“You feel you’ve failed me—you all do in one way or another,” the Wordspeaker said. “Certainly, you all have your sins and weaknesses, and in that sense there have been failures, but my priesthood covers them. You also sometimes feel that I have failed you—even though you wisely refuse to succumb to that impression. I would encourage you not to confuse any of that with having failed me in what I called you to do—none of you, camped over that hillside have done that. As for the other, I’ve paid the price so that I may show all of you kindnesses you cannot imagine—the most fundamental being the kindness that transforms, and brings good out of evil.”
Iyapeti buried his face in his hands. “But the whole world is lost! If that were not bad enough, I’ve been trapped by my own words into driving T’Qinna away! I’ve never been good with people, like my brother was.”
A warm hand touched his shoulder. “Just be a devoted friend to her.”
“Of course, I will be that. But what kind of friend? How? What is your will for us from here on?”
“I have no command for either of you there. You are both free to be brother and sister or husband and wife—in time—so long as you act toward each other in mercy and truth, through me, in good faith.”
“It would be much easier if you would just command me, and her, one way or the other. I’m happy to follow the rules here; I just need to know what they are. She once told me to take a younger wife while I still had time, but lonely as I am, I have reached the place where I’m not certain I want any woman who is not T’Qinna. And yet, I am not a man of stone.”
“I will bless any path for you both, even a younger wife for you, so long as it is taken in mercy and truth toward each other, and in good faith with me.”
“She speaks as if she wants no more of husbands, except of course, when it seems that she does. It is when she seems that she does that she seems least tormented, and most honest, but I can hardly be objective here. You know I never desired my brother’s wife in my heart, not while he lived. Please, just make me whatever kind of friend to her you want me to be, and whatever kind she needs me to be—even if it’s an absent one.”
The Wordspeaker shrugged. “Then I suppose the matter is self-evident, Iyapeti—you must be whatever kind of friend she allows you to be.”
‘Peti hung his head. “Will you speak to her then? I never meant to go to this place with her before the right time, and without your leave. I just could not let her view herself the way those who would destroy her soul wanted her to think of herself!”
“I know.”
When the Wordspeaker said no more, Iyapeti looked up.
The rock next to him was empty.
195
T’Qinna lay in her goatskin tent, staring blankly up at its stretched fabric. Once again, she had wept herself out to exhaustion, yet could not sleep.
She got up, wrapped herself in her cloak, and went outside. The flickering red sky swirled with turbulent smoke. A streamlet running off from one of the glaciers higher up trickled nearby. She walked down from the almost level spot where they camped, and sat on a large rock by the water, glad that the hideous mountain of fire lay hidden from there.
Her weeping erupted again, like renewed flames from an Anchor Mountain once used to protect her, but now to bury hope for the future under seething liquid stone.
“E’Yahavah, what is this all about? Why have you annihilated our hope for the future, and cursed those who love you with those who hated you? This isn’t who you are! Why were evil men like P’Tah-Tahut and Suinne allowed to keep their minds, to easily destroy generations, while faithful men like Palqui and El’Issaq, who only tried to serve you, were cursed to struggle with confusion and torment that hindered the good you might otherwise have done through them?”
The Voice startled her. “Maybe it wasn’t just about curses and punishments, but about something far more important.”
She looked to where the words had come from, and found a man seated on another rock at the other side of the stream. At first, her heart leapt inside her chest, for she thought it was U’Sumi. Indeed, he closely resembled her husband, until she realized that her husband had actually grown to resemble this man only within the last two centuries.
The Wordspeaker of E’Yahavah continued, “I acted differently here than I did the last time; differently than I would normally respond in similar situations. I judged what men began to do at Bab’Eluhar. I usually wait longer, for the decay to grow advanced, to give more time for people to turn from their evil. I acted here not because I ran out of patience; rather, I wanted to contain the damage while the human population was still small. Bad as it was, this ensured the least amount of long-term harm.”
T’Qinna stood up, arms thrust skyward at the turbid ash clouds. “With due respect, how is this ‘the least amount of harm?’”
His eyes pierced her as Anchor Mountain thundered again, brightening the heavens again to a livid orange. “It is as El-N’Lil gave you to say in your testament: My most terrifying judgment is to give a people who don’t want me what they want. My plan will complete itself in a Good far greater than the unspoiled good I gazed over at Creation, before the Great Curse. It will be a Good not fragile; a Good that I bring out of evil, despite evil’s worst intent, and despite its most powerful devices to stop me.”
She crumpled onto her rock and covered her face with her hands. “Forgive me! I want you; I am just overwhelmed with grief!”
“I forgive you always, T’Qinna, always. Have hope for the future. Did not Malaq report to you your husband’s final words?”
“Yes. It is but the End of the Beginning.”
“Exactly. Your recording is still intact; Usalaq’s chamber is secure. I merely sent the lava to seal it in, until the time when those whom I prepare in that future day will discover it. Usalaq is correct in one other respect, too. Humanity is so bent that for it to retain the previous world’s knowledge would bring about this world’s destruction too quickly, by the hands of men themselves. None of this happened because you, or anyone that came on the Boat of a Million Years, personally did anything wrong to bring it.”
