Chapter Twelve
Of course we weren’t dead. I was in too much pain to be dead. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue, but there were hairline cracks slowly spreading through the scattered clouds. The Cinquecento was wrapped around the base of an airship mooring tower. The air stank of sulfur and copper and burnt metal. Eve lay next to me, covered in dark brown blood. I reached a hand to rouse her, then noticed I was covered in blood as well. Monkey leaned against the side of the car rubbing his shoulder, looking otherwise unharmed. The roof was coated in the broken and burst bodies of the flying creatures. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be some kind of vulture/human hybrid. The roof was a charnel house floor of meat and metal.
“I hate you!”
I spun around at the shout, sure that it was intended for me.
“Up here, you subhuman…thing!”
I looked up and saw Lenny’s blood-soaked face hanging from a crossbeam in the mooring tower. A massive hand clutched his hair.
“Goliath? You all right?”
Lenny blanched. My hand, still attached to his neck, began gesticulating wildly. “Is HE alright? Is HE? Was HE riding the crest of a dimensional collapse because his so-called team forgot about him? Was he left alone to see the coming of Yaotl and the fury of the Ghost Queen? Was HE—”
Goliath’s hand opened and Lenny fell to the ground with a sickening wet thump. “Ow!” He rolled in a puddle, smearing his cheeks with random innards. “I hate you so much!”
“What can I say, I’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached to my body.”
“I’m alright, ya buncha pansies. Gimme a second to sort myself out.” The giant lowered himself gingerly to the roof. He looked mostly fine. His beard was singed, his face and upper torso were sunburn-red, and his pants smelled like roasted sweaty pig, but he was in one piece and moving. “All right then, fellas?”
Eve sat bolt upright, she looked at me and winced. “You’re bleeding.”
“Nope.”
She held her arms before her. “I’m bleeding!”
“Wrong again.”
She looked around the roof. I worried that the carnage would be enough to break her, but instead, her right eye twitched twice. “Okay,” she said. “Can we leave now?”
On the opposite side of the roof, an access hatch banged open and an angry vulture’s head appeared. It was attached to a body that was human in form, if not in material. It was a Frankenstein- like creation of metal fused with avian biology. Small patches of flesh sewn into an armored body with massive metal wings and a scavenger bird’s head. It made a low bow to me.
“Greetings to you, Lord Morningstar. I am an envoy sent by—”
The creature was knocked suddenly from its feet by a metal projectile.
“I got yer envoy right here, pal.”
“Goliath!” Eve called. “I don’t think they mean to hurt us.”
The giant shuffled his feet sheepishly. “I didn’t like the look on his beak. Besides, how do we know he wasn’t gonna attack us?”
“I guess,” I answered. “I think you just killed the special envoy.”
“I’m…not dead,” it answered. “Yet…” It was pinned to an air intake. Goliath had speared it through the midsection with one of the dead metal birds.
“We have…been awaiting you. Lord Nin-Agal…scrambled his finest squadron to impede your fall…save you from certain death. And upon your safe landing…to… bid you welcome. To Copperopolis…hrrrrgh…” A small stream of blood flowed from its beak. “Would you…like to come…inside…for…carrggh… caa…coffee or tea?”
“Boy, this guy is dedicated to his job, huh?” I asked. I was hoping to elicit a smile or some show of camaraderie from my group, but the joke fell like a dead lead bird. “We’ll show ourselves in.”
“Through that door and down three flights. Turn right and follow the cobalt stripe to the main… Hrrrrrgh.”
“Main hrrrgh? I’ve never talked to one o’ those before.” Goliath shrugged his shoulders.
The bird’s head jerked and its eyes went dull. A stream of foul green liquid oozed from the joints at its legs.
“Hey, it’s walking distance. At least we won’t have to get the car running, huh?” I wiggled my eyebrows at Monkey.
Monkey took full advantage of his simian hands and feet by simultaneously flipping me the bird four times as he spun on his rump. “Make that run, you fucking jerk!” He kicked the side of the Cinquecento and the hood sprang open.
