A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (16 page)

Tiva screamed. Her brother’s leering face melted right before her eyes into that of Khumi. The shaking continued, only it lost its violence.

“Tiva! Tiva! What’s the matter? Snap out of it!”

Suddenly
, she could sit up again. Khumi crouched over her, his eyes terrified.

“I had a bad dream,” she half-lied.

“Well, it’s over now.” He held her close and stroked her hair.

But she knew
that it wasn’t. Somehow, she knew that it had only just begun.

“Khumi? Do you think I’m a whore?”

“What kind of talk is that? You listen here, as far as I’m concerned, you’re my wife! Understand?”

She nodded, but felt only slightly comforted.

The drab vision of her mother flashed to mind—the eternal frown, that shrill prating voice with its rare interludes of sickening sweetness, her scurrying gait, and the vicious gossip that made up the only entertainment the woman permitted herself. It dawned on Tiva in one black damning moment how the word
wife
could be just as ugly a prison for her as the word
whore
.

At the same time, we need to remember that the ark need not have been a particularly complex structure. The Jewish scholar Ben Uri has suggested that the ark was built from a series of triangular templates, each of which had been of the same size and shape. This… enabled Noah to use virtual mass-production methods in the construction of the ark. It should be added that this combination of “prefab” components into an ark has been determined to be seaworthy. We need to put ancient archeological evidence in perspective by noting that the record of the earliest ships is very skimpy… It is acknowledged that we are still in the early stages of the study of the history of boat structures. We can only know when a certain state of ship building technology is first
mentioned
in writings or drawings (or as tangible archeological evidence), but this certainly does not tell us how far back this technology goes. For instance, the earliest representations of vessels date from 3000 BC, and there is… no basis (much less guarantee) that this represents the most advanced shipbuilding capabilities of that time. Imagine some future archeologists discovering the remains of rowboats and canoes, and then using these to try and draw firm conclusions about the upper limits of shipbuilding technology in 20th-century America!

—John Woodmorappe

Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study

Architecture

A year passed, during which Khumi began to build a house for Tiva in a gigantic maple tree, about a thousand cubits down the waterfall brook from Grove Hollow. The land was technically his father’s, but Khumi had assured her that his elders had no plans for it. In case his father or the Ancient objected, he was prepared to buy the lot fair market standard.

At this stage
, only the lowest platform with a small shanty provided shelter. Nevertheless, Tiva felt like queen of the forest—enough to satisfy her that things were hardly the “desolation” prophesied by her father and brother. Life had somehow stabilized.

Henumil had called for a Dragon-slayer strike to drive the Hollowers out
, not long after he had found Tiva and Khumi together, on the blanket. She marveled that her father and brother had not beaten Khumi in his sleep. Then she remembered what Yargat had said about how they had only gotten the Shrine Treasures from Muhet’Usalaq on condition. Tiva’s father could not risk the humiliation of provoking a demand for the return of the relics. Henumil apparently feared an empty Shrine more than failing to do what, to him, was the “right” thing; horrible as that would have been for her.

As for her father’s “Dragon-slayer strike,” many valley parents, unwilling to risk violence against their own children, had petitioned the Magistracy at Farguti to halt it. Tiva had to laugh whenever she thought of the
ir ruling—Grove Hollow was now a “wildlife sanctuary” of sorts, with the Hollowers being the “wildlife.” She knew the legal reasoning was more convoluted and arbitrary than a lunatic’s rant, but she had no complaints.
If this is desolation, then happy are the desolate!
Well, if not happy, at least “desolation” isn’t near as desolate as “celebration” at Henumil’s Shrine.

Rest-days were at least restful. Tiva prepared a breakfast of fruit and wheat porridge, while Khumi crawled out of the hovel and stretched. He wore only a linen loincloth and looked unkempt and dirty. On Rest-days
, he always slept in and bathed in the morning.

She thought
;
He’s been driving himself hard between building the house and keeping up his few remaining carpentry jobs down in the valley
. At the same time, he had to travel farther toward Farguti and the Inland Highway in search of new clients.
The only reason he had any contracts left among the Lits and even the Orthodox was his hardworking reputation. Contrary to her predictions, many of the old-line Akh’Uzan folk had cut off even their business ties with him. His work ethic had usually been enough to overcome his stigma as a son of “A’Nu-Ahki the Apostate,” but not with the added scandal of “living in sin” at Grove Hollow.

