The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (18 page)

U’Sumi clasped the pipes and watched, paralyzed, as the sailor climbed onto the low gap rail. He sat for an eternal moment, straddled between worlds.

“
Don’t!
” U’Sumi rushed out to grab the jumper before he could fall.

The Sailor held up his hand. “Don’t try it, lad. I
don’t want
you
plucked over by accident.”

A mountainous hump rose from the water and fell back into the sea.

U’Sumi jumped backward. He had never seen a living thing so
huge
.

Voracious shadows thrashed below, as the Sailor held his arms up and waved them over the side.

A gigantic serpent’s neck whipped up from the foam. U’Sumi fell back
again
against the citadel. Moonlight silhouetted the bird-snake head while
Leviathan’s
red phosphor eyes glinted
in
cold
fire. The creature’s gaze fell
up
on U’Sumi, as
if
the sailor on the guardrail was not even there.

The Piper screamed,
“Me, not him!”

The Beast ignored the seaman and glared at U’Sumi. Its spike-like teeth shimmered from jaws snapping with rapacious hunger. Shadow-mind rose from inner depths as cold as those from which the serpent had come. U’Sumi felt the bizarre urge to step out from behind the gun turret and move nearer the rail, as if summoned by both Shadow-mind and
Leviathan
. The creature’s eyes beckoned while its breath flashed puffs of the chemical luminescence it used to attract fish to its waiting jaws. The suicidal sailor shook his fists at it
shrieking
and cursing.

U’Sumi stood up. He no longer let the bulkhead support his back. What
wa
s the point anyway? The prophecies
we
re past any possibility of fulfillment. All
he had to look forward to wa
s a life of imprisonment. Even if
h
e
escape
d
, return
ing
to Akh’Uzan mean
t
living down not only
his
lineage,
but also
a foolish trust in an outmoded way of life that
was
now
proven defunct beyond any reasonable salvage!

Then he remembered his own words to the sailor. He didn’t know what E’Yahavah had for him
;
maybe if he just waited it out a little longer something would happen. Had
E’Yahavah
not already given him power to do the impossible? Had not U’Sumi, the “scrawny ‘tween-ager” of Akh’Uzan, defeated one of their mighty Elyo?

U’Sumi roared at the sea serpent
,
“Get out of here!
Get out of here and leave us all alone!”

The glow in
Leviathan’s
eyes darkened. It released U’Sumi from its gaze and unleashed a puff of cold glow-gas from its blow-hole to show its displeasure. For second
,
it seemed about to dive away from the ship. Then the marine reptile plucked the screaming sailor from the rail with a thunderous snap of its jaws. It sounded with an enormous splash, dragging its consolation prize below to devour in the silence of the
deep
.

U’Sumi shouted at
E’Yahavah
, “Why’d you let that happen? I said, ‘all of us!’ The sailor might have listened to more!”

The answering Voice was almost audible, whether of
Shadow-mind
or of
E’Yahavah
, U’Sumi could not tell.
“What do you know of ‘all?’”

Nausea swept over U’Sumi
as
he collapsed and wretched all over the deck.
H
e
scrambled
below to the silent comfort of his
father’s sleeping form. As he slipped into the brig, he heard the ship’s harpoon
-
ballista men race onto the main deck to engage the monsters, too late to save their comrade.

For the rest of that night
,
the leviathans kept close to the ship, th
umping angrily against the hull
and whining their horrible song. U’Sumi was sure the madness of Underworld had marked him, never to give up until he caved in and answered Tiamatu’s
menacing
call.

Nevertheless, A’Nu-Ahki slept peacefully for the first time since the battle. That alone proved just enough to keep Shadow-mind at bay from taking over U’Sumi’s thoughts entirely.

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

For thou hast said in thine heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north
,
’

—
Isaiah
14:13 (KJV)

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

True North

H

e awoke to a crack of thunder a hundred times louder than the Elyo’s main cannon. A ram’s horn sounded, followed by rushing feet that scrambled through the
athwart ship
companionway outside the
unlocked
brig.

U’Sumi rose to see what the commotion was, only
to
be
knocked
aside
by a stream of burly sailors flooding the companionway. Soon the passage emptied out
,
and U’Sumi could step beyond the brig bay.

More thunder echoed
topside
. The deck reeled sideways in a
hard
rocking motion from the recoil
, tossing U’Sumi into the hatch coaming
. He
scrambled over to
the ladder to the starboard main deck
access
and climbed,
but found
the hatch
closed with its pressure seals activated.

