“Damn it. No, of course not.” Wodan leaned against a wall. “So I have to choose between stopping Globulus or saving Dove?”
“If only it was so easy. Come and see.”
The images on the walls shifted until Wodan saw Temporary President Mallery sitting in a dark drawing room with Representative Elmyr, the banker he'd bailed out and who, in turn, had helped fund Mallery’s rise to power. Mallery sat slumped on a gaudy couch, his expensive suit crumpled and bunched up over his shoulders. He had dark bags under his eyes that made it look as if he'd been beaten by life. He refilled his glass of wine, not bothering to even pretend to listen to Elmyr stopping and starting one story after another. Several bottles sat on the small table beside Elmyr, and he often stopped to adjust them.
“I wish you'd try wearing the crown,” said Mallery, seemingly out of nowhere. “You have no idea what it's like. You are absolutely blessed to have no idea what I go through. To be the figurehead means having the hatred of every citizen directed at you. Every time something goes wrong in their petty lives, they blame you.” Elmyr nodded as Mallery paused to take a drink. “As if I’m to blame for the weather, or the market. As if I had enough power to affect any of that! I tried… you have no idea how hard I tried. I tried to protect jobs, prevent crime, end hunger, educate the masses, revitalize industry, protect the environment, make taxes fair… but… but there's no end to what they want.”
Elmyr glanced at Mallery's guard near the door. In order to direct the conversation, he said, “Mister President, sir, I never thought you got a fair shake. I mean, they used to give you-know-who one pass after another, seemed like.”
“Oh, they love him!” Mallery said with force that surprised even him. The guard near the door wore a heavy headset, not only to stay in communication with other teams guarding the mansion, but also to block out sounds so that he could not sell information regarding secret meetings – but even he jumped at Mallery's outburst. “Oh… they love him,” Mallery continued. “Can't get enough of him. Even though he spent most of his time messing around on a pig farm.”
“You know why everyone's so crazy about him?” said Elmyr.
“I'm not stupid, Elmyr, of course I do. It was that damned Smith War. I mean, that whole thing was a godsend for any career-oriented leader. Talk about a real public relations slam dunk. And you-know-who, he's basically a jock, all he had to do was run around, smile for the crowd and flex his biceps, and bam – instant living legend, just like that. Then everyone lines up to shine his ass...”
Elmyr twitched uncomfortably, then forced himself to continue. “Temporary President, you need a distraction of that caliber.”
“Not like I'm getting any help,” said Mallery, and Elmyr winced, afraid that he was losing his attention.
“Look, Mallery, I've been in business all my life,” said Elmyr. “I understand the pressure that comes with dealing with the public.”
“You try to help them,” said Mallery, shaking his head slowly. “You try to help them...”
Elmyr sighed. “So we distract them.” He waited. When he was sure that he had lost Mallery, he gestured to the guard. He peeked at Mallery, turned back to the guard, then scratched his cheek and pointed to his eye. When the guard finally understood, he left and quietly shut the door behind him.
“What it comes down to,” said Mallery, waving his hands, “is just this. See, I've thought this out, and-”
Wine bottles and glasses shattered as Elmyr threw one of this own bottles against the little table near Mallery. He stood over Mallery, his face a death-mask, his weight now imposing rather than demeaning. Mallery's eyes widened with fear, his heart racing when he saw his guard was gone.
“Now you listen to me, Temporary President,” Elmyr said through clenched teeth. “You're going to attack the Pontius oil fields. You're going to be a war hero, and I’m going to be… well, don't worry about me.”
“What?” said Mallery, looking back once again to make sure his guard was truly gone. “But I… I can't… I mean, the people won't-”
“Idiot! Who do you think is in charge here? You?! Wake up. You can't even manage your drinking habit, much less a nation. You wear the crown, but I pull the strings. And I'm going to tell you what we're going to do.”
With each word Elmyr's face grew darker and larger in Mallery's vision, threatening to snuff out his will, if not his very soul. He did not have the strength to turn and see if his guard had returned.
