Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  T’Qinna swung the club down on her grandson’s head with a horrible thunk. Panic almost drove her to keep swinging until he never moved again. Somehow, she managed to stop herself when Qe’Nani slumped to the dirt floor, silent, after the first strike.

  She approached him cautiously. He still breathed, his cloudy eyes wide open, as she trussed him up in his chain as best she could. With the pole uprooted, she had no way to fasten him down to anything. Then she turned to Palqui’s wounds.

  That was when the lookout ram’s horn sounded in the background.

  She was still stanching the blood from Palqui’s leg, weeping and gibbering a prayer that E’Yahavah would keep Qe’Nani down.

  That was how the Watch Commander found her, when he poked his head into the barn. He spoke as if not really seeing inside; saying runners from several lookout posts reported armies approaching White Rock. Before his sun-blinded eyes adjusted to see the horror in the barn, he said that the nearest came from the west. It carried the blue trident standard of Psydon.

  154

  U’Sumi found his hoped-for westward valley. It boasted no river, barely even a streamlet wide enough to keep his army from dying of thirst while they crossed over the arid highlands. A week after following it to its highest point, his scouts discovered a pass into another ravine. This widened into a new valley that descended even more directly westward, along a widening brook, toward the Styx River.

  The army, though quiet, even sullen at times, suffered no further desertions. Whatever talk was audible never strayed near anything mutinous. Malaq assured his commander that the troops now had far more terror of U’Sumi’s ability to throw the “thunder of death” at them than they had for any King Scorpion. Under the circumstances, U’Sumi felt good about that.

  About two weeks after finding the new river valley, the scouts reported that it wound into the Styx abreast of a town built of permanent stone dwellings. It was about as the size of White Rock. A large punting boat with oar banks and a tented cabin above-deck lay moored at a quay. It seemed to be in the process of loading for a long excursion. U’Sumi guessed that if this was not the Scorpion’s base, it must be one of his major logistical hubs.

  He kept his force far up the tributary valley, under cover, until after nightfall. Scouts reported the place only lightly defended. The Scorpion doubtless had confidence that no army could threaten him this far south. A generous moon gave White Rock’s forces plenty of light to surround the town, and advance inward in a shrinking semicircle.

  U’Sumi kept his best troops with him as a center commando force with extra archers. Their main objective was to capture the boat undamaged.

  Malaq’s archers took out the town’s watches, while U’Sumi’s silently overwhelmed the quayside guards. The city had no walls, thus the melee troops had only to march in and capture it, house by house. The largest building, overlooking the quayside, fell also without a fight.

  U’Sumi found P’Tah-Tahut inside.

  The reclining former Vizier of first Kush, then Ninurta, dined on roasted river perch with a rotund, vacant-eyed man who had an easy smile. A thin, dark-haired woman seemed to be the wife of the chubby man by the way she leaned on him at the board.

  The Vizier’s somber eyes showed only the briefest flicker of surprise when U’Sumi strode into the rough-cut stone house’s main chamber, flanked by his archers and mace men on either side. U’Sumi remembered how unreadable P’Tah-Tahut’s face had been even as an academy student. That level of control confirmed T’Qinna’s report that the Vizier had been among the few untouched by the Bab’Elu Plague. It also made him dangerous.

  Tahut spoke not to U’Sumi, but to his dinner companions; “Why, Lord Geb, Lady Tefnut, the Appointed of Seti has come to visit us.”

  The fat one, Geb, said, “He who rides the Boat of a Million Years, protecting the passage of Atum’Ra from the Waters of Primal Chaos; ‘tis indeed a million times an honor! Welcomings to holy Seth!”

  The woman smiled, and cooed in an empty-headed sort of way, “Make joinings to feast with us, please, divine Seth.”

  U’Sumi had not expected such a greeting. Clearly, P’Tah-Tahut had somehow known he was coming. Either that, or he had fashioned a tale for his plague-maddened minions ahead of time to provide a preferred context for events, should such a meeting with him ever take place. Tahut had always been a canny student, and one of the Academy’s most adept writers. The possibility that the Vizier had already woven what little history these people and their tribes knew, hit U’Sumi with a sense of horror that he had hoped would instead seize his captured enemy.

