Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  Priestess Laka’thi’s mouth twitched upward on one side, bringing her laugh lines into prominence. The grey-haired woman seemed amused at the tongue-twisting alliteration. Ia smiled back slightly before returning her attention to the general.

  “My emancipation and name change made it appear legally that I was estranged from my family, and would therefore not profit personally from the lottery win. And for the record, I have not profited from that exchange. The monies have long since been channeled into a nonprofit trust fund for the defense and safety of my former fellow colonists to cover a need I had long ago foreseen, and my own expenses come either out of my own pay or are paid for by the Terran Space Force, as authorized by my superiors on the Command Staff. We are at war now, as you know,” she added dryly, “and wars are expensive.”

  The other corner of the Archivist’s mouth quirked up. She said nothing, though, choosing to accept her cup of caf’ with a polite nod to the junior officer distributing them around the table. Ia accepted hers with a polite nod as well. She silently refused the addition of cream and sugar from the tray he carried; in her opinion, caf’ didn’t need any. Both the priestess and the adjutant added a spoonful of grated meklah to their drinks, chocolate sweetened with brown sugar. The High Priest and the Grand General accepted glasses of water.

  Ibeni-Zif eyed her. “Would you be willing to expand a little bit more on what uses that money has been put to? It is our government which oversees the authenticity of each drawing made and ticket purchased, after all.”

  “They’ve been busy using that money to build secure housing and fortifications—the Salik themselves cannot live in Sanctuary’s high gravity,” Ia added in an aside, “but until we can shut down their combat robots, there is still the risk those ’bots could be used to harvest my fellow heavyworlders. They are too important to the future to allow that to pass.” Lifting her blue-glazed cup from its matching saucer, Ia switched to V’Dan. “Tokla vuu hess t’Kah’hn V’Dania, na’V’Dan atrei’atess, ou vaa havet’th makau-na ma’achess.”

  They started to lift their cups, then hesitated. Not because her accent was terrible—this was one of the few languages Ia could actually pronounce, having studied it for several years in her youth as part of her world’s jointly founded education courses—but because of what she had said. She knew she had gotten it right; Ia had looked up and memorized this particular phrase even when the rest of her V’Dan had grown rusty with disuse over the years.

  The general lowered his water glass, not yet drinking from it. “Tell me, Captain. Do you even know what that means? Or are you just parroting something a protocol officer instructed you to say?”

  “I said, ‘Raise your cups to the Emperor, from the People of the World, so that all may live well in health and peace.’” Lifting her cup again, Ia sipped. So did the others. Lowering her cup, she added, “Not word for word in Terran, of course, but it translates close enough on the surface. The exact subtexted meaning of the dialect and grammar I used comes from the Valley of Artisans, which was founded in the seventh millennium V’Dan Standard by the Immortal, who had come back—”

  Ia paused briefly as Priestess Laka’thi choked on her caf’, waiting as the woman grabbed for a napkin, coughed into it, and caught her breath.

  “—Who had come back from her exile in order to visit her chosen people and check on their progress.” She slid her gaze to the High Priest of the Autumn Temple. From the distastefully pursed state of his mouth, he looked as if he needed some of that meklah dumped in his water. “The actual toast was not conceived of by the Immortal herself, but rather by High Priest Shu-Nai of the Summer Temple during a visit to the enclave in the V’Dan year 6378.

  “While the violence against the Sh’nai faith that marked War King Kah’el’s reign was long over by that point, it was once again a time of religious tension between the Immortal’s believers and the state. The toast is a reminder that sometimes one must bow to the inevitabilities of a given situation, and that to do so with graciousness and humility is the path of the righteous.”

  High Priest Ma’alak pinched his mouth further, looking distinctly sour as Ia finished. Priestess Laka’thi, on the other hand, dissolved into cough-punctuated giggles. The other two males at the table gave her bemused looks as she sat there, shoulders shaking as she pressed the fine scarlet cloth to her lips.

