99 Gods: Betrayer

by Randall Farmer

  “The remnants of your previous life aren’t enough to counterbalance the power you have been given as a God,” Boise said. He scratched at his projected fleas. “Without a similarly powerful connection to humanity, you see only expediency, an alternate name for the infernal forces: raw nature, unleavened by civilization. The true danger of Hell.” He turned to Willie, who had turned glum. “Just like this magician, egged on by Satan as a lesson to Mr. Lorenzi – if I have guessed her motives correctly – a gain of power requires a similar gain of connection to humanity, or, from a normal human perspective, the gain of power will over time make one evil.”

  “Do you always talk like a long-winded Victorian novelist?” Willie said.

  “Or similar to the ways of one of the long-winded pre-modern philosophers,” Boise said. “There is no purpose in short and concise discourse when, to fully explain a difficult conundrum, a longer explanation will do.”

  War sighed and tapped her little girl fingernails on her chair arm.

  “You imply that if we proclaim the Divine Compact I will regain my connection to humanity through the rest of you, despite the actions of the Host?” Portland said.

  “Yes,” War said. “The other fear is that without a connection to humanity, unless we lean on you, you’re going to put off the Divine Compact until it’s too late. This is the reason why Satan’s in your office today. In my humble opinion.”

  Satan shrugged and pointedly didn’t say a thing.

  Portland frowned. “I will admit that as a God, with my Mission, right this moment I feel no need for any Divine Compact. Intellectually, though, I find your argument persuasive.”

  “Then do so,” Willie said. “Make everyone happy.”

  “This advice, from you?” Portland said. “Your thoughts say something else, that you believe might does indeed make right. A philosophy, I might add, that my Mission finds very emotionally satisfying right this instant.”

  “I say this because you scare me,” Willie said. “You hold my life in your hands, and have held my life in your hands ever since Lorenzi, my former boss, joined up with you. If I’m not careful, you’re going to turn me into a full-time do-gooder. I value my freedom and my free will.”

  Portland snorted. “The thought has crossed my mind to cure your ills. I can cure you. The world would be a much better place if I did.” Willie quailed. “You see, I can remake the whole world into a better place. This is what I’m here to do, my Mission. At best, the Divine Compact won’t aid me and at worst, this will stop me cold. Emotionally, my Mission won’t allow the risk.”

  Satan frowned at Portland.

  Then we are doomed, War thought. Portland’s equivocation led directly to the dystopias. Or worse. “Blindly follow your Mission that way and the Angelic Host will never let you into their Sight again,” War said. “Your power from God will diminish over time and you will turn to other means of gaining power. You will rationalize this as necessary; the other Gods will follow your lead and escape the sight of the Host. We will all diminish together as we exhaust all the other means of gaining power, until we are shedding life simply to maintain our own lives, hoping against hope for salvation. You do not want to go there.”

  Her comment got a smile from Satan.

  “War!” Boise said, eyes wide. “Well said. I hadn’t known your faith was so strong as to allow you to see this danger. I heartily concur with War on this. Good relations with both the Angelic Host and with humanity are essential.”

  This isn’t my faith, this is my ability to know the possible futures, War thought. She shrugged in thanks, nevertheless.

  Portland gazed out over the God projections. “You all agree with War’s analysis?” Nods all around. “Then I’ll let my personal feelings on this matter to be overruled. Let’s state the oaths and hold a press conference. We’re going public.”

  War relaxed. Portland had somehow overcome her Mission, the true measure of Portland’s worth to lead them. War knew if she had been in the same predicament, she wouldn’t have stood a chance against her own not-very-buried darker urges.

  “You do this and I’ll honor our agreement,” Satan said, giving Portland the eye. No, Satan didn’t trust Portland in the slightest. She wouldn’t leave until Portland dotted the last ‘i’ and crossed the last ‘t’. “I’ll go take a look into these Seven Suits you’re all so upset about.”

  Satan’s comment put smiles on all of their faces.

