Chapter 39 #2
I can do nothing to change it.
‘You can,’ No-Name insists. ‘Everything about your life was preordained. But now, you can usurp it.’
Azadnian soldiers finally burst through the welded doors, eyes flickering between us with the determination of creatures committed to slaughter. My instincts curl as I recognise the path drawn out before me, leading to the end of my desires.
Akashun tilts his head at them. ‘It’s a shame if you die. But very well. My heirs will do.’
Heirs. They would replace Akashun in a blink.
Repulsion swims through my blood. The devil is not the only one whispering into the ears of mankind. Tyrants may not have chains around our necks, but they control something worse: our ideology.
It was my father and now him. Cutting off one head will not save this continent; it will not save the tribes of the Camel Road.
I could make a choice so the Camel Road would no longer remain torn amongst false choices.
Because what choices can the peoples of the borderlands make?
To join the army of their enemy or to be pillaged by that same enemy?
To sit as smiling mules before armies invade, only to die slowly and miserably, or to resist and die anyway on a path to martyrdom?
For them, it is no longer a question of winning a war, but of either accepting Azadnian or Sajamistani suzerainty.
Arezu chose it, because she had never lived a life where she had anything else to pick from.
But I accepted that natural order is no match for a person like Akashun who usurps it. I knew in some dark pocket of my being that I did not arrive to kill one man. I came to purge a cycle before it evolves into something worse.
‘You are wrong,’ I choke to Akashun through the Veil clogging my senses. ‘I understand sacrifice. And I understand power.’
Something snaps in my soul. I stare up at the Heavens vomiting rain on the world. The water in its enormity swallows sound into a mute nothingness, except for the shrieks thrown from the high winds.
My eyes shut as I sink into my senses; I revel in the panic thrumming in the lands. I sink further, into the water and sweat moistening the air. I sink more, into the clay stitched by motes of dirt, into a seismic ocean.
I read the design of the world festering below the Heavens.
Why I had not touched its pattern before is due to my selfish will, which attempted to ensconce Heaven into definable planes, when it can never be so.
It is a perfect design; no imperfect creature can impose theirs on it.
And so, I cannot surrender while encompassing a physical form.
I must become immaterial, etching myself into its design.
I release my humanity. I become the world.
The psychospiritual planes embrace me, eliciting a laugh and a sob. Remembering Adel’s warnings about drifting, I ground myself in a memory. I imagine the monks beside me.
‘Close your eyes.’ Sister Umairah’s voice careens from the spool of memory. ‘The bone-shards are there. You never needed eyes to see them.’
The bone floats behind my eyelids.
‘Do you sense death? Do you see with eyes closed?’
Yes, I do. The world floats in a black void of death. I stare as if the blank bone is my consciousness given form. I imagine it taking me to the Heavens.
The laws of the physical realm begin dissolving. A tinge of gold strokes against the white; the shape of bonds kneading through it. I meditate into that bone, wishing I can be there forever, sitting peacefully, scarred fingers resting on bone-stone.
Then I am falling through the past and present, into the Heavens: the buffer between Paradise and Hells. Memories unfurl until I hear my students’ farewell.
Be a monster. Until I am no longer in Azadniabad but somewhere else.
Around me, shadows of birds graze the backdrop, of gardens and a lake, in golden illuminations. Vak-vak trees curve out, their branches holding thousands of beautiful human heads with fond, upturned smiles, tongues proffering berries. The faces tempt me to take their fruit as if I am Adam.
This must be the genesis where time unravels, worlds merge and realms become one. The cosmos are spread before my eyes, whole worlds on the canvas of the universe appearing as tiny freckles on a cheek.
The truth strikes like spittle in the face. None of us are in control against a higher power. We are the trapped jinni in a lantern knocking endlessly with closed fists against encompassing copper walls.
Eajīzi is one drop of knowledge in a boundless well.
Greater worlds are out there, perhaps greater capabilities.
So to refuse the Gates of Heaven is absurd.
The monks who tell us differently are merely dipping their finger into a pond instead of swimming; they like the illusion of control, because knowing of freedom but not having it is even crueller.
Not me. My face turns upwards. A gentle wind caresses me.
‘Foolish servant,’ a voice greets me.
I blink and suddenly see the most beautiful entity. It has no features. It simply exists. My mind tells me it is beautiful, though I cannot say why.
