Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven

by Bryan S. Glosemeyer

  Torque stopped rubbing her hands on her thighs. “Maybe it doesn’t matter where we come from. Maybe it matters who we choose to be. Maybe. That’s what I have to say about that.”

  Sabira examined the Mechs tattoo on Torque’s cheek, felt ashamed any part of herself ever considered hurting Torque, even for a moment.

  “It’s so much,” Sabira said. “So much to try and understand, much less believe. And so weird. Part of me can’t help but believe this must all be some kind of plot by Trickster or the Monarchy or—I don’t know. Like this couldn’t possibly be real, so maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s a trap? It’s easier to believe that it’s a trick than . . . than we come from the other side of the galaxy.”

  “A trap doesn’t make sense. The Monarchy could have enslaved us or killed us or eaten us. But they brought us here. You were strapped down and knocked out for weeks. If they wanted you trapped, you already were. I think what makes the most sense, if you look at everything, is they want us to be free.”

  “Free.” The word still felt odd to Sabira. Like a name from another language she hadn’t yet learned. “What the drilling hell does that even mean? Are we really free if we have to go back to their world? We won’t look like them or sound like them. We’re the ones who’ll be the aliens in their Constellation.”

  “It can’t be worse than being nameless khvazol of the Nahgak-Ri.”

  “I wasn’t nameless,” Sabira answered.

  “Now, none of us are.” Torque dared to look at Sabira’s face for a quick moment before darting her eyes away.

  “Stargazer? Is that you?”

  The voice was weak, cracked, but Sabira recognized it immediately and jumped to her feet. Startled, Torque scuttled quickly away across the floor.

  “Daggs! Daggs, yes it’s me.” Sabira still held her friend’s hand tight in her own, caressed her clammy scalp with the other. “We survived Daggs. We’re going to be fine.”

  “I can’t move,” Daggeira rasped.

  “You’re strapped down,” Sabira said. “Just for now.”

  “Take them off.”

  “I can’t, not yet.”

  Behind her, Sabira heard the door slide open and Torque leave. Didn’t hear anyone come in before the door slid closed again. A bottle of nutrient water with an attached drinking straw had been kept by Daggeira’s bedside so it would be ready when she awoke. Sabira held the straw to her lips and told her to drink. Daggeira drank the whole bottle.

  “Sabira, see me. You get me out of these straps. Now.”

  “Daggs, I can’t. They won’t respond to me. Believe me, I tried plenty of times while you were sleeping.”

  “Huh? What? How long?”

  “Not exactly sure. About three weeks.”

  “Where the hell are we?” Daggeira’s grip grew steadily tighter.

  “Believe it or not, we made it to the target. That roof we hid on, that’s where the captured khvazol were being held. Here.”

  “I thought we were . . .”

  “I know. Me too. They saved us. Patched us up while we were in a coma. I woke up a few days ago.”

  “Who? Wait. Who patched us up? The khvazol?”

  “There’s a medic with them, but no it wasn’t ahn.”

  “Then who? What?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out myself.”

  “Stargazer, see me. You are not making sense. Now come on, there has to be a way. Get these off me.”

  “I can’t. They just took mine off yesterday.”

  “Is it the Vleez? Is that why I’m strapped down? You don’t understand. I can’t stand it when—”

  “I’m sorry, Daggs, you just got to tough it out. And stay calm. They won’t let you out unless you can prove they can trust you.”

  “Allseer see me now, what the hell are you talking about?”

  Looking at Daggeira, Sabira understood how the others must have seen her when she first woke. Eyes wide with fear and anger, unpredictable, potentially lethal at any moment. Derev still saw her this way, and Sabira couldn’t blame him. And she couldn’t help but wonder who else shared the opinion.

  “When you were still a mine rat, back in Warrens Dreena, did you know about any of the unseen there having names for themselves and their brood?” asked Sabira.

  “What does that have to do with you getting these off me right now?”

