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

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  Sudden noise in the greenery ahead startled her.

  A raven took flight from behind a juniper bush, cawing into the heavens. She lowered her hand from beneath her mantle. The Woman had inherited her great, great grandson’s ancient thunder-weapon, given him by her husband. One should not inherit things from dead descendants, she thought, bitterly, as she felt the hand-cannon swinging in its leather strap beneath her cloak; like her, the last of its kind. She had carefully re-fitted all its worn-out mechanisms, as needed, with the craft of fine metalwork that her great grandson—the other one’s father—had taught her. Only its thunder from between her claws allowed her any safety among the children of men.

  Her appearance had changed little over the centuries; a few more wrinkles around tired eyes, and the addition of silver streamlets to those of gold and red that naturally highlighted her otherwise dark hair. Some called her “the Leopard Woman” or “Leopard Goddess,” due to the symmetrical swirls of dark spots flowing down either side of her face, torso, arms, and legs; not that any man since her second husband had seen those. Most people never even saw her face under the hood. Those who did—especially in the cities—ran from her in dread, for not even the elite guards of urban lugals dared face Sarrat Asakku.

  Men had forced her to kill too often in the two centuries since she first acquired that name, maintaining their healthy terror. Their fear of her was her only safety when need forced her to travel, which was not often.

  She always discouraged those few who did not fear her from calling her a goddess, though sometimes they let it slip. The name of Leopard Woman did not offend her; she certainly preferred it to Sarrat Asakku, but only because she had actually seen a living asag, and did not appreciate the likening of herself to a carrion-eating dragon of the type that only some in the Far North still referred to as a “wurm.” The images of such beasts were passing out of human memory, except in distant places where wandering clans of men had only now just arrived—or so she figured.

  She had come down out of the smoldering mountains, leading her two donkeys, both laden with her Gift to the world. Distant rumors brought by Khettai traders, of a man called Melchi’Tzedek, had reached her isolated cave in the ravines of Urartu. She wanted to see if her first husband’s successor still lived.

  Despite the fact that she resembled a woman still young enough for an older man to find desirable, she was less than two centuries shy of being a thousand years old. If Malaq had done better among the Khana’Anhu than she and Iyapeti had in the “Sides of the North,” then she wanted to live out her old age in warmer lands. Maybe there, men again called on the God who had created them. One might hope.

  The Woman had learned long ago not to hope too much in this life. More than likely, this “Melchi’Tzedek” was one of Malaq’s descendants, at best. At worst, he was some warlord who had stolen the title, and established a kingdom for himself based on the reputation that went with it. If deserving, she would give him the Gift. If not, only the Name-No-Longer-Spoken knew. It would be nice if it were Malaq, for she had not spoken to someone unmarked by the Confusion since Iyapeti had died.

  The Woman smiled at the memory of her second husband, which caused her to smile at the memory of her first. Both husbands had rescued her from her old life as a priestess, not unlike those working the Temples of Abomination, which pockmarked the Riverlands from Elammi to P’Sydonia. E’Yahavah had used her first husband to rescue her from Aztlan itself, and her second to stand against malevolent spirits that had attacked her grieving heart. Such spirits had tried to destroy her by hatefully twisting her memories of a love playful, joyful, and holy, into something unclean.

  The Divine-Name-No-Longer-Spoken had used the love of both brothers to heal her, and put flesh and bone onto his Divine love for her, which was greater still. Now that she thought of it, her destiny fit perfectly within their father’s multi-layered prophecy about his two older sons, and thus also about her. “May El Elyon enlarge Iyapeti, and may he dwell in the tents of U’Sumi.” Now that she really was old, she thanked E’Yahavah that he had not allowed her make herself old before her time because of fear and grief.

  The Leopard Woman smiled as she neared the outer fields, north of a settlement that had not been there the last time she had passed this way. Some women pulled weeds from the irrigated furrows, looking up as she approached. They chattered to one another in a pidgin version of the language spoken by the Leopard Woman.

