The Afterlife Series Omnibus: Heaven, Hell, Earth, Wasteland, War, Stones

by Mur Lafferty

  “I would never turn from you, Goddess.”

  “Wonderful. Now, my priest, listen …”

  * * * * *

  Kate and Daniel’s favor, along with Fabrique’s upgrades, had clearly benefited Alicia and the Sheridan just as Barris’s favor had benefited Professor Burns. Alicia and her children wore new clothing of tight-fitting brown leather, helmets, goggles, and warm jackets. On their backs, their jackets each held an intricate etched image of the Sheridan.

  The ship itself glowed in the noonday sun, humming with its upgraded engine, touched by the goddess of clockwork and ingenuity herself. From the hull hung a small circular metal orb with portholes and propellers, tubes and mechanisms.

  “What is this, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea?” Daniel whispered to Kate.

  She shrugged. “It’s for everyone else. I think you, me and Gamma would be fine without.”

  “How fast do you think she can get us there?”

  Kate glanced at the emerging face of Fabrique, her copper curls tamed somewhat by her goggles, but still exploding from under her ears. She came up from down below and proudly reported to Alicia that the ship was ready to go.

  “That’s her call,” Kate said, pointing. “I imagine we’ll probably be the fastest ship around. What’s the rush again?”

  “We need to help Barris out. He’s in big trouble. Burns said he could wean him with ideas to get him off the junk, but if he goes into serious withdrawal, the only thing we can do is essentially wipe his mind of the ability to hold any thought in his head.”

  Kate’s jaw hung open. “Are you serious? Won’t that kill him?”

  Daniel shook his head. “No; he’ll still be a sun god, and supposedly still be able to keep the sun in the sky, but not much of a conversationalist. Ever.”

  “Well, that’s just great. I guess we should get the hell out of here.”

  They watched Alicia’s kids bustle about the ship, checking things. Her eldest child Sarah waved to the controller at the tower dock and he waved back, allowing them to cast off. The ship lurched once as the souped-up engines started, and then they were off.

  The airship gradually gained speed, but Kate soon realized that was for safety. If it needed to, this zeppelin could turn faster than any ship of its kind, possibly defying the laws of physics. Good to know.

  Alicia had the wheel and piloted according to Gamma’s coordinates, sending commands to her children, namely James, who manned the engine controls and Sarah, who held the chicken gun, a bazooka-like weapon that shot frozen chickens at air whales to distract them from damaging the ship. The younger kids were below deck.

  Fabrique came to stand beside them. “I upgraded it as much as I dare. The pilot being mortal, and mortals aboard, I couldn’t make it any faster without putting them at risk.”

  Kate pulled a windswept strand of hair out of her face and grinned. “I’m guessing your own airship is going to be something legendary.”

  “Without a doubt,” the goddess said. Fabrique stuffed her hair into a helmet and put her goggles on again. She fixed her eyes on the horizon and the shimmering sea that approached quickly.

  “I checked the submersible too,” she said. “It will easily take six. Seven if we have to.”

  Kate counted on her fingers. “So that’s me, you two, and Gamma, and we need to leave room for Ishmael and Barris, and Burns. Alicia and crew will stay on the airship.”

  “What about Prosper?” Daniel said, pointing at the miserable harvest god who sat against the back railing of the ship beside a heavy pot full of soil and a foul-smelling moss.

  “Shit. I forgot about him. Well, we’ll need someone divine to protect the ship, I guess. We need Gamma with us.”

  Daniel raised an eyebrow. “You really think he will do that?”

  Kate frowned. “You’re right.” She gestured to Gamma, who stood with her arms clasped behind her back, facing the wind. “Gamma will need to think of something.”

  She caught the warrior goddess’s attention and told her the problem. Gamma nodded somberly. “I will tune myself to Alicia’s boot knife. If they have any problems, she can tell me and I will know and be here immediately.”

  “I guess that will work. Good idea,” Kate said.

