To Sabira, standing just a few meters from Pinnacle Rab Izd, it was hard not to feel like all those eyes weren’t instead boring into her, expectant, wary, and accusative.
The Pinnacle wore his ritual uniform, a highly ornate series of black and crimson robes beneath silver ceremonial armor. Three fist-sized blue yarist gems glinted in his chest plate.
“And in turn, the Nahgak-Ri bestowed Divine Will upon us, to be its Overseers and its Servants. Listen and know and be found righteous. Throughout all the stars in the galaxy, life must be brought into alignment with Will. All life must be unified. All life must serve the Akuh-Ori, the great Gods beyond the Gates, and their appointed ones, the Nahgak-Ri.
“Divine Will is our only purpose. Divine Will binds us together, each in their proper place. Divine Will is our way forward. In the name of Divine Will, we gather in ritual now with you, my righteous Pyramid! My Warseers! My Servants! My conquerors! My executioners of holy wrath upon the vermin and the infidels!”
Boom. Boom. Boom, the ranked servants answered with their drums. Then all intoned, “Conqueror see us! Conqueror see us! Conqueror see us!” The entire hall reverberated. The air shook with the holy warriors' chant.
“For know this, the vermin who once crawled over the planet below are accursed by the Gods and Divine Masters. They have no place in Will. The infidels are agents of Rohkahv. Through them, Trickster shattered the Gates of Heaven and separated us from our Akuh-Ori. For this, the infidels are eternally damned. For this, they will be ground to dust and forgotten to time. With our conquest, their doom draws near. Our weapons have eradicated the vermin from the target planet and will soon eradicate them from every world in the Monarchy!”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Conqueror see us! Conqueror see us! Conqueror see us!”
“My Pyramid, see me. Target Thirteen-Nine-Seven is unified! You, my conquerors, shall be marked forever with this glory. When you stand before the Shattered Gates, the Gods will look, and They will see, and They will find you worthy. All must serve. All must be unified. By your hands, the galaxy is cleansed and made holy!”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Conqueror see us! Conqueror see us! Conqueror see us!”
The first drums of every crew began playing a ceremonial rhythm in pounding unison. After nine rounds the callers joined in, and and after another nine rounds, the third drums. The skins remained at attention. Hundreds of Gohnzol-Lo Warseers lined the mezzanine, its viewing glass shifted transparent for the ceremony. The nine highest-ranking warseers joined the Pinnacle on the dais, looking out over the gathered trident.
Sabira and Attendant Spear stood at the far edge of the dais. Sabira had never been near so many Gohnzol-Lo at once. She felt dizzy, overstimulated. Sharp, hot points of fear stabbed at her face and skull. It was a struggle to stand at attention, much less stay focused. As the drums built to a crescendo, she lost herself for long moments in their fractal pulse.
The Zol-Ori was not Sabira’s pyramid. She didn’t recognize any face, servant or warseer. The black and crimson banners lining the high walls bore the glyphs of different lines, duties, tasks, and crews. Still, it was all so familiar, so easy for her to find her place and disappear into the ritual and the drums and camaraderie. Just a few weeks ago she attended another great ritual in a Servants Hall. She remembered her desire for Caller Arrow’s attention, his firm hands, his lust. All that ambition and desire for approval thwarted by Daggeira in an instant.
Memories of her initiation into the crew flashed through her mind, too, syncopated with the throbbing drums: a haze of brew and violence and sex and exhilaration and pain and ecstasy and belonging. From initiation rites to the here and now, Sabira felt like she had stepped through time, as if all her life had been ritual and drum, uniform and service. Anything and everything else was nothing more substantial than a fleeting dream. Service and unity under Will, this was the only reality.
Sabira broke from the reverie when three Akuhn-Lo Godseers entered the Servants Hall, each followed by a column of chanting Chosen. Three tall sacrificial altars followed, like floating, giant ribcages, one for each column. Chanting as they walked, the chosen guided the three altars onto the dais and positioned the ribs in a line facing the audience. Three naked, dark, and bruised bodies hung suspended within the clutches of the altars’ biomech tusks. Gabriel. Maia. Edlashuul.
