Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven

by Bryan S. Glosemeyer

  A wall display showed a high angle view of the scene just outside. It was too far away to make out much detail, but she could see the vleez were packing in tighter, creating their own semicircle around the entrance. The Emissary and the Adept stood like a bullseye at the center.

  “Might as well finish this,” she whispered to herself.

  May you stand before the Shattered Gates and be found worthy, the splinter answered.

  Still aching and stiff, she headed toward the curtain. She would need to be quick to make it past the lem standing sentinel on the other side. She found the curtain’s entrance flap, grabbed a fistful, and stuck the mask over her face. Before she could pull the curtain aside, her knees were slammed from behind and buckled beneath her. She fell hard onto her left hip, caught the rest of her fall on her elbow and forearm. Sharp pain lanced up her arm and neck, igniting reflexes, uncapping anger. Sabira rolled through the momentum, came up in a deep crouch and readied herself to spring.

  Before her, Cal rolled from the base of the curtain and scrambled to his feet. “No no no,” he said. “You’re not going.”

  Confusion overtook her anger. She stood, took the mask from her face. “What are you doing, mine rat?”

  “You’re not.” He stood directly in front of the curtain’s opening flap.

  “And you think you can stop me?”

  He didn’t answer, but stood unmoving, clenching his jaw, looking at her, right in her eyes.

  “Don’t be stupid, boy. I don’t want to hurt you. That’s why I have to go. So no one else gets hurt because of me.”

  “No no no. No one else is dying. Ed’s up there right now. It’s going to be soon. And I’m not letting anyone else die. Not anymore.”

  “Cal, I . . .”

  “No.”

  “If you don’t want your friends to die, then you have to let me go.”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to go anyway.”

  “Listen to the boy, Sabira.” Rain emerged from the lift. Another lem walked beside him. “And listen to Gabriel and Maia. Give them a chance to resolve this their way. We owe them at least that.” He stood next to Cal in front of the curtain.

  Sabira felt her momentum falling away. Rain was right. She did owe them.

  “Just give Gabriel and Orion the chance they deserve,” Rain continued. “Lem, do that bit with the walls and translate it all into Khvaziz while you’re at it, won’t you?”

  The lem adjusted the front walls to appear as though they were completely transparent. Sabira assumed the effect was one way since no one outside was gawking at the suddenly invisible wall and the defenseless humans on the other side.

  “—you don’t bring the baby killers out, we’ll go in and take all the humans.”

  “—Glish is for Vleez, not for the Slavers' cast offs.”

  “—Hail the Queen. Hail the Monarch Eternal.”

  “—them out now or we burn you all down just like the humans did.”

  “—Burn the plague bringers. Burn all the humans.”

  Thirty vleez gathered outside, and more were coming in behind them, pressing into the group, driving them all forward. Gabriel stood in front, his raised palms forward. Orion and two lems stood just behind. A single node hung in the air over their heads, gleaming gold in the morning light.

  “—Hear me honorable Vleez of the Monarchy. Hear me now. The freed persons in this Embassy are victims of the Slavers' cruelty, just like you. My people are prepared to sign a treaty with the Monarchy. We have weapons to aid your war with the Slavers. We have medicines.”

  “—Hail the Queen.”

  “—Enough talk, burn the baby killers!”

  “—Hear me. Hurting these people will not bring back your loved ones. Hear me, good Vleez, hear me. If you attempt to harm any within the Embassy, there will be no treaty. No weapons for the war. No medicine for the sick.”

  “—Glish is for Vleez.”

  “—No more human plague!” A banner-waver in front handed his banner pole off and snatched a firearm from the hands of another. He stood directly before Gabriel, barely two meters away, and leveled the gun at his chest. “—Enough human talk!”

  The front half of the gun dropped to the ground, leaving the vleez with little more than the stock in his six-fingered claw-hands. Sabira had barely made out the swiping arc of Gabriel’s arms and a flash of gold. It was as if his quick gesture alone had diced the gun in two.

