by James Axler
Sela watched the Annunaki loll against the wall, falling forward as his leg bent, spitting a furious hiss from clenched jaws. Sela moved swiftly, extricating herself from the falling figure and dancing away in a quick two-step, the muzzle of her gun trained on her enemy.
The Annunaki recovered himself in an instant, clawing against the wall to hold himself up. He shouted something at Sela as his eyes met with hers, and though she could not understand his words the intent in its rage-filled eyes was unmistakable.
Around the two combatants, the sounds of battle reverberated from the hard walls, screams of dying and chants of determination. For one brief instant the battle cry went out:
“For Ullikummis!”
And then it was lost once more to the general hubbub of war.
Sela shifted her aim with the Colt, snapping off a shot at the gray Annunaki’s head as he leaped from the shadow-dark recess. He ran with a loping gait now, favoring his left leg. The right leg seemed intact, but the blackened hole where the bullet had pierced it was evident on one side, the shattered remains of the kneecap poking through the fleshlike fingernails pressed against the rubber of surgical gloves. Annunaki blood was oozing from the wound, tracing a line down the scales of the gray warrior’s leg, an unguent-like substance seeping out from the bullet hole. Sela blasted her pistol again, sending another shot at the charging Annunaki even as he swung the bone baton at her head.
Two of her shots struck the hobbled warrior in the face, a third skipping off his cheekbone in a blinding shower of sparks. More bullets lashed against the bone walls behind the Annunaki as Sela continued pumping the trigger, trying to fell the broad-shouldered beast. At the same time, the Annunaki’s club raced through the air, slamming against Sela’s side with a crack of her ribs. She fell, toppling over herself as she crashed to the ground.
Then the Annunaki was looming over her, struggling to hold himself upright where his knee had been torn apart. Sela looked up, bringing the Colt pistol around in an automatic response.
Sela squeezed the trigger at the same moment as the gray-faced Annunaki brought his simple weapon down on her skull. From nearby, the chant of “For Ullikummis!” drifted to Sela’s ears once more, the human army waging battle against the deadly aliens through the mazelike streets of Tiamat.
“For humanity!” Sela shouted as the Colt pistol kicked in her hand.
* * *
KANE DUCKED as the debris from another lightning blast hurtled to the ground, great chunks of impossible architecture smashing into a million glistening pieces as they struck the floor. The buildings around him were elaborate, more so than the ones he recalled from Cobaltville and the other villes. They towered into the heavens, bloated minarets like crowns atop each one, swirling glyphs and curlicues running up their towering columns in patterns of archaic beauty, all the colors of the rainbow held in every surface, every atom. It was mesmerizing to look at, an image so absolute that it transfixed the human eye. But then, it wasn’t the human eye, was it?
Kane remembered how he had come to be here, how he was interpreting the wealth of data that was cast toward him in the many levels of the astral world,
trying to make sense of this incredible multiangled war through the dimensions of string theory.
Kane turned away, shaking off the unsettling feeling that he was being drawn in by the colors of the architecture. Everything here was different, multifaceted in such a way that new angles existed that Kane had never seen before, new twists in the cosmic spectrum.
The ex-Mag stepped out of their path as the horrified crowd hurried past, staggering against one of the
rainbow-colored walls. It had begun as a vision of a ville, but the whole structure was changing, warping in on itself as Kane looked, each building becoming impossibly detailed, detail within the detail, worlds within worlds. The wall beside him seemed to be changing even as he looked at it, swirling in a miasma of rushing colors, its shapes, its very density altering over and over like a flick book of mismatched imagery.
Kane blinked forcefully, trying to hold on to his sense of perspective. “You were a Magistrate, damn it,” he told himself. Magistrates only dealt in absolutes.
Sound was rushing past his ears, a hush-hushing sound like breakers on a beach, the coughing of wind through the mountains. Kane tried to steady himself against that wall as the great shadows of gods moved through space above him, shock waves reverberating through the landscape with each collision.
