A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (35 page)

he
inland shipyard, nearly deserted because of the funeral, had only a tiny spot of activity on the side of the drydock facing the village. A tiny work party needed to finish a specialized, time-sensitive job on a portion of the ship’s hull that could not wait out the days of mourning over Galkuna.

Tiva did
not mind picking up the slack during the funeral week. She had never known Sutara’s mother, but felt badly about looking down on Sutara during the years of isolation from Khumi’s family, and wanted to make up for it somehow. Despite such a heavy bereavement, the layer of kapar curing on this particular hull section had set, and needed to receive its second coat before it got too hard to bond properly. Tiva knew nothing of the process, but she figured she could follow orders. T’Qinna, U’Sumi, and A’Nu-Ahki could handle the skilled stuff.

“I’m worried about Sutara,” T’Qinna
said, while they brushed on the tar primer.

A’Nu-Ahki
nodded. “It’s a great loss—especially for one so young.”

U’Sumi grunted, reaching for a spot he missed, and rocking the scaffold just enough to startle Tiva.
“She’ll pull through. She’s strong.”

“That’s just it,”
T’Qinna replied, “She seems a little too—I don’t think
cheerful
is the word—but her composure strikes me as a bit brittle. I’m afraid for her.”

“She has the consolation of knowing
that Galkuna is with Heh’Bul in the Comfort Fields,” U’Sumi reminded them. “If only she could be so sure about her father.”

Tiva handed up a freshly gooed brush. “Maybe she just got some of it out of her system when we found the body.”

Everybody looked down at her. Tiva was not used to speaking out around them, and maybe they were not used to hearing her.

She shrugged. “Well, it’s just that she screamed awfully loud into my shoulder for a long while—which seemed normal enough to me.”

A’Nu-Ahki said, “People deal with grief in different ways. I think Tiva may be right.”

That seemed to close the subject.

Tiva wondered at his comment. It was the first time she could remember having anyone pronounce her “right” about anything. She smiled as she turned from the scaffold, and dipped another kapar brush. Her joy from his statement seemed disproportionally large even to her.

Maybe that was why she
paid little heed to the stranger she saw approaching the drydock from across the culvert bridge.

nguska could not help his awe at the size of the more-than-half-built ship. It stretched as a giant sarcophagus in its sunken platform, braced by huge padded metal ribs on a frame half-hidden below the rim of the drydock pool. The hull appeared complete. Several workers employed another coat to its kapar finish, as he crossed the innermost culvert, and casually moved toward the scaffolding like a curious passer-by.
I’m glad there’re only a few workers—destroying the ship makes the right statement. Though his wrath is fierce, Samyaza would not have me kill more than is necessary.

Nevertheless, he gripped the small hand-cannon under his cloak
, in case one of the laborers should try to interfere. When he got closer, he saw that the workers were two men and two girls. Both men and the older of the two girls were up on the scaffold. The younger girl handed laden brushes, and other supplies, up to the others. When the older of the men turned a moment from his work, it stopped Inguska in his tracks.

He is here
—the great World-end ship-master himself—he works as a common yard hand!
Inguska could not help but admire that.

He stepped off the footbridge, and waddled toward the great barge more conspicuously than he liked.
I have a message for you.

A’

Nu-Ahki saw the Stranger when he twisted around to work out a kink in his shoulder. The man seemed to walk under a heavy weight, although he carried no burden except perhaps for his unseasonably thick cloak. Nor did his narrow, angular face match the portliness of his figure. He looked vaguely familiar, but Nu could not connect a name or location with him. Something about the fellow aroused a sudden anxiety while Nu’s memory labored to attach the face to a name and place that just would not come.

A’Nu-Ahki
grabbed a pulley rope and swung down from the scaffold as he had often seen the boys do, but had never gotten up the gumption to try himself, before now. The landing twisted his ankle, but he did not let that slow him down. He immediately limped out past the pitch primer vat, to place himself between the Stranger and Tiva.

Nu called to the
man, “Greetings, friend!”

The fellow waddled closer. “Greetings,” he called back.

A’Nu-Ahki quickened his pace to close the distance between them. The visitor also sped up.

“I have a message for you,” said the Stranger.

Nu said, “I know you from somewhere, but it escapes me. At five-hundred and eighty, it gets a little hard to keep the faces straight of all the people I’ve met. I hope you’ll forgive me that.”

The Stranger
gave a disturbing laugh. “Forgive you?”

nguska felt
as though he had stepped into another world when he heard the Shipwright’s voice. “Why in the Ten Heavens should I forgive you, who have robbed me of the best years of my life to give to Heaven’s Lord?”

A’Nu-Ahki halted some ten paces off. “I have no recollection of robbing anyone. But if I have unknowingly offended you, I am truly sorry.”

Inguska slid to a stop. “You don’t even know who I am, do you?”

“I’ve seen your face, and I know your voice, but I can’t quite place you. I’m
truly sorry. Apparently, I’ve missed something very important in my dealings with you at some time in the past. I ask your forgiveness.”

“He asks my forgiveness!” Inguska shrieked
with a laughter that sounded like gargling acid. “You humiliated me before my master, and treated me as a woman! But you don’t understand any of that, do you?”

A’Nu-Ahki’s eyes looked puzzled. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Inguska had hoped the man would remember on his own. He had not wanted to have to explain it to him. “I and my commanding titan captured you and one other in the Haunted Lands, after destroying your spy chariot!”

The quickfire pearl came on. “Ah yes
, now I remember, the Century War! Then Lumekkor’s other chariot destroyed your airship, and you became their prisoners. Yet I don’t remember humiliating you. It seemed to me that the Guild fusiliers were going to break your legs after they had crippled your titan. I didn’t think it was necessary, so I intervened.”

