by Alex Raizman
Enki shook his head. “Shh. Look. Watch.”
As Ishtar did, she saw another Ishtar engage the beasts. Endless Void, he even got my movements right. Her double danced among them, a storm of steel and thunder. They clawed at her, creatures of smoke and talon. As Ishtar watched, one of them even raked her Nanoverse duplicate across the back, and Ishtar’s own hand involuntarily went up to where she’d received the same wound.
“They’re us, Ishtar.” Enki said in her ear, almost startling her into jumping. “I recreated everything perfectly. This world is going to be flooded soon, as they almost always are.”
Ishtar shuddered at the thought. Thousands of lives, snuffed out, and Enki didn’t care. Something else about what he said nagged at her, but she couldn’t quite place it. “Enki...why? Why torment them like this? For that matter, why torment yourself like this?”
If Enki saw the horror of what he was doing, it didn’t show on his face. “I’ve added a small variant. What did you call it? Chaos theory. They are exactly like us, but they still have free will. So sometimes they choose differently. Anu holds the bridge across the Tigris because he brought Enlil, putting aside that damnable grudge. You and I go together to the nests hidden in Ur, instead of Utu and me. Different variations each time.”
As horrified as she was, Ishtar had to admit it was a damn effective learning tool, if you were willing to cast aside any shred of decency and morality. Which, apparently, Enki is. “And what changed?”
“Nothing. Every single time we lost. No matter what we did, this world lost to Lamashtu until they wiped the land clean with some disaster. Tornadoes, flooding, earthquakes. Something to deter the Mother of Monsters, seal her back below the earth.”
“Then why show me?” Ishtar asked, nearly shouting. “You now have proof that we did the right thing, that we-” Finally the earlier thought sunk in, and Ishtar stopped to stare at Enki with an open mouth. “This world?” she asked, her heart pounding. “Enki, what have you done?”
Instead of answering, Enki ran his hands over the control panel, and they flew to the next solar system. The next exact same solar system. It was Earth, all over again. The flew down on another River Valley, another Sumeria, where Anu was being torn apart by Lamashtu’s horrors. “On this world that wandering storyteller, Anansi, joined us. We still lost.” Again his fingers ran through the cuneiform, and again they moved to another solar system, another Sumeria. Ishtar watched in horror as Enki’s head was bitten off. “Here the Aesir responded to our call for aid. We still lost.” Yet again he brought them to another world. “Here all of us save you committed suicide so you could make us into monsters to fight her monsters. We still lost.”
Ishtar was speechless as world after world flashed by. A world where they had unleashed the caged Titans, who promptly had joined Lamashtu. A world where they had found Lamashtu the moment she emerged, before she could marshal her power. A world where they never flooded, and Lamashtu’s monsters consumed the remainder of humanity. On and on and on. Every time Ishtar watched one of the Seven die before they moved on to the next one. A million Earths, orbiting a million suns, with a million river valleys being invaded by a million Lamashtus and defended by seven million Gods that Decree. The same situation, playing over and over again, each world resetting as soon as they flooded the valley.
“Enough!” Ishtar finally screamed, tears streaming down her face. “Enki, what is the point of this. Why are you showing me this...this abomination you created?”
“One more world, Ishtar. One more world and I promise it will be clear.”
They flew to the next Earth, Ishtar shaking with horror at everything Enki had done.
On this world, Enki’s double was fighting Lamashtu directly. Ishtar shuddered at seeing her again. Standing three times as tall as a building, Lamashtu’s chitinous body sat atop a bed of tentacles. Individual arms ended in stingers that lashed out at Enki, who was...blocking them? None of them had been able to do that. Ishtar’s eyes narrowed. Enki wasn’t just blocking them. Enki was winning. The monsters lay broken and dead around the battlefield, and the people were cheering!
“How?” Ishtar managed to choke out. Then she saw it. Around this Enki’s neck, a string of beads. What Enki had called godstones, the things that stood in for nanoverses.
Nanoverse Enki wore seven.
