Scourged

by Kevin Hearne

  “Yes!” That deserved a fist pump, for Laksha had succeeded. She had left Mhathini’s mind, shot through the ether, and executed a hostile takeover of Jörmungandr’s brain. She had, no doubt, simply shoved its spirit out entirely, as she did in her earliest years whenever she felt like using a new body. To prevent Jörmungandr from settling back in, however, she’d have to occupy that brain and defend it until it died. And once it died in the water, she’d die too. Creatures of the ether don’t do well in the water.

  But Laksha had just willingly sacrificed herself to save Ireland, minus a few sheep, and she went with a lighter heart and soul than I had ever known her to possess. It was one hell of a good deed, and a counter to Loki’s plans he could not have anticipated. That it also happened to save my own personal potatoes was beside the point: I’d be putting it all on the line before the day was through. And like Jörmungandr, I fully expected to exit this life via the unexpected, and people would find my body as they find so many others, staring at eternity in surprise. I felt prepared for most everything I could think of, but what kept my mind racing at night was worrying about what I hadn’t thought of. Because just as I had managed a quick and abrupt removal of a key chess piece from Loki’s board, the god of mischief and lies had no doubt prepared some surprises for our side. He had never expected someone like Laksha to get involved, and I had only vague ideas of what to expect when I got to Sweden.

  But if I am honest, I did feel a bit giddy and self-congratulatory in that moment for thinking of a solution to Jörmungandr’s rise that would benefit everyone. I might have even succumbed to the urge to quote some Shakespeare.

  I squatted down next to Mhathini, entirely too pleased with myself. “Ligarius said in Julius Caesar, Now bid me run, And I will strive with things impossible; Yea, get the better of them. But he never did anything like that, did he?”

  “Mmmh?” Mhathini stirred, and her next words were not in English but Hindi. Fortunately, that was a language I knew, though I’d had few reasons to speak it in recent years.

  “Where am I? Ireland?”

  “Yes. Welcome.”

  “Who are you?” She frowned and her whole body tensed.

  “You can call me Atticus or Connor, whichever you prefer.”

  She breathed out in relief and relaxed. “Good. Laksha said you’d help me.”

  “And so I will.”

  Mhathini sat up. Her voice, while obviously using the same set of vocal cords that Laksha had used, possessed a slightly different timbre. A softer edge to it. Or perhaps it was the different language we were speaking, I’m not sure.

  “Laksha said she was trying to prevent the end of the world but it might still happen in spite of her. Is that true?”

  “Yes. Both things are true. She did her part, but it still might happen.”

  “I see.” She looked down at Laksha’s ruby necklace around her neck and brought her slim fingers to it, considering, or perhaps silently praying. I let her take all the time she needed, and it was only a couple of minutes before her fingers dropped away and she looked up at me. “Well, thank you for being here. I didn’t ever think I’d get to see the sun again, and even if it’s only for a little while, I’m glad I have this time. It’s good to have a friend at the end of the world.”

  i spare a worried glance at the swarming cloud of demons erupting from Seven Star Mountain and then look at my bubble tea, which the Monkey King insists I must enjoy right now.

  “I don’t know, Wukong. Maybe the demons are more important? I can always try bubble tea later.”

  “Nonsense. Live in the present, Granuaile. Presently my copies can take care of the first wave, and your bubble tea should be at its peak deliciousness.”

  The Monkey King had sent an impressive number of clones to join battle, and he seemed unworried. But his eagerness for me to try this tea is making me worried in turn.

  “Is there something in my tea?”

  “Yes!” He flashes his teeth at me in triumph, excited that I have finally figured out something important. “Little pearls of tapioca!”

  “It’s just a bit weird that you want me to drink it so badly.”

  “It is merely pride in my work. And it is the right action to take in this moment.”

  I am not sure I agree with his priorities. But then, looking again as the red-and-gold clones meet the swarm and immediately have a visible impact, even from this distance, I doubt my participation in the fight would make much difference.

