Looking around, I saw Crossbreeds and humans teeter and topple like dominoes, great hunks of ceiling crashing down around and on top of them. My stomach lurched to match the mountain, and I knew we were airborne. Parapets had finally lifted off.
So there was no time to lose. No time for even the slightest of delays. If I was going to do something, I had to do it now and hope for the best.
I staggered my way between stray bullets to the rugged rim of the pit. Gazed down into it, baking in the intense heat, hair flying in the thermal updrafts from below. And all I saw was white light. A well of blinding whiteness sunk in the heart of the mountain.
It was hardly a void, though. The Presence churned within it, seething and surging in all its vast and malevolent glory. I felt it reach for me like a sea sloshing over its shore, throwing out wave upon wave to try to grab hold and drag me away.
Panting, heart hammering, I took a step back from the edge. Let a gust of fear kick me away, fear that I would disappear forever into those treacherous white fathoms. That I would cease to be. Fear also of facing the truth and finding only horror. Tasting the nightmare that had driven my past self to suicide. Who wouldn't hesitate on the brink of such terrible possibilities?
Then, I remembered the stakes. The people I loved, the world I knew, the life I led. Briar and Duke and Cruel World Travel. Simple pleasures, good friends, simple dreams. None of the instant celebrity or miracles and wonders I'd found in Parapets...but then again, Parapets had been an illusion. Nothing behind the curtain but wickedness and death and dust.
The mountain's quaking calmed for a moment. Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself and stepped forward. Stopped with my toes on the brink of the pit.
The heat licked my face, and I closed my eyes. Whatever happened next, I decided it would be worth it. If I had to sacrifice myself to save the people and place I loved, it would be worth it.
This one's for you, Aggie. That was the last thing I thought before I stepped off the rim. You too, Laurel.
And then, I was falling into the white light.
*****
I spun down into the hot whiteness like a fluttering maple seed, like a feather. The world fell away as I twirled into limbo—gunfire's crackle, mountain's rumble, dying men's shrieks all gone. Replaced soon enough by one voice, booming like thunder all around me. Or within me. Or both.
Say it. It was a man's voice, deep and dark as the middle of the night. Echoing in my head, striking a chord of recognition. Say "thank you."
My fall slowed with a bump and leveled off. I drifted in a lazy circle, buoyed by rising currents of heat. "'Thank you' for what?"
For finishing what you set out to do, said the Presence. Killing off mankind.
I floated for a long moment in the whiteness, trying to process what he'd said. "I don't understand."
The voice roared with deafening laughter. Of course not. You remember none of it, do you?
I said nothing.
All because I stole your past from you, said the Presence. Took it as I took everything else.
Turning inward, I felt for my power and found it. Not fully recharged, but enough there for a fight. Enough, perhaps, to disrupt the god-king's plans.
But I held back. I needed to hear the truth about my life...the truth, at least, as the god-king saw it.
"Atlantis," I said. "That's your name, isn't it?"
Hearing you say it again after so many thousands of years. Atlantis sighed, and the thermal currents rippled around me. It makes bringing you here worth the trouble.
"If you say so." I shrugged. "It means nothing to me."
Then here, said Atlantis. So you can appreciate this reunion.
Suddenly, the white light flared, blinding me. There was a sound like a roaring wind and a feeling of wrenching movement.
And when I opened my eyes, I was no longer engulfed by whiteness.
Instead, I was surrounded by the bubbling red of superheated molten rock. I was twirling in the midst of it, spinning it around me like cotton candy, creating a new form for myself. Pushing here, tucking there, pinching and weaving and smoothing and bending. Forcing a mind the size of a planet into a single, small brain. Reducing myself to new proportions.
Then, when all was ready, I leaped upward. Shot from the molten core through the layers of the world. Riding a tunnel like a bullet through the barrel of a gun, punching through the mantle and crust. Piercing the final layers of rock and dirt and rising from the surface into thin air.
