Gods old and dark

by Holly Lisle

  He stopped his thoughts from chasing farther down that path. Instead, he watched the rrôn who walked out into the center of the floor. Rekkathav felt sick inside—excitement and nerves and fear all twisted around in his gut until he feared his stomach would evert out of sheer tension, spewing its contents everywhere and causing him public humiliation. He'd discovered that other species found his people's tendency to flip the entire stomach out between the hard mouthparts when stressed disgusting; and Rekkathav knew that if he died, he didn't want to die humiliated.

  So he clamped his mouthparts tight and braced himself and held the live energy while the rrôn in the center of the arena bowed to Aril, and then to Baanraak, and said, "This official decree of challenge having been made by Baanraak of the rrôn, past Master of the Night Watch, against Aril of the keth, current Master of the Night Watch, and duly attended by witnesses who are informed and aware of their duties as witnesses and who have declared their willingness to carry these duties out when the challenge has been decided, and which is duly seconded by seconds chosen by the Challenger and Defender without duress or coercion, and with the full knowledge and consent of the seconds to fulfill their duties, I now present the rules and rituals of the challenge.

  "Challenger and Defender will stay within their shields until the drop of the gold ball into the center of the drop-cup; at its clear ringing, seconds will drop shields and move into the seconds' waiting area, which is to the left of each—"

  Rekkathav looked quickly left. In the smooth stone floor, covered on his half with gold leaf, he saw a broad square of red stone—polished marble, perhaps, but of a peculiarly bloody hue.

  "—and at the instant that the shields drop, Challenger and Defender are free to attack in any and all manners of their choosing, save only that they may not use any weapon which does not originate from their bodies or their minds."

  The rrôn had daggerlike teeth and talons and vast bulk, and the keth was slender and blunt of tooth and with the most delicate of claws at the ends of his finger pads. To Rekkathav, this seemed terribly unfair.

  "To assure that Challenger and Defender both follow these rules, both will fight naked of all clothing."

  Which meant nothing to Baanraak, of course; he wore nothing but his skin anyway. Rekkathav had never seen the Master in anything less than his full robes, however.

  Aril shrugged and shed the floating robes; without him to animate them, the silks crumpled into a brightly colored puddle on the floor. The Master stood naked before them all—tall and stretched and smooth, sexless, almost featureless, terribly pale, soft-looking and ill-defined. He began to glow, filling up with an ugly, dirty light as muddy as the light that chased ahead of deadly storms. His braids floated in a nimbus around him, that same light running along them and crackling between them as if Aril had filled himself with lightning. He smiled a little, but that was just a twisting of his mouth, a grimace without any real meaning. Rekkathav, whose face was incapable of expression, had learned that while Aril's face was more mobile than his own, the Master's twistings and flexings of his facial features could be ignored as irrelevant. What lay inside of Aril was always the same—always deadly cold and sharp as edged steel, always layered and full of twists and deceptions.

  The light show unnerved Rekkathav, but it didn't seem to be of interest to any of the rrôn. The speaker in the center of the arena continued with his reading of the rules, unfazed, and Rekkathav stared at his Master and lost the voice of the rrôn until suddenly he heard the words, "…and if both Challenger and Defender shall fall dead, the challenge will fall to the seconds, who will hold their places while the deaths of both are adjudged by the witnesses, and if both Defender and Challenger are found to be truly dead, then at the sound of the drop of the gold ball into the drop-cup they shall step unshielded into the center of the arena and immediately and without second pick up the attack, with the survivor made Master."

  On the other side of the arena, the red-and-black rrôn looked Rekkathav in the eye and grinned, showing all his teeth, and winked.

  Without warning, Rekkathav's stomach everted, its contents spewing everywhere. It dangled between his mouthparts, bright pink and soft and bulbous, and the rrôn all exploded with laughter.

  "A fine Master he'll make," one laughed, and another roared, "At least we've seen his secret weapon now," and they all laughed again.

