The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (22 page)

Whether scroll, bound codex, or orb recording
, most of the literature
had to do with the study of living creation codes under the mystical guidance of the Watchers,
while
others
dealt with
the
complex differential calculating engines required for that research. Perusing them, U’Sumi found the texts
and images
framed in an odd mixture of
Leviathan
cultism, alchemy, and experimental information code applications for high-level Temple initiates.

It
surprised
him
how much cryptography theory—something Lumekki had taught him for military purposes—applied to the study of creation codes and to the operation of the massive calculating engines. U’Sumi could only follow the details superficially, but it was enough
for him
to
discern something of the
big picture. Apparently, visiting priests normally used his suite and its reading
or viewing
selection.

A’Nu-Ahki’s son once might have indignantly burned such books
;
a practice he
now
realized his father had never advocated and which U’Sumi had only seen done by Seer Clan radicals like Belkrini. Instead
,
U’Sumi thought like a soldier—Lumekki had taught him to know his enemy. The library provided an opportunity to do this in a detail never before available.

While there was nothing directly about the Elyo, there were many volumes written by a priest named Epymetu on anatomy, living cells, and the creation codes. It was self-evident that
the Consortium designed
the
creature
Typhunu to mesh with his machine. Psydonu had also hinted
that
the
Elyo was
“engineered from the broadest combination of creation codes that Mother Earth brought forth in the beginning.”

U’Sumi had learned at Nestrigati’s Academy that living things
consisted
of “simple cells”
—
little more than energy-animated gelatinous sacks with a few rudimentary organelles. Here he discovered there was no such thing as a “simple cell.” While Nestrigati’s texts had mentioned creation codes, there had been no exploration of their
broader philosophic, theological, and
ethical
implications. Epymetu wrote in considerable detail—more than U’Sumi could have imagined
—yet he not only avoided the implications
,
but also
absurdly
claimed that coded order and engineering somehow proved that life arose spontaneously
to create itself
!

It occurred to
U’Sumi for the first time
that
Lumekkor’s Guild supplied
the natural philosophy texts used at his academy for “general education purposes” on a subject where nobody in the Orthodox City-States had any direct
engineering
experience. Since Aztlan’s priesthood had broken away from the Temple of Ayar Adi’In
—
which
Lumekkor
sponsored
—while
U’Sumi
had
attended
that academy, it stood to reason that Lumekkor’s Temple—and its secular technocratic Guild—also knew what Epymetu did. The implications of this were staggering.

U’Sumi had just uncovered the truth that the concept of a “simple living cell” was a carefully cultivated academic myth
designed to shut out of the education process all but the most ideologically-controlled priests. This gave an illusion of education to those outside the Temple (and the Guild) by discouraging any real exploration of the natural design implications raised by the self-evident mechanical details of the creation
codes
. He
now sought
to dig deeper into the texts to find the motive.

In one codex,
Epymetu
wrote that within the command center of every living cell were long spiral scroll racks that held slots containing divine writing made up of the four prime Elementals,
fire
,
air
,
earth,
and
water
. The Elementals were nothing in themselves—not actual particles of earth or fire, for example—they represented chemical letters in sequences of coded information.
The term
creation code
was no
mere
hyperbole for a naturally self-ordering alchemy reaction that the Elementals did by nature of their own
al
chemic properties. Rather, the information itself was real.

Each of the millions of slots on the spiral scroll racks in each cell held
differing
combinations of the basic Elemental symbols. The slots together represented sequences of instruction that were read by tiny devices in each cell, which told other parts of the cell—tiny engines of unimaginable complexity for energy conversion, replication, waste disposal, and dozens of other vital functions—how to replicate and arrange into different tissues, organs, or even creatures.
The cell’s ability to function depended on every
system
; information required existing machinery to pass it
self
on and the machinery required the information in order to replicate itself.

Other books in the scroll library described the alchemy of the Elemental letters, but U’Sumi found these beyond his abilities. He wondered how the priests could see such fabulous engineering, with coded information
operating
living systems, without recognizing
how a singular mind of immense power and subtlety must
have designed
it all
.

The texts surprised him on one another thing, which they were
quite clear on: The “g
ods”—whether called “Powers” or “Watchers”—
had not authored the creation codes
. The
texts
described
the gods merely a
s a more advanced order of manipulators than the priests and priestesses, who imitated them.
The gods were essentially
no better than amplified men with magnified passions and vices
.
They did not
create;
they utilized
—
just
as his father had
said
during his conversation with Psydonu
.

