“She used to shuffle around the palace and mutter under her breath like a sweep woman bitter for the lost beauty of her youth. Now I understand thee, Eldest Mother! Now I understand thee all too well!
“She would say, ‘Gone is my joy! Departed is the hope of life like rotted leaves on the forest floor, filled with worms and dragon’s dung! The empire thou seest, my boy, is but a flicker of swamp gas before the waiting jaws of a gryndel wurm! Thinkest thee not, my Son, that thou shalt inherit this lofty kingdom! For it is an illusion, the false light of raggedy specters, dancing like sirens in the moldy night—and that only the first of many. When thou approachest them, they melt away into foul hags that claw thee helpless into their dens to consume thy manhood and waste thy years!’
“On she would rant, our great First Mother. On she would mumble from her toothless, drool-spattered mouth of glories we could not grasp—lost love she couldst but barely remember like a dream. That which we calleth life is but a tattered rag compared to what she lost!
“I now know thy bitterness, my Mother! I hath taken a nation and handed down a beggar’s shanty! I saw the glory of Seti decay into skin and bones, the meat of worms! I hath hastened to bury thy dead, but neglected to raise thy children! Thy hope is farther off than thou hadst feared—though it remaineth a distant light. Yes, one of you here today shall be Archon over a field of tombs, whilst the distant hope faint yet fair goeth to the other.”
The Archon’s face softened a little. “To Muhet’Usalaq I grant all authority as Shepherd over the Holy Precincts here, at Paru’Ainu, and in the Treasure Cave. Into his hands, I commend the keeping of the Cosmic Dynasty Stone, and all the original Holy Tablets of the Seers. The crypt of the First Fathers is also his to manage, with the acolytic order. His is the Blessing of our Fathers—the line of the Promised Seed.
“Muhet’Usalaq shall have the right to open and close, to bind and to loose, and to move or let stay any and all relics that pertaineth to our heritage. For this is a twisted and self-serving generation who knowest not these gifts in honor. But in the house of Muhet’Usalaq I have found some who art worthy to carry on these things.”
A’Nu-Ahki felt the pit of his stomach drop.
“To Adiyuri I grant the title of Archon, with political and military authority, if only he and his sons after him swear to me this blood oath…”
Adiyuri’s eyes lost their luster. “Blood oath, my Father?”
“Yes! That thou wilt in no way seek to destroy, molest, conscript, persecute, or hinder the house of Muhet’Usalaq, especially in the execution of their government of the Holy Precincts, and that thou wilt defend those precincts, and the house of Muhet’Usalaq, with military force against all foreign and internal aggressors. Dost thou so swear for you and your line?”
Adiyuri hesitated, his hands raised, furrows etched in his jelly-soft face. “My Father, what you ask is most disturbing. Why do you speak so ill of your children? Why do you wish to divide the heritage of Seti as a carcass for sacrifice? Do not the Precincts belong to all? How can you give the sons of Q’Enukki license to loot our sacred treasures? Do not…”
“Swear it or I give all authority as Archon to Muhet’Usalaq, and thou shalt have nothing!” bellowed the Archon with a force that shocked a couple of the scribes into dropping their quill pens.
For interminable seconds, eyes of bloodshot fire bulged from Iyared’s living skull.
Adiyuri said, “Very well, we swear.”
Nu’s heart sank. He thought he caught a glimmer of Old Grease Slick’s recovering eyes, cast in his grandfather’s direction. They mocked him, as if to say, Oh well, so what if you are recognized as a seer and get to play with museum relics. It is I who now hold the real power of Seti!
“Thou now havest what thou camest for, Adiyuri,” Iyared said, voice now remarkably strong, though his body shook violently as if the entire interchange with his son had been a battle of physical blows. “Go from me. I will see thy face no more.”
Adiyuri hesitated, tears welling. He appeared to grasp at the air for something to say that would soften his father’s loathing. At last, he must have thought better of it. He gathered his robes to leave and motioned for his sons to do likewise.
As Tarbet brushed past A’Nu-Ahki, their eyes met. A smirk of triumph curled across the younger man’s lips.