“My grandfather was divinity! I am a titan
demigod who brings the wrath of Samyaza against this idol of false deliverance!” Inguska threw off his cloak to reveal his sacred vestments and his hand-cannon.

iva had no clue what was happening. She crouched behind the vat when she saw the hand-cannon, and started to pray.

A’Nu-Ahki sidestepped to keep himself positioned between the Stranger and
Tiva. “Let my children leave. We can discuss your grievance.”

The Stranger smiled, and waved his weapon.
“Oh, there is nothing to discuss. I am Inguska, arch-tacticon in Samyaza’s new demigod army. I’m here to deliver a message to the sons of Q’Enukki, who have flouted their rejection of the law of Heaven’s True Lord on Earth!”

“Let the children go, and then I shall listen to your message.”

“You want the children to go? How thoughtful!” Inguska raised his weapon and fired twice.

Tiva screamed when T’Qinna and U’Sumi fell from the scaffold into the
empty drydock pool. Without thinking, she scrambled from her shelter, and slid on her belly to the edge of the drop. Another shot from the hand-cannon careened off the metal support ribbing.

“Enough of that!” A’Nu-Ahki launched himself at the man, but stopped short when Inguska leveled the weapon at his head.

Tiva peered over the edge of the drydock pool. U’Sumi crouched by his wife, bruised but unharmed. He had apparently jumped for the only shelter available. T’Qinna lay face down in a pool of blood that grew around her head like a terrible crimson halo.

Tiva froze, and began to whimper. She watched her brother-in-law remove his tunic and wrap T’Qinna’s head in it. Then he looked up at her, and held his finger to his lips
Tiva could not have moved or stopped crying if she had tried.

A’

Nu-Ahki shouted, “Does your master command you to kill the innocent?”

Inguska felt a strange thrill at his long-awaited moment. “I didn’t do that for my master, I did it for me because I knew it would hurt you! They are not innocent! They work to build this abomination of yours!”

“Samyaza cannot hold back E’Yahavah’s wrath.”

“You fool! Samyaza is
E’Yahavah’s
wrath, and I am his appointed instrument!”

“Like at Sa-utar?”

Inguska laughed. “The Colossus was just the beginning!”

A’Nu-Ahki’s eyes narrowed. “You and
I both know you weren’t aiming for the Colossus. Rakhau built it to demean the idea of World-end—as Samyaza wants to do here. Why else do you call my ship an ‘abomination?’ Haven’t you heard? The Obelisks of Fire and Water still stand, unharmed.”

Inguska almost weakened
again, much worse than when the village orb along the Inland Highway had shown him only a quick view of the Colossus’ rubble. He was unable to confirm their destruction then, but A’Nu-Ahki could not know that. During Inguska’s long detour through the foothill forest trails, the explosion’s effect had surely become old news.

“If you could not take down Seti’s monuments, which only warn of
World-end, how shall you destroy the very instrument of deliverance itself?”

Doubt
rose as a black gryphon. Too much had happened to him these last few days. He felt alone and isolated.
No! His words will not deceive me again!
Inguska spread his arms and clasped his sacred amulet, finger poised to press the timer-actuator in its center. “Do not speak your lies to me!”

A’Nu-Ahki sighed. “Deep inside, you know I speak the truth. You don’t have to do this! You can stop this nonsense now, and survive with us!”

“I’ve killed your children!”

Nu stiffened. “Yes. Twice Samyaza has done so, and much worse.”

Inguska felt the same presence he had felt at Sa-utar, when this man had spoken before. “And you would forgive this?”

The Old Man looked up. “My Master would show me how. But you cannot know that benefit unless you change your course now!”

A wave of hesitation came, with that same odd voice Inguska had heard from deep inside, on the roof top back at Sa-utar.
“I give you this last chance freely. You can understand who I really am.”

He felt the muscles of his finger slacken.
Why should I be the instrument of E’Yahavah’s wrath? Is he not large enough to summon the very elements to work his will?

Inguska clenched his teeth. “No! I will not fall to your sorcery this time!” he screamed, and squeezed the amulet timer.

A’

Nu-Ahki had seen the orb visions of the Colossus attack down at the village square. He knew that he had only a matter of seconds while Inguska rattled off his canned pronouncement of Samyaza’s judgment. He raced on his throbbing ankle back to where he saw Tiva laying at the side of the
drydock pit, where he rolled onto the pavement, and over the rim, pulling Tiva down on top of him to the floor of the drydock pool. He barely had time to register that U’Sumi was alive and crouching over him. T’Qinna lay still with her bloodied head shrouded in her husband’s tunic.

The blast came before Inguska’s muffled voice could finish his inane litany. The shock wave above Nu’s head slammed into the ship like a fiery sledgehammer.
Roiling dust clouds consumed the drydock, as roaring hot, debris-laden wind pelted their faces, and bit into their eyes. Far above, the shadow of the great ship rattled in its supports, back and forth like some enormous epileptic coffin. The wobbling slowed until the vessel with its support pylons creaked and strained like a tortured ghost croaking for mercy. For a long while, the whole thing seemed ready to crush in on them.

Then the air cleared, and the noise slowly settled.

Nu rubbed his eyes, and stared upward. The ship had somehow weathered the concussion, discolored, but essentially undamaged—at least superficially. Then he gazed over at T’Qinna and his heart sank.
Oh E’Yahavah! If we lose her, it will be a thousand times worse than losing Uranna and Tylurnis—even Emzara! My son is too young to bear my pain!