Free A Just Farewell by Brian S. Wheeler Page B

this afternoon, and Ishmael will pick up your
household chores for today.”
     
    Abraham donned his new tunic before Rahbin
and Ishmael hurried him to the ladder exiting their underground
home in another rush of village opportunity. Abraham paused when he
gripped the ladder’ bottom rung to peer back at his mother, and he
saw how tears streamed out from her dark glasses to trickle down
the swirls of black, ink tattoos that covered her face, a strange
language his father had scribed upon that skin to tell of the
blessings the Maker delivered their family unit. The realization
suddenly washed over Abraham that he would soon scribe the opening
passages of his story upon the faces of Josef’s daughters. He had
never imagined what he might write upon the skin of a wife, had
never thought he would need to think of what shapes to scribe upon
the faces of two women. But events unreeled so quickly after he had
dug his hole to announce the start of his year of man-making.
Everything left him breathless and a little afraid. What if the
great devil truly moved his hands while he had painted the shells
of his cockroach friends? Would he taint Josef’s daughters by
marking their flesh? Suddenly, all things of the Maker’s creation
seemed so complicated and dangerous. Suddenly, every decision
seemed crowded with repercussions that remained invisible to his
judgment.
     
    Abraham shuddered as he climbed from his
subterranean home to enter the shadow thrown upon the Earth from
one of the unbelievers’ castles floating overhead. That bastion of
blinking lights and dormant guns seemed closer than every before,
and Abraham felt he could nearly reach up to touch its rocky
underbelly. The clerics preached that a great victory would arrive
on the day the tribes reached those orbiting citadels, but Abraham
felt crowded by castle’s shadow as darkness slowly flowed across
the ground. Suddenly, he felt that the shadow possessed a weight he
had failed to before notice, and suddenly he felt his breath
quicken beneath such an unnatural creation. Was such doubt another
sign that the great devil touched him? Why else would his faith in
the clerics, his faith in the Maker, waver?
     
    “Your visit honors my home, Abraham.”
     
    Josef raised a hand to attract his arriving
visitors’ attention to where he stood in the shadow. Rahbin hurried
ahead to embrace Josef, the men laughing as they joyfully slapped
one another’s back. Josef’s grin stretched even wider when he
released Rahbin to take Abraham’s hand in a crushing, welcoming
grip.
     
    “You’re dressed well,” Josef nodded at
Abraham.
     
    “I’m afraid my other tunic was stained with
too much blood,” Abraham responded.
     
    Josef squeezed Abraham’s upper arm. “And
that is nothing to feel ashamed of, son. A butcher’s trade is a
fine place within a tribe, and it is one that will make you a fine
husband for my girls in their marriage to the Maker. Alexis and
Cassandra are prepared for you, Abraham, and we’ll be ready to
proceed once the high cleric arrives.”
     
    Abraham peeked at his father. “The high
cleric is coming here?”
     
    Rahbin winked. “He seems to take a
particular interest in you, son, and many would consider that a
blessing from the Maker.”
     
    Josef welcomed Abraham and Rahbin into his
home, where his guests found the host’s central living chamber
decorated in his family’s finest carpets. Josef’s wife hurried into
the room, balancing a fine tray of tea china. Abraham peeked into
her face as she poured him tea, an offering he had never before
experienced in anyone’s home but his own, one that made him feel
many years beyond his actual age. He hoped that a glance into the
face of Josef’s wife might give him some idea of the marking he was
expected to soon leave upon the skin of his host’s daughters. But
the woman’s tattoos of swirls, runes and flourishes only further
confused Abraham by covering so much of her skin. He could guess at
no