  A startled hum rippled through the crowd. Another vleez took aim. Orion’s lem-arms snaked out, growing impossibly long, and whipped around the would-be shooter’s arms. Before Sabira comprehended what she was seeing, the firearm lay snapped in pieces in the street and the assailant tumbling back into the crowd.

  The two lems flung out an array of whip-like limbs where their arms had been. The whip arms wrapped around all the remaining weapons of those pressed closest to the front, snatched them out of their dumbfounded hands, and flung the broken remains to the ground.

  “—Leave in peace and peace we will keep,” announced Gabriel. “Leave here now. Let peace and reason guide your next steps.”

  Cacophonous hums ran through the crowd as their tendrils turned to each other, their own momentum and rage dissipating in uncertainty.

  “—Your fellow citizens took aim first. By the laws of the Monarchy, I had the right to return intent. But I spared them. I choose peace. Choose peace with me here, now. For the good of Glish. For the good of the Monarchy. Hail the Queen.”

  “—Hail the Queen.”

  “—No! We are more. We are more.”

  “—Be brave. We are more.”

  “—The foreigner is right. We should choose peace.”

  “—We’ll have peace when the humans are dead and gone.”

  “—We must choose peace.”

  A sizable knot of them broke through on Gabriel’s right, banners and firearms thrusting through the crowd. The node floating above Gabriel’s head sprang to life. It swooped down toward the incoming mob, flashing strobes of staticky light. The vleez all wailed in pain, hands clutched their heads, squeezing over their sense tendrils. The pain must have been all consuming. They dropped all the banners and weapons to the street. Many collapsed to their knees or onto their backs, but none appeared to have any wounds.

  “—Hear me honorable Vleez. I wish only peace. I swear to you. No one in this Embassy will bring harm to any of you. In three days’ time, we leave your world. We ask for three days of peace. By Monarchy law, we have the right of return. We ask for peace instead.”

  The node stopped flashing and resumed hovering over Gabriel’s head. One by one, the vleez shook off the pain and helped their neighbors to their feet.

  “—Three days’ peace,” insisted Gabriel.

  A stooped-over vleez with wrinkled and spotted tendrils came forward. His clothes stuck out at sharp angles that seemed to indicate some kind of higher social station, and they bore dark smudges of smoke and blood.

  “—Three days peace, Emissary. Then be gone. I will make sure the others honor the peace. Three days.”

  “—That is all we ask.”

  The elder turned to his people, raising all four claw-hands above his head as he addressed them. The vleez toward the back of the mob already started drifting off. The older one turned to the aggressive knot of those that had charged forward. In twos and threes, they bowed their tendrils to the elder and backed away.

  Rain let out a long sigh as the crowd outside thinned and drifted back. Sabira felt the tension drop from her shoulders.

  “See me,” said Cal. “No one else is dying.”

  32.

  THAT NIGHT, SABIRA would stand before the gate of breathing, crystalline light, and travel through to the other side.

  Maia held group ceremony in the second-floor common room. The room was tuned to look like polished marble, from the floor below up to the wide dome overhead. The walls hid the kitchen and other
rooms of the second floor from sight. A faint scent of food still lingered in the air, muddled with the bitter smells of bundled herbs burning in small dishes encircling the dome. The panoramic window remained. The view held noticeably fewer city lights than the night before.

  Coraz, Derev, and Dawn remained upstairs, along with Cal who hadn’t left Edlashuul’s bedside for hours. Gabriel went below, keeping watch on the entrance and street outside. None of the lems looked like Orion. Sabira didn’t think he was currently in the Embassy.

  Rain, Torque, Zante, and Playa joined Sabira in drinking eon. Since they had all undergone the three-night initiation already, they could drink as often or as seldom as they wished, as long as an Oracle was present and approved. Maia told them they formed a ritual circle, and would forever have a unique bond.

  The splinter in Sabira’s head balked at the idea of being formed into a circle. In the Unity, the unifying geometric was the triangle. Organizing into the form of a circle felt profane. The splinter droned on about blasphemy and the devices of Trickster. But she felt pulled by those worlds in her visions, caught in their gravity. Sabira focused through the splinter’s incessant whispering in the back of her head and accepted the stinking bowl of eon.

