The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (39 page)

The Caretaker gave a melancholy laugh
.
“I am the brother of Psydonu’s mother. The Titan listens to my counsel. He is the Monster Slayer! In
him,
I will hope—as E’Yahavah wills.
You have gained freedom f
rom these caverns, but
t
roops from the garrison
south of here are on their way. Though we have not the great engines of the North, I do have a small sun-powered oracle. Psydonu
joyfully
awaits your return.”

U’Sumi
gathered the weapons of the fallen and tossed them into the pool, keeping only a sword for his father.
He bound Iskui’s wrist tight to slow the bleeding and left him before the jade gryphon. Someone would come for their “below time” soon enough for him.

T’Qinna
threw U’Sumi a discreet kiss as she
hugged Taanyx
,
and then came to the aid of Yafutu, who had gotten ill from all the commotion.

A’Nu-Ahki smiled as he passed. “I’m mighty proud of you
, Son
.”

U’Sumi wanted to tell his father to keep his proud smiles to himself. Instead, he simply rolled his eyes, and said, “Can we save that for later?”

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

A population bottleneck is a significant reduction in the size of a population that causes the extinction of many genetic lineages within that population, thus decreasing genetic diversity.

—
Genetics Encyclopedia: Population Bottleneck

Answers.com

THE PALADIN’S ODYSSEY
|
367

The Floating Lands

Y

afutu’s family boat looked like something haphazardly bolted together from scavenged ships and machinery that the titans of Aztlan had discarded long ago. Only on closer inspection did the ingenuity of its design reveal itself. U’Sumi was relieved
, if only for T’Qinna’s sake
,
to find that it had a cargo hold large enough to transport a unicorn. He doubted Shell-head was as happy with the cramped accommodations.

A’Nu-Ahki’s party barely made it to the wharf below the Gates of the Setting Sun in time to evade the soldiers. Fortunately, Yafutu’s father had
fueled
his vessel before going to the Shrine. Shell-head still swung from the hoist like a bellowing horned pendulum over the opened hold when the small ship pulled away from the dock under a hail of hand-cannon shot.

After they escaped harbor, U’Sumi
climbed to the ship’s bridge
and
told Yafutu to
keep
a westward heading until well over the horizon before turning north. He imagined that within hours every port along the western edge of the world would have watchers waiting for them at the pier for when their glakka oil ran low. He didn’t want to alarm his young friend with this, but there was no one else who understood the vessel’s operations to turn to.

“Food won’t be a problem if we ration
wisely. W
e have
desalinizing
filtration for water,” answered Yafutu, who had gotten his reddish-brown color back, along with his normal clothes. He seemed quite alert in the ocean breeze of the flying
bridge. “
Amirdu
was still about three quarters stocked when we arrived at the Port of the Setting Sun
. I
n the aft hold is a small shipment of
grain
that could last the unicorn some time if we don’t let it eat too much. We were to sell it at Everad-port in the South.”

“
Amirdu
?”

“The ship
; i
t’s named after the fabled Great Whale that will someday slay Tiamatu. We of the Fleet-house of Ursunabi respect the old ways—that’s why we are so few now. I may even now be the last of them—many Outriggers are going over to Aztlan’s Temple these days—it’s the gold to be made, you know.”

U’Sumi understood better than the “Last of the Ursunabis” could imagine. “And the old ways speak of a great whale, you say?”

“Yabo. The Great Whale.”

U’Sumi smiled. “Strangely fitting, considering where we’re going.”

“Where can we go?”

“Under the world, across the Great Outer Ocean
—w
e’re heading for Nhod, at the far eastern edge
of Ki
.”

“
Yawam Gadulu
? That’s crazy!
Leviathan
or
Kraken
will attack a ship this small
! We’d pass through the Floating Lands, where
Leviathan
spawns. The drifting islands are haunted by Tiamatu’s creatures—the Qingu—demon trolls who eat their own dead and the dead of those who sail their waters
,
especially those that go ashore! Even if we can avoid the Floating Lands and
Leviathan
, it would take over two months to cross under
Ki
to the Sunrise
;
that’s if we had the fuel range, which we don’t! It’s
almost four
months crossing if we go to back-up drive!”

“Aren’t the Floating Lands just a legend?”

“My father’s seen them! So have many Outrigger captains! Some have even landed there and lived to tell of it—but most never return.”

U’Sumi almost said something about “sea stories” when something Yafutu had said sunk in
.
“Wait a minute, what’s ‘back-up drive?’”

Yafutu pointed to the long out-rig pod on the craft’s starboard side, and to the collapsible black sails strapped to a large boom from the main mast and from the secondary mast
boom
s secured over the ship’s center-line.

“What do they do?”

The y
oungster grinned, pacing the deck like an old ship-master. “The black sail collects sunlight and converts it to quickfire, which drives the water screw.
Moving water then turn
s
i
mpellers inside the out-rigged pod
,
charging other quickfire power-storage
ampoule
s to run the screw during the night. We can even get extra speed if the wind
’
s right. It’s
much
slower than the oil-burning engines, but this is just a family-run merchant rigger and glakka oil’s expensive if you’re not one of the Divine Ones.”

