A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3)

by Powderly Jr. , K. G.

  Inguska had warned him that if things did not go exactly according to plan, Enkasi should simply try to move in as close as he could, and use his own judgment. The crowd was thick and likely to surge, but with patience, he should be able to reach his optimum target.

  Too bad we didn’t know about the orb-sender towers, he thought. It would have been nice to reach the Archon himself.

  The crowd jostled him in the proper direction, with the stone robe train rising on his right. Enkasi closed his eyes for a moment to recapture the beauty of Heaven’s Daughters again in his mind. They smiled to him. I shall experience but a moment of flame—just a flash of heat—and then eternal paradise with seventy playful virgins as lovely as they, and willing to do whatever I ask!

  He passed under the shadow of the stone fat man’s kilt, and looked up. Enkasi was thankful that art’s over-sized imitation of life stopped above the knees. One could never be sure in such decadent cities as Sa-utar. The tapered retaining wall that surrounded the sunken Obelisk Pavement opened onto a ramp just ahead. It occurred to him that the shape of the rampart would cup the blast back up at Seti’s pillars, magnifying the power of his message—if he made it down the ramp. That brought a smile.

  He had nearly made it into the ramp, when the mob unexpectedly surged up at him from below. No! Not now! Not when I’m this close!

  Enkasi only saw the cause of the commotion because he was at the top of the incline. A squad of constables drove the crowd on the Obelisk Pavement toward him from the other side. The swell almost pushed him over backwards until he reluctantly turned along the outside of the retaining wall, opposite the Colossus’ left foot. I’ll never get down there now!

  Enkasi decided that this was as close as he would get. He thrust aside his outer cloak, and held a sacred amulet that was actually a voice-enhancer up to his lips. Some buffoon bumped into him from behind with an elbow into the small of his back, which sent him stumbling away from the wall toward the rock foot of the Colossus. Enkasi accidentally squeezed the center of the medallion by reflex before he had intended to.

  The jolt of terror came unbidden, now that it was too late to change things even if he wanted to. The timer activation sequence would now allow him only twenty seconds to deliver his message. He had meant to give himself at least thirty. His voice came out strangely hesitant, somehow robbed of the passion he had anticipated for so long.

  “I come in the name of Samyaza’s Law to the fallen house of Seti!” He shrieked into the device, but what he heard was the shrill whine of a nagging wife, or a spoiled child—not the fiery conviction of a holy warrior. Inside his backpack, a mechanism of finely tuned differential gears began to click off Enkasi’s last defining moments. They were not what he expected. “Your oppression of Assuri’s faithful is ended!” His throat went dry.

  The bewildered mob paused in a tight circle around him under the looming shadow of Kunyari’s immense belly.

  “V-vengeance is upon you for opposing Heaven’s Mouthpiece, and oppressing his messengers!” He spoke in rapid squeaks what little he could still remember of the speech he had rehearsed for seven years.

  Inside Enkasi’s knapsack, the miniscule gears reached their set alignment. A tiny magic cell released its charm into a copper filament, causing a minute pulse of quickfire to arc through the sealed compartment that enclosed the first sacred material. The remarkable substance that Enkasi would never understand expanded into super-heated plasma faster than the speed of thought, vaporizing its container, and almost instantly contacting the second sacred substance in the lining and pouches of Enkasi’s vestments.

  Enkasi felt the liquefying concussion of a terrible heat-hammer from behind, as his body blew apart. He expected it to be over in a subsiding thunder clap. It surprised him when the searing pain continued, with all his bodily sensations, as he somehow felt himself catapulted into a darkness that absorbed him like a dense, super-hot fluid. It did not even occur to him to feel betrayed until the withering blackness began to increase into a howling that compressed him like an ocean of boiling lead. Then he knew.

  That blistering dark acid of what, until moments ago, Enkasi had wholly believed was honor and righteousness, was actually nothing more than his deluded, unattainable perfectionism—a cheap imitation. It would crush him forever in the realization that not even the sacrifice of his own life for what he believed a just cause could ever be enough to satisfy the mirror of his own standards, which reflected vanishing light from a conscience he had violated for the swamp-glow mirage of this perfect addiction.

