Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy)
Read Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) Online
Authors: Kathleen O’Neal
KATHLEEN M. O’NEAL’S
magnificent DAW Science Fiction trilogy:
THE POWERS OF LIGHT
AN ABYSS OF LIGHT (#1)
TREASURE OF LIGHT (#2)
REDEMPTION OF LIGHT (#3)
(available Spring 1991)
T
REASUR
E
OF
L
IGH
T
KATHLEEN M. O’NEAL
© 2011 Kathleen M. O’Neal. All rights reserved.
To Julie and Lloyd Schott of Lakewood, Colorado.
For your infinite patience and your unending
warmth and kindness.
CONTENTS
I owe deep debts of gratitude to the superb work of several scholars: Gershom G. Scholem for his numerous works on Jewish mysticism; James H. Charlesworth for
The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha;
Jean Doresse,
The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics;
Kurt Rudolph,
Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism;
Mircea Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religions;
James M. Robinson,
The Nag Hammadi Library.
Without their exacting research on the ancient magical papyrii and secret books of the Merkabah, Kabbalah and Gnosticism, I would not have been able to complete
Treasure of Light.
The prophecies, theological framework, and idea of the
Mea Shearim
as a stone which opens a gateway to God are not my creation—they’re revealed in the most ancient texts of the Near East. The original creators, the prophets Ezra, Enoch, Sibylline, Asenath, Baruch and others believed they were writing history—not fiction.
I’d also like to thank Michael Gazzaniga, Fred Allan Wolf, Nora Levin, Richard Rubenstein, Malgorzata Niezabitowksa, Barbara Myerhoff and Elie Wiesel. Their nonfiction scholarship gives this book its heart—and perhaps its soul, as well.
Karen Sue Jones is and always has been the silent overseer of Mikael and Sybil. Katherine Cook spent endless hours reading and rereading the manuscript. My editor, Sheila Gilbert—the best editor in the business—provided invaluable comments on plot and character development.
W. Michael Gear, my best friend, shared the long walks through the mountains, and the intense discussions about chaos theory and null singularities, God and human frailty—many of which occurred over a few bottles of stout at the Ramshorn Inn. I can never thank Mike enough for the joy of our life together.
Lastly, to the reader who finds that events, names, numbers, and often dialogue in this trilogy ring with a frightening echo of recent history, I admit my belief that in remembrance lies redemption.
THE BOOK OF THE CAVE
OF TREASURES
First Century, A.D.
Old Earth Standard.
Fragment found on
Orillas VII, 4411
These mysteries and this narrative were handed down even to our fathers, who welcomed them with joy and who passed them on to us. And these books of the hidden mysteries were placed in the Mountain of Victories to the east of our country of Seir, in a grotto: The Cave of Treasures of the Life of the Silence.
Listen that I may reveal to you the prodigious mystery concerning the great king who must come into the world.
The land and the heavens will wear mourning for his violent death and, from the depth, he will mount up on High. Then he will be seen coming with the army of the Light, for he is the Child of the Word that engenders all things.
So then my people, you who are the Seed of Life issuing from the Treasury of Light and of the Spirit, who have been sown in the soil of fire and of water, you must be on your guard and watch.
For you will know beforehand of the coming of the great king for whom the captives are waiting to be freed.
One hour before the end of
An Abyss of Light.
The white com box buzzed.
Magistrate Slothen grimaced at it, looking up impatiently from the mass of reports scattered over his desk. His office spread in a fifty foot square around him. The room had a high arching ceiling and lavender walls. Holographs of a variety of galactic solar systems hung at his eye level, seven feet off the floor. His round white desk sat before the broad expanse of windows that gazed out over Naas, the capital city of Palaia Station—the center of galactic government.
He shuffled the sheets on his cluttered desk. Over fifteen thousand complaints of increasing pirate activity and floundering trade had already poured in, each planet raging about inadequate protection by the government. Gamants were to blame. A primitive human cultural group, they formed an infinitesimal part of his jurisdiction, yet caused fully fifty percent of the problems. Their rebellions sparked across the galaxy. He had no choice but to deploy his forces to suppress the increasing violence—but that left peaceful planets open to attacks from raiders. At this moment, starvation ravaged quadrant seven.
Slothen ignored the com and heaved a perturbed sigh. He’d given his secretary strict orders not to disturb him. No doubt Topew would have realized his error by now and be sheepishly preparing for the verbal lashing he knew awaited him when Slothen had the time.
“Gamants,” he muttered tonelessly.
Slothen had often wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to have wiped out the group millennia ago. He’d done that with the Viveka when he’d first become ruling Magistrate and had never regretted it. A wild and brutal species of crimson-skinned, four-armed ruffians, they’d threatened war against his government. He’d had no choice. Or perhaps he should have enslaved Gamants? That had worked remarkably well with the amorphous gelatinlike Octopii of Huron II. But, no. Instead, he’d underestimated the ingenuity of Gamants and waited too long, until they’d formed themselves into a formidable fighting force, stolen ships and weapons and fought their way out of his neatly bordered system to land on remote, hostile planets at the edges of the galaxy. The worst of the lot had coalesced into a strong Underground movement that waged a constant guerrilla war against his forces.