That arrogant fop thinks he’s won some great contest! Nu realized. Maybe he has, and I foolishly never thought of it in those terms. Now he will be Archon someday, and I will not. He will tear down what I would have built up. The sense of loss wrenched his diaphragm almost as violently as the blow from the lunging cockatrice had a half a year before.
Iyared sighed and closed his eyes for a minute after Adiyuri left, as if to recuperate his waning strength. Muhet’Usalaq had already gestured for Urugim and Nu to leave also, when the Old Man’s lids flashed open again. He called in a quiet voice for them to stay.
The scribes unpacked the scrolls and pens they had just stowed.
The Archon’s face had softened much, its skull-like quality filled out by the relaxing of those muscles used for the expression of contempt. “I wish to pray over thee and give thee the blessing.”
Muhet’Usalaq knelt by the bedside and laid his head across Iyared’s lap in traditional form, eyes turned toward the Elder’s feet. Iyared set his right hand on his grandson’s head, lacing his fingers in Muhet’Usalaq’s wiry salt-and-pepper hair. Whether he did this out of intimacy or simply because he could not hold his hand in place without some form of anchorage, A’Nu-Ahki could not tell.
Venerable eyes transformed as if by fond recollections gazed over the kneeler. Iyared croaked out an antiphonal chant, weak by one world’s reckoning, powerful by another’s. It filled the room somehow, running waters from dust and ashes:
E’Yahavah A’Nu the Eluhar, Creator of ten heavens and one earth,
Smile upon thee, my Son, and upon thy sons
May the Promised Seed be a shoot from thy tree
A tree with strong roots and clean branches, unwithered and untouched by the locust
E’Yahavah El-N’Lil protect thee from the crushing behemoth that eateth the branches
And from leviathan that hideth in the roots beneath the rivers
And from every hunting wurm.
May thou be preserved from the terrors that come
To sweep away this world in flame and flood
May thou stand with thy Redeemer in that final day!
Muhet’Usalaq tried to stand when the prayer-song ended, but Iyared held his head firm. “I am not finished yet.”
He looked to each of them intently, one at a time, as if sizing them up. Finally, he said, “Where is Lumekki?”
Muhet’Usalaq said, “He could not be here. His eldest, A’Nu-Ahki, stands in his place. He sends his fondest regrets for not being able to attend. Forgive me, for it was by my order.”
This seemed to satisfy the Archon, and he continued with his final testament. “I did things this way to buy thee time and as much political stability as possible. You will need both to fulfill whatever work E’Yahavah has for thee. Since there will be no deliverance for this people, I have given them what they wanted in their shortsightedness. They are doomed. But thou art my noble and innocent sons. Do not go down from this holy mountain of truth. Look around thee; see how thy children and thy children’s children have all gone down, and estranged themselves through their evil desires.
“But I knowest, through a vision of the Eluhar, that he will not leave thee much longer in the region of these holy mountains because the children have violated his order and that of their fathers. Rather, my sons, E’Yahavah El-N’Lil shall take thee to a strange land, and thou shalt never again return to this orchard, and to these sacred mountains, except in thy hearts.”
A’Nu-Ahki interpreted the Archon’s meaning. He’s talking about World-end. But where shall we go to escape? Is there some place of safety across the Assuri Ocean in the distant south?
&
nbsp; “Therefore, my sons; set thine hearts on thine own selves and keep the charge of E’Yahavah A’Nu with thee. For then the holy mountain of truth shalt be in thy hearts whithersoever thou goest. And when thou goest from these mountains, into a strange land, which thou knowest not, take with thee the sarcophagus of our father, Atum-Ra. Take with it the Three Gifts, namely the gold, the incense, and the myrrh. Let them rest together where the body of our father, Atum-Ra shall lie.
“To him of you that is left when the terror of those times fall, shall the Messenger of E’Yahavah come. When that one goeth out of this land, he shall take with him the body of our father, Atum-Ra, and lay it at the world’s navel—the Umphalos at the geographic center-point of Ki; the nexus of all lands—in that very place where deliverance shall be wrought!
