Nightfall

by Elizabeth Hartwell

  “Hmm, no wonder you’re not sleeping through the night very often,” Tym replies, not upset at all about my keeping my dreams secret. It surprises me. I thought he’d go ballistic if he found out I was keeping a secret of this magnitude from him. “Have you told anyone?”

  “You’re the first,” I admit. “If I thought there was anything we could actually act on in Bane’s mind fuckery, I’d tell you guys. But right now, he seems to be mostly intent on scaring the shit out of me.”

  “I understand. And I’m sure you’ll do the right thing. But your dreams make the point for me, I think. If Bane’s so intent that he’s still reaching out to you, I’m almost a hundred percent sure that he’s trying to find another way to complete the vessel that he needs. We’re just working with the information we have.”

  “Let’s just hope it’s enough.” I take a deep breath and look over at him. “You’re not pissed that I haven’t told?”

  Tym strokes his trimmed beard, shaking his head. “Despite your difficulties, Brandon, and despite your self-doubt, I do not blame you for this. We all have those dark secrets that we don’t even like admitting to ourselves. Keeping this from us . . . is natural. Although I would suggest telling Cerena, at least. She needs to know what might be happening.”

  We finish foraging, finding a lucky break of some sort of mountain berries that are super tart but Tym says are good for eating, so by the time we return, all of our pockets are filled with greens and berries. They’re both wearing their packs, and when we approach, Lance hands mine to me while Tym takes his from Cerena.

  “I’ll fill you in when we find a place to camp for the night,” she says. “I need a fire if I’m going to even have a chance of sleeping halfway peacefully, and I’d like the firelight to chase away the chills of what I’ve learned.”

  It doesn’t take long. There’s a natural lee in the side of the mountain that allows Tym to build a small fire while I hand out our foraged greens and berries and Lance breaks out the food tablets. Once the fire’s going and a soft glow fills the area, I look over at Cerena, who takes a long drink from her water supply.

  That’s been one good thing about being in the mountains, plenty of water. While we’re still passing everything through our hip filter packs, we haven’t had to recycle our piss or anything like that yet. I know it’s just a trick of the mind, but because of that, I swear the naturally sourced water just tastes better. Not as good as a decent shot of Cleer, one of the few alcohols that I remember tasting, but good enough.

  “So, what did you find?” I ask as I take a bite out of my food pellet and chase it with a berry. It helps with the taste immeasurably, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Lance breaking off bits to wrap in the leaves we found. “Anything useful?”

  “Maybe,” Cerena says, opening the holographic computer again. She moves so that we can all see the projection against the darkness of the forest around us, lines of white highlighted by boxes. “Here’s my family tree, going back to the time of the War.”

  Cerena flips back past her most recent generation to the top of the tree, where it shows two names, Robert King and Sulevia, no last name. Cerena swipes right, and the next name is a Philip Orwell . . . and Sulevia. “Whoa.”

  Lance might be monosyllabic, but he’s right. Five times, as Cerena swipes right, the name Sulevia repeats. “Either your ancestors were really getting their freak on,” I murmur, “and didn’t care about taboos, or—”

  “Or Sulevia is an ancient name for the sun goddess,” Cerena says. “That was another file in the computer, a whole cultural mythology database that wasn’t available to me when I was a student. The next generation of shelter dwellers are the same, although the name’s different, this time Athena. The next, Sunna, and finally, Minerva before the names start getting fully mixed. Four straight generations, each of them represented a female name that’s either a goddess of the sun, light, or wisdom. Out of the one hundred and twenty-eight couples that produced my lineage, these names account for thirty-two of them. A full quarter of my genetic profile, filtered through four generations.”

  Lance whistles softly, giving Cerena an even more devoted look than normal, and I can honestly understand. If I understand his family history and Tym’s correctly, Cerena shares the same percentage of divine DNA as they do, just reinforced through a different means.

  “Wait,” I ask, blinking. “That means that for four generations, your ancestors were . . . you know, related?”

  Cerena nods, sighing. “I considered the idea. And to be honest with you, it horrified me at first, but then I thought about it. I have to assume that the DNA of the gods is perfect and that there isn’t any problem with mixing things together that way.”

