The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  But even though the villagers come to embrace the faith that Nanshe started and Sarpani and Zirbani continue to teach, they are skeptical whether the next generations of children will share the same wisdom. They worry about falsehoods, having seen shamans come and go. They demand to see proof that the children who have the dreams, who hear the voice, are truly procreating together and their children are the rightful heirs to their faith.

  After long debates between the daughters of Nanshe, they reached the compromise of having the procreative moments of the twins’ daughters be public. Starting with Sarpani’s oldest daughter, her choice of husband was made public. The demonstration of her ability to comfort him of his dreams was public. His recounting of the dreams was public. And their mating to create Illyana was public.

  Ki, the keeper of Nanshe’s modesty, ensured they were clothed during these public exhibitions, but today is the day for Illyana to choose her mate among the two oldest grandsons of Sarpani, her cousins. The elder villagers have decreed they must see the touching, the bonding, the flesh to flesh, in order for them to believe. Ki thinks they are simply corrupt and lewd. Old men looking to satisfy their vices, only a touch better than the giants, but without the violence. But Zirbani, knowing the primacy of creating peace among the lands, agrees to allow her granddaughter to publicly expose her top to her prospective husbands, with their garments partially obscuring the view.

  And Ki spends time before this ceremony readying her special granddaughter, Illyana, who truly has embraced the wisdom and benevolence of her namesake. As Ki dresses her, she puts around her neck the pendant her aunt Illyana wore when Nanshe met her, the one Ki took back from the giant Doroda. Ki tells Illyana this should be her reminder of both the lore of her great-great-aunt and the dangers of becoming complacent. She will need to lead spiritually with both in mind, for which this pendant will forever be her reminder. The circle and crescent.

  And Zirbani and Sarpani come to bring their heiress out for her choosing ceremony. Zirbani whispers to her grandchild, asking if she is comfortable with what she must do in public. Zirbani assures her that if she is not, there is no shame, as they have lived the respect and modesty as taught by Nanshe. Zirbani will push back on the village elders for what Illyana feels is right. Illyana, showing her strength of will and nobility, says she will proceed, as creating long-lasting peace is why they were so gifted. And she is led by the twins to the ceremony.

  On this hilltop, where the voice said to Nanshe that this was their final destination, the family and some extra-faithful villagers, who assist with daily worships, have made homes. In the center of the small village is the first monument Nanshe and Ki designed. Next to it is the second, larger one that Ki designed more fully, telling their family’s oral traditions as best as can be done in pictures alone.

  Illyana emerges from her home, greeted by her mother, Tallia, and they walk to the first monument, where resides the object. Around the pillars on one side are the twins, their husbands, their children and grandchildren. All of the afflicted in one area. On the other side, the elders of the surrounding villages, or the lewd men, according to Ki, have clustered to witness the ceremony. Outside the perimeter stand Ki’s and An’s families, the unafflicted. And on the hilltop, more than a thousand villagers and farmers have gathered, as following the ceremony will be the biggest feast to happen since the marriage of Tallia decades ago.

  The young Illyana takes her place, sitting atop the black object. The older of her two cousins, her prospective husbands, comes forward and takes her hands into his. She takes his shirt off and rubs his chest, then his forehead, and finally his loins, which become visibly aroused. She takes off her headscarf and holds his head into her neck and hair, and he inhales deeply as she strokes his hair. Minutes later, she pulls back and opens her upper garment to him as he rubs her chest, her heart, her forehead, and then her loins. She pulls his head to her breasts and tells him to breathe her essence. And he begins to recount his dream.

  As this is happening, the sun is blotted by dark clouds coming overhead. Ki looks up. She has seen this before. And this should not be happening for a wondrous ceremony such as this—only the warmth of the skies, the clearness of air, and the joy of the moment, not dark and angry clouds. She stands up on one of the lower pillars and scans the horizon. And there they are.

