by Dan Edelen

Beneath the silent stars, a tiny grave beside my feet, I prayed to forgive the men who chose this fate, men like me, ill-equipped to answer questions born in hell. Peering at the heavens through the screaming sky, I understood our only certain bond to be that we are all dust.

"And to dust I shall return."

***

As she stood by the window, her nakedness betrayed by a distant flash of lightning, Eleni watched the last of the moonshadows dissolve in her garden, an approaching storm front erasing the night sky.

"It is not too late for us," I said, staring hard at the widening crack in the ceiling, hoping to believe the words. "We are still young."

Eleni continued momentarily lost in her thoughts, but in her eyes the reflections of candlelight found confidence. "It's been three years of trying, Elias, but I believe. Do you?"

"We will try again tomorrow," I promised, "and soon we will have a child." I patted the bed and she strode over to me--all faith and bright hope--buried herself in my arms, and surrendered to sleep.

Even as the first footfalls of slumber crept over me, lightning struck nearby, the sound jarring me back to the moment. Then the rumbling of the natural yielded to the mechanical--a UN tank making its way down the road to the east of our property.

Casting off the sheets, I shuffled to the window. Our small barn, the well, and the windmill--each undamaged. But a plane tree near Hasma's creek flared orange and smoked, lazy fingers of steam drifting upward from its splintered trunk.

Again the sky erupted in white, the lightning stabbing the tank. Electricity danced across its chassis for a heartbeat before the vehicle ground to a halt. A minute later, a crewman popped out of its belly and checked for damage, vainly trying to ward off the pounding rain with a clipboard. Another soldier wearing a leather flight jacket joined him, shaking his head and spitting a familiar word at the heavens.

The two soldiers checked several parts of the tank, then moved toward the hatch. As the first vanished inside, the turret of the tank erupted in an explosion so forceful our window cracked, and I stumbled back into the bedroom's lone chair.

Eleni bolted awake, grabbed both her robe and mine, and rushed to my side.

Our legs flying as we sped to the safety of the cellar, I said, "Missile attack," my words coming in spurts, "from the northwest."

She nodded, squeezed my hand, and together we raced down the stairs, no light but the flames from the UN tank dancing on our walls.

"Is it starting again?"

"I do not believe so." It was as true as I thought it to be. Assuredly nothing more than a separatist cell with an anti-tank missile it longed to fire.

We kept cots in the cellar, a lantern, and a semi-automatic rifle--a precaution we hoped never to use. From a single tiny window on the north I strained to see more, but the downpour had already extinguished the fire on the tank. The darkness of the storm--save for a few receding splinters of light--erased everything in sight. Only the sound of the rain remained.

Eleni lit the lantern, keeping the flame low, and we huddled together in the cool of the cellar. In time, she retrieved a favorite wine from our mostly empty rack.

"The dream returned to me, Elias."

I never had words for this. Nor did she have more to say. Stroking her long tresses, I pulled her close on the cot and drank my share of the bottle, sleep coming eventually, but in fits.

***

Saturday greeted the world with high clouds sifted by the brightening sky. The night's attack had been confined, or so the radio said. No further insurrection expected. Still, a lone act of ignorance undid forty-two days of peace. Only the most innocent would believe no more chaos loomed.

How could I know it would arrive so soon when Eleni yelled from outside, "Men are burning our fields!" Instinctively, I went for the rifle, but as she ran to meet me in the house she added, "UN soldiers."

No sense could come from the peacekeeping forces torching our sole means of income, the wheat we gave our sweat to. I ran, Eleni following close behind.

"What are you doing?" I shouted, arms waving. "Stop! Stop!"

Five people, all clad in body-encompassing orange suits--three brandishing flame-throwers--paused. A hundred-fifty meters to my left sat a support vehicle. In response to my approach, its mounted machine gun spat metal into the path ahead of me. An unseen speaker blared, "This action is by order of General Van der Helsing, Commander of UN Forces. Stop at once or you will be arrested."

I sent Eleni back to the house and walked toward the support vehicle, each step fearfully considered. Glancing over my shoulder, I watched as she slipped back, her eyes never leaving me. Once safely inside our home, she gazed with distress from the cracked bedroom window.

Two boyish soldiers sporting bright blue helmets ran toward me, weapons drawn. Unable to comprehend their actions, I knelt on the ground, hands behind my head, and yelled again, "Why are you destroying my crops?"

Through waves of heated air, I witnessed a third of my eastern plot incinerated by flame-throwers spewing a sticky substance. The gelled fire clung to everything it touched, an unquenchable inferno. Though the workers were more than forty meters away, my face crawled with the heat.

Silent, but for the click of rifle metal against uniform buttons, the soldiers drew closer, weapons aimed in a coordinated pairing at my head and chest. Then a sound like "poosh" filled my ears as the torchiers resumed their work. I turned to face them even as they turned their backs to me.

Though my memory whispered otherwise, the tank showed little damage from last night's attack. Yet I had surely seen the explosion that ripped away the metal on the right side of the turret, leaving a breach the size of a man. A series of secondary explosions from within the tank had blown fist-sized holes throughout its structure. How then was it nearly whole?

Even as I watched, the damage at the point of impact resealed itself, the metal frame flexing, straining and audibly groaning--until thoroughly coated with fire by the orange-clad workers, the tar-like flammable material silencing the cries of the outraged tank.

Only then did I spy the horror.

A thing resembling a man emerged from within the tank, but in those brief seconds my mind told me it was something other. It wore the leather jacket of the second man to exit the tank last night, but it was not what I knew to be a man. If there had been a head, I could not discern it, for only a lump that to my staggered eye breathed and throbbed perched on the thing’s shoulders. Something like an arm spasmed and pounded against the frame of the tank, its "not a hand" grasping at an unseen foe. The torso flailed and lurched as it rose from the hatch, then fell back against the bulkhead, only to rise again.

The smaller crewmember turned away and screamed--a woman's scream--then vomited into her suit’s headgear, while the stouter person doused the abomination with fire.

Gloved hands fell upon my shoulders.

"Get up, please, Mr. Sarac," said the fair-faced soldier. His swarthy compatriot pulled me to my feet almost single-handedly, then brushed soot from my shirt.

The blonde soldier--a North American--said, "We’re on your side, Mr. Sarac. The United Nations firmly believes your people will overcome the tragedy now behind them and will once again take their worthy place among the nations."

His face radiated sincerity, but the intensity of the inferno raging just a few meters away led me to ask, "But what is happening here? Why are you burning all this?"

Beginning his explanation with eyes averted, he replied, "One of the crewmembers killed in the attack was exposed to Mombossa Fever; we discovered this only after checking his tags against medical records. After the Mombossa epidemic in Africa, we take no chances. You’ve got nothing to fear, though, Mr. Sarac. Mombossa’s blood-borne, and the infected crewman’s remains were confined to the tank."

"Are my wife and I in danger--" I said, glancing at the name sewn into his uniform, "Mr. Holt?"

The young man's eyes met mine again and he said with conviction, "Mombossa’s only dangerous for children. You have no children, correct?"

I shook my head and kept my eyes focused on the few remaining stalks of wheat swaying behind him.

"Then you have no worries." Holt pulled out an envelope, placed it in my hand, and walked me to my house.

"We believe," he continued, his blue eyes narrowing, "this event has put you at a loss, so the United Nations is prepared to make restitution. Enclosed is compensation for the damage." Pausing to look me square in the face, he finished with "Payment for your discretion. We don't wish to spread rumors here."

Across the way, the tank seared in a hellish ring of fire spread out fifty meters in all directions. The silent of the two soldiers cocked his helmet back and winked. The other repeated, "For your discretion, Mr. Sarac." With a wave, he added, "Have a nice day," and the two trudged back to the personal carrier.