  I think about it, then nod. Either way, Cerena’s three more generations removed from what happened. It isn’t like she’s some freak in any sense of the word. At least, no more than the rest of the world. “You know, the same could be true in my case,” I muse, mostly to reassure her. “I don’t know my lineage other than being seven generations removed from Bane. But that doesn’t mean that was the last time he dipped his wick in my particular gene pool.”

  Tym hums, stroking his beard. “Perhaps. Cerena, I assume you looked at other profiles?”

  “I did,” Cerena admits. “And I was surprised to find something. Most of the names that came through those first four generations started dying off. It seems that once those families stopped having Sulis as the female side of the line, two things happened. One, they all shifted from having your average mix of boys and girls to exclusively having girls. And they started having only one child at a time. I know I’m the only child—both of my parents were—and it seems to have gone back.”

  “But in the Scorched Earth, that wouldn’t exactly be a good way to keep a family line alive,” I add, and Cerena nods. “Even if your ancestors did have stronger lineage or maybe even powers of some sort that maybe they didn’t know about . . . all it takes is one bad accident and the tree branch is pruned.”

  “And that happened a lot,” Cerena says. “It seems that these family lines tended to produce a lot of people who wanted to get into the whole making the world better and safer game.”

  “And yet here you are, ready to charge off to save the world again,” Lance says, his voice light but not quite joking. “Insanity . . . doing the same thing but expecting a different result.”

  “This time, we may not have a choice,” Cerena says. “I found another name in the files. It took me awhile because the line wasn’t in Solace any more. It may not be a line that’s good any longer, but it could be.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “This person’s already gene-crossed?”

  “Not sure . . . but it could just be that they’re mixed with a human line that did survive through luck, or maybe Sulis did interact outside of the shelter. But their great-grandmother had a child with a Ring towner, and now the girl lives in one of the outer villages. Her name’s Sienna White. She’s young, just turned twelve. She might not be able to bear a child yet.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I growl, looking as Cerena pulls up this girl’s family tree. “Bane just needs her blood, her essence. Age won’t matter to him.”

  “Exactly. And we have to assume that if Sulis was this involved with the Solace gene pool, Bane’s already found another person like you in his gene pools,” Cerena says, closing the computer down. “Maybe he’ll even use a werewolf of some type. I don’t know. But we need to find this girl and make sure she’s safe.”

  “Then let’s get some rest,” Tym says, looking over at me as he puts out the fire. I can read his eyes. He wants me to talk about the dreams I’ve been having, but I’m not in the right headspace to deal with that right now. “Brandon, can you take first guard?”

  I nod and pick up Lance’s Gauss pistol. I’m nowhere near the shot he is, but it’s our strongest weapon. If something wants to ambush us, it’s our best chance of taking them out in one strike. As the others settle in to sle
ep, I think about what Cerena said.

  Four straight generations. A quarter of her DNA is Sulis, or an eighth if you go by each parent giving half. But still, Cerena’s so normal. Beautiful, but normal if you can count a five-foot-eleven-inch voluptuous athlete who can sway her hips hypnotically, do back flips, and behead wild predators like it’s normal.

  And I’m some sort of freak who still doesn’t understand who or what I am.

  How am I supposed to help save the fucking world?

  “You know,” Cerena says in the darkness as everyone settles in, “there was one other thing I saw. The Elders are unique.”

  “How so?” I ask, looking back as she wiggles herself down into her best sleeping position. Lance waits, ready to keep her warm tucked between him and Tym until it’s his turn to take the watch.

  “All three of them are the last members of their generation. I expected that. But all three are . . . half-siblings.”

  “Siblings?” Tym asks curiously. “You mean—”

  “Sulis’s first generation of offspring were one boy and three girls. The girls, it seemed, covered the gap with the existing shelter dwellers. But one didn’t marry or have children . . . Elizabeth. And two of her sons are Thomas and Edward. All three of them, no offspring, no marriages. Just . . . direct descendants of Sulis herself. What do you think it means?”

