The Invasion of Heaven, Part One of the Newirth Mythology

by Michael B. Koep

“Si,” Giovanni joined, “mimic.”

  I raised the sword and studied Giovanni’s pose. It was an en guarde stance. His right foot was forward and the back foot angled slightly left. With his knees bent in readiness he tried to explain, “Body, center. Center. Over your balls,” he smiled. I imitated the stance. The point of his sword was aimed at me as the rest of the blade was slightly angled. His left hand was raised up and hovered near his face. “Last defense,” Samuel said waving his hand—the offhand. “If all else fails, block with your bare hand instead of your face.” I forced my body to hold the pose until Giovanni was satisfied. “Si,” he said finally, “Buono.”

  Samuel insisted, “From that stance you can move and react to nearly anything. The readiness is all.”

  For two hours Samuel and Giovanni demonstrated graphic and true to life duelist movements and techniques. The three of us went through three bottles of wine during that time, as well. In turn, I was to reproduce their instruction in a series of trials. I was surprised to hear Samuel say, several times, “You are a natural.”

  Somewhere deep down inside of me I had always been enamored by the sword. Even my castle-like home in Idaho portrayed this sincere interest. And now, in Padua, Italy, I was learning from Master Giovanni Rapasardi. But a weapon in its pure form has always been a cause for distress. A symbol of man’s inability to reason. A symbol of might over thought. I lowered my sword and stared at the twisting bars of steel that laced over the hilt. It was beautiful. The thought of man’s stylish imprint on a thing made to kill other men stopped the lesson.

  “Loche?” Samuel said, noting my distant expression.

  “Why are you teaching me this?” I asked, studying the webbed steel bars of the hilt-cage.

  “Because guns won’t do,” he replied simply. “And, I suppose, just in case.”

  “I don’t think I have it in me to kill anyone.” A statement I never thought I’d hear myself say, and truly mean.

  Samuel agreed, “No. And let us hope you won’t have to. But it’s always best to be prepared for the weather. Storms will come and it’s best to be ready.”

  I inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. Samuel gestured to Giovanni to wait. He approached and took the sword from my hand, “Look, it is time for you to wake up. Even after all you know about your place in this world, your brother’s plight and the designs of your enemy, you cannot stand aloof because of some philosophical or moral reason. It is time for action and readiness. Before this is all over I fear that you will be forced to defend not only your life, but the lives of others, as well. I, too, am amazed that the twenty-first century has not brought higher thought to mankind. Humans are still filled with greed, hate, misguided ideologies and are easily brought to war. Funny really. History will teach us nothing as one clever songwriter put it. Know that what little you have learned today may aid you, and it may not. After all, the best way to block an adversary’s weapon is to stay out of their way. Let’s hope we can do that. But for now, consider this,” Giovanni handed Samuel a waist high umbrella. Its handle was made of black ebony. “This will be your little insurance policy.” Samuel placed it into my hands.

  Holding it up, I inspected it closely. It was simple and unadorned. It looked much like the kind of umbrella a bent elderly gentleman might use to make his way to the park on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

  “An umbrella?” I said. “For rainy days?”

  “That’s right,” he said taking hold of the black handle. He gave it a quick pull. The bottom of the umbrella separated from the grip and revealed a slender steel blade. He held it up before my face. “For very rainy days.”

  The plane ride was bumpy.

  We landed just outside of Monterosso, midmorning. Giovanni unclamped the headphones from his head and turned in his pilot seat, “Good bye,” he said to me. I shook his outstretched hand and followed Samuel out onto the grassy field. We stood and watched the plane turn, roar its engines and hurdle back into the air.

  “Good mate that Giovanni,” Samuel said as the drone faded. “Young, but a good mate.”

  Minutes later I was again listening to Samuel exercise his graphic expletives upon Italy’s commuters. The car was similar to the one we left behind in Padua, right down to the dent in the passenger door.

  “What’s with the dented doors?” I asked.

  He laughed. “I’m from England. I’ve never gotten the hang of the steering wheel on the left side.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “Hey, I may be immortal, but I never said I was the best driver. You should see me parallel park—now that’s a comical sight.”

