Gods old and dark

by Holly Lisle

  Baanraak sprawled on a broad, hot rock beneath a blazing desert sun, miserable. Something was wrong with him. He felt shattered. Broken.

  He knew that he knew how to fade himself. Knew that he knew how to become invisible to the prey he wanted to spy on, because he could remember wrapping light around himself and vanishing from all knowing. He could remember glorious stillness, silence of the mind and of the body. He knew he held within himself not just the mastery of his own thoughts, but also mastery over thoughts of other dark gods.

  But he could not make anything work. He could not find his silence, he could not fade from sight, and he could not make sense of what had happened to him. It was as if a part of him had gone missing. As if most of him had gone missing.

  He'd felt like this since returning to life.

  He didn't think that was coincidence. She had done it to him—whatever had happened was her fault. She had thought to destroy him, and evidently even as she'd tried that she had planned to render him toothless if she failed.

  But he was not toothless. Damaged, yes—but not so damaged that his mind was muddled about what he should do in response. Whatever she'd done to him had given him back his clarity and his decisiveness, even if it had laid waste to his hunting skills.

  He could not understand why he had once wanted to possess her; what bizarre turns had his mind taken to even touch on such idiocy? They had nothing in common—he felt no more kinship with her than he felt with any meal. Perhaps, then, he had been broken before, and whatever she had done to him had cured him. Because at last he knew exactly what he had to do with Molly the Vodi. He had to find her, kill her, and destroy her resurrection ring.

  When she was dead and dust, and when he knew she would not return, then he would come back to this quiet downworld. Here he would make his way back to the place where silence lay. He would relearn all that he had lost. He would recapture light and wrap it around himself as a shield, would find the inroads to the minds of the dark gods, would become once again the Baanraak who made the living weep and the dark gods shiver. She would not conquer him. Her magic would fail her, and she would fall, and he would continue.

  He uncurled from his rock and unfurled his wings. Time to go hunting.

  Cat Creek to Kerras

  Saturday morning, with Cat Creek gray on gray, bleak, leaves falling, the trunks of trees soaked black and the roads shining black with wet, and no spots of color to erase the grimness of the day. Rain dripped and sprayed and gusted, and the wet cold chilled Lauren straight through to the bone. The heroes met in the shed behind her house, in her father's old workshop. She'd set up a gate for them, and Heyr had tested it, and the two of them had confirmed that the rrôn creator of the live spot on Kerras was gone.

  Eric said, "We don't have anyone watching the gates. Louisa took off last night after her shift to visit a sick cousin, and I couldn't reach that idiot Raymond. So we need to do this quickly, so that nothing happens to the gates while we're gone. But"—he grinned a little—"the upside is that if we're quick about it, our two biggest thorns aren't going to suspect anything."

  Heyr said, "It won't take long." He gave each Sentinel a careful look. "Remember—you can back out of this at any time. You're going to have to hang on to that thought. Memorize it now, because after today thinking will be hard and painful for quite some time." He sighed. "I'd take you one at a time, and slowly over the course of weeks, to let each of you adjust to the changes before I altered the next one of you. But we don't have a year to do this. I don't think we have long at all. Weeks. Maybe days. I've been through the end of worlds before, and it feels like the Night Watch is working toward closing this one out. So…if we're going to fight them here, for this last human world"—he took a deep breath—"we do it now."

  And that was it. Lauren scooped Jake into her arms and the Sentinels started stepping through the gate, one after the other, and when they were through, she moved in with Heyr right behind her.

  They were going to create the immortals of a new mythology. Marching off to save the world on a crappy, miserable day; unheralded, unappreciated, unsung. If they failed, no one would ever know. But if they succeeded…no one would ever know.

  With that thought possessing her, she soared through infinity and eternity and came out the other side to a world that had, the last time she'd floated ghostlike across its surface, been nothing but cold and darkness—ice and stone and airless hell.

  Now it was Earth's Jurassic Period with six-limbed dinosaurs, and in its odd, alien fashion it sang to her. She felt the love in the place, and she was moved. Whoever had created it had poured passion and hope and desire into it, and had given birth to a tiny, perfect gem.

  They all stood atop the rock where they had seen the rrôn sleeping, for a moment just looking around at the artwork someone had created out of nothing. The sun looked warm, breezes blew, insects hummed through the tall grass, birds were everywhere, and below the rock, beasts of all sizes grazed or napped around a shimmering lake that was sapphire-blue at the shores, darkening to bottomless black in the center. The water was so clear that Lauren could see fish swimming beneath the surface, and either the water magnified their sizes or they were big enough to make a lunch of her and Jake.

  It didn't look like a safe world for people. But it was impossibly beautiful.

  Pretty dinosaurs, Jake told her. He spoke into her mind. None of the Sentinels had solid form—they were wraiths, or muses, or ghosts, animated shadows. Heyr was the only solid one among them, the only one Lauren couldn't see right through. She couldn't smell the air or feel the sun's warmth. She wasn't complete enough to do that. But she wanted to.

  Then Heyr turned to Pete and said, "Ready?" and Lauren could hear the faint whisper that was Pete's shout.

