by Rachel Aaron
“But what problem will she solve?” the eel spirit said, rising from the water at last to glare at Algonquin with wary, clouded eyes. “I see where you are going, lake water. Raven’s Construct is indeed a lovely tool. A deep bucket that can hold all the magic you need to rebuild your lost Mortal Spirit and place it under the command of your new human stooge.” He nodded at Myron, who bristled. “But a bucket is useless without something to fill it. We know what you plan to do with it, but you have yet to say where all this magic is coming from, Algonquin.”
“He’s right,” Wolf agreed, showing his teeth. “The Mortal Spirits have always been a problem of scale. Even when the humans numbered only in the millions, the gouges their fears carved into the magical landscape were bigger than the mountains. Now there are billions of terrified mortals, and the holes they dig are bigger than ever. You know this. You asked for our children to help power the circles that funneled the magic of the entire DFZ into Reclamation Land, and you still needed all the dragons in your city plus the blood of all Three Sisters to come even close to filling a Mortal Spirit. But that blood is spilled. You have to start building that magic all over again, and while I’m sure Raven’s Construct makes an excellently wide mouth, I will promise nothing until you tell us what manner of food you plan on shoving down it.”
“The only kind we have left,” Algonquin said sadly. “Us.”
The cavern went silent. For several heartbeats, none of the spirits moved, and then the eel with the dead man’s face hissed like a snake. “Have you gone mad?”
“Not at all,” the water said, reaching out a tendril to her Leviathan. “Madness would be to ignore the doom we can all see building. I’m trying to stop it, which makes me the sanest one here.”
“You are not sane,” the eel said, taking shelter behind the rock. “No one sane would suggest killing the souls of the land to save it.”
“And who is the land?” Algonquin demanded, drawing herself up. “Who speaks for us? You, bottom crawler?”
The eel hissed again and retreated to the darkness behind the rock, leaving Algonquin alone before the gathered spirits.
“I know how much I ask,” she said, calmly now. “I am the spirit of Algonquin, the once-great lake that is now five. I protected and loved my water for millions of years before the first humans appeared on my shores. When they came, I welcomed them as I would any other animal, and I have paid for that choice ever since. We have all paid.”
A murmur of agreement rose from the crowd, and Algonquin’s water twisted into something like a smile. “They use us,” she said. “Even before they grew plentiful enough to turn their fears into gods, they took from the land. They killed our children, burned and raped and dumped their trash into our bodies. They took our magic and forced us into sleep, and when we finally woke a thousand years later, what did they leave for us? Poison. Destruction. A whole world gleefully sacrificed to their endless greed. Just look what they did to my lakes. To my beautiful water.”
Her voice was shaking by the end, and Algonquin folded, her silvery current curling into itself with a hollow, mournful sound. She wasn’t alone, either. All the spirits were shaking, filling the cavern with their grief for what was lost. It was such a sad sound, even Emily’s eyes started to blur. She was fighting it when Algonquin spoke again.
“We must fight back,” she whispered, her water uncurling. “Humanity has done more damage in the last thousand years than anything we’ve seen since the mass extinctions, and that’s without their gods. Now the magic is back, filling not just us, but the canyons of humanity’s hate and fear. When they are full, the Mortal Spirits will return even greater than before. What do you think will become of the land then? What will become of us?”
No one said a word. All the spirits just pulled further into themselves, shrinking down against the wet stone as Algonquin moved in for the kill.
“We will be trampled,” she whispered. “You all know how much magic it takes to form even one Mortal Spirit. That sort of power doesn’t just go away. Even if every human on the planet dies of their own greed, their Mortal Spirits will remain for millions of years, just like the rest of humanity’s pollution. When that happens, our beautiful world will be a wasteland, a hell of mad gods, and we, the immortal spirits, will have no escape. We don’t even have the mercy of death to save us from what is coming. We will be forever trapped beneath the boot of monsters we cannot fight or control. That is our destiny. That is what is coming if we do not act now, while we still can.”
