by Tiger Gray
The God howled, reared back, and smashed the bridge to pieces.
* * *
Mal had already decided he was dead when hands pulled him to the bank. He felt all that water come up out of him at once, and he puked and hacked on his knees for the Lord only knew how many miserable minutes. He figured he had broken ribs, which didn't help any. He felt a chill, then a thread of energy, the discomfort in his side and chest easing some. When he looked up, Serwin and Randolph stood over him.
"Bloody hell. You've looked better, haven't you?" Serwin said. Mal thought Ashrinn's best friend would probably sound sarcastic even in the few moments before the world ended for good. "Well, come on. Can you find your feet? Good old boys and getting back in the saddle and all that, yes?"
Mal found that despite having been hammered to within an inch of his life, he could still summon up some annoyance for Serwin. Still, maybe there was something to divine providence. If it hadn't been for Serwin's earlier arrival, he would be dead with no one to heal him.
It took a while for the memory of what had gone on to sink in. The silence was real this time instead of a product of being deafened by battle. When he scanned the area, he saw wreckage and the flicker of the fires being used as body burning stations, but the absolute chaos of the fight had passed. He could see his men here and there doing their best to clean up, but the water ran ugly and thick below, pieces of the bridge being slowly consumed by the slime. He was damn lucky not to have been crushed by a piece of the ruined structure. It was hard to grasp, the Aurora Bridge gone, and the lives of all those who had been trapped on it.
"Come on, Tielhart," Randolph said.. "Let's get you some rest and some food before you go home to your wife."
Raietha. As he watched, a bent suicide prevention sign floated by and he nearly started roaring with laughter, the way Ashrinn did sometimes when things had got on top of him too much. Liu.
He let Randolph and Serwin tug him along towards relative peace. He remembered the courier, man's eyes in a kid's face, the look people got when they'd seen too much too young.
Ashrinn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Liu felt as though she could see forever, perched on top of one of the run-down buildings on the edge of Downtown. She could see the ramp onto the West Seattle Bridge and the sparkling water beyond it. They hadn't been able to call the God in all the places they'd set out to, but it had been successful overall. The real test would come when they tried to take the Port.
She knew that would take a lot of planning, and she tried not to be too impatient. She didn't like being away from her family, though the dark memory of her own father trying to hurt her ran like sewage through her otherwise bright mind. Still, her brothers would see. Her sister. Rosi could be whole again, never have to worry about dying.
She'd asked Coren to meet her here, though she could only hope he'd show. Maybe he'd been corrupted by the enemy, had his mind turned against her already. What would she do then? Well, that was why she'd left her sword and crown behind for now. She knew the God's message could be hard to accept and she didn't want to frighten him away before he'd had his fair chance at redemption. She hoped she'd found him before anyone else had.
She walked through the rooftop garden to calm herself, through rows of vegetables and herbs, a single row of silver-white night blooming flowers standing out because they were just for show. Gardens like this were everywhere, on practically every roof that could hold a planter box. The eagle king had grown these, the golden serpent --- Ashrinn --- she could tell just by the shiver of magic in each plant. He really did have a gift. Maybe that was why the God needed him to truly come into the world. She felt His frustration at having His sacrifice hidden from Him. If only she knew why Ashrinn's signature had become impossible to track, maybe she could do something about it.
Liu let the thought of the Suffering God being manifest comfort her, even if the sacrifice was out of her reach for the moment. She felt so content she almost didn't register Coren's voice, as delighted as she was with visions of a perfect harmonic future, where everyone could see His glory and receive the sacrament of suffering.
"Liu."
She turned. Coren looked haggard, five o'clock shadow making him look a couple of years older than he was, though he was a man now and not the boy she'd first fallen in love with. Normally he was as obsessive about keeping as clean shaven as his father, but by the lost look in his eyes a lot of little rituals had slipped out of place lately.
Liu couldn't restrain herself. She jogged over and flung herself into his arms. He caught her and hugged her. The trills and hoots of Nightmare creatures, echoing from the streets below, sounded more like a sweet chorus than anything scary. At least in that moment, they did.
"Liucy, what the hell are you doing up here?"
She pulled back, only so she could look at him. She could read him now, as if all those little cues she'd missed before were now broad strokes she couldn't possibly miss. She smiled and didn't even care if it looked goofy. "You'll come with me, won't you?"
"What? To where?"
He looked exhausted, with deep fatigue bruises under his violet eyes. Had he been fighting? He was just a mundane. Though, he had to know about the other world now, and he had made it to her on his own without being hurt. She remembered Ashrinn teaching Coren how to use a gun, during the times he'd been home from war. Did Coren have one with him?
"Home. To the Cult compound." She didn't like calling it a cult, but Sarah had always thought it was funny so she did it anyway.
He paled even more. "You're crazy."
The disbelief hurt. He backed away from her like she might lash out at him like an animal.
"It's true!"
"I thought the therapy was supposed to make you normal," Coren said, waving his hands for emphasis, "not worse."
Liu ground her teeth. She wasn't going to back down just because Coren was borrowing a page from her mother's big book of tough love. Sarah --- Gilly --- had given her something neither Coren nor Mother expected: pride. "Just listen to me for a minute!"