“With seven stones, they can hold off Lamashtu. Fight her directly. Had more power than even Lamashtu could muster. With seven nanoverses, I could have done the same thing. Don’t you see, Ishtar? With that much power, I could make sure we never failed again. With the power of enough nanoverses, I could even prevent the end you came to warn us about. I could abolish death itself!”
“Enki…” Ishtar took a deep breath. “Enki, it’s impossible. Nanoverses cannot be shared.”
“I’ll find a way,” Enki said, and here Ishtar fully saw what she feared in those eyes, the gleam she’d only glimpsed earlier.
Enki, her first friend among humanity, the first human she’d ever trusted, the man who had become the first of the new gods, had gone mad.
“Did the others give this Enki their godstones willingly?”
Enki shook his head. “He had to slay them and claim them. I don’t want it to be like that for us, Ishtar. We can be different. You and the others don’t need to die.” Ishtar could finish the thought for him though, see what he wasn’t saying. But you will if you refuse. Enki held out his hand. “Give me your nanoverse, Ishtar. If you do, the others will follow.”
Ishtar’s mind raced. “Not here, Enki.” The other god frowned, and Ishtar continued before he did something rash. “You’re omnipotent here. The others will never believe I gave it willingly. We have to return to the core world. There I can give it to you with no doubt I did so of my own free will. The others won’t question that.”
Enki stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Of course. We can’t have that. But you will?”
Ishtar gave him a smile she hoped did not look forced. “Of course, Enki. It’s the only way.”
◆◆◆
“Of course as soon as we were back in the sodding core, I blasted him with everything I had and ran. Found the others. I helped them get away, and then I kept running. It was the beginning of the Dynastic period for Sumer, when it became more secular, since the gods had apparently murdered each other or vanished. I lost track of him for centuries afterwards, and then we ran into each other in the Crusades. He didn’t know I was still alive, tried to kill me again. I had to rabbit, and don’t see him again until he popped up trying to kill you."
Ryan sat in silence. After collecting her thoughts a bit more, Crystal took a deep breath, shifting her shoulders as ifto get rid of a weight. "Anyway, I think spending so much time in his nanoverse while replaying the whole thing is part of what drove him so mental. So take it as a cautionary tale, love. Your nanoverse isn't your playground, and it can warp you if you let it. Go every couple weeks - anywhere from ten thousand to a couple hundred thousand years local time, depending on how time flowed that period - make sure you prune the dead branches and plant some good soil - but otherwise leave it alone."
"Yeah, will do." He watched her take a few more deep breaths. "The story helped. But are you okay?"
She gave him a smile that came nowhere near her eyes. "Of course I am! Just some old wounds, that's all - they'll fade right quick."
Ryan considered pressing her, but Athena chose that moment to return from her nanoverse journey. Or maybe she'd been back and waiting for the story to end - Ryan could see her doing that.
"How'd things go?" Athena asked, looking at Ryan.
"Ugh. Apparently giving primitive people a bunch of advanced science with no context turns them into assholes, and them being assholes makes you one too." He rolled his eyes.
"I thought that was a possible outcome of your actions. Did you deal with it?"
"Yeah. Why didn't you warn me when I gave them the book?"
Athena looked at C
rystal, who gave her a supportive shrug, then back to Ryan. "Some lessons are better learned through experience.”
Ryan stared at her. “Athena, what the hell? It was a lesson?”
Athena nodded.
“That’s...that’s messed up. A lesson learned through experience for me came at the cost of millennia of horror! Hundreds of thousands years of suffering, created because you didn’t give me a heads up! We could have stopped that.”
Athena shook her head. “Suffering happens, Ryan. A general cannot spend her time worrying about every individual soldier in her army.”
“Army?” Ryan recoiled. “Athena, these are real people! They have lives and hopes and dreams! It’s wrong to just let them suffer like that.”
“I suppose,” Athena said, but it lacked conviction. Ryan shook his head. He couldn’t take the argument any further, or he’d be screaming at Athena. She took it as an opportunity to move on and turned to Crystal. “Any luck with a location for our battle with Enki?"
