"Why can't you take them all, Great One?" Mei asked, watching with horror as the goddess passed by a horribly wounded mother kneeling in a gutter mourning the death of her husband and child.
"Some of these have karma to play out," Kwan Yin explained. "They are fated to pay for actions which they committed in earlier existences."
"It seems cruel," Mei shuddered. "I thought you were a goddess of peace."
"Every death is a lesson," the goddess replied imperturbably, the serene smile never leaving her lips. Mei reddened, realizing she had questioned the goddess's judgment. "My brother The Tiger battles against Susano, Japanese god of the Earth, who is greedy for more land over which to rule. He is unconcerned with what is left behind after the confrontation. All he cares is that he must win. I am involved with war also, because where there is killing, there is also mercy. Where there is pain, there is relief. The balance is maintained. All things move toward their appointed place. That is the essence of order. Soon, one abandons the body entirely and moves toward enlightenment. I ask you to trust in me, but only you can decide if you will or not."
Mei hoped she understood the goddess's lesson. Kwan Yin s task was certainly one she wouldn't want to undertake.
"Where are we going, Mama?" Jinyiang asked, squeezing in between her parents and slipping her hand through Mei's elbow.
"I don't know," Mei said. "She promises we will be safe. I trust her. Will you?"
"Yes," the girl said, eyes shining.
They reached the waterfront. Holding Jinyiang firmly by the hand, Mei followed Kwan Yin onto the rough, wooden pier. The goddess's steps never stumbled over the planks as her own, mortal feet did. At the edge of the pier, Kwan Yin continued walking, supported by the very air. Mei stopped, staring.
The goddess turned back and stretched out a hand to her and the others following. "Come with me."
"I will fall," Mei said, glancing at the black, tossing waves a li below her.
"You will not," she said. "Trust. You have a long way to go yet."
Timidly, Mei put her foot out into the air. Incredibly, there seemed to be a surface strong enough to support her. With her arms wrapped firmly around the baby, she stepped out onto the air. Sunli cooed and chuckled. Mei smiled at him and looked back at her family.
Sunyi's eyes opened with wonder, and he came forward through the crowd on the pier. "The old stories are true, then," he said joyfully, leaping out to do the impossible. His fairy's face seemed to light up as he stood beside his wire. "Come, friends! he cried.
The crowd surged forward, their eyes upturned to the bright figure hovering in the sky now many feet above them. Both parents stretched out hands to Jinyiang, steadying her as she took her steps into the infinite. Mei's parents came behind. The old woman nodded with sage acceptance, watching the sea toss far below her feet.
"Just like in the stories. You tell them better than I do," she told Mei. "Perhaps it is because I never thought they were real."
"Neither did I," Mei admitted. The sun was fully above the horizon now, outlining the goddess with blazing light but incredibly not blinding her followers. Mei and a hundred thousand others trailed behind her, floating toward the eastern sky.
"They will never know where we went," Sunyi said, glancing back at the darkened mainland, now very far behind them.
"Look, Mother," Jinyiang said, full of excitement. She tugged her mother's sleeve and pointed straight ahead. "Do you see?" Mei squinted into the glare, realizing what she was looking at with a gasp of wonder. "There are three islands out there in the water. And they are on the backs of turtles!"
MYSTERY
To Tek's frustration, once his strength was restored Kwan Yin announced she had to leave. There were other places where those in need called for her and she had to go to them. This upset Tek more than he understood.
The Chinese goddess's departure left the war god and Mentor alone in his bunker. Outside he could hear the sounds of the other gods talking and laughing. But Tek was in no mood to return to the party.
"Who summoned that thing?" Tek demanded.
"The question is not who, but why," Mentor corrected. "Most of the gods gathered here have no cause to fear you or your followers."
"The old war gods," Tek suggested. He certainly was a threat to them.
"None are here," Mento answered, "and even a god would need to be somewhere nearby to create that monstrosity and send it to attack you."
"Where are they?" Tek demanded.