  With his expanding horror, came a second sickening realization; his situation was now irreversible, and would only forever worsen, as the boiling and beating continued against this new body of his that simply wouldn’t die.

  T

  arbet had just mounted the sacred rostrum when he heard the distant shrieks from under the Colossus. He saw the gaudily dressed fat man by Kunyari’s foot, and heard the words “Samyaza’s Law” and “vengeance” before the flash came. The billow of smoke and dust enveloped the statue’s feet and swallowed the twin obelisks before the concussion hit the startled Archon full in the chest. He flew backward into his bodyguards knotted behind him, who caught him and held him upright.

  The Colossus slowly started to lean, its left leg pulverized in the blast. Kunyari’s multi-chinned head seemed to dip, as if the stone giant had come alive, and was looking down in shock at the violent loss of his own leg.

  Tarbet regained his footing in time to see the head fall from its sagging shoulders. It seemed to take forever to reach the ground. Then it bounced up and rolled over the bodies of several hundred people just outside the dust mushroom that had absorbed the collapsing torso. The head again tumbled through the air and fell onto fleeing multitudes. Their mashed bodies only lubricated its rampage downhill across the pavement. The horrendous stone barreled toward the front row audience, where the girl and the child that the Archon had watched stood frozen in its path.

  Tarbet didn’t think. His limbs moved as though another power had taken over his will. He tore free of his bodyguards, and pushed past the rostrum to leap headlong into the path of the rolling juggernaut. He landed, and raced across the security perimeter toward the terrified young mother.

  Again, the blood-smeared head bounced, and rolled through the surging mobs.

  The Archon swept the girl and her child into his arms, and lunged with them to safety just as the boulder somersaulted through where they had just stood, and crashed into the speaker platform’s edge. The stone head split like a melon, and halted mere cubits from where Tarbet clutched the whimpering young woman with her trembling child sandwiched between them. Her hair even smelled like Luwinna’s.

  The dust wave rolled down the gentle hill, as visibility around the fallen Colossus slowly cleared. Tarbet gently stroked the girl’s hair as she pulled herself closer into him and buried her face in his cloak. The carnage where his father’s monument had stood was appalling. Nothing remained of Kunyari but stone splinters. It took a few seconds for Tarbet to notice something almost as traumatic as the pavement full of crushed bodies.

  The Colossus had crumbled mostly backwards, away from the Obelisks of Fire and Water. The tapered retaining wall built around the sunken patio during the statue’s construction had deflected much of the shock wave up away from Seti’s pillars. Tarbet could only shudder when he saw the undamaged tips of the twin monoliths appear above the thinning dust cloud, bathed in the bloody twilight of a sinking sun.

  And the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’

  —Genesis 3:4-5 (KJV)

  13

  Minstrel

  Tiva awoke to see the blurry faces of her friends hovering over her. The giant oak tree of the tiny islet towered above their heads, a menacing shadow in the twilight.

  “He must have overwhelmed her,”
Farsa said, as if from far away.

  Moon-chaser’s shaggy silhouette giggled like some cross between a hyena and an academy girl. “That’s what happened to you the first time.”

  Sariya asked, “Do you think he took her?”

  Tiva’s heart raced as the faces grew clearer. Someone took me! Took me where? Took me… how? Oh E’Yahavah, no! Not that! Not again!

  Moon-chaser slapped Sariya’s bottom. “You scatty bynt! It’s just her first time. Show some class!”

  Tiva sat up and snarled through clenched teeth. “My first time for what?”

  Farsa said, “Don’t you remember? He spent a long time on you.”

  The sun had set, and this game had lost its charm. “I don’t remember anything after we sat by this tree. What happened to me?”

  The other three looked at each other.

  “Weird,” Moon-chaser said. “Everyone he’s ever called for has always remembered his visit—even if they got overwhelmed at the end. Kinda wild; getting overwhelmed, I mean.”

