Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven
(Shattered Gates Volume 1)
Bryan S. Glosemeyer
Editor: September C. Fawkes
Cover: Dan Van Oss,
Covermint Design
Published November 2019
Copyright ©2019
Bryan S. Glosemeyer
Void Forms Media
All rights reserved.
Kindle Edition
Part 1: Trickster’s Pit, Part 2: Infiltration Crew, Part 3: Eon, and Part 4: Sacrificial Altars have been previously published in e-book format by Void Forms Media, Nov and Dec 2018, Jan and Feb 2019.
This e-book is licensed for personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold, re-distributed, reproduced, or given away to others. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Also available from Void Forms Media
Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven
(Shattered Gates Volume 1)
Part 1: Trickster’s Pit
Part 2: Infiltration Crew
Part 3: Eon
Part 4: Sacrificial Altars
Shattered Gates Volume 1 Boxset
Welcome to my universe. Come on in and take a look around. You might not find it comfortable, but I think you’ll enjoy the ride.
Shattered Gates Volume 1 Boxset collects the four novellas of Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven: Part 1: Trickster’s Pit, Part 2: Infiltration Crew, Part 3: Eon, and Part 4: Sacrificial Altars. It also includes a full Lexicon in the back. If you like what you see, please hop over to bryansglosemeyer.com and sign up for the newsletter to get a free short story set in the Shattered Gates universe, as well as news about upcoming releases and deals from Void Forms Media. And if you could, it’d be awesome of you to leave an honest review on Amazon, here.
Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven
(Shattered Gates Volume 1)
by
Bryan S. Glosemeyer
For my Mother, who always wanted me to write,
And for my Wife, who supported me when I finally did.
Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven
Part 1: Trickster’s Pit
1.
THE GIRL WAS eighteen, and like all Humans her age, she had one chance to choose her fate.
She chose the pit.
The girl spent the last moments before her final pit embraced by her brood-sister, whispering little secrets back and forth. Saying goodbye.
They had sought out what privacy they could, away from the packs of off-shift diggers and squealing mine rats, and huddled together within a far recess of the cavernous warrens. All of them where khvazol, unseen and nameless property.
Even back here, the sounds and smells of Warrens Zevna proved inescapable. From nearby came the rhythmic grunting and musk of sex. The buzz of the air system’s biomech lungs and the chugging of sanitation biotubing were as ubiquitous as the odors of old tunics and dry stone.
“Remember last year?” the girl’s brood-sister whispered. “When those three shit-eating aggies were going to toss me into an old mine shaft if I didn’t . . . And you fought all three of them, got them off me. You hadn’t even started Pitter Discipline yet, and you still deep bashed them.” She pantomimed grabbing an invisible enemy by the neck with one hand and punching him in the face with the other.
“Of course I remember,” the girl whispered back. “I remember they bashed me right back. And I still have the prod burns the overseers gave me after.”
“But you won.” Her brood-sister rubbed her pregnant belly, as she often did when she was anxious. “Even as a mine rat you never lost a fight. Just like today. You’re going to win. I know it. You were born to protect people.”
“Gods see me,” the girl said. Her brood-sister’s presence and soft touch had always been calming for the girl, one of the few sweet pleasures in her life. Even still, the girl couldn’t stop fidgeting and darting her gaze across the warrens. The overseers would be here soon.
There were nine shafts a human could follow, and when they turned eighteen, everyone was given a choice between two. The girl and her brood-sister had been given the same choice: fight in the pit to earn a name, be seen, and travel the stars; or remain forever nameless, a living incubator giving birth to brood after brood of human khvazol. Even as a young mine rat, the girl had decided a quick, bloody death was better than her other option.
Nearby, a brood of young mine rats wrestled another brood for extra rations of protein paste and cug’s milk. Her sister was charged with minding them. The hen-mothers of both broods were dead and mulched, and her sister didn’t have any of her own children to attend to yet. She gave her attention to the girl though, occasionally casting a side glance to make sure none of the little mine rats were killing each other.
The girl wanted to block everything out and see only her brood-sister. But their wrestling grew more heated, and their constant noise made it harder to hear what her sister was saying. The girl pulled out a small, dense protein and fiber loaf from her uniform’s pocket. She broke the loaf in two, tossed a half to each of the squabbling young broods, and told them to quiet down while she was visiting.
“Will you be fighting one of those vermin again?” Her brood-sister made a disgusted noise. “They’re so gross.”
“I think so, but I never know until just before. But the last four have been infidels, so probably.”
“I remember after your first pit, when you fought that boy, you puked for a whole sleep shift. I hope they give you another vermin this time. Better one of them than one of us.”
“The Overseers know what they’re doing when they match us in the pits. I’ll fight whoever or whatever they put in front of me. But yeah, I’d rather it be a vermin too.” The girl scanned around again for signs of the overseers. “Anyway, Pitter Discipline has toughened me up since then. Now the only thing that makes me puke is the smell of your farts. I swear to Mother of Life, since you became a hen your farts could melt granite.”