  Rekkathav would have sunk into the floor and died right then of shame, but circumstances were likely to put him out of his misery soon enough. Instead, he willed the mess off the gleaming gold floor and swallowed hard to get his stomach back inside. He did not look at Aril; he could feel the Master's distaste, and that was bad enough.

  The rrôn finished reading the rules, and Rekkathav pretended that the rest of this debacle did not exist, that nothing in the world existed save the voice of the rrôn in the center of the arena and his Master and the pending sound of a huge ball of solid gold dropping into a metal cup large enough to shelter a rrôn. Rekkathav cast the shield when he heard that rrôn say "And shields up." When the gold ball dropped into the cup with a sharp, clear ringing that could likely be heard everywhere in the Hub, and perhaps beyond, Rekkathav dropped the shield and skittered hell-bent for his blood-red stone square and its implied safety.

  The battle in the center of the arena was the stuff of nightmares for a dreamer far more twisted than Rekkathav. Fire and blood rained down, and lightning crashed and thunder roared, and monsters appeared out of nowhere only to dissolve into nothing; winds tore in all directions, screaming; the stone floor grew heads and mouths and terrible teeth; darkness fell, so deep it was blindness, only to be torn away by light like the surface of the sun, and searing heat, with that chased by blizzards, and the blizzards scattered by explosions, and the explosions washed away by torrential rain.

  And then it all stopped.

  Silence, and Rekkathav found himself curled in a ball on the floor with his legs wrapped over his head in a position of defense. He peeked through the shield of his many legs and found the room held Aril, standing, bloodied and torn but still clearly alive, on one side. And nothing on the other, save a gleam of gold on the floor.

  The rrôn that filled the stands crouched in silence, stunned. Baanraak's second whipped his head from side to side, looking for Baanraak, with his wings flat against his back and his rilles pulled tight to his neck. He looked…terrified.

  Rekkathav unfolded. Dared to put legs on the floor. Dared to push himself to standing. No sign of Baanraak, no feel of Baanraak. Aril seemed surprised. Cautious. Rekkathav could sense him feeling around the room with his mind, trying to figure out what had happened.

  He kept returning to the gold on the floor. A resurrection ring, Rekkathav thought. Aril, still Master of the Night Watch, summoned his robes and donned them again with a flick of a finger. The light around him died and the robes billowed out, seemingly alive; Rekkathav wondered if there was some connection. Aril walked to the center of the floor and said, "I have won. I'll have your allegiance now."

  And the rrôn in the center said, "No one saw you kill Baanraak—not even you saw it happen. It is your duty to destroy your Challenger in a manner that can be witnessed, in a manner that permits the witnesses to determine that the Challenger is dead. You have not done this. Therefore, the battle is not over, and you must face Trrtrag, Baanraak's second."

  Behind Aril, a voice said, "That won't be necessary," and light unfolded itself from around Baanraak in time for the assembly to see him reach down, jaws gaping, and rip Aril's head off. Baanraak spit the head out, and it bounced and then rolled across the floor to hit the drop-cup, which tolled softly—The sound of my doom, Rekkathav thought. The end of my life, and the sound of my doom. Baanraak lifted his eyes to the stands and said, "Any of you not see that?"

  And the rrôn laughed.

  Rekkathav forced himself to leave his place along the wall, all pretense of hope gone. Stiff-legged, he headed for the center of the room, for Baanraak and the r
rôn who had read the rules and dropped the gold ball. It seemed to Rekkathav that all the air was gone from the vast room and that at the same time gravity had tripled; he could barely find the strength to lift one leg after the other. And yet he did. He got himself to the center of the room, and then he managed to stand there, and he looked up at the rrôn and he waited for his fate.

  Baanraak looked down at him. He turned back to his witnesses and said, "Go, then. Spread the news—Baanraak has reclaimed the Mastery and the rrôn have returned to the Hub." The rrôn witnesses cheered and slipped from the stands and galloped from the room.

  When they were gone, Baanraak turned to Rekkathav and said, "Still standing under your own power, I see." He rested a single talon against Rekkathav's neck and said, "You're ringed—I can feel the magic of your resurrection ring coursing through you—but you have not even had your first death yet. Aril made a mockery of the challenge by taking you as his second. What did you do for him?"

