by Mur Lafferty
“What?” Daniel asked.
“We all have a role to play. The elements. Ishmael is water. Barris is fire. Prosper is wood. Morrigan is earth. I’m air. Gamma is metal. Fabrique corresponds with order, balancing chaos, which is reflected in our trickster god.”
Daniel thought briefly. “That makes a certain sense. But you left out Persi,” he pointed to the still-unconscious girl.
“I’m not sure. But it seems pretty logical that she represents the poor living things that get caught up in all of this divine warfare,” Kate suggested.
“All right. But what do we do with this information? We don’t have Prosper, and Persi can’t fight,” Gamma said, arms still crossed. This had been the first time she had spoken since hearing about Kate’s actions in Dauphine.
Kate frowned. “I don’t know. But I do know it’s important.”
“Has anyone figured out how we’re all getting into the Dark? Do we commandeer another zeppelin?” Daniel asked.
“Nope,” Fabrique said. She closed the back of the device she was working on. “This is another doorway. I’ve put in a stopgap to protect it from chaos energy. It can take us to the Dark. From there we can fly.”
“Not all of us can fly,” Gamma said, and Kate was relieved to find the warrior goddess’s stony glare fixated on someone else for a change.
Fabrique grinned and pulled a blanket off a lump in the corner.
“Oh, shit. A jetpack!” Daniel said. “I want one!”
“We can’t leave till Barris wakes up,” Fabrique said. “I can build two more of these today for you and Ishmael.”
“Then I guess we’re set,” Kate said. At sundown the seven of them would head into the Dark to confront Chaos. And at the end of the war: The lovely choice between death and exile.
However, she realized, it’s unlikely a choice will be involved there.
* * * * *
They left Persi with her confused priests. Daniel grinned as he realized how much of a mind-blowing situation all of these temple workers were in with their gods suddenly coming “home.” After a quick word with Prosper’s priests to let them know that their god was, ah, otherwise occupied, they were ready to go.
Gamma had clothed herself from neck to feet in supple, thin leather that, Daniel realized after touching her sleeve, was surprisingly strong. Two swords crossed on her back and five daggers were sheathed and strapped to each leg. More weapons nestled into her sleeve, cozy against her forearm. Daniel wondered how a knife would help against Chaos, but he really didn’t know how any of them would attack it. They were gods, though, and he had to remember that.
Fabrique went for a heavy red leather duster lined with several pockets. She refused to show Kate and Daniel what she had hidden in the pockets, and Daniel wondered if they were pockets at all. Her curls were squashed under a pair of brass goggles with glowing red lenses. Her dark skin contrasted well with the red jacket, and black boots completed her ensemble. The leather duster was weighted at the bottom so it wouldn’t flap when the jetpack strapped to her back — a device so amazing Daniel would have readily given up his ability to shape-change if that meant he would get one.
Ishmael remained nearly naked except for his loincloth and coral armbands, refusing to wear anything to protect himself.
Kate, Daniel, Barris, and Morrigan remained as they were. With the exception of Barris, each god carried their weapon of choice. From the interior of Fabrique’s House of Mysteries, they watched as the tinker goddess activated a recently-finished wrist gauntlet. A ray of purple light splashed against the obsidian wall, growing to the size of the circular doorway. It rippled, but remained purple and opaque. Daniel looked at Fabrique, his eyebrow raised.
“It’s perfectly safe,” she said. “I will go first if you like.”
Daniel heard the challenge in her voice and shook his head. He put an experimental finger against the purple ripples and his arm went right through. He stepped through, his whole body vibrating with the power of her gauntlet, and ended up in the foothills about ten miles north of Meridian. The city shone in the distance, a gorgeous impossibility, swaying gently.
The air shimmered and he stepped aside quickly as Kate came out.
“Think they’re gonna ditch us?” he asked, but Barris came through right after them, shaking his wings and glaring at the portal as if it offended him. Ishmael, Morrigan, and Fabrique soon followed. As Fabrique stepped through, the portal snapped shut with a sound that reminded Daniel of a television being forcibly turned off.
