Evelyn and Kim raced after him and tackled his legs. I imagine they fought to save their colleague and friend rather than to save the souls of the gods, but in any event, they delayed him long enough to infuriate Alaria. With a cry, she brought down the lightning—yet another ability I’d not known she possessed—hard upon Cassidy, and white flames consumed him before he could make a sound.
As Kim, stunned, bent over the smoking remains of their fallen friend, Evelyn gathered herself and had the presence of mind to dive for the jewel. Snatching it up, she began to climb the stairs toward me. Then she cried out as Alaria, coming down to meet us, gestured once more. The lightning flared again, and both Kim and I leapt to shove Evelyn out of the way. I didn’t get there fast enough, though in my own defense I was much farther away. Kim, devoted as ever to a woman who did not possess the same feelings for him, shoved her aside and took the brunt of the blast. He met the same end as Cassidy. Evelyn, having received a glancing blow, lay still, unmoving but still breathing, now the only human left alive.
A sick feeling crept over me then. Part of it was for Kim, yes. He had not deserved such a fate, nor had Cassidy. Part of it, though, was for myself.
Again I had failed to save a woman from the wrath of the gods. This time, though, someone else had given his all to cover for my shortcomings. And thus I felt guilt. Guilt over my own failure to save either of them. Guilt that a mere mortal, Kim, had proven himself my better by making his sacrifice. And guilt over my complete unworthiness in regard to either Halaini or Evelyn.
Guilt, I knew then, was not new to me. It had resided within my heart for a thousand years, ever since Halaini’s death. Guilt—that tiny seed I had unwittingly allowed through the cracks of my soul, there to work its gradual evil; or rather, in my case, the opposite. And once that seed of guilt took root, could other strange spiritual flora not be far behind?
Kim’s sacrifice, and all the thoughts it unleashed, passed through my mind even as I watched the jewel tumble from Evelyn’s fingers and skitter across the steps. I leapt for it, but Alaria got there first.
“Ah. My gracious dark lord,” she said to me, a gleam in her eye. “Someone I can do business with, perhaps.”
Hatred and fury held tightly within, I raised my eyebrows in mock surprise, knowing all too well what she meant. “How so?”
“I know these creatures meant nothing to you,” she said in her purring voice. “I know your Aspect.” She smiled wickedly. “I have always loved you, you know.” She shrugged. “And hated you.”
I frowned. “What—?”
“I left the gun for you, there on your island, and the note with it. ‘Do us all a favor,’ it said. I was never entirely sure, myself, what I meant by that. Kill yourself. Or kill Baranak. Or Vorthan. Any of them would have been fine with me. Any would have made my choices easier.” She laughed once, sharply. “I didn’t expect Arendal to be your choice—I didn’t want him interfering so soon—but, in the end, it all worked out.”
My teeth clenched, I sought some reply, some powerful rejoinder, and found nothing. To buy time, I nodded slowly, my mind racing.
“What fun would it be,” she asked, “to spend eternity with no one for company but faceless automatons?”
“I can see where that might be a problem,” I replied, as my internal debate raged on. I moved closer to her, forcing my disposition to appear pleasant.
“I knew it,” came the croaking voice of Baranak, still lying where he had fallen, a couple of steps below. “I knew you were truly evil, Lucian.”
I looked from Baranak’s dying eyes to Alaria’s, full of fire and beauty and life. Was there ever really any choice? Any doubt? I met Alaria’s eyes levelly. “Evil is my Aspect, but it is not necessarily my nature,” I told her. The words felt so familiar, yet in many respects they felt fresh and new. “And naivety even less so. Give me the jewel, Alaria.”
She screamed wordless fury at me, then turned and raced to the top of the platform.
“It was me, you know,” she said then, glaring down, anger lacing her every word. “I was the one who engineered Halaini’s death.”
My voice was a near-whisper, my heart falling from my chest. “What?”
