Quintessence Sky (44 page)

And what if he could find a way off this
slope? What then? He could make a hero's suicide charge and rush
into the circle shouting for Antonia. But for what purpose? So she
could see him cut down with gunfire just before she burned? He
could turn himself in peacefully, but again, why? So he could watch
her die in agony?

Ramos staggered to the edge and looked down
at the ocean. It was, possibly, the most beautiful sight he had
ever seen. The sea was turquoise and stretched out sparkling to the
edge of vision. Great waves dashed themselves against the cliffs,
throwing spray high in the air. A flock of birds with long,
dagger-like beaks plummeted into the water from hundreds of feet up
and emerged, dripping, with wriggling eels impaled on their beaks.
The successful ones gathered on an outcropping to tear their prey
to pieces, while those still hunting wheeled high overhead. Clouds
turned fiery with reflected sunlight streaked the sky.

He found that he was crying. What was
happening to him? Where had he gone wrong? He had turned from the
Church, yes, but only to avoid torturing a youth, giving up his
daughter to be burned, or condemning a young princess to her death.
Was God punishing him for those things? For rejecting his Church
and his divinely ordained king? Perhaps he was reaping what he had
sown. Or more precisely, Antonia was reaping it. Perhaps he should
have obeyed in silence, content to follow the pope and the king
without question.

On the other hand, why should he think that
this situation was brought about by God? His discoveries had taught
him that the world was a machine, gears and cogs meshing together,
everything from rocks to human beings made up of random, mindless
atoms. In such a universe, why should he expect good deeds to be
rewarded? Perhaps the atheists were right. Perhaps there was no
such thing as God after all.

A noise from above caught his attention. The
birds with the dagger beaks were squawking, taking awkward flight
and abandoning their half-eaten eels on their rock. Something was
scaring them away.

Their outcropping was unreachable from where
Ramos stood, separated by one of many cracks jutting into the cliff
face. He could see clearly, however, when a huge creature emerged
where the birds had stood a moment before. It was a salamander,
grossly bloated, its translucent skin gorged and dragging on the
ground. A faint glow emanated from inside its flesh, as if it had
been feasting on fireflies. It bellowed, a guttural sound like a
retching cow. Then, incredibly, it ran off the edge of the
cliff.

It fell gracelessly, end over end, and
collided with the water with an audible slap. Ramos thought it must
surely be dead, but he could see it shake itself off and swim out
to sea, its splayed legs frantically churning the water. He was too
busy watching it to notice the second salamander until it, too, had
pitched itself into the ocean.

Ramos looked back up at the cliff to see a
third and fourth salamander, each as bloated and fat as the first,
launch themselves in ungainly leaps into space, only to fall like a
stone. They were followed by two more, and then a multitude, like a
river of salamanders cascading into the sea. Ramos watched them,
transfixed.

Not all of them survived the fall. Some
slapped against the water and then floated motionless, while others
survived the splash but were crushed by the weight of the next
creature landing on top of them. What were they doing? His
consternation only increased when he saw the first group of
salamanders, those who had made it farther out into the water,
disappearing under the waves. An enormous back crested nearby,
revealing the existence of some truly gigantic predator.

One of the salamanders had drifted off course
and was paddling away, but the sea creature erupted from beneath
it, its enormous mouth swallowing the salamander whole and throwing
tremendous waves of water into the air. The breach revealed the
monster's shape: an enormous fish with a head like a stone tower,
black crested, with a mouth full of gleaming rows of teeth. Ramos
had never sailed in these waters, but he had heard of such giants.
One had nearly destroyed the ship that brought the original
colonists to Horizon. They had called it leviathan.

Ramos knew enough about animals to know that
they valued their own lives. What possible survival instinct would
drive this group of salamanders to hurl themselves into the sea to
die? He had no idea, but the scene seemed particularly poignant,
given his own circumstances. Whatever drove them, these creatures
must have felt that they had no choices left. The other options
open to them must have seemed worse than this insane act of
self-destruction.

Ramos stepped right to the very edge of his
own precipice, his toes over open space, looking straight down at
the rocks and the spraying mist from the crashing waves. There was
no smell of salt; this was Horizon, after all. He swayed slightly,
his sense of balance compromised. It would be so easy. So simple,
just to fall forward. Hardly a decision at all. A brief and
terrifying fall, and then it would be all over. What was his life,
after all? He had failed Antonia. He had failed Elizabeth. He could
do nothing for them. Better to die here, alone, than to give his
enemies a chance to use his death to coerce others.

And yet, he couldn't do it. It was more than
just the fear of committing a mortal sin; he was well beyond that.
It was just that, even now, he thought of life as precious.
Antonia's life was precious. He couldn't let her die. Helpless rage
surged through him. If what he was doing was right, why was it all
turning out so wrong? Was God truly just an architect who had
started the machine of the world and then let it go? Didn't he care
about the evils being committed in the world right now?

If God truly cared about the events of this
world, then wasn't this a time to intervene? Ramos's faith was
slipping away like salt through his fingers. He didn't know what to
think anymore. He had the Scriptures, yes, but what did that mean
for him, now? Gideon had asked for a sign in a fleece, and God had
given it to him. That's what Ramos needed. Some hint, some sign,
that God cared about the good and evil deeds men did, and that all
that was happening was part of his great design.

