Finally, after they passed over Ropolis and some other domed cities without stopping, they turned their ships back to Antyra I.
In the ten days since the opening, the temples had regained everything they had lost in the last six centuries of heresy. The Shindam was thoroughly disbanded, its structures thoroughly demolished as if they never existed. The tarjis even burned the Gondarra Tower,47 the greatest project of the council. Everything that reminded the Antyrans of their sinful past was destroyed, burned and forgotten—at least on Antyra I and II. Ropolis was the only large city spared from fire because the temples didn’t have time to deal with it. Yet.
The tarjis on Antyra II displaced by Belamia’s anger started to be evacuated to Antyra I. According to Baila’s order, everyone was required to provide them food and shelter. Only they were supposed to be saved; the others who had the misfortune to survive the worst-imaginable storm were forced to gather the crumbles of the lost harvest and store them in the large silos of the temples.
On the second day of anxious waiting, the holophones finally announced that the gods were returning to Antyra I, their trajectory bringing them over Alixxor. The news spread like wildfire among the tarjis, who shouted and raised their hands in the air, elated that the moment they were waiting for all their lives had finally arrived.
The weather for the day was expected to be just right for Zhan’s arrival. True, the morning was a bit chilly for the time of the year, and this alone should have been enough to worry the Antyrans, so used to the warmth of the firewall… but few were thinking about glaciation.
After descending from orbit, the godly ships stopped some twenty miles above the western plains, close to the former military spaceport. Right away, hordes of tarjis rushed to the meeting place, some on foot, some riding their moulans, some flying in the air-jets captured from the Shindam’s bureaucrats. Many were holding skillfully decorated aromatic bowls, with coal embers buried under the scented seeds.
The air quickly became saturated by scented wisps of colored smoke, tangled in spectacular patterns above the crowd.
The first tarjis jumped the ditches bordering the farmland and stormed the tall grasses that reached up to their chests, stomping them under their feet. Now and then, one could hear the sound of the acajaa plants scattered among the grass snapping under the onslaught, followed by the angry shouts of the unlucky Antyrans splashed by the sticky juice.
The moulans became harder and harder to restrain; they had to be jostled and bridled with loud shouts to resist the urge to take a snack from the juicy leaves waiting to be tasted.
In less than an hour, millions of Antyrans flooded the plains below the space fleet. Several high-altitude clouds were hiding the ships, but everyone was looking upward. They knew the gods were there, and everyone felt the sacred energy flowing from the sky.
The crowd wasn’t as disorganized as one might think at first smell. The initiates were running feverishly among the tarjis, yelling orders. Soon, the crowd formed a perfect disk, the moulan riders placed on the outskirts. They left a square opening in the center, flanked by several rows of individuals who appeared to be soldiers—most likely agents, mixed with the deadly assassins of the corias. Obviously, Baila didn’t want to take any chances. All their murra rikanes had triple banners, depicting the wealth of things granted by Zhan at the creation of the world.
Hundreds of tarjis dressed in their humble prayer robes came forward to lay fragrance bowls on the grass in front of the first rows.
The prophet’s air-jets, lavishly adorned with murra leaves, hovered over the eastern side of the square. When they stopped, Baila walked on the flying platform,48 his silhouette clearly visible despite his diminutive stature.
The prophet was dressed in a thin, white mesh top that skillfully concealed his tail. Obviously, he couldn’t meet the gods in such shabby clothes. He raised the most ceremonial robe he had, the “Black Flame,”49 which gleamed unbelievably in the morning light. With ritual moves, he pulled it over his mesh.
The tarjis quickly imitated him: they pulled their beautiful white cloaks from their belt pouches and put them over the prayer robes. For a brief moment, when the star appeared through the clouds, their clothes shined so brightly they almost couldn’t be looked at.
Finally, the moment they all waited for arrived: Baila XXI, the prophet who wiped out the Shindam’s shadow in less than a week, was here to greet the gods!
“Children of the light,” the prophet thundered over the plains, “Glory to Zhan the great!”
Electrified, the tarjis began to chant in unison: “Glory! Glory! Glory!”
“My children, victory is ours! We won the war with the Shindam, and the gods are smiling on us again!” he shouted, raising his arms to the sky. “You, who honored the seal of the covenant, will take the light from Zhan’s own hand. He is going to reward you for your loyalty beyond your wildest dreams!”
Long cheers boomed over Alixxor. Even though Gill was far from the plains, he could hear the shouts like the thunder of a distant storm.
The prophet waited patiently for the noise to subside—which took a good several minutes—and turned his face to the holophone.
“I have a word for you, too, my little unbelievers,” he said, smiling ominously, “you who defiled his holy light and worshipped the god of darkness. Don’t be afraid that he forgot your reward! His eye will bring it to you!”
The tarjis exploded in laughter.
“Zhan, is a bit… upset,” the prophet said with a sigh, pretending to feel pity. “Or rather, he’s angry. Very angry. And how could he not be? He was sleeping so well!”
He gazed to the sky, searching for the tacit approval of the god.
“Now look around!” he commanded, making a broad move with his murra staff. “He made everything! After such a burden, he fell into a deep sleep, and no one was allowed to wake him. No one, you hear me? But Arghail tempted the kyi of his servant, Raman the fool. Raman will suffer in eternity for his betrayal!”
Of course, there was a slight inconsistency in the story: Raman couldn’t possibly “betray” a religion that didn’t exist in his times—and that arrived with a rain of fire, burning him to death in his sumptuous palace. Luckily for Baila, nobody seemed to be bothered by such irrelevant details.
“Today, after a thousand years, we broke again the Sacred Law. My sons, who knows what heinous crime was committed this time? Who can tell me why Zhan had to awake again and open the skies?”
He paused, waiting for an answer from the crowd. Predictably, it didn’t come.
“Maybe you can tell us, Your Greatness!” Baila exclaimed, emphasizing the title with derision.
He made a sign to the troops on the right side of his platform. The crowd immediately split, and Regisulben, the Shindam’s acronte, was unceremoniously pushed into the square.
He was dressed in tattered clothes and looked emaciated, a barely recognizable wreck wobbling on his feet. His hands and ankles were tied up, which was an excessive measure given that he could barely drag his feet and was wearing a proximity collar around his neck. The tarjis shouted and smacked their lips in repulsion.
“Why did you follow the darkness, Your Greatness? What madness pushed you to defile the holy land of Alixxor and bring Arghail here?”