The Master's Cry by Chris Stewart

Author:Chris Stewart [Stewart, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Mercury Ink
Published: 2012-10-22T06:00:00+00:00

TEN

Eridu, Southeastern Iraq

Lieutenant Bono turned in a slow circle, scanning the desert around him. The sand was brown and as fine as talcum powder. Slow to move, it seemed to paste itself to the bedrock, the oldest sand on earth. Here and there small bluffs of black, craggy rock penetrated the rolling desert, the flinty hunks of lava glinting in the angled sun. From a distance, the bluffs appeared to be covered with dark bushes and low vegetation, but Bono knew that wasn’t true. He knew that as they got closer the dark patches would emerge as small hunks of stone that jutted from the ground, not vegetation. Above his head and to his back, opposite the setting sun, the sky changed color as it rose above the far horizon. Near the ground it was solid white from reflecting off the sand, but it deepened to greenish-silver and then dark blue directly over his head. The sand and rolling mounds (they weren’t high enough for Bono to quite call them hills) seemed to go on forever, and the air was so clear that the details of the dismal landscape didn’t seem to fade, no matter how far off he looked.

Sam stood somewhere behind him, quiet, unseen, and unmoving, but Bono knew he was near. A soldier, especially a soldier who spent much of his time in the desert, developed his senses, and Bono could smell the other man’s leather boots, the detergent on his uniform, the spearmint gum in his pocket, the aftershave he had put on a few days ago.

Bono turned in two full circles, his feet treading lightly across the brown sand, years of moving without leaving a trace instinctive to him now. Then he held still and listened as Sam moved quietly to his side.

“So this is it?” Samuel Brighton shook his head as he looked around in disbelief.

Bono nodded toward the barren desert. “That’s what they say.”

Sam squinted through the setting sun at the utterly barren landscape around him. “What did Adam grow here? Snakes and sand fleas? Help me understand this, Lieutenant, because I’m not so sure you’ve got your geography right.”

Bono hunched his shoulders. “It might have changed a little bit over the years.”

“Changed a bit. Yeah, I guess so.” Sam’s voice was sarcastically light-hearted. “If this was the Garden of Eden, and if this is what it looked like, I’d say Adam got the better end of the deal. Getting tossed out of this hunk of burning sand couldn’t have been the worst thing that happened to him that day.”

Bono smiled but didn’t answer as he continued looking down from the bluff.

It was so quiet he could feel the atmospheric pressure in his ears, the air perfectly calm as evening came on. His neck tingled from a light sweat that evaporated in the rapidly cooling air. The sun was low now, a huge, blood-red ball sinking toward the western horizon. As he watched, it began to fall so quickly its movement was perceptible.

The

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