“Arendal pulled the trigger, but it was my plan. It tested his loyalty to me, and he passed with flying colors. He loved her, too, I know—but he loved power more. The power I offered him.”
“No,” I gasped, my mind reeling.
“I hated that witch from the dawn of time until the day she fell into the Fountain,” she continued. “The way you doted over her, while scarcely giving the time of day to anyone else in the City. I knew that removing her would remove all your restraints, turn you into a wild card—which was precisely what we needed.” She smiled again. “And it worked to perfection.”
My head reeled. I could not handle this now. No way. I had to set it aside, to deal with it later. So much, so much… I forced it down, into a compartment, and nailed it shut inside my soul. Then I glared back up at her, murder in my eyes.
She had turned away, back toward the Fountain. Extending one hand out near the weak, bubbling jet that was all that remained of it, she seemed to be warming her fingers, as over a fire. I thought I knew what she was actually doing, though—absorbing all the energy she could hold, for one last effort. Against me.
As I started forward, to settle matters one way or the other, I felt Baranak grasping at my leg. I looked down.
His eyes, meeting mine, burned with golden fire. He had heard. He understood at last. His gauntlet removed, he reached up with a bare hand that faintly crackled with his remaining energy.
“Take it,” he gasped. “All of it. You will need it.”
“No! I—”
“Look!”
He pointed beyond me, and I turned. The Fountain grew larger again as I watched. The bubbling stars and constellations fairly danced—but only for her. Alaria controlled it now, and she had nearly restored it to its full force, but its energies flowed only into her, even as the rest of us diminished. Nothing reached the rest of us now. It was as if the Fountain had ceased to exist. All of us were completely vulnerable, completely mortal. Death looked on from above, hungry, watching, waiting.
“Take it!” Baranak cried. “I was wrong about you! Now take it!”
I grasped his hand and felt the last of his energy flowing into me. Then the hand went limp, the great hand of the golden god of battle, and I could only watch him die.
Filled with fury, I charged up the steps to the platform overlooking the great basin. Preparing to strike, I grasped and focused the mass of golden power that surged within my breast.
Then I saw Alaria. She stood with one hand still outstretched over the churning Fountain. In the other hand she clutched the big red gem—the jewel that held the souls of so many gods.
“You will be my slave, Lucian,” she said then, “or the jewel goes into the Fountain.”
I visibly deflated. Any attack would only send the jewel into the torrent, annihilating it.
“Swear the binding oath,” she demanded. “The oath even the dark lord dares not forswear. Swear to serve me for all of eternity!”
“I—”
She held the jewel at arm’s length over the torrent. “Swear!”
This could not be. It could not. Even my own black conscience could not bear such a burden—the death of so many, truly dead this time—across all of eternity. I had no choice.
“Very well—to save these gods, I—”
“Traitorous, lying bitch!”
A dark figure lurched past me, thin red contrails of energy trailing out in its wake, as it lunged toward Alaria. Her eyes still locked onto mine, taking my oath, she didn’t become aware of him until it was too late.
With the last of his fading strength, the dying Vorthan crashed into Alaria. She cried out, once, and then they both tumbled over the edge, and down, down, down into the surging, churning Fountain.
I raced to the edge, looked over, despaired.
They were gone. Consumed. And the jewel with them. Not a trace remained.
Behind me, the army of Dark Men collapsed like marionettes, their strings all cut at once.
The Fountain dwindled suddenly, sputtered, and the ground beneath us shook. The world held its breath, gathering up, gathering, growing… and then the Fountain erupted at full force. The Power flooded out, washing over me, surging out through the aether, reinvigorating the universes.
It was glorious, incredible. A sight for the ages.
I cared not a whit.
I knelt there, on the edge, for how long I cannot say. Even later, when a battered and bruised Evelyn, the only other survivor, hobbled to my side and laid a hand on my shoulder, I could do nothing more than weep. Tears cast into the cosmic whirlpool.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Some indeterminate time later, I stumbled down the stairs and stood, shaking, in the courtyard. Evelyn leaned against me, herself scarcely able to stand.
