The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven)

by Powderly Jr. , K. G.

  Pyra grabbed the cartouche-key and bolted back out through the shrine. It was getting dark outside.

  She slowed on her approach to the laboratory wing. The outer guard smiled at her as she passed into the Court of Beasts, where a cartouche-sealed entrance to the Divine Breeding section lay for the priest-technicians when they needed animal test subjects. Pyra paused to talk to some of the animals as she normally would, until the roving inner sentry passed through the indoor menagerie. She smiled at him and he returned her smile; he met her for worship regularly and was not a bad sort. He always tipped her well, at any rate. I hope he doesn’t get in trouble for what I’m doing.

  Once the sentry had left the menagerie, she said farewell to the fern chitters and moved deeper into the huge chamber. The counter-weighted sliding stone slab that gave access to the sacred labs lay on the far side of the room. Cheerful gold filigree inscriptions with incantation blessings on both the animals and the sacred research inlaid the huge panel. Its glaring contradiction struck Pyra for the first time.

  In the center of the sliding panel lay a metallic cartouche slot full of movable silvery pin beads designed to mold around the polygon key. Pyra glanced around one last time to make sure nobody else was in that part of the menagerie.

  She pressed Mnemosynae’s medallion into the slot.

  The stone door slid inward, then to one side, with a remarkable lack of noise. Pyra stepped inside and turned to see the vault close behind her. The short tunnel bent at a right angle toward a lighted space beyond. She poked her head around the corner.

  Another smaller menagerie opened into rows of cages filled with all sorts of creatures Pyra had never seen before. No priestly technicians were about, so she bolted across to the nearest aisle between two rows of cages.

  The animals in this new menagerie all seemed to be composites of dissimilar kinds. Pyra approached the outer bars and peered in at a creature that seemed to be a rabbit with no fur, but the slimy green skin of a frog. She tried to speak to it as she would a rabbit, but got no response. It just stared out at her with blank miserable eyes. She spoke to it again, but it leaped at her with venomous snake-like fangs bared, and tried to gnaw at the inner wire mesh. Quickfire arcs flashed into its mouth until it fell away, stunned.

  Pyra jumped back, and ran down the aisle between the cages toward another sealed door at the other end.

  Something in the corner of her eye made her pause.

  In the last cage on her right sat a beast that looked something like Taanyx with coarser hair. It faced the rear of its cage, away from her, with its forward parts in the shadow of a taller pen in the next row that had a solid back. Pyra welcomed anything comforting or familiar in this place. She approached the cage slowly, hoping not to frighten the animal. The creature swung around at the tap of her steps. Pyra bit down on her tongue until it bled to keep from screaming.

  This sphinx had vacant blue eyes in a flat-topped semi-human face with no forehead above its brows. It held nothing of the wise mythical creature that gave its name to Taanyx’s breed. Fur grew wiry at its shoulders, while a pair of twisted, man—hairy arms with fidgeting rat-like hands replaced front legs and paws. A dull contorted mockery of both man and cat, the monster vomited, defecated in its cage, and then sat indifferently in its own feces while it mimicked dirty words at her, no doubt taught to it by its keepers for their own amusement.

  Pyra choked back a scream, turned, and bolted for the new door. Her hands shook as she raised Mnemosynae’s medallion to its cartouche slot. When the panel slid away, she faced a short corridor with open bays on either side. The ideogram glyphs on the wall at the hall’s end read Sacred Birthing. Only an echoing drip of water sounded from within.

  The door closed behind her like the seal of a great tomb. Pyra moved down the corridor slowly and found the first two recessed rooms on either side empty except for a large polished stone slab in each. The slabs both had gutters around their edges. The gutters disturbed her somehow…

  When she came to the vault’s second set of bays, her diaphragm froze. There was no breath left with which to scream.

  What remained of Mauma splayed across the guttered stone table like a shed cloak with dangling legs, abdomen ripped open all the way up past her sternum; all strangely bloodless. Dead eyes flared, her jaws locked open in an unholy silent shriek, frozen in the agony and panic of her last moments, as whatever was growing inside her violently liberated itself.

