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

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  “How are you?” he asked, slowing his horse to make pace with her smaller mount.

  She looked up at him, and smiled again, ever so briefly. “Not so bad, today. I’m grateful for the forest and flowers.”

  Iyapeti reached up and pulled a pinecone from a passing branch. “After five hundred years, it actually looks like a forest again.”

  She chuckled. “They still seem kind of small to me, though.”

  “Well, I suppose they are, compared to the World-that-Was, or perhaps we remember things being so much larger because we were children then. The forest and flowers are nice, either way.”

  She smiled at him as a speck of sunlight through the trees caught one of the golden streams of her otherwise dark hair. “I’m done with the shawl and the veils. That’s not wrong, is it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Neither did U’Sumi, really. It was just the silliness at White Rock, with the people. By the Heavens, how I hated that place!” she almost hissed as a shadow fell over her face—probably just a cloud passing over the sun.

  Iyapeti said, “So did U’Sumi; the way he used to speak of it.”

  “I hate what it did to him.”

  Iyapeti fell silent, hoping she would continue to vent whatever was in her system—that she would feel free to do that with him.

  T’Qinna simply rode on silently, and her eyes had somehow lost some of their transitory emerald luster.

  184

  The tiny ford village of Karqemish had first appeared on the western bank of the upper Ufratsi River some decades after the Madness Plague. The logging industry of its people looked to be enjoying an upswing, after the army of Asshur had collapsed last year, leaving the river hamlet free to follow its own fortunes. It even had a small caravansary with a public fire pit that sold fresh bread, beer, and dried meats. Few travelers forded the river these days, but the villagers used the place as an evening gathering area to socialize after the day’s work. Iyapeti’s company probably equaled six month’s business.

  T’Qinna had liked the woodlands, until the Pendulum had swung hard, leaving her dreams filled again with angry voices in the night. She even heard them before falling asleep on some evenings. Tonight, she went to her bedroll, while the others tried to mingle with the villagers of Karqemish by the fire pit. She had no desire to be around people.

  “You can take the girl from the Temple, but not the Temple from the girl—eh, T’Qinna darling?” The voice of long-dead Sutara seemed to come from a shadow next to her in the hay.

  T’Qinna breathed deeply to slow her own heartbeat, and ward off the mounting panic. Every shadow came alive, writhing, and whispering. She engaged the analytical side of her mind. Iyapeti’s wife had spoken those words on the Boat of a Million Years, half a millennium ago, in a misunderstanding at a time of deep personal loss and pressure for her.

  T’Qinna tried to bring the memory into focus, so that the Pendulum swing would not distort it. She had been in one of the animal stalls—she could not recall which one. Iyapeti had come up behind her, and asked her for advice about how he might best comfort his wife.

  “Can we talk?”

  T’Qinna said, “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

  They stepped into the companionway, and found barrels to sit on.

  Iyapeti pulled some long wheaty hair from his eyes. “It’s Suta. She doesn’t seem to care about anything. If I ask her what she’s feeling, she just stares back and says, ‘nothing.’ If you’ll excuse my boldness in discussing it, trying to—well, have relations—is like trying to romance a statue!”

  “Why come to me?”

  “It’s just that you seem to have such an uncanny knowledge of how people think and feel—especially women.”

  T’Qinna felt sick inside. “Because I used to be a priestess?”

  Iyapeti hung his head. “Look, I don’t know why. I prefer to think it’s because you’re sensitive. Maybe this was a mistake…” He got up to leave.

  T’Qinna grabbed his hand to stop him. “Wait. I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard for you. I wish I had magic answers for you and Suta. But her wounds are deep. They may take decades to heal. Just don’t give up on her.”

  They both heard the shuffle on the deck behind them at the same time. Only then did T’Qinna realize that she was still holding Iyapeti’s hand.

  Sutara stood by the hatch, with glassy eyes. “You can take the girl from the Temple, but not the Temple from the girl—eh, T’Qinna darling?”