“I’ve been lenient for too long,” he huffed, slapping his open palm on his desk.
As for the rest of humanity, he’d implemented a stringent process of information control or blackout, keeping them from discovering his efforts. Most of the human planets remained peacefully oblivious to the plight of Gamant civilization. Those few who knew of his efforts agreed with them. After centuries of careful manipulation, many human worlds possessed a rabid hatred for their brethren Gamants, blaming them for everything from Galactic financial instability to mysterious disease outbreaks. Humans were such irrational creatures—their emotions careened like ancient roller coasters. But with the right devices, they could be controlled.
His only major worry came from his own military. One entire branch of his forces was composed of superb human-commanded ships. He couldn’t keep the information from his own officers—so he’d instituted a clandestine “scare” program designed to make them too frightened to commit treason. He’d isolated them from other galactic species—leaving only humans on those ships—and he immediately and publicly corrected the brains of any deviants who developed traitorous ideas.
The com buzzed again.
Slothen contemplatively followed the machinations of his tri-brains, halting the flood of violent irritation that ravaged his mind. Eons ago, Giclasians had developed a third hemisphere from the proto-basis of what humans called the corpus callosum. That third brain served him now as a separate identity, a highly sophisticated interpreter which could trace every neural pathway in his left and right hemispheres to locate and study the origins of each fragment of mental stimulation. He’d actually initiated neurophysiological investigations to see if the human corpus callosum was capable of growing into a third brain, hoping he could stop Gamant aggressiveness by civilizing the beasts—but so far the results had been inconclusive.
He pressed the response button. “Topew, I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“I apologize, Magistrate, but this is urgent. Colonel Garold Silbersay, the former military governor of the Gamant planet Kayan is here, sir. He demands to speak with you.”
Slothen bared his needle-sharp teeth in irritation. “Didn’t I order Brent Bogomil to get him to a neurophysiology correction center?”
“Yes, sir, you did. But he’s here, in my outer office, slamming his fists into the walls like a madman.”
Slothen caressed his blue chin. Madman? The last message he’d received had reported Silbersay on the verge of violent schizophrenia. Bogomil said it had taken five guards to drag the colonel to a secure cell and lock him in. Had he gone over the edge in isolation? Possible. Should he risk seeing Silbersay? The man
had
been on the front lines of the skirmishes on Kayan. He might possess critical information about Gamant politics.
Slothen bit his lower lip and gazed out the window. The mirrored buildings of Naas sprouted like spears from the grassy plains of Palaia Station. The original terraqueous architects had done a superb job recreating the painstakingly ordered environment of Giclas IV, his home world. Thypen trees marked each street intersection, their bare crimson limbs like streaks of blood against the green background of parks and fountains. Today, the yellow skies gleamed like transparent amber.
“Sir!” Topew’s imploring voice came over com again. “Colonel Silbersay is shouting obscenities at my staff. He claims he has confidential information critical to galactic security. Shall I send him in or call security to have him removed?”
Slothen twined the twelve fingers of his upper left hand and squeezed tightly—a sign of nervousness in one of his race. “Have two armed security officers escort him down the hall and wait outside my office door. I want no incidents.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the interim, Slothen pulled out his drawer and checked his image in the 3-D mirror. His physical appearance frequently upset humans. They weren’t accustomed to the brilliant colors of Giclasian life. Behind his back he knew they called him the “Squid.”
Idiots.
He’d seen pictures of Earth squids and it took a vivid stretch of imagination to compare them to Giclasians. He lifted his chin at the mirror. His balloon-shaped head gleamed like polished azure in the sunlight streaming through the window, accenting his wormlike hair and round ruby-red mouth. He tucked four of his limbs beneath the desk, leaving only two visible.
In a few moments, the door snicked back and Silbersay stormed in, fists clenched tightly at his sides. “Magistrate,” he said stiffly, “I come to you on a matter of urgent diplomatic business.” He looked older, his hair totally gray now. Against the lavender background, it shone like a wealth of silver threads. Tall for a human, he had a pug nose and black bushy brows that formed a solid line across his forehead. His purple uniform looked dreadful, as if he’d slept in it.
“I’m so glad to see you again, Colonel,” Slothen said and smiled. Humans thought that Giclasian speech had a stiff, mechanical quality. He deliberately tried to counter that by imitating human tones.
Silbersay’s eyes slitted.
“Don’t patronize me.
You ordered my mind corrected specifically so you’d never have to worry about me again! Well, you’ve got something else—”
“That’s not true, Garold.” He mimicked an expression he knew humans took for injured dignity. “Captain Bogomil reported that you were suffering intense emotional pain over the Kayan episode. I merely wanted to ease your torment.”