  “It means they probably spent too much time strumming their beans or spanking their monkeys to ever hook up with anyone,” Lance quips, chuckling. “Come on, sweet cheeks. We can ponder the metaphysical shit tomorrow as we move out.”

  “You’re right . . . goodnight, guys.”

  “Goodnight, Cerena,” I reply, turning back around and adjusting my seat a little. Lance is right. I should ponder the deeper meaning of all this tomorrow . . . but as the night grows darker and deeper, I can’t help but let my mind whirl with the implications of what Cerena’s discoveries mean.

  Chapter 9

  Lance

  I open my eyes, and at first I think I’m floating in a gray cloud. I look down, and my feet aren’t touching anything, but at the same time, I’m not falling. Instead, I seem to just be . . . existing in this space, no real left or right, up or down except using my own body as a reference point.

  Taking a deep breath, I inhale the grayness, but there’s no flavor to it, no scent, although I do feel a bit of cold dampness on my tongue as I hold the breath for a moment before letting it out.

  “Is this really my dream?” I wonder out loud, looking around still. “I mean, I thought I had a better imagination than this. If I’m going to float, can I at least have conjured up some colors to go along with it?”

  The scene shifts, and suddenly, I find the world shimmer around me, revealing a tall, thick tree. It rises from the misty ground, rising higher and higher before disappearing into the gray, and as my feet set down, I feel grass underneath me, watching as it slowly materializes, covering the three main roots of the tree until I feel like I’m staring up at an enormous plant that’s larger than a mountain.

  “That’s better. Don’t know what that is, but it’s better than gray.”

  I hear light laughter off to my left, and I look, surprised when I see a man with short black hair, a smooth face, and eyes just like mine approach. “Actually, I took a moment to read your mind. I didn’t want to fry any fuses,” he says, his dark green leather pants and black top flexing as he approaches. “It’s been a long time, my boy.”

  I blink, looking at him carefully before it dawns on me. “Loki?”

  “I was hoping for Grandpa,” he says with a sigh, shrugging, “but I guess I don’t deserve that name. How have you been, Lance?”

  I shake my head, not quite believing that after so many years, I’m finally getting a face to face with the man. “You’re asking me how I’m doing? It’s been what, fifteen years since you last stuck yourself into my head? I’m not even sure it was you, honestly. Could have been a really fucked up wet dream.”

  Loki chuckles and gestures toward the large tree. “I’m not going to apologize, if that’s what you’re going for. Lance, I am who I am, and I’ve given you freedom to make your own choices in life, even as I’ve kept my eye on you.”

  “Kept your eye on me?” I ask, pissed off. “Thanks. Were you keeping an eye on me when I was getting my ass kicked three years ago by that gang of Muties who decided I’d cut one too many jokes?”

  “Actually, yes,” Loki says, smiling. I recognize it immediately. It’s the same smile I give Cerena when I’ve pushed her buttons just a little too much and she’s pissed at me . . . and it’s the smile that gets me out of more trouble than I care to think about.

  And I can’t help it, I can’t stay pissed at him either. “Fuck you, Grandpa,” I growl, even as I feel the smile twitching at the corners of my lips. “Now I know how she feels.”

  “She’s quite the catch,” Loki says, walking toward the tree. “I’d give you an attaboy, but I don’t think you need it. Come, sit with me. Maybe for once, I might break my nature to try and pass along some knowledge.”

  I know I should storm off, tell him to go fuck himself, to see if he can jam that huge tree up his ass sideways. But I don’t. Instead, I follow him, sitting down next to him on a curving bump of the huge tree, which somehow feels comfortable as I rest my back against it, like it’s meant to be a chair or reclining couch.

  “So what do you want to teach me, oh God of Tricksters?” I mockingly ask, trying to piss him off, but Loki just laughs.

  “Don’t try to trick a Trickster, Lance,” Loki replies, kicking back on his own curve of trunk. I swear that just a moment ago, he was sitting beside me, but maybe this tree is just as magical or as flexible as everything can be in dreams, because he’s facing me now, slightly off to my right but with the soles of his boots facing me, resting on the trunk about a foot away from my armpit. “You won’t piss me off that easily. I’ve been pissing off the other gods for countless millennia. You’ve got a long way to go to catch up to me. Pretty good for your age, though.”

