by Pam Uphoff
"On you it looks good." She hugged him intimately, but pulled away. Like always. The free flowing love and mercy she could show the world had never translated into personal relations. Maybe. He'd always wondered about her daughter, where she'd come from, how she'd got her. Poor little Grace. I saw her born, tried to be around her enough to give her some continuity in her life, as Mercy bubbled her for years, decades, at a time.
"I hear Pax dragged you into one of his messes, again. I was worried he might have gotten you hurt this time, there are some awfully rough people out there."
"Oh, Bah. I am seriously irritated at the man. What was he thinking?" she shrugged.
"Well, I'm glad you're all right. Will you come back to Ash?"
"No. Really, Harry, those arrogant witches." She paced the floor angrily.
"You need someone, Mercy. People to be around, help you, work for you. Actually, you might try Scoone. From what I've heard, you might get a rough welcome, but once they settled down a bit, you could politic all over them." He hesitated. "I . . . I suppose Grace was out somewhere when the comet hit?"
She frowned. "No. I shielded her. Ungrateful child, I should have named her Pity. She yelled at me for not bringing more people inside so I stuck her back in a bubble."
"Umm." He shrugged. "You should hire some people. Gold is pretty valuable, it's the basis every country's coinage. Yeah, I know the gold standard is . . . well, the World got knocked back so far that it at least provided stability. You could sell some, set yourself up somewhere and hire people to do things."
"Things? What things do you think I need?"
Harry grinned. "Knowing you? You'd start a political party, some think tanks, buy out a newspaper in every major city . . . " he stopped when she laughed.
"Harry, you know me too well. I'll go check out this Scoone place. I recall the location of the first city in the colony."
"Their main city now is about two hundred miles south of there. Start slowly and build up, they aren't used to the concepts you espouse." He blew her a kiss and traveled home. She was alive. Grace was alive. He hadn't dared ask further. Mercy was fierce in her defense of her possessions. She wasn't about to give up a daughter. He could only wait. If—when—Grace set foot on a road, he could protect her. Surely she's old enough now to escape from this woman, live a normal life.
He looked around his old tavern. "So. If Mercy settles in Scoone, she'll . . ." He sighed. "God knows if she'll even think to protect it. I'll have to prod her a bit, once she's established. Romeau is still in and out of Cadent. But that still leaves most of the large cities of Auralia with no one but Pax to possibly help them. I wonder if he has any plans? Or maybe those Oners the Amma is so tight with, will do something."
***
The reaction of Scoone to the arrival of the Goddess of Mercy more than made up for the lack of reaction in Lucky Strike.
There was panic in the streets. There was the quick appearance of the police, followed shortly by some sort of citizen's militia, with matched jackets and ceremonial batons as their only weapons. There were oogling citizens, marching citizens, citizens throwing flaming torches at her shield. And finally, a clearing of the area directly in front of her temple, and the arrival of government officials, with all due pomp and ceremony.
She walked out to meet them.
She'd had time to recover from that horrible little adventure in the Boom Town. Really, Pax had fallen badly in her estimation. She should have known kidnapping teenage boys was a recipe for disaster. If Pax wanted some apprentices, he ought to post notices and ask for volunteers. But she was calm now, had meditated, fasted and washed that horrible scene from her mind. All that remained was the simple statement. "Father of one boy tracked us down, killed all the guards, Pax was injured, and traveled. I traveled." So much better than having a memory of the actual thing in one's head. So she was calm now, as she walked out to the shield.
There was a woman in the lead, a mixed group behind her. A quick impression of a majority female group cheered her enormously.
The woman stopped at the edge of her pavement. "By the Decree of the People, Ratified in 645: We do not allow wizards, witches or mages in Scoone. As President of Scoone, I ask you to leave peacefully."