  “After my Trickster’s Pit—that’s when I got my scar.” Reflexively she touched her wounded breast with her left hand. “They gave me a deep pretty pillow for my reward. I still think about him sometimes. He was so deep sweet. No one had ever kissed me like he did. Not until you.”

  “Why are you telling me this? I don’t care about your old pillows.”

  “He had a name. Can you imagine? His brood-mother gave it to him. Zaicha.”

  “Like from the old hens’ tales?”

  “Yes, exactly,” said Sabira. “His hen-mother had given names to all her brood-children. I thought maybe you might have heard about it? Maybe you knew him?”

  “I . . . Yes, I had heard something about it,” said Daggeira. “Rumors that some of the khvazol in the warrens had turned from Will, dared to take names. But I never knew of anyone with a secret name. I did hear something about a big purge in Warrens Dreena after I shipped off, though. I had a guess it was about the names rumor.”

  Sabira lowered her gaze, unable to look Daggeira in the eye any longer, and rubbed at her chest scar. “The next day, after my night with Zaicha, I said my last goodbyes to my brood-sister and transferred to the discipline warrens. I knew I had to go into discipline pure and perfectly aligned to Divine Will as I could be. I couldn’t go with that kind of blasphemy weighing on me.”

  “You told the Overseers about the pillow.”

  “I was devoted to Divine Will. I had to do as Will demanded. Just like you would if they unbound you. That’s why they can’t yet. But they will, I promise. Just like they did for me.”

  “You don’t trust me, either, do you?”

  “Daggs, I’ve been praying every day for you to wake up. I’ve missed you. Of course, I trust you. It’s just that . . . There’s so much I want to share with you. It rains here. Can you imagine? Falling out of the sky, just like Arrow told us. It’s real. I stood naked in the rain as the sun rose. It was the greatest moment of my life. When we’re free I want to hold you and kiss you in rain. It’ll be hard with the masks, but we can still try.”

  “Have you been drinking too much diggers beer again?” Daggeira’s voice raised, and her hand clenched tighter around Sabira’s. “You’re not making any sense. I don’t like this. Not any of this.”

  “Daggs, please, you have to trust me. Just stay calm and patient and—”

  “Calm and patient? What under the rocks has gotten into you, Stargazer? See me, I’m getting sick and tired of this shit. Now get these off me or get the hell out of here.” Daggeira let go of Sabira’s hand, pushed it away as best she could with the fetters on her wrists.

  “Daggs.”

  “Do you even hear yourself? You’re talking like a traitor. What’s happened to you?”

  She’s right. She can hear Trickster’s seeds in your words.

  “I don’t know how to explain . . .” started Sabira.

  “Forget it. I don’t want to hear your crazy grank shit. Just get out.”

  “Please, just let me explain.” Sabira gently caressed the two glyphs on Daggeira’s left cheek. One for a victory, one for a name.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, pulling her face from Sabira’s hand. “Let me up, right now, or stay away from me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then get out.”

  “I know it’s hard to understand, but I’m going to help you. We’re going to be free. Together.” Sabira wanted to reach out, touch her, hold her, kiss her, and let her know everything was going to be fine. She wanted to tell her they would have all the stars in the galaxy for themselves. They
beat death together and they would beat this too. Together. But fear gripped her words, stopped her touch. Daggeira frightened her.

  “I said get out.” Daggeira’s ice-blue eyes stared right at her, slit with fury. “Don’t you touch me. Just get out. Get out! GET OUT!”

  36.

  THE SPLINTER HAD been quiet since Daggeira awoke. The splinter’s whispering in Sabira’s head had transformed into Daggeira’s screams to get away and memories of her furious, ice-blue eyes. Tears welled up as over and over Sabira remembered how Daggeira shrank back from her caress.

  Had the eon done this to her? She had never been one for tears and heartbreak. Yet, since taking Maia’s sacrament, every feeling came over her with such crushing power, as if the struts and crossbeams of a lifetime’s emotional restraint were eroded, cracked, and about to collapse at any moment beneath the pressure.

