A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (25 page)

varnon-Set smirked with a feral gleam in his whiteless eyes, while his teeth bristled in shark-like edges. He sat on a padded couch in one of the archonic palace’s many private meeting chambers, and said nothing.

Tarbet wanted more than anything to know the content of the courier dispatch that had so raised the Titan’s spirits. Avarnon-Set held the tiny scroll in tantalizing silence, just out of the brand new Archon’s reach.

Rakhau had died early that morning of “natural causes” at the young age of six hundred and eighty-four.

“Do you suppose that all your older brothers met with such illfated deaths so long ago, and that your beloved father passed on before his time by chance?”
said the frigid voice of the Beast.

Tarbet trembled beneath his cloak, and measured his response with care. “
Two brothers had unfortunate accidents, the other three, and my father all died of natural causes.”
Of course,
he added mentally,
what could be more natural than the human heart being unable to beat after it’s been paralyzed by a dose of black sorvalis? Do you think I don’t know?

“But do you understand the higher purpose in
you being Archon instead of them?”

“It was E’Yahavah’s will,” Tarbet piously intoned. He decided that to know any more than that would be too risky for now.

The Titan’s
black hole eyes graced him with a condescending leer. “Yes, of course it was. But do you feel the shift in the power currents that flow just below your consciousness?”

Tarbet gazed out the palace window at his father’s enormous stone image in the dying red sun. Then his eyes fell down to the two obelisks of Seti that seemed dwarfed by Kunyari’s shadow. “There is change in the air,” he whispered with an icy knot in his chest. He remembered Tubaal-qayin
Dumuzi’s left-handed prophecy about his future.

“You want to know about this dispatch.”

Tarbet’s eyes must have screamed that he did.
Maybe the Emperor is just not strong enough personally to face the pressures of greatness.

“It spells out the direction the Powers will flow in,” the Titan Ambassador said, adding to the enigma rather than clearing it up. “You could figure into things prominently.”

“I don’t understand.”

Avarnon-Set leaned back into his opulent dyed goat hair cushions. “The key word for you now is
leeway
—you will have it only as much as you give it. All humanity must find you waiting with open arms to receive their multitudes—no conditions. Would you like Sa-utar to become the center of global spiritual power again under your Archonate, the way it was in the old days—the way I believe your holy writings foretell it will be again?”

Tarbet could almost feel himself being pulled in like a hooked fish. “The texts speak of a holy city. What about Ayar Adi’In? You in
Bab’Tubila and the prominent houses of the Steel Dynasty do not see the Temple in a religious light any more, but the urban and rural masses—not to mention Khavilakki—attach much religious affection to it.”

Avarnon-Set answered,
“High Priest Gununi may have delivered his red-sore cure, but as far as I’m concerned it is too little, too late. I grow weary of priestly intrigues. They rot the face of authority as sexual diseases rot the body. As far as I’m concerned, the Temple is a purveyor of both!”

Tarbet allowed his shock to break free in the form of nervous laughter. “But the Temple created you! You sound like old Iyared, or worse yet, one of Q’Enukki’s sons.”
Not to mention your own taste for young boys!

Avarnon-Set hacked out a laugh like a fur ball. “I told you I liked your little ‘Orthodox Revival,’ and I did. Yet now it is time for it to sputter out with a whimper. The death rattles have gone on long enough. The Powers need no Temple to spawn the likes of me. They use whatever human mediums are available because it is more convenient than creating
completely new social institutions from scratch. The only question is; which human establishments serve their purposes at which time? At first, and for a long while, it was Temple. Yet now, Tarbet, it is time to shift our methods.”

“Shift?”

Avarnon nodded. “The Powers are beginning to spawn a spiritual movement among some of your younger generations not too far from here. Soon it should be mature enough to branch out and spread. When it does, I want you to embrace it. Give it the gentle guidance of your centuries of experience, O Father of Men.” His fangs flickered in the soft quickfire light.

Tarbet scratched his clean-shaven chin. He did not feel like a Father of Men. He had just attained the Archonate at only five hundred and twenty years of age—barely a Third Tier
zaqen
—the youngest since Atum-Ra.
How will I know this group when I see it? If it’s too radical, how can I embrace it and remain orthodox enough to satisfy my duties to the children of Seti?