In my thoughts, the paper envelope in my hand radiated its own fire. Standing near the edge of the land that had been in my family for generations, I envisioned the brink of hell, its flames rising up, a conflagration that never retreats nor dims.

A westerly gust blew open the envelope, so lightly I held it in my hand, revealing ninety hundred Euro bills: nearly two years’ income. I did not know what to do; I could only stand and watch the workers proceed. Eleni left the house and joined me, gasping when I showed her the money.

"It is a sign, my love," she cried. "The Lord who takes away, also gives."

They stayed for another two hours, spewing flames until the soil turned to glass. I retreated to the bench in the side yard garden, watching. Just after noon, one of the crew retrieved a device from her pack, laid it on the shell of the smoldering tank, and switched it on. At once, a keening pitch stabbed at my ears. The woman stood in front of the device and watched a screen for a moment before switching it off and giving the rest of the crew a "thumbs-up." A large crane and multi-wheeled truck roared up the road, the crew packed their suits away, and the crane hoisted the burned-out tank onto the back of the truck. Within a half-hour, all that remained were the scorched earth and a dreadful image that would haunt my sleep.

***

I sat in the side yard by the roses and read the Scriptures just loud enough for the whispered words to make their way downward through the cool earth to where our little Ytrina can hear them. There in the little box I made with my own hands. There where her body awaits the sound of her Creator's voice. And I cannot forget no matter how hard I try.

We Atyans, the finest horsemen of the steppes, watched our herds succumb to a mystery, powerless to understand. Time brought us a word I did not know: bioterrorism. The specialists arrived and spoke of mutations hatched in hidden laboratories by separatists, a virulent form of equine encephalitis that defied the wisdom of the old horsemen and broke their spirits. In desperation, we burned each carcass where it fell. One by one, the fame of Atya turned to ashes.

Then the disease jumped. It killed the elders it had taunted, then passed over to their children’s children. The best of our young people fled for their lives, taking the future of Atya with them. We buried Eleni’s sister and her parents, plus my father. My brother Truk, his wife Venya, and their two children stayed on, as did my mother. But Atya’s soul withered.

Three months after the first cremation, God’s providence halted the plague’s fury. The days brightened and smiles returned like the swallows, but not before the angel of death claimed a final victim--our sweet Ytrina, all of twenty-eight months. The last Atyan to die.

Envy is never a trait of saints, but my wife has made it so for me. In time, the veil lifted for her as she prayed daily in our church and let others bear her grief alongside her. But mine is my own and my flesh wants it to stay even though my soul knows better. For the memory of the flesh is a bitter foe.

I envy Eleni. Her spirit finds rest in God. She has overcome, thankfully. What spills into me from the overflow of her heart becomes my only peace.

So in the rose garden I read the holy witness of those gone before us, and I prayed for those life-giving words to restore what the fires of trial have so cruelly burned. I pray and I wait. Atya, so destitute of the young, waits with us. Perhaps with another child, my flesh can move on. But Heaven bears down upon us with fierce silence.

***

Gracefully, silently--it is her way--Eleni entered the kitchen and kissed the back of my head just as I lost my thoughts to the World Cup scores in the paper.

"We need more drinking water."

Always, this was my fault. I had yet to fix the pulley system and it took a man's form of finesse to make it work.

My ancestors built the well--sunk it deep--but father had little use for it. I would reopen it for those times when the town's water system failed. During the hostilities, it has been under continuous use. Some favor the town's water, but to me it tastes decayed and lifeless compared with our centuries-old well. The earth adds life to the flow, purifying it, summoning a sweetness that many claim not to taste, but I know alights on my tongue.

The arms moved, the pulleys creaked, and the rope threatened to jump out of its groove, but a deft swing to the left kept it in place.

"I will fix it some day," I called back. A feminine laugh answered from inside the house.

Through the open top of the well, fifty liters came up cool from below. Leaning over to grab the container, my back twinged as it always does under the load. Not even thirty and already I feel my youth slipping away. With the UN’s money, I will install a new pump and my back will be grateful.

The water spoke to me and I cupped my hand to answer, scooping some into my own dry mouth before I poured the rest down the funnel that leads to our cistern. Inside, Eleni held a glass for herself and shared my toast as I caught the dregs of the container in my hand and drank one last sip.

Refreshed by the waters of our well, I thought of the further delight of tonight’s celebration. I considered our good fortune to marry on such a glorious day ten years ago. Though marriage be a joy in itself, when coupled with Atya’s Festival...only this explains the depth of love I share with my star from heaven.

Stars. How she will love my gift! Made with Jesram's hands, but an expression of my soul. I carefully turned my back to her, reached into my pocket, and peered into the black velvet box.

***

We dressed in Atya's colors of gold, silver, and red, as is the custom. Of wealth and the blood that bought it, they say. Eleni's dress shimmers and shouts with her every movement, the coins our friends and family bestowed on us at our wedding sewn onto its front, jingling and crying out. Fools forget the traditional ways, but not us. A few young people who stayed behind will sneer when they spot us wearing the fashions of the days long past, but we care only for what anchors us to Atya.

To partner with the unchanging is no crime. Everything comes around, like the snake that eats its own tail: the ouroboros, the highlight of Festival. The queen leads the dancers around the square until she meets the last man in the dance, the tail, Festival's king, completing the circle of life.

"You will make a most handsome king," she whispered in my ear as she adjusted my red sash, gold pieces jangling at its fringes.

"And you the epitome of the enchanting queen," I replied.

We stood there in the warmth of the afternoon sun about our bedroom, the mirror on the wall framing the two of us. It should always be so. I could never love another woman as much as I love the one beside me. Queen of Festival and more: queen of all my days.

"You know I did not coax this honor, it was--"

"Truk," she finished. "I know. He called in favors from the council. I love him for it."

"Ten years."

"Ten glorious years," she said as kissed my neck, wrapping her arms around my golden shirt.

Eleni--all that I have and all that I need. I spun to face her, then kissed her long and hard, feeling her breasts rise against me, her breath in mine and mine in hers.

And with that kiss we left for Festival.

A beautiful day for a walk, the world around us sparkled, bejeweled by our excitement. In passing our neighbor's property, I was struck by the lush greenery surrounding the pond that bordered our land. Thick mats of soft moss bordered the outer perimeter of the waters. The usual inner weave of late summer's wilted sedge gave way to a newness of life that cried along with the frogs, "Spring!" Dragonflies, iridescent in the sun, prowled the surface of the waters, their size unlike any I remembered.

"Eden," said Eleni with a bemused sigh, noticing my diverted attention. "Worthy of Adam and Eve."

My better judgment always in short supply around her, I simply asked, "Later?"

"The moss will tickle, I think," she said, a gleam in her eye.

Though we continued on to the evening's merrymaking, I glanced back toward the pond, wondering at a beauty gone unnoticed in the past. The power of love and Festival must create all things anew.

For the rest of our walk into town we held hands, not exchanging words. But as we got closer, my thoughts, once anchored in the moment, returned to the rose garden. If our little girl could see us as king and queen, how she would laugh!

Eleni knew. "I miss her, too, my love. I will always miss her, but I know that one day soon we will all be reunited." She put her arm around my waist and her head on my shoulder. "Do not be sad. Our Ytrina lives with us in this magic moment."

I had nothing to say, save for the grieving words that arose at inopportune times. Nothing in my life prepared me for the emptiness of losing our only child. How that tiny hand lingered in mine and her carefree laugh sang in my ears!

A horn from behind stirred me from my doldrums. Black and sleek, the Mercedes rolled up and stopped beside us.

"Our King and Queen walking?" Truk said with mock horror as he jumped out of the driver's seat and came around to the back. "Did I not tell you of this?"

In the press of the day’s events I had forgotten. "It is my faulty mind, dear brother!"

He replied with a grin, "This I believe!"