“Wait, how did you get through? And where’s Gamma?” Daniel demanded. “Did she ditch us?”
Fabrique looked at him coolly and pulled a small jeweled dagger from an inside pocket, and Gamma flowed out of it and appeared in front of them. She handed Fabrique the gauntlet and Daniel relaxed.
“Okay then,” he said. “Let’s do this thing.”
The last time they had gone into the Dark they had been aboard the Sheridan, under attack from two modified warships, the Ferus and the Fera. The ships had been piloted by air pirates, tattooed thieves who lived in — and were driven mad by — the Dark.
By Chaos, Daniel reminded himself.
Fabrique, Gamma, and Ishmael fired up their jetpacks, Gamma a little unsteady, Ishmael looking as if he’d steer into a hill any moment. The others took wing, Daniel as a pterodactyl and Morrigan as a white crow. There was a path (Who made that, anyway?) through the hills to the Dark, but it was easier just to fly over.
Barris made a small, surprised sound as Morrigan took flight, and he slowed and watched her climb ahead of him. Daniel flew next to him and cocked his head.
Barris caught the question. “That was the crow I followed when I got caught in the ocean. I knew she was divine but I didn’t make the connection.”
Oh. Damn, but Morrigan caused a lot of trouble. Daniel wondered uncomfortably if he should have brought her along. But she fit Kate’s elements theory, so she would probably be needed.
If she doesn’t try to kill us all.
* * * * *
Kate hung back and let the other gods fly ahead of her. She tried to keep a respectful distance when not giving orders; the others, save Daniel, clearly didn’t want to be around her. The shame twisted in her like a snake, but she had a job to do. And regardless of their fate, she’d never see them again anyway.
The hills on the Meridian side were deep green in the light of the waning moon, but as they moved into the Dark, Morrigan’s power was diminished and faded. The hills were black, the sand was black, and the sky starless. The others landed at the foot of the rocky hills and Kate followed suit, feeling the prickles along her awareness that something wasn’t quite right with her power.
Ahead of them, down the hill, lay the camp of the airship pirates. Bunkers lined the perimeter to shoot down any airship that pursued the pirates home, and past that —more darkness.
“I think some of us should scout ahead,” Daniel was saying as she landed. “Figure out how many are in that camp, if they’re armed, you know.”
“They’re armed,” Gamma said. “Well armed.”
“Well, if we fly over, we’re sitting ducks. Or some metaphor that works in this situation,” Daniel said. “But going on foot feels so … mortal.”
“We might as well be mortal here,” Fabrique said, adjusting her goggles. “Gamma, why don’t you and Daniel scout ahead?”
Daniel looked at the warrior goddess and shrugged. They headed off and became mere silhouettes approaching the camp.
Barris approached Kate. She glanced up at him apprehensively. None of the other gods had showed interest in communicating with her. “Lady Kate, a word, please?”
“Uh, sure,” she said, and they stepped back into the hills. Fabrique fiddled with a gadget while Ishmael fretted and watched Gamma and Daniel. Only Morrigan watched her and Barris retreat.
“I want to apologize for the decisions of my fellows,” he said. “I never wanted you exiled. It is unfair; gods make decisions da
ily that affect the mortal plane and lives are lost. None of us know if one of our fellows could be damaged because of it. Look at me; I caused great damage due to my addiction.”
Kate grimaced. “Thanks. It’s still hard to reconcile you as Barris. And it wasn’t really your decision, you know. You seem a totally different person at night.”
“I am the same person, only with the power of the sun returned to me. In the few weeks I’ve had since freed from my cage, I’ve only brushed the potential of my abilities.” He chuckled ruefully. “Although I have learned to keep away from water.”
“And ideas. You’re learning,” Kate said. “I do have a question. That Chaos necklace thing squashed all of our abilities nearly completely. But all it did was affect your change, not the sun itself. Why is that?”
