Courage

by Angela B. Macala-Guajardo

  The doctors caught him by the arms before he could fall over or draw his dagger. His long black hair almost brushed Aerigo’s face. Kabiroas tried to struggle, but his body had reached the end of its adrenaline rush. He shut his eyes so he could stop watching the room spin, and let himself be guided back onto his magic bed. Maybe he just needed another minute or two to recover enough for one blow. Right now he couldn’t stay standing, much less breathe well. Once he was lying back on the bed, he clamped the oxygen mask to his face and let Jenna clean his bleeding arm before continuing down the hall.

  Kabiroas couldn’t ask for a more opportune moment to make the kill. There would be no fight, no struggle, no danger of a grievous blow to himself. Just one strike and eternal glory was his. And, of course, the perfect opportunity was foiled by Kismet’s foul air. The red smoke trail evaporated at his command. He stared out over the toes of his black boots and resigned himself to his medical treatment. He lacked the energy to be properly infuriated. “What is RPR?” He asked in a thin voice. “I know nothing of your medical technologies and use of extended reality.”

  “Respiratory Poisoning Recovery,” Arryk said. “You’ll have some extra company today. There were electrical outages and broken windows all over nearby parts of the city this morning. We’ll stick you with a fresh needle when we get there.”

  The doctors carted him down to the end of a long hall and into a wide room full of drawn curtains lining the far wall. The room had no windows, was dimly lit, but had small, brighter lights over the space inside the closed curtains. The doctors parked him in an open space with his feet facing the door. Kabiroas was grateful for not having his back to the door. He forced himself to listen to the beeping machines so he’d stay awake. His eyes kept closing, yet he kept opening them, and every time, his lids got a little heavier.

  “Arryk,” Jenna said, “I’m going to head back to the Aigis and watch the other file Donai wanted me to see.”

  Arryk put on a playful pout that made him look anything but a respectable Elf. “Aw, I’m gonna miss it.”

  “I know,” she said gently. “See you later.” She headed for the door, where more light poured in.

  “Later. And good luck!” Jenna turned.

  “Thank you. I really don’t want him to backslide. It takes more than one heartfelt conversation to fix something like that. Aerigo has become a master of bottling himself up.”

  “Shake that bottle enough and it will explode,” Arryk said knowingly.

  “As Donai, Skitt and I saw this morning,” she said with a slight grimace. She turned to leave. “Don’t hesitate to page me if you need me. I’m not off until the hour of feasting.”

  “Will do.”

  Kabiroas’s eyes closed, his head nodded forward, and his neck reached the end of its movement range. He snapped his head upright and opened his eyes halfway, which was all he could manage.

  Arryk laughed. “Alright, mister tall-pale-and-handsome, the sooner you let yourself fall asleep, the sooner you’ll recover. Your brain needs as few tasks as possible so it can focus on healing, with aid of the medicine I’m about to give you. Go to sleep, hun.”

  Kabiroas wanted to spew a stream of expletives in his native language. Instead, his head rolled back and he passed out.

  Chapter 19

  As soon as his thousand Pneuma had been forfeit to Nexus’ realm, Leviathan transported himself to Phailon. Even with the limits of free will, there were a few things he could do, and his mortals needed him while they were still his.

  Leviathan appeared above the city in his gargantuan serpentine form. Smoke and embers rose to meet him, but the ocean’s wind carried them off before they could reach the peak of the city’s central obelisk. All of the western half of Phailon lay in smoldering ruin, with the survivors desperately trying to get hundreds of fires under control. The eastern half, the half the entrance side lay on, was relatively untouched. Rain clouds were approaching from the south, out over the ocean.

  Rage boiled in him as he took a moment to mourn Phailon’s fate. The city would be rebuilt, the lost people never forgotten, time would mend wounds into scars, and hopefully those who wrought this desecration would be brought to justice. But there was no good reason for all this destruction and murder to take place. He flew to the obelisk and coiled around it, but stopped at a pair of scorch marks two-thirds of the way up. The marks were in the shape of hands. They had never been there before. The curves and lines of the fingerprints were as thick as a human’s hand and looked like they had been chiseled into the granite. Even though it had been a day since he’d begged Aerigo protect his icon, heat still emanated from the scorch marks. He touched one with the tip of his snout.