By the time she finished, the room was so silent, Emily could hear the drip, drip of water sliding down the Leviathan’s glistening flesh. Even Myron was holding his breath, watching Algonquin with an expression Emily couldn’t read. Then, like a wave breaking, the gathered spirits lowered their heads in defeat.
“You’re right,” Wolf whispered. “But what can we do?”
“What we have always done,” Algonquin said bitterly. “Fight to survive. I called you all here specifically because you are the spirits who have suffered the most at human hands. Some of you woke to find your children hunted to near extinction. Others have had their domains stolen entirely, the land of their roots literally mined out from under them. I know your pain, because I’ve lived it, too. When I woke, my water was poison and my fish were dying all around me, but I was not a helpless victim. I rose up and fought back against the cities that had hurt me, killed them as they sought to kill me. I took Detroit for myself and forged a new future, one where I was in control. That is what we must all do now, because we are the future. We are the land. We were here before words were spoken or history written. We are the living magic of this world, and we must take back control of what is ours before we lose it forever.”
Her water spread as she spoke, flowing out from the puddle at her feet over the rocky ledge to embrace the spirits in a glowing tide. “We already have what we require,” she said as the glowing water crept higher. “You asked how I would get enough power to fill Raven’s Construct, but the answer is right in front of you. We have all the magic we need right here in this cavern to fill a Mortal Spirit, and this time, we have a secure vessel to hold it.”
One of her glowing tendrils slid up the Leviathan to brush Emily’s cheek. “Even the dragons can’t harm Raven’s Construct. It will push her to her limits, but Myron assures me her spellwork can contain the power we need long enough to spark a Mortal Spirit. Better still, by growing it inside the prison of the Phoenix’s spellwork, our spirit will awaken under the control of my mage, which means we won’t need to wait for it to choose a Merlin. This Mortal Spirit will be born into chains, and we will be the ones holding them.”
“Don’t you mean him?” Wolf said, baring his teeth at Myron, who took a wary step back. “I’ve always applauded your daring, Algonquin, but this is reckless even for you. Your mage has already betrayed his own kind. What makes you think he won’t do the same to us?”
“Because we have what he wants most,” Algonquin said sweetly, turning her mirror-smooth face toward Myron. “A chance to be Merlin. His last chance. It’s hard to tell mortal ages, but Sir Myron here is old. There’s a very good chance another Mortal Spirit will never rise again in his lifetime. Even if one did, his chance of being in the right place at the right time to claim it is next to zero. We are the only path left to his dream, which means he’s ours, bought and paid for.” Her water rippled in something like a smile. “Ambitious humans have always been the easiest to control.”
Emily expected Myron to balk at that. Algonquin was absolutely right about his ambitions, but he was equally arrogant. Too arrogant to swallow such open mockery, or at least that was what she’d thought. To her amazement, though, the mage was nodding along with the spirit, smiling as if this was exactly what he wanted.
“So long as I become Merlin, nothing else matters,” he assured Algonquin. “I will be the first human in a thousand years to open the Merlin Gate, and I swear to use whatever power I find there to make sure I’m
also the last. You aren’t the only ones who fear Mortal Spirits. I was there when Marci Novalli’s pet death invaded Reclamation Land. I saw firsthand the horror and destruction powers like him are capable of, and he wasn’t even fully grown. That’s not something I can allow to happen again.”
“It can never be allowed,” Algonquin agreed. “The end of Mortal Spirits is the only way any of us survive, including humanity. Normally, their plight wouldn’t concern me, but we cannot do this without them. We’ve always known it was Merlins who caused the drought, but we’ve never known how. Whatever they did to block the flow of magic is hidden behind the Merlin Gate, which none but a Merlin may enter. Now, though, with Myron Rollins as our inside man, we can turn their weapons to our cause. As Merlin, he can enter the gate and cap the flood of magic back to what it was right after it returned. Back when there was only enough power for us, and the vast hollows of the Mortal Spirits were empty. When that happens, we shall once again be the only spirits, and the world will be ours again, just as it was before. Is that not what we’ve fought for all these years?”