It was all too much, all too big, Kane realized. He was losing himself to the enormity of the god war, losing his sense of being as he strode in a landscape that man was never meant to see. As he looked at his hands, Kane saw them expand once more, saw his fingers bloom with ghost images, widening and lengthening until they seemed to claw into yet another dimension, bending into an angle that he could not yet perceive.
“Keep it together,” Kane whispered to himself. “Just for a minute. Just till it’s over.”
Above Kane, the towering shadow that was Enlil tossed another lightning bolt at his impossible foe, a hurricane fighting a mountain. The space that was Ullikummis staggered, and the skies seemed to shift with him.
Ullikummis spoke then, and his voice boomed across the skies like a thunderclap. “You made me your Godkiller, Father,” he called, “and now I come to execute the one pretender god who knows only violence and hate. Now I come to kill-execute-assassinate you-father-Enlil-Overlord-living shape.”
Kane turned away, bringing his hands up to his head, cursing the way his brain throbbed against the casing of his skull. He was hearing the words—some words—but they were many words now, breaking into streams of alternatives like a catalog of synonyms.
* * *
IN THE STOREROOM in Agartha, Balam watched wide-eyed as another burst of static electricity emanated from the semisentient chair where Kane squirmed, shooting across the cube-shaped room in a fearsome white streak. Kane shook violently in the chair as the electricity struck against the wall of the massive cube container, dissipating in a circular red glare that fizzled and faded in a matter of seconds.
Balam stared at the wall where the miniature lightning strike had hit. It was getting dangerous in here, and Kane was right in the middle of it.
Balam turned back to his ally. Kane’s hair clung to his scalp, thick with sweat, and his body trembled in place, shaking violently back and forth as he was held in the grip of the navigator’s chair. Balam blanched as new probes lashed out from the back and arms of the semisentient chair, holding the sitter tighter in place.
In his mind, Balam could see what Kane was seeing, viewing it through their mutual bond in the same way that one may recall a memory when one related an incident in conversation. Kane was struggling with his new environment, Balam saw, the surroundings and even his own sense of self breaking apart as the warring gods battled a mere hairbreadth away from him.
“What is going on?” Kane cried out from the chair, tears streaming down his face past the entwined creepers of the chair itself.
Balam stepped closer to his ally, watching as electricity raced across Kane’s body in cruel, jagged arcs here in the physical world even as Kane’s body seemed to get discorporated on another plane.
“Comprehension is a fragile thing,” Balam soothed, his voice low. “You need to focus, remember who you are and try to make sense of that which is around you but is not you.”
Kane shook in place, another burst of energy caroming across the room in a fiery line.
* * *
WITHIN THE OTHER PLACE, Kane heard Balam’s voice as he slunk against the multicolored tesseract wall, his breathing shallow and fast. Balam’s words seemed so close yet so distant, a twin feed of conflicting information, similar to how one tried to incorporate the sounds of the real world within a dream, the mind trying hard to make both things adjust to fit one narrative. Even so, B
alam’s voice did something. Its familiarity served as an anchor, bringing Kane back to himself in a rush of color and broken scents. For a moment, Kane stood there as the wall behind him continued to alter and stared at his hands, which seemed complete once more, their lost integrity forgotten. He was himself again; he was Kane.
He stared into the skies above, their burgundy color the same shade as spilled blood, bursting across the heavens in a vicious sprawl. The godlike figures smashed against each other like two forces of nature, elements vying for supremacy.
Kane narrowed his eyes as he watched the two mighty combatants slamming against each other high above his head, galactic forms made of flesh and bone. “Come on,” he urged himself, channeling all of his willpower. “Either step up or back down.” It was the kind of advice drummed into him from the time he was just a boy training to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Kane felt his consciousness expanding, felt the new levels of complexity that had taken the place of his old form. With a determined cry, he began to run across the multicolored street, his feet slamming harder and harder against the stones, the shock waves emanating behind him in ever-widening concentric circles. He was in the gods’ arena now, and it was time to show what sort of a man he really was.