  “Anyone else feel like we’re walking into a snake pit?” Daniel asked.

  “Asps. Very dangerous,” Kate said, and snickered. “Yeah, but what can we do?”

  Daniel looked back at the pouting harvest god. “You know Kate, only we would make a world where all the gods were imprisoned. We have to save this world before we can save our original one.”

  She nodded. “We don’t have a choice though. We need them.” She and Gamma then went to talk to Alicia to inform her of the plans as the Sheridan entered the airspace over the ocean, heading toward Leviathan City.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Barris was unsure of where he was. He just knew he was far, far away from where he should be. He last remembered the ideas and the rubbish bin. Now he was feeling nauseated and claustrophobic, sweat beading on his forehead, tossing from side to side in a small room with no furniture and no adornments except for a puddle of watery vomit in the corner, one he felt the need to add to every once in a while.

  He thought he should get up and demand his freedom. Demand to know where he was. See if there was someone he could talk to. Either bargain his way out or flex his divine power and force his way out.

  But he couldn’t even sit up. And the general “gotta get out” feeling was the only coherent thought in his head.

  There had to be some sort of mistake. Perhaps he was in a hospital. But didn’t hospitals have beds? And people?

  Barris lay on his back and stared at the green glass ceiling. The room was fairly large. Why did he feel so confined? Beyond the green glass seemed to be another ceiling, much higher up. Beyond that, so far away, a tiny disk that shimmered, nearly imperceptible. The sun.

  Gods, beyond Kate and Daniel, who were older than time, had no oaths. No god would swear upon the genitals of other gods. And since they didn’t excrete, they didn’t have the same feelings of shame, disgust, and secret childhood delight regarding excrement, so they didn’t even consider saying, “Shit.” So when Barris realized he was trapped with millions of cubic feet of water between him and the open air, he blurted out, “turtle tits,” and passed out again.

  He awoke in a puddle of spittle and bile. Something buzzed in his ears and he shook his head, strings of ropy mucous sticking to the side of his face. He was going do something. What was it? He struggled to sit up and scoot himself over to prop himself up against the wall. The effort was monumental; He panted hard by the time he got upright.

  His limbs shook. He wondered if the sensation was pain. He remembered water, then, slicing into his body through his pores like needles. It invaded everywhere, and he still felt its presence, unwanted, in his body. Had he drowned? How in the hell had he gotten to the ocean?

  But more importantly, how was he going to get out? He could barely sit up straight. Moving beyond the room, finding his way out of the city, passing through that deadly water, it was all too much to consider.

  Barris slumped to the side until he was wedged into the corner of the room. They wouldn’t come looking for him. No one liked him. They just wanted him to keep the sun in the sky. They didn’t care about him, his likes or his dislikes.

  An idea he once had, involving innovation and independence, tickled his memory, and was gone. Barris leaned his head against the wall on his left and let the hot tears stream down his cheeks.

  The door creaked open and two guards armed with spears walked in first. They were followed by a tall man who grinned down at Barris.

  He stood tall and well-muscled, his blue-green skin blemish-free. His black hair hung to his shoulders, and he was naked except for a small loincloth, orange coral armbands, and a necklace made of woven seaweed and blue stones.

  He spread his arms wide, orange coral armbands contrasting with his skin. “Ba
rris, I didn’t know you wanted to visit me so much that you’d kill yourself trying! Welcome to Leviathan City!”

  Barris’s eyes narrowed and he swallowed back tears. “Hello, Ishmael.”

  * * * * *

  Professor Burns removed his top hat and mopped his forehead in cool afternoon air. Daniel cocked his eyebrow.

  “You doing okay, professor?”

  “Certainly,” the man stammered, not looking at him. “While where I’m going isn’t the safest place ever, the company that I keep is unparalleled, so my safety is nigh insured, correct?”

  Daniel thought of the various ways he and Kate had been kept from their power; power that had once grown worlds from nothing but blood and emotion.