Truk holding the door for her, Eleni laughed and plopped into the back seat. My brother dressed in Father’s golden cape, and with his red leggings, silver vest, and gold-painted boots, looked less my sibling and more an American comic book superhero. I laughed till my eyes welled with tears. When Eleni could not bring me back from the shadows, leave it to Truk.

In a few minutes we crossed the main street and pulled up outside booths filled with Atya's finest foods. Already the crowds had gathered, awaiting Mayor Ymeri's opening of the four hundredth Festival. He spied us and lumbered over to the sedan.

"The most handsome King and most beautiful queen in all my years!" he bellowed through his thick, white moustache. Though almost eighty, he still cut a charming figure and possessed a zest for living that infected everyone who met him.

Opening the door, he grinned and said to me as he leaned in, "My best on your anniversary, Elias," then looked past me and added, "and you as well, Eleni."

Backing away now, he called to the thousand assembled, "Your King and Queen!"

A genuine roar of applause and shouts sprang up. The three of us climbed onstage near the town center, Eleni curtseying and me bowing to the crowd.

I was lost in the moment. Eleni drew up beside me and offered a microphone, a necessity since I lacked the mayor's diaphragmatic skill.

"It is love that makes a community live and breathe. As King, I tell you that love can take us anywhere it wishes if we surrender to its will. Life is here. Love is here. May the six-hundredth Atya Festival be the embodiment of both. Salut!"

I glanced down at Eleni, her face beaming, her pride affirming a task well done.

So the revelry began. Musicians on a riser behind us played the Russian Korobushka, the Hora, and other dance songs we knew from the days of our first steps. Old men hobbled by time sang with gusto and watched the young people dance, their wives laughing and reminiscing how they, too, once danced together with passion. Mr. Gabor trotted out two cases of Tokaji aszú his brother had sent from back home, and soon not a bottle remained. His wife provided the baklava.

How we all needed Festival! I had never enjoyed it more. It surpassed simply being King. Something happens in a man's life when he finds his childhood again. Ytrina had turned my heart back to that of a boy because I saw all things new through her. Though she lay nestled in Jesus’ arms, I now saw through the eyes of the few precious children still in Atya. My own young one had presented me that gift and no one could take it away.

A gift of love. I had my own to give. For weeks I had considered the perfect moment to present the ring, deciding to do so shortly before the ouroboros. My queen would be inspired to dance like no queen before her, wearing the token of my deepening love.

"Your thoughts, my beloved?" she asked as we traced the footwork of the Brîul pe Opt with others, the fading sun alight in her eyes.

"I wish this to never end."

"I know your heart," she said. "That the sun would hang forever in expectant twilight, that the resplendence of the moment would cling to us like the evening star, never fading, always new and mysterious."

As we twirled and laughed, reveling in the evening, the time for my gift drew nearer, until I strained to keep my secret hidden behind my eyes. Separating ourselves from the crowd, we wandered down past the baker's and up to the crest of Amayak Hill. Two boys ran past us, pulling a string of firecrackers that powered the moment. My beautiful Eleni put her hand to her mouth, embarrassed for the cacophony, before ending in a laugh that spoke of love, hope, and perhaps a bit too much wine.

Under the boughs of the hill’s olive grove, we fell to the grass and kissed in the gloaming.

"How can I ever have enough of you Elias Sarac?" she said, the curls of her chestnut hair falling down around me. "I never tire of your love!"

"Will you love me when I am old and paunchy?"

"Yes."

"When my hair is gray and not all there?"

"Yes."

"When it is sixty years rather than ten?"

"Without a doubt! I took a vow before God, if you remember."

I laughed. "I was there as well!" Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the velvet box. "I gave you a symbol of my love then, and now with ten years of married love in me I give you--"

All that we knew every day was contained in that ring, for Jesram forged our home and the sky above it in the very metal itself. Our farm lay raised in gold against a blue-black night of enamel work, with the major stars overhead in tiny diamonds.

There was a gasp and her tears fell as she held my gift up to catch the lights of Festival. Unable to summon the breath for words, she instead let kisses speak, her thankfulness expressed in her ardor.

Then she, too, produced a small box. I caught myself. Should I receive anything but the love of this woman? Opening it, I discovered a silver cross inlaid with abalone. Exquisitely detailed, but no more than five centimeters in height, it was as beautiful, or even more so, than the ring. I felt the tears well up, despite myself.

"I have no words, Eleni. I’ve not encountered its equal."

"I made it."

The shock of it hit me so hard that I could not think to speak.

"You...made this?"

She nodded as she took it in her hands. "You know the time I spent reading to Mrs. Letna?"

"Yes."

"Well, Mrs. Letna’s niece moved in and has been reading in my stead while I apprenticed with Jesram. You said you would approve any hobby I could turn into a money making venture, did you not?

I had.

"So I approached Jesram, and he was willing to teach me the jeweler’s trade. I've learned well?"

"You most certainly have. I cannot fathom the skill...."

"I have many skills, my darling Elias, some you know, and some still undiscovered. You approve?"

"What a gift you are to me, Eleni! I have received the better part in you."

Putting one finger to my lips she said, "There is no better, there is only us. We should return before they send out a party to search for the royal couple."

We ran back, the town below beckoning. Her gift to me lay cool around my neck at first, gently warming as we ran. Love, our only companion, ran with us, a threefold cord not quickly broken.

***

"Where have you been?" asked the Mayor, himself drenched in sweat from hunting for us on the warm night, "We must begin the ouroboros!" He turned back to town, ready to play his part.

Eleni winked at me and said, "Duty calls, my king."

Her hand slipped out of mine, and she ran to the front of Grubo's bakery, the sound of the jingling coins on her dress fading into the roar of the festivities. In a moment the Mayor would blow the ram's horn and the dance would wind around the block until the head met with the snake's tail, me, continuing for one more loop.

I walked alone to the corner behind the square to take my place, just as hundreds of kings before me had done. Far down the street, I spied a long black limousine guarded by a police escort and a parade of official-looking vehicles. As the car rounded the corner, Eleni waved as she, too, turned down the street toward Grubo's. I blew a kiss; she caught it before skipping out of sight.

My attention turned to the limousine. I spotted the seal of our country's premier on its side. There had been talk that this sixth-centennial Festival might attract attention outside Atya, but I had not imagined so high a government presence gracing our town.

From Kolov Street, a van accelerated past me with such speed the simple wooden crown I wore blew off my head. Squealing around the corner, the vehicle sped north.

Only a left turn was possible for the van that direction, taking it into the dancers. There was no reason for the van to be here, except....

The nerves of a man once shattered by loss know danger by instinct. My body ran before I told it to. No horn sounded. Nor did the rumble of the motorcycles subside. The premier's procession still moved. If he were to speak before the dance, then everyone would fill the square to hear him.

Burning lungs, having had little chance to rest after our run down the hillside minutes before, betrayed me as I sprinted past Lom's music store, Dardan Lom sounding his trumpet as if signaling a charge.

"Eleni, Eleni!" I yelled, my heart ready to burst.

Some stared at the break in tradition, the king hurtling toward the dancers, and pointed, mouthing words I could not hear above the pounding of my heart.

A punch to the air drowned the throaty sound of the motorcycles, a wave of pressure that ricocheted off the east-facing buildings and caromed into my chest. The earth beneath me trembled in anguish. My ears rang. The world slid away, replaced by unblinking stars and cobblestone cool against my back.

Lurching to my feet, I heard the wails, the screams, the moaning. Arjen Kounev staggered in my direction, blood pouring from a gash on his arm. Fragments of brick clung to the side of his head, thin rivulets of blood seeping from pieces lodged in his scalp.

"Who has done this?" he shouted to the air. "Who has destroyed us?"

Mr. Lom came to his aid.

I ran.

My slowness had saved me, the wave of destruction failing to clear the corner. But as for Atya’s square, the devil had stolen it away and replaced it with hell. Buildings centuries old slumped to the cratered street. Fire spat from storefronts and licked at the dead. Sharp pebbles of glass, daubed with blood, crunched underfoot. And all around me, wailing.

