The Wayward Godking by Brendan Carroll Page A

When he’d pushed the point, Lord Kinmalla had pointed out that none of them actually needed air to live. Apparently, the good Lord did not recognize Lily Ramsay as a living human being or else did not care that she might be one. Of course, Luke was not quite sure whether Lily was really alive or dead. He leaned his chin in his hand and closed his eyes. His mother sat stiffly by his side, staring into space with a blank look on her face. The judge had already pronounced judgment on Lord Nanna, which meant relatively nothing to Luke Andrew. He could not begin to think of his mother and Lord Nanna as one and the same. It was simply beyond his grasp.
    Now he was waiting for the judge to return with his own sentence for the crimes of which he had been pronounced guilty. Murder, kidnapping, waging war with men and faery creatures without a proper permit, interfering in the affairs of humanity without proper authority, instigating wars, riots and insurrections without proper authority. These were the major crimes of which he had been accused. There had been a number of lesser ones, too numerous to remember. Disrespecting the rank of his own father had been among them, attempted matricide another. He had been appalled. He could connect most of them with actual events in his life, but he’d never thought of them as crimes at the time. In fact, he’d thought himself quite reformed and cleared of his early miscreant behaviors by his later sufferings. But this was not the case. He would receive a lesser sentence than his mother, no doubt, but what it might be, he had no idea and really did not want to know.
    His head drooped as the heat caused him to doze, and he found himself in the desert, just after sunset with Omar, the Prophet. They were sitting in the tall director chairs Omar had particularly preferred in front of the Prophet’s purple and white tents, watching the moon rise over the purple horizon. A billion stars littered the dark sky over their heads and a dying cloud of dust showed where the General’s convoy had only just disappeared beyond the hills.
    “I’m glad you are here with me to see this.” Omar turned a whimsical smile on him. “I could not have done it without your help, Uncle.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Luke said, but smiled in return. “You will give me a big head.”
    “You know I love you like a brother, Luke.” Omar paid no attention to Luke’s attempt to brush him off. “You are the only one who understands me.”
    Luke nodded, but did not meet the Prophet’s eyes. He didn’t understand Omar Kadif. No one could understand the Prophet, least of all the son of Mark and Meredith Ramsay, both of whom did not even understand their son, what he was or where he had come from. He didn’t understand why his own father had so little regard for him when Omar’s father doted on him shamelessly, to no avail. Omar shunned the attentions lavished on him by the Djinni and sought the company of the outcast Ramsay son. Why? It didn’t make sense. Omar could have had everything, anything. Lemarik would have given him the world with the snap of his fingers, but Omar wanted to change the world, be a healer, a Prophet, a Holy Man. For what? For who? Who could really appreciate Omar for what he was? Omar was a saint, a sage, a god… a benevolent god, who would heal the sick, raise the dead, change water to wine, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, uplift the downtrodden. Luke looked up at the great swath of the Milky Way spread across the sky, calling to him with cool starlight and dark velvet spaces, beckoning him to come away, leave this place, come home, come home…
    “Luke?” Omar’s voice cut through his thoughts and he felt cold water soaking his trousers. He jerked his head up and stared at the distraught face of the Prophet in the reddish glow of the torch light. Omar was dripping wet, shirtless, bootless and in his arms was the limp form of Dunya Kadif. Her head was thrown back and her face