After a minute I assumed the island was looking at me, since it'd stopped. “Hi,” it said in the friendliest tone I'd gotten since my arrival. “What's your name?”
There were a couple mounds of rocks that might have been eyes, but they also could have been just rocks. Anyway, I addressed the rock piles. “Ryanmax,” I replied cheerily. Then because my brain is so poorly attached to my body, I held out a hand to shake, Yeah, I wanted to shake hands with a small island.
One of the few lucky breaks I'd caught came my way. It dipped the tree and a branch slapped up against my hand. I shook it. “Hemnoplop,” it said. “It's so nice to meet you, Ryanmax. Why are you following us?”
“Oh, I'm not following you.”
“Yes you are,” challenged the centaur. “We left Bardol as three, not four. You snuck up on us intentionally.”
I snuck up on an island moving maybe one mile per hour? This horse had attitude.
“No, friend, I caught up with you. I was out for a stroll, saw your happy band and decided to join you.”
“That's a lie,” whinnied the stallion. “You can't join us unless you're invited.”
I turned my focus to Hemnoplop's rock piles. “New friend Hemnoplop, may I join your merry band of travelers?”
“Of course. The more the merrier.” Then the island giggled. “Hey, I made a funny. Our merry band will be merrier.”
“Technicality overcome,” I said to the centaur smugly.
“It doesn't count in …”
The humanoid placed a hand on the centaur's mane. “Let it go, Livryatous. It is not worth arguing the matter.”
Livryatous clomped his hooves in an agitated manner. “For a centaur everything is worth arguing. It's what we do.”
“Along with taking a crap on your fellow traveler's feet,” I peppered in.
“How …”
“Livryatous, leave it. You did soil his boots after all.” He pointed at them to make his point.
“It was an accident, Wul. Accidents don't count.”
“Don't count as what?” I asked. “They sure count in terms of making boots dirty and stinky.”
“My … my passings don't stink,” he defended rather lamely.
Wul put a second hand on the centaur. “We are not having that conversation,” he implored with closed eyes. He stepped over to me. “I am Wul, god of business and enterprise. Pleased to meet you, Ryanmax.” While still shaking my hand he added, “I don't believe we met. I also don't recall seeing you at any conclaves.”
“Nor I you. Not too surprising, I guess. I kind of prefer to live in isolation way to the south.” I prayed there were north-south directions in wherever the hell I was.
“You keep to yourself?” spat Livryatous. “By choice or ostracization from decent society?”
“You choose, Liv. It'll be fine with me however you call it.”
He stomped a few paces toward me. “No one calls me Liv and lives.”
I stared at him, daring him to go for it. Then Hemnoplop broke the tension. “Hey, you made a funny too. No one calls you Liv and liv-es.” He chuckled happily.
“It isn't funny, so please stop making a fool of yourself,” groused Liv.
“Why? I am a fool. I don't mind. Liv. Come on, you know I'm Fool's Island, the place everyone wishes all the fools'd be sent to.”
“Of course we know that, Hemnoplop,” assured Wul. Back to me he said, “Are you passing through or relocating, Ryanmax?”
“The first with an eye toward the second,” I responded.
“I say you keep going,” snarled Liv. What a jerk.
To defuse tension Wul asked, “Since you're new to me, Ryanmax, might I inquire what you are the god of?” He looked furtively to the ground. “Ah, sorry, you are a god, am I correct, and not a …”
“A demigod, emanation, or force of nature?” I finished his thought to prove I was in the know. I lowered my brow. “Or an antigod?”
That got a reaction from all three. Hemnoplop’s tiny legs withdrew and he hit the dirt hard, causing a minor earthquake. Livryatous peed like—well, I have to say how, right?—like a racehorse.
Wul got the oddest look on his face. Fear, anger, and embarrassment. “Uh, Ryanmax, I would … er … we … you know we don't speak of … them outside of conclave?”
“Not generally. Sorry. My lame attempt at humor.” I bowed deeply.
Livryatous's mouth had frothed up, and his tail spun like a pinwheel nailed to a fencepost. “I will register a formal complaint. Yes, that's what I shall do. No one jokes about an … ant … them.”