Khumi had just finished his bath in the brook and Tiva her table spread, when they first noticed the Stranger.

Hairless and beardless, the man slowly made his way toward them down through the forest giants. He dressed as a mid-tiered zaqen, in a long earthen-toned cassock bound at the waist over a blue tunic by a jewel-studded belt. The Stranger sang softly to himself in a voice Tiva found vaguely familiar, though she could not place his reddish-tan head and face. She recognized something about his eyes, once he drew near enough for her to see their mirthful blue twinkle.

Khumi dropped his towel in the moss. “Father?” he asked, as if unsure he could claim the man as such.

The Stranger only stopped his song when he entered the small cleared area between the tree house and the brook.

“Father, is that you?”

“Ahh, Son! What do you think?” The man pointed to his own head.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen you without hair and a beard. It takes a little getting used to—no disrespect.”

“And none taken.” A’Nu-Ahki gave a robust laugh, some jolly lesser god whose passage through the wood, Tiva could almost believe, would make fruit sprout from every branch and turn the streams into wine.

She muttered, “A
Lit with no beard—now there’s something new.” Then she realized she could almost grow to like the old guy, if she allowed herself.
Then again, he’s an apostate
—
as I am
—
just a different kind.

Khumi spoke in a solemn, respectful voice, “Father, I would like to present to you Tiva
, my wife,” He moved onto the platform and wrapped his arm around her waist as if to challenge the Old Man to call her anything different. She could not help but smile at his father in triumph.

A’Nu-Ahki seemed to take his defeat in their tug-of-war with grace.

“At last I get to see you, my Daughter.” The Zaqen smiled tenderly and bowed—as if she completely deserved it, as though she and Khumi had passed through a respectable betrothal arranged in the valley! “May you both know the love E’Yahavah has for you.” He spread his hands, palms up, to offer them a genuine parental blessing.

Tiva’s head spun
in cycles of grudging fondness and rage.
Are you mad as well as a heretic? I’m a whore! I’m cursed by E’Yahavah! I enticed your son from your house, and made him sleep with me out of wedlock because I didn’t want to be desolate alone!

Khumi seemed suddenly more at ease. “Please, Father, if you haven’t already eaten, join us for breakfast. If you’re here about the land, I’m perfectly ready to buy it from you.”

“Thank you. I think I will—eat—that is. Don’t worry about the land. Consider it part of your inheritance. It’s not in my heart to disown you, Son. When I gave you the choice to move out, it was not to make us alienated. I was simply saying that a man cannot go in two opposing directions at once.”

Tiva set out another earthenware bowl and began to spoon out the
smoky hot porridge from the small cauldron over the campfire coals. Then she set some honeycomb out for them to melt into the cereal, and sat down with them on the edge of the platform.

Khumi asked,
“So what brings you up to visit us?”

A’Nu-Ahki’s eyes sparkled. He seemed barely able to contain himself. “
Aside from my wanting to see my son again; two things.”

Khumi smiled. Suddenly his soft peach-fuzz face seemed so boyish.
Oh E’Yahavah,
Tiva lamented,
we should still be in academy somewhere, him playing with tools, and me with crafts and dolls.

“I’m sorry, Pahpa. Work’s been keeping me busy, what between the house
, and having to go farther down valley in search of contracts.”

A’Nu-Ahki said, “I understand.
”

No, I wonder if you do?
Tiva
mused sadly.
I’m the one who took him away. I’m the one who’s kept him away. If you really understood, you would have cursed me, not blessed me.

“The first reason
I’ve come, you may be a bit hesitant about. But let me say that I only did it to make things easier for you and any children you might have together in the time that’s left—or beyond, should you both chose to come with me at some point.”

Children!
Tiva almost wept.
I only had my first monthly cycle last year! On the outside, I may look almost old enough to be a woman, and I may know how to please a man, but even in this, I’m a fake!

A’Nu-Ahki continued, “I petitioned the Ancient on your behalf. As a Seventh Tier Zaqen
, he is empowered to recognize marriages—even those not entered into through, shall we say, fully ‘traditional’ means. As I said, I did this only to make life easier for you and your children—so that nobody would stigmatize them as illegitimate…”

Tiva would have laughed if they had lived anywhere but Akh’Uzan.
Who cares about legitimacy anymore? Marriage is nothing but a few pious words, a baked clay tablet, and some dangly beads on a lineage staff!

