The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (48 page)

“
…
At Ayar Adi’In, Lumekkor, and Aztlan
,
the rot is more obvious. Yet even there
some civil limits exist to
slow
it down
!
H
ere
, however,
all the layers of disguise
peel
away! The plan of the Basilisk lays exposed! This is where it all leads over generations—the self-indulgent manipulation of religion, politics, and economics in the quest to satisfy bigger and more demanding appetites! It ends here, one way or another—from Atum-Ra’s fall to the mothers feeding these wurms! If E’Yahavah didn’t cut the time short by
W
orld-end, the whole earth would eventually get just like this!”

Blood-fang pulled
out
his side arm and leveled it at A’Nu-Ahki’s head. “You shut face, or I kill you now!”

U’Sumi’s father stared the half-giant down. “Do it! You forget that for something to be worth living for, it must first be worth dying for.”

Dragon-breath said,
“Put up the weapon
.
He ain’t worth l
o
sin’ the price of a seer on the slave market over. Here, finish the bag.”

Blood-fang’s decision hung in the air, mingled with the drumbeat. Then he slowly put his weapon away and took the
drinking
skin
again
.

U’Sumi let out his breath in a long hiss
.
T
he children were dead. The basilisks
had
settled into their grisly feast. The drums faded into silence, satisfied at another year’s purchase of spiritual protection
against hope and reality
.

U’Sumi said,
“Show’s over
;
can we go now?”

Dragon-breath opened his mouth to answer, but never spoke.

Loud flashes chattered from the darkness behind him. Dragon-breath fell off his unicorn and became a writhing, screaming mass on the ground.

More hand-cannon fire followed. Blood-fang,
Stench
, and Gheri-boy
tumbled over, as
four green-clad figures appeared silently out of the night. One put Dragon-breath out of his misery with a blast to the face.

Yafutu had slid down under Shell-head’s bony collar shield at the sound of the first shot. He hung there by a saddle strap until one of the strangers helped him down to the ground and let him run to A’Nu-Ahki.

A larger party of
tricorn
-
mounted nomads emerged from the darkness on either side of A’Nu-Ahki’s two unicorns. Their leader rode forward
,
and then
unwrap
ped
a
turban from around his face.

T
he face behind the turban belonged to a pale middle-aged man who carried himself with stern and noble bearing. U’Sumi saw nothing surprising in him. What astounded him were his father’s words when the fellow’s turban dropped.

“I’ve seen you before.”

“And I you,” the man said in a thick Iya’Baalim accent.

“At my wedding,” A’Nu-Ahki said. “You were with the bride’s party, representing the house of her half-brother, Iya’Baalu.”

The nomad nodded in full recognition. “That would make you A’Nu-Ahki, of the Seer Clan from Akh’Uzan, for the only
half
-
sister of my ancestor—indeed the only sibling of my ancestor who
could still be alive—would be
Na’Amiha
, the sister of Tubaal-qayin the Great. She and I played together as children, when we both sat under the tutelage of old Mother Udaha. I am Sengrist, Chieftain of Iya’Baalu.”

“Many thanks, kinsman, for rescuing me and my children from these desert wurms.” A’Nu-Ahki bowed and then presented the young people to the nomad chieftain. Yafutu beamed when presented as a son, with no mention made of his adopted
status
.

Sengrist said, “We’re camped in the foothills about a day’s ride northwest of here, near the hidden passes. There’s a fresh water supply running down from the mountains
,
and provision—though it looks as if this gear belongs to you, not these Corsairs.”

“True
;
and thanks for your hospitality. We seek the hidden passes. I wish to return home to my wife, your kinswoman, whom I dearly miss.”

This was the first time U’Sumi had heard his father express that he missed Mother at all, much less “dearly missed” her. The strain between his parents over the incident with Tarbet had clouded their departure for the war, which had troubled U’Sumi far more than he had realized until now. His relief at hearing “dearly miss”
somehow eclipsed even
their sudden rescue.

The Nomad smiled. “I’m glad you two are happy
,
and that it did not turn out to be a mere political marriage.”

A’Nu-Ahki put his hand on U’Sumi’s shoulder. “Me too.”

“Is this the son of her flesh?” Sengrist asked, gazing at U’Sumi.

“I am,” U’Sumi answered for himself.

“A fine warrior he looks.”

“He has been tested well in the flames of battle
,
”
A’Nu-Ahki said
,
without much spirit
.

“The war in the west?”

“Yes.”

“How come you so far to the east then?”

A’Nu-Ahki’s tired smile never touched his eyes. “That, my friend, is a long story, better told in the comfort of camp and hearth, than in this place of slaughter.”

Sengrist agreed. He ordered his guards to remount.

