Down Among the Dead

by K. B. Wagers

  “Necessity,” I replied with a smile. “Do you need to talk about it?”

  “No, I will—” She shook her head as the Indranan words failed her and the Farian that followed was incomprehensible to me.

  Aiz leaned down and touched my shoulder. “We need to move; I suspect it’s unwise to linger here for long.”

  We had no way of knowing if the Pedalion would be able to send people after us; if they could, we needed to get to the gods before they did.

  I nodded and got to my feet as he hauled Fasé upright. Aiz murmured something in her ear that put some color back into her cheeks. Fasé reached up and patted his chest. “Thank you,” she said with a smile.

  We headed down the hallway until we reached the T juncture Hao had found, and I looked at Aiz. “Preference?”

  “Aren’t you in charge?”

  I shot him a narrow-eyed glare as the chuckles from the others bounced around the tunnel.

  “We could scout it out,” Hao offered, but Aiz shook his head.

  “We will have to choose. She will have to choose,” he said, pointing at me.

  “Let me guess, Star of Indrana?”

  Aiz grinned and lifted his hands.

  Walking forward to the wall, I put my hands to the surface and closed my eyes.

  Trust your heart, everyone kept saying to me. I dragged in a deep breath and blew it out. Silence dropped around me, a stillness broken only by the beating of my heart.

  For just an instant I felt it, an extra pulse in my left hand. A little tug in that direction. I pulled away and pointed. “This way.”

  49

  The path I’d chosen wound itself in what felt like a spiral that climbed endlessly upward, but it was hard to tell for sure. There were no more sharp turns, just the winding tunnel stretching in front of us.

  As I started to doubt my choice, the voice in my head whispering that we should have gone the other direction and we should turn back, I walked around a curve in the tunnel and stopped.

  The tunnel ended in a round door split down the middle. The surface was blank except for a pair of handles as long as my arms set in the center. I shared a look with Aiz. He nodded, and we moved forward, each grabbing a handle and pulling.

  The door opened easily, far more easily than either of us expected, and I felt Emmory’s hand at my back steady me when I slid.

  “Jo,” Hao said with a jerk of his head. The sounds of weapons powering up was jarring in the silence. Johar nodded and tapped Gita’s fist as they split, sliding in through the opening with their guns at the ready.

  “You’re gonna want to see this,” Johar called, and I slipped past Hao into the room, grinning at his curse.

  Unlike the previous one, this room was filled with light; the surface of everything gleamed so white it hurt my eyes. The star on the floor was an echo of the one in the Pedalion chamber, and above it floated a huge sphere that undulated like the waves of Balhim Bay.

  Johar stuck her hand in it and pulled it back out as the protests rang out from Emmory and Hao. She grinned, touching a finger to her tongue and dancing out of Hao’s reach. “Water,” she announced. “Seawater, actually; the salt content is really high. Some trace minerals, a few things my smati isn’t registering. Interesting.”

  “Breathe,” I murmured, laying a hand on Hao’s shoulder with a soft laugh.

  “She’s going to get herself killed.”

  “Nah. It’s Johar. Easier to stop a battlecruiser with your bare hands.” I took a step closer and put my hands up.

  “Hail.”

  “I’m not going to touch it.” The water was black as the void of space but filled with stars; shimmering sparkles swirled around like the night sky. “Okay, that’s a lie.” I plunged my hands in and the water closed around my forearms.

  Except it didn’t feel like water. It was cool, coating my skin, writhing around it. It felt a bit like a silk sari sliding around me.

  Fingers touched mine.

  I jerked back, bumping into Aiz, who’d come up on my other side. “Bugger me!”

  “What?”

  “Someone’s in there. Someone touched me.” I looked down at my hands. Unlike Jo’s they were completely dry, no water dripping from my fingers onto the white stone floor.

  Aiz plunged his own hands into the sphere and it burst, the droplets raining down like fireworks during Pratimas. We all stumbled back but the drops fell to the ground, running into the spikes of the star until the whole thing shimmered.