“How did you get all this technology?”

“Salvaged it from wrecks
,
originally
,
and then learned to make some of it ourselves
. My father told me that the titans resent us Outriggers because we’re just common folk who’ve figured out there’s no real magic behind their Temple tricks
;
just a little mechanical know-how.”

U’Sumi rubbed a hand through Yafutu’s hair
the way
he used to do to Khumi back home. “Your father was a wise man. You put that
‘
know-how
’
to better use. It may be crazy to cross the big ocean, but is it possible?”

“I know Outriggers who’ve done it, but rarely from this far south. They had big heavily-armed vessels with ballista-harpoon mounts. Usually our traders make regular runs on shorter, northerly routes between Auroria and Lilutu. The Floating Lands mostly haunt southern waters, near the equator—waters we’d have to cut straight through to cross from here! I’m just a kid and
Amirdu
is
average
. We only have a few hand-thrown harpoon lances. Food’d be tight, ‘specially for your beasts.”

“Psydonu’s men’ll take us for sure if we go ashore this side.
I
f we keep parallel to the coast, one of their patrol vessels will intercept us eventually. We can’t go north and start from there.”

Yafutu
grit
ted
his teeth and lowered his voice
. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. Maybe it’s ‘cause you seem like a
Whale-tooth-sage
.”

“What’s that?”

“Nautical warrior-poet-soothsayer. They had
Whale-heart
. They’re the ones who predicted the coming of the real
Amirdu
long ago.”

“
Whale-heart
? Long ago?”

“Yabo. The Temple of Aztlan killed them, but some escaped to sea and vanished. They told us before they left that not all that
i
s big and swims is
Leviathan
. They spoke of friendly monsters—
like the Whale and his little brother, Porpoise. I used to call Teel, my little brother, ‘Porpoise.’” He almost teared
-
up, but shook it off. “Whales can beat
Leviathan
because they’re smarter. A
Whale-tooth-sage
is blessed by the Whale’s protection—t’least more protected than regular folk, anyways—but not indestructible.”

U’Sumi squeezed the youngster’s shoulder. “My father is a Seer—a
Whale-tooth-sage
—of
E’Yahavah
; who created both whale and the leviathan alike. The Creator protects us now, whether by whale or anything else.”

Yafutu Ursunabi touched his forehead in what, to U’Sumi, seemed a gesture of reverence.
Yet
the resignation never left his voice. “Yabo. I’ll rig us for back-up drive then—save the oil for emergency speed. We’ll need it where we’re going. We’d better change course to northwest. I’ll need help at the wheel and to hoist the sun-sails.”

F

or the first month, the long voyage across the Yawam Gadulu proved remarkably uneventful, despite Yafutu’s dire predictions. The waves were much higher than in the land-sheltered seas U’Sumi had seen, but when he felt seasick—which was rare now—he only needed to go topside to see the ocean’s motion relative to the deck to make the nausea stop.

While rations were tight, T’Qinna—dressed now in efficient loose-legged pantaloons that had belonged to Yafutu’s mother—augmented their consumables by teaching everybody to fish with a line and baited hook. At first Yafutu objected strenuously to this, fearing the smell of the small bits of cheese used for bait, with her shiny metal jewelry lures, would draw in sea monsters bigger than
Amirdu’s
forecastle
, beam, and stern barricades could hold back. However, when
they
began to haul
smaller prizes
aboard to feed an increasingly cranky Taanyx—who had tired of crushed
grain
soaked in commercial-grade fish oil—Yafutu relented.

A’Nu-Ahki and U’Sumi had never eaten fish—nor any form of meat—before, but soon acquired a taste for the way T’Qinna prepared it; rolled in
milled grain
and dried herbs, then fried in olive oil. The ultra-Orthodox of Sa-utar and many Seer Clan elders would have been aghast.

Despite the constant maintenance of keeping the
Amirdu
seaworthy and the shoveling and hoisting of Shell-head’s manure overbo
ard—which also raised Yafutu’s l
eviathan fears—U’Sumi found it to be the most restful time he had experienced since leaving home
,
what seemed ages ago.

During their
eighth
week out
,
all of that changed.

U’

Sumi came on deck at dawn to find the ship enveloped in a dense fog. The waves he had finally
acclimated himself
to had all but vanishe
d. He found Yafutu in the wheel
house, checking a bank of needle gauges on the console next to the helm. The young mariner seemed worried.

“What’s the matter, Yafutu?”

The boy
looked up and flipped his straight gold-streaked black hair from his face. “
Quickfire
ampoule
s
are low. No sun today. We might need to start the oil-burning engines.”

“We haven’t used them in about
seven
weeks. We should still have plenty
of
fuel, don’t you think?”

“
That
speed run
w
e did
out of the Port of the Setting Sun until we were
a day
over the horizon
?
That used almost a fifth of the tank.”

“That much?”

Yafutu nodded. “Yabo. We could run the engines at dead slow. It would not use fuel nearly so fast—but only for about five hours—just enough to charge the
quickfire
ampoule
s
.”