The Iya’Baalim had been on patrol
ever
since
Corsair slavers raided their camp
several weeks before. Sengrist’s men had overtaken the Corsairs a night earlier, on the scrub-lands to the southeast. The Slavers had been marching their captives to Corsair Haven
,
the pirate city on the
enormous
estuary dividing the
Desolation of Nhod from the southern jungles. After leaving his main war party to escort the freed captives, Sengrist had taken his patrols ahead to ensure against any ambush of the larger group. Confident
now of a clear
path, they had been heading home when they found A’Nu-Ahki’s party.

They traveled through much of the night, winding over barren hilly paths, before taking a six hour rest a few hours before dawn. They arrived at Sengrist’s permanent camp about three hours after noon the following day.

U’Sumi immediately noticed the stark differences between the Iya’Baalim settlement and that of Sarvin Angrost on the Desolation’s opposite side. This camp had its own fresh water supply
,
a clean brook that
tumbled
out of the mountains
and
pooled behind a crude stone dam. Though vegetation was still sparse, Sengrist’s valley had several olive and pomegranate
trees
,
something Angrost lacked
.

Both settlements made use of spotted tribal labor
, though
in this similarity there was also a huge difference. Sengrist’s workers all seemed happy and well-fed compared to Angrost’s workforce of living skeletons. This
made
a great first impression—
Sengrist grew up with Mahm, after all
.

Like many first impressions, however, it did
no
t take U’Sumi long to discover that
it
was
completely and hopelessly
wrong.

I

t began the following day like a creeping background noise you couldn’t even be sure you really hear
d
,
a vague ringing in the ears from too much sun
or a shadowy motion seen only in the corner of the eye
,
which vanished whenever you looked at it straight on. U’Sumi’s unease started during his tour of the Iya’Baalim camp and only got stronger as the day wore on—even after he and T’Qinna sat down together to dangle their feet in the cool clear water of the dam’s pool late in the afternoon. Yafutu had stayed with A’Nu-Ahki, who kept close to Sengrist.

Things should have been near perfect.

Instead
,
T’Qinna seemed tense and distracted
, even after she had successfully nursed Taanyx out of her drugged slumber enough to take some fish and water, both from the pool.
He was not bothered by her lack of interest in finally
being alone with
“U’Sumi
the Great
” after
so many
weeks of captivity. His anxiety could hardly have been any
less unnerving
for her—assuming she noticed it
, which, knowing her, she did
.

They had a couple hours before they had to attend a big evening feast, which Sengrist had called in A’Nu-Ahki’s honor. U’Sumi could see the spotted
workers
making ready for it over by the main tents. Other such servants seemed unoccupied, except for a few who indolently picked pomegranates. Many spotted tribesmen—mostly women, but a few young men—drifted past the poolside, chattering and laughing. Children also ran about, playing in large numbers.
This should be relaxing.

“You feeling okay?” he asked T’Qinna.

“Well enough, I suppose. Thanks.” But she didn’t look well.

U’Sumi tried to figure out what he was missing for at least another half hour, but got nowhere.

Finally
,
he blurted out, “Something is wrong here.”

T’Qinna looked at him as if she had been thinking the same thing. “You’ve noticed it too—all the workers and very little work.”

“There’s that. Have you noticed anything else?”

“Your father has said nothing of
his mission
,
which is strange.”

“He’s not told everyone. He refused to tell the keepers at the Gates of the Setting Sun. In
many
towns—even in Aztlan—he would feel an odd direction to leave people to their own devices about
W
orld-end.”

She seemed distressed at the memory. “Surely he wouldn’t do
that
to
his wife’s own kinsmen
; e
specially after they rescued us
?
”

“I’m only saying that he doesn’t speak of it to absolutely everyone
and it doesn’t always seem based on how friendly or hostile they
appear
. I think it’s a safe bet that he’s not just being disobedient to his calling or lazy
.”

T’Qinna gazed into the pool. “
It would be silly to think
that
. It’s not so much your father, it’s these people.
I’ve noticed there are far fewer Iya’Baalim than Nhoddic servants.”

“I haven’t seen any taskmasters.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “There are far more effective tools for enslavement than whips—believe me.”

“I do. It’s just the servants seem happy and even appear to have an unusual amount of leisure time.”

T’Qinna’s eyes narrowed. “Where are the old ones?”

“What?”

“The old ones! The ancients, the infirm—I’ve seen the
m among the Iya’Baalim
,
and the
re
a
re far fewer of them than their Nhoddic
servants
. And have you noticed that none of the servants are too skinny or too fat
?
N
one
of them even has so much as a long nose or a weak chin
!
”

U’Sumi said, “The Iya’Baalim are famous the world over for being cattlemen.
Even the Archons called t
heir patriarch Iya’Baalu the ‘Father of Nomads and Cattle Herdsmen.’ Iya’Baalu first tamed the wild ox and later the quasi-dragons as armored cavalry mounts.”