Chronicles of the Aeons War, page 8
part #3 of The Omniverse Series
“I remember him, too.” Benedict said, not hiding his contempt at the mention of the alien being of energy.
The Ouroboros rose through the branches towards the main trunk of the docking array. It nestled into a slip and powered down, as moorings reached and attached themselves to the ship. Docking ports extended from the slip to the Ouroboros’ hull and the ship was pulled into its own bay. On the Command Deck, Baxter turned to Benedict.
“Welcome to Bloom’s Point, Mission Commander.”
♦♦♦
Benedict could never have imagined the reception that waited for him as they crossed from the Ouroboros and into the Hub. A crowd of uniforms stood on the gantries of the docking bay, all of them staring at the arrivals, all of them murmuring, pointing at him.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“They have been waiting for us to return,” Baxter said, “They have been waiting for you.”
“What?”
“Your discovery was foretold to us.”
“By who?”
“By the Mysteries,”
“The Mysteries?”
Baxter nodded. “Yes. That is how we refer to them, collectively: the Nai’Marak, the Grandmaster, the Queen of Light and Sorrow, of course, the Rai’Ha, and their daughter, Gabrielle.”
“I’ve never heard of Gabrielle,”
“The Queen left your settlement long before you returned to the stars.”
Benedict conceded the point. “We thought she was dead,” he said, “She went off with Juan Rejas; I presume he’s the Rai’Ha; he came back to the colony after vanishing into the mountains for several months and began aggressively promoting his new religion, the Way of Light and Sorrow. We never heard from the Queen again; not before I left, anyway.”
“She was far from dead. In fact, it was the Queen of Light and Sorrow, herself who trained the first of us, the first of the El-Ahur. She is the one who taught us to use our abilities. She is the one who made us. She is the one who instructed us in how to prepare for what is upon us now.”
“And what exactly is upon us?” Benedict asked.
“The Aeons War, Benedict Jack. And you have come from the past to end it.”
Some Sentient Races can only evolve when pushed to the brink of extinction. Others go extinct because they cannot evolve. But no Race who looks into the face of certain and inevitable doom and survives can ever remain unchanged.
Three
The Stars Dance and Weep
The sky overhead had gone from black to dark grey when Decker Marius woke from the Gathering of the Dream. The news and the orders he had been given weighed heavily on him. He knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep, so he got up and made his way out of the city and to the foothills of the Blue Mountains where he could see both the city and the Umbra, far into the mountain chain.
Now with the sun climbing into the sky as dawn ended and day began Decker headed down the trail that took him from his outlook back toward Landing. He had a rendezvous at an El-Ahur safe-house in the heart of downtown. Before leaving the Gathering, Decker’s Marshall, Vega Warren revealed to him that he had been chosen to lead the division of Suphia El-Ahur into the Blue Mountains, to return to the Umbra. His mission had been ordered by the Handmaid, herself.
“Your selection for this mission is a reflection of the esteem the Queen’s Council have for your long years of service to the Order,” Vega said, “And it also reflects on me as your Marshall. I know you’ll go out there and do the best you can.”
“Thank you, Marshall,”
Vega nodded and smirked. “Don’t fuck it,” he said, “Or when I get to Hell I’ll kick your ass for a thousand years.”
Decker smiled, “As you say, Sir.”
He’d requested a shuttle, a transport, something to take them straight to Olympus, but the Fleetmasters had bluntly refused; at the Handmaid’s command the Phenex had commandeered every aircraft and spacecraft that the Suphia El-Ahur had, right down to their flight and support crews. The Phenex decided they had nothing to spare, if they were to successfully complete their evacuation orders. Once they began taking Midianites up to the Fleet, the sky would be blackened by more transports and shuttles than had been used during the Landing.
“And for all those ships, you can’t spare one for my mission?”
The Fleetmistress had come to speak with him before the Gathering of the Dream ended, cornering him with Vega Warren.
“No, Chief Decker; for as much import as the Council is placing on this mission, the Fleetmasters put just as little faith. We don’t believe as the Council does. We believe the evacuation is our only hope and we are placing our resources toward that. Surely you, who have lived among and walked among the people of Landing for so long, can understand?”
“No, Fleetmistress, I can’t understand; I won’t.”
♦♦♦
Now, Decker made his way through the cool morning from the Great Plains and down the far side of the Queen’s Hill towards Landing. The evacuation would start tomorrow, as would Decker’s trek into the mountains. It took only a few minutes to walk down the winding trail and reach the podways. The recessed magnetic railbeds were heavy with speeding pods travelling east into Landing or west to Acoma; the only other major city on the continent was far to the west, beyond Shadowpine Forest and on the far side of the great inland river-fed lake that gave the city its name. There were dozens of smaller cities, towns and settlements across Terra Nova, but only Landing and Acoma boasted populations in the tens of millions.