  “This is George,” said Samuel. “George Eversman.”

  In the doorway stood a shirtless man that looked to be in his early fifties. He was tall, drawn and awkward looking, especially in the face. Brown pools of color glowed from his deeply set eyes, and his smile was enormous, as if his mouth was too large for the rest of his face. His upper body was covered in light orange-brown hair that spread over his shoulders, down his arms and to his waistline.

  He offered bright and cheerful Italian greetings to both of us and stepped aside allowing us to enter. Closing the door he shouted into the flat, “Elainya, Eleni, Eleni.”

  Around the corner ran little Elainya, his eight-year-old daughter. She rammed her entire body full-speed into Samuel’s legs and wrapped her little pale arms around them. He lifted her up and whispered what I assumed to be Italian sweet nothings into her ear.

  The air smelled of garlic, hot bread and olive oil. George beckoned us into the small kitchen where he was busy preparing fresh pesto.

  We were seated at a small wood table laden with old framed photographs of family and friends and a dirty dish or two. George poured the wine, gave us each a glass, and proposed a toast.

  “Stupid crazy,” he said holding his wine up. “All a dis. Here’s to it.” He tilted his glass and emptied it into his mouth. He then laid his hand on Samuel’s shoulder. “You chop garlic, I talk.”

  “As you wish.” Samuel’s reply carried a formal tone as if he were responding to an order. He rose quickly, and moving to the cutting board, began to peel the white husks from cloves.

  George Eversman stood beside the table and studied me. His fingers thoughtfully lacing through his mesh of chest hair. His long silent appraisal of me, and his weird appearance, caused a sudden flash of claustrophobia.

  Finally he spoke, “You Loche, eh?”

  “Yes.” I could feel the muscles in my neck beginning to tighten. From my seat I held my head angled up to look at him.

  “Stupid crazy. Your wife gone, eh?”

  Sting. “Yes.”

  “Hurts, yes?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You the Poet?”

  I glanced over at Samuel. He was focused on his task and appeared to be ignoring our conversation.

  “Hey!” George called. I snapped my eyes back to him. “You write?”

  I felt my shoulders give sort of a shrug when I said, “That’s what they say.”

  His huge mouth spread into a tight grin. “What do you say?”

  “I’m not like Basil. I can’t do what he does.”

  “Not yet, eh?”

  “No,” I agreed, “not yet.”

  “Have you tried, huh?”

  “I think so.”

  “Not yet, eh?” he said again. “No try, no do, yes?”

  “I suppose.” The pain in my neck, and his odd manner, was beginning to irritate me.

  “Suppose?” he cried. “What suppose?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ha! No. No, you don’t. Stupid crazy, yes?”

  I leveled my eyes and stared at the wall behind him.

  “I got you out. Know that, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The man sighed. Samuel answered. “George Eversman, the leader of Orathom Wis, the High Guard of the Order.”

  I looked up at the oddly posed man. He was still petting his brownish-orange chest hair.
There was no smile.

  “I got you out,” he repeated.

  I nodded, not knowing how to respond. Should I say thank you?

  “You are free now. Free to find your muse.”

  “How?” I gasped.

  “You will know. It will come. You must find the Elliqui. The Elliqui, my friend.”

  I shook my head, “What is the Elliqui?”

  “Elliqui is a language. The oldest, most ancient of all languages,” Samuel answered.

  “I’ve never heard of such a language before. Where is it from?”

  George’s smile bent along his face like an archers curving bow. “They speak it, Loche,” he said, referring to some invisible company above and around us. “The Watchers.”

  Samuel brought the cutting board over to George to show him his progress on the garlic. The shirtless man took one look and snorted, “Thinner. Thinner,” waving Samuel back to task.

  “What little we know about Elliqui is from our ancestors,” Samuel continued, turning back to the counter. “Our immortal ancestors, I mean. There are books that we hope still exist, but the Orathom Wis have had little fortune in locating them. It is said that over the centuries, most of the tomes were destroyed by war, disaster and the like. It’s only been in the last fifty or so years that we’ve found clues that suggest that at least one tome remains. We fear that it may have already been found by the Enemy.

