by Skyler Grant
Hope was flailing away in midair. Without force being directly used against her, the Right of War wasn’t of much help. Diamond would have been smart enough to do something like this, it was unfortunate that Dia was too.
We needed a plan.
Ashley said, “There is something you need to know about me, lady. I’m a master assassin and I’m never helpless even when I’m not on my feet.”
I didn’t see how it could be so. She had as little experience with antigravity as the rest of us.
A throw of her dagger sent her spiraling into a wall and she sprang off it to the far one. A series of leaps back and forth, sending her in the direction of Dia.
“Impressive. If you won’t be caught flat-footed, how about we simply make you flat,” Dia said.
The gravity around Ashley must have shifted to something far higher, because she crashed to the floor. I could hear the sound of bones shattering and flesh squelching as it popped under immense pressure.
I had no idea if she was still alive after that. If so, she wouldn’t be for long unless we could get Yve to do some healing.
“Take her out,” I said to Yve.
“You sure?” Yve asked, with a nod towards Hope.
“Ashley is dying and we don’t know if we can resurrect here. Do it,” I said.
Epic Smite
Dia hadn’t prepared for magic. The fires bloomed around her and were so intense her screaming was fortunately brief. It was still enough to make Hope look ill.
Killing Dia didn’t return gravity to normal.
Walt moved the Death-hand and it began to spark. The lights in the hall flickered and dimmed.
“If you kill the power, the gravity is going to stay gone,” I said.
“I’m aware. I am not trying to kill the power. I’m selectively drawing energy into the Death-hand and restoring it in an effort to reset the systems,” Walt said.
It worked soon enough and we collectively crashed to the deck. Yve was on her feet at once and running to Ashley.
Lay on Hands
Ashley screamed as her body put itself back together again.
“You killed her,” Hope said, scowling at Yve.
I’d told her to do it, but I didn’t seem to be getting the blame.
“It was her or Ashley,” I said.
“Besides, she started it,” Yve said.
“We came onto her ship. We are the invaders here. We started it,” Hope said.
I loved my newfound daughter, but this was getting old fast. I understood where she was coming from, but Yve didn’t deserve the criticism for doing the right thing.
“Hope, if there is one thing I hope you learned back home above all other things, it’s the value of a team. You find the place you belong and you stick with those people no matter what. Yve was sticking and did what she needed to do,” I said.
Hope frowned, then after a few moments gave a tiny nod. “I get it, Dad—I do. But there is always a better way. You, all of you, stop trying way too easily.”
“We’re strong. We are all of us strong, but none of us have your abilities. I understand you feeling the need to have rules like that so the world will survive you, but we do the things we do sometimes because we need to survive the world,” I said.
I think that got to her. It had her looking thoughtful at least.
I’d take the partial win. We stepped over the still-smoking corpse of Dia and continued on towards the engine room.
The engine was a massive contraption of tubes and wiring that was frightfully complex. Yve seemed to know what she was doing though. She went to one section and rested a hand there. I felt the faint thrum of divine power.
“You okay?” I asked Ashley.
“I’m still buzzed from killing a second God. I mean, it’s not as fun as the mass murder, but it is still feels so good,” Ashley said.
I’d gotten used to an Ashley filled with murderous rage which drove her into killing sprees. I still wasn’t used to this one that liked it so damned much. I wanted her to be happy, but not like this.
“I’m sorry, I put you in a position where you had to use that thing again,” I said.
“Don’t be,” Ashley said. “You did me a favor. And you’re leading us right into war. I’m going to get to kill so many others before this is all done.”
Hope did not approve of this line of conversation. At this point we were lucky Hope wasn’t throwing Ashley into Pandora’s Box.
“Done,” Yve said, stepping back from the engines.
“Really?” I asked.
“Did you expect sparks? We’re done, I’m sure,” Yve said.
One starship down. This should give Diamond time to finish up. Hopefully the others were back from their missions.
Chapter 13
None of the others had made it back when we returned to Castle Sardonis. At least there weren’t any more calls for assistance. Diamond had sent back word that she would be returning soon. There was still nothing from Tiger and Cobalt
It gave me a chance to reconnect with Elsora. I really did owe her some sort of honeymoon. Tumbling into bed was easy, but before things went further I felt the need to confess my rather repeated dalliances with Aphrodite.
Elsora looked thoroughly bored by my confession. “Guilt is such an unattractive quality, Liam. I will ask you to leave it out of our too-few moments together.”
That felt like an unfair request. I was sure that she must have brought guilt into our time together rather often, given all she had put me through. Of course, when I paused to think about it, I couldn’t remember a time. There might be an occasional perfunctory apology and explanation, but guilt really wasn’t something my wife seemed to indulge in. I suddenly wondered if, like sleep, it was a human mannerism she might feign.
“I know that you have said that you didn’t care about such things. I guess I just assumed you were lying,” I said.
Elsora quirked her lips in amusement at that. “For which I could hardly blame you, that would be in my nature. When you first met me, you thought me a curse and that explained a great deal to you. I recommend you try to continue to think of me that way.”
