She was…
“Beautiful,” Brax whispered, his heart and his tail stilled for a single long moment as the woman shook her head.
She was an elf, with long, pointed ears and electric blue hair that she had let grow long. But to keep it from her eyes, she had it tied back in a ponytail that hung to the small of her back. Her shoulders were slender and her arms were lightly muscled, but she still held herself like a warrior. She was dressed in a bronze hauberk that protected her chest, and had a kilt that hung loose around her thin thighs. Her feet were clad in sandals. A straight sword hung from her hip. Or, more accurately, a scabbard hung from her hip, as she had stood up with the sword in her hand.
“Who the fuck are you?” she snarled, looking at Brax. Brax looked at his companions, then at the woman.
“Well, we are but humble travelers,” he said, his hand going to the small amulet that God had given him and the group. He didn't quite know how, but the amulet made him and the others seem like humans, though to his own eye and his own senses, Brax still was the same gold-scaled lizardman he had been for years. He slid his leg off his horse and gestured to Vazt and Anix and both soldiers sheathed their weapons with a grudging look. “I would ask who you were, but...” Brax grinned. “I'm more curious how I was so lucky as to have a woman as beautiful as you fall into my lap.”
The woman grinned.
“I can answer that.”
All five of them spun around to face the sudden booming voice.
Floating above the desert was a heavily muscled, heavily armored figure, wearing a horned helmet – the horns curved down and coiled before the thin rectangular slit that was the only opening on the bone-white metal. A long, brilliant red cape flapped from the god's shoulders as he looked down at the group of them.
“Dad!?” The woman spluttered.
Ah, Brax thought. So this is the famous Liviana of Sparta. Funny. He glanced at her. I thought she would have been taller.
“Silence, daughter,” Ares, the god of war, boomed. “I am deeply disappointed in you. First, you get yourself captured-”
“He had a-”
“Silence,” Ares bellowed. Liviana shut up. Shaking his helmeted head, Ares looked back at Brax and his men and women. “I have redirected my wayward daughter here. You are to keep watch over her and teach her proper discipline. If you let her from your sight, then I will crush you. Do you understand?”
Brax clenched his jaw before he responded with the first thing that came to his mind. But the last thing that he wanted while on a fool's errand was to get caught up in the family drama of the infamously dramatic Dodekatheon. But looking at Ares and feeling the raw, crackling energy emanating from his body, he knew that sometimes, discretion was the better part of valor.
And does that not define most of my fucking life? He thought.
“I do,” he said.
Ares nodded and then - with a crack of imploding air – vanished. Brax frowned slowly, his tail beginning to lash. The gods, he had always been told, needed to go from place to place. They could project images of themselves at great distance, but they were loath to do so. Sympathetic magic could use an image as well as the object it represented. There was a reason why gods had messengers and diplomats, and did not merely directly interact with one another. Brax rubbed his chin with one finger, then shook his head. It was a mystery for another day.
He turned to face Liviana.
She glared daggers at him.
“My name is Bartentonen. These are my traveling companions, Vesalius and Anathestus. And, of course, Rachel.”
Rao bowed her head to Liviana, and waved. Rao, like Vazt and Anix, looked completely human to everyone else, thanks to the last of the amulets given over by God. Not that she had wanted to wear the damn thing. She had argued that, as a lilin, she didn't need an amulet. But Brax had figured that being cautious would pay off. Plus, in some areas of Purgatory, lilin were seen as perfect brothel fodder, and the last thing he wanted to do was deal with overeager pimps and their goons.
Liviana pursed her lips for a moment, then grinned, looking straight at Brax.
“So,” she said, “What are your real names? Cause I've never met a lizardman named Barentonen.”
Brax tensed, his tail freezing. Then, calmly, he asked: “How?”
Liviana snorted, quietly. “You may look human, but you sway,” she said. “It's subtle, but easy to spot if you have practice. And he's wearing a kilt without underwear on a horse.” She pointed at Anix. Anix looked down at himself, then at her.
