by Kyle Olson
“Hrm. Well, whatever. Hey, maybe when the wolf is chewing you up, I could bail and switch sides,” Sophia said, attempting to sound idle, but the way she watched Tess, gauging her for a reaction, colored her tone.
“You could. Maybe if Ifon halted his rampage in time to avoid killing an otherwise random mortal, he’d see you’re a sphinx. Maybe they’d give you a nice place, pamper you like a cat. Or they stuff you in a box and prod you with questions all day. If you’re fortunate.”
“Like you two don’t do that to me already. Although… At least your box is comfy and the prodding stick isn’t too sharp.”
Tess smirked, then snickered, and launched into full-on, jackal-tongue lolling, trademark laughter: “Gakakaka!”
“What? I know I’m witty, but it wasn’t that funny…”
“It’s,” Tess began, once her laughter had calmed down enough to allow her to form words, “just funny.”
Still she remains loyal, even after knowing. A trained animal that’ll always return to its crate. I have to hand it to Sejit, she found herself a rare treat.
“Uh-huh. If I did anything, you’d probably burn me at the stake or something.”
Before Tess could fire back, the distant whine of a jet coming in for a landing got her excited. She allowed herself a partial transformation, granting a pair of pert jackal ears rather than the mundane human set. They swiveled and searched, homing in on the source until her eyes confirmed and took over—along with her rifle’s scope.
All the energy that’d inflated her left in a sad rush. It was the wrong plane. She slumped against the low wall on the rooftop, overlooking the world below, and pulled a pack of smokes from her rifle’s case.
“People die from asphyxiation rather than the burns most of the time when they’re on the stake,” she said, apropos of nothing, lighting the cigarette between her lips.
To which Sophia gave her a look that said: “See, you aren’t denying it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Wophin enjoyed the peace and quiet that came when both museum and penthouse were empty. It wasn’t that he could hear the bustle from below through the thick floors and ceilings, rather that he knew there was bustle, and that was discomforting all the same. He knew, as well, that as a god of home, travelers, and the concept of hospitality, people shouldn’t bother him so much. He blamed modern life, with modern being the past, oh, two hundred years or so.
Sunk deep in his favorite chair with a modern paperback, the comfortable solitude meant he could digest each word, sentence, paragraph, and chapter in the book. It all spun apart, revealing the meaning between the lines. Like how the author of the current book, a story about a group of transients drifting across the country in the hopes of finding work, set some 80 years ago, was obviously gay, conflicted about it, and used his characters as different facets of his views on the topic.
When one discovered those morsels, it really changed the whole work.
To think, just 50 years ago he couldn’t have dreamt about finding this kind of peace. And then in came Sejit to the dumpy cafe where he both worked and lived, and scooped him up. All he had to do was act as her majordomo, more or less. A glorified secretary. Or, no, these days they used administrative assistant, as if it was any different. People did love using different words for the same thing.
And then, like someone snapped their fingers to make it so, the peace shattered.
He glanced at the time—no, the museum wasn’t set to open for a while. Employees should be coming in soon, true, but they were quiet and diligent and had work to do. They weren’t there to gawk and gab.
The elevator hadn’t moved, but someone was there.
He placed his bookmark, snapped the book shut, and extracted himself from the chair. With all the hubbub that’d been going on, it was hardly surprising that he would have to entertain a guest, but this someone—he’d thought they died an era ago.
In the hallway, he looked around, saw nothing, heard nothing. Then said, to nobody: “I’m the only one here. There’s no need to skulk.”
Where he was looking, there had been nothing. Until there was something. A boy. There wasn’t a subtle transition or a fading in to reality. Just one moment he wasn’t there, the next, he was. It was like the senses refused to acknowledge him until he assented.
The boy was unkempt and disheveled, slightly smaller than Wophin.
“Hadn’t expected to find you here! What a surprise!”