“You knew the Olympians? Hera seemed to know I was your husband,” I said.
“I went by the name Nyx back then. It was a long time ago and almost everything they knew about me was more untruths. Aphrodite was a selfish and shallow brat as a young woman. Is she any better now?” Elsora asked.
“I think she wanted me to think that was the case. Perhaps I think too much with the wrong head, but the entire seizing of the throne seemed too quickly orchestrated and well-executed to be the work of a stupid woman,” I said.
“That means you’re thinking with the right head, love,” Elsora said.
I suppose it did. It would have been easy to have been so blinded by our bedroom encounter that I never looked deeper. That may have been exactly what Aphrodite intended.
“I’m worried about the others,” I said.
“You should be. Cobalt can handle herself, but Tiger is likely in some sort of trouble. I’m going to suggest you play rescuer in the morning,” Elsora said.
“Do you know anything about the witches?”
“Look at us—we’re a pedestrian sort of wicked. A bit selfish and given to violence to accomplish our ends. The witches go for a more dramatic approach to evil,” Elsora said.
“You’ll have to explain that one to me.”
Elsora said, in a calm and measured manner, “You’ll find them beautiful, every one. Their magics grant them immortality without a need to lose life, but their beauty—such beauty has a price they happily pay. Ever year, every single one of them finds the most beautiful virgin woman on each of a hundred worlds. They kill them, drain them of blood, and bathe in it.”
Okay, that was excessive even for the crowd we hung around with.
“Do you think Tiger is still alive then?” I asked.
“Let us hope so. If not, Diamond will make any sort of good relati
ons there impossible. I want them as our friends and allies,” Elsora said.
“You want the over-the-top caricatures of evil as friends and allies?”
Elsora gave me a reassuring look. “I know. It isn’t a thought that fills you with much confidence and that is wise. But look at what the children are and ask yourself what sort of friends will stand by us. If we can make true allies of the witches, they will.”
“Fair enough. At least I won’t have any problems not falling into their beds,” I said.
Elsora gave me a flat sort of stare.
“Really?” I asked.
“They’ll almost certainly try to bed you. They practice a sort of fate-binding magic that can tie others to them and their cause. I know it is a lot to ask,” Elsora said. I don’t think she cared, we’d already determined Elsora didn’t feel guilt.
“Can’t we have Yve do it? You know that she’d be all for it.”
“Yve can have her fun all she wishes. I encourage it, the more they are bound to our cause, the better. The magic they hope to use to pull strings can be used in turn to pull theirs, but I am not connected to Yve. I am connected to you, my love,” Elsora said.
“This isn’t exactly what I thought getting married would be like,” I said.
“This is precisely what you thought marrying me would be like. You knew it would be scheming plots and wicked ways, and strangeness all around. You like that,” Elsora said, and I heard the trace of pleasure in her tone.
She was right. Elsora was always right. I’d fled from every relationship but her for a reason. Nobody else was twisted enough to keep me interested. Elsora though, Elsora might as well be made of knots I’d never untangle.
“Can you tell me what you have planned? I know you don’t want to, but you’ve said this is your endgame,” I said.
Elsora folded her hands over her stomach as she leaned back into a pillow. “I can’t. It isn’t because I don’t trust you, but events in motion can be so unstable. I can tell you a story that might offer some insight.”
It wasn’t really what I was looking for, but I was curious.
“Please do,” I said.
“This is a story of what ifs. What if your brother had come here as planned instead of you?” Elsora said.
“I do hope it doesn’t end up with you two married.”
“Mmm,” Elsora said, noncommittally before continuing. “Your brother is a far different man than you are. While you had certain qualities to allow a connection with Yvera, he did not. Tommy would have become a mage. Fighting his way up through the castle, many things would have gone similar, although he’d have spotted something dangerous and unknown in Maria. When it came to a choice between rats and spiders, he would have chosen the rats and seen Maria dead.”
Maria dead. I’d slept with her and as a result taken her side. It was one of the stranger encounters I had, and she was one of the more broken people I knew. I didn’t love her, but I did care about what happened to her.
“I can’t think she’d have gone down easily,” I said.
“No. Not at all, but the Right of Rule is not a combat power and she’d have eventually fallen. Of course, she’d respawn, but only to find her subjects dead and her life barren of all that had given it meaning. When meeting me and Leosi, events regarding Maria would slip out. In a rage Leosi would try to put them down and they would kill him,” Elsora said.
“So that played out pretty much as before,” I said.
“Tommy claims the throne and asks for my hand in marriage, and if I would tutor him in magic. In this story I accept, and he learns much of the Silver City,” Elsora said.
Things were veering off course fast. I’d married Elsora far quicker, and for love. It had always seemed to me that Elsora wanted my power. Was she saying Tommy would have seen through that and gotten some glimpse of who she truly was?
“What then?” I asked.
“Then King Tommy, in a quest to make this world more real and heighten his power, goes after the elemental deities. Atlantia, Mela, you know the roster. He kills each and absorbs their power. His greatest opposition during this time is pirate by the name of Cobalt that, no matter how strong he gets, always defeats him. Still, he triumphs elsewhere. Veros, the God of Fire, dies last,” Elsora said.
