The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (28 page)

Again
,
Pyra opened her mouth to speak, only to stop herself. This time she ended with a puzzled frown.

A’Nu-Ahki spoke a little faster. “Even so, E’Yahavah has not given up on us.
He drove o
ur first parents from the Holy Orchard for their own protection
,
so they could not eat of the Life-tree,
which would
trap
them
forever in alienation and torment. Before
driving
them off, E’Yahavah
promised
to send a special son to them
who
would restore them from the Great Curse that he had put on all the cosmos. It is
this son
whom the very Star Signs of heaven announce
…
”

“The
Seed! Psydonu!” Pyra said, as if she had figured it all out.

“No,” A’Nu-Ahki answered. “Neither Psydonu nor any of the titans, old or new, meet the prophetic standards for the Promised Seed. I told him this to his face at what he advertised as his confirmation ceremony. Rather than let the truth out, he sealed the chamber and murdered thousands of men, women, and children with a poisoned fog
…
”

Pyra’s face drooped, speechless; her eyes dazed
as if
A’Nu-Ahki had just punched
her
in the head. She tried to force
out words that seemed
lodged in her throat—or so it
appeared
to U’Sumi.

A’Nu-Ahki
told her the rest of what had happened at Thulae
,
until they met her in the motorized wagon.
He left nothing out.

“No!” she
shouted
, pushing the words out at last. “
Psydonu
wouldn’t have done that! Pandura can be a v
ulp, but she w
ould never have let him do that!”

“Why do you think we had to rush away from Thulae before the festivities ended? Didn’t your grandmother invite you to the ceremony? Why are you even sitting here listening to this if there isn’t some part of you that believes it is at least possible?”

“She said I had to stay with the coach,” Pyra whispered, as if to remind herself more than to inform A’Nu-Ahki and U’Sumi.

“Why? Weren’t the drivers there? You’re a priestess
!
I saw many priestesses of your order dead in that crowd
through Psydonu’s periscope!
”

“I pleaded with her to let me come
inside
, but she refused,” Pyra said, as if putting something together in her head not entirely related to the discussion. “She took me with her so we could spend time together. Then, when we got there, everything suddenly changed. We argued
over nothing
until she
finally
told me I wasn’t worthy
to look upon Psydonu
.
She—she was like my mother until then!
Her favorite proverb
is
how
every
one
’s worthy in their own way
!
It was all so weird! She seemed to be picking a fight with me for no reason—almost to ensure I couldn’t go
in
with her!”

A’Nu-Ahki would not relent. “The human heart is rotted out and growing more so each day
. W
e need to be rescued not only from the evil we do,
but also
from wh
at
we are inside.
If not, it forever burns us down!
”

Pyra glared at him. “What are you doing to me? What gives you the right to say these things? Is your tribe in the Holy East so pure?”

“No. My tribe failed in a
far
worse way
.
We meticulously preserved prophetic knowledge without preserving kindness,
justice,
and honesty. In the so-called ‘Holy East
,
’ we indulged the additional abomination of keeping the correct names and terms intact while gutting them of their very meaning.

“E
ven my
people slowly got tired of Creator because he would not let them have their own way—even after their ways always proved mad and self-destructive. Men invented gods they could manipulate into saying whatever they wanted. The rebel sky dwellers of the Basilisk sometimes appeared to them and made things even worse. After trying long to reason with humanity through the Seers, E’Yahavah
reluctantly allowed the world to go its own varied ways
,
which were really only different shades of the same basic lie; that people can be their own gods. He gave them up in great sadness, knowing that evil is never satisfied. It never relents.”

Pyra said, “And that vast over-generalization is supposed to prove to me that my grandmother is a mass-murderer?”

U’Sumi expected her to get up and leave. Instead
,
the rage in her eyes unexpectedly softened, as if she had just remembered something important. What replace
d
her outrage resembled the kind of shock he had seen on the faces of wounded soldiers at the Battle of Balimar Straits. It had also stared out at him from the few mirrors he had looked into since then.

She gazed off into space like a corpse. “Tell me more,” she said.

A’Nu-Ahki obliged her. “There remained in the heavens about two hundred Watchers—I mentioned them earlier, when I spoke of my vision. These sky beings had not followed Shining One in the First Insurrection, but had
weighed
his arguments about Atum-Ra. The
y
wanted
women, but for more noble-sounding reasons than Shining One. They despised what Shining One had become, although he first suggested the
very
craving
in
their hearts.