“Calm yourself, Livryatous,” said Wul. “Our new friend is perhaps less familiar with our, er, reservations concerning that element.”
“Or more so.” I spoke darkly, like I was in a cheap horror movie. “You asked what I was god of. I'll tell you. Warriors.”
Wul reacted like I'd slapped him across the face. Hemnoplop even stood up sort of quickly. Liv, well he remained in his perpetual huff.
“You're not trying to tell me you're a second god of war, are you?”
Liv cut in. “Azacter would not be pleased to hear such a thing spoken.” There was actual reverence in his tone.
“No, I didn't say war. I said warrior. The grunts, the kid in the foxhole trembling in fear because he's covered in what's left of his buddy, who was just blown to hell because he was unlucky enough to be two feet to the crying kid's right, so the RPG struck his chest. I'm no self-impressed god of the shit that is war, gloried in gold armor and my head stuck up my ass. No,” I thumbed my chest angrily, “I'm the god of the young people who die for old men’s folly. And you know what?”
They were all wide-eyed and silent.
“If they pray to me hard enough and are so scared they can't remember why it is they're sitting in that foxhole covered in their buddy, I might even throw them a bone and grant their wish.” I sat on the dirt. “Eight times out of ten that wish, by the way, is to die quickly and soon.” I harrumphed humorlessly. “The other two out of tens are to be at home with their mommy or be cuddled up next to a plump camp woman by a hot fire, the both of them so drunk they think they're in love. You gotta know which of those I generally grant.”
My audience was impressed. Even Livryatous was dumbstruck. Finally Hemnoplop squeaked, “Are you going as f … far as Beal's Point? That's where we're headed.”
“Heading there myself, new friend. I was heading to that very spot.”
NINETEEN
“It is obvious my brood-mate will not be returning,” Sapale said solemnly to the assembly. “I say it's time to act. Jon Ryan went to these devils and died trying to abort their invasion. I say this time we go in force, we hit them hard, and we bring back their hides to make rugs out of.” She was knuckling the table stiffly as she spoke. Sapale sat slowly and rigidly. She was not going to cry. That time had long past.
Kwan Qui was head of military operations for JCFIDAC, the Joint Council for Interplanetary Defense and Cooperation. It had been formed years back to combat the Adamant threat and had grown since then. Over fifty planetary systems were full members, and many smaller worlds sat as auxiliary participants. Kwan stood to speak. He was nearly five meters tall, typical of male Solthian. That made him an imposing figure by any species' standard. “I heard your thoughts,” he responded, tapping his chest with a fist and then opening it toward Sapale. It was a Solth custom meaning he felt her pain and treasured her words. “Your mate has been gone over a year. Many would begin to lose hope for his safe return or for the success of his mission.” He shook his exclamation-point-shaped head slowly, as though it weighed even more than its original thirty kilograms. “I, however, do not share your assessment, brood's-mate of Jon Ryan.” He held a hand up and shook several tentacles toward the ceiling. “Time may pass very differently where he is. And how can one say how long it takes a clever and determined man to bring down an empire of gods?” He suctioned several tentacles to his chest. “I for one do not. I can't even guess. That neither Jo
n Ryan nor any evidence of his fortune have returned to us is reassuring to me. Yes, it gives me reason to hope that he is still … how does he say it? Ah yes. Sticking it to them where the star don't shine.”
A few snickers erupted from Kwan Qui's gaffe. Likely that was his intent.
“Okay. You're correct as usual,” Sapale responded with ungoverned intensity. “I say we swarm to his aid. Ride in like holo heroes, white hats and everything, guns blazing. Our attack could only help.”
Solth culture was based on teachings similar to Daoism. That bias explained Kwan's reply. “Weapons are ominous tools. The wise ruler only uses them when he can’t avoid it. If we rush to aid your mate when his plans surely do not hinge on that assault, our efforts might well negate his. He would either have to reveal himself to be our ally and rally to our side, or lament alone after witnessing our deaths, knowing he did not lift a finger to save us.”