“But where is our victory?” whispered a spirit from the back, one of the piles of moss, who hadn’t spoken before. “Even if your mage keeps his word, your plan uses us as the fuel that fills Raven’s Construct and grows your Mortal Spirit. You may succeed in stopping the humans’ gods, but we will still be all used up. Our vessels will be empty, and with the magic throttled to such a low level, how will we fill back up?”
“You will only be empty for a moment,” Algonquin promised. “I will not insult you by pretending I ask a small thing. For this to work, I need all of your magic, but though the sacrifice is great, it will not be long. Once it’s served its purpose, Myron’s Mortal Spirit will no longer be needed, and with the chains of its Merlin to hold it down, my mage can simply give you your magic back. The return won’t be a hundred percent, obviously, but there are many, many ways to get magic. Once the world is safely ours again, I will be free to pursue them for you, starting with the second-greatest threat to our future, the dragons.”
Her voice grew hungry. “When this is over, I won’t have to worry about the DFZ or human politics anymore. Vann Jeger and I will be free to hunt snakes to our hearts’ content. When they are dead, I will drain their magic—magic they stole from living in our world—back into you, restoring you and raising you up above all others. So you see, my friends, I’m not asking you to degrade yourselves forever. There is no death for the deathless. This is just a short sleep, a pause compared to the full stop the Merlins sentenced us to. This time, though, when you wake, it will be into a better world. One where we are gods again.”
All the spirits chittered excitedly. Even Emily had to admit it wasn’t a bad plan. Algonquin’s hatred of dragons was no secret. Now she had the perfect excuse to hunt them and no one to stand in her way. But before Algonquin could clinch the favor that was swinging her way, a new voice rang out through the cavern.
“You were never a god.”
Algonquin whirled around, glaring at Emily, who was just as shocked. The words had indeed come from her mouth, but they weren’t hers. The deep, croaking voice speaking through her lips was Raven’s, and it was furious.
“Foolish lake,” he cawed. “Can you not see beyond your own banks? These are our brothers and sisters, the souls of the earth itself! They are not fodder for your paranoid ambitions. You strut and claim that you will cut off the magic and turn everything back to the time when it was only us, but time doesn’t work that way. We can never go back, Algonquin! The past is gone, and now you’re risking our future by gambling it on powers you have never understood. We will all suffer for your hubris if you do not stop!”
“You’re a fine one to talk of hubris, carrion feeder,” Algonquin snarled, her water surging up until Emily could see the reflection of her own wide eyes inches from her face. “You sold out to the humans ages ago, spilled our secrets for all to know. You even entangled yourself with a dragon, and you think you have the right to speak in this place? To tell us what we will suffer? We have already suffered! For a thousand years, we were tortured while we slept, abused when we were most powerless, but now it’s our turn. This time, we shall take the power, and they will be the ones to pay. All of them! We will strike down the Mortal Spirits before they can rise. Take back our magic from the humans, who damage everything they touch. Then, when it is done, we will use the dragons, who’ve never paid for anything, to recoup our costs. So you see, little bird, my plan risks nothing.”
“But it does!” Raven cried. “If you do this in our name, you make the entire world our enemy!”
“It’s far too late to worry about that,” Algonquin said. “This world has been my enemy from the moment I woke. I am sick and tired of being filthy, of being used. I am exhausted from seeing so much destruction, and yet, when I look forward, that’s all I see. More people, more dragons, more abuse, more death. If that’s our future, Raven, what does sacrifice matter? What does any of this matter if there’s nothing left to look forward to anyway?”
Raven’s shock and sadness at Algonquin’s words were enough to bring tears to Emily’s eyes, but the anger that followed was ten times worse. “I won’t let you do this,” he said, his voice rising like a gale. “We are the immortal land, the eternal magic itself! If we give up hope in the future and burn the present in a futile grab for the past, there will be nothing left for anyone.”