  34. (Dave)

  Jack helped Dave lug the last of the equipment into Burçak. He had been keeping a close eye on Dave ever since Dave had outed himself as a Dubuque Supported. “We’ll start the survey and mapping on this level,” Dave said. “Osham’s in charge of the computers. Jack, Georgia and I will do the surveying.” Not to his surprise, the team had a surplus of people who could help Dave run the tomographic survey. Georgia, as an archeologist, had experience surveying places like this. Jack had studied a different branch of surveying in the Navy, but he took only a few minutes of cross-training to come up to speed. In a pinch, Dave could have also used Darrel and Elorie, as they too knew surveying.

  As it was, he outfitted the rest of them with shovels, brooms and drills. “Try not to disturb too much,” Georgia said, almost pleading. When she had first seen the shovels, she had shivered in horror. Archeology wasn’t done with shovels.

  “Are we making progress?” Elorie asked, looking over Osham’s shoulder along with Dave. Dave could have done the data integration himself, but he didn’t have much experience turning this form of data into maps. They needed him, though, to interpret the data. Osham hadn’t worked with this software before, but he had worked with so much software, as user and coder, that he took less than an hour to master the intricate and, well, primitive UI.

  “We’re ready to go down a level and continue surveying,” Dave said. Already the map showed three passageways Tayyar hadn’t known existed. They had both of their guides with them, Lisa’s suggestion, so that the guides could watch each other. Mohammed, their negotiator, as lost in this exercise as Dave had been when they had been going over the Ecumenists’ library, watched over both guides. “We won’t know if we need to explore any of these three or if we can actually get to any of them, until we map the next level down.”

  “How much equipment do we have to move?”

  “We can keep everything but the actual survey equipment up here, at least for the moment.”

  Jack brought the sledgehammer down on the iron plate with its usual clang, and rested. The clang echoed spookily down the narrow empty corridors. “Damn, any sort of work in this rathole is appalling,” he said. That’s right, Dave thought. No stogies down here.

  “Well, one more station and…”

  Elorie stuck her head around the corner behind them. “Osham’s got something,” she said.

  “Coming!” Dave said. “Georgia, finish the survey here.” She nodded. He walked back around the corner, and then up to their first explored level. There, he found Elorie already peering over Osham’s shoulder.

  “What’s this?” Osham said. Dave took a moment, and then pointed out edges.

  “This isn’t one of the standard passages. We must be crossing a gallery or large room. We’ll need to wait until Georgia finishes the survey, but that gallery heads approximately toward our target area.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Now we have to explore this level to find a way down.”

  “There are many ways down,” Tayyar said. “Your crazy map I make little sense of, but I know of a passage down near this gallery. I think I’ve seen the gallery once. It’s hidden behind a room.”

  “Behind a room?”

  “Come. I will show.”

  The room appeared to be like all the others, save for a pile of rubble at the far end. “Behind those rocks,” Tayyar said.

  “In places like this people get hurt,” Haluk, their first guide, said.

  “This time, we’re ready,” Dave said. He crossed the room and examine
d the rubble. He found an opening behind the rubble he could have squeezed into if he had been his thin twenty-year-old self. “Beyond this point we’re on the ropes.” They already wore their caving equipment: miner’s hats with lights on top, knee and elbow pads, the works. They put on their climbing harnesses.

  “Great,” Lisa said. “Just effing great.”

  “Time for some shovel work,” Dave said. Only way he would be able to squeeze through. He swore he heard Georgia’s tears patting down to the floor. “We need to survey down here before we do the seismic.” Dave pointed at the rubble pile and the tiny opening. “What was this, anyway?”

  “Secret passage,” Tayyar said. “The thin broken rock in the rubble pile?” He pointed. “This was once to cover the passage entrance.”

  “No, the gallery doesn’t go above the area we’re looking for, but this side corridor and eight rooms do,” Osham said. He had overlaid his maps on the computer screen, each level a different color. The gallery led to what had to be the main area of the underground city, the opposite direction from where they wanted. Georgia surveyed enough to whet her appetite for some actual work; it broke her heart when they realized this was the wrong direction to explore. Over the wrong direction lay ten or more unexplored passages and hundreds of rooms, all waiting for proper archeology. Toward the back end, Georgia smelled fresh air.

