The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (35 page)

Unlike the vast ruins, or even the port, the gigantic monument complex sparkled with refracted light from the polished crystal phoenixes and
dragon-like
chalkydries in the waning sun. The obelisks and titanic sun pillars looked square-cut and new. Evidently, Psydonu had rebuilt and kept the place up as he had said.

Deepening purple twilight crowned the choppy surf of the Outer Ocean to their right. Far in the distance, leftward through the steamy ruins, the Mountains of Dragonwood still caught the fading sunset’s magenta. The distant megalith of Q’Enukki bathed in the bloody glow, its central pyramid and six westward-facing sun pillar “gates” stood in profile like a row of gigantic priests before an altar stained by sacrifices made to prolong their dying age.

A’Nu-Ahki decided not to climb to the monument that evening, but lodge in town until day.
They met a shepherd on the outskirts of the harbor town
,
and asked him if anybody would mind if they took shelter amid the ruins for the night.

“Shelter
’
n the ruins?” He laughed. “Y
a
want shelter in
de
ruins?”

“Yes,” replied A’Nu-Ahki, “is that a problem?”

The Shepherd said,
“Nooo. Not a problem at all
.
”

“Then what’s so funny?”

“Most
folk a
round here want shelter from
d
e ruins.”

U’Sumi asked, “Is there danger?”

“Depends on what y
a
call danger.”

A’Nu-Ahki said,
“No offense, s
ir, but you’re not making sense.
”

“
I
f y
a
goin
’ to be d
at way!” The Shepherd turned to follow his flock.

“Wait! Should we camp in the ruins or find lodging in town?”

The Shepherd
kept walking
,
but
ans
wered, “Might as well stay in d
e ruins
;
ain’t none
in de
living part
s a town
at’ll put you up an
’ d
ere’s no inn.”

U’Sumi looked first to T’Qinna
,
then his father. Their eyes did not reflect encouragement.

T’Qinna said, “Odd for a place with a shrine like the Gates of the Setting Sun. You’d think lodging pilgr
ims would be a good business.”

“Well,
”
said A’Nu-Ahki,
dismounting, “
we’ve got a unicorn with a gore
,
and your sphinx is no pushover if it comes down to a fight against something or
someone
.
”
He
led Shell-head by tether into the darkened labyrinth of crumbled walls.

U’Sumi watched the moping bag of horned bones lumber after his father
,
and found it hard to be so optimistic.

A’Nu-Ahki stationed the campsite between two large bastions that looked as if they might once have been a battlem
ent for the oldest part of the
city. Overgrown steps led up one of the stone embankments to a corner platform that might have been a guard tower. Its gigantic irregularly-shaped stones fit so neatly together that not even a hair could slip between them. The sheerness of the walls made it accessible only by the stairs.

“This
is
a good lookout perch,” A’Nu-Ahki said, pointing to the platform. “U’Sumi, you take first watch. I’ll
do
second,
then
T’Qinna.”

They lit no fire
,
and the others fell asleep after taking a small meal. U’Sumi and Taanyx, who tended to be nocturnal, watched the balmy evening from the old rampart.

The sphinx had taken to U’Sumi once it become clear how much he meant to T’Qinna. The cat sat tall and alert, her sleek short fur glistening in the rising moonlight. She seemed to understand somehow
that
they were on watch together and that her own night senses far surpassed those of the human. U’Sumi reached out and stroked behind her ears, eliciting a loud purr of contentment that did nothing to diminish feline vigilance. For a long time they sat thus, the only other sounds those of the gentle sea breeze and the crickets and frogs in the ruins.

About four hours after sunset, night fog thickened across the ground like a mat of crawling ghosts. Soon the young man and the cat sat on an island in a sea of mist, broken only by an occasional crumbled spire or rampart. The muted lights of the inhabited portion of town flickered across this ethereal landscape, watching from the southwest.

T
he moon climbed to zenith and bathed U’Sumi’s elevation in its golden glow
.
He
could
see
n
othing
beneath the mists where his father and wife-to-be slept. This troubled him, so he got up and made a soft descent down the broken stairs to check on them.

His father slept by the packs, while T’Qinna had curled herself into a corner of the decaying wall, near Shell-head. Satisfied that no danger approached, U’Sumi returned to the platform and Taanyx. Not sleepy, he decided to let his father rest on a bit when the hour for second watch arrived.

He did not know how much time had passed since returning to the cat before he noticed that the frogs and crickets had gone silent. Only after Taanyx rose toward the stairs, tail thrashing, did U’Sumi realize the change.

He stood and peered off through the mists.