There were small hired pods of varying size which could hold anywhere from one to ten passengers each; there were also larger, wider pods that held ten times that number. It was into one of these public bus-pods that Decker slipped, entering anonymously into the city core. He was dressed no differently than any of the men and women around him and they barely noticed him as he got on and sat down. At this hour most commuters were still half asleep. Those that weren’t were already busy and focused on the screens they wore in their eyes, too preoccupied to notice one more stranger in the crowd. Time was short now until the El-Ahur were forced by circumstance reveal themselves at last to the men and women of Midian. But until then they remained secret.
Decker left the podway station and headed out into the streets of Landing. He tried to hide his horror as he stared out at the countless men, women and children on the streets. He felt as though he was walking in another dream; this time a nightmare. The people around him went on with their lives, unaware that everything they knew was about to come to an end. Most of them would be dead in less than three days and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Others in the El-Ahur would tend to evacuations, though they wouldn’t save a tenth of the people in Landing or on Midian. There was a Shrine nearby; one of the earliest to the Shekhina Mehdi built more than a thousand years before. Decker went to it, went inside.
The dry, stale air smelled of incense and candles. There was only one Altar in the Shrine, dedicated to All the Mysteries. As his footsteps echoed down the aisle past a scattered few faithful and circulating Acolytes and Priestesses, Decker opened his mind as he had countless times since being sent down the Mountain. The statuary of the Mysteries behind the Altar was post-Christian, typical for the era when this place had been built. Decker fell to his knees at the rail set up before the Altar. He searched with heart and soul for the Mind of his Queen but not a single El-Ahur had sensed Her in any way since the day She’d sealed Herself in the Keep. He beseeched Her now to reveal Herself; he prayed and begged that none of this would happen. And in his grief Decker Marius knew that even if She were able to hear his words there was nothing She could do to change the immutable, inevitable Prophecy. Decker wept for all those who were about to die.
♦♦♦
That same morning Yeung Acshah woke and felt immediately disoriented. The bed was somehow facing the wrong way and the light different, the air colder; damp, not warm and humid. In flares of memory the previous day came back to her with grim countenance. She’d dealt with disturbing, unpleasant dreams all night. As she first woke and remembered where she was, Acshah wanted to dismiss the strange lights she remembered in the night sky as just another dream but knew they weren’t; she knew she’d been awake when she’d seen them. What could they have been? The question nagged her awake. She got out of bed and went to the bath her rooms shared with the other bedroom suite on this floor. In Tear, bathrooms were communal – except for latrines, which were private. In Terra Nova, most especially among the followers of the Way, the whole bathroom was a private place. Yeung had to make sure to lock both her door into the bath and the opposite one; not out of any sense of modesty she had, but because of Terra Novan sensibilities. Doors secure she undressed and stepped into the shower stall; it was spacious by local standards, a cramped booth compared to the communal showers in a Boreal’s bath. It felt strange to her; repressive, as if being naked and washing was somehow shameful, undignified. As she showered, she remembered more from her dreams the night before. She’d dreamed of her parents sitting in the carved chairs again; but it wasn’t just Mother and Father who watched her this time. Eyes...there had been unseen eyes burning into her from everywhere and nowhere at once. The eyes had been in every dream, even those she couldn’t remember.
Showered and dressed she felt a little better. Yeung went down to find the Family all gathered on the terrace looking up at the sky. She felt a cold ball of fear in her stomach as she joined them outside. She felt relief that there were no lights in the sky this morning, though it was all anyone seemed to be talking about.
“I saw them too,” Yeung said when asked. Katherine and Michael were talking animatedly and in hushed tones on the far side of the balcony. Inevitably, the passage from the Texts of the Rai’Ha went around like an echo: The stars will dance and weep. Everyone was saying it; everyone but Mother. She was alone, facing out toward the mountains. Yeung went over to her.
“Hello, Acshah.”
“Mother,”
“Tell me, child; what does the Family’s only free-thinker have to say about the strange lights in the sky last night?”
Acshah shrugged. “I was waiting to log on to my cartouche and see the news,” she said, “I thought of the verse, but only because I expected everyone else to.”
“You don’t think the texts should be interpreted literally?”
“Do you?”
“I think that reality is far stranger than either of us believe.”
“How...how is he?”
Mother closed her eyes for a moment, keeping her ageless features calm. “He hasn’t long. He’s not in any pain anymore; only because his nerves have degenerated.”
Acshah choked back tears she’d never expected to cry. “I’m sorry,”
Mother shook her head. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. He’s more proud of you than you realize.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“He’s asleep. He wanted to say goodbye to everyone...but he was so tired. He said goodbye to me and told me to tell you all he loves you. Acshah, by tonight he’ll be gone; before supper, to be sure. Tonight, I will need to speak with you about something very important.”
