The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (23 page)

She gazed right through U’Sumi when she passed him and smiled. Green preying mantis eyes, void in their insect-queen coldness of even the passion her lips suggested, withered his composure. Despite the soft face and toned muscles of youth, Pandura’s authoritative bearing revealed the age and subtlety of a woman in her upper two hundreds.

“Next is the righteous Seer of Akh’Uzan, Valley of Seers; A’Nu-Ahki, Son of Q’Enukki, who rode up into the heavens upon a fiery chariot!”

U’Sumi’s father slowly joined Psydonu and Pandura on the circle.

“Lastly, I give you he who, on this day, shall be my very own baby brother, a young seer in training himself; U’Sunu, son of A’Nu-Ahki!”

“C
ouldn’t even get the name right,
” U’Sumi muttered, as he went up onto the throne. The dais circle could barely fit the four of them. He found himself pressed behind Pandura in a most disturbing way—especially when she leaned back into him ever so slightly. Her hair smelled of cloying lilac
s
.

“This is a day of destiny for the entire world,” Psydonu continued. “By the Holy Powers, I have shown myself able to slay the Dragon and crush its head, even as I shall also do here at the arena after this confirmation is complete. It was this very seer, A’Nu-Ahki, who by power normally beyond mere mortal strength, discovered how to subdue
G
ryndel. By following his
way, I shall go beyond him to the glory predicted for me at the dawn of time!

“Those who wait for me at the arena, because there was not enough room here, shall not be disappointed. But I get ahead of myself. I turn the proceedings now over to my mentor, A’Nu-Ahki the Gryndel
Slayer, Son of Q’Enukki the Great Seer from the mystical valley of Akh’Uzan.”

U’Sumi rolled his eyes.
Yes people
;
its
mystical waters from the valley’s mystical streams that
’s
mak
ing
the world
so
mystically stupid
…

Again, the throng erupted into applause. The face of a stranger, however, could not evoke the insanity Psydonu merited. A’Nu-Ahki did not have to signal to calm the uproar.

U’Sumi waited while his father hooked on the collar piece of the sound-enhancer.
Will he serve this mad man to save my life?

“The prophecies are explicit,” A’Nu-Ahki said. “The Promised Seed is the ultimate monster-killer
, who must be born uniquely of D
ivine order. He must also be a son of Set
i the Appointed, of the Chosen L
ine through Q’Enukki. This raises the question of,
what is the ultimate monster?
The tablets point to a being we call the Basilisk, whose constellation marks out these events in the skies. This
M
onster drew us into rebellion with him by deceit at the Beginning.
In some presently unknown sense, t
he Basilisk
shall
bruise the
Seed’s heal
, while the
Seed shall crush the Basilisk’s head.

“But what does that all mean? Is it about an arena sport? However often
you ritualistically mimic
this conflict on
some
dumb arena beast, it means that the Basilisk, who is a spirit of evil, will deeply wound the
Promised Seed
in a fight for mastery over humanity and the cosmos
that the Creator originally charged
humanity to govern. In the end, the Monster-slayer will destroy the Dragon’s headship—his authority over Man and Nature, with his ability to manipulate the cosmos and wreak havoc in it.”

U’Sumi watched the many blank stares in the audience. They lacked even the attention span to follow his father’s abbreviated explanation of the historical meaning of what they had supposedly gathered there to see.

A’Nu-Ahki must have noticed their lack of comprehension too. He tried to speak even more simply. “Since our First Father’s disobedience
caused
the Great Curse, which brought death to all
living
things, it will be by obedience that the
Seed shall conquer death. Though
E’Yahavah made
the First Man innocent,
our father
chose freely to embrace first-hand knowledge of evil
by partaking in it, rather than trusting the Creator’s warning
against it
.

“This decision affected his view of reality—he knew he was naked and became afraid. Afterward the Creator cursed all of creation. Everything was changed—down to the very particles of our First Father’s body
,
which included his very creation codes. Our natural bend toward evil effectively became an inherited trait—not from creation codes—but because our bodies are made of cursed material in a cursed cosmos, including those codes. By law, curses pass from father to son—or so it was in the Beginning. Thus, the Promised Seed must be specially conceived—the Seed of a Woman.”

A’Nu-Ahki turned to Psydonu and gazed deep into his eyes. “Can you
, titan,
substantiate your mother’s lineage
; w
as your conception divinely executed in a non-corrupt
way
? Is your personal conduct without fault? Or are you as other titans, born by monstrous perversions, full of lies and violence, a seed of the very fallen Watchers
who
se
master the true Seed must crush? I charge you in the name of the Creator, E’Yahavah
A’Nu
—who has empowered me to see through any lie—answer me now!”