  Over the top of the hill, giants have silently snuck up on the group, surrounding the crowds. There must be more than a hundred of them. How? Ki ponders in despair. And a dozen of them are slowly making their way through the throngs of villagers to the ceremony area. Ki comes down from the pillar and gathers her and An’s sons, telling them to get the weapons and be prepared to take the object away from here. Ki discreetly gets to her twin sisters and lets them know what is happening, that they should ready their children to flee. The afflicted grandchildren who see the visions, who hear the voice, must be protected at all cost. Ki frets inside for the first time in her life. Her sons return with bows, arrows, and spears just as the giants near the inner ceremony area, and they arm the twins, their sons, her children, and An’s family.

  Ki says to her family that today is a good day to die. But not for the afflicted children, as they must survive. Her sons understand fully what she is willing to do, and they pledge their allegiance to defending the rest of the family. Her most beloved granddaughters, Iriana and Vatlana, cry, saying to their grandmother that it is not a good day for her to die. Ki, ready for her finest fight, says her time has come, and she is ready to accept it.

  One giant steps forward, wearing a pendant that looks like a bull’s head on a double-stranded ribbon. Ki recognizes the signature belt and fox pelt loincloth. And then she does a double take, as to the left of this giant is a woman older than her, with breasts and loins exposed. It is Sama, the former wife of Narn, and the mother of Zirra, the lead giant, her cousin.

  As the crowd gets agitated, Illyana stops the ceremony, covering her breasts and head. She has only heard her grandmother’s stories, but these are the giants. She kneels and prays on the object as the skies darken further, as if the anger and hatred of the giants fuel them with fury.

  “I have come for the coward who abandoned me,” Zirra decrees. “The weakling who could not face having a son so superior to him.” He holds up Sama’s hand and says, “My mother did not deserve such a gutless animal to mate with. And so I have sired her children as well as taken my slaves from villages from all corners to sire my children, as is my right from the stars.” And he points to the thirty-plus giant men who wait behind them.

  And as he speaks, Zirbani and Sarpani instruct their children to lead their grandchildren away from the ceremony area. In the opposite direction, Ki and An’s family slowly move away. But Illyana and her two prospective husbands remain at the object as she continues to pray.

  Nirra scans the crowd and says, “I will spare these people if my father comes to face his disgrace. To abandon a child is a great evil, even for you slave animals, and justice must be met.”

  As Narn begins to come forward, Ki quickly leaves her family to intercept him, telling him not to go. They can fight. He tells her he has eighty-six sun cycles of age. He is ready to join his sister, who is buried near the object. She relents to his logic. If his sacrifice will spare the village rape and destruction, then it is the right thing to do. His death will have served a purpose. Ki says then he needs to buy them time to get the grandchildren out of the area to safety.

  And Narn comes forward and gives a soliloquy to buy time. And Nirra takes the bait and gives a soliloquy back. As this goes on, An escorts his family, only to be blocked by giants, the same for the twins, and the same for Ki’s family. As Ki goes to help her family, Narn goes and kneels in front his wife, Sama, for he never remarried, and professes that his love for her never ended. She sneers, and Nirra raises his axe and cuts his mother’s husband in half.

  Next to Nirra is another giant who comes forward and speaks, for these giants suffer giant egos and must he
ar themselves roar in might. He is Arnada, half-brother of Nirra, the oldest son of Doroda, the son of Tureal, the grandson of the King Anneal, great-great-grandson of those who are descendant from the stars. By his right, he has come to fulfill his father’s right, the right to have the woman who killed his father. And Ki, stalled with her grandchildren and daughter in front of giants, hears his request. She bows her head, knowing her own sacrifice is perhaps their only salvation, as did her uncle. Her life for the lives of her family, her children, her sisters’ children. And she goes back to the ceremony area, weapons in hand.

  Ki presents herself. She cries out so all can hear, “I am the great Ki, killer of giants. I killed your father, Doroda. I killed your grandfather Tureal. And I will slaughter all of you unless you leave now.”

