The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (11 page)

“We discovered then that the more precisely we designed the tiny demons, the more unstable their succeeding generations became with each new infection. The Council decided that we would never again take the easy road with such weapons—it was before I was a full member, dear. We abandoned that path entirely and now use the gifts only to create new life.”

Pyra tried to force the detached curiosity of a star pupil searching for academic guidance into her voice. “But what about the Divine Breeding Program
; are not t
he Agents of Judgment
created
to kill
?
”

Mnemosynae seemed unperturbed by the question.
“They are demigods capable of
functions
other
than
warfare. When necessary
,
they fight, but only in conventional ways, against military targets. They do not spread poison and plague
against mothers and children
…
”

Pyra
shook herself free of the image of her mother’s
bloated agony.

Mnemosynae
seemed
too wrapped up in her soliloquy to notice. “
…
We have atoned for our mistakes. That debacle was one of the reasons we broke away from the old masters in the East. The old titans urged us into that war. They encouraged us to breed the plague. They did not want their own hands dirty before the eyes of the world.”

“Mistress, why have I never learned of these things in my history lessons?”
Why tell me now?
She
wondered.

“Have you not been taught that progress comes by trial and error?”

Pyra was now panting.
“Yes, but on such a horrendous scale?” The
sickly stench
of death around her began to make her head spin.

“We can step outside now—I’ve seen what I need to.” Mnemosynae gathered her protégé in motherly arms and led her from the carnage. “You must forgive the abruptness of all this,” she said, once a fresh sea breeze hit their faces. “I have you on a pace for rapid advancement. It means you need to know certain things the others don’t. I know that must seem disturbing to you right now. I only ask that you be patient and observe. Watch the priests when they arrive. Note their investigative methods.”

The sea air revived Pyra some
, as s
he
gazed
out over the harbor
,
near
the drainage tunnel outlet on the beach just to the south. There she saw some old poling boats like the ones her mother used to take her out into the bay on when she was little. The Temple maintained them for
both
pleasure use and
business,
to visit deep-draft ships farther out from the quay. Pyra tried to lock onto the memory of those happy childhood outings to
avoid
the horror inside
the rotting warehouse in the rotting city
.
Unfortunately, the Temple technicians arrived all too soon and returned her to the awful present.

The rest of the afternoon Pyra followed and observed in a haze. The priestly team deconstructed the warehouse, piece by piece, body by body, like a swarm of ants that ferried the take back up to the Temple laboratories
as though it were some hideous ant hill
.

That night Pyra had more nightmares. Her mother lay dead and swollen from beatings on the wharf house floor, except that something huge and hideous exploded from inside her body. Somehow
,
the Thing wrapped itself around Pyra’s face like a constricting snake
with
many heads
.

P

andura
was
right.

The condition of Pyra’s mother improved steadily over the next few months. The swelling
around her face, neck, and limbs
went down
considerably
,
leaving only an enlarged
abdomen, where it was expected. Pyra visited almost daily and played the lyre for her. After nearly eight months
,
she even start
ed
to believe that
Mauma
might pull through this ordeal after all.

Each week, on her off-cycle, Pyra borrowed a small onager and cart from the Temple livery to take her mother out to the arboretum beyond the eastern city gates. Like the menagerie and the poling boats, this
also
was a happy place of former childhood outings.

S
treamers of silvery clouds drifted in from the sea. The arboretum sat on a gentle slope overlooking the straits north of Temple City Epymetu. Across the narrows
,
Pyra
saw
the shadowy end of that northern subcontinent called Psydonu’s Shield, which stretched to the far Polar Regions where their patron titan ruled from the Earth’s very axial point
,
in his island city of Thulae. The
barren rocky shore
opposite
contrasted sharply to
the
richly
wooded slopes of the arboretum.

Pyra reined the onager
onto
a
path that led to her mother’s favorite pool—a resting point for a stream that tumbled down from
some
higher spring through hanging rhododendrons and tall oak sentinels. She halted the cart on a grassy swath by the tiny pond, where she unhooked the
onager
to let him graze. Taanyx
jumped out the back and ran off to chase squirrels, while Pyra helped her mother down to guide her over to the water.

Mauma sighed.
“Darling, you don’t know what these outings mean to me
.
” Pyra helped support the weight of her mother’s swollen
middle
, lowering her onto a mossy stone where her feet could dangle in the pool.

