“When you traded technology to the Monarchy, you involved yourself in the war,” said Rain. “There is no denying that now.”
“You are correct. There is no denying,” said Gabriel, his voice filling the room as he entered from the lift. “Our technology, our very presence has changed this war. And it may be that we are the only chance of survival for the Vleez race, if we can find a cure. But our mission remains. Emancipation. Treaties of alignment. The Embassy is just the first, small step. And in this first step, we will not falter. We must not.”
“You are not listening to me,” said Sabira. “None of you have ever listened to me. I want you to give me to them. You can still save Daggeira. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m not afraid of them. It’s an honorable death. And then maybe . . .” . . . maybe when I stand before the Gates, I might still be found worthy.
“Sabira, your nobility is appreciated, but sacrificing yourself for us would be futile,” said Gabriel, his tone softer than she’d ever heard from him. “Giving you over to an angry mob of vleez will only buy us a day or two’s reprieve, at best. The liaison said as much. The situation out there must be dire if a few days’ peace is all he had to bargain with. As the plague draws on, those who’ve survived will grow hungry for revenge. Your blood will satiate their anger only so long.”
“And since they won’t be able to publicly execute you more than once, their tendrils will turn to those that harbored you,” added Orion.
“I think we all agree. We must prepare to leave Dlamakuuz,” said Maia. “The Embassy is no longer safe. We all heard it. But synchronicity might be back in our favor, after all.” She came around to the front of Sabira’s chair, so she stood between her and the others. She lowered to her haunches, looked her in the eye.
“I am sorry, Sabira, my lost sister. It is not my intention to deny your freedom or ignore your wishes. I wanted to wait and take the same care and time with you as I took with the others. But we can wait no longer. Sabira, tonight I invite you to begin your liberation at last. The time has come for you to confront the mysteries and be purged of the Theocrats’ lies, body and mind.
“But if, and only if, you say yes.”
“And if I say no?”
“We must do what is needed for everyone’s safety,” said Gabriel. “Yours and ours.”
“So you’ll turn me over to the Vleez then?”
“Never, Sabira,” said Maia. “We would never give you over to be slaughtered.”
“But we would have to consider inducing heavy sedation, at least until we transfer off-world,” added Gabriel. “If it comes to that.”
“Like I said before, kid,” said Orion. “Not really much of a choice, is it?”
27.
THAT NIGHT, FOR the first time in her life, Sabira heard the sound of rain. All day long the air had warmed and thickened. Breathing felt heavy, almost sticky. The rain started just after a frail dusk song, tapped at the window like the first drums of ritual, and when the clouds burst open in full torrential downpour, it felt like the sky itself heaved a massive, wet sigh of relief.
Playa and Zonte slid open the glass doors of the common room and positioned the heavy drapes to allow some air to circulate through. The heat lifted, and a cool, clean air filled the Embassy. Torque and Orion-lem came in with two atmospheric composition regulators to make sure the common room remained breathable.
Torque sat on a floor cushion behind the forma couch and returned to disassembling a deactivated node. Orion sat on a nearby couch, glancing down at her attempts to pull apart the machine’s innards. “I’ll give you a hint,” he said. “All the parts fit together in the same way. Once you find how two pieces fit, you know how they all fit.”
Maia and Coraz were in Sabira’s room, preparing. Gabriel remained on the first floor, and two lems in security configuration stood guard outside. Derev, Dawn, and Rain attended to the kitchen and other chores on the second floor.
Sabira sat facing the window in her wheelchair, waiting to be purged. “Adept Hanada?”
“Just Orion. Only Oracle Del Seta calls me Adept Hanada.”
“What did you mean earlier? You said you were the first person to travel through the Shattered Gates since the Gods.”
“That is not quite what I said.”
“Did you see them, the Gods? Did you see Heaven?”
“No, can’t say I saw anything like that. I did see the fabric of space and time itself, which I personally find much more interesting. But look, don’t think on that now. Once you’ve been purged, we’ll be able to explain it all to you. Maia insists that’s the way we do it, and Gabriel agrees, so that’s the way it is. All the others, except for Dawn, have purged. I’ve done several full scans of all your vitals, you’ll be fine. Just listen to what Maia tells you.”