Barris held out his hand, palm up. Flames dripped from his hand like water off an Olympic swimmer. Above his palm floated a tiny sun. It nearly hurt to look at, and Kate worried its brightness would alert the camp to their whereabouts. She dragged him behind a hill.
“Impressive, but let’s not get ourselves killed, okay?” she asked.
“Kate, I am the sun. I have the power to keep multiple spherical objects in orbit around me: planets, moons, and asteroids. I pull far away comets into me. My heat is such that it can warm you from millions of miles away. I am the center of the solar system. It is without ego that I remind you that even though you made the world, and likely me, and Ishmael controls the water, which is life, and Prosper controls the harvest, which is food, and Fabrique controls the industry, which is human intelligence, and Persi controls the animals, which balance humans, and Morrigan controls the shape of the earth and the tides — and now death — and Gamma controls the warrior nature, which provides the conflict that moves, creates, and destroys nations. And Daniel, who provides the foil for us all — none are as powerful as the sun, which holds all of this together. My power can be dampened, but not removed, or the solar system falls into disarray. We’re not talking just this world here, Kate; we’re talking about all worlds.”
Kate thought about the first world they created, the one completely enshrouded in Chaos, and wondered where it was in the solar system. “What about —”
“Your other world lies in perfect orbit opposite this one. The astronomers of this world haven’t yet determined its existence. The sun is always between the two planets.”
“Is there a sun god there?”
“No gods live on a planet ruled by Chaos.”
Kate bit her lip and tried not to dwell on how much she and Daniel had mucked things up. “I understand, I think.”
“I am young, Kate. Self-aware only since you freed me. I am frightened of this Chaos beast, amazed at the beauty of the world, and confused by the actions and attitude of she who shares my power.” He gazed at Morrigan with a look that was somewhere between sadness and longing. “But one thing I do understand is recognizing power within others. And you don’t tap into half the power you have. What are you afraid of?”
Kate gaped at him. She felt the power stir inside her, impatient, despite the dampening effect of the Dark. “Are you kidding me? Look what I’ve done. Destroyed cities; killed a goddess; I have created two worlds and lost one, almost both of them, to Chaos. I am completely inept at this job. The more power I use, the more I mess things up.”
Barris frowned at her sadly. His fiery wings drooped. “Is that all you’ve seen you’ve accomplished? Really?”
Kate shrugged. “Where I’m from, there was once a man, a leader, called Mussolini. He did some horrible, things. But people said he always made the trains run on time. Sometimes the things that you do that are bad can’t be eclipsed by the good that you do.”
She left him, frowning at her, behind the hill, and went back toward the others.
They were gone, running toward the camp, which had opened fire on Daniel and Gamma.
* * * * *
She was dour, no fun to be around, and clearly wanted them out of this world, but Daniel had to admit that Gamma was handy to have during a fight.
As they silently skirted the perimeter of the camp, keeping close to the rocky foothills nearby, she pointed to a turret whose guns had moved from aiming at any aerial trespassers to tracking them. Her calm voice floated over her shoulder. “They’ve seen us. They’re targeting with one of their guns.”
Almost immediately after she uttered the words, the rocks above Daniel’s head exploded as projectiles penetrated them. Daniel thought at first that they were regular bullets, but fire dripped down the rock onto them, and they ran for the safety of a boulder.
Daniel’s heart surged with panic. “Shit! What do we do?” he asked as Gamma pushed his head down behind the rock. More projectiles hit the rock in front of him, and fire dripped down, seemingly seeking him. He skirted back from it while still trying to stay covered.
She touched the molten drop with her index finger, and instead of flowing toward Daniel, it crept obediently into her palm like a pet mouse. “You stay calm and do what I tell you.” He nodded. “It is a very bad idea to attack a goddess of war,” she said, almost conversationally. “Imagine trying to drown Ishmael or leaving Barris out in the sun to dehydrate. Can’t happen.”
“Yes, but they can still shoot me,” Daniel reminded her, but she was no longer there.
