Cody Goodfellow [Radiant Dawn Ravenous Dusk (epub)

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."Saddam was a fool to allow the UN to fill it in," Keogh said."Kuwait was a pearl, but this…" He turned and approached Major Hundayi so swiftly his hand went to his holster, but Keogh was already inside the sweep of his arm before he got it unclasped."Do you know about Delphi, Major? In ancient Greece, an oracle sat in a cave over a deep fissure that they believed reached down to the center of the earth, where Gaea, the living earth itself, whispered prophecies.They called the oracle's cave and the temple of Apollo there the Omphalos, or navel of the world.This place is infinitely more precious.This is the living womb of the earth."Major Hundayi sneered and stepped back."Your cousins in the United Nations did not agree with you.You Westerners are never of one mind about anything."Dr.Keogh smiled at him."But we will be," he said."Soon."He walked out to the edge of the cliff, and by the settling of his posture, Major Hundayi could tell that he was lost in memory.To heave the American over the edge now would be such a simple thing…"It has been so long since I was here last.So much has changed since it was ours…""We have always stood guard here, Dr.Keogh.This has always been our land.""Major," Dr.Keogh said, "the last time I was here, your ancestors had not yet crawled up out of the oceans." Major Hundayi jumped, because the Doctor still stood with his back to him, but the voice came from behind him.He whirled, and this time he did draw his pistol, but he could not raise it any higher than his own beltline.The man before him was Dr.Keogh, and so were the three men beside him.One was red-headed and plump, another an Arab or Turk, and the third was a white woman, with hair wrapped in a scarf.But they all looked at him with his eyes, his mind behind them, as if they believed so fervently in his vision that they had been burned away, and only he looked out of their heads.One or another spoke, but the bedrock of his voice lay beneath their words."When I was here last, this land was a great forest, and the ruin below us was the mouth of all Creation, and the last best hope of a race as far advanced beyond your kind as you are above the single-celled amoebae that escaped from this place and struggled to evolve into you.They failed, but their grand experiment goes on, down there.Beneath all that stone, lies the Garden of Eden."Major Hundayi felt as if he were going to faint.His voice cracked as he asked, "And what—what will you do?""We are going to walk into Eden, and we are going to eat the flesh of the gods."Hundayi bowed his head and covered his face with his hands to pray for surely this was a devil, and if there were devils then surely there must be God."There is no god but Allah—""Oh, the universe is rife with gods, but not one of them cares for your miserable race.Do you know the true name of the Crawling Chaos, or the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, or the Unbegotten Source? They sleep, and hear you not.I am the only god who will hear your prayers, Major."Hundayi sank to the ground before the Americans.Jagged black rock bit into his rubbery knees.He did not want to, but he feared if he didn't bow down, he'd stumble off the cliff-face, or be pushed.And the Major had come so far, fought so hard, just to stay alive in this shitty army, this shitty world.He was almost relieved to know that, now, nothing else mattered.What he had to do was sickening to him, but he had done it all his life, and needed no further prodding to do it now."I pray to you, most excellent Sir," he hissed, "I beseech you spare my life, and let me serve you.But tell me, please: what are you?""The first," Dr.Keogh said, "and the last," and showed him.~1~There was dark.There were dreams so real she thought she'd died and been reborn.A cat in the lap of someone with eternally stroking, scratching hands.A protean sliver of almost-living matter on a cradle of languid tides, her boneless body little more than a higher iteration of the blood-warm water around her.Adrift on the dying gamma ray emissions of a supernova, a blackened speck of mind that not even the death of a sun could extinguish.The dreams exploded in black fireworks like she'd been socked in both eyes, and it was less like waking up than being reborn into a stone womb, to a mother who cannot feel her, and will never birth her out.There were burning worms of phosphene unlight in her eyes that might be the test pattern blind people see all their lives, or maybe just chemical vapors and radioactive isotopes eating them out of her head.Her mind darting a thousand directions at once and returning with no answers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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