Risen Released
The second book in the Fallen universe is out! Brendan Sean Murphy’s journey comes to an end as the secrets of the Sabia are revealed and unseen forces advance their plots.
If you haven’t read Fallen, get it today for 99 cents OR ON KINDLE UNLIMITED! And get Risen to go along with it! Both books are available in digital and paperback, as well as Kindle Unlimited.
Warning: Details (spoilers) from Fallen ahead
Below are Risen’s prologue and first chapter. In Risen, Brendan Sean Murphy, American liaison to the Sabia turned Sabia hybrid, is living a comfortable existence as he heals from his PTSD while his Sabia wife Esfirs nears the end of her pregnancy. However, his life is both a gilded house arrest and exile. Still concerned about threats to peace between the Sabia and Earth, he is unsure what to do. He can only count on his friends, including the Sabia pilot Berina and Esfirs, for advice and aid. But time will test everything when a hidden actors launch a plot that threatens both Sabia and all of humanity.
Prologue
Wrapped in a white gown, the girl lies on the ground. Her face, smeared with splotches of pink, light blue, and light yellow, is twisted at an unnatural forty-five-degree angle while her head rests on a large rock. A dab of red shows on her neck. Meanwhile, her spotless white dress covers her body down to the ankles. Its stillness gives off the effect of rigor mortis.
Three individuals walk to the corpse. Where their arms should be, the two males and the sole female have white-feathered wings, which contrast with their black robes. The faces of these three entities are covered in splotches of peach, black, white, red, blue, and yellow. None of the color patterns are the same. Upon reaching the dead body, all three begin fanning their wings over the girl.
“Shame! Shame!” Their chant’s unison creates an echo effect. “Shame! Shame!” They lower themselves to their knees. “Shame! Shame!”
The male on the right gives off a mournful cry. “The children of Azura are wicked! They have killed our pure Gelsi! Her crime was being beautiful like us! Shame! Shame!” He stands up and spreads his wings wide.
On the left, the other male wails. “How many children and grandchildren must we bury? Let us set forth and destroy these wicked evildoers! Shame! Shame!” Like the first male, once his words are said, he stands up and spreads his wings.
“No!” the female yells, puffing out her chest, revealing her slight but noticeable womb. “Vengeance is for the divine alone to seek! Our cries to the divine will be answered! That is enough! Our children are hated because of their beauty. When the children of Azura lusts are not satisfied with despoiling themselves, they come for ours, who are too pure for them.” Unlike the others, she remains seated.
“Shame! Shame!” The two winged males call out.
“Come, let us take all our children away from here. Let the divine spill out justice. We will take our children to safety where they may grow. Now, I summon my daughters!”
Seven women, with pale coloring on their faces and wearing white tunics, approach. Each of them holds up a lamp.
The winged female lifts her left wing straight up. “Children, who will follow me if I lead you into skies of darkness?”
One woman steps forward. “I, Simbar, the first amongst your daughters, and wisest, trusted by you to advise them, will lead my sisters, and follow you beyond the horizons, through mountains, deserts, and wild lands, even to the endless sea. But to the skies of darkness, I do not wish to go. For this soil is my home. It is all I know, and from it is my very essence.”
Still holding her wing in the air, the winged female says, “It is not enough!”
As the winged woman finishes her exclamation, another daughter grabs Simbar and slams her to the ground. Simbar’s lamp rattles as it bounces up and down until coming to a rest.
The assaulting daughter turns to face her siblings. “Shame! Shame! Our mother who watches us has the word of the law! Where she commands we shall go!”
“Ah,” says the winged woman, “Paricheher, you are now first amongst my daughters and wisest; I trust you to advise them. So, you shall lead them as you follow me into the skies of darkness. Forever you will be the first amongst my daughters, so long as you follow the laws I have taught you and follow my commands. The price of this is blood.” Only now does the winged woman lower her wing.
The other sisters raise their lamps to Paricheher. Then, one by one, they prostrate themselves before the winged female. Paricheher remains standing.
“Mother,” Paricheher says, “what shall happen to Simbarhaz, and those who camped with Simbar? Shall I command one of my kin to marry him?”
“Her sin echoes in her blood. Therefore, let him and her children have the same fate as the wicked, which the divine surely shall take! Do not take into your house their wicked blood!”
