by K J Morgan
She leaned forward and cut her gaze away from him, not wanting to have to look in his eyes and see the incomprehension, or worse yet, the fear.
Pete rose to his feet and stepped away from her.
Drawing a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, he selected one from the box and slid it between his fingers. He shifted to stand in front of the broken windshield, placing himself in dark silhouette against the open glare of the desert.
Miranda heard the click of the metal lighter, watching as a curl of smoke rose from his outline. He drew a strained breath and held it in his lungs, considering the bleak view in silence.
Finally he turned, squinting at her through the shadows. "Okay. I get it. World's over. Only not quite yet, right? So we gotta find a way to deal. C'mon kiddo, snap out of it."
Miranda felt her teeth clench.
Pete released a stream of smoke through his teeth. "Seth knew what he was doing when he left here. He had a choice and he made it. You have to accept that, and quick, because we have to come up with some options."
"Options," she repeated numbly. "There's only one option."
"Which is?"
"Destroy the Gate." Miranda grimaced, forcing the words out in slow, clear syllables. "Set some charges and get out."
"Charges?"
"Light the damn thing up while the Necromancer's followers are out on the playa watching the Man burn."
He scoffed. "You serious?"
"Yes."
"But, presuming that's even possible, that would destroy you too, right? You're a part of that thing. You can't survive without it."
"I'll be fine."
"You're lying."
"If I'm lucky, I'll find my way and be reborn, like last time."
"And Seth?"
"Jesus! It's the only way. Can't you see that? The Necromancer will take me out the moment he sees me. He'll set the Khagan on anyone else who tries to stop him. Neither one of them can be destroyed. This is a war we cannot win. We have to destroy the Gate, tonight, while the Man burns."
"Miranda, look at me."
Releasing a slow breath through her teeth, she raised her gaze to meet his. Pete stood against the light, staring at her with look of utter disbelief. "If we destroy that thing, we'll lose both you and Seth forever, won't we?"
"I don't know."
"I think you do."
"You'll keep your freedom," she said, a tone of resignation softening the words. "You'll save the world."
His jaw tightened, a wary understanding forming in his eyes. "So why does it still sound like we're giving up?"
"Can you get the charges?"
"You mean like from the 'Special Forces Surplus' camp?"
"Pete."
He released a slow breath through his teeth, slanting his gaze across the playa. "Maybe."
"You'd better go and find out then. Like you said, not much time, right?"
He looked down at her, unhappy.
"Pete," she murmured. "I'm already dead, remember?"
"Yeah," he replied darkly. "Right."
Turning away, he pushed through the door of the RV and descended the short steps to the playa. He appeared a second later in the sunlight, slipping a ball cap over his blonde hair as he headed for the road.
She watched him go, feeling the emotional toll of the conversation wear her down. Leaning forward, she buried her face in her hands, ignoring the tremble of her fingers.
"Miranda," Julie's voice rose behind her.
Miranda angrily swiped the wetness from her cheeks, turning to see the younger woman appear from the gloom of the small bedroom. "What?"
"You can't destroy the Gate."
"Yeah." Miranda looked away from her, lacking the energy to argue. "I know how you feel."
"You can't because we haven't failed yet, right? If you destroy it, you and Seth will be gone forever and it'll prove that we couldn't protect it."
"That's already been proven."
"No, it hasn't."
Miranda shook her head. "What do you expect me to do?"
"Bring Seth back."
"Ah."
"His name is still in the Gate. It hasn't been destroyed, so he hasn't been released. He's still there."
"You don't understand."
"Understand what? You're a goddess. You're his lover."
"I'm a Rathvam goddess," Miranda clarified. "I'm of the middle species, right? Seth comes from higher. I don't have the power that he does, or that the Necromancer does. I can't bring things into this world that don't belong here."
"Seth's here already."
"As a symbol. His human body is dead. His soul is bound to a bunch of lines engraved on a golden slab. I don't have the power to focus that energy, to help him materialize as anything other than that. He's not some lost human spirit I can call from the air. He's a god, Julie. Do you get that?"
She shook her head, looking lost. "But he called you back with the sculpture. He somehow focused energy that way."
"He focused his energy that way. The energy of his soul, which compared to that of a human, is infinite. I have a human origin. My soul has changed to become Rathvam, but I don't have the power that higher beings do. The energy that I can focus is just not enough, not nearly enough."
"Maybe you just need something bigger than that sculpture."
For Christ's sake. "It's not about the sculpture. That was just a way for him to focus his energy. I don't have enough energy to do what he did. No human soul does. Not even those that have become Rathvam."
Julie grimaced. "But you can't just give up on him. I mean, he's still there. You can't destroy the Gate with him still in it, right? Miranda, you can't."
Miranda looked skyward in desperation, struggling to find the words that would help the woman understand.
An image of Seth surfaced from memory, a vision of him standing before her on the playa, his black hair glossed with sunlight and the heat glowing in his eyes. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "There's no other way."