We examined the remains of the Dark Men, and discovered what we had feared to be the case. They had, all of them, turned to dust. Their animating spirits ripped out by Vorthan, then dropped into the Fountain, it had become as if they had never been.
I had no tears left to give them. I stood there, in the courtyard, the Fountain roaring behind me, and I came as close as I ever have to utter despair.
There silver Karilyne came to me. Whether she had defeated Vodina outright or simply benefited from the destruction of the large, controlling jewel, I never discovered. It scarcely mattered. She, too, lived, and she had come looking for me.
She knew what had happened. She knew Baranak had died at my feet, his last energies going into me. How she knew this, too, I never discovered, though many of us possessed rudimentary telepathic abilities that manifested from time to time. Those two warriors, so alike, surely had shared a greater link, in life, than most of the rest of us.
And so I faced her, waiting for the blow to fall, for the chop of her axe or the swing of her sword. Baranak was dead, and I had no doubt she somehow blamed me for this. Blaming me had practically been our national pastime, after all. In this, though, I had to admit to myself, she was not entirely wrong. I was the only one still alive who shared any culpability; who had, in any way, contributed to his death. She surely wanted vengeance and, at that moment, I felt no strong urge to resist her.
Squaring up before me, she drew forth a sword. It was not silver, though, but golden, and much broader than the sword she usually carried.
I fought through the anger and sadness and depression, and I looked at her questioningly.
“This was Baranak’s blade,” she said flatly, “though he rarely carried it. He rarely needed it. He felt few—including you—were worthy of being struck by it.”
I nodded. That much was true, without question.
“It would only work for him—only conduct his unique form of the Power. But, in his hands, it was… formidable.”
I nodded again, wondering why she was telling me this.
She held it out to me, point down, offering the pommel.
“Perhaps, one day, you will find a use for it.”
She looked about, then back at me.
“Until then, let it serve as a reminder to you of Baranak’s sacrifice this day.”
I did not know what to say. Numbly I reached out, accepted it.
She nodded, then looked around again at the City.
“I am finished with this place,” she said. “I have no more love for it. None at all.” She paused then, meeting my eyes. “Nor for anyone in it.”
Turning about sharply on her heel, she strode away.
And that was the last time I ever saw Karilyne, the silver warrior goddess, late of the Golden City.
# # #
The human worlds survived their ordeal, not terribly worse for the wear. The demons assailing them all vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, once the events at the Fountain had concluded. I had suspected they might. Notes I found later led me to believe that Vorthan had summoned them—that he had believed all along that he could control them. He never could, though he continued to employ them till the very end. He had set them, and the Dark Men, upon us at different stages of our journey for various reasons—to herd us along, to remove us from Karilyne’s custody and put us back on the game board, to spirit Alaria away when we asked her too many questions about Arendal’s memories. He had even fought them himself, when they had gotten free of his control and looked to actually kill us, back in the bowl-shaped world.
Control. That was what he wanted. Control over demons. Control over the gods.
His creation of the Dark Men had come from that, from his work in controlling beings of power. He wanted an army strong enough to accomplish his aims, but completely obedient to him. If he could not get that from creatures from the Below, he would manufacture them in the Above, from his fellow gods. What monstrous evil. Arendal had claimed he had not known the full scope of it all, and I believed him. The same could not be said for Alaria. She had played upon the greed for power, the vanity, of both of them, from the start. Fools, all of them. Damn them to hell forever.
Evelyn was hurt more than either of us had known, there at the battle before the Fountain. I kept her with me in the City for some time and we both healed from our various wounds, visible and hidden. I would like to believe we grew closer during that time, but I know she regarded me with suspicion and distrust, even after all I had done and tried to do to make amends. She had lost so much, though scarcely more than I.