  “Fine . . . so what do you want to tell me?”

  “The nature of things,” Loki says, all humor dropping from his voice as he rests his fingers on his stomach, looking at me intently. “Lance, you’ve been thrust into a situation that . . . well, to be honest, I was sort of hoping that one of my descendants wouldn’t have to deal with. I’d rather have left this to Tyr, maybe one of Adonis’s offspring, even if they tend to like fucking each other too much. Hell, even Apollo, the insufferable prick. After all, he is Sulis’s son.”

  “Leave what?” I ask, and Loki gives me a look that makes me roll my eyes. Of course. “Bane.”

  “Yup. The Dark God, God of Death . . . god of shit-sucking pains in the ass is more like it,” Loki says with a shake of his head. “Of all the gods and goddesses, he’s the one that least understands what the rules are. I, of course, know most of the rules and their reasons. It’s how I get around them so damn well. If we’d been widely worshipped in a slightly different era, I’d have called myself the god of lawyers instead of the god of fishermen. Ah, well.”

  “So, what are the rules?” I ask. “And I don’t want to hear some bullshit about how you can’t interfere. I know that already.”

  “Good, saves some time. No, I want to explain the gods,” Loki says, leaning back. “Well, except me, and maybe even I have a role in this. You see, our nature, your nature, is a blessing. And a curse.”

  Considering what I’ve seen of Tym and his powers, and my own problems, I’m not all that surprised. “A curse. Thanks, Grandpa.”

  He chuckles. “It’s not all bad. But you need to understand, everything in the universe has a role to play in keeping the balance. Look at you and Tym. He’s from Tyr, and from that, he’s all about duty and honor. He gives her that moral center, which she’s going to need. He gives her serenity. But you’re about freedom. With Cerena, you balance her. You give her passion. You give her unshackling.”

  “Unshack
ling?”

  Loki laughs, knowing what I’m referring to. “Yeah . . . that runs in the blood too. Don’t be ashamed, and if I were you, I’d take it as far as Cerena is comfortable with. But balancing an entire universe is a lot harder than balancing a relationship, although this fucked up family I find myself a member of makes me question that sometimes. Lance, each of the gods, from Tyr to Sune, from Sulis to Adonis and myself to Ishara, and all the other major and minor deities in between . . . all of us have a role to play in the universe. Even Bane, that power-hungry fuck. We’re bound by our very natures to fulfill that role. Truth is, Dyeus created humanity as an experiment . . . could a creature, a race, be created that manifested in itself the balance that we lack?”

  “You fucked that one up,” I grumble, and Loki nods, this time a little sadly. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you leave and let things go to shit the first time?”

  “I don’t quite know, but I suspect Dyeus saw that your people were being held back by our influence. It’s one of those rules humans discovered in science and philosophy. The more you observe something, the more your very observation changes that thing. Or as Nietzsche said, ‘If you stare into the abyss, eventually, the abyss stares back.’ ”

  “Who’s Nietzsche?”

  Loki chuckles. “German . . . talk about a guy who saw a bit too much behind the curtain. I swear, he was given a peek and it fried half his synapses, but in doing so, he came back with a genius that few others in the human race have ever possessed. This was millennia after we’d been banned from interfering. But anyway, the training wheels needed to come off, as they used to say. At the time, being a god of freedom, I saw a bit of chaos as a good thing. Sort of shake loose the rust from the gears, see if the machine could keep working on its own. But time’s funny. Our realm, your realm, they don’t always match up. To us, it felt like we looked in and saw Oppenheimer comparing himself to Shiva, and by the time we took a moment to consider the fact that you’d actually created a tool that could lead to the destruction of the whole thing, you were lobbing them around the globe like they were water balloons. By the time we could convince Dyeus that it was time to lend a hand, things were already nearly at the point of no return. Thankfully, Sulis herself was able to convince him to let us have one more chance to fix the problem . . . but that in itself created another problem.”