The construction of the Great Phoenix Air Fleet had taken another twenty years, during which Inguska had made the rank of arch-tacticon, and trained in the new form of sky chariot. After ten more years of additional tactical training and development, the Day of Glory had arrived.
Inguska had been so sure of success. They all were. The strike on Aeden should have been a higher form of victory—not achieved by muddy land army rabble, but clean and swift—where Demigods of mingled human and divine blood fell upon their enemy from the sky like true sons of heaven.
The twin titan sons of Samyaza should have landed in what had once been the Sacred Orchard, to reclaim it in their father’s name for E’Yahavah A’Nu, to fulfill the prophecy that the dragon-slaying Woman’s Seed would crush the Basilisk’s head! Yet again, the spectral sirens of success and victory had danced before Inguska’s eyes, whispering their hollow promises in his ears with their whorish skill.
Again, he had dared to believe.
Nevertheless, the Great Basilisk had somehow been too strong and too well dug-in—again. The Final Assault had failed; Ivvayi and Ayyaho died, enveloped in the Serpent’s fiery coils, crushed from the sky like swatted flies. Inguska’s astra had made it back to Satyurati with its control surfaces barely intact—the only survivor from his division. Why am I always doomed to survive? He slid the ivory box into his wardrobe, and closed the door on it, fighting a bitter tear that threatened to escape his eye.
When Inguska turned, he found one of his concubines standing at the arch of his private chambers. “How long have you been standing there watching me, Dhiva?”
“Forgive the intrusion, my Lord. There is a Temple messenger in the greeting alcove with a summons from Assur’Ayur.” She looked down at his feet lest their eyes should meet. A woman should not see her Lord when tears are so close to his eyes.
“See to his comfort. I shall be out presently.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Inguska took a few minutes after Dhiva left to wipe his eyes and compose himself. What can the Temple possibly want of me now? They must be rounding up the survivors to make us pay for failing the Lord of Heaven. Perhaps I can go to die with the dignity that fate has denied me in life.
T
ylurnis could feel her master’s despondency like a tightening vise around her head and chest. It had an even more chilling effect on ‘Ranna, whose eyes refused to blink, while her body twitched and jostled in mindless contortions like a woman-shaped sack full of panic-maddened rats blindly trying to gnaw their way out of her from within. The air in their bedchamber seemed to thicken, then sink like hot fluid lead.
“You must not give up, my husband. Your ‘Nissa and ‘Ranna are here. We will not forsake you!”
‘Nissa could always feel his presence, though he never took on a semi-solid manifestation when in such moods. Better that way, really.
‘Ranna slumped over the divan, her eyes those of a dead shark.
She seems to mirror whatever he feels, now. Tylurnis feared that her sister’s fragile psyche would break under such wildly shifting passions. Since returning to Assur’Ayur after his defeat at Aeden, Samyaza’s temper had swung from rage to acceptance, back to rage, then to introspective soul-searching, and back to despair, as he had sent for one after another of his surviving Demigod leaders. Some of them had not survived his debriefs.
Gone was the ravishing euphoria of their time together in the sacred disk, when he had taken them both as his new First Wives. Now ‘Nissa’s memory flashed back to just after they had been sealed with Samyaza and his lesser gods inside. She and her sister had just parted from their father in the Haunted Lands. The flaccid mother-of-pearl surfaces within the vessel had pulsated like living organs. Samyaza had melted into one of these cocoons, which had then shot whipping tendrils out to enmesh Uranna like some maddened kraken enveloping a hapless ship to pull into the deeps.
One of the tentacles had pushed itself into ‘Ranna’s mouth, forcing some kind of greenish-brown sludge down her throat, which overflowed and ran down her face. Tylurnis remembered no more after that because a sea of hands had pulled her down into the soft glowing embrace of something like a warm sea anemone of light. Soon ‘Ranna had tumbled in with her, only it was no longer just Uranna. All pain and fear had vanished after that—for a while. Odd that she would have forgotten that episode…
The fluid-lead air squeezed Tylurnis back to the present.
