The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven)

by Powderly Jr. , K. G.

  A’Nu-Ahki chuckled, as if to put her at ease. “I told the truth. That seems to annoy them.”

  T’Qinna gave a nervous laugh. “That can sometimes be a crime around here—believe me, I know—but not always. Maybe I can convince my mentor, Mnemosynae, to talk to Pandura. She’s on the Council too. I’ve learned to survive by telling Pandura and the Court over-mistresses mostly what they want to hear. Although it seems to me that if they want a seer, they should want one who speaks the truth. What’s the use of prophetic flattery that only tells you what you want to hear? Anyone can give them that.”

  “You have more wisdom than your elders.”

  “Would you mind if I came inside?”

  U’Sumi shook his head wildly, but his father smiled back at him with infuriating gentleness and told her, “Not at all. Company is welcome.”

  “Don’t you think that sends her the wrong message?” He whispered to his father while the sliding bolt masked his voice.

  A’Nu-Ahki gave a mischievous smirk. “Her mind’s worth pursuing.”

  U’Sumi muttered under his breath, “We’re the ones being pursued!”

  Pyra T’Qinna entered, carrying her lyre. She replaced her cartouche key medallion over her neck. U’Sumi imagined he could yank it from her with no difficulty, until the sphinx padded in after her, so silent that he had not even known of its presence outside.

  Pyra closed the door behind the cat. She squatted on the floor across from where U’Sumi had just reseated himself.

  No man could leave her unwatched—or so U’Sumi told himself. Truly she is well named ‘Pyra’—what fires she must light! He thought it scornfully, then realized that it would have come out with an involuntarily admiration if he had spoken it aloud.

  She sat like any early ‘tween-aged girl might who had no benefit of family training—her knees propped up with her chin and folded hands resting on their caps—an immodest position in her attire. U’Sumi could not tell if what locked his eyes onto her was desire, suspicion, or disgust. She seemed completely unaware of her affect on him. As if to spray salt in his eyes, his father said nothing to correct her posture.

  She started chattering. “I heard one of you speak of E’Yahavah during the trip from Thulae. Is that one of the gods of the Holy East? I seem to remember it from somewhere—oh yes! The Keepers at the Gates of the Setting Sun on the far south coast also worship that name. Psydonu’s mother came from there. She’s High Priestess in Psydonis, but she first became a priestess here about the same time Pandura became First Consort of Epymetu. Pandura is my grandmother, you know.”

  “I didn’t,” A’Nu-Ahki said. “You must feel fortunate indeed. Are you also an initiate into ‘the mysteries of creation’?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve had some learning in the basic structures of the creation codes and in anatomy, physiology, and the psyche. I’m understudy to the Mistress of Memory and a student of divination. Mostly at my level we’re allowed to practice only the basic stuff; the Primary Pantheon, counseling, fertility rites, and worship skills—that sort of thing.”

  U’Sumi raked his tongue inside a cottony mouth. “Are you here to seduce us?” He tried to keep an adolescent squeak out of the question.

  She smiled at him and blinked her eyes in a wistful way that made him squirm. “Actually, I get enough of that during my hours in the Court. What I don’t get is conversation or news from distant lands. The stuff they let us watch on the orbs is mostly drivel. Are you really from the Holy East? What’s it like? Is it true there’s a magic tree there that can heal people of their hurts and sicknesses? What are its medicinal properties? There are so many hurt people in the world, don’t you think?”

  U’Sumi, glad to shift her focus off him, jabbed a thumb toward his father. “He’s stood at the gates of Aeden’s Orchard, near the Life-tree you speak of. He’s also seen the flaming sword of the Fire-Sphinx and lived! My father has traveled through the Haunted Lands and spoken to El-N’Lil, the Divine Wind. He even slew Gryndel with only a knife…”

  “That will be enough for my introduction, thank you, Son.”

  Pyra said, “You don’t look like you could kill a gryndel.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Taanyx’s ears perked up and the cat made a low moan.

  “Stop it, Taanyx! I’m sorry!” she said, turning her attention back to U’Sumi. “I didn’t mean it that way!”