  "Do it."

  Heyr reached out a hand, and it moved through Pete. He backed out a little, and suddenly Pete started to fill with light from the inside out—the light so bright and beautiful it stunned Lauren and warmed her at the same time. She had seen light like that once before—at the moment when, fighting to keep her son, she challenged the administrators of Hell and looked into the face of the eternal I am.

  That light was life and love made manifest. It was wondrous. And she yearned for it—yearned for its touch and its power and its comfort. Before her eyes, Pete became as radiant as the brightest star, a creature of impossible beauty. Jake reached for Pete, and Lauren understood completely. She wanted to go to him, too, and fill herself with everything that he was.

  Then the light faded and Pete was Pete again—but now solid, standing firmly on the rock beside Heyr. He looked down at himself and touched his shirt, his pants, his arms and hands. Patted his face. "That's it?" He looked at Heyr. "I feel great," he said. "But…normal."

  "You are normal here. When we get back to Earth, you'll be an old god. And when you reach into the world's life and bind yourself to it, you'll become an immortal. Then…then it hurts. It's real pain, Pete. I didn't exaggerate to make it seem worse than it is. You'll be as vulnerable as the world you bind yourself to. And you'll be vulnerable the second you unbind yourself to go between the worlds to another world; and to be immortal there, you have to bind yourself to that world for as long as you're there, even if it's only for a few minutes. If you don't, you'll end up some dark god's lunch. This isn't easy; it isn't like the immortality of the Night Watch, which requires no thought and no effort and is always with them. It's both better and worse. You can't be killed as long as your world lives. But they're trying to kill your world, and are close to doing it."

  "I know that. I understand. And I'm ready to do what I have to do."

  Heyr nodded. "Then who's next?"

  Lauren watched him fill them all up, changing them all. I could have that. I could have it for me, and for Jake. We could feel that light again—we could take it into ourselves.

  She didn't slip, though. She didn't let herself give in to the temptation. She held fast while the people she knew became old go
ds and left her behind. She was doing the right thing.

  She was almost certain she was doing the right thing.

  Kerras to Cat Creek

  Heyr reached out, and Pete felt the power of Kerras's life energy and Heyr's magic fill him and change him—it was fresh and vibrant and alive and full of love, and it resonated with Lauren's presence, with her touch. This world was her gift as much as it was the gift of whoever had created the place. And the embracing, trusting, hopeful love he felt vibrating through him was the thing she was afraid she would lose.

  If she lost it, that would be an unthinkable tragedy.

  Maybe—maybe she was right not to accept immortality. Weight settled into him, and Pete began to need to breathe, began to fight gravity again, with the fullness of bone and muscle and blood. He could feel himself becoming a man in this place, instead of a ghost.

  It didn't take long, and then the magic faded out of him and he felt…normal. And bereft. He wanted to feel that light within him forever. But it wasn't just the light—it was the person who had shaped the light in this place. He looked at the wraith-shape of Lauren holding Jake. It was her love. He wanted that love for himself. He wanted her.

  And that was why he was doing this, wasn't it? Deep down, beneath the nobility of saving the world from destruction, wasn't there some part of him that was still in sixth grade, wanting Celie McDermott to notice him and taking her bookbag and teasing her so she would?

  He wanted to think he was deeper than that. But the cynical part of him whispered, "Look, buddy. You're just like every other male on the planet—you'd figure out a way to walk on water if you thought it'd get you laid."

  He watched Heyr change the other Sentinels, and that was amazing—but it wasn't what he'd hoped for. He'd wanted something that would make him feel like he always imagined Odin and Thor and Freya and Loki and the rest of the gods of Asgard felt. Or, for that matter, Zeus and Aphrodite and the gods of Olympus. He wanted to feel like he could stand against anything—like he could pick the world up on his shoulders and move it to safety. And he wanted to feel that the people fighting with him could do the same. Instead, he just felt like a man. Nothing special.

  Then Heyr cocked an eye skyward at big birds that were beginning to cluster, and said, "Time to go home."

  When they returned to the cold and the rain and the dreariness of Cat Creek's crummy day, Pete still didn't feel much different. The cold didn't seem as biting as it had when he left, but that he could attribute to the day's warming up a bit as easily as he could blame it on his new status as one of Earth's old gods.

  Lauren and Jake and Heyr were last through the gate. Pete felt better as soon as he saw Lauren in solid form again.

  "You're all right?" Heyr asked Lauren.

  "I'm all right," she agreed. "It was hard watching everyone else and knowing I wouldn't be joining you…but I'm fine." She kissed Jake on the top of the head. "We're fine."

  "Good," Heyr said. "Then you need to leave. Head into the house, make sure you have your knife with you, keep Jake close. I'll be in as soon as I can, and while I'm out here, I'll keep my feelers open for any trouble. But I can't leave these folks vulnerable, and you don't want Jake to be here for what happens next. Just be careful."

  Lauren looked like she wanted to argue. But after starting to say something and then stopping herself in mid-breath, she just nodded. "I'll see all of you when you're finished."

  When she was gone, Heyr turned to face them all, and he wasn't smiling anymore.

