by Chris Fox
“So I used the years to my advantage. I cultivated wealth and influence, because I had the luxury of understanding time in a way very few people can,” he explained, pausing to lick his lips. “Mark, over the last two centuries I’ve gotten the briefest taste of what it’s like for them. What it’s like to be a god. But all I have is the immortality and a few paltry trinkets I’ve collected, not the raw power they wield. These things shaped empires that spanned continents. You know what a young werewolf can do. Imagine the power of a millennia-old goddess.”
“You were going to tell me about how you weren’t selling out humanity,” Mark gave back, eyeing the Old Man critically.
“After Usir left I didn’t have any compulsion to serve him, but at the same time I knew he’d return,” the Old Man explained, shaking his head. “So I went about learning the world. Learning as much about the past as I could. I founded archeological digs and visited ancient ruins. I was a big part of Egyptology back in the nineteen-twenties. I’ve spent time in South America and India. Always searching for our roots, for some proof of where this thing came from. I found his fingerprints everywhere. He manipulated cultures throughout history; I’m sure of it. From Chichen Itza in the sixth century to Egypt an ocean away. I think the audacious bastard even played Imhotep in third-dynasty Egypt. He taught Djoser how to make pyramids. Always he was found in a culture that created pyramids. Why? What was the significance to a timeless god about the specific shape of a pyramid? Why were they always made of stone?”
Mark was shocked to his core. So much time to learn the world, to study patterns. If you knew what to look for, that is. So many of the company’s mysterious operations suddenly made sense.
“My search for the answers led to the founding of this company. I came to understand the galactic procession, that the world would eventually return to the conditions that allowed these gods to flourish. I knew the time was fast approaching, but I hadn’t even guessed there might be something like the viruses they unleashed. I did suspect the Arks and even learned where the first one would appear.”
“You’re talking about Peru,” Mark interjected.
“Exactly,” the Old Man replied, shaking his head. “I had no idea what we’d find within, but I knew we had to learn all we could before my master returned.”
The fact that the Old Man still called this Usir ‘master’ terrified Mark. “So what was your goal in the end? You’ve gathered all this knowledge. Now what? Are we going to fight them?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t think we can fight them,” Mohn said, giving the first shrug Mark had ever seen. “But I’m going to try. We’re going to try. I hope you understand what an immense risk I’m taking in trusting you, Mark. I hope I have your continued loyalty.”
The whole thing sounded good. Sounded plausible, maybe because of its implausibility. Yet a detail nagged at Mark. If the Old Man wasn’t serving this master any longer, why all the calls to London? Mohn was lying, trying to lull Mark into complacency.
“Of course,” Mark answered smoothly, dropping his arms to his sides. The last few grains were slipping down the hourglass. Whatever the Old Man’s endgame was, Mark was certain he was about to find out. “We’re in this together.”
61
Whole Once More
The Mother smiled for the first time in a very, very long while. She swept down the ramp into the central chamber, admiring the handiwork of the past several days. Each of the control obelisks shone with a faint inner light, a pale shadow of the energy the rods would one day hold. It wasn’t much, but it illuminated the glyphs she’d lovingly painted on the walls all those millennia ago.
The labor had taken her nearly a century, each pictograph lovingly crafted. It was a diary in a way, the remembrance of the events that had led her here. The endless war with the deathless, the desperate struggle to keep them from the shores of this strange continent. Even loss and rebirth of Osiris and the struggle to wrest the secrets left behind by the Builders. She approached one of her favorite scenes, the very first she’d painted.
It showed her standing atop a spire in a massive city. An alien city, one she’d never fully understood in the brief months she’d studied it before it sank beneath the waves. One of the few mysteries remaining to her back then. After all, the world had been her plaything. She’d been a goddess, worshiped by entire peoples under many different names in just as many lands. Isis. Pombo. The Mother. There were so many.
