Lucius’ path back to consciousness wound its way around large boulders and criss-crossed a shallow brook. The hungry roar of a waterfall sounded from somewhere up ahead and he paused, gazing around at his surroundings. Long shadows clung to the undergrowth either side of the path, refusing him entry and revealing nothing more than a mottled shade of green.

  Something thudded against the side of his head, making his vision swim. Leaning against one of the smooth rocks to steady himself he felt a sharp pain in his arm and looked to the side. A bird was perched upon his shoulder, its feathers coated in a green slime. A beady eye peered back at him and the creature pecked at his shoulder again, sending another sharp lance of pain down his side. He tried to shoo the thing away but only managed a brief flick with his hand before collapsing into the shallow brook.

  Warmth seeped from his body, carried away by the running waters and sucked into the grey stone that he still clung on to. Lucius closed his eyes; there wasn’t one part of him that didn’t feel tired. A cloying exhaustion weighed heavily upon him, pressing down and driving him into the ground. He tried to fight back, pushing his fingers into the silt of the stream bed and rising to his knees but the burden was almost too much to bear.

  The bird appeared again, only this time it was sitting on the boulder. He reached up and it titled its head to the side and cawed. The sound grated on his nerves, reverberating in his head. It called again and there came an echoed answer from above, a chorus of cries prompting Lucius to turn his head and look up into the grey sky.

  Flocks of birds circled overhead, funnelling themselves into a black tornado that dived towards where he knelt. They came like gusts of wind, striking the side of his head and buffeting him into a sprawled submission, leaving his body broken and prostrate in the foaming water.

  Wake up Lucius!

  He let his head fall back and the stream consumed his vision. Blurred outlines of the birds moved on the rocks around where he laid, the muffled call of their cries sounding like a distant echo below the icy cold water.

  You must listen to me and focus your inner strength.

  The voice pierced his mind with a desperate urgency and a narrow ray of light broke through the cloud of birds above. Its light fell upon the water’s surface, striking it and breaking the transparent cover that held him beneath. He sat up, taking strangled gasps of air and feeling a sudden sense of purpose. The warmth of the golden ray was good and made him feel alive, pushing the fog of confusion away. He slowly rose to his feet as the birds fidgeted and squawked, flapping towards him but always hopping away before they reached the light.

  It is time for you to come back Lucius, we have succeeded.

  Lucius looked up into the sky and saw the heavens part as the cone of light grew, and then, he was gone.

  When he opened his eyes he was sitting in near darkness. A low rumble sounded in his ears and his body swayed gently from side to side. Waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the half-light, he could make out metal crates stacked all around. Peering more closely at one, he read the words, “Haar Spice” stamped on its side.

  We are on a freight runner.

  “I’d gathered as much,” he replied as the craft suddenly changed course and he was thrown sideways, knocking his head on a cargo pen he’d been propped up against only moments before. He cursed and rubbed his temple. “Why must we travel like stowaways?”

  It is safer this way, there is less chance of us being discovered.

  “Discovered by who?” he bit back, realising the dull ache in his shoulder for the first time. “And what happened to my shoulder?” His mind raced back to the tombs on Italus and the image of Typhaon standing over him sprung to the fore. “Did the undead creature strike me down?”

  No, it was Lernaean’s blade.

  Lucius noted the indifference in her voice as he prodded tentatively at a raised line of scar tissue. “What happened? What were those… things?”

  They were soldiers from a bygone era, when Italus was wracked with war. Lernaean dragged them from death’s slumber to try and stop us.

  “And Typhaon was their leader?”

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  Yes, Typhaon was truly an evil man, he secretly exposed many cities to deadly radiation and then offered to save them from their illnesses in return for their wealth and their children.

  “Children? What did he want with the children?”

  He sacrificed them in their thousands to appease some dark whim that had taken root in his mind.

  A low hum sounded as the conditioning units coughed to life, hissing out cold air into the cargo hold. Lucius shivered, though he wasn’t sure if it was due to the sudden climate change or the thought of Typhaon’s depravity.

  “Lernaean said that you knew Typhaon, was that true?”