  A’Nu-Ahki said, “Peace, both of you. It is a reasonable comment. I was a lot younger then, and even at the time, not a great dragon-slayer as everyone says. Truth is E’Yahavah held my hand like a child in the killing of the wurm. In fact, I wish people could forget the gryndel and remember the words of El-N’Lil.”

  The Young Priestess seemed pleased by this. “I’m glad you pride yourself not in the killing of beasts.”

  U’Sumi said, “Wait a minute, I thought you said that you and the cat here were ‘sisters of the hunt,’ or something.”

  “We are. We hunt the wild ones to know them—though Taanyx takes her token kill to eat. I speak to animals. If I had my way, things would be different here.” She nodded toward the menagerie outside the sliding door. “The sacred research,” she whispered, “it’s doing something strange to the wildlife around Temple City. It frightens me.”

  U’Sumi remembered the scrolls in Psydonu’s cavern suite with the two-headed lizard. “How much do you know about what they do here?”

  Her face, so animated until now, went strangely blank. “Not much. The Agents of Judgment are birthed in secret chambers not far from here.”

  U’Sumi said, “How?”

  She lowered her voice even further, while her green eyes darted about nervously. “Priestesses chosen to bear them are never seen again. Rumor has it that in order to make them the gods and the priests string creation codes from many creatures together with human ones. Pandura has controlled the work done there since Epymetu died. We have a little joke among the lower orders. We call the secret chambers where they do most of that kind of stuff ‘Pandura’s Box,’ but never to her face!”

  Pyra giggled with her teeth clenched, her body shaking in something that looked more like a seizure than laughter. “She and the Council mages create other life there also, less secret than the Agents. I’ve seen a few of them on display. Their creations don’t move and speak as the wild ones do, though. I can’t reach them.”

  U’Sumi wanted to poke fun at her claim to talk with the animals, but resisted the urge. “Two-headed lizards?”

  “Oh, you mean the sports; experiments that went bad and produced deformity. That’s part of it. Used to be we’d only find them in the Temple—results of known research. Nowadays, there’s so many out in the wild that the natural stock of some creatures in the area is vanishing even though they can compete better for food. That means it’s spreading; that healthy parents are producing deformed young. I first noticed it awhile back with the frogs, then it slowly jumped to other animals.”

  A’Nu-Ahki asked, “How bad is it?”

  “Bad. Many animals are turning malignant; not just carnivorous—even Taanyx is that—but self-destructive! Certain worms used to live inside the intestines of larger creatures to aid digestion. The hosts nourished them in return. Now they feed off their hosts until they kill them—and often even themselves—in horrible ways. We used to call them symbionts. Now we call them parasites, only they’re much worse than mere mosquitoes and other blood—suckers, which take just a little and go. I keep telling Pandura something’s wrong, but she says it’s not my concern.”

  “The corruption of all flesh.”

  The youths turned to A’Nu-Ahki.

  His voice chilled the blood. “In playing with the codes of life without E’Yahavah’s restraints, the Watchers have unleashed powers they don’t understand and can’t fully control. They think they have all the information, but they don’t.”

  Pyra asked, “What are you saying?”

  A’Nu-Ahki looked right through her. �
�The day I spoke with the Divine Wind, El-N’Lil, I was given a vision of the Watchers—those beings whom you call ‘gods.’ They came to Earth, imagining that they could conquer death simply by manipulating life.”

  “But many diseases have been wiped out.”

  “Yes and worse ones created, like a growing plague of deformity.”

  Pyra’s face drained. Even her markings seemed to grow dull.

  A’Nu-Ahki said, “In trying to fundamentally reshape the created order, the Watchers have unleashed corruption on a massive scale—corruption that is not only spiritual and moral, but now also weaving itself into the very reproductive processes of all life. Your ‘Pandura’s Box’ has been opened and it has unleashed a swarm of evils upon all living things—deforming, growing, spreading, changing, devouring…”

  “Stop it! You’re scaring me!” She turned to hold her sphinx.

  “You were already scared long before we arrived.”

  She slowly raised her face from the comfort of Taanyx’s fur. “Has this El-N’Lil sent you to help us?”

  “By warning you, yes.”