Pyra sat on the bank next to her.
“Soon it will be time, won’t it?”

“Yes, my
T’Qinna
. But I feel much better because of you.”

“You haven’t called me that in years.” Pyra’s eyes began to flood.

“It is your given name. I
use it
for special moments. It means ‘beautiful one’ in the Old Dialect.”

Pyra wiped her eyes and sniffed.
“As opposed to ‘the one who burns
,
’ in the new?”

“
Pyra
is also a nice name. Fire can warm as well as burn. The Temple Namer chose well.”

“I think you chose better.”

Mauma
laughed. “Perhaps you should use them both together.”

“Pyra T’Qinna
or T’Qinna Pyra
?”

“It is the two sides of who you are. You are fiery and beautiful.”

Pyra moved her foot in the water, which scared a frog up onto the bank. The creature immediately caught her eye—it had three front legs.

“Mauma, have you noticed that there are more sports in the arboretum than there used to be?”

“Surely not
—t
hey can’t survive well out in the wild.”

A large salamander climbed onto a nearby rock. It had two heads.

The creeping dread
coiled
up Pyra’s spine as she yanked her feet from the water.
They had
been coming here every week for months.
“Each time
we visit,
I see at least one animal that’s a sport of some kind. We never used to see them here when I was little—only in the Temple gardens.”

Mauma looked down at the deformed frog. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“Shouldn’t we report it to Pandura?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing she doesn’t already know.”

“Mauma, the sports began when a containment mistake was made decades ago in the Temple research—Mnemosynae told me—the same work that led to the Divine Breeding Program. If there are more sports surviving in the wild, it means there are more of them being born than we think.”

Mauma’s eyes seemed to fade into a forlorn gray.
“Maybe you should report this to Pandura, then
.
”

T

he following day did not go well, despite Pyra’s breakthrough with the Lumpy One. Yes, Gorvox had finally engaged in worship, but it was hardly magical. Quite the opposite, he immediately regress
ed
into his shell afterward—something that
both
puzzled and disturbed the young priestess greatly. She had worked hard for months to get him to feel comfortable around her. Now he seemed more terrified of her than ever.

Pyra put the Lumpy One out of her mind. She would write it up later and consult ‘Phe. Right now
,
she had to get into a frame of mind to visit Mauma
,
and to go see Pandura about the arboretum sports
later
. She fished out her lyre from under the couch and trudged out of her dorm
and
across the sundial court. It was hard to work up any cheerfulness today. She had a feeling her smile did not really meet her eyes, but she kept it on anyway until she entered her mother’s domicile at the end of the children’s dorm.

Pyra knew something was wrong the second she pushed through the doorway hangings. The sickly sweet smell of opium smoke invaded her nostrils. The living space was a mess. She ran down the short hall to her mother’s bedchamber and flew through the flaps.

Mauma’s divan was empty.

Harachne sat on the floor with her back propped against the wall. Her opium pipe smoldered in one hand and an empty ale jar sat by her other.

“She’s gone. They’ve taken her,” the older woman chanted in a deathly singsong.

Pyra demanded,
“When?”

Harachne peered up at her with glassy eyes. “You can’t follow them, darling.
Where they go, no one
can follow
.
”

Pyra squatted down, burning her gaze into the academy marm’s face. “How long ago did they leave?”

Harachne grabbed Pyra’s wrist and tried to pull her down. “You’re such a beautiful child. I’m so sad with your mother gone. Stay with me?”

Pyra wrenched free of the Spider Woman’s grip and smacked her arm away with the lyre in her other hand, smashing the instrument. The discordant twang echoed through the chamber as she rose to her feet. “I’m not ten years old anymore, Harachne. If you touch me again, I will have you removed from your calling entirely!”

The older woman laughed softly. “For showing affection? Ah yes, you are Mnemosynae’s new prodigy. You know secrets now don’t you? Tell me, do they comfort you or
give you
nightmares?”

Pyra stepped back from her, dropped the collapsed lyre, and brushed through the door flaps.

“I was a prodigy too
, once
!” Harachne yelled after her. “One mistake is all it takes to fall from their grace! Then you’ll come back to me! In the end, you will become me!”