Crematorium for Phoenixes

by Nikola Yanchovichin

  “I have watched many such deities, which to my shame I’ve bowed to in my heart,” Sharukin said. “The essence of the true God is the dream.

  “He is the spice that torments history, tailoring our destiny to such an extent that it becomes bearable.”

  “What is this dream to those times of the day after which one or another man is buried as a hollow coffin?

  “Life, my friend, is a slaughterhouse where everything you ever hoped has been hung.

  “And we certainly can give everything and anything that providence with its pettiness has withheld from you. Just you imagine—the kingdoms in all their glory, collected in your fist.”

  “Tammuz, do not listen to them. Whatever may give the temptation cannot compare to the reverie that even momentarily connects you with what you want.

  “This is the only way to not only gain the whole world, but also to heal your soul,” Sharukin entreated.

  “Ha-ha, a big dreamer has come out of the criminal miasma. It is strange how people close pages to their previous lives. But such things happen. We can wait for the answer again. The Apollyon Project includes that. We will be waiting in Israel.

  “However, remember that the world is a dream in which all appears and disappears into the shadows.”

  The aliens pulled on their oxygen masks and their voices became muffled by the rubber material. Shortly thereafter they disappeared into space, saying, “Do not touch a hair on the heads of the strangers, they have already been counted by us.”

  Around the alien’s bodies a glimmering flow appeared, bundles of flaming lights. They spread their wings like banished angels, lifting and swirling into pulsating beam. Entering the flight, they rolled into a perfect mechanism and were shot up, driven by powerful pulses.

  The pyramid gradually faded and the assembled multitude came to consciousness.

  “We should still give the contributions that our fathers require.”

  “Oh no, I will not allow this,” Sharukin told them.

  “Only their holy words are protecting you,” answered the clergymen. “We advise you to go from where you came and take their words to heart as They wanted them to inspire you.”

  “Come on, Sharukin, let’s go,” Tammuz said, shrugging himself as if waking from a stupor.

  “But . . . .”

  “Sometimes we can do or say nothing. This is one of those cases. Wanted or not, we’re part of that Apollyon Project.”

  The men went away, squeezing between the procession that launched its chant.

  After a minute had past, they heard screams and then the silence of the night covered them with its veil, drowning everything in his trance-like world.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The domed facility was filled with sizzling sound.

  Hundreds of containers were suspended from the ceiled like cocoons. The tract vibrated like a veil of conduction. There was organic matter from which they were embraced.

  These hundreds of bodies, covered alone or in pairs, glowed with the paleness of their mass. They were covered with a web of systems that dug into them like leeches.

  Below oozed disgusting sap that dropped as whey-white liquid that was flowing in stratified rust lattice channels, leaving a sharp unpleasant smell in the unventilated air.

  Several panels spun lazily as magnetic winches. They were perforated strips that guided the process, snapping monotonous readers with each skip.

  From time to time, the putrid mask on the people’s faces also produced mechanical sounds, shining with pale, laser light, and lengthening their heads as if they were subdued vampires.

  Takeshi, Akuma, and the others were going down amid this living graveyard by descending the tiered stairs.

  “Goddamn it!” they swore when some stronger smell, like rotting flesh, tightened their already tense nerves.

  A decent laboratory hall was laid out, described as concentric circles in a shell-like form.

  And as if entire rows of matured crops had awakened, set units represented a sight that reminded them of victims wrapped in cobwebs.

  It was strange how all those inside were immersed in cryogenic sleep.

  “Who knows, maybe this is the crew of the station?” the men were thinking, while they advanced beside the entangled wires that were unique in that they buzzed and gave some sign of life.

  But there was no one to answer them; there was only an empty room with containers.

  It seemed as if everything was left on an impulse, and whether righteous or not, everything would breathe with new life.

  The structure of the building was a huge hive that was crossed with elongated chutes. They created the optical illusion that everything had been specially prepared for this occasion.

  Only the bottom phosphor platform projected its brilliance into the darkness, scattering rays onto the tiered steps.

  “You would have done the same, right?” Akuma asked as they went down step by step.

  “You mean with such attempts?

  “The world is a place for everything but the naive and I’d be lying if I said no.

  “Our life was an ossuary where bones and filth laid.

  “We did abominations to our friends. O Lord, O Lord, what we have done and there was no one to stop us.

  “Until one day I realized that no one knows the hour of darkness until he invades our lives.

  “And in that brief moment, my friend, seeing the articles on your hands, the odiousness of your own life, and asking why you were created, the answer appears.

  It sometimes comes across that you are an erased part in God’s great plan, a piece from a place full of burdened memories.”

  Akuma sighed, loosening the straps of his suit and said, “The only thing that leads us through the mists of this world is the expectation. Let’s hope that here it will bring something good.”

  And finished with the conversation, the men were now past the last steps over which, similar to the dim light in a well, the rays of a podium drowned them in a dancing line.

  The light was sprinkled as if embers hid a sarcophagus around which the conclusion of the wires clustered like a root system.