“Plus, Ms. Ryan,” another member added, “don't think for a minute that we know how the transport to the place, wherever it is, works. Just because a fully armed company left here together does not mean that they'd end up there together or that they'd still armed to the teeth.”
“The Ms. Ryans of the past are all dead,” Sapale snapped with a soft growl. “I,” she rested a palm on her chest, “am Sapale to you and anyone else who doesn't know differently.”
“Sorry,” replied Carter Brax, a representative of Galactor. The system was fairly new to JCFIDAC. He bowed repeatedly at a frantic pace. “I meant no offense.”
“None need be intended to be delivered,” she responded coolly.
Xanth-chromafin, the current prime minister of JCFIDAC, rose unsteadily. Being a globular gelatinous creature, it had little option but to quiver. “Sapale, I understand you are in pain. Your loss has been great.” It oozed an extension in the direction of the general assembly. “But so suffered have many of us. Some less and some much more so. Be it your intention to wrap yourself in the singular glory of victim is not to be helpful. If to go to the ancient gods we will, it must be only after long interactive thought and discussion like be this now.” Again a gooey protuberance swept the room. “The best for the many be our goal, not the best for the one.”
“So,” Sapale responded, barely able to keep her rage corked up, “JCFIDAC refuses to act. This I knew before I came because I am a mother. I know how frightened children act. If you won't act, I will.” Looking to the floor, she turned and rushed from the room.
TWENTY
The walk to Beal's Point took us a week. Good thing we were all immortal. Yeah, when one's pace was set by a small rocky island, one needed the luxury of unbounded time to compensate for the molasses-in-January speed. By the time we arrived I had been in La La Land for the better part of a month. I continued to be ecstatic that I was not only still alive, but I was successfully pawning myself off as a god. Fortunately for me, if any human could pull off such a ruse, it would've been yours truly. Cockiness, it turned out, went a long way in selling one's godliness.
During the final two days of our trek, it became clear to me the large structures I'd assumed were buildings in a city weren't buildings. The objects were tall, but they were spires or towers, not habitable structures. Why my traveling companions were going to Beal's Point now became unclear to me. I'd assumed we were, you know, heading to the next town. Time to pump my pals.
“Every time I come to Beal's Point I'm more impressed, aren't you?” I said generally. Open-ended questions had been working well for me because Hemnoplop suffered from a bad case of the can't-shut-ups.
“Oh me too,” he replied in his childish patent-medicine-salesman voice. “It's so, so … well, I don't know, but it is.”
The ever surly Livryatous quipped, “Do you even listen to what you say, Hemn? Really.”
“What?” he defended breathlessly.
“I don't know, but it is? That's nonsensical in its poorest form.”
“Why must you constantly berate him?” scolded Wul. “He never said he was the god of eloquence or college language professors. The demigod's an island for fools.”
Livryatous’s only comeback was to throat a dubious grunt.
“What about you, Wul? What keeps you coming back to Beal's Point?” I asked casually.
“What keeps me coming back? Ryanmax, we've only just met, so I can't yet tell if you're serious or not. I come back,” he pointed to Livryatous, “he comes back,” then he slapped the side of the island, “and he returns for the same reason you do. We must. Please don't joke about such a sacred obligation.”
Oh crap, stepped in the doggy doo-doo again, didn't I? “No, I meant to say—duh, we have to—but what do you enjoy most about the place?” Yeah, that's what I meant—I hoped.
“Enjoy about Beal's Point?” My, he sounded incredulous.
“Yeah.”
“What,” he turned the tables, “do you find most enjoyable about Beal's Point?”
I needed to start using a smaller shovel to dig these holes I continued to excavate for myself.
I smiled and swaggered. I know, swaggering is dangerous if used unwisely, but I needed to put some real spin on my response. “Leaving it when I'm done.”
Wul stared at me a few seconds, during which I was glad I no longer had a bladder to lose control of. Then he burst out laughing. He put a hand on my shoulder and shook me. “Leaving it. That's superb. Me too. That's what I like the best.”
“Don't quote me, but that's true for me also,” grumbled Livryatous.
We turned as one to Hemnoplop. “What?” he protested.
“We were wondering what your answer to my question might be,” I replied.
“What question, or should I say which question? You've asked so many.”
