by Pam Uphoff
Damien sighed. "Oh. Dear. Tit-for-Tat. Someone has found out about the rumors I used to spread, and is trying to make me run around. Nope. Not going to play."
"But Damien! This is a real rumor!"
He smiled knowingly and sipped his beer. It'll be fun, tracking down the new Post Head. Thinks he can smoke us out with rumors about gods. Ha!
Life With Hell
1376 Winter Solstice
They all gathered together where they had a clear line of sight. The setting sun in the west was out-shown by the light of the comet, so close now the reflective fog of dust and water molecules sublimating off the comet core covered a third of the sky. The astronomers were setting up their small scopes, their calculating machines and their electrical power source.
The witch triads were forming up. Trump hated being only a Half Moon. There were three whole Dark Crescent Triads, and that was where the real power lay. One full and two broken Triads of the Waning Half, with Zamm and Iron filling in. Rustle was the only other Full Moon, and Little Miss Perfect had given birth a few hours ago. Three full and experienced Triads of Half Moons, and that was it. The two triads of Crescent Moons had been left at home, to mind the children and carry on if none of their elders returned.
Six gods, half the surviving Exiles. Her god.
Hell leaned down and kissed her. "We can do this. We must."
She met his intense blue eyes and nodded.
A corner of his mouth twitched up. "Look on the bright side. It will probably hurt."
She snorted. "I'll get you for that—after."
He nodded. "After."
He turned away and walked over to the other gods, and Trump gathered up Zenith and Cost and they joined the power structure the Eldest Sister was building. A triangle, of course. With a triad of the Dark Crescent at each apex, and two other triads on each side.
Trump and her Triad sank into their meditations, and felt the whole structure gradually build up under them, around them, of them.
The Pyramid felt the gravitational connection between comet and Earth and shunted it aside. The comet itself was still too far away. They reached out, but faded away in the fog. They could feel the others.
The wizards with their affinity to light were trying to melt the comet, but it was too far for them as well.
The Gods had an affinity for Earth, Wind, and Water. Perfect for this – if they had enough time.
And suddenly the gravity was doing something odd. As if another force had come into play. It lessened the gravity for a moment, then twisted it so it came at the comet from the south and strengthened it, and then it slid completely around the comet and suddenly there was an intense knot of gravity behind the comet, slowing it.
The odd gravity tugged at her senses, pulled her out there, and now she could see it. The ice she could barely sense, but the rocks, yes she could do something with the rocks.
:: Break it. :: Answer commanded them, and they started sheering pieces off. the chunks were pulled to the gravity knot, slowing relative to Earth, and then the gods batted them away and helped gnaw at the comet core, melting and shearing. The witches concentrated on the rocks and sand embedding in the ice; they could work those best. The gods went after the ice breaking it and letting the gravity knot do the rest.
Trump chipped away stubbornly, refusing to quit. She vaguely felt that she, Zenith and Cost were leaning on each other, and sagging. But they had to stop the comet. She had children to protect, a World to save. She tugged at a stone and released it as it came loose. Dug mentally for another. She could feel it, could tug and pull at it . . . something snapped and she released it and let it spin away, falling behind the main mass into that powerful knot.
She reached for another rock, feeling thin, and suddenly realized that Zenith and Cost weren't with her. No matter. She could get this rock alone, it was close. Very close. She twisted it loose viciously and levitated a layer of sand and dust to crack the ice behind it.
"Fifty percentile! We're below the fiftieth percentile!" an excited voice called. "It's slowing."
She tugged at another rock, no this one was metal, no matter. She pried it loose and let it go. Dusty spot, twist it . . . she was so tired. Twist harder. Let it go.
"Twenty-five. It's still slowing. It's going to miss. Most of it is going to miss."
She tugged at the next rock, couldn't find the strength. Just leaned on it and thought _push_ Go away. Get away from my babies and my Hell.