U’Sumi sadly
considered
the good this knowledge could accomplish, if only it were in the hands of those who respected the Designer of the codes. Yet even the faithful would not be above such temptation. The Watchers had
no
t been. They had fallen from a
far
greater height
than man had
.

Each day of reading
and viewing
ended in a deeper, more frightening conviction that the Temples of Lumekkor and now Aztlan, in playing with human and animal creation codes without E’Yahavah
’s
ethical limits, had unleashed uncontrollably devastating consequences into the very balance of life on Earth. His father’s vision up on Mount N’Zar had predicted as much.

U’Sumi peered up at the two-headed lizard and shuddered.

A

bout three weeks after they had separated U’Sumi from his father, a squad of
Cyclops
guards summoned him for Psydonu’s confirmation ceremony. They gave him purple robes and told him that he would stand up on the dais with his father, the High Priestess, and
“
the Mighty One.
”

He dressed quickly,
after which they
led
him
to the
lift
shaft.

Once topside, the doors slid open to a dull mayhem. The circular auditorium surged with Psydonu’s devoted throngs, which parted like water before the prow of a ship to let the giants and U’Sumi pass down to the center. A’Nu-Ahki waited at the fountain pavement before the choir.
Someone had removed
Psydonu’s throne and dais,
leaving
an empty pool-like depression in its place.

The murmuring crowd went instantly silent when the singers chanted an amplified song. “Behold! Behold! Behold! The throne of
judgment
rises from
Underworld
to Earth and then the heavenlies!”

A grating of granite on granite drew U’Sumi’s eyes to the empty pool beneath where the dais had been. The depression’s bottom slid aside to reveal a hole, from which fire jets shot up
about halfway to the ceiling arc. Amid the flaming roar, the closed pod of Psydonu’s lift rose through the floor. Its gold petals slowly opened to reveal the rotating platform and throne only after the fire jets died when it reached the surface. Psydonu unveiled himself with arms in the air
and
a glassy-eyed smile
, drinking in the adulation of his multitudes like the very wine of heaven.

The sycophant minstrels sang,
“It is not the throne that rotates, but the world that revolves around the throne!”

“Yes, yes
;
and all that!” Psydonu’s voice echoed from a quickfire
sound-enhancer hidden somewhere in the workings of his chair. He released the gears, bringing his vehicle to a halt, again right in front of A’Nu-Ahki.

The crowds went wild. Shrieking women tore off their upper clothes and tossed them at the Titan, tears running down their faces
.
Roaring men cut their palms with ceremonial daggers to swear blood oaths of allegiance. Row upon row of the mob jumped and chanted Psydonu’s name in rhythmic shouts so loud that U’Sumi could actually feel the words beat upon his skin.

“Thank you, my devoted ones
,
thank you! But save it all for the festival afterward
; b
usiness first, celebration after!”

The choir chanted,
“Business first
, c
elebration after!” The court scribes recorded the phrase on scrolls of milled papyrus, to add later to Psydonu’s expanding collection of mystical proverbs.

After much effort, the worshipers settled into a dull roar over which the Giant must have felt he could finally compete. He rose from his throne, arms and hands swirling in an overdone
,
almost ritualistic body language to address his audience. “First, I wish to announce that the war goes well. The infidels of Lumekkor continue to fall back through the Balimar region. Our naval campaign for the
Yawam Tsafuni
, while undergoing an enemy counter-offensive that started last week, is still much in our favor. I predict we will soon re-establish our blockade of Ayur L’Mekku by sea, and gut the soft underbelly of T’Vul-qayin by land! Bad’Tavira shall fall!”

U’Sumi figured the Giant’s lapse into his Far West dialect referred to Tubaal-qayin Dumuzi, and to Lumekkor’s foundry city of
Bab’Tubila
.

The crowds again broke into frenzy. The Titan and his chorus had to spend another ten minutes bringing them back down to earth.

U’Sumi looked to his father with concern. The good news was that the armies were staying in Balimar and seemed focused north
ward
. The bad news was that from Balimar they could pour south into Seti at their leisure.

Psydonu continued, “At this time, I would like to ask the principals of this confirmation ceremony to join me up here on the dais as I introduce them by name. The first needs no introduction, since she is High Priestess of the North; Mistress of the Divine Mysteries of Creation, Pandura, the widow and protégé of our great sorcerer-priest Epymetu
…
”

A fabulous woman of milk skin with golden red-streaked hair slinked from behind the minstrels, past U’Sumi, on up to the dais.
Her
treacherous curves
seemed
ready to split
open a
two-pieced magenta uniform
that looked
as though
someone
had
painted
it
over her body in liquid form.