Free A Just Farewell by Brian S. Wheeler

twitched a final time upon the
chamber floor as its blood ran into the room’s drain. Abraham
crawled away from the lamb through the blood to lean again against
the chamber’s cool wall, where he pressed his forehead to his knees
and waited for the fear charging his system to empty.
     
    “I’m happy to see that the blood now marks
you, child.”
     
    The high cleric came alone to the butcher’s
chamber, and his voice startled Abraham.
     
    “I’m sorry I gave it an ugly death.”
     
    The high cleric stepped into the chamber and
gathered the knife still laying at the dead lamb’s side. “You’ve
done what I have asked. I will take the lamb now and dress it
myself. Did you think you could give that lamb any death other than
the one you delivered it? Abraham, you are still only a boy who is
still learning what it takes to kill. I assure you that the Maker
will provide you with ample opportunity to improve your harvesting
of blood. No, Abraham, it is not the killing of the lamb that
displeases me.”
     
    “Where else then have I failed?”
     
    The high cleric placed the bloody blade
before Abraham’s face. “The other clerics told me that you learned
well how to clean and sharpen your knives, and yet I find this one
abandoned in the blood. You know better, Abraham.”
     
    Abraham nodded. “I do.”
     
    “Remember that the Maker values all his
tools of creation. You have killed my lamb as I asked, and as
reward I’ll not mention your oversight with your blade. I don’t yet
see cause to send you outside the village to dig yourself another
hole. But Abraham, you will scrub this floor of the blood the best
you can, and you will tend to each of your blades. And tomorrow, I
will send you another lamb to butcher, and you’ll find it a little
easier to drag that blade across its throat.”
     
    Abraham hurriedly gathered his bucket and
his sponge and set to the task of cleaning the lamb’s blood from
the chamber’s floor. He wasn’t surprised when he heard something
scurry out from the shadows, and he nodded at the orange cockroach
who lifted its antennae as it watched the boy work. Abraham was
thankful for that silent bug’s company.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Governor Chen didn’t leave the cinema after
Abraham finished his duty cleaning the butcher shop and returned to
his family home, and to the warm cot that waited for his rest. She
guided her eavesdropping cockroach back into the safe shadows
before replaying the footage gathered that day. Watching the
frightened boy clumsily slaughter that bleating lamb wasn’t easy
viewing, but Kelly didn’t anticipate taking any pleasure from the
sights and sounds gathered from a savage world. The choice she
faced was too terrible for any kind of enjoyment.
     
    Why did the slaughter of that lamb, after
everything she had already witnessed concerning that boy, so
trouble her? The butchering of livestock was no reason to sentence
the tribes, and an entire planet, to oblivion. But the sight of
that butchered lamb made her shudder, and she feared the sight of
that blood would not permit her night’s dreams to be peaceful.
     
    The boy was too young to be a butcher. Kelly
recognized that the clerics harbored ulterior motives for so soon
training Abraham in the ways of the knives, and she was afraid of
how that killing reshaped that boy.
     
    For when she was next called to submit her
vote concerning the ultimate answer, Kelly’s decision would depend
upon how much hope and innocence she felt survived within a
child.
     
    * * * * *
     

Chapter 8 – Blessed Hands

    “There’s a monster in our home! Hurry,
Rahbin! There’s a monster in Abraham’s room!”
     
    Abraham bolted out of his bed at his
mother’s scream, instantly lifting his fists to attack whatever
boogieman or demon leapt from the shadows to threaten his mother.
Yet nothing growled from the darkness. No teeth glimmered in the
dim light, nor did any claws scratch along the walls. Rahbin and
Ishmael soon