  She called to them, “What place is this, and who is its lugal?”

  The field hands looked to one another, as if they did not understand.

  The Leopard Woman tried a different dialect; “What is the name of this settlement, and who is its saar?”

  One of the older women smiled. “Ah, this is Qaran. Our lord is Turahu, son of Naqor.”

  The name of Naqor caught the Leopard Woman’s attention. “How long have you lived here? This land was empty when last I passed through.”

  The woman bowed. “Great Ninti-Lady, we have lived here some twenty-five suns. Turahu led his sons and their wives here from Ur of the Khaldini as a temple colony devoted to the moon god, Nanna-Suenne.”

  “Where can I find this Turahu?”

  “He keeps a mercantile shrine at the center of the village. Continue the way you are going—miss it you can’t.”

  The Leopard Woman returned the bow, without revealing her face, and continued on her way.

  It might be just a coincidence, she thought. Certainly, enough people existed by now that popular names had developed in some places.

  She found the “mercantile shrine” where the field woman had said. A ceramics kiln baked identical clay idols of the moon god, Suenne, out front. Finished copies besieged the entrance to the shrine like an army of bent dwarfs. The likeness amazed her in a repulsive sort of way. She tied her donkeys to the post outside, and entered.

  Sarrat Asakku felt the unclean presences hovering around her like flies, the second she stepped through the door. Oil lamps lit the interior, focusing their pulsating light onto a large, silver gilded idol of Suenne. On either side were shelves of smaller versions of the same vile deity.

  An elderly looking man—to her a mere child—squatted before the pale image, muttering some form of mummery. The Leopard Woman did not stand on ceremony—especially if he turned out to be whom she guessed.

  “I’m looking for Turahu, son of Naqor. Are you he?”

  The old man stood up, scowling, as if annoyed that she had interrupted his mumming. “I am, woman. What do you want?”

  She said, “Is your father the son of Syruq son of Raqu, who came from White Rock, or Eb-la, as some tongues say it?”

  “Yes, but that was long before I was born. What’s it to you?”

  She liked neither his tone, nor his occupation. If he had been the son of some other Naqor, she would have apologized for troubling him, and left.

  Instead, she threw back her cowl with one hand, and drew her hand-cannon with the other.

  Turahu shrieked, “Sharrat Asakku!”

  He curled into a quivering crouch as the big Suenne idol exploded into silvery ceramic chaff. Her fiery claws blasted the smaller versions on the shelves away into thunderstruck shards.

  A young man flew in from the back of the shrine to shield Turahu with his own body, forcing Sarrat Asakku to lower her smoking hand-cannon, and slip it back under her cloak.

  “Sharrat Asakku! Sharrat Asakku!” the moon worshipper gibbered on the floor, wetting himself in the rubble of his deity.

  Sarrat Asakku spoke to the young man. “If I had meant to kill him, the old man’s head would have exploded, and not those of his idols. Your moon god is weak and contemptible, and so are all his children. Your fathers look on you in shame, and I, who am your mother, am disappointed.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait, please!”

  The Leopard Woman stopped and turned again.

  The young man had shielded Turahu with his own body even in the face of certain death
at the thundering claws of what he must think a preternatural being. That had impressed her, reluctantly.

  “What is your name, boy?”

  “Abrammu, Great Mother.”

  “Why did you risk your life to save this man?”

  Abrammu sighed, and shrugged. “He is my father.”

  “I would speak with you, then, outside.”

  She walked out of the building the way she had entered, replacing her hood, and went beyond a row of tamarisk trees, putting the shrine to Suenne out of her sight. Yet the ubiquitous presence remained. Turahu’s idols dotted Qaran’s market square like leering child-snatchers, awaiting victims to abuse in unspeakable rites under a weeping moon.

  The Leopard Woman paused, turning to see if the young man still followed. Abrammu paused with her, as if waiting for her to speak.

