by Phil Tucker
With a cry he brought both fists down in a hammer blow. The skin that stretched over his father’s temple cracked and fell inward.
Acharsis gasped and recoiled in horror, losing his balance and falling onto his rear. He nearly slid down the bank of his father’s head, but grabbed hold and climbed back up, eyes wide. He’d opened a small hole in his father’s temple, and from that hole came a faint golden glow.
“Kish! Get up here!”
Kish scrambled up, and upon seeing the hole drew her hammer. “You sure?”
“It’s here!” cried Sisu, leaping up with one powerful bound to join them. “I’ll try to hold it off—”
“I’m sure,” said Acharsis. “Open a way through!”
Kish swung her hammer down with a forceful shout, and its head sunk into the dead god’s temple and burst back out a foot below, carrying with it a mass of crumbly gray rock. Acharsis reached in to grab at the edges of the skin and pull away large chunks even as Kish swung again and again. In a matter of moments they’d opened up an entrance just large enough for them to squirm in through, which Acharsis promptly did.
Diving forward, he fought his way through and tumbled to the ground on the other side. He rolled away to make room for Kish, then stood and helped haul Sisu in as well.
The three of them faced the hole in the yellow wall, staring at the shifting darkness without, waiting to see if the demon would follow.
“Visitors,” said a reedy voice from behind them. “An unexpected diversion from the tedium of eternity. Welcome, welcome.”
Acharsis turned and saw that the entirety of the dead god’s skull was hollowed out and furnished in much the same manner as an old library. The walls were honeycombed with shelving for scrolls, of which there seemed to be thousands, while floating orbs shone with a golden glow that softened the shadows and caused the wooden furniture to gleam. A massive chair that was nearly engulfed by pillows and blankets was set in the far corner, and in it sat an old, wizened man, so stooped that he looked no larger than a child, his features wrinkled near past recognition, his bald pate shining, his chin and nose curving up to meet each other. He wore the simple white tunic of a scribe, but despite the changes Acharsis recognized him still.
“Father,” said Acharsis, stepping forward and dropping to his knees.
Ekillos set his scroll on a side table and leaned forward, peering at Acharsis with new focus. “Acharsis?” The god’s brows quirked. “You’re looking ill.”
“Ill?” Acharsis looked at his skeletal hands, the torn, waxen skin, and laughed. “I suppose I am, for all that.” He wanted to continue the flow of conversation, say something witty, but he found he could only stare at the little man and think, this is Ekillos. This is my father. This is my god.
“Let us clear away these illusions,” said Ekillos, and waved his hand. Acharsis’ deathly appearance fell away like mist before the sun. “Who else have you brought? You must be Kishtar,” said Ekillos, blinking and looking up. “Six steps from Scythia, I see. And what have we here? Sisuthros. Grandson of Nekuul herself. Not come to gloat, I hope. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“Father,” said Acharsis. “Much has changed in the land of the living since you died.”
“Yes,” said Ekillos. “I imagine it has. Such is the way of the world.”
“Irella, daughter of Nekuul, rules the River Cities with her dead. She killed and revived all the demigods but for Jarek and myself, and they now rule their respective cities in her name. But that hasn’t been enough. A few months ago, she gathered and sent an army of the dead across the Desert of Bones to strike at Magan from the rear. My friends and I journeyed across the Golden Steppes to warn them, with the end result that my son now sits as the pharaoh of Magan, and is leading his armies to destroy the invaders.”
“Is that so?” Ekillos’ eyes shone as he leaned forward. “My grandson rules Magan? My, but what a marvel. The lamassu truly are queer creatures, are they not? Fascinating. I haven’t spoken with Amubastis since we all left the garden, but I always did admire her and her children for their open-mindedness.”
“Ah, yes,” said Acharsis. There was nowhere for him to sit, so he simply linked his hands behind his back. “We journeyed through the Maganian netherworld to reach you here to ask for help. Father, help us defeat Irella. I want to topple her from the throne and revive the faiths in the nine dead gods so that you can return to the land of the living and be worshipped as is your right.”