  Lisa hobbled up; she had twisted an ankle on her way to this level. “That set of rooms shouldn’t be there,” she said, pointing out the side corridor and eight rooms that Osham had indicated, one level up from where they were and stuck out into the middle of nowhere. “There’s nothing like them anywhere near.”

  Dave nodded. “Let’s go take a look,” he said.

  “Storage rooms,” Haluk said. “Storage rooms, not dwelling rooms, standard fare. Note the lack of the round doorways. With storage rooms, doors are not needed.”

  The unadorned rooms didn’t have any niches or hollows, not set up as living spaces for people or their sheep. Worse, the rooms were stuffy and close. “They’re relatively rubble free,” Dave said. “Were they carved at a different time than the others?”

  “That would be my guess,” Georgia said. “There’s no way to prove that without a lot of work, though. This is a dead end.”

  “Perhaps so, perhaps not,” Tayyar said. “Remember that many of the former hidden passages you’ve found as you’ve explored Burçak, such as the passage to the gallery that got us here? There may be still secret ways. Take hours and hours to find, if possible at all.”

  “That’s what the seismic is for,” Dave said. “We can survey the walls and floor to find the open areas behind them. Unfortunately, our cables aren’t long enough. We’re going to have to move the entire mess down to the gallery.”

  “The secret passage is here,” Dave said, putting down the sledge. It had been his turn to create their seismic signal. “I can hear the open space with my ears.” They were in the fifth room of eight. He turned to Jack. “Get Darrel to run a message back to Osham that I think this is the place. I want the data on this room processed first.”

  “It’s getting late,” Tayyar said. “I do not want to be here at night.” Probably pimping for more money.

  “We’ll be careful,” Dave said. “We are planning on spending the night here, you know.”

  Tayyar frowned. “Tents. Yes, I saw. At least if you do, go outside, or at least back to the entrance area.”

  They moved the geophones and Dave banged away again. They moved on to the next room.

  Three minutes later, Darrel stuck his head back in. “Osham says there’s a narrow passage down, in the center of the fifth room.”

  “Georgia?”

  “Ready,” Georgia said, from outside. She had been taking a rest from her surveying, waiting for something like this. “Time to stop your infernal clanging. It’s brush and dental pick time.”

  “Okay, lever this up. Gently,” Georgia said. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, muttering under her breath. “The UN’s going to revoke my credentials.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” Dave said. He and Jack levered the two crowbars and the panel Georgia had found, a mere three feet by two feet across, came up. The panel was almost five inches thick, but as with everything else made out of tufa the rock was considerably lighter than his mind expected.

  They slid the panel to the side and Jack shined a flashlight down the unadorned hole. Below was another level, and a passageway.

  “Huh,” Jack said. “The passageway even heads off in the right direction. The only way down is on the ropes.”

  “Shit,” Lisa said.

  “Dead end coming up,” Jack said.

  “Uh huh,” Elorie said, right behind him. Dave shifted sideways until he saw around the group ahead. Their passageway ended in a blank wall.

  “Guess we’re going to have to try a different direction,” Dave said.

  Tayyar squeezed past Dave, then past Elorie. “Perhaps not. Hidden door at one end, hidden door here perhaps too.”

  “Let me,” Georgia said. People got intimate as they reordered the group, Dave ending up behind Georgia and Tayyar at the front. Georgia got out her tools and started her examination.

  By the time Georgia let out an ‘ah hah’, the air of the corridor was hot and rank from their bodies, and sweat covered Dave. “Tayyar’s right. The end of the passage is another panel, inset into the rock.”

  “Do you think you can open the panel?” Elorie said.

  “Give me another hour.”

  “That’s if you want to do it right,” Jack said. “Drill.”

  Jack’s order was to Dave. He fished around his backpack and got out the battery powered drill. Masonry drill bits went through this rock easier than a normal drill bit went through wood.

