“Sure, we all have. Incept tells us where we came from.”
“Yes, well,” Henry frowned, “not exactly.”
“What do you mean, not exactly? Are you saying our own books are not accurate?”
“Oh, they’re accurate—to a point. But they only tell part of the story. On purpose. Some of the Books of Ra are half-truths, Rion. Specifically written to hide things about us we didn’t want everyone to know.”
“You keep saying ‘we’, Henry?” Rion looked at the old man as the bartender set down a full glass of something strong in front of him.
The melodic language the two men were speaking was nothing the bartender recognized and the seriousness on their faces told him this conversation was none of his business. He walked away quietly.
“Those books are hundreds of thousands of years old. We don’t even know who wrote them.” Rion watched as the old man took a deep breath.
“Oh, I do. Rion—I wrote Incept,” the old man’s eyes looked unabashedly into the young god’s.
“Henry, that’s—that’s impossible. You’d need to be like two hundred thousand years old.”
Henry nodded. “Older,” the old man assured. “Much older.”
“How much older?” Rion asked, now picking up his glass and taking a quick sip. The extra strong whisky was nothing as potent as the Blue Rion was used to sipping. The swallow went down like fragrant water.
Henry emptied his glass and signaled the bartender for another. He sidestepped Rion’s age question. He had more important things to talk about than his own longevity at the moment.
“Rion, you and your friends have discovered that we’re not exactly from here.”
“Another galaxy,” Rion offered.
“That’s right. Our Imperium government was not exactly the altruistic sort. It had managed to survive for more millennia than we care to admit, through corruption, treachery, despotism, and acts of unspeakable evil. But it wasn’t always that way. There was a time when the Imperium was a benevolent force in the galaxy. Ruled by the Seven Sentinels, they were the guardians of peace.”
“The Seven and the Sentinels were the same?”
“You’re getting ahead of me.”
“I’m listening,” Rion apologized.
“The Sentinels themselves were held to accountability by the Yin, an ancient psionic race that eventually,” he sighed, “died out.”
“So there was no one let to keep the Sentinels in line?”
“No. As the influence of the Yin began to wane, a young, enterprising Sentinel named Darius assumed the role of Master Sentinel within the council. It didn’t take long for him to murder and replace the Council with people who would eventually promote him to Supreme Emperor—a half-million centuries ago.”
“You’re that old?!” Rion’s eyes were wide.
“Not quite, but pretty close. I was a young, new Sentinel myself back then. I’d been appointed to my position by the Supreme Emperor himself. Yes, I had heard about the nefarious things our government and military were doing to others, but my family had always had position and privilege within the Imperium. None of the atrocities it committed ever really affected us, or me. In fact, it was just the opposite.
“Darius showered me and my family with all kinds of gifts and privileges. He became in many ways my personal benefactor, even my mentor. But it didn’t take me long to find out why the Supreme Emperor had appointed such a young man to the council of the Seven Sentinels.”
“You were his spy.”
Henry nodded. “That is exactly what I was. Darius wasn’t stupid. He sensed the unrest that was building within the Sentinel Council and he probably knew that it was only a matter of time before they rebelled.”
“I take it you discovered what your government was really like?”
“Oh, it didn’t take long for the other members of the Council to reveal to me who our Emperor really was and what the Imperium itself had become. It was a harsh and rude awakening for me, Rion. But it was more than just a corrupt government. We saw what the Imperium was doing to our civilization, to our culture, and to our people. It was rewriting our very nature. We were becoming little more than savages, mindless automatons who just did our jobs and did whatever we were told. It needed to be stopped, Rion. Before it completely destroyed us as a people.”
Rion gestured his understanding, moving almost imperceptibly in a way that was part of their ancient communication. “Did all of the Sentinels rebel?”
Henry gestured subtly back to Rion. “We did, Rion. We made the decision that the Imperium was far too corrupt for us to continue to supply it with the knowledge of our people and what we had built. So instead of working for the Emperor I became a double-agent, feeding the Imperial High Council cleverly constructed lies about the progress we were making.”
“What were you building?”
The old man looked again at Rion, “Reflex.”
“The power of the gods,” Rion acknowledged.
“The power of the gods,” Henry repeated his acknowledgment. “We weren’t about to turn that kind of thing over to a despot regime. They’d already spread their cancer across one galaxy, we were determined not to help them spread it further.”
“Reflex isn’t exactly complicated, Henry, how did you keep if from them?”
“Complicated,” the old man breathed a grin shaking his head. “Rion it’s only not complicated because you were raised with it. It’s part of your culture. It took our masters hundreds of thousands of years to uncover the secrets of Reflex. It’s always easy once you know the answer.”
Rion visibly shrugged, nodding.
“But Reflex wasn’t just a new source of power, Rion. It was a whole new way of looking at, and understanding the Universe. Reflex opened up new technologies, new ideas, new ways of thinking and doing things. Efficiencies and understandings we’d never dreamed of. We began secretly developing new designs and adapting and applying some of what we learned to the rudimentary knowledge we already possessed. The contrast between the Imperium’s ion fusion and Reflex was like night and day. For millennia after I joined the Sentinels we worked on our plans, plotting how we were going to leave and escape the Imperium.”
