A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (7 page)

iva could not believe the image that stared at her from the mirror.

She knew
she was a little over-developed for her age—her father constantly fretted about it—but nothing had prepared her for this!

Farsa said, “Not bad, girl.
”

Tiva looked like a woman—or at least a ‘tween-ager—ready for nightlife in any of the great cities. Black curls flowed around her neck onto her bare shoulders to meet the ultra-low cut of one of Farsa’s Khavilak gold-weave wraps. Onyx rings hung from freshly pierced nose and ears. Her dark brown eyes, lined with feline wisps of cosmetic blue and gold to match the wrap, flashed with mystery.

“How old did you say you were?”

“Twenty-four,” Tiva answered sheepishly.

“Stumpy Watchers, that’s almost a little girl—but I guess not in your case! Nobody’s gonna make you for a day under forty with this look.”

She’s really no different than Tsuli!
Tiva realized.
All that hard talk around the academy is just a front to keep things under her control.

“Go to! You’re free now,
bynti. What ya wanna do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Village orb’s playing
The Rape of Lilitua
again.”

“I’ve never seen an orb drama.”

Farsa laughed. “You’re not missing much! Personally, I think the story goes too far—it’s a little much to believe that the ancients were lying about absolutely everything—and the final rape scene’s way overdone!”

“How so?”

“The story was made by these sages and dramatists that think the sacred histories were all lies written just to prop up the early Archons. While that’s probably part true, they really take it too far. Like, they say instead of helping the children of Lilitua in the Great Plague, Seti actually raped her and set up a puppet kingdom to rob the Far East civilization of Y’Raddu.”

Tiva laughed.
“That’s stupid! Let’s do something else.”

“Amphitheater’s open. They’re doing
Love’s Wandering Star
. I’ve seen it five times, but I wouldn’t mind doing it again. I still like live shows better than the orb. Back in Erdu, the orbs have more flashy theater. Here everything cranks through the censors at Sa-utar. They take out all the good stuff—and I don’t mean just the love scenes—but the stuff that makes you think about life too. Besides, outdoor theater’s closer.”

“What’s
Love’s Wandering Star
about?”

Farsa scrunched her mouth. “It’s a love epic—pretty surprising with a title like
Love’s Wandering Star
, huh?”

Tiva hung her head.

“No, seriously.” The older ‘tween laughed, punching her lightly on the arm. “A god from Tiamatu lands his sky chariot in a backwoods village and falls in love with the zaqen’s youngest daughter. The father’s a real dragon turd, and marries the girl off to this skunky priest. But the god breaks up the wedding with a storm of dragons—they use trained lynd-wurms.”

“Real
wurms? Do the Dragon-slayers allow that?”

“
They’re regular patrons! B’sides, it’s just lynd-wurms—egg-suckers with their claws clipped. I think your Dragon-slayers just like the love scene at the end where the hero takes the girl right on the stage, all nakedly. It’s done in a classy way, though. Not like some shows, where I think they get their wildies from public expo, or doing sword fights with fake limbs and cow livers tossed out into the audience just to shock a really backwards place like this…” Farsa paused. “No offense.”

Tiva giggled. “I’m not offended. This really is a backward place. I mean, I’ve got to face the real world, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose so—just don’t try and face it all in one night. Not even I can do that!”

They both laughed
, Tiva with a shrinking edge of panic.

“What else is there to do?”

Farsa shrugged. “There’s Grove Hollow. My brother and his friends have Iyu’Buuli
festivals
up there most nights. He says I can bring my friends, as long as they don’t act like children or something. They’ll probably call you a ‘Youngblood’ but they mean it all nice. It’s just a word they use for some of the younger regulars.”

“Are you a Youngblood?”

Farsa thought a moment. “At first I was. But they haven’t called me that in a while. I guess I’m somewhere between that and being a Zake. That’s what they call my brother and his friends in their upper ‘tweens. Most of them hid up at the Hollow to avoid the war and just decided that they liked being out on their own in the forest. There’s plenty of wild fruit trees, and they can get work with the timber lords easy enough most days.”

“I heard a story about a girl who got thrown out of her father’s house and went up to Grove Hollow. They said she could stay and eat only if she played whore with them
all. Is that true?”

