The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven)

by Powderly Jr. , K. G.

  “Wait a minute…” She ran the sequence back through to make sure she had really seen what she thought she had.

  Again, when the brilliance faded, she fixed her eyes on U’Sumi. His hair is shorter—not much, but definitely some. They’re not in quite the same places, either. Pandura’s no longer in front of U’Sumi and the Seer’s on the other side of him. Why would they shuffle places during the flash of light? Wouldn’t they be startled? The color of U’Sumi’s cloak is also strange…

  Pyra played the crystal back repeatedly. Each time, she found new discrepancies. Pandura in front of the chair to Pandura partly behind it, Psydonu’s cloak fully laced, to having the top a little open…

  Her memory flashed with the dream image of Mauma’s dead body splayed across the obscene altar. This time Pyra wasn’t even startled. She felt no fear at all—only rage.

  S

  he held a beautifully crafted wood lyre in one hand with U’Sumi’s leviathan-bone flute in the other, which he had not seen since they left Psydonu’s Tower. However, the first thing he saw were Pyra T’Qinna’s black eyes, split lip, and the bruises on the un-bandaged part of her otherwise bare midriff. No amount of cosmetics could hide them, though she had applied copious layers to try.

  U’Sumi pushed away like an unwanted intruder the desire to kill with his bare hands whoever had done this to her. Why should I care? It probably happens to the little slut at least once a month! However, the “human cockroach” model of World-end had worn thin. He could no longer deny the compassion trained into him by his father, even if he could not understand how it coexisted with knowledge of the coming slaughter and with that of humanity’s guilt at having incited it.

  A’Nu-Ahki stood to greet her, his eyes soft with pity. The Old Man made no effort to subdue his quiet tears. U’Sumi just glared at her with cold disbelief. He wanted to comfort her, to take her in his arms and protect her. Yet he could not believe that it would do any good. It would send the wrong message anyway. She’d only think I wanted to…

  A’Nu-Ahki whispered, “Who did this to you, child?”

  Pyra T’Qinna averted her swollen eyes from the Seer, as if unable to deal with something as foreign and intense as his fatherly affection.

  “Which of you plays the pipes?” she asked, as if trying to pretend that nobody could see the white behemoth in the room.

  “I do.” The words stuck in U’Sumi’s throat.

  “My grandmother said I could bring them to you.” She handed him his instrument, then retreated a few paces back from his eyes.

  A’Nu-Ahki turned to his son. “Where did you get those?”

  U’Sumi had kept the pipes hidden beneath his clothing since receiving them, practicing only when he was alone on the ship.

  Although he had heard his father admit to its beauty, most elders in the Seer Clan still frowned on instrumental music because “it was invented by Iyu’Buuli, the reveling musician of Qayin.” A majority in Seti enjoyed it nowadays nonetheless. U’Sumi wanted to play to E’Yahavah on those pipes—whether in worship, or as a sullen reminder to the Deity of the Sailor who had carved them, he was not entirely sure. Maybe this is why I don’t want the girl around, he realized for the first time. I can’t watch another person snatched away into Underworld. Especially not her!

  “…If your E’Yahavah were real, I’d only curse him to his face…”

  U’Sumi tucked the pipes in his cloak, staring at the young priestess. “A sailor on the ironclad gave them to me,” he mumbled to his father.

  A’Nu-Ahki said, “A lot happened on that ironclad during my fever.”

  T’Qinna almost stuttered. “I-I promised to come back. Can I sit?”

  “If you don’t mind cold white stuff—whatever this floor is made of.” A’Nu-Ahki helped her down onto a spot by him.

  T’Qinna came to the point. “Will E’Yahavah still accept me even after I refused to believe you or is it too late for me to change my mind?”

  U’Sumi’s heart almost stopped.

  His father gazed at her and smiled. “Of course he will accept you, as will we. Yet what you propose is dangerous to you—though not nearly as dangerous as ignoring the truth and trying to go on as if you had never heard it. You will have to leave here; leave this kind of life forever.”

  “I know,” T’Qinna said. A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders, as she sat upright. “I want to help you escape. Taanyx stands watch outside.”