I stopped then and stood blinking in broad daylight. When my eyes had adjusted to the brightness, I looked around...saw that I was on a grassy hilltop overlooking a city by the sea. The hilltop from my visions.
Turning inland, I saw a familiar figure walking toward me. A man dressed in purple and gold, with gleaming blond hair and broad shoulders.
When he reached me, he took my hand. His grip was warm and dry and strong. My newly made heart beat faster at his touch.
"You're beautiful." He gazed at me and shook his head in wonder. I recognized him as the man from my visions, the one I'd made love to...and that made my heart speed up even more. "Magnificent."
"Thank you, Atlantis." My new mouth and vocal cords felt strange as I used them for the first time.
"You won't regret this, blessed Earth." Atlantis' eyes were shining. "I will show you what it means to be human. I will prove that mankind is worth sparing."
"I think you have only delayed the inevitable," I said. "I believe, if humanity is not extinguished, its brutality and resourcefulness will someday lead to my destruction."
"Once you have spent some time among us, you will feel otherwise." He gave my hand a squeeze, looked deep into my eyes. "Once you have spent some time with me. You have a lot to learn about humankind."
I cocked my head to one side. "Such as?"
"You've heard of love, haven't you?"
"Yes," I said. "I've heard of it."
Atlantis raised my hand and kissed it. His lips lingered against my skin. "It is one thing to hear of it and another thing altogether to experience it." He kissed my hand again. "To truly know the love that can exist between two souls."
My heart pounded harder. A chill raced up my spine. So many strange new feelings in this new human body of mine. "Maybe this was a mistake." I slid my hand out of his grip and stepped back.
"My dear Earth." Atlantis smiled and spread his arms. "You are still indestructible, are you not? Even in this human-looking form?"
"Yes." I nodded.
"And you've given up none of your power, have you?" said Atlantis.
"No."
"Then what do you have to lose?" said Atlantis. "What can possibly hurt you?"
I thought it over and decided he was right. I turned my face to the sea and breathed deep of the warm salt breeze. "It just...feels so different."
"And isn't that a welcome change?" Atlantis placed his hand on my shoulder. "After such a long time of sameness and predictability?"
"Perhaps." For the first time in my existence, I reached up and combed my fingers through my fluttering blonde hair. Felt the soft strands falling upon my skull, warming in the heat of the sun.
"Thank you for joining us," said Atlantis. "Thank you for giving us this chance."
"Don't thank me yet," I said. "I can't promise what the outcome will be."
"I can." Atlantis squeezed my shoulder. "I have hope. I have faith in the future."
"Humanity's future?" I said.
"Yours and mine," said Atlantis. "Our future."
I looked over at him, and he smiled back at me. For reasons I did not yet understand, my whole body felt like it was filled up with light. With electricity. Every inch of me warm and pliant and alive, all nerve and muscle and bone and blood. Not a piece of unfeeling stone anywhere within me. So different from the billions of years before, so new.
"Happy birthday." Atlantis kissed me on the cheek. "Today's the first day of your life, you know."
For the first time
in all my long existence, I blushed. And then, also for the first time, I smiled.
*****
Chapter 61
I blinked my eyes, and the hilltop was gone. Suddenly, I was back in the white light, floating in circles like a leaf on the surface of a pond.
The voice of Atlantis boomed around and within me. That was how it started between us. You remember now, don't you?
I did. I remembered it clearly, as if I had never forgotten it. I knew in my heart and soul it had been authentic. It had happened to me.
But knowing it and accepting it were two different things. Some of it, I still couldn't believe. Still didn't want to believe.
"I would never condemn humankind." That was the part that got me. Laurel had clued me in on the world-made-flesh part, that I was the Earth in human form...but the part about wanting to kill off humanity was another story.
Yet you did, said Atlantis. You would have gone through with it if not for me.
"You tampered with that memory," I said. "For all I know, you made it up."