"Oh yes. Think this is our best bet." She pointed to a spot in the ocean north of Canada, in that huge chunk of islands that made up much of the northern part of the country. "Graham island. About two kilometers across in both directions, home to zero people. Big enough for a proper dust up, yeah? But no innocents in the crossfire."
Athena nodded. "That sounds optimal. So I guess there's naught else to do but prepare our challenge."
Both Ryan and Crystal voiced agreement. "I think it should be me," said Ryan, "to give the challenge, I mean. I think he hates me most, so if I'm the one to call him out, he's likely to respond."
"That also sounds optimal. So, what do you need?"
"Nothing we can get here. Give me a couple hours to draft the message, and then let’s give Gail a call."
Ryan headed back into his nanoverse, giving Athena and Crystal time to catch up, and sat down to figure out how to best convince Enki to RSVP to a War.
Chapter 22
Wargames
Enki’s staging area was carved from bones, hundreds of leg bones laid together to form a platform, and his command console was composed of skulls that were carved with runes. And yet he wants to claim heroism, Bast thought. He’s every bit as gauche as Moloch. And these are your allies. “Bast! Moloch! So good of you to show up. How’s the Eschaton, hmm?” Enki’s smile was wide, but Bast noted the way the veins in his forehead bulged, and the red discoloration to his skin.
Bast growled, wondering if she would have to draw weapons. Here in Enki’s staging area, they were still on equal footing, but if he dropped it into his nanoverse…I won’t allow that. She took a moment to observe the layout in case it came down to a fight, to get ready to get between Enki and his control runes. Realizing Enki was going to stare at her expectantly until she gave him what she wanted, she spat out an answer. “He was distracted.”
“Gosh gee whiz, Bast, you don’t say? You and Moloch, you unleashed an entire army of mummies, and you couldn’t kill one little-”
“Enough, Enki.” To Bast’s surprise, it was Moloch who interrupted the brute. He clenched his rotten teeth with such force Bast had to wonder if they’d snap out of his head. Then he continued. “He arrived before they had a chance to create a city of Manticores for me, else he would have been slain. And the new King of Hell has severed ties with me. We need an advantage, so spare me your recriminations and offer something useful.”
“Getting real sick of your shit, Moloch,” Enki growled, the fake cheer dropping at meteoric speeds. “I expect some damn initiative from you two. He was unconscious. Athena was completely drained. You could have killed them in without breaking a sweat. Why the hell didn’t you?”
“We were supposed to distract him. You’re holding out, Enki. We want our payment, and we-”
Enki cut her off with a snarl. “I’ll give you your shit, Bast, but I’ll do it on my own time. Especially since, now, I got some actual work done.”
Enki turned and waved, the galaxies moving around them. For a moment, Bast thought they were dropping into his nanoverse, but then realized Enki was showing them an image.
The view resolved on a fleet of ships. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. As Bast narrowed her eyes, she could see glimmers even further in the distance - similarly sized fleets. Warships, fighters, cruisers, solar cannons, destroyers - every imaginable type of spaceship. “Impressive, Enki,” she commented, glancing at the obscenely proud god. “Impressive, but useless. What point is there to making such an armada in your nanoverse?”
“Maybe if you’d wait a bit, Bast, you’d see. Watch and shut the hell up.”
Once this is done, I will kill you. The thought wasn’t a threat or a promise, just a realization. Moloch, at least, showed her the respect due to a fellow deity. Enki had gone too far, long ago, and she wouldn’t suffer the indignity indefinitely. For now, however, they needed him, so she shut her mouth and watched.
In front of the vessels space began to warp and twist, forming what looked like wormholes - but they were wrong, a fundamental unnaturalness to them that caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand to attention like soldiers. She saw Moloch’s eyes widen - he felt it too.
“What abomination is this, Enki?” she asked, feeling sick looking at those gaping holes in reality.
“Oh, just the culmination of five thousand years of work; and that’s core world time...” His grin widened as the ships flew through. “Just an invasion.”
Moloch spoke here, his normally hoarse voice now carrying a slight tremble. Is that fear, Moloch? Do you feel it too? “Invasion of where?”