  She said, “I notice you do not bow to me. I find that refreshing.”

  Abrammu spoke with a tremulous voice; “I will not bow to my father’s moon god idols, and I will not bow to you—though I respect you as I would my Great Mother.”

  “Are you not from Ur?”

  “By birth, but not by heart. All my life I’ve sensed wrongness there, as I studied the stars, though I could not always say what, until shortly before we departed. The old women of my clan whisper a story that our mother was a leopard, who rode out the Great Deluge with Father Xisuthra, in his floating box. Until I came along, the men would have none of this tale, but my grandmother told it to me anyway. Are you the Leopard Woman who is the Mother of us All?”

  “Yes, Abrammu, I am your mother. Others have known this too, and tried to worship me as a goddess, and I have always forbidden them to do so. Yet you are the first to know not to do this of yourself: How?”

  The young man gestured to a circle of seat-sized rocks around the largest tree in the village, as if inviting her to sit with him. She sat down by him in the shade, and listened to his answer.

  Abrammu leaned toward her, as if divulging a dangerous secret. “Not long before we left Ur, a Voice spoke to the light in my heart, telling me to leave my father’s house, and Ur of the Khaldini, and to take my wife, and go to one of the Martu lands that would later be shown to me.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yet I notice your father is still with you, and a shrine to that pervert, Suinne, bakes idols at the center of Qaran.”

  Abrammu hung his head. “Yes. When I announced to my father that S’Rae—she’s my wife—and I were leaving, he laughed and danced with joy that, in his words, ‘The gods had visited my house.’ He told me that the En-Priest of Suenne had just that day asked him to build a shrine colony, and eventually a temple, in the Martu lands, west. I could not very well prevent my father, with his house, from leaving Ur with the same caravan, could I?”

  “Likely not; yet how long have you dwelt here at Qaran? Is this the land the Holy Voice told you of?”

  “I’m not certain—I don’t think so, but I have received no further directions from this God who speaks. It is a land certainly in the Martu lands, but many more lie beyond.”

  The Leopard Woman looked toward the lowering sun. “I have heard that a great priest-king dwells to the southwest of this place, among the Khana’Anhu. I go to seek Melchi’Tzedek, if he still lives, or even if a son of his has inherited the title. I once knew this man, if he is who I think he is, though this was many lifetimes ago to you children who live but two hundred years or less. I have a Gift to the world.” She gestured to her beasts, which they could still see by the post in front of the shrine, though the tamarisk trees hid the shrine itself.

  “What do they carry in their saddle bags, Great Mother?”

  “Clay tablets mostly, though some of the longer texts are on skins. My first husband wrote most; my second, some, and I wrote a few. Others—the ones on skins—are copies of genealogies and histories from the World-that-Was before the Great Deluge, written by the Seven Sages, and Heaven’s Scribe, Enuq. They are lost histories of creation; of the God who made all.”

  The weight of what she said must have hit Abrammu suddenly. “You are older than the world, my Mother! Such things are too great for me!”

  She smiled, and shook her head. “I’m older than this world, but not older than creation. I merely lived through the Deluge.”

  The wind rustled the leaves above their heads, and whispered words in them that she also heard in her heart. “Give Abrammu the Gift, and teach him. Let My Light and history be born anew in him. You are Mother here to a small child. Speak fully only about what the Gift you have assembled speaks of—the First Lessons, first—for he cannot understand most of the knowledge that you have. Do not presume to lead him, but convey the language skills required for him to understand the Writings. Then depart for Melchi’Tzedek, who will care for you the rest of your days.”

  “Did you hear that, Abrammu?”

  Abrammu’s face shone, as a sunbeam broke through the leaves. “I heard Divine words in the wind for you, but I could not understand them!”

  T’Qinna said, “Let me teach them to you.”

  Epilogue

  I watched the YouTube video on our flatscreen, and remembered the horrors of last year. The image of the Woman kept going viral, thanks to Norby.

