by Holly Lisle
They could thank mismanagement for that, Baanraak thought, but he didn't say it. Why make waves about something unimportant? He suddenly had an interesting task before him, and he could not recall the last time anything had caught his interest.
So he shrugged, and said, "Well, if Earth is about to go, I wouldn't be averse to a snack. But I'm not going to rush the job with this Vodi. If you want me to do it, I do it my way."
"Do you suppose you could be quick about it?"
"I'll do the job right. If right is quick, it'll be quick. But if haste is your first priority, then I suggest you take the work to someone in a hurry."
Rr'garn sighed bitterly and said, "I didn't come all this way to decide that someone else would be sufficient. I want you, because you're the best there is."
"Then you'll meet my terms?"
"Of course. We get out of the way, you decide whether she is or is not the Vodi. If she is, you dispose of her and we pay you."
"I dispose of her in the manner of my choosing."
"Have your fun," Rr'garn said, and in his mind Baanraak watched mild curiosity about which method of annihilation Baanraak would choose—but this the lesser rrôn quickly squelched.
"On your way then. I've a few things to take care of here, and when I've finished them, I'll be along." He smiled a little at the obvious impatience Rr'garn fought to hide. "Go. I want to check something in an old manuscript—it may be relevant. It will take as long as it takes…and so will I."
Rr'garn nodded. "I'll be watching for you."
Baanraak said, "Don't waste the effort. You wouldn't see me. I'll find you."
Rr'garn was insulted, bunched annoyance when he launched his lean body into the sky and cupped the air in his wings.
On second thought, Baanraak decided, the petulant ninny would be lucky to survive the year.
Copper House
In a dark green room, away from the ears of any who might be listening, the old god, Qawar, paced. "Your sister has abandoned this worldchain of the universe for a worthless, futile venture. She has abandoned life for death as surely as if she'd stood before us and killed herself. This is, in fact, what she has done, and you knew what she was going to do and let her go, even threatening those who would have stopped her. And do you think we'll be able to find a replacement for her? Truly, how many gateweavers do you think exist that could create a gate to Death?" Qawar's steps rang unpleasantly on the stone floor.
Molly had taken enough blame and listened to as much of his tirade as she cared to. "Amazing how I'm not an ornament to the universe anymore. You want to do this?" she asked. "Here—you take this damn Vodi necklace, and become a target for every evil thing that moves and breathes, and give up your soul and then go out there and save the world." She reached for the back of the necklace as if to take it off; she didn't intend to, but she hoped to make a point.
She didn't expect the reaction she got. "No!" Seolar shouted at the same time that the old god lunged for her, surprisingly fast, and grabbed her wrists. Qawar's hands, small and delicate though they were, clamped around the wrist bones and squeezed with surprising strength, and he stared into her eyes.
"You will not take that necklace off," the old god said. He was hurting her.
She leaned her face in close to his and said, "Screw you. You want me to call the rrôn down on your ass, you just keep it up. Otherwise, get your mitts off of me." She rammed a knee up into his midsection, hard, as emphasis, and got a satisfying "oomph" from him.
Qawar let go, and Molly rubbed her wrists.
The old god said, "I…apologize. I feared that you would…ah, damage yourself by removing the necklace, and I did not want that."
"How thoughtful of you." Molly realized she would have bruises around both wrists if she didn't heal them. She decided if she did bruise, she would leave the marks. Let the bastard see what he'd done, and let everyone else see it, too. "I'm so glad you're concerned for me, since I can't do anything to help you and your cause anymore."
"You can't do enough," the old god said. "But you can do more than nothing—as long as you're the Vodi. As long as you're alive, and on our side."
"Let's be honest with each other, shall we? You aren't here out of concern for me. You want something, and I have to guess that I'm the only person in the world, or maybe in the universe, who can give you what you want. So. What can I do for you, Qawar?" Molly asked, her voice cold. "And what can you do for me?"
"Honesty…" The old god tipped his head and studied her through narrowed eyes. "Yes. All right. Let us be honest with each other, however unpleasant that may be. What do you know of the dark gods?" Qawar asked.
"That they are soulless, like me. That they keep coming back when we kill them…like me. That most of who they once were has been washed away by repeated dying, until they are empty. As I will someday be. That they are evil. And will I someday be evil, too, Qawar? Is that part of the truth?"
"I hope not." The old god said, "You are not like them, and you don't have to be like them. None of your predecessors succumbed to the evils embraced by the dark gods. They are not evil just because they have no souls. They're evil because they have embraced death and destruction, and between mere soullessness and the active pursuit of evil lies a vast and deep abyss. You are who you choose to be. The dark gods are who they choose to be. You and they do not have to make the same choices."