A giant wave crashed against the cliff face
below him, sending another crest of spray into the air. But this
time, it was no natural wave. It was the leviathan, leaping out of
the sea directly below Ramos, just like it had done to swallow the
wayward salamander. Its massive bulk cleared the water entirely, a
fish leaping to catch an insect, only the fish was as big as a
building, and the insect was Ramos. Before he could move, the
leviathan's huge jaws had enveloped him. Its enormous body smashed
into the earth, its teeth tearing through rock, rending away a
piece of the cliff with a sound like an avalanche, swallowing Ramos
whole.

ANTONIA knew her body was close. Catherine
had told her so, although she couldn't see it herself. The world
around her was a mystery; she couldn't see it like the people did,
not through physical eyes. She could sense the people around her,
track their movements, but her own body was as invisible to her as
the air. With Catherine's guidance, she flitted around it, even
passed through it, but she couldn't enter it, couldn't marry her
spirit to her body. She couldn't become herself again. It was
maddening.

And there was fire. She couldn't see it or
smell it or feel its heat, but she could tell it was there. Just a
smolder at first, dry wood slowly heating and catching the flame of
the torch. It spread from branch to branch, licking upward,
smoking, gathering around Catherine.

Antonia screamed in frustration. These men
were burning Catherine, and she could do nothing about it. They
would probably burn her own body as well, before she had a chance
to get back into it. She didn't even know if she ever would, but
she certainly couldn't if it was burned away. She was so helpless,
unable to rescue Catherine or douse the fire or even call for
help.

Help. Maybe she could get help. It wasn't
just those people close to her whom she could sense. Maasha Kaatra
was far away, still with Tanalabrinu's manticores, but she could
see his spirit. If she could reach him, if he and the others could
come before it was too late, then maybe there was hope.

She flew toward him. She moved at a
frustratingly slow pace, but at least it was in a straight line.
Tanalabrinu's manticores had retreated to high ground, where they
had reached a kind of stalemate. The mercury bullets had long since
run out, but Rinchirith's manticores had them surrounded and
pinned. Fierce fighting continued, but Maasha Kaatra sat far from
the front line, on the edge of the Gorge, his legs hanging over the
side.

Antonia rushed to tell him what was
happening.

"What can I do?" he said. "Death is the fate
of all men."

The roars and cries of battle seemed
strangely faint here. The land around was quiet and still.

"You can fight!" she said. "You can stand
against oppression and rescue the innocent."

Maasha Kaatra turned his head slowly,
wearily, to face her. "Ten years ago, I watched as my girls were
murdered by Portuguese sailors. I was ready to take my own life
then, but Christopher Sinclair convinced me there was another way.
He told me stories of an island with magical powers, where the dead
could come to life. I knew these stories already. I had read them
in the books of Jabir ibn Hayyan. A recipe for the creation of
life. So I knew they were true.

"I traveled here with Sinclair, and I watched
him make those stories live. He healed the dying, and brought the
dead back to life. But I learned something. Death does not belong
with life. Death cannot be reclaimed, except at a cost greater than
one is willing to pay. So I sought, instead, to die.

"All I want is to be with my girls again.
It's all I've ever wanted. Yet, I entered the void to find them,
and they were not there. What if I cross the river into death and
do not find them there either?"

Antonia huffed in frustration. If they stood
here talking much longer, it would be too late. "Catherine is dying
as we speak. She's being murdered, just like your daughters were.
If you must die, do it for a reason. Your girls are dead, but she's
not, at least not yet, and neither am I. Would they want you to sit
by and do nothing? Stop trying to die for them, and
live
for
them instead!"

Maasha Kaatra's body straightened, and his
eyes focused. An intensity started to burn there, a sense of
purpose. He stood up. "You are wise, little one."

He drew his curved sword out of the scabbard
at his belt. He hefted it, raising it high above his head and back
down again.

"Go!" Antonia said. "Or there won't be
anything left to save."

He ran toward the battle, bellowing his
daughters' names. Antonia rose higher. She could see him charge
into the fray, whirling and spinning with his great sword. He was
just one man against a multitude, but the manticores had seen him
emerge from the deep. He represented the power and strength of the
earth snakes. Tanalabrinu's manticores surged down around him,
fighting with renewed fervor.

The Gorge under Antonia suddenly glowed red,
and a salamander crawled out. Antonia flew as high as she could,
hoping it wouldn't sense her. Then another came out, and another.
They loped down the hill toward the fighting, lunging and snapping.
All through the battlefield, more salamanders erupted out of the
ground.

Rinchirith's troops, convinced it was Maasha
Kaatra calling them forth to fight, fled in panic, while
Tanalabrinu's troops pursued them, now gaining the upper hand. The
salamanders seemed willing to attack either side, but they, too,
were running down the mountainside, giving the impression that they
were chasing Rinchirith's fleeing manticores.

Antonia didn't know if Maasha Kaatra could
get there in time to stop the burning, but she had done all she
could. She was just thinking this as a salamander leaped high and
snapped its jaws around her, plunging her into darkness.