Then he remembered what Avarnon-Set had said about the Powers.
If the Powers simply use what is available to them because it is convenient, what happens to me if I become suddenly inconvenient?
He banished that thought from his mind. He had duty. He had precedent. He also understood how to give old words new and altered meanings to his people.

Avarnon-Set was speaking again. He had somehow changed the subject—rambling instead about global politics—“…so except for Uggu and I, the old order is dying. The cold war with Psydonu and At’Lahazh lingers like a stale odor, while Samyaza licks his wounds from his foolish assault on whatever lurks in your holy country behind the mountains.”

“It’s the Orchard of E’Yahavah,” Tarbet said. “Why else were Samyaza’s forces so quickly annihilated?”

The Titan shrugged. “That’s as good a story as any for what happened. Samyaza was always an unstable leader—too excitable and rash. Whatever’s in your hidden valley can stay there until
either all the titans can present a united front or one of us gets mastery over the others. More likely it will be the latter, and another war will be needed to get there.”

“I find this disturbing, Lord. Years ago
, you said you would not go there. What will happen if our legends are even partly true? Besides, whatever dwells there is content to remain there. The
real
world is out here. So is the new spiritual movement you spoke of.”

Avarnon-Set nodded. “You’re quite right, of course. That was Samyaza’s folly. There’s enough going on out here to be concerned with.”

Tarbet asked, “Such as?” His eyes tried not to lock too obviously onto the rolled dispatch in the Titan’s hand.

“I fear the cold war with Aztlan will heat up again before long.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Already At’Lahazh rallies the armies of the Far West around himself as though he expects our Alliance will fall apart. Our spies report that his soldiers are calling for a holy war. They wave their banners, and shout about how their ‘great divine titan’ suffers to hold the weight of the entire world on his shoulders! He
and his brothers know that the armistice left them only cubits away from taking the global heartland. If not for our polar fleet counterstrike, and their over-extended supply lines in Far Kush, they would have never agreed to an armistice.”

“But, another war?”

Avarnon-Set said, “Yes. The peace is only giving them time to consolidate their holdings, and move their forces into position for another eventual thrust. They say that Psydonu has even left his tower at Thulae to take direct command of the navy and a third of their armies.”

“Can we count on the Eastern Coalition to align with us again?”

The Titan grunted. “The Princelings of Y’Raddu are waiting and watching to see who wins the economic war. As always, they’ll hold out for the blood sport, and then try to cozy up to the winning side just before the victory spoils come.”

“So it’s inevitable then?”

“Not if I can implement my plan in time.”

“Which is?”

Avarnon leaned forward. “None of the other tribal powers—not even in Lumekkor—realize that I hold the key to the entire game.” He waved the coveted dispatch in Tarbet’s face.

The Archon whispered, “I can be trusted.”

“Yes, of course you can,” the Titan said, as he handed Tarbet the secret scroll. “Tubaal-qayin Dumuzi is dead by his own hand, and childless. He has left the Empire to Uggu. But his entire Industrial Guild was deeded to me! The ultimate weapon that will give us mastery over all competition is even now in its final phase of construction.”

nguska’s new house, built by the local timber lords who worked for Satori, still smelled of fresh cut cedar. The paneled dining hall was not quite as large as the one he had enjoyed in Assuri, but by local standards, it placed him into the upper middle class. His dinner guests just reclining along a low stone table, he noticed for the first time that his favorite concubine had changed her head covering from a purple to a green one sometime in the last ten minutes. He watched Dhiva slink past the other wives, as she briefly rubbed her hands together under her new forest-colored silken shawl.

The annual Friendship Banquet was an inconvenient time to receive a sacred dispatch, but Dhiva’s
headwear change combined with her hand signal indicated it was high priority.

Inguska felt Satori’s suspicious concubine glare up at him when he rose to excuse himself.
Golden Galkuna, the Archon’s clumsy mistress of intrigue!
He smiled to himself at the thought, and returned her gaze until she looked away with a blush.
One day I shall add you to my collection, and make your husband watch as your most terrible nightmares come true!

Dhiva
turned and met him outside the dining hall. “I’m sorry my Lord, but this one bore the Most Sacred seal color.”