  U’Sumi motioned his men to station themselves around the low stone table, weapons ready, and squatted across from his former student. “Thank you for your hospitality, I am rather hungry.”

  Geb passed him a clay platter of roasted fish, while Tefnut poured him wine. U’Sumi smiled tightly, and nodded to them both.

  Tahut said, “My Lord, the situation in this land is rather volatile.”

  U’Sumi tasted the fish, made an approving sound in this throat, and said, “I would expect nothing less, where Nimurta has been at work.”

  “Then you agree that we both have a problem.”

  “I agree that at least one of us does, possibly both.”

  Tahut nodded. “As you wish. He is called ‘Narnmer’ here—I had to work hard for decades uniting several dialects. Our clans refer to him as the Asiru—the Uniter. Many of the peoples that came with us on the ship from Uruk were descendants of Misori’Ra, including myself, and it just happens that the settlements in the north also descend from him. Whatever happened to us back in the old lands seems to have affected people largely according to their clans. The northern and southern tribes here have little trouble learning each other’s speech because of it.”

  U’Sumi said, “Narnmer is not of the Misori’Rayim. How does he then become your Uniter?”

  “He has always been an extraordinary man; even in his afflicted state. Unlike the others, he can be a quick learner.”

  U’Sumi narrowed his eyes. “So my wife has told me, from her little captivity experience at Kish. You want to know what I think?”

  P’Tah-Tahut sipped his wine from a clay bowl. “What do you think, Appointed of Seti?”

  “I think that after Narnmer the Asiru does all this uniting, you will have a much larger base from which to spread your empire.”

  “Come, now. Civilization must be restored somehow.”

  U’Sumi enunciated his words. “Not under Nimurta. He must pay for his treachery according to the Divine M’Ae.”

  Geb interjected, “Does he mean the order of divine Ma’At, Thoth?”

  Tahut answered, “Yes, Lord Geb, it is but a different manner of speech.” Then, he said to U’Sumi, “And what of me?”

  “By rights, you should pay with him. However, I’m willing to deal more leniently with you, if you help me now, given that you’ve preserved at least some truth for these people. I have this city, with an army that need only march north to enclose Nimurta against a second army coming south under my brothers. It’s plain that you greatly influence these people’s thinking in ways I could not hope to match. I’m not foolish enough to imagine that I can unilaterally reestablish Arrata as the center of Divine governance. I will need help from those who still understand civilization.”

  “You honor me, Son of Seti.”

  U’Sumi glared at him. “No I don’t. Why do you keep calling me by that archaic title? We rarely used it anymore since long before my departure on the Sun Ships. Do not imagine that my leniency means you will be left completely to whatever you think best.”

  P’Tah’Tahut’s long face seemed unsurprised. “I would never be so presumptuous as to imagine that. Oh, and I use the archaism only because it is a title for you that has not been redefined, as so many of your other ones—even your given name—have been, since the Ensi Council fell. Call it an earnest of future good faith.”

  U’Sumi was not sure t
hat such an earnest made much sense, but he had heard how Inana had pronounced his name as “Usmu.” She had also attributed to him the office of “Vizier of En-Ki,” the false god of her new universe. If his name, or the term M’El-Ki, were likewise, redefined among the Styx peoples, then there might be some truth to P’Tah-Tahut’s words.

  U’Sumi said, “Very well, then. Here is what I expect from you…”

  P’Tah-Tahut seemed eager to agree to everything U’Sumi told him.

  U’Sumi would have felt better if the man had been more contrary.

  The Book of the Dead refers to Seth as the “Lord of the northern sky,” responsible for clouds and storms. The souls of ordinary deceased Egyptians were sometimes seized by him, but Seth protected Re against the serpent Apophis (Apep) on his nightly voyage through the underworld. Later he was—strangely—identified with this enemy of his. Throughout history, Seth’s reputation grew steadily worse, until he became Seth, the abominable. In the Book of Victory over Seth, the god is expelled from Egypt. Magic is invoked against him, his effigy is burned, and he is delivered to the Devourer.