Sabira went to rub the chest scar out of habit, and the fetters caught her wrist for the hundredth time that day. Maia said they wouldn’t even consider removing the bonds unless Sabira purged first. She also promised to finally explain what the hell was really going on, who they were, and why they were here.
Promises of answers and explanations were less important to Sabira than getting the godsdamned restraints off, to be able to stand and walk freely. To be able to fight. So let Maia and these fools think she’s tamed, or “purged,” or whatever they want to call it.
The lift brought Rain up from the floor below. He sat on the couch beside Sabira’s wheelchair.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” The old staff pointed out the window. “Nothing like it down in the Labyrinth. In the domed palace of my former Master, sometimes a mist would swirl around the tower peaks. The walls would grow cool and moist. But nothing like this, no. Not on Nahgohn-Za.”
“I’d heard stories about water falling out of the air,” said Sabira. “It sounded too ridiculous to believe. Usually, my grandfather told me stories about strange worlds infested with vermi— aliens. But it was my caller who told me about rain. I thought he was making it up. I thought he was taunting me for being new to the crew.”
“We’ve been drowned in lies of the Nahgak-Ri all our lives, girl. So it’s no surprise the truth would be the most unbelievable story of all, is it?” He didn’t look at Sabira when he spoke but continued gazing out at the evening storm.
“It was raining the night we first set foot on Dlamakuuz. By the time the Vleez soldiers had marched us to the Embassy, we were drenched. I had never been so wet, I swear. Our teeth chattered uncontrollably from the cold. I honestly thought I might break a tooth, they chattered so hard. But I didn’t care. When you’re confronted with that kind of impossible beauty—all that water could have filled a palace, and here it was falling out of nowhere, out of this impossible sky stuffed with impossible, swirling clouds—when you see something like that, a little teeth chattering feels like a fair price.”
Outside on the balcony, Playa and Zonte held each other, acted like they could kiss through the clear breathing masks, and laughed, water streaming over their scalps, soaking into their clothes. Sabira remembered Arrow’s stories, how she struggled to picture the absurd thing called rain. Could she have dreamed of kissing him under a storm like this, celebrating the conquest of a new world for the Unity?
Would Daggeira hold me like that now, if she were awake and healthy? Will we ever kiss beneath the falling rain? Or ever again?
“Our Master was transferring some holdings to his new palace on Ishkad-Za, the Dancer’s World,” continued Rain. “It was a moon, really, orbiting around this great, blue-white gas giant. From what I understand it was one of the first great unifications of Monarchy territory. It was a beautiful world, full of life. I saw little of it of course, but I saw enough to know it was special. I spent many years in the service corridors and kitchens of my former Master’s dome on Nahgohn-Za. My life on Ishkad-Za was not much different, but even still, I could get a sense of the world. After a lifetime spent on a dead shell of a planet, a few rare glimpses of the Dance
r’s World was enough to know.
“The Vleez felt the same way. Who wouldn’t fight for a world such as that? When they attacked, I hid as best I could, but the servants found me first. When the Gohnzol-Lo had realized the Monarchy forces would overwhelm the palace, they sent a crew of servants to cleanse the whole compound. No unseen would be left alive for the enemy to claim as bounty. They gathered us all in the temple. They had murdered all but a few before the Vleez soldiers stormed in. Cal’s hen and brood were killed before his eyes. He was next for the altar. Him and then me.
“It was Cal, Torque, Zonte, and myself that were left, the last four breathing khvazol out of hundreds. Just us. Playa, Dawn, and Derev all came from another Master’s palace on the same world. We had never met until we were all shoved together in the ship’s hold for the voyage here.
“When they first found me, I actually thought for sure they were going to eat me, right there like all those horrible stories they told us. Can you imagine anything more foolish? The Vleez are herbivores, if you didn’t know. Apparently, they find us savage monsters for being meat eaters.