Every muscle quivered at once and my breath come in short gasps. Turning down the street to face what my mind could not imagine, I lost my footing and fell. Peering at the cobblestones, I saw my foot had found part of what had been a person. What part, I could not tell.

Inside the storefront across from me a motorcycle lay, its rider somehow still astride it. Even though his life had left him, his ride had not. In witnessing that strange loyalty, my single-mindedness returned to me, and again I rose to my feet.

Within seconds, a smaller explosion rocked the street, dashing me once more to the ground. From the gas line beneath the square, a furious blue flame shot into the air.

Shouting over the flames, I added Eleni's name to the bedlam.

When I moved still closer to the epicenter, a stench stung my nostrils: burnt skin and hair, gas, explosive residue, scorched steel, blood and dust. Each assaulted my senses, begging my attention.

But I could not heed them.

Some blackened person--so damaged as to be unrecognizable as a man or woman--hugged a dead child so horrifically burned that charred skin sloughed off onto the embracer's arms. Others tossed by the fierceness of the blast ignored their wounds and trudged on to an unknown rescuer they imagined in dazed thoughts. I lost count of the dead at sixty. At least sixty families would bury their dreams, even as I had buried mine three years ago.

"Elias," came a voice, but not hers, a man’s. "Elias, you are whole?"

Truk ran up from behind me, his eyes moist with tears.

"I cannot find Eleni," I heaved out before asking, "Where is Venya?"

His voice trembling, he answered, "We are fine. We had a fight over some foolish thing and had ducked into her father’s shop." He stopped and began weeping. "Our anger saved us from… from this."

Saved by anger. Could love save my dear one?

"I will not stop until I find her, my brother, I will not stop," said Truk through his teeth. "And I will find the men who have done this and tear their eyes from their heads." His huge hands pulled my face to his. "This I promise, Elias."

And so we called her name. Time passed and with no reply my own grief instead turned to others', helping the injured, the dying.

We stumbled past the premier’s motorcar, its steel skin flayed open. Like a sea star pries open a clam to get at the pink meat inside, so the explosion had done its work on the vehicle of the number two man in the government. Too much faith in the UN and not enough in the treachery of brutal men.

At the thought, UN troops rolled up in their armored vehicles, perhaps five-dozen soldiers in all. A medical team flitted from place to place as one after another of the wounded pleaded their case

Though continuing to call for Eleni, I realized the vanity of our search. My lover, my dreamer, my better part--gone to the Lord. Gone to the one who made her: who knew the hairs of her head, the well of her heart, and the deep of her soul.

I knew because I no longer felt her presence.

Under the full moon I stood, trying to remember her face when I closed my eyes, her smell, her laugh--but they did not come. Like Ytrina before her, forgetfulness relentlessly swept her from my mind's eye. In my frailty came tears and weak knees.

"Eleni!" I cried out to the dying as I slumped to the ground. "God, why? Must you leave me nothing but memories?"

***

By the next morning, the news of the assassination of Premier Polev had spread around the world. Some fiend within the insurrectionist camp developed a conscience, perhaps after seeing the pictures of dead children on the news. Seventy-two of his comrades died in the ensuing UN cruise missile attack.

As for us, the grieving prepared to bury their dead. At last count, Atya had lost two hundred-nine of her nearly two thousand souls. Rescuers from all parts picked through the bricks, beams, and plaster of a dozen collapsed shops and multi-storied apartments, the pile appearing untouched despite their work. No one knew how many lay buried in the rubble.

My miracle proved elusive. At first I joined in hauling debris from the collapse. Only Truk knew how many hours we dug. With each brick and every shout from rescuers, I prayed. And the clock’s hands spun.

But no Eleni--only numbness.

Home sang a dirge and I listened. Empty though it was, it held pictures to bolster my memory.

In the days that followed, the garden grew wild from neglect and choked itself. Dust piled up on the furniture. Mother came by, but I had nothing but tears to offer her. How frail she was and me alongside her!

So I surrendered to resignation. I do not remember the precise day, only the slate-colored skies and the sound of my own breathing. I showered, shaved, and drank from my well until something harder sang a louder song.

Truk met me at Jerzy’s tavern. I befriended wine, then turned to other, more violent companions. Venya came for Truk before too long, but I was not finished listening to the bottle’s siren call. When I could take no more, Jerzy let me sleep in his back room rather than stumble home. It was on that mattress--a mattress too well slept upon by men in my condition--that I reached out to God again. When the alcohol passed, I heard Him tell me, "Soon, Elias. Soon…."

My heart has long been the Lord’s, but I fell prey to doubt after Ytrina’s passing. Eleni carried me in those days, buoying me with her love of the Savior. Now I had to stand on my own. How difficult it would be. Pastor had come by twice to weep with me and I saw him now with new eyes. Prayer would come in fits, but it would come. So would the healing, for God is faithful. I knew this in my soul this time.

When I roused the next morning, I let myself out, stumbled past the still-high pile of my broken town, tossed several bricks into a receptacle, then set my face toward home.

As I walked, the burden eased. I had both lost and gained in the backroom of a bar, I thought. One of the town councilmen drove up, saw me kicking at rocks as I walked, and let me ride with him. Perhaps he considered me too slow, too lost in my own mind to make it the rest of the way. I thanked him and made note to send him a letter of appreciation, the kind of thing Eleni would have done. I would make an effort to carry on the good deeds she so cheerfully did for others. It was my first promise after her death.

On the horizon, the house we had shared since our wedding day brooded, still grieving. I drew nearer, and it looked as if it were propping itself up, putting on airs just for me. When I reached the front door, I realized something was amiss.

The old oak door hung ajar.

I knew I closed it when I left for Jerzy’s. I’d stood before it, Truk blaring his horn. I pulled the door tight and ran to the truck. The door should still be closed.

Slipping inside, I walked with eyes flitting from shadows to doorways. The house confused me with occasional sighs, but apart from my own movements, I heard nothing else. I thought of my rifle in the cellar, but creaking cellar stairs would give me away.

The bedroom came last, for it held the most valuable items. In this way, no thief could slip past me. Creeping to the door, I saw a flash of lace and gold that should not have been.

Eleni sat on the edge of our bed clothed in the dress she wore for our wedding, photos of the day strewn across the bed. Her back was to me as she gazed at our painting of Ytrina.

When the dead are not, you question your mind, even as your heart believes. But I was not suffering from disturbing visions. My wife was as real as I.

"Eleni?" I asked, my voice’s waver matching the trembling of my heart. "My love?"

She did not turn to me, her resolute stare fixed on the painting.

I do not remember every thought, every emotion afterwards, but when I sat on the bed next to her, the face of the woman I loved sprang back into my head and I felt reborn.

But my kiss did not rouse her. She said nothing. Nor would she look me in the face, though I stroked a thin layer of soot from her cheek.

"Eleni, you are cold. In shock," I said. I took her hands and pulled them around me. "Let me warm you."

Nothing broke the fixation. She was found, and yet lost again in our precious girl’s smile. I do not know how long I embraced her, but I soon understood I must get help.

***

Dr. Zhivko arrived soon after receiving the good news of Eleni’s appearance. For an hour he examined her, but the only conclusion he could form matched mine.

"Mild shock," he said while putting his instruments away. "Some dehydration and nothing more. She is in excellent condition considering her proximity to the blast. Still, there is not much we can do for her other than start intravenous fluids and keep her warm."

"Should she go to hospital?"

Zhivko shook his head. "I believe that much of what we are seeing, the lack of responsiveness, her muteness and such…psychological trauma. And we cannot treat it at this point in her recovery. She will stabilize and then we can address her mental condition."

"She will be fine, then?" I asked, already knowing the answer to my question.

"Yes," he answered, "hers is one of the few good reports I have given since the bombing. Time will bring healing."