Goliath was already at the access hatch, moving down into the building. Eve followed closely behind him, Lenny perched on her shoulder. Tough crowd.
* * *
The badlands just past the bridge are pretty much the official start of the Long Walk. The bridge is your first test. Once you’re out here, you’re on your own. There’s a few small shacks here and there, little way stations before you get too deep into things. They’re usually tended by lesser demons and deities. Bored out of their skulls most times, but you’ll see one or two stragglers gearing up for the walk every once in a while. I really ought to put a sign out here letting people know where the last available services are. If you know where to look, you’ll find a few small cities as well, remnants and shrines to former gods well into their retirement. I allow them a small parcel of land to share with whatever ’s left of their followers. Nothing more painful to see than a god with no believers. Nobody deserves to fade into oblivion.
Copperopolis. We were moving down a spiral staircase above a massive lobby, a view of the metal city surrounding us on all sides. We were up high enough that we could see the wastelands beyond the city limits. I hadn’t noticed a single living soul in the building or on the streets below us yet. Plenty of these twisted metal creatures, but nothing resembling a follower. Nin-Agal hadn’t done a good job of maintaining his cosmic mailing list. Maybe I’d have to think about shutting this place down after I got everything else settled. This is good real estate, and there are plenty of up-and-coming fallen gods who would make good use of this place.
Nin-Agal despised living matter. Yet he was kind to those who served him. To become a citizen in this city meant giving yourself over to be bronzed, coated in living metal. Organic material was merely tolerated, covered and hidden as much as possible. Even the potted plants were nickel-plated. We’d have to get Eve out of here and back to nature as quickly as possible. She was looking greyer with each passing hour.
We were in the third tower of his downtown triumvirate, the Cobalt Steel Towers. A triangular bridge connected the three buildings. One building for home , one for work. Nobody really knew what happened in Spire #3, but it looked like we’d get to find out.
We reached the foot of the stairs and approached a huge gunmetal desk that dominated the wall. There didn’t appear to be anyone around. There was, however, a sparkling silver bell sitting on the counter. I tapped it twice, listening to the pure ring echo and fade across the room.
“Nobody’s home.”
The desk began to vibrate, a puff of hot air escaped from beneath.
“Is the ceiling getting higher?” Monkey asked.
A trick of perspective. The entire floor was descending. The desk remained where it was, and we sped down through the tower, past row after row of windows until we reached ground level. From there, the floor hesitated, then continued down at a slower speed. The temperature was definitely getting higher. Our lift passed down into a narrow shaft, leaving us enclosed on all four sides.
“Trap?” I asked.
“Feels like it,” Monkey murmured.
The lift reached the bottom of the shaft, passing down into a huge chamber. Three walls were dominated by metal bas-relief sculptures showing the history of Nin-Agal. The wall before us was glass, allowing us a spectacular view of the Smithgod’s work floor.
“See? We have fiery furnaces down here,” I smirked.
“You’re letting someone else do your job so you don’t have to,” Lenny hissed.
“Ou
tsourcing. Same difference.” I leaned on a statue of a twisted half human/half falcon next to the viewing window.
This show was obviously being put on for our benefit, so we settled in to watch. The heat coming out of the room was incredible, even through the protective glass layer. Great vats of molten metal hovered over large molds. Several of Nin-Agal’s minions were chained to long tracks in the floor. This allowed them to move back and forth and continue toiling for their god while preventing them from running away. In the middle of the work floor, on a raised pedestal, was a huge throne of fiery black rock. Nin-Agal sat there, clad only in a loincloth and two great swathes of chains hanging from his shoulders and waist. He was not the glorious creature he had once been. Where he was once smooth and muscular, he now seemed cobbled together from recycled machine parts. Age and a bad life hadn’t slowed him down, though. He raised his arms as a large vat of liquid-hot steel hovered over his head. A flick of his wrists, and the vat was upended, sending hundreds of gallons of molten metal raining down upon him. And he danced.