  “Are there no guards, no listening devices?”

  “We usually only keep animals here—and only I understand how they communicate. Since nobody really listens to me, nobody thinks animal speech has any value. I know a way out where there are no guards. It will be dangerous; there may be monsters.”

  U’Sumi said, “Monsters?”

  She turned to him. Her eyes made him want to brave ten monsters. “It’s the best we can do. I heard that you are the only man that ever slew an Agent of Judgment, and that you did it with only a knife. Is this true?”

  Her swollen eyes transfixed U’Sumi. “I killed the Elyo. His name was Typhunu. I slew that thing and by E’Yahavah, I can do it again if I need to. Only now I don’t even have a knife.”

  She reached into the dragon hide sash she wore around her bottom garment, and produced a small dagger.

  “I’m sorry it’s not a hand-cannon. It’s all I could get past the guards. It once belonged to my father—a mottled man of the Far East. I never knew him. My Mauma gave it to me when I was small. She told me he used to come see her a lot and that they had special feelings for each other. That’s forbidden here. She died last year birthing a creature like that Typhunu. I keep seeing it in my mind—I don’t know if it’s real or a fever dream—I was sick when she died. We used to quarrel a lot, but she taught me to care about things like people, and animals, and stuff.”

  U’Sumi took the knife and secreted it beneath his cloak.

  “Please tell me,” he said to her, “who beat you?”

  T’Qinna gulped. She dropped her eyes to U’Sumi’s feet, letting some of her hair fall in front of her face. “A monster,” she whispered, “a monster I created myself, and then lost control of. I guess, being Pandura’s daughter, I have my own Pandura’s Box.”

  A’Nu-Ahki also fought down tears—a sight that moved his son deeply. “How shall we go?” he asked her.

  “The menagerie has a floor grate that drops into the city sewers. The three of us could lift it together. But there are sail-backs, crocodiles, and all kinds of deformed things down there. We also can’t let any sewage get into our eyes, or into any open wound; I think they dump some kind of poison there. And there are tiny parasites that can burrow into your skin.”

  U’Sumi said, “We’re good, but your injuries concern me.”

  She met his eyes with hers and smiled briefly at him as if he had just made her the happiest girl alive.

  “Well, they do! I’m not heartless, you know!”

  “I’ll be okay; it’s probably only long-time exposure that’s a problem. It’s just best to know and avoid touching anything.”

  A’Nu-Ahki asked, “How long will we be down there?”

  “Not too long. We must keep our bearings and move downhill to the harbor. The Temple has poling boats near the drainage canal where the sewer lets out. The harbor-master watches them for us, but not too closely. My mother and I used to take them out to watch the ships come in and out of port. I saw them there still the last time I divined a murder on the waterfront. We can take one and come ashore past the city walls. It’ll be dark by then.”

  A’Nu-Ahki said, “Are you sure you want this? We must escape across all Aztlan. They still need our tissue. You they can easily kill.”

  “From now on I’m a priestess of E’Yahavah!”

  U’Sumi mumbled, “E’Yahavah doesn’t have priestesses.”

  T’Qinna yanked his cloak and pulled his face close to hers with a savage strength. “He does now!”

  U’Sumi wisely let the
matter drop. She released him, and they followed her out into the menagerie. Taanyx joined them there.

  T’Qinna and the sphinx led them through rows of pearl cages, past many stalls, to a slight dip in the floor at the center of the huge chamber. The three of them stooped to remove the grate, but froze when a sound echoed from back up the way they had just come.

  Somebody had opened the menagerie vault. Footsteps approached.

  The fugitives waited, hoping the guard would just poke his head in and leave without checking the tiny cell window. Instead, the footfall tapped in to the main chamber. When the sentry reached the window, he cursed, and then called to a partner who must have stood outside the menagerie.

  “Move!” U’Sumi hissed.

  A’Nu-Ahki grunted as the grate slid over with a clank. T’Qinna shined a small quickfire lantern she had grabbed from a cubby of emergency supplies down into the hole. The dry bottom was only about six cubits down.