"That's crazier than two gin soaked weasels in a sack. You're talking about turning your back on all of us."
Wild magic rose with her anger. A moan of pain and elation escaped, wriggling free through the gap in her clenched teeth. It seemed Coren could feel the crackling in the air by the way he rubbed at his arms, the part of her power that came from her blood and bone.
"Liu," Coren said, holding his hands out before him as though to placate her, or ward himself, "what are you doing?"
She was not, much to her mother's annoyance, a very skilled mage. Her studies were interesting but she had neither the patience nor the placid demeanor generally necessary to wizarding. Still, the thin bolt of power she conjured sprang forth like a struggling bird finally finding its wings. The God had given that back to her, too.
Coren yelped and nearly tripped over his own feet. Despite having grown into his long limbs over the past few years, he could still appear as gangly and discombobulated as a Great Dane puppy when surprised.
"How..."
"Coren, you're surrounded by magic. You had to have seen. It's everywhere." She dropped her hand and the feeling of the God moving within her subsided. She didn't want to frighten Coren into coming with her. She wanted him to feel what she had felt, the unforgettable sense that divinity was inspiring her to greatness she couldn't have achieved on her own.
"You're talking about our enemies. Aren't they the ones who did this?" She'd rarely heard him use such a heated tone. He looked half-crazy in the moonlight, gaunt face only partially lit.
"Dad tried to drown me!" she said. "He hurt me!"
"He wouldn't do that," Coren shot back, folding his arms over his chest.
"He would!" Tears started, and they just made her angrier. Why wouldn't anyone see this for the good thing it was? Did they not want her to be better? "He did!" She drew a breath in through her nose, gathered her thoughts in a way s
he hadn't been able to before Him. "You don't wonder why no one ever told you about all of this? They didn't think you deserved to know, because you're just a human."
"That's not true."
"Your mother is a mage. My mother taught her. So is Talasi. Dad is a paladin and so is your dad. Powerful ones, too."
"Now we're playing fucking D&D! I'm going to find Dad. He'll know what to do."
"He's missing," Liu said. Coren turned back, mouth open and eyebrow cocked in an expression of disbelief and horror.
"What? Missing?"
"He's gone. In battle. You can ask anyone." Coren trembled like he might break and run. "What will you do without him? Go back to your mother?"
Coren gritted his teeth so hard she thought he could hear his jaw creak. She jumped on her chance.
"Sarah says we're special, Coren. Chosen." Liu knew that more than anything, Coren wanted to feel special.
"The school counselor?" Coren said, incredulous. "What does she have to do with this?"
"She's not just a counselor, even though she helped me a lot with that kind of stuff. Sarah gets visions."
"When's the last time someone said they saw visions and they weren't two crayons short of a box?"
Liu thought of all the televangelist shows she'd flipped through while watching TV, the zealous sheen in their hungry eyes. She flinched. "It's not the same! Sarah doesn't want anything from me. She sees me for me!"
Coren watched her for a long time, his face unreadable. "Do you think I want something from you, Liu? Do I just take from you? Is that what you're saying?"
"No," She said, balling her hands into fists, "no, but I want to make a difference as badly as you do, and Mother won't let me do that. Not without being a full mage, and that's never going to happen. This way, we can have everything. We can heal Rosi. You won't have to live at home anymore. Anything we want! The God healed me."
"Maybe if you --- "
"No! She won't listen! I told her once that I didn't want to be a mage. Once. She wouldn't speak to me for two weeks. Dad never said so but I know he thought I made her that way on purpose."
"I don't know if I can," Coren said, and by his rough voice she knew the grief had started to weigh him down.
"You and I are going to be heroes. Sarah said so. We're special, different, and it makes sense that nobody around us wants us to realize that! They lied to you."
"I'm not special, Liu," Coren told her. "I can't even do what you just did. That, what? Spell, I guess."
"You will transform, Coren," she promised, moving towards him, "You will. I know it. I love you and you love me and that is what matters. Please, at least talk to her."
Coren sighed and reached out to embrace her. She laid her head against his chest and counted his heartbeats, the rhythm making a pleasant fuzzy feeling settle somewhere deep in her brain.
"Look. If I come along and listen to this, and I think it's crazy after that, do you promise you'll come home with me?"
Liu smiled a sweet smile. She knew he wouldn't turn away, once he felt the God. "I promise."
* * *
If the Aurora Bridge had been chaos, Harborview hospital was the deepest circle of Hell. Mal remembered the place when it had been orderly and scrubbed with the kind of efficiency that brought to mind nurses on all fours going at the tiles with toothbrushes, in the ICU with his little girl bundled in one of the beds so only her bright red hair showed.
That had been different, though. He'd been terrified of losing his youngest, of course --- not that he'd admit it out loud --- but the quiet and the nicely starched curtains and the smiling nurses had eased his fear. Now every hallway stood choked with bodies, the dead stacked up and the living often howling and crying as the few healthy volunteers treated them right there on the floor.