  “Why am I here?”

  Wukong chuckles, throwing his head back in unrestrained glee. “A philosophical question! The answer is simple: to learn and to grow.”

  “No, I mean, why am I here right now?”

  The Buddha cocks his head at me and shrugs. “The answer is the same, and will remain the same days and months and years hence.”

  Flidais catches my eye. “Learn well, Granuaile. I must leave you now.”

  “What? I thought you said you had to be here—”

  “I had to bring you here, and I have. I am needed in Japan. Farewell.”

  “Okay, yeah—” Flidais doesn’t wait around. She’s climbing down the fire escape before I can finish saying goodbye, leaving me with Sun Wukong. He waggles a bushy eyebrow at me and grins, nodding at my bubble tea. “Oh, fine, whatever! I’m trying it, okay? Look.”

  I take a sip through the almost absurdly thick orange straw and it’s slightly sweet, slightly floral tea with milk in it. Light and lovely and—whoa. One of the tapioca bubbles rockets into my mouth, and it’s mildly chewy and a perfect complement to the tea.

  “Eh? Huh?” The Monkey King smiles as he watches my face. He so clearly wishes me to flatter him that I smile back.

  “It’s good, Wukong.”

  “Yes. It is good. And it can be enjoyed in so many different ways. That is the basic tea you have there. So much else for you to try.”

  “I suppose—”

  “Good.” Sun Wukong reaches a finger up to his ear and plucks at it. Something like a small toothpick grows and spins in his hand until it’s a long golden staff. He crouches down and holds the staff in both hands. “Now we fight.”

  “What?” is all I can manage, because I didn’t realize before that moment that tea could be a prelude to battle.

  His only answer is to launch himself toward me, staff held high to crush me from above. I throw the bubble tea at him and he spins in midair to avoid it while I bring my staff up crosswise over my head to block his strike. The impact shudders through my arms to the sockets of my shoulders, and I stagger back. The Monkey King lands and promptly ducks under my counterstrike as he tries to sweep my legs. I hop over that and lash out with a kick, but he somersaults away. I pursue because the one rule of fighting someone this powerful is that if they start something, you need to be the one finishing it and doing so quickly, because the longer you delay the less chance you have of winning.

  Sun Wukong cackles as he tumbles and somehow deflects every one of my strikes with his staff. When we run out of roof, he finds his feet and launches himself over my head, knocking away my thrust at his abdomen, and sticks the landing behind me as I whirl around to face him.

  “My turn,” he says, and then he’s on the attack. I manage to parry the first five strikes or so, but after that he gets through my guard every other strike and lightly taps me instead of destroying me, a masterly show of control.

  He backs away, leaving me flustered, and smiles again as he stands next to his staff, held upright in his right hand and resting on the rooftop. “Bubble tea is good. But as I mentioned, there is more than the basic flavor. Would you like to learn more?”

  “Yes. I am always ready to learn more.”

  “Good. You have the right mind. Very well. You have been trained in techniques that date back a thousand years and you also have some modern moves.” I nod once, be
cause that’s accurate—Atticus came to China in the eleventh century and received the bulk of his Eastern martial arts training then, which he passed on to me. “You are in fact a master by any mortal measure. I do not intend to demean your skill in any way. That must be understood.”

  “I understand.”

  He nods in acknowledgment before continuing. “But there are older techniques. Some newer ones. And some that are my own invention.” He flicks a finger to the north. “What you see happening at Yangmingshan right now is the work of only the first and weakest of the Yama Kings. It hardly requires my attention. But there will be seven more, each deadlier than the last, and you need to be prepared if you are to survive and fulfill your purpose.”

  So many questions churn in my head—primarily the question of what he thought my purpose was here, but other things too, like what kinds of horrors we would be fighting and if I was going to fight an actual Yama King or merely hundreds of his minions—yet none of these is important next to the fundamental truth of his statement, so I quash the questions and store them for later.