Before he left the room, the doctor turned and said, "You have been given a gift, Mr. Sarac. Treasure it. My assistant will come soon to start the I.V. and to recheck her vital signs."

Nodding in agreement, I saw him out. "Thank you, Dr. Zhivko, thank you."

Throughout the night I woke to check to see if she still rested beside me, and not an apparition my grief had conjured, soon to return to heaven. Over time as I let my hands warm her, the doubting vanished into the darkness.

In the days following, I felt myself revive. The shroud around my heart dissolved. Dr. Zhivko had called this "a gift," and because of her return I would live each day better than the next. I would keep my promise; when I was not taking care of Eleni, I would help others in town, shuttling water from our well to help those whose supply was cut off in the explosion.

As for my beautiful wife, she lay trapped within her own flesh. Nothing in her eyes reflected her thoughts. Simple acts eluded her. When she needed to bathe, I bathed her. To walk any distance, I accompanied her. Meals became my responsibility, though our niece, Sabatina -- all twelve years of her -- took my place a few blessed days a week. And Venya. What would I have done without her coming to sit with her best friend, to share the local gossip, and to provide me some company?

Still, I endured days dappled with loneliness. As weeks passed without a noticeable change in my Eleni's temperament, I grew to realize that as she was now was how she might always be. The specialists at the military hospital in Vormel, each familiar with battlefield trauma, shook their heads and muttered about "time" and a "deep wound." On each successive return trip home, the brightness of my joy at my wife’s return dimmed.

This last trip brought the most heartache. One of the doctors felt that a rekindling of our sexual relationship might release her, reconnecting feelings and emotions. Though I had not doubted the psychiatrists before, I did not feel that this was the best for her. The doctor insisted. "It will awaken the true woman within her. I have seen many patients respond in this way when all other stimuli failed."

So I took his words as a prescription, a balm for healing. Like I did when we were first man and wife, I spent extra time to prepare. Our wooden tub, filled with soothing, warm water, was large enough for us both. With quiet music from the radio weaving through the candles and cones of sandalwood incense, we lay together, fragrant oils in the water the final sensual touch.

Soft caresses came at first and always my gentle reassurances. Though she had not responded to my words, my touch quieted her taut muscles, and they gave up fighting for a moment. As our bodies warmed in the water, I saw her awaken. When I kissed the back of her neck, she let out a little gasp, turned to face me, and returned those kisses hard on my mouth, mashing her lips into mine. She wrapped her arms around me so tightly she bruised my sides with her forcefulness.

Yet when I looked into her eyes, I saw nothing but animal. Twisting against me, she writhed like some beast. Though at first I found her response arousing, those feelings succumbed to fear, sapping my fervor. Lovelessly, she ground herself against me. Guttural sounds erupted from deep within her, and she bared her teeth. Any vestige of tenderness I had known from her in our lovemaking fled; lust alone remained. I tried to back away from her, but in a move that startled me with its swiftness, she leaned into my chest and sank her teeth into my breast. My blood colored the water.

"Eleni! Stop!" I cried out, finding it nearly impossible to push her away. "Stop -- you are hurting me!"

When I lurched over the side of the tub in an attempt to escape, Eleni grabbed for me, growling. I threw myself through the bathroom door, slamming it behind me, her chest of drawers securing it in place. Tumbling onto the bed, I slammed my fist into the pillows before remembering my wounds. From deep bites, blood trickled to my knees. It took several gauze pads to stanch the flow.

She moaned for hours afterward, not a painful sound, but one of misplaced ecstasy. Then came the angry screaming. No words, just shrieks. Not knowing what to do, I propped myself up against the chest and held on as she fought to open the door. I was surprised by her strength. Though I suspected mine would fail, hers ebbed first. At daybreak, I slid the chest away and recovered my wife.

She burned hot despite the chill night and her nakedness. Collapsed on the floor, she lay curled up like an infant, her hands about her head as though stifling outside voices. In spite of her frenzy, she showed no injuries, though clots of my blood clung to her hair.

Was she asleep or in some unknown state of consciousness? Since her return, she no longer slept in peace. Eyes would close, but awareness lingered about her. Now, I prayed that she had exhausted her resources. Mercifully, she did not fight me when I refilled the tub and washed her clean of the violence.

After my own fitful sleep, I summoned Dr. Zhivko. Again the same pronouncement. I used his cellphone to speak with the psychiatric doctors, each one perplexed, blaming the incident on something failure on my part.

"Too many stimuli."

"Her focus was distracted from the two of you to the surroundings."

"Perhaps she did not recognize you due to the lighting conditions."

With their empty words, my frustration quickened.

Eleni’s condition was not the only unnatural one. I had forgotten to have the doctor check the bites I had received, and as I prepared for bed that evening I pulled the gauze away to find them fading. Thin ovals of scar tissue remained, evident only in strong light. When I checked again the next morning, the scars had disappeared.

I noticed subtle changes in my body. My chronic back problems eased. My face took on a new vitality despite my state of mind and difficulty sleeping. In the month since her return, Eleni’s countenance glowed with a youthful sheen. Gone were the lines Ytrina’s death had etched on her face. The last ten years of life? Perhaps they had never been.

But the emptiness in her eyes...

Venya now came daily, having convinced Truk that their family could make do without her modest seamstress income—at least for a while. "It is a family crisis," she would remind him. Her willing ear heard my fears. In time I no longer spoke to her alone in a hushed voice, for no hint of comprehension lit Eleni’s sculpted face.

Yet all the talk only summoned anxious thoughts, for Venya would relate small, unusual events to me. One night, after putting Eleni to bed, the news took a disturbing turn.

"I do not know how to tell you, but Truk insists I do, Elias."

"You can tell me anything."

She glanced up at the ceiling light in the kitchen, her face worn and sullen.

"Eleni stole clothing from Didier’s shop."

How to respond? I did not know how my "new" Eleni would be after her trauma, but this?

"Three blouses." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "And she pushed me to the ground when I confronted her outside the shop. She would not return them." Her lips quivered and she glanced from me to an empty wall. "I’ve seen her hoarding food at meals, too," she continued, "as if she believed she would never eat again."

"I’ve seen this, also," I said, hanging my head. "She eats more than I do, but not the healthy foods she ate before. Cakes and candies."

Nodding, Venya, turned to me and added, "And after Sabatina giggled when Eleni stumbled during one of our walks, when we returned to our house, Eleni purposefully smashed one of her prized dolls." With a sob, she pleaded, "What are we to do, Elias? What are we to do?"

I rubbed my hand over the dining table she and Truk had given us, tracing the cedar with my fingers, searching for solutions in the craftsman’s tooling.

"I have no answers, Venya. I live one day to the next."

She dabbed at her tears and hung her head.

"She’s my wife. I pray for her soul. I love her my best and I leave the rest to God. He has her in His care."

"I must go," she said, quick with a hug, her movements studied and swift, as though trying to escape. "I will be by again in the morning."

"We will be waiting," I replied. "We both love you very much."

Nodding in agreement, she pulled the door closed and entered the night.

***

Sleep avoided me. When it did come just before the dawn, dreams raged, devoid of goodness. The light of morning did little to erase shadowy images.

Still I prayed. Long, tiring prayers. Prayers begging for hope against hope. It was a form of damnation to have Eleni again, but to not have her as she had once been. Every day she grew more beautiful on the outside, but horrors seethed within her.

I found it difficult to hold Eleni. Whenever I took her into my embrace she would begin to grind and moan, grabbing me and biting. Tiny acts sent her flying into fits. Her only solace was to gaze for hours at Ytrina’s portrait. At one time, I even thought I saw tears in her eyes, but realized they were my own.

The mystery of what had happened to Eleni lay trapped inside her. How she survived when so many fell around her, where she was in those days following the bombing--all dark unknowns. No matter how much I sought for truth in her precious face, her eyes offered me nothing.