“The Vleez army could have just killed us and saved themselves the bother. Or they could have kept us as slaves for their monarch. But instead, well, here we are, aren’t we? Alive and free. We’ve even got names. I know you don’t see it yet, but you’re safer now than you’ve ever been.”
“Why do you trust them so much? You should know better.”
“I should know better, huh girl? Do you know how many I’ve seen like you come and go? Has it really not occurred to you that maybe I do know better than you, because I know more than you? And that maybe the smartest choice you could make is to heed your elders?”
Sabira didn’t know how to respond. Her instinct was to stare him down, but she found more in his eyes than she was ready to cope with and looked away.
“Sabira, you should know. I can read your glyphs, all of them. I know who your Master is. The expectations placed on you must have been tremendous.”
“Oh this sounds crunchy,” said Orion. Detailed schematics of node construction scrolled vertically down his forma clothing and lem body from hair spikes to heels. “What’s so interesting about Sabira’s former enslaver?”
“He was the Ihvnahg-Ra himself, the Divine Master of Masters, the Pinnacle of the World.”
“Sounds like a fucking asshole,” said Orion.
“Most assuredly,” Rain answered.
Sabira gasped. Insulting an overseer often meant sacrifice in the ribs, but such crude blasphemy about a Divine Master, much less the Pinnacle himself, meant the worst possible tortures, endless agony, in this life and the next.
“See me now, girl,” said Rain, “you need to face where you come from, face the truth of it. Time to leave secrets and lies behind.”
Coraz entered the common room and gently placed ahns hand on Sabira’s shoulder. “Maia is all prepared. I’ll take you back to your room.”
“We’ve been buried in lies our whole lives,” said Rain. “But the truth has been inside you, always, hidden away. It will find its way out to you, if you let it.”
Coraz wheeled her back to her room, and Sabira asked, “Did you understand what under the rocks the old man was saying?”
“Yes,” ahn said, “I did. You’ll understand more, and a lot less, soon enough.”
28.
CORAZ WHEELED SABIRA through the door to her room and onto the rooftop, right beneath the dome. The great mat of tangled vines surrounded her, black and glistening in the rain. Off in the distance, white and yellow city lights flickered through the wet gloom.
Her disorientation didn’t last long, and she soon grasped the illusion. She noticed telltale signs in the shape of things, how they twisted in minute angles along the seam of floor and wall. The eight-pillared dome that appeared to be directly overhead now had a transparency the one on the Embassy’s roof certainly didn’t have. And no cold, wet wind gusted over her bare face.
Her bed, the tall, flowering plant, all the little items in her bedroom were no longer there. Sabira understood that except for the plant, her entire room was made of forma, just like the common room. The floor, ceiling, and walls of her room had been tuned to the input of the Embassy’s roof sensors.
Maia sat on a cushion on the floor, surrounded by an array of wooden bowls and a strange, pungent stench. Maia had unwound her hair from her customary blossom shapes so that it hung in long, dark rivulets around her face. To Sabira’s own surprise, she found it beautiful.
Coraz closed the door behind them. A faceless lem stood in attentive silence a few paces away. Against one of the support columns rested a voluptuously curved, wooden box with a long handle. It reminded her of an odd kind of drum.
Electrostatic pulses tingled across the flesh of Sabira’s legs and spine as the wheelchair reconfigured to lie her back and lower her to the floor. Maia placed a single wooden bowl filled with a thick, dark liquid directly between them. The thin wisps of steam rising from it smelled foul.
“Sabira, when we first met I told you I was an Oracle of the Eleusis Neos. This means I have been initiated into the New Temple of Mysteries. The eight-pillared dome is the traditional symbol of the New Temple.” She gestured at the illusory structure overhead, then at the bowl.
“This is the sacrament of our temple. We call it eon. This is one of our greatest mysteries. A mystery I would very much like to share with you, as I have with the other lost brothers and sisters of this Embassy. The sacramental ritual is for three nights. The first night is known as the purge. It is the night of the descent. This is what I offer you.