  Pyra hyperventilated and whimpered until flashing spots danced before her eyes; the welcoming ghost-light committee at the threshold of madness. Mauma’s dead eyes laughed and screamed at her; laughed and screamed at the Temple’s practical joke of a better tomorrow, until Pyra’s body went limp. She never felt her head crack when it hit the stone floor.

  V

  oices argued over her in the darkness.

  Mnemosynae said, “It’s a perfect opportunity to test Lethae’s work.”

  “Can Lethae wipe the memories entirely?” Pandura asked.

  “Not entirely. But with Lethae’s blocks and my spell suggestions, Pyra will awaken from the worst nightmare of her life—nothing more.”

  Pandura’s voice wilted. “I don’t want the child to disappear.”

  Oily light filled Pyra’s eyes—they were only half open. The silhouettes of three heads hovered over her. She could not move, but felt nothing restraining her limbs. The implications of what she heard tried to lodge themselves in her mind, but it seemed as shut down as her body.

  Mnemosynae’s voice cracked with… was it concern? “Then allow Lethae and me to work on her.”

  “Fine,” said Pandura. “I’ve questioned Harachne, who was probably the last to see her. That useless dolt upset Pyra about her mother, which is probably what began the whole episode. There was a scuffle, in which Pyra broke her lyre. We should probably replace the instrument and begin our focus there. While you’re at it, can you implant fond associations in her memories of me? I fear the child and I have grown apart.”

  “I can, Pandura, but you must take Pyra under your wing to actually reinforce those impressions so they last. You must be mother to her.”

  A shadow nodded. “I can do that. What of her security access?”

  Mnemosynae said, “It must be unchanged to avoid suspicion. I’ll keep her busy divining and counseling—away from the breeding facility.”

  “But she is always in that menagerie, singing to those beasts.”

  “We can reinforce happy memories of the menagerie,” said a third female voice—Lethae. “There’s no reason to think the entrance to the hidden sections will unduly attract her. It would be more dangerous to forbid her.”

  “Do it then!”

  Mnemosynae said, “I will administer the first potion, Lethae will assist. The girl may have heard us, so we will begin here…”

  Pyra felt a slight prick in her neck, then absolute nothingness.

  M

  nemosynae’s kindly voice said, “Child, can you hear me?”

  Pyra heard sea birds. The fresh air washed into the chamber and brought her gently back to consciousness. She opened her eyes to find herself under the portico of the Temple infirmary.

  “How… how’s Mauma?”

  “You’ve had a high fever for almost a week. We were all worried about you.” Khallio’Phe said, standing next to her mother.

  Pandura was also there. “My beautiful girl, I came as soon as I heard you were starting to regain consciousness.”

  “How is Mauma?” Pyra said again.

  Pandura’s golden flame hair caught the sun from the window. Her eyes seemed tired and sad—so much like Mauma’s—for a moment Pyra almost believed she was Mauma. “Darling, I’m so sorry to bring bad news at your recovery, but your mother had complications during sacred delivery…”

  Pyra’s heart almost stopped. “I had this horrible nightmare!”

  Pandura stooped over the bed and took Pyra in her arms. “Darling, that was just a fevered dream. Your mo
ther passed into the Fields of Comfort peacefully. She told me to tell you how much she loves you and that she will always be with you as long as you keep her in your heart.”

  Pyra saw the peace in Mauma’s eyes almost as if she had been there herself. It felt so right. She leaned into Pandura’s luxuriant hair and wept.

  THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY | 367

  Opposite the village of Langemarck, which was held by French Turcos and Zouaves, appeared two greenish yellow clouds, which gradually merged. Then almost as a fog rolls forward, over five miles of the front, the cloud leveled out and came on, stretching from Steenstraat to Poelcapelle. At first it was scarcely higher than the head of a man and it moved as gently as “mists seen over water meadows on a frosty night.” Some who witnessed were transfixed by its beauty. Then gradually it swept over them, visiting slow death, excruciating invalidism, and shock panic on more than 15,000 men.

  —S.L.A. Marshal

  World War I (A description of the first gas attack.)

  THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY | 367

  5

  Wurm Bait

  U’

  Sumi’s world had changed forever, and with it all the people he once thought he knew. Those who had given stability to his life during childhood now seemed possessed by foreign demons; harsh specters of dead titans brought back to life from the Century War for the current crisis.

  Only Iyapeti remained familiar—as much a victim of this topsy-turvy new order as he. Their grandfather, once a source of counsel and encouragement, now seemed to go out of his way to make life miserable for them both. He sent junior officers to yell in their faces and to single U’Sumi and his brother out for all the vilest assignments. They cleaned up after the unicorns when their regiment broke camp on some stranger’s farmland, washed the officers’ mess kits and laundry, or served the officers’ meals, or dug their latrines and filled them in again when they moved on.

  After leaving a Dragon-slayer captain named Henumil behind with a reserve garrison on the coast, they had crossed the Balimar Straits into Lower Balimar in long boats under cover of darkness to avoid Aztlantim recon scout drones.

  The only advantage U’Sumi saw to being the officers’ lackey was that he got to stand inside the tactical briefings tent to attend his sires at key meetings. There he could listen in on all the latest war news. Today especially might make all the nasty jobs worth the trouble. The main Akh’Uzan Regiment would meet up with the Second Imperial Corps under Field Marshal Avarnon-Set that afternoon. I wonder if he really has the head of a wolven-hound like people say.

  The long southward march on the coastal road along the west side of the Straits halted late in the afternoon at a sprawling pavilion camouflaged with green and brown netting to prevent easy spotting from the air.

  U’Sumi’s fathers reported to a large tent at the center of the camp. It had the gryphon crest of L’Mekku with the inverted pentagram of the Watcher, Uzaaz’El, on its banner. Parked under the seemingly endless awning were hulking Wyvernas—faster, more deadly descendants of the cumbersome Behemoth self-propelled fortress machines of the Century War. Sleek astra turbine-impeller aerodrones, undersides painted as gryphons, amphipteres, and other winged dragons or birds of prey, perched in rows along the edge of the netting that faced the road, which doubled as a landing strip.

  Real amphipteres circled above, as if sensing the coming battle feast. Their overlarge dragonish heads bent backward over their bodies on Sshaped necks to center their mass between their wings, while they seemed to mock the soldiers with leering eyes and raucous croaks. Diamond-shaped foil-ended serpentine tails, held stiff as charmed snakes, served as air rudders in the gentle breeze.

  A bright orange phoenix streaked upward through the circling dragonry to drive the carrion eaters away from its nest somewhere in the nearby hills. U’Sumi grew hopeful at the wondrous fire-bird. It had teeth in its bill, and clawed wings—unlike most fowl—though its feathers and form were in all other ways avian. The phoenix’s bright plumage turned gray every six years, when it had to seek shelter in its nest amid the holes of the high cliffs, where no other creature could reach it.

  Once safely hidden, its gray outer feathers fell out, leaving it helpless, to live off its own fat for a month—until the dawn of its seventh year. Then the phoenix streaked anew from its rock hole, up into the heavens with new-grown feathers, fire from ashes, born again in brilliant golds, reds, and oranges. Nothing could catch it. No dragon could match its speed or the confusion of its colors streaking by their wicked heads. The phoenix always rose again to survive the centuries. So too will the Seer Clan.

  A ram’s horn ended U’Sumi’s phoenix watch. A heavy hand rested on his shoulder. He turned to see his grandfather’s grim face.

  “I need you and your brother to attend me in the Marshal’s tent in five minutes,” Lumekki said quietly, then left.

  U’Sumi found Iyapeti breaking out the officer’s tents.

  “Tacticon wants us at the Field Marshal’s briefing immediately.”

  “That foreign captain’ll cane us if the tents aren’t up,” said ‘Peti.

  “The Tacticon will be worse. We live with him. Remember?”

  Iyapeti shrugged.

  Briefing duty meant just standing around in case somebody needed something. Surely, work far more strenuous and menial would befall them if they stayed with the gear.

