A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3)

by Powderly Jr. , K. G.

  “That’s horrible. How do you know this?”

  T’Qinna gazed off into the hearth fire as if remembering. “Your ancestor fought them to a standoff, and warned us to give them no ground. They are themselves caught in a lethal mind game of the Basilisk. Those they enchant, they drawn in with them. Potions, hallucinogenic plants—self-induced trances that make you feel good about yourself, but rob you of your ability to reason—it’s a cancerous evil that’s disfigured the heart, and now even the very creation codes of humanity. It doesn’t matter if you call them sprites, Watchers, Powers, gods, or inner lights, it’s all the same.”

  Tiva ground her teeth until her jaws hurt. “But how do you know? How can you know? What if they’re friends? What if they came to help us?”

  T’Qinna shook her head gently. “Tiva, have you ever been raped by someone you trusted—somebody who pretended to be your friend?”

  Tiva dropped the plate she had absentmindedly grabbed from the table, and heard it shatter across the floor. All her well-rehearsed defenses fled. She stood naked and alone before this foreign enchantress who somehow knew her deepest secret terrors.

  T’Qinna said, “You have, haven’t you? I see it in your eyes. That’s how I know these sprites are seducers. They raped me—spirit, mind, and body—from my childhood. My very own mother would turn a blind eye while her lovers used me, and then tell me I was special after they did things to me that no child should ever have done to them! The sprites would whisper to me how good it was. But it wasn’t! If you keep playing with them, they’ll use you up and toss your dead body like garbage! I’ve lived it! They did it to my mother—just threw her corpse away like an empty husk!”

  Tiva’s mind howled in a maddening anti-scream that sucked her into a pitiless void of hateful voices in hot fluid darkness. Half of her wanted to bolt from the room, the other half wanted to find out how a woman like T’Qinna could be restored by this elusive “love of E’Yahavah” A’Nu-Ahki had once wished upon her. But the contradictions were insurmountable.

  Everything T’Qinna says the sprites did to her, I had done to me by the men of E’Yahavah! What if I’m only here to be raped over and over—E’Yahavah and the Basilisk—forever in some kind of twisted compact?

  The new inner voice spoke to Tiva again, “Your father and brother know only names and rites, child, not the substance. Does Seti’s Code allow what your brother did to you? Surely, you know that Yargat broke the Code when he duped a little girl into his monstrous games. Henumil avoided the truth about his son rather than face his own sense of disgrace. You need to stop acting as if E’Yahavah approves of them, or their crimes, because that is a lie.”

  “He could have stopped them!” Tiva screamed, and swept her hand through the remaining bowls on the table, sending them—World-end in microcosm—across the room to shatter into tortured shards.

  The sphinx awoke with a snarl. A hand motion from T’Qinna stilled the cat. “Who could have stopped whom, Tiva? Do you mean E’Yahavah could have stopped them from killing my mother?”

  Tiva reeled in tears of humiliation. She felt, as from a distance, T’Qinna reach out to hug her. She let this powerful woman enfold her, and allowed herself to cry into her arms without restraint. “Yes—your mother!”

  “I guess that’s true. But then, I wouldn’t have come to know him, or you. Everything has a purpose. The hardest thing I’ve had to learn, since coming to live here, is that I can’t even control my own life the way I was trained to think I could by the same Temple that actually robbed me of any sense of safety and control. Just ask U’Sumi—I even tried to control him once we were married. You should’ve heard the fights we had.”

  Tiva was not sure she knew what T’Qinna was talking about, but she nodded on her shoulder anyway.

  “There’s something else though, isn’t there, Tiva? That wasn’t about me losing my Mauma just now, was it?”

  Tiva shook her head violently.

  “That’s alright. I didn’t mean to pry,” whispered that musical voice. “Whatever your pain is, it’s very deep, and past words. You don’t have to say anything. But if you ever want to talk, I’m available for you.”

  Tiva’s fear left at T’Qinna’s touch—but not the confusion.

  Khumi and U’Sumi scrambled down the steps from the observation platform into the dining loft.

