A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (17 page)

Tiva had no clue what the Old Man was talking about
now, but her husband nodded as if he understood and sympathized. She suddenly wondered if her own father had similar misgivings about her. She somehow wanted to believe that he did, but knowing Henumil, she could not imagine it. Tiva found herself wishing oddly that she could have been born Khumi’s sister rather than his wife.
This is getting too weird…

A’Nu-Ahki sipped his tea, and
said, “Khumi, I’ve never been so tired before. I’ve hardly been able to pray at all this past year. In the old days, ‘Ranna and ‘Nissa were the center of my affection—after their mother, that is. Was I that terrible a father to them? Sure, I made my share of mistakes—but nothing to earn such unbridled hate! Anyway, while I mulled over these things four nights ago—that was when he
came.”

Khumi asked,
“Who?”

His father’s eyes brightened, but he did not answer directly. “You know I go
into the library when I’m troubled. The scrolls, tablets, and codices fill my life with histories, epics, and proverbs—the meaning of things. It’s really all about
meaning
, you know. Yet the writings didn’t seem to help this year. I sat there and halfheartedly forced myself to pray, without much hope. Son, I wept like an old woman. I know what I must do now, but that doesn’t take the hurt away. Only he
will do that in his own time…”

“Who?” Tiva covered her mouth after the word escaped her lips.

A’Nu-Ahki turned and gazed into her eyes. She averted her face to escape his pain, lest it somehow become her own. It seemed too much as if he could read her mind.
I can’t face that hurt again…

Khumi’s Father answered her. “As I sat in the library, a fragrant
breeze came in through the window. I found that I was not alone.

“‘Hello, Nu,’ a man’s voice said from behind me. He sounded so wounded and gentle, as if he too sat on the verge of great despair, and would share the pain of my lost daughters and all my dead children with me.

“I turned and saw a comfortably dressed middle-aged man, sitting at the reading table. He could have passed for any son of Seti, deep red skin and a black beard, with cool blue-gray eyes. I watched him lay out a blank scroll across the table and adjust the surface slant downward, so I could see the papyrus as well. He couldn’t have entered the library door without my seeing him, or any of the windows without my hearing.

“‘Who are you?’ I asked, dreadfully afraid. He seemed harmless, but
the war and my travels had tuned my senses—I knew I hadn’t dozed.

“The Gentleman answered with a smile in his eyes that revealed endless mirth and
bottomless sorrow, ‘You don’t need to ask, do you?’

“My legs fell out from under me. Although his unimposing form seemed nothing like the furious apparition of our first encounter
up on Mount N’Zar, the same presence filled the room, and I felt ashamed of my self-pity. ‘Ranna and ‘Nissa had made their own choices as adults. I now had to make mine—again.

“‘Pardon, Master!’ I sensed
in the Visitor a restrained anger. Yet deep inside, I knew he directed none of it at me. I even found that his fury against evil was something I could rest in and rely upon. I didn’t have to take it upon myself to be its vengeful agent—I could trust his character. There’s great peace in that.

“The Messenger of
E’Yahavah rose from the reading table, and touched my shoulder gently. He told me I could get up.

“I remember cautiously peeking up at him.

“‘You’re tired and discouraged,’ he said. ‘I understand, but it’s time to move on now.’ Then he touched my shoulder again. ‘Go fetch us some wine and honey-bread. I hear your wife bakes the best in all Akh’Uzan.’

“At his touch, I
got up full of a joy I had never quite known before. I rushed to the scullery for my two best wine bowls, then to the pantry for the bread and wine. When I re-entered the library, I was relieved to find my visitor seated again at the scroll table.

“‘Sit with me,’ he said, as I poured the wine.

“I reclined across the table from him and placed the refreshment tray on the edge of the rolled-out scroll, between us.

“When he said nothing for awhile, but simply seemed to enjoy his wine, I began to worry. The way he looked at me made me both nervous and elated. Finally, I felt as though I had to say something.