Inside of the deluge, we could scarcely make out his form, his arms waving, weaving, kneading, and molding. He cupped some of the liquid in his hand and took great long drinks of it. He shook the remaining slag from his hands and began to remove tools from his belt of chains, never stopping his fluid motion in between and under the glowing streams. His skin glowed a burnished red at the edges, slowly graduating to a brilliant yellow near his heart. With another wave of his hands, streams of water began to rain from pipes near the sides of his throne, and he was lost to us in a cloud of steam.
A voice to my left said, “He’ll be done soon.”
I jerked away from the wall. The statue looked at me, blinking eyes the same shade of pewter as the rest of its body. There was no color variation on the creature, which is why I probably mistook it for a statue in the first place. I did my best to mask my surprise, reminding myself that if I wished to stay alive, I needed to remember that I no longer had my powers of godly perception.
“What’s he making?” Eve asked.
“Our lord has much to discuss with you. If it pleases you, Lord Nin-Agal has readied the executive lounge for the lady, the giant, and the…primate.”
“What about me?” Lenny asked.
The creature didn’t blink. “Hello?” Lenny asked.
Nothing. I picked Lenny up and held his head out to my side. “Do you see this?”
“It’s your hand, sir.”
So he couldn’t see Lenny for some reason. “What’s your name?” I asked the birdman.
“I relinquished it in service to Lord Nin-Agal.”
“That’s kind of breaking the rules, isn’t it? Swearing fealty to another go—” be careful – don’t speak it, don’t even acknowledge, “Higher being?”
“He made me, sir. Took me out of the air with a javelin during a hunting expedition, crafted this new body for me. I owe him my soul. Your dominion is only with the formerly living and the higher powered, I am neither. I have existed only in this underworld, only when Lord Nin-Agal bestowed sentience upon me.” “I’ll have to discuss that with him.” I took a closer look at the creature. His feathers were individually plated with metal, and I could see gaps in the “human suit” that he’d been fused into. Tendons, muscles, tissues, all plated over with metal, yet somehow pliable and living. It looked tremendously painful, yet the creature seemed content enough. What I was really looking for was the midnight ink I’d seen on Goliath and Pazuzu.
“If it’s all right, I’d like to accompany my friends to the lounge. We’re not here to fight Nin-Agal, he has nothing to fear from us.” “I assure you of their safety, but Lord Nin-Agal gave strict orders for you to remain here while they retired hence. It’s a matter of great importance.”
“How’s about we’ll just stay here wid him until Lord Fancy Pants is done,” Goliath growled.
“Lord Nin-Agal does not wish this to be perceived as a threat. He will grace all of you with his presence after his initial meeting. He’s just very choosy about his contact with…flesh creatures.”
The last two words sounded like slugs and slime oozing from the bird’s mouth.
“What do you say, chief?” Monkey asked. I could see his concern, he was reading the situation for traps too.
“I’ll be fine. Lord of the Underworld, right? You guys go relax.”
“Fine. Point the way,” Monkey said, taking Eve by the hand. Then, under his breath, “Racist bird.”
I caught Monkey’s eye. He gave me a brief nod. Even if he was angry with me right now, he wouldn’t be relaxing. We’d been in enough scrapes together that he knew the routine. He’d be scouting around, sneaking and creeping as soon as he was out of sight.
They proceeded around the corner. Seconds later, a faint metal whump told me they’d gone through a door and out of earshot. I perched Lenny on my shoulder, facing behind me. “Watch my back,” I muttered under my breath. I turned my attention back to the workfloor. Nin-Agal emerged from the steam, a massive shape behind him covered in a cloth. He saw me through the window and stopped walking. I couldn’t read the bright furnaces of his eyes, but I didn’t sense malice. Only concern. He looked at the statue creature and gave a curt nod to his left.
“Right. If you’ll follow me, sir.”