“You did well, my Dove. I doubt anybody but Galkuna thought anything of my departure, and Satori does not take her prattling seriously. Come with me into the study, and shut the doors behind you.”

Inguska took the scroll from his concubine, and sat down at his reading table. He remained silent for several long seconds after he broke the seal and read the order. Only the curiosity in Dhiva’s eyes forced him to speak afterward.

“I must go to Sa-utar again in the morning.”

Dhiva nodded while he burned the scroll in an oil lantern.

n the multi-leveled tree house that Khumi was fast making into a mansion, Tiva regarded her dinner guests with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. Fortunately, she had eaten a seers’ button a couple hours ago—far enough back that she could control her face, movements, and speech, but not so long ago that she would have problems hearing Pahn if she needed him.

The banquet had been Khumi’s idea—of all things—to “celebrate the laying of the keel,” whatever that meant. A’Nu-Ahki had bowed out, and declared it to be, “A time for you youngsters to have a little fun amongst yourselves without some old zaqen to quash things.”

Tiva would have almost welcomed the Old Man’s “quashing” just to stabilize the mood.
At least they agreed to have it here at the tree house. I couldn’t stand being cooped up in Q’Enukki’s fortress for even one evening.

Across the table, U’Sumi laughed and kidded her husband about some incident or another down at the
drydock earlier in the week.
Yeah, yeah, chuckle, chuckle, ship-thing this, ship-stuff that!

Tiva never understood why Khumi always called U’Sumi “the zealot of the family.” She would have pegged Iyapeti more for that—so stilted and proper, right down to the ceremonious way he dipped his bread.
At least U’Sumi lacked the pretentiousness she associated with Lit fervents.
Perhaps his wartime journeys changed him—had to, for him to marry outside the Seer Clan to a woman with the Mark of Qayin, no less!
By contrast, Iyapeti had married Sutara the daughter of Satori only after a long, respectably arranged betrothal in keeping with Akh’Uzan tradition.

Tiva smirked to herself, as she watched Iyapeti’s wife through half-closed eyes. Of course, Sutara
hardly waded in the mainstream of Seer Clan society—even if she came closest. Iyapeti’s father-in-law may have Urugim’s blood, but he had refused his ancestor’s call to Paru’Ainu. Tiva’s parents, at least, went through the Haunted Lands proudly. Satori had only slinked into Akh’Uzan to use the Oath of Iyared to get out of fighting in the Century War. Even when the last Archon had broken that Oath to draft Seer Clan men for the Aztlan War, Satori had somehow squirmed out of it.

On top of that, Tiva had heard that Sutara’s father—unlike any true Seer Clan elder—bought the Archon’s smarmy party line that the
World-ends were only symbolic.
Symbolic of what? Either believe the dragon-scat or don’t believe it! But at least show the courage of your convictions!

Nobody could accuse
Satori’s daughter of her father’s heresy, however. Sutara said, “Tell me, Tiva, what do you do all day after cleaning? This is a wonderful home and all, and very well kept—and I just love that little porcelain pot thingy you have over the hearth. Still, we put in many late nights down at the dock—lots of work, you know, preparing for the end of all life on Earth. You must get pretty bored and lonely.”

The drudge-wench has all the subtlety of a pregnant behemoth.
Tiva had been roped into this conversation with her often enough to wonder if Sutara was simply too stupid to realize that she was repeating herself, or perhaps so vapid that she actually had no other thoughts. Tiva put on her best smiley mask, and replied, “Oh, I have hobbies in the forest—herbs and mushrooms—that sort of thing.” She almost laughed at the mention of mushrooms.
If you only knew the half of it, you empty-headed bynt.

Sutara gazed across the table at her, soft earnest eyes like gobs of melting butter. “But what will happen to all your lovely herbs when the waters come to wash them all away?”

U’Sumi’s wife, the spotted girl from the Far West, glared at Sutara with a brief scowl.

This struck Tiva as curious. T’Qinna had
not said much all evening. Of all the guests, U’Sumi’s wife was the most difficult to read.
Maybe she’s not quite on board their little ship after all—at least not as much as before.

T’Qinna spoke in a lilting musical Aztlan brogue.
“I’ve always loved herb lore. Would you mind, Tiva, if I came with you on one of your forest walks some time?”

