Barker, Clive – Imajica 01 – The Fifth Dominion. Part 9

“We should get out of here,” Gentle said, but Huzzah had better advice.

“She won’t hurt us if we’re not afraid,” she said. Gentle was half tempted to reply that he was indeed afraid, but he kept his silence and his place, despite the fact that the evidence of his eyes suggested the Goddess had no patience with dividing the bad from the misguided or the unrepentant from the prayerful. All but four of their pursuers—N’ashap numbered among them—had already been claimed by the sea, some gone beneath the tide entirely, others still struggling to reach some solid place. Gentle saw one man scrambling up out of the water, only to have the ground he was crawling upon liquify beneath him with such speed the Cradle had closed over him before he had time to scream. Another went down shouting at the water that was bubbling up around him, the last sight of him his gun, held high and still firing.

AH the torch carriers had succumbed now, and the only illumination was from the cliff top, where soldiers who’d had the luck to be left behind were training their beams on the massacre, throwing into silhouette the figures of N’ashap and the other three survivors, one of whom was making an attempt to race towards the solid ground where Gentle, Pie, and Huzzah stood. His panic undid him. He’d only run five strides when silvery foam bubbled up in front of him. He turned to retrace his steps, but the route had already gone to seething silver. In desperation he flung away his weapons and attempted to leap to safety, but fell short and went from sight in an instant.

One of the remaining trio, an Oethac, had fallen to his knees to pray, which merely brought him closer to his executioner, who drew him down in the throes of his imprecation, giving him time only to snatch at his comrade’s leg and pull him down at the same time. The place where they’d vanished did not cease to seethe but redoubled its fury now. N’ashap, the last alive, turned to face it, and as he did so the sea rose up like a fountain, until it was half his height again.

“Lady,” Huzzah said.

It was. Carved in water, a breasted body, and a face dancing with glints and glimmers: the Goddess, or her image, made of her native stuff, then gone the same instant as it broke and dropped upon N’ashap. He was borne down so quickly, and the Cradle left rocking so placidly the instant after, it was as though his mother had never made him.

Slowly, Huzzah turned to Gentle. Though her father was dead at her feet, she was smiling in the gloom, the first open smile Gentle had seen on her face.

“The Cradle Lady came,” she said.

They waited awhile, but there were no further visitations. What the Goddess had done—whether it was to save the child, as Huzzah would always believe, or because circumstance had put within her reach the forces that had tainted Her Cradle with their cruelty—She had done with an economy She wasn’t about to spoil with gloating or sentiment. She closed the sea with the same efficiency She’d employed to open it, leaving the place unmarked.

There was no further attempt at pursuit from the guards left on the cliff, though they kept their places, torches piercing the murk.

“We’ve got a lot of sea to cross before dawn,” Pie said.

“We don’t want the suns coming up before we reach the peninsula.”

Huzzah took Gentle’s hand. “Did Papa ever tell you where we’re going in Yzordderrex?”

“No,” he said. “But we’ll find the house.” She didn’t look back at her father’s body, but fixed her eyes on the gray bulk of the distant headland and went without complaint, sometimes smiling to herself, as she remembered that the night had brought her a glimpse of a parent that would never again desert her.

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