On the day of her return, I noticed she had lost the ring I had given her the night of Festival. Later, I posted a reward sign in town and spoke to those who had seen Eleni before the explosion. Some remembered her showing it to them. Each noted her elation.

Yet it was nowhere to be found. What had been a symbol of love now only reminded me of loss.

Though I found solace in church, Eleni, so moved of God before, sat lost in the pew, distractedly picking at her dresses while staring at women in clothing finer than her own. She no longer read the Bible or prayed. The needs of others meant nothing to her. Outside the military hospital on one of our visits, she walked past a beggar and showed not compassion, but disgust on her face.

So the days vanished. Eleni spent each watering the roses, her gaze fixed on the small grave in the midst of them. For hours she would sit, oblivious to all around her.

Then, on the last day of October, as the harvest of our remaining wheat ended, we descended into hell.

The dryness of the last month and the need still in town depleted much of my well. With the water at the lowest level I could remember, I dropped the bucket and prayed, only to spy something foreign when I pulled the bucket out of the trembling waters. A few rope yanks later and it lay in my hands.

As if an oracle, the strange black panel I held spoke, whispering the words of demons. With my ear to it, I could -- if I concentrated -- make out a faint scratching that gradually faded, as if the panel understood I was listening. Despite its small size of about twenty centimeters square and three deep, it carried with it a monstrous power. My fingers tingled wherever they met it, and the object oozed a black film I could not wipe off my hands. On one side, letters and numbers etched across the center led me to believe the panel was a puzzle piece from a greater whole.

My thoughts fled away, and I mustered the strength to walk to the rose garden. I ran my fingers over the panel, but the hands that normally understood a thing could not imagine what I grasped. Though it surely possessed more secrets than I could know, the dark panel would not surrender them.

I do not know why, but I showed the object to Eleni. As I suspected, she responded with indifference.

Over the hours, I sat and stared at it. Unable to discover anything new, I radioed the only skilled person I knew to call.

***

Jesram greeted me at the door of his workshop, clamping his firm hands around mine. "I am sorry about my enameled piece, my friend, but I see you wear Eleni’s cross."

I nodded and fingered the precious gift. "It helps me remember what was and what might yet be."

"Let me see this object," he said, fiddling with his loupe as we walked to his workspace.

Placing the panel under the lights, the jeweler motioned to look through the magnifier on his desk.

"I suspect it is carbon fiber, Elias. I can make out the cording pattern," he said as he brought his loupe into play, scanning deeper into the object.

Wielding a sharp tool with precision, he inserted it into the panel's edge, trying to separate the plies of the fibers.

"From what limited pieces I have seen elsewhere, I would say a very technically advanced weave," he said as he forced the tool in, "Not made anywhere in this country."

He brought the light closer to the panel. A minute later, his face furrowed. "Something is not right."

I leaned in closer. "What?"

Rotating the black piece, he stared at each edge.

"I cannot locate the spot…where I forced apart the plies."

Choosing a new tool from his arsenal, he muttered the word "diamond" to me and stabbed hard into an edge. I thought I could hear the object groan in his hands.

The jeweler examined the panel again. He made no sound, nor did he move, his loupe riveted to that one spot.

"Vanished," he said, wonder creeping into his words. "As if time ran backward."

The jeweler raked his diamond-tipped tool across the unetched side and held the piece up to my face. The surface pulsed before my eyes, and in less than two minutes the scratch disappeared.

My heart skipped a beat. "I don’t understand."

Jesram shook his head. "I will call a friend. Come back tomorrow?"

I could only nod.

He reassured me with a smile. "We will solve this mystery, Elias. There is nothing new under the sun."

***

That night I dreamed Eleni's dream.

She and I were on a bus traveling down a deserted road in a barren landscape. The horizon so filled every direction that I thought the sky itself would crush the world with its weight.

She held my hand, her eyes gazing down at her bare feet.

I watched her wiggle her toes and stretch her long, lean legs out far enough to touch the seats opposite us. From time to time, she would laugh for reasons only she knew.

From our position in the back, I had failed to notice that no one drove the bus. Fearing for our lives, I rushed to the front to seize the wheel.

"No!" Eleni shouted. She grabbed the waist of my pants. "No, Elias. He is there; only you cannot see him."

In my panic, I turned and caught sight of her fearless, radiant smile. It reassured me she knew more than I.

The landscape yielded to obsidian mountains, sharp as knives. Though the road now curved through steep passes and tunnels, the bus sped faster and faster. Eleni's face bore no concern.

Then I saw the little one. In her pink dress, standing, waiting by the side of the road. My daughter held out her hands -- a child's simple, pleading act. The speeding bus showed no signs of stopping.

Again, I jumped to my feet.

"We must stop for Ytrina, Eleni, we must!"

Eleni's eyes showed no anxiety, nor tears--only hope.

The bus hurtled past our little girl, who continued to hold out her hands, yet no longer toward us, but to whatever might later come down that road.

At once, the bus entered a long tunnel. With no interior lights, I could not see my hand before me. My skin crawled in the pitch darkness.

I brought my hands went to my face, and I felt--

Them.

Sun broke upon the interior as the bus cleared the tunnel, revealing the truth.

Spiders. More than could be counted. They clutched every surface of the bus, three and four deep. All shapes and sizes, they scurried over my body, clinging to every part of me. The mass of them forced me down. Each passing second their numbers multiplied, filling the bus.

I turned to Eleni, reached for her shoulder, but my hand sank deep into a tangle of eight-legged invaders.

She had been consumed.

I awoke screaming. So loud were my cries that Mr. Hasma next door called on the two-way to ask if there was trouble. His disembodied voice echoed from the kitchen.

Eleni stared at the cracks in the ceiling, wordless. Sitting upright in my sweat, I looked down at her and took her hand.

Before I could say anything, she jerked up and forced her lips against mine, her hand groping under the sheets.

"No, Eleni," I said, pushing her away. "Please, no."

Her insistence forced me out of bed, but she followed, stripping off her bedclothes as she lunged for me. Then came the guttural sound again, that animal cry that curdled my blood.

I raced from the bedroom and slammed the door closed, propping the hall chair underneath the knob. An hour would pass before her growls subsided.

Downstairs, I replied to Hasma's radio call, then located the fresh laundry. I dressed, slipped quietly upstairs, and discovered Eleni curled up in the middle of the floor.

I left her there; I don't know why. Perhaps I no longer knew what could be done. I said a quick prayer, a begging prayer, and headed for Jesram's. Venya would come by later with meals for Eleni. The chair angled against the door would be a message that the day started badly. I wondered when Venya's visits would dwindle to nothing.

A nervous Jesram greeted me, peering each way down the street before carefully closing the shop door behind us.

In the workshop, a lean, worn man stood. Clad in a military uniform I recognized as being the old regular army, he shot me a grave look before extending his hand.

"Retired Major Aris Mordrain," said Jesram, his voice tired.

I took the man's hand. His grip belied his age, proving strength still pulsed in him, despite the thinning white hair, red nose, and skin that had seen far too much sun.

Without hesitation, he said, "I fear, young man, that what you have brought my dear friend Jesram is, well, a problem."

Looking up at me with bleary eyes, the jeweler said, "You need to see this."

He tossed a small, yellowed stone to me that I juggled before catching.

"An industrial diamond," he said. "I had three on my table here last night. The hardest substance known." He produced another, then to my astonishment, pinched it between his fingers until it crumbled into powder.

Mordrain stared at the concrete floor, then rolled his eyes up to glimpse mine before returning to the floor.

Jesram motioned to me to look through a stereo microscope he had borrowed. Taking the diamond I held, he placed it in the viewing area.

"What am I looking for?" I said.

"Holes," he said, adjusting the placement of the diamond. "Thousands in the diamond's matrix."

