by Ramy Vance
But these gatekeepers question with far less mirth than Paul. It seems that granting one civil entry is a lost art in this world.
Charon is next, and this AlwaysMortal gatekeeper looks the psychopomp up and down before requesting, in a curt tone, that he give up his cane to be stowed in something called “luggage.” Charon will not. In all of eternity, he has never been without it. If the gods could not separate him from it, what hope does this mortal have?
Charon eyes the security guard, answering with a heavy sigh that has silenced kings and unsettled saints alike. This audible cue imposes on the AlwaysMortal he is dealing with, and the security guard, eyes widening, nods in fear and submission.
With trembling hands, the guard says, “You’ll have to stow it in special holdings once you’re on the plane, I think.” And lets him through with cane and lantern in tow.
As he walks to his gate, he hears the security guard groan, “I just met death … and lived.”
Barely, Charon thinks. Barely, indeed.
↔
Once inside the metal boat that flies in the sky, Charon extends his senses. The soul he seeks is trapped, held hostage by … gods. Charon’s eyes widen as the word swims in his mind. Gods. They still exist?
Charon does not understand what his instincts are telling him. He only knows them to be true. But if they are truly gods, then they must know they are defying one of the principles of life and death set before the first creature ever created breathed its first breath. No one—be it the gods or the Principles of Creation or nature—may possess a soul against its will.
To break such a rule would be to challenge the very fabric of reality, and such a challenge could shatter …
Charon’s thoughts stall as he searches his vast well of knowledge for the right word. It does not take long for him to finally settle on one: Everything.
Such a challenge could shatter everything.
In all of time, no god has ever dared such an insult to creation. But gods are gods; their arrogance and power imbue them with the false sense that they are above the law, be it a law of nature or the celestial laws ordained by the truly divine.
Charon receives his mineral water and leaves it unsipped on the tray. Such arrogance unsettles the guide to the dead, for his lot may be death, but even death is not the end. And these gods with their careless actions threaten to go beyond death and head-first into that very end.
Charon grits his teeth as he considers what he must do. He may only be a psychopomp, a servant to both mortals and gods alike, but there is one aspect of his nature that sets him apart from his counterparts. For when the gods imbued him with life and purpose, they granted one ability above and beyond those possessed by his counterparts.
And this power is so unusual, so great, that even the gods’ departures could not deny him.
For if death is a river, then its current flows only one way; its rapids allow those who ride its waves only one direction of travel: from life to death. For once a soul travels into the light of death, it cannot return.
No being, human or Other, can traverse against death’s relentless course.
From life to death.
Such is the universe’s design.
From life to death.
But even the harshest rules set by the most uncompromising of creatures have exceptions. And that exception is Charon.
In all of existence and creation, only Charon can travel both ways.
Only Charon can guide this living soul away from the light of death and toward the darkness that is life.
↔
Charon knows what he must do, and an unfamiliar emotion washes over him. It is an emotion he has never experienced before, and as he wills this metal, flying boat to traverse the skies faster, he knows what he is feeling.
Charon—the psychopomp who came into existence the moment the first of the gods’ creations died, the Other who has helped millions of anxious souls on their most vital and very final journey, and who has spent nearly his entire existence trawling the same course along the same river—is impatient.
Absolutely Apocalyptic Mistakes
Now —
“No,” I screamed as I was pulled away from a battle that I’d been winning. “What … are … you … doing?!”
“Saving your ass,” Jean said as he dragged me away from the open doorway.
I pushed the soldier away with a swift kick to his chin and dived for the doorway that was only a few yards away. But before I could get inside, it closed and locked. Still, I knew that they couldn’t keep me out of the void; this was just a stalling tactic while they regrouped.
Fumbling with the door handle, I turned to the stockpile of impossibly powerful items, looking for something, anything to burst through the door. But before I could even gather my thoughts, Jean was on me again.
“Come on,” he said, “we’ve got to get out of here.”
“No,” I said, pulling away from him, “I have to get back into that room. I have to—”
“This place is going to blow and take anyone in here with them.”
“You set the charges?”
Jean nodded.
“Turn them off!”
“I can’t.”
“You fool, do you know what you’ve done? You’ve killed us all!” I screamed, my voice getting shrill and panicky as I desperately tried to find a solution to an otherwise impossible situation. I pulled away, seeking to kick open the door and get back into the void. Maybe the godlike powers I’d had in that room were what I needed to stop what was about to happen.
Maybe if—
But before I could take two steps, I felt a sharp needle pierce the back of my neck just as the world around me faded to black.
↔
One moment I was in the Kami Subete Hakubutsukan’s halls, desperate to get back into the void. The next I was in one of the island’s thick tropical forests, laying on the ground as Keiko wiped sweat from my forehead.
And for one blissful moment, I forgot where I was, forgot where I had just been. For one blissful moment, I thought everything was OK.
But it seems that whenever I have a peaceful moment, it’s usually followed by a crash.