The prostrating sisters in unison acclaim, “The command is justice! There is justice in the command!”
The winged female looks Paricheher in the eyes before turning to face forward. Scanning the room as she turns, she stops, miniscule twitches forming at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes lock on their intended target. She takes a deep breath and stands.
Exhaling, she expands her arms not in the manner of a bird taking flight, but as a mother opening up for an embrace. A soft tune streams forth from her lips. It is wordless, but to any listener who closes their eyes, it would draw an image like a field of colorful wildflowers opening to the dawn sun.
The winged woman’s brown eyes remain locked on their target as she finishes her aria. Next, she stretches her wings toward the object in her view.
“Come,” she says. “Come away from all your troubles, my loves, and fly under my wings to a land beyond the darkness of the sky. We have set it aside for you. It is a land where no others may harass you. There you will be free to learn from us, to forget these horrible lands. There, I will love your children and their children forever. And forever you shall be blessed.”
All is silent until Simbar’s rising acts as the cue for the riotous noise to begin. Cheers and clapping make a deafening sound. The roar reaches a fever pitch when the winged woman throws off her wings and removes the pillow under her stomach. Everyone laughs as she takes it and bonks the top of the head of Zalta, who was playing Gelsi. Zalta flops on the ground again. Several men in the back chant Berina’s name, causing the winged woman to take a bow.
From his cushion seat in the front row, Brendan remains motionless. The last two hours have been the Sabia’s tale, as they remembered it from prehistoric Earth. As violent and demanding as the Old Testament, yet, well, alien simultaneously. How much of it is taken literally at the top levels? Any Sabia should feel justified killing all humans if they thought the drama was a historic play-by-play, so why are they so helpful to Earth’s various governments? I bet the State Department kiddos hanging out in their cabins after curfew would have killed to see this.
His head is forced ninety degrees to his right. A wet smooch from Esfirs plants on his lips. Slowly, she pulls away. Brendan can feel her create a Bond.
“Was that not wonderful, -she? The work they put into the costumes was exquisite!”
He nods in reply. He shifts his focus to his wife’s protruding belly.
“She is asleep,” his pregnant spouse says. Her hands rub her bump. “Let us talk about the play. I want to know what you thought.”
Before he can respond, he feels a tapping on his right shoulder. Twisting his head, he sees nothing. Another tap on the left grabs his attention. Now spinning his head the other way, he sees Berina smiling down at him. She squats down next to the couple.
“Your eyes were wider than my wingspan,” she says, chuckling. “Thank you for being right here. It is easier reciting the Zarshala passages when I am saying it to someone in particular. And you, let me tell you, with your wide eyes, made the perfect target.”
Brendan smiles. “Glad to be of service.”
Now Esfirs leans forward. “What is the next play?”
“I believe your husband owes us something,” Berina says. She turns and points toward him. “You owe us something that can beat this!”
He puffs his cheeks and thinks. "How about a story of a man far from home, with only a few friends, on a journey long and strange?”
Berina perks up. In response, he tilts his head up and lowers his eyes to establish eye contact with her. The stoicism power-play move he received from countless Sabia is now a tool for him to use, if only for hyping up a story to a friend.
He fights every urge to smile as he talks. “This story involves a man challenged to do the right thing, the parting of friends, and an evil that threatens to kill them all.”
“Who is this story of?” Berina asks. Even Esfirs raises her eyebrow.
Now he lets himself grin. “Brendan the Navigator.”
Chapter One
The blue-green-brown orb hangs in the sky. It seems motionless, though in reality, it is moving at over sixty-seven thousand miles an hour. Yet, the cosmic dance keeps the planet stationary to the viewer, neither rising nor setting.
Cold, thin aluminum foil-like wrappings cling to Brendan's arms and legs as he readjusts his body and lies down on the Moon's surface. His maneuvering frees up the wrappings around his torso, loosening their hold on his chest. The feel of the granular soil presses against his back, though he finds the lack of audible sound outside his thin translucent face covering disconcerting. Keeping his eyes focused on the Earth, he stretches out his arms and lets them drop to his sides. Despite the suit’s hold on him, his freedom of movement is complete.
He finds a surprising amount of cloud cover over the distant sphere's surface, though Africa and parts of South America are discernable. All the beauty he once saw in maps pales compared to the beauty of the real thing. Brendan laughs, nods his head in the helmet ever so gently, and chuckles again. I am on the moon!
