The Knights of El Shaddai

Mika Wilson

Description

Have you ever wanted to soar on the back of a dragon? Would you battle deadly aliens in an intergalactic clash, or travel the universe as an interstellar superhero? If you dream of adventure and romance, then "The Knights of El Shaddai" is the story for you! Follow the protectors of the universe as they fight to defend the innocent, and defeat an ancient psychic evil. In "The Knights of El Shaddai – The Blessing", Keir O'Kirk, a brave young knight, embarks on a quest to win the heart of a lady, and uncover a secret that will change the universe. Will he claim his destiny and his love before a demon from his past destroys the future?

Sujets

• Science Fiction
• Protectors
• El Shaddai
• Intergalactic
• Blessing
• Interstellar medium
• Universe
• Interstellar
• Knight
• Jack Blessing
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 28 février 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781543414431
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE KNIGHTS OF EL SHADDAI
 
THE BLESSING
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
MIKA WILSON
 
Copyright © 2017 by Mika Wilson.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2017905433
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-5434-1444-8

Softcover
978-1-5434-1445-5

eBook
978-1-5434-1443-1
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 10/28/2022
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
 
542326
CONTENTS
ADVENT
HOMECOMING
SALVATION
ASSASSIN
APPRENTICE
MISSION
SPIKE
STONES
PIRATES
SCANNER
HERO
BROKEN
BLESSED
GENESIS
HOME
LIGHT
CONSEQUENCES
DENIAL
REUNION
REVELATION
PROMISE
WARRIORS
LEGION
HONOR
CHALLENGE
BLISS
CHIMERA
CHAOTIC
CHARRED
BOX
NIGHTMARE
CONTROL
DESTROYER
TWELVE
GAUNTLET
EMPEROR
BLOODLINE
ETERNITY
ENEMY
LOYALTY
GIFT
WINGS
CORONATION
ALPHA
OMEGA
YESHUA
HAND
 