“Dammit!”
He winced as the gun fired again, but no more molten buddies came looking for Daniel. He chanced a look over the boulder and found the turret had instead targeted another turret and had fired repeatedly at it, melting it. The screams of the pirates inside floated over to his ears, and then the gun went off again.
Gamma had traveled through the gun to the inside of the turret. She must be really pissed about that fight with Prosper, that fight that Daniel thought of as Gamma’s Vietnam.
He relaxed and only noticed at the last minute that as Gamma blasted the turrets, one by one, another one targeted her. “Gamma! Nine o’clock!” he yelled, hoping she understood.
The turret began to swing around, but the targeting gun went off, melting the turret and causing the gun to explode. Daniel ducked behind the rock as more molten bullets rained down on him. A couple landed on his back and he expected the searing pain to begin, but he was hit with a stream of water that knocked him over, putting out the smoldering fire.
“Damn, Aquaman, thanks a lot,” he sputtered, seeing Ishmael looking much less flighty and much more focused about twenty yards away, firing a stream of water into the burning turret. It hissed and went out, the misshapen metal warped and black.
Kate ran up to him. “Are you okay?”
He nodded and spat out some water. “I never thought Aquaman was much of a hero, but he’s about my favorite person right now,” he said.
Kate smiled. “What kind of ammo are they using to cause metal to melt like that?” Do you think Gamma has something to do with it,” she said, ducking behind the rock with him.
“Probably,” Daniel said. “Do you think she got out of there in time?”
The turret that shot up Gamma’s gun turned to the camp and began firing as sky pirates ran around, screaming and heading for their airships.
“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “She’s buying us time; let’s go.”
As the six of them dashed past the camp, Gamma continued firing the flaming bullets at the pirates, targeting the airships now, causing their giant balloons to melt and catch fire.
Daniel was so caught up in watching the pirate ships burn that he didn’t notice the large group of pirates running out of the camp on foot, screaming and brandishing weapons. They had the same living black tattoos that crawled across their skin, the taint of Chaos.
“Crap,” Kate said, but the other gods ran forward. Ishmael knocked two women back into the camp with his firehouse-like attack, and Fabrique shot one with a ray gun type-weapon. The ray entered the man’s left side and exited the back. He stopped and gaped at the smoldering hole in his shirt, then crumpled.
>
Twelve more pirates challenged them, drawing pistols and ray guns. Daniel and Kate readied their swords, but Barris gestured and a wall of fire encircled the pirates just as they fired. The bullets incinerated before reaching the gods. Morrigan walked forward with purpose, turned her emotionless mask toward Barris. While Daniel had no idea what was going behind that, Barris clearly did. He let the wall fall in one place, and Morrigan stripped off her mask and walked inside. The wall went back up.
The pirates’ screams broke through the flames. Two tried to jump through to escape the death goddess, but fell flat once they passed through the sun god’s fire, and did not get up.
After the screams subsided, Barris let the flames fall and Morrigan stood surrounded by ten men and women, all dead with no wounds.
“Damn, what did she do?” Daniel whispered.
Kate shrugged.
“Are you a little annoyed they’re getting all the glory?” Daniel asked as they ran past the bodies.
“Not really,” Kate said. “I think we’ll have plenty of chance to fight when we get to — the end.”
She had hesitated, and Daniel sensed she didn’t want to say his name. Its name. Whatever. Did Chaos have a gender?
Gamma continued to blast away at the buildings and airships at the pirate camp and the rest of the gods ran on. A black dune rose about half a mile past the camp. They crested it and took a moment to collect themselves.
“Thank you for the help,” Kate said, but they all either stared at her with stony faces or avoided her gaze. All except Barris, who nodded graciously.
Daniel felt his katana shake, so he drew it and Gamma materialized, glowing and grinning.
“I have never had so much fun,” Gamma said. She stretched and flexed, like a cat, and Daniel thought she was actually bigger, with tighter muscles. The extra battle energy had to be doing it.