  Led by natural curiosity, they approached it and a few cries filled the room; the acoustics repeating them with echoes, “God . . . .”

  In the container, crafted from glass, lay a Siamese hermaphrodite.

  His body had been deformed. It was crossed by stitches and reminiscent of something borne from the imagination of a splurging sadist-anatomist.

  “What had happened here?” whispered the men with disgust even though they were perversely attracted by the sight.

  Then, as if by order, a concave display appeared. Its black surface pulsed with a green arrow.

  “What is this?” Takeshi asked the men and at that moment on the arrow on the screen was followed by the word “Error settled.” The message flashed, the screen cleared, and once again there was the blinking cursor.

  Silence from the men, accompanied by humming from the machine, filled the space like a quenched fireplace.

  “Clearly the device transmits what it’s being told,” Takeshi said. “Let’s check something.

  “What are you?”

  The screen read “process” and the raspy scrape of integrated circuits could be heard, followed by the word “VER 1.0.0.” Then everything was wiped again and they were greeted with the dark display.

  “What’s this damned thing?” asked Akuma, who felt an almost superstitious dread.

  Takeshi swallowed, made some noise with his teeth, and finally said, “Let’s say that this has been made by human hands and is nothing to be afraid of. I assure you, there is not any magic, but it will be a little difficult in terms of your time to see it as such.

  “I tell you just to accept it as something that you can ask questions to and receive replies from. I know that it is difficult, but please, do it.

  “And let us ask what first comes to mind: for what reason have you been created?”

&
nbsp; The machine rattled, vibrating its whole system to the body, and wrote, “Data exchange.”

  “Hmm, quite succinct,” Takeshi said. “Apparently this machine wasn’t programmed (whatever that means, murmured the men) for longer answers. Data exchange between who?”

  “Between the galaxies.”

  “But why?” Takeshi continue.

  “Transferring the memories of the people. Not enough disk space. HDD disk error.”

  Takeshi stood for a few seconds, saying almost to himself, “So that’s how they were traveling, just recording the memory and hoping with that naïve. But it does not seem illogical for their attempt to succeed.”

  “But what was the whole point of it all?” one of the men could not resist asking.

  “The ultimate goal: the Apollyon,” displayed the computer.

  “The Apollyon Project,” Takeshi said, “What the hell on Earth is that?”

  “Classified information. Access denied.”

  “What should we do now?” asked Akuma. “It is already clear that you don’t have a pre-drawn plan but you should still have something in that head.”

  “No one in life is fully shockproof aware of what comes before him. We can only go back and continue with what I think we should do.”

  “And this thing?”

  “We will leave him here. Sometimes, for better or worse, the sleep conceals the true nature of something.”

  They had not yet turned when they were forced into speechless.

  The tiered floors were covered with millions of pairs of faceted eyes.

  “Gods, what is this?” shouted one of the men.

  “Tsuchigumo,” Akuma said. “Run.”

  A wave of hundreds and hundreds of giant spiders descended to them, each with its jaws chattering. They were coming out of every crack in the walls and spreading like an infection.

  The men began to shoot, running with their harquebuses. They knocked them away and kneed into the stumbling wave.

  An elevator shaft, conveniently stood before them, and they slipped into it.

  The automatic mechanism launched them up and outside. They felt like they were merged again with the darkness of thousands and thousands of shadows that were sliding across different countries, leaving the mirage of the luring bright stage behind.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The waters of the Caribbean Sea were interlaced like fingers in an eternal cycle, driven by the breath of angels.

  In this haze, covered by the golden fabric sewn for a cardinal was the submarine Leviathan, sailing and sparkling in splashes of the boiling water; it was a popup sea deity.

  Powered by salty air, it pointed out the clear blue waters, coral reefs, copra, and pearl beads to soothe all who are burdened in their hearts.

  Islands—large and small—were hidden among the watery masses; their drowning lines were intractable even for immortals and wandering spirits.

  Passing them, cleaving the same waters that are crossed by dreamers and heartless adventurers alike, the Leviathan moved based on its mechanical screw.

  It was directed like a boat, sailing among the old trade routes to the Gulf of Guinea. Barely overcoming the huge space, it entered a cave ridge.

  Even with its high speed there were days of covering distances, passing through streaks and stripes of depths, each unique with its winds and currents.

  Here the spectrum had decomposed into thousands of colors, creating an orb that passed even the flesh and soul, capturing them forever.

  And we can only envy the men who blend daylight hours with those of the night, seeing the sunrises and the sunsets dipping in and out while avoiding the electrified glow of islands; they left behind the Americas.

  It would be difficult to add something else in this journey that crossed the heavenly bliss that one can get in his life.

  And we can switch, jumping of course through time, to the point at which the coastline of Africa was no longer far away. It lay hidden like black obsidian amidst the excitement of the ocean.

  The recently discovered continent had been the subject of colonization within the Western countries.

  Dozens of reference points, supply bases, and factories had come to launch a trade that brought as much gold as it did disgrace.