  She shook her head, held up her hand, coughed a couple more times into her napkin, and finally rasped, “…Oh, let go of it, Ma’alak. She is exactly right in using that quote. I suspect she uses it to remind us that we, too, should bow to the inevitabilities in this situation. Should they prove to be true.”

  Ia lifted her cup to the other woman. “An astute assessment, Priestess. And I will be happy to show you the innermost secret your Order has held in their keeping all these years.”

  Laka’thi stopped chuckling. Blue eyes wide, she stared at Ia. “How…?”

  “We’ll get to that later,” Ia assured her. She looked over at the High Priest. “I believe your next question, Holy One, is supposed to be something along the lines of what makes me think I have the right to go around telling alien governments that I am the Prophet when I haven’t even verified my position with the very people who have kept alive the Immortal’s memory of the woman I claim to be. Shall I answer it?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “No,” he stated, his tone clipped. “I would rather you answered the question of why you haven’t delivered your so-called prophecies to us yet, if you are indeed the Prophet.”

  “That would be question number four on your list,” Ia stated, earning her another narrow-eyed stare. “Technically, some of those prophecies have already been distributed. Mainly the time-sensitive ones. They have not gone into your hands, however, because they were sent directly to the people who needed them most at the time. Your doubts are very understandable, but dangerous when time is of the essence. I have always preferred to deliver such things directly to the people my prophecies will impact, so that there is no delivery delay and no alteration of the message needed.”

  Reaching into her jacket pocket, Ia pulled out a quartet of data chips. Checking the letters electrostamped on their surfaces, she slid one toward each of the four V’Dan seated around her.

  “Those chips should work on a standard workstation or reader pad, so long as it has a Terran dataport. Most Terranglo-readable ones do. Each one of those contains a time-sensitive list of predictions, tailored to each of your specific areas of interest…and each one has been code-locked with your most commonly used password—I apologize for borrowing them,” Ia stated quickly as the general drew in a startled breath, “and I give you my word of honor I have zero interest in using them for any other purpose than this.

  “Also, the time-sensitive parts of the list might be slightly off. Having been trained to think in Terran time units, I have done my best to convert those from Terran Standard to V’Dan,” Ia said, “but I apologize if I am off by one or two seconds. The exact times in Terran Standard have been included, in case you want to refine your calculations.

  “Be mindful of the difference between the actual radioactive clock located in Aloha City on Earth, and the hyperrelay time lag that exists between Earth and here if you wish to try for a more exact conversion rate—the times will be pertinent to the local clocks for the activities they discuss,” Ia warned them. “That is, the nearest chronometer to the person who will have to observe or implement these things. So if the clock on a ship is off by two mi-nah, it will still pertain to that ship’s clock and not to the atomic chronometer here on V’Dan.”

  Ibeni-Zif beckoned the young man who had served them their drinks. He whispered in the junior officer’s ear in V’Dan, then dismissed him with a flick of one wrist.

  Ma’alak picked up his chip, examined it briefly, then set it back down. “Answer my third question, Captain. Since you seem to know what I planned to ask.”

  “What makes me think the V’Dan people, government, and Sh’nai faith
should allow me to continue to go around telling people I’m the Prophet of a Thousand Years?” Ia clarified. She lifted her hand, unfolding one finger per point. “Three reasons. Because I actually am. Because I have already predicted and acted upon the future with great accuracy. And because you need me to be.”

  “Need?” Ma’alak snorted. “What need would that be?”

  “The Archivist and the Grand General already know. It’s been in all the V’Dan High Command briefings since the Battle of the Banquet,” Ia stated. “We don’t have the technological advantages the Terrans brought to the First Salik War this time around. This lack has not only the V’Dan military alarmed, but the Terrans, Solaricans, K’katta, the Tlassians…all the members of the Alliance, directly involved or not.”

  “Anyone could guess that much, Captain,” Ibeni-Zif reminded her.

