Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 4

by Eric Flint

  "Can't. Merged with a raksha and soared off on a tour of the universe."

  "What about his exorcism manual? A Night In The Lonesome October?"

  "No good. Entry's already occurred. We've got an elder deity, partially re-shaped by modern literary worship . . ." Walter snapped his fingers. "Hold it! Re-shaped. Maybe that's the key!"

  Samantha uncoiled from the sarcophagus she'd been perched on, slinking over to him. "It's a little late to start writing books about the elder gods of happy giggling flower kittens."

  "Ew," Walter said. "No, it's like this: Necro has been resurrecting those arrogant Greek guys to give talks for years. What if we resurrected one of this god's original worshippers? Maybe old Squid-Bag would throw off the modern taint and go back to being a basic earth-force!"

  "That's pretty flimsy," Samantha objected. "Primacy doesn't imply potency where a large and temporally entrenched readership is concerned."

  He gave her an odd glance. "Well, it's better than doing nothing. And I think I know just a little more about gods than you, hm?"

  "You think?" she asked, batting her eyelashes.

  "Anyway, I'd better get going. I have to rouse someone in Necro, then ask Archeo for bones of the proper region and antiquity. Stay here! It's too risky to go outside!"

  He ran for the door. It looked bad outside—black sky with a greenish-yellow tint—but he didn't have much choice. He didn't even notice Samantha's green eyes, slitted like a cat's, tracking him as he ran out the door.

  * * *

  Samanthahotep curled up atop the sarcophagus and started to purr. Playing with mortal minds was so easy. Enchanting the Professor to think he had a daughter was just good business, since she remained tied to her mortal remains and therefore the museum. Henry Goss she'd considered gutting for tennis rackets until he solved the matter for her. But Walter . . . Walter made her smile. Someday, perhaps, she'd let him see her true form. Then again, maybe not. He wasn't really high-priest material, and he spent enough time staring at her bosom as it was. Hard to tell what he'd make of a nude woman with a cat's head. Well, she could afford to be patient. She had until the end of time to gather a handful of believers and restore what little glory she'd once had as an Egyptian princess of minor and brief divinity.

  Still . . . what would be so bad about having just one odd little high priest, if his worship was given with a sweet and joyous heart?

  "Miss Harrington?"

  The voice belonged to a gigantic, rough-necked, one-eyed man with a staggering array of knives, daggers, guns, and mystic wands slung on his person. Samanthahotep sprang from her perch and bounded up to him, genuinely delighted.

  "Iggy!"

  "That's Lord Eagleton to you, missy," he said warmly. "I got a call from this kid, says there's a god fixin' to cause some trouble—not that I wouldn't'a noticed the sky soon enough myself. I wasn't your father's chief safari guide all those years for nothin'. I figger I can take 'er out—if I've got the right ammunition. You got any saint's bones? Big ones?"

  "And how!"

  "Mm-hm. How's about little gods, whole, about the size of bullets, say?"

  "I think we can do you."

  She led Iggy along towering dark shelves packed with muted, dormant powers, collecting all manner of relics for him to shoot at the new god. After Walter, Iggy was the one mortal she took unalloyed pleasure in knowing. He'd fought a thousand malicious spirits and had a ripping good yarn to go with each of them—yet for every story he told, there were enough intriguing hints to make you hunger for two more. She was happy to help.

  It wasn't until Iggy lumbered out into the dark that Samanthahotep realized how nervous she was. Look what I've come to, she chided herself. A god—pacing the floor like a short-lived mortal? That's not the way of the Eternal. Patience. Fleshly creatures come and go in the blink of an eye. To care is only to be hurt. Accept their worship in austere isolation.

  Except that Wally and Iggy were both out there, now. She could lose everyone. Even her bombastic, grandiose, sometime-father didn't deserve that.

  "So it comes to this," she sighed, and stalked off toward the Greek collection.