“Won’t that take you from your duties at the
drydock?” Tiva said, trying hard to keep any cattiness from her voice.
It wouldn’t be so bad to know the foreign girl with her exotic body markings. It’s been many years, and I’ve managed to keep them all at arm’s length. Maybe I’m not being fair to Khumi. T’Qinna’s the most interesting one—with the paw print in the middle of her forehead, and the sphinx that follows her everywhere. It’s almost as if she and that cat were matched together by design.

Dread over-clouded Tiva’s fascination. She noticed her sister-in-law’s large striped cat eying her from the corner, as if to say, “I’ll be coming too, and T’Qinna is mine, so behave yourself.” Tiva imagined for the first time that Pahn must watch over her something like that. When the sprite came to mind however, the sphinx-cat’s eyes became not just regal
, but menacing. A flare from the fireplace reflected off its glossy fur. For a moment, Tiva was sure that fiery wings fluttered briefly from the sphinx’s shoulder blades, as if it would spring at her.

U’Sumi’s wife answered her,
“I think they can get by without me for an afternoon. In fact, our walk might help me get an idea which plants we should bring in addition to food and A’Nu-Ahki’s medicinal herbs.”

“That would be good,” Tiva said. She averted her eyes from the cat, and tried not to hyperventilate or show any expression. “How’s tomorrow?”

“At noon?”

Good. She didn’t notice. Must’ve just been the button.
“Perfect. I’ll meet you down at the drydock when I bring Khumi his mid-day meal.”

“Can I come too?” Sutara asked, her cow-like eyes pleading.

Tiva tried not to grimace.
Leave it to Iyapeti to marry a wife so mentally inferior that she would never know any
better than to worship the ground he walks on!
“If you want,” Tiva forced herself to answer.

The sphinx was still watching.

Only when the cat turned its head and went to sleep did the voice of Pahn return to Tiva’s head.
“Don’t be afraid to feel them out. Learning how they think can enable your control to extend over them too.”

Why should I want to control them?
Tiva wondered.

“Not so much ‘them’ as situations when you must deal with them.”

Tiva liked the sound of that much better. She began to focus her mind to that end, calling up Pahn’s power within her.

U’Sumi and T’Qinna exchange glances, as if suddenly troubled by something. Tiva felt the power flow through her, but did not intend it to disturb those two. She almost stopped, but Pahn would not let her.

Then
it happened.

Sutara’s eyes widened like those of a rabbit cornered by a
small wurm.

At that, Tiva had to force herself not to laugh aloud. She let Pahn’s energy have its way.
Now that’s the game!

Iyapeti’s wife excused herself to go out for some air. Her husband followed to see if she was
all right.

Khumi, ever oblivious, pushed his plate away, grabbed U’Sumi’s arm, and invited him out onto the upper balcony. For a moment
, the latter seemed reluctant to leave his wife.

T’Qinna nodded to her husband, so the two men stepped outside
, and climbed the balcony ladder to the observation deck.

That left Tiva alone with T’Qinna and her
now sleeping sphinx.

“
See?”
Pahn whispered. “Y
ou can control the mood if you want—get rid of that simpering Sutara any time you like.”

T’Qinna peered at Tiva with strange warm eyes that reflected Pahn’s alleged mood control back at her in a frightful mirror. Khumi’s wife felt the room shrink in on her,
as if she was looking out from inside a glass bubble.

“Would you like some help cleaning up?”

“Yeah.” Tiva gulped; her mouth dry. “I’d like that fine, thank you.”

They began to clear the bowls into the scullery.
Tiva could not even hear the clatter of crockery over her engulfing inner silence.
The mushroom can’t have worn off yet. What’s happening here, Pahn?

No answer.

The silence slowly shifted into a consuming noise, until it shrieked inside Tiva’s head like cicada bugs. She needed to say something—anything—to make it stop. She turned to T’Qinna after placing a stack of dirty stoneware into the indoor aqueduct pool. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Ask anything.”

“I heard something once…”

“Yes?”

Tiva fumbled for words, but finally found no other way than to just blurt it out, “Is it true you used to be a priestess? I mean, I just overheard it once at the shipyard—I never said anything to anybody though.”

