The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (84 page)

Curious, Chasileah answered quietly,
“Yes...”

Trisha then asked, “Has anyone pondered how
I gathered their allegiance so quickly, seeing them to be such a
wild people that even Gabrielle failed to win them to our cause?”
Chasileah did not know. Grinning, Trisha answered, “A madwoman from
the Realms Below has collected them under her banner, she being
wilder than they. They call her ‘JehanneEmmainomaiOrleans
’
because of her fierce rage against our unholy host. That may well
be true, but I feel she is rather a better diplomat. The girl has
convinced the Witches of KordianHasur to join our alliance, they
swearing fealty to the Empire. Jehanne is currently negotiating
with the two major Wildcatter guilds to bring them into the
fold.”

Flabbergasted by the revelation, Chasileah
asked, astounded, “Jehanne?”

Trisha nodded, smiling. “Your rescue was
very much a success. Had you done differently, it is a possibility
that the child might not have arrived to this destiny with the
temperament and abilities she possesses.”

Chasileah disagreed with Trisha’s final
conclusions, feeling that Jehanne had suffered needlessly. “Too
often I have allowed my heart to decide death and life, choosing
what will pacify its burning ache over the knowing mind. Your
Zadar
lives not because of any valor on my part. Many
soldiers under my command died at Bauglow that day, some of greater
worth to cause and destiny than either him or me, yet I chose to
rescue that man because my bed he warmed as no other man
could.”

She pounded her chest. “Yes, that’s right!
The loss of his passionate rut was more than this roe’s heart could
afford to lose! I could see only my emptiness if he were gone from
me. So, while those under my command withered away under the storm
of fire and missiles, I cowered to save one cherished soul, leaving
the others leaderless in the face of coming destruction. One soul I
rescued when I should have been leading my regiment into
damnation’s storm...”

Trisha countered, “You were already torn and
broken, dying some said, others believing you already dead. Indeed!
Major ChuarWick, your second in command, could not believe it when
they discovered you alive the following day, he having personally
seen you pitched into the bloodied air and crashing headlong into
the rocks, your color bearer and those around you torn asunder.
Already, he said to me, you were carrying a bolt through your ribs,
refusing to relinquish command.”

Chasileah rejected the report. “Major Chuar
always had a flair for the theatric. Little can you trust his words
about my heroics.”

Stepping back and eyeing Chasileah, Trisha
smugly replied, “Well, he thinks highly of you. Said you were the
bravest commander he ever served under.”

Chasileah spat back, “
The man’s a
fool!
A piss ant would be a better commander than I. The murder
of my regiment at Bauglow was only the final curtain to a very long
act filled with my butchery of, oh, so many souls.”

Trisha shrugged, looking away. “Be that as
it may, you at least saved the life of Zadar, and I thank you for
that. Zadar is my life and blood. He moves me as he does you.
Should I have done as well as you if our fates were exchanged?”

Without hesitating, she returned to an
earlier question. “It does not answer the reason I should care for
your kind one whit. You’ve done nothing for
me
, didn’t even
know I existed! What good have I found in this hellhole you call
‘Heaven’? Give me a reason for my sacrifice at all! I don’t even
have a baby time in my memory to return to.”

Chasileah was caught up speechless, able to
find no reply to make in answer.

With a finger, Trisha tapped the side of her
head. “This… for this...here... Inside here - you and me - is a
mind that is but one mind, one blood, if you wish to call it that.
Sisters we are, you and me, one family, one mother, one sire, up
here in the mind.”

She went on, touching her face, eyes and
mouth, with spread fingers. “The body is only a vehicle to
transport the mind through the realms of time and space. With it,
we can sense the outside world in which we reside. I ask you, is
this world real? If it is, tell me so, please, how you know? Can
your mind escape the vessel harboring it? Lo, reality is but a
vision we believe to be real. You believe, so you act
accordingly.”