  Khumi said, “I heard Tiva shout. What’s wrong?”

  T’Qinna answered, “Tiva stumbled, and knocked the crockery over. She’s understandably upset. But it could have happened to either of us.”

  The men shrugged, and went back up to the platform.

  After what seemed a long while, Tiva gathered herself together again into one of her many play-actress personas, and gently pushed herself free of T’Qinna’s shoulder. Yet part of her wished she could just stay in those arms forever and ever.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Tiva said, adapting the part of a distraught but dignified wife she had seen in a recent village orb drama to her situation.

  “No need. But think about what I’ve said.”

  “I will. Oh—and thanks for not letting on. I know it’s not fair, but will you please help me clean this mess?”

  “Sure,” answered U’Sumi’s wife with a sphinx’s smile.

  T

  he cavernous hall was empty, except for some guards, the new Archon, and the stunned man at the base of the dais. Tarbet watched his former Master Sage react to the decree that had just dismissed him from the highest academic post in the City-States of Seti. P’Tah resembled a slumped, anemic dwarf at the foot of the Archon’s raised chair.

  “Why?” P’Tah asked. The word echoed in the vast emptiness. His big wounded eyes were those of a child just spanked for an offense of which he believed himself innocent.

  Tarbet said, “We need a more progressive hand at the academic helm. I appreciate all your fine work, though. You’ve restored academic honor to Seti. Your approach was perfect for my father’s administration.”

  “But not yours.”

  Tarbet shifted in his over-sized chair. “I’m sorry.”

  “Did my work embarrass Alliance ideologues? Was it my studies showing links between increased sex crime and orb-displayed fertility cult worship, or my documentation of the divorce bubble after your grandfather allowed the marriage of homosexuals and mixed collectives? I know! It’s the Guild, isn’t it? They want the Ardis Temple blamed for the red-sore antidote failures, but they don’t want it looking too bad because the Guild approved all the faulty research. They want it both ways! Everyone wants everything both ways!” P’Tah’s laughter bubbled with more than a hint of madness.

  The Archon tried to keep his words civil. “You did kind of make it sound as though my grandfather personally destroyed the moral foundations of our civilization. There are those who would use your work to move the Magistracy backward three hundred years! And what the Guild gives, it can easily take away. Right now they are the fountain of progress.”

  P’Tah shifted from his laughter to a morose silence. Then he said, “Lord Archon, what if we’ve been going the wrong direction in some things—emphasis on some? Moving backward a step isn’t always bad. The evidence sometimes cuts both ways. You know my work was sound, and not ideologically motivated! You know I drew those conclusions only with the greatest reluctance! Will you base your administration on the subterfuge we used when we were students; you remember; whenever we sneaked off to Ayar Adi’In for Temple sport during sacred sabbatical?”

  Tarbet said, “Refresh my memory.”

  The Sage gave a snort. “Perception creates its own reality.”

  “You must admit, it often does.”

  “You forget that objective reality has a way of pushing through the thickest stone wall, like jungle roots, until the wall finally crumbles. It takes time, but it always collapses just the same.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  P’Tah shook his head. “Just an observation. I was one of your greatest assets, Revered
Father. I’ve worked only to maintain freedom of inquiry and academic integrity! You and I used to spout those same platitudes at the Iyaredists; remember? The only difference is that I was fool enough to believe you meant them as much as I did.”

  “Please, Old Friend, don’t make this harder. I know about your little consultations with that self-styled seer from Akh’Uzan—Volkras, I believe his name is. Isn’t he the one who traipsed onto the Colossus Court last year, shouting that the earth would open up and swallow us all where we stood?”

  The smirk across P’Tah’s face was like a bloodless slit. “I was doing historical research on the Akh’Uzan Phenomenon—studying a form of mass hysteria! If I can’t interview people that have relevant information…”

  “Why didn’t you go straight to the house of A’Nu-Ahki? I believe Muhet’Usalaq is still alive.”

  “Everyone knows what they think.” The ex-Sage yawned. “I wanted a different perspective. I thought it would serve you and the Alliance better.”