Ekillos leaned back in his reading chair. “Return to the land of the living? An unlikely prospect, my son. But… you do seem to have your heart set on it. Crossed the Maganian netherworld, did you? Impressive. Very well. How can I be of help?”
Acharsis fought back despair. His father was so greatly reduced. He appeared almost mortal, his mind as diminished as his frame. Gone was the overpowering sense of mastery, the easy authority that brooked no denial, the warmth that came from comprehending the vastness of the world and all its depths.
“We need to defeat Irella without destroying our cities in the process. But she is all powerful. Any attempt at an attack or assassination would surely fail. How can we remove her from the throne without using an army?”
“Remove Irella from the throne…” said Ekillos, tapping a wizened digit to his lips. “An interesting quandary. Let me think on it. You there, Kishtar, yes. Fetch me that scroll over there. No, to the left, from the pigeonhole lined with gold. That’s the one, thank you.”
The scroll in question looked more like a rolled-up carpet than anything else, its fabric of woven blue and crimson, golden tassels swinging from the end.
“Now, let us open this here…” Ekillos’ side table edged before him then stretched out so he could set the scroll on its surface. “Let’s see if I have the right one. My memory fails me, don’t you know. It’s all gone from my head to these scrolls. Worse yet, I find that there are many of them I can no longer comprehend. A pity. Still, ‘tis the way of things. Now.”
He unfurled the scroll on the table, and Acharsis caught his breath at the beauty of the artwork contained therein. Wherever he looked his eye seemed to dive into detail, pulling him into the patterns and minutiae so that he quickly felt lost, drowning in the blue and gold, the red and white. He gazed upon a rectangular pattern that edged the scroll, and it was as if he fell into it, diving down into an ocean between two reefs, falling ever deeper into the pattern.
With effort he tore his eyes free and looked instead at a curious beast, something that might have been a boar or a hyena. His very gaze brought it to life, so that it grew to fill his mind, turning to look at him, the crimson spirals that were its eyes beginning to revolve as its mouth opened to reveal triangular teeth and a vividly red tongue.
“Herein is contained a fragment of my foresight,” said Ekillos, tapping his lips as he studied the patterns. “Once, I knew all that transpired across our empire, and from that omniscience was able to extrapolate the probabilities of the future. No longer, alas. But this fragment yet charts the vagaries of the world. Let us see, let us see. Oh. Interesting.”
“Interesting?” asked Acharsis, resisting the urge to lose himself in the magic contained within the artifact. “What is?”
Ekillos traced a whirling pattern in one corner of the scroll, a dark spiral that seemed to throb as if alive. “It seems Irella is not content with her lot. Even as she moves to conquer the known world, she prepares to enact a most potent and terrible ritual.” Ekillos leaned down as if reading minute text, and then sat back with a sigh. “Ambitious, that girl. You have to give her that much.”
Acharsis fought for patience. “A ritual, father? To what end?”
“To open a permanent portal to this realm of Nekuul,” said Ekillos. “One through which the living and dead may freely pass.”
Sisu clapped his hand to his brow. “What? That’s impossible. Nekuul would never allow… would she?”
Ekillos gave a shrug even as he grinned. “Oh, she m
ight, she might. If the ritual were powerful enough, that is. And Irella does seem to have amassed a rather unseemly amount of might since I fell from grace. But still. Such a deed would require absurd amounts of power to fuel it.” He frowned and hunched down again, studying the scroll. “So how…? Ah! See here? These fifty glowing golden stars?”
Acharsis chanced a glance down and saw them, brilliant dots floating about the spiral, each so bright it burned an impression in his gaze. They began to rise up out of the scroll like some unearthly constellation, and he quickly averted his eyes. “Yes. What do they represent?”
“Sacrifice,” said Ekillos. “Each star is a godsblooded mortal. If that were the case, then yes, I could see it being feasible. That much power harvested in one fell swoop - impressive.”
Acharsis felt his knees go weak and fell into a crouch, hands cupped before his mouth as he stared out into the middle distance.