“I assume they found about what you were up to.”
“They did. But by the time our plans were discovered it was far too late. The Sentinels had already assembled all the resources and the people we needed to leave; and that’s what we did. We escaped, and we took Reflex with us.”
“And they didn’t come after you?” Rion asked completely captivated by Henry’s tale.
“Oh, they came after us. With everything they had. But it didn’t matter. They were no match for what we had built.”
“So it’s true then. We were running.”
The old man nodded. “We were. We took hundreds of vessels and hundreds of thousands of our people who hadn’t been corrupted by what the Empire was doing to our race. All of us had been carefully screened and chosen. Many who wanted to go were left behind, their genetic code and culture had already been tainted, poisoned by the Imperium.”
“Where did you go? I mean, obviously you ended up here—”
“They chased us all the way to the edge of Andromeda. They had us surrounded. Millions of vessels all poised to wage war against our tiny faction.”
“How did you escape?”
The old man smiled again, “We jumped.”
“To here?”
The bartender set two fresh glasses in front of the two men and collected the empty ones again.
Henry looked at Rion. “That’s right. A neighboring galaxy.”
Rion’s eyes drew wide. Henry watched with amusement at how quickly Rion’s mind seemed to process the magnitude of the math.
“Rion,” Henry interrupted the younger man’s mental calculations, “we had the power of an entire nebula at our fingertips. We could go just about anywhere we wanted.”
Rion nodded his understanding.
“We s
tayed within the local group of galaxies, but well far enough away from the empire that they would never be able to find us. We came to this galaxy, a place the Ra called Jasis.”
“But it wasn’t far enough, was it?”
“Oh, it was. But you’re getting ahead of me again.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries. You’re a Sentinel, Rion, just like the rest of us. Always thinking ahead to where you think things are going.”
“So you jumped to Earth?”
“No. No, we jumped through Orion, actually. There wasn’t time to create an artificial conduit; so we anchored to a natural one, a dark matter link between two nebulas.”
“Clever. But you didn’t just stick around Orion?”
“Orion has some nice worlds, to be sure, but it was right at the doorway, and it was far too bright. We needed some place a little more—inconspicuous. We searched for years, centuries actually. That’s when we found this little world. Hovering out here all by itself on the edge of Jasis, with its tiny little sun. It was beautiful, Rion. A vast garden of flora and life like nothing we’d ever seen. We named it ‘Aden’.”
“Paradise,” Rion motioned his understanding. “So we settled here.”
The old man nodded.
“But Henry, why all the secrecy with our past; our history with the Imperium? Why not just tell the whole story?”
“That’s what I wanted to do. But I was overruled by the rest of the Elder Sentinels.”
“Why? Why keep this history from us?”
“Because, Rion, some people cannot handle the truth. Or they don’t want others to know it. They think that by covering up the truth they will somehow shield future generations from understanding things, embarrassing things, evil things they don’t want future generations to know about. But that’s not how life works, unfortunately. You cannot keep people from evil by pretending it doesn’t exist. Those who ignore the past are destined to repeat it,” the old man sighed. “It was a foolish mistake. A mistake our people have once again paid the price for ignoring.”
“You mean the Seven? Here on Aden?”
Henry nodded, setting down his glass after taking another sip. “We thought we had made a clean break from our former government. But our ships were not the only ones to enter the jump conduit. Before we could close it, we found ourselves with a handful of vessels of the Ra fleet that had followed us. Whoever was in the conduit when it closed, were destroyed.”
“Moses crossing the Red Sea?”
“Our version of it.”
“So what did you do with the Imperium vessels?”
“All of us were a little stuck at that point. We weren’t going to just kill them. But when they found out we were not going back, they wanted to join us. We let them. It was a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Their people were already corrupt, Rion. We couldn’t just allow them unfettered access to our knowledge. So we allowed them to use it, but like before, we became the guardians of it.”
“Wise,” Rion nodded.
“The people of the Imperium vessels were embarrassed about their past. They convinced the elders that we needed to forever erase the corrupt culture of the Imperium. To do that, it was decided that who we were and what we had become would be forgotten. Our former lives would become just a bad memory, a memory left to die in the sands of time. We would destroy our own history. Make a clean, fresh start in our new garden paradise. The knowledge of good and evil would be forgotten.”
“You’re not serious?” Rion scoffed, alarmed.
“I can see you and I are already on the same page. That’s good,” Henry nodded. “It was stupid fear, Rion. Fear of embarrassment and fear that the Empire might somehow find us. Aden had a tiny sun. It was a very difficult world to spot. Many of us thought that if we abandoned our knowledge and our vessels and just lived like a people bound to this world, we could live in peace for all eternity.”
“So you became Amish,” Rion smirked.
Henry chuckled. “Not quite, but close enough. We built crude cities, rewrote our history and lived in the peaceful quiet of this beautiful world for millennia.”