“You can’t go out there,” said a voice behind him. “The concussion would knock you out!”

U’Sumi turned to see the scruffy sailor who had been his jailer.

“I be Master Guard today. My duty is you and the old man’s safety. We should go back below.”

“What’s happening?”

The Sailor explained as they descended the ladder. “Lookout spots a Lumekkorim monitor off the starboard bow at dawn. We’re passing closest to the enemy anchorage of Monitor Point—little sea vipers! The monitor type ship—it has more speed but less
cannon than our lady. But what cannon she has can reload four times as fast—see the problem?”

U’Sumi pondered a moment, then said, “The smaller ship has less cannon power but is faster and able to fire its weapons at a more rapid rate. You can’t escape it, yet while it may not be able to sink an ironclad, it can pepper one with enough light cannonry to disrupt your ability to fight back long enough for other enemy ships to arrive.”

The man nodded.
“Only hope is to take her under with a few good hits from our main cannons before she gets close enough to make her fire good, and launch sea-vipers. You understand well.”

“My grandfather was a high ranking military man. He trained me. I’d love to be able to watch this if we can.”

“
N
ot good idea.”

They entered the brig compartment, where the Sailor sealed the watertight hatch behind them.

Another jolt of man
made thunder rocked the ship.

A’Nu-Ahki stirred in his sleep.

The Sailor asked, “Ye know how to play the lots?”

“No, but I can learn.”

They never got the chance.

Another kind of thunder rocked the ship, tossing both men and everything
unsecured
to the bulkheads on
to the deck. It sounded like an explosion inside a thick metal box somewhere nearby. A series of clanks, pops
,
and hisses followed in a watery metallic echo.

“We been hit!”

The ironclad’s main cannons erupted again.

Another boxed-in explosion jerked the deck, farther away. Then another, and another
—
all
before the ironclad could fire its next volley.

“You see? It
’
s begun.”

U’Sumi said, “Is it getting hot in here?”

The Sailor rushed into A’Nu-Ahki’s cell and felt the bulkhead, only to pull his hand away with a yelp. “
There’s f
ire in the next compartment!”

U’Sumi touched the forward wall, opposite the hatch. It too was hot. “
There’s
one on this side too!”

Another round from the monitor screamed in right beneath them. The deck
warped
up
,
deformed mayhem, throwing U’Sumi and
the Sailor
into the overhead
and
down
again
onto a jagged
floor-scape of bowed and ruptured steel. Steam and f
lam
e hissed through fissures in the deck seams where the rivets gave way. U’Sumi wove across the compartment to the watertight door and deactivated the seal.
He pushed on
the door
, but it would not budge
from its aperture.

Uninjured, the
Sailor lifted A’Nu-Ahki to his shoulders and hopped through the obstacle course to join U’Sumi.

“I think the metal hatch coaming’s warped!” U’Sumi said.

“Let’s try it together!”

The Sailor laid A’Nu-Ahki over an upturned table to shield him from the deck’s heat.

The compartment
quickly
became
an oven.
They heaved against the hatch repeatedly, but it would not budge. Lungs burning, and hands starting to blister on the hot metal, U’Sumi
nearly dropped
. He did not expect the
door
to
fl
y
open
on their final push
.

Both men grabbed A’Nu-Ahki and fell out into the smoky corridor.

A fire-fighting team already had a hose aimed into the next compartment. The Master Guard shouted to U’Sumi that they
should
get up into the citadel in case the
shot had holed the
ironclad below the waterline.

He grappled A’Nu-Ahki’s unconscious body on one side, while U’Sumi took the other,
and
led them past the fire fighters to the
amidships
ladder well. There, through another watertight hatch, a spiral metal stair climbed a vertical shaft into the citadel’s interior.

The Sailor paused inside and lowered A’Nu-Ahki to the steps.

This forced
U’Sumi to do the same on his side. “What are you doing?” he said, when the Guard knelt down to face the bulkhead.

U’Sumi stepped around the Sailor,
who
faced a niche in the bulkhead. It
contained
a tiny shrine with a bizarre jade and bronze idol
of
a seven-headed long-necked leviathan clamped inside.

“We don’t have time for
that
!”

“Only a moment to appease the goddess of our ship,” the Sailor said, who mumbled his quick litany before hoisting U’Sumi’s father again.

