The God's Wolfling (Children of Myth Book 2)

by Cedar Sanderson

  “What about... your charges?” Linn asked.

  Monster replied slowly. “Theirs was a life imprisonment. That is why they were re-shaped into human bodies. Only I, and the technicians, were to return to home.”

  Linn pondered this. “Why are there people frozen in Nyx?”

  “I shall continue. Be not alarmed.”

  Linn opened her eyes, confused. The heat of the sun fell away and she was in the shade. Over her hovered a filmy veil of dark ashes, held aloft and offering her protection from the sun.

  “I detected a certain amount of distress on the cellular level, and intervened.” Monster sounded apologetic.

  “Thank you.” Linn thought it was like holding a parasol over her to keep off the sun, and the veil of ashes reshaped itself to look like a lace parasol. Linn giggled out loud.

  Monster sounded like he were smiling again, even though she now knew he couldn’t have smiled when he were living. But he had a sense of humor.

  “When I discovered that although I could see the image, and feel the power, I still could not activate the portal to go home, I ran mad. I left Nyx and roamed the world, doing things I am ashamed of, two turns later. I was insane with homesickness and loss. This does not absolve me, only explains how I came... here.”

  Linn nodded. “And it doesn’t tell me about the coffins.”

  “Coffins?” He sounded mystified.

  Linn pictured them in her head: the short ones, the tall ones with the glass part holding a frozen being, and finally Niamh, with the bloody marks of her loving father’s fingers.

  “Cryostasis is a good word, yes.” Monster sent her a moving image of a slow thaw and complete restoration of faculties when complete. “It was where my charges could come when life was no longer endurable, to rest, and retreat from immortality. In my form, there is a sort of hibernation, when we have been awake too long, and the memory maintenance is impossible. Resting allows us to build further storage facilities for those memories.”

  “I don’t think the human brain has that capacity.” Linn told him.

  “No, it does not. I have learned so much, since I came to an end, and rest, here.” Monster sighed, and her parasol wavered, then firmed back up. “The beings who are in Nyx chose to come there, for surcease. They remember it as a refuge, not as a prison.”

  “Why is Niamh trapped, and why did Mac’Lir think the end of the world was coming?”

  “Niamh is trapped, by what you tell me, because the machines are malfunctioning. The computer you describe must be one of the diagnostics that the technicians built, I am as mystified as you why it is human compatible. It will reset and repair any of the machines in Nyx, only it may take a great deal of power.”

  This didn’t surprise Linn. The machine room which had overdosed her was a measure of what Nyx needed. The arch, though.

  “I found a reset keypad on the arch.” She told him.

  Monster shuddered. The whole valley shook, with a long moan from the rocks on the ridges high above them. Linn clung to the great angular bone as the ground rolled like the sea.

  “I cannot...” His voice sounded far away, and she couldn’t feel him. “I must not...”

  “Monster!” Linn watched clouds boil up out of the blue sky, lightning cracking from one top of them to another as they towered overhead. The air cooled, and her hairs lifted as the electricity built. She could see Grandpa Heff run out of the skull and start down the stairs.

  “Monster, what is wrong?” she shouted, trying to reconnect with him.

  “Hope. I cannot hope.” His voice was small, and she could barely hear him over the thunder. Her parasol shattered and drifted down. Linn could taste the ashes on her lips. Salty, like tears.

  Loki and the boys were coming down the stairs cautiously. The ground still trembled, but nothing like that first quake. Linn’s seat had assumed a slant, but she hung on, afraid to let go. Grandpa reached her.

  “Tell him!” Linn demanded of Monster. “Tell him what you are, and why you are mourning.”

  Haephestus stood stock still, his eyes closed, for an eternal moment. Loki, Merrick, and Blackie reached them, and Linn let go of the bone long enough to hold up an emphatic finger to her lips. She would explain when she could. She didn’t know if Loki was one of the original criminals, banished for who knew what manner of crimes from their homeworld to hers. It didn’t matter. He would use anything, she was certain.