A heavy respirator had been crudely grafted over Ed’s mandibles. His sense tendrils drooped. His skin was a sickly, ashen gray and riddled with pale brown splotches. Both Gabriel’s and Maia’s scalps were shorn clean of hair. Dark, lurid swelling disfigured their faces, so they were almost unrecognizable. Maia’s body was a chart of fresh scars and purpled swelling. Dull metal caps had been grafted over the inflamed stumps of Gabriel’s arms.
Once the altars had been positioned and the chosen had taken their places between the ranks on the floor, the drums stomped one final, unified beat. The godseers presented Pinnacle Rab Izd with the nihkazza, the sacrificial blade. Holding aloft the long, curved dagger, he positioned himself in front of the altars as the godseers took their place behind each one.
“Come forth, Servants,” commanded the Ihvgohn-Lo, turning his gaze to Spear and Sabira. When he spoke, a strange, hollow rumbling briefly filled the air.
Attendant Spear tapped his palukai to the floor in response and marched forward. Sabira followed, marching in unison just behind. They were both dressed in matching Servants’ ceremonial uniforms of black and emerald green. Only their facial glyphs signified rank. They stood at attention behind the Pinnacle. Being so close to the Ihvgohn-Lo sent long needles of heat and awe into Sabira’s temples.
The dreadful presence of the three altars loomed behind her. The altars didn’t touch the floor but floated on small hover pods attached to the spines’ bases. Sabira tried not to look within the ribs, tried not to see the suspended, tortured body of the young vleez that saved her life. Or the two strange humans that healed her body and freed her mind. She kept her gaze distant, unfocused.
“Attendant Spear, once again you have brought glory and honor to the Holy Unity and worthy sacrifices to these altars.” Beneath Pinnacle Rab Izd’s words, a hollow, distant groan rumbled. Eyes all around the hall darted side to side, trying to find the source of the sound before locking back on the pinnacle.
“You have confiscated for the Unity three dangerous agents of Trickster. Saboteurs. Provocateurs. Traitors. The seed of Trickster’s lies has dug deep roots into their hearts. Only by sacrifice can they be brought back into alignment with Divine Will.”
The Ihvgohn-Lo turned his three eyes to address Sabira. Her knees weakened. Her head burned beneath his gaze. “Servant Sabira, these infidels captured you, drugged you, subjected you to blasphemy, all in a futile attempt to sow Trickster’s seed in your heart. But you remained strong and faithful, a true Servant of the Unity. For your loyalty, I see you, and I reward you with a great honor. Your hand shall hold the nihkazza blade. Bring me their corrupted hearts.”
Pinnacle Rab Izd held out the dagger to her, handle first. Its long, curved blade rested on his arm. Rubies and emeralds circled the handle’s base and hilt, sparkling in the glare of the light strips. Sabira took the sacrificial blade and held it up over her head. Heavier than she expected but precisely balanced.
“The woman infidel first,” commanded the Ihvgohn-Lo.
Sabira lowered her arm, turned, and faced the ribs. The weight of thousands of eyes threatened to crush her like a slab of granite across her back. Three floating altars with three hanging bodies and three godseers just behind them awaited her.
She approached Maia, her moist hand gripping the nihkazza. A buzzing vibration reverberated through the floor and up her legs as another hollow rumbling filled the air.
Sabira couldn’t look at Maia’s face and kept her gaze low. Maia’s small breasts and dark nipples were haloed by a nebula of bruises. A blood-crusted incision smiled brutally across her wom
b. The godseers activated the ribs, and two sharp tusks slowly pressed in, just over her left breast. Maia whimpered in pain.
Do it, whispered the splinter, fast and quick. The faster you do it, the easier it will be.
Sabira stopped, lowered her gaze to the floor, and closed her eyes. Her face felt like it was on fire, as if her skull itself had ignited and burned through her flesh from within. Standing up straight, she finally looked Maia in her dark, bloodshot eyes. The altar’s tusks tightened, drew blood. Maia’s jaw clamped as she struggled not to scream.
Do it now. They all see you. Show them who you are.
. . . who I am . . .
It happened like the sudden cracking of an eggshell. The dizzying heat that had stabbed relentlessly into her skull vanished, as quick as a heartbeat. Leaving a clear, empty stillness in its wake.
The splinter was gone.
“Fulfill your duty, Servant Sabira,” Grandfather Spear whispered. “The Gods see you,”
“No,” said Sabira. “We only see each other.”