Southeast, a cluster of pale green lights bobbed like ghoulish sprites in the fog-shrouded ruins. A moaning dirge drifted closer through the ancient stones
. High pitched cries
,
possibly from
an old woman
or
some kind of tormented animal
,
echo
ed
off the broken walls
,
interrupt
ing
the dirge
.

U’Sumi rushed to the head of the stairs and tried to get a distinct view of the green lights, but could see little more. Their distance suggested his people were in no immediate danger, though the noise
s
disturbed him. The shriek
s
sounded like the noise the children
in his dream
had
made as they
fell
into the flaming chasms.

Taanyx yowled and began to pace back and forth. Suddenly U’Sumi heard Shell-head bellow, scuffl
ing
violently
,
and pull
ing
his stake free. The sphinx leaped from the platform into the engulfing fog. U’Sumi drew T’Qinna’s dagger and follo
wed down the steps at a run.

When he reached bottom, he found their camp quickly ransacked—almost too quickly to be possible. Taanyx let out a long wail and bolted eastward into the mist
, while s
hell-head cowered by the wall.

His father and T’Qinna were gone.

U’Sumi mounted the unicorn and tore off after the sphinx as fast as the terrain allowed. He quickly found himself utterly lost in the fog. The cat, in her single-minded fury to reach T’Qinna, had left him.

T
he green lights
were
no longer
visible at ground level
. The soil, rocky in most places, did not leave good imprint of either
m
a
n
or beast. Forced to dismount often
in order
to track, U’Sumi managed to discover a scuffle here and a print there under the moonlit fog. The moaning chant and regular shrieks grew louder, drawing him
in
.

After some time picking through the wastelands in the general direction of the dirge, U’Sumi noticed that the intermittent cries had ceased. A few minutes later, he also realized the chant no longer drew any closer. Soon it became all he could do to follow fast enough to keep the noise at the same volume.
H
e saw again the ghostly lanterns flicker up ahead.

The holders of the green lights were on the move, scurrying back to whatever tomb
from
which
they had emerged. He remounted Shell-head, hoping that the arch of the unicorn’s back could give him the added elevation he needed to get a fix on the retreating lights.

The evening mists thinned as the chase climbed gradually to where some of the moon glow could get through. The ghost-lights flickered
,
then vanished in the distance,
ahead
and off to his right. U’Sumi locked his eyes in that direction, allowing himself a moment to absorb the contours of the
nearby
crumbled buildings. He identified several landmarks
,
and
yanked Shell-head to a trot, keeping his eyes fixed on a short spire jutt
ing
like a skeletal finger just to the right of where the lights had dissolved.

Then he stumbled on the moonlit altar.

The
worn
stone slab sat in a rectangular clearing that may have once been a meeting hall of some kind. Its foundations
still well—
defined,
the
walls stood only on one side. Human and animal bones littered the place, cracked remnants from the wurm feasts of decades. The exposed body of a pre’tween boy much younger than Khumi lay on the cold table, his chest carved open
, his heart removed
. Glassy lifeless eyes stared up at the hazy stars. Buzzing flies were already finding the wound
,
and smaller carrion wurms
scuffled
in the vicinity. They seemed to know where and when to feed.

U’Sumi yanked the reins and continued toward the spire. The ancient unicorn galloped wildly through the night, almost toppling over unseen blocks under his maddened goads. After each turn in the labyrinth, the spire that had promised to grow nearer seemed instead to maintain an elusive distance. Finally, when he turned the panting quasi-dragon right, the frustrated yowls of Taanyx guided him in a straight line to the base of a rocky slab. Here the labyrinth ended at the
bottom
of a bluff
extending
northward into the ruins
from
the
foothills of the
megalith mound.

T’Qinna’s sphinx paced before a vault of polished stone
sealed
with a heavy bronze door. A multitude of footprints continued underground into whatever hidden chamber lay behind this metal
barrier
.

U’Sumi dismounted and tried to push the slab inward. It would not budge.
N
o evidence of hinge or handle
existed
on
any
side
,
and the sandy soil showed no
drag mark
to indicate
that the door had opened outward. A geared or counter-weighted mechanism must have pulled it up or side
ways
.

He pounded on the metal and shouted until his rage exhausted itself into tears as desolate as the surrounding rubble.

Taanyx nuzzled him back to a semi-composed state, as the first fires of dawn shimmered above the eastern mountains. After long consideration, U’Sumi decided—based on their experience with yesterday’s shepherd—that
he would find
no sympathy in the inhabited part of town. Any help would have to come from the acolytes who still kept the Gates.

He prayed hard as he rose to begin his trek up the hill. Yet he held little hope that the keepers still respected the order of their fathers.

Had they not reared Psydonu’s mother?