusual candor that, once damned, there could be no fear of further damnation. I wish I could have convinced her during those pain-filled, guilt-ridden final breaths that the damned can be forgiven. Her salvation was in her courage, standing against so many - standing against the one whose name she whispered as a closing prayer.

    I lost them. I fear... No... I know the blame is mine for each and that my present circumstance is far more clemency than I deserved for the part I played during the first and only battle for that mote of space dust that is Gaugan.

    In the wavering light of a quarter moon, I turned my hood against the clammy fog. Worse tonight, though always present, the mist swirled against my boots and eddied like water around each step.
    Night here was the safe time; the monsters on this world worshipped the sunlight and hid from the damp, cool vapors that filled the dark. Other figures wandered the street, dressed as I was in skin-tight clothing and full capes with concealing hoods or veils.
    The hood covered a multitude of sins - at least for me - my hair, as bright as starshine even in the gloom, would have revealed me as a stranger and not to be trusted. Still, someone in this town had contacted the Council and I, dishonored but not dead, was sent to bear a message and to clarify a garbled one.

    I wandered the night, hoping for a sign. The Messenger awaited a message. Trying to be inconspicuous but obvious, I moved from one strasse to the next and paused at each corner. A wedge of amber light (on a brighter planet it would have gone unnoticed even at night), blinding in the gloom, flashed forth momentarily. In that moment the laughter of a woman punctuated the darkness with a sweet breath of unheralded brilliance.
    A mistake. The shadow hunters, if they existed, would have taken note of the direction and location. In one of nature's crueler jokes in time past, a beast had come to Pasil to mutate and multiply in the strange glow of the unstable dwarf sun. The monsters lurked and waited for the shadow of an unwary passerby to touch their lair. The hunter would then follow its quarry indoors where it could attack, slinking invisibly from one dark corner to the gloom beneath a table. The humanoid inhabitants had adapted to the threat, avoiding casting shadows to the point of paranoia and never crossing shadows with strangers - like me.

    Though the hunters were on the verge of extinction, the residents continued the tradition taught by survival. Hospitality was scarce, visitors suspect, and public gatherings were held in the half-light of the frequent eclipses. The population dwindled, a once vital economy falling into hardship and hand-to-mouth subsistence.
    Tales were told of grisly and sudden death, but no modern Pasilan actually knew what a hunter looked like. Now only their fear enslaved them, but that was enough. A few more withered generations and another candle would be extinguished, leaving the universe that much closer to darkness. Since the Galens had abandoned their protectorate, such failures had become common. The Enlightenment was a leaky shelter against the powerful scavenging of chaos... Or Arions.
    I guess, in their misguided way, the other Supremis race also attempted to hold back the unknown dangers that lay beyond the sphere where the luminescent Galens once reigned, and we flicker on. Many consider Arions to be agents of the darkness, but I don't. Aria, like Velor, acts as a beacon. They command obedience with harsh cold brilliance, while we beckon our companions with a warm, enveloping glow.

    The door was barred but, at a light tap from my knuckles, a voice murmured a question. Ah! The question was the code phrase I'd been given and, thus, knew the correct response.
    I hurried through the entrance and ignored the slender figure of the robed porter, who barred the door. The chamber, large by Pasil standards, held a dozen patrons - a good crowd considering the venue. A pair of travelers slumped together, touching shoulders. Though cloaked, one was significantly smaller than the other - perhaps a man and his spouse or child on an unavoidable journey.
    Most of the other figures sat alone, conversing with the combination of gestures and spare words that made up the Pasil language. I sat at the far end of the table where the paired travelers had taken up a defensible position near the wall. My seat was ill favored, in the center of the room with no wall to cover one's back - as if I were worried about such things, but I tried to fit in as part of my camouflage.
    The porter hovered and I ordered. Soon there after, a tray appeared in my line of sight. The cup steamed and the bread, though hard, had no trace of mold. I'd lucked into a good restaurant apparently. I sipped the bitter beverage and nibbled the loaf, not hungry or thirsty but relieved to be out of the night and with other people.
    Messengers are, by nature, gregarious. My term of solitude, since losing my Goddesses, was excruciating torture. The porter tapped lightly on the board, distracting me from my thoughts, wanting payment. The Pasil garment covers the hands completely, and has pockets within the sleeve lining. I laid a transparent coin on the tray, exposing the tips of my fingers in the process.
    The porter (a female - another Messenger talent is the sense for such details) placed her fingertips on the opposite side of the disk, brushing mine in passing. One of the other patrons noticed the exchange and grunted a chuckle, commenting on her charms, as he knew them. She returned to her corner without a word or gesture, accepting his judgment - or ignoring the insult.
    No word was directed toward me, and no one - save the porter from time to time as my cup cooled - approached. My contact was not present, or refrained from revealing himself to me for some reason but I was loathe to leave the place for the damp fog outside.