  Right now, what mattered were the technicians, the ill-used, frightened little people who had fled the Monster who was supposed to be their guardian, but were returning with warped memories to destroy his way home. Or to return home themselves, only they had forgotten how to get there.

  Linn shuddered. She had been in the mind of Adel, the tender artist and lover who would not harm anyone, and she knew that was what his world was like. They would fall to the rapacious goblins who had been bred like animals for someone’s idea of revenge and reparations for long-gone wrongs. She couldn’t let it happen, and without Monster, the being who remained when Adel died…

  “Adel’eui D’natti died?” Monster’s voice whispered in her ear like a tickle.

  “Yes.” Linn was sure of it. The being who had lost everything had gained friends, a home, and a place where he was safe. “He is gone.”

  “Then I need not go home?”

  “You are home.” Linn pictured the skull, Coyote sprawled on the ragged couch. Herself and the kittens, tumbling on the floor on her last visit. Then she changed her thoughts. Herself, Blackie, Spot, Merrick, the other gods’ children of her age, sitting on the edges of the raised gardens Coyote had established on the hostile ash, listening to a lecture on advanced genetic manipulation being given by an unseen teacher.

  “You want me to teach you.” Monster sounded wondering.

  “You already have. If humanity can get far enough ahead, we can beat the gods your people inflicted on us.” Linn felt his mental wince, and forged ahead. “You can atone for your carelessness, with care.”

  She closed her eyes, hugged the bone, and waited.

  “Family.” Monster’s voice was contemplative. “I have never had what you would call a family.”

  She had a confused and confusing impression of soft eggshell, like a turtle’s, and blood, and sharp talons and tearing fangs... “Clutches begin thus, and we shrink from it, when we come to an age of reason.”

  “Sometimes you have to fight.” Linn remembered the goblin battle, with all the details of pain, and fear, and aimless rage of the enemy.

  “Yes. Sometimes you must fight.” Monster sighed, and the clouds began to fray at the edges. “You must fight for me, Bright Spark. I cannot go, and fulfill my duty.”

  “I can, and I will.” Linn unwound her arms from the white bone and stood up, feeling her legs quiver from all the tension she had been under. She spoke out loud again.

  “Do you know what we need to do, Grandpa?”

  “Yes, I do. And we have to hurry, I need to make phone calls and gather as many who will help as I can.”

  Heff was already walking away. Merrick and Blackie looked back and forth between them, confusion written on their faces. Loki stood with his hands folded behind his back, a look of boredom carefully affected on his face. Linn looked at him.

  “You are going to be very important to this. We need you to end Fimbulwinter and take your people to Valhalla.”

  Loki, she was delighted to discover, could be genuine. He was genuinely shocked, with his mouth hanging open and everything. Linn ran to catch up with her grandfather, laughing. Just before they left the valley, she bent and scooped up a small thing to put in her pocket.

  She missed the horses she had ridden when they had visited before. The valley was not big but she had been walking a lot, in the last couple of days. It was starting to catch up with her. There was no cell service in the valley, Heff needed to get just outside, and then he was on the phone, making cryptic orders and arrangements. They’d gotten quite a ways up the faint tr
ack through the woods, both boys having shifted and chasing one another through the trees. Linn was eyeing Loki with concern: he’d developed a limp, and she suspected blisters. It had been a thousand years since his last stroll, after all.

  “Time to go.” Heff opened a path and stepped aside, holding it open as Linn walked past him, and waiting until all of them were in before he too stepped onto the path.

  “Where are we going?” Loki ventured.

  “To pick up a package, and some technicians.” Grandpa Heff strode forward. “This won’t take long, we aren’t very far.”

  Linn tagged along, glad she wasn’t in charge any longer. At least for now.

  Chapter 20

  They stepped out into a familiar place, at least for Linn. The airport where those visitors to Sanctuary who could not (or would not) use the High Path came to. Linn looked around as they walked through a door, it would appear to anyone watching. It was night, here, and almost no-one was in the airport.