She stroked the cool wall, fingers feeling a familiar electric rush as they brushed the stone. That was why they’d chosen not just stone, but this stone in particular. Quartz contained the energy better than nearly any other substance save Sunsteel. It was easily mined and plentiful throughout the world, making it ideal for the inner core. The outer core was cut from obsidian, etched smooth through shaping. That channeled sun and moon both, feeding the power into the Ark’s nearly limitless reserves.
Those reserves were sadly depleted now. It would be years before the place was fully functional. Perhaps decades depending on how much power she used along the way. It was a dangerous time, a time when her stronghold provided far less than it someday would. Yet it was still an improvement over the ruin she’d found when she’d first awoken.
“Where are they now, Yukon?” she asked, stroking her loyal companion’s neck as she strode through the inner chamber. It was a mystery she had no way of answering, save for attempting to contact the Ark of the Redwood. That might prove fruitless, or it might reveal the Ark’s new owner. Would that be Blair? Or Irakesh?
If it had been uncovered, what of the most precious cargo within? What of her daughter, willful and stubborn and beautiful. Jes’Ka was ready for this new world, but was the world ready for her?
The Mother strode through the remainder of the chamber, passing by the Mother’s hand and entering the heart. Its white walls pulsed slowly with energy, in time with her heartbeat. How many generations of man had passed while she’d slumbered here?
She rested a hand on the rejuvenator, knowing that somewhere her daughter rested in a similar one. What should she do? She would meditate and pray that the small strength this place gave Blair would be enough to help the Ka-Dun secure the Ark of the Redwood so that she might be reunited with her daughter.
The lights flickered and when they resumed, their illumination had lessened. She whirled, sensing movement behind her. A faint greenish glow came from the central chamber, a familiar glow. The Mother exited the rejuvenation chamber, shifting to her wolf form instinctively as she took in the figure before her.
“By the gods,” she whispered, the words the same she’d uttered nearly twenty-five millennia before, when she’d first laid eyes on the shimmering figure. “Ka, how have you come here?”
The translucent figure met her impassively, its flat, black eyes and long, thin neck too alien to be human. It had two hands and two legs, but each hand possessed only four fingers. Its skin was a deep green. Her own age had lacked a word to describe the figure, but this new age supplied it. Ka was a hologram.
“Greetings, Ka-Ken,” Ka offered, inclining its head. The hologram flickered, and the lights dimmed further. “I must be brief. Accessing the systems here drains the little power remaining.”
“I ask again, how have you come here?” the Mother asked, extending an arm. The reassuring weight of the Primary Access Key coalesced in her hand, its golden length held defensively before her. “You should be imprisoned in the Nexus.”
“This was so, until very recently,” Ka said, giving another bob of its head. “A hominid recently entered the Nexus and accessed my systems. Doing so drained the primary battery, and the Nexus entered hibernation. When this occurred I was shunted to background systems.”
“That doesn’t explain how you came to be here,” the Mother countered, eyes narrowing. “Explain. Tell me of this hominid.”
“Assuredly,” Ka said, to all appearances the dutiful servant. The Mother knew just how deceptive that appearance was, memori
es of the First Ark large in her mind. Ka flickered again. “The Nexus sought to offload my matrix to the first available Ark. When you initiated repairs, the Ark rebooted, which removed the security preventing me from entering. When the Nexus detected this I was automatically shunted here.”
“And this hominid?” the Mother asked, stomach twisting in knots. If Set had somehow entered the Nexus…
“Three hominids, in truth,” Ka corrected, flickering wildly for a moment before continuing. “Their helixes had been shaped in a manner similar to the mutagen you and I crafted together.”
“They’re deathless?” the Mother asked, taking a hostile step forward. She growled low in her throat.
“No, Ka-Ken. Their helixes are different. In many ways they are weaker than either the deathless or the champions you have created,” Ka explained. It gestured at the air next to it and an image of three people appeared.