  “Absolutely,” he said, clapping Professor Burns’s shoulder.

  Kate, Daniel, Professor Burns, Gamma, and Fabrique waved at Alicia and the sulking Prosper to go below deck to a small doorway. It opened to the hanging sub, and Daniel reached out and unscrewed the hatch. He climbed from the door through the hatch, calling behind him, “Don’t look down!”

  Kate snorted at him and followed, then helped Professor Burns in. They settled into small seats bolted to the floor, Fabrique taking the controls.

  “Strap yourselves in,” she said, flipping switches and squinting at gauges.

  “All of us?” Daniel asked.

  “Even you, trickster god,” she said. “You should know by now that you don’t really know what is going to happen around here, even if you are a god. And seatbelts are just a wise idea. What if you smash into poor Professor Burns here?”

  The professor’s dark face had paled to an unsettling gray color and he gripped the edge of his seat as the sub lurched. They started to descend toward the water.

  They bumped gently as they hit the water, and Fabrique lifted a lever that disengaged the sub from the airship. “And we’re away. I figure maybe ten minutes till we reach Leviathan City.”

  The interior of the hatch grew dark as the only lights came from the console and the reflection of the headlamps of the sub as they submerged.

  “Fabrique, you know the most about this energy that people use to trap gods. What can you tell me about it?” Kate asked.

  “It’s the only kind of energy I can’t actively manipulate,” the goddess said, staring out the porthole in front of her. “I have to treat it as if I were an ordinary tinker. I always thought it kept me honest, making me work harder to make things.”

  “And you never thought about why you, the goddess of devices, couldn’t master it?”

  Fabrique glared over her shoulder momentarily. “Of course I did. But as I said, being trapped inside a house didn’t give me much ability to go out and research. And since my freedom I’ve been a little busy with other people’s projects to work on my own.”

  Kate flushed and looked away from the irritated goddess. “I’m sorry. You’re just the most likely person to understand it. It’s dangerous and I want to know what it is.”

  Fabrique shrugged. “It’s chaos energy, its origination is The Dark, what you call the Wasteland. It’s what makes the area around Meridian and Lathe so volatile.”

  Daniel frowned as something teased his memory, something so large it was hard to fathom. He couldn’t grasp it.

  “But why does it counter divine power so well?” Kate asked, leaning forward.

  “That much is easy,” Fabrique said. “Gods are creatures of order. Even Daniel here has to rely on others’ order so his own chaos will work. The thing that combats this order is chaos. Why do you think so many gods were imprisoned here? Here is where we are the least potent.”

  “Wonderful,” Daniel said. “As much as I’d like to keep talking about how we’re not all-powerful as we’re heading into a hostile underwater city, shouldn’t we come up with a plan? They don’t like outsiders, and according to Sam, that includes outside gods. They have two of our own imprisoned there. What are we going to do?”

  Gamma smiled, the green light shining off her teeth. Daniel shook his head. “No, we’re not going to turn to slaughtering them right away. You can protect us, but you’re not going to just blow the place up.”

  Gamma lost her smile and glared at him. “I was not there when Dauphine fell. Now that I’m with you, you’re beyond city razing.”

  “Good lord, Gamma,” Kate said. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of violence before we’re done. Do you remember that we need you all to help us fight a war when we’re done with all this rescuing?”

  Gamma nodded stiffly. Daniel suppressed a grin. It was tempting to just set her free, but he knew they had to enter the city with their wits. A plan tickled his mind, and he looked around at his companions: the dark-faced Fabrique, Gamma, and Burns, and the lighter shades of his and Kate’s skin. He grinned.

  “I think I have an idea,” he said. “Fabrique, can you make us some shackles from what you have in your bag? It would be best if they can look like they’re powered by chaos energy, but aren’t.”

  Kate gasped, as a large glowing dome appeared several hundred meters in front of them.

  “And preferably fast, too,” Daniel added.