“‘How now may I be of service?’

“I had not touched my wine
or any of the loaf—I didn’t feel quite right, eating in front of him at the same table like that. But the Messenger pushed the other wine bowl into my hand and then refilled his own.

“‘Relax.’ He smiled. ‘First we shall drink and visit.
Nobody ever takes the time to visit any more. We’ll talk of service later.’

“My eyes met his fully for the first time, while he took his wine bowl and sipped slowly. The beverage’s aroma drifted over us both, carrying with it the breath of a deep, cleansing rest. Then he ate some of your mother’s honey-bread and handed me several pieces. It tasted like your mother’s
, but seemed to energize me unlike normal bread. A fire rekindled inside of me that I had feared long extinguished.

“Finally
the Visitor removed the tray. ‘Feeling better?’

“I felt like a ‘tween-ager in love for the first time—if you’ll excuse the expression—only more clear-headed than I ever was at that age.

“I answered, ‘Yes, thank you.’

“
He said, ‘You probably feel as though you’ve failed more than you’ve succeeded over the years. I want you to know that I don’t see it that way.’

“At the mention of failure, my mood
plummeted.

“‘Oh I know all about your sins, both real and imagined,’ he added. ‘I’ve given you my compassion and
my power. I will continue to do so, and pay the price for it later, simply because I can. You remind me of another friend I have among your people…” His eyes seemed far away.

“Khumi and Tiva, I had prepared myself for much, but not this. I reminded him of a friend! Who? When? Where? What had I ever done? Nothing came to mind—if anything had, it would have defiled the moment.”

Khumi said. “Maybe it’s like what you told me the day I left home—about how E’Yahavah just decided to be your friend and help you.”

Tiva tried to remember the conversation she had overheard last year from the bushes by the gate of Q’Enukki’s Retreat, between her husband and his father. Some of it came back to her, but
only in fuzzy bits.

“Maybe you’re right, Khumi. Maybe it’s just that simple.” A’Nu-Ahki laughed
, as his hand reached out and squeezed his son’s shoulder.

Tiva wanted to believe that the gleam in the Old Man’s eyes was the fire of madness.
It has to be!
Yet somehow, A’Nu-Ahki seemed more lucid than any elder she had ever heard. Not that she allowed herself to believe his story; just in his composure, and the fact that he believed it.

A’Nu-Ahki continued, “
Great sadness came on E’Yahavah’s
Word-Speaker. He said, ‘I wish the only reason I’d come tonight was for us to visit and speak clearly to each other. Someday it will be like that, but not now.’

“I whispered, ‘The time has come, hasn’t it?’ I could almost hear a war raging in the distance outside.

“He nodded. ‘The end of all flesh is now before me. Mankind has filled the Earth with violence and perversion. You need to be alert, because I’m going to completely destroy all life from the face of the ground.’

“He said it so softly, while the wind began to moan outside. I expected it to storm,
as it had up on Mount N’Zar, but it just moaned.

“
I asked, ‘What do you want me to do?’

“The
Word-Speaker paused before answering. Then he took from his cloak a strange little stylus that produced its own ink from within itself, and began to draw on the blank scroll draped across the reading table. His lines were perfectly straight, as though traced with a protractor, triangle, and drafting square. No human being could have drawn such precision freehand.

“
‘Build a vessel out of kapar
-
processed wood,” he said, as his drawing took shape. “You will construct compartments in the vessel, with watertight seals inside, and shelled outside with kapar
cement.’

“The
Word-Speaker went silent for a few minutes while he finished his draft. Then he pointed out certain details on the drawing and explained them. ‘These are the volume dimensions you’re to use,’ he jotted the figures down as he recited them, ‘The ship’s length; three hundred standard
cubits, its beam; fifty cubits, and the height is to be thirty cubits.’