  The blood drained from T’Qinna’s face. She jerked her hand away from Iyapeti’s…

  T’Qinna pulled her blanket over her head, body aching, and eyes running, trying desperately to make no noise as she wept. Oh E’Yahavah, it’s true! I’ve always been just the furtive little beast, craving her wretched scraps…

  185

  The glacier had grown considerably, even since Suinne’s scouts had used the pass just last year. The place seemed frozen over.

  He called to his war captain.

  The man ran down to Suinne, who had bundled himself inside his sedan chair against the cold winds.

  “Yes, your divinity?”

  “Can we get through, or not?”

  “Wise Nanna-Suenne, the scouts are picking their way through a narrow canyon that twists as a serpent through the ice walls. They have not returned yet to report.”

  Suinne punched the arm of his chair. The whole box trembled because of his shivering eunuchs below. Even the cold-wear—long sleeves and two-plied wool leggings stuffed with straw—seemed to fail them.

  He said to his war band leader, “Is there another pass?”

  “Many weeks to the west.”

  Suinne ordered his eunuchs to put his sedan chair down, and to bring him warm “moon broth” from the fires. He doubted Iyapeti had enough men to reach Arrata in a single year anyway.

  186

  With Karqemish many weeks behind them, Iyapeti tried to focus on contingency plans for when they reached Arrata. He would have no good intelligence on what awaited them there, except for whatever Malaq’s Khana’Anhu scouts would bring him when they drew near. That would not be at least until they crossed the divide between the sources of the Ufratsi’s southern headwater fork, and those of the River T’Qinna, to the East. Iyapeti planned to approach Arrata from the north, if the new glaciers on either side of the narrowing river did not close in and bar their way.

  Watch stations would likely warn Suinne of Iyapeti’s approach, assuming the twisted old monster used his distance advantage from Uruk wisely. Too many variables made it impossible to predict even approximate outcomes.

  On top of that, Iyapeti had difficulty keeping his mind off T’Qinna. He prayed for her comfort more often, and with a quiet fervency greater even than for the immediate business at Arrata. As he did, it gave him peace that everything—including Arrata—would turn out all right in the end somehow.

  That was, and was not, good.

  He knew it was far too soon to think about any personal futures. T’Qinna’s great grandchildren saw to her needs more than adequately, but one of the things Iyapeti missed most was being able to converse with an equal in maturity—especially one who was a woman. Still, he steered clear of her, except at carefully spaced intervals, and let her family do its job. Certainly, she must feel the same thing, at least sometimes. She seemed to. Of course, her physical beauty was nowhere near lost on him; in fact, he noticed it more now than ever before—despite how far past the flower of youth the both of them were. He tried not to dwell on it.

  The endless riding along the rushing river provided too much time to think. A strange and glorious wonder filled the air between the not-too-far-off icy walls on either side. Despite his centuries alone since Sutara died, Iyapeti had thoughts like those of boyhood, at his first discovery of a special girl who was not “the enemy,” yet before the pressure of sexual knowledge. His was a pure desire, not perfect, but strong; cleansed of the evil lusts every man struggled with from thei
r later youth. How this was possible, he could not imagine, unless his advancing age had softened his rough edges, and somehow tamed those lower flames.

  If so, it was a recent phenomenon. Yet it did nothing to assuage his loneliness of heart—if anything, it made that ache worse.

  In all T’Qinna’s years married to U’Sumi, such thoughts had never entered Iyapeti’s mind regarding her, indeed would have horrified him. He remembered that one time, long ago, when Sutara had imagined that it had done more than enter his mind. But there was no horror now—not when they were the only two left to remember the primordial world, both likely with three centuries left to live, each.

  It now came to Iyapeti full force that he had been the oldest man alive ever since his father had died a century and a half ago. It had never seemed so while U’Sumi was still with them. ‘Peti had never begrudged his brother’s leadership, any more than he had wanted U’Sumi’s wife. Two years was just too small an age difference to take seriously. U’Sumi had natural gifts of leadership that ‘Peti had learned only by clumsy imitation, over long decades. Such petty rivalries had not been part of their friendship since boyhood, and even then, never seriously.