I turned the focuser and watched the pinpoints resolve, each a tiny pit that became a series of tunnels, rendering the gem a shell.

"Holes made by these."

The diamond disappeared and something black filled the view of the stereoscope. Jesram clicked new objectives into place and I saw them.

Miniscule machines. Devices so vanishingly small they appeared to be made of mere molecules. They teemed over the surface of the carbon fiber square. Some lurched from spot to spot, but others moved with purpose. I could even discern small groups that marched across the surface of the mysterious panel, as if on patrol.

A vast army teemed in that magnified view. I counted at least two dozen varieties of machine, each type, no doubt, performing a specific role.

"Watch," Jesram said.

He took a small knife and pressed the flat edge against the surface. The blade of the knife loomed over everything I saw through the lenses. When Jesram finally relented, broken machines littered the panel. Before my eyes the undamaged ones dismantled the most seriously affected and rebuilt others. A minute section of damage to the panel, caused by a slip of Jesram's hand as he removed the blade, drew primary interest, vanishing as the machines attended to their work.

Mordrain broke his silence.

"Jesram has documented the creation of at least two new forms during this last night alone, Mr. Sarac."

"But what am I seeing here?" I replied.

The Major walked over and stood so close I could smell prune kolaches on his breath.

"Nanomachines," he said with a faint glimmer in his eyes. "Evidently, the Russians perfected their techniques in this area. Your mystery square may be theirs, or it may be the Americans, but it does not change the fact that it exists."

"Please help me understand."

Jesram spoke. "I broke off a small portion of the panel after you left last night. I kept the fragment in my pocket. After dinner I returned to find the damage on the larger piece had been repaired." He grabbed for the diamond, holding it up between his fingers. "I accidentally knocked one of the diamonds from my table here and it shattered on the floor."

"He is crawling to the point, so I will make it for him," said the Major. "The nanomachines scavenged the carbon from the diamond to replace the missing portion of the armor."

"Armor?"

"We believe this carbon material to be part of a self-regenerating armored weapon," Mordrain said, his voice now more commanding. "Certainly UN--we have nothing like it. This section of armor would lie between the steel frame and a layer of reactive armor above. Should the weapon be damaged in battle, the nanomachines would repair it."

"The square is not entirely carbon fiber," Jesram added. "A fine steel matrix runs throughout that could be used to rebuild damaged metal. And to this end, we've noted specific nanomachines which operate solely on the metal portion of the armor."

"From a tank," I said.

Mordrain nodded. "Most probably."

The night of the tank attack replayed in my mind. The next day's images flashed by as the accompanying sounds echoed inside me. Sickening, unreal sounds of billions of microscopic machines, all working in concert, mindlessly following some man-instilled function--laboring, rebirthing, shaping.

While absorbed in this astonishing science, I saw the light shining through the storefront windows flickering. Shadows played across the faces of the two now solemn men.

"UN," Mordrain said.

Fists pounded the jeweler's door.

Jesram, his countenance showing increasing wear from the last days' events, slid over to the door, only to be met by a formidable sandy-haired soldier with piercing, ice-blue eyes and a mass of military ribbons that cascaded down his uniform. He nearly collided with Jesram when he strode into the shop.

"You are Jesram Jasari?" he asked. "The owner of this?"

The jeweler nodded while a dozen UN soldiers of mixed rank crowded in behind their commander, filling the foyer of the storefront. The large man extended a meaty hand, consuming Jesram's with his own.

"Colonel Guenther Rainmayr," he said as if he spoke it only on occasion. "Austrian 2^nd Armored, UN. It is believed--"

The soldier's eyes caught sight of his mission objective and in just a breath he stood beside me. His squad followed, never straying far from him.

The commander's gaze latched onto the armor lying partially concealed by the microscope. Unlike the first UN team that had come in protective suits to obliterate all traces of whatever had been left behind, Rainmayr deftly fingered the black piece and exclaimed, "You won't be needing this--UN property. Captain?"

Dwarfed by his superior officer, a slight man about my age took the armor, his hands visibly shaking. One of the soldiers, trembling near him, crossed himself as the piece passed him. It was deposited into an aluminum briefcase carried by a man who wore a mortician's expression. Rainmayr, his countenance stony, looked into the face of each of his men before turning to say something to me. Before he could, one of the soldiers standing near Mordrain mumbled something unheard by me, but not the Colonel.

Rainmayr’s demeanor turning to rage in a heartbeat, the burly leader rushed to the mumbler, grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the nearest wall. A shelf collapsed and glass figurines tumbled to the floor, scattering fragments across the room. I watched the blood in Mordrain's face drain away when Rainmayr pinned his man against the wall.

The Colonel said nothing, but his actions betrayed his words. The soldier in his grip cowered, unable to face his commander's withering stare. The other soldiers gazed straight ahead. From my vantage point, I could see a tear rolling down the face of the soldier farthest from me, a man nearly Rainmayr's equal in size.

After a labored minute, the Colonel composed himself, said one word in German, and left with his men. As he closed the door of the shop, Rainmayr gave each of us a glance so stern I saw Jesram's knees buckle briefly.

Not a word. While the shadows and sounds of the soldiers retreated into the daytime's bustle, the three of us remained rooted where we stood.

"We are all doomed," Mordrain noted, drawing out the words.

I could not help but interject, "Odd, for certain, but surely--"

"No," replied the old soldier, "German. What the one said under his breath--in German, 'We are all doomed.'"

At this, Jesram rushed to a nearby sink and scrubbed his hands and arms so hard I thought they would bleed.

"What does this mean?" I asked Mordrain.

"It means," he said, brushing off his uniform, first with one hand, then the other, "that I will let myself out." He cricked his neck and shuffled to the shop door. "No need to make trouble over me, Jesram. Not now."

The old man's exit left me to my own thoughts until I followed a few minutes behind him, the blood pounding in my ears.

On my way back, it seemed UN had materialized from the air. In the days after the bombing, I had not seen as many forces in and around Atya as I witnessed now. Squads patrolled each street, flesh and blood brothers to the blackened automatons that marched across the carbon armor.

However, unlike their miniscule counterparts, these soldiers were distracted. Their eyes never stopped wandering. No one location caught their attention for more than a few seconds.

Passing by the empty space once a part of the block that held Grubo's bakery, I saw six boys staring at the ground, one poking at something with a stick. Two of the boys ran off, their eyes bulging in terror. The other four jumped back, one letting out a yip of fright. My nephew, Ilian, wielded the stick.

Some sick animal, I told myself. Perhaps one of the deformed frogs I found last summer in Hasma's pond. Or a tarantula escaped from under the watchful eye of the pet shop owner, Mr. Kiraly.

Again, I felt myriad legs upon me. Like spiders, the dark machines prowled, with man-made minds so small and focused. Fixing. Shaping. Restoring their carbon and metal home. Endlessly.

Jerzy's called to me, so I walked around the corner. But once there, I could not go in. I slumped down in a chair outside at the lone table. The owner's daughter, a lovely girl of sixteen or so, brought out a glass of water that sparkled under the bright sun. She smiled for a second, then hustled back into the darkness of the bar.

I did not know what to think. Those crawling machines--I could not erase them from my thoughts. A couple thousand to a millimeter? Just how small could men make machines?

The soldiers in Jesram's shop understood what their newly dispatched comrades did not. Trained militia had peered into a nondescript black square and blinked.

"We are all doomed."

I drank the glass of water and recognized the unique flavor. I got up for home just as a UN armored personnel carrier rumbled by. Surely it, too, teemed with nanomachines, a planet for some new form of artificial life.

The air choked with dirt as more UN roared by. A thousand troops? Every man in the area now in Atya? For what end, I did not care. I would go home to my mute wife, our tomb of a house, and the now barren fields.

A half kilometer out of town, Truk careened toward me in his battered Peugot, misjudged the time to brake, and missed my leg by centimeters.

He ground his jaws together. "Get in."