Some people he knew, or so he thought. It was hard to focus, like he'd been drugged. He couldn't seem to get through the crunch of people fast enough, and every time he took a step towards the burn unit doors they felt further away than ever. Natalie Stark, her hair back in a severe pony tail, Sonth by her side, the both of them with arms bloody to the elbow as they worked on a guy who looked more like a side of beef than a person. Jericho too, standing next to a dryad with purple hair, in a hallway coated in vines and flowers. Made sense that they'd have anyone who could heal here, working overtime, and dryads couldn't always control whether their magic caused that kind of growth. Things had to be serious for them to spend their energy like that.
Someone tried to get in his way. He thought maybe they were trying to question what the hell he was up to, but he couldn't really tell. He shoved before he realized what he was doing, stepping over the man when he hit the ground and the guy's White Eagle insignia be damned. He didn't care if he'd just knocked over one of his own. Even his aggravation seemed far away, though, tangled up somewhere with all the noise around him. Magic sat thick on his tongue, so many flavors it ended up tasting like sludge, sickly sweet like when he'd gone to the convenience store as a kid and mixed every soda flavor in the same cup.
Serwin's signature, bright white and feathery, like he imagined a storybook angel might be. Mal felt a flash of anger he knew was irrational, wondering what the fuck Serwin was doing out here when Ashrinn was in the burn unit and probably pretty beat up. How come they weren't all working on him, dammit? The fact that Serwin had probably already done a hell of a lot for Ashrinn lurked in the back of his mind, but he needed his anger, needed the push to keep going.
He'd almost made the doors when a gnome woman came out of the crowd and right into his path. He wasn't about to walk right over a lady so he made himself stop, though part of him wanted to step on her as hard as he could.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded, hands balled on her hips. She stared him down like she was taller than him, despite him being six four and her not coming any higher than his knee. Her doll-like Swedish features and coral hair did nothing to erode her aura of authority and fierceness, and he felt himself wilt despite having every intention of yelling at her. He did open his mouth to ask her if she knew who she was dealing with, but realized a split second before he spoke what an ass that would make him.
"Don't you pull rank on me," she said, having apparently grasped his intent even so. "I don't care if you're Jesus Christ himself. At this point I'd throw the Lord and Savior out on his damn ear if he didn't listen to me. So who in all the worlds do you think you are?"
He stammered and his face heated up as sure as a poker shoved into the heart of a campfire. Everyone could see it too, fair as he was, and even if he logically knew no one could spare a second to see his shame, it still stung.
"This is my ward," she went on, as if unimpressed with his silence. Or so her flashing tiger's eye gaze said. "So why don't you tell me what business you have?"
"Ashrinn," he managed to croak. "Ashrinn Pinecroft. He must be here."
He'd seen Jericho after all, and Sonth. He had to be here, and in a bed instead of stacked up with the other corpses. The nurse's expression didn't change for the most part, but she went another shade of pale.
"If you want to come in, you'd better march exactly as I tell you, young man. Understand?" She used the same tone his mother had, when he'd made her angry enough to use both of his middle names.
"Yessm."
"That's more like it. I'm Cora, by the way, and I make the calls in this place. Follow me."
He realized as she hit the handicap button and the doors swung open that he didn't even know how long it had been since they'd pulled him out of the water. He hadn't heard anything from Raietha, though he'd sent one of Natalie's birds to her as soon as it had come available. He tasted the quicksilver tang of mage magic which meant there was a Waygate here somewhere, and he was surprised Raietha hadn't come through it yet. Maybe she didn't know where he was.
Guilt ghosted after him as he followed Cora. She had a funny way of bustling down the hall, almost windmilling her arms and bouncing on her
short legs. He guessed it was her way of compensating for being so short and round in an environment where she had to move her ass every second. She was one of the only gnomes he'd seen here, yet no one even thought of bumping into her. Not even the mundane humans, the ones who must have come down from the regular hospital up top to help. They were spots of nothingness in the fireworks show, the black sky that magic stood out against in bursts of rainbow colors.
It made him feel better, that the gnome could command respect like that. It reminded him of his mamma. He focused on her pink and blue scrubs against the white walls, pushing the bad feelings back by narrowing his focus, and trailed after that banner all the way down the hall.
"This is the family room," Cora told him as she pushed another button and the nearest door swung open. It was one of the only empty rooms, and even though it was the size of a walk-in closet it felt a damn sight nicer than any other part of the hospital. Someone had tried to make the place welcoming with a potted plant here and an abstract painting there, but nothing could make him forget the hospital smell, worse now with blood and guts over top of the antiseptic. Cora pulled herself into one of the chairs. Fake leather cushions, another thing that made it so he had no hope of imagining himself as being anywhere but an ICU. That stuff made every room feel like a waiting room.
"What's your name?" Cora asked, her hard tone now with smooth edges worn by sympathy.
"Tielhart." He realized she probably wanted his full name, had to remind himself this wasn't the military. "Malkai Tielhart."
She probably knew who he was. Everyone did. He felt a knotted muscle just above his shoulder blades unknot, that's how grateful he was for her pretending he was just a regular guy. He sure as hell couldn't muster up being Sir Silverblade right now.