“Marphin,” said Wophin, his timbre deep and rich compared to the other’s boyish squeak, “I’d assumed you’d disappeared like the others.”
“Same! But this is great!” said Marphin, darting up, smacking Wophin’s shoulder affectionately.
Wophin glanced at the hand at his shoulder, “May I ask why that is?”
“Hihi, it’s obvious, isn’t it? You can escape with me! I’ve come to rescue you!”
“Escape? What has led you to believe I need to escape?”
“I’ve been watchin’ this place for days, weeks, months! Seen everyone come and go… except you!” Marphin leaned in close after checking up and down the halls for errant listeners, “Sejit must be holding you here, right? Right?”
There was a strange hope twinkling in Marphin’s eyes. It was understandable, for there had once been many brothers. For a good, long while, the two that remained thought themselves alone.
“No. I am here by choice.”
Hope waned, as if the bucket it was sloshing around in had sprung a leak.
“What, how? Why?”
Wophin took a step back and gestured around him, “Comfortable arrangements, all the books I could ever want, and all that is asked of me is to play my bit role every so often. I am not asked to spy, sleuth, or even venture to the noisy realm more than a handful of times in a year, yet I know Sejit has placed a volume of trust in me.”
“What? What what what, how can you live with yourself like that? Where’s your pride?!” Marphin shook his head, ruffled his hair, and laughed, “Is this place… bugged? Is that it? Oh! You can’t answer that, can you?”
“It’s not,” Wophin sighed, “Since you’re here and this looks to be a long chat, I may as well afford you the hospitality of myself and Sejit. While you are here, no ills shall befall you or your kin,” he said, then produced a butterscotch sweet from a vest pocket and held it out to Marphin, “Care for a candy?”
“Candy?” He gawked at the thing as if it were poison, “What is wrong with you?! You’re a caged rat!”
“And you’re a mouse trapped in a maze, always running headlong into the walls.”
Wophin flicked the candy into the air, and by childish instinct or perhaps just standard reaction, Marphin caught it.
And threw it to the ground.
“This shouldn’t be happening!” Marphin stomped on the candy, shattering it, “It shouldn’t! No fighting! Isn’t that what we agreed? Isn’t it?”
Distant eras drew up a corner of Wophin’s lips. He, they, were ancient, ancient as the traditions of safe travels and succor. Before mortals could imagine an empire, much less one that sprawled, they existed and watched, yet were never worshiped—only called upon when betrayal demanded retribution and satisfaction.
Depending on the where, the names would be different, as would the methods, but they were all cut from the same cloth. In time, they became aware of one another, and, in time, gave each other that which the mortals would not.
“This is nothing compared to the spats of yesteryear,” Wophin said, borrowing the tone of the patient elder brother.
“I… that is true, this is nothing, isn’t it? But! Then, that means…” Marphin’s deep, brown eyes darted side to side before homing in on his brother, “How, how do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Live! You are all…” Marphin gestured about, arms flailing, “Where’s your reason, your purpose?”
“Where? Here,” Wophin placed a hand to his chest, which earned him a suspicious stare, “Thoug
h I suppose if you insist on something concrete, it would be to read. People write the most fascinating things.”
“Crazy! Would you be like, like the others? No, no, without something, you’ll end up like them!”
“Will I? Little brother, have you looked into a mirror at all recently?”
“I have, I have,” said Marphin, glumly. The bucket was just about dry. “Then I heard Daontys’ call and responded. He gave me purpose, acknowledged me!”
“His call?”
“Yes, yes! I suppose you never heard it because you are locked away in here, but many others have heard. The Father’s family has grown! We all have a purpose! He has seen to it!”
Now this was news. They knew it wasn’t just Ifon, but if Daontys was willing to scoop up gods like Marphin, then who could say how large his pantheon had become?
“Grown how much?”
Marphin wagged a finger at him, “Nuh-uh, that’d be telling! Not unless you promise to join us.”
