The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (40 page)

“So why are you worried?”

“Out here, it’s better
for more than just fuel
if the sun shines.”

A mournful wail penetrated the fog—a directionless ghost-song U’Sumi had heard before
,
and come to dread. “
Love that sun!
”

“We need to wake the others for fog watch. I be thinking we be getting near the Floating Lands.”

“I’ll see to it.”

U’Sumi went below and awakened his father and T’Qinna.

“You can barely see a few cubits in front of your face!” A’Nu-Ahki said when he came topside.

The oil engines chugged to life, as everyone entered the wheelhouse.

Yafutu said, “U’Sumi, I need for you please to take the helm
;
you know it better than the others. Keep the screw revolutions needle at the third mark—no higher, no lower
—h
igher will use more fuel. Lower is too slow to turn the out-rig impellers that renew the
quickfire
ampoule
s. Keep our heading at the three-double-null glyph on the lodestone compass.”

The youngster turned to T’Qinna. “If my Lady will please, I need you to stand in the bowsprit cage to look ahead of us. You needn’t fear. It’s a very strong cage. There’s an oracle panel to call the wheelhouse if you see or need anything.”

A’Nu-Ahki said,
“What should I be doing?”

Yafutu bowed to him. “Please forgive that I presume to direct the eyes of a Seer-King, but if you would sit in the Captain’s con chair on the flying bridge. Look to starboard for a few seconds, then to port, alternating back. The chair will turn so you needn’t crane your neck.”

“What am I looking for?”

“That the Floating Lands not hem us in and crush us.”

U’Sumi said,
“I know you’ve left the hardest task for yourself, Yafutu
.
Where will you be?”

“First I must go below to check the oil pump gauges—we’ven’t run the
glakka
engines for many weeks. Then I must climb the main mast to the
phoenix
nest, to see if the fog’s thinner up there and watch from higher up. We be in equatorial waters now. Sometimes the sun burns the fog off by midday in weather like this, other times it only thins it, and at other times
,
it never gets through. Then the fog can surround us for days on end.”

U’Sumi didn’t like the sound of that. He could barely see T’Qinna’s silhouette inside the bowsprit’s armored watch cage. Sometimes the murk thickened for minutes at a time,
and
he couldn’t see her at all. He feared that the fog
might
thin, only to reveal that
some creature as large as the ship itself had bitten off the watch cage
.

He wished now that Yafutu had assigned the helm to her. But for some reason
,
the boy was uncomfortable with her at the wheel, despite the fact that T’Qinna was more used to such technology than U’Sumi and his father were. He got the sense that in Outrigger society, the wheelhouse was a distinctly masculine place.

After an interminable time of tunnel-vision on the compass’ “three-double-null” glyph and a particularly thick fog patch,
U’Sumi could not help himself. “
B
ow-watch,
con
” he said into the oracle panel, using the strange nautical terminology Yafutu had taken great pains to teach them and had insisted was necessary for precise communication in dangerous seas.

“I’m still here, U’Sumi
;
the monsters didn’t eat me,” T’Qinna’s voice said back through the panel, her tease not a bit
dampened
by the fog.

“That’s not funny!”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. That was mean—wait
—
I
saw something move in the water
;
something big!”

“T’Qinna, I mean it
;
that really isn’t funny!”

“I’m serious, U’Sumi
,
and I’m sorry! I
just
saw a giant fin! It swept just beneath me, under the bows!”

“Get out of there, T’Qinna! Come to the wheelhouse!”

U’Sumi turned the oracle dial to ship-wide call. “
A
ll hands
, con;
T’Qinna just saw something big swim under the bows.”

The oracle panel crackled. “
Con, m
ast-watch
,” Yafutu’s voice replied
;
“
I can’t see anything up here
.
I’m coming down
.
”

“
Con, b
ridge-watch,” A’Nu-Ahki’s voice said
.
“I heard a splash off the
…
what’s it called? Off the wide part of the ship—off the starboard beam! There’s a trail of white water. It’s
…
”

The entire vessel lurched to starboard, almost knocking U’Sumi to the deck. He raced to the starboard hatch and looked outside.

The ship swung in a foamy arc, further to starboard. The mist thinned just enough for U’Sumi to see that the forward end of the out-rig nacelle was being pulled under water. The hull creaked angrily. Straining bolts popped along the rigging struts, as
something huge that had clamped onto the impeller housing yanked
the vessel from its course. The deck recoiled, almost knocking him back into the wheelhouse.

Then he saw it
:
a
glowing
eye on a
massive
head with a
cavernous
mouth that crushed the nacelle between teeth
as long as U’Sumi’s arms
. That head was larger than the entire body of the
sea dracan
beneath the Gate of the Setting Sun. It thrashed and released the impeller intake, then sounded into the
deeps
, leaving a swirl of greenish-white spray.