  I stared at Aiz and the child he was holding in his arms as he sank to his knees at the center of the star. Her red curls were dry, as was the white long-sleeved dress, and she released him, stepping away as soon as her bare feet found the floor.

  The child folded her hands together. “Greetings, brother. You are here to end your life. This second test has been designed specifically for you to show the gods the strength of your convictions. You must consider all the things you are leaving behind when you go.”

  “Oh, Dark Mother,” I whispered. “That’s Adora.”

  Aiz scrambled back from this young version of his sister, almost crashing into me in the process.

  “What?” Emmory asked.

  “That’s Adora. Her original face, I’m assuming.” A horrible idea was growing in my head, but I wasn’t going to give it a voice until I was certain.

  “I am not here to end my life.” Aiz looked truly panicked for the first time ever.

  “You aren’t, but this place doesn’t care. Get up.” I grabbed Aiz under his arms and helped him to his feet. “We have to go through these trials as if we were petitioners. There’s no way around that.”

  “Star of Indrana.” The child Adora had more respect for me than her adult self, and I smiled at the solemn bow that was directed my way. “We welcome you to the kai pethaménon psychón.”

  “Well of dying souls.” Fasé murmured the translation as she joined me.

  “Yes, I know, Sybil mentioned it before.”

  “Fasé.” Adora gave her a nod of respect. “Welcome.”

  “What is the test?” Aiz found his voice as Mia and Talos stepped up to his side.

  Adora looked at me. “You are the facilitator of this test. Do you accept?”

  “I do.”

  She held out her hands and I went down on a knee to take them. Her next words rang in my head.

  “You know why I am here?”

  I nodded. “I’ve got a pretty good guess. If you want to test the strength of one’s convictions, there’s no better way than to ask them to do something horrible in service of it.”

  Adora smiled. “It is up to you, Star of Indrana, if you wish to break the rules to him gently.”

  “I’m not sure there is a way to do this gently,” I replied. “Isn’t that kind of the point?”

  “Of course not. The point is to have the petitioner look deep into themselves with everything else stripped away. The choice provides that opportunity. You and I are only the tools in this test, but we still have a choice as to how we will go about it.”

  “Are you real?”

  “As is necessary.” She smiled again; the impish twist of her lips made it difficult for me to equate her with the Adora who’d so frequently snarled and frustrated me. I couldn’t even imagine what Aiz was going through at my side.

  It was a vague answer, but I knew I wasn’t getting a better one, and given what I now knew Aiz had to do, I was a little relieved she hadn’t responded more clearly.

  “Hail.”

  I looked at him. “As she said, this is yours,” I said. “The rest of us can’t help you.” I pulled my Glock and put it in his hand. “Kill her and let’s move on.”

  “Hail!” The shock in Emmory’s voice was echoed by Mia, but everyone fell silent when I held up my hand.

  “It’s a test of your convictions, Aiz. Not mine or Mia’s or Fasé’s. But yours. How far are you willing to go to get what you want? As far as this place is concerned, you are erasing yourself from
the universe and that includes your history. What are you willing to sacrifice? What will you stain your soul with? No one else gets to make that choice but you.”

  He was staring at me with a surprising amount of horror on his face. “You want me to kill a child. I won’t lie, if it were adult Adora here I’d probably pull that trigger without a second thought, but this child—”

  “You’ve killed children!” I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “This war of yours has killed thousands. Just because it was sanitized and from a distance doesn’t change the fact. Face that, Aiz, and make a decision. How far are you willing to go for this vengeance of yours?”

  Aiz closed his fingers around the butt of my gun. I held my breath; the desire to say something was a fire in my chest. I knew I couldn’t. This was his choice, his test, and if I influenced him in this moment it could ruin everything.

  So I held my tongue, counted my heartbeats, and sent a silent prayer winging out in the black to Ganesh for the first time in months.