“It’s in how the fabric lays across your hips,” Liv said, tossing her head as she answered his unspoken question. “I’m an elf. And I’ve spent most of my life noticing small disturbances under clothes. It tends to mean that someone is armed. Now, going commando would work if you had internal genitalia – which lizardfolk do.” She frowned. “My father has been involved with several pieces of massive bullshit, all of them too sneaky by half. Now he's redirecting the devices of the Ancients? Vanishing from plain sight as if he had the same magic?”
She stepped forward, her sword tip aiming at Brax's chest.
“Who do you work for, scalie?”
Brax sighed, quietly. “Liviana, I have nothing but respect for you, and nothing but contempt for the institution of slavery.”
Liviana looked confused, then her eyes widened. She flung herself to the side, but Rao was infamously good at throwing things. Knives. Bottles of acid. Once, in a happier time, a very surprised cat.
Slave collars.
The weighted collar snapped around Liviana's throat, snapping home, then flashing as the magic within flared to life. Her hands went to her throat and her screech echoed across the desert.
“Not a-fucking-gain!”
* * *
Liam was expecting the fall so when he landed on his feet, he ended up tucking and rolling anyway. He lay on his back for a few moments and mentally kicked himself, his eyes closed as he breathed in the smell of dust, the smell of the desert filling his nose. It was a lot more unpleasant than he had expected. There was a sickly sweetness to it, thick and cloying. Iron, too. The scent of voided…
Wait.
Liam's eyes opened and he scrambled away from the corpse hanging over him. He bumped against Meg's belly, the other woman hissing curses in Greek.
The two of them had appeared in a field – a forest – of crucifixes. Dozens of people were nailed through the wrist to broad crossed planks of wood, their feet dangling in the air. Their heads were lolled forward, and several of them were starting to rot. The buzzing of flies filled the air, flying away at the sudden motion from Liam and Meg. Blood dripped from a few of the bodies, soaking into the rough dust of the desert ground. Liam covered his face with one hand, trying to block out the smells. He shook his head slowly.
“God.”
Meg squeezed his shoulders.
A loud crack sounded as Tethis appeared behind them.
“See, told you it'd – holy shit!” She stopped dead, dropping her shoulder pack to the ground.
Liam stood, his knees shaking. He looked at the bodies, trying to identify any unifying theme among them. But there were people of every race, and he saw that several of them were still bearing the religious symbols of different gods. He saw the hammer-symbol of Thor, the eye of Ra, and many others. He walked slowly along the rows, frowning as he looked up at a beautiful lilin woman who had been nailed into place. His brow furrowed slightly further – she was dressed with a black hood, and thin strips of cloth that barely concealed her breasts and her sex, leaving most of her red skin exposed. The hood seemed familiar, somehow…
But then he saw what hung around her neck.
Liam's eyes widened.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no, no, that's impossible.”
Suddenly the lilin woman drew in a shuddering gasp, her head rolling back slightly and her eyes opening to thin slits. Liam sprang backwards as if he had been stuck with a pin, his heart pounding. The
woman managed to look winsome and unconcerned with herself, despite being nailed to a plank and left to die under the baking sun.
“Come to... watch me... die?” she whispered, between ragged, ineffectual gasps.
“G-Get her down. Now!” Liam said, looking at Meg. “Now! Now!”
Meg did him one better. She sprang up, and punched through the planks with two quick chopping gestures, her incredible strength snapping pine as if it was balsa wood held together with half a glue-stick. The lilin woman sagged and Liam and Tethis both helped her down to the ground. Laying on her back, her arms still nailed to the wood, the red-skinned, horned and tailed woman drew in deep, gasping breaths.
And there, laying between her breasts, was the symbol she had worn to her death.
A pair of lines, interweaving to create the vague impression of a fish.
It was an ichthus.
A symbol of Jesus Christ.
* * *
“My name is Mary.”