“
I said, ‘A six to one floatation ratio, riding low to the sea with a draft I’d guess of about fifteen cubits fully loaded.” I must have seemed to him a vain peacock showing off what little nautical engineering I’d learned from a pre’tween boy! ‘I’ve never seen this design before,’ I added, twisting my foot just a little more inside my mouth. It actually looked something like an over-sized river barge, only longer, with a kind of ramming prow.

“
He said, ‘It will be the most stable craft afloat. Because of that quality, it will shortly become the only
craft afloat.’”

The finality of the statement rang in Tiva’s ears.
Stop it, you silly rag! There’re millions of ships at sea! All of them can’t be wiped out!

A’Nu-Ahki went on, “He pointed with his stylus to a narrow raised structure at the crest of the vessel’s roof and said, ‘You need to make a lighting system, with a ventilation loft here, because of the cargo you’ll be carrying. The vent holes each need to be a cubit high, with vertical flues. You can make shutters for the vents if you wish to control airflow. But be sure to finish them above with overhanging eaves on either side.’

“He pointed to an opening on the third deck up, on the starboard side, above the waterline. ‘Make the cargo-hatch here. Below this level, you shall make a second and third main deck for the bulk of your load.’

“The Messenger looked up from his architect’s scroll
, and finished the last of his wine. ‘Be alert, because I am about to unleash a World-end of water over the Earth to annihilate every form of life that breathes air from under the skies.’ He measured out his next words with slow, deadly emphasis: ‘Every living thing on dry land shall die.’

“His words rang in my ears. I thought suddenly of my former acolyte—your old teacher, Nestrigati. I owe him much, both for sticking by me in the Haunted Lands
, and for rescuing ‘Peti and Pahpo in the trenches during the war. I wondered of his work on the mountain ridge above us. Floodhaven is becoming a small city. Yes, our own Nestrigati, doubtless starting with good intentions, has carried belief in a World-end of water out to its logical conclusion with an entrepreneur’s zeal. The problem is, it’s the wrong
application of the right interpretation!

“I’ve watched him target wealthy converts as financial backers this past year, while h
is sermons promise the poor deliverance for their free labor. It all seems equitable enough when compared to drowning. I felt sick because he’d started building just after he got home from the war, while I was presumed dead. I couldn’t blame him for moving ahead with it.

“On the other hand, I’ve long suspected that he’s missed the point in his zeal
.” A’Nu-Ahki made a fair impersonation of Nestrigati’s high-strung voice, “‘Twenty-thousand gold Standards for a peak palace, ten thousand for a family-sized dwelling, five for a bungalow, two for a single room hut! If you can’t afford that, work as free labor for space in a shelter dorm; pay now, and be a patriarch in the golden age to come…’ and all that!

“How will Nestrigati react when I tell him of E’Yahavah’s designs, now that he and his backers have already invested their life savings? I told him all along that we needed to wait on E’Yahavah. It seems he let his fear and ambition drive him. Yet there are still a few up at Floodhaven whom I
think might still understand the genuine Work. What of them? I gathered my courage, and pressed E’Yahavah’s
Messenger for an answer.

“‘Good Master, I know of some that still believe in the coming
World-end from the teachings of the Seers. Though they are separated from me, I think that they are acting in good conscience…’

“But he cut me off, ‘Have they forgotten my words through Iyared, Lumekki, and all the seers before them? It is with you only that I establish my Pact. When the time is right, you shall come into this vessel—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.’

“‘Sons!’ I cried out, ‘Does this mean my youngest will be with me?’

“He wouldn’t answer me, Khumi. He could have. But he didn’t
—one way or the other.

“I turned the color of the parchment in embarrassment and watched his stylus point to the next feature.

“‘Your work is a cosmic egg. From every basic animal kind, you shall take two of each sort to bring inside the ship and keep alive with you. Of course, they shall be male and female, the birds after their kind, livestock after their kind, every scampering creature after its kind, and so on. Two of every created kind of land animal will come to you to be kept alive. Take with you ample supplies of all food types as provision for you and them…’