Her brood-sister poked her in the ribs and smiled. The girl smiled back briefly with tense, dry lips.
“I bet they’ll send you a deep handsome pillow for your victory,” her sister said. “He’ll be extra gold since this is your ninth pit. Maybe I can turn up a digger to drill myself. We can pretend like we are celebrating together.”
“Is that safe?” the girl asked. “You need to be more careful. You’ll be in trouble if the little mine rats in your belly get damaged.”
“Medics said it’s safe. For now. Medics said I can drill as much as I want, long as it doesn’t get too rough. And the diggers who like me now, who like me like this”—she looked down, patted her ripening belly—“they’re more gentle than some of those others. Too gentle. Dancer see me, sometimes I wish I could find a boy not afraid to give me a real drill.”
The girl laughed despite herself. Her brood-sister could always find a way to make her a little less anxious, even if only for a moment. The girl wanted to thank her sister for spending these last moments before the pit with her, but the finality of it brought a bad taste to her mouth, and the words wouldn’t come.
“Who knows?” her sister continued. “Maybe the pillow will drill a baby into you, and a hen from our warren will birth your blood-daughter. I’ll check every newborn for your blood glyph.�
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“Extra gold,” she whispered. Sudden, sharp movements near the far entrance to the warren told the girl the overseers had finally arrived. “They’re here,” she said.
The overseers strode toward them, parting through currents of khvazol, as focused and mindless as drills through dry dirt. Yelps of pain marked their progress through the cavern as the overseers’ prods found the backs of those who didn’t clear the way fast enough. They came for the girl and saw no others. That was life for khvazol humans in the Labyrinth. Always watched, never seen.
Her sister kissed the pitter girl’s tattooed brow and prayed for the Gods’ protection. “You don’t have to go. You can still change your mind.” Her brood-sister rubbed her palm in circles across her belly again. “Being a hen ain’t so bad. You get to eat more. You see the medics more. Sometimes, it’s even a little gold, feeling the lives growing inside you. Like these three little mine rats curled up in here.” Her hand stopped circling as she looked up. “Besides, then we can still be together. Like before, before your discipline.”
“Don’t be scared for me.” The girl kissed her sister’s brow in return. “Eight times I’ve gone into the pit, and eight times I’ve come back. One more, and it’s done.”
Win or lose, live or die, she thought, it’s done.
“Can you imagine the shame in Grandfather Spear’s eyes if I were to give up now?” the girl said. “Don’t worry. The next time you see me I won’t be a pitter anymore, or a mine rat. I’ll be a Servant of the Divine Masters. I’ll have a name.”
Or . . .
“You’ll have a name. You’ll be a servant. Grandfather Spear will be proud of you.” Her brood-sister laid her head on the girl’s shoulder. “But I’ll never . . .”
The pained yelps of shock grew nearer. The overseers were closing in.
The girl caressed her sister’s smooth scalp, the tattoo glyphs across their brows nearly identical. They shared similar basic ownership and territorial glyphs all humans were marked with during infancy. But each had a unique first, the blood glyph. The two brood-sisters shared the same hen but had different blood-mothers. The girl was from a long line of servants. Her sister’s blood-mother was a hen. The differences in their bloodlines were visibly apparent. The girl was taller, had wiry arms and frame, and muscular legs. Her brood-sister was shorter and softer than the girl in every way, with rounder hips and fuller breasts.
They differed in their clothing as well. The girl wore a new, thick, black and green tunic, the uniform of her Pitter Discipline. Her sister’s tunic was thinner, the color of stone and old sweat.
Their own hen had given birth to other broods, of course, but the two girls never bonded with their non-brood brothers and sisters. Many of those siblings were dead or relocated now anyway.
After turning eighteen the two sisters each received new glyphs the other would never share. Across her right cheek, her sister wore the glyph of the Hens. Very likely, it would be the last glyph she would ever receive.
Down both of the pitter girl’s temples dripped eight newly tattooed glyphs, each one marking a victory in the pit. If she returned victorious this one last time, she’d have the shaft glyph of the Servants on her right cheek. Two more glyphs would be tattooed on her left cheek. One for a victory, one for a name.
The girl pulled away from her sister’s embrace and stood just outside their shadowy recess. The overseers were just a few meters away. If she wasn’t ready to go before they arrived, it would mean the prod for both of them. She had felt the prod’s sting often in her discipline and was almost accustomed to the pain. Almost. But she would do everything she could to lessen and prevent her sister’s suffering.
“I see you,” sobbed her brood-sister.
“I see you, too.”
The girl turned toward the coming overseers. She raised up her gaze and stared at the high ceiling of the natural cavern. Tall columns of pillarwood trees, coated with graffiti, reached up and arched toward each other to add support to the cavern. Bioluminescent light strips lined the ceiling in giant triangular configurations, illuminating the warren in dim, gritty light. So many times in her life she had looked up and seen only stone, masonry, and light strips. Never once had she seen the red skies of Nahgohn-Za or the stars in the black night.