Farsa shrieked with laughter. “Who told you that?”

“My father and brothers.”

“That’s just what I’d expect from a Dragon-slayer who probably hasn’t so much as hacked a lizard in over three hundred years. At the Hollow, nobody makes a girl do nothing she don’t want to do. And if they try, my brother takes care of it. So don’t you be afraid of nothing.”

Tiva found it impossible to fear anything as long as Farsa stayed by her. She wanted now more than ever to see for herself if her family’s ideas about these people were true.

“Let’s try the Hollow.”

ight fell
in wine-colored merriment while Tiva and Farsa met the trail from a side path just past the Shrine cave, and continued their hike up into the foothills toward Q’Enukki’s Retreat and Grove Hollow beyond. Growing shadows stretched long skeletal fingers across their sloping way.

The walk would have terrified Tiva had she been alone, but Farsa’s clowning lifted her spirits. The freedom of new adventure was intoxicating. The pinkish-orange orb of a
rising full moon soon lit their way into an entirely different reality from any Tiva had ever known—perhaps the “real world” Farsa had mentioned once.
Can anything real be this wonderful?

The forest thickened below, while the trail’s edge dropped off into shadows on their left
, and the road hugged a sheer rock facing to the right. Above, the dim fortress of Q’Enukki’s Retreat sat like an angry stone giant over the path circling up to its level on the wooded far side.

Farsa grabbed the edge of Tiva’s wrap and slowed her down.

“We have to be quiet when we pass here. Otherwise the Old Crow will come out and chase us with a stick.”

Tiva flipped her hand.
“Oh, I know all about him…”

“Shhh!”

They crept around the ancient rampart, barely able to stifle their giggles. The dark, forbidding towers seemed to glare down on them with dim disapproving eyes animated by a tangible presence both alien and hostile. The girls waited until they were well beyond its lights and into the woods again before they continued their conversation.

Farsa said,
“So what about the Old Crow?”

Tiva lowered her voice, “They say he’s the oldest man in the world. Firstborn son of Q’Enukki himself! He’s supposed to be the Prime Zaqen of this whole region, but my father says he turned his back on the Work started by the Great Seer and so he’s under some kind of curse.”

“Go to! I love ancient curse stories!”

Tiva’s voice sounded lost and far away
, even to herself, as she went on, “Until the Aztlan War, the Old Crow and his sons practically ruled Akh’Uzan. My ancestor, Urugim, was his brother. Though the Crow was oldest, most of the original settlers here actually come from Urugim, like me. My ancestor died just before the legendary passage the early settlers made through the Haunted Lands, because he dared to look beyond the very Gates of Aeden. He fostered his clan to his older brother on his deathbed. I’m not really sure how, but my tribe’s way of life on this land was built on all that.”

“Why’d your people have to go through the Haunted Lands?”

Tiva scrunched her nose as she had seen Farsa do, and instantly regretted it because of the new nose ring. “I’m not sure,” she said. “There are stories and legends, and stuff. All I know is our tribe had to march through the Haunted Lands under the Old Crow’s leadership ‘bout two hundred and seventy years ago. I guess he was a much younger crow back then. It was a rough journey—my father and mother traveled with them. They got attacked by dragons and other stuff. My uncle even lost his first wife to gryphons in the Canyon of Terror.”

Farsa said, “I had no idea you Lits ever did such interesting things. So, why isn’t the Old Crow in charge of your people anymore?

Tiva laughed. “He passed most of his authority down to his son and his son’s son. Only the Council of Dragon-slayers, which my father leads, balanced off their power. My father became the next choice for Seer Clan elder-ship when the last of the Crow’s sons died in the war. The Old Crow went along with it and surrendered the Holy Relics to my father then. That’s when we built the Shrine—you know—the one in that cave we had to avoid back down the trail because my brother might still be there.”

“What about the curse?”

“All the Crow’s sons died in the Aztlan War ‘cept for one old cripple. This was ‘cuz the Crow forsook his father by letting his grandson marry the Pale Witch. Some say she corrupted the grandson, who might otherwise have become A’Nu’s prophesied Comforter. Others say the grandson was always a Fallen One. Either way, the Pale Witch still lives up in the castle with the Old Crow; an evil enchantress from heathen lands up north. The grandson she married was A’Nu-Ahki the Heretic, the False Comforter. Yet even with the curse, Q’Enukki’s prophecy still stands.”