  During the ceremony, all five of them purged at the same time. The smell of it, all at once, sickened Sabira even more. Sweaty and shivering, she vomited into a bucket. Felt like something more than just her own bile puked out, that the pain she felt was more than her clenched, spasmed gut. A lifetime of suffering rose up, the sharpest bile, choked and gagged her as it passed. And then more, the suffering of all those she had known. And then more, until all of humanity’s suffering whirlpooled in her belly and vomited out in profane ecstasy.

  Even after emptying herself, the stench kept her dry heaving. Sweat dripped down her temples, coated her lower back, even as she shivered. A lem went through the room, clearing out old buckets for new ones. Maia circled as well, offering damp cloths to clean up, all the while humming a soft melody.

  Sabira saw the eeshl climbing down one of the pole shafts. The creature paused, five of her stubby claws gripped to the pole, the sixth pawed at the air. She wiggled squat sense tendrils in their direction and jumped to the guardrail across the front of the shaft. The eeshl balanced on the rail with three claws at first, then stood on her two hind legs. Two vertical mandibles parted the folds of flesh around her mouth in a way that looked like a smile. The little atmospheric regulator hung from her neck, adjusting with her movements to keep near her mouth.

  Sabira was surprised the eeshl wasn’t upstairs with the boys. She had barely stepped away from Edlashuul’s bedside for days. Daggeira would like this beast when she finally awoke, Sabira decided.

  Slowly, with extra precise movements, Sabira pushed herself up from her reclining position. She felt like she couldn’t possibly move a muscle unless she gave it her complete focus. As she rose, a warmth ignited in her belly and expanded into her chest.

  “Sabira, are you alright?” asked Maia, the uncanniness of her accent took on a soothing quality.

  “Everything is deep,” started Sabira, entranced by the motion of her lips and the weight of her tongue, “deep fine. I’m gold. The eeshl wants me to come get her.”

  “Then let us go together.” Maia was at her side, a reassuring arm around the back of Sabira’s waist.

  They passed by Zonte and Playa reclining beside each other, eyes closed and fingers entwined. Through all the violence of war and the strangeness of living among aliens, they had found one another. Just observing their true affection for each other was beautiful. Rare as a newfound vein of gold. Among all the bonds Sabira witnessed in the Labyrinth or among the Servants, she had never seen a pair that dared to love as openly and deeply as these two pillows. Their shaft served as reward to the victorious and the faithful. Now they rewarded each other.

  Could Daggeira ever look at her the way Playa looked at Zonte? Could Sabira?

  “Here we are,” said Maia. “Hold out your arms to her.”

  Sabira did, and the animal jumped to her chest. She held the eeshl close, warm on her scar, skin softer than she remembered. The eeshl nibbled playfully at her shoulder as Maia led them back. Sabira lay down, the eeshl curled close to her ribs, and felt she was ready.

  The visions started when she closed her eyes. Maia played guitar and sang a soft melody, strings and voice weaving, entangling. Sounds became colors, colors became shapes. Shapes danced and swirled, became worlds, became galaxies, became new sounds. And on went the cycle of Sabira’s visions, each time more stunningly beautiful and intricate than the last.

  Sabira felt the others around her. Even with her eyes closed, it was almost like seeing them. Their heartbeats throbbed in counterpoint to each other, punctuating Maia’s melody, and reached out to Sabira’s. They merged, synching into one beat, one pulse, while remaining each a unique presence, discrete beings intertwined. She felt the eeshl’s reassuring warm, moist breath on her skin.

  “The second night of the initiation rites is called touching the ancestors,” said Maia. “It is the night for searching and reaching out. A night for questions.”

  But how could she be speaking to Sabira when she was still singing? Maybe she had said it before? Was this memory or was this now?