She launched forward like a tightly coiled spring. As she buried the nihkazza blade into the godseer’s throat, the entire hall shook and lurched. The floor bucked underneath her like a rearing beast. She tried to pivot around but stumbled and nearly fell. Her knife hand twisted as she turned and what was left of the Akuhn-Lo’s throat erupted in gore. She landed in a crouch, the right side of her splattered with dark green arterial spray.
The Servants Hall boiled with confusion and chaos. Many had fallen and stumbled into their comrades when the deck lurched beneath them. Pinnacle Urzdek Rab Izd remained standing directly in front of her, yellow eyes wide with fury and shock. A fraction of a second after landing in a crouch, Sabira sprang again, nihkazza blade trailing godseer blood through the air as she swung for the Ihvgohn-Lo’s neck.
Her killing blow stopped in mid-arc, clanging against Spear’s palukai. Sabira’s eyes locked with her grandfather’s. Another quake shuddered through the hall, and bioluminescent globules sparked from light strips overhead.
The deck floor lurched again, harder and faster than before. A deafening scream of tearing metal. Pinnacle, attendant, and servant, all wobbled and fell, arms and legs flailing. Spear dropped off the edge of the dais into a tangle of servants and drums. The pinnacle landed hard on his back just beside Sabira. She scrambled atop him amid screaming metal and raining sparks. Another terrible rumbling almost knocked her off Rab Izd, but she clamped down on his torso to keep from getting bucked off. His three eyes roved wildly, desperate and angry. The sense mounds below his polished horns trembled.
“See me,” she grunted. “See me now.”
Rab Izd’s three pale yellow eyes locked on her. Sense mounds shifted forward. Before she could react, his thick hands clamped around her throat so tight she thought her head would pop, spurting from her neck.
“Damn you, traitor!” Rab Izd growled. The hall shook again, harder, and without stopping. A wailing chorus of panic echoed among the chaos. “I will peel the glyphs from your skull and feed you to the granks. You will die unseen and nameless! Nothing more than damaged property.”
The deck beneath them violently bucked again, but the pinnacle didn’t loosen his choking grip. Sabira, suffocating even as godseer blood dripped from her cheeks, smiled.
Snaking her left hand forward, she gripped one of the blue yarist gems on the Pinnacle’s chest plate. Power raged through her, transformed her, consumed her. She ripped the gem from his armor, swatted his arms away like they were a child’s, and plunged the sacrificial blade into his throat. A fountain of dark green blood sprayed from the wound, coating her hands and face.
“My name is Sabira.” She pushed the curved blade so that it cleaved through the top of his skull, a new, gore-covered protrusion amid his dark horns. “And I am not your property.”
The deck quaked, ruptured, and gave way. The entire floor of the Servants Hall buckled and splintered. Super-ceramic shattered like glass and collapsed beneath them. They fell through the open air—thousands of bodies, shards of metal and ceramic, blood and screams, weapons and drums—tumbling helplessly down into the grank pens below.
41.
SABIRA’S HEAD RANG like a pit gong. Clenching the yarist gem in her fist had saved her from getting knocked unconscious and seriously injured. She didn’t know how long it was after the floor fell out from under her and plunged her to the deck below that she finally pushed herself up and struggled to clear her head. Though her vision swayed drunkenly, Sabira rolled to get to her feet, determined to stay in motion. Gem-ignited rage fueled the survival instincts she had honed in the fighting pits: move and fight or stop and die.
She heard them before her vision cleared enough to see them. A mad chorus of grank bellows followed by the artillery rumble of the thick, flat hooves stampeding through mounds of debris. Sabira’s eon vision of her own death beneath the stampede of wild granks flashed through her mind. Crimson red smeared into a field of blue.