He said nothing else. My brother was a man of many useless words, but now his very lack compelled me to obey. Neither of us spoke on the ride back into town.

Dr. Zhivko's clinic on the south side of Atya came up fast. Truk slammed the brakes again, and we skidded to a stop. Faster than I had ever seen him move, he bounded out the door and up the steps. I could not keep pace.

The doctor's assistant sat at her desk with her head between her knees gasping for air and coughing. She looked up long enough to point down the hall, but Truk had already read her thoughts, bursting through the last door in the back.

The hallway pressed in on me, its whiteness clinging to my sides. My breath came with effort as I walked toward the brightness of the final room in the hall.

Ilian was there, plastered hard into a corner, Truk holding the boy close to him and looking away from the center of the room. Zhivko saw me, but he, too, turned aside, tending to a tray of tools.

Entering the examination room, I was distracted by my brother's shaky voice.

"You told me, dear brother. And I told Venya. She must have told Ilian about the ring. It was special. Magic."

There on the cold stainless table, I spotted the ring. Eleni's ring. The diamond stars flashing under the room's stark lights. The deep black enamel. The gold tracings of our property.

The ring encircled a graceful finger, one of five digits that tapered away from a hand. An arm--just an arm--lay on that metal table. It ended in the smooth stump of a partial shoulder, the end of it perfectly healed over, the length of the arm immaculately preserved.

"Ilian's friend lost a ball," Truk began haltingly, eyes welling, "down the sewer drain. Across from what was left of Grubo's. He found it. Your nephew found it, Elias."

Zhivko coughed. "I cannot explain this, Mr. Sarac, only God." He took a large scalpel and, before I could stop him, sliced off the end of the smallest finger. Immediately, a murky film oozed up from under the skin of the arm and gradually flowed to the injury. The blackness pulled the severed piece back to the rest of the finger, the sharp edge of the wound pulsing, bubbling, then vanishing.

In a matter of heartbeats, the hand was whole again.

My blood froze, not at the reassembly of severed flesh, but because the arm twitched noticeably under the violence of Zhivko's scalpel. It knew it was being violated.

And then I knew as well.

I knew that on that bright Festival night, under the beaming canopy of heaven, bitter men had snuffed the life out of my beautiful Eleni. The Eleni that now shared my days was the product of brilliant minds that had failed to account for all possible outcomes. Hers was now the life of something that never should have been, should never have seen the light of the Creator's day. Man's answer. The fallen alternative.

I could not hear what Truk said to me when I left the room. The doctor's voice, the nurse’s heaves--all shrouded beneath the roar of my own blood and the voices of tiny machines.

I walked out the clinic door into twilight, to the faces of soldiers awaiting an unseen enemy. My feet moved, but I did not tell them to. My thoughts swirled and clanged, and though I do not know where the idea originated, I reached for my pocketknife. Fingering open the blade, I quickly drew it across my forearm and watched as the gash bled immediately, quickly bubbled, and was no more.

The woman I loved was gone and, perhaps, so were we all. I had lost track of where the wellwater had been trucked in Atya, but as I tried to remember, I recalled images from recent days of grandmothers jumping rope with their granddaughters. Of the mayor jogging through town at a clip that mocked his age. Of the youth on so many faces long past their younger days.

Eleni, where have you gone? Are you in the arms of God? Does He look down and wonder what we have done? Does He scold us for tasting of the Tree of Life?

But that was a lie; hers is not life. It is the flesh and nothing else. The kind heart, the gentleness, the tender love, the ability to move on after grief--none existed in the Eleni who now devours me in her lust. The machines had been caught off guard in that single moment of her destruction, the silver cord severed forever.

"Where are you going?" barked a soldier.

I did not hear him at first, but then the words caught up with me.

"Home," I said, pointing to the distance. "Two kilometers up the road."

The soldier, intent on his mission, tersely replied, "Please get there and stay there. No one is to leave their homes until daybreak."

I nodded limply.

How I got home, I do not recall. Nothing seemed to have happened between the soldier's command and arriving at my front porch. Only reflex remained. Perhaps the dark machines thought for me.

By now the sun had settled far below the horizon, the purple evening accented by the single room in our house alight. The night wrapped its heavy cloak around me, but I still shuddered from the thought of coming home to the dead--my little girl sleeping in the ground and my wife dead in her soul. Only endless days filled with apprehension awaited.

My rifle proffered one solution, not only for Eleni, but also for me. Yet thoughts of what might live on remained, an image of revulsion and burden to those who stayed behind. Ones who did not understand.

But who would not know? Truk knew. The others would know soon enough as each day their own mirrors told the story. Some would rejoice, while others would simply shrug and go their way, wondering at the miracle of Atya.

On the kitchen table was a note from Venya, something about leaving immediately after lunch to attend to…. The words trailed off illegibly.

No one had been here for hours.

In the light of the slivered moon, the stairs filled with stabbing shadows. The dirge of the machines sang in my imagination as I approached the bedroom door. A razor of light slashed back from the doorway at the gloom of the hall. My hand reached for the knob and shoved.

Her face hidden by her flowing hair, Eleni gave all her attention to something small in her arms. Before my eyes the cotton comforter on our bed dissolved, torn apart by the greedy mouths of the nanomachines. The breakfast and lunch Eleni failed to eat that day--unusual for her--sank into itself, the building blocks of life stripped clean, carried away by a thin pool of humming darkness. Our wooden dresser beside the bed leaned this way and that, its structure devoured.

To what end did the machines work? To the bundle of pink in my dead wife's arms. The dress so loved by Ytrina spread out around the body, the waxy, necrotic skin of my daughter throbbing, convulsing under the onslaught of machines rebuilding her, doing what they had been programmed to do since that day when an electrical storm altered their instructions. In that flash of lightning my world was destroyed, only to be rebuilt in Man's corrupted image.

The memory of the flesh could not let go in Eleni. Without her tender heart, yearning replaced restraint. Nothing had burned within her longer than the hope of reuniting with our daughter. Though the soul knows it will live on, the flesh understands nothing but the moment. Eleni's machine-animated flesh knew only the lesser way. In my own way, I understood.

And then I heard it. No words came from Eleni's mute lips, but a hum, a tuneless song I did not know. Her arms rocked our little girl to the rhythm as she swayed back and forth.

My legs unable to bear up before the horrors that filled my eyes, I sat and considered all that had happened in this day. Watching my Ytrina reach out her small, rejuvenated arm to brush the face of her mother, I thought of the UN soldiers pulled in from all parts around town. I saw the streets of Atya empty of all but them. I remembered anxious faces peering out of windows as I walked home. I relived the tear on the strong soldier's face.

The UN leaders knew.

I rose to my feet and walked out of the house. To the southwest, I heard the whine of a jet engine.

In a distant room, far across an ocean, men not so different from myself had assembled to make decisions. They argued and debated. In the heat of that moment, one stood and pronounced judgment. Those gathered nodded in solemn agreement. Later, that one would go home, kiss his wife, and read to his children before retiring for the night. Sometime tomorrow he would rise, eat his breakfast, and hear of our fate -- the fate he decided. Questions would go unanswered. Conspiracies would be hatched. The separatists would be blamed.

It is written that on the Last Day the dead in Christ will rise again -- the true, hoped-for resurrection. Yet, this would not be the last day for all, only for me and the ones I have known all my life.

The engine's roar grew nearer.

A cloudless sky, the moon and the brilliant constellations above me shed their silver light on the open grave in the rose garden, dirt haphazardly strewn around its child-sized maw. I kissed Eleni's final gift to me, lifted my hands to the heavens, and uttered my last prayer, knowing that reunion lay before me. In glory with Jesus, I would kiss my dear wife and take my daughter in my arms. With that hope echoing in my heart, the sky tore itself apart in searing light.

And the stars, and all I knew beneath them, melted in the kindled fury of a newborn sun.