“Join? What makes you think I want any part of that? If I joined, as if this were some movement, Daontys would no doubt give me errands and chores like he’s done with you. At least Madam’s don’t require me to leave the city limits. I rather enjoy my life as it is.”
“No, no! You have to join, you have to! I know Daontys would welcome you!”
“Would he? When he undoubtedly knows of my affiliations? If anything, I suspect an interrogation would be in order.”
“You don’t understand! He wants to unite us, make us strong again! Give us purpose!” Marphin balled up his fists, holding them close to his chest, “He would even accept Sejit!”
“Sejit, join Daontys? How absurd! You don’t know either of them as well as you think. You must ask yourself why you believe Daontys wishes to collect gods, to have them serve.”
“Because, it’s obvious!”
“Is it? Then you should have no problem explaining it to me.”
“Because, because…” Marphin trickled off, his thinking expression bearing an uncanny resemblance to one in a great deal of anguish, “Because he’s the Father of Us! It’s only natural!”
“The father does not always wish for what’s best for the son. Sometimes it’s the other way around.”
“He does! He wants what’s best! So come on, come on, join us! It’ll be great, you’ll see!”
Marphin was such a pitiful thing, hunched over and holding himself close together, but the excitement, the fleeting vapors of hope he grabbed at—that was real.
“I have another idea,” Wophin began, extending a hand towards his sibling, “You could live here with me. Brothers once more.”
Marphin gazed upon the outstretched hand like a cursed thing. Yet, for though hope had gone dry, desire poured in, writing itself across his whole.
“Sejit the Butcher would not allow it!”
“She would.”
“But I am in Daontys’ pantheon!”
“You wouldn’t be if you left it.”
Conflict raged, knitting brows, contorting cheeks, pulling lips, “No, no no! I know her. She is vicious! A slaughterer!”
“Yet here I am. Though, I must ask: Surely you’re aware of where she’s gone?”
“I am! Else why would I come here?”
Wophin observed his kin, “Yet you’re still afraid of her. I can’t help but wonder if you expect she’ll win.”
The younger of the boy-gods recoiled in a mixture of horror and revelation, but managed to pull himself back into composure, or what passed as composure for him, in short order. And lost it just as quickly in a fume.
“It’s, it’s the only thing I can do! Sejit wins, I am her enemy! Daontys wins, I stay by his side and no ills occur! But If I switch sides,” He motioned with his hands in the air, choking an invisible neck, “I would come to a tragic end!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Madam may be strict at times, but she understands our plight. Now, you didn’t hear this from me,” Wophin said, leaning in, “But so long as you’re not afraid of her, she’s quite amiable.”
“No! This, this must be a trick,” Marphin hissed out, taking a step away from Wophin, “Trying to pull me away from the one chance I have!”
Since their first words, there had been something about Marphin that Wophin couldn’t place his finger on. Marphin had always been a bit loose in the head, on account of reasons only those who had first believed, or perhaps mandated, knew. This was like that, but different. A misty something…
Ah. That was it.
Fear.
Not of any particular god or goddess that may enact divine retribution for slights, real or perceived, but something deeper, primal.
He knew, because for an age, he’d drifted around in that exact state until he’d served a cup of coffee to the lioness. Funniest thing was, he’d fallen so deep into his own abyss he hadn’t noticed who she was, just some god, yet she’d pinned him from the moment she entered. After she found the steaming mug satisfactory, Sejit had asked him two questions. The first was If he was happy with his lot, to which he’d laughed, and the second if he’d like to make himself useful.
He’d scoffed and asked how useful could someone like him be. Sejit introduced herself and informed him that she had need of an aide. Do some paperwork, some filing, organizational odds and ends, and handle a few light financial matters. Didn’t sound like much, but Sejit. A legend, even among the gods. Yet there she was, at a lousy cafe instead of conquering the globe, wanting someone to open her mail for her.