  Tarbet nodded. “I suppose I should credit you for that, at least.”

  P’Tah glowered up at his old friend. “There’s no point in my explaining. You and Avarnon-Set apparently have your agenda.”

  “That’s unfair, P’Tah, and beneath you.”

  The ex-Sage shrugged. “So reinstate me, and then depose me again.”

  Tarbet sighed as his old friend spun around and limped from the audience chamber, just a few centuries too young to be a tired old man.

  A large part of the available UFO literature is closely linked with mysticism and the metaphysical. It deals with subjects like mental telepathy, automatic writing and invisible entities as well as phenomena like poltergeist manifestation and ‘possession.’ Many of the UFO reports now being published in the popular press recount alleged incidents that are strikingly similar to demonic possession and psychic phenomena.

  —Lynn E. Catoe, UFOs and Related Subjects

  12

  Cause and Effect

  The tavern was in a seedier section of Sa-utar. The smells of sour ale and urine thickened the air, mingled with the sweat of tired laborers and their perfumed prostitutes. Inguska found his way over to the central pillar, and ordered himself a bowl of cheap wine. Enkasi already reclined in the hay by a small stone table near the exit, brooding over his drink.

  Inguska set his knapsack down, and joined him.

  Enkasi growled without looking up from his ale. “This place reeks.”

  “A worker’s haunt at a worker’s price,” Inguska said.

  “Has the time come after so many years? I’d almost given up hope.”

  Inguska nodded down at the knapsack. “The parcel has arrived.”

  “What are my instructions?”

  “The anniversary celebration is still a week off. I must be well on my way before you attend—so our second sacred message can follow on the heels of the first. Are all your affairs in order?”

  Enkasi nodded. “I ran a shipment of wine down to Farguti just last week, and comforted my wives. I’ve been doing that run regular now for the last two years. I felt the time must be coming.”

  “They will be well taken care of.”

  “Marry them all if they please you.”

  “They will want for nothing, my friend.”

  Enkasi looked up from his drink. “I’ve memorized the spot, and the sacred ritual you’ve given me.”

  Inguska clasped his young disciple’s shoulder. “Your holy vestments will be delivered to your flat tomorrow. It is essential that you wear them all, though you will find that they constrict your movements. I apologize, but you will appear a bit fat in them. Be assured, it is not merely for ceremony.”

  “Is it permitted for me to know their deeper purpose?”

  Inguska regarded his student before answering. “Since you make the noblest sacrifice; yes. A second magic substance lines the vestments, and fills its many pouches. The holy power released by the parcel will be magnified many times by your robes.”

  Enkasi nodded. “Then I shall wear my sacred vestments proudly.”

  Tears swelled to Inguska’s eyes. “The blessings of Samyaza go with you to glory.”

  S

  everal days after T’Qinna’s visit, Tiva hunched over the reading table in her tree house’s observatory room high in the forest’s upper terrace. Green-filtered sunlight illuminated a copy of Q’Enukki’s Fifth Scroll that Khumi had brought with him when he had left Q’Enukki’s Retreat. It was probably the first time the ancient text had been unrolled since he had moved in with her. She smiled at the irony that she should be the one to open it.

  Pahn’s inner voice vanished after Tiva and T’Qinna’s forest walk. It would not return no matter how many mushrooms Tiva ate. Soon she stopped trying to call him. Fortunately, Sutara had found other matters to attend to at the last minute, which had left Tiva and T’Qinna free to talk. Rarely had their conversation strayed onto herb lore, though Tiva never quite felt comfortable enough to share her secret either. She had dropped several hints, which T’Qinna readily seemed to pick-up on. If there ever could be a person who would understand about Yargat, T’Qinna might.

  “Who’m I fooling?” Tiva said to herself—Khumi was at work, so she was alone as usual. “T’Qinna’s a Lit convert! That means she’s a fervent, even if she shows it differently! Yargat’s still an acolyte! It would look to her almost as though I’d seduced a seer, or something!”

  One other thing had also changed since T’Qinna’s visit. Tiva no longer felt much like going to Grove Hollow. She needed space to think.