  “Elliqui is the language of thought. At one time, man and the gods communed in this purest form of language—a mutual knowing without the misguiding complexities of written or spoken words. A telepathy, if you will. There was an overarching desire for both humankind and the divine to appease and care for the other’s needs. Simply, by knowing intention and fully accepting that any outcome is possible, there was little need to fear. Our communication now is filled with hidden agendas, lies, deceit. And truth. But in Elliqui there was only empathy and compassion—and ultimately, well-being. Speaking in thought is the real connectivity that we are supposed to have. We like to think that the closest form of Elliqui that has survived is music, for music transcends language and elevates our communication beyond this world.”

  I squinted at Samuel, “You say that Elliqui is the language of thought, like telepathy. But you said that there were books? And that it can be a spoken language, too?”

  “Yes,” George replied. “Yes. Long, long ago, Elliqui was broken. Some gods rebelled and cut the cords. No more talk with them. And for us, no more talk together.”

  Samuel cut in, “When the dark powers arose among the gods, it broke the voice. Elliqui was destroyed. People had to start from nothing—from ancient cave drawings to Egyptian hieroglyphs to Latin to modern English. It took centuries to get where we are now. Because of the destruction of the true mode of Elliqui, man has suffered in ways beyond count.

  “But sometime around the eleventh century, members of the Orathom Wis began to piece together a bridge to the past. Some of the oldest and wisest of our Order managed to create a spoken form of Elliqui. And then later, a written form. It was said that they had found a way to commune with one another, and even the gods, through speech. Some said that by reading the written Elliqui, one could understand the mind of the one that put the thoughts to paper, or the muse beyond the inked runes. It’s our hunch that you and the ancient language were made for one another. We think your gift has something to do with learning how to speak it, and more importantly, how to write it.”

  “Because I am foretold to write with a power like Basil’s painting, you think Elliqui is the language I need to learn?”

  “Maybe,” Samuel said. “Again, we’re searching, just as you are. As with most art, sometimes you have to wait for it to come.”

  A flash of William Greenhame’s face appeared in my mind, and the memory of his using many dialects during our sessions. Latin, French, Middle English—he would often scramble the letters of words and phrases. And then I recall hearing him utter a language I couldn’t place, and the echo of his words were strangely natural for me to speak. “Ithic veli agtig,” I said quietly.

  George’s eyes widened and he raised his hands to his cheeks in a gesture of surprise and wonder. “Ithic veli agtig,” he repeated in a whisper.

  Samuel’s expression was similar, but less dramatic. He stared at me with a half smile and a look of genuine caring, as if I had shared some random, delicate memory of a mutual friend that had passed away.

  “Why does my death delay?” Samuel translated. “That’s what it means in English. And it has an equivalent meaning in Elliqui, but there is more to it than that. Ithic veli agtig is actually the name of those of us that have been given the gift of immortality on Earth. The phrase is as near to us as our own birth names, for it conjures the ache of memory and the yearnings for the things we cannot have, both youth and death. The phrase is a title as well as a question, but as I’ve said, Elliqui transcends simple subjective definitions. It instead echoes with a kind of super-connotation, resounding the emotion beyond the bounds of its meaning. Ithic veli agtig is something that every immortal can feel within as a sorrow and a joy intermingled. Beautiful and terrible.”

  “You must feel the words if you want your gift, Loche— you must feel the words,” George said. “Stupid crazy, no? And we must do this soon. Maybe Elliqui must wait. You must write how you write.”

  Samuel nodded, adding, “Yes, you must feel the words, but you must start with the language you know. This is your fate. There is only so much that we can do, Loche. We can protect you for a time, but not indefinitely. You’ve got to come to terms with your muse. You must. And whatever it takes to feel the words, we don’t know. It could be learning Elliqui. It could be facing your greatest fear. It could be a near death experience.”