I jolted up as the memory of everything that just happened rammed its way back into my head. And man, did that ever give me a headache.
I set a hand to my pounding forehead. “We’ve got to … we’ve got to get back. I have to kill those gods.” The words sounded ridiculous to me, even after living through it. But if everything Gabriel had said was true, then I really did have to get back there. I really did have to kill those gods … again. And I really did have to get my soul back.
“We can’t.”
Turning, I saw Jean looking at his tricorder-like device, shaking his head. “We really screwed this one up,” he added, not looking up from the screen.
“We screwed this up? We did?” I said, rising to my feet. “If it wasn’t for you, we would be fine. I would have my soul back and those assholes would be … would be … well, they wouldn’t be!” I cried out in exasperation.
“Excuse me,” Jean said, looking up from his tricorder for the first time. “I think the words you’re looking for are, ‘Thank you,’ and, ‘I owe you my life.’”
That really pissed me off. I took two long strides before knocking the ridiculous device out of his hands. “I had it under control. I was winning and—”
“It didn’t look like you were winning. It looked like you were in the middle of a tsunami of godly shit. I mean, I had to ignore some pretty amazing stuff to find you … and when I did, what did I see? Flocks of birds, giant fans, laser beams. As far as I could tell, Miss Ex-Vamp, you were about to die.”
“I wasn’t. Despite what it looked like, I was winning.”
“Sure you were,” Jean said. “Regardless, it’s all water under the bridge. We need to—”
“Water under the bridge? The bridge? We’re facing three evil gods coming back to life and you’re throwing clichés
at me? I was winning!” I cried out. “I was. And you cocked it up because you couldn’t leave things well enough alone. I mean, why did you walk in there in the first place? You were meant to wait outside.”
“Like you were meant to lock the place using that magical thread?”
“Gleipnir chain,” I growled.
“Whatever. All I know is that I’m not the only one who has trouble following the plan.”
That did it. Funneling as much water onto the bridge as I could, I yelled, “Look here, you sanctimonious prick. I knew damn well what I was meant to do. I also knew what it was going to cost me—my soul. As much as you’ve learned to live without yours, I want mine back. I saw a chance and I went for it.”
“More like you got greedy and stupid and would have gotten yourself killed if it wasn’t for ...” He cocked a thumb at himself.
“Let me guess,” I said, “in this scenario, you think that you’re some knight in shining armor who saved the damsel in distress, right? Two things about that. One, I was never in distress. And two, you aren’t a knight. You’re a mutha—”
“Katrina, Jean … please,” Keiko said. Well, not so much said as growled. There was something in her tone and the authority it carried that caused me to stop. The noro priestess had gravitas. No wonder Others came to her beck and call.
“We are in a state of crisis,” she continued. “Mistakes have been made. Choices, too,” she quickly added, looking at me. “And now we must live with both. The path forward is not to question how we got here, but rather what we must do now that we are here.”
“Wisely said,” I said, giving Jean my best death stare. “We need to get me back inside as quickly as possible. I have…”—I searched for the word—“powers—I mean, incredible powers—in there.”
“What kind of powers?” Jean asked.
“I don’t know. I could manifest my will. It was like everything I thought came to be.”
“Like Green Lantern.” Jean smirked.
“Sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Like Green Lantern, except I could also fly, had super speed, strength—”
“Like Superman.”
Ignoring him, I added, “And I could think.”
At this, Jean chuckled. “Unusual state of being for you, huh?”
I gave him the finger. “Funny, guy.”
“Like I said, I’m hilarious in Paradise Lot.”
“You know what it’s like in the heat of battle. For the most part, you’re going on instinct, reacting to what’s happening on some subconscious level. But you’re not thinking. Not really. That’s why experience is so vital for a fight. Experience is the after-thoughts you had from previous fights kicking in and informing your instincts during the next one.
“But that wasn’t the case in the museum. There, I was calm, peaceful. Calculating. Despite the chaos going on around me, I could assess the threats and react accordingly.”
“Like Batman.” Jean tilted his head. “So, you were basically the Justice League all wrapped into one until I screwed it up for you.”
I nodded.
Jean pursed his lips as he lifted his face up toward the sky. “So, that’s the good news,” he said. “What’s the bad news?”
“Good news?” I asked.
“Yeah. Well, I figure what’s coming is going to be so horrible that me sticking my nose in where I shouldn’t have will sound like the good part after you’re done talking.”
I have to hand it to him: when he’s right, he’s right, I thought. And from the way they looked at me, I knew I had said that out loud. But it was a natural enough thing to say, given what was going on, that neither of them seemed to notice I had meant to say it only in my head.
“OK,” I sighed, “here we go …”
I told them everything. About Gabriel and how the gods were using my soul (and the Raspy Man’s soul, too) to resurrect themselves. That the gods only needed seven days to gain full power on Earth and given that the Celestial Solace was meant to last for a lot longer than that, meant they would have plenty of time to gather their powers.
