99 Gods: Betrayer
Page 48
“It’s a topographic map but I’m not sure of what,” Dave said. “The map’s been drawn on, several overlapping but non-concentric circles. Why would they go through the trouble…”
“I want to examine the map first,” Elorie said.
Dave walked in silence, worried. The rest of the team muttered to each other behind them, an argument he couldn’t make out. Elorie started to drift off-path, angling toward the center of the room, and he reached out to take her elbow.
“Get your hand off me,” she said, a hiss. His hand yanked back as if burned. Elorie glared at him, but she did angle back to the map.
“I know this area,” she said. She pointed without touching. “This here’s northwest Georgia on the south of the mountains, Russia on the north. The dot they drew in the center of these circles is just north of the border, in the highest reaches of the Caucasus. In the Karachay-Cherkessia province. It’s a rough place, politically unsettled, only three hundred kilometers to the west of Chechnya.”
“Why is there a map of that here? What…”
Dave’s voice tailed off. He half-expected Elorie to grab the map; instead, she reached down to her harness and started to unclip herself.
“Elorie, no!” Dave said. He grabbed at her hands, she slapped him.
“I must,” she said, hissing. “Let go.”
Dave grabbed Elorie’s arms; the motion turned him to view the center of the room, and his stomach lurched. The rest of the team, led by Jack and Lisa, walked into the room, unclipped from the rope. They knelt down by the room’s central pit, ready to move the rubble.
“Get away from that! The Ecumenists got this far and fled,” Dave said. “The last thing they did was cover that thing back up. Whatever’s in there is dangerous!”
Jack and Lisa ignored him.
Elorie struggled in his arms, quiet now. She elbowed him in the stomach, hard, and then without warning grabbed one of his arms and bit. He didn’t let go, despite the pain, and tried to back himself and Elorie out of the room.
This absurd behavior had to be the result of the telepathic whatever bothering the others. Still, the more Jack and Lisa dug, the more the ‘bad magic’ sensation bothered him. Something also pinched his mind, something or someone trying to attract his attention, to get him to do something.
Jack stopped tossing tufa fragments and reached down into the hole with his right hand. He stopped, statue-like. Lisa grabbed his arm and stopped moving. Then Osham, Mohammed, Georgia and Darrel grabbed Jack and Lisa…and became statues.
“No!” Dave said, adrenaline pumping through his body.
“Let go of me, I need to go over there and help. Dammit, Dave, do as you were told and follow my lead!”
Shit!
“You’ll die,” Dave said, words from nowhere. The Ecumenists had done this and vanished, presumably dead. He saw no reason why Elorie or the rest would end up any better. No. He knew they would fail and die.
Elorie struggled; he held on tighter. Behind him, he heard stone move on stone. He looked over his shoulder to find the door rolling shut, pinning in place the rope left behind by the others.
The rope remained clipped to his harness and no one else’s.
“Fuck you!” Elorie said. She elbowed him in the nuts. He almost let go of her and almost fell backwards, overbalanced by his attempt to drag her out of the room. “Let. Go. Of. Me!” Elorie said, and fell more completely into his arms, overbalanced herself.
This didn’t match his mental picture of what happened to the Ecumenists. They hadn’t fallen under the sway of this evil spell this fast.
Jack and Lisa stood up. The others in the crew stood as well. Elorie stopped struggling in his arms and hissed.
“Evil,” Jack said. He spoke, a hollow echo in his voice.
“Betrayers.” Lisa.
“Must.” Osham.
“Die.” Georgia. The hairs on Dave’s arms stood up on their ends.
“We must.” Mohammed.
“Kill them.” Darrel.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Elorie said, quiet, voice high and panicky. Damn straight, Dave thought, and hoped Elorie had become herself again. He turned to the now shut door and let go of Elorie. They tried to roll it, but it no longer rolled.
“Stop.” Georgia.
“Them.” Lisa.
“They’ll alert.” Mohammed.
“Our enemies.” Darrel.
“God’s enemies.” Lisa.
Dave leaned his shoulder on the door and put his weight into trying to roll it. A slap, a white-hot stab punched through him, followed by the sound of a gunshot. Lightning flashed through his mind and he sunk to the ground, overcome by pain, unmoving. Blood gushed from his back and from his front. He yelled, but his voice tailed off in blistering agony and bloody breath.
“Dave!” Elorie said, screaming. She grabbed on to Dave, holding on tight, down on the rock floor with him. His vision narrowed to her face, lost in pain and shock.
“Elorie.” Jack.
“Come.” Osham.
“Here.” Georgia.