  Ivory, wood, chili, gold dust, and hundreds of slaves headed west and north, while alcohol, plush, and cheap trinkets came from there, enriching the ship owners and traders on both sides of the mainland.

  The final result, which we know: the untold suffering that generations and generations of natives would feel.

  But for now, this bloody alchemy was just starting and sailing in the south the submarine simply passed by it.

  The land was lined like the human days—weathered sandbars were fashioned from the evergreen forests. They glowed, edged with gold velvet. The mighty rivers: the Upper Volta, Congo, and Niger parted the flesh of the continent, flowing like wisps of oblivion among the furrows of the Earth.

  Since the strips with vegetation extended along the many thousands of meridians, this world was indeed shown to be the ornament of the soul and the universe.

  So a few points started from the Moroccan coast and ended in Angola as rain flowed in Cape Agulhas for a few movements of the Earth’s expanse.

  From here the several depths: Atlantic, Indian, and why not, even the Pacific, were concluding as divine hands had caressed the Earth’s surface with the grace of His love to proclaim with eulogy from the seabirds, His angels.

  Passing this area and the merging galaxies, the Leviathan left Madagascar and the Seychelles like hills sunk into water troughs.

  Maybe the reader is tired all this distance in the ocean and its uniformity. Maybe. But no human eye is used to the pieces of indefiniteness, especially the kind we are finding and losing among ourselves, so that every word about them is worth it.

  And of course, land lines are a favorite work in the end.

  Then, as now, we can say with ease that Arabia was before them.

  ***

  The hills of Arabia Felix looked like they were covered with sapphire ornaments.

  Barely visible green line overlapped the yellow-gold sands, folding along the natural lines of the relief.

  Several flocks, whitish like pearls, crawled between single trees, jingling with their brass bells.

  Among them, dug like a cyclopean dolmen among the hills were human homes; they had been occupied as a testament from the first spread of mankind.

  This region, although warm and stifled, wasn’t very big. From here spread the great land sea or the Arabian Desert.

  Former trade in incense, myrtle, spices, and perfumes was making the might of the former kingdom of Sheba, now half covered from the sands of oblivion, flourish in this part of the peninsula, weaving all sorts of legends.

  This land wasn’t poor. On the contrary, traders were coming to take Arabian horses for bags of gold and coffee, textiles and perfumes.

  But it had become overgrown due to the stopping European ships, which was quickly drowning the resources of the scrublands. Such places could not nurture the native tribes as much as human greed would like.

  So there were societies both open to the world and conservative in which there were ancient laws of the wilderness that had come about as a result of raids by sea and land.

  That’s why there weren’t impressive defensive towers here. Instead, minarets towered over a neighborhood; they were tapered like the trunks of oaks and richly ornamented with bas-reliefs. Some were neglected, some were freshly whitened. It was the duty of the soldiers and the system of bonfires to provide a rear proclamation of the numerous hazards in the southerly regions.

  Precisely because the small villages set on the edge of absurdity were managing to survive and bear fruit, the wheel of time thrived.

  Many invaders pressing from the Horn of Africa and beyond to the Strait of Hormuz had left their bones here in an attempt to grab what illusory or very real wealth they could get.

&nbs
p; Thus it could be said that each ship stopping along the way from India gets noticed.

  Anyone?

  Well, almost everyone.

  And behold, one morning, with an almost seraph outfit as we have described, the submarine Leviathan opened the tender skin of tepid water.

  Once part of the crew had gone down among the cliffs, the vessel again submerged itself.

  And after dressing in such way to at least look like traders of Balsor and Basra, which, although rare, could still be passing through to buy perfumes, they infiltrated in the land.

  The men wandered into the cafés, which like everything here were surviving with a tenacity that explains the presence of the desert.

  Just as in a café, perhaps a fancy word for spit flies, smelling rather of toasted rye and chicory, there were ants clumping on the browned sugar in a duffle bag. A judge who should keep candied fruit was indeed holding the first reports they had gathered.

  It could be said firsthand that much was worrying the locals.

  A strange person somewhere in the far north shifted them into advantageous trade intermediaries.

  Furthermore, another bullied the locals because lately safe pilgrimage to Mecca was being hampered by some who reasoned that locals could easily be allayed if they were hung at the first tree.

  It seemed that small groups, cult followers, were coming into the void, blaspheming abominable things so very, very close to the holy places.

  Therefore it was both easy and difficult for men to get to reliable information. Some suspected they were part of these cults, because as indeed we had forgotten to say, they were coming from all sorts of places—from Ethiopia all the way through the Hirkanius distant countries.

  “Are you one of those troublemakers?” asked the locals who did not mince matters. “Because if you are, we swear in the beard of the prophet that we’ll kill you with stones right now.”

  In turn, Victor Drake and others, added a gold piece and in supplement to their addition, they added that they were looking for their master’s son—a misguided youth who was tricked by the words of a dervish. Before they had known it, he had assumed the roads of south Arabia and since then no one had heard anything of him.