  * * *

  Something like a giant slug assaulted Eagleton as he left the museum, but it was well-dressed and seemed more intent on getting past him than causing trouble, so he let it go. Hurry, hurry, hurry, he reflected. On safari, you start when you start and get there when you get there. Leave it to civilized man to invent time cards and bus schedules.

  The sky was blacker than zombie piss, rougher than that little Thai bitch with the diamond eyes and icepick fingernails. Eagleton smiled grimly. Not that he liked trouble, but he was only comfortable in one of two places—out in the field, or in the club telling stories. He had a great drafty house all to himself, trophies mounted on every wall, and he was miserable there. He found himself sitting. Drinking. Waiting. Waiting for the next safari. Waiting for the club to open. Waiting the next identical day to dawn so he could wait it out, too. But this, now . . .!

  As Eagleton passed the stadium, he heard ragged, drunken singing, accompanied by howls of laughter.

  "Ain't no such thing as a squid god

  Squishy squashy wishy washy squid god

  Imagin-ary cali-mari

  Fight for good old U., rah rah!"

  As he watched, tendrils of purest black curled down out of the clouds. In a matter of moments, eighteen brightly clad young gentlemen were hoisted screaming into the sky, though the screams, to be fair, didn't last long. Professor Harrington ran bellowing for the cathedral across the street, proving wonderfully spry for a man of his age, and made it with half a second to spare. The bones that came clattering back down from the heavens, Eagleton noted with a detached interest, were quite dry.

  His house was just as he'd left it—a mess. He headed straight for the armory, which some people would have called the dining room. All four walls were racked floor to ceiling with rifles of varying designs, all of it watched over by the mounted head of a fair-sized black bird. He wasn't sure it was THE Raven, but it talked to him occasionally, so he allowed it its place of honor.

  "How's about it?" he asked. "Think I can stop that bastard with the pope-gun?"

  The bird's glass eyes swiveled to look at him.

  "You're screwed, Iggy."

  "Thanks."

  Eagleton grabbed down one rifle after another, tested their heft, loaded them with the stuff Sammy had given him. This was going to be tough. But oh, what stories he'd tell if he won!

  Ignoring the Raven's impertinent wink, he slung a bundle of rifles over his shoulder and charged back into the fray.

  * * *

  Mhurban-Zchtbir regarded the little life-sparks it had dreamed into being. Turn them this way, and they made a noise like so. Turn them that way, and they went out (Ia! said the goat-horned Being of a thousand tongues, words wreathed in meteors and flame, Shayugar al nyarthoth! Ia!) Valleys of crystal chimed not with sound but with the color of sound, and it was well. Mountains of gold rang not with thunder, but with the implications of thunder, and this could not be permitted. Mhurban-Zchtbir dreamed of tiny trembling sparks whose dreams, in turn, were of it . . .

  * * *

  Henry Goss wasn't feeling himself lately, but somewhere in the quaking remnants of his brain lurked some extremely nasty, piggish thoughts. A dented brass urn lay in front of him, the stopper undone and the seal of Solomon broken. A great muscular man with doglike ears and a ruddy complexion stood over him, sulfurous smoke rising from his body.

  "Let me guess," the djinn thundered, "restoration of form, absolute power, and enslavement of your enemies' wives and daughters? Those are your three wishes? Right then. Let's start with power. And since wealth is power, I'll just make you rich. Say, the yearly salaries of ten thousand Roman soldiers."

  Something didn't sound quite right about that, but his mind was too scattered to grasp it. Henry waved his eyestalks agreeably.

  "Just two things you should know," the djinn
continued amiably. "Sammy's my friend, and Roman soldiers were paid in salt. Enjoy."

  There was a silken rustle as of a huge drift of powder falling. Henry the slug looked up, but by then it was far too late.

  * * *

  Professor Harrington's clothes were no longer immaculate, but his expression was no less austere as he huddled in the side door of the great cathedral.