  Linn recognized the tall man at the same moment he saw them and started to walk toward them, a small cluster of people trailing in his wake. “Mr. Q!” she called, bouncing toward him for a hug.

  She could hardly greet him by his real name in public. Quetzalcoatl in human form was regal, but she’d gotten to know him well enough to feel comfortable treating him like family. And if he was here, this had become a big mission.

  He let her go, and looked at the group following her. His wide black eyes narrowed when he saw Loki. Evidently, no one really liked Loki. Grandpa Heff shook hands.

  “Is this the team?” There were three people clustered around looking like they were waiting.

  “James Copley,’ Quetzalcoatl gestured to the tall blond man with a military haircut. He shook Heff’s hand, and to her surprise, Linn’s. Loki and the boys were hanging back, but Linn watched Copley assess them visually as he stepped back to let a short woman with soft brown hair capping her head step forward.

  “Hello, I’m Linda Pierce,” she shook hands, and Linn watched Quetzalcoatl smiling fondly down at the much shorter woman. “I’m the brains, James is the brawn. Mr. Q is the beauty.” She shot an impish grin at him before stepping back next to James.

  Heff laughed. “And the other gentleman?”

  “This is Marc, the pilot.”

  Marc nodded at all of them, and looked at Quetzalcoatl. “I need to finish preflight, if you want to leave right away.”

  “Thank you, Marc.”

  The man turned and walked away.

  “The package?” Heff asked.

  Copley answered. “I have it tucked in, all cozy on the plane, sir. When we dust off, I’ll be babysitting.”

  Linda chimed in. “And I will be working on reprogramming. Which I understand you know something about, Linnea?”

  Linn nodded. “Will I be traveling in the plane?”

  She was asking her grandfather, but Quetzalcoatl answered. “Yes, to Reykjavik. You will be met there, and taken via helicopter the rest of the way.

  Linn looked at James and Linda. “Do you have winter gear? It’s cold where we are going, inside and out.”

  “We weren’t told where we were going, so I packed everything. Linda sniffed and gave the tall serpent god a mock glare. “I’ve worked for Mr. Q long enough to know better than to leave anything to chance.”

  “I’m prepared,” Copley chuckled a little at his partner. “Linda did indeed bring everything. I carried most of it down the concourse.”

  “There was a cart!” she shot back at him.

  “What about the boys?” Linn turned to her grandfather and the oddly silent Loki.

  “Coming with me. We have a lot of work to do, and we will meet you there, I promise,” he glanced at Loki. “We have an obligation to help him awaken his family. The boys and I will be working on that with Loki before you arrive.”

  Loki’s face softened a little, not quite a smile, but perhaps relief at the offered help.

  Copley looked at his watch. “Do you have luggage?” He asked Linn.

  Linn looked down at herself, and tried not to think about a shower, and clean clothes. Sanctuary was so close, and yet so far. “No, I don’t. I’m ready to go.”

  “Let’s git, then.”

  Linn fell in beside Linda.

  “You have such an interesting haircut, dear.” Linda offered.

  “I, er, didn’t intend to have it cut, it was an accident. And I just haven’t had time since it happened.” Linn touched the long side. She really didn’t even think about it, but she must look ridiculous.

  “It’s rather hip, I think. Sort of like an asymmetrical cut skirt.” Linda was walking with a limp, Linn realized.

  “Are you all right?” Linn slowed her pace, realizing that James, ahead of them, was not walking as fast as he could, he was in tune with his partner.

  “Oh. I’m fine dear. Just a bit gimpy.”

  It took them a few minutes to get all tucked into seats, as Linda put it, on Mr. Q’s jet. Linn, meanwhile, was missing her companions, and trying to figure out just how much she needed to tell the two humans, and how little she could get away with.

  Marc walked into the cabin. “All ready?”

  James nodded to him, and Marc tossed him a mock salute before disappearing back to the cockpit. “And now we fly.” James settled back and closed his eyes.

  “He hates flying,” Linda leaned over and confided in Linn. “Tries to sleep through it.”

  “I manage, too, if you stop talking.” The big man retorted without opening his eyes.