“I have miscalculated,” a harsh voice barked from Uranna’s mouth. Her sharkish eyes never moved, never lost their blank stare.
‘Nissa said, “Only in method, my Lord, not in purpose.”
Again, ‘Ranna’s mouth moved, pouring forth words with no connection to her eyes. “What know you of my purpose, woman?”
Tylurnis sat down on the end of the divan. There was almost no point in even looking at her sister. “I know you mean to crush the Basilisk’s head, and that you will succeed and save the world from destruction.”
“But I have failed!”
“No, my Master, you only miscalculated and lost a battle.”
“I raised an army to fight the Basilisk’s arms and was defeated. I raised a phoenix from the ashes to strike at the head, only to see my winged beauties clubbed to the ground and crushed! My sons are slaughtered!”
“If you give up now, their deaths will be meaningless.”
The Voice howled in her sister’s mouth, “You dare say this to me!”
“Slay me, Lord, if you must, but I speak thus only because I love you. You are spirit, and so is your real enemy.”
The air in the chamber stiffened like a charmed snake.
“Say on, my beauty. Your words intrigue a weary soul.”
The thrill of control rushed over ‘Nissa with a dark fire that ravished her senses as much as Samyaza had. “If the combatants are spirit, then mustn’t the battle focus on breaking the spirit more than the body, or even the mind?”
“How?”
Tylurnis wet her lips with her tongue. “The spirits work mainly through human beings—in the will, or lack thereof. You must crush the spirit of your enemy, and of those who serve him.”
“I’m listening.”
“You tried to fight Uzaaz’El where he is strong—in the sons of Lumekkor and their war machines. You also tried to assail the Basilisk in his chosen stronghold of Aeden. My grandfather was an army officer. I once heard him tell my brothers that whichever side prepares the battlefield wins the battle. You do not need giant war engines and sky chariots to fight this kind of war. You already have what you need in abundance to break the spirit of your enemies.”
“What is that?”
Tylurnis could feel the air in the chamber tingle with renewed vigor when she told him.
I
nguska had expected many things on his journey to Assur’Ayur, none of them good. What he saw in the Golden Pyramid’s court pavement, after he arrived, defied all prediction.
Over a million people swayed like a vast ocean, tossed by shrieking winds of ecstatic worship toward the winged disk icon that hung above the platform at the pyramid’s main entrance. Their wild eyes were glass globes, unblinking in their fixed devotion.
From his place on the balcony reserved for Demigods, Inguska could feel the mob’s heat rise against his face. The mass-swaying slapped the courtyard walls as human waves, crushing hundreds in the throng below to death against the pavement barricades or trampling them under foot. Nobody in that vast, seething sea of humanity noticed their screams or pummeled bodies, any more than the ocean would trouble at the death throes of a few fish stranded by the tide. Only the two women beneath the winged disk were worthy of attention. Only their overpowering presence controlled the waves.
What is happening here? Inguska dared not ask aloud.
The two women on the raised platform before the pyramid threw off their veils to reveal that they were identical twins, approximately three hundred years old—at the maturity of their regal beauty. Fiery streaks o
f red-gold shot through the strands of their dark hair, halos around exquisite faces of fine smooth mahogany. Inguska was just close enough to catch the power in their gold-coin eyes and fall desperately in love with it and with them. Their melodic voices rose above the crowd’s rumble, as they approached the etched orichalcum voice-enhancer field circle at the platform’s center.
Lights formed in the sunset skies over the pyramid, moving with the modulation of the twins’ song. Inguska was a sudden prisoner to the elegance and magnificence of these women and their strange music. His body began to sway back and forth of its own accord, while tears streamed from his eyes in an unabashed flood. All the pain and fury came rushing out in a convulsive sob that ruptured up from his inner abyss. What do they sing that they should move my heart so?
Then he saw it.
Descending from above the pyramid, the disk of light hovered over the twin sirens—not the golden icon on the pillars—but the sacred disk itself, falling from heaven out of the setting sun!