A woman President? Mercy smiled benevolently, and augmented her voice. "I am the Goddess of Mercy. I am not a witch, not a wizard, nor a mage." She glowed at the people. It was a psychological effect, the collective conscious of the People made her a goddess, and the collective conscious could not fail to recognize her. Everywhere in sight, she could see people start to kneel. The President was strong, but her eyes widened in astonishment, and she dipped her head. And fumbled uncertainly with papers in her hands. "I, I don't think we have any laws about goddesses. But no churches! We don't allow churches. Bunch of money grubbing priests taking bread out of the mouths of children."
"Oh, I think I'm going to like it here."
The people behind the President murmured, and one pressed forward. "We should have a vote, a Special Election."
Chapter Thirty
1374 Late Fall
Ash-New Tokyo
Madder and Navy were beautiful little girls. Rustle felt the tug of maternal yearnings, and stomped on them hard. Once we've dealt with the comet, I'll devote some time to chasing that man. God. Whatever.
They settled cozily into the Tavern, resisting invitations to move back into various relatives homes.
Rustle found herself swapping around between several triads of witches. And fitting nowhere.
When the cold weather set in, and the Ash witches got irritating, they packed up all the kids, took the corridor to Rip Crossing, and celebrated the solstice at their own hotsprings.
And, despite Whoop and Verse's doubts, they all trekked back to New Tokyo. There was a warm ocean current along shore that moderated the winter temperatures. The winter passed pleasantly enough, even without progress on the last sealed building.
"I suspect the problem is lack of artistic ability." Rustle said. Looking at things dimensionally had been easy to learn. Looking at things in the ordinary way, and transferring that to paper had, so far, failed to open the sealed building.
The mages were back, Oscar and Bran, with Gre in tow, and getting training regularly from Selano. The old mage had apparently decided that traveling via corridor had none of the drawbacks of long sea voyages. The goat boys started cycling through for training in the mage specific methods, while the formerly powerless mage sons were studying with Nil to add wizard's training to their previously futile mage training.
They were getting quite impressive, and when all twenty joined Selano, Oscar, Bran and Gre, they made three full Compasses.
With their example as a challenge, Rustle worked the witches regularly. Swish, Xanthic and Ultra visited regularly. Possibly because of the nice weather, but more likely they were hoping to meet up with their old boyfriends.
Oscar and Bran had eyed the young witches and kept their distance. The rest of the young men spent all their free time as close to them as they could manage. And often wound up baby sitting.
Gre settled a sleeping baby against his shoulder and walked over to look at Rustle's latest sketch.
"Umm, if that is supposed to be a horse and not some entirely theoretical creature, the neck is too long, the legs don't move in that pattern unless he's about to fall down and . . . " he fumbled one handed as she handed him the pad. "I didn't say I could do any better!"
"I know, but damn it, I can feel it start to catch, and then it slides off. I've got to think about how to approach it differently. And I need to do my distance exercises." She was getting good at moving things miles away . . . Because you can't affect a comet tens of thousands of miles away if you can't do things a hundred miles away. She could move dust and even an occasional pebble on the Moon. And I'm the best. We just need time and practice. But we have less than a year, now. At least there's plenty of gravity out there. A lack of power won't be the problem.
Gre nodded, and bent to spread a small blanket and set the baby down. Kohl, one of Ask's twins. She was going to be a beauty, black hair already curling on her four month old head. In the steamy warmth of late winter in the subtropics, she was wore nothing at all. Gre sat down beside the baby and turned to a blank page. Rustle left him to it, and walked down the hill a bit to where they'd strung up a tarp to create some shade.
Havi was sound asleep in a patch of sunlight, beside the three babies. Cor and Xen were intent over something at the table. Rustle walked to the edge of a steeper drop off, to check on everyone else's locations.
Swimming, or playing in the water, at any rate. The Inlet itself wasn't safe, and only a few spots along the coast had cliffs low enough or crunched enough for egress. But a bit of magical engineering had formed a smallish pool for the adults, and a wading pool for the older kids, periodically refreshed by the waves at high tide. Ech and Zip, in the bigger pool, oogled the scantily clad witches who watched the kids as they splashed in their pool.