One was male, young and handsome with impetuous eyes. He wore black clothing cut from this era, and his gaze lacked the green glow of the deathless. Behind him stood a pair of women. The closer was beautiful and of an age with the man, strong and confident much like Jes’Ka. Her hair was a river of brown cascading down her back, and her skin was darker than the man’s. A descendent of the people she’d once ruled on the northern continent?
The last was little more than a child, an auburn-haired female on the eve of adulthood. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“Who shaped them?” she asked. They appeared normal in every way, but then so did she before she shifted.
“The progeny of the Builders,” Ka said, dimming until only a bare shade remained. Its voice was tinny and barely above a whisper now. “They have returned to this world, and their plans do not bode well for your species.”
The Mother shifted back to human form, leaning heavily on her staff. She knew little of the Builders and nothing of their progeny. She glanced up to ask Ka another question, but the hologram disappeared as the lights of her Ark flickered and died.
62
Jes'Ka
Trevor’s hands clenched and unclenched as he paced back and forth just inside the Ark’s wide entryway. The massive recess cut into the stone was identical to the pyramid in Peru. An invisible plane held back the ocean, allowing him to gaze out into its black depths. The same depths where he’d watched Cyntia slaughter Blair’s friend and possibly Blair himself. Even if he’d survived Cyntia’s brutal attack, Blair had probably died when the ocean crashed over him. And it was Trevor’s fault.
He hadn’t seen what had happened at the end. Just as he’d set the silver box down in the corner, he’d heard a tremendous roar. The ocean had filled the corridor Irakesh had created, obliterating all traces of their passage and leaving them protected within the Ark’s entryway. If there was any solace it was that Cyntia had mercifully perished out there somewhere.
“This is the sweetest thing I have tasted in this new age,” Irakesh said, stepping up to the water and brushing it with an outstretched hand. “The journey was long, but now the true work can begin.”
Trevor looked sidelong at his master, hating him with an intensity that he’d not realized himself capable of. The things he’d been asked to do were unjust in a way no one should ever ask of another. The depths of Irakesh’s cruelty continued to amaze him. Yet somehow it wasn’t personal or malicious. To Irakesh his victory was all that mattered and Trevor’s friends were just casualties. It was the indifferent malevolence of a cat toying with prey.
“Do you want me to carry the nuke inside?” Trevor asked. He needed to escape. He just couldn’t be in the same room with this monster anymore.
“No, leave it. Cyntia will carry it,” Irakesh replied. He turned a wicked grin on Trevor, ebony skull gleaming under a sheen of condensation.
“Cyntia’s dead,” Trevor said, gesturing at the water. “There’s no way she could have survived that.” He was horrified by the alternative.
“Are you so certain? We shall see,” Irakesh mused, raising a black eyebrow. He pushed past Trevor and into the corridor leading deeper into the Ark. “Come. Let us explore. I grew up with legends of this place, but have never seen the inside. This is the first Ark Isis ruled wholly by herself, though Ptah had a large hand in its discovery and reshaping.”
Trevor trailed after, vaguely curious about these gods Irakesh had mentioned, but mostly consumed by the knot of rage that had been growing since he’d found himself enslaved to the bastard’s will.
They entered a corridor with high ceilings, faintly illuminated by silvery glyphs where the walls met the ceiling. They revealed vast scenes of glorious battles between beleaguered silver figures and twisted black ones. The farther they passed the more the shape of those battles grew clear. At first the silver figures had been driven back, but eventually they had allied with four-legged creatures he took to be wolves. Then they had turned the tide, driving the black figures off a cliff and into the ocean.
“Do you see that glow up ahead? That’s the central chamber. From there I have complete control over this place,” Irakesh said, nearly skipping in his apparent eagerness. It was the happiest Trevor had ever seen him. Like a child clapping its hands as it stood over the corpses of murdered parents.