They pulled A’Nu-Ahki up several decks until they reached a roofed platform with large open-air windows on either side of the ship. U’Sumi noticed the rocking much more up here, though the open air prevented his earlier motion sickness.

The Sailor said,
“Looks like you get to see after all!
This is mess deck. Good view, port and starboard, but not so protected.”

They laid A’Nu-Ahki against the forward bulkhead and went over to the starboard side to try to spot the enemy ship. U’Sumi leaned his head out the big rectangular window and caught sight of the smaller vessel steaming toward them from ahead and to the right.

The monitor looked nothing like the
ironclad
—fast, sleek, narrow, with a low freeboard and profile. Its water screws were completely submerged. Two main forward and three aft turrets, much smaller than the ironclad’s, with double cannons, spat missiles almost continually, every ten to fifteen seconds. More than a minute passed between those from the bigger ship. The monitor did not appear to have suffered any hits as it zigzagged to avoid giving the ironclad’s artillery engines an easy targeting solution.

Only now did it occur to U’Sumi that he had no idea whether or not he wanted this attacking vessel to win or lose the engagement. Even if it disabled the ironclad, the latter’s crew complement would outnumber that of the monitor at least four to one, making it a boarding party’s nightmare. Yet presumably
,
a Lumekkorim ship would liberate any prisoners of war found aboard a captured enemy vessel. Would they try to capture it, or simply be satisfied to leave it dead in the water?

Could they sink a disabled ironclad with focused fire at close range, or use self-propelled mines—maybe the “sea-vipers” the Sailor had
mentioned
? U’Sumi didn’t know. The smaller missiles of the Lumekkorim ship repeatedly found their mark, knocking out much of the Consortium vessel’s secondary and tertiary cannonade along the starboard side, before the monitor even got into range of these lighter weapons. Smoke and flames billowed from a multitude of holes in the ironclad, though she maintained an even keel. Still the monitor sped
at
them, unscathed.

Another thunderclap echoed across the deck. Fire and smoke blasted some two hundred cubits from the muzzles of the forward main turret. For a moment, it obscured the enemy vessel, until the ironclad pushed through its own fallout. A whizzing sound faded away from the great ship.

After what seemed an impossibly long time, columns of water erupted in slow-motion spouts on either side of the monitor. Then
,
in the center,
came
one massive silent explosion. The Lumekkorim
vessel flew up out of the sea, snapped in half like a toy. Bow and stern sli
d beneath the placid waters
in seconds, leaving only a green slick of glakka oil and flotsam to testify that there had ever been a vessel there at all. By the time the sound of the explosion reached U’Sumi, the monitor had completely
vanished
.

The Sailor let out a war hoop and shouted, “Praise Lady Tiamatu
; m
usta hit de magazines!”

The ironclad came about on a new heading, toward the wreckage.
A
ll serious hope of rescuing any survivors died
however,
when the cruel song of Tiamatu again dominate
d
the music of the sea, now that the thunder of man
fell
silen
t
.

A’

Nu-Ahki’s fever broke the day after the naval engagement off Monitor Point. For the rest of the voyage his constitution steadily improved.

U’Sumi filled him in on events since their captivity, except for his vision of
W
orld-end
,
his encounter with
Leviathan
, and the suicidal sailor. He did
no
t know why he left these out, just that somehow he did not want his father to know about them yet. Father and son grieved quietly for lost
family,
but A’Nu-Ahki would not allow a full lamentation to take hold. Instead
,
he explained the importance of focus
ing
on their task.

U’Sumi said,
“What task?”

This conversation happened the same day the battered ironclad rounded a rocky point on their port side and veered from its northerly heading, half-westward. For days now
,
the sun had never completely set. Summer
shined on the arctic regions, as a pleasant cool breeze rippled the gentle Polar Ocean.

“Don’t you see?” his father said. “We’ve been given a tremendous opportunity. E’Yahavah has made me his mouthpiece to this generation, to testify in his power to the gods and titans of Earth.”

“Perhaps so, but we’re prisoners!”

“Prisoners who have been asked for by name
; d
on’t you see how frightened they are of us? Why go to such trouble on our account?”

Then it dawned on U’Sumi. From the soldiers who had captured him
inside
the Elyo
’s machine
to the taskmasters of the
death march to the ship’s jailer and its captain—all had eventually shown them
unusual
deference. Their consideration had not seemed to stem only from special orders, but from an almost instinctive sense of fear—that was the only fitting word for it! As for the orders, they revealed how that terror stretched even up to the highest echelons of Consortium leadership.