His father continued. “See here? Wait, perhaps it is best you don’t look too closely. In the center of each star is a fleck of darkness. A crystal carved from the heart of Nekuul’s realm. Receptacles in which Irella’s blood shall be poured, and then placed over the breast of each godsblood. At the culmination of the ritual, their power will be torn from their souls and refracted through the crystals. The divinity in Irella’s blood shall direct that power to Nekuul, and allow her to tear open the portal.”
“Jarek was supposed to be transported to Irella when he was caught in Rekkidu, remember?” He turned to Kish and Sisu. “Akkodaisis defied her by keeping him for himself. She must have been gathering the godsbloods all this time. Collecting them for just this ritual.”
Kish gave a quick shake of her head. “But what would that mean? For a permanent portal to open to the land of the dead? For the living? For the world?”
“Well, a good question,” said Ekillos, sinking back into his chair. “Off the top of my head I’d guess it would place the legions of the dead at her disposal. It would saturate the River Cities with Nekuul’s energies, though to what effect I cannot guess. Irella would grow greatly in power. I would wager that she’d become unstoppable, and would soon easily conquer all of the civilized world.”
“We have to stop her,” said Acharsis. “Now more than ever.” He paused. “But how?”
“Assassination?” asked Kish.
“She’s too powerful,” said Sisu in a low voice. “Even now, just as she is. Even if you could get to her, get past all her undead bodyguards and magical defenses, I doubt a mere stab to the heart or cut throat would stop her. She’d heal as quickly as you wounded her.”
“I don’t know,” said Kish. “Jarek can lay on the hurt.”
“There has to be a way,” said Acharsis, trying to sound certain. “Father?”
“Well, look here,” said Ekillos, and it was as if he took hold of Acharsis’ focus with an invisible hand and guided it across the scroll to a beautiful grove hidden high atop a mountain, clutched within a narrow valley.
“Yes, here it is,” said Ekillos, leaning forward. “Ah, the memories are coming back to me. Such vital times. Before humanity, even. When all the gods resided together in the Garden of Paradise, high in the God’s Mountain.”
Sisu stepped to the table’s edge. “The Garden of Paradise? I’ve never heard of it.”
“No, it’s something we all agreed to keep secret,” said Ekillos, looking down his nose at the stunning artwork. “Though now I can’t quite remember why.”
Acharsis found his mind being pulled amongst the trees, whose branches began to coil and cut off his sight of the sky, the walls of the valley reaching up to entomb him. With effort, he closed his eyes and the vividly illustrated details faded away. “Why do you show us this, Father?”
“The Garden of Paradise is where we gods awoke. I say awoke, because it’s the most neutral term I can think of; each pantheon has its own interpretation of that seminal event. Seminal. Ha! Regardless. In this garden we lived in bliss, before time, before life. We mingled and were coequals. We ate of the fruit and made love, divided ourselves and mingled our essences into infinite combinations of divinity. But in time we created a grave mistake, and chose to leave the Garden with only one of our number remaining to guard it. It exists there still, high above the clouds. It is there that you must go.”
“I… ah… to the peak of the God’s Mountain?” asked Acharsis, throat threatening to close. “That’s… that’s quite the task.”
“Oh, you can emerge from the netherworld atop the mountain, if that’s what’s bothering you,” said Ekillos with a wry smile. “No need to trek there and climb its slopes. But once you do, you shall face a great set of gates that block the valley that leads to the garden. It shall be guarded by… let’s see here - ah yes! By two scorpion centaurs whose javelins bleed light and darkness. You’ll have to convince them to let you past, and into the valley of demons. That’s where we bottled up all our reflections after realizing our mistake. Through that valley to the gates of paradise, and there you shall have to convince Sumala to let you take a rotten apple from one of the trees. She should then be able to transport you back to the River Cities, where all you need do is trick Irella into eating the apple, and your dream will be accomplished.”
Acharsis nodded slowly, overwhelmed by the array of tasks before them. “That sounds… daunting. And why must we feed her a rotten apple?”