They entered a wide chamber with high-vaulted ceilings lost in darkness. Five jet-black obelisks dominated the room, one in each corner and a central one that was larger than the rest. Trevor could feel the power they hummed with, though it was so faint he had to strain to catch the echo they gave off.
Beyond the obelisks lay a wide doorway flanked by statues, both female werewolves by the size. Through that doorway came a faint white glow, soft but brighter than the walls in this room or the corridor leading here. Irakesh strode boldly across the floor, clearly aimed at that room.
Trevor followed, gawking at his surroundings despite the numbing horror of all he’d experienced in recent weeks. There was still beauty in the world, even if he could barely appreciate it. They entered the mysterious room, which was empty save for a series of long clear sarcophagi more at home in Stargate than anywhere in their world. They glittered with gemstones along the surface, rubies and emeralds and diamonds. Each held their own inner light, which pulsed and flowed like a heartbeat. The heartbeat of the occupants.
Within the central one lay a black-clothed woman with lustrous blond hair and youthful features. She was beautiful, but something about her was both familiar and troubling. It was impossible that Trevor could know her, but there was something about her. Some sort of mental impression perhaps? His ignorance irritated him.
“By the sun itself,” Irakesh breathed, dropping to a crouch next to the sarcophagus. He placed his hands against the amber substance, which glowed faintly at his touch. “Trevor, do you know who this is? Never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed we’d find such a treasure.”
“Who is she?” Trevor asked, studying her sleeping face. Another immortal of some kind, one with powers and knowledge he could only guess at.
“Jes’Ka, daughter of Isis. The one you know as the Mother,” Irakesh explained, rising and facing Trevor. His eyes were lit with a feverish gleam. “She slumbers because her mother did not trust her with a key. No doubt Isis planned to awaken her after she’d secured this land. Jes’Ka was proud, stubborn, and powerful. If she could be turned to our cause, we could rule this entire continent in a single generation.”
“Isn’t she a werewolf?” Trevor asked, resting the butt of his rifle on the floor. He knelt to peer into the sarcophagus. He recognized objectively that she was beautiful but the part of him that might have felt anything had died when his heart stopped. “If you let her out, what’s to stop her from tearing us apart?”
“I will,” came a low growl from behind him. Trevor spun, rifle snapping to his shoulder as he took aim at the speaker. Cyntia stood in her human form, naked and blue from the cold. She was drenched, which wasn’t entirely bad since she’d desperately needed a bath. She stood gingerly on her right leg, which
was curiously whiter than the left. “Let the bitch out. If she wishes to fight I will gut her and feast on her entrails.”
“Oh, Cyntia,” Irakesh said, delivering one of the condescending smiles he seemed so good at. “Jes’Ka would end your pitiful existence before you even knew she’d struck. If she wished it, Trevor and I would be dead soon after. She has had centuries to grow in strength, where you have had a bare handful of weeks. You have grown strong and show much potential, but this fight is beyond you.”
“So I’ll ask again, what’s to stop her from tearing us apart?” Trevor asked, lowering the rifle. His finger itched to stroke the trigger, to shoot Cyntia between those fevered blue eyes. Something still held him back. He strained against it, grinding his teeth.
“She has need of me,” Irakesh said, rising to his feet. He stared longingly into the sarcophagus and Trevor got the impression it was more than simple infatuation driving him. “I have the key to her Ark. Only a male can control such a structure—a male or the Mother. She cannot use the key and thus needs a male to administer for her.”
“Couldn’t she kill you and give it to Blair?” Trevor asked, a warm sliver of glee surging through him at the fury that twisted Irakesh’s expression.
“Not if the Ka-Dun is dead. If I am her only option then she will see reason. Jes’Ka was always pragmatic and while she generally obeyed her mother’s wishes, she was known to think for herself. She didn’t have the same blind hatred for the deathless many of her kind had. Perhaps because of her father, Osiris,” he said, stroking the glass-like substance.