A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3)

by Powderly Jr. , K. G.

Tiva wrapped herself around him, kissing him hard enough to suck away his very life breath.

  “Now that’s what I call ‘glad to see ya!’” Moon-chaser said, as he sauntered past with a clay bowl of ale.

  Tiva refused to release her fire sprite, and squeezed him all the harder. Something primal inside her screamed for her not to ever let him go.

  T

  he stars through the branches had just faded into joyful sleep when a dull thump ripped Tiva away from Khumi’s strengthening warmth. She opened her ale-filled eyes to see an imposing pale man glaring down at them. Her first thought was that some heathen Qayinim warrior had found them, and would cart them off to the North to drain away their blood.

  He had just shoved Khumi away from her with his foot.

  She wanted to scream, but the fury in the stranger’s eyes silenced her before she could think. Then he began to look vaguely familiar.

  “Get up!” he snapped at Khumi, who slowly began to obey.

  “I’m not coming this time!” Tiva’s companion shouted, when he reached his feet and took a boxer’s stance.

  The pale yellow-haired man shook his head. “You’ll come. Pahp’s home—he’s not dead! He and U’Sumi were prisoners of war and escaped. They just arrived a half hour ago.”

  Khumi’s eyes lit up. He turned to Tiva, helped her to her feet, and took her around the shoulders.

  “Hear that? My father and my other brother are alive!”

  Tiva put on a nervous smile because she knew it was expected, but feared this new development. Would the elder put a stop to his son’s visits to the Hollow? Would Khumi even want to come be with her, now that his father had returned alive?

  Then it hit her. Other brother? That could only mean that the heathen warrior was also Khumi’s sibling. Khumi must be half-Khavilak to have such a pale brother.

  When she noticed both of them staring at her, she widened her smile and said, “That’s wonderful! Khumi’s been so sad over their loss.”

  The Pale One scowled at her. “Yeah, he looked real sad just now and I guess he knew where to come for comfort.”

  Khumi stepped up into his brother’s face. The Pale One stood a head taller, and looked as though he could break Khumi in half like a twig.

  “You gut no right to talk to Tiva like that! I’ve seen you and Sutara lie next to each other and look at the stars a million times, and you’re not married yet! Come on, ‘Peti, you can see we’re both fully dressed!”

  The brother laughed. “You call that fully dressed?” He pointed at the skimpy wrap Tiva had borrowed from Sariya. If not so terrified, she would have crumpled to the dirt in humiliated tears.

  Khumi hauled off and belted the Pale One across the mouth before the older ‘tween could see it coming.

  The impact barely pushed ‘Peti’s head to one side of his well-muscled neck. He turned to face Khumi with a grimace of rage.

  Tiva stood helpless while the older brother boxed the younger one in the head with jabs as furious as the musician’s drumbeats earlier. Blood sprayed from Khumi’s nose, as all sense of time dissolved into panic. She finally got a grip on herself enough to try to come between them. The scuffle shoved her back, and Khumi dropped to the ground like a sack of wheat. She couldn’t decide whether to run for Moon-chaser or try to plead with the heathen warrior brother. The ale still swam in her head.

  ‘Peti bent to hoist his sibling over his shoulder, as if Khumi weighed nothing at all. Then his face softened unexpectedly in the moonlight.

  He sighed, gazing down at Tiva with surprising pity in his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry I said that crack about your outfit. You look like you might be a decent sort, but this isn’t a nice crowd you’re with. The ones up here now might seem harmless, and maybe some of them are. But there are others—more stream in every day from the cities. Some already come and go regularly. They wouldn’t think twice about having their way with you, then killing you just for the fun of it afterward. Maybe you should go home to your parents. They’re probably worried about you.”

  Tiva wished that were true. She said nothing, as he carried her fire sprite off into the night.

  A question now hung in the air that had never troubled her before. Many fathers and older brothers had died in the Akh’Uzan Regiment during the war. Only a handful got declared missing or presumed captured. She suddenly realized how Khumi had never once mentioned his father’s name.