“I will not force this on you, Sabira. Your mind must always be your own. But we cannot let you free of your bonds until you have at least been purged. I do not say this to threaten you. This is a fact of our security. The safety of the Embassy grows thinner every day, and we cannot imperil ourselves from within as well as without. But in the end, the choice must be yours.”
“What is that stuff?” Sabira asked.
“Medicine. I made it by brewing two plants together, one from my homeworld, one from the temple’s world, Nu’esef, along with a few other ingredients. I have mixed and brewed for your specific body chemistry, so that your purge is complete and your descent is safe.”
“Why is it called the purge?”
“Because that is what you will do, in body, in heart, in mind.”
“That sounds awful.”
“I know how scared you must—”
“I’m not scared.”
“Then you will drink the eon?”
“If I don’t, you’re going to drop me in a coma?”
“I hope it would not come to that. But we must consider everyone’s safety. When we leave the Embassy to return to our ship, we will be vulnerable. You are smart enough to know that. The Vleez are too. I do not want to do this. None of us do. And I do not want to use it as a threat, to coerce you into drinking the eon. But I will not lie to you, this is the truth of the situation we all find ourselves in.”
“If I drink that stinky piss, you’ll take off these straps, let me walk around on my own? Won’t drop me in a coma?”
“Purging is a . . . Coraz, help me please.”
“Precondition,” ahn said.
“Indeed. Purging is a precondition, but it is not the only condition. Gabriel and I must be convinced that we can trust you not to hurt yourself and not to hurt anyone else.”
“And there’s no way for me to convince you unless I drink that.”
“Will you?”
Just to get these binds off will be worth it. And maybe, once Daggeira’s finally awake, I’ll actually be able to get us out of here. If the Unity ever comes back, I’ll need to be ready when the opportunity presents itself.
Something inside her froze, terrified of her own thoughts.
“I will.”
Maia repositioned to her knees and held the bowl to Sabira with both han
ds. As it got closer, the rank smell caused Sabira’s stomach to lurch. “I have to warn you,” Maia said. “It tastes even worse than it smells.”
“It’s deep bad,” offered Coraz, ahns round face looking unusually grave.
They weren’t lying. The taste was so awful, Sabira nearly spat out the first mouthful. Her stomach threatened revolt even before she swallowed. The brownish-green brew had an oily, slimy texture that disgusted her even more than its taste as it slid down her throat.
Her eyes teared up, snot ran from her nose, and she gagged again and again. Without complaint, she drank it all, pausing only to gag repeatedly. When Maia pulled the bowl from her lips at last, Sabira squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her abdominal muscles.
“Godsdammit,” said Sabira. “I really thought I wouldn’t be able to hold it back. Thought for sure I was going to puke it all up.” When she gained an uneasy equilibrium, she opened her eyes. Maia was stacking the emptied bowls and handing them to Coraz.
“Give the medicine some time, dear,” said Coraz, “and you’ll puke your insides out. Believe me.”
Again, they weren’t lying. Sabira soon understood why they called this ritual the purge. She vomited more than she thought could possibly be inside her. Though she felt queasy from the first sips, it wasn’t until twenty minutes later that the purging truly started. Her sickness triggered the lem to activity. With soft hands and a gentle, precise touch, the lem kept her clean. Maia had placed a large bowl near Sabira’s head for her to vomit into, explained that the newly configured recliner featured a removable bedpan, and she would be grateful for it soon. This too was not a lie.
Maia removed the restraints once the purging started. “It would be terrible, cruel to keep you bound when taking the sacrament. You will be in no condition to hurt anyone even if you wanted to try.”
Something else rose within Sabira other than nausea, something she didn’t have a name for. An ever-mounting sensation swelled deep inside her core. The way she experienced her body began to shift. Her own flesh felt peculiar and new. The pitters brew had triggered a rising sensation of energy when she drank it, but what the eon opened up in her felt deeper, stranger, and far more frightening.
Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven Page 18