“Listen to me, Mallery. You're going to go to war with Pontius, and you're going to take their oil fields. I've sunk so much money into automobiles, but… we just don't have any oil here. It's a total bust. We can't move the economy without oil. Do I have to spell it out for you? Without oil, I'm done, and if I'm done, the entire economy's done. You'll be lynched. I'll be forced to go back to Pontius with my hat in my hands.”
“But I… a war! I couldn't possibly-”
“It's not a matter of what you want. You need a war to distract the people from your incompetence. This Valley's done, Mallery, we're finished… but if we could get those oil fields, then we could sell the people automobiles. There's wealth in Pontius, Mallery, wealth beyond imagining. All we have to do is take it! Don't you understand?!”
“G-g-guard!”
“Shut up! I've been bankrolling you, you little turd, I own you, but I don't… have… any… money!”
Mallery shot to his feet and walked away. Elmyr laid a hand over his own eyes. Mallery stood by a window, lit a cigarette in shaking hands, then blew a plume of smoke against the glass.
“But I can't start a war!” Mallery shouted in Elmyr's direction, then ignored him by turning back to the dark window.
Elmyr sighed. “Then don't start it. Let Pontius start it.” After a long silence, Mallery turned his head slightly. Elmyr continued. “You get some of your boys together. The kind who keep their mouths shut. Dress them up like Smiths, Lawmen, some other Pontius gang member, whatever. You get them to attack some families that live way out on the frontier, up in the hills.”
“Attack our own people?”
Elmyr ignored the question. “Get Almus to write it up. He'll know what to say, how to sell it to the people. Before you know it, the people will beg you to declare war.”
“I don't know anything about leading soldiers,” Mallery said quietly.
Elmyr laughed loudly. “Really, Mallery, I kind of figured that. But you know how to cash checks, don't you? That’s all you need to do. You don't even need to daydream about winning the war, Mal. You-know-who will be back any day now. He'll win the war for us. All you've got to do is start it. All you've got to do is stand back.”
Mallery remained at the window. He blew another plume of smoke that scattered slowly against the glass.
“You think I won't do it,” he said, almost as if talking to himself.
The image faded into darkness.
“How long?” said Wodan.
“Not long,” said Slave Circuit. “Will you be able to prepare for demonic invasion while fighting another war with Pontius?”
“Damn you.”
“That is the choice. Either stop the marriage, stop the summoning, or stop the Second Pontius War.”
“Take me to Langley,” said Wodan, and he barely finished the sentence before the room shifted, spun, and rose with enough force that he nearly fell. It grinded to a halt and a doorway opened.
Wodan entered a dark hallway. He followed clusters of blinking red lights and the distant sound of metal clinking against metal. He entered a chamber of black metal and, through a darkened window, he saw her.
Dove Langley sat hunched over on a pedestal. Chains were lashed around her, and her arms were pulled behind her back. Her outfit was torn and pulled around awkwardly, no doubt from struggling against her bindings. Strange charms dangled from the chains; Wodan assumed they held her Cognati powers in check. Her mouth was gagged, but when she moved her head Wodan caught a glimpse of her eyes. He saw no hope in them at all.
He knew that with Setsassanar dead or sleeping, the Tower was reduced to a more primitive, unconscious state, and so Langley's captivity must have taken on a more honest form.
Wodan put his hands against the glass and waved, but she could not see him. He thought of breaking the glass, but he knew he was being watched. It would not be that easy. His heart ached and he laid his forehead against the glass.
“Send all your robots against me,” he said through gritted teeth, “and I’ll tear you apart if I have to.”
At once Wodan felt something like saliva trickling down his throat. Breathing became difficult, then impossible. He fell to his knees. He forced himself to remain calm.
Slave Circuit spoke in a maddeningly calm voice. “That is not how the trial will go. The Master sets the rules. If you wish to stop the divine union, you must be a leader. You must inspire men to come here for the trial. Return here with fighters and lead them through the labyrinth. As you can see, the Master's nanomachines can burn, blind, infect, obstruct, bend, break, and even cut off air. One man will die for every six minutes spent in the labyrinth. You must lead them effectively, even against the shadow of death.”