Was this god for real? “The one about Beal's Point.”
Approximately two minutes later he said flatly, “I don't recall a question about Beal's Point. I was thinking of water. I probably missed that one. Sorry.”
Water. He was so preoccupied thinking about H2O he missed Wul's hysterics? Dude's head was as thick as the rock on his outside. “Never mind,” I said as I started walking again. “It was a dumb question.”
Wul chuckled quietly to himself. “Leaving it,” he repeated under his breath.
“Hemn,” I began a while later, after we'd moved maybe ten meters, “mind if I ask what you were thinking about water?”
“No, Ryanmax. I love to talk.”
I'd alert the media on that news flash.
“I was thinking that water is nice.”
“Nice?”
“Yes, it is, you know?”
A demigod with the mind of a toddler. Sure. Why not? I was certain the universe needed at least one of those.
“Yes it is. Nicest liquid I know of.” I couldn't actually press him too much. Even I had standards. Never mock someone who lacked the mental wherewithal to defend himself.
“Isn't it?” he exploded. “I mean, I can't think of another liquid off the top of my mind, but if I could it wouldn't be as nice.”
“Lava,” blurted out Livryatous. “It's liquid stone,” he said absently.
“Oh, I don't like lava. It scares me.”
“As well it should,” I said, patting his nearest shoreline. “It's very hot.”
“How can it scare you?” snapped a now irritated Livryatous. “If it gets too close you just step away.”
That's easy for you to say,” whined Hemnoplop.
Livryatous nodded a few times. “Touché, my friend. I deserved that.”
“You deserved what?” Hemn asked with childlike innocence.
“Let it go, you two. A silent interlude is most welcome,” Wul said firmly. I guessed he was the leader of the band.
Finally the day came when we formally arrived at Beal's Point. The site itself was a large, flat semicircular outcropping of rock ending in a sheer cliff. The poignancy of my quip that leaving it was the best aspect of the dump became immediately clear. Whoever constructed it was eit
her blind, sick in the head, or had a bad sense of humor. Maybe all three. The tall towers I'd initially taken to be buildings in a city were pedestals holding up enormous statues. The stands varied from tens to hundreds of meters tall. Most were ridiculously thin and structurally unjustifiable. They should have collapsed from their own weight even without the statues they bore. God construction seemed to have its own set of rules.
What was really offensive, though, were the statues themselves. Talk about shlock art. The best comparison I can give is that if the moron who invented black velvet Elvis painting ever switched to stone, I was looking at his handiwork. Not one figure was acceptable. The body parts were all out of proportion to one another, and the features like hands and faces were both ham-handedly carved and revolting. Maybe, I flashed, there were gods of unart, nonart, and the opposite of art, and they got drunk one long weekend and barfed up these monstrosities.
Wul led the way and we all followed. We would pass one grotesque monument, bow to it, mumble something I never did figure out, and then we'd head for the next mockery. Given that we were anchored with Hemnoplop's painfully slow pace, I suffered a thousand deaths with each hideous monument. Livryatous continually clomped his hooves, indicating to me he favored bolting. For once I agreed with him. Then it struck me. I felt different, odd in a way I hadn't before. You know the expression of feeling like someone's walking over my grave? Up until that point I had no idea what that might have meant. Now I did. That was precisely what I experienced. It definitely had to do with these terrible obelisks.
“Hey, fellas,” I shouted out to my companions, “I just realized I missed something a couple towers back. Keep going and I'll catch up.”
The looks from Wul and Livryatous were along the lines of you have maggots in your brain. Oblivious Hemnoplop continued ahead blithely.
I wandered back far enough that I was out of sight of the others. Slipping behind a massive plinth, I quickly ran a set of diagnostics. All systems were optimal. The only issue I identified was that my compass application gave inconstant directions. Weird but nothing critical. It suggested there was an unusually large magnetic flux in my vicinity. Only problem was that there wasn't one. I began assaying my surroundings, searching for a cause of my creepy feeling. There was no unusual radio frequency traffic, no abnormal radiation levels, and nothing toxic in the air. I found nothing that could cause what I seemed to be only imagining.
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