The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (52 page)

“What happens to the world
impacts
every
one
—cause-and-effect. World-end
is really coming
;
even your Queen admits it
. N
o matter whose theology is right or wrong
, i
t’s going to pulverize this city and this pyramid into grains of sand. We could forsake Q’Enukki for Samyaza and it would change nothing—Assur’Ayur would still be dissolved; only we’d be dissolved along with it. The same would not be true of the reverse. Your argument would be compassionate only
if these were all just games we’ve made up in our heads to try
to
control people with. But what if they’re not?

“Samyaza himself has had independent proof from this Metatron, whatever he is. If control over you is what we really wanted, don’t you think a different game would have been much more effective for us—something a little less drastic—a little more pleasing and manipulative? Rather than being cruel and unfair, I think my father is only trying to deal with the information given
him
in the best way he knows how.

“We’ve all just heard Queen Isha’Tahar admit that
W
orld-end is coming—why doesn’t anybody listen to her? She could hardly be in league with us if Samyaza uses her as his mouthpiece. If
E’Yahavah
truly speaks through Samyaza and has said
W
orld-end
is a hoax, then we should be able to settle this, since both my father and the Watcher are
here now
.”

The two sisters looked to each other with frightened eyes.

The Giants strangely remained quiet bronze statues.

Isha’Tahar stared off into space
like
some human scorpion trapped inside a giant glass cube.

U’Sumi had expected his father to take control of things again, but found to his terror that the Old Man was as silent as the others
were
. The life-affirming fire in his eyes had died.

“Father?”

A’Nu-Ahki gazed at his feet and made no response.

The oppression squeezed like a noose around U’Sumi’s throat again. “Father, who are these women?”

A’Nu-Ahki looked up wearily and said, “U’Sumi, meet your older sisters
,
Uranna and Tylurnis. Ladies, my remaining firstborn son.”

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

To Michael likewise the Lord said, ‘Go and announce to Samyaza, and to the others who are with him, who have been associated with women, that they might be polluted with all their impurity. And when all their sons shall be slain, when they shall see the perdition of their beloved, bind them for seventy generations underneath the earth, even to the day of judgment, and of consummation, until the judgment, which will last forever, be completed.
’

—
1 Enoch
10:15 (Ethiopic Manuscript)

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

Invasion

T

he command astra held a capacity of thirty-three officers and crew, not counting the two pilots that controlled the vehicle from a crystal bubble in the front section of the giant fuselage. A’Nu-Ahki’s party occupied the lounge with Isha’Tahar, Uranna, and Tylurnis. Even Taanyx
joined them
aboard—Samyaza was feeling unusually magnanimous—though the sphinx seemed to find it a dubious honor at best. In the adjoining aftward compartment worked the sky-lords with other priestly and military functionaries involved in the tactical execution of the coming assault.

The titan brothers, Ivvayi and Ayyaho, had mounted their smaller battle astras to lead the air fleet on its northward charge into Aeden. The slower
Vimana II
class command ship followed, ready to coordinate the attack from a distance via quickfire oracles with other arcane ranging and targeting devices that not even T’Qinna pretended to understand.

One thing was apparent to U’Sumi: Samyaza’s military technology had not lagged so far behind the West’s as they had all supposed. The Watcher had simply been more ruthless in keeping the layers of ignorance intact between his upper and lower social castes, thereby aiding the illusion of backwardness to outsiders by ensuring that dangerous knowledge remained in the hands of a precious trusted few.

Yafutu sat huddled by A’Nu-Ahki. Flight had clearly lost its wonder for the boy, whose eyes fought a pitched battle against tears of terror.

For U’Sumi
,
the idea of aerial warfare
—
where speed and distance ensured that one could never really face the enemy eye to eye
—
drained battle of its few remaining illusions of glory. Of course, the machines were fascinating, giving a sense of self-deification to those that drove them
;
but in the end, they still made war an impersonal affair.

It was hard to
muster battle fury against
an enemy whose eyes one could not see. U’Sumi could not get over the impression that, were such enemies to meet on the ground, they would forget their antagonism to share a bowl of wine while basking in their mutual fondness for flight and in the worship of endless streams of nameless women. He thought of the young officer who had captured him after his battle inside the Elyo.

It only cranked up the terror when he considered who
m
the Samyazas would
now
fight. In what
form would they find the armo
ries of heaven? Would the Guardians of Aeden even make use of such things? U’Sumi knew only what his
dark and cryptic
family traditions told.

“It is still not too late to halt this madness!” A’Nu-Ahki said, not for the first time since they had launched from Assur’Ayur. “I have stood at Aeden’s gates! I tell you
,
E’Yahavah
holds the Hidden Orchard
!
A
ttack there
and
you rouse the ban of eternity!”

His father had never spoken to
U’Sumi
of Aeden in detail
or
with such fear.
What had he seen there?

The Man-thing croaked through Isha’Tahar’s tight lips,
“We can prevail! Beat
the Basilisk
and we defeat the need for your
W
orld-end!”

U’Sumi
folded his hands to stop them from trembling
—how would it go inside the command chariot of an assault against the very Orchard of
E’Yahavah
? Would
the Kherubar and Fire-Sphinx consider
their status as unwilling participants? Something deep inside him
,
like cool water
,
rushed in to displace the
dark—
fluid horror that had soaked through everything since they had entered Assuri’s hegemony—a peace deeper than the terrifying depths
of
Shadow-mind,
Leviathan,
or Samyaza.