  “What must be done?”

  A’Nu-Ahki darkened, his eyes reaching out to draw her in with him to the coming darkness. “In forty-eight years, E’Yahavah will destroy this world with either fire or water—possibly both. He must reshape the land and sea right down to their foundations. It is the only way to cleanse this contagion enough so that life can survive even in a diminished way.”

  “But why? Can’t he just use the magic healing tree?”

  “It’s not magic! There is no magic! Besides, the Holy Ones removed the Life-tree from Earth to transplant it again after the destruction. There is hope, however, but not for this world. Our civilizations cannot possibly last. They would collapse under the weight of their own decay even if left alone. The slow agonizing growth of crime, wars, disease, and breakdown would be crueler than E’Yahavah’s swift wrath.”

  “And nothing can stop it? Isn’t there goodness too? What about the power of love? I once heard that there is nothing stronger than love!”

  “Can a genuine love permit unspeakable evils to multiply and fester indefinitely, with only impotent haggling or flowery words as a deterrent? Creator’s patience is at an end. The momentum of human imagination falls toward evil even when it starts with good intentions—sometimes especially when it starts there. Those who want rescue must choose now to give themselves to E’Yahavah. Only then can we begin to stop following the madness that is both around us and inside us. They must also follow me to a safe place E’Yahavah will soon reveal. It is the only way.”

  The girl’s frozen eyes flashed like those of a cornered rabbit.

  U’Sumi smiled. Arrows on target, Pahp! Let her squirm!

  Pyra found her voice. “I know there’s evil in the world and even sometimes in Temple. But we can’t be that bad! What about babies? What about those of us who are trying to help people? I feel that people are truly good on the inside; they only learn evil because bad things happen to them. My whole order lives to relieve those who are lonely and have needs! We try to save the world, not destroy it! Shouldn’t E’Yahavah do the same? I mean, I’m not perfect, but I’m still a good person inside! How can you defend such a deity? It’s just wrong!”

  A’Nu-Ahki spoke tenderly, “I don’t say that some people don’t honestly desire to do good, only that our desires are so infected by the Great Evil that even our best intentions are eventually warped by it. Our very efforts to produce good eventually twist into horrors we often don’t intend. Even the best desires corrode in the acid of pride into vain delusions. That would not be so if we were truly good inside. You call what I’m saying wrong, but you haven’t heard the whole storyE’Yahavah’s image still imprints us, but we desperately need his help.”

  Her eyes softened. “Tell me more. I’ll listen—for now.”

  A’Nu-Ahki nodded. His voice took on a poetic quality as he carried them away into ancient history. U’Sumi had never heard him speak with such passion in all his years growing up. As the story unfolded, it was as if he also heard it again for the first time…

  “There’s no way to understand things adequately without going back to our origins. When the Earth was young; its first dew still wet upon the grasses, its air sweet with honey-suckle, and clean from waterfall spray, E’Yahavah created the Father of Men out of red clay in the Pisunu riverbed. Red was the clay, red the sun’s rising, on that sixth day of the world, and so the man was called Atum-Ra. He was Red-of-earth, red-of-sun, kindred of earth, but alive from the heavens through the Divine Breath, El-N’Lil.

  “Atum-Ra was father of all kings and judges, both great and small, father of the meanest beggar, and of the masses now forgotten in the dust. He sang before E’Yahavah and knew the speech breathed into him by the One who spoke into being the Ten Heavens and the Earth—speech from speech, mind from mind, passion from fire, and will from will.

  “E’Yahavah placed Atum eastward over the Holy Mountains, in Aeden’s Sacred Orchard, to tend its many trees. On an island in the center of the Orchard were two special trees. One I have already mentioned—the Life-tree. The other was the Knowing-tree of Good and Evil.

  “Atum-Ra knew nothing of wickedness, lying, or bloodshed. For him the idea of evil itself was un-thought. Yet Evil already existed in the cosmos; a monstrous being of great beauty and intellect had corrupted his own originally pure heart with the idea that he had a superior morality to his Creator. E’Yahavah gave only one command to Atum, both to test and to protect him from this monster, ‘Eat no fruit from the Knowing-tree of Good and Evil, for in the day you eat of it, dying, you shall die.’