Inguska covered his eyes at the brilliance. A voice warm and smooth as running honey filled the frenzied pavement with dark lyrical words in some speech he had never heard before.
The throng fell silent, while the light vanished as quickly as it came. When Inguska removed his hands from his face, all he saw were the two women clothed in shimmering gold wraps, their cloaks and veils completely cast aside. One of the enchantresses stepped into the voice-enhancer’s field.
“We are the new First Wives of Samyaza, the Mouthpiece of Heaven. Isha’Tahar will soon ascend to her celestial throne. We are daughters of the Seer, Q’Enukki, who bring the secrets of the Ancient Lore, who serve the Lord of Heaven that lives on Earth.”
Inguska leaned forward on the balcony rail, his eyes filled with the golden glow of the goddess-like speaker and her stern, silent sister.
“Evil and foolish rumors circulate through the cities of Assuri. Battles we have fought in the last few centuries, and it is true that some we have lost. Yet battles are often lost by the side that ultimately wins the war!”
The mob broke into thunderous shouts that rattled the balcony beneath the Demigod’s feet. Confidence long dead rekindled in Inguska’s chest as a sleeping warrior warmed by dawn’s first ray, hot and firm as the golden women’s light. Why should I believe? How can I believe again?
“We are here to tell you that the tide has now turned!” If her words had carried any more energy, flame would have shot from her eyes. “We have fought on the Enemy’s terms with weapons of the Enemy’s choice for far too long! We tried to best the King of Metalsmiths with our own engines of metal, to no avail. We challenged the Lord of the Air with flying chariots that were blown to the earth in flames.”
The Woman’s voice rose to a shriek. “Now we shall taste victory where our Lord is strong—in the zeal he gives his followers! We shall bring the empires of the Great Basilisk to their knees—not with war engines or flying chariots—but with the fire of Samyaza burning in our hearts! For this flame burned on the first dawn, and sang with the sons of the Eluhar A’Nu!
“No longer will we tolerate the lies of Lumekkor! No more shall we give way before the crapulent odor that wafts from Sa-utar’s false Archon, and his adulterous trysts with the idols of Uzaaz’El! We shall do away with Akh’Uzan’s haven for the undeserving against a World-end from which Samyaza shall deliver us! The flame in you shall carry you into the midst of our enemies like blazing missiles to burn down their pride and cow them in their filthy dens! It will also light your way to paradise in Aeden restored!”
Inguska felt the fire start deep in his heart—a phoenix from the ashes of his life, that drew new energy from the golden flame of the woman’s eyes. His will withered to joyful ash at her outstretched arms. Her face gazed out to him with a mother’s warmth and a lover’s desire. Tears flooded his eyes until the burning in his breast would burst from his body like mountain lightning. Only one question now filtered up from his sublime torment: How?
The Golden Woman’s eyes seemed to single him out from across the gulf between her platform and his balcony. Her voice whispered inside his head with words he knew that only he could hear.
“Let us show you.”
I
sha’Tahar could no longer move or speak, but she could hear more than she wished from inside her glass chamber in the Hall of Wives.
I have been replaced.
The emptiness was worse than the immobility. In her more lucid moments, she felt as though her paralyzed body would implode into her inner vacuum. There were altogether too many lucid moments between spoon feedings and the changes of her soiled and stinking diapers.
Perhaps I am already a corpse, doomed to consciousness in a lifeless shell that will slowly rot until even my spirit blows away with the dust. Why am I left to lie out here for all to see? He promised me better!
Isha’Tahar heard Tylurnis and Uranna plotting outside the glass. Foolish girls! If Samyaza abandons me now—his Queen of Heaven—then what do you suppose will befall both of you in another four hundred years or so? Her heart didn’t even feel guilty at the blasphemy any more—or at anything else. She had lost the ability to feel shame too many centuries ago to notice it for more than a fleeting second. Only bitterness remained.
Their laughter was worst of all. The Old Woman lamented, I hope their father is right about the coming end of all things! I pray so to the God of my parents, so long and foolishly forgotten—to Q’Enukki’s God even!