You know it's true, said Atlantis. You can feel it. The answer to the question at the heart of this war.
"What question?" I said.
Who is the villain? said Atlantis. And the answer is you.
"Go to hell!" Even as I said it, I wondered if he was right. Was it possible, before taking human form, that I could have thought about ending the human race? Could the mind and soul of a planet—in essence, a giant ball of rock—have been so alien and without compassion?
Maybe. But it didn't matter anymore, did it? It went against everything I now thought and felt and believed. I was now willing to sacrifice my life to save humankind. Whatever I had been in the ancient past was long gone.
If only Atlantis could let go of it. How does it feel, finding out you're on the wrong side? he said. Finding out what you're truly capable of?
"If it's true, it's in the past," I said. "I'm not the one trying to exterminate humanity now."
Spoken like a true monster, said Atlantis. Always pointing the finger at someone else. The one you've wronged, usually.
"Seems to me you're the one wrongfully pointing the finger," I said. "Seems to me you need to look closer to home for your monster."
I loved you once, said Atlantis. Treated you like an angel. You need to remember.
With that, once again, the white light flared around me and was gone.
This time, when the blinding light and roaring wind faded, I was in bed. Collapsing onto silken sheets alongside Atlantis, flush with the fire of lovemaking.
I lay there, soaked with sweat, heart pounding, and gazed at the vast room around me. Colorful frescoes of mythic lovers spanned the walls—all but one, which opened onto a balcony. Urns and bowls and vases gleamed and glittered in the sunlight streaming in, elegantly crafted from precious stones and metals.
Soft summer breezes carried the cries of gulls and the lapping of surf from nearby.
Déjà vu flooded me as I took in the scene. I'd lived this moment before, and not just ages ago. It was a vision that had come upon me days earlier when I'd touched Aggie's dead body at Divinities.
"Now do you see?" Atlantis rolled over and stroked my cheek with his fingertip. I turned my face and kissed it softly. "Do you see how love can be between two souls?"
It was a perfect moment. The first time I'd made love to a man. I felt satisfied, relaxed, and enlightened. Happier than I'd ever imagined possible. Dizzy with afterglow and fresh desire.
And grateful, so grateful to him. If he hadn't talked me into sparing humanity and assuming human form, this wouldn't have been possible. I would have gone on my way, spinning frozen and alone through the void, and never known what I was missing. Never known what I could feel and become.
"Now aren't you glad you did it?" said Atlantis. "Aren't you glad you joined us?"
"Yes." The word rushed out of me without hesitation. "I feel so alive."
"I knew you would," he said. "I wanted you to feel that way. To lay aside your burdens after all this time and finally know true joy."
His words were so beautiful, tears ran from my eyes. No one had ever said such things to me before. No one had ever treated me like this.
And no one had ever said what he said to me next. "I love you, my darling Earth. You are everything to me." He kissed me. "You are my whole world."
Laughing and crying, I wrapped my arms around him. Felt the thud of his heart against my chest, the heat of his breath upon my neck. I pressed myself as tightly against him as I could, wanting only to melt our two bodies into one. Wanting only to merge our two souls into the single great spirit they'd always been meant to be. Wanting that moment of revelation and pure joy to last forever.
And then, just as Atlantis and I started to make love again, the world around me flared with blinding white light. I closed my eyes against it, and the happiness was gone.
*****
This time, when I opened my eyes, the whiteness was swirling around me like a vortex, pitching me in wild circles. My body spun and tumbled in the current, out of control.
Now you remember how good I was to you, said Atlantis. Now you know what you gave up when you turned against me.
I quickly grew dizzy from the spinning and tumbling, but the speed continued to increase. Atlantis was playing rough, warming up for whatever coup de grâce he had in mind.
Meanwhile, somewhere beyond the whiteness, humanity's future hung in the balance. Within the vortex of white light, time felt distorted; I couldn't be sure how much of it had passed since I'd leaped in to face Atlantis. How far had the mountain moved since that moment? How long had the battle raged? How many of my friends had died while Atlantis was beating me down with my own past?