Elorie’s eyes went blank, and she shivered and let go of him. No! He reached toward her and caught only air. He fought through the pain to watch Elorie turn and stumble to her feet before staggering across the room to the rest of the crew, puppet of a drunk marionette, covered in his blood. As she approached the center of the room, Georgia and Jack walked across the room and climbed up on the shelf opposite the doorway. They pressed wall and a meter square section of wall moved, out, away from the room.
“Touch,” Mohammed said, his flat voice greeting Elorie.
“Be one.” Darrel.
“See God.” Lisa.
“Be God.” Osham.
Elorie nodded. Dave’s shouted warning got lost in the blood in his throat. Pain ripped through his abdomen and for a moment he misplaced himself. He blinked the tears out of his eyes and found Elorie, crouched down, blankly reverent, at the hole in the floor.
She touched the object hidden in the pit for only an instant. To Dave’s electric shock, something in the pit flung her back, arms outstretched. While she was airborne, a single deafening crack rang out and filled his ears; his nose registered the smell of fresh rock dust. Elorie fell out of his sight.
Dave screamed in his mind but managed only a painful grunt. Elorie!
The mind controller had overcome her. What flung her back, though? Had she found a way to fight the magic?
“Bitch!” Darrel said. Elorie rose to her hands and knees, her miners’ helmet knocked off her head, light extinguished.
“The source!” Lisa.
“She.” Mohammed.
“Destroyed.” Darrel.
“It!” Osham. Mohammed picked up one of the fist-sized rocks and smashed down on Elorie’s head, knocking her back to the ground. She screamed and tried again to get to her feet, blood streaming down the side of her face, but Mohammed, Osham and Darrel picked up more of the tufa rocks and repeatedly pounded on Elorie’s back and arms. She got half up and tried to tackle Osham, until another blow to the head laid her out, prone and moaning. Another crack rang out in the room, and another, and the floor shivered under Dave’s feet.
“We must leave.” Mohammed.
“Take Elorie.” Jack, from on the shelf.
“As always, a sacrifice.” Georgia.
“Her death.” Darrel.
“Buys power.” Lisa.
Behind Jack and Georgia, dim light filtered into the room from the outside world, morning daylight, indirect. They had done something and found a way out of the room. Outside, as the room quieted for a moment, Dave heard crows. They cawed in unison, beating in time with his heart. A faint breeze of fresh air reached Dave, curling smells of spring grass to his nose.
Breathing hurt, but he no longer gushed blood. Dave tried to unhook himself from the rope with trembling hands and didn’t succeed. Dimly, he realized Elorie must have broken the infernal device the same way she broke Lorenzi’s amulet. Howeve
r, by breaking the magic, Elorie hadn’t freed the crew from the mental monster. He couldn’t tell if Elorie had broken free or not.
Beneath him, the floor shivered again, accompanied by another deafening crack. Mohammed and Darrel took Elorie by the shoulders and her moans turned to screams. They crossed the room, or tried to, but fell prone as a block of floor slipped out beneath them.
Mohammed screamed and vanished into the pit, an echoing scream fading into the distance before the scream ended too abruptly. Elorie wiggled loose from Darrel and scrabbled away from the blackness below, screaming, hands clutching air, waving. Dust rose, obscuring Dave’s view.
“Elorie!” Dave said, his croak not loud enough for anyone to hear him. “Over here!” He muttered a furtive prayer under his breath, but his hands didn’t obey him and so didn’t unhook him from the rope.
Darrel leapt up and tackled someone, probably Elorie, and they went down in a cloud of dust. Lisa and Osham grabbed down from the shelf, where they both knelt, and took Elorie up by her arms.
The room continued to crack. Dave realized, finally, that the room’s floor was slowly giving way underneath them. Mohammed had fallen through a hole in the floor.
The magic thing Elorie broke had kept the floor whole.
No longer.
“Dubuque!” Dave said and prayed. He received a wash of distant anger.
Below him, the floor beneath his feet shivered and finally gave way. He saw one last image of Elorie, who fell hard on to the bench before Lisa and Osham yanked her to her feet. Then only dust.
Dave fell with the floor, brought short with a terrific yank by the rope tangled in the shut doorway. The wrench at the rope’s end whipped Dave back against the wall. He hit hard and nearly blacked out. When he recovered enough from the pain to open his eyes, he found himself dangling above a now dark room, suspended in the air, held upside down by the rope clipped to his chest by the harness. His miner’s lamp had gone off. His smartphone was gone. The door opposite slid itself shut behind the rest of the team. One miners’ lamp shown from far below. The room now quiet, he listened, and heard nothing.
The miners’ lamp dimmed and died.