Being here on the lunar crust brings to a climax the last few months amongst the Sabia. At first, his role as a fourth-class officer meant a practical house arrest, taking care of a physically wrecked Esfirs. However, as the pregnancy’s initial months passed, she started to rebound and grew stir-crazy as she awaited permission to return to work. They began sharing stories with each other and friends to pass the time. He would orate histories, myths, and movie plots. Esfirs would close her eyes when he would yammer beyond ten minutes.
Meanwhile, her stories took on a life of their own. At first, she would use clothes as puppet stand-ins to act out scenes of Sabia history. Once, he made the mistake of asking what was based on contemporary records, and what mythology was written later. “We are not Terrans; we do not deal with myths,” she said with an icy voice.
Despite that one negative moment, the storytelling was a pleasant experience. Brendan learned to craft his short stories around things that would capture his wife’s interests: Irish mythology, the strong female tsarina Catherine the Great, and stories of his youth. Banshee tales caused Esfirs to hold him tight at night; Imperial Russian victories against Ottomans and Prussians made her smile; and she shared brief snippets of her childhood when Brendan talked about his.
An off-hand comment at dinner with Berina started a chain reaction that scaled up the production value of Esfirs’ stories. The Sabia pilot pleaded to be part of the storytelling, which Esfirs concentrated on after Berina stated it would help Brendan’s “education.” Berina’s involvement brought in Zalta, who didn’t want to be left out of a group activity, and that brought the medic’s ever rotating and growing group of friends as an audience. Within weeks, the Sabia stories became Sabia ensemble plays.
Each show was formulaic in its story and actors. Esfirs always played the hero who restored order and justice to a corrupt council. Meanwhile, Berina relished being the villain while Zalta was either the ever-changing extra or a gender-swapped love interest. Esfirs recited her triumphant lines with a ringing voice, pushing through noticeable pregnancy pains. On the other hand, Berina chewed the scenery and, with a booming voice, took what Brendan thought as a little too much levity with her final cries of admitting treason against “the blood of the Watchers in our veins.” Esfirs didn’t seem to mind the play-acting, for after each one, she was always eager to hear his thoughts on the story and would stay up late talking to him, explaining the story and adding context. One thing was clear to Brendan: to the Sabia, poor leadership equaled treason.
However, the event that drew the most people to their cabin was Berina’s reenactments of Brendan’s stories. A few were given repeat performances, but only one got so much attention that the actors put on a show in a common room, with Berina making playbills. The Terran Icarus Who Believed He Could Fly, was an event to be seen.
“While we were colonizing the harsh ice moons, the Terrans were crafting bronze,” the play started. She padded out the run time to over forty minutes with a subplot involving an Athena-incarnated queen of Athens rejecting marriage proposals from a cruel King Minos. It was the end that was the audience’s favorite part, though. When the wings of Icarus, played by Berina, melted, her line, “Ah, my wings are melting because we Terrans do not understand how air temperature and elevation work together,” caused riotous laughter. Amidst the joviality, she plopped and flayed herself on the ground. The play’s run went on for six nights.
Then things changed. The medical leadership cleared Esfirs to resume work and take medication to repress her natural Sabia looks. For Brendan, however, his fate remained locked away at home, no longer consulted to act as a liaison, and unable to communicate with Earth. It was here that Berina conceived the lunar trip.
She organized with him one last play for Esfirs. Entitled The Watcher Takes the Terran Boy to the Satellite of His Planet, the short one-act event featured her whisking a Terran child away from a life of gloom to the Moon, where she explained the wonders of the universe and persuaded him to explore it all with the Sabia. Then, with hands outstretched like she was testing the ripeness of fruit, she broke the fourth wall with a theatric call for Esfirs to allow Brendan to see the lunar surface for himself.
To say his wife was taken aback was an understatement. She stammered, tossing objections left and right, but Berina held her pose like a silent statue. With Esfirs’ voice cracking, she consented, but required Berina to escort him while he was on the Moon’s surface.
And that was the agreement. Reality turned out differently on the day of the trip when Berina put him on a separate craft, told him to have fun and stay out of trouble, and said she would pick him up later. That was about six hours ago, and every moment since had been magic.