Farsa said,
“What’s that?”

“That the Old Crow is the Shadow-line Son of the World-end Seer.”

“The what?”

Tiva grinned. “
A Shadow-line is an ancient time marker, like a sundial. The castle we passed was built by Q’Enukki the Seer, who according to history, named his firstborn son, ‘Muhet’Usalaq,’ which means, ‘When This One Dies, the End will Come,’ or something like that in High Archaic.” She moaned eerily, “Even though the Old Crow turned his back on his father’s heritage when he married his grandson off to the Pale Witch, his name still sticks. When he dies it’ll be the end of the world!”

“Oooh, that’s creepy!” Farsa squealed with morbid delight. “So that’s why all the
Lits live here in Akh’Uzan?”

“Something like that.”

“So if I live here too, I’ll also survive the end of the world?”

Farsa’s tone surprised Tiva. The unruffled insolence was gone.

Tiva said, “I guess,” and suddenly wanted to change the subject.

Distant music faded into being, along with refracted firelight from a wooded depression ahead. Drums and flutes danced up to tickle Tiva’s ear with sounds her father had always warned would “raise her lower passions” if she listened to them.

The girls descended a left-hand branch path into a wooded glen lit by a bonfire in a clearing arched over by giant conifers. Four musicians played for a small group of ‘tween-aged fire sprites that leaped and twirled across the moss-cushioned floor. A crystal waterfall tumbled from the rocky heights into a moonlit pool behind the wood-nymph dancers. Swimmers splashed in its cool effervescence.

Farsa led Tiva to a small knot of sitters that watched the dance while they passed a skin of drink among themselves.

A shaggy blond Khavilak boy somewhere in his mid-fifties jumped up to greet Farsa. “Hey, little sister, who’s your moon goddess friend?”

Nobody had ever even implied to Tiva that she might be attractive before, unless she counted
her brother’s weird claim that she enticed men without meaning to. This didn’t feel slimy, however—quite the opposite.

“Her name’s Tiva. Tiva, this is my brother, Moon-chaser. Watch out, any fairly ‘tractive maiden
’s a ‘moon goddess’ to him.”

Moon-chaser lifted Tiva’s hand and kissed it gallantly. “Your radiance graces our humble gathering.”

Farsa laughed, as she gave him a friendly shove. “Oh sit down! You’ve had too much to drink!”

“And you’ve had too little!” he said, handing her his wineskin.

Tiva watched in amazement, as her friend hoisted the spout to her mouth and took a long continuous guzzle.

“Don’t let my sister fool you about what a lush I am, Tiva,” Moon-chaser chuckled. “If that pool over there
was filled with
dragonfire
and that waterfall was a giant skin spout, we could take Farsa, chain her legs to a large rock, and drop her happily into the deep end without a struggle. By the time we’d’ave turned our heads from our dastardly deed, the little wench would have drunk her way to the surface, and stationed her mouth below the falls to catch whatever’s left.”

Farsa finally lowered the bag and belched long and loud enough to be heard over the music. Tiva saw her brother’s point and giggled.

The Khavilak girl wiped her mouth and warned Tiva with what sounded surprisingly like an older sister’s protectiveness, “If you’re not used to drinking, don’t feel you have to start just to fit in with us. It’s probably better if you don’t anyway. It can give you a nasty headache in the morning.”

Tiva laughed.
“What are you talking about? Gimme the bag!”

She took the skin, hefting the spout to her lips in careful imitation. The
dragonfire
shot up into her sinuses and made her cough and sputter.

“Here!” Tiva wheezed, handing the bag to a hysterical Moon-chaser.

“Don’t feel bad.” He consoled her with a friendly arm around her shoulder. “The first time Farsa did it, she turned green and puked. Just take slow sips until you can handle larger ones. It’ll make ya feel just as good.”

Tiva sat down and took his advice. Soon she passed the skin like a veteran, laughing and relishing the friendly fire in her belly. As the warmth advanced to inebriation, she
realized that these people had rediscovered the secrets of an Aeden her father and brother could only mourn.