“Grant, where are you?” Kane asked as he sprinted toward his enemies.
Grant’s voice came back after a moment, sounding breathless. “On our way now,” he said. “Just trying to find a safe...path.”
“You sound like you’ve got problems,” Kane said as he ran, faster and faster across the ever-changing street of souls.
“Nah, nah, nah—nothing we can’t handle,” Grant assured him. “You give us a few minutes, and we’ll be all over your problem like stink on a monkey.”
“I’m trusting you,” Kane told him as he threw himself at the foot of the gods, using his body like a cannonball to strike at the ankle of Enlil’s cosmic form.
* * *
GRANT HEARD none of this over the Commtact. All he got was that Kane needed him, and the determination in his voice was unmistakable. The ebony-skinned ex-Mag turned back to Rosalia as the two of them fought off a group of five Annunaki warriors in a wide, four-sided chamber whose walls narrowed to a point at the far end.
“Can we speed this up?” Grant asked.
Rosalia batted away an attacking Annunaki with her black-bladed sword, using a triple strike that turned his attack on himself before driving the point of the blade through his chest. The Annunaki yelped in pain, black blood rushing from his open mouth and amassing along the blade’s length as Rosalia drew the sword clear once more.
“I’d love to,” she told Grant, “but you care to tell me how? We’re outnumbered here and outmatched.”
Grant launched a burst of fire from his Sin Eater in a seemingly casual flick of his wrist, peppering another of the Annunaki warriors with shots from groin to sternum. “We’re not outmatched,” he shouted over the noise, “never that.”
Before Grant, the Annunaki who had taken the clutch of bullets stumbled back, clawed hands scratching at the wounds in his chest. The bullets were having some effect, but it wasn’t enough to fell a single one of these monstrosities.
Beside the ex-Mag, Rosalia drew her sword back, her chest rising and falling with the exertion of battle. “Whatever,” she spit, “we’re getting worn down by numbers here.”
“You’re right,” Grant agreed angrily as the Annunaki regrouped and stalked toward the two of them. As they did so, Grant made a decision. “Stay behind me,” he told Rosalia. “We’re going to do this real quick.”
“Do what—?” Rosalia began, but already Grant was running, building up speed as he charged at the nearest of his foes, the one still recovering from Rosalia’s stab with the black katana.
Rosalia watched in astonishment as Grant slammed shoulder-first into the Annunaki, batting against the creature with such force that it was knocked off its feet. Grant’s pace never slowed. He swiftly stepped over the falling creature and continued down the wide walkway that cut through the chamber, fists pumping. The next Annunaki was still plucking at the weeping wounds on his chest where Grant had shot him. Grant’s fist shot out with the force of a juggernaut, slugging the reptilian monster across his jaw with a great crack of bone. The creature turned to react, but Grant hadn’t even slowed; he just carried on along the marked walkway toward the group of three who waited by an iris door.
Rosalia hurried in his wake, astounded at the sheer brutality of Grant’s attack. They had been caught up in combat almost continuously for a twelve-hour period and yet, somehow, Grant had found his second wind. He was as strong now as he had been when they had first landed in the dragon city, back when laser lights had painted the night skies in searing flashes of red.
Skirting past the first of their fallen foes, Rosalia lashed out with her blade as the second struggled to recover from Grant’s jackhammer blow. The alien creature cried out, grasping for her blade with one clawed hand and gripping it tightly.
Rosalia pivoted, twirling on the spot as she pulled her blade from the Annunaki’s grip. The blade came free in a spurt of blood, the tips of three fingers dropping free from the Annunaki’s damaged hand.
They’re getting weaker, Rosalia realized. Somehow, even as Grant had found his second wind, their Annunaki challengers were visibly weakening.
Before Rosalia could impart her observation to Grant, the Cerberus man charged into the remaining Annunaki at the doorway, his arms spread wide to encompass all of them as he threw himself toward the deck. The Annunaki crashed back like bowling pins, crumbling in one great mass as Grant landed on top of them. Then his Sin Eater was back in his hand, jumping as it spit bullets in their faces in a continuous stream that echoed from the hard walls of the two-story chamber.