  "Now it gets hard. Right now, you are old gods here," Heyr said. "But you are not immortal. Immortality is a burden you have to pick up for yourself. I can tell you how to do it, but I can't do it for you. And I can't help you if it proves to be more than you can take. All I can tell you is that you can let go, go back to being what you are right now, and we can either change you back to what you were before, or you can run downworld far enough that the Night Watch won't look for you."

  Pete and Eric exchanged grim looks. Eric said, "I hired temp coverage from Laurinburg for a couple of days. We can both do this right now so long as at least one of us is able to function by Tuesday."

  The others were nodding. "Three-day weekend," Terry said. "For me, it's now or not until much later."

  "There isn't going to be a good time for me," Betty Kay said. "I just put a message on the machine saying I was sick and referring everyone to Scott's. It'll cost the shop some business, but…I'm not really here for the business anyway, fun though it is."

  "We're ready," June Bug said. "What do we have to do?"

  "The first time, it's easiest if you lie flat on the ground. Face up or face down doesn't matter. Naked is best, but so long as you have bare skin in contact with the ground you'll be able to find the world pulse. Your will is your word here now—what you say will be, as if you were on any of your downworlds." He sighed. "Come on outside. It's easier if I show you."

  Darlene said, "It's…raining out there."

  Pete found Heyr's reaction to that genuinely funny. Heyr told her, "First rule of immortality. Sometimes you get wet."

  Everyone else laughed, and after a moment even Darlene managed a little chuckle.

  They followed Heyr out to Lauren's backyard, with the thick centipede grass turned brown for the coming winter, with the soft faraway hissing of the tires of cars driving down wet streets far from where they stood, with the echo of the voices of kids unseen playing in the rain. It was cold out, and dreary. But not unbearable.

  Heyr sat on the wet grass. "It doesn't matter where you lie down—just find yourself a place where your fingers can push through the grass down to dirt. You want to have a clear contact with the ground."

  Pete dropped to the ground and sprawled on his back. Eric and George and Terry and June Bug did the same. Both Darlene and Betty Kay hesitated, looking at each other with shared expressions of distaste. And then Betty Kay sighed and sat down on the wet grass, and sighed again and lay down. After a moment, Darlene muttered "Whatever," and followed suit.

  The hard, sharp blades of centipede grass dug into Pete's neck. He pressed his hands palm down on the lawn, burrowing the tips of his fingers down to dirt. "Got it," he said. The others announced their readiness.

  Heyr said, "Close your eyes and exhale until your lungs are as empty as you can make them, and when you inhale, don't just breathe in air. Breathe in the life of the world. Pull it up through your fingertips and the back of your head, through the backs of your legs, through your shoulders, through your loins. See yourself planted like a tree, with roots made of air—very important that you see the roots made of air, or we're going to have to cut you loose and start over—drinking in your nourishment from the planet and breathing out magic the way trees breathe out oxygen."

  Pete started forcing the air from his lungs.

  Heyr added, "And don't panic when what comes in hurts. It hurts a lot—but the pain won't kill you. Just let it come."

  How bad could it be? Really? With his lungs empty to the point of aching, Pete closed his eyes and tried to feel roots of air digging into the ground, pulling in sustenance. The life of the planet, he thought. Green growing things, and animals in forests, and fish in the water. Good stuff. He pulled—and the first sharp blades of pain slid beneath his skin. Don't block it, he told himself. Don't block it. Let it come.

  Birth and death. Treachery and betrayal. Poison poured into the air, into the water, into the ground. The movement of tanks and submarines and missiles and troops, war blood-red and angry as open wounds, cities torn and people slaughtered. Forests living and breathing, forests uprooted. Storms tearing across the surface of the planet, volcanoes heaving up the guts of the world in violent spasms, earthquakes ripping the planet and its people flesh from bone. Birth—babies, human and not, all moving into the world, welcome or unwelcome but alive. Alive. The thin threads of life gave him something to hang on to, something to cling to. The massive outpouring of death was railroad spikes driven into his flesh, into hi
s blood, into his soul until he wanted to scream—or die.

  Pete gritted his teeth and the sweat poured from his face and the drizzling rain became cooling, soothing, but not enough—not nearly enough—while the clashing fury of the world in its turmoil, spasming in its death throes, screamed in his head. He was the murderer of a child, and he was the child; he was the rapist in the alley and the rapist's victim; he was every boy on his belly in the dirt with an M-16 in his hands, thinking of home and girl, and he was them when the mortars blew them apart. He was the penitent praying, "Who am I that Thou art mindful of me?" and the angry man praying, "Let them suffer, the perverted bastards—and when they've suffered on Earth, let them burn in Hell forever." And he was the powerful liars in high places, scheming for profit and dealing the death of the world with contracts, and he was the trees falling and the wildlife burning in fires and he was burning and freezing to death, and the babble of six billion voices roared in his head with every voice different and every pain unique.

  He sobbed, writhed, choked on bile, arched against the in-rushing torture, fighting to break free from something that wrapped him like an airless cocoon and would not let him breathe or let him go.