Finally he was able to breathe. He cleared his throat and spit out a thick gob of gray goo.
“So that's how it is?” he said, forcing himself to rise.
“The Master is most adamant that you follow the rules.”
“What about a weapon?”
“The Master has given you a weapon.” Again Slave Circuit's voice shifted. There was a hard edge to it, multiple channels each speaking slightly out of sync. “You are now a weapon.”
In the long hallway leading back to the elevator, Wodan saw a reflection of himself. Cross-sections revealed themselves, showing flesh and muscle beneath the suit, electricity traveling along the nervous system, blood pumping like crimson lightning. He saw himself as a child or a youth, so small compared to the thing he had become. He heard drums pounding on the edges of perception. He flexed his right hand; it had healed perfectly, a delicate and finely-crafted framework capable of bending steel.
“How you have grown,” said Slave Circuit. “Do you despair because the path is hard and the choices are difficult? But what is harder than you, Wodan? What finer thing did the Master ever create? Who could undergo this trial, if not you?
“Run to Srila, Wodan. Run for six days without rest, regain airpower, then decide over what you will become Master.”
“Run?” said Wodan. “Why would I run all the way?”
The hallway blinded him with light. Then he saw, along the walls, the wasteland outside the Tower. He saw the laser atop the Tower surging to life. It tore through the San Ktari encampment, incinerating vehicles and men and showing them that the zone of safety around the Tower had been an illusion. Matthias and Justyn ran to a plane with a few others and escaped as the Fields of Epimetheus became a hellish inferno of molten glass and black smoke. Wodan's plane, the Gul-in Kami, was reduced to pieces of blackened scrap.
“For six days you will run,” said Slave Circuit. “For six days your body and soul will burn on a forge, the hammer shaping you without rest. Sweat will be your water, the burning sun will be your nourishment, the freezing cold of the mountains will be your comfort.
“But when you come to the end of your run… then, King Wodan, you will make your choice on who you will save and what you shall rule.”
Chapter Forty
Circle of Blood
Alone, little Haginar climbed the stones around the rim of the garbage dump. He felt a sense of loneliness because he knew everybody would soon leave. He had planned on returning to the Valliers' primary camp hidden in the cold mountain pass, but returned because he wanted one last look at Srila. But now, after what he had just seen moments ago, he was not so sure what would happen.
He heard a crackle of electricity in the air, then a dreadful humming sound. He whirled in a crouch. Jared and his six elite Cognati hovered in the air and set down before him. One of the thugs held Globulus nearby. The High Priest rested in a fetal position, his fine robes crumpled against the edges of his invisible cocoon.
“Oh-ho!” said one Cognati. He had a sagging, meaty face not unlike a pig. “What are you doing there?”
Haginar did not respond, but bared his teeth. He had expected he might get in trouble for hanging around the dump, but he knew that this was worse than a lecture.
“He was going through the garbage grounds,” said another Cognati. “A little rat, he is!”
“A bad boy for certain,” concluded a third.
Haginar turned and bounded up the stones, more nimble than any grown man. The hum became a high-pitched whine, dust showered all around him, then he felt an unbreakable vice clamp down around his midsection. The invisible thing lifted him and turned him around. For a moment he caught Jared's eyes, and he could see that the man was dead inside, his eyes mere orbs attached to a soulless calculating machine. Haginar twisted about in the air but could not break free.
Jared looked at Globulus. Globulus leaned forward and peered at the boy.
“Take down his pants,” said Globulus.
Haginar felt his pants pulled down and cried out in rage and humiliation. When he felt something like cold air turn his penis about, he spat at Jared. The saliva stuck to the hardened air, then slowly dribbled down.
“Uncircumcised,” Globulus muttered. “Disgusting.”
“Will he do?” said Jared.