“The trees of paradise bear wondrous fruit. These fruits were what fulfilled our divine natures,” said Ekillos. “But of late they have begun to rot. I forget why. It’s probably in a scroll here somewhere. But eating of a rotten fruit reverses one’s apotheosis; it strips you of your divinity. Were Irella to eat such an apple, she would become a normal woman, without any powers whatsoever.”
A thrill coursed through Acharsis. “Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll emerge atop the God’s Mountain, pass the scorpion centaurs, sneak through the valley of demons, break into the Garden of Paradise, convince Sumala to give us a rotten apple, send us back to Irella and trick her into eating it…” The enormity of their task made his eyes glaze over. “That sounds easy.”
“I wouldn’t say easy, precisely, but eminently doable. You are, after all, my son.”
“There’s another problem,” said Sisu, sounding dazed as he tore his gaze away from the scroll. He blinked rapidly, coming back to his senses. “Acharsis is pursued by a demon. It’s just outside.”
Ekillos pursed his lips as he studied Acharsis once more, then waved his hand. A spiderweb of threads appeared, with Acharsis at its center. A host of gold and white threads extended out from his heart and up through the roof of the library. One thread, however, as thick as his wrist and pulsing like a black umbilical cord, led straight through the hole they’d made in the wall and out into the netherworld.
“Acharsis,” whispered Ekillos. “What have you done?”
“It was a moment of desperation,” said Acharsis, unable to meet his father’s eye. “I’ve had almost two decades in which to regret it. Trust me. Everything that could be said, I’ve said to myself a thousand times over.”
“Hmm,” said Ekillos. “Were I my former self, this would prove no difficulty. But given my limitations… let me see.” He tapped his lips, eyes narrowed in thought.
Acharsis didn’t even dare breathe. He waited, feeling as if his very soul were in the balance. Was there a chance his father could rescue him from his greatest folly?
“Perhaps… yes. Let us face this unpleasantness head-on.”
Ekillos made a motion with his finger and the sumptuous scroll rolled up and floated across the air to slide into its compartment. He then rolled up his sleeves, revealing sinewy arms that were spotted and heavily wrinkled, and took hold of the black line that emerged from Acharsis’ chest.
The sensation was uniquely discomforting. It felt as if his breath were being sucked right out of his lungs, as if he had knocked the funny bone of his elbow, but then had that sensation distributed across his entire body. His visio
n blurred, and he had to fight to not yank himself away from Ekillos. Instead, he grimaced and stood still.
“Now, come to me,” he heard his father say. Acharsis felt his soul tremble as it was jerked and pulled, and he saw Ekillos hauling at the black cord as a fisherman might reel in a line.
Something hideous appeared at the hole in the wall. It was different from the dancing demon he had seen before. Now it appeared more a raging shadow, a conflagration of black flames with two blazing eyes in its core. It fought Ekillos as best it could, but with calm tenacity the dead god hauled the demon into his head, smiling quietly while the demon shrieked and spat and fought.
Then, suddenly, it was inside with them, filling the back wall with darkness, rising up like a wave about to crest and fall upon them. Ekillos released his grip on the black cord, which faded away, and Acharsis gasped as he came back to himself, his confusion and disorientation replaced by sublime horror as he stared at his demon.
It was inchoate, flowing from form to form, hints of the emaciated demon appearing and then replaced by tornados of black wind, then mutilated animals, bloated men and women, piles of maggots - it continued to change, overwhelming Acharsis with the sheer speed and intensity of its images until Ekillos snapped his fingers.
“Enough of that. It’s your fault for letting emotion cloud your judgement. You should never have come this close to a god, even if he is dead. Especially when he’s the father of the one you seek to bedevil.”
The fluctuating images slowed then disappeared, leaving behind only a formless cloud with two crimson eyes.
“Now,” said Ekillos. “Let us take a look at these bindings.” The dead god returned to his chair and hopped back up onto the cushions, then leaned forward, chin in hand, and studied the air.
“It was meant to be a singular binding,” said Acharsis hesitantly. “I thought—”
“Hush, hush,” said Ekillos. “Recall whom you address.”