  "I was right all along," he told Father Dworcas. "Those young idiots were having fun singing that song. Fun! If the god ceased to exist, they'd cease getting beer and have to stop singing. They wanted it to exist! They committed suicide! I suppose I should have come to you first, Renford, but I hadn't realized how far the debasement of today's youth had progressed. Though I suppose that Walter fellow should have been a clue. You should hear some of the things he's been teaching my class . . .!"

  "A rather large man with rather a large amount of guns just went by," Father Dworcas said reasonably. "Perhaps it would be, hm, charitable to let him have a try at it first."

  "Don't be a fool, Renford. The new god is harmless. It hardly even exists. As the world's foremost authority, I can assure you we'd be at more risk of contracting leprosy from licking stamps. Ah, excluding stamps from Molokai."

  Father Dworcas nodded grimly. Donning a gilt-laced skullcap, he lifted a heavy wooden cross to his shoulder and shuffled into the street, eyes downcast. Professor Harrington followed at a safe distance. Father Dworcas began chanting:

  "There is no god but God! God is all and ho-ly. There is no god but God! God the one and on-ly. Nothing else exists! Naught but fakes and tri-icks!"

  A single black glob of writhing tentacles arced down from the sky and shwacked right into Father Dworcas' vestments. His eyes focused on it for the briefest moment.

  "These tangible gods are a bitch," he said, just before the thing leaped at his face.

  Professor Harrington stepped back. Where Father Dworcas had been was only a tangled mass of black tentacles which bore, instead of suckers, oddly seeing eyes. "Damn it, Renford!" he shouted. "Disbelieve it! Brush it off, man! It's nothing!"

  Other writhing globs began to rain from the sky, though they remained small and quiescent. Professor Harrington sighed.

  "Why do I have to do everything . . . ?"

  Rolling up his sleeves, giving his neck a businesslike twist, the Professor strode forward to teach this unwanted visitor a little something about divine retribution.

  Walter puffed his way up the cobbled streets, leading a bewildered savage by a rope. It hadn't occurred to him that the ancient bones might belong to a girl, but Archeo had thankfully been on hand with a vintage mastodon bikini that had been found in sediments of similar age. Actually inducing her to wear the fetid thing had stolen yet more precious minutes. Too bad she wasn't actually going to be any use against the new god.

  The young savage stared in open curiosity at the city, but seemed quite comfortable with the concept of a large metropolis. Her language, when she spoke, showed considerable sophistication. He'd asked Archeo for a proto-human ape-man, a worshipper of primal forces, and they'd screwed up.

  By the time Walter rounded the corner of Broadbent Cathedral, the sky was raining weird squiggly black things. Halfway down the street was a larger cocoon of carnivorous godstuff, and next to it—

  "PROFESSOR!" Walter shouted, dropping the girl's rope. "PROFESSOR, DON'T!" He broke into a dead sprint, dodging the feebly waving blobs in the road.

  Professor Harrington shot him a single look of contempt, drew himself up to his full height, and stuck both his hands into the seething mass. Like a flowing river of leeches, it poured up the professor's body. In moments there was nothing left but a small, glistening pile of something vaguely like soap.

  "Ulp," Walter said, turning around. The road behind him was littered with thrashing horrors, and they didn't look so feeble now. They were growing, getting bigger and faster and much, much nastier. Fangs and weird stinging spines were starting to sprout from various points of their anatomy, and every one of them was crawling toward him with the easy patience of a stalking predator. His few remaining avenues of escape closed off even as he watched. In all, Walter decided, he'd rather not even know what was scraping toward him from behind . . .

  Samanthahotep hopped lithely down the museum steps, tail waving as she beckoned her team onward. Well, a team of one, anyway. Most of the dormant gods had ignored her attempts to rouse them, but rubbing an old helmet had produced a giant Norseman who seemed quite willing to follow her into battle. Samanthahotep smirked as she imagined the next day's headlines. 'GOD DESTROYED BY GODS!' the papers would blare. 'Super God Power Team saves universe! Face of Samanthahotep appears on burnt piece of toast!'

