Incarnations of Immortality

by Anthony, Piers

  "Li—that's Lila? The demoness?"

  "His mistress," Ligeia said. "She assumes any form he wishes. Sometimes he teases her by making her assume my form. Then Li stands for Ligeia."

  "And you don't mind?"

  "Why would I mind? He is mine any time I wish—and I can sleep in peace any time I wish, thanks to her. You know how men are; they invariably want more than is convenient. It gets dull. Li is endlessly patient, and she has excellent experience."

  "Since time began," Orlene agreed, impressed by Ligeia's tolerance. Obviously the woman had no doubts at all about her situation. But of course she wasn't just a woman; she was a princess, and that evidently made the difference.

  A man appeared at the entry to the garden. He was not large; in fact he was a small man, quite ordinary in appearance, and fairly young. He was in a comfortable robe; the demoness had evidently seen to his change of outfit, as promised. There was something about him, as seen through Orlene's eyes; he glowed. Jolie had become used to this phenomenon when Orlene took over the host; most folk glowed to some extent. But Mars glowed with a peculiar, pulsing intensity, unlike any before. It was, she realized, because he was her natural father; had she not known before, she would have seen it now. The other Incarnations had not been like that.

  Ligeia rose and walked to him. She kissed him, quickly and perfunctorily, but with such assurance that it seemed entirely in order. Indeed, his interest in her was quite clear: it was as if they had been together only a few weeks, instead of over a decade. Yet somehow their manner conveyed the truth; he was the master here.

  "This is a ghost in mortal host: Orlene," she said, turning within his embrace. "Orlene, this is the Incarnation of War." She turned again to him. "She has come to ask a favor of you."

  Orlene approached, somewhat timidly. Mars put out his hand, and she took it.

  The glow strengthened, becoming almost painful in its brilliance. Mars stared at Orlene, and she at him. Then they stepped into each other's embrace.

  "My child, I did not know you in that body!" he said, squeezing her tightly.

  "My father, I did not mean for you to know!" she cried.

  So much for keeping secrets! Jolie realized that the Incarnation's talent for entering mortal hosts in the manner of a ghost, and Orlene's talent for reading auras, had combined at their touch, and all had been clear between them, though they had never met before.

  "I had not known you had died."

  "I had not thought about how you had become an Incarnation! I had forgotten—" Then she faltered. "Oh they must not replace you!"

  Immediately he read the conjecture in her. "I am not due for replacement!" he said. "You misunderstood."

  "And now you have a wife, and a mistress, neither of whom is my mother!"

  "I will always love your mother, and you. But she and I are no longer for each other."

  "But how can you both be Incarnations and not together?"

  He put his hands on her shoulders and held her before him. "That is a separate story, my daughter. It was not what either of us chose, at first. I loved your mother, but I was required to marry a princess of another kingdom, and by the time I learned of your existence, too much had passed, and I was an Incarnation. It was better to leave her to her own course. Then she became an Incarnation herself, and I was glad for her. I think we understand each other, now, as well as any do, and there is something to be said for that."

  "And how can I ask a favor of you, now that we know what you are to me?"

  "Ah yes, the baby—my grandchild." Mars considered for a moment. "I cannot afford to play a favorite here. You will have to understand the nature of the thing you ask. You want a seed of war. I will show you the fruit of that seed."

  Orlene was taken aback. "Now?"

  "It had better be; you do not want to spend more time here than you have to, unless you leave your mortal host." In his brief contact with her, he had picked up everything.

  "Now," she agreed.

  He took her hand. "But what of us?" Ligeia inquired.

  "Let the demoness assume my form and see to you," he replied.

  Both women, in mock outrage, grabbed pillows from the chairs and hurled them at him. But the Sword of War had already appeared in his hand, and he and Orlene were moving through the wall and down out of Purgatory, toward the mortal realm.

  "Where are we going?" she asked, impressed again by the facility with which Incarnations traveled. Thanatos had his pale horse, Chronos had his Hourglass, Fate her threads, and now here was the Sword of War, serving a positive function.

  "The Babylon-Persia front," he replied. "When I was new in Office, I resolved a difference with Fate by eliminating the ruler of Babylon, and brought peace between them. But it turned out to be an uneasy lull, with periodic flare-ups, because the underlying ethnic antagonisms remained and there were unpaid debts from the war. Had one side or the other been victorious, the loser would have been largely annihilated, solving that problem. In our desire to stop bloodshed, we left those quarrels intact, and they continued to strike fire. Today the empires are nominally at peace, but there are continued incidents, and the interest and involvement of neighboring powers is growing, so that there is increasing likelihood of a larger conflagration. We Incarnations have concluded that we shall have to take serious steps to prevent this from escalating into World War Three."

  "But can't you, as the Incarnation of War—"

  "I am doing my best, and have succeeded in staving it off, but in the face of the dereliction of another Incarnation, I am losing ground. I give it no more than five years, perhaps six, before the end. That is why we shall take action soon."

  "To—To replace an Incarnation? But which one, if not you?"

  "I have said too much," he said gruffly. "Here is the front."