  “Tonight you may see the dead. Be brave. Do not fear them. You may hear their words whispering in the dark, but listen to what your heart tells you.” Maia’s voice was a dance of interweaving circles, trailing a braid of colors in their wake. “Tonight you may see your ancestors. You may feel their memories that still linger in your blood. Be brave.”

  The dancing circles of Maia’s voice melted into a softly glowing, twisting vortex. Before Sabira’s gaze, the vortex took on shape, texture, color, presence—a zaicha, soft and furry, dangerously small and frail, long ears perked up and attentive.

  Follow me. Follow me, said the zaicha.

  She felt cold, hard dirt beneath her. Felt the darkness all around, the heavy weight of the world above, unseen through cavern stones and impenetrable dark. And below, deep in the ground, the countless dead, a galaxy of bones, endless constellations of skulls. As if the numbers of the dead were too much for the dirt to contain, they extruded from the ground, a tangle of ribs and femurs and vertebrae. Each bone glowing pale, illuminating the black, continuously bursting forth in new, ever-growing protrusions. The bones wove together like vines, glowing brighter and brighter, so that Sabira found herself in a dome of pale light and grinning, hollow skulls.

  The others were there too, not with the faces she knew them by, but as vibrations of connections, each undergoing their own journey. Zonte and Playa, their love for one another a dance of pink and red and green and hot white. Rain, a deep blue, rooted to the soil, shaded with grief. Torque, shimmering, sparking, a barely contained swirl of hues and shadows and electricity. And Maia, a voice, a song that was all the world.

  The splinter was there as well. Lurking. Remembering. Manifest as a voice she had known all her life. Don’t lose yourself to Trickster. Don’t forsake everything you’ve fought for.

  A flashing image of her own death, trapped, broken and suffocating, under the cave-in.

  The splinter’s voice was deep and dry, like the old sectors of the Labyrinth, like Grandfather Spear’s. You’re one of the seen now. You’ve been named. How can you turn your back to your Gods? How can you forsake the Divine Masters that have raised you up, offered you honor and glory in the conquest of the galaxy?

  Another flash of death, plasma fire incinerating her ribcage into ash and vapor.

  Now First Drum Arrow’s voice, distant and alluring, full of command. We fought and bled together. We held you in the rites. We drummed. We were holy warriors.

  The voice was Cannon’s, tinged with disappointment and disdain. I died saving you. For you. I died for a traitor.

  An image of herself riddled with vleez acid rounds, bullet holes spouted blood, the surrounding flesh
melted, slid from the bone.

  The zaicha waited quietly before her, unmoving except for the twitching of his whiskered nose.

  A crack of light in the distance.

  “Yes,” Sabira whispered and stood beside the little, white animal. The crack of light was much closer now. A familiar cave mouth, the river valley, and she knew her people waited beyond. The promise of bright yellow sun and blue, cloudless sky.

  “Show me, and I will follow.”

  An echo of an echo behind in the dark, the voice her own. We were named and seen. We had the stars to look upon. Trickster’s fool.

  Sobbing, heartbroken, she emerged from the caverns. Sheer cliffs loomed above. Below and to each side, a thin, crumbling path led from the cave mouth down to the river valley.

  Then she stood with her people by the riverbank, the golden warmth of the rising sun on their skin, dark locks swaying and clinking shells and bright stones as they embraced her, laughed, celebrated.

  “Show me the way.”

  The breathing, crystalline light called to her. It hung in the air just above the river, throbbing like a heartbeat. She strode out into the water immediately, intent on passing through. Chilling splashes of the river on her toes, rising up her shins, pulling her in then sweeping her up, a tide drawing her to the center of gravity, the living geometry, the breathing light. The portal called to her, invited her, and she answered yes. Fell up through the water and tingling air, fell up into the flowering gateway of living light.

  She fell and fell, up through a tunnel deep and endless, illuminated by the fires of living words. Glyphs like burning gems, symbols of hidden meaning, enigmas of ever-transforming wonder. Deeper in, the fires burned brighter, alive with wordless meanings, primordial structures of absolute beauty interlocking, supporting, spinning around her.