“His sons shall measure out and map the world, for it will be greatly changed through upheaval. They shall mark out the center of Ki, and its cardinal edges with suitable megaliths, as did my son for this world. They must ensure that Ki be compassed so the heavenly signs are clear for future generations—that there may be a bridge for them back to the First Time, and to their own roots. They must be prepared for the Great Rebirth and the journey through Under-world by the Gate of the Morning Star.”
The soft hypnotic voice of the Archon, as he laid out all of their futures in that manner of speech reserved for seers, and for those lying on the edge of eternity, soothed A’Nu-Ahki. It captivated his mind so that he forgot Iyared’s former wrath when interrupted. The question spilled out of his mouth before he even realized he had voiced it aloud:
“Who is he that shall be left?”
Muhet’Usalaq glared up at his grandson with a homicidal expression, and Urugim scowled. However, both remained silent.
Iyared did not seem to mind the inquiry. Rather, he reached out his left hand to A’Nu-Ahki, smiled, and said, “Thou art he who shalt be left—the Comforter from E’Yahavah A’Nu. Let no one doubt that thou art the one! Thou wilt take the remains of our father, Atum-Ra, from the Treasure Cave and place them in the safe place when World-end cometh. Thy son—the one who shall yet come out of thy loins to pass on the Promise—shalt lay the body of Atum-Ra in the Navel of Ki, which is the center-place where liberation shall be wrought upon the children of Man.”
Nu stared, transfixed by the Old Man’s sad serene eyes, a prisoner of that gnarled-root grip on his wrist. He wanted to escape. He wanted not to escape. I am the one who shall be left? There is a son who ‘shall yet come out of my loins’ to pass on the promise? What becomes of my firstborn Oronis or Asamu’El? Are they not faithful?
Iyared crooned, “This thing I say from the Divine Wind, it frightens thee, yes?”
“I don’t think I can live up to such a task. I’m not exactly the best Dragon-slayer material.”
“Dragon-slayer material?” The Ancient cackled, as if Nu had made a joke. “Gooooood! Very Gooood. Keep that outlook about thee and thou shalt do fine. As for the rest of you, I charge thee upon the sarcophagus of Atum-Ra; patiently serve E’Yahavah all the days of your lives. Feed thy people the good teaching in honor and innocence, though few will listen, and many who used to obey will turn away.
“As for me, and the elders of my generation, we hath failed in our responsibility and made thy job more difficult. Forgive us! Few of us have understood the necessity, or have been willing to show the humility needed to reach our own sons. Do not look so surprised that I should say this to thee now. Though everywhere men speakest with the same tongue, our lip forms the words differently, and meanings shift with each generation.
“We in the upper tiers have not considered this well enough. We must sound so stiff and foreign to the young. So archaic, mysterious, and out of touch…” His voice trailed off into a flood of tears that ran down his furrowed brown face and soaked into his pillow.
That stream continued to flow long after the Old Man stopped breathing and his hands loosened from Muhet’Usalaq’s hair and fell from A’Nu-Ahki’s wrist.
Muhet’Usalaq rose from his grandfather’s still form, and glanced alternately at Urugim and Nu.
“Things have definitely not gone according to our liking,” he said, after the legal scribes had packed up and left. “Even bound by oath not to interfere, there is still much Adiyuri can do to indirectly hinder the Work. As Archon, he has authority to offer his own interpretation of the Holy Words and Sky Signs and to act upon his so-called ‘insights’ in public policy, and popular religion. He may not openly oppose me, but he can muddy the waters so that people will tire of the Prophecies.”
Urugim turned his back, head hung, and paced toward the window to gaze outside. For a moment, Nu feared he might throw himself out onto the court pavement far below. Night absorbed the city in creeping mists that obscured vision as Adiyuri’s theology and politics would soon obscure truth.
Nu asked, “What do we do now?”
Muhet’Usalaq nodded over to the Archon’s corpse, and shrugged. “We mourn.”
Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
—Genesis 2:10-14 (NKJV)
4
Ashes
T
he Sacred Road to Paru’Ainu wound past the southern ramparts of the rocky Kharir Aedenu, hugging sheer cliffs on a seemingly endless shelf above the Pisunu rapids that roared through the gorge hundreds of cubits below. The funeral procession moved eastward in double file as it neared the end of its fifth day out from Sa-utar. In front rode the new Archon in a sedan coach gilded in silly gold blossoms with silvery leaves. Behind him crawled the drab black hearse carriage carrying his father.
The other mourners were obliged to march on foot out of respect for the departed patriarch, though livery hands led onagers behind them for those prone to heat exhaustion or advancing age.
A’Nu-Ahki itched all over. The incense ash dumped over his head that morning by the priests had mingled with his sweat into a sticky paste that would not let his skin breathe in the already humid air. The rough camel hair mourner’s garment made him itch in embarrassing places.
Muhet’Usalaq and Urugim trudged in front of him in like raiment, eyes down to the kapar stone pavement. Urugim periodically stumbled from the heat, but refused to be taken to the onagers. He had not looked well even before they had left the city, but he had boasted how he would rather roast slowly in Under-world than ride like Old Grease Slick. Nu worried for him.
The hypnotic cadence and groaning harmonics of the priestly antiphonal singers mesmerized the marchers into a love-hate trance repetitive enough to filter into background noise. While his body slogged on, Nu’s heart, driven by near hallucinogenic levels of heat and dehydration, flew over the southern mountains and forests to Salaam-Surupag. There, Emzara and their twenty-four children and grandchildren prepared for Leviathan—whatever that was.
Nu allowed his mind’s eye to focus on his wife’s dusky face and nubile symmetry—as he had done on their last night together. Bright eyes flashed their invitation, while her cinnamon skin, like curved satin beneath his fingers, set off gold-red streaks in her darker hair like orichalcum fire.
Burgundy sunset had danced off the river that night. Their wharf suite rested high on poles, its bay window visible only from far out on the wide Gihunu, and able to remain open in privacy. The rising moon through the skylight panel lit off her golden eyes with a passion both holy and earthy.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t come with you?” she had asked after they were both satisfied.
Nu had almost relented. “Ah, my Sunrise, unfortunately I need you here. Oronis has never managed
our estate before, and you know better how I want things done. The medicinal herbs need to be cured just so.”
“We can leave directions.”
He shook his head. “Then there are the girls. I did a little checking with the younger children. You were right and I was wrong. ‘Ranna and ‘Nissa have been discreetly disappearing with their betrothed ones. I’m particularly concerned—they avoid me, and get defensive whenever I bring up the subject of their espousal.”
She grinned. “Welcome to my life, my lord.”
He hung his head. “It’s my fault. I’ve let too many things distract me. I should pay more attention to them, but now with the trip… Anyway, you know better than I do how a young woman thinks. We need to get to the bottom of these little trysts before something bad happens—if it hasn’t yet.”
“I know. It’s just that we may be apart for weeks.” She gazed up at him with forest nymph eyes that had renewed their golden hunger.
Nu hated to douse her passion with logic. “Then there’s Illysia—one of us has to be there when our first grandchild gives birth. And Arrakan takes his final test for paladin dragon-slayer this week…”
Emzara smirked, and elevated one of her heavy eyelids. “If you’re the one making the journey, how is it that I must be everywhere at once?”
He laughed and kissed her again, as she made him a happy prisoner in her embrace.
“I promise when I return we shall spirit ourselves away together to that waterfall ravine in the mountains, where nobody can find us. Though they search as for vanished Q’Enukki, we shall remain in our hideaway.”
She gave a teasing laugh as she pressed herself to him. “Then we shall never return!”
Six months had been the longest they had ever been apart. Whatever Leviathan was, Nu hoped it would bring them together again soon. He thanked E’Yahavah that Emzara was in her infertile dormant cycle, with no infants to care for. Otherwise, things would have really been hard.
Dawn Apocalypse Rising (The Windows of Heaven Book 1) Page 6