  It resembled a wasteland. The fields were scorched, with little of their crops surviving, and the buildings were mostly rubble. As they came to the surface beside a hut fashioned of bits of board, brick, cardboard and canvas, Orlene saw a plume of smoke on the horizon. She already knew better than to inquire what was burning.

  "I will enter the man," Mars said. "You will enter the woman. You will understand the language and hear her name as your own. We will remain until the incident is done, which will not be long. Then you will understand what we face here."

  "But—"

  "It will be clear soon enough." He led her into the hut, walking through the wall.

  She followed. Apparently he had extended his ghostly power to her for the duration. She was a ghost animating a living body, now to animate another host without leaving the first.

  Inside, he turned to her. "Remember, you cannot be hurt, though you will feel what happens to your host. Now enter." He gestured to an old woman who was cooking something in a pot set above smoldering scraps.

  Gee, I'm getting to find out about ghosts again! Vita thought.

  Orlene stepped into the woman. Vita's physical body seemed to have no substance; it had indeed become ghostlike.

  For a moment there was confusion, as they merged with the woman's foreign flesh and mind. Then focus returned, and Orlene was the woman. She was cooking a scrap of flesh she had found on her last scavenging effort; it was part of an animal that had been blown apart by a bomb. She hoped that if she cooked it long enough, it would become safe to eat. There was, after all, nothing else.

  She glanced about. The hut was surprisingly comfortable, considering its nature. Paper from assorted packaging sealed most of the gaps between boards, and bits of foam from some vehicle's seats formed cushions for makeshift chairs. But there were no books, and there was no electricity; this was utter peasant existence.

  "Orlene."

  She jumped. Who was calling her name? Then she remembered what Mars had said: she would hear the woman's name as her own. She looked, and saw an old man lying on more foam fragments. This was the one Mars had entered.

  "What is it. Father?" she asked. Rather, the host asked: Orlene had
not willed the speech, being uncertain how to respond. The language seemed like her own, though she knew it was not.

  "Outside." Oh. She realized from the woman's thought that this meant he had a call of nature and needed help to rise. She set down her stirring spoon and went to him. She got her shoulder down, so that he could clutch it, and heaved him up. His legs were spindly and the rest of his body malnourished; it was hunger as much as anything that vitiated him.

  No, it was more than that, her host's mind clarified. He had been exposed to a gas attack. He had been at the fringe, so he had managed to get away, though others had fallen and died. He had survived, but his lungs were damaged and his body weakened. Now he clung to life, but was slowly losing the fight.

  She half held, half hauled him along out of the hut to the trench where refuse of all types was deposited. They had set up a box there that lent some support and some concealment, not really enough of either, but it was better than nothing. She left him there and returned to her pot inside. This was the extent to which she could still honor her father: to give him that little bit of privacy for this occasion. What a debasement it was for him, who had once been proud, the master of his field: to require a woman to support him in his weakness, so that he had no secrets of even that basest kind. She thought about the grief that had come upon them as the result of this interminable war. She had once been proud herself, for a woman, having four sons and two daughters, and a husband who had taken the hajj. Then the war had come, and had not passed; year after year it had increased its toll. First the taxes, wiping out what little material gains they had made. Then her husband had been called to service to fight the infidel, leaving her father and herself and her children to manage the crop. They had managed—until the enemy had raided the village. They had quickly barricaded the house and hidden the children, but the troops had broken in, raped her, then beaten her father and knocked out the walls until they found the children. They had taken the boys away and raped the girls, though they were both under ten. For the first time she was glad that her husband was not there, for he would surely have been tortured and killed.

  "Orlene!"

  That was her father, ready to come in. She set down the spoon again and went out. She helped him stagger back to his mat, where he lay gasping. She did not like the thought, but could not help it: how much longer would he live? He had been caught by the gas when foraging, and had not realized at first how bad it was. He had thought himself charmed, because he had escaped what had brought others down, but the coughing had not stopped, and too often there was blood in it. His strength had ebbed, until even standing was an effort. She cursed herself for her realization that both her situation and his would be better when he died.

  She stirred, and thought, remembering, not realizing that it was the ghosts within her who triggered the memories, so that they could learn more about her. She and her father and two daughters had survived, foraging in the burned fields for the roasted husks of grain left after the burning. Then the airplanes had come and bombed the village. Their house had been destroyed, and her older daughter killed, the younger one maimed by the collapse. They had fled to the outskirts and set up this hut from refuse, and now they were just hanging on until her husband returned.

  There was a sound. She looked—and saw her father rolling off the pallet. She set down the spoon once more and went to him, though there was little she could do to ease his pain. He was gagging, the blood frothing on his lips. She tried to lift him up to a sitting position so he could clear his throat and mouth better, but abruptly he stiffened.

  It took her a moment to realize that he was dead. She thought of making some effort to revive him, to pound his back or blow into his mouth to bring him back, but did not act; what would be the point? He was better off dead. At least his suffering had stopped, in this world.