"No. And yet, though this will no doubt frighten you, I can understand the choices they made. To hang on in the face of everything, to choose themselves and their own survival at any cost…"
The old god glanced at Seolar. "Perhaps you should leave for a few moments. What I have to say to the Vodi is not truly for the ears of a mortal—"
"He stays," Molly said. "I have no wish to endure your company—or your bullying—without a witness." She looked at Seolar, and gave him a little smile. "And he is my love, and my friend."
The old god snorted, a disgusted sound. "Mortals and immortals don't mix well. The possibility for a happy ending simply doesn't exist."
"Thanks for pointing that out," Molly said, glaring at him. "I'm sure I hadn't even considered how this would all end."
Qawar evidently was able to catch sarcasm in others. He gave Molly an even, unblinking stare and said, "Your choice. But this is nothing to laugh at."
Molly crossed her arms over her chest. She disliked Qawar more every second. But she said, "I'll listen. Tell me what you know that's so much more earth-shattering than that the rrôn are evil."
Qawar said, "Worlds do not fall by the actions or inactions of those who live on them, or through the use of magic or the presence or absence of old gods working good magic. No natural process has left the chain of worlds above us a series of charred embers, each haunted by the ghosts of its inhabitants. Worlds die because the dark gods kill them. They feed their target worlds with information that will permit these worlds to aid in their own self-destruction; they infiltrate governments; they whisper in all the right ears; they foment dissent and work against negotiation and accommodation. Your world, for example, would be unlikely to annihilate everything with its nuclear weapons. Worlds are vast, with natural resources for recovery. If ecologies could not rebound, no world would survive cometary bombardment, or even large volcanic eruptions. And the people most likely to use nuclear weapons have few of them, and those relatively small. I'm less sure about the Terminator Seed technology."
Molly stopped him. "The what?"
"Terminator Seed technology. A serious case of greed before common sense. Your country's USDA and a corporation called Monsanto, with secret funding from the Night Watch, created a way of genetically preventing crops from reseeding—that is, creating viable seeds that could be replanted the next year. On the surface, it was to prevent farmers from storing copyrighted plant seeds and growing crops from them the next year. But the Night Watch had its own reasons for funding the research. At barest minimum, they can increase starvation and poverty in third world countries by prev
enting farmers from storing seeds for future crops."
"That's terrible."
"It gets worse. There's a chance that the altered Terminator gene will find its way into the general plant population, and if it does, that it will wipe out crops and maybe whole species of plants. From the point of view of anyone hoping to encourage mass starvation and the desertification of a planet, Terminator Seed technology is wonderful stuff. And your country's government approved the technology, quietly, several years after halting research because of protests. No doubt the Night Watch will be bringing it downworld with them when Earth is a cinder. However, to wipe all life—and all chance of the recurrence of life—from an entire planet of rich, fertile, diverse ecosystems takes focused effort, and hundreds of years of planning and preparation."
"What sort of preparation?" Molly asked.
"Along with all their subversive activities, the dark gods engage in the actual practice of death magic, encouraging wars and using the deaths from both sides to cast spells that feed the hostility, demand more death, more technology, and more insanity. Every time war goes on beyond reason, you'll find the Night Watch feeding on it and fueling it. They aim for massive casualties and slow, burning hatred. And because they feed existing tendencies, amplifying what already exists, they have always won. When they finally cast their best and biggest spells, the end comes quickly. And nothing all those pathetic little groups fighting against it do can hold off the end when that time finally arrives."
"Pathetic…you mean like Lauren's Sentinels?"
"Like them. They aren't the only ones—not on your world, not on this, or the worlds below this one."
Molly walked over to the fireplace at one end of the room and stared into the flames. "So the Sentinels fight for nothing?"
"No. They just fight too small, and with the wrong tools. They don't take their fight to the dark gods—they try to maintain the status quo. But in any game where one side is aiming for a win while the other side is playing for a draw, the side with the big goals will take the day. And the Night Watch already has entropy on its side."
"So the dark gods work to destroy worlds one at a time. But it just doesn't make sense. Why? Why destroy worlds? That seems…ridiculous. Ludicrous overblown mustache-twisting evil for the sake of evil."
"You mean what do the dark gods get out of destroying worlds?"
"Yes."
"They get immortality. Immortality of the flesh, but immortality nonetheless—and not the sort of guilt-ridden hollowness that already plagues you and will eventually devour you. I don't know any of the dark gods who suffer any grief for the worlds they've crushed and the lives they've snuffed out. They get power—mind-bending power. And they get…at least from what the one who tried to recruit me told me…an impossible-to-replicate euphoria from drinking the deaths of worlds and lives, a buzz that lasts for hundreds of years. It's the reason they work so hard to raise populations on their target worlds before they actually close the shields. Ripe worlds are heavily overpopulated."
Molly's head was starting to hurt. "They…drink the deaths of worlds and lives?" She turned away from the comforting flicker of the flames and frowned. "I don't understand."