Liam looked out of the cave that Tethis had spotted, watching the City of the Dead Gods. They were a good three miles away from the city, on a bluff that overlooked the place. The collection of crucifixes – what Mary called the forest of woe – were still visible even in the darkness of night. But even from this distance, he could see just how much bigger it was than Olimurias. It reminded him of looking at New York after a lifetime of suburbia, though not quite on the same scale. Dotted among the buildings and visible above the winding curtain wall that surrounded the city were towering pillars of smoke.
Forge fires.
Mary's voice was still rough and raspy, despite the water that Meg had been giving her. Her wrists lay in her lap, turned upwards, as Tethis worked on them. Magic glowed along her palms,caressing and sealing the wounds. Veins were illuminated from within by the pale white light of magical healing as Tethis burned any infection from her. Tethis' forehead furrowed and her body glistened with sweat, but she made no sound of complaint, nor did she stop her work.
“I was – I am a nun,” Mary said, her hand going to the hood. She pushed it backwards. “My order – the Sisterhood of the Son – we've lived in Purgatory since its inception. Why we were banished here, I do not know.” She shook her head. “The legends say that we came with the others who were banished here because even if the followers of the false gods must be placed here, that does not mean that they should go without the teachings of Mary and her Son.”
Liam nodded and knelt down beside Mary. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Questions buzzed through his brains – millions of them. He wanted to know who had founded her order. What were their scripture? Had they taken the ecumenical councils words as writ, or had they ignored the orthodoxy of the age? How had their beliefs changed? Why did they still use the ichthus as their primary symbol and not the cross? Did that mean that their view on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was changed? How were women treated by their priesthood? Could they only be nuns? How many of them were lilun? What was the racial breakdown? What was their stance on alms and indulgences? Did they even know what indulgences were? Those had been concepts from the church's future – but then again, so had nuns.
In fact, now that he thought about it, the first nuns he had ever heard about had happened a full century after the banishment.
Unless…
Liam shook his head and focused on the here and now. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “My name is Liam. Uh. Liam Vanderbilt.”
Great opening, part of his brain muttered.
“Liam is also Christian,” Meg said, quietly.
Mary looked at Liam. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth – then winced in pain as her movement jarred her arms. Tethis hissed quietly, the closest she had ever come to snapping at a patient. Liam nodded at Mary.
“Yeah,” he said. “I'm from Earth. I came here by accident – uh, wow. I...” He stopped. “I have so many questions but we have so little time. Why were you being crucified? Who is ruling the city?”
Mary frowned. “They came to us almost two months ago. They looked, at first, like a normal merchant caravan. The gates were flung open to let in the new traders – though people did say at the time how odd it was, that they came from the desert. None of the outriders had noticed them. It was as if…” She trailed off, her eyes becoming distant. “It was as if they had come from nowhere. Then they were in the city and the attack began. They were lizardmen but not like any lizardmen we had seen before.”
Liam leaned back on the ground. “Like mutants? They had bulbous heads and could call down lightning?”
“No!” Mary said. “That, we could have handled, I think. The City of the Dead Gods have been training as many arcane mages as possible, since the first news of them came from the Library of Olimurias.”
Tethis drew her palms back. “The sickness is burned out of you,” she said, smiling. “And, uh, I was the one who discovered the art.” She grinned. “And Liam is the reason why the textbooks have reached here so quickly – he gave them the art to build printing presses.”
Mary smiled. “Thank you for that, Mister Vanderbilt,” she said, quietly. “But the lizardmen actually had no mutant sorcerers. The only magic came from our own defenders.”
“Then what made them different?” Liam asked.
“They fought like, well, men. Organized men. Ruthless men. I heard this from a soldier I nursed, well, afterward,” Mary said, ducking her head forward. She wiped at her eye with one finger, tears gleaming in her eyes. “He died. But he told me such stories – and jokes.” She shook her head. “He said that the lizardmen knew exactly where to attack. How to outflank the soldiers. How to breech the defenses. They captured and killed most of the mercenary units and before we knew it, we were all slaves. Of him.”
“Of who?” Liam asked, a terrible fear filling him.
Mary looked at him. Her eyes brimmed with yet more tears and her voice became ragged. “Of... God, Liam. Of God.”