Evil magic still permeated the room. When Elorie touched the hidden object in the room’s center she had broken its magic but not all the magic of the place, not whatever magic made the doorways move.
Had she gotten out? He prayed to Dubuque for the answer and received disdain, anger, annoyance and at the last, abandonment.
He hadn’t followed Elorie. He hadn’t followed her lead. He hadn’t obeyed Dubuque.
If he had unhooked himself and followed her, she would have broken the magic with him at her back. He couldn’t have saved her, but the fight would have gone on longer. Too long, long enough for the floor to collapse underneath him.
“Dubuque!” Dave said, and prayed. “Were we supposed to all die here?”
No answer. Nothing. He bent his mind in prayer, using all his hard-learned focusing tricks. Nothing.
He had failed Dubuque. Dubuque wouldn’t answer him.
Now Dave dangled, abandoned, alone, in the dark, bleeding and in pain.
“Elorie,” he said, whispering. “Please, God. Elorie.” Nothing. Nothing at all.
A spasm wracked him, pain, overwhelming pain. He vomited, and vomited again. Sweat covered him and his head swam at the taste of blood, suddenly filled with voices, arguing querulous voices. Another pain spasm whipped through him.
“Elorie…”
Nothing.
He gave up on life, his will to continue onward exhausted, all lost. All lost.
Darkness claimed him.
Part Three
Betrayed and Fallen
Now they shall say unto themselves: 'Our souls are full of unrighteous gain, but it does not prevent us from descending from the midst thereof into the burden of Sheol.'
And after that their faces shall be filled with darkness
And shame before that Son of Man,
And they shall be driven from his presence,
And the sword shall abide before his face in their midst.
Thus spake the Lord of Spirits: 'This is the ordinance and judgment with respect to the mighty and the kings and the exalted and those who possess the earth before the Lord of Spirits.'
-- The Book of Enoch 63, 10:12
“It may never be, and for that I weep.”
39. (War)
“Alt?”
“Go away,” Alt said, muttering to War.
The Telepaths had been like this all morning. Something had happened during the night and they were all – well, all but the marginally telepathic Angela – pissing and moaning. Uncommunicative. The non-Telepaths among them had given up and were off playing poker. Lydia, their newest member, had the largest pile of chips, won fairly, without even using her Natural Supported tricks.
War had better things to do than counsel insane non-communicative Telepaths, such as practice for what she would need for the rest of her incredible betrayals. She left a projected Leo body behind and took her real body far enough away that her practice wouldn’t bother anyone.
To succeed in her plans, she needed to master a huge set of tricks. Enchantments were the worst, especially fixed-place enchantments, but she had stolen enough information from Inventor and Lodz to surmount her first obstacles. Solid willpower illusions were next, which had never been her strength. She possessed, as a goal and example, a solid willpower illusion in the form of a cleaning robot, which she purchased from Akron. She had progressed to where she could do wheels and axles. Lastly, she also needed to master hewing stone with willpower. Doing these tricks inefficiently was easy, but unless she wanted to waste time, she needed to better her efficiency. To carry out her plans, she would need to hew a lot of rock.
After she started in with the rock practice, she left her real body running on automatic and shifted her mental focus to meditation, and to the Place of Time. She examined her proposed course again. She ran through her plan, details upon mind-numbing contingent details, all things true today that would likely be different tomorrow. She examined millions of options, but none pointed the way out of the trap she had dug for herself. She just wished she had someone to share her fears. Talking to her Future construct didn’t count, not at all.
To succeed, she would have to betray the rest of her allies. The cost weighed on her soul, on her sense of self, and on her Mission. She wouldn’t come out of this the same person she came in. To her, as a God, this was a mutilation. What she did to the Indigo didn’t count, at least at the Mission level.
What she would do to the Telepaths would.
Her plans disgusted her. Her mental tracks expanded exponentially through the Place of Time, looking for a way out. What had happened to the Indigo after her manipulation was salvageable; Elise’s betrayal wasn’t hers, and either War had missed the possibility of Elise’s betrayal, some unknown had interfered with the situation, or this fell into the area of unpredictable futures. For instance, if she did this, and changed that, she would be able to mend…
Yes, this was Nessa, but not a normal Nessa.
Cr
ap. War did, once prodded. This was Nessa’s left sock.
Us. Well, if her desire for someone to talk to brought in Nessa she shouldn’t waste the opportunity. Even if only one part of Nessa spoke. War banished her fear and went to work.
A shitstorm of mental agony ripped through War’s head, not an attack, but something inside Nessa. Nessa beating up on herself. The mental shitstorm quieted in a few moments, leaving War shaken.