  Linn yawned, this talk of sleep reminding her how long it had been since she’d last had any. She felt a faint bump as the landing gear retracted. “That was fast.”

  “It’s going to be a long flight, and we have lots of time. Sleep, dear.” Linda patted her hand, and Linn stretched her legs out, grateful for the full recliners the Mayan god kept on his luxury jet. She closed her eyes and let the rumble of the jets soothe her to sleep.

  She woke up to the smell of food and coffee.

  “We’re making a refueling stop in an hour, so time to eat before that. After, you and I must work.” Linda handed her a mug of steaming coffee.

  “Thanks,” Linn inhaled. “Mmm!”

  “You like coffee?” Linda settled back into her seat. James was out of sight, in the tiny galley, Linn guessed.

  “Not really, but after this last week, yes.”

  “Oh, that bad, was it?”

  James came out of the galley with two plates. “Ladies, behold the fine cuisine of the airways, a la James.”

  He presented them with a flourish and a grin. Linn laughed.

  “Thanks...” She took the plate, which had a bagel, fruit, and scrambled eggs on it. “Smells wonderful, meals for me have been erratic recently.”

  “I’m only sorry there is no bacon,” he said.

  Linn ate, helped with dishes, and buckled in as the plane descended. She thought they were somewhere on the East coast, but Marc didn’t say, and they didn’t leave the plane during the hour they were on the ground.

  After takeoff, Linda pulled out a laptop. “Let’s talk tech, Linn.”

  They had been chattering about everything and anything, except what Linn had been up to, and what the mission was. It had been fun, and James’ dry sense of humor had set Linn off as often as Linda’s silly repartee had. Now, Linn sobered up.

  “The package, as James called it when we met, needs to be reprogrammed with a time delay. I was a little surprised Grandpa Heff didn’t use the team that, er, built it in the first place, for this mission.”

  Linda nodded. “I think it was because of the transport. We are far less conspicuous than some of his, ah, technical team.”

  Linn understood. The coblyns, at between three to four feet tall, and green, would stand out like a sore thumb in any airport.

  “So you have consulted with them.” Linda nodded, and Linn sighed with relief.

  “Will you need to be with the package after the re
programming?” She asked next.

  “Yes, I can’t activate and program it until transport is over. It wasn’t intended to be moved, you know?”

  Linn nodded. It had been created from a carefully hidden ‘military-surplus’ NIKE missile, and was supposed to be a last line of defense for the Sanctuary itself. Fortunately, it wasn’t needed at that time. Now, it was the only way to make sure the portal to another world was closed, and remained closed.

  “How long a delay will you need?” Linda asked, tapping away at her program.

  “From activation until it goes off?” Linn thought about how long it took to get all the way back to the surface. “Two, maybe three hours?”

  “Allowing for some wiggle room?” Linda looked thoughtful.

  “Yes, I think so.” Linn thought about it. “I don’t want to leave too much. There are reasons...”

  Linda nodded. “It won’t take me long to input this, once we have it in place. All told, maybe fifteen minutes, to double check after installation.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Linn was sure they could do this before the goblin army could figure out where the island was, let alone how to get there. She hadn’t seen much sign of intelligence in the attack on Mac’Lir’s castle.

  “Good! We’re all ready, then.”

  In Reykjavik, Linn discovered that Iceland was as cold and windy as the little island. They didn’t go inside. A huge black helicopter waited for them, and she got to see the package for the first time in two years. In a matter of speaking, as it was in a wooden crate. James supervised the strapping-down process while Linda showed Linn how to strap into the canvas sling seat.

  Compared to the jet, this was bare-bones. Linn found she was a little, no, make that a lot excited. She had never flown in a helicopter before. It rattled more than a plane.

  Also, it was too loud to talk. She looked out the window, finding the ocean a lot closer than she had expected under them. It was the stormy grey-green of Mac’Lir’s eyes. Every now and then, there was a froth of white as a wave peaked. The ocean was vast, she knew, and the chances of seeing anything other than water slim. Until she saw something.