  Success, of course, has had its consequences.

  Whatever madness struck the research compound near Mount Ararat escalated not long after Vris, Norby and I met out on the lava fields.

  I slept in Vris’ room—on the floor, of course—after fights started breaking out among the security people.

  After that, we were able to take photos of the Device freely, ironically enough. Nobody seemed to care anymore.

  On the fifth night after our meeting on the lava fields, Stavenger’s men started shooting at the non-CIA military security. Hobbes drove the military folk on to greater violence like an angry baboon overlord howling at his ape army. It strangely reminded me of the opening scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  Norby crowded in with Vris and I, and we waited for the trailer-to-trailer search we thought would surely happen. We heard that very thing going on in the other mobile housing building. Stavenger and his men went inside, opening dorm room after dorm room, executing whomever they found. Hobbes and the military people caught them, as they exited the other end, in a shootout that none survived.

  When Vris, Norby, and I crept cautiously from our mobile building the next morning, we found only one soldier alive. He stood trembling in the middle of the compound, looking intently at his side arm, down the barrel.

  I tried to talk him into putting the weapon down, but he took one look at me, and shrieked, “I am the Suicide of Civilization; and this is the rot that remains!”

  Then he placed the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

  The wind sighed over the volcanic fields like an army of restless ghosts awaiting release for some new cosmic mayhem.

  Nobody remained alive but us.

  To this day, we still don’t know what happened. But we knew what we had to do. Whatever madness came with the Device, the Device itself did not cause it—otherwise Norby, Vris, and I would have turned on each other just like the rest. With no technological, biological, or chemical causative factor, we had no reason to suspect ourselves affected; nor were we carriers of any plague, since we had checked all possible biohazards relating to the Device’s biological components.

  Perhaps the Madness was already among us, long before the diggers discovered the Device. Maybe humanity acquired it long ago, when the global human population was still small and in close touch with one another. If so, it went unnoticed by us as a pathogen because it has been a normal, latent part of human neuro-chemistry for thousands of years. When a more potent version of itself emerged from the Device, some people may have been susceptible to a few of its original effects on the human brain. Perhaps the others, like Stavenger and Hobbes, also had dreams of the Woman; only their dreams pushed them in the opposite direction that our dreams pus
hed us, based on their assumptions about how things are at Reality’s bottom line.

  In the end, we loaded the Device, and all data pertaining to it, into one of the Humvees, and simply drove off.

  Vris led Norby and I in a prayer for protection, and Jew or no Jew, I gave my heart to Yeshua—the Jesus of Vris’ faith, and the Jewish Messiah. After asking God to guide us, we made for the Israeli Embassy at Ankara, where we formally requested political asylum. I have a cousin in the IDF, and with the likely origin of the Device, we all figured Israel might be a good place for it.

  Vris and I are married now, living in Tel Aviv. I just gained my Israeli citizenship last week. Norby took a position at Hebrew University, as did both Vris and I. The Israeli government has commissioned us to continue our studies of the Device. While formally “upset” by Mr. Skorbner’s YouTube releases, the Prime Minister has privately assured us that any goodwill stimulated over the Internet is good goodwill. Video documentaries are forthcoming, featuring “Your’s truly,” and his mysterious (and exotically beautiful) new Bride.

  (Ouch! That was Vris socking me in the arm.)

  The United States government and CIA have denied all knowledge of the Device, and that they ever had us in Eastern Turkey to study it. That has not stopped Vris and I from receiving frequent death threats—though these have come from people not formally connected to any government. We certainly don’t think they represent the people of the United States, or even much of the U.S. Government. The media has—big surprise—ignored us.

  I continue my work, trying to decipher the Woman’s language. I’m certain of three things: She is not a space alien, she is likely the mother of every human being alive today, and she was the survivor of some primordial global upheaval that reduced her advanced civilization to the Stone Age physically, mentally, and spiritually—not necessarily in that order.

  She still haunts our dreams.

  Appendix I