"Er, back on the earth watching something . . . sports perhaps or one of those ever present ethnic wars they have there. I believe the Olympic Games are near and they used to be a military competition."
Mentor seemed hesitant to discuss the subject and quickly changed it. "You should appear before your guests. With Kwan Yin leaving they will know you are well and you don't want them to think you are afraid to face them."
"Afraid?" There was a touch of outrage in Tek's voice as he rose menacingly from his seat.
"Then let's mingle," Mentor choose to misunderstand the gesture and moved toward the bunker's metal door. It opened before he reached it and the sound of voices and laughter became louder.
With a sigh Tek followed.
The party was festive, and there was even a slight cheer when Tek appeared. He wasn't sure why the other gods cheered, but smiled politely in return.
There were garlands on the sand bags and oriental lanterns hanging from the radar masts. Someone had willed it to be early evening and there was a cool breeze. The music, a slightly jazzy rendition of the music of the spheres, was just loud enough to dance to. A table had been spread and a heavy god who introduced himself as Mammon had taken charge of the snacks. He boasted that he had arranged for them to be appropriate for the occasion. Tek was amused to see most were taken from U.S. Army field issue MREs. He took a piece of the cherry cake, which the plump god recommended and had to agree it was tasty, if a little dry.
Mentor stayed close, making introductions. The Aztec gods stayed to themselves at the edge of the compound, drinking something whose smell drove most of the other gods away. The only outside god who ventured to drink with them was a loud, gruff figure that Mentor introduced as Thor. Judging from the weight of the war hammer the god carried, Tek assumed he was another war god and watched for any sign of trouble. After a long time he had to accept that the cheerful, drunken Northman seemed seriously concerned only with getting more drunk. The bearded
Norse god even took a swipe at Mentor with his hammer, but the old man nimbly dodged the blow and swore under his breath as he backed away and gave the hammer wielding drunk a very dark look.
The Egyptian gods made Tek uncomfortable at first. Most had retained their animal heads. That reminded the godling of the hybrid beast he had just been mauled by. After a short time the Egyptians' exquisitely polite manners appealed to his sense of structure and he relaxed. After a long conversation he was pleased to receive an invitation to visit them in their land of the dead whenever he had a chance.
As they walked among the other gods, Tek wondered why he was doing this. He was a war god, not a party god. He finally dragged Mentor aside and asked.
"Even wars do not happen in a vacuum," the old teacher explained. "You need to be able to deal with the gods your wars effect. Just as they have to calculate your effect on their plans."
Tek soon realized this gave every god a motive to have attacked him. A conclusion that made him even more uncomfortable as he walked among the dozens of divine guests that had now appeared for the party. Casually he wondered how they all were made aware of the event.
The real hosts of the party were obviously the Greek gods. From what he could tell, this was traditional. Isis had commented that Greeks were always organizing and politicking. She viewed this as a personality flaw. Only a handful of the Greeks were here, but those that were always took the lead in conjuring up new treats or entertainers. As he was introduced to her, the war god remembered that Diana had also been r
esponsible for creating the garden in which he had been attacked. Diana may have sensed his suspicions and was less than cordial. Their initial greetings were almost insults and Tek's thanking her for throwing the party here led only to her snapped comment that she could hold a party anywhere, even in a "khaki nightmare."
Mentor tried to pass off her attitude, but Tek persisted in his suspicions. Finally he became so concerned that he almost dragged the teacher back into his bunker.
"That goddess Diana seems quite hostile," he said as the heavy steel door swung silently shut behind them. It wouldn't keep a determined intruder out, not a god, but it discouraged casual interruptions.
"Her favorite brother is Mars. He's probably the most popular of the old war gods," Mentor admitted. "He's also the prime god of heroic warriors and you are likely to be a major threat to his power."
"End it, most likely," Tek said smugly.
"Nothing is everything," Mentor corrected ambiguously. "Still, she may have been testing you. To see if you are a threat to Mars."
"Then she found out I am," the new war god finished, almost smiling.