“I ask you for a fact: am I real, is Zadar,
Lowenah? You answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but only in faith can you make
reply, for only when you are outside your vessel looking back can
you be sure of the presumed reality around you. So what do you
believe then? The same as I, I suppose. That when the vessel is
rent asunder, the mind escapes into a dreamless sleep, awaiting a
new vessel of equal or greater worth in which to be placed. This we
also believe…that countless millions of our people now rest in that
dreamless sleep, and…if we do not win this war against evil…there
will be no hope for their returning to a new vessel.”

She looked upon the southern city now aglow
with lights of evening. “What is a tree, a forest or a farm? Why,
what account are even planets, star systems or even galaxies? They
come and they go all at the whim of a silent fate that sets the
clock for a beginning or an ending. Mountains will sink and seas
will rise, forests will die and deserts will blossom. Ever does the
universe go on, changing this way and that. Who can stop it? Who
does it care for?”

Again tapping the side of her head, Trisha
exclaimed, “
But this!
This
mind
goes on forever.
Whether in this body or another, it matters little, if at all. Yet,
is the mind immortal? I say not so, not at least is it
indestructible. Unreachable to us, yes! That is why your evil
brother can only destroy the body and not the soul - the mind. But
can it be destroyed? I believe, yes, it can.”

Spreading her arms wide as if holding the
universe in her grasp, she continued. “Of three things are all
mortal elements made. This you should know from your study of
EbenCeruboam: energy…the spirit of God; frequency…the songs of God;
and amplitude…the strength of God. Ether, often called an element,
is not an element at all, but is the force that bonds the other
three things together, locking, if you will, the many of the
separate elements into the three. Thus are these three delicately
woven into a fabric in which all mortal life resides, the fabric
itself becoming mortal by its very construction in that it can be
dissolved into its separate parts.”

“Into this fabric, at its very base - a
fabric that carries all life within it - rests the mind of each
living being. Though separate, all living things are one because
there is but one living fabric that shares with life its sustaining
power. As goes the Web, so goes the mind.”

Trisha lifted a hand. “Now all these things
you should know, they being the fundamental teachings of
EbenCeruboam. And yet, do you understand or comprehend their real
meaning?”

Still put off by Trisha’s trouncing,
justified or not, Chasileah answered with caustic reply. “Oh,
great vizier
, your words of coarse flaxen weave are too deep
for a child taught only by the Keepers of the Cherub Stones. Please
explain yourself in ways this
simple babe
may
understand.”

How bitter the gall when the wine, too, is
sour. Trisha frowned. “It is not the confusion of my
monkey
speech
that freezes your senses, but the depths to which you
and your kind seek to dive! I have heard report that you held
NiShanderiah in your arms as life slipped from her soul, and that
you wept for days over her murder. Do you wish to see her
return?”

The sudden shock of Trisha’s question sent a
numbing ache through Chasileah’s heart, her eyes filling with
tears. She bowed her head, ashamed over her own vengeful assault
that only added credence to the woman’s verbal attack against her
people. She spoke in a whisper, “I’m sorry...” then quietly
replied, “Your question needs no answer. How painful her loss has
been to me, for many reasons.”

After studying the distant spaceport, Trisha
again spoke. “We must comprehend the meaning of the Stones if
NiShanderiah or any of our other kindred are to return to us.”
Chasileah made no reply, waiting to hear Trisha’s explanation.
Trisha smiled grimly, and then began. “Asotos is extremely
powerful...much more so than I originally anticipated.”

She lifted a hand, waving a finger. “Oh yes,
foolish I was at the Prisoner Exchange and, if having known then
the secrets I am privy to now, I doubt my bravado would have
carried the day. So
foolish
, yes, so foolish... Since that
hour, I have been educated in the ways of the Cherub Stones and
other related matters and, yes, by some very
wise viziers
to
boot. What was shared with me you should have long ago learned from
their very mouths.”

Chasileah was surprised, wanting to know
what Trisha knew about her and how she came about the information.
Trisha refused to tell, saying only that their meeting was not that
of chance, and little it was she did not know about her. She leaned
back against the tower wall, folding her arms together on her
chest.