Chapter Twenty-One
The glaring heat of the day ebbed to a crimson sunset, the clouds overhead burning like so many brilliant embers, casting a thick orange glow over the parched silt of the playa. Miranda watched as revelers appeared from the desert, coalescing in groups along the roads, their costumes forming surreal outlines in the fading light.
They had filtered from the camps and merged into denser streams, their numbers flooding over the open playa as they headed for the statue of the Man in the distance. It beckoned with raised arms, its silhouette stark against a red sky.
Pete grimaced under the glare of his headlamp, assessing the items he had placed on the small picnic table outside the RV. "This is all I could get."
Miranda looked down, counting two electronic blasting caps, an older-style detonator and one butter-sized stick of yellow material. "Semtex?"
"Yeah," he scoffed under his breath. "And here we were, thinking that we should just be concerned about the amount of ecstasy and blow that rolls onto this desert every year."
"How did you find it?"
"Lot of pyromaniacs to choose from. And we have files on some of them."
"So you convinced one to give this up."
"It appears I haven't lost my touch."
In the distance, a fireball blew from the back of a pickup truck, releasing another giant smoke ring into the sky. Art vehicles sailed through the dust like parade floats, enormous dragons and butterflies shimmering with colored light and thumping with the repetitive heartbeat of trance music.
"I figure we slip into the tent," Pete continued, "tap these onto the bottom of the Gate and slip out. Then we detonate remotely from outside. The structure is metal, so it won't really blast it apart but the damage should be significant."
"We need to destroy the central chamber," she replied. "We need to get one of the charges in there, right in the heart of it."
"And we do this how?"
"It's too dangerous for you in there. You attach one charge to t
he structure outside and I'll place the other inside."
Pete shook his head. "And if he sees you?"
"Let's just hope he doesn't."
"Great plan."
"At least it's simple."
"Yeah," he remarked without enthusiasm. "It is that."
"If you don't see me by the time the Man burns to the ground, detonate the charges anyway."
He nodded slowly, as if he'd expected that. Dropping his gaze, he considered the scattered remains of Seth's sculpture. The wreckage lay sprawled at his feet, a mess of broken tubing and torn sheet metal.
"You sure about this, kiddo?" he asked.
She released a tense breath, following his gaze to the plate cut with Seth's name. It stood half-submerged in the darkness, a gentle breeze whispering through its curving lines.
"Once this world is gone, there'll be no way to get it back," she replied softly. "We'll be eclipsed by a higher species. You think that's what he wanted?"
Pete frowned, flicking his gaze toward the night tinged horizon. "Okay. Let's go light that thing up."
* * *
The Divine Gate camp appeared deserted. Wood had been piled into the blackened oil drums along its parameter. Long banquet tables had been prepared in the grand arena and blue lights twinkled in welcome from the DJ stage, but the camp itself was silent, awaiting the frenzied rush that would follow the burn.
Two cloaked figures mulled at the entrance to the main tent, their attention drawn to the neon shadow of the Man in the distance. They stared at it, exchanging mumbled comments before huddling to light and share a cigarette.
Miranda slipped behind them and ducked into the shadows under the tent flap. Pete followed closely behind her, his footfalls silent in the soft dust.
She crouched down close to the wall and reached back to check the position of the fabric shoulder bag she carried. The small block of Semtex had been wrapped inside, as stable as Play-doh until the blasting cap went off.
"Okay," Pete whispered. "Now what?"
She held up her hand to silence him.
The whispering of the Gate was louder now. The music of the symbols drifted through the gloom, warning of fear and pain, of something terrible happening within its golden chambers.
She pressed her lips together, sweeping her gaze over the structure itself. It rose above her, its narrow passages and metal cloisters glowing with lantern light.
"There's something wrong," she whispered.
"What? Like what?"
"I don't know."
"Christ."
"Keep going," she insisted, jabbing her finger toward the metal supports. "Lay your charge and get out. I'll place the other one inside the central chamber, then slip out to make sure you're clear."
"Yeah."
"If I don't show…"
"I know what to do, okay?" he said, the recrimination softly spoken.
She nodded, grasping for the right words. Nothing came.
"It's been an honor working with you too, kiddo," he said, moving past her. "So let's not ruin it now. Save your goodbyes for someone who'll enjoy getting' gushy with you. I'm carrying explosives, in case you forgot."
He ducked past her, ignoring the narrow plank bridge that fed into the arched entryway of the Gate. Creeping along the ground underneath it, he passed into the shadow of the structure and fished a penlight from his jacket, disappearing from view a moment later.
"Good luck," she whispered.
Pushing out from the wall, she stepped onto the wooden planks of the bridge and crossed them quickly. The arched entrance of the Gate rose above her and she slipped into the softly glowing corridor beyond it.
The metal thrummed around her, the immensity of power here growing by the second. Lifting her hand, she swept her fingers through the warm air, watching it swirl and crackle with luminescence. It seemed as thick as water now, the songs of other goddesses lilting softly through it, calling to another world.
She frowned, something else, something darker.
"Where is the Necromancer?" she asked.
The symbols on the wall whispered in reply, their emotions threading together like music. Resurrection. Damnation.
