A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (9 page)

arbet arrived home to a mountain of report scrolls
he needed catch up on. The one he read now—authored by an old Sacred Academy friend of his—had some disturbing implications. Unfortunately, P’Tah was now Master Sage of that same academy; effectively Tarbet’s appointee, in that Archon Rakhau left all but High Council appointments to his son. It would be impossible to rein in the sage completely.

The study was relatively obscure—an examination of the long-term effectiveness of certain religious and social reforms put in place by the archonate of Tarbet’s grandfather. According to P’Tah’s statistical analysis,
the reforms had actually contributed to a noticeable rise in violent crime and to a general decline in functional literacy among the younger generations, all in unforeseen ways, of course.

Tarbet’s problem was that he knew his old friend well enough to be sure that P’Tah hadn’t fallen astray into the pocket of some hyper-orthodox political adversary. Following the evidence wherever it happened to lead had always been a sacred pilgrimage for the Master Sage. Fortunately, it was a low-level study
; one that—as P’Tah boldly admitted in his conclusion—further research could still falsify.

The irony was that it reminded Tarbet how there had been a time
, long ago, when he would have welcomed such unexpected findings. Perhaps his recent encounter with Pandura had been as disturbing on one level as it had been satisfying on another. His conscience still struggled with the moral dichotomy at times—though not as much as it used to—despite his practiced front of flaunting convention just to please his father’s perverse streak.

He sighed at the reminder of how he had not always been prone to such liaisons
or to wanting to please that side of his father’s no-so-very complex personality. The memories always managed to bubble up to the surface in one way or another, after he indulged in a much-needed break from Spulpa. Whenever they did, only one woman’s face filled his thoughts.

Luwinna the daughter of Urugim, of the Seer Clan, had been Tarbet’s first love—made all the more attractive to him
back then by Rakhau and Kunyari’s disapproval.
How I wish I had really been the man you saw whenever you looked at me, Lu. You made me believe I could be better than I really am. I still love you for it. Sadly, only your fathers could have lived up to that ideal. It didn’t take me long to prove that I couldn’t…

With big
aquamarine eyes like tidal pools on a satin beach of red sand, she had actually convinced Tarbet for a time that Q’Enukki’s “Comfort” was “humanity’s only hope.” It pained him to remember—even after so many centuries—though he was sure it would have been an even greater agony if anything robbed of those memories. He could still see her tear-stained face, the day he had finally given her the bad news—the only woman he had ever really loved. Yet he had never slept with her—had never even tried to—never would have, unless consummating their marriage.

The hopeless realization had come upon Tarbet slowly, over many months. He had never meant to lead Luwinna on. He even went so far as to circumvent his father to ask his powerful
ancestor, Adiyuri, to politically sponsor their betrothal—the mistake that had ultimately doomed the relationship. Whereas Rakhau and Kunyari would have just raked him over the thorns, Adiyuri had kindly taken the time to explain to him the facts of life, and had even given him space to consider his choices.

“I know you truly love this girl,” Adiyuri’s enormous face had smiled down on Tarbet. “If that was the only consideration, I would immediately do just as you have asked. In fact, I will still recommend her—if, after you have taken the time to think about it, you still want me to.”

“I know there’s a rift between our clans, and a difference in spiritual ideology,” Tarbet had said. “Perhaps a marriage to Luwinna could help heal the tensions—in the Upper Family, I mean.”

Adiyuri had nodded. “There is wisdom in what you say, my boy. In fact, that is how I will sell it to your father, if you insist on it. But hear me out first. You have lost your older brothers in a series of terrible family tragedies. That places you in line someday for the very archonate itself.”

“Only if Archon Iyared names you as Appointed One, Sire.”

“True. But that is all but done, since my Moderate Bloc makes up half the Council, and the Pro-Erdu Radicals almost another quarter, while the Seer Clan loses more influence among the old-line Orthodox every day.”

“A marriage between our clans could still be a political advantage.”

“Perhaps in time,” Adiyuri had said. “Right now we are poised on a razor’s edge. The future Archon must be the Archon of all the people—not just one clan. That is where the Seer Clan becomes its own worst liability—and potentially yours. Their vision for the future is hopelessly myopic. You know it as well as I. I see you struggle with it even in the love you have for Urugim’s daughter—true love that it is. The day may come when you must turn on her clan for reasons that are bigger than all of us.”

“Why?”

“We of Seti are not the world power we once were, my boy. Nobody wants to admit it, but it is a sad fact. The entire world is
aligned against us now—not openly, but in how they see reality. Iyared only inflames the outer tribes more by casting out the Khavilak coalition. They will slide into orbit around Lumekkor, just as Balimar did five hundred years ago. Unless we can keep the people focused on common ground, we will be squashed between the growing influences of Lumekkor and Assuri—mark my words.”

Tarbet had relished the fact that, unlike his father and grandfather, his distant ancestor always took time to reason things out. They got on well that way. “But, my Father, what has all this to do with me and Luwinna?”

“Everything—in the big picture. Do you think for one minute that the reason I stand against the Seer Clan is because I am jealous of my older brother’s gift and his following?”

“No.”

“Good, because that is just their propaganda. On the other hand, do you think it is because I believe that my brother’s followers are all misguided religious fanatics who have lost touch with the real world?”

In truth, Tarbet had believed that very thing up until then. Yet something inside—perhaps an embryonic germ of wisdom—had caused him to answer “no” to that question as well.

Adiyuri had leaned back in his seat with a satisfied smile. “Excellent answer, Tarbet, because that, too, is only propaganda—our propaganda to be sure—yet perhaps in some ways even less truthful than theirs.”