Yafutu burst into the wheelhouse from its aft hatch and took the helm. U’Sumi was barely aware of him or of the frantic calls over the oracle from his father up on the flying bridge. All he could do w
as clutch the edge of the hatch
and stare
out
into the
roiling foam where the leviathan had been. He didn’t know he was shaking until he felt T’Qinna’s gentle arms wrap around him from behind and guide him back inside.

“Con! U’Sumi! Is anyone in the
wheelhouse
?” A’Nu-Ahki’s voice shouted through the oracle. “Did anyone see that thing?”

U’Sumi pulled himself together and hit the reply pad. “I’m here, Pahp. We’re all okay.”

“No,” Yafutu said, “w
e’re not.”

U’Sumi and T’Qinna turned to him. “What do you mean?”

“I almost fell overboard from the mast when that thing pulled on the out-rig. It crushed the impeller housing and prob’ly the impeller too. That means we can’t give new life to the
quickfire
ampoule
s!”

U’Sumi said,
“That’s bad. But it could still be worse. The sun-sails work during sunlight and we still have the oil-driven engines.”

Yafutu shook his head. “No. You don’t get it! The
desalinization
plant
is in the nacelle. It’s destroyed
;
the whole out-rig needs haven-side repair
!
With no reverse osmosis intake, we’ll run out of drinking water inside two weeks
!
That and our oil fuel range can’t get us back to either side of the world, no matter how slow we go—not without plenty of sunshine.
N
o amount of sunshine and fair wind can get us to any fixed shore in two weeks! It’ll take six weeks at best. We’ll die of thirst long before that!”

U’Sumi stood up straight. “You’re forgetting shores where there must be a fresh water supply. The Floating Lands have plant and animal life, don’t they? They support those Qingu you spoke of.”

Yafutu slumped against the wheel. “The Qingu are demons!”

“Demons don’t eat their own dead—as you said the Qingu do—because demons don’t die.
What if they’re just horribly inbred
people
whose ancestors were trapped on these floating vegetation mats when they broke away from
a
coastal
jungle?
If plants grow there, then there must be plant juice, or even fruit.”

“Those of my people who’ve survived the Floating Lands speak of water-fruit pods and trees with juicy stems. But to go there is death!”

“Wrong!” U’Sumi said. “To go there might be
death. To not go there will definitely be death
,
in little more than two weeks!”

T

he fog lasted two days, during which large shadowy shapes sometimes drifted close enough to just make out in silhouette. U’Sumi often heard the sounds of birds and the occasional roar of some large reptile nearby.
B
efore
,
they had
each
stood
one
-person night watch
es. Now
only one at a time could
safely get any
sleep.

On the third day
since Leviathan destroyed the impeller
,
the mists thinned to a haze
,
where the sun’s disk intermittently
grew
visible
—just n
ot brightly enough to charge the tiny black cells
cover
ing
the sun-sails. The ship seemed hemmed into a large lake or bay with jungle on nearly all s
ides
and the
water dead calm.

U’Sumi came into the wheelhouse, where Yafutu hugged the helm
as if
it was his lost mother. The youth stepped away from the wheel when he noticed he was no longer alone.

“We need to approach one of the islands
,
”
U’Sumi said.
“
It looks like the sun might break through this afternoon. What do you think?”

“That soon we’ll all be joining my family.”

U’Sumi put his hand on Yafutu’s shoulder. “I’ll defend you with my sword and my last breath, Little Brother. There’s no other way.
E’Yahavah
will watch over us
,
and I won’t let us die for lack of trying to live. He got us free from the Evil that consumed the Gates of the Setting Sun, didn’t he?”

Yafutu nodded then looked up. “We have line and grappling hooks. They say the wood-vines the islands float on are soft and easy to hook. The one thing we don’t need to worry ’bout is running aground. Ship’s armory has a few swords, so the Seer, the Lady, and I will also be armed.”

“I won’t need a sword,” T’Qinna announced as she entered the wheelhouse. “The Caretaker gave U’Sumi a bow and a quiver of arrows with
Phoenix Fire
. I used to practice archery for sport back in Epymetu. I wasn’t bad at it, either. Split an apple at a hundred cubits more than once.”

Yafutu’s eyes brightened. “That’s even better. You don’t want to get close enough to Tiamatu’s creatures to have to use a sword.”

U’Sumi said,
“Sorry, Yafutu, but T’Qinna stays with the ship
.
”

She put her hands on her hips, and stuck out her jaw at him. “I can take care of myself, Sir Paladin!”

U’Sumi smiled. “I know you can. That’s why I need you, sharp with a fitted arrow, in the flying bridge. You may need to take care of us all by covering our retreat and by keeping intruders from taking the ship while we’re gone. It’s just sound tactics, is all. You’re the only archer.”

T’Qinna was instant sweetness again. “Your diplomacy skills are improving. I like that.”