"Resurrection…" she murmured, following their voices to the grate under her feet. The Necromancer was on the lower floor.
She grimaced, knowing that she could allow her human form to slip away and filter down through the metal, but it would mean leaving the Semtex charge behind. The only way to keep hold of the explosive was to remain in physical form. Shaking her head, she focused on the stairway at the end of the corridor.
A cry of pain issued from the lower floor, its tone sharp and distinctly male.
She felt her heart stop.
Another brutal sound echoed around her, its emotion strong enough to blind her senses. She recoiled against the wall. "What the hell is going on down there?"
Forbidden.
Shaking her head, she knelt along the grate and pried it up with her fingers, raising the floor section out of the way. She swung her legs into the dark opening, allowing them to dangle loosely until her feet found the smooth metal underneath.
She remembered the passage well enough, remembered tumbling down and spilling out of it with Logan's weight propelling her forward. This time it was different, easier to control the movement of her physical form within the Gate.
Releasing her hold, she slid silently along the metal, slowing as a small archway came into view.
Light glowed from the golden chamber on the other side.
A chamber for the damned. The place where the souls do not sing.
She crawled forward, angling her view past the lip of the tunnel. The room outside was round, just as she remembered, with the same symbols marked along the golden wall. She caught a glimpse of movement.
Another harrowing yell of agony cut the air.
Miranda winced, slipping out a little further. The Necromancer stood in the center of the room with his back turned toward her.
A section of the floor grating had been removed and he stood at the edge of the hole that had been created, bared to the waist and bleeding.
Miranda pressed her lips together, confused.
He didn't appear to sense her presence, his focus set on the hole in the floor, his body held rigid, the silky white stream of his hair cascading between his shoulders, obscuring a bleeding injury from view.
He raised his arms. A dagger caught the light. He jolted forward, stabbing the blade into his own stomach. Blood spilled along the grate.
Another cry issued from the center of the room.
She narrowed her gaze, realizing that the sound had not actually come from the Necromancer at all, but from the hole at his feet. It was someone else's pain, someone else's suffering.
"Remember your death," the Necromancer sneered. "Wake and remember! Your master calls you to rise."
A figure appeared from the hole, rising naked in the soft glow of the lantern. He was tall, his body heavily muscled and bleeding, his blonde hair wild around his shoulders.
The Khagan.
The Necromancer was resurrecting his slave.
"You have been bested, great warrior," the Necromancer taunted. "Cut down and returned to your eternal slumber by a goddess with only half your skill. You must now hunt her and bring her back to me, kill her companions."
The Khagan shook his head, glaring at the figure above him. "You betrayed me, Asmud—"
"That life is over. You are part of a greater destiny now, like the rest of us. You will remember only that, only your purpose and only your master."
"You are not the true master here."
The Necromancer jabbed the dagger into his own flesh, spilling more blood. Beneath him, the Khagan arched and cried out, his large body strained.
"My blood to yours," the Necromancer murmured, smearing a crimson stripe across the symbol on the wall. "To bind you here and allow you to rise from your body once more."
Body? Miranda shook her head, realizing t
hat the hole in the floor grate was not empty. The Khagan had been preserved, just as she had, in order to take human form in a human world. The warrior gasped for breath, his head thrown back, the muscle in his shoulders and arms held tight.
"You feel your own guilt now," the Necromancer suggested, crouching along the floor grate. "You are damned forever, Swava, with only me to hear you. I am your master and your only hope of redemption. In the world that I will create, your crimes will be forgotten, your eternal pain ended. I promise you this mercy, in honor of the years I spent as your tutor."
The Khagan bowed his head, his teeth bared.
"You do not have the power to resist," the Necromancer reminded him. "Your freedom is a memory, your intellect an illusion. It slips away from you, even now. You are a servant."
The Khagan seemed to struggle with that, as if his memories were far too real to be taken from him, but his expression slowly eased, the intense blue of his eyes fading to become something vacant.
The Necromancer's slave had been reborn.
Armor formed on his body, appearing to rise from his skin and harden to leather and metal. His helmet rose over his head and molded itself around his face, forming the expressionless golden prison of his mask. He stood before his master, a nightmarish statue come to life.
"She is close now," the Necromancer said darkly. "Can you feel her?"
The Khagan turned, glaring at Miranda through the narrow slits in his mask.
"Shit," she whispered, sliding back into the shadows.
It was too late.
The Khagan leapt forward with catlike agility. He swung his sword, its ghostly blade slicing through the metal passage. She heard it hiss as it swept toward her through the walls. She ducked, charging forward into the room.
The grate spread out before her and she collapsed on its surface, stopping herself before the opening in the floor.
Beneath her, the Khagan's ancient corpse appeared in the lantern light. Her gaze darted over the skeleton, its frail collection of bones wrapped in silks, jeweled weapons and gold.
Then his ghost was above her, heaving his sword high into the air.
She tumbled backward, seeing only a flash of the blade as came too close. The tip cut through her shoulder, misting blood, as she fell into the pit with his body. She cried out, struggling to rise.