This is dedicated to my dear ones
ADVENT
HOMECOMING

T he child clung to the slender stone leg of the statue and waited for the blow of the battle axe, but still the juvenile’s stammering voice repeated the sentence that had triggered the attack to come. “I seek the mercy of Sartris!”
It was the elder of the two tall, muscular guards who approached, a leer creasing his lizardlike Xhi maw, but before he could visit horrors upon the spindly human figure crumpled beneath the altar of Sartris, in the dank, dimly lit temple dedicated to the mad emperor, a deep, authoritative voice rang out. High Priest Wiloum descended the stairs from the great stone incense altar, his robes still heavy with the smell of the blood of the sacrifices he had lain upon the brazier. “Stop! I command it!”
The two guards stepped back, and Wiloum moved with purpose to the cowering child. So terrified was the child, so unsure, that the eyes that greeted his were wide and staring. But it was not the eyes he focused on. It was the face. Sliding like snapshots on a movie screen, the features of the child’s face moved freely, uncontrolled, through the incarnations the youth had employed since discovering the gift two years ago. That gift had made it easy to sneak away from the Kourite Lujah school, steal aboard the Klou freighter to reach this place and masquerade as a guard to enter this sacred temple. But the child was only eight. The slip up at the door of the temple had alerted the guard as surely as the Kourite clothes. Flesh could be replicated, but not clothes. The guard assumed Wiloum would reserve the honor of killing the Kourite spy himself, but the priest surprised him by instead prying the child from the stone leg of the statue of Sartris. Pulling a lantern close, he addressed the child as he nearly blinded the youth with the light. More terrified now, the body took on the same morphing as the face, from seven foot Boongli to two foot Idenkan in a breathless instant, but the effort drained the child so much that Wiloum was barely able to prevent the grayish scrap from collapsing to the floor. Wiloum chuckled.
“I thought you were all dead,” he said softly. He turned to the guard. “This is an Xhi face-flexer, a shape changer. We were supposed to evolve to be one of these, the next link in the genetic chain, but the army believed them to be too much of a threat to live. This one is the last one.”
At that the child gasped. “There are no others? But I came here to find my own kind!”
Wiloum was almost taunting. “The Kourites aren’t your kind? You’ve worn their skin for eight years, lived with them and…” he grabbed the temple identification charm hanging from the silken cord around the child’s neck. This was a second cast Lujah initiate, a future member of Kourite society’s inner circle. “And learned all about their God.”
“I hate them! I hate the things they teach me, and I hate their ways because they destroyed our people! I am Xhi. I came here to find my kind.”
“Then you have come to the right place.” Wiloum lifted the child to face the altar. It was a plain stone slab unadorned by anything but the carved statue of a small human male, Emperor Sartris of Galarada, and a massive, gnarled tree whose enormous roots pushed through the marbled floor. The tree’s grayed limbs curled up and over the beams of the temple ceiling, and here and there a burst of crimson and purple from its blossoms heavied the air with a tangy perfume. The runaway gazed in awe at the tree as Wiloum spoke. “When you were a newborn babe, your parents gave you chimera, from the sacred root of this very tree, to keep you from changing from the first form – the one you imprinted at birth – until the time of your maturing. They did a good job with it, too. Too little and you’ll never develop this gift, but too much pure root can completely eliminate your ability to shift. But the imprint root’s power is fading in you. Now that puberty has begun, the root has lost its effectiveness and now even your birth imprint is at risk of exposure. I have to protect you, and it.”
Relieved, the child hugged the High Priest. That was a uniquely Kourite gesture, completely unbecoming an Xhi, but Wiloum chose to ignore it to continue his musing.
“That form has fooled the Kourites so far, and that form will help you become our greatest weapon against them. But take care, little spy! Your parents, and your kind, were not spared even though they could have been used by our world. You will live because I will it so. You will need rest, and more chimera to stop these shifts until you can control them better. When the Kourites rescued you, they thought they were saving a Kourite baby from the death the Xhi had already visited on the parents. But you carry within you the postcognitive memory of all Xhi, the memory etched in our very DNA by our glorious lord and master, Emperor Sartris of Galarada. That is why we will never stop fighting the Kourites, and why you cannot love them even though they have embraced you as one of their own.”
“Then I can stay?”
“Yes, but only for a brief time. I will train you, then you will return to Kouri to ingratiate yourself at the highest levels. I see you as an investment, one that will, I hope, bring about the destruction of our ancient enemy when the time is right.” Wiloum inclined his head toward one of the befuddled guards. “Wear his face while you are here, just to be safe. Face-flexers are not welcome in Galarada, but you will have my protection.”
The child drank in his words, but one thought pushed through the confusion and the exhaustion. “How do you know so much about me?”
The memory still gave Wiloum a thrill.
“Who do you think killed your parents? I led the posse that chased them into Kourite territory. Your parents killed a Kourite family and stole their faces. The runaway flexers hoped to live as Kourites, but we caught them. Your mother’s blood was sweet! I killed your father next, but the knights arrived before I could get you. I escaped, but from my hiding place I heard the knights calling your supposed grandfather to let him know you had survived. Your whole life is a lie.”
“Good! If it brings glory to our god, then I will do whatever is necessary!”
“Just what I wanted to hear,” Wiloum said as he steered them to the back of the temple, toward his living quarters. Some rest, food, and chimera were needed, then the history lessons would begin. But he paused and pointed to the altar. The eyes of the statue were glowing red, focused on the guard in the aisle. He was standing where the child had stood and asked for sanctuary.
“By the way, speaking of our god, if you ask for the mercy of Sartris…” And suddenly a bolt of lethal red laser fire shot from the eyes, cutting through the guard and killing him instantly. Wiloum ignored the smoking pile at the feet of the statue as he led the child away. “…you only get death!”
SALVATION

T hirty five years after the moment an Xhi face-flexer found the sacred homeworld and began pursuing a holy calling, an eighteen year old magni was reaching the end of his rope as he stared down his fourth keg of grog. He had started battling, and killing, when he was eleven, because he was big and tall for his age, with a toughness and hardness to his character that fooled his superior officers into believing he was actually the twenty years shown on his forged birth certificate. Had he been discovered, they would have discharged him immediately, which would have been a kindness. But he wasn’t discharged. He was promoted again and again.
At thirteen, he was commanding a delti squad in the deadliest sector of the Nang-Hesh province, and around the same time he discovered that alcohol would stop the memories of