  The river arced to the right, and the trail cut across the wide alluvial fan, through a meadow. Iyapeti held up his hand to halt the caravan, and allow the horses, donkeys, and onagers to graze for the rest of the day. He dismounted, and went down by the rapids to splash the dust off his face.

  When he stood up and turned, T’Qinna was behind him. A gray overcast sky seemed to drain her eyes of their color.

  He asked, “How are you feeling today?”

  She did not answer. The breeze blew her hair back off her face, as she stared into it without blinking.

  “T’Qinna, are you all right?”

  Her eyes watered, possibly from the wind. She said, rather dreamily, “Only you call me by that name now. I rather miss hearing it—it’s the only name I ever liked, and now no one but you can pronounce it.”

  He stepped toward her, and smiled. “Haviri and Malaq still do.”

  She grinned mirthlessly. “But with them it’s Mother T’Qinna—not that I’m complaining—it’s just nice to hear T’Qinna by itself.”

  Iyapeti touched her arm gently. “Then I’ll be sure to call you by your name as often as possible.”

  She drew back, and shook her head. “I can see where this is heading, ‘Peti, and I’m sorry, I can’t do it! I can’t let it happen.”

  His heart went from pumping blood to ice water. “Can’t let what happen?”

  “It’s me! I see it in your eyes, how you look at me now.”

  “I do not look at you with anything but affection. You need space to grieve. Please forgive me if I’ve pushed in—I didn’t mean to. I just care...”

  Her eyes streamed. “You’re a good friend, but we can never…”

  Iyapeti’s own eyes leaked. “It’s too soon even to think of such things. I only meant…”

  Her eyes enveloped his entire world. “You have been alone such a long time without Sutara.” The green fire in them flared, as her jawline tightened. “Tell me it isn’t in your mind for later.” She paused, as if to give him time to think. “You see, you can’t.”

  He hung his head. “I won’t lie to you. I’m attracted to you, and the idea of a future, well… but not right now. You need your years to grieve. I had no intention of bringing this up for a long time, and only in E’Yahavah.”

  “But it’s already crossed your mind.”

  “Not with any evil desire...”

  “I’m sorry; but it can never be!”

  “Why are we even talking like this?”

  She looked past him, as if speaking to someone else, out in the rushing river. “It would not be good.”

  “Right now, I agree. But why do you speak this way?”

  “Because it crossed your mind—it’s not your fault. It only crossed it because I caused it to. I’ve seen you look at me. I shouldn’t have removed my veil! It made you fall, just as I made your brother fall—just as women like me made even the Watchers of heaven fall! Can you tell me, please, as a friend, what it is I do, so I could just stop doing it? I’m an old woman, and I’m still doing it! Tell me, Iyapeti! I don’t want to make men fall!”

  It felt like the battlefield again, with Iyapeti trying desperately to stuff some kind of dressing into her emotional wound to stop her from bleeding out. “None of that is true! You have never made me fall, and you did only well for U’Sumi your whole life together! As for veils, why should you be doomed to wear a mask? How can you believe such a malicious lie about yourself, and imagine that I would see you that way, too?”

  T’Qinna’s face darkened in a way he had never seen before. “You don’t really know me! Look at the world! We wanted to make it a pure place for our children! How can we do that when my husband isn’t even cold in the ground, and we’re only thinking of sunshine walks and couch play?” Her eye sockets became so dark that he almost saw her skull through her face.

  “That is not how it is!” he shouted at whatever warped her vision.

  “Be honest; you’re a man! That is always ‘how it is!’ How can it be any other way?”

  “I am being honest! Your grief is blurring your sight right now. I’m sorry that I’ve clearly said too much, too soon.”

  “I have my children, ‘Peti. When this is all over, why don’t you return to yours. They need you, and we both have our duties.”