Jolting vibrations quickly shocked her back to the present. If the other three survived the fall, she had to get them out of here now. Fearing she was already too late, Sabira stumbled toward the altars. Her vision slowly came back into focus. A toxic haze of chalky grit obscured everything. The air was acrid and thick, every breath abrasive. Her nose and throat were raw, irritated. She could barely make out the jagged terrain of deck-crashed-upon-deck. Broken ceramic and torn metal had fallen in clumps and mounds haphazardly around the grank pen and scattered across the deck. Biomech tubing sprayed noxious fluids and gasses from what remained of the ceiling. Blood and oils ran in dark rivulets and pooled around the debris mounds. The floor trembled beneath the charging granks, sending wreckage sliding and shifting, though she could only barely see the blurred movements of the war beasts through the haze. Fallen bodies of the injured and the dead, servant and warseer alike, lay strewn throughout the rubble. Whoever managed to somehow survive the fall would soon be ground to paste beneath grank hooves.
Sabira found Gabriel’s altar first, lying on its side atop a cracked slab of ceramic flooring. Sprawled across the top of the fallen altar lay an injured female godseer, obscuring Sabira’s view of the Emissary within. Splotches of dark green blood stained the Akuhn-Lo’s silver and black ceremonial robes. Chalky debris coated every surface. As Sabira approached, the Akuhn-Lo’s sense mounds twitched, and three orange eyes blearily tracked her.
“You!” spat the godseer in Ihziz-Ri. “You’ll freeze in the void for all eternity. How could you? How could—” The godseer’s cursing ended in abrupt, bloody gagging when Sabira drove the nihkazza into her abdomen.
She had just committed one of the most profound sins under Divine Will. Twice. Aggression toward Overseers meant death in the altar. But to harm Godseers? Even the redemption of the altar couldn’t save her soul. Digging the blade around inside, she it snagged on the godseer’s ribcage and used the leverage to push the corpse off the altar and out of the way.
The hover pod at the altar’s base was ruptured. The back control panel was a busted mess. After a few desperate jabs at the nerve cluster release, the ribs didn’t spread even a notch. Waste of time. She shoved the yarist inside her boot so that it remained in contact with her skin, and she tucked the nihkazza into her uniform belt. She positioned herself at the opening of the ribs, planted her feet on the lower half, gripped the upper tusks, and pulled with all the enhanced strength the gem gave her. At first, the ribs wouldn’t budge. Then with an abrupt crack, they pried open. She released the latches on the fetters binding Gabriel’s ankles and stump caps. Luckily, they weren’t damaged and dropped right off.
Sabira reached in to roll Gabriel’s body out of the sacrificial cage. A menacing, thumping tremor announced that the granks were headed their way. Gabriel, tall, thickly muscled, and mostly limp, posed an ungainly challenge, even with Sabira’s increased strength. Changing tactics, she grabbed his ankles and started pulling him out through the bottom of the
ribs. The pack of angry granks charged at them, activated rupture fields sizzling between their horns.
The charging biomechs ran much faster than she could pull Gabriel free of the ribs. There was no way they weren’t both dead, yet Sabira refused to give up and turn away. She cringed and kept pulling, anxious she would be pulverized any moment. Less than nine meters away, the pack turned sharply to the left, plowing a wide path through the wreckage. They slammed through the pen’s bulkhead and burrowed into the guts of the pyramid.
Shocked to be alive, Sabira froze, eyes wide, knees bent deep, Gabriel’s ankles clutched in her hands. Granks didn’t just turn like that. Not unless someone was steering them. A heartbeat later and she was back in motion, confused, but not stupid enough to waste time questioning her luck.
Sabira pulled Gabriel free of the ribs. His eyes fluttered open, bloodshot and unfocused. She reached down and gingerly patted his swollen cheeks, trying to wake him. The yarist gem filled her mind with violent urging. She focused through the impulses and kept herself from mindlessly striking his defenseless face.
Without warning, his eyes suddenly rolled back, showing only the bloody, ghostly whites. His body stiffened plank-straight, every muscle yanked taut and rigid. He reminded Sabira of countless khvazol she had seen with an overseer’s prod hard-shocking their lower spine. An instant later the full-body convulsion released. Muscles unlocked but didn’t go limp, and his sharp, golden eyes rolled down to see her.
“What just happened?” Gabriel asked, slowly pushing himself up on his elbows.
“I think Orion happened,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if it was him at first or if the eon was tricking me or . . . But it must be him. He was real after all. Somehow he infiltrated the ship’s systems. I think he’s got a cure for Ed. Can you get up? Can you walk? We’ve got to find Ed and Maia and get off this pyramid.”
Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven: Shattered Gates Volume 1 Boxset Page 27