P

sydonu had gotten more than he had bargained for.

It would have been an easy enough thing to stop it—should have been an easy thing. He had barely dreamed that A’Nu-Ahki would risk the life of his son on some minor esoteric detail of prophetic interpretation,
al
though he had prepared for th
at
possibility.

Nevertheless, it had taken the Titan two bottles of opiated tonic even
to
get out of bed that morning. Now the Terrible One nobody else could see stood right behind A’Nu-Ahki and the lad—on one of the opened metal enclosure bud “petals” around the very throne pedestal itself! He stroked that battle-axe of his and smiled
,
taunting Psydonu to try
to
stop it.

A’Nu-Ahki pounded question after question at him, laying down patterns of logic that broke through every answer Psydonu could make. Everybody heard him change the details of his birth and relationship with his mother a dozen times before the interrogation finally wound to a close.

“Why isn’t your mother, the infamous Klyeto of Psydonis, here to testify?” A’Nu-Ahki demanded, after he had badgered him into three contradictory accounts of his early childhood.

“She’s visiting relatives by Dragonwood.”

The audience’s distressed murmur matched the increasing rumble of the Titan’s own gastric juices.

“I’ve heard enough. I will confer with my son
and seek El-N’Lil’s breath
to speak his word
.”

Psydonu held his finger over the flashing red button on his chair arm console, poised to activate his fail-safe.

A’Nu-Ahki and U’Sumi seemed to mumble amongst themselves forever—
what is the big problem? Either declare me the
Monster-Killer
, or don’t! It won’t matter either way!

Then
Psydonu peered up at the Terrible One again and realized that it would matter very much. The fail-safe was far from foolproof and the official explanation that would go out in its wake woul
d raise more questions than it c
ould answer.
W
hat if A’Nu-Ahki
behaves
this way because he sees the Terrible One too
; w
hat if he
somehow
controls the Terrible One?

A’Nu-Ahki turned from his son and faced Psydonu. “
El-N’Lil has spoken to us both
,” he said. “By wisdom from the Divine Name, I find the claim of Psydonu the Titan to be false. He is not the Seed of Promise
!
”

One of the
C
yclops guards
snarled,
drew his sword
,
and
leaped for the dais ramp to get at A’Nu-Ahki.

Psydonu’s reflexes were faster. He punched the flashing button on his console. The golden petal ramps snapped shut into their protective bud. The Terrible One somehow vanished, while the
C
yclops flipped helplessly over the dais in the ramp’s recoil. Psydonu heard him land in a fountain on the other side with a cursing splash. Multiple slamming sounds penetrated the bud—what Psydonu knew to be steel barricades dropping down to block the exits of the tower auditorium.

The giant flower that had swallowed Psydonu, A’Nu-Ahki, U’Sumi, and Pandura sank rapidly into the floor amid the noise of fiery jets.

“W

elcome to Underworld!”
P
sydonu said, once the throne had stopped its descent
.
One of the ramp petals opened
with an echoing
clang
.

“You expect us to believe that this is Underworld?” A’Nu-Ahki laughed—before he saw what was outside the opening behind him. “We may not have your technology, but we’re not stupid!”

They stepped into the dim red-lit cavern and paused. U’Sumi—who had seen a sliver of the outside—was now sure that his father was wrong.

“Oh, I know,” Psydonu admitted with a friendly chuckle, “but it’s the next best thing. And when all’s said and done, it might as well be
Underworld
.”

They stood in a subterranean vault filled with every form of torture instrument imaginable. The tormented eyes of over a hundred chained men and women gazed, pleading toward the Giant, though few dared cry for any relief. Some actually inflicted pain on themselves with various instruments, yelling out sins
for which
they were presumably guilty.

The nearest self-mutilators crawled across a device labeled “The Swords of Chastisement”—a bridge of widely-spaced blades set, sharp side up, over a pit of hot coals. The eyes of those doomed to this
,
glazed from deep shock,
were bloodshot marbles;
except one poor fat man who had collapsed until the blades embedded in
to
his flab. He hoarsely shrieked
falsetto ravings
as he slowly roasted alive.

Psydonu spoke
as
a proud child presenting gift
s
to a parent he wanted to impress. “These are my own personal damned. Each is guilty of specific sins for which I have devised specific punishments. They’re physical representatives of many counterparts in the duality of Underworld. That woman over there is an extraordinarily shameless adulteress—I ought to know
…
”
He chuckled, as he blew her a kiss
from his hand
.