T’Qinna smiled and said, “Relax.” Her voice instantly made the inner cicada shriek stop, and rejuvenated the air in the loft like the steeping of pungent mint tea; a spiritual effect—Tiva noted—quite the opposite to the one that had made Sutara dash outside.

“It just seems so unlikely, and yet…”

“It’s true. I was born to a priestess in the Temple City of Epymetu in Aztlan, and served Tse’Us-Psydonu. I don’t know who my father is, other than he obviously came from one of the mottled tribes of the Far East.”

Tiva felt the question roll off her tongue before she could even consider her poor judgment in asking it. “How many men have you had?”

T’Qinna laughed, unruffled, in a way that somehow made anything Tiva had ever seen in Farsa seem like a crude forgery. “If you mean how many men have had me, I couldn’t say—but that’s long past. I rarely think of it any more. If you mean how many men I have ever truly known—then only my husband. Who am I to dig up what E’Yahavah buries under the ocean?”

Tiva almost shrieked at her that E’Yahavah
had a standing curse out on whores.
What do you think you’re trying to prove?

Yet one glance into T’Qinna’s green eyes banished all thought that she was trying to prove anything.

This girl really believes what she says.
Tiva wanted to lash out at her. She also wanted to throw herself at this strangely charmed woman’s feet and beg her for her secret.
Pahn, what do you think of her?

Again,
Tiva’s sprite did not answer her mind-call.

Pahn?

“Was that all you wanted to ask?” U’Sumi’s wife smiled, yanking away the reins of any remnant of “mood control” from Tiva’s loosening grip.

Pahn, where are you?

“Ask T’Qinna what she knows about sprites,”
commanded a voice inside Tiva that she could not recognize. All she knew was that it most definitely did not belong to Pahn.

Who are you?

No answer.

Tiva turned to finish clearing the table, but halted before T’Qinna, who stood in the scullery doorway.

“Ask her.”

“I need to ask you just one other thing,” Tiva whispered, hoping T’Qinna wouldn’t hear.

“Sure, what is it?”

Again,
Tiva knew no other way than to just blurt it out. “What do you know about sprites?”

T’Qinna’s warm smile vanished. “Sprites?” She laughed mirthlessly. “What a silly word for them. That’s Third Level stuff—where a priestess prepares her mind and body to encounter a priest possessed by one of the gods… Oh, never mind that! What can you
possibly
know of them?”

Tiva wilted. “Some
Zake girls at Grove Hollow talk to them. I just wondered what you thought, or if you’d heard of that sort of thing before.”

T’Qinna softened. “I grew up in their delusions. These ‘sprites’ are subtle at first. We in the lower Temple sometimes wondered if they weren’t just figments of our imaginations. We
occasionally saw their lights above the Temple mound, and heard their voices in our minds—but the priests can do that with quickfire lights and sound-projectors—so I never took it seriously. Then I saw them in material form while they were slowly killing my mother, and later, while we fled. Their eyes are the searing emptiness of the void. Fortunately, I never got beyond novice level. Otherwise I’d have been lost like all my teachers, my mother, and my old friends.”

“Why lost?”

“Let’s just say that there’s a point of no return—a place where you stop caring about truth and goodness, and put yourself forever at the center of your own imaginary cosmos as ‘the Goddess.’ That’s when these ‘sprites’ have you. They can seem cute and harmless if they want to—like faeries to fill your fantasies with just a bit more life than imagination gives on its own. But they are the fallen Watchers spoken of by the seers in your land; lesser ones perhaps, like smaller carrion wurms that pick the bones of whatever remains of a civilization, once the gryndel
-
sized ones have had their fill.”

“That’s horrible. How do you know this?”

T’Qinna gazed off into the hearth fire as if remembering. “Your ancestor fought them to a standoff, and warned us to give them no ground. They are themselves caught in a lethal mind game of the Basilisk. Those they enchant, they drawn in with them. Potions, hallucinogenic plants—self-induced trances that make you feel good about yourself, but rob you of your ability to reason—it’s a cancerous evil that’s disfigured the heart, and now even the very creation codes of humanity. It doesn’t matter if you call them sprites, Watchers, Powers, gods, or inner lights, it’s all the same.”