The curtains around the divan fluttered at the entrance of the twin objects of Isha’Tahar’s spite.
“Poor Mother,” Tylurnis cooed, stroking the paralytic’s face.
Spare me your pity! Isha’Tahar wanted to scream, but her lips would not move. Then she saw the second sister.
Uranna’s eyes had an all-too-familiar gleam in them—a glow Isha’Tahar had grown accustomed to seeing in her own eyes at the mirror, since she was a young girl and Samyaza had first descended upon her. She somehow knew that her own eyes now reflected the black void of collapsed stars that could give no more light, but only draw the cinders of lifeless worlds into the emptiness of their all-consuming maw.
The last vestige of the Queen of Heaven’s spirit caved in when she saw her husband’s familiar hungry eyes animate Uranna’s bewitching face with a lingering gaze on ‘Nissa’s perfect form. The twins left the chamber arm in arm, as if the former First Wife was a broken piece of furniture.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
5
Brothers
Tiva and Farsa reclined in a rocky nook behind the waterfall. Sunset danced through the glistening torrent, a wine fountain that made Tiva yearn for the skins the boys brought up from market about this time each day, on their way back from jobs down in the valley or from classes at the academy. Mostly she daydreamed about Khumi.
“Your father showed up at my house today,” Farsa shouted over the roar of the falls. A laid-back smirk curled across her face. “Fortunately, my father’s away on caravan again, so the concubines left him to me.”
Tiva’s heart skipped a beat. “Go to! What did you do?”
“Don’t swallow your tongue, girl, it’s under control. I told him I offered to put you up here at the Hollow.”
“You what?”
Farsa took a moment to enjoy what must have been a cornered rabbit bulge to Tiva’s eyes.
“I also told him you refused because you were afraid of being forced to play whore. I sent him down valley to the Farguti Girl’s Shrine. Bynts pop in and out of there every day, giving fake names, so their Lit parents won’t find out they’re pregnant. I figure he’ll probably think you went north with some boy to Sa-utar or something.”
Tiva exhaled and shook her head. “You’re a devil-cat!”
Farsa squeezed her arm with one hand and playfully splashed her in the face with the other.
“So tell me, Tiva, has Khumi taken you to the moss
yet?”
“What?”
Farsa laughed. “I see you two head off into the woods every night.”
Tiva giggled. “Farsa!”
“You can tell me.”
Tiva fantasized of running off with Khumi almost continually. There was not much else to do during the long days. For over two months, she had lived at the Hollow in a tent he had furnished for her with abundance far above anything enjoyed by the other permanent squatters. Even so, he did not live there with her. In all that time, they had never tried to go beyond the level of intimacy they had reached on the night they first met.
Tiva suddenly feared Farsa in a way she never had before. “Let’s just say that Atum and Ish’Hakka aren’t the only couple who’ve lived in paradise anymore.”
“Oooh!”
Tiva relished the effect of her insinuation.
Farsa licked her lips. “You know, I’ve always suspected Khumi was some sort of a forest wild-man. Is he?”
Tiva’s new fear crystallized, as she saw a potential rival in her friend. “You’ll never know how wild he can be,” she said, eyes in a momentary half-shut mimicry of sultriness she had often seen other girls affect at the Hollow. Then the whole impression popped like a soap bubble.
Both girls squealed with laughter and jumped through the waterfall into the outer pool to finish their swim.
They had just started to dry off on the cool moss bank, when the boys arrived with a huge ale barrel on a cart, instead of the usual wine or dragonfire. Tiva jumped up to cover herself with a wrap.
Farsa moved more slowly, as if to give her brother’s friends a brief but deliberate view.
Tiva scowled. Khumi was with them.
Tiva secured her clothing and ran over to meet him.
“Go to! Dinner’s on me! Ale’s on Moon-chaser!” Khumi shouted, as he tossed loaves of honey bread from a satchel to the gathering Hollowers.
A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) Page 9