I hated him. I'd been his plaything for too long, much longer than I could have imagined, and I was sick of it.
"What's the point of all this?" As soon as I said it, the current speeded up even more, sending me cartwheeling in circles.
So you'll know I'm the true hero, said Atlantis. So you'll know that everything I've done has been just.
Suddenly, I'd had enough cartwheeling. Reaching out with my power, I caught hold of the lines of gravity streaming up from the earth. Held on with all my might, resisting the pull of the whirling vortex. My lower body fluttered like seaweed in the current, and then I got control of that, too. Instead of tumbling head over feet, I steadied myself, standing straight in the heart of the vortex.
"Go fuck yourself!" My voice was charged with defiance. "Nothing can ever justify what you're doing."
Stopping a monster will always be just, said Atlantis. Especially one with so much blood on her hands.
The light flared, the wind roared, and again I was elsewhere. Running on a beach in a howling storm. Heart pounding, tears blowing off my cheeks as I ran into the stiff headwind.
I heard Atlantis' voice calling out behind me. I could barely make out his words over the wind. "Come back...I had to do it...Earth, please..."
It didn't matter what he said. Nothing could change what had happened, what he'd done to me. Our love had all been a trick. My lover had betrayed me.
He'd tricked me into assuming human form, making myself more vulnerable. Then, he'd used arcane magic and technology to steal my power and my place as the soul of the world.
Even now, thirty yards or so ahead of him, I could still feel him tugging at me, pulling at the remnants of my power. He wouldn't be satisfied until he'd taken it all.
But I wouldn't let him have what was left. I was going to put it to use, no matter what.
I sprinted between two dunes, and there it was. The harbor of the golden city itself, namesake of my once beloved Atlantis.
As I raced toward the city, lightning stabbed its towers and domes. Wind gusts tore banners from poles and clothes from clotheslines, whirling them like ashes dancing over a fire. Waves swamped the docks and rocked ships in their moorings, nearly knocking them over on their sides.
Atlant
is said something, but a thunderclap drowned out his words. I ran faster, desperate to stay clear of him...and then something hit me from behind, square in the back. I stumbled and fell on the sand, twisting my ankle on the way down.
The rock that had hit me dropped beside me as I fell...the rock Atlantis had hurled with his newfound power. He could do what I could now.
In a moment, he'd caught up and was standing over me. Gazing down at me sadly. All the while, leeching even more of the power from my body. "I had to do it, Earth. I had to save my people."
I rubbed my ankle, snarling at the sharp pains ripping through it. "But I told you I'd changed my mind. I was no danger to mankind anymore."
"I had to be sure. I couldn't rest knowing you had the power to destroy all humanity on a whim." Atlantis frowned. His gleaming blond hair flickered in the wind as he gazed at the city in the distance. "Now I see how right I was to worry."
"I thought you trusted me," I said. "I thought you loved me."
"I do love you," said Atlantis. "Now that this threat can no longer come between us, we can go on loving each other forever."
I glared at him. Rage and hatred blazed in every living cell of me. "You never loved me, did you?" The sight of him was enough to burn away every last inhibition inside me, letting loose the darkness I'd locked away for so long. "You only wanted me to take human form so you could destroy me!"
"Calm down, my darling." His smile was meant to be comforting, but it had the opposite effect. "Let me hold you." Even as he reached for me, he continued drawing out my power. The sorcerous spell he'd cast wouldn't stop until every last bit was transferred from me to him.
My window of opportunity was closing. Soon enough, I wouldn't have the strength to do what had to be done.
Trembling, I spun away from him to face the golden city. A downpour was drenching it, punctuated by almost constant blasts of thunder and lightning. The palm trees of its boulevards and plazas whipped in the savage winds. The electric lights had all gone out.
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