  Frustration took hold, and I stood. I paced across the room to the kitchen window. The day was grey and cold. Beyond the rooftops was the Atlantic ocean. I shuddered at the sight. Water, especially large bodies of water, was indeed a terrible fear of mine. I turned away to keep from drowning.

  George joined me at the window. “How do we help?”

  “I must return home,” I said.

  “Home?” Samuel joined. “Why?”

  “I’ve got to start from the beginning. Retrace my steps.” Julia’s face haunted my thoughts, and I was unwilling to mention her or the painting that Basil had told me of. There was a reason it was to be kept secret—I was sure about that. “Going back to my old life and seeing it again is the only plan I have. It feels right.”

  “You, home?” George said.

  My eyes told him yes.

  “Then home you go,” he cried clapping me on the shoulder. “But you must be quick. Be quick.”

  Samuel broke in, “Anfogal, it will be too dangerous. The Enemy will expect—”

  “Home he goes,” George said again without turning to Samuel. Instead he forced me to look at his long and lanky smile. “Stupid crazy, no?”

  “Stupid crazy,” I echoed.

  The private jet tore across the Atlantic ocean racing away from the early morning light. Samuel raised his cup of coffee and took a drink. He stared at me over the rim for a moment, then set the cup down. “We are the Orathom Wis,” he said. “The Guardians of the Dream. The Dream Guard. Whatever it is that lies beyond this life, we protect its secrets. No one knows why we are blessed (or cursed) with immortality—but we believe we are the creation of the One God. We believe that It provided us with long life, and the instinct to seek out and close the doors that might open between this Life (the Alya) and the Dream (the Orathom).

  “The One God. The One Universe. A thing of such complexity that the only name we can give it is God. It is the balance. The invisible hand. It is unlike the gods or divinities that visit Basil’s work. It is everything. It’s thoughts are the thoughts of all. It’s very cells are our cells. It’s blood is the light across the Universe.” Samuel took another sip of his coffee. “Heavy. I know.”

  “When you say you seek out and
close the doors,” I asked. “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “I mean just that. Since we immortals learned our purpose, roughly two millennia ago, we have sought out any kind of supernatural or otherworldly occurrence. History is riddled with ghost stories, hauntings, self-proclaimed deities or messiahs— you name it, we’ve investigated it.”

  “And what have you learned?” I asked.

  “That mostly, the human race has an incredible imagination,” he replied with a laugh, “for there is seldom truth to the many claims of supernatural events. But there have been a few frightful crossings in history, things that have proven our worth. Spirits bridging into Alya through individual people, seeking those things that only humans can feel and experience. This causes the worst of human calamity.”

  “Can you give me an example?” I asked.

  Samuel looked out the window. The sky was cloudless and bright blue. He frowned. “You’ve heard of Adolf Hitler, I expect.”

  I gasped, “Are you telling me that Hitler was one of these individuals that a spirit used as a bridge?”

  Samuel smiled, still looking out the window, “No, Loche. Don’t be foolish. Hitler was a relatively good speaker. Once a painter, you know. He was also, unfortunately, very impressionable. No, Adolf had another man in his cabinet, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, the one responsible for the killing of six million Jews in the mid-twentieth century. He, my dear Loche, was a chief concern of ours. And an extreme case. It took a war to finally end his influence and destruction.” Samuel turned to me. His face was grim. “But he was only one. There were, and are, others, and not all of them are destructive. Sometimes a bridging deity is filled with altruism and joy. But even they must be retired from Alya. The Alya is not the abode of the gods.”

  “So Basil and I were thought to be bridged spirits?” I asked. “That’s why we were to be assassinated?”

  Samuel stared at me as if weighing his answer. “No,” he said simply. “You were never thought to be bridges for the gods. You are something far more dangerous. Your coming heralded a new age, for your artistic works, be they paintings or poetry, would open the doors and allow the horrors of humanity to cross into the Orathom. A human, Loche, that stares into one of Basil’s paintings will have his humanity, his fear, his imperfections—his sin—pulled away from him. And those conditions are like illness in the Orathom. Viruses. They become inescapable. You were meant to be assassinated to prevent the invasion of Heaven.”