  Tiva’s emotional torrent would have to wait for the ale to vacate before unleashing itself. The question of Khumi’s house would wait only as long as it took to find Farsa and the others.

  One of them had to know.

  T

  he sun began its climb over the jagged peaks of Mount N’Zar, as the fortifications of the local chief acolyte’s half-built flood haven began to stand out in profile along the highest ridge. Much farther down from the new crestline city, dawn shadows draped cooling mists over the forest around the north side of Q’Enukki’s Retreat.

  Tiva crept through the bushes near the gate of the old monastery, too terrified to knock and announce herself, but too concerned for Khumi not to camp out and spy in hope that she might hear something through the walls. Perhaps later, if this proved fruitless, she would climb the hill overlooking the ramparts in the back, to try to get a peek inside the keep.

  It had not taken her long to find out from one of the Hollowers where Khumi lived. The discovery terrified her. They were all surprised he had never told her. Everybody seemed to know that he went to classes at his monastery home during the day, where he also ran a small carpentry shop.

  Everyone in Akh’Uzan knew that Q’Enukki’s Retreat held secret treasures beyond imagining. No wonder he’s been able to furnish my tent with the best. She almost wept. He was probably afraid to tell me who his father was because of how much he knows my father hates his. He should have known that could never matter to me! Not now! Not anymore!

  She sat behind a line of ferns just a few cubits from the gate, with her head propped in her hands, on top of her knees. After several minutes in this position, she made ready to move. Then the sounds of muffled talking inside made her freeze.

  The voices grew louder, until she could definitely recognize one of them as Khumi. The other she did not know. It sounded by its archaic dialect like a zaqen of considerable age—at least Third or Fourth Tier—roughly half a millennium old.

  The words coalesced as the two voices approached the inside of the gate. Tiva threw herself flat to the earth, and practically stopped breathing. She felt hot and stifled even in the crisp damp air. The gate rattled and swung open. Her heart leaped when she saw Khumi and a middle-aged zaqen stroll out into the greenery.

  Oddly enough, the older man did not seem angry with his son, rather hurt and concerned. Tears almost rose to her eyes when she saw how bruised her fire sprite became from standing up for her.

  “Don’t you think I’m a little old for the board?” Khumi said, as his father shut the gate behind them.

  The Elder replied, “Haven’t you noticed that I didn’t bring it?”

  Tiva feared for a moment that the hale older man would finish what ‘Peti had started last night with his bare fists. She had only seen A’Nu-Ahki the Heretic a few times before the war, and she barely recognized him from his having lost so much weight. Yet something in his eyes calmed her.

  He put his hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “I could handle things that way if I wanted. But no—in your case; I agree.”

  Khumi turned to his father, eyes averted. “You do?”

  “Yes,” said the Elder, as if it was the hardest admission he could ever make. “I’m not here to punish or even lecture you. I am dismayed, and even quite angry, over what you have put your mother through in my absence. I may have a hard choice to give you, but first I want to hear your side of things. Iyapeti overstepped himself by antagonizing you. I could gather that much even before he finished telling me about it.”

  “You could?”

  “My
return should have been a joyous occasion, especially for you. ‘Peti could have, and should have, invited both you and your friend back to the Retreat. Had I known where he was going to fetch you from, and that you would not be alone, I would have given him such instructions.”

  Tiva reeled in relief, and then slapped a hand over her mouth lest her excited breathing become audible through the ground cover.

  Khumi’s eyes softened. “I’d have never guessed she’d be welcome. I’m glad you’re willing to give her a chance. She’s had a bad go of it with her folks, you know. Wrongly, I mean.”

  Tiva had shared with Khumi the same frustrations her other friends knew about, but nothing about Yargat. That was too much.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said his father. “Now tell me your side.”