  There was another noise, this time from outside: irregular footsteps. That would be the child, back from her foraging. Maybe she had found something worth eating—or maybe she had grown too tired to continue. Would she be shocked to learn of her grandfather's death? Perhaps not; it had been obvious that it was coming. At this point emotions were muted, if not actually numb.

  The child appeared at the door opening. Half her face was scarred, the hair gone, and the hair on the other side was ragged. She limped, but not badly; she had recovered from much of that injury.

  "Mother, soldiers are coming!" she exclaimed.

  The familiar hand of fear gripped her innards. Soldiers were bad news, whichever side they were on; the repeated tax shakedowns were almost as bad as the straight ravage by the enemy troops. She went out to look.

  They were home soldiers, and their uniforms were clean. She felt relief: clean soldiers usually did not care to sully their uniforms with violence. Then she felt hope. Maybe her husband was coming home at last!

  She stood outside, waiting for them. Her daughter, of course, was hiding; she had had experience with soldiers, and needed no more.

  There were three: an officer and two men. "Orlene?" the officer asked.

  She nodded, guarded until she knew their business. "I regret to inform you that your husband is dead. He died honorably..." The voice continued, but she could not make out the words. Her emotion was not numb after all; her last hope had been dashed. She had hung on only for this, for his return, and now her support was gone. The child came to the doorway. She had heard! "Here are his medals," the officer said.

  "We can't eat medals!" Orlene protested. The officer was silent, holding out the medals. Orlene glanced at her daughter, scarred and lame, any potential beauty she might have achieved destroyed before she matured, if she managed to live to adult age. With just the two of them now, without hope, and the fields remaining barren, and the war continuing interminably—what was the point in living at all?

  But her daughter—she could still have a chance. "The suicide corps," she said. "You still need volunteers?"

  The officer's eyes widened. "We do not ask this of you!" he protested. "Your family has suffered enough!"

  "For a price," she continued grimly. "Surgery to fix my daughter's face, and good care for her well away from the front until she is grown."

  "No!" the child cried, understanding.

  The officer looked at the daughter. "You understand, you would not be able to go with her yourself? It is a life for a life, and the government does not ask—"

  "What life is there for us here? We'll both die!"

  The officer nodded bleakly. "You will have to come to the station and sign papers."

  "We'll come now!"

  "But Mother!" the daughter cried. "How can I without you?"

  "You'll die here!" Orlene said. "You have been weakening; I have seen it. They will feed you and fix your face, and you will be safe. As for me—my father is dead, my husband is dead, my sons are gone. I have no further need of life, only of vengeance for the ruin brought on us. Only you remain, and you can live—this way."

  The girl had suffered much recently. She knew it was true. She did not protest again.

  Orlene hauled a cart of fresh vegetables to the gate of the military base. There were a number of others like her, selling their produce each day, eking out their livings. But this was camouflage; under the vegetables was a bomb. It was her mission to take the bomb to the enemy headquarters and detonate it there. She would die in the explosion—but her daughter would reap the reward. This was the quiet, desperation strategy of the war effort.

  The gate guard was bored and inattentive. He had evidently spent the night carousing or gambling or womanizing—any of which activities were forbidden by both military and cultural conventions—and wished he could be sleeping at this moment. His glance at her cart was cursory, and she herself was invisible: just one more poor widow among thousands. She did not even have to show her papers, though she had excellent forged ones, or to speak, though she had memorized several key sentences in the enemy's language. She pulled her cart on through, unchallenged.
r />   Now she had to get to the HQ building. Whether the General would be there at this time was a gamble; his schedule was erratic, perhaps deliberately so, so that it was impossible to predict where he would be at any given time. But there was a fair chance that he would be, and certainly lesser officers would be there, so the bomb would have good effect. She regretted that she would never know the extent of her success. It would be nice to take out the man who had directed the strike against her village which had destroyed her house and killed her elder daughter. But she wasn't doing this for vengeance; she was doing it for desperation. Her government was meticulous about keeping its word, in this respect; when her bomb went off, her younger daughter would go to the hospital for surgery on her face, and then to a program for privileged orphans, and she might one day be a healthy, pretty girl. She knew better than to let anyone know about the rape she had suffered; that would count against her. But keeping that secret, and motivated to succeed, she would survive. That made it bearable. Near the gate there were many women vendors. She moved away, supposedly seeking a region of the camp that had less competition. In fact she headed straight for the headquarters building. The officers had more money for good vegetables—and hers were the best. Superficially. She hoped nobody approached her to buy any, because she would very quickly exhaust her supply and expose the bomb. She would not be able to turn down a sale without arousing suspicion, unless the offer were plainly too low.

  A boy approached. "Here," he called in accented urgency. He was raggedly dressed, evidently a peasant servant running errands for officers. Naturally they had sent him out instead of doing this chore themselves. She would have to get rid of him.

  Then she paused. Could it be? His eyes widened. "Mother!" he exclaimed. It was her eldest son! Captive, he was serving in this military camp! At least he was all right; he seemed healthier than she was. But if anyone here caught on "You must go!" she whispered. But then, unable to help herself, she asked: "And your brothers—are they safe?"

  He frowned. "One is. One is dead. And the third, I don't know; they took him to another camp, and—"