“…I don’t wish to meddle
any further if I’m not wanted. The recognition scrolls with the Ancient’s signet mark, and mine, are being delivered to Henumil and to the Magistracy at Farguti even as we speak.”

I’m a wife—
Tiva contemplated with a bittersweet sigh—
a real wife.

She almost wondered if this meant she was no longer a whore—until her mother’s face exploded into her thoughts.

Khumi said, “Thank you! I’m not indifferent about it at all and neither is Tiva, are you, darling?”

She
said, “No, not at all.” Then she thought,
Indifferent, no. Chained to an anvil and sinking into the mire of becoming my own mother, yes!

A’Nu-Ahki’s eyes lit up again. “The second reason I’ve come—the most important one really—is something that will take awhile to explain. Do you have time right now?”

What’s more important to a Lit than marriage tokens, except maybe rooting for the correct disaster for World-end?
Tiva wondered.

“
We have time,” Khumi said, who did not truly look at all sure whether he ought to be interested or apprehensive. “What is it?”

A’Nu-Ahki said, “I’ve been given new instructions on
World-end.”

Tiva somehow resisted the urge to get up and walk away.

Khumi looked down and started to fidget with his hands. “When?”

A’Nu-Ahki said,
“Four nights ago. As I told you when I got back from captivity, Khumi, many bad things overtook us at the end of our journey. If it hadn’t been for your brother picking up my slack, I hate to think of what might have happened.

“I’ve
spent this last year brooding too much on it—about your half-sisters, Uranna and Tylurnis, freely choosing Samyaza. I felt as though I had lost my faith. Khumi, I’ve experienced only one thing even near that difficult since then—but I’ll spare you that.

Khumi’s father paused
. “That boy your brother rescued, who I adopted—he reminded me so much of you—the way he handled his father’s ship across the Great Ocean from the very western to eastern edges of the earth and through the terror of the Floating Lands on the far side of Under-world. To have him come almost all the way home with us, only to see him killed at the very border—at least I know he’s in the Comfort Fields. But it was like watching
you
die, Son.”

The Old Man seemed to lose himself in the memory. “He could actually see the Holy Ones protect
ing us at the end. I could not see them. All we saw was that terrible shining disk I told you about, its pale gray demons, and their cold black eyes. They were Watchers, shriveled and fallen, yet able to create panic—almost as if they could reach into our very souls to plant it there without actually doing anything else.”

Tiva
found herself oddly fascinated by A’Nu-Ahki’s account. Maybe it had that nice creepy quality that had once enthralled even Farsa, that first night Tiva had come to Grove Hollow, when she had spoken of ancient curses. Maybe the Old Man’s odd fearlessness of seeming weak to his son by speaking with such emotion made him so un-Henumil.

A’Nu-Ahki continued,
“We saw Samyaza himself—a being steeped in delusion as much as his most gullible pawn. None of our clan since Q’Enukki has ever had a clearer view of the Watchers in what I guess must be their natural element…” He paused, gazing off into the distance. Then his head tilted, as he said something Tiva had never heard her father say; “No, I’m wrong about that. Now that I think of it, it’s not their true form at all.”

Tiva shocked herself when she asked, “Why do you say that?”

A’Nu-Ahki smiled at her. “The fallen Watchers manifest themselves in so many different ways that I’m not sure they even know what their ‘true’ form is anymore. I think now that they’ve forgotten it, maybe they no longer have ‘true’ forms. Perhaps they live out the ages as hollowed masks, molding themselves over their own hungry emptiness in mimicry of whatever myth the human imagination creates, which men are most likely to believe in a given age. They seep into the background of our imaginations, waiting till the time is ripe to animate such myths, only to turn them into a living madness.”

Tiva whispered, “Like the forest has eyes.”

Khumi looked up. “Scary stuff.”

His father nodded. “More than you can know.
They took ‘Ranna and ‘Nissa away from me. How could your sisters be so deceived? Bitter from captivity, I could understand, but to stay with Samyaza willingly when they had a choice? I know you may not understand, Khumi and Tiva, but those two girls were the only living link I had to my old life.”