The elemental Goddesses had caused me no end of grief, but were allies of a sort. This history she described both mirrored actual events while at the same time being altogether different.
“Did Veros still have his corporation to gain power?” I asked.
“He did. King Tommy continues it, expanding until soon thousands of adventurers a week die to feed him power. The Crucible Shard becomes the Twelfth Moon, yet still he hungers for more. Then he discovers an ancient prophecy telling him how he might get what he really wants,” Elsora said.
“Cobalt,” I said.
“The intelligences of Earth come to him with an offer and he accepts. They had captured her and with a small sample from him are able to get her with child. A child they copy nine times.”
“Why are things both so similar and so different?”
“You know well enough by now how things echo. The universe craves familiar patterns. The Nine go to war against the Silver City, each loses in turn, but in their wake vast swaths of reality burn and sear away, the worlds left desolate of all life and plunged into eternal darkness,” Elsora said.
“You’re winning,” I said.
Elsora gave a tiny, sad smile. “I suppose. By the time the last dies even Earth has fallen. A vastly weakened Silver City sits alone in a dead universe with but one moon left ruled by a King made stronger by the death of all creation. He sits with his bride. Then the King goes to war again so that he might seize the center of creation and create a new universe.”
“He dies,” I said.
“Do you think so?” Elsora asked.
“Killed by Ashera,” I said.
Elsora gave another of those tiny smiles. “Then you are the smarter brother to see what he did not. Yes, he gives her the greatest fight, the one she has always wanted. Everything she has ever dreamed of. It goes on for centuries reducing the city to rubble and finally it is just them—and in the end, just her.”
“And you,” I said.
“The Queens of two dead worlds. Rulers of a dead universe. By any metaphorical scale a victory for me and yet so very hollow,” Elsora said.
I understood. Elsora might not be comfortable telling me what she planned, but I knew what she was planning to avoid.
“Can you really call yourself the villain, when you’re working to save the universe?” I asked.
“You don’t become a good person when you’re a murderer who chooses not to kill anyone just for one day. I don’t get credit for doing something less evil than I might have. Neither do you.”
In a way she sounded a lot like Hope. I stopped talking and got to the business we’d come to bed to do. I had a rescue mission in the morning. I hoped Tiger was still alive.
Chapter 14
Elsora provided us with transportation this time out, a shimmering portal of darkness allowing transit between worlds. Because we hoped to make friends with beings of over-the-top evil ways, it seemed best that we leave Hope behind. My daughter had too many morals for what we had planned.
I couldn’t guess what I’d discover when I stepped through the portal, but it wasn’t a pleasant and pastoral countryside. Rolling hills dotted with cows vanished into the distance and the air carried the scent of agriculture. The only real oddity was the number of exotic animals wandering around. I spotted an elephant, a bear, and something with four tails I couldn’t identify.
We were expected. A lone witch was waiting for us, wearing a form-fitting dress of black and red. At least she dressed in proper evil colors.
“King Liam, welcome. Your companions as well. I’m Sara, and I’m in charge around here,” Sara said.
“I’m glad to see you so welcoming. The last few places we’ve visited haven’
t been so happy to see us,” I said.
“Nothing ensures hospitality quite so much as slaughtering the previous bad hosts. It’s a lesson we’ve used to our advantage a few times,” Sara said, and gestured us to follow as she made her way towards the estate house. “Come inside. I’m sure you’ll find it far more comfortable, too.”
I felt a twisting sensation when I passed through the door of the home and had to agree. The spacious chamber suggested this was more a palace than a home, and that the interior was far larger than the exterior would suggest.
The air had a pleasant hint of herbs and I wondered if these were ingredients used in spells. “Quite a change from the outside,” I said.
“We prefer to keep a more modest face on our activities,” Sara said. Other witches were now joining us, most dressed in flattering robes of one to two colors. They had little in common in their features except that each was stunningly beautiful, the sort of beauty that made your heart ache simply to look at them. I tried not to be too impressed, I knew the cost of that beauty.
“I can understand that, from what I’ve heard of them,” I said.
“Heard terrible things, have you? Mostly true—you’ll find us delightfully naughty. To start with, so long as you do not start violence with us, I offer you safe exit from our demesne for the next day. That formality done, might I speak with you alone? My companions can see to your friends,” Sara said.
I didn’t like splitting up, but the witches seemed to know how the game was played. Still, this might need to go violent. I should make sure first.
“Before I agree, there is a matter we need to discuss. I’m talking about Tiger,” I said.
Sara made a quick gesture and a rather disoriented-looking tiger—the feline sort with orange and black stripes, and very sharp teeth, appeared in a puff of red smoke. It was wearing a dainty pink collar.
“Not that one,” I said.
“I assure you, this is the one you’re looking for. When you depart, you may take him with you. Removing the collar will restore his true form. Do not do so in the house, his presence is not welcome here,” Sara said.