  Sabira had hoped that her presence when Daggeira awoke would help her friend. If the first thing she would see was Sabira there with her, safe and healed and trusting the others, then maybe she would be less afraid. Sabira had been terrified when she first woke and saw Cal and Ed and Maia. She didn’t want Daggs to have to go through that too. The possibility that her presence had made Daggs more fearful, more resistant to their new world, troubled Sabira all through the day and only added to the sense her heart was about to cave in.

  Daggeira deserved a chance to drink eon and purge her old life as Sabira had, yet they must all flee tomorrow, so Daggs would have to wait. Sabira hoped they wouldn’t have to keep her sedated for the trip. Thinking of how Daggeira had slept through so many days in a coma and how they were already sedating her again, left a sick feeling in Sabira’s gut. She was waking up for the first time in her life, while Daggs was being put back to sleep. But come tomorrow morning, she’d awaken again, and Sabira would be there, maybe with Coraz or Rain, and they would try once more.

  Just before midday, Maia finally came to Sabira’s room. She wanted her to come down to the second floor to help prepare lunch. Sabira stood from the corner of the room where she had been sitting on the floor, fighting back tears. It wasn’t until they were in the kitchen and had lunch nearly ready that Sabira spoke. She didn’t want to drink the eon tonight.

  “The same happened to me when I first was introduced to the mysteries of the sacrament,” said Maia. “Everything I thought I knew was turned inside out. It terrified me.”

  “I’m not saying I’m . . . terrified.”

  “I know,” answered Maia. “I am saying I was. Before I traveled to Nu’esef, I was an, hmm, I do not know if you have a word for it in khvazol, but I was an academic. I spent my life studying, gathering knowledge. Biology and psychiatry, mostly. That means I studied how living beings work inside. And how our brains work. I was quite the materialist, if you can imagine it.” She pulled out a tray of large, roasted nuts from the oven, each as big as her fist, and placed the tray on a rack to cool.

  “I also spent a good ten years deep in historical studies. I specialized in antiquity, particularly the Slaver invasion. Ever since I was a little girl growing up in Tailandia Norte, I read all the legends and fantasies about the first diaspora. You see, storytellers had been coming up with amazing tales about what happened to our lost brothers and sisters. The fate of the first diaspora was one of the great mysteries of the ancient world. Making up stories to explain the unknown is one of humanity’s oldest traditions.”

  Maia placed a roasted nut on a small plate and handed it to Sabira. “Tell me what you think. Did I cook them long enough? These are called umu nuts. High in proteins and vitamin B. Just what you need.”

  Sabira took the offered plate and bit into the nut. It was very warm but not so hot that it burned. The nut had a much fleshier texture than she expected. Her mouth puckered. “It’s bitter.”

  “I know. But you will get used to it in time. I did not like them at first either. Now I cannot get enough. We are lucky to have quite a few stored away on the Shishiguchi.” Maia picked up another umu nut and took a slow, savoring bite.

  “It was my history studies that first brought me to Nu’esef. It is the closest star system to the Old Portal. Even closer than Av is to the Shattered Gates. The original inhabitants are mostly gone now. Not a very pleasant story I am afraid, one for another time. But they left behind many relics with tales of what we called the Old Portal. I had read many of the translations before, but I wanted to see the source materials for myself. And that brought me to Eleusis Neos. The New Temple of Mysteries houses one of the largest relic libraries on the planet. During my research, I was invited to join a ritual circle. Those three nights changed the course of my life. Just like that.” Maia snapped her fingers in emphasis before taking another bite of umu.

  Sabira forced herself to swallow the bitter food so she could speak. “What happened? What did you see?”

  “What happened? The impossible. I knew how the brain worked, how different chemicals in very small doses could change the brain’s electrochemical balance, turn off and on certain neurological circuits. But that did not explain the personal experience of it. The audio and visual hallucinations sure, but not the rest. How could a mix of plants from two distant worlds explain what happens? How could it explain stepping outside of time and space, the glimpses of lost eras and faraway worlds?”