T’Qinna looked up and wiped her eyes. “I’m not the cause?”
His eyes melted her just as U’Sumi’s always had. “No, of course not. I had to allow the division of humanity. My long-term plan of rescue and restoration must work without men destroying themselves before it can include everyone possible. Usalaq’s other cave—the one you now go to in the mountains—has preserved in it another Gift. That is the Gift I have prepared for days not quite so distant, and unlike your recording, it cannot be destroyed, though many will try.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Wordspeaker smiled. “That’s what Palqui said when I spoke to him, too. He and El’Issaq needed to suffer as they did for good reason. Both the direct and indirect results of their testimonies shall prevail long after the manipulations of P’Tah-Tahut and Suinne crumble to dust. It shall come to its full, wrapped in the two languages they both shall spawn. Until then, think of yourself as a custodian of that Gift.”
“What about Iyapeti?”
“I only require that you deal with each other in mercy and truth. The rest is up to you, using the wisdom I give you; for so I shall structure my word on such matters.”
196
Tsian watched the smoking mountains in the west from out on the Sea of Me’At, in his clan’s single-bank oared boat. The small trading vessel hailed from the far eastern arms of the great inland sea, and traded goods with the Go-men and Muschoi on the sea’s western shores.
His brothers, nephews, and sons all left their oars to stand up so they could see the fire and smoke rising out of the West.
Tsian’s brother, Cho, said, “Looks like old Usarak the Magician has mixed himself too potent a batch of thunder dust.”
“Shut up, Cho! We carry some of that thunder dust to entertain our children. Usarak is the wise man who taught us our roots. Show respect!”
&
nbsp; Cho hung his head. “I meant no disrespect, Tsian.”
Tsian gazed at the smoke and flashes of flame along the horizon, and offered up a prayer to Tziang’Dhi for Usarak, whom they had traded with in his ruined mountain city only five months before. It seemed as if every mountain from the south to the west was aflame. Soon the darkness arched over their heads. He reached down for the chain around his neck with the bit of polished tortoise shell that Usarak had given him. On it, the Scrawl of Mercy was etched—the pictograph of a boat with eight people. He raised it to the heavens to ward off the evil.
Then he recited the Forgotten Story that Usarak had restored to them, as best Tsian remembered it. “I am Tsian Miat, whose father’s father came from the Go-men, who was son of Zhiya-fau, son of Nu-A, who was of the eight who rode the Great Boat when fell the skies and the land became sea. Nu-A was son of Lama, son of Geh-lo, son of Lusu, of the great Emperor Se-teh, who was born of the man that holy Tziang’Dhi made from dirt! Protect our boat, Tziang’Dhi from mountains of flame, and protect your wise servant Usarak, as he works your wonders by your great thunder.”
Tsian replaced the tortoise shell etching back into his tunic, and yelled, “Hey now, you loafers, back to your oars!”
197
Even with mountains smoldering in the distance to the north, the valley of Usalaq’s second cave was lush with greenery. Four years had passed since the big eruption of Anchor Mountain and, it seemed, almost every other mountain along the line stretching from east to west.
T’Qinna tended her garden just outside the reliquary cave. There Usalaq had deposited a library of baked clay tablets, and a few of Q’Enukki’s longer works copied on animal skins. Rock drawings and carvings surrounded the place, where Palqui and Haviri etched, when farming the rich yet sometimes rocky soil or hunting allowed them the time.
Iyapeti approached from down the well-tended garden path. His eyes were sad, and she knew why.
He gave her a discreet sideways hug when he reached her. “I’m leaving now. I just wanted to say good bye, and to wish you well.”
T’Qinna did not let any of her emotions betray her on her face. The two of them had tended the garden and the reliquary library together, copying texts, and even authoring some, but despite how much she knew he loved her, she could not return it in kind. That part of her life was over, and she would not bring it back. She was certain the remnants of such desires would soon die off, if she stuck to her course. She had to be strong for both of them. He had to find whatever E’Yahavah had for him, and she was certain he would not find it here. He needed a family of his own.
She asked him, “Have you decided where to go?”
He shrugged, as if to say that it didn’t matter. “I’ll go down to see how Malaq is doing among the Amurru. I’m sure I can make myself useful there somehow.”
She punched his shoulder playfully, and smiled for him. “I’m sure you’ll meet a nice lady who will raise you many new sons.”
He arched his brow. “To replace the ones I had to kill? I’m not sure I want any more sons.”
T’Qinna averted her eyes. “Forgive me; I’ve offended you. I didn’t mean to.”
He smiled for her now. “There’s a difference between being offended and having a broken heart. I really wish you all the best, and I will always think the best of you. I really do value your friendship so highly that I would rather have you as my sister only, than not be able to have any contact with you at all. Take care of yourself, T’Qinna. I’ll visit in about ten or twenty years.”
She nodded. “Make it ten.”
He turned, and walked away.
She had planned a day of weaving with Lomina and Hazurada, so as not to be alone with her thoughts.
It really was better this way.