  “True, but I included Priestess Laka’thi, who knows of the promises from the lips of the Immortal herself, which her Order’s archives have kept safe and whole. The Immortal has said, over and over through the millennia, that when the Second War breaks out—which it has—the Prophet of a Thousand Years will step up to provide temporal counsel, direct the destruction of the enemy, and eventually save the galaxy, ushering in the Silver Age of peace among the stars.” Ia paused, then tipped her head and added, “Which will also coincide with the Second Reformation of V’Dan, in about three hundred years.”

  Laka’thi frowned slightly. “The Second Reformation was only a rumor. There was only one account that mentioned it, from the—”

  “—From the time of War King Kah’el, when the Immortal agreed to step down after losing the duel,” Ia agreed, filling in the details for the others. “She did so with the caveat that the War King and his descendants and successors would be legally bound to accept all future duel challenges from rulers of equal rank…and that should the War King’s descendants or successors lose that duel, they and their people were to follow the champion who won that match as their new ruler, who would instigate the Second Great Reformation. If they refused, they would have to hand the V’Dan Empire back into the hands of the Immortal herself.”

  “Yes, but that isn’t the same as an actual Second Reformation,” Highlord Sa-Nieth pointed out. “No one has ever been able to scrape together a large enough following to qualify as a ruler of equal rank.”

  Ia dipped her head at the auburn-haired man, acknowledging his point, though she kept her gaze on the priestess. “True, it wouldn’t be the same…but when asked by one of the palace clerks about her insistence on that clause being included in the deal being brokered to end the civil war, the Immortal said that when the Prophet of a Thousand Years would become known to the people—to V’Dan, that is—the Prophet would name the time of the Second Reformation, and that she knew the clause would eventually be used, even though the Immortal herself had not yet lived through that time. I have now given you that time.”

  “Not with a precise date, though,” Sa-Nieth stated, his tone skeptical. “Unless you meant three hundred years to the second from now.”

  “I only give precise dates when the precision of those dates is important to the moment,” Ia replied, unruffled by his doubt. “Not because I cannot pinpoint the exact time and place but because I have far too many other temporal focal points to keep track of, each with its own moment of importance. This meeting is not that moment of importance, particularly as none of us will be alive three centuries from now—I assure you, those who need to know, those who will be alive at the right time and place, will receive one of my precognitive missives on the matter. You have my Prophetic Stamp on that.”

  CHAPTER 11

  …Of course, the other governments did take a bit of convincing, too.

  ~Ia

  “Well. You certainly know your obscure lore. And you know the Prophet’s catchphrase, too,” Laka’thi mused. “Though that’s more widely known than your mention of the Second Reformation.”

  “Still, all of this could have been discovered in the Archives by you or your accomplices. You could have even bribed an archivist,” High Priest Ma’alak pointed out. “It’s happened before, and it will happen again, so why not this time?”

  “Those are all possibilities, yes. But because of that, I came here knowing that only two things could sway your mind,” Ia agreed. “One way is time. Given enough time for events to unfold, time itself would prove my predictions and actions are undeniably, inevitably true. But that way does nothing to address the urgency of the moment. You want to confront me now, before the rumors can spread too far. If you can prove I’m a fake, then you can squash those rumors with no harm done to your culture. If I’m the real Prophet, you will again want to make sure I don’t bring harm to your culture. That brings us to the Puzzle Box and the ‘secret’ I referred to earlier.”

  “You know the purpose of the box,” Laka’thi stated. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. I’m the one who wrote the note to be passed along to the young Immortal via the Third Human Empire before she begins her trip through Time. That note will tell her how to craft the secret hidden in the box, and what secret to write.” Ia watched them roll their eyes and nodded, flicking her own in sympathy. “A bit self-fulfilling, I know, but it’s the easiest way I’ll have available to convince you of who and what I am.”