* * *
Meg brushed her hands through her hair. “So, here's what we have,” she said. “My javelins, Tethis' spells, your iPod and sword, and our coin purses.” She put her palms on the pack that she had carried with her through the teleport altar. “And this. What we're lacking, though, is a Liviana. Why is that, Tethis?”
Tethis shook her head as she rolled the crystal foci that she used when trying to accomplish the more complex spells in her repertoire between her palms. She pursed her dark green lips, then rolled her shoulders in a shrug.
“No idea,” she said. “If anyone was going to go off target, I would have expected it to be Liam.”
“Hey,” Liam said, trying for a grin. His smile faded instead – his eyes darted from the backpack that Meg's hands rested on to Mary, who was curled up underneath a blanket, her eyes closed. She had been healed, but the healing had left her body worn out. She'd need to wake before they headed for the city. The last thing Liam planned to do was head into a dangerous and hostile city without a guide – even if said guide had been crucified for religious heresy. It was one of those situations that felt like two shitty choices and he had to pick the less shitty one.
Meg shook her head. “Maybe we'll find Liv in the city. Maybe we'll need to hire a diviner. But Liv's tough, and we can find her when we find her. What's important is I brought this.”
Liam's eyes widened as Meg flipped open the pack, then tugged the cloth and leather aside to reveal that she had been toting around a thigh sized canister of bronze bars and wooden slats. It looked like a barrel, though several crystals had been hammered into the top, the bottom, and the sides. Meg's fingers caressed one of the crystals, causing it to shimmer faintly with the contact. She grinned at Liam. “That's why Maurice was visiting, you know. It wasn't because of my tits.”
“Huh,” Liam said. “I mean, I find that hard to believe.”
“Fair,” Meg said. “It wasn't just because of my tits.”
“What is it?” Tethis whispered.
“It's a gunpowder bomb,�
� Meg said. “Maurice actually told me, pre-titjob, that the issue wasn't the gunpowder.” She shrugged. “It's the using it as a weapon. Sobek wants muskets but the metals we have here burst when gunpowder burns through it. Maurice did some testing with crystals and found that when they explode, the explosion gets bigger.” She grinned. “He worked this up and I asked if I could borrow it.”
Liam slowly pursed his lips. “Asked?”
Meg grinned. “Very politely.”
“You stole a gunpowder bomb from Sobek?” Tethis whispered. “Why?”
“A valkyrie flew through the edge of the sun to warn us about an insane god. Note, Liam,” she said, holding up one finger, “That I'm using god with a lower case G.” She shook her head – so serious that Liam had to smile despite his mood. “And if we're going to kill a god-”
“We're going to do what now?” Tethis asked, her eyes wide. “I thought we were just here to find out what is going on.”
“Yeah, and then we're going to kill the bad guy. And this bad guy-” Meg jerked her thumb over her shoulder, folding her wing against her back so she could gesture to the city. To the rising pillars of smoke, illuminated from within by flickering ash. To the forest of crucifixes. “-this bad guy isn't like the last one. Remember that bitch, Bryn? She was hidden behind, like, three levels of secrets, minions and lies. This guy? He sticks up a big old sign saying blow me up please.”
She thumped her palm into the bomb.
Liam looked at the bomb.
He looked out at the city.
He grinned. “Meg, have I ever mentioned that you always manage to cheer me up?”
“Three times a day,” she said, happily. “But I do love hearing it.”
Then it was suddenly daybreak.
Liam could remember, almost as if it were a dream, what it was like to watch dawn on Earth. The slow shading of colors, the gathering light, the gentle push from dreams to wakefulness. Purgatory didn't have that. Instead, the night went from the deepest, blackest darkness to the blazing light of the noonday sun with a sudden crash. Mary jerked up and out of her bedroll, her tail lashing erratically as she reached outwards – as if she was trying to ward off attackers. She blinked a few times, kicking herself against the wall of the cave.
The Cross Guard (Purgatory Wars Book 3) Page 5