A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (12 page)

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 ar
e 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 beaut
ies 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.

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 of 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.”

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.