“These Watchers—willfully ignorant of E’Yahavah
’s
plan and looking to establish their own—thought that they could fulfill the Star Signs. They intended to redeem humanity by taking
‘
wives
’
to slowly change the human creation code so they could
produce
their own
offspring.
Different Watchers used different methods—some crude, others sophisticated—but the
y distorted humanity ra
ther than
enhanc
ing
us
.
The
Watchers
reasoned that their influence would raise the sons of Atum
from
savagery
,
that their
bloodline would
slowly reduce
death. Yet they
only
deceived
themselves before
deceiving
us
.

“The Basilisk ensnared them with what
,
for them,
was
an unnatural affection
; e
ither that or the
Watchers
saw it as a way to manufacture a pretext for power over
society. W
hichever it was, t
he
sons of A’Nu
would do
and say
anything
to
legitimize
their union
s
with women
;
something
I’m
increasingly
convinced
can
never
actually
produce natural offspring
,
only
its
illusion
by
extreme forms of
creation code
manipulation
or
potions
. This Temple is only one
vehicle
for
such manipulation. There are many others far less sophisticated, some even downright primitive.”

U’Sumi saw the numbness in Pyra’s eyes harden into a flash of rage, then disappear.
She’s probably all insulted.

Yet she said nothing.

A’Nu-Ahki continued, “E’Yahavah warned them not to continue in this fantasy, but the Watchers persisted and fell to Earth, ensnared. Most of them still believe in what they do
,
and hope to prove themselves somehow.
T
hey are self-willed and deluded
,
which makes them many times more dangerous than even the first rebels, who at least made no pretense.

“The Earth has since become their playground. The Basilisk sits back and lets the duped sons of
A’Nu
corrupt the seed of men—creating first titans and giants, now these Elyo
,
and who knows what else. Men wanted spiritual fantasies they could control
,
instead of the reality of E’Yahavah
’s
authority over them.

“However, in time even fantasy becomes unsatisfying. The Watchers breathed more life into all the fantasies than was good for either them or humanity. Men had long ago reached the point where they would have it no other way. E’Yahavah knew that civilization
affected by
the Watchers would quickly degrade to where he would need to destroy it all and start again.”

Pyra spoke, but her former conviction seemed to have vanished. Her litany sounded like something she had memorized by rote. “This sounds like self-hatred and hatred of your own kind. That’s not healthy. Surely
,
we’re not all so
bad.
My order exists to fulfill human needs.”

“And the way you go about this is not insane and self-destructive?”

She snapped out of her fog. “That’s not fair! We make mistakes, but our best minds constantly improve the methods.
We perform o
ur services in a sanitary, non-threatening environment
where people can share their feelings in whatever way comes naturally to them. Fertility worship is rich in symbolism and theatrical expression. We not only celebrate yearly cycles, we help people discover themselves so they can have deeper relationships. It’s a well-known fact that sexual frustration and emotional suppression are at the root of most violence and despondency
;
everybody knows it!”

“Yet a sixth of your city is under red-sore quarantine
, while
there aren’t enough jails to hold your violent murder and rape offenders.”

“How do you know these things?”

“Are they not true?”

“Yes! But how do you know? You have seen little between the boat and this room! Have you visited here before?”

“What good is having a seer
if he doesn’t tell the truth?”

Pyra T’Qinna’s voice quivered. “I—I sh-should go now.”

“Will you come back and visit us again?”

“Y-yes—I promise.”

W

hy did I promise to come back?
Pyra chided herself as she
stormed
up to her dorm chambers.
This is just too scary! What he says is so wrong! He can’t be telling the truth about Pandura and Psydonu, either! All right, maybe Psydonu’s not really the
Seed
and Pandura’s playing another of her political games
—
nobody really knows what to think about that stuff anyway. But he can’t be the monster A’Nu-Ahki says! Grandmother’s no goddess of virtue, but she could never go along with something so
…

The image flashed before her eyes—her mother’s gutted body, strangely bloodless, splayed across an altar to
…
what
; a
fevered dream from an illness last year?

Pyra stopped just outside her chamber, breathless, and leaned against the granite wall, ready to collapse. Her muscles quaked all over as she broke into tears again. Taanyx nuzzled her thigh with a sympathetic purr.
The truth is I really don’t know Pandura at all.
She’s been trying to mother me since Mauma died, but I feel like she’s mostly just humoring me.