  Mia had a hand pressed to her mouth, and Talos’s eyes were closed as if they both couldn’t believe what was happening. I didn’t look around to the others, could feel Hao’s glare boring into my back. There wasn’t time to explain, and a fight now would possibly push Aiz’s choice one way or the other.

  The child Adora stood calmly, her hands folded at her waist and her platinum eyes brighter than I’d ever seen them.

  “Not that far.” Aiz closed his eyes and shook his head as he opened his hand. “I—I can’t, Hail. I can’t do it.”

  I exhaled.

  “I was really hoping you’d say that.” I took my gun back with a smile and patted his cheek. “Go talk to your sister.”

  “He had a good childhood,” Mia murmured from my side. “Whatever the long years have colored over with his anger or Adora’s twisted obsession with these so-called gods. I remember him talking at times of this memory or another. The gods chose her for a reason. They wanted him to fail this test.”

  “Maybe,” I whispered back, watching as Aiz and the child Adora spoke across the room.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asked.

  I looked over to see her smiling at me. “We assumed these trials are a test—which means pass or fail, right?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “To get to the gods, you must pass the trials.”

  “No. I don’t think so.” I pointed at her. “If that was the case, what was the point of tagging all of us in the first trial? And we all passed it? Seems strange.”

  “Then what? What would the reason be?”

  “They’re just points along a line. Choices to make. Stay in the fantasy or come back to reality for all of us. Kill his sister or talk to her, for Aiz alone. Either one would have moved us forward.” I gestured at the doorway that had appeared on the far side of the room. “But the Aiz who walks out of here isn’t the same one who would have walked out having killed his sister.” I tapped at my temple and grinned. “Choices made change who we are. That’s been hammered enough into my head by this point that I am paying attention.”

  “Hamah was right.”

  I blinked at Mia in surprise. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, that isn’t quite what I meant,” she said, dragging a hand through her still-damp hair. “He wasn’t right, it’s not a corruption, but you’ve changed us. Before you, the Aiz I knew would have taken that gun and blown his sister’s head off without a second thought.” She linked her fingers through mine. “We brought you to us so you would fight for us, but the peace you’ve somehow carried in your wake has tangled itself into our lives and there’s no escaping it.” She swallowed. “It doesn’t seem a fair trade given what you went through.”

  “I’m nothing if not unpredictable,” I said with a soft laugh. “Besides, life isn’t fair. It just is and we work to make things as fair as we can for those around us. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. I’d rather it was me than any of the rest of you.”

  “That’s why we don’t deserve you. You are the calm in the center of a storm, and yet also the storm.” Mia grinned, but there were tears clinging to her lashes. “Anyway, it is not a bad thing, I think, to let go of vengeance. Not if there is another way for my people to be free.”

  I stared at her for a moment before looking down at our joined hands. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to convince the Cevallas to consider another way, but whatever it was, it seemed to have worked.

  “I think they’ve finished talking,” Mia said, and I looked up to see Aiz and Adora crossing back over to us. I got to my feet with Hao’s assistance and tucked my hands into my pockets as they came to a stop in front of me.

  Aiz blew out a breath and offered his sister and Talos an apologetic smile. “I guess we’re done here. I haven’t given up on the Shen. We deserve the peace.” He looked at Fasé. “We all deserve a choice one way or the other. We’ll get out of this cavern and see if we can’t figure out another way to do this. Maybe I can get Kasio to convince the gods to listen or—”

  I shared a look with the child Adora. “You didn’t tell him?”

  She grinned. “It’s more fun this way.” Then she folded her hands together and bowed. “Star of Indrana, we will see you soon.”

  Aiz jumped backward as Adora’s shape changed into the shimmering water and collapsed to the floor, flowing over the white stone until it found its home once again in the star.

  “Tell me what?” he asked, and I grinned, pointing past him to the door that had just opened behind us.