The dancers captured Tiva’s eyes. A dark upper ‘tween-aged girl gyrated to the beat, dressed in an exotic two-piece pelt that barely covered her hips and breasts. She gestured for Moon-chaser to join her.

“Who’s that?” Tiva asked Farsa, pointing to the girl.

“That’s Sariya
. She’s probably the one your father told you was being forced, since she got thrown out of her father’s house too. Does she look like a chained woman to you?”

Tiva had to admit that Sariya’s provocative wrap could make a case for her father. Yet there was no evidence of compulsion. And Zebuli’s daughter appeared to have eyes only for Moon-chaser. In the end
, Tiva had to agree with Farsa.

Tiva took another swallow and allowed her eyes to fall upon a dark elfin boy dancer who leaped in perfect time with the rapid drumbeat. He seemed younger than the
others did, maybe just a little older than she was. Then he looked straight at her and smiled. He leaped high and twirled gracefully down on the other side of the fire.

“That dancer just smiled at me!”

“He’s Khumi,” said Farsa. “He’s a Youngblood, but he’s the best dancer up here. Go to! You should go up to him when they finish.”

“I can’t just walk up to him. What would I say?”

“By the look he gave you before that leap, you could tell him that you ate live babies for your complexion and it would come out just fine.”

None of the other fire sprites seemed as well-timed as Khumi. The drummer challenged him with increasingly furious percussion. Tiva knew that the contraction
Khumi
meant
heat
. This hot Youngblood met each beat with rhythmic hyper-controlled motion. Soon the tempo pounded too wild and fast for the others. Alone, he danced the drummer to exhaustion. Finally, the musicians surrendered and the watchers cheered. The triumphant dancer brushed a shock of dark curls from his forehead, and bowed.

As if on cue, Moon-chaser vanished into the ferns with Sariya, while Farsa peeled off her outer wrap to swim. Tiva found herself conspicuously alone, holding the skin of
dragonfire
with her eyes bugging out of her head. Then the incredible dancer came right up to her and sat down.

“Hi, mind if I take a drink?” He motioned casually for the bag.

Tiva froze at first, but fortunately recovered enough wit to offer him the skin. “Oh, yeah, I’m sorry! Go ahead. You must be thirsty after all that.”

“Did you like it?”

“Oh yes, very much!”

“It was for you,” he said just loud enough for her ears alone to hear. “My name’s Khumi. What’s yours?”

“Ti-va,” she mouthed in slow motion. Being drunk for the first time in her life probably explained why she wasn’t a stuttering wreck.

“Having fun?”

“L-lots!” Her words slid out either in fluid honesty or clumsy mush. That made her giggle some more.

Khumi’s dark eyes sparkled in the firelight. His smiling white teeth glistene
d against his tawny complexion. “I’ve seen you somewhere before, but I’m not sure where—in the market or on the road up to the Shrine?”

“I’m daughter of Hem-un-il.” Her languid mispron
unciation made her laugh yet again.

Khumi appeared to have no problem recognizing
of whom she spoke, however. “Does your father know you’re out here?”

“No. Does yours?”

“No—at least I don’t think so. He died with my brother in the war.”

“I’m sorry.”

They sat hushed in a long tense moment.

“Thanks for sharing your drink,” Khumi said. Then he leaned over, and kissed her on the lips.

Tiva responded helplessly. She almost turned herself off inside, but then discovered to her delight that this was entirely different from what she had anticipated. After this realization, she actively kissed him back.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Khumi said when they came up for air.

He slipped his arm around her and helped her to her feet. It surprised Tiva how difficult it was to stabilize herself. As they moved off into the trees, she both longed for and feared their new privacy. She felt herself melt into his embrace. Sure that she knew what was coming, she decided at once to give in to it all. What difference did it make?

Dragonfire
calmed her joyful terror and gave her the startling gift of frankness. “Are you taking me back here so you can lay with me?”

He squeezed her shoulder tenderly. “We just met,” he said. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m not the sort of guy who can just casually take a girl
to the moss. My father,” his eyes grew distant again, “my father taught me to respect girls better than that.” He gazed into her eyes, as if to tell her how lonely he was and how much he wanted to open his heart to her. “Maybe we might some day, but only if it’s what you really want. Tonight I just want to walk with you, talk, and enjoy your company—if that’s okay?”