  Arnada remembers this woman from that day, when she held his father’s pendant and loincloth high. He was only a boy then, but she is one not to be underestimated. And he decides his half-brother was wrong as he raises his spear in the air and decrees that although Nirra promised not to attack the villagers, he did not. And with that, the carnage ensues.

  Ki watches on one side as her twin sisters and their children fight their way through giants to save the afflicted grandchildren. She cringes as her brother An, who never could fight, dies defending his family. And she watches with pride her son, Parcza, her daughter Ramana, and her precious granddaughters, Iriana and Vatlana, shoot down giant after giant, clearing the way for her other grandchildren. But they are fighting the tide. There are just too many giants to kill. And to Ki’s dismay, her niece Tallia, mother of Illyana, is taken by Nirra, too far away for Ki to stop his inevitable violation of her.

  As Ki goes to save her family, she sees in the center of all this the sacred Illyana continuing to pray on the object, her cousins vainly trying to defend her. She hesitates, torn between her own family and her obedience to her mother and father to defend the object and those who are closest to it. And as happened to her father, in that moment of hesitation, her son and daughter are killed, leaving Iriana and Vatlana alone to defend their siblings. In that moment near the object, Arnada throws one of Illyana’s cousins a dozen paces and pins the other cousin to the ground with his spear to witness his violation of the girl atop the stone.

  Ki is torn. She prays for mercy on all their souls, helpless as she watches her granddaughters fight the fight she has taught them, closes her eyes, and points her arrow at Arnada. Two shots into each leg and he falls to the ground, releasing Illyana. Ki runs to her grandniece and implores her to flee with her cousin; for the future of all those who need her vision, her wisdom, she needs to procreate in safety. She takes the spear out of her grandnephew and escorts them through the chaos, shooting a clear path for them to escape.

  And then she hears her most beloved granddaughters scream out for help, scream in terror of what is about to happen to them, for they have heard the stories of what these monsters do to women. She turns and sees Iriana and Vatlana being held by giants, about to be viciously violated. Her heart snaps. She has failed to protect her family. Images of her aunt Illyana appear in front of her, the ones her father was tormented by. “Kill me. If you love me, kill me.” With tears in her eyes, she aims, fires, aims, fires. As always, her arrows pierce their targets. She prays that God will show mercy on their souls. And hers.

  Bash. She is knocked to the ground. She turns and struggles to see what is happening. Arnada has grabbed her feet, and she is being held upside down, just as Doroda did to her sister-in-law, Sama, on the other side of the lake. She is not so old he cannot take his pleasure with her before he kills her, he says to her as he sniffs her loins. Ki looks up and sees the skies have become even darker. She now knows what Illyana was doing on the object.

  Using her best femininity, she suggests to Arnada he should desecrate their object of worship by violating her atop it. He carries her as if she were dead game to the object, where she points to the very intoxicating brews of her dead uncle, which surround the object in vats. They should drink some as well as splash it around the object, as this will enhance his pleasure and her ability to perform for him. He falls for it as he drinks and breaks vats over the object, then throws her atop and proceeds to mount her. As Ki prays, she senses the flashes of light begin in the skies. She finds her knife, and before he can stop her, she slices through her neck.

  Flash. Boom. Flash. Boom. Over and over and over again. Twenty times and more.

  And she sees white light. Bright, beautiful, full of peace. Nanshe comes forth and welcomes her, saying that she has been so faithful and obedient all her life. It is time for her to know the voice. And Iriana and Vatlana are there, thanking her for showing them her mercy, her compassion as they take her hands to lead her onwards.

  The energy from the angry skies strikes the object over two dozen times. Lightning can strike more than twice in the same spot when the right person prays for it. The flash fire from the brew and the power of these energy bolts sends shock waves out, ripping the tops off the two great pillars around the object and flattening all around for a hundred paces.