I also pointed out—and not in an I-told-you-so manner, might I add—that locking the museum’s door (as in, our original plan) would have only given the gods all the unbothered time they needed to raise themselves once again.
“And that’s why I need to get back there,” I said, “as soon as possible. I’ve got to face off against them and end them before they gain more power. Not that I’m sure I can. I don’t have the Lance of Longinus anymore. It’s in the void, I think, and I’m sure the gods aren’t going to just leave it sitting around for me to stab them with it.”
“That it?” Jean asked, and not in a cocky, I-got-this kind of way. It carried more of a please-let-that-be-it-because-I-don’t-think-I-can-handle-more vibe to it.
I nodded, before remembering one last detail. “Also—and Gabriel made this perfectly clear—they need seven days to rise. Given that it all started today, we’ve still got seven days to deal with this. That may seem like a long time, but as much as I like to procrastinate, this is one assignment I’d like to hand in early, because if they do rise—in other words, leave the museum—we are screwed. As in, royally.”
They listened and when I was done speaking, they both looked at each other as if they didn’t want to tell me what was clearly running through both their minds.
“Spill it,” I said.
Keiko gave Jean a nod, and with a heavy sigh, the soldier looked at me and said, “Let me put it this way: all that stuff you just told us … that’s the good news.”
↔
Jean picked up his tricorder thingy and handed it to me. “First off, we don’t have seven days. We’ve got five.”
“How do you figure? Gabriel was pretty clear that we had seven Earth days to get this done and since I was only in there for an hour at most, then we still have—”
“I’m starting to think that time must work differently in there, because you were gone for almost two.”
“Hours?” I said with false hope.
“Days,” Jean said.
I thought back to the discussions I’d had with both the gods and Gabriel, and the fight. It had all happened so fast that when I’d said an hour, I was being generous. It felt more like ten minutes. I tilted my head in confusion. “You mean to say that I was in there for two days? Two whole days?”
“Well, forty-five hours, but I’m a rounder-upper kind of guy, so …” He lifted two fingers.
“But …” I let my disbelief linger.
“You know,” Jean said, “when you think about it, it kind of makes sense that time would be different in the Other domains. I mean, God—as in the big guy, capital ‘G’ God—supposedly created everything in seven days, but the Earth is millions of years old. So, if a day for the big guy is a couple million years for us … well, you get the point.”
I groaned in comprehension as something Aki said came crashing back to me. The tanuki had pointed out that celestial domains rotate every few hundred days, and then made some vague point about eternity being locked into a second. At the time, I didn’t understand what he’d meant. But with the new context of my two-day absence, I guessed that eternity really could reside in a second or two.
Shaking off the not-inconsiderable desire to debate the meaning of time over a piña colada, I said, “OK, so we have less time than I thought, but we can—”
“Sorry,” Jean said, lifting a hand, “that was still part of our good news. And there’s one more piece of good news I need to share with you.”
Keiko groaned in frustration. “Great news, really,” she said through gritted teeth. “All thanks to our American soldier friend and his toys.”
Jean shrugged. “We all have to get our kicks from somewhere.”
I shot him an impatient look.
“OK, OK. When we were getting you out of there, I decided to cover our tracks with a little bit of Cave Remodeling, Home Edition. In layman’s terms, I set off a crap-ton of C4 in the
re.”
Of all the things he could have said, that was absolutely the last thing I needed to hear. “What? How? When?” The words came out in rapid-fire exasperation.
“Well, you have to understand that when you actually got inside, the nio and shisa guardians stopped fighting us. Hell, they stopped everything and just stood there like the statues they were. I had some time, and you know what they say … ‘Idle hands are the devil’s playground.’ I un-idled my hands by planting some bombs.”
“Ah-ha,” I said. “You collapsed the passageways. Maybe—” I cut myself off as I looked at the magical tattoo on my arm. It was something I’d gotten when looking for a way into the museum and it had done its job, leading us through a complex network of underground tunnels and right to the museum’s front door.
Since being forcibly removed from the celestial tourist spot, I hadn’t checked if my tattoo was still “active.” I rolled up my sleeve and took a look. Familiar blue and orange lines ebbed and flowed on my forearm, with a red dot situated on the underside of my wrist: the museum.
But unlike before, where there was a clear path in, now the orange and blue lines just stopped and there was a three-inch gap between the edge of the lines and the entrance.
“Anything?” Keiko asked.
I shook my head. “Seems he did a thorough job,” I said, the desperation of the situation weighing down on me. We had to get inside and we were running out of time. “So, we figure a way in,” I growled. “More bombs, get a troop of dwarves or hire a team of those rami …”
“Ramidreju,” Jean said.
“Yeah, those,” I said snapping my fingers. “They can tunnel us in. Hell, we could even ask some Others to burn a few days of time to teleport me in. I’m sure there’d be a few willing to sacrifice a bit of life to avoid enslavement—”
