by Mur Lafferty
“Hush your blasphemy, Sarah,” her mother said. “It is an honor to serve them. They’ve done so much for us.”
Sarah nodded. “Like burning down our home and stowing away on our airship and demanding we take them wherever they like?”
Alicia adjusted the helium valves. “That, and giving us notoriety, business prospects, and lodging in Meridian.”
“You said you’d never go back there, not since Daddy died.”
Alicia’s brown eyes fixed on the horizon. Sarah bit her lip, afraid she’d said too much. Alicia finally sighed and said, “It’s not a good idea to vow things you can’t control.”
“I just hope we get a chance to return to our lives at some point,” Sarah said.
“Honestly, I do too,” Alicia said. “But they’re gods, Sarah. What are we going to do? Deny them?”
Sarah shrugged. She glanced back at Prosper, still hunkered at the back of the ship beside his pot of moss. “I wish they hadn’t left him.”
“You and me both, honey. I wish James had some more caution.”
* * * * *
Fabrique, Gamma, and Professor Burns stood at the submersible hatch, waiting for Daniel to exit before they did. Kate would bring up the rear. Daniel blinked through his goggles. Whatever Fabrique had done to them was amazing. If focused correctly, he could see through walls. Another turn of a lens and he could easily view electrical currents. Best of all, a third flip of a lens gave him the illusion of having both eyes functioning. Fabrique said it was just fooling his good eye that he had his perspective back, but Daniel didn’t care. His brain reveled in the feeling of two visual inputs.
Currently, he had it so he could see through the walls, and noted that the Leviathan City guards had gathered inside the airlock to intercept the strange submersible. He cursed himself for not thinking to disguise the obviously non-Leviathan City created submersible. But it was too late to fret about that now.
“This is totally not going to work,” he muttered to himself as the airlock opened and eight muscular white warriors — five women and three men — stormed in with spears.
“Good idea,” Kate said.
“It’s all I could come up with,” he said, then, louder, “We have returned with heretics! I think these might be of use to us! Our leaders will be so proud!”
Fabrique, Burns, and Gamma walked forward dutifully, showing their shackled hands.
The woman in front, wearing a padded tunic and green pants, raised her spear. “Who are you? Entry into Leviathan City is forbidden for all heretics from above.”
“We’re not heretics!” Daniel said. He thought the obvious comparing of skin color wouldn’t outweigh clothing, accent, and submarine differences. “We just had some individuals we thought you would be interested in seeing. We are sure at least two of these are not human.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “The only one who can determine power is the Queen. She can decide.”
The warriors behind her shuddered, two of them exchanging sidelong glances.
This can’t be good, Daniel thought.
With a word from the woman, the warriors surrounded the gods, who allowed themselves to be herded into the underwater city.
* * * * *
“We see the coolest places in the weirdest situations,” Kate whispered, craning her head back.
“Tell me about it. How many heavens and hells would have been cool to explore if we hadn’t been running from gods or looking for souls or, uh, running from other gods?” Daniel said, following her gaze.
The green dome glistened dully over them, showing black water beyond. The streets within the dome ran in circles, with smaller houses on the perimeter and larger buildings in the smaller concentric bands. Straight roads went toward the center like spokes in a wheel. Near the center were tall skyscrapers, which nearly touched the top of the dome. Most were created from glass of various opacities; the more private areas were made from black glass, shining slightly from interior lights.
In the center of the city, the tallest building actually seemed to be made out of the same glass as the dome, melding into the ceiling seamlessly. As they took a direct route toward the center, Kate realized they were heading toward the biggest building.
“Is that a temple to Ishmael?” she asked, pointing. She received a grunt from the man at her side, and he said nothing more.
“You should know that, shouldn’t you, if you were a native?” asked the woman, sneering.
“Oh, come on, if you saw through our clever trick, then why keep acting like you just figured us out?” Daniel said. Kate hid a smile. The fact that the guards had no idea who they were was still their strongest weapon. She could see Gamma’s ropy dark arms flexing in the shackles, eager to get out. She could probably destroy each guard simply by turning their weapons on them.