  And the giants, having heard Ki’s decrees of being able to kill all giants, turn in fear of the black magic these people must practice around this black object of great evil. And the remaining giants flee with their new slaves in tow.

  The next day, the twins return with their surviving sons. They bury Ki, An, and Narn next to their mother Nanshe, and they load the object, still steaming from the anger the day before, onto an aurochs sled. Sarpani has said they must honor the voice and her mother, both of whom guided them to be near the fertile plains below, and they would find a new resting place for the object on the mountains across the valley.

  She prays over the graves of her family, Ki, An, Narn, Nanshe, and says that one day, if they cannot create peace in these lands, their descendants’ grandchildren of many times over may need to bury the object until an age arrives where peace may reign and mankind is ready to hear the voice again.

  Chapter 32

  Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.

  —Pope John XXIII

  5:00 a.m. GMT+3, May 18, 2021

  Mountain ridge, forty kilometers northwest of the former Göbekli Tepe

  Jean-Paul, the archeologist, a man with a love of historical religious sites, watches as Göbekli Tepe smolders on the horizon. One of the few monuments to have withstood twelve thousand years of mankind’s checkered history intact, destroyed in a matter of minutes. He prays for forgiveness from the Lord for his transgressions. His pride led him to help Alexander find the object here. His pride led whoever it was to obliterate the oldest religious site in the world. He prays more.

  Peter, the cheeky editor, protector of the truth in writing, curls up in a ball in the backseat of the truck, too afraid to look where they were, too ashamed to show his face. For the second time in a few days, he crumbled under pressure, frozen, paralyzed, petrified. He wants out. The temple is gone. The object destroyed. He is of no use here in the middle of the next world war gone crazy.

  And Zara, furious at the world, parks her truck and walks around it as the priest opens his door. Her beautiful truck, custom-painted her favorite shade of red, scraped, dented, torn, and shattered, all because she lost her mind, her attention, her focus, playing mama to that waste of a human being cowering in the backseat. Kicking him would be useless, so she walks over to the priest and kicks him instead.

  “Priest, what were you praying for back there at the temple? Did you pray for two dozen one-thousand-pound munitions to crater that temple of yours?” Zara yells.

  “Certainly not. I was praying for your souls.”

  “Could you have not prayed faster and gotten my truck started so it would not have suffered so?”

  He gingerly exits her truck as if he had a charle
y horse.

  And Zara softens, “I am so sorry, Jean-Paul. I did not know you had been hit. Are you bleeding? Anything broken? Can you stand?”

  Jean-Paul limps around and looks at her. Not the serene good Father any more. His face is wrinkled and haggard. “Thank you, Zara. The only thing broken is my integrity. I have sinned in this mission and let my pride, my arrogance, my ego negate a cardinal rule to do no harm to mankind’s sites of historic faith. We have lost too many important religious sites in this region. The former ISIS destroyed over two dozen important religious sites—the Temple of Bel, the Palmyra Castle, the tombs of prophets. Prophet Jirjis, Jonah, and Daniel. Not to mention the numerous buildings, statues, walls from ancient Assyria, including the town of Nimrud. They destroyed Mosul’s libraries’ non-Islamic books dating back to 5000 BCE. Our heritage, our culture, the origins of our beliefs all destroyed. And I am no better than they.”

  Realizing her venting over her truck was only her surrogate for her frustrations over this whole mission, her desire not to die in vain over some fool’s errand to find a rock that talks to aliens, and deep inside, her fear of what is happening between her and Sasha’s boy, now her mother’s boy, she calms down. “You must understand, Jean-Paul, those who destroyed those treasures, the Salafi, were an ultraconservative movement who strictly interpreted and enforced tawhid, monotheism, and sought to rid our world of shirk, polytheism. My jests with you on these subjects reflected their reality, one that destroyed so much of our world’s finest heritage, including those of my faith.”