We proceeded down a titanium blue hallway with vaulted ceilings. Everything was inlaid with metals precious and common. Gold stripe accents ran in strange knots across the ceiling and the floor was brushed steel. Massive bas-reliefs dominated the 100-foot-long walls of the hallway, proclaiming the legendary feats of Nin-Agal. Here he was in his youth, forging the swords and spears that were later used to kill Tiamat’s mate, Yamm. Twenty feet later he was presenting the finished Palace of the Gods. The Mesopotamians loved this guy. Me? I find his work to be one-note, a little sterile and boring.
As we approached the end of the hallway, the entire wall to my right emitted a deep vibration and a slight rumble. A puff of molten air smacked my face as the upper portion of the wall hinged up like a garage door and the lower part hinged down into a viewing platform. Like most gods, Nin-Agal had an affinity for the dramatic, and I have to say, he was pretty good. I stood next to the bird-creature on a platform fifty feet above Nin- Agal’s work floor. The entire platform descended. Near the center of the room, Nin-Agal wrapped himself in a golden tunic and strode towards us from his throne. The smile he wore belied what I knew to be his true nature: fierce, aggressive, merciless. In other words, if he was beaming at me, it was only because he wanted something.
“Hail Lord Morningstar!” Nin-Agal raised a hand in greeting and brought it sharply down across his stomach, offering a bow. “Welcome to my forge! My apologies for the heat.”
I smiled at him. “I’ll get used to it.”
I glanced to my left at Lenny’s head. If Nin-Agal had seen him, he’d given no notice. This was odd.
Nin-Agal’s body was a mess. He looked like he’d been stripped for parts, and then stripped other machines for parts to replace what was missing. His knees were hastily bolted together, none of the luster remained on his body. His lower leg was just a hunk of pipe, rudely welded to his knee, and parts of his body had rusted holes that allowed a peek at his inner workings.
He, in turn, was looking at me, taking in the bruises, the cuts, the hand suspiciously tucked into the pocket. “Things have taken a turn, Morningstar. Quite a turn. You have nothing to hide from me. In fact, I may be able to help with that hand. We’ll be meeting in my private chambers. Follow me, please.”
Through the steam I saw dozens of Nin-Agal’s denizens perched on gantries high above us, carrying great vats of liquid metal. Some toiled at a line of anvils near the back of the room. Others manned a turnwheel beneath an enormous bellows. All of them bore the same tortured, welded-together look of the birdman we’d met earlier, their living bodies fused together under metal plating.
“Can’t find any willing help, eh?” I asked.
Nin-Agal
glanced back over his shoulder. “Circumstances as they are, I’ve had to learn how to subsist without believers. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve made it work.”
Three jets of steam hissed from beneath the throne. It rotated sideways, revealing a pathway descending in a tight spiral. The air coming out was far cooler than the air of the workshop. There were no lights in the walkway, but we didn’t need them. Ahead of us, in the dark, Nin-Agal glowed like a hot rivet. We followed his light and steam. After a few minutes of walking, he rapped a hand on the wall twice and a bank of sodium arc-lights hissed to life in the ceiling around us. We were in a circular chamber, adorned with the same set of reliefs we’d seen in the hallway above. There were worktables against the walls, and several large shapes covered by tarps.
The Smithgod seated himself on a large black anvil in the center of the room, caressing it as a trail rider would his most trusted horse. He gestured for me to sit on a stool a few feet away.
“You never answered my call,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Murrow! I went through great trouble and expense to make sure that he delivered that message to you, and you never showed up at the meeting spot. It’s taken me this long to find you again.”
Nin-Agal hadn’t lost his businessman’s smile yet. “I knew I’d have to get a hold of you as soon as that girl wandered in here looking to make a deal on crystals. Dumb as a rock, that one. Pretty much outlined her whole plan about getting through the Long Walk. I knew you’d need to hear about it right away. I would have come to see you myself, of course, but…well. I’m a bit agoraphobic when it comes to traveling among the…uh…how can I put this delicately? The Organic Mess out there.” His lips curled ever so slightly as he said it.
“Looks more to me like your rusty legs wouldn’t carry you that far.”
Angel Falls Page 13