The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (16 page)

“May I see him?”

The soldier laughed. “For a prisoner, you sure make a lot of demands. Not to worry
;
I’m taking you to the holding pen now, where you can see him all you want.”

Just then, a howl grew to fill the air from the east. Both men paused and looked up to see a cloud of astras
streaking toward them.

“Down!” U’Sumi’s captor yelled, shoving him in front of himself toward a row of trenches.

The sky support Avarnon-Set had pulled back the day before arrived too late to help the troops, but not too late to initiate a counter-attack forming in the hills to the north. Both U’Sumi and his captor fell into the trench just as staccato chain cannon fire trailed them in from above. Ear bleeding whistles screeched all around, as bomb pods streaked to earth and exploded—violent shooting stars that left miniature versions of the great Crater Umara in the Desolation of Nhod.

As the air strike continued, another soldier dropped into the hole with a relayed order for U’Sumi’s captor. “Tacticon has ordered us to pull back to this morning’s line! The enemy has a large column in the highlands formed to cut us off at the narrow point between the mountains and the sea!”

U’Sumi’s guard nodded. “Have the regular prisoners rounded up to feed the Agents of Judgment. I’ll see to the two specials.”

The runner took off down the trench.

U’Sumi’s captor pulled him in the opposite direction, toward what had been a small sub-altern’s platoon command bunker. A
few soldiers inside guarded an unconscious man bound on the dirt floor.

U’Sumi’s eyes adjusted to the light
,
and
then his heart almost stopped.

The man on the ground was his father.

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook? Or press down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in his nose? Or pierce his jaw with a hook?
…
Can you fill his skin with harpoons,
or
his head with fishing spears? Lay your hand on him;
remember
the battle; you will not do it again
…
.
Who can strip off his outer armor? Who can come within his double mail? Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth there is terror. His strong scales are his pride,
s
hut
up as with a tight seal. One is so near to another,
that
no air can come between them. They are joined one to another;
they
clasp each other and cannot be separated. His sneezes flash forth light,
and
his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning torches; Sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils smoke goes forth,
as
from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals,
and
a flame goes forth from his mouth. In his neck lodges strength,
and
dismay leaps before him. The folds of his flesh are joined together,
f
irm
on him and immovable
…
.
When he raises himself up, the mighty fear; because of the crashing they are bewildered. The sword that reaches him cannot avail;
nor
the spear, the dart, or the javelin. He regards iron as straw,
b
ronze
as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee
…
.
His underparts are like sharp potsherds;
h
e
spreads out like a threshing sledge on the mire. He makes the depths boil like a pot
…
.
Behind him he makes a wake to shine;
one
would think the deep to be grey haired. Nothing on earth is like him,
one
made without fear. He looks on everything that is high;
and
is king over all the sons of pride.

—
Job
41:1-34

NASB (abridged)

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

The Song of Tiamatu

F

or U’Sumi and his father
,
the death march southwest to the coastal city of Akko, then westward across occupied Southern Lumekkor, ended at the Haven of The Twins on the northern outlet of the Great Central Channel.
T
here they
went
aboard a huge Consortium ironclad that steamed north, up the western
edge
of the
Yawam Tsafuni—
the sea divid
ing
Aztlan to the west from Northern Lumekkor in the east
, until it opened into the Polar Ocean
.

U’Sumi
had
wondered why their captors had
no
t simply crossed the channel into central Aztlan, to continue north by land. Then he overheard sailors speak of a recent Aztlantim naval victory off the Ardis headlands that had cleared the
Yawam Tsafuni
of enemy warships, except for a “small nest of sea vipers” at a base they called “Monitor Point.”

U’Sumi thank
ed E’Yahavah
. Going by sea had doubtless saved his father’s life. A’Nu-Ahki had barely made it to “The Twins” with his infected wounds and his body dehydrated by fever. Soon after they had gotten under way, he faded
in
to unconsciousness in their cell within the ironclad’s brig.