  “I agree,” I tell him.

  “So, if you are willing, let us begin your advanced training. From now on, you will call me Sifu Sun.”

  I bow to him. “I am willing, Sifu Sun.”

  once Siodhachan leaves, I get out of the river and dry off me feet, because that water is fecking cold. Colder than the welcome of a night club bouncer on a Friday night—which reminds me, I still owe an arse-kicking to that lad in Kilkenny who threw me out of the pub.

  I go sit on the edge of the back porch, feet resting on the turf, and let the elemental know I’m available to help should I be needed anywhere. Starbuck the Boston terrier comes out and sits next to me, his mouth open and tongue lolling out. I connect to his mind so I can hear if he answers me and say, “You’re a good lad, aren’t ye?”

  he says.

  “Ah. Still learning your language, then?”

 

  “Maybe. That word can mean different things, I’ve learned. What do you consider to be play?”

  he says, and disappears through the plastic flap in the side of the house that Siodhachan says is a doggie door. He bursts through it a moment later with a knotted piece of rope. He drops it by my side and looks up at me with his tongue out.

  “Throw it, ye say?” It seems like a strange request, but I don’t see the harm in it. Dogs like Starbuck didn’t exist in me own time, so he’s a new creature to me, and I’m interested in what he will do next. I pick up the rope and chuck it a good distance toward the river, taking care not to actually throw it in there. The wee lad springs off the back porch faster than I expect.

  he practically shouts in me head, and for a moment I worry he’s gone daft, but once he reaches the rope he picks it up and shakes it before galloping back to me with it in his mouth, and then I understand. He’s practicing his squirrel slaying, and that’s play for him.

  he says as he drops it by me side again.

  I can’t help but chuckle at that. “Ye know how to train humans already, don’t ye?”

 

  I oblige him and think while he’s off to fetch that maybe an animal companion wouldn’t be so bad, if the werewolves would be okay with it. Before Starbuck can return for another go, a shudder runs up me leg, as the elemental speaks to me through my contact with the earth.

  //Avenging Druid needed / Bavarian Alps / Urgent//

  Elementals didn’t used to talk to Druids like this. The earth hadn’t been so fecking cocked up before, so I’d never had occasion to hear what elementals called me until I came forward in time. And I didn’t really like that name, because it referred to an episode in me early years with a dodgy man in a bog and I didn’t want to be reminded of it.

  //Harmony// I reply, but then add, //Except for name / Please call me Ancient Druid//

  //No / You are Avenging Druid / Hurry / Bavarian Alps//

  Bollocks. //I go// I says, and hop to me feet.

  I have to go inside and ask the British lad where in the world the Bavarian Alps are. Once he pulls up a map on his computer and shows me, I figure I can shift to something tethered there and then ask what trouble’s brewing in the teakettle.

  Sorry I can’t play anymore, I tell the wee Starbuck mind-to-mind. I’ve been called away to serve Gaia. Play later?

 

  I sprint out to the bound tree, shift planes to Tír na nÓg, and then spend a while trying to figure out which tethers lead to the Bavarian Alps. There are about ten of them, I reckon, and right as I settle upon one it disappears, snapping out of existence. Then the one next to it does the same thing. Something horrible must be happening there to disrupt the tethers. I choose the one that’s farthest from the destroyed ones and pull meself along the tether, arriving with a bit of panic in me mind, afraid the tether will snap mid-transit. I don’t rightly know what would happen to me if it did, but I don’t want to find out. I do make it through, though, and soon find out what’s been causing all the ruckus: The earth shakes underneath me, and it’s no mild temblor either. It’s a serious shake-up in progress, and it’s going to ripple out to populated areas soon and disrupt far more than a few tethered trees.

  But the trees and these mountains—gods below, they’re gorgeous. I wish I would have visited before there was a fecking earthquake in progress, because it’s a stunningly beautiful place I’ve come to. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the landscape was trying to have some soft hot sex with me eyes, it’s that seductive. Tuya, one of me apprentices, loves trees especially; she’d find this place so magical that the corners of her eyes would leak happy tears. Best be about preserving it, then.