It moves, rippling like petals dropping into an oasis. Perhaps my eyes are fooling me that it’s more mortal-like than it really appears.
The light of my surroundings crackles about, like Heavenly fire hoping to scathe, but nothing moves – not in the gardens, not in the lake. For all of the surroundings beauty, it’s bereft of spirit.
‘Where am I?’ I ask.
‘How very accomplished you feel at your human knowledge, which is nothing more than a grain of sand in a desert. This place is the bond between man and soul, a line so deep it forms the boundaries of the cosmos.’
‘We are inside a bond?’
‘Yes, neither up nor down, nor earthly. Simply there, inside a bond, below the Heavens.’
Its words trip like a riddle. ‘Are you a jinn?’
An iambic laugh flutters from it, and I realise what I first perceived as beauty is, in fact, terrifying. ‘Do I look like a fire-being to you? You take, yet you do not know from whom you take?’
Only one creation is made of nūr. The Creator is pure, but the Creator is no creation.
‘You are an angel: a creation of light with no free will.’ I lift my hands, every movement ensconced in a blankness, not fast nor slow.
‘It seems the human spares some intelligence for herself,’ it says. ‘I am a Gatekeeper, at the lowest of the Heavens between Paradise and Hells.’
‘And I am an ignorant servant,’ I confess.
The angel cocks its head. ‘You are like the rest – greedy, seeking power, uncaring of its consequences. Is one power not enough?’
‘The rest?’
It ignores my question. ‘After death, Eajīz will be asked the question of how they used their affinity and what their actions bore. So, tell me why you are here?’
As if compelled, the blunt truth tumbles out of me.
‘I was named after a warrior of the Simorgh. I come as her namesake. I seek not a Gate of Heaven but the Eighth Gate. To summon the Simorgh and protect the Camel Road. Please,’ I whisper.
‘I was told the gates are accessed through the Heavenly Birds.’
It smiles solemnly. ‘The test of this life is suffering, greed and love.’
‘People will die if nothing is done!’
‘The power you seek is far beyond your control. It’s a parasite. It will destroy you. But if I am permitted to from the Heavens, it can be given as your test.’
‘Then test me!’ I beg. ‘Old warriors have used the gates. Even the Sepāhbad has the gates! He has so much of power, and he masters it with no consequence. Why may I not have it? Why am I left to beg at power’s feet?’
‘I see,’ it murmurs. ‘Fighting over this life when the next life should matter instead. This life is a test. Besides, that boy mastered the gates through sacrifice, without breaking his bonds. But you – your bonds are broken; you abused your ties to the Divine and are becoming a Corruption. Did you not hear the warning in Stone City? Do you not know what storm is to come?’
My stomach drops. ‘It was raining.’
‘A flood,’ it corrects me, and silhouettes form in the gold mist, showing the Great Flood.
‘In every era of corruption, the Divine brings destruction. But there is forgiveness – because life is a blip, it’s a test. If mankind was to never sin, they would not exist. But when a civilisation loses all morality and the Divine sees in all cosmic possibilities that they will continue in corruption, then He brings destruction to hasten them to the next life.
In your case, the Divine gave the pious a dream about the impending storm which will destroy much of this civilisation just as other eras have ended.
The Divine warned the believers to flee to higher ground.
Many of you did not heed it. You went on to fight your petty war.
Many will die and the good will be martyred. ’
I begin shaking, not from fear, but relief. ‘The ones suffering prayed for a storm to cleanse away their oppressors.’
‘A powerful ask,’ it agrees. ‘This is your test. You are not arbitrary; every action has a reaction that has led to this.’
And I know how to pass this test. ‘You want me to use the Eight Gates and summon the Third Heavenly Bird. To save the continent and to not let this era end; I can show that our civilisation is worth saving. People will see the bird stopping the flood; they might change their ways, like the symbolic aftermath of any great punishment.’ My head is shaking. ‘But I cannot do that.’
‘Ah,’ the angel tuts. ‘This power is your salvation or destruction. So choose.’
My hands fist and my mouth opens. ‘The flood is only doing the inevitable. True destruction is a protracted war that kills millions. Slaughter, disease, rape, uprooted nature and famine. But with a flood, our era could end. We can be subdued.’
The angel studies me, unsurprised, for of course the angels have been observing my deeds from the Heavens. ‘So, you wish for the Gates of Heaven? Why, when you do not want to protect this entire continent?’