Crematorium for Phoenixes (15 page)

“Until one day I realized that no one knows
the hour of darkness until he invades our lives.

“And in that brief moment, my friend, seeing
the articles on your hands, the odiousness of your own life, and
asking why you were created, the answer appears.

It sometimes comes across that you are an
erased part in God’s great plan, a piece from a place full of
burdened memories.”

Akuma sighed, loosening the straps of his
suit and said, “The only thing that leads us through the mists of
this world is the expectation. Let’s hope that here it will bring
something good.”

And finished with the conversation, the men
were now past the last steps over which, similar to the dim light
in a well, the rays of a podium drowned them in a dancing line.

The light was sprinkled as if embers hid a
sarcophagus around which the conclusion of the wires clustered like
a root system.

Led by natural curiosity, they approached it
and a few cries filled the room; the acoustics repeating them with
echoes, “God . . . .”

In the container, crafted from glass, lay a
Siamese hermaphrodite.

His body had been deformed. It was crossed
by stitches and reminiscent of something borne from the imagination
of a splurging sadist-anatomist.

“What had happened here?” whispered the men
with disgust even though they were perversely attracted by the
sight.

Then, as if by order, a concave display
appeared. Its black surface pulsed with a green arrow.

“What is this?” Takeshi asked the men and at
that moment on the arrow on the screen was followed by the word
“Error settled.” The message flashed, the screen cleared, and once
again there was the blinking cursor.

Silence from the men, accompanied by humming
from the machine, filled the space like a quenched fireplace.

“Clearly the device transmits what it’s
being told,” Takeshi said. “Let’s check something.

“What are you?”

The screen read “process” and the raspy
scrape of integrated circuits could be heard, followed by the word
“VER 1.0.0.” Then everything was wiped again and they were greeted
with the dark display.

“What’s this damned thing?” asked Akuma, who
felt an almost superstitious dread.

Takeshi swallowed, made some noise with his
teeth, and finally said, “Let’s say that this has been made by
human hands and is nothing to be afraid of. I assure you, there is
not any magic, but it will be a little difficult in terms of your
time to see it as such.

“I tell you just to accept it as something
that you can ask questions to and receive replies from. I know that
it is difficult, but please, do it.

“And let us ask what first comes to mind:
for what reason have you been created?”

The machine rattled, vibrating its whole
system to the body, and wrote, “Data exchange.”

“Hmm, quite succinct,” Takeshi said.
“Apparently this machine wasn’t programmed (whatever that means,
murmured the men) for longer answers. Data exchange between
who?”

“Between the galaxies.”

“But why?” Takeshi continue.

“Transferring the memories of the people.
Not enough disk space. HDD disk error.”

Takeshi stood for a few seconds, saying
almost to himself, “So that’s how they were traveling, just
recording the memory and hoping with that naïve. But it does not
seem illogical for their attempt to succeed.”

“But what was the whole point of it all?”
one of the men could not resist asking.

“The ultimate goal: the Apollyon,” displayed
the computer.

“The Apollyon Project,” Takeshi said, “What
the hell on Earth is that?”

“Classified information. Access denied.”

“What should we do now?” asked Akuma. “It is
already clear that you don’t have a pre-drawn plan but you should
still have something in that head.”

“No one in life is fully shockproof aware of
what comes before him. We can only go back and continue with what I
think we should do.”

“And this thing?”

“We will leave him here. Sometimes, for
better or worse, the sleep conceals the true nature of
something.”

They had not yet turned when they were
forced into speechless.

The tiered floors were covered with millions
of pairs of faceted eyes.

“Gods, what is this?” shouted one of the
men.

“Tsuchigumo,” Akuma said. “Run.”

A wave of hundreds and hundreds of giant
spiders descended to them, each with its jaws chattering. They were
coming out of every crack in the walls and spreading like an
infection.

The men began to shoot, running with their
harquebuses. They knocked them away and kneed into the stumbling
wave.

An elevator shaft, conveniently stood before
them, and they slipped into it.

The automatic mechanism launched them up and
outside. They felt like they were merged again with the darkness of
thousands and thousands of shadows that were sliding across
different countries, leaving the mirage of the luring bright stage
behind.

Chapter
Twenty-two

The waters of the Caribbean Sea were
interlaced like fingers in an eternal cycle, driven by the breath
of angels.

In this haze, covered by the golden fabric
sewn for a cardinal was the submarine Leviathan, sailing and
sparkling in splashes of the boiling water; it was a popup sea
deity.

Powered by salty air, it pointed out the
clear blue waters, coral reefs, copra, and pearl beads to soothe
all who are burdened in their hearts.

Islands—large and small—were hidden among
the watery masses; their drowning lines were intractable even for
immortals and wandering spirits.

Passing them, cleaving the same waters that
are crossed by dreamers and heartless adventurers alike, the
Leviathan moved based on its mechanical screw.

It was directed like a boat, sailing among
the old trade routes to the Gulf of Guinea. Barely overcoming the
huge space, it entered a cave ridge.

Even with its high speed there were days of
covering distances, passing through streaks and stripes of depths,
each unique with its winds and currents.

Here the spectrum had decomposed into
thousands of colors, creating an orb that passed even the flesh and
soul, capturing them forever.

And we can only envy the men who blend
daylight hours with those of the night, seeing the sunrises and the
sunsets dipping in and out while avoiding the electrified glow of
islands; they left behind the Americas.

It would be difficult to add something else
in this journey that crossed the heavenly bliss that one can get in
his life.

And we can switch, jumping of course through
time, to the point at which the coastline of Africa was no longer
far away. It lay hidden like black obsidian amidst the excitement
of the ocean.

The recently discovered continent had been
the subject of colonization within the Western countries.