  Suddenly, it seemed as though he clearly had not said nearly enough. “Duties? Are you serious? They are distant descendants, who barely understand a word I say, while they look upon me with awe at best, and fear at worst. I’ve worked long to understand their tongues, but they resist all but the most superficial wisdom I can give. What more can I possibly do for them?”

  “So take a young wife. Start anew. There’s no shame in it.”

  He answered her, knowing it would not end well for him. He also knew that if he didn’t answer, her memory of her life with his brother, and likely even with E’Yahavah, might become fractured. “T’Qinna, they are children to me! I don’t want a concubine, I want a woman I can talk to, who understands what I say, who respects me, but knows I’m a man, not some immortal. I want someone to share the centuries with—someone I know and trust; who I love and respect, too.” He sighed. “It seems I want too much.”

  T’Qinna’s eyes softened. “It isn’t too much, ‘Peti. You deserve a good wife. I just can’t…”

  “I’m not asking that of you! I understand if you don’t want to—that’s your right—and it’s certainly not good to have raised these things now—my fault, but you asked me, and I can’t lie to you. Why do you think you would not be a good wife? Why do you think you made U’Sumi fall? Malaq was with him when he passed, and he went to his fathers well.”

  She began to cry. “Some things just mark you forever, ‘Peti, and there’s no escaping that shame. You can’t know what it was like where I came from! I can’t do it anymore! I’m sorry. I want to be true to E’Yahavah alone now.” She turned, and ran up to the trail.

  The others watched from by the beasts, stunned.

  Iyapeti prayed for her late into the night, in the black silence of his tent. He did not even doze until sunrise, and then only for a few minutes.

  187

  The side of T’Qinna’s head once grazed by a hand-cannon projectile over half a millennium ago pulsed as if ready to explode. She had never experienced anything like what had just happened by the river. All she remembered was that she was feeling in good spirits again, and had followed Iyapeti down to the water. She had not spoken to him in a couple days, and just wanted to know how he was. The breeze felt nice on her face as he came up from splashing his face.

  Then, like the on-off flipping of an old quickfire pearl switch, the breeze became raking claws against her skin, and the good spirits went dark. Everything that had seemed so right suddenly seemed horribly wrong. Then, it flipped back right ag
ain, then wrong, then right—but only for another few seconds.

  Iyapeti greeted her. She liked the sound of his voice, and the way he said her name. Everything seemed fine. Then it happened again, and she knew. It was all a hollow lie. All that A’Nu-Ahki had said about the rottenness of the human heart was true—not just true in general, but true of her—not just true of her old life, but of her new. It all happened while she spoke to Iyapeti—the realization of how she must be playing with him. But she didn’t want to play with his feelings! She hadn’t gone down to the water to do that. Everything that seemed so good and healing suddenly became just the opening up of an entirely new level of inner rottenness!

  A part of her from far away told her that she was not seeing things right. Yet that part of her, along with Iyapeti—who was a man, after all— just sounded like she had once sounded. She heard herself, back in Aztlan, limply trying to explain to A’Nu-Ahki that even though she was a priestess, she was really a nice person. His wizened eyes castigated her for her girlish naiveté. But something was somehow wrong about those eyes—they were not how she remembered…

  Sleep dropped over her like death.

  188

  Palqui found several small dead trees, and a few sap-infused pine branches, and brought them, cut, to the river bend camp before sunrise. He had a merry blaze going just as Yapheth the Elder emerged from his tent. The great bear of a man did not look as if he had slept at all.

  Palqui lowered a clay pot of water onto some fresh coals, and pointed to a nearby river rock, warming by the open flame. “Sit you down, Father; I make us some tea.”

  Yapheth plopped himself onto the rounded boulder, and warmed his hands. “That would be nice, thank you.”

  Palqui laid the leaves into his pot to steep. “I had many dreamings last night. Eya’s Wordspeaker had words for me. He be wanting me to tell you what I know, now.”