  “Glad you’re amused! Who in the Under-world are you talking about?”

  Farsa put her arms around her. “Calm down, Tiva. We can tell you now that you’ve seen him. Maybe that’ll bring back your memory.”

  Moon-chaser said, “Yeah. But we better start back for the Hollow. Sun’s gone, and there’s not much moon to chase tonight.”

  They helped Tiva up, and Farsa held her steady until they had waded across to the head of the brook-side trail. There she found her legs again, and could walk on her own. Farsa kept pace next to her just in case.

  Tiva asked, “So who is this mystery man that’s so overwhelming?”

  “We don’t really know his name,” Sariya said.

  Moon-chaser added, “He just sort of found me a while back, when I came up here on one of my wanderings.”

  “After that, he asked for each of us by name,” Sariya pointed to herself and Farsa, “Then a few others at the Hollow—some of the Witchy Girls, and two of them Boy-Kissy Boys—Weasel-Lips and his little pal. You met them, Tiva. They’re the ones that went all smiles’n chatter last year, once they figured out we don’t much care who kissy who.”

  Moon-chaser said, “Last night he called for you.”

  Tiva said, “Yes, but who is he, and where’s he from? Go to! What’s he want with all of us?”

  Moon shrugged. “Not real clear on that. He just sorta is.”

  Tiva’s legs wobbled. Farsa instantly wrapped an arm around her waist and held her up.

  Disjointed images flashed through Tiva’s mind: A light above the trees, a thin gray hand that glowed, words she could not remember, huge black piercing eyes, and a sense of wonder mingled with horror. She now recalled seeing Kernui dancing in the mist. Yet little came to her that she could evaluate—no way to know whether the wonder or the terror was closer to the truth of it. All she knew was that something had happened to her. Why hadn’t they mentioned Kernui? Didn’t they see him?

  “Does our new friend play the pipes, wear goatskin leggings, and have a wiry build like Khumi?”

  At the mention of Khumi, Farsa released her so quickly that Tiva almost fell again. Fortunately, her legs got their strength back, and she merely buckled at the knees.

  They all paused on the trail. Although it was impossible to read anyone’s face in the dark, Tiva saw Moon-chaser’s head cock to the side.

  He raised his hand to his mouth. “No,” he mumbled, “Our friend doesn’t look anything like Khumi. He’s actually rather old—though he is small and thin, just not like Khumi.”

  “Listen!” Tiva hissed, “This fellow called me by name! You all better start giving me some real answers or I’ll…”

  “Or you’ll what?” Moon-chaser said softly.

  She felt like exploding. “I don’t know! Look, why are you doing this to me, anyway?”

  Moon-chaser laid a hand on her shoulder. “I really don’t know much more than you do, except that I remember more. But I do know this: The ones he’s called—and Khumi, if he’ll join us—are each being prepared for some kind of greatness. Something wonderful is about to happen; something beautiful and beyond comprehension.”

  “What?”

  He gently squeezed her shoulder. “The Lits may be right about one thing: A World-end is coming. But it’ll be the end of their whole dreary reality. Our friend calls himself a Helper—at least the closest word we know for it. I’ve only pieced some of what he’s shown to us together. He comes from another world, older, and more advanced than ours. They search the heavens for people like us, to teach us to see things in a new way—a way that’ll make a whole new kind of world, and a whole new kind of person.”

  “But isn’t that just the same stinky dung-pie the Watchers have baked up for centuries—only in different words? Look at the wars they and the titans have caused! You started living at the Hollow to escape all that!”

  Sariya said, “What about all the Colonial Wars fought in the name of E’Yahavah? They used to burn kids to death just for wearing Leviathan amulets in Balimar, during Seti’s time!”

  Tiva rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying that was any better, just that all this ‘new world for new people stuff’ gnaws, and gets kids killed!”

  Farsa said, “You don’t understand, Tiva, this isn’t like that.”

  “You don’t understand,” repeated Moon-chaser. “But you will.”