  //Druid here to help// I tell the elemental Bavaria. Its reply is less than polite.

  //You are not Druid / He is elsewhere / You are Avenging Druid//

  I blink a few times. This elemental is in the throes of an earthquake where all its living things are in crisis and it’s quibbling over names?

  //Query: Emergency?//

  //Creatures disrupt earth / I will create path / Slay them//

  That’s straightforward enough. //Query: What creatures?//

  //Follow and slay// is all the answer I’m given before a fissure opens before me—not an accident of the earthquake but rather something with a purposeful floor to it, with walls and a ceiling that remain sturdy even if they shift; no matter how violent the earthquake gets, Bavaria won’t let it crush me while I’m on my way to do its bidding. The tunnel delves quickly and I have to cast night vision to see. I also put on me brass knuckles and remember that even though I’ve been given a mission, I can’t use a direct binding to kill anything. It’s the law of Gaia herself: She judges no deaths so long as one never uses her power to accomplish it. Druids have been doing her dirty work for millennia now—or Siodhachan has, anyway. Mostly it was demons from this hell or that, but occasionally something Fae or more sinister would require his attention.

  It’s not too long before I can’t see a fecking thing, even with night vision cast. Ye have to have at least a wee bit of light to operate, and underground it’s darker than the inky anus of a sleeping octopus. I let Bavaria know.

  //Continue// it says. //There will be light soon//

  I stagger on, a hand outstretched to keep track of the wall, and stumble a couple of times since I can’t see the ground shifting and it surprises me. But I don’t want to fail in this, whatever it is.

  The light shows up soon enough. A dim orange glow and some heat along with it, and a sulfurous odor punching me lungs: That light source is lava. A bit more dangerous way to light up a space than those fancy twisty light bulbs ye see these days.

  And it really shouldn’t be this close to the surface. The Alps ar
en’t a range of dormant volcanoes; they were formed by the collision of tectonic plates. Which means something nasty is bringing this up on purpose.

  I hear it before I see it. Cruel laughter mixed in with throaty chanting in a language I don’t recognize. And it’s pretty clear I’m spotted first, because I have to duck a red glowing rock thrown at me head. It still glances off me left shoulder and sears a groove there, singeing hair and cooking an ear as it passes. I trace back where it must have come from, and there’s a wee shadowy thing standing in a rivulet of lava like it’s nothing but a cool stream. It looks like it’s practically chiseled out of coal or volcanic basalt, all sharp edges even though it has a humanoid form. In the darkness it’s just another slice of shadow until it moves, and it’s moving to scoop up another lava bomb.

  It has a face like someone took an angry shite and placed it on top of a neck. Or maybe that’s just me own anger I’m projecting on to it. I know what this thing is now, attaching it to a description Siodhachan gave me: It’s a fecking kobold, but the bloody dangerous kind and not the weak things I’ve seen when Sam and Ty, the leaders of Greta’s pack, are playing this video game they like. In the game, kobolds are weak creatures with a wee knife, easily slain. But that’s not the kind of creature that spawned horror stories from German miners hundreds of years ago. If you’re a brave lad tunneling through a mountain, you’re not going to be terrified of something with a knife when you have a pickaxe. No, those miners had reason to be afraid, because kobolds can move the earth and collapse a mine, or pick up handfuls of magma to hurl at Druids’ heads.

  I cast camouflage and wink from his sight just as he looks up to target me again. Then I speed up, watching me feet so I don’t step in that lava stream, and feed him a fist of brass knuckles between the teeth. I half expect it to take his head clean off, but kobolds are as rugged as the mountains they live under. Some of his teeth chip and shatter and he’s definitely knocked senseless, but it doesn’t kill him. Ye can’t handle the heat and pressure of the earth’s crust without being a tough bastard, I guess.