A Just Farewell by Brian S. Wheeler

the ground between them as its fine
antennae smelled at the air. They feared the great devil visited
them, and they feared no one, not even their father, cared to chase
away that bug.
     
    * * * * *
     

Chapter 9 – Scratching at the Sky

    “I’m sorry, Ishmael, but I’m afraid I can’t
go with you into the metal garden. I must tend to the butcher shop
and my training all day.”
     
    Ishmael grinned. “It’s fine. I petitioned
the clerics for you company, Abraham. They’ve agreed to give you a
break so that you can spend the day with me.”
     
    The good fortune he had experienced since
climbing, battered and bruised, out from his hole continued to
amaze Abraham. “Why would they agree to that?”
     
    “It’s a special occasion,” winked
Ishmael.
     
    “What would that be?”
     
    Ishmael rolled his eyes. “I will tell you in
the middle of the metal garden, brother. Would I dare involve the
clerics in any of my lies?”
     
    Abraham didn’t doubt Ishmael’s word, for he
knew his brother cherished every opportunity to please the clerics,
and he knew Ishmael took pride in policing the clerics’ law. His
brother would do nothing that was contrary to those bearded men’s
desire, and so Abraham was glad to follow Ishmael out of their home
and across the hard, cracked surface, both of them pleased that the
massive citadels of the unbelievers remained far from passing over
their path, a sign both took to be another of the Maker’s
blessings. The journey to the metal garden took the morning, and
the brothers where happy to reach the first of the broken and bent
columns of steel, which rose like fractured teeth from the ground’s
shattered jaw, before the sun reached its pinnacle to heat the day.
Once within the metal garden, Abraham and Ishmael could find
shelter from the sun within so many piles of ruin strewn about the
landscape.
     
    “There’s no more powerful proof of the
Maker’s power than the metal garden,” Ishmael smiled as he surveyed
the fields of scattered debris.
     
    The Holy Book taught that a great,
glimmering city once stood on the grounds of the metal garden, a
city of high, crystal towers that shimmered in the sun. The clerics
claimed that the city’s population on any given day far surpassed
the numbers the tribes could gather if even the Maker gave their
clerics the power to resurrect the ghosts of their great, lost
warriors. Life was easy and comfortable. Children didn’t thirst in
the hottest, summer droughts, nor did the old hunger when a year’s
harvest proved lean. Within the city, humankind lived apart from
the elements, sheltered behind steel and glass.
     
    The people of such an age possessed
everything, and still their craving magnified. The Holy Book taught
that such cities rose from greed, that all of their reflection and
polish idolized mankind instead of showing the Maker the reverence
he deserved. Mankind chose to forget his creator god and arrogantly
cast aside the Maker’s divine law to live according to his
individual pleasure and whim. Man no longer feared the great devil;
man no longer believed the great devil existed at all. Thus, the
Maker’s terrible enemy reigned free, his image cast in a billion
motes of mesmerizing light, his voice echoing through such cities
that worshipped any kind of song but the one composed to pay glory
to the Maker. Mankind rebelled against his Maker, and all of his
creations, tainted by the great devil, rose as blasphemies to the
creator’s original masterpiece.
     
    Though angered by mankind’s mockery, the
Maker’s wisdom recognized how he could save his lost flock of
mankind in the destruction of those cities of shimmering glass. The
Maker spoke to men, and his spirit returned to remind them that
they were all still magical creations of a powerful god, no matter
how much science claimed the contrary. The Maker possessed
mankind’s hands, and the Maker employed them as his tools that
pulled those blasphemous towers of steel to