Dozens of reference points, supply bases,
and factories had come to launch a trade that brought as much gold
as it did disgrace.

Ivory, wood, chili, gold dust, and hundreds
of slaves headed west and north, while alcohol, plush, and cheap
trinkets came from there, enriching the ship owners and traders on
both sides of the mainland.

The final result, which we know: the untold
suffering that generations and generations of natives would
feel.

But for now, this bloody alchemy was just
starting and sailing in the south the submarine simply passed by
it.

The land was lined like the human
days—weathered sandbars were fashioned from the evergreen forests.
They glowed, edged with gold velvet. The mighty rivers: the Upper
Volta, Congo, and Niger parted the flesh of the continent, flowing
like wisps of oblivion among the furrows of the Earth.

Since the strips with vegetation extended
along the many thousands of meridians, this world was indeed shown
to be the ornament of the soul and the universe.

So a few points started from the Moroccan
coast and ended in Angola as rain flowed in Cape Agulhas for a few
movements of the Earth’s expanse.

From here the several depths: Atlantic,
Indian, and why not, even the Pacific, were concluding as divine
hands had caressed the Earth’s surface with the grace of His love
to proclaim with eulogy from the seabirds, His angels.

Passing this area and the merging galaxies,
the Leviathan left Madagascar and the Seychelles like hills sunk
into water troughs.

Maybe the reader is tired all this distance
in the ocean and its uniformity. Maybe. But no human eye is used to
the pieces of indefiniteness, especially the kind we are finding
and losing among ourselves, so that every word about them is worth
it.

And of course, land lines are a favorite
work in the end.

Then, as now, we can say with ease that
Arabia was before them.

***

The hills of Arabia Felix looked like they
were covered with sapphire ornaments.

Barely visible green line overlapped the
yellow-gold sands, folding along the natural lines of the
relief.

Several flocks, whitish like pearls, crawled
between single trees, jingling with their brass bells.

Among them, dug like a cyclopean dolmen
among the hills were human homes; they had been occupied as a
testament from the first spread of mankind.

This region, although warm and stifled,
wasn’t very big. From here spread the great land sea or the Arabian
Desert.

Former trade in incense, myrtle, spices, and
perfumes was making the might of the former kingdom of Sheba, now
half covered from the sands of oblivion, flourish in this part of
the peninsula, weaving all sorts of legends.

This land wasn’t poor. On the contrary,
traders were coming to take Arabian horses for bags of gold and
coffee, textiles and perfumes.

But it had become overgrown due to the
stopping European ships, which was quickly drowning the resources
of the scrublands. Such places could not nurture the native tribes
as much as human greed would like.

So there were societies both open to the
world and conservative in which there were ancient laws of the
wilderness that had come about as a result of raids by sea and
land.

That’s why there weren’t impressive
defensive towers here. Instead, minarets towered over a
neighborhood; they were tapered like the trunks of oaks and richly
ornamented with bas-reliefs. Some were neglected, some were freshly
whitened. It was the duty of the soldiers and the system of
bonfires to provide a rear proclamation of the numerous hazards in
the southerly regions.

Precisely because the small villages set on
the edge of absurdity were managing to survive and bear fruit, the
wheel of time thrived.

Many invaders pressing from the Horn of
Africa and beyond to the Strait of Hormuz had left their bones here
in an attempt to grab what illusory or very real wealth they could
get.

Thus it could be said that each ship
stopping along the way from India gets noticed.

Anyone?

Well, almost everyone.

And behold, one morning, with an almost
seraph outfit as we have described, the submarine Leviathan opened
the tender skin of tepid water.

Once part of the crew had gone down among
the cliffs, the vessel again submerged itself.

And after dressing in such way to at least
look like traders of Balsor and Basra, which, although rare, could
still be passing through to buy perfumes, they infiltrated in the
land.

The men wandered into the cafés, which like
everything here were surviving with a tenacity that explains the
presence of the desert.

Just as in a café, perhaps a fancy word for
spit flies, smelling rather of toasted rye and chicory, there were
ants clumping on the browned sugar in a duffle bag. A judge who
should keep candied fruit was indeed holding the first reports they
had gathered.

It could be said firsthand that much was
worrying the locals.

A strange person somewhere in the far north
shifted them into advantageous trade intermediaries.

Furthermore, another bullied the locals
because lately safe pilgrimage to Mecca was being hampered by some
who reasoned that locals could easily be allayed if they were hung
at the first tree.

It seemed that small groups, cult followers,
were coming into the void, blaspheming abominable things so very,
very close to the holy places.

Therefore it was both easy and difficult for
men to get to reliable information. Some suspected they were part
of these cults, because as indeed we had forgotten to say, they
were coming from all sorts of places—from Ethiopia all the way
through the Hirkanius distant countries.

“Are you one of those troublemakers?” asked
the locals who did not mince matters. “Because if you are, we swear
in the beard of the prophet that we’ll kill you with stones right
now.”

In turn, Victor Drake and others, added a
gold piece and in supplement to their addition, they added that
they were looking for their master’s son—a misguided youth who was
tricked by the words of a dervish. Before they had known it, he had
assumed the roads of south Arabia and since then no one had heard
anything of him.

This somewhat reassured the otherwise
suspicious elders. Several promises to do extensive commercial
endeavors with them melted the final cool and here is what the men
were able to add to their information: the cult followers really
spoke abominations, but did not stop at that. They supplemented it
by further proclaiming they were not taking such actions for
saints, but for egregious new prophets; they talked about false
gods.

These words relayed from numerous calls were
enough to clarify everything—aliens and their project, Apollyon,
were here.

After inquiring about, the men took the
receptacle on, as if wishing to answer the eternal human question
about the desert.