When the two overseers approached the recess where the sisters had been waiting, the broods of young mine rats scattered. Overseers stood nearly a head taller than most humans, with long, sloped-back foreheads ringed by stubby horns. Below their horned brows, three orange eyes fixed on her. The prods they carried hummed and crackled. Red bars of laser light emitted from their chest plates and scanned over the girls’ faces.
One overseer spoke in the Masters’ language to her sister first before turning to her. “Current designation Warrens Zevna-Flock Five-Rook Ten-Hen Seven, keep your distance. Current designation Warrens Zevna-Discipline Two-Pitter Nine, come now.”
As the overseers marched her through the warrens, the girl knew her sister’s choice had been as inevitable as her own. In essence, the one chance they had to choose their fate was no choice at all. They were who the Divine Masters had crafted them to be. Her sister could never be a servant just as the girl could never be a hen. She was too much like her grandfather.
Leaving Warrens Zevna, she heard the familiar voices of the other pitters in her discipline cheering for her to come back victorious, come back with a name. Other voices shouted out as well, the diggers and hens and little mine rats of the warrens—too scared for the pit, too little faith for the Servants or the Chosen—the same nameless and unseen people she had been surrounded by her entire life. The last voices she heard before leaving the warrens were them mocking her bravery. Taunting her with bloody predictions of how her last pit would end.
2.
THE GIRL EMERGED from the mouth of Warrens Zevna into the subterranean passages of the Labyrinth. Ancient, dim, and reeking of human, the Labyrinth’s tunnels were the only world she had ever known. Light strips illuminated endless, winding passages of ceramic-walled tunnels encrusted with generations of graffiti. Small, pale lizards scurried into the shadows at the sound of their approach.
Behind her marched two Zohlun-Lo Overseers, the gaze of their three inscrutable eyes always watching her, never seeing. But she needed no prod at her back to drive her. She walked the Labyrinth to confront her fate willingly, even with a kind of eager anticipation. With nothing at all in the girl’s life under her control, the pits were her choice. Even though the fear never released her, she embraced her choice completely.
There was a secret the girl had never shared with her sister, with anyone. A secret she could barely share with herself, except when she walked the tunnels moments before a pit. As terrifying as it was, preparing to fight to the death, she had discovered a truth about herself she never dreamed could exist. Even without a name, with each pit, each victory, each new glyph, she became somebody.
The farther she walked the corridors from the warrens to the fighting pit, the more the calm bravado she had shown her sister slipped away. Her heart sped up, palms grew moist. The presence of overseers always made her feel a little queasy and light headed, but this was different. Pre-pit anxiety buried all other feelings under its own dominating nausea.
The tunnels carved out by generations of human khvazol felt increasingly low and oppressive. She had heard many tales of the world above from her blood-grandfather—of the horizon stretching as far as you could see in every direction, of the limitless sky filled with stars—and wondered if the tales were true.
One more fight, she thought, one more victory, and I’ll have a chance to see for myself.
The two overseers spoke to each other in Ihziz-Ri, the language of the Overseers and Divine Masters. She understood it but couldn’t form many of the sounds to speak it. The unseen spoke Khvaziz, the non-language of Humans.
“This pit should be proper and messy,” said one overseer. The brownish-gray color of his ho
rns revealed he was the older of the two.
The younger one, with horns still white and gleaming, said, “I hear the unseen is being thrown in with a real beast. Eats its opponents alive. The unseen doesn’t stand a chance.”
“You're a fool hatchling,” said the older. “The unseen is the property of the Ihvnahg-Ra. He crafted this bloodline himself. The Pinnacle of the World does not lose.”
“Gods see me, I’m not saying the Ihvnahg-Ra is going to lose. But the unseen are no smarter than granks. And without the hard shell. I’ll wager sixty privileges on the vermin.”
“Wager seen,” said the older. “Better have my privileges soon as the pit is over.”
The girl passed from ceramic-lined corridors to carved-stone vaults, the overseers always just behind. They were in one of the oldest parts of the Labyrinth now. Three great Labyrinths tunneled beneath the surface of Nahgohn-Za, homeworld of the Divine Masters and the center of their interstellar Holy Unity. The Labyrinths were home to millions of overseers and humans. The deepest tunnels, running just above the extraction mines, connected the warrens, agricultural caverns, and work halls of the nameless khvazol. Above them, the great subterranean cities of the Overseers twisted for hundreds of kilometers in every direction. The palaces of the Divine Masters sat atop the Labyrinths, bubbling up to the toxic wasteland of the planet’s surface, encased in massive, impregnable domes. At least, that’s what the girl had been told. She had only seen the mines and tunnels where humans lived and worked and died.
The stone passageway terminated in an ancient, triangular gateway where there awaited an unexpected honor. Grandfather Spear stood as a stern silhouette backlit by the glare of the pit entrance. Tattooed glyphs descended in columns all around his bald head, just beginning to wrinkle and sag with age. The glyphs declared his name and victories. They also marked his rank among the Servants as an attendant, the second-highest possible rank for a human to achieve.
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