Cor and Xen were playing a game with some of Harry's dimensional training tools, Cor huffed slightly as the five year old beat him, again.
"It's not fair that little kids can pick this up so easily!" he complained. "Grape and Hazel beat me too."
"Ha! I'll show you how to beat a kid." Rustle sat down and was half way to utterly humiliated when Gre yelped.
The door he'd been leaning on had opened and dumped him. He grabbed the baby and retreated.
Rustle walked forward and peeked inside. "Looks like an art museum." She edged in carefully.
The pictures on the walls showed scenes from alien worlds, strange places. The sort of place Wolf grew up in, lived in, before the comet. Bright street scenes, full of people in odd clothing. Amazingly short dresses for the women, suits of matching pants and jackets with white shirts and colorful thin neck scarves for the men. Maybe even before the Exile.
Bronze statues stood around as if they were patrons enjoying the art. She studied them warily.
"Are those statues or people in those bubble things you told us about?" Havi touched one carefully. Retreated. "They're alive."
Rustle eyed the bronze wolf howling at the Moon, the young horses running. A magnificent bull, horns lowered to charge, muscles rippled . . .
"Let's take a quick look around, and see if we can find anything else before we try to open these bubbles." Rustle turned to the stairs. The second level was a larger version of the same, the third had even more room, and had a crowd of people there, staring, all in the same direction. One wall was all windows—despite the appearance of solid stone from the outside. It looked out over the ruined city, unmoving and peaceful now, but the peoples expressions were shocked, frightened. They must have been bubbled at the last minute. I wonder what they saw?
At the very front, a tall man, broad shouldered, good looking. A few still heads were turned toward him.
"Art, I presume?" She touched the man. A hasty shield, covering himself at the last minute, as if the disaster was so awful he had lost faith in the ability of the outer shields to handle the wave of destruction the comet must have thrown out. A bubble held tight with determination and desperation.
"Spooky." Cor circled the statues. "Look at their expressions. I guess they saw the end of their world. And they're frozen, remembering."
How had the Auld Wulf gotten Logic free?
She dropped her hands. "I don't think I want to be the one to wake the god up. The last one was nasty."
She turned at the thump of feet on the stairs. Oscar and Bran, bright-eyed and no doubt ready for yet another adventure.
As good as they are at getting into trouble, maybe it's time to leave . . .
She took another circuit around the museum and found Xen perched on the lead horse of the four running yearlings, and when she reached mentally, she could feel the life inside the layered bubbles.
"I think I'll see if I can get a god to come check these things out. C'mon, Xen, let's go to Ash."
Chapter Thirty-one
1375 Late Winter
Ash-New Tokyo-New Lands
Trying to pretend he wasn't attracted to Rustle just wasn't working.
And Rustle kept almost looking his direction, even as she dangled temptation in front of her parents. ". . . The New Tokyo Art Gallery. We've got the front door open, and are now trying to decide which statues are people and which statues are statues."
Never snorted. "I trust the statues aren't anything like the last one."
"And that it didn't take a fourway to open it." Dydit glowered.
"Apparently the trigger was something along the lines of sketching from a live nude female figure. Gre tried to draw a picture of little Kohl, who was sans diaper in the heat and humidity."
Never sputtered indignantly.
Harry grinned. "That sounds like Art."
Rustle finally looked over at the Auld Wulf. "If you can't come, I can probably get Romeau to try. There are several horse sculptures that might be his missing yearlings."
"Oh really? Arty Marty. Well, I suppose the sooner we get everyone together, the better. C'mon." He took her hand and stepped to New Tokyo.
He recognized half the statues. The animal statues were indeed alive. That put an interesting perspective on all the artwork he'd admired, over the centuries before the comet. And the howling wolf . . . he peeled that one first.
Rustle watched carefully.
"It's nothing like those outer shields. Nothing special in the way they're sealed and layered. Two layers of bubbles. You put a bunch of power into a hard scratch at the closing spot." He demonstrated.