“Why do you oppose the Seer Clan in the Archon’s Court then?”

Tarbet remembered the sadness in his ancestor’s eyes, as Adiyuri had answered him. “My brother Q’Enukki was perhaps the finest mind of the last millennium. Some of his immediate sons are also clear rational thinkers, who might even be correct about where the world is going—I don’t know.”

“Why are we so against them
, then?”

“I must oppose them for one simple reason
, and that alone. The sad fact is that ‘the truth’ will not unite our people at a time when they need unity more than anything else.”

Empires still burned in the reflections from Adiyuri’s eyes. “My Son, we are losing our prosperity and hegemony because with each internal battle for orthodoxy in the Upper Family, another powerful tribal coalition leaves the fold
, and weakens the Commonwealth. Not only that, but the disunity we face now cannot divide itself geographically, as the Ardisu Glory dispute with Balimar, or even the recent break with Khavilakki could.

“Today the rift cuts across our entire society. Iyared doesn’t seem to see it. The Seer Clan only widens it. Reason and authority cannot prevail because the younger generations believe that reason has so undermined authority that the two are hopelessly at odds. We must therefore create the perception of ‘common ground’—false though it is—where genuine common ground has eroded away centuries ago.”

“How?” Tarbet had asked.

Adiyuri’s answer still troubled him to this day—especially when he thought of Lu. “We must cultivate the public illusion that ‘truth always lies somewhere between two opposing extremes’—even when it clearly doesn’t.”

he news rocked the insular little world of Orthodox Setiim politics with an explosion almost bigger than that caused by the Armistice itself. The airy halls of the Archonic palace fairly shook with it. The dust of centuries upon the heraldic tapestries that littered the walls seemed almost to stir again with the promise of renewed life.

“I can hardly believe it!” Tarbet said as he placed the official message scroll his father had just handed him back onto the page’s tray.

His father thundered from the fountain room dais, “Don’t look so pleased! It’s a
n arrogant demand laced with a sentimental façade of reconciliation! He reserves the Right of Proclamation at holy sites, not to mention that the sacred treasuries of Paru’Ainu come back to us completely looted!”

Archon Rakhau’s face bulged like a boil from the expanse of red satin that covered his enormous body.

“True enough, Father,” Tarbet replied. “But even without the Three Treasures and Atum-Ra’s Cask, our regaining control of the Isle of the Dead and the First Altar is no small thing. If anything, it makes it less complicated should we negotiate pilgrimage rights with Pandura, which would be a tremendous source of income. Of course, I know full well that Muhet’Usalaq plays his own game in returning Paru’Ainu to the Archonate.”

“Games! But which game is it this time?”

“Father, remember he’s lost his only viable heir in the war. Nobody outside Akh’Uzan thinks the Old Man’s fostering of his brother’s clan will carry over in the Deed of Iyared. Even Seer Clan elders hold that the Promised Seed was conferred on Muhet’Usalaq—not Urugim. The old skin-bag knows his line is finished.”

“Have you forgotten that his dead heir has two remaining sons, both ‘tween-agers—what about them?”

Tarbet laughed. “Father, not even the yokels of Akh’Uzan would allow the old goat to pass so much as a single gold ingot from Paru’Ainu on to them. Remember who their mother is?”

Rakhau
gurgled with laughter. “Ah yes, I see what you’re saying. I guess that skinny little slut from Bab’Tubila will prove her worth to us yet.”

“Yes, she will—whether she wants to or not.” Tarbet still grew bitter at the thought of
Na’Amiha—how Rakhau had forced him into a betrothal with her mere days after political sense had required him to hurt Luwinna. He’d fixed his father and grandfather good by lapsing from that sense long enough to send that pallid little dough-girl simpering back to Bab’Tubila like a common milking wench. It was worth the threat of an international incident just to get them all off his back! How she later came to marry into the Seer Clan, where she mothered these two dubious heirs of Muhet’Usalaq was another tale.

Rakhau snorted.
“So you think I should make nice with Muhet’Usalaq then? It’s not enough that I gave the Seer Clan a hardship discharge after Balimar Straits!”

Tarbet said,
“It might be a refreshing gesture. The people would see it as a clearing of the air. Orb pundits are big on reconciliation themes. It would also pacify any traditionalist backlash in the Court. Besides, we’ve proven our point. You can’t divide the heritage without dividing the people.”

Rakhau said, “I still don’t like Muhet’Usalaq’s conditions!”

“Father, how much longer can the old buzzard live? Once the ‘Great Seer’s’ eldest son is dead and no literal World-end follows his funeral, Akh’Uzan will easily be re-assimilated into our fold. With most of the war immigrants electing to remain there even after the Armistice, the work is already half done—over a third of the valley is now nonSeer Clan. The demographics shift our way; why fix what isn’t broken? Isn’t it better to show we’ll receive them back than to further alienate them because of old feuds with an even older man? Their loyalty to us is ripe for the picking.”

“I hate to admit it, but you make sense,” the Archon said. “Besides, it’s not like I’d have to go down and embrace the old wurm
personally.”

“Shall I draft a scroll of acceptance to Muhet’Usalaq then?”

“Why not? One of us is bound to outlive the old suck-toad. Just promise me that if by some miracle I don’t make it, you’ll confiscate the sacred treasures after his burial.”

“I won’t have to,” Tarbet said. “The bewildered children of the Seer Clan will surrender them willingly, after they realize that
World-end
was never about the material world of everyday life.”

“You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Father, you taught me that confidence is the sign of a great leader. People naturally gravitate toward a proven winner.”