“Ease it? By destroying critical personality centers in my brain? I thought that sort of treatment was only for dissidents who disrupted galactic harmony.
But me,
Magistrate?” Silbersay put his hands on his hips and paced across the purple carpet, stopping and starting erratically like a windup toy with a faulty spring. “What’s happened to us? Are dirty dealing and murder so fundamental now that your administration can’t function without them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Garold,” Slothen responded quietly.
“Stop it! I’ve been on the front lines, I
know the
sort of insane politics you’ve been playing. First you assassinate Zadok Calas, then—”
“We did
not
assassinate Calas.” The elderly Gamant leader had been a curious sort, stubborn beyond reason, flamboyant in his own brusque way. “Intelligence reported a disgruntled Gamant fanatic ended Zadok’s life. We had nothing to do with it.”
Suspicion still lit the depths of Silbersay’s dark eyes. He kept forebodingly silent.
“I don’t order murders, Garold,” Slothen lied. “I thought you knew that. Tell me what other falsehoods are circulating about me among my top staff members. I know the past year has been difficult. What else is bothering you?”
“What else?” Silbersay mumbled in a low savage voice. His gaze darted over the floor as though searching for something he’d lost. The collar of his purple uniform had darkened with perspiration.
“What else?”
He squeezed his eyes closed a moment and Slothen could see his jaw tremble. “A
damned
fool question if ever I heard one.”
Slothen sucked in a breath. Gently motioning to a chair, he repeated, “Sit, Garold. Tell me what’s been going on out there.”
He cataloged Silbersay as the man tiredly dropped into the formfitting chair. Dark rings of fatigue shone beneath the colonel’s eyes; they made his alabaster face seem even paler. Slothen thought about that. Silbersay must have escaped Bogomil’s grasp, which meant he’d undoubtedly hired illegal transportation and that implied criminal associations. Had he also hired assassins? Covertly, Slothen’s gaze slid to the huge windows behind him. No ships marred the lemon skies of Palaia, but unease crept up his spine. The penalty for military personnel associating with enemies of the Union of Solar Systems was death. And Silbersay knew it better than anyone. Slothen casually reached beneath his desk to press a button which would signal the guards in the corridor to be on top alert.
“Are you all right, Garold? You don’t look well.”
“I’m not well, Magistrate.”
“Are you upset about my relieving you of your command on Kayan? It was nothing personal, I assure you.”
Silbersay tugged nervously at the fingers in his lap, not looking up. “You killed thousands … needlessly.”
The scorch attack. Yes, Slothen vaguely remembered the details. “They were destroying government military installations. You lost—how many men? Over a thousand, wasn’t it? Gamants broke the treaty first. We took what action seemed necessary to defuse a potentially explosive situation.”
“Well, you’ve done it now,” Silbersay hissed, and when he lifted his head, his eyes flared insanely, nostrils quivering. Slothen tensed. “You didn’t listen to me and now you’re in for it. You’ve unleashed the dragon. You’re on the verge of another full-scale Gamant revolt.”
“I don’t think so, Garold. We’ve thoroughly contained every outburst so far.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Slothen said and extended two of his arms to cover the reports on his desk which confirmed the opposite. “Besides, Garold, their new leader is a seven-year-old. I hardly think he’ll be a threat, at least not for a few years. In the interim, I’m sure we can effectively manipulate him.”
Still, one could never tell. Slothen wrung two of his hands nervously. The last Gamant Revolt, led by the old war-horse, Zadok Calas, had shredded the Union. Perhaps the boy had the same suicidal instincts.
Silbersay shifted suddenly, glaring like a man on the verge of violence.
Slothen extended a blue hand and made a desist motion with it. “Garold, please, calm down. I wasn’t disputing your word. If I receive information supporting your theory, I guarantee I’ll deal with the situation immediately.”
“Deal with it?
Deal with it!”
The colonel waved both arms wildly. “You mean you’ll—you’ll send the battle cruisers in to turn their planets into molten slag. That’s what you call
dealing
with it?”
“It stops the problems on individual planets and sets examples by which other Gamant worlds can judge how far to push us.”
A twitch jerked Silbersay’s left cheek. “You don’t understand. None of you do. You’re not human. You’ve no idea what fires the souls of primitive peoples. They’re afraid all the time. They live on the edge of survival. All you have to do to turn the tide of violence is make some concessions. Give back some territory, send them some food or medical supplies. In no time they’ll return to herding their goats and tending their miserable crops.
You mustn’t push them!”
He shoved suddenly out of his chair.
“They go
crazy
when you push!”
“You needn’t shout, Garold. I—I’m listening. Truly, I am,” Slothen assured gently, finger poised over the button that would bring the guards rushing through the door. He vacillated. He could simply have Silbersay dragged down to the neuro center and find out most of this information—but perhaps not the most significant details. High level human officers had developed skilled methods of blocking data extraction in recent years. His biologists had yet to discover how.