As they passed houses, pale, frightened faces peeked from windows: lighter glass set into opaque walls. When they met Kate’s eyes, they slid behind curtains. She smiled and openly waved at them.
“Leviathan City citizens are not permitted contact with heretics,” the woman said.
“What makes us heretics?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah, that’s a good question,” Kate said. “We never said Ishmael wasn’t a god, or Cotton wasn’t a goddess. Why hate us?”
“You worship the other gods,” the woman said, looking straight ahead. “Kate the false. Daniel the weak.”
Kate couldn’t read Daniel’s eye behind the goggles, but she knew he was looking at her. He gave a small, suppressed smile.
Unfortunately, the woman kept talking. “The minor gods are recognized here, but not worshiped on a high level as they are wrongly done on the outside. My people honor Gamma the warrior as a demigod, but she is not revered by anyone else. The tinkers honor Fabrique on holidays, and the farmers honor Prosper. Barris gives his power to our goddess, Cotton, so we acknowledge him, but no one is higher than Ishmael the sea and Cotton the moon.”
Gamma and Fabrique stiffened at the insults, but said nothing. Daniel made a big deal of counting on his fingers. “Wait, you only named eight gods. What about Persi, the goddess of dinosaurs?”
The guards did not answer. The buildings got taller and taller, and they finally approached the one in the center, a round building with no windows. Two guards stood at the door, but opened them when they saw the group approach.
“Five to see the Queen,” their head guard said.
The door guards’ eyebrows shot up. “Five? But the King has already taken someone to visit,” one of them said.
“These are heretics; they cannot be trusted elsewhere,” she said. “It’s possible the eight of us could already be tainted.”
One of the other guards swore softly and a ripple of panic went through them.
“You have less courage than Daniel’s testicles!” the leader said. Daniel coughed, trying to hide an outburst of laughter.
The leader shoved them all through. They stumbled into the room, and she followed them, snarling, “I’ll take them through myself!”
The interior showed the building was like a doughnut, with a small circular wall in the center of the room and holy symbols depicting a naked man, an erect phallus, and waves decorating the exterior wall. One more guard stood in front of double doors that looked like an elevator hatch.
The leader marched up to the startled looking guard. “Five to see the Queen. Do you have objection?
The man was clearly a lower rank than the woman, as he trembled but did not look away from her angry eyes. “No, ma’am. Five to see the Queen!”
He pushed a button in the wall and clockwork snapped into motion, whirring and clicking. Fabrique cocked her head to the side and listened, then nodded. The elevator opened and the guard pushed five of them inside.
“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked Daniel.
The guard laughed. “One faces the Queen alone, heretic. Now’s the time you pray your meaningless gods are with you.”
Daniel shrugged as the doors clos
ed. “Done.”
Kate stumbled as the elevator went into motion, but not up. It went down, into the rock.
Gamma flexed once more and her shackles fell from her wrists. “Great idea, Lord,” she said.
Daniel shrugged. “They don’t know who we are, and they’re intrigued enough to take us to the top. Or, uh, the bottom, as the case may be. I say we’re still doing okay.”
“This is an excellent elevator design,” Fabrique said. She listened briefly again and smiled. “Innovative use of springs. I approve.” The creaking outside the elevator ceased and their descent increased speed.
“Did you just bless them?” Daniel asked. “These people who don’t give a shit about us?”
Fabrique frowned at him. “They may not honor me with prayer, but they honor me with their inventions. I also wonder what keeps the dome’s air breathable.”
“Must be a kind of recycler,” Kate said.
They kept descending, Professor Burns looking more and more ill as they went below the ocean floor. “D-does anyone know how far under the city we are?” he asked in a papery voice.
Fabrique looked thoughtful. “At the rate we’re descending, and for how long we’ve been descending, I’d say about two hundred fifty feet so far.”