  “You mean you don’t know how the eon works?”

  “I did tell you it was a mystery from the beginning, did I not? I have to say, you were in much better shape after that first purge night than I was. It was wonderful to see you like that, enraptured, the chains on heart and mind breaking away. I, on the other hand, was terrified the next morning. My fundamental view of the world had been shaken.

  “I did not want to go through two more nights of that. I felt like if I did not drink eon again for a century it would be too soon. But the Oracle who initiated me helped me through the fear, encouraged me to embrace the uncertainty.

  “You see, it is very important to drink the sacrament three nights in a row when you are first introduced to the mysteries. Not completing the ritual can be harmful in the long run. We must always finish what we start.

  “Here, finish your umu while it is still warm. Trust me, it gets much more bitter when it cools.” Maia picked up another umu nut but rolled it around in her hand as she spoke instead of taking another bite.

  “That second night, touching the ancestors, I saw another world. Just like you. I saw myself like a spirit rising out of my body where it lay in the temple. I rose through the skies and passed the outer planets all the way through the dark of space to the Old Portal, the Gates of Hell itself. But instead of the Old Portal, I floated before a wonder, a beautiful shape of living, breathing light. It beckoned to me, pulled at me like gravity. I was petrified.

  “I began to fall back to my body. From nowhere a voice spoke to me. It said I had to make a choice before it was too late. I chose to give up my fear. I chose to give in to the unknown.

  “In a flash, I passed through the living light and out the other side. I found myself—or maybe it is better to say I lost myself—in another world. A dead, barren world with red skies, dotted with great, glittering and decadent domes. And underneath, a vast maze of tunnels and mines and pits. There I saw humanity’s lost brothers and sisters. Enslaved and tortured and mutated.

  “‘Bring them the sacrament,’ the voice told me. ‘Bring them back home.’

  “I have imbibed eon hundreds of times since that night. I have seen many beautiful and terrible things in vision. Seen my own death a countless number of times in a countless number of ways. But again and again, I see the children of the first diaspora trapped under a dead world on the far side of the galaxy.

  “If I had never experienced the eon and spent years exploring its mysteries, I would have dismissed it all as drug-induced hallucinations, nothing more. But it called to me, that other world. I made it my life’s mission to somehow pass through the Old Portal and find the lost
ones.”

  “You really came all the way across the galaxy to find us?” asked Sabira. “You could have been destroyed by the Gates. You could have met the Warseers first and been captured. You did all that because you had dreams about us?”

  “I did, yes. The visions called me to the purpose for many years. It called to me before I had ever tasted the sacrament, if I think about it. I wish I could say my intentions are perfect in their purity, but I must be honest. Even though I am dedicated to helping you and all the lost ones, I would be lying if I said I did not have my own desires, my own pride. Founding an Embassy is a great honor in the Constellation, especially on a new, alien world, that alone would be enough to be remembered by history. But to discover the first diaspora and bring them back to humanity’s fold would be a huge accomplishment. My name would be taught in the same academies where I had studied.

  “Once the Vleez brought Rain and the others to the Embassy and the eon proved capable of purging the Theocrats’ chains from their hearts and minds, I knew that within the New Temple hierarchy I would be raised from Oracle to Arcana. I wanted to establish a mission of Eleusis Neos here on Dlamakuuz, where more and more lost brothers and sisters could be liberated and prepared for their return home.

  “It may seem impossible now, after all the death and devastation. But traveling through the Old Portal was known to be impossible. For centuries, every ship that ever tried was destroyed. But then Orion achieved the impossible, and we believed, and we came here. Finding the first diaspora was impossible, yet here you are standing right in front of me. So even though we leave tomorrow, my calling is not yet done. I will return here as soon as I am able, with all the resources I can bring from the Constellation and help the Vleez rebuild. And of course, bring the sacrament to the other lost ones.”

  “Are you crazy? You want to come back? After all this?” Sabira gestured toward the smoke columns outside the window.