The Last Human IV - Ch. 2: The God’s Doorstep (Patreon)

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***

Hot mist steamed up from the jungle and thickened the air, and the Holy and Venerable Nester Lucco had to keep opening his wings to keep the sacred robes from sticking to his armpits. Water, Nester Lucco thought. What I wouldn’t do for a flask of ice-cold water.

Or a nice, stiff breeze.

Lucco glanced up. At the front of the hoversled two automated fans—some new invention from the Cauldron—buzzed and blew air at the Archnester. The elder priest closed his eyes softly, and turned his beak from side to side as he, and he alone, basked in the breeze.

This was how it had been the entire journey: the Archnester always rode in front, the Archnester always sat in the highest chair, the Archnester always got first pick of the servants (meaning he ended up with prime hands, while Lucco and Wasain had to bicker over the ragged urchins).

And yet, Lucco uttered not a word of complaint. His day would come, and it would come soon. That was why he had traveled, all this way, with his fellow priests on this wretched pilgrimage. To see a god. He would not say anything that might jeopardize the pilgrimage, not when they were so close already. So, Lucco kept his thoughts to himself, and leaned over, and breathed a sigh as he caught the edge of the breeze from the fans.

The god’s name was Khadam, and though it was not a name written in the old texts, her divinity was undeniable. Though why she chose to live out in these mountains, blanketed with cloud forests, so far from civilization was anyone’s guest. They had even hired a private rig to take them from the Cauldron to the nearest town, if you could call it that.

And so, they climbed up these inhospitable heights, choosing careful footholds as they walked the high-scrabble path. Well, Lucco thought, leaning back on the carpet that blanketed the hoversled, the servants do the walking.

And once they found the god, she would bless their artifacts (including the one that Lucco had claimed from the Temple’s vaults), and Lucco would have all he needed to lead his own Temple. Then, he would be the one to lead the evening prayer. He would get to choose first from the servants. And he would never have to sit in his own sweat and settle for scraps of wind ever again.

“By the gods, is it hot,” Wasain complained. He, like Lucco, sat behind the Archnester, though Wasain was fanning himself with a piece of parchment that looked suspiciously like it had been torn from one of the holy books.

“Indeed,” said the Archnester, neither opening his eyes nor bothering to face Wasain.

The hoversled meandered up the steep ramp. Or perhaps it was more correct to say that the servants’ muscles bulged, their feet fought for purchase on the uneven stones, and they sweated and grunted quietly as they tugged on the ropes that guided the hoversled smoothly up the steep, narrow ramp. But the effect was the same. The hoversled meandered up the ramp, and Lucco tried not to look over the sides. From up here, the canopy of trees was green and dizzyingly distant. If I fall...

“I say,” Wasain said, “Even the Cauldron never became so warm.”

“Barring that one occasion,” the Archnester answered lazily, “When the cyrans hung the Sun over the Cauldron, and tried to kill us all, of course.”

Yes. Barring that.” Wasain stifled a yawn. And after a moment’s consideration, as if the air needed to be filled with more hot gas, Wasain said, “The heat. Can you believe the heat?”

“Suffering,” the Archnester lifted his beak, so that the wind from his twin fans gently ruffled the feathers of his neck,  “Is the price we must bear. It is the only thing that makes us closer to the Divine Gods.”

And what do you know about suffering? Lucco wished he could ask. Even when the cyrans had occupied the Cauldron, the Archnester had served in their churches, had even mixed their gods into avian prayers, in exchange for all the gifts of priestly power.

But the three of them were close, so close now, and Lucco had kept his beak shut this long. At least I don’t have to walk with the rest of the … servants.

They trailed behind them, cyrans and gaskals and offworlders from places Lucco had never heard about, all the lost species gathered by the Empire, all those who had made it through the gate before Cyre fell. Some served the priests out of devotion, certainly, but many more served out of need. It was simple: most of these xenos had fled their burning homeworld with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and the Temples paid well. Well, the Temples paid, that is.