"Ten percent. Can you guys hear me? You can quit now. You can, look, you're not killing yourselves, are you? Damn it."
_Killing myself? Never_ Trump took and deep breath and pulled her self back from her meditative trance. Shook herself, and staggered to her feet.
The Earth astronomers were looking a bit frantic, homed in on her.
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes. It worked?" She shook Zenith and Cost, then staggered across to the apex of the Pyramid. "Answer. It is done. Stop. Come back now." She dared to grab the old witch and gave her a tentative shake.
It was enough. The structure of the pyramid snapped and crumbled and the witches stared to stir.
Trump spotted Hell. The gods were more of a random scatter than a pattern, working individually. She touched Hell's shoulders. "Done, love. Stop." She tightened her grip and shook him. He started awake with a jerk. "It done. It's going to miss."
"There will be pieces that hit." One of the astronomers had followed her, and leaned to give the Auld Wulf a shake. "Sir? Sir?"
Hell climbed slowly to his feet and shook Gisele, then Harry. Trump nudged Chance and Richie.
"Who was that? Who made that gravity knot?" Hell looked at his fellows.
"Rustle." Gisele said, and staggered over to the Auld Wulf. "Can you talk to her? Tell her to stop?"
"I think she's stopped." He opened his eyes, then slumped.
"Yeah, me too." Chance laid down flat.
Trump looked around, pretty much everyone but the wizards were in a state of collapse, internal powers drained, and no amount of exterior power could substitute.
Nil and Dydit were checking the witches.
The astronomer wrung his hands. "Are you all right?"
"We're exhausted. Why don't you start a campfire, heat some of the food we brought. I suspect we could all use . . . something." She staggered over to Hell, who had sat down again, and her legs gave way and she wasn't going to go any further than needed to get her head in his lap.
A meteor streaked overhead. Another, a dozen.
"It'll mostly be sand and dust." The astronomer was over talking to Nil.
The sky was alight with streaks and fireballs. A deluge of fire and light. A large fireball cross the sky, east to west and passed beyond the horizon.
"Some rocks, too. Maybe some big enough to hit the ground and be dangerous locally. You guys are the only ones on your feet . . . "
"And we work well with Fire." Nil waved Dydit and the Goat Boys over. "Looks like it's our turn, boys."
Good. Trump let it all go and slept.
The explosion woke her, or maybe it was being tumbled across the ground. There were mental screams and she shielded automatically, weakly. Some of the terror was getting through.
"They're hitting below the horizon, now." Dydit was yelling. "Damn it why didn't we get some Locations?"
"Too late to complain now." The Sheep Man was picking himself up off the ground. Everything smelled burned and hot. A fireball streaked across the sky and the wizards tracked it. She couldn't feel a thing, magically. Why weren't they doing something? The fireball dimmed and winked out, and she gulped. Held her hand out and gathered the gravity into little winking lights, the easiest, most elementary . . . there weren't any little winking lights.
She put her hand down firmly. She just needed food and rest. She was shielding a bit and that was enough for now. She walked over to the packs they'd brought and pulled out the two largest pots, and then kicked together the nearest burning grass and brush. She f
elt like an old woman, crabbed and slow, but she managed to boil water, dried meat and veggies in one pot, tea in the other. With lots of sugar. She drank a cup and started taking cups around to the witches. She helped Answer, still curled and sleeping at the eastern point, sit up and drink half a cup.
"Thank you Tromp. You always were incredibly tough." She was asleep before Tromp laid her back down.
A couple of the other witches were moving, and they managed to get liquids and sugar into all of them, even the gods. The Auld Wulf and Harry didn't look very good. Gisele was recovering fast, and joined them for the second round, getting the thin soup into everyone.
The meteors were tapering off, but not that thin background screaming. She dug out more food and recruited help to hand around sandwiches and more tea. The screams faded. She was afraid it was her shield getting stronger, not the terror lessening.