  I

  nguska had hoped to reach Akh’Uzan before Enkasi struck, but his onager had needed a new shoe, which forced him to spend an extra night at a highway village waiting on a blacksmith who had botched the job twice. News of the Colossus’ collapse came through the village orb just after sunset, albeit without any details of casualty counts or if the Obelisks of Fire and Water had been damaged or destroyed. They had to be crushed and buried in the rubble. A pity their Archon was not where we’d expected.

  Inguska was glad enough for the delay the following day however, when he turned past Farguti Crossroads, and saw the tiny Assurim immigrant settlement occupied by a large force of Dragon-slayers and Lumekkorim soldiers. He nodded politely as a mounted patrol of the pale-skinned Qayinim overlords passed. Better them than the local Dragon-slayers that might identify me with the immigrants!

  He got off the road, and after the patrol disappeared around the bend toward Farguti, headed up into the north foothills. Once certain that he was not followed, Inguska made for the hidden armory that Dhiva and a few trusted hands had established. I pray they have not yet been tortured into revealing its location. The military must be on to him to have moved so fast. He figured Satori’s concubine had notified the elders. No, that’s silly! Lumekkor may have simply ordered the occupation of all Assurim immigrant communities—Enkasi had announced his allegiance to Samyaza as planned.

  Inguska dismounted, removed the saddle from his onager, and let her go. The paths he would take now would be too narrow and steep for her.

  The armory seemed undisturbed, hidden behind a thorn-camouflaged false door into a cave far above one of the least-used trails. Heavy forest surrounded the grotto, which Inguska had discovered innocently through listening to one of the immigrant boys brag of his childhood explorations. Dhiva had kept the place under regular observation for many months to ensure that none of the other locals knew of it or used it.

  Only after three years of checking and watching did Inguska order his concubine and her servants to alter the terrain, and seal their treasures inside. An unremarkable tree stump with three crosshatched ax chops marked the place where he should leave the path.

  Once inside, Inguska pulled the door shut behind him, and shook his phosphor lantern to life. Two additional primary devices and several sets of heavy sacred garments lay, packed in knapsacks, at his feet. There was also a selection of hand-cannons. It’s a shame that I must now deliver the second message myself, he thought. It would have been nice to see the war progress, and to plan further operations.

  Inguska hoisted one of the packs to his ba
ck, after he had secured the clumsy sacred garments under his cloak. He knew it would take him at least three days to walk with this load through the winding foothill trails, all the way up to A’Nu-Ahki’s gigantic shipyard. For one thing, he would need to circle around the caves where yet another would-be seer and his followers were preparing to wait out the end of the world—which they insisted would be destroyed by fire. For a moment, Inguska considered switching to this nearer easier target, but decided against it.

  A’Nu-Ahki needs to know who it is that takes his hopes down.

  G

  alkuna watched the village orb in the Immigrant Quarter for more news of the catastrophe. Satori stood by her, ashen faced.

  A priestly orb pundit spoke, while images of the falling Colossus replayed themselves in a cavalcade of death. “It is now known that the defiler of our sacred monument was in fact a member of the Samyaza Cult carrying out what appears to be an orchestrated attack on Alliance targets. Another fanatic damaged one of the great foundries at Bab’Tubila, while others struck a monument to the Ardisu Glory in Balimar. Five more attacks failed in Lumekkor, and one in Near Kush. The Archon has declared martial law for all Assurim communities in the City-States of Seti until…”

  Galkuna said, “You need to report what you know.”

  The orb continued to blare, “Assurim diplomats deny that the attacks were sanctioned by their government. The First Wives of Samyaza have denounced the destruction as Corsair-financed fanaticism designed to revive old Century War Era tensions…”

  Satori glared at her. “What am I supposed to know?”

  “The pattern of Inguska’s travels, and his strange behavior—the effect he has on the other immigrants! If you say nothing, the constables will suspect you of disloyalty! You sponsored them!”

  “That’s ridiculous! Those are innocent people being harassed down at Farguti! I will not be drawn into your panic!”