Behind the sled, more servants were weighed down by satchels and bags (stuffed with the priests’ robes, silken nightwear, ceremonial jewels, candles, prayerbooks, creams and ointments, and the Archnester’s favorite set of glassware among other necessities) and one ornately-carved trunk. This last was carried by two gaskals, lizard-folk with bulging eyes, because they were native to Gaiam (though still poor) and no right-minded avian priest would trust a cyran to carry anything that valuable.

One of the gaskals lost his footing on a mist-slick stone. His foot came dangerously close to the edge, and he nearly pulled the other servant down with him. Lucco tensed, started to reach out a hand as if he would be of any help, but the gaskal caught himself by gripping his sticky toes to a stone on the precipice.

“Watch your step!” Lucco barked. How many times had he reminded them to watch their steps?

“You know, I have told them,” the Archnester drawled over his shoulder, “They must take better care with our things. Priceless relics, I hate to think what would happen should they fall. It’s not as if they can ever be replaced. The relics, I mean.”

And it would be a shame to lose any of the servants, too. Lucco didn’t know their names, not really, but he had grown used to several of their faces. And how else were they supposed to make it up into these damn sacred mountains? The packdragons had refused to walk on the narrow ramp, so without the servants, the priests would have to carry everything themselves. Lucco chuckled at the thought of the old Archnester hunched under a bulging backpack, gasping and sweating as he slowly shuffled up through the clouds of mist. He’d probably die of exertion. Or slip, and fall, his broken body left to rot on the jungle floor until some beast—

“The bridge!” Wasain cried, “I see the bridge. And a door!”

Lucco squinted. Through the mist, a bridge of unnatural stone seemed to fly across a gap between mountains. It disappeared into a small hole in the cliff face—barely large enough to squeeze one’s body through, if one sucked in one’s gut. Someone had started to paint the sacred eight-sided star above the carved-out doorway, but it seemed they had dropped their brush in the middle of painting, and might come back later. Or maybe not at all.

“Is that it? That can’t be it.” Lucco said.

“Move us closer,” the Archnester demanded.

But when they came to the “bridge,” which was nothing more than a rough strip of barely-walkable stone, the hoversled hit a snag. Two great boulders sat on the corners of the path, and the only way through was to get off the sled.

“And leave it behind?” Nester Wasain asked, appalled at the thought of walking any portion of this pilgrimage on his own two taloned feet.

“Suffering,” the Archnester reminded him sagely.

Lucco, sensing a moment to steal some points, was quick to offer, “It is the price we must bear, isn’t it, Archnester?”

“So it is,” the elder priest smiled to himself, and Lucco wondered vaguely if the Archnester had to practice that smug face, or if it just came naturally.

***

The hole in the cliff was, indeed, the god’s doorstep. The narrow ramp (whose roughness was made slippery with the sprinkled mist) soared over the jungle and disappeared into a tiny, avian-sized hole in the cliff.

“Someone awaits us. But what kind of creature is that?” the Archnester asked.

“An odd looking Gaskal, if I’ve ever seen one,’ Lucco offered. “Only, I thought their eyes were larger. And more, you know, bulbous. And the color… why would the Maker keep such an ill-looking servant?”

“Perhaps,” Wasain said, always eager to cut in and steal the Archnester’s praise, “Perhaps it snuck up here.”

“Nonsense,” the Archnester swatted his suggestion aside, deflating Wasain (to Lucco’s quiet delight), and said, “I’m sure the Maker has sent us a servant to greet us.”

The thing, the lizard, or gaskal, or whatever she was, had mottled skin and white stripes all the way up her scaly snout. A piece of metal glittered on the back of her neck, perhaps a necklace that had been twisted around. Her clothes were simple and loose, in the style of a farmer or a factory worker, though they were cleaner than any worker Lucco had seen. She had a slate tablet in one hand, the old style given to school children before the Great Khadam handed down her Gifts.

And her eyes…

Lucco couldn’t help but feel his feathers prickle. The girl had sharp slit pupils that seemed like they had the power to crack and pierce to the center of Lucco’s very soul. But her eyes were not on Lucco—they were trained on the Archnester. She didn’t blink either, which gave her a sense of being afraid. Of the Archnester, perhaps? Even if she was a peasant, Lucco didn’t blame her. The Archnester might be old, but that meant he’d had many long decades to brew his venom.