  "Hee hee!" she snickered. This was going to be sooo easy. It was raining ____sat the moment, which she felt lacked class, so she decided to get it over with.

  "All right, folks! Everything you've got! Attack!"

  Grock, God of Thunder, flexed his immense arms and tossed back his long blond hair. Sparks flew between the horns on his helmet and a huge crack of thunder boomed down the street with no visible source.

  Samanthahotep glanced at him. "Hey Grock, great stuff, but maybe you should try some lightning?"

  The giant Norseman looked hurt. "Grock god of thunder!"

  "Oh, for the love of . . ."

  Just then, Iggy ran past, bellowing something incomprehensible. Samanthahotep gasped. There—just down the street—Walter was right in the middle of a converging horde of ____s!

  "WALLY!" she screamed. She didn't think, didn't try. One moment she was just standing there, the next she was surrounded by an honor guard of blazing herons. "Oh boy," she muttered. "After four thousand years, I finally get a Talent. I wonder what the hell it's good for?"

  The slithering ur-things lunged at Wally. There wasn't any time, no time at all. Samanthahotep closed her eyes and sprang into a single endless leap, jumping straight into the heart of darkness.

  Nothing touched her. Nothing stopped her. Eventually she landed.

  "Hello," said Wally's voice, only a bit shaky. "I don't meet a lot of flaming cat-headed women, so this may sound like a bit of a come-on, but . . . do I know you from somewhere?"

  Samanthahotep opened her eyes. Just then, her newfound Talent deserted her. The blazing wall flickered out, the horrid black things resumed closing in, and their deathly chill told her they could hurt even her. Not kill, no, but to spend eternity trapped inside the frigid darkness of the evil one . . .

  Wally stepped in front of her, as if he could shield her with mere flesh. Teeth bared, Samanthahotep searched for some way, any way out . . .

  The pope-gun thundered, both oversize barrels firing saint's bones with total authority into the thing above—but nothing happened. A slightly raised eyebrow was the only change in Anthony Eagleton's expression. He tossed the pope-gun aside, drew the next rifle, and unloaded into the most vulnerable-seeming spot in the monstrosity above. Still nothing. Eagleton gave his head a good shake. When a hippo surprises you in the middle of the Thames, don't feel compelled to fight it with a picnic basket—run like hell for a real gun! He wasn't prepared for this thing, wasn't ready to take it out. Retreat wasn't cowardice—it was sanity.

  Eagleton edged backward, a rifle cradled in each arm, watching for any encroaching horrors—and almost tripped over a brown girl in a fur bikini who was crouched fearfully on the periphery of hell. Hardly taking his eye off the raging god, he helped her up, aimed her down Lancashire Road, and gave her a swift swat on the rump.

  "Go on!" he shouted when she failed to run. "Get out while you can. Go!"

  A blaze of light flashed past him. There—right in the middle of the whole thing—a young man made his stand, and joining him was a catty little goddess who, for all her strangeness, looked somehow familiar. It was obvious that the odds were hopeless. They were as good as dead.

  "Oh hell," Eagleton muttered. "How did I always know it was going to end this way?"

 
And then he was charging directly into the mouth of hell, guns blazing, shouting wordlessly. Time slowed down. Fire and smoke and thunder cleared his path.

  Eagleton halted in front of the other two, shedding a pair of spent rifles. He wheeled around just in time to see the way behind him surge shut. He had one rifle left. One gun—one shot.

  "I can tell you where to shoot!" the young man cried. "I've spent my life studying these things! But can you hit it?"

  Eagleton grinned. "Young feller-me-lad, trust me to know my business, aye?"

  "Wait!" The cat-girl-goddess laid her slender fingers on his rifle. "I don't have much power, but . . . oh!" she said, startled, as his whole rifle began to glow. "Oh my. Where'd that come from?"

  "There!" the young man pointed. "Between the third and the fourth eye!"

  Hell was falling, bringing the sky with it. Eagleton couldn't stop laughing. What a story he'd have to tell. He brought up his rifle, checking his aim . . .