He
risked revealing his shakes to
reach out and t
a
k
e
T’Qinna’s hand. Her bunched muscles relaxed instantly. It even seemed to
rub off on Taanyx, who for all her former agitation, now stretched out into a catnap.

U’Sumi gazed over at Isha’Tahar. The old queen sat frozen again with her scorpion-in-glass eyes, which did not bode well if the unsure faces of his half-sisters meant anything.

Uranna and Tylurnis whispered intermittently amongst themselves, careful not to let either their father or motherin-law hear them. U’Sumi, because of his own personal crucible, could imagine the pressures they must have experienced to
sell
out on their father so completely. Yet he also knew their confusion and darkness to be at least partially self-imposed.

He could pity the
m
being forced to submit their bodies to the sons of Samyaza
,
and even understand the weakness of their emotions. But with the Seer now before them and the choice becoming theirs again? U’Sumi hoped they were simply biding their time as a show for the demoniac dowager until they might get alone with A’Nu-Ahki—though somehow he doubted it.

Several hours ago
,
he had overheard the final
in-flight
command briefing, via oracle, in the
aft
compartment. Samyaza’s assault on Aeden would come in three prongs
:
one led by Ayyaho up the Ufratsi Canyon, one by Ivvayi flying low through the upper Hiddekhel gorge, and a third force, followed by the command ship, up the Gihunu ravine. Each would pull up at the
craggy wall of the
Kharir Aedenu,
lobbing their missiles over the mountains into the Holy Orchard without actually crossing into its air space.

A
fterward
,
reconnaissance wings
would go
in to assess the damage.
Only then would
s
kyl
ord
hover-ships
drop in
a ground force to occupy the land.
Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.
K
iss it
all
goodbye, boys!

Isha’Tahar, possessed by her devil-husband, had also spoken of another aspect of the battle in “the Watcher’s theater.” U’Sumi could not fathom what that might be, unless it meant that Samyaza’s Watchers would also be active in the invasion.

Something screamed inside his head—that cicada noise—as if a large swarm had shot past him somehow on the other side of the
astra
. U’Sumi peered out the window
s
on the
opposite
side of the cabin and saw the Gihunu River snake below through the dark green Haunted Lands.
Funny,
he thought
,
as the western mountains drifted by,
this is the
near
est I’ve been to home in two years and I’m farther away now than ever.

He soothed himself with thoughts of the old fortress as he turned back to his own window. That was when the rushing cicadas returned, this time on his side. Only now
,
he could see them.

A row of glowing objects fell rapidly
outside
from above and took station just off the wing in front of his window. They zipped in so fast that U’Sumi jumped in his seat.
Their noise is in my head!

No
t
astras, the phantom lights were large disks and balls that wove back and forth, near, then farther away from the command ship. They moved unnaturally, changing direction
s
,
often even at right angles, then zipping back again.
Their sudden motion
s
and speed shifts would splatter any l
iving thing inside them
against the hull,
or
else
any
safety
harness
would
cut
passengers
to ribbons. It took U’Sumi
several
seconds to realize that
,
al
though their mind-noise was inside his head, they themselves were
no
t.

After
a few
more seconds of darting about the sky, the locust ghost-lanterns shot off ahead
of the command ship
and disappeared.

“Did you see that?”

T’Qinna said,
“See what?”
She
had bent over to scratch Taanyx behind the ears.

His father and Yafutu both shrugged, while his half sisters said nothing. Isha’Tahar remained a frozen scorpion hag.

“Never mind. Maybe it was just a trick of the sunlight.”

Less than an hour later, the alluvial plain below U’Sumi’s window narrowed into a gorge. The attack astras descended into it, presumably to avoid detection. The
Vimana II
stayed above, and circled over a grassy plateau south of the long lake where the four rivers of the
northern
world divided.

T
he outcome of Samyaza’s folly
began to unfold
.

T

he mist of the roaring Cataracts of Palqui rose on either side of the Isle of the Dead, capturing the sunlight in a
bracketed
set of
multicolored arcing
vapor prisms that surrounded the First Altar like a model of A’Nu’s throne in the Tenth Heaven.
The
brassy
skies above and dark waters below spoke
a
mixed blessing
to the priests,
as
did
the blood
stained stone that
connect
ed
them
all
;
but not all
of them
appreciated it
.

Dedurusi, Paru’Ainu’s Chief Priest
,
stood
on the pinnacle of the Isle of the Dead
by
the platform steps
,
just below the First Altar. He read again with amazement the official scroll
just
delivered to hi
s assistant
by the Archon’s courier.
I
t
answer
ed
his
prayer
s
,
but
at
a steep price.

His master, the cantankerous Muhet’Usalaq of Akh’Uzan, had just relinquished authority over the Isle—
but
only the Isle—back to the Archonate and priesthood
,
on the solemn condition that the remains of his brother Urugim not be removed from Atum-Ra’s old burial chamber.

Such cheek!

Dedurusi had supported Q’Enukki’s sons back in the early years
when
they had kept
so
many Orthodox causes alive. But
no schooled acolyte could accept
the nonsense coming
from
them since they had returned to
Akh’Uzan! He wondered how much of it
really
ha
d
Muhet’Usalaq’s
sanction
,
and murmured, “
The Old Man’s
probably
lost control of things.
”

Dedurusi
tapped
the scroll
.
“Despite his condition, this is still as it should be
.
Old
Iyared never should have divided the heritage like that. What was he thinking? It has led to nothing but strife and factions in the upper family
,
and especially in the
acolytes’
order
,
ever since. The state of Akh’Uzan is proof! Without the steady guidance of archonic authority, they have descended into endless schism.”