“Child,” the Archnester opened his wings and held up his hands, as if welcoming a new member of his flock. “Is this the way to the God’s House?”

The girl did not say anything, though whether because she was simple or uncivlized or stunned into silence, Lucco couldn’t tell. She merely nodded her head.

“And you have come to take us to her.”

The girl shook her snout, no.

The Archnester frowned. Lucco couldn’t help but stifle a smile—he’d seen the Archnester bulldoze his way through counts and dukes and advisors to the Queen herself. And here he was, stumped by a peasant girl.

“Young lady,” the Archnester said. “Do you know who I am?”

Shake. No.

“I come from the High Chapel of the Cauldron.”

The lizard blinked at him, clearly not understanding.

“He’s the Archnester,” Wasain added over the Archnester’s shoulder, “Second only to the High Cardinal—”

The Archnester waved him off with an annoyed flap of his wing. He cleared his throat, and addressed the lizard girl again, “I have journeyed hundreds of miles to seek my pilgrimage, at the feet of the Divine Maker, Khadam. And I must see her now.”

No, the lizard girl shook her head.

“No? What do you mean, no?” The Archnester’s imperious tone cracked, just a little.

The girl lifted her tablet, and chalked out two words: “She’s busy.”

“What? After all this, there is only more nonsense?” the Archnester reared up with practiced indignation, a tactic he had learned to plow his through more than one political debate, “If you will not help a divine servant, then get out of my way. I am here on a mission from the gods—”

The girl did not budge. Her body, though not quite fullgrown, blocked the carved path into that dark tunnel. Her eyes reflected no change either—she still beheld the Archnester with a kind of fearful bewilderment, as if she was not threatened by him, but by something about him.

“Out!” the Archnester croaked, and he swished his cane at the girl, menacingly. Despite the Archnester’s age, the cane snicked at the air, and the girl took a step back. “Out!” he flicked it again.

“Yarsi?” a voice echoed from inside the gods doorstep. Bootsteps shuffled, dampened by the curling mists. She was large, for a cyran, and muscles pressed firmly against her clothes.

Wasain, speaking too loud and forgetting to hide his disgust, said, “A cyran?”

The Archnester turned and glared at him. Then, turned back to big cyran who sloped out of the doorway (like the lizard, the cyran, too, wore simple worker’s clothes with long sleeves and heavy gloves, both so dirtied they might as well be black). The Archnester bowed his head, perhaps a little stiffly, at the cyran. It was a bow he had perfected during the long occupation of the Cauldron, one he had used many times before on their previous cyran overlords.

“I come from the High Chapel of the Cauldron.”

“Okay,” the large cyran woman grunted.

The Archnester, thrown slightly off balance, cleared his wobbling throat. “I have journeyed hundreds of miles to seek my pilgrimage at the feet of the Maker, Khadam. And I must see her now.”

The cyran looked down at the lizard girl. “Did you tell them?”

The lizard girl nodded. Then, lifted her sign, which still read “She’s busy.”

The cyran turned back to the Archnester, “Did you read the sign?”

“Of course I read—we have come from the High Chapel. Or does that mean nothing to your kind?”

“My kind?”

“We did not make this pilgrimage, across who knows how much godsforsaken jungle, just to parlay with mute peasants and- and-” the Archnester flapped a wing at the cyran.

“And what?” the cyran said slowly.

“We demand to see the god!”

“You demand it?” the cyran crossed her arms, her forearms making her sleeves bulge, but the Archnester wouldn’t be the Archnester if he was so easily intimidated. Lucco sometimes wondered if the Archnester could shout down a living volcano, that is, before the magma incinerated him.

“Sacred gifts I have carried across a thousand miles of godsforsaken jungle,” the Archnester said. He clicked his talons together, ordering the two servants carrying the trunk to the front of the line. “Relics from the Makers’ own past. Valuable artifacts beyond compare.”

“Sure. Let’s see ‘em.”

The gaskal servants set the trunk down heavily. They started to open the lid, but the Archnester put a feathered hand on it, stopping them.

“The god, and the god alone, will bless them with her divine hands. It is the will of the Makers.”

“Is it?” To Lucco’s fine-tuned ears, this did not sound like a genuine question.