At the time of our parting, I was still unsure of her feelings. At least, I told myself that was the case. Perhaps at that time I believed it. I took her home, finally, to her mortal Earth, and left her there.
I visited Malachek some time later and sought his wisdom, but he had little to offer beyond, “Follow your heart.”
Yes, Malachek survived, as did twenty-one others who had possessed the good sense to stay away and let someone else—me—clean up the mess. The others, now including Baranak, Vorthan, Alaria, Vodina, and Arendal, were all gone, all of them, forever.
Irony of ironies: I followed my younger heart, and lived my fondest dream. I ruled in the Golden City. And served as its entire population. The others dispersed, as Malachek had done long ago, and as Karilyne had done more recently, for more exotic locales. I doubted I would see many of them again.
I reigned. At last, at long last, I reigned.
Hooray for me.
I reigned over a ghost town. Had any subjects been present to look upon the new lord of the realm, they would have been woefully disappointed. Filling the seat of power, I became a solitary and forgotten figure, who might as well have hurled himself into the Fountain along with the others.
In the end, I did the unthinkable. I abandoned my throne and my lonely outpost. Willingly I walked away from it.
I would like to believe I had matured beyond the desire to possess such a place, but the truth is not so clear-cut, or so flattering. The City, as I have said, reflected in its nature the esteem its inhabitants felt for it. With one lonely and discontented god as its only inhabitant, how glorious could it have been? And if its nature seemed cold and dismal, what did that say about the esteem I felt for it then? What did it say about me?
Thus did I come to turn out the lights and lock the gates behind me, and embark upon the long journey back down the winding Road. With the gods and Dark Men gone, the passage would be forevermore uneventful, and for that fact I found myself both relieved and disappointed. But I had no further doubts. I turned my back on my former Heaven and followed my new heart, my crisply laundered soul.
# # #
All along, when pressed, I would admit the possibility that we gods had not always held the form we now did. What we had been before, where we had come from, I did not then know. Perhaps I had known once, millennia ago, and simply forgot. Perhaps something greater, or more insidious, was to blame. But if we had indeed once been something d
ifferent, something closer to human, then perhaps we were not as trapped by fate and by the great cosmic forces surrounding us as I had once believed. Perhaps other… career options… yet lay before us, if we could only allow ourselves the luxury, the agony, of change.
And so I became Markos again.
Thus, six months after my return to Mysentia, my flagship rendezvoused with the Terran Alliance fleet on the fringes of Alliance space, near Trinity, just as arranged. At the appointed time, the peace delegation from the Alliance walked across the docking link and entered my ship, to a stately and formal reception. A dozen immaculately dressed diplomats and officers led the way, with more entering behind them, and I greeted each of them in turn, introducing each to his or her counterpart on my own staff. The entire time, however, my true attentions lay elsewhere. My eyes looked past faces and over shoulders, searching the crowd, looking, looking…
There.
Bowing courteously and making quick excuses, I maneuvered around to the rear of the delegation, at last finding the person I sought.
I found I had gotten used to her wearing the black flight suit from my own ship. Now, though, she looked very different. Resplendent in her dress uniform, navy blue with polished gold buttons and red trim, the Terran flagship’s captain greeted me formally. Then she smiled.
“So, the Mysentians were willing to believe you were their leader.” Her mouth twisted in a wry grin. “And that despite your extended absence and your… remarkable physical rejuvenation.”
“It took some time to convince them all,” I replied, “but eventually they all came around.”
Taking a couple of drinks from a passing tray, I offered one to Evelyn.
“Some cling to the notion that I am Markos’s son. Others figure I discovered a fountain of youth, some restorative drug or procedure, and they hope I will one day introduce them to it. Many of my subjects have dreamed up even more bizarre explanations. Given recent events, they are not so terribly unbelievable.” I shrugged.
Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (The Above Book 1) Page 29