  Khumi seemed to consider his approach for a moment, and then said, “Well, it’s just that I work hard around here too, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a little fun now and then. I don’t know what ‘Peti told you, but I know what he said when he came to get me. I was not lying with Tiva! I mean, I was lying beside her and all, but we weren’t laying—I mean, we just dozed off from looking at the stars! ‘Peti and Sutara do it all the time, and they’re only a year into their betrothal.”

  “I believe you.”

  Tiva almost popped up from the ferns to introduce herself. Then she realized how bad that might look.

  “You do?”

  “Yes. What’s more, I don’t think your request for recreation is unreasonable, provided it’s not the self-destructive sort, which dishonors E’Yahavah. U’Sumi and T’Qinna play both pipes and lyre, sounds, I have come to believe, that the heavens can inspire, despite what some of our traditions say. I need to ask you something, though, and I want you free to answer me honestly with no fear of punishment; for I am about to deal with you not as a boy, but as a man.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you still believe El-N’Lil, the Divine Wind, has spoken to me?”

  Khumi shrugged. “Sure. But what’s that got to do with this?”

  “Everything, Son; how you see E’Yahavah’s revelation about World-end will color every major decision you make in the real world.”

  Tiva had never heard anybody discuss World-end so reasonably, much less in the same breath as mentioning “the real world.”

  In every household of Akh’Uzan, the topic automatically invited shrill denunciations and ridiculous religious curses fired here and there like poorly aimed verbal artillery. Even the usage of differently worded versions of the same World-end prophecies, which all said the same things in slightly varied order, was enough that those favoring one version often accused those favoring the other of being agents of the Great Basilisk, when it was plain to anyone who could read that both versions meant the same things.

  The topic of World-end would always be so loaded that Tiva could never separate it completely from the silly behavior she had always seen it produce—even sometimes in herself. Since leaving her father’s house especially, she had become convinced that the idea of World-end was the axis around which all of Akh’Uzan’s fakery and superstition revolved.

  Khumi grit his teeth, as if ready to illustrate her expectation. Instead, he said, “Look, I know my friends aren’t the most devoted in Akh’Uzan. But what do you want from me? They’re my friends! They’re the only people my age in this valley who don’t care who my father and mother are and who accept me for who I am! They have their problems, sure, but they don’t deserve to be wiped out any more than we do!”

  Here it comes, Tiva thought, the backlash of righteous indignation.

  Yet A’Nu-Ahki did not lash out. Instead, he calmly voiced the most unthinkable heresy any Lit could utter.

  “There’s much truth in what you say.”

  Khumi was silent.

  “But there is also a hard truth still missing from what you just said; one of the most difficult truths a man can accept about himself, much less try to communicate to others he cares about.”

  Tiva hung on the Old Man’s every word. What truth could be so difficult, yet discussed so tenderly and sanely between father and son?

  “Son, while it’s true that in a sense you are right, there’s also a sense in which you have gotten things backward.”

  “Backward, how?”

  “We don’t deserve to be rescued any more than your friends do.”

  “We don’t?”

  “No. Actually, in the strictest sense, nobody deserves anything but the death sentence under which this whole cosmos stands. Justice alone would consume me along with everyone else.”

  “That seems wrong. You’re a good man, Father.”

  “I know it seems so to you. Yet I am not immune to evil. I have done things in my time that I am ashamed of. Our Comfort is not based on my goodness. E’Yahavah has given me his friendship simply because he wants to. The Sky Signs show that he will one day pay an enormous price to do this. What’s more, that same Comfort extends as a covering over any who will come under my shadow and stand with me to finish the Work our ancestor started—even if they are weak and unable to carry a burden.”

  Khumi rolled his eyes. “I know all about the Work. It never seems to end and it never seems to go anywhere.”