    A stool scraped the floor, squeaking wood against tile. I heard footsteps behind me and waited for the person to pass on the way to the door. A rough hand jerked the cowl from my head. I leapt to the bench top and lashed out with a kick to where I thought (hoped, anyway - we Messengers are only peripherally trained in combat techniques) his face would be.
    I struck his shoulder and he spun away. One by one the other figures stood, except the pair of travelers who had crab-walked to the corner and now held daggers as they crouched. No weapon would prevail here. Every patron, except the pair who was trapped by circumstances, threw off their cloaks and revealed the broad features of the Arion subclass.
    Betas never allowed witnesses, taking captives only among the females of compatible species. I hoped the Pasilan travelers were both male. Death would be preferable to the no-so-tender attentions of sex-starved Betas.
    "Velorian," one hissed. The circle closed around me.

    A low laughter came from the porter, the same woman's voice as had drawn me to this door, promising a new trouble. I glanced, and then stared at the being once hidden beneath the cowl and cape.
    She wasn't a Prime, or a regular Beta. Something new, probably the secret I'd been sent to discover. The Arions had taken the lesson of the shadow hunters and sent a breeding group here as an experiment in transmuting P2 genes.
    Betan genetic sequences were malleable and contained complete templates of every deviation in Supremis DNA. Primes were too valuable and rare (and, as commanders, unlikely to volunteer) to use as lab animals.
    The porter had to be the result. Not P1 or Prime, or Beta, or any known variation. Had the group studied a live one, or (my mind cringed, but with Betans any method is possible) mated with a shadow hunter? I didn't know, but this girl had no resemblance to the average Arion female. Delicately boned, creamy golden skin, eyes shaped and colored like almonds, she moved... No... Glided toward me. Not quite flying, but not far from it either. Would further generations bred under the unusual radiation of Pasil's unnamed star (like so many other worlds the natives called it 'The Sun') regain the power of flight? What a blow that would be to Velor!
    She flowed like silk, her dark hair so fine as to form a corona about her face and shoulders. Anywhere, she would be considered exotically (erotically, my maleness whispered) attractive. My nose tickled (pheromones intact, I decided - even while much of my mind quit analytical function) as she stopped, and raised her hand to caress mine. The reaction was like having my Goddesses returned to me.

    "Messenger," one chuckled, dismissing me as a non-threat - as did the knowing laughter of his fellows. "Prick Patrol."
    "Where is the Cunt?" another asked, assuming my presence was to provide service to a Golden One. The Betas never failed to refer to the Goddesses in rude terms, attempting to cover their inbred and involuntary worship with discourteous words. I wasn't insulted; it's just the way Betas are.

    The porter glanced once at the speaker and he fell silent, retreating slightly. These warriors feared this slip of a girl and, though I wondered why, I also responded further to her scent, her touch, and the way her breasts pressed against my arm as I stepped down from the bench and into her embrace. I thought it likely that I was the next step in the genetics experiment. Hoping to add my P1 genes to the Beta-hunter blend. No one knew that Messengers were sterile, by nature or by surgical choice, an absolute in the long list of requirements. But she didn't ask and I didn't volunteer the information.

    Messengers must fulfill a number of criteria, the most patent and well known is our sexual appetite and nonexistent reticence to satisfy it. It wouldn't have taken more than a smile from her to seduce me. I saw the knowledge - that I was willing (more than willing, as a matter of fact) - in her pale eyes but she was a Beta in many ways, preferring to take by force what is offered freely.