  “I am a soldier, not a priest,” Grand General Ibeni-Zif stated, rubbing at his brow. “I am not a religious man, and do not follow the Sh’nai faith, though I will give respect to the rights of those who do. Still, your claim to be the Prophet will affect the three-fifths of the Empire who do follow the old faith, and shake the other religions—if the Prophet of a Thousand Years is real, then the Immortal could equally be real, and we could be facing a religious civil war as some try to seek her out, others try to slay her followers, and the Emperor’s position on the throne destabilizes in the turmoil.”

  “Then tell them that I say the current Emperor is the rightful ruler of V’Dan,” Ia stated bluntly. “I know this session is being recorded, and you have my permission to use my words to combat that threat. Tell your people that His Eternal Majesty will live long and rule well, provided he and his people back the Alliance’s efforts to thwart the ambitions of their mutual enemies. And tell them that I say the other religions of the Empire are equally as valid as the Sh’nai faith, for each has its own place. They need to work together to support the First Empire as a unified whole.”

  “That only works if you are the Prophet, ‘Ia,’” Ma’alak pointed out. “But you are right. Either we must wait for your words to be proved true, or test them here and now. Priestess, the Puzzle Box.”

  From a hidden pocket buried in the layered depths of her butterfly-like sleeves, Priestess Laka’thi pulled out a modest box. It wasn’t much bigger than an old-fashioned book or a small datapad, about as long as an average Human hand, as wide as a palm, and as deep as a finger. Crafted from wax-polished bronze, only the edges of the tightly fitted lid showed hints of green from oxidization.

  “This box has been sought out or offered to over four hundred souls,” the priestess stated, holding the plain, brick-like box between her fingertips. “In all those attempts, it has been successfully opened only seventeen times in the last six thousand years. Each time, it has either been given to those claiming to be Holy Ones to test their psychic abilities, or sought after by someone claiming to be the Prophet. Those rare, few openings have been witnessed and recorded by the Sh’nai Order of the D’aspra Archives down through the ages.

  “But of all seventeen who have successfully opened this box, none of them have revealed the secret that hides inside.” Turning slightly in her seat, Laka’thi offered the box to Ia. “If you are the Prophet of a Thousand Years, you will not only know how to open this box, you will, by the Immortal’s own words, know how to reveal what lies within as well.”

  Accepting the bronze box, Ia turned it over in her hands, examining the finely polished, auburn-hued metal. The exterior was plain and w
ell maintained, with only that faintly oxidized seam showing that the box wasn’t a solid block. There was no hint of a hinge, no opening for a key, and no way to show how it had been locked. But she knew. The trick was doing it gently.

  “Well?” Ma’alak asked impatiently as the seconds ticked by. “Aren’t you going to open it? Or can you even try?”

  “Patience, High Priest,” Ia admonished lightly. “What Priestess Laka’thi has not told you is that in those recordings of the seventeen times, the locking mechanism consists of twenty tightly fitted bronze hooks tension-clipped over twenty rods set in twenty holes, with each hook and rod facing a different direction from the next. Some of those hooks are set in one half of the box, while some are set in the other, with their holes in the opposite half.

  “The lid itself possesses a small but significant shoulder lip to prevent a thin blade from being used to push those hooks free,” she added, studying the timestreams in the back of her mind. “There is no mechanical way to open this box other than a hacksaw or a cutting torch once it has been sealed shut.”

  “You’re stalling,” Ibeni-Zif stated.

  “I am not stalling. I am taking my time so that I do not break it. The metal is old, some of the inner oxidation has crystallized together, and those hooks are still as stiff as the day they were first crafted, which is why I need to be careful,” she added, gifts turning from the timestreams to the box itself. “That, and twenty is a lot of them to keep track of, even for a skilled telekinetic. But…not impossible…and that’s the last hook I needed to bend.”

  She trailed off, concentrating. A careful twist of her mind and a slow, firm pull separated the two halves of the box. The hooks did indeed line the edge, some pointed up, others pointed down, angled this way and that. Those hooks, their holes, and the inner edges of the box had not been waxed in centuries, leaving it a dull shade of green. Nested in that green, slightly crusted with bronze verdigris, sat another object.