They lapsed into silence, Fabrique updating them from time to time with, “Three hundred… three fifty… four hundred…”
When she reached five hundred, Kate asked her to please stop. It turns out she didn’t need to, as the elevator stopped instead.
It opened into a cave dimly lit with torches. The air was surprisingly fresh, the cause of which became obvious when Fabrique zeroed in on a small generator that pumped fresh air into the cave and through vents in the cave wall and up the elevator shaft.
“It’s so small,” Fabrique said. “This is master-level work. There have to be others in the city, but this one can provide at least half of what they need.”
“Yeah, impressive, but why keep it in a cave below the sea floor?” Kate said.
“Dude, why keep their queen in a cave below the sea floor? Isn’t that who we’re here to see?”
“And the King,” Gamma said.
The cave looked simply like a cave, an odd pocket of air with a pool at the end opposite the elevator shaft. Kate figured it had to be like an S bend in a pipe, allowing one end to be dry and the other to hold water. In this case, the other end was the ocean and this end was a small pocket of fresh air.
The cave was dank and inhospitable, with no human luxuries.
Kate frowned. “I’m starting to think that ‘going to see the Queen’ means ‘tossing into a jail that’s impossible to escape from.’”
“I’m sure you could escape from it, My Lady. Myself, however …” Burns trailed off.
“We’re not leaving you here, Professor,” Daniel said.
A voice at the edge of the pool called to them, calling from a shadowy alcove they hadn’t noticed. “More visitors to my Queen! How wonderful! Come and meet her!”
Daniel and Kate exchanged glances and moved tentatively forward. “Think it’s a trick?” she asked.
“I’m supposed to know those things. And I’m not sure,” he said.
As they approached the pool, a green man stepped out in front of them, welcoming them with open arms. “My friends! Welcome to Leviathan City! I did not expect so many divine visitors today! I am Ishmael, king of the city, god of the sea. I welcome you, Fabrique, Gamma, Kate, Daniel, and …” he looked at Burns for a moment, frowning, “and human. We are awaiting the arrival of the Queen.”
Kate blinked stupidly. “We?” was the only thing she could think to say.
Ishmael gestured to the wall where Barris sat curled in a fetal position, back against the wall. Sweat dripped from him despite the dank air, and he shuddered. “Barris, the sun god. He is feeling poorly from almost drowning. He’ll feel better soon. Everyone feels better once they meet the Queen.”
Daniel took a step back, his lip curling, doglike. “What’s up?” Kate whispered.
“His necklace. It’s got that energy on it. I can smell it now. Barris has one too.”
“That’s not good,” Kate said.
“And that’s not drowning he’s experiencing,” said Professor Burns, brightening now that he had a role. “He’s suffering withdrawal.”
“Hold up,” Daniel said. “Let’s see if we can get him out of here without nuking him first. How long does he have before he gets the DTs bad?”
Burns watched the sun god shudder and moan. “Not long.”
Kate laced her fingers together, thinking. She ignored the eager sea god bouncing from foot to foot. “Well. We have everything we need. Gamma? Can you escort Ishmael and Barris out of here? We’ll figure out how to get everyone out of here safely.”
Gamma stepped forward and put her hand on Ishmael’s arm. “Are you going to resist?”
“We have to wait. She’s almost here,” Ishmael said, and focused on the pool.
Daniel put Professor Burns behind him. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said. “Why do I think the Queen isn’t human?”
A gray tentacle, dotted with pink suckers, rose lazily out of the water and probed the air. Ishmael took it in his hand and rubbed it on his cheek. It wrapped gently around his neck, and then again around his torso.
“Oh, she’s so much more than that,” Ishmael said, his eyes misty with adoration. “Why do you think we call this place Leviathan City?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kate backed up, bumping into Daniel, who bumped into Burns. “Oh, shit,” she said.
Burns, finally, was looking as together as he always did. He was rummaging in his waistcoat.