“What?”
“Not now,” Mother said, “Now, we need to be a family. But I’d like to know something: Do you remember the whole verse from the texts? About the stars?”
Acshah paused, puzzled by the question. “Yes,” she said at last, “It’s: ‘The stars shall dance and weep and fire will burn across the Land of the Queen’s Children. And the people of the New World will suffer in the burning until the Queen of Light and Sorrow wakes and returns to Her Temple. The tribulations will end, but the Aeon’s War will have come to Her People. The Queen’s Heroes will be revealed and they will stand among the people of the New World to fight the Aeon’s War.’”
Mother smiled. “Not one of your brothers or sisters could recite it from memory,” Mother said, “Not even Michael. You’ve never believed in the literal interpretation of that verse; well, of any verse. So I wonder: what do you think that one means, then?”
Acshah shrugged. “I suppose it would depend on what was happening in Landing at the time; whether Rejas Juan Carlos, the historical person, was living in the community or up in the mountains; had he moved south to the Sinai by then? Did he know about his daughter then or not and of course the context in which the account was written. May I ask why?”
“You have much better understanding of the Temple of the Way than you might think. I’ve always been proud of you, Acshah. I’m proud that you stood up to Father and to the High Priestess before me and refused to continue in the Way. It wasn’t what I’d hoped that you’d do, but I am proud that you learned to do what you knew was best for you. Not everyone is as brave as that.”
“I take after you.”
Mother smiled again. “No; you take after your Father; more than you know.”
Mother left the terrace, returning inside. Yeung remained as puzzled by the exchange as she was upset by Father’s imminent death. The Acolytes who served in their home during this time of grief had put a small buffet of breakfast food out. It was, Yeung decided, the best thing to help distract her from the strange conversation she’d just had.
♦♦♦
The light was higher in the sky by the time he reached the safe-house. It was nearly midday and the markets and shops were bustling, full of people. The city’s businesses and schools let out for lunch-time. Decker walked past a park; people were strolling, running, sitting...children playing...it sickened him to look at them, knowing how little time was left before their world would become a living nightmare, for however long they had until that nightmare killed them all.
The El-Ahur safe house was in the middle of a manufacturing district; a stone building with a weathered facade and darkened windows. Decker went around the back into the courtyard behind the building. The basement door was unlocked. There were guards at the entrance, fellow El-Ahur of lower rank. Decker passed through their checkpoint and into the common room of the safe-house. People were bustling, fixing lunch or finishing it. He recognized some of them from their time in training together so many long centuries before. Others were comparatively new faces, but all of them veterans chosen for their experience and skill. He’d have a chance to go over their dossiers later. Right now he had to meet his First Lieutenant, Grigori Myrym.
Grigori had known Decker Marius for most of her life. She’d been one of the first of the Newborn; an El-Ahur born to El-Ahur parents, hundreds upon hundreds of years before. She spent her young life training at the Ehlo-bene, mastering the disciplines and graduating as the most decorated of students of her class to take on the Mantle of an El-Ahur. She, like all the El-Ahur, shared the same smooth, ageless features that belied the long centuries she had lived. Being of the second generation of El-Ahur, Grigori Myrym had stopped aging much earlier in life and therefore appeared younger than one of the Firstborn. When she’d first been assigned to Decker’s garrison, Grigori had already proven herself to be a capable officer. She was fiercely loyal, highly organized, practical and patient, distinguishing herself on every assignment, every mission she undertook on behalf of the Suphia El-Ahur. When Decker had needed a new First Lieutenant, Grigori’s name was at the top of a very short list of candidates.
Grigori was in the kitchen area of their safe-house, talking with a few of the El-Ahur who had been selected for this return to the Umbra. When Decker entered the kitchen the men and women stood up and saluted, placing their left hands over their hearts and giving a short bow at the waist. Decker waived them back in their seats.
“Grigori, update me, please,” he said, gesturing to the spare room that served as his office in the safe-house.
She followed him into the office once he’d fixed himself a coffee. In the kitchen and common areas of the safe-house, the bustle of activity continued: People were packing gear and prepping supplies for the trek up the mountain, eating, resting and working. As Decker closed the door to his office he hoped and prayed that their efforts would not be in vain. Grigori tapped the air and transferred the pertinent information from her system to his. Instantly through the cortical implant that all El-Ahur had, Decker became aware of troop rosters and dossiers, equipment lists and the planned route of the expedition. Cortical implants were highly-advanced versions of the cartouche and eye-lens system in use by the Midianites in everyday life; actual computer implants woven into the brains of the El-Ahur. Like most El-Ahur technological innovations, cortical implants were adapted from Alien technology. They grew into the brains of the recipients, tapping into the organ’s raw computational power to process information.