  A series of events flashed through his mind in rapid succession: fog, a friend, a motorcycle crash, trolls, a dragon, his former Elves, the cliff on the verge of crumbling, an explosion of power. And then nothing. Puzzled as to why Aerigo would leave such a useless bunch of memories, Leviathan touched the scorch marks again and images replayed themselves. Seeing his Elves again made it obvious as to why a small collection of warriors had chosen Phailon in particular to attack, but why now of--there it was. Leviathan froze the image of when Aerigo’s astral form was contending with the sheer size and weight of the tipping obelisk. He followed memory of Aerigo’s awareness as it spread outward to the nearby mountains to the north.

  Nexus had been to Phaedra. The sight of the young god hovering above the mountains and so unwittingly close to Leviathan’s icon made him feel sick with fear.

  He snaked his way to the peak of the obelisk, opened his great maw, and inhaled his icon, but left a replica floating in its place. He didn’t want the mortals in Phailon to think he was abandoning them. He would rather leave his icon there, but it was no longer safe.

  Becoming one with his icon again made his scales tingle where tattoo lines formed on his draconic face, etching a two-dimensional representation of his icon there. More dark lines formed on his flanks from neck to tail tip. Every god who saw him would know what he’d done just by looking at him. There was no way to hide it.

  Leviathan banked around the obelisk and descended to the nearest fire, enveloped in a green glow as his gargantuan body shrank, slowly transforming into the smaller version of himself. He sprouted chiseled arms and legs, leathery pinions, and re-proportioning himself into a humanoid shape. He snapped his wings open and threw his taloned feet under him, then jogged to a stop on a road the armada of rescue vehicles hadn’t had a chance to cover. Civilian mortals paused in their rescue and fire-dousing efforts to stare in both fear and awe. Like Baku, he made his divine presence exceedingly rare. Because of Phailon’s history and the placement of his icon--not that a single mortal ever knew exactly what he’d placed above the obelisk--his existence was a legend that, until recently, had been known as certain truth. Time had worn away at their certainty, but now his presence was rekindling it.

  Leviathan folded his wings and stood twice as tall as the average human. He could have shrunk more, but mortals tended to find comfort and security in something bigger and stronger than them. This ratio worked best for him. The tattoo lines curved and darted along his arms and the back of his green, clawed hands. More lines crisscrossed his bare chest, sculpted like a man’s, and ran down his legs and elongated feet, along with his tail. He wore nothing more than an ankle-length white loincloth held up by a gold belt as wide as his hands, the belt replicating dragon scales. The cloth draped down his front and each side of his tail, the front and back halves overlapping enough to cover half the length of his massive thighs. The cloth ended in a trim of more gold scales.

  No one ran to or from him. Parents clung to sniffling children, others held the dead or dying in their arms, and more stood and watched with buckets or hoses in hand. All of them looked like they’d crawled out of a collapsed mine. Chunks of granite lay strewn all over the torn up street. And from ground level, it looked like the whole city lay in ruin.

  Leviathan strode over to t
he dead and dying. “I am returned,” he said in Tibanese, his baritone voice carried out over the street and crackling fires.

  His mortals gasped and some exclaimed his name in disbelief. He felt their joy, their relief, their anger, their confusion, every emotion his return roused. Despite the negative emotions, every last one of them hoped he’d come to help.

  Leviathan knelt by a sobbing woman clutching a toddler in her arms. Kneeling made him less imposing, but the mother regarded him with some fear. Seated on a small pile of rubble, her hunched frame barely reached his knee. He gestured to her dead son and held out his massive hands. “I can help your child.” The mother considered his words a moment before unclamping her arms from around her son. She began crying harder as she handed him over.