There were glowing spots around the brightening horizon that had nothing to do with the dawn.
"Forest fires?" She refilled Nil's cup.
"I'm afraid so. And we can't get there. All the Gods are too tired, the rest of us can't go anywhere without Locations. I wish I knew how they did it."
Hell slouched over and hugged her. "We sort out a single person from the collective subconsciousness and use them as our Location. I don't think I can right now . . . No." He winced, and looked back at the other gods. "Wolf and Harry were always the best at it, and they look like crap."
Nil nodded, then paused. "Romeau, Logic and Mercy. They can drop the shields over the cities. Can they come and help?"
Hell half closed his eyes. Then shook his head. "I can't hear them, talk to them. Perhaps you can." He walked off and laid down again.
"Old Gods! The lot of them are going to sleep the next year away." Nil closed his eyes.
The God of Love stepped out of nowhere. "Everything is fine, north of the equator. Looks like you've a mess here, though."
"We can stop those fires, if we can get anywhere near them." Nil said. "Can you find us a location?"
They all disappeared. Apparently he could.
After awhile Logic came and moved everyone home.
Done.
Not a perfect job, but all they were capable of.
***
Trump woke up slowly and painfully, and it didn't seem to be much fun at all.
Hell was beside her, barely breathing, looking a bit pink-marbly. Not Good.
She climbed out of bed and staggered around the house. Zenith and Cost, eight children. Excellent. She punched up a drink Hell swore was the same as a full meal and drank it all before showering. Should she let the others sleep? Hell still looked marbly. Not good.
The children were stirring, and she got bottles from the kitchen and walked into their rooms to deal with them. The babies first. Kohl and Lemon, Zenith and Cost's babies, just about one year old.
And then her own quadruplets. Old Gods! They were so precious and beautiful. Not quite two years old. They grabbed the bottles and let her deal with the diapers. The four five-year olds woke up giggling. Her twins, and Zenith and Cost's first daughters. They all migrated to the movie room, and she took them finger waffles and sausages. The babies joined them soon after and she dealt with laundry, so easy with Hell's machines, and then checked again on the others.
Zenith and Cost were stirring and she took them chocolate drinks too. She made another for Hell, and he sort of woke up enough to drink it, then slept again. Eight years ago, after the previous attempt to divert a comet, the Auld Wulf had mostly slept for over a year.
"I guess I shouldn't worry." She combed her fingers through his pale hair. "Sleep, Love. If that's what you need."
***
Hell slept clear through the Winter Season. Trump attended a few of the large soirees, but it just wasn't fun without Hell.
And the weather was miserable. Zenith and Cost and the kids kept her busy, though. The older kids were five and ready for more formal instruction. She, Zenith and Cost had always been the class behavior problems. Not the best selection of teachers, but at this age most of the learning was practically play. Writing letters and numbers, counting. Azure and Beige were very smart children. Their fathers might be a Goat Boy and a spy, but Havi always had been good in school, and the spy must have been smart, keeping all those records.
Zenith read them stories, and Cost played with blocks with them, counting, adding and subtracting.
Eventually the weather improved, and the frosts stopped coming back.
She'd grown up in the mountains, she was used to late springs, but this was bad even for Ash. Down here in the lowlands it was unheard of. The prices of basic foods were starting to rise already.
"I wonder if more land under cultivation is the answer, or if it would be better to abandon the northern tier this year and concentrate on the southern farmlands."
"What?" Zenith looked up from rocking Lemon. "That's the mages business . . . Umm. It's a bit more complicated than plow and stick seeds in the ground, isn't it?"
"A lot more. Did the old Mage ever get back? And Oscar and Bran? I need to talk to them."
Cost rolled her eyes. "Mages? Well, Bran probably did some farming. But not Oscar, and I'll bet the King's Storm Mage didn't either."
"Well, Bran's the closest, so I'll start there."