Tek pulled himself up to a control panel and watched the radar display. The lanterns had only degraded the signal slightly. With a few miraculous enhancements he could easily see the locations of all the other gods. Several were now clustered around or in what appeared to be a swimming pool. Looking over the war god's shoulder Mentor commented that it probably meant that Neptune, or Poseidon as he preferred to be called, had arrived, as that god needed water nearby to support the sea nymphs he always had with him.
They watched the impersonal screen for several minutes. Tek enjoyed the illusion that he was watching the others without being seen himself. Finally he found himself nervously following the blip that represented Diana. Pulling himself away from the screen, he turned to Mentor.
"Your magic TV can show almost any incident," Tek demanded.
"Anything that has happened, and a lot that hasn't," Mentor agreed.
"Then show me what Diana was doing just before she came here."
"If you wish," Mentor agreed. "But she will know of it. All the gods can sense these things."
"I'll take that chance," the young god insisted. He half expected the screen to brighten with an image of the goddess summoning the dragon tiger from some demonic plane.
UPSTART
by Jane S. Fancher
The room was growing a bit tawdry around the edges—curtains fraying, cracks in the stained-glass windows, a stain on the couch the maids could not get out—still, Diana called it home.
Far more dismaying was her own physical state. It had been such a long winter.
"Getting downright anorexic, darling." Mammon came up behind her, examined his own face for wrinkles or (worse) spots, winced at her reflection, and retreated from the mirror.
"For gods' sakes, man, remember the year. That term won't be in vogue for another—" Oh dear, what was it? '68 . . . '78 . . . '88. "—at least fifteen years. I 'm—twiggish. Quite fashionably thin."
"You look like a rail."
Difficult to argue with the truth. And speaking of Truth . . .
Sweeping her voluminous robes into an elegant swirl around her feet, she turned full about on the vanity stool to smile sweetly across the posh Hilton suite. "And you, my dear, look like a fat—you should pardon the expression—toad." With the grace only eons of battles (verbal and otherwise) lost and won could achieve, she rose to her feet. "I'm starving. Shall we go?"
And as they strolled arm in comfy arm through the suite to the door: "What are we doing today?—American tourists?—Oh, good."
Mammon opened the door and the cool draft from the excessively air-conditioned hallway brushed her bare knees.
The daily squeeze in the Hotel Diana lobby was well underway by the time they arrived.
"I don't know why you always insist on eating here, " Mammon grumbled, turning sideways to avoid a tourist armed with 50 pounds of camera equipment. "The food is mediocre at best."
"Only because you've developed a taste for American grease-burgers, darling." Diana paused, admiring the tall statue holding court at the far end of the lobby, an admirably accurate recreation of one of the ancient statues excavated from the nearby ruins of Ephesus. "Do you honestly wonder, my dear? How many of us have been so honored in this century?" She cocked her head, trying a different angle on the many-breasted statue. "Goodness, that would be painful at that time of the month. My male worshippers always did get a bit—carried away. Seems to me four would be sufficient to make the—" Across the jammed lobby, at one of the coffee shop tables: "Oh, look. He's here. Somehow I knew he'd be."
She pulled Mammon through the crush as smoothly as his girth would allow.
"Just a minute," he growled, and dug in his heels beside the news stand.
"Isn't he sweet!" she murmured, tapping her foot impatiently, while Mammon negotiated the price of the Wall Street Journal. "I think, perhaps, it's time I approached him. What do you think?"
He ignored her, involved in arguing over the cover price. Why, just this once, he couldn't simply pay the man . . .
"Find us a table, will you, darling?" she said, and drifted away, slowly fading as she approached the crowded table.
More crowded than usual. The new one was tall, blond, definitely middle-aged and decidedly out of place in the abundance of dark native elegance. Swiss, unless she missed her guess, and not to her taste—today.
Today, her taste ran more toward eighteen—ma-a-aybe nineteen—slim build, golden skin, and bl-l-lack cur-r-rly hair.