Harsh steel bulkheads closed
them
in with
a
twisted pipe-lined overhead
,
the lair of some metallic octopus that waited, hungrily entwined above, to finish its captive prey. The place vibrated in
a
sickly artificial light that flickered on and off at irregular intervals. The stench of salt, sweat, and mildew permeated the sultry air.
Oily grit coated e
very surface
, from musty bunks to metal deck and sparse furniture
. U’Sumi was alone,
except for
his
near dead
father and a bunch of sailors
who
came into the
brig
regularly
just
to stare at him
creepi
ly through the bars and call him feminine pet names.

With nothing to do but wait, grief finally had time for its assault.

E’Yahavah
had
answered U’Sumi’s plea to defeat the Elyo,
but
for
what?

Aztlan’s armies
still
advance
d
into Balimar. Soon they would cross the Straits into Seti. Once that happened, the entire region would collapse. With
A’Nu’s Comforter
a dying prisoner, how could the
visions
come true
?

Maybe this was it
.
Maybe everybody
in the world was wrong.
It was not logically possible for everyone holding differing views to be right, but logic allowed the potential for everyone to be wrong.
Maybe this was the beginning of
W
orld-end
;
a slow, agonizing war
in which
the entire human race would simply exterminate itself in an orgy of blood!

What of Muhet’Usalaq’s promise? Iyapeti and Lumekki were dead. U’Sumi was not sure if he had gotten that across to his half-coherent father during the long march. Only one thing was certain: Each minute steamed them further away from his father’s calling—the people of
E’Yahavah’s
Comfort, the cask of Atum-Ra, and A’Nu-Ahki’s prophetic charge to somehow take them
all in
to a new land after the world’s end.

Could
E’Yahavah
have taken
U’Sumi’s father from
Akh’Uzan
to allow
one of the other Seer Clan elders
to
finish Q’Enukki’s
Work
? Would Henumil,
Nestrigati (if he somehow escaped), or
some other contender—hopefully not Belkrini—complete the
work
of
A’Nu’s Comforter
? U’Sumi recalled his rebuttal to Iyapeti, back when they
were
just school boys.
“They
go out of their way
to ignore Iyared’s Prophecy about Pahp and about a dozen other independent ancient references. Pahp is the Comforter sent by E’Yahavah A’Nu but nobody seems to want to deal with that!”

Such a replacement of “Comforters” didn’t seem honest given the plain words of the prophecies.
Had we misinterpreted the Seers somehow? They seemed straightforward enough
—
my father is both the “Comforter from A’Nu” and the “one who would be left” to carry the Remnant to safety. There appeared to be no room for any other to fill
those roles. Iyared had left none on his deathbed. Could the prophecies have failed?

It suddenly struck U’Sumi that each of the Akh’Uzan visionaries considered themselves faithful to those very same prophecies.
Each
had even contrived interpretations that finished A’Nu-Ahki’s role as
Comforter
with his Comet Vision of seventy years ago and which saw Akh’Uzan as Iyared’s “land of safety.” Despite the fanaticism or fallacious logic shown by some of these recent “seers,” U’Sumi had to admit that even those who claimed his father had gone apostate by marrying his mother were not otherwise evil men. They lived
otherwise
moral lives—at least as far as could be seen.

U’Sumi had seen so much death so rapidly
—
the
slaughter of both good and evil men alike. The implications staggered his very core beliefs.
Both good and evil men alike!

The impact hit
as
an almost physical blow that shattered his internal world in a catastrophic ethical and emotional holocaust that suddenly went visual. Hysteria consumed him in engulfing waves
of flame and water
.

“They’re all going to die, aren’t they? Billions upon billions of them, all at once
;
screaming and crying as they fall into the swirling abyss!”

Images of fire and water roared around and through him,
carrying
a cavalcade of terrified faces burned or drowned, bloated, and charred.
They shrieked and gagged
in
concert to a
massive torrent of ocean, ice, and flame.

Somebody shook him until the noisy spectacle slipped away in a black vapor that left his ears ringing and pin-prick lights in his eyes.

“What’s da matter wit you, lad?” said the sailor on guard duty. He grasped U’Sumi roughly by the shoulders, concern on his stubbly face.

U’Sumi came around slowly. “Sorry. Just remembered something in a dream that happened to me on the battlefield,” he lied.

“But you’s awake, boy. Does you dream whiles you’re awake?”