    Dealing with Goddesses, one learns when to be forceful and when to submit. With the Beta mutant, the situation was one of the later. At a gesture from her tiny hand, the members of her cohort captured my legs and arms easily - I didn't struggle... I was sent to find out what was going on and would play along until I discovered everything. Besides, I desired her and if this was the way it had to be done - me pinioned spread-eagle to a tabletop - so be it.
    Her fingers unbuttoned my trousers, and her hands drew me forth, stroking me into full erection - not that I had far to go. Her scent would have done the job, sooner or later - probably sooner if she tasted anything like she smelled.
    She covered me like a piece of down, before exerting a little force. While not as powerful as a Goddess, she also had less control over what strength she did possess. Our Velorian Princesses are not sent out until they've learned finesse and how to not cause breakage to objects or harm to others by a careless touch.
    The Beta shadow-huntress had no such training. But Messengers are not chosen for just ample size (height, weight, and mentality - as well as the more obvious one) and pleasing physique alone. We're tough, as close to equals to the Goddesses whom we serve as possible, otherwise the job would be rather more hazardous than pleasant.

    At some point, I grew impatient of restraint and shook the Betas from my wrists. One of the secrets of the Messenger guild was how adequately suited for continuous retro-viral enhancements we are. Never do we flaunt our strength. Our Goddess must have some inkling that we possess more than we claim but, perhaps, they attribute the anomaly to throes of passion and an influx of orgasmic vitality.
    I encircled her waist with my hands, adding my vigor to hers. Her eyes, half-closed in her pursuit of pleasure, fluttered wide and were caught in mine. I gave her more than she could have stolen, testing and exploring her capacity and talents, discovering in her responses her limits and weaknesses.
    Always was it so. Messengers were confidants and companions. Trusted (though underestimated) and pampered by our Goddesses, we learned things that no Scribe could. Unbeknownst to anyone (except the Committee heading the Guild), we were confessors, psychologists, and advisors under the guise of jesters and sex-toys. Never taken seriously but always heeded. Never given credit, but always compensated (in the loveliest of all possible ways). Our Goddesses gained needed perspective, but we reaped the rewards of the giving.

    I gifted the Betan with all my experience with Goddesses and other women. Like a Goddess she responded (as all women do when treated as the icons they are), beneath my hands and on the length of my prowess. She seemed more substantial, riding me, than she had been before I set out to please her (and myself).

    The scent of her maddened me, pushing me to please her more. Something in what she was captivated a man, driving him to being more of a man. I was unaware at the moment, but my willingness to give myself fully to her made me easier prey.
    Her growth was no illusion, but my observation occurred at some distance depth of my consciousness. I had been trapped by my overconfidence into a one-way connection - one that fueled her and burned me.
    Such logical thought and contemplation happened later. During, I thought nothing and only contemplated the swell of her femininity around my manhood and her perfect double curves of breast to waist, and hip to thigh. The shadow creature in her mix of abilities drained my reason and feasted on the energy of my passion. She wasn't seeking to mate with me, or steal Velorian sperm. She intended to absorb my life-force, taking with it my innate abilities. Still - it wouldn't be the worst way to die, I thought.
    Peripherally, I saw motion and heard the clash of weapons. My demon-lover struggled to be parted from me, but I held tight. Anything she wanted, beyond taking more of me, I would deny from her as long as I could. It was the right choice.
    A Vendorian sword (variable blade, gleaming as its programming adjusted the prism cutting edge) entered my field of vision. Her hands, drawn up to ward the blow, flew from her wrists. A nanosecond later, her head followed in an arcing trajectory. Her body, from the double trauma, jerked in violent throes of death. Once freed from her psychic geas, those spasms unleashed my orgasm.

    Sex is always good. Sometimes sex is great. This time, while gruesome, the sex was extraordinarily memorable - at least for one of us. Me, luckily.

    Messengers recover quickly and in more ways than one. Though we are known for remarkably short refractory periods, after encountering the Beta shadow-huntress I felt ready for a nice long rest - at least until I saw my saviors.

    The pair of travelers stood amid the gore caused by violent dismemberment of a dozen Arion warriors (and one demon-half breed). The taller one was a humanoid male, Built like a Beta, but with a refined cast to his facial features. His skin was dark brown, like Arions occasionally exhibited since tinkering with their genetics. I wasn't certain of his hair color - his bald head gleamed in the low amber lamplight.
    The smaller one rekindled me. A Velorian, I thought, except her hair smoldered with an ember-red heat and her eyes were dark brown. Not Velorian, at all. I wondered at my initial comparison, but then realized the resemblance was in her attitude, build and stance, not in her coloring. Not Kryp-terran, not Arion, not anything I'd ever heard of. A new sort of Goddess, I thought, as she smiled upon me.