198
Magpie’s once-golden hair now shone white as the snow she had not seen in over a century. Her formerly smooth, ebony skin had creased with age. Still the Dreamtime had led her true, and the smiling face of the Sun Woman still filled her heart, as it had when Magpie had first helped her to lift up the fallen sky on sticks, the day of the crushing of the serpent’s head. Something about the crushing of the serpent’s head stirred in her another expectation; one she could not quite define. Yet she sensed it meant that the first head crushing was only a shadow of something greater; what, she did not know.
A greater Serpent would likewise have its head crushed by a greater Son of a greater woman than Magpie. That was all she knew.
The great red mountain she had seen in her dreams all her life now stretched before her, as her large clan set up camp around her. People in the never-ending beginning of the Dreamtime surely once took refuge on this Great Mountain during the world-flood that washed across the lands.
Magpie’s journey had been long and hard. She had lost many children along the way, some to cannibals, and others to dragons, a few to tigers. She had lost still others to proud sons who wanted to lead their wives and young children along another way. The Narrow Lands had been the worst—always shaking with roaring fire-mountains, and rivers of liquid flame. But those were now far behind her.
Magpie had found her place before the Great Red Mountain, and it was a wide place. Yet she would never escape the impression that something important was still missing. The White Hand guided her, and Sun Woman’s face shone on her, and with the promise that came of the crushing of the Serpent’s head, that would be enough.
For now.
199
The Sea Captain hailed from the Island of Roses, in search of the god his fathers had called Iupiter Rhodoni, who spoke the ways of Yove. His people were fighting again, and he came to find the gods of old that had lived among men in his grandfather’s time, when the Island of Roses had been the Mountain of Roses.
Long had he and his weary men rowed east, then south, skirting barren coasts, until he saw what must certainly be the City of the Gods at the very edge of the world. Palaces of cut stone stood out into the sea, white as heaven’s foam. Ships put in at its quayside such as the young Captain had never dreamed possible. They had double oar-banks, and swan’s wings that carried them in the ocean winds—divine ships, worlds above his poorly patched together monoreme.
A harbor man met him at the quayside, speaking a tongue just barely within reach of understanding—a high tongue that must have been that of the gods themselves!
The Captain asked him, “Is this the City of the Gods?”
The Harbormaster laughed. “This be P’Sydon’s Haven.”
“Is this Poseidon a god?”
Again, the Harbormaster laughed loudly. “Aye lad, truly one of the titans of old! Come ashore, and sacrifice to P’Sydon, and we’ll be to seeing that which your folk have to trade.”
The young Sea Captain felt shadows reaching up for him from out of the depths.
200
People called her Sarrat Asakku—the Asag Queen—though none alive, except her, had living memories of what real asags had actually looked like; certainly not the winged leopards or lions with lightning in claws that adorned the Temples of Abomination in every city from Kalhu to Ur.
In the minds of the city-folk, Asakku was Horror personified—normally represented as male. She figured her legend had killed enough “great men,” that to attribute such terror among warriors to a woman must be intolerable; hence the title Sarrat: Queen. For priestesses and priests in the Temples of Abomination, the Woman was the stuff of nightmares. They saw her as She who had dragged Enkidu away by his hair, screaming, into the Underworld against even the mighty grip of Gilgamesh.
She had come to prefer it that way, though it had not been her first choice. Those priests and priestesses would, one day, each know the terror of Enkidu, but not by her hand. The thought of it brought her no joy, just a tightening of her grip on the tethers she led her two donkeys by, down from the foothills that stood as backdrop to the iron gray skies.
She muttered to herself, “Why did it have to be the Kengiru, of all peoples, to b
e the first to rediscover writing on any large scale?” She had hoped Akkadian influence on their scribal culture would make a difference. In the end, however, the Akkadians had proved to have no more interest in using writing to preserve truth than had the Kengiru. One reason both peoples feared her so.
The Woman had not intended to make such a horrific impression on them—not at first. Such visions came from their own corrupt imaginations, only after they had forced her to defend herself, and others unable to defend themselves. She had no contempt for the common folk—though they held her in as much terror as the priests and lugals did, but only because people feared them, too. She who made “great men” tremble must command terror out of mind; or so the stories she heard told of herself went.
The Woman distantly wept over this, for she was actually the Mother of them all, from priest to lugal to the lowest slave. By now, no one lived who could not trace their bloodline back to her by at least one parent, if only they knew. Yet, only she of the entire world understood genetics now—or quickfire, chemistry, history, theology, true astronomy with its heavenly code, physics, medicine based on study of the human body, crypto-language theory, or any other artifact of civilized thought. She often wept over this, too, in her mountain cave of relics.
Sarrat Asakku would have gladly taught anyone who would learn, but they must deal with first lessons first. She had yet to find any among the young with a heart to do even that much. Nor was it merely a matter of her style or presentation. Her knowledge was power, and she refused to give power to those who would do nothing but misuse it. They had ability, just no genuine love for truth. She had tested this for centuries, and all but thrown up her hands in surrender. Maybe that would soon change, likely not. Lately, her dreams had given her a curious hope, despite it all, but nothing definite.
Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven Page 59