Globulus leaned forward, milky eyes analyzing the boy's every feature. He felt a sudden sense of deja vu. The thin hooked nose, the thick lips, the prominent brow, hair darker than expected, but curly and unruly… all of the features were eerily familiar.
Gods! thought Globulus. He’s a Hargis brat! So what I'd heard is true. Now there really will be a sacrifice of the youngest of the line of Hargis, though not in the form I had originally planned.
“Oh-h-h,” said Globulus, “he will do perfectly.”
“Can I pull his pants back up?” said a Cognati. “Or do you wanna play with his pecker, old man?”
Jared laughed. Globulus ignored the jab, the latest in a series of disrespectful remarks he now endured at the hands of the Cognati. “We have the blasphemer's whore,” said Globulus, “and this boy. They will be sacrifice enough. For now.”
As they rose into the air with little Haginar kicking and howling, a Cognati said, “Where to now, yer Highness?”
“To the Temple,” said Globulus. His lips pulled back from his long teeth. “The time of the Summoning is upon us.”
Chapter Forty-One
Behold King of Kings Lord of Archons Yaldabaoth
Barkus woke. He was alone in the cave. He could see a strip of pale sky where the heavy stone had been rolled aside. In the gentle morning light he could feel the tattered fragments of his torture, like a dream that seemed unreal on waking.
He cringed at the memory. It was real. How long ago had it been? He remembered the last night of pain, when the awful savages beating him grew tired of their work and seemed intent on killing him. He remembered the moment when he decided that he wanted to die, not as a way to trick his mind into thinking he could end the pain, but as a genuine wish to die. One of the men struck his back with a stick, but often “missed” and hit him in his arms, threatening to break them while the other man flipped through the list of punishments and loudly complained that they would never make it halfway through. They reasoned that they would be trapped in a cave with an old man who should be dead until they too died of old age.
Barkus began to fade from life. Pain left in a haze of warmth and the torturer’s stick produced only a sound that he heard from far away. He felt a jolting presence deep within himself, a self that was not the self he had known, or perhaps made, during the course of his life. The thing that was him and not him took control of his scarred mouth.
“This is meaningless!” he said. “Pain solves nothing!” The tormenter’s stick followed an unconscious, angry urge, and smacked Ba
rkus on the side of the face. Barkus opened his mouth wide and shouted, from the depth of his being, “Life is more than just pain!”
“Hold up!” said the Slayer holding the papers. The other stopped, and they looked at one another for a long time. “Did he just say the magic words?”
“He did. He did.”
“About time.” Without a second thought the Slayer tossed the papers into the fire. The remaining punishments disappeared in a cloud of smoke. “Too bad he’s on his way out, though. We’ll get one of the prostitutes from the village to look after him.”
“Right,” said the other, moving the stone aside with his shoulder. “Could use a cigarette anyway. My back is killin’ me.”
Barkus remembered little after that. He stirred and was surprised to find that he could draw in air without pain. In fact, he felt better than he had in years. He looked at his arm, trying to feel out a fracture one of the men had given him during his beatings. Now, his arm seemed fine. Not only did it feel strong, but it was smooth, clean of all scar tissue.
He muttered in surprise, then felt startled by the sound of his own voice. His mouth felt awkward on his face. He touched his fingers to his mouth, traced along the edge to his cheeks, and felt only smooth skin. His unnatural smile of scars was gone. He smiled genuinely, a forgotten sense of warmth. He caught a glint of something strange around his neck, then pulled at his hair so that he could look at it. His long hair and beard were white. It was as if the trauma that had shattered his ego had also drained his hair of color.
Another memory came to him, but it felt more like a vision. He remembered being alone and cold, choking slowly as breathing became more difficult. He saw a light, then a man stood over him. The man was bearded, and had long hair. He crouched, then passed his hands over him. Barkus was blinded by light, then felt as if he was being consumed by flames. “Arise and walk,” he heard the man say. He said more, but Barkus passed back into dreams and darkness.
[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants Page 61