“But not all of you,” Rion surmised.
“That’s right. Some of us decided that we would remain Ra; we would become the gods, the watchers of our people. We formed a secret society within the Ra. They called us the Masters. Once the old culture had died, over time we would slowly re-introduce our knowledge to our people.”
“But the old culture never really died, did it?”
“We were the Masters, Rion; we kept ourselves out of the culture of the people. They needed to develop on their own without our meddling in their affairs. Only, we discovered that part of culture is also genetic. Removing the knowledge of good and evil from a species doesn’t mean you create something without the capacity to do evil. It just means you recreate something that can accomplish evil without restraint. We realized too late our error. Somehow we needed to correct our mistake without destroying all of the progress that we had made.”
“How?”
“We carefully constructed the Books of Ra, what all of you began calling the Books of the Gods. We looked ahead and wrote the prophecies that would guide our people through the time of the great war. A war we knew would one day be coming.”
“Rion suddenly had an epiphany. Henry, you’re not talking about Seven are you?”
“Nope.” The old man shook his head.
“Then the great war is with—”
Henry looked at Rion with stern eyes.
“—the Imperium.” The words fell out of Rion’s mouth.
Henry nodded imperceptibly.
“But—the prophecies, Henry. They’re broken. It’s not an exact science,” Rion argued.
“The hell it isn’t. It’s more accurate than you know—that is, when you know all of the variables.”
“Did you not know all of the variables?” he asked.
“Oh, we knew them—at least as far as we could see. But there was one—one variable we never counted on; one variable we never saw. Something even older than even we ourselves were—”
“I know who you’re talking about, Henry.”
The old Texan nodded. “I know you do.”
67
Y ou just can’t let a handsome fellow like me out of your sight for one day, can you?” Rowan mocked, smiling at her.
“I always fall for the bad boys, what can I say?” Brenda smiled back. Rowan’s choice of meeting places was becoming more and more her style. Quiet and elegant. Both spoke in the ancient tongue of the Ra.
“Paige keeping you out of trouble?”
“Yea, well,” he rolled his eyes with a smirk. “She’s a good partner. I’m trying not to corrupt her too much.”
“Are you still hunting the Seven? Or should I say the Thirteen?” she asked.
“It’s more like the Ten now.” Rowan half grinned.“ Hermes won’t be botherin’ anyone anymore.”
“I thought you were through with killing?”
“What makes you think I killed him?”
“You didn’t kill Hades and Hera?” she smiled over her glass.
“I told you I was done with killin’.”
“I’m glad to hear that. But—”
“Uh oh. There’s that look again. What is it now?”
She sighed as the smile left her face. “I need a hit, Rowan.” Brenda said flatly, seriousness written all over her eyes.
“Oh? Are they hard to find?”
“No. That’s the easy part this time, actually.”
“You know I don’t do those kinds of jobs anymore.”
“It’s for a good cause—”
“Oh yea? One of your little projects gone awry?”
“It has. Earth.”
“Earth? The Earth is your project?”
“An accidental one.”
“Now this I gotta hear.”
“Rowan, I didn’t come here to start a war. I came here to get
away from one.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of these Ra outsiders?”
“I am, Rowan. An outsider. But I’m not Ra.” Brenda sipped delicately from her glass.
“I’ve had my suspicions about that for a good while now.”
“We were an ancient, reclusive race known to the Ra only as the Yin. We lived clandestine lives in and amongst many of the races, including the Ra, much the same way the Ra do with the Humans today.”
“Gage told me the story, what Prince Dane had told them about these Yin. So all of you weren’t destroyed. You came here with the others.”
“Not exactly. Our race is ancient, Rowan. One of the oldest in the Universe. But we were dying out. Our children were becoming fewer and fewer while our enemies seemed to be growing more numerous. It was as if the Universe was telling us, our time as immortals was done. So in the evening years that remained of our race, we left to enjoy the time we had left, to celebrate the life the Universe had given us.”
“That’s a bit of a sad plight.” He consoled, sadness all over his face.
She nodded. “It affected the Ra the most. Without the benevolent influence of the Yin, the Ra quickly fell into despotism.”
“Your people came here first? Before the Ra?” Rowan asked.
“Hmmm, people? Just me, Rowan. There weren’t any of my people left. None that I ever saw again anyway.”
Rowan felt his heart sinking in sadness at the tale.
“I found the Earth. I called it Paradisus in the tongue of my people. In all of my journeys, I’d never seen a world like it. Fresh and young and it just created and destroyed species like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was like the whole planet was virile.”
“Uh-oh.” Rowan suddenly knew where this story was going.
“I couldn’t help myself, Rowan. The Yin were no more. As far as I knew, I was the last.”
“So, you ah, ‘planted’ yourself here, didn’t ya?” Rowan grinned wryly.
“The species here were primitive, but, they were at least humanoid. Year after year, decade after decade, for centuries I bore their children. Seeding their DNA with my own. They didn’t all look like me, not at first. I didn’t teach them anything. I just let Nature take its course.”
Paradisus (Awakened Book 6) Page 27