She swooped up to her room and kissed Hell goodbye. He was starting to spend more time awake, but still waking only every third day or so. "I'm off to see a mage about a farm dearest." He didn't look quite so marbly now, which was actually a relief. Fucking a statue back to life once was quite sufficient.
Then she whistled up a dog and headed for the corridor. A little twist of mind and with a hand on the dog's back they stepped through to the ruins of Ba'al's temple.
There were some unsavory types that had taken up residence there, but they avoided the spot the witches came and went from, mainly because of the dogs. Today they were more sullen than usual, and Red actually had to look at them as she walked away from the temple. She stopped suddenly, and turned back to the nasty collection of humanity.
"Do any of you know any gardening? Farming? Someone ought to do something with the temple grounds, and since you are here, why not?" They shrank back even further from her, and she shook her head. "I'll see about getting some goats. You can let them graze, milk them, and if things get bad, eat them."
"How about some chickens?" a thin old woman asked.
"Yes, good idea. Chickens too." Trump turned back and headed for the stables, a block away.
The Hosteller looked at her with concern. "Sorry, M'lady, but the price of grain . . . and they're talking about how it ought not be fed to horses at all."
"Hopefully the harvests won't be as bad as they are predicting . . . Take them off grain altogether. After all, we really don't work them very hard . . . and if the hay situation gets bad, I'll take them to the island, they can graze . . . is it already getting bad?"
The wretched man was looking absolutely sick. He was nodding. "It's warmed up, but it's too wet, see. Can't plow. The hay fields are growing like weeds, but it's too wet to even do an early cut. The hay's going to be pretty thick, tough stuff, once we get to it. The fall hay's just about run out, usually the farmers are selling their extra about now, but this year?"
Trump nodded, more than a little bothered. "Harness a pair to the surrey. I need to take a little trip, and then we'll talk about what to do this year."
She hadn't thought to check the tides, and fumed and waited two hours until she could cross to the Karista Compass's Island.
She saw several people looking across at her while she waited, none of them the mages she was hoping to consult. She did note that they had gardens all plowed and ready to plant, and a cow with twin calves in a pasture.
When she got over, the worst was confirmed. None of the mages, nor seven of those appallingly dependent women had been seen since Pax had grabbed the Earther's Gate Anchor.
The three here had all had babies over
the winter and she duly admired the two boys and one girl.
One of the men and one of the women had farming experience, and another man was from a fishing family.
"So you should all be in good shape, no matter what the harvest." she said.
"Well, not really. We're much to close to the City to say that."
Nic looked up at the overcast sky. "If the mages were here, they'd give us a week of sun to get the fields dried out, plowed and planted. An inch of rain twice a week after that, and we'd have a late harvest, but still a good one."
"Hmm. Weather control isn't a witchy thing to do, but perhaps I'd better try it. In the mean time, I need to buy four goats and, oh, I suppose about the same number of chickens. Where's the best place to go?"
The women were perfectly happy to sell her some nice young hens. She splurged and bought four extra for the island. Just in case. She promised to check in occasionally, and let them know if there was any news of the mages.
The farm she was directed to sold her goats. Two big milk goats and their current two babies each. With the babies tied in the back of the surrey, and flimsy cages of the chickens beside her, she made a slow trip back to through the city, the goats on ropes trotting behind the surrey.
She made an instant profit, selling one goat and twins to the Hosteller, who took her pay to store the surrey and the larger carriage for the year, and helped her take the four mares, the other goat and kids and chickens up the block to the Temple. The skinny woman lit up at the sight of the hens, and two men immediately started arguing over who should own the goats.
Trump stopped that immediately. "Lord Hell owns the mother goat. The kids . . . that one is yours and the other is yours." She pointed to the two most interested men. "The goat's milk ought to be shared, or at least sold for a fair price. Got it?" Red growled a bit in the background. She led the mares, one by one, through the corridor. Then thanked the Hostler, and letting him get a head start off the temple grounds, took Red through with her and the last four hens.