  —The Abydos Triad—Osirus, Isis, and Horus—and Seth

  By Andre Dollinger

  http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/

  egypt/religion/osiris.htm#set

  27

  Uniter

  155

  T’Qinna finally resorted to dumping a pot of trough water over Palqui’s head to arouse him from his shock, when she could wait no longer. She had bound his calf and ankle tightly with strips of linen from her own wrap, after cleaning the wounds. Then, she and the Watch Commander had sat him up against the wall outside the barn, and re-barred the door.

  The sun grew late in the sky. Palqui’s mother, with his wife and family, had joined T’Qinna, along with a few trusted townsfolk and sentries, armed with bows and maces. Raqu, and his son, Syruq, with their wives and little ones, stood slightly aloof from the rest of Palqui’s clan.

  According to the latest watch report, the forces of Psydon, who had obviously betrayed them, would reach White Rock by night. The last information from eastern lookout runners also told that a combined army of Kengiru, Akkadians, and Asshurians would arrive by morning, assuming they marched through the night. This handful of watches, being Palqui’s men, had retreated to White Rock with their final reports.

  Now that Palqui was conscious, T’Qinna brought him up to date on their situation. He tried to stand up to speak to those gathered, but settled for leaning against the barn. He said, “We must abandon White Rock, and flee south up the River of Dragons, over the pass, and down the River of Lions, then over the second pass onto the Yordaen River. From there, we make downstream for Yerikho Freehold. That’s the fallback point that Melchi Shemi gave to his armies, if bad goes the war with King Scorpion. If things go well, then they will stop there on return. We must leave now!”

  The barn door exploded at a sudden impact from inside, snapping the wooden bar. The slatted panel flew open on its hinges. It would have crushed Palqui between itself and the wall, were he a half-cubit closer.

  Qe’Nani, his cadaverous eyes seeing nothing, staggered out into their midst. He loosed a howl that almost dropped T’Qinna into the dirt on weakening legs. His face transported her to a day, centuries ago, in another world, when she had found her mother’s gutted corpse splayed out, bled dry, on a stone table. Only this despair engulfed and exceeded even that memory.

  Qe’Nani’s rot-encrusted mouth spoke words for the first time in the century and a half since the Plague of Bab’Eluhar stuck him. “Nooobody goes. I hold you all. No place can you hide from meeee!”

  T’Qinna fell backward into Palqui’s son, Raqu, who held a bow. The young man trembled, making infantile mewling sounds in his throat. She grabbed his weapon, and plucked an arrow from the quiver he wore over his shoulder. Stepping farther back, away from the barn, she fumbled the arrow onto the bow.

  The Thing that spoke through Qe’Nani’s mouth lurched toward her. “Kiss your grandson, Gran-Mahmi! Kiss yer baby boy!”

  She fitted the arrow, and raised her bow, but somehow could not bring herself to fire. Memories of midwifing Qe’Nani’s mother, who had died to give him birth, flooded her mind, along with those of her comforting her eldest son at the loss of his young wife. Arrafu’Kzaddi still lived, as far as she knew, somewhere in the East, among the tribes of Yoqtani. T’Qinna had never wanted to die before. Now, only hope in her husband’s return kept her from wanting that completely.

  The Abomination shuffled toward her, saying, “Do more than kiss me, do more than hug me—like the priestess-whore you once were, and that you will always be deep down inside; where nothing good dwells!”

  Everything faded to gray, except for the approaching Thing that had once been the son of her son, but was now a sore-ridden shadow of death itself. Qe’Nani became the only thing visible in the sinking sun.

  Memories of her youth as a priestess in Aztlan returned with a tactile presence; the stink of all the violating men and women who had used her, leaving their stench in her nostrils, on her skin, and reeking in her clothes, smothered even the hope of U’Sumi’s return from war. All the sensory experiences, long dead and vanquished, came back as if the centuries of loving transformation had been nothing but a foolish delusion.

  T’Qinna knew the impressions were lies, yet they held her as kraken’s tentacles, pulling her down into crushing depths, where she still felt them, no matter what she believed. Her whole life seemed a cruel joke from a schizoid god, who really wanted just to scrape her off his heel like so much stepped-in excrement.

