The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (32 page)

From the top of the sandy embankment, U’Sumi saw that t
he
sewage
canal emptied into the harbor off to their left. The bank fell
gradually
down to the shore on its opposite slope, to their right. There, tied to an ancient pole in the low tide mud, sat the nearest of T’Qinna’s punts.

“There’s a small village not far along the coast, west,” she said. “We can buy new clothes and hire a unicorn so the Seer doesn’t have to walk.”

“Buy? Hire?” U’Sumi asked. He and his father were broke.

Pyra pulled two bags of small gold ingots from her oversized breast cups, and smiled. “My life savings
; t
emple patrons are big tippers.”

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

And he named them all; the eldest, who was the first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean were called Atlantic.

—Plato

Critias
(
o
n
the kings of Atlantis)

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

Orb

T

he unicorn surged forward, snort
ing
as U’Sumi tri
ed to hold the beast steady. It
s great beak snapped against the bit and kicked up fountains of beach sand as if it wanted to charge the ferry that approached shore with clanging bells and
shrill
whistle. The shallow inland Sea of Aztlan glittered southward, a liquid gold reflecting the serene afternoon sky.

A’Nu-Ahki’s incomprehensible decision to go southwest irritated his son. Why hadn’t they simply turned east at the Paqtli Crossroads for Syrsae, or even southeast to At’Lahazhia, while still in the hilly fields of the Central Aztlan Farm Consortium? From either destination
,
they could have circled the war zone by taking a ferry across the Hydra Gulf to Goloth, then cutting home through neutral Far Kush. From there
,
they could have crossed the Straits of Kush to either of the Near Kush ports of E-Tanna or the Great Havens and then walked home to Akh’Uzan.

“It’s time for us to go on a little offensive of sorts.” U’Sumi’s father had announced his plan over the eerie dance of their campfire light by a river
ford
north of the Paqtli Crossroads, nearly a month ago.

U’Sumi had asked,
“How can
only three of us go on the offensive
?”

“The reason
there are only three of us is that for too long
we have thought only defensively.
I’m
not
suggesting
an offensive based on numbers
anyway
.”

“What’s he talking about?” T’Qinna had asked U’Sumi.

He remembered how the firelight had shimmered in her
multicolored
hair
,
as she pulled and scratched at her new wrap-around garment—clearly more clothes than she had ever been used to wearing.

Just
when
U’Sumi
bega
n
to
admit
secretly to himself that he enjoyed watching fiery Pyra move about,
unwittin
gly provocative, in her priestess garb, A’Nu-Ahki had insisted she purchase something more modest. The Old Man had picked out the wrap for her at a street vendor in the coastal village several day’s journey west of Temple City, to save time after she had returned twice with clothes nearly as minuscule as her old ones.

Unfortunately
,
he had chosen the sort of dress only an old woman would wear in those parts
—
a
style that on an otherwise attractive young siren drew almost as much attention as her uniform had.

They had also found a good deal on the old unicorn while crossing the fields and orchards of Aztlan’s other vast agricultural consortium in the northeast. The bony quasi-dragon looked as
if
he might have a couple years left in him. The wretched creature grew more chipper each day
,
as T’Qinna sang and talked to him. She named him Shell-head
,
and took to polishing his
boney collar
-shield with the edge of her wrap—a service the ancient unicorn enjoyed with
a
cooing
that sounded
odd
ly
bird-like
for something so big.

“Why southwest?” U’Sumi had whined over the campfire by Paqtli.

“The Gates of the Setting Sun,” his father had answered, while peer
ing
into the embers as if seeing visions of what they would find there. “There may be people in that region who still remember Q’Enukki, despite the defection of Psydonu’s mother. They might join us.”

U’Sumi
could
say nothing
after that.
The Old Man won
T’Qinna over to
his
quest by his desire to give
others
the same chance he had given her. U’Sumi resigned himself to the inevitable. Soon after, A’Nu-Ahki had even begun to speak openly in some of the farming villages along the way.
Nothing like leaving a trail for pursuers to follow!

U’Sumi
only
wanted to go home, mourn the dead, and those who were about to die.
What about Mother, Mamu, the Ancient, and
Khumi? Didn’t they deserve to know that some of their loved ones had survived?

After more than four months of crossing greater Aztlan, the approaching ferry to Psydonis signaled their last opportunity to follow any homeward course easily or soon.

The old boat chugged into the wharf next to the strip of beach where U’Sumi, A’Nu-Ahki, T’Qinna, Shell-head, and Taanyx waited. The vessel was a run-down relic of the Century War Era that still used a wood-burning steam engine to drive its paddle-wheel.

Its ramp lowered, opening a squared-off bow between two sculpted long-necked leviathans that brooded over the off-loaders and inspected those waiting to board. The spade-shaped bodies of the leviathans spread out on either side of the small ship to
form
the vessel’s beam. Their tandem tails concealed the axle and chassis of the ferry’s drive wheel. Barricades protected the encircling main and upper decks from
real
sea serpents, which occasionally took
man’s
invasion of their domain personally.

Once the old passen
gers and cargo had finished off—
loading
,
and
the crew took on new
wood
, food stores,
and water, the b
oatswain
signaled the new passengers to board. T’Qinna handed the fare for three people, her cat, and a unicorn to the ferry’s purser as they came up the ramp. She then notified A’Nu-Ahki that they had now spent a third of the money.