Rosalia sprinted across the room, joining Grant as he leaped free of the tangled bodies. The Annunaki were struggling to right themselves, ooze spurting down their beautiful, flawless bodies.
“Keep going, Magistrate,” Rosalia urged. “¡Vámonos!”
Grant didn’t need telling twice. He hefted his mighty frame to the iris door, peppering its controls with 9 mm bullets as he ran toward it. In a flash, the controls burst into electric flame and the iris opened, the petals spinning away in a swirl.
Grant leaped through the doorway, Rosalia following just a second behind him.
They were in an elevator now, its floor long and as thin as a plank, a vast drop into the guts of Tiamat visible to either side. Like many of the spaceship’s faculties, the elevator doors worked like an air lock, a twin set of doors backing one to the other. Grant slapped his palm against the control board, closing the doors and commanding the elevator to ascend.
“You look like you’ve done this before,” Rosalia said.
Grant nodded, though he was paying attention to reloading his Sin Eater while they were safely in transit. “’Cause I’ve been here before,” he explained. “Tiamat’s different now, but not that different.”
Rosalia looked at Grant as he reloaded his weapon, and she could see that he was breathing heavily. He was covered in gunk, the blood and ooze of the Annunaki marring his black Kevlar coat and shadow suit.
“They’re getting weaker,” Rosalia told her partner. “You notice?”
Grant smiled, shaking his head. “Not really, but I’ll take your word for it,” he said as he pushed a new magazine home into the Sin Eater’s cartridge slot.
Then the elevator doors opened and Grant and Rosalia found themselves on a higher level, the corridor illuminated in greens and blues from lights running along the floor. Just for a moment, the lighting made Rosalia think of the ocean. And then she spotted the familiar reptilian figures hurrying toward them from the far end of the corridor.
“Here we go again,” Grant declared, raising the Sin Eater in a two-handed grip.<
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* * *
ELSEWHERE, IF THAT TERM had any meaning in such circumstances, Kane found himself fighting on the multiplanes of fractal space. At first, it had seemed that the Annunaki paid no attention to him, battling as they were at such an intensity that it reverberated across the tesseract angles of the universe. But as the conflict continued, Kane realized that this was not a battle that would be settled by physical strength—how could it? It was occurring at a level far removed from anything that could be described as physical. No, here was a battle that was defined by willpower, one resolve challenging another.
Kane drew on his own great reserves as Lakesh fed him information via Commtact about the nature of string theory. Kane tried to understand what he was being told, but all he really knew was that—no matter how strange things became—he needed to keep his own grip on sanity. It was his will, his self-image, that fought this battle against so-called gods, man against superior beings.
And as he drew more from his own self-determination, Kane seemed to grow, bringing himself if not to the size of the gods then at least to something that rivaled David facing two great Goliaths.
The Annunaki fought through the angles, appearing and disappearing in ways that Kane could barely follow let alone comprehend, their shadow shapes interweaving with each other as they strove for supremacy, pouring through Kane like water through a sieve.
Kane, for all his strength of will, looked to the familiar to fight his corner. Astride the heavens, fighting atop the ever-changing angles of the city hidden in the cosmic warp, Kane flinched his wrist tendons and called forth his Sin Eater, the handgun unfolding as it slapped into the palm of his hand. The pistol looked different now, no longer made from brutal lines of metal, but bulging and curved, a nipplelike minaret at its end. Kane had the disconcerting feeling he was firing with a temple rather than a gun, and the ammunition was belief—man’s belief in his ability to chart his own destiny.
Kane watched as the blaster kicked, a trail of pure whiteness lancing across the heavens to strike the swirling clouds that formed Enlil. The blast hit, shooting through the sky like spilled paint, erupting against the chest of the great Annunaki overlord, and Kane cheered as he saw Enlil stagger and fall under that punishing assault. In that moment, a god fell from the sky, crashing through the universe due to the determination of one man.