"They kill each world in turn quickly—and as the world and the people on it die in the conflagration, they siphon off as much of the magic spawned by the world's death throes as they can consume. And for a hundred years afterward—or a few hundred years, depending on how powerful they already were and how much of the dark magic they managed to consume—they have unimaginable powers." Qawar said, "They get greedy, though. Your world ripened a bit too soon, but rather than let it wait until they need the energy, they'll push it to destruction now. Their people are in place, their final plans are almost completed, and when Earth goes they'll feed well." He sighed. "By taking your world now, though, they'll only increase their need for the next one. The more power they absorb, the more they need in order to maintain the new levels they achieve. They've already started encouraging technology and population increases here, and they have members of the Night Watch working throughout this world, preparing for its eventual destruction. I've seen them do this before, many times. They're almost ready. Unless I miss my guess, they'll destroy Earth before this year is over."
Molly closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. She felt sick, and a bit lost. She said, "I'm curious about something. Old gods like you—you could do something against the dark gods, couldn't you?"
Qawar held up a hand as if fending off the question. "We have learned to keep out of sight. We have some of the same abilities as the dark gods, though in lesser degree. We have access to the powers of life, as the dark gods have access to the powers of death. But we die and they don't—and they have boosted their powers until they're stronger than we are."
"The answer, then, is 'yes.' You could do something."
Qawar spread his hands wide, and said, "There are no billions of us. The surviving people of our worlds number in the hundreds. Hundreds. We're all that remain of entire worlds, and we…are…mortal. Unlike the dark gods, we won't come back if we die, and those madmen would be more than happy to kill us. We have the option of moving on, most of us, so after a few hundred years or a thousand years on a world, we head downworld before things go bad." He studied her levelly. "You're glaring at me, but you aren't in my position. In our position. I still have a soul. I have a real life. I have something to lose in this—far more than you, Vodi. You're what's left after the important part of you moved on."
Molly stare at him in disbelief. "You say that and think I'll help you?"
"You want me to coddle you and lie to you? You just told me you wanted the truth. So which is it? I won't tell you what you want to hear, though there are plenty who will. You aren't what the dark gods are, and you don't have to be. You aren't alone, either. And you have nothing real to lose."
Molly looked at Seolar, and then back at the old god. "Wait a minute. I have everything to lose. I stand to lose who I am—everything I love, everything that matters to me, every shred of passion in me. And at the point where I can't take it anymore and take off the necklace and let myself die for good, I'll just turn to dust. Nothing of who I am will go on. So no—of the two of us, I have more to lose."
"You would say that. But"—Qawar settled himself against the wall with an air of absolute certainty—"the part of you that was really you is long gone. This physical construct"—he waved a hand at her casually—"is a vital tool, but not a real person. Between the spelled necklace—which was created with the most powerful of chaos magics—and the tough, low-fuel-consumption body, it is an excellent tool. But it isn't a you. It's an it. I refer to you as you, but surely you can understand the difference. You were made to do a job."
"I feel real to me," Molly said. "My life, such as it is, matters to me."
"That's an unfortunate part of the Vodi spell that no one has ever been able to address. Through far too many incarnations, too much of the original personality hangs on."
"The hell with you," Molly said, unable to stand any more. "You don't value my life. But I do. So the hell with you, you hear me?" She turned to Seolar. "I want out of here. I don't ever want to see this thing again."
Seolar winced, and Molly realized she'd put him in a position to run interference between her and an old god. Not good. She added, "I'm leaving. Please come with me—we have to talk."
In Seolar's eyes, relief. In Qawar's eyes, amusement. "He loves you, you think…does he really? Think on this; if he truly loved you—you—he would never have given you the Vodi necklace, for every woman who wears it is marked by the dark gods as their one true enemy, and each will be a target for the rest of her existence. When he handed you that necklace, he sentenced you to certain death, not just once, but many times over. And he knew it when he did it. Think on that when you think about this pitiful mortal that you claim to love. Think on that, will you? You have those who will stand on your side in the coming battles, and those who believe in you, and
you may even have friends. But they aren't necessarily those you think are your friends."
Qawar looked from Molly to Seolar, who stood—stunned—with shock on his face, and Qawar said sadly, "How's that for the truth?"
CHAPTER 11
Heaven, or Possibly Hell
LAUREN FACED OFF against the black-robed figure, bazooka on her shoulder, and bared her teeth in a vicious smile. "Produce Jake, or I pull the trigger."
"And what do you think will happen then, silly girl? You're the only one here who can die. The rest of us are immortals, without physical form or—"
Lauren tightened her finger on the trigger. "I'm running out of patience."
The bazooka vanished, the black-robed man vanished, and in Lauren's ear, that same voice said, "Well, I'm not."
She stood alone on the plain again, with the road both before her and behind her and everything else without form or feature. Gray. Bleak, barren gray.