Cautiously, he’d accepted. True to her word, he became her assistant and nothing more, nothing less. In her vast stores of history, he’d discovered books. Since his birth he’d never thought much of them, never bothered—of course, when he was younger, books didn’t exist as they did in their current format. They were rare things, treasured things, and who wanted to bother reading when there was so much else?
Once he’d given them a shot, he couldn’t break away. Something in the dusty tomes compelled him. In short order, he’d torn through one shelf, two, and then the whole lot. She allowed him to order whatever he wanted.
Books, he discovered, held the world in their passages, and in the world, he could discover the key to understanding.
At some point, he realized, he’d climbed out of the abyss without noticing. The fear had gone.
With Wophin’s invitation that misty, lost look on Marphin ebbed.
“Come, we knew each other well. You know I am not the sort of person to be commanded,” said Wophin, taking a step forward.
“That… is true. Yes.”
“And of everyone, we were the closest.”
Marphin nodded to himself, eyes darting to and fro, “Yes.”
Another step nearer.
“So you know I would not deceive you.”
“Yes, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t,” Marphin said, soft.
“Then, is it not safe to leave Daontys and his commands and join me?”
“No!” Marphin shouted, shaking his head violently, “Even, even if that murderous lion did not kill me, what would she have me do? There is nothing I can do, nothing! But Daontys, he found something I can do, only I can do!”
“Brother,” said Wophin, eyes held shut in a long blink, “Are you truly so lost, so blind?”
“Not anymore! Hihi, no, not at all, not anymore!”
While he didn’t shoot forward, Wophin moved faster than most people ever saw, closing the distance between him and his brother, but even with his burst of speed, the gulf remained. Marphin flinched, at first, from the touch, the way Wophin’s arms wrapped around him, but within moments the resistance bled out.
“Then I am afraid,” Wophin said, welling with melancholy, “I must ask you to leave. It’s for the best.”
With those words, Marphin’s fear came back with a vengeance, but for all his struggling, he couldn’t break free of his brother’s embrace.
“I cannot! I have orders! I have a purpose! You can’t take that away
from me! Unhand me!” He shrieked, thrashing and wailing like a terrified beast.
Then came to an abrupt, limp, halt. Wild, clouded eyes cleared at the same instant they grew heavy.
“But, but, I didn’t agree, didn’t hurt yooou,” Marphin whined, his voice soft and distant, “How did you…”
Wophin held on as Marphin grew heavy, as he drooped like a balloon losing air, as to lay him upon the floor with a bit of decency. Marphin giggled once more, quiet and stretched, and when it’d gone and his last breath left in a gasp, Wophin knelt beside the body.
“But you did,” he whispered, “You did.”
His deathmask wore a boyish grin.
Immortality had claimed another. A nobody, his name known only to a few crumbling history books and even fewer gods. It might be said that he had died long ago and the shell had not gotten the message.
You may not have been all there, but most of you was. We can only be so lucky to meet our end with the whole of ourselves…
…I do wish you could’ve followed me.
With two fingers, he closed the boy’s eyes and sighed.
It’s easy to be jealous of them, isn’t it? If it’s any consolation, brother mine, you can rest now, while they continue to languish in eternity. So sleep and dream, a respite from this world. We’ll be reunited again, one day.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
In the grand scheme of things, the ultimate hierarchy, Phytos was not a powerful god. Still, he was several rungs above the dregs that Daontys had brought into the fold. More importantly than that, however, was one small detail: He was his friend.
The world outside the window of Ifon’s jet grew, filling in with detail as the craft started on approach towards the landing strip.
It’d been no small measure to cancel his planned appearance. People would ask questions. One of the benefits of a dictatorship was that he could count on a few individuals to pass his message on without telling anyone what was really happening, but that would not stop the questions. Not being there for his country and people during such a critical time was its own sort of embarrassment, but he had made his decision. His friend’s death had to be avenged by his own hand.