  A’Nu-Ahki sighed. “So it sometimes seems to me also. For the most part, I’m not even sure what it is, but try to understand what I do know. I am the prophesied Comforter from A’Nu who will bring rest—not the slave driver who demands endless labor. I would welcome your friends, even if they only came to ask questions. They would even be welcomed to live here—should they embrace the few answers I can give them, which E’Yahavah first gave to me. We have much work ahead of us and to be honest with you, I’m tired and grieved over what happened near the end of our journey—to the boy, Yafutu, I told you about last night.”

  “What about Tiva?”

  “If your intentions toward her are honorable, you’ll bring her to me so I can arrange a betrothal. I’m willing to do this, although you are still young by traditional standards. If you care for these people, you’ll try to help them understand, instead of imitating their ways.”

  “I’m not imitating anything!” Khumi shouted with the fury Tiva had expected from his father. “And a proper betrothal won’t work in our case!”

  “Why not?”

  Khumi seemed on the verge of tears. Tiva wished she could hold him. “Her father is Henumil, and you know how much he hates you!”

  A’Nu-Ahki took a diplomatic step backward. “Hmm, I see.”

  “So what are my choices?”

  “First off, let’s not pretend that the young people at Grove Hollow don’t spend a lot of their time drunk, and tangled in the moss with each other. Agreed?”

  Tiva had never heard a zaqen talk about sex using Younger-speak before. It shocked and strangely comforted her somehow.

  Khumi scowled. “They don’t live by our ways. Why should they?”

  “Unless they’ve had an encounter with the Divine Wind, there’s no reason why they should. But likewise, if you believe E’Yahavah has spoken through me, then you have no reason to defect to their ways, even a little bit, as some in the family think you might be doing.”

  “But I’m not! Not really.”

  “Perhaps not. I do not claim to see your heart, and won’t accuse you of things I haven’t seen. Yet if not, you still have this choice: Leave your ties with the Hollowers behind you, unless it’s to communicate the Work and then take U’Sumi and T’Qinna with you for strength.”

  “Oh, yeah, to spy on me; is that all?”

  A’Nu-Ahki seemed to ignore his son’s sarcasm. “No. You must also bring your young lady-friend to me for a unilateral betrothal without her parents—since they’ve apparently disowned her anyway. I will take the consequences with Henumil if he makes trouble. The magistrates will be apt to decide in the girl’s favor rather than her parents’ anyhow…”

  Khumi’s eyes softened again.

&n
bsp; “…But if you choose this, it means staying out of the Hollow. Your second choice is to move out, and run your own life as you see fit. My door would still be open to you, but you would have to meet the first conditions to return for more than just a visit.”

  Tiva saw terror in the Father’s eyes, when Khumi’s face lit up.

  A’Nu-Ahki added, “Understand that if you leave here, you leave all rights to the Promised Comfort. It may not be possible for you to come back so easily—or maybe at all—even with my door open. Don’t think you can just go and then return, all contrite, right before World-end. This isn’t a game! You may toy with your mother and me, but it’s all or nothing with E’Yahavah.”

  Khumi said, “Can I go tell Tiva, so we can decide together?”

  Tiva could almost feel Khumi slide into her grip and relished the sudden power she instinctively knew that gave her.

  A’Nu-Ahki answered softly, “That would be only fair.”

  Following false copies of the good, that no

  Sincere fulfillment of their promise make.

  —Dante

  6

  Aeden

  Tiva’s paradise started to dissolve, just as surely as if she had eaten the forbidden fruit herself. She didn’t tell Khumi that she had overheard his conversation with his father. For one, she could not risk angering him. Two, she figured it would be a perfect opportunity to test him on whether or not he would report the whole matter to her, lie, or not even mention it at all.

  At least he was truthful when he laid things out.

  Tiva just couldn’t believe her ears when he told her he wanted to take her up to his father! She had been so sure of herself when she found Khumi waiting for her, panting from his run up to the Hollow. She had followed him, at a discreet distance, and then circled around through the greenery to approach from the north. After making him wait long enough for her to catch most of her breath, she staged her own return to the Hollow from “a stroll in the upper foothills.”