  The tunnel ran east to west, slanting gently downward in the latter direction toward the harbor.

  The noise of the grate had given them away. The guard shouted for them to stop, as his footsteps increased to a full run from behind the cages.

  U’Sumi dropped lightly through the aperture and then motioned for T’Qinna to hand him the lantern.

  “Hurry!”

  T’Qinna lowered herself carefully, so as not to scratch her lyre or hurt her bruises, then fell into U’Sumi’s arms. Despite the danger, he held her for a couple seconds, before they both moved out of the way for his father and the cat. Taanyx leaped down silently.

  U’Sumi released T’Qinna and looked up through the opening. A bright light shone in A’Nu-Ahki’s face.

  “You over there! Halt!”

  U’Sumi’s father jumped through the hole and landed on his rump. U’Sumi and T’Qinna helped him up, and half-dragged him down the duct toward the harbor. Only when A’Nu-Ahki ran on his own did they release him to speed up. Behind them, alarms rang down into the echoing caverns. U’Sumi heard the clatter of soldiers dropping through the hole after them.

  The floor got damp, as the youths and sphinx outpaced A’Nu-Ahki.

  After several minutes, U’Sumi and T’Qinna slid into ankle-deep sludge and nearly lost their footing. With fancy legwork, U’Sumi broke their fall, holding the girl steady. Taanyx stopped short of the ooze and yowled, refusing to touch a paw to the stuff. Pursuit noises reverberated down the tube, but still seemed distant because of the refraction from branch conduits.

  T’Qinna cried, “Come on Taanyx, we have to go!”

  The sphinx refused to budge.

  U’Sumi sloshed ahead, lantern held aloft to see down the pipe.

  T’Qinna pleaded with the cat, and then suddenly fell silent.

  He saw no visible end to the blackness ahead. “What’s wrong?”

  “U’Sumi, your father’s missing!”

  That was when they saw an army of cold phosphorescent reptilian eyes approaching hungrily from the inky branch tunnels on both sides.

  A’

  Nu-Ahki must have pinched a nerve in his lower back on his jump into the tunnel. Each step came slower and more painful. He heard the soldiers gain on him. U’Sumi, T’Qinna, Taanyx, with the lantern, grew dimmer on down the tube. He wanted to call out, but didn’t have the breath.

  It got dark much too fast.

  Before his eyes could adjust, he thought he saw slippery shapes squirm like giant black maggots inside the reeking murk of each passing branch tunnel. His feet grew numb, then unresponsive.

  An angry hiss escaped from one of the side holes, as a shadow lashed out and snagged his legging straps. Nu tugged free, but the angular momentum slung him headlong into the slimy oblivion of a branch conduit.

  When he pulled himself to a sitting position in the scummy darkness, a hungry, coldly radiant eye peered at him from out of the gloom. Abominable stench clung to his beard and nearly gagged him. Somehow, a distant control to his breathing and thoughts came over him, as though he saw himself as another man facing the creature from far away.

  A’Nu-Ahki sensed the presence of his age-long enemy, but also that of El-N’Lil. The truth of his situation sharpened to a razor edge in his mind.

  Nu said to the eye, “You keep changing your face, but I recognize you no matter what form you take. I’m not afraid of you. Not anymore.”

  The Creature gurgled with hatred, but only glared at its quarry.

  “I know your little pets are only dumb beasts. I’m not a superstitious fool! You started with a jeweled basilisk and then his cousins, Leviathan, and the wurm. I know the men you inhabit and then discard when they’ve outlived their usefulness. What are you this time, a crocodile, a sail-back? It doesn’t matter. Your days are counting down.”

  The eye thrashed back and forth, followed by a loud snap of spring-trap jaws close enough to Nu’s toes for him to feel the hot air move.

  “Very impressive,” mocked the Appointed Son of Seti. “But it’s just a show. You know better than I do that even here E’Yahavah’s sword rises above my head to drive you off like always. Even if you have permission to take my body—which I doubt—you’ll never get what you really want.”

  The eye leered at A’Nu-Ahki a moment longer and wavered. No voice replied, even in thought, but Nu understood the communication.