  Q’Enukki’s Fifth had not been one of the sacred texts her father had made her memorize as a child. In fact, he had hardly mentioned it except to say that it was, “difficult, and easy to misinterpret without special training.” Tiva found it straightforward and interesting reading, unlike much of the stuff her father had made her memorize. If nothing else, it addressed a topic that now began to trouble her.

  “Maybe T’Qinna’s right about the sprites, and maybe not,” she told herself as she spooled through the scroll. “The Hollow’s like my own Aeden—but Aeden without Khumi is a broken paradise. Kernui’s nice, but it wouldn’t be fair of me to make him into some kind of Khumi-substitute. Go to—he mightn’t even care, as long as I went to the moss! Guys’r dumb that way!”

  She read on in silence for a space, only half taking-in the text. “No,” Tiva whispered, “Aeden has to come with Khumi himself—only free and gentle—like he used to be. None of my friends get that. If Pahn’s harmless, then he won’t begrudge me asking my questions—if he ever returns. Maybe T’Qinna offended him…”

  “Hello!” called a familiar voice from the base of the tree house.

  Tiva trotted down the spiral stairwell helix to open the door.

  Moon-chaser, Sariya, and Farsa came in, and plopped down on the floor cushions in the lower social room.

  Farsa said, “Where ya been? Don’t tell me you’re gonna start playing scarce on us like Khumi. Tell him we really miss his dancing. The bonfire’s just not the same without him.”

  “No, I’m not playing scarce,” Tiva replied, “just been busy.”

  Moon-chaser’s eyes jerked around the room, bright with the same kind of pent-up energy, as when he had first introduced Tiva and Khumi to the seers’ buttons. “We’ve got something to show you,” he said.

  Sariya scowled, rolling her eyes. “Blunt as a mortar, as always!”

  “What? It’s about her too, isn’t it?

  “What is?” Tiva asked, trying to muster a properly enthusiastic face.

  “The Wisdom Tree,” Moon-chaser whispered. His eyes glinted with something from the borderlands between excitement and terror. He leaned forward, as if to shelter his voice from unfriendly ears.

  Tiva lost her phony smile. “Is that like Aeden’s Knowing-Tree of Good and Evil? ‘Cause if so, I’ve got curses enough hanging over me, ‘kay?”

  Tiva’s friends laughed at what they must have thoug
ht her joke.

  Farsa smirked. “No, dung-head, it’s just a place we go! There’s no fruit on it or anything. We just meet somebody amazing there.”

  “Who?”

  Sariya said, “You have to come and find out.”

  Tiva’s heart started to race. T’Qinna’s words rang in her ears.

  Her friends blinked up at her from their throw cushions, awaiting her reply. My friends—people I’ve known and trusted for years—people who went out of their way to help me out of the impossible wreck my life was!

  Tiva almost believed for a second that T’Qinna had cleverly duped her, but she rejected that idea also. I’m no easy mark when it comes to Lit fakery! T’Qinna honestly believes what she says even if it turns out she’s wrong. My friends aren’t the dragon-worshipers the Lits make them out to be! Maybe the truth about the sprites is somewhere in between—somewhere I need to chart out for myself.

  Tiva said, “Let’s go.”

  They led her first up onto the forest trail, then past the clearing from where, tradition said, the divine chariot had taken Q’Enukki into the heavens over seven centuries ago. From there, they went up into a gorge that cut between the ridges of N’Zar’s crest line and the rest of the mountain chain, northeastward. A stream curled along the base of the ravine, which they followed upward for nearly two hours. Finally, they came to a box canyon with a large bubbling pool in its midst, the brook’s source.

  On a tiny islet in the middle of the pond grew a gigantic oak, so tall that it reached almost above the cliffs of the surrounding gulch. Soft moss carpeted the island beneath the tree—comfortable seating all around. Tiva followed, as Moon-chaser, Sariya, and Farsa waded out to the islet, and then reclined under the oak’s branches. The bubbles tickled her feet; warm but not too hot from the earth’s hidden furnaces.