  The boy was barely any bigger than Leviathan’s forearm. He’d died of smoke inhalation, however he met the criteria for revival. Leviathan placed a clawed hand over the boy’s inert chest, his hand covering the boy’s entire torso. He glowed green a moment, then turned the boy over and began patting his back. The boy made a noise and the mother gasped and stopped crying. Her son coughed up black phlegm until his coughs became clear and dry.

  Leviathan more let go than handed the boy over as both parent and child underwent a tearful reunion. The invaders had killed only thousands, but unstable grounds and the fires in particular had claimed so many more after they had left. Too many locals had been injured to get the hundreds of blazes under control, and too many had feared seeking shelter underground when the Elves had tried to cast the cliff into the ocean.

  Across the street from the revived boy lay a pile of granite rubble bigger than Leviathan. Inside it someone was crying for help between phlegmatic coughs. Leviathan stood and beckoned over a handful of mortals to come help him move the rubble. Yes, he could move the granite on his own power, but the more mortals he got involved, the more empowered they would feel. In addition, he was at the limits of his involvement. Free will blocked so much of what he wanted to do. He could bring back the dead, but not remove injuries and illness. He could, however, feed inner strength to help mortals overcome corporeal afflictions. Free will was surrounded by such a fine line with no grey areas.

  Together, he and five mortals hoisted a piece of building as big as a car. They pushed it over the mortals’ head and up to Leviathan’s collarbone, then let it fall away from them, landing with a boom and cracking into several pieces. At their feet lay a dying man covered in his own blood and looking just as filthy as the rest. Leviathan kneeled by the man, placed a hand on his legs and chest, and absorbed the pain injuries into himself. The man stopped coughing and groaning, and stared at him with open wonder. “Do not try to walk or the pain will return.”

  “Are you Leviathan?”

  Leviathan rose and studied his work. His legs and chest ached from having taken on the man’s pain, but it was worth it. He nodded. “I am. I have come to right many wrongs.” Anger crept into his voice. It preemptively silenced those furious at him for not having stopped Phailon’s destruction from ever happening.

  Leviathan stepped out into an open space in the street and gazed at the sky obscured by drifting smoke. Clouds were gathering, blotting out the few stars he could see. He spread his wings and replicated himself a thousand times over. Each transparent replica launched into the air, intent on helping mortals on one of the hundreds of thousands of blocks that was Phailon. The replicas solidified once they were fully separate from him; it was like watching one bird turn into a flock in a matter of seconds. He watched the pieces of himself fly off for a moment before returning to his closest mortals.

  * * *

  Baku needed someone to talk to now that his army of a thousand strong was no longer in his care or under his protection. He yearned to talk to his wife, but simple talk had been impossible for thousands of years now, much less being able to talk about Nexus, who was the reason behind their lack of communication. Eve wouldn’t have been a bad choice, but it was night in her time zone. She was sleeping. He would rather not burden her with any more information anyway. That left him with the only other god he’d ever gone to for advice: Leviathan. He was one of the oldest and wisest deities. He’d witnessed the War of Creationism and the first gods dying at the hand of Aigis. Maybe he could help Baku put the pieces of his family back together.

  Baku was sitting on the steps of Eve’s back porch, watching the early August meteor shower. He made no wishes on any shooting star. He hadn’t reduced himself to wishing. Assassin or no, he still had hope for his Aigis. He’d believed his son when he’d described them as weak, defenseless and dying--not the dying part for Aerigo, and not so much as before for Rox. Things were happening to them. He could sense the state of their health. He would know if either of them died the instant that happened. If it happened. Well, when. Hopefully not for a long, long time.

  Baku watched one more meteor streak across the sky just above the treetops, then got to his feet with a tired sigh. His aches and bruises were bothering him more as of late. Hopefully he’d get to the bottom of why he’d barely healed over the past eighteen years real soon. Eighteen years was a long time, even to a god, to bear so many injuries. Baku formed a mental picture of Leviathan, then spread his awareness across countless galaxies, seeing them come and go as he searched for his friend and advisor. He found him on Phaedra.

  ‘Leviathan, can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. What is it?’