Static crackling disturbs the lunar peace around him. A warm grin spreads across Brendan's face as he awaits the familiar sound of Berina's voice.
"Is Manghai all that you hoped for, or have you realized your Luna is a bunch of dusty rocks like I told you it would be?"
Brendan rolls his eyes. Stretching out, he says, "The Moon, Berina, it is called the Moon."
"First, Dear Brendan, her name is Manghai. Second, the word ‘moon’ is a generic noun. There are over 200 moons in this solar system alone. To give one natural satellite the title of 'the moon,'" she stresses in a mocking tone, "does the cosmos a massive disfavor." A few seconds pass. "So, back to the matter at hand. Is it all you wished for?"
His eyes scan Earth and the infinite space beyond it, absorbing all the natural wonder. "This is amazing. Thank you for arranging this for me. I never imagined it like this. And it makes perfect sense when I think about it, but I did not imagine the Earth would not move across the horizon."
Berina laughs. "We need you to take a physics class.”
Brendan blows out air as he views his home planet. Nights camping with his youth scouting unit and sleeping out with various Arab and Afghan tribes come to mind. How many times did I watch the moon fly across the sky?
"It is not so much a science thing, Berina. It is, well, the rising and setting of the Moon reminds me of the cycles of life. Good times, bad times, pain, healing. Maybe part of the reason I wanted to come here was to be with something I associated with. Now, though, I am looking back on the Earth only to see something different. It is jarring."
"Esfirshaz," she calls him by his married Sabia name, "let me tell you a story to help with the new perspective. Well before the Watchers took the Sabia to safety, there was a Watcher named Manghai. She became besotted with a young Sabia named Zum. She tried wooing him away, but he showed her his clan, explaining he could never leave such a large, loving family. In time, she realized she loved them as much as she loved him.
"Sadly, things were not meant to be. Terrans killed Zum during a raid. When she heard the news, Manghai cried and cried. The world held nothing for her, so she fled, lamenting her broken heart. However, as she was returning to where the Watchers lived, she realized she still had feelings for the tribe of Zum. So, deciding to return, she made a moon so she could always look down on his tribe, singing to them, accompanying them through time and space."
Brendan thrusts his torso up, the Moon's gravity making a sit-up easier than ever. Still gazing at Earth, he imagines the Sabia's origin myth of the Moon as if it were real. Only his rhythmic breathing is audible in the silence. Ending his imagining, he returns his focus to the Earth.
Berina's voice returns. "Life is not one of cycles where one is doomed to repeat events. It is a journey, forever moving. Same with your healing, Dear friend."
Brendan stands up and pats off the moondust from his spacesuit. From his vantage point, he can make out European Space Agency astronauts in their bulky gear entering their Sabia-made dugout in the distance. Next to it, two Sabia in giant mech suits are putting the finishing touches on a new radio telescope. A scientific Moon base in exchange for underwater mining rights in the North Sea. Another mysterious request from the Sabia. The thought shadows his mind.
Closing his eyes and shaking his head, he breathes out. A calm peace returns to him as the shadow lifts. "You are getting sappy on me, Berina."
"Oh! Am I sappy now? If I recall correctly, I quote," Berina switches over into a mocking voice, "'I look at my pregnant wife every day and see my future growing before me.' Remember when you got upset that Esfirs told me about her kissing you? How upset would she be if I told her you were noticing her get fat?"
All the air in his lungs is expelled as he uncontrollably laughs. "You- you-." He stops speaking to restart his breathing. His lungs strain as they recalibrate. "You know that is not what I meant!"
"Uh-huh," she says. "I have to fly my new favorite passenger to some diplomatic meeting. Do you want to wait for me to pick you up on that lonely rock, or will you hitch a ride back with the engineering crew?"
For a moment, the thought of running over and joining the engineers, maybe even visiting the Europeans and having some of their hot chow tempts him. No, the Sabia would not allow it, and who knows if the Europeans would even allow me near them. He sighs into his suit. "I will wait for you."
"Great choice!"
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Until Next Time
Next time, we’ll take a fun look at the Titanic in science fiction. Then, we’ll hopefully have another major announcement to share.
As always, please leave a comment with any questions, reviews, thoughts, whatever about Fallen, Risen, or whatever else I have discussed. I promise to reply!