Enki pulled out a pair of small black orbs. Nanoverses. Only they weren’t separate anymore, instead looking like a pair of cells halfway through mitosis. “I finally did it. You two wanted to destroy Týr’s nanoverse - I decided conquest was a better option. Two nanoverses are under my domain now.”
Bast’s heart pounded, and Moloch’s face froze. “It’s impossible!” she blurted out - not because she didn’t believe what her eyes and divine senses were telling her, but out of some desperate hope that denial would undo the truth.
“No, Bast. It’s very, very possible. And you both are going to, right here right now, get down on your faces in full on supplication, or I’ll kill you and add your nanoverses to my collection.” He let them stand there dumbfounded for a few seconds, basking in their expressions, but then those beady eyes narrowed. “Right. Now.”
Bast did, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Moloch doing the same. They prostrated themselves the way their worshippers once had before them.
“That’s it, right there. That’s how it should be. So here’s the plan - keep your head down, Moloch, I didn’t give you permission to move - we’re going to kill Athena, Ishtar, and the Eschaton. I’m going to merge their nanoverses into mine. I’ll be the Eschaton then. And then, once that’s done, we give everyone an option - join or die. If you two haven’t pissed me off between now and then, you’ll get to stay on the ‘join’ side. If you have...well, there’s always room for more. You may rise and speak now.”
Bast did, trying to unclench her jaw as she stood. Moloch, also, seemed to have schooled his expression. “There’s still the little matter of our price, Enki.” Bast saw his face, saw the veins of rage return, and amended herself before his temper could spiral out at her, “Lord Enki.” That, at least, seemed to mollify him.
“Not to worry, Bast. I’ll make sure you know where to find what you’re looking for if things go to shit in the last fight. I don’t know why you want it so badly, but I don’t give a shit anymore, because you’re my bitch now, and you’ll tell me when it’s important, right?”
Moloch’s nod was a slow motion, while Bast couldn’t even manage that, instead baring her teeth in what she hoped was a grin of agreement.
Enki turned his attention to Moloch, as if the nod reminded Enki that Moloch still existed. “Aww, poor little baby-killer. Don’t worry Moloch, we’re going to wreck that little whore’s da
y so hard she’ll be nothing other than an example of why you don’t mess with me. We good?”
“Yes,” Moloch hissed between rotten teeth, “we are good.”
“Good. Now get out of my sight, and make sure you come when called. Go. And find the Eschaton while you’re at it!”
They both did, and when they were out of his nanoverse they shared a moment born of pain and humiliation.
Enki had to die. The only things more important than that - the only reasons not to cast their lot with the Eschaton and his guiding goddesses - were getting their promised prizes. What’s that term? Sunk cost Fallacy. But this is important. You can endure a bit longer, Bast. Moloch’s face said the same, and they shared a nod.
“Well, my dear, that was unexpected. Any suggestions how we might find the Eschaton now? I doubt our....no, I can’t keep up the pretense when he is not present. I can’t imagine that self-important heap of sentient offal will tolerate a delay.”
Bast reached into her pocket, which was buzzing. She’d set up some alerts on her phone - guns weren’t the only way she embraced modernity. After reading the screen, she showed the headline to Moloch.
Ryan Smith to Enki - “Let’s End This.” Underneath the headline was a picture of Ryan, and a brief blurb, “Ryan Smith, the alleged Antichrist, has issued a challenge to Enki, calling him out for a final confrontation.”
“Should we tell him?”
Moloch thought for a moment. “I need a few hours before I can endure his arrogance again. You?”
“Same. But at least we won’t have to wait long.”
Soon. They’d both have what they wanted, Ishtar, Athena, and the Eschaton would be unmade - and then, before he could claim their nanoverses, so would Enki.
Chapter 23
Theomachy
Ryan’s first impression of Graham island was grey. The sky was grey, the rocks were grey from the smallest pebbles to the largest boulder. Ryan shivered as the cold air hit him. It was a habit - he didn’t actually feel uncomfortable, but the air was cold and his body was telling him it was time to shiver. Given that some of the patches between the rocks were filled with ice, his body might have a point. C’mon, Ryan, it’s easier than not breathing.