  “No, I don’t think this is your worst. And yes, I know what you’ve been trying to do to my son. You knew what I’ve discovered only recently; that he carries the Seed Line. So what! You think you can use the girl to get to him, but you’re wrong! The girl belongs to E’Yahavah—she has all along! I knew about her before we even reached Temple City. You should stick to chasing what you can catch: people you already own.”

  The Creature bellowed with what seemed a frustrated rage. A’Nu-Ahki waited motionless, while it wheeled its bulk around and clawed its way back into the main tunnel. There the Temple guards still searched within earshot. An army of smaller eyes followed the Beast, leaving A’Nu-Ahki alone to nurse his weakened legs in the protective murk.

  T’

  Qinna buried her face in U’Sumi’s shoulder, and clutched Taanyx’s collar in one hand. Sail-backs and crocodiles streamed out of their dank side tunnels in slithering hordes. She waited for teeth to shred her legs and pull her down into a sea of dismemberment. When that did not happen, she risked a peek through the corner of her eye.

  The sphinx snarled and hissed, lashing out at the passing monsters with talons unfurled. The reptiles gave all three of them wide berth.

  “They’re not used to the light,” U’Sumi whispered, stroking her hair. “It attracted them out, but they won’t come too near. And I don’t mean just the lantern. It feels strange, but I think there’s more to it than that.”

  A distant ruckus from up the drain way drew the attention of the reptilian army away from U’Sumi and T’Qinna. As if answering a call, the creatures flooded up the tube toward the noise.

  T’Qinna said, “They’re leaving!”

  U’Sumi did not share her elation. “My father’s still up there!”

  He detached himself from her and scrambled after the sewer dragons like some grim shepherd from the shadow fields of Underworld.

  P

  andura glared at Mnemosynae as they both listened to the guard captain’s account.

  He said, “We followed them down into the sewers, but only a few of us had lights. At first, we still saw a reflection from their lantern, but we had to push hard to keep up with it. Then the floor got wet and we started slipping, so we had to slow down. After a few minutes, the sewer creatures swarmed out of the side holes—hundreds of ‘em, big and mean, snapped at our legs and pulled some of us down!”

  “I trust you had weapons,” Pandura said between clenched teeth.

  “Our hand-cannons were useless against so many. Those of us who still could ran back to the menagerie grate. Then we needed a rope to climb out! In the time it took for those waiting up top to find one, the monste
rs were all over us! By the gods, most were sports of some kind—sail-backs with two heads, white crocodiles with three eyes, or that pulled themselves along with front claws because they had no hinds. Of ten men, only three others with me got out. I tell ya, Mistresses, we must exterminate those things, budget limits or not!”

  Mnemosynae asked, “Is there any chance the prisoners survived?”

  Pandura read the weak sentimentality in the Mistress of Memory’s eyes. I’d wager that you think Lethae’s blocks failed too, but you’ll never admit it!

  The Captain said, “I don’t see how, Mistress. Nobody could’ve gotten past those monsters without heavy armor.”

  “Which brings us to who let them out?” The High Priestess paused to gather her wits. She disliked showing the weakness of raising her voice—even to her own underlings. “Can you confirm that both your patrol sentries saw the striped sphinx leap into the hole just before the Seer did?”

  “Yes. One of them still lives.”

  Pandura arched her brow at Mnemosynae, who flinched. “That can only mean Pyra was already in the hole. She must have fallen under the Seer’s spell. What else could account for such madness?”

  “It seems likely,” said the Captain.

  “Well, please send a man to the novice dorms and find out. We’ll be at the oracle pyramid, communing with Psydonu, if you need us further.”

  After the man left, Mnemosynae spoke her mind. “Perhaps allowing Pyra access to the Seer was not such a good idea after all.”

  “You advised no changes to her security level and that I should ‘be a mother’ to her. The prisoners would not have been such a curiosity to her had I not brought her along to Thulae to keep her all mother—close. Mothers indulge their children’s wishes, do they not? Besides, she took an interest in the young paladin—wanted to bring him his flute, and such. It could have been useful in securing his cooperation eventually.”