“I’m sorry—it was an awful time,” U’Sumi said, hoping the big sailor would buy it.
Yeah, an awful time
—j
ust what in
U
nderworld do you think that dream was about, anyway, little Phoenix boy?

“They says you kill an Agent of Judgment
with only a knife.”

“That’s right.”

“You gut right to get screamy then.”

U’Sumi smiled without meaning to. “Thanks.”

The guard closed the cell door behind himself after backing out.

I have a right to get screamy? The specter of
W
orld-end has hung over my entire life! I’ve never once gotten “screamy” before now. Is this really what it will be like?

He stood and gripped the bars of his cell, while inside he careened helplessly toward a black mass that threatened to shatter his sanity into a million tortured shards upon impact. Falling—endless falling—or was it just the motion of the ship? The more he tried to sort things out the more tangled they became, until all he could do was shove it back and try to forget—
just as
he hyperventilated to keep his bile down. And like the bile, he knew he couldn’t keep the painful questions down forever. The persistent unseen rocking would bring them all up again
eventually
.

U’Sumi ground his teeth and willed himself to emotional steel. The soldiers, the visionaries, the Zaqenar, fathers, mothers, even the children of the world, suddenly lost their humanity. They became mere cockroaches—filthy manipulative vermin in human form. That was what they had to be to deserve such a terrible fate! It was the only way to see them and still make sense of it. Why else would E’Yahavah destroy them? The only alternative he could see was too unthinkable.

Nevertheless, on a wave from hidden deeps in the blackest recess of his psyche, that shadow-mind alternative voiced itself in his
thoughts
.

“
What if E’Yahavah El-N’Lil is really the
Basilisk
of
E
vil and your father has been fooled? What if these are all just nice normal people caught in a terrible situation
—
people who make mistakes just like you do?”

U’Sumi shook, unable to form a coherent response.

“
Think about it! You know those people aren’t roaches! They are created in the genuine E’Yahavah’s image. You’ve been trained to approach things logically, what’s the only rational alternative?”

H
e screamed wildly, pulling at his
tousled
black curls. “I won’t believe that! It makes no sense!”

Yet it made perfect sense, especially in that filthy brig.

“What makes no sense?” asked the guard, who really had a look in his eyes of genuine concern.

“
See
—
he’s not a bad man.”

U’Sumi felt the Shadow-mind pause when he met the guard’s eyes. Then he looked down at his father tossing in fever.

“It makes no sense that if the High Priestess and the top titan want to see my father that you should let him die on the floor with no medicine!”
U’Sumi
shouted, more from relief at an opportunity to change subjects than from thinking on his feet. “I need to see the
c
aptain
! Trust me, if this man dies on your wat
ch, you won’t be a happy sailor!
”

The stubbly-faced guard glanced at A’Nu-Ahki and nodded. “I get the officer, he get the
c
aptain
.”

U’Sumi squatted down and wiped his father’s forehead with the edge of his filthy tunic. Shadow-mind retreated into the depths the moment he touched him.
Hi
s childhood perspectives on E’Yahavah and
W
orld-end seemed to find an almost euphoric
instant
restoration. Yet
it was also unreal somehow;
none of the old answers seemed to satisfy completely if he
tried to
meditate on them for any length of time.

Like some black wraith-world thorn-wasp of the Great Dragonwood, Shadow-mind had left its poisoned stinger buried deep in U’Sumi’s mind.

T

he Consortium ironclad was one of the largest ships afloat—three hundred and thirty cubits from stem to stern and a hundred cubits wide at its beam. U’Sumi peered forward through the conning shack window, where
far ahead
calm seas br
o
k
e
against the broad, bullet-shaped bows underneath a great bronze tricorn head
over
the
serrated
ramming prow.

Behind the glowering sculpture sat
the
gigantic flattened steel ziggurat of t
he forward triple-cannon turret—
mount on a huge semi-circular barbette. It fired massive cubit-and-a-half diameter missiles farther than a unicorn could gallop in a day—if U’Sumi could believe
its
c
aptain
. Each muzzle
had
a stylized sea serpent’s mouth with heads of light tin
sculpted around it
, disproportionately small to keep the barrels from warping.