  “You didn’t fail anything, Aiz. We can’t know the strength of our convictions unless they’re tested, unless we question them, unless you’re willing to listen.” I tapped him on the shoulder and headed for the door. “We move on to the next trial.”

  He caught up with me. “Hail, I would not have been able to do this if it weren’t for you. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. For all your faults you are my crew. You are a stubborn asshole and most of the time I want to punch you in the throat.” I winked and smiled. “But sometimes I consider you a friend.”

  The tunnel was the same as the others, black and curving upward, though as we climbed the light grew dimmer until I could barely see my hand in front of my face.

  “Hail, hold up,” Emmory called out, but I’d already stopped.

  “I’ve got this.” Johar passed me, snagging my hand on the way by; I reached for Aiz and together our group continued on through the darkness. “Door,” Jo called, squeezing my hand so I didn’t run into her. “I can’t feel a handle or anything.”

  I tugged on Aiz. “Come here.” He allowed me to pull him forward and press both our hands to the door. There was a click and a bright knife of light pierced the darkness as the door started to open. The noise followed and I heard the rapid-fire orders from Emmory behind me.

  Covering my eyes with a hand and keeping the other on my Glock, I slipped through the opening with Aiz at my back.

  “Holy shit,” Johar breathed.

  We’d come out of the tunnel into an arena; the chanting of the crowd filled the air and shook the ground.

  Or it could have been the three massive figures bearing down on us that were making the sand jump under our feet.

  “Aw, hell,” Hao muttered. “I knew things were going too smoothly.”

  “We’re fighting after all?” Aiz sounded stunned and I didn’t blame him.

  “Looks like,” I said.

  “Not how I wanted this to go,” he muttered, looking at the others behind us.

  “Welcome to my life.” I caught Johar by the collar before she could get past me. “No,” I said firmly. “You all stay back here with Mia and Talos.”

  Mia looked ill, and I touched her face. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” She gave me a little push toward her brother. “You two go, we’ll handle this.”

  There was barely time to exchange grim nods with the others as I crossed quickly to Aiz, and m
y heart was beating hard in my chest as we took off across the sand. I was moving on autopilot to meet the threat coming at us. This one was mine, I realized as I sprinted across the arena at Aiz’s side. My test. My choice.

  “This isn’t real,” I said, the truth dawning on me between one breath and the next. I skidded to a halt, dropping my hands with a sigh. “Thank Shiva; Aiz, stop.”

  Aiz stopped, the confusion chasing across his face. “Hail?”

  “This isn’t real.” I shook my head, stepping around him as the three gods came to stand in front of us. But they weren’t Farian.

  They were our gods.

  “Emmory, are you seeing this?” I asked over the com.

  “I am, Majesty.” There was awe in his voice.

  Shiva, blue-skinned with a snake around his neck and the universe in his eyes. Kali with her blue-black skin, her necklace of skulls, and her multitude of arms. And Ganesh, my elephant-headed father with his endless patience and brightly painted trunk.

  I straightened my shoulders and cleared my throat so that my words would carry across the whole arena rather than the illusion in front of me. “We are not here to fight. You wanted to see me. We are here to talk. We are here to listen.”

  The crowd, the arena all vanished, revealing a large chamber with curved walls and a domed ceiling. But the gods didn’t vanish and confusion washed over me.

  “Dark Mother.” I could do nothing beyond fold my hands together and bow. Belief or not, I would show respect.

  A horrible smile split Kali’s face as she folded her hands together, bowing her head in return. The other two followed her lead and a gasp slipped out of me as I lifted my head.

  Now they were Farian, with wild red hair and shining metallic eyes in bronze, silver, and gold, but they were taller than any Farian I’d seen. They towered over me, dressed in sleeveless tunics of white over the top of black pants. Their headpieces were similar to the lace ones of the Council of Eyes, though one had spikes jutting out into the air.

  The woman in the middle—the being in the middle—tipped her head to the side and studied me. Her silver eyes shone. “Welcome, Star of Indrana; we have been waiting for you.”