The big wolf blinked at him in surprise, then stood up and transformed into a naked young man.
"Rustle may I introduce the God of Eternal Youth? He's generally called 'that disgusting young man' and on rare occasions, Richie."
"Hi, gorgeous. Don't tell me you ran around with this Old Man while I was unavailable? That's just wrong."
Rustle snickered. "That disgusting young man. I see. Richie, why don't you come out here and meet some friends of mine. I think you'll get along really well with the witches."
"Oh, I always have." He winked and followed her.
The Auld Wulf suppressed a desire to go too, and make sure he kept his hands off Rustle . . . but if there was any way to get Richie's enthusiastic assistance, it would be to save a place like Rip Crossing. He strolled among the statues, remembering people. When Rustle returned, he waved at the bronze figures. "High society rich people. Not a one who knows how to survive after a disaster. Upstairs, mostly mages, a single pyramid of witches."
"With layered bubbles, that ten thousand to one time dilation . . . "
"Turns into a hundred million to one. God forbid Arty's statues move from their allotted position." He cleared his throat to get the growl out of his voice. "And then with the outer shield, if meshing a magic shield with a dimensional bubble didn't change that time ratio . . . They've barely had time to blink." He frowned around the room. "I hadn't realized Arty was collecting living animals. And people."
Ask returned, toting babies. "The other witches have decided that an orgy with the God of Eternal Youth is exactly what they need. And what he needs to get over losing a thousand years."
Gre herded the toddlers in and suggested that they ride the horsies. Xen made a beeline for the leading horse. The toddlers—five of them—looked on with big eyes, stampeding away from the rattlesnake, and then the bull.
The Auld Wulf shook his head in faint amusement. Whose idea was that wine? Mine or Gisele's? These children have changed Ash forever, and Rip Crossing is a scandal and a half. He glanced out the door.
Five witches, blankets and a picnic basket in hand. He decided against asking if they'd managed to find any more of that wine.
"They're all heading down to the beach—such as it is. Any other gods wrapped up in here?" Rustle asked. "What about that guy on the top floor?"
"Yes, that's Arty." The Auld Wu
lf started up the stairs. "I suppose we'd better go get this over with."
He touched the man on the shoulder and stepped back as the metallic sheen popped, revealing normal skin.
"Hey Marty, guess what?"
"You finally found a sense of artistic appreciation?" The man spun around and looked out over the ruins. "Wait. What was going on? There was a , a . . . " he turned back around frowning. Studied all the metallic figures standing around him. "What the hell?"
"Do you remember the comet?"
"The . . . Oh." He leaned on the window and stared a long time. "What happened?"
"Almost everybody died. We just found your building five years ago, finally worked out how to open it yesterday. I came to see if I could unpeel anyone."
"So, my friends and I are nearly the last people on Earth?"
"No, you've been tucked away for a thousand years, the population has grown quite a bit."
Arty turned his back on the window. "A thousand years?"
"Yep. Just in time for the next comet to hit. Will you help us try to deflect this one?"
"It didn't work last time. Guess I won't unpeel anyone for awhile. When's this comet due?"
"About a year. If you're going to turtle up again, might I recommend a bit more practical assortment of animals? A single bull? How about adding some cows? You've got four horses, and every one of them is male."
"They are art, Wolfgang. Living art! Aren't they spectacular?"
"Err, very impressive bull. But really, if you add some cow art, you and your people will live to create more wonderful things."
"Bah! You haven't an artistic bone in your body. Get out of my Museum." His eyes drifted to Rustle, and he smiled. "Now here's a pretty little thing I should save and savor."
Rustle straightened. "No thank you."
Art made a gesture, but Rustle was suddenly not there. And just as suddenly the sparks he hadn't consciously registered in the back of his mind, Ask, Gre and all the children disappeared. He turned and walked down the stairs, most of his attention on Arty. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he reached the ground floor and found everyone gone. The horses too. He walked out the door and closed it firmly behind him.