The Archnester drew himself up to his full height, which, with his steepled hat, put him at almost the same height as the cyran, “It absolutely is. By the will of the gods, we come. As servants of the Great Divine Ones, we have arrived. So, if you wouldn’t mind, cyran, step aside now and perhaps I will forgive your transgressions—”

The cyran put one heel of her boot on the trunk, smearing mud into the sacred carvings that detailed the wood. She shoved it. Before the Archnester could so much as squawk, the trunk slid off the ramp, and sailed down to the canopy below.

How could something so heavy, something that was worth more than all the coins in the temple’s vault, something that held Lucco’s entire future in it, make so little noise as it fell? Not even a sigh of wind. Then, the trunk splashed into the branches, and disappeared.

“There,” the cyran said. “There’s your blessing.”

The three priests gaped at the cyran, their beaks wide open.

The Archnester grabbed at his chest, his other hand extended out in accusation. “You!” was all he could say. “You!”

“You vile fiend!” Wasain leaped to the Archnester’s side. “You have defiled the ancient and holy relics of our Makers! The gods will loose their fury upon you, and all your scaleskin siblings!”

But the cyran ignored them both, and Lucco only had time to step out of the way as she walked up to the hoversled (covered in plush carpets and carrying the Nesters’ most personal traveling packs) and put her boot up, and shoved.

This time, it did make a noise. The hoversled tipped and rolled in midair, and the repulsor engines spun a morose swooning sound, around and around, until it smacked against the cliffside, and let out a roaring zap of electricity which burned the cliffside black.

“Need anything else blessed?” the cyran asked. “Khadam has given me the power to bless anything. Or anyone.” She put her hands on her hips, and towered over the Archnester, who still had that one word stuck in his beak (“You!”). The Archnester shrank back. Wasain shrank behind him.

But Lucco had traveled far, too. He had sat behind the Archnester for too many miles, smelled too much of his sweat, fallen asleep during too many of his sermons, had prayed for just a scrap of the Archnester’s power for too long, and he was not about to let his destiny go.

“Listen here, scaleskin,” he said. “You don’t own use anymore. We own you. If it weren’t for our gods, and our people, you would all be dead—”

“Not me,” the cyran said.

Lucco lowered his voice, and puffed out his feathers, “Take us to the god, or I will—”

A flash of silver, as her arm moved faster than Lucco could see. An iron grip wrenched the front of his robes, choking him as his talons lifted from the stone ramp. Lucco, gurgling and kicking at air, looked down at the hand that held him, and saw no scales. Only a kind of alien metal that flowed like liquid, rippling as it adjusted to hold Lucco above the ramp.

His eyes caught hers, and he saw it—that look. Just a flash of thought. She’s thinking about it. She’s going to throw me over and, oh gods, I can’t fly. Not in these robes. Oh gods, please!

His talons clicked on the stone again. The grip dropped from his neck, and he gasped a spluttering breath and scrambled away from the cyran so quickly, he almost fell off the edge.

“She’s busy,” the cyran glared down at him. “Don’t come back.”

***

“Come on, Yarsi,” Agraneia said. She put a hand on the young lassertane’s shoulder, thinking about how quickly the girl had grown. Has it really been five years?

But Yarsi didn’t yield at her touch. The lassertane was still staring out at the retreating priests and their entourage, hobbling down the ramp. She pointed at them, and her neck strained—but no sound came out of her mouth.

“I know,” Agraneia said. “They just keep coming. Pilgrims and priests and thieves, all.” Agraneia spat.

But that wasn’t what Yarsi was trying to say.

“Forget them,” Agraneia said. “Let’s see if we can convince Khadam to stop working for a bit and eat some dinner. Wonder if there’s anymore of those stuffed shells…”

Yarsi watched the priests a while longer. She had seen them, before. Her fingers grazed the memory bank embedded in the back of her neck, where thousands of years of stored thought, passed down from her ancestors, was folded into her own.

She could remember these priests. Every detail, down to the ostentatious hats they wore on their heads, and the way their necks wobbled when they were angry. She had seen them before, in the depths of her memories.

A vision from a long-dead god.

***

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