U’Sumi said,
“All the more
reason we should have went east.
”

A’Nu-Ahki finally took him aside by the shoulder. “You seem to think I’m still suffering from fever or something
,
and I’m getting a bit tired of it! Had we turned east or southeast, we would have found ourselves right in the midst of a gathering Aztlantim amphibious assault across the Hydra Gulf. Even as I speak, Psydonu’s forces are invading Far Kush, from Goloth to Firth Dracan, violating the neutrality, and cutting off any chance of us getting home by that route.”

“How do you know all this?”

A’Nu-Ahki arched his brows and gently smacked the back of his son’s head. “Hello? Seer!”

U’Sumi straightened his hair out and grimaced.

“Maybe you’re still too afraid of your gift to listen to it, but I’m not. By the time we reach Psydonis, news by orb will have preceded us of the invasion. When that happens, I’m going to
have to insist that you stop trying to second-guess me every step of the way. Got it?”

“Yes, my Father!” U’Sumi said
,
wretched
that T’Qinna had witnessed their little scene.

After A’Nu-Ahki left to go up onto the promenade for some air, T’Qinna approached U’Sumi and accidentally-on-purpose bumped into him. She had a worried look on her face.

“What do you want?” He accentuated the
“
you
.
”

“Don’t you trust him
anymore
?”

He faced her and felt like holding her and never letting go. Instead, he said, “Of course I trust him! He’s my father! Nobody’s had a better one.”

She placed her hands on her hips, and glared up at him. “I don’t get you. I used to fight with my mother all the time and it used to sound like you and him just now. I cared for her a lot, but she would let her lovers walk all over her. She even pretended not to notice when some of them tried to seduce me.
However,
she was my Mauma, and I would give anything just to tell her that I loved her one last time. Why do you argue with your father when he’s been so good to you?”

“I don’t know! I just miss my mother, my ancestors, and my little brother, I guess.”

“And he doesn’t?”

U’Sumi glared back at her. “If he had a vision about some invasion, then why didn’t he just say so? Look, I don’t need you to lecture me on how to handle my father
;
I’m not one of your troubled patrons!”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t do troubled patrons
anymore
! Did it ever occur to you that maybe he wants you to come around for reasons other than
need
? If it was up to you, I’d still be at Temple Epymetu getting beat up by my troubled patrons!”

U’Sumi felt like dying.
Why do I keep pushing her away like this?

Before he could think, his words gushed out in a flood. He caught her arm before she could turn
to
walk away. “I’m sorry
;
I shouldn’t have said that—it was uncalled for. I know I’ve been confused and sometimes even mean to you, but to me you are worth all the trouble we’ve seen in this war—even the death of my brother, who I loved more than anyone!”

She stopped pulling against his grip.

“Please, forgive me!” he said. “Honest, I never meant to hurt you
and I don’t want to hurt you any more—ever! I was afraid
you’d get inside me and then Underworld would somehow take you away. I can’t seem to risk hoping
anymore
!
Underworld
always takes people away!”

For a long while
,
T’Qinna’s
green eyes scrutinized him with an expression he couldn’t read. The pain he’d put in them seemed to ease. She looked as if she would say something, but seemed unsure of herself, as if battling inside over what she should do. Her eyes widened
and
her face quivered, as though she stood on the very edge of some great precipice.

U’Sumi didn’t expect what happened next.

T’Qinna threw herself at him from her
“
precipice,
”
wrapped her arms around his back, and whispered for his ears alone, “I’m not sure I fully understand, but I believe you. I’m sorry about your brother—I didn’t know. Don’t worry
;
Underworld won’t take me away.” She then cocked her head sideways, and asked, “What do you mean by that, anyway?”

“She knows I’m real and does not curse me to my face
…
or you.”

U’Sumi broke down. He told her about the deaths of Iyapeti and Lumekki, then the fight inside the Elyo vehicle. He spoke for the first time about the sailor with red-sore and how he had first gotten the pipes she had returned to him. He described his own
W
orld-end
vision and the fear that she would go the way of that sailor somehow—only a million times worse because of how he really felt about her. “It’s been so hard, I didn’t want to go west, meet new people, and watch them be snatched away. I’ve seen enough death! And in a few
decades,
I’m going to see a lot more. The more people I see the more faces I’ll re
member
when the time comes!”

“But maybe there’ll be a few who follow!” She smiled for him, her eyes emerald sunrises. “If I’m worth the trouble
,
then so are they.”

“But why should anyone believe us? We’re just three wandering vagabonds with a strange story, while Psydonu controls the orbs and the oracles and can paint any picture for the public that he wants—and they’ll believe him
,
too! Even when it’s dumb, the repetition
and lack of intelligent-sounding alternatives
makes it feel real!”

“I believed you
,
and I was raised by the Temple itself.”

He gently held her face in his hand. “Do you really feel for me what I feel for you?”

She laughed and for a split second
,
U’Sumi thought all the universe would crumble to sand in a frozen moment of torment. “You mean you can’t tell? From the first second I saw you on the sedan coach I started having major fantasies of running off with you to some far-off land where they’ve never heard of Temple or titans or the war! Of course, once I got to know you, I knew I couldn’t win you by any Temple art—and that made me want you
even more
! I thought I was pretty obvious.”

“You were. But that was before, when I thought you were just—well, being a priestess—no offense.
”

She placed her hand over his against her face. “Fog of war, my love. How could you know that I wasn’t?”

“
I need to know something now, though. It’s real important that you be honest with me, even if it hurts.”

“What is it?”

“My father’s right. I need to start growing in my gift
,
and part of that’s in the question I have to ask.”