  “The man accepted this command without question and set about the work E’Yahavah had given him. In addition to tending the trees, he began to name all the animals. In fact, Atum spoke to animals with that almost lost art, even as you do today, T’Qinna. Few remember that ability. Fewer still actually have it. You are a most gifted daughter…”

  The young priestess blushed.

  U’Sumi could not believe what he heard. He actually believes this demon-deluded slut can talk to animals!

  His father continued. “But beasts have life only of the earth, whereas Atum-Ra had the light of heaven’s sun in his eyes. Though they could speak together in limited ways, they were not alike. E’Yahavah did not ever intend for the man to be alone, but he wanted Atum to see for himself how large a gulf existed between man and the beasts that served him. Thus, Atum felt that goodly hunger in his heart and in his loins to know another like himself —one to complete him and cherish him and for him to cherish all his days.

  “This same need you now try to meet in your temple—though the eyes of your masters are darkened and you go about your purpose in foolish and hurtful ways.”

  Pyra squirmed at A’Nu-Ahki’s words. She seemed about to object, but stopped herself before she spoke.

  U’Sumi’s father went on. “To meet the man’s need, E’Yahavah took Atum and laid him before the Life-tree, where he caused him to fall into a deep sleep. Then he took tissue from within his side, adjusted its creation codes, and fashioned a woman compatible with the man.”

  Pyra said, “He adjusted his creation codes? I don’t understand. We need vast calculating engines and other sophisticated machinery to do that. Such things did not exist so long ago.”

  “Who do you think first wrote the creation codes?”

  “E’Yahavah wrote the creation codes?” Her eyes lit up as if it were the most wonderful thing she had ever heard. “I always asked the higher priestesses who it was that wrote the codes when I was a little girl! They used to laugh at me as if I was being silly. They say the codes assembled themselves somehow when Father Sky made love to Mother Earth. I always told them then that Father Sky must have written the codes, but this always made my elders angry. Is Father Sky another name for E’Yahavah?”

  A’Nu-Ahki said, “You were on the right track, but, no; the heavens were cr
eated by E’Yahavah, just as the codes were written by him.”

  “What happened to the woman? Was she Mother Earth?”

  U’Sumi was shocked by the thirst she seemed to have for what he had always considered the most rudimentary truths.

  “No,” A’Nu-Ahki answered again. “When Atum-Ra awoke and saw the Woman, he said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!’ He named her Ish’Hakka, where we get the High Archaic word for woman. They lived together in the Orchard about a year, naked and unashamed, singing before E’Yahavah. Men and women both desire such freedom today, yet cannot reproduce it, except in part. Only one thing in the world could undo their joy. For some time, it never occurred to them to even think of it.”

  Pyra said, “What changed? Did Atum grow tired of her?”

  “No.”

  “You sure say, ‘no’ a lot!”

  U’Sumi’s father smiled at her. “I’m sure it must seem so. Remember how I mentioned before that a great Evil was already abroad in the cosmos?”

  “Yes. You should try that word more often.” She returned his smile.

  A’Nu-Ahki laughed. “I’ll try.”

  Pyra said, “Good. But I mean, yes, I remember about the Evil too.”

  U’Sumi rolled his eyes. She’s trying to distract you, Pahp!

  His father seemed to have fun with her, wagging his finger as if he was keeping some kind of score on an invisible tablet.

  “I mentioned that the Evil had not always been so. E’Yahavah created him originally as a kherub of great beauty and intelligence, known as Shining One—chief bard and minstrel of the Ninth Heaven—who covered the throne of thrones and led worship of the Divine Name beyond the very stars. In his pride, he grew jealous of Atum-Ra. For E’Yahavah had made the man and his wife with the ability to reproduce. Their numbers would grow, while the Sons of A’Nu did not multiply but remained constant.

  “When E’Yahavah would not be moved from his purposes for Atum-Ra, Shining One declared his ambition to rise above the Seat into the highest heaven and rule there instead of the One. For he believed and still believes that from the height of the Tenth Heaven all the other nine would become visible and controllable to him in their entirety.