  Qe’Nani’s mouth flapped open and shut as some puppet made of hog jowls. “He’s never coming back to you, your Deukal’Uinne…” The pet name sounded filthy on those lips, as if her marriage had been an obscene thing—a way of indulging ugly pleasures beneath the cowl of an even uglier shame, sanitized in name only, glossing over deeper layers of foaming lewdness, where she had corrupted U’Sumi along with her for all eternity.

  She only realized that she had lowered her bow when Qe’Nani’s hands flew forward and seized her arm.

  156

  Haviri heard Iyapeti’s scouts return with the news. They had found the northward advancing column of the Scorpion’s forces on the bankside trail, near the beginning of the Styx River’s delta fan, shortly before nightfall. This had enabled them to slip back to the main body after dark, seemingly without detection. He followed the scout commander and Iyapeti into the latter’s command tent as the evening fog rolled in.

  “Finally, some good news!” said Iyapeti the Elder, after he had heard the scout commander’s report.

  Haviri was not so sure. “We still haven’t found Father Khumi, Mother Tiva, or Ursunabi with even one garrison of Misori’Rayim. That should have happened long before now, especially with all the displaced settlers from the flood. The locals we’ve met know nothing about them, and seem terrified of us.”

  Iyapeti said, “That’s why I want you to take your Khana’Anhu Regiment in and surround the enemy camp by stealth, and keep watch. The enemy may have captured them. If you find that is so, send a runner back. Otherwise, my mobile force will attack them at dawn. Then your foot-soldiers can cut off any escape.” He turned again to the scout commander, “Did you see any boats?”

  “None, Lord, and the river is too deep to ford. My squad that be still watching them will send runner if rafts come.”

  “Good. You go with Captain Haviri and his men. Do you expect any difficulty finding the place again by dark?”

  “No. Paths are clear and the river is nearby.”

  Haviri said, “I’ll have my tracker-scouts teamed with archers. The Scorpion may have advance positions forward of his main camp. I would.”

  Iyapeti nodded. “May the Divine Name watch over you all.”

  Haviri left the tent and quietly gathered his men through their clan chieftains. The scout commander assured them the way was not far, and no one could beat the Khana’Anhu
at stealth.

  Once assembled, Haviri quickly prayed over his force, and they silently departed the darkened camp.

  About an hour’s march later, the scout commander pulled on Haviri’s cloak to get his attention.

  “Wrongness is,” the Scout whispered. “We should have had meeting with my squad by now.”

  Haviri signaled his men by a pre-arranged passed-on shoulder tap to fan out and approach the enemy camp.

  Light flickered through the long grass and clumps of low riverine trees ahead, but no noise came with it. Haviri stuck to the bank trail, to make better time, and because he trusted the woodcraft of his Khana’Anhu men more than his own. He did not want to step on a crackling twig or make any other noise. When he almost reached the source of the light, he drew his hand-cannon, and began to crawl on his belly up the small rise toward the enemy campsite. He did not expect what he saw.

  157

  The sun had set on White Rock as a brooding storm darkened the horizon northward.

  Crack!

  The Nightmare Thing animating Qe’Nani ceased yanking on T’Qinna’s arm, and whirled around.

  Behind him, Palqui swung the broken piece of door bar again, his tough old muscles slamming the wood down into Qe’Nani’s temple, which caved in, with his crumpling body, to the dirt.

  “We must go now!” Palqui hissed, grabbing T’Qinna by the arm and leaning on her as a crutch. He pulled her toward Lomina and his family.

  “No!” shouted the voices of two young men.

  T’Qinna and Palqui paused.

  Syruq, with his wife and infant son, had already turned to walk back into White Rock, shaking his head.

  Raqu broke free from Lomina’s attempt to pull him along, and joined his wife and younger children. He shouted, “We’re staying with the farmers of Ishtar! You can’t fight the whole world! I’m not wasting my life like you! The farmers have heard from Psydon. He’ll make peace with us if we don’t resist! Look at Qe’Nani! He walked and spoke from the dead! Their gods have power! Yours surrendered the world, and abandoned you!”