  “Tell me you’re not,” Georgia said. “Jack?”

  “The air here isn’t going to last another hour,” Jack said. He pushed forward, and Georgia, frowning, slid back. He drilled into and through the panel, which was about three inches thick. He stuck an expansion bolt inside his hole, set the bolt, attached a rope, and got to work with the crowbar. In a minute he had the stone panel off and secured, back in the corridor.

  Light. Fresh air.

  “What is this?” Elorie said.

  “A ventilation shaft. Very common,” Tayyar said. The shaft appeared to be about three to four feet across, smaller than the normal ventilation shafts and indirectly lit from above.

  “There won’t be steps or handholds in a shaft like this,” Haluk said. “You’ll have to find another way. This is a dead end.”

  “We can climb down,” Jack said. He stuck his head into the shaft, looking up and down. “Only I’m not sure this will get us anywhere. The bottom’s covered in rubble. I didn’t spot any other openings, but there’s a lot of shadows both up and down.”

  Elorie pushed her way up and handed Jack one of their top-powered flashlights. “Take another look.”

  “Okay, ma’am. Still nothing up.” Pause. “Wait. I’m not sure, even with this flashlight, but there may be something on the far wall, about half way down to the rubble. Say forty feet or so.”

  Dave did the math and visualized. “Back down to the blocked level, where we want to go,” he said.

  “Let me,” Elorie said, smiling. “Time for me to have my fun.”

  Roped to her climbing harness, Elorie crabbed down the ventilation shaft wall and out of Dave’s sight. He squeezed past Jack and Darrel, doing rope duty, and peered down. He didn’t spot any hand-holds on the vertical sides of the ventilation shaft, but Elorie didn’t appear to have any problems finding them, or bracing herself on opposite walls. In a few minutes she reached the place Jack had pointed out.

  She clambered over and vanished into an opening. A moment later she stuck her head back in the shaft. “Big passageway down here!” she called back up. “I think this is what we’re looking for.”

  Behind him, Lisa groaned. She had bee
n hoping they would have to turn back, Dave guessed.

  “Jack, we need to rig up a way down and a way back up,” Dave said. “Any ideas?”

  Jack kicked one of their caving duffels and shrugged. “With all the caving and climbing equipment we’re lugging, I can rig us up a rope ladder stayed by bolt anchors. I’ll even throw in a safety rope at no charge.”

  “Let’s do this,” Dave said.

  Dave swept his light around the large room in awe. A church or cathedral, he thought. Certainly more than just a meeting room, given the arches, galleries, niches, and dusty ornamentation. Georgia had her brushes out, dusting one of the blocks sticking out above the dried mud. Of all things, dried mud covered the area, a quarter inch thick on the average. At some time in the past there had been a flood here.

  Beyond the ventilation shaft passageway they had discovered another underground city. They couldn’t tell how large a city, yet, but the place had at least three levels, of which theirs was the bottom-most, and space for hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The architecture appeared subtly different; for instance, they had found more ventilation shafts than in the main Burçak underground city, each one smaller than in Burçak. The one they had clambered down was typical of the lot.

  “This is an altar, my guess. The symbols carved in it are Persian, similar to what I’ve seen from around a thousand BC,” Georgia said, leaning over the large stone block. “Wait. What in the hell is this doing here?” She twisted sideways to look at the far end. “This next set are Harappan ideograms.”

  “Harappan?” Elorie said. “What’s that?”

  “Indus valley civilization, circa 3000 to 1500 BC. Carved here on the same altar as this Elamite cuneiform.”

  “I thought you said it was Persian.”

  “Persia is the area, Elamite are the people.”

  “Sounds biblical.”

  “Yes. The Elamites impacted the fertile crescent for over two millennia,” Georgia said. “Elamite cuneiform I can believe here in Cappadocia, but not the anachronistic Harappan ideograms.” She rubbed her chin. “Although I’ve read several articles that theorize that Old Elamite, another ideogram script, is related to the Harappan.” She continued on, muttering technical terms and arguments. She didn’t have anyone to argue with but herself on those topics.