  The two ‘tweens arrived outside Avarnon-Set’s tent just as Lumekki, A’Nu-Ahki, and the foreign Liaison Captain did. The Tacticon hand-signaled them to follow him inside, where he had them take stations on either side of him and behind, at attention.

  Within the tent, divisional straticons, their brigade sub-straticons, and all the regimental tacticons, with their adjutants, stood in a semi-circle around the Field Marshal. U’Sumi’s first look at Avarnon-Set brought an involuntary gasp, which fortunately was inaudible over the background murmur of men taking their correct places.

  The Creatures’ eyes had no whites to them at all. Bloodshot borders surrounded black vortex pupils that seemed incapable of displaying love or mercy. No part of his huge bestial head did not have hair growing out of it, from the close-cropped gray of his grotesquely flattened brow and cranium, to the wild jowl tufts that sprouted from his lower eyelids and distended nose. Yellowed fang-like teeth grew crookedly behind under-turned lips above a jaw line hidden in greasy whiskers. His towering body equaled Uggu’s height, but seemed thinner and not so robust. It did not need to be. That horrendous head made up for whatever the body lacked in thickness.

  “Come to attention!” called the Marshal’s adjutant—a bland face in a gold-braid tunic which, for all its decorum, could not make its wearer any less of a nonentity.

  The enormous tent took on a smothering silence.

  Avarnon-Set spoke—a cold gravelly voice, unused to raising itself so that others could easily hear it: “Scouts have just reported five divisions of Elyo advancing about a day’s march southwest of here, along the coastal road. We expect them to attack at dawn tomorrow.

  “Those new regiments just in this afternoon, that have not dug their trenches yet, had better do so by sunset. I’m pulling the astras out to our fallback position near Saar’s Haven. They will provide sky support for you tomorrow morning. The Wyvernas will retreat into the hills to take up flanking ambush stations. Our battle line stretches from the mountains to the coast. I want that new regiment from Akh’Uzan and those other two from East Balimar to dig in a hundred cubits out front of the line, astride the main road, to cover our a fast retreat, if need be. Are there any questions?”

  U’Sumi’s grandfather said, “Yes!”

  The Beast’s black eyes turned on Lumekki. U’Sumi felt a portion of their displeasure leveled against his Tacticon—a soul-numbing dread that reached out and imploded confidence from some terrible abyss within.

  “What is your question, Tacticon?”

  Lumekki buckled under a weight U’Sumi also felt. The air somehow reeked with a stench smelle
d by the mind and spirit rather than the nostrils.

  Nevertheless, the Tacticon stood his ground. “My regiment is in the forefront, but we have been outfitted only with swords, spears, and older model thunder-pikes—and not even enough of these. Are there any hand-cannons or heavier weapons available for us to make a better effect?”

  “Heavy weapons are for elite units trained to fight with them. Hand-cannons are in short supply. You must make do with what you have.”

  Before anyone could ask any more embarrassing questions, the adjutant dismissed them all with a wave of his gold sleeved hand.

  U’Sumi heard Lumekki mutter one thing angrily to A’Nu-Ahki as soon as they cleared the Marshal’s tent. It did not sound encouraging.

  “He’s hanging us outside the gate as sacrificial wurm bait!”

  B

  one tired from digging in the rocky soil all night, U’Sumi barely had time to wolf down some dried kaja fruit before the watch cried out.

  “They’re coming!”

  He poked his head over the rim of his trench and gazed into the western pre-dawn shadows. Objects moved like giant insects in purple half-light across the narrow strip of land between the sea and mountains. They rolled on metal treads, like the flat-topped Wyvernas. Rounded gun turrets had two gigantic bug-eyed devices wrapped almost all the way around the long hemispheres on either side of their cannon muzzles.

  U’Sumi remembered what Lumekki had said about how the Elyo somehow drank human blood. Strangely, all he could think of with death staring him in the face, was how horribly fitting it was that their weapon mounts should resemble titanic mosquito heads.

  The enemy’s set piece artillery opened its first barrage. Thunder darts whistled overhead to land behind U’Sumi’s position, on the main line of trenches. Crackling staccato thunder like giant ear-splitting popcorn exploded from the rear, followed by a rain of rocks and dirt.