  Fabrique kept her eyes on the portal as she rummaged around in her bag and tossed three pair of handcuffs to Daniel. Glowing blue wire ran through the hinges and he admired the craftsmanship.

  He scratched his chin. “Oh, I’ll need some goggles to hide my eye, too.”

  “What are you planning, Daniel?” asked Kate.

  “If the Leviathan City people want to hunt gods, that’s what we’ll bring them. You and I are pale enough to pass for Leviathan City citizens; this can work.”

  “How in the world can we pass for citizens when we don’t know much about these people, even their sub design?”

  “Leave it to me; I have a plan,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered, but accepted the shackles and began sliding them around the wrists of their companions, leaving Fabrique one hand free so she could continue piloting the sub.

  “How big is it?” Kate asked in a hushed voice, as the city loomed closer.

  “No one knows exact size or population, but I can say with some confidence that there are seventeen thousand tinkers or craftsmen,” Fabrique said.

  “And an army of thirty thousand,” Gamma said, her fists balled on her lap.

  “Relax, Gamma,” Daniel said. “You can break out of those at any time.”

  Her hands fell open on her lap and she took a deep breath.

  Kate closed her eyes. “There are seventy thousand people there. Give or take.”

  Professor Burns snapped out of his stupor. “That’s impossible! Meridian is the largest city in the world at fifty-five thousand!”

  Kate shrugged. “That’s what I can sense. Sensing souls is kinda what I do.”

  “Man. What are they going to do with all those people? Surely overcrowding is an issue. And they can’t exactly leave from what Sam said.”

  “Doesn’t seem like we’re heading into a very happy city,” Kate said.

  Daniel snorted. “And understatement of the year goes to…”

  Gamma smiled at him again. “Have you reconsidered your previous comment about razing the city?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Daniel said, watching the subs drift around the city like parasitic fish around a whale. “But I might.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ishmael laughed, the sound assaulting Barris’s ears. “A prisoner? What in the world gave you that idea?”

  Barris managed to lift his eyes to the greenish god. Ishmael had ordered a table and chairs brought into them, along with tea and sandwiches. It was almost civilized, despite the vomit that still pooled on the floor.

  “We were all imprisoned. Me, Gamma, Fabrique, Prosper. We assumed you were, too.”

  “The god of the sea, living underneath the waves in a glorious city, surrounded by worshipers? And you thought I was eager to leave?” Ishmael laughed again, the sound bouncing off the wall l
ike waves. “Where in the world would I go that is better than here?”

  Barris shuddered, still feeling horrible. It must have been the effects of the water in his system. “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly. Now, they treat gods right here. They will take good care of you.”

  Barris stared at the table miserably. “But what do they want with me? How did they catch me? And why?”

  Ishmael toyed with the blue stone on his necklace. “The report is a submersible surfaced by accident, they aren’t sure why. They found you floating in the sea, about to drown. They saved you.”

  He leaned forward and looked appraisingly at Barris. “The crew is confused, though. We think it’s a case of madness due to exposure to the air, or perhaps your proximity caused them to hallucinate, but the crew claims you were a winged creature of heat and flame. Not what you truly are. When they came home this morning, they seemed terribly confused to see you in their infirmary. But they knew they had someone special, and sent me to check you out.”

  “But what do they want with me?” Barris asked again.

  Ishmael frowned briefly, looking far into the ocean. He returned shortly and smiled again. “You are a god, my friend! What city doesn’t want you as a figurehead?”

  * * * * *

  The sun, still quite warm and strong in the sky, slid closer to the horizon. Alicia was relaxing at the helm, keeping an eye on the wind, correcting from time to time. Sarah approached her mother, the chicken gun ready on her shoulder. Air whales were less of a threat at sundown than sunup, but she never took chances.

  “Mother,” she asked, her eyes surveying the sea under them. “What happens if they don’t come back?”

  Alicia frowned. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t. They’re gods, after all.”

  “Sometimes they seem nothing more than humans,” Sarah muttered.