  The connection of their awarenesses sent Baku’s rebounding back to Earth, allowing him to once again see the world around him, yet maintain a mental link with Leviathan. ‘Have you already given over your thousand warriors to Nexus’ realm? I wish to talk.’

  ‘I have. Come to Phaedra. I can feel your inner turmoil through our link.’

  Baku transported himself to Phaedra, following the path their mental link laid out for him. It wasn’t a visible path; it was more like following the sound of the dragon’s voice for a few seconds, and then he was standing in the middle of a torn up dais on the edge of a cliff. For all he knew those few seconds could have been a century. Time had a habit of bending and twisting, never truly going in the straight line mortals perceived. However, this time minutes had passed.

  It looked like half the dais was missing along with half the wall that kept people from walking off the edge. The snakelike stone dragon suddenly ended in a jagged dais covered in cracks that looked like they were filled with white, hardened lava. They marred the stonework. A cold breeze was blowing in from past the dais. It smelled like rain. It was too dark and the sky too full of smoke to tell how close the rainclouds were.

  Baku asked, “What happened here?” He turned to Leviathan, who was kneeling over injured mortals. He stiffened at the sight of all the tattoo lines covering the dragon’s skin. “You’re one with your icon!” Baku felt an overwhelming need to leave and give Leviathan some privacy. He knew where Leviathan’s icon was. Things weren’t supposed to be this way. He didn’t know where Kara’s was, nor she his. This wasn’t information anyone shared. It was taboo. Leviathan spoke before Baku could transport himself to his realm.

  “Stay,” he said softly. “Help. I wouldn’t have invited you to Phaedra if I didn’t want you to see me like this.” He shifted his position to kneel over a dead person two other humans placed near him. “Nexus is the root of Phailon’s present state. The least you can do is help me get my mortals back on their feet.”

  Baku’s insides twisted with guilt. “I’m so sorry, Leviathan.”

  “Be sorry later. Please help. There are so many.” His deep voice came out low and distant.

  “You sound exhausted.” Baku crossed to the row of inert mortals that the survivors had laid out for their god. Every last living mortal looked frayed and desperate, yet hope and strength blossomed as they watched Leviathan take on the burden of their injuries and revive those that met the criteria for revival.

  “I am lending every bit of strength I can spare to my mortals. They deserve no less in
the wake of such desecration. Nexus’ trap achieved everything he wanted, except Aerigo’s death. Where are your Aigis now? We need them both badly. Every deity does.”

  “They are on a world my mind can’t go. They’re both alive, but barely in Roxie’s case.”

  “She is strong,” Leviathan said. “I owe her much for saving Phailon from crumbling into the sea.” He helped an elderly man sit up, who thanked him over and over.

  Baku balked, then looked at the fused cracks again. He traced every last crack with his mind’s eye, but stopped before getting halfway through them. The sheer amount of healing she’d performed on the cliff took immense strength of will for a mortal, even for an Aigis. Baku swelled with pride for a heartbeat, then remembered that both his Aigis still needed to unlock Frava if they didn’t want to get crushed by the will of a god. The use of this bit of extended reality was a good start, though. “She feels like she’ll live, but she and Aerigo are running out of time. Nexus will commence his war once he believes his stage has been set. He wants a good show. I just know it.” He refrained from mentioning the assassin. He couldn’t bring himself to break such news with so many of Leviathan’s mortals suffering all around him. He deserved a chance to put his faith in the last two living Aigis. “My son’s ego may buy Aerigo and Rox some time, but only a morsel. I sensed desperation in his actions when I visited his realm earlier. I actually want to talk to you about my wife and son--that is, if you have the strength and energy to discuss such things.”

  “I am eager to understand how events have led towards Nexus’ decision to use a prophecy to get what he wants. It is still unclear what he wants exactly.” Leviathan placed a large hand on the forehead of a middle-aged woman, then shook his head. Two younger women kneeling over the older one bent themselves over their dead companion and began crying loud and hard. Leviathan moved on an elderly woman with a bloody arm in a sling made out of part of her gauzy dress. He absorbed the woman’s pain and moved on to the next.