“Now to the real meaning...” Trisha began.
“As I said, I have come to learn how frightfully powerful your
brother really is, his powers little diminished since given to him
so long ago. Although he cannot reach into the Web of the Minds, he
has the power to destroy that Web, possibly all the many Webs…I
don’t know.”

“It is the harmonics that make up all matter
and mortal energy. All things in our universes are composed of
these two things. The ether locks the harmonics and amplitude
together at a very specific, controlled algorithm, thus producing a
permanent core or base for all universal law to function within. We
can change the mortal matter into mortal energy and vice-versa,
that is, within our own Realm. What should happen, though, if we
transfer an algorithm from this Realm and place it in a different
Realm without passing it first through the Middle Realm?” She
clapped her hands. “
Poof!
Boom!
Am I not
correct?”

Chasileah agreed. “Yes. There have been
recorded cases of this happening.”

Trisha smiled. “Normally we consider such
events being caused by particulate interchange, possibly from a
cosmic, inter-dimensional storm, as non-threatening, they being
more visual than destructive. In such cases, the storm rapidly
passes and any damage to the Web is quickly repaired.”

“Now consider what the case might be if such
a storm constantly pounded upon the structure of the Webs, smashing
like angry ocean waves on a sandy shore. It is doubtful the Web’s
integrity could endure forever such an onslaught. Eventually the
ether might lose its bonding strength, causing the Web and all
mortal things within it to break apart, unweaving, so to
speak.”

Chasileah’s eyes filled with wonder as she
pondered Trisha’s revelations.
Revelations?
Yes, in the
sense that this subject was not part of the study of EbenCeruboam.
True, the facts had always been there, but discussed in abstract of
more positive ways. What Trisha presented was troubling because it
revealed what might be a possible flaw in the creation of the
universe. Could there be a chance that the Web of the Minds was not
as secure a place as believed? How? The answer was quickly
forthcoming.

Trisha explained, “Lowenah designed our
worlds - this entire mortal universe - to be self-contained, and by
placing her immortal power into it, assured that it would continue
to function by itself for eternity...that is as long as the
universe functioned as it was designed. Intelligent life is always
at war with the mechanics of the universe. To prevent those
mechanics from harming or destroying independent life, the
mechanics were made weak, Lowenah limiting the power they could
exert on independent thinking, albeit instinctive or free will.
This would continue to work fine as long as all living things
remained in harmony with the music of the universe, producing a
symbiotic relationship of sorts between the mechanics and
independent thinking.”

Trisha looked up at the darkening sky.
Already countless stars were twinkling their hypnotic lullabies.
“Your kind has long studied the secrets of this universe through
your EbenCeruboam. You speak of three elements composing all
things, those elements not to be confused with my earlier
statements. The third element has always escaped you, so many
theories abounding so as to make one’s head swim. Yet I tell you,
it is no real secret, for it abounds in our new king, Mihai.”

“Please! Really?!” Chasileah exclaimed in
surprise. “What is it? Tell me please, so that I may also
know.”

Trisha laughed. “Ask the king, yourself, for
she can spell it out much better than I.” Her face grew grim. “I
will tell you this – no, these things: The third element is a power
that can infect intelligent life, be it angel or human. Like a
virus it grows until every fiber on one’s soul is saturated with
it. This virus produces a music, so to speak, that bonds the ether
to all other elements. The stronger the third element, the stronger
the universe, but…” She frowned. “What your EbenCeruboam does not
discuss is that there also exists a fourth element that is nearly
as powerful as the third, and it acts like a virus, too, but sings
to our destruction.”

“
What?!”
Chasileah cried, concerned.
“Please, tell me!”

Trisha nodded that she would. “As I said,
powerful is your brother, having received gifts from beyond this
mortal universe, from back in days of innocence when Lowenah was
preparing him to rule over all these worlds. The man is mortal, but
does not age or decline in health, even though he has become more
degenerate than the Stasis Pirates. His life cannot be extinguished
by time alone. It must be brought to a finish in later days by the
one appointed. Please believe what I tell you, for not from my
monkey reasoning
did I acquire this knowledge, but by sword
and healing did it come to me.”