  Yes, my Father sent me there to put an end to his reign of madness and genocide. The planet was stricken and its people almost beyond recovery. Their reconciliation came at a heavy price indeed.

  Lucius could feel the sorrow in her voice as it fell to almost a whisper, barely audible above the drone of the air conditioning pumps. “What happened?”

  We attacked Typhaon’s palace and destroyed him together with his armies. She paused and he waited patiently for her to continue, sensing it was not an easy memory for her to recount. And then we sent a plague amongst the people of Italus, destroying all but the healthy and righteous.

  Lucius didn’t reply, he wasn’t sure of what to say to her distasteful revelation.

  Healing and regeneration is not always possible without first experiencing great pain and suffering, Lucius. I did not take my actions lightly; it is not always easy to fulfil His will, sometimes the price is even too much for us to bear.

  “Is that why your kind are cast down here, for not doing what He asks of you?”

  It is not simply a matter of completing our tasks and doing as He commands, can you even begin to imagine what such actions will do to the spirit? We are not completely infallible, our bodies carry a strength and resolve greater than you can imagine but our consciences teeter upon a fine balance where sometimes the weight of our deeds can plunge us into the ravine devoid of grace and from that place, there is often no return.

  Lucius felt a pang of guilt at his clumsy ignorance. “And that is what happened to Nemean and Lernaean?”

  Maybe. Or maybe they could not resist the enticing lure of power that they felt whilst walking in this realm.

  Considering her words, he got to his feet, pushing down the incessant nag of stellar-sickness that roiled in the pit of his stomach. Their conversation had taken a rather depressing route, especially with the admission that God’s own angels could stumble and fail in their duties, side-lined by the temptation of power. He decided to change the subject.

  “Is there any particular reason why you choose a freighter full of prohibited spice for us to travel on? You do know that if we’re boarded by the law I’m likely to get executed for simply being here?”

  It was the only transport leaving for Delphin today.

  “Why is it exactly that we need to travel back to Delphin again?”

  He felt his attention drawn toward the blood-soaked cloak that lay in a heap near to where he’d been sat. The green colours swirled and writhed as his gaze fell upon it. The sickness in his stomach began to rise and saliva gathered in his mouth.

  We must purge ourselves of my brothers’ effects. The tokens we carry must be offered up to the Father so that He may know His will is done.

  “You mean we must go to a church?” Lucius replied, unable to hide the abhorrence in his voice.

  Yes, of course.

  Churches hadn’t been one of his most favoured haunts to visit or loiter in. In fact, his entire experience of church was suspended from a precipice of sheer terror. Memories came unbidden of his parent’s funeral and their cremation upon the altar’s holy flames. He could still hear his mother’s screams now, tearing through the thin veil of sanity that hung across his mind’s eye. An unfortunate error the priest had said, one almost unheard of in this day and age. The man’s indifference had lit an anger within Lucius that he’d never been able to extinguish and as he got older even the hard spirits and powdered spice hadn’t managed to dampen the burn, his torment had always remained, clawing its way back as the effects of the drug-induced respite wore off.

  He fumbled with the large golden ring that hung upon a chain around his neck. “The cloak I can understand, but is it really necessary to destroy Nemean’s band?”

  He will never be truly free from his burden until it has been destroyed.

  Lucius sighed. “Why did you choose me, Sepherene? I’m no-one special, surely there are others that are more worthy to take on this task with you?”

  You humans are a peculiar race, you strive for perfection and power without a care for whom you trample along the way and yet when you look within yourselves, you are so judgmental of your own worth. It is true that you have often wandered from the path into temptation and that your mind wears the scars of your misjudgements, some that run so deep you choose not to remember them, but you have a morality that is rare these days. Your scale is balanced Lucius, it tilts neither toward good nor evil. You are just in everything you do.

  “I’m not sure about that,” he mused, before his attention was taken by a yellow strobe that had come on and was lighting the cargo hold. “We must be nearing Delphin, I hope for both our sakes they’ve managed to jam the sensory warning approach beacons or we’ll be in for a rough ride.”