“Is it really time to look for a smoke right now?” Kate asked.
“Fuck, is she Cthulhu or something?” Daniel said.
“No, no; I finally have an idea.” Burns held up one of the ideas he’d gotten from his shop.
“Oh, really? What’s it say?” Daniel said. “Don’t go see the Tentacle Queen?”
“No.” Burns paused. “It says to respect and listen to royalty. Our leaders know more than we give them credit for.”
Daniel stopped. “You’re kidding. Professor, that’s not a queen. It’s a tentacle.”
“It could be the Queen is on the other end. You don’t know.”
“So you really think we should just stand here and wait for… the rest of her to arrive?” Kate asked, staring at the tentacle that caressed Ishmael in a most distressing way.
“You’re gods. You can escape any time if things get troublesome, can you not? I’m the one in true danger, and I can wait to see what she has to tell us. Can’t you?”
Daniel bristled at the challenge, but Kate nodded. “You have a point. Although I really don’t think that thing can talk. We can wait it out.”
Daniel continued to back up, thought, and Kate raised an eyebrow. “Tentacled things freak me out,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Oh!” Kate said. “I had no idea.”
Daniel nodded, his face green in the torch light.
“Okay. I’ll see what she has to say. Or, uh, squish.”
“That’s not funny,” Daniel said.
Kate hid a smile behind the guise of rubbing her cheeks to steel herself. The water in the pool was churning now, and more tentacles had emerged, probing and tasting the air.
“Here she comes,” Ishmael said, his voice quiet and reverent. Gamma stood at the edge of the pool, defiant, and Barris huddled, oblivious to them all.
Kate swallowed and took a step back involuntarily as the green mass filled the room. The Queen looked like a cross between an octopus and a seahorse, with long tentacles encircling her torso. Only part of her surfaced; she filled the cave, at least twenty feet tall with her longest two tentacles looking to be around forty feet. She grunted low in her throat and eyed them all with pearly, cloudy eyes.
Gamma looked back at Kate, her eyes wide, just as Kate realized it too. Fabrique h
ad been crouched beside Barris, rummaging in her bag for something, but now she looked up at the leviathan. Even Barris raised his head, sensing it.
Daniel was the one who said it. “Holy shit, Kate. That’s a goddess.”
The greenish gray monster burned with a divine light that all of the gods recognized. She reached a tentacle out to each of them, touching them lightly, recognizing them, too. Even Daniel allowed it, making only a small disgusted noise as she touched his shoulder.
“It’s not only a goddess,” Kate said, nodding. “It’s Persi.”
Daniel looked at Barris. “I thought you said she was in the south, trapped in a dinosaur’s body.”
Barris looked at Daniel through lidded, tired eyes. “She was in the south at the time. She swam north.”
“But you said a dino’s body!” Daniel said, gesturing at the bulk that was Persi. “We were thinking a stegosaurus or something! Not a huge leviathan!”
“A leviathan is a dinosaur,” Barris said, dropping his head to his knees again. He shuddered again.
Kate was reminded that he didn’t have a lot of time left, but the new wrinkle of Persi made things more complicated. All of the gods they needed were right here; if she could figure out how to get them all out of there, their total quest would be over and she and Daniel could finally focus on the siege on heaven.
Of course, a detoxing sun god and a zealous sea god who was in love with a tentacled monster (who happened to be a trapped goddess) didn’t seem like easy sheep to herd.
“She’s so beautiful, no?” Ishmael said.
“Oh, yes,” Kate said, thinking fast. “Do you swim with her?”
Ishmael looked sad. “No, they don’t permit me to. I can’t get into the water this deep.”
“Hey, wait,” Daniel said. “You can’t swim this deep? Aren’t you the god of the sea?”
Ishmael stuck his chin out, defiant. “I am. You have no right to challenge me. We all have our limitations, even as gods.”
“Not really when it concerns our area of expertise. Is there clockwork too deep for Fabrique to swim in?” Daniel asked.