And equally out of place among his co-conspirators, though his differences were more subtle than yellow-hair's. His dark sweater and form-fitting slacks, of good quality and excellent taste, were a bit frayed about the edges. Nothing overt, but the least his excessively well-heeled "friends" could have done was lend him a cast-off or two for their frequent meetings in this exclusive hotel.
Sweet. Terribly sweet, the way he gazed wonderingly upon her monument. Of course, he wasn't the only one to do that—a half-naked woman with about a million and one breasts tended to have that effect on male mortals—but this mortal was different.
His name was Kemal. She'd first seen him a year ago, and with increasing frequency as time passed. At first he'd been alone, standing just inside the door while the tour groups he guided took their lunches at the feet of the spotlighted statue, waiting for them to rejoin him at the bus, as though he would not be welcome in the posh, European-style hotel. Then, barely a month ago, here he'd been. At this same table. Always with this same group. Always slightly out of place.
She came up behind him and brushed an invisible finger along his rounded cheek. He started and glanced over his shoulder, his smooth brow wrinkling with puzzlement. She chuckled silently and waited until his companions called his attention back to the conversation. Then she . . . let her fingers do a little walking . . . until the poor boy was flushed and quite thoroughly confused. With a final brush of her lips across his, she whispered in his ear . . .
"It was wonderful, darling."
. . . and drifted back to Mammon's table, fading into Reality until, when she sat, she was quite as visible as a mortal woman,
"Have fun?" The question rose from behind the paper.
She pressed the paper down, smiled sweetly into his irritated face. "Wonderful, darling."
He flipped the paper free, disappeared again.
She smiled as the waitress delivered her usual: steak (Diane, of course), with fruit macedonia, a dozen croissants, aubergine parmesan, haricots abeurre, pilafi, and squid etouffe aux pelits champignons . . .
. . . plus a six-pack of Coors. One at a time, of course, and specially imported for her. Terrible habits one picked up in one's travels.
"You're wrong, you know," Mammon said.
"Wrong?" Kemal's eyes, making a surreptitious scan of the lobby, met hers. She smiled. "About what?"
"The statue," Mammon said. "It's not to
honor you. The sign on the front door might read the Hotel Diana, but the whole establishment is a monument to moi."
"Never!"
"Oh, but it is, darling. The people come here to gawk at the statue, but they spend money. Lots of money. And that's why the finance company loaned the money to build your statue." His Cheshire Cat grin appeared over the top of the Journal. "Mine, darling. All mine."
She wrinkled her nose, and carefully trimmed the fat off her steak.
Asker, Deniz, Cahil, Mart and Kabil. No family names; likely not their real given names, either, but Kemal Dunman hadn't known that when they'd introduced themselves, had naively exchanged his own truth for their prevarications. Now they used his true name casually—and frequently—in the presence of this . . . foreigner . . . ensuring that he, and anyone (or anything) listening, would remember it.
He ran a finger around the rim of his glass, sipped the ten-year-old Glen Kinchie within, resisting the temptation to gulp. He couldn't really afford this one. Another would mean going hungry two nights running. But he wasn't about to sit in this elite company swilling rakhi.
Six weeks ago, Kabil had been a stranger, one of many thousands he'd herded through the ruins of Ephesus. But then Kabil had casually invited him to join him and his university-educated cronies for drinks here in the shadow of her statue, where the scent of flowers filled the air regardless of the season, and the fountain's gentle spray drowned out the racket of the traffic outside. Initially he'd felt ignorant and foolish among the students, but soon Kabil had had him pouring his heart out—about his fears that the Turkey he loved, a land rich in history and pride, was disappearing into the hands of Western developers who would destroy that history's relics in the name of socio-economic "progress."
Now, six weeks later, Kabil was still a stranger to him, as were these others, but their 'scholarship' and their sophisticated airs no longer impressed him. He didn't know what they believed or wanted. They claimed similar gods to his. They claimed that they wanted Turkey for the People, not the Americans or the British, or any other nation with money for development.
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