    The male stabbed his sword into a body. An unnecessary defilement, I thought - until the bloody mess moaned. My bewilderment showed because he grunted, "They're hard to kill, and won't stay quiet until they are all the way dead."
    He began empting the oil from the unused lamps, spraying the bodies - dead or not. Fire would finish the not-quite-dead-so-slightly-noisy ones.
    I glanced at the Beta shadow-huntress.
    "She's dead."
    "Thanks."
    The big man snorted. "It wasn't for you, toy-boy." He had no high opinion of Messengers, though where he would have encountered any was a mystery to me.
    The girl gathered the weapons, bagged them, and slung the carryall to her back as if it weighed nothing. "Amoth. He did well distracting her until the others were disarmed."
    "Literally," I said, tilting my head toward the oddly tidy pile of limbs.
    She shrugged. "I slash from the right and slide the debris to the left."
    "I'm not complaining." In fact, her facility and strength sparked my interest - and my returning libido noticed her face and form and found pleasure in the exercise.
    Amoth, finished with his task, stepped between us. "Button up, hound-dog. The place and time is all wrong and she is not a Velorian."
    "What's wrong with being Velorian?" I asked, but I did fasten my trousers since he was right about the place and time being completely wrong to get to know this quasi-Goddess-in-training.
    "Nothing," he replied, slipping a cloak over the woman's shoulders and flipping her cowl up. The carryall formed a lump on her back, and she hunched over to increase the effect. A disguise, indicating she didn't want to be noticed.
    The man shrugged his own cloak onto his broad shoulders. "Except that she isn't."
    The girl paused near the door. "Are you coming?" she said to me.
    I liked that her words startled Amoth.
    "We can't leave him here to be blamed. He won't be able to fly for days - if ever."
    That pronouncement startled me, especially when I realized it was the truth. Though the mutant Beta hadn't taken anything from me permanently (I hoped), my flight organ had been affected. I couldn't fly. How unexpected. How unpleasant. But, if traveling with the redhead as a companion was the trade-off... How wonderful.

    We fired the tavern and escaped off-world in a tiny spaceship. I sent a message with a Vendorian trader to Velor. The Council could decide what to do about the Pasil problem. One thing for sure, Aria couldn't be allowed to claim it.
    Last I heard the Pasil Sun was dying more rapidly than anyone had predicted. Nothing like a nova to end a debate.

    The ship is small. The Acolyte (I still don't know her name) guided by a star I cannot see, leads us somewhere. We stop from time to time (as she chooses), make a huge mess (of body parts, usually) while righting a wrong or making a stand, and then we do the quick fade. I like being an agent of light, doing good deeds on a case-by-case basis. Her missions don't save worlds, only individuals.

    I have yet to stand against a fellow Velorian. I feel some pride that my kinsman, if not always perfect, are not counted among our usual enemies. The Acolyte has never asked for my vow, but my oath is sworn, nonetheless. I hope to be spared the need to choose between my loyalties. Failing two Goddesses is enough for any Messenger to bear. Maybe, with this one, I can find my own redemption.

    Is she mortal? There is never any sense of hurry. Patience only. I get the feeling that the journey is the quest, and no destination lies at the far end. So why rush?

    They feel responsible for my loss of flight, though I don't miss it. I'm becoming a better partner and even Amoth laughs, now and again, at my jokes. His spare and infrequent words, even his sharpest insults about nubile women of many races (sex is always good) who find me charming, reveal a secret story to me - though he doesn't realize it. That is what a Messenger was designed to do, after all. Read between the words, listen in the silences, and suggest options without offering advice.

    He has followed her for decades, and will do so as long as she allows. I share his feeling of wonder and awe. If losing my ability to fly is the price of admittance; I'll never fly again (if I never try, I need never lie).

    I worship a red-haired Goddess who fills my imagination. I'd rather fill her bed, of course, but if that never becomes an option, so be it.

    Sharing her adventures will be enough for now.

    Know this... There are those who sacrifice everything for the good of all. When you need her most, one will come.

    The End

    Venerable Librarian;

    Please cross-file this piece under 'history - questionable veracity'. It is my feeling, that in uncertain times, people need hope and, as a result, heroes are born - or return.

    Sincerely;
    Orit Tor'El, assistant to the Governors

Go to: 'The Story of Nov'ayul' index
Go to: 'Downfall of a Goddess'
Go to: Jolie Howard Fiction