“There never was,” Algonquin said, reaching up to wrap her water around Emily’s throat. “Don’t you see, foolish bird? The die’s already been cast. This is our last stand. If we can’t turn back this tide, we will be trapped forever in a world that’s worse than death. A world where we are powerless, dirt for the mad gods to stomp on. I would sacrifice everything to avoid that, because if we lose here, if that is indeed our future, then I would rather have no future at all.”
She’d entwined her water entirely around the Leviathan by the time she finished, and deep in Emily’s mind, Raven began to tremble. “No,” he whispered. “I won’t allow it. I won’t let you make this our end.”
“Too bad,” Algonquin said as the water she’d wrapped around Emily’s neck began to trickle down her body, toward her sundered chest. “You don’t get a choice. You already turned your back on us.”
The water moved deeper, winding through the coils of spellwork Myron hadn’t yet unwound to rest on the knot that was Emily’s heart. Not her literal heart—that had gone long ago—but the start of the spell that had given her new life. It was her very first knot, wound by Raven himself around a bit of twisted metal he’d plucked from the wreckage of her family home in Old Detroit. It was the core of the deal they’d struck all those years ago, and its battered surface still bore the scratched letters of Raven’s name. Letters Algonquin’s water was quickly scouring away.
“Farewell, carrion crow,” she said, her voice a singsong as her water wore away the last of the scratches. “And thank you for your contribution to our cause.”
“No!” Raven shouted through Emily’s mouth. “You can’t have her! She’s—”
His voice died as Algonquin scraped the last of his name away, leaving Emily alone in her head for the first time in over sixty years. She was still reeling when Algonquin’s water drained out of her.
“And that’s that,” the spirit said as the Leviathan’s tentacle uncurled, dumping Emily unceremoniously onto the stone at Myron’s feet. With no arms to catch herself, she landed hard, screaming silently as her spellwork began to slide out of control. If she’d been a mage, she could have stopped it, but as Myron had said countless times, she had no such power. Without Raven, Emily Jackson wasn’t the Phoenix. She was just another mortal. A dying one, her patchwork body disintegrating before her eyes. Then, just before she collapsed entirely, a new power scooped her up, folding her back together. She didn’t even recognize it as Myron’s Labyrinth magic until the glowing maze surrounded her completely, the neon forks forming an iridescent cage that h
eld her in place. But while Emily was staring at her former partner’s sorcery, Myron was glaring at Algonquin.
“Some warning would have been nice,” he said, his chest heaving as he repositioned what was left of Emily into the center of his magic. “Did I not stress how important she was to our plan? Your tiff with Raven nearly destroyed our ticket!”
“She wasn’t our ticket so long as he lived inside her,” Algonquin reminded him, her watery face warping into an unflattering copy of Myron’s own. “Time to keep your end of the bargain, traitor mage. The Raven has been expunged, as promised. Now replace his name with yours and take control of his construct, and we shall see if you can live up to your boasting.”
Myron scowled one last time and turned back to Emily, but while his face was as haughty as ever, his hands were shaking. “I’ll do my part,” he said. “But are you sure you can do yours? We only get one shot at this.”
The lake spirit smiled his own smile back at him. “You’ll get your magic, have no fear. As I just told Raven, this is the only victory scenario we have left. If you want your share of it, mortal, you will do exactly as we discussed.”
“Of course,” Myron said after a moment’s hesitation. “Never thought otherwise.”
The Lady of the Lakes’ reflection smiled one more time, and then she let Myron’s face fall away, becoming just water again as she turned back to the gathered spirits.
There were no speeches this time. No warnings. The water lurking at the cavern’s edges simply welled up, flooding over the stone at the spirits’ feet.
A few fled when the lake reached them. The eel spirit in particular vanished so quickly he left a bubble under the water. Most of them, though, including Wolf, Eagle, and the other animals stayed put, their heads lowered in acceptance as Algonquin’s water rose higher and higher. It would have washed over Emily and Myron, too, but the Leviathan got there first, surrounding them in a protective cocoon of black tentacles.