  "I was his liaison. I kept track of operatives in the field, logged missions, read his decrees sometimes, researched in the vaults."

  "You were his…secretary?"

  "In a manner of speaking."

  "Have you ever fought in a battle?"

  "No."

  Baanraak cocked his head to one side and grinned, and Rekkathav could see blood still smeared across his face. "Do you want to die today?"

  "No."

  "You didn't turn your back on your Master when given the opportunity. You didn't cower when facing your fate. Are you loyal to the dead, that you would follow him to oblivion—or would you be loyal to me if I gave you the chance?"

  In Rekkathav, a coil of hope stirred. "I would serve you faithfully and honestly."

  "We'll see. Convince me of your worth today, apart from your most impressive puking. You amuse me, but the role of jester may not suit your considerable ambition."

  Baanraak's Enclave, Kerras—Baanraak of Silver and Gold

  Baanraak erupted from the lake, a grand fish clamped between his jaws, and flung rainbow droplets in all directions. He shot into the air, wings cupping and paddling him upward, swallowed the fish down whole, and dove back in again in one sweet, sinuous movement.

  He'd had to enlarge the lake twice—once for swimming and a second time for fishing. To do that, he'd had to expand his hideout considerably. But he'd wanted to do that anyway, because he didn't like lying on his rock while he sunned and seeing beyond the edge of his little domain to the hell beyond. It ruined the illusion.

  So he'd spread things out a bit. Not so much that anyone would notice. His hideout was no more than a hundred miles in diameter—a nothing, a tidbit when compared to the whole of a planet. He'd shielded the magic so that it didn't leave much of a sign, too, though the fact that Kerras had live magic again was eventually going to catch the attention of the Night Watch.

  When it did, they would return and destroy it again.

  He didn't waste a lot of time thinking about that. He'd created this place only as a temporary haven, and he was taking the time to enjoy it while it existed. He didn't like thinking about its eventual destruction, but he would resign himself to the inevitable.

  Gliding beneath the surface of the lake, looking for a big, tasty finny grey-rock to round out his snack, he thought that if he could keep his little world intact, he might be willing to hide there for a hundred years. Or a thousand. He'd fixed it up beautifully. He'd fringed the perimeter with forests full of the trees he remembered from his childhood, and filled his forests with some of the wildlife he best recalled. He kept being surprised—finding things he didn't know he'd created in the corners of his domain. Insects and birds too small to even eat, and a few mammals—mammals had never gotten much of a foothold on Vraish, but there had been a few varieties, and he kept discovering that he'd willed more into being than he realized when he made his hideaway.

  Baanraak found the finny grey-rock, one of the tastiest of the Vraish cold-water lake fish, deep beneath the surface, where the water would be only a few degrees above freezing all year round. Wings tucked flat against his body to cut the drag, tail whipping to propel him forward, Baanraak glided down toward it, neck coiled back.

  The fish realized its danger before he reached it, and darted away—but he extended his neck with one powerful thrust and caught it between his teeth. He angled back to the surface—the sun overhead was a spot of gold surrounded by black and rich blue-green. The world above him brightened as he shot toward the surface, until it shimmered with its rippled reflections. And then Baanraak burst free again.

  He wanted someone to share this world with. Someone who would love it, who would revel in it. But of all the rrôn who had become dark gods—the only rrôn who would remember this place as home—he could not think of a single one who would see it as anything but something else to be destroyed for a quick surge of power.

  And Baanraak didn't know any live rrôn anymore. They had moved on and found other homes—and this place would be meaningless to them. They would not understand the smells, the tastes, the weight of the air, or the sounds. This place would not be home to them. To their children and grandchildren if they settled here, certainly—but never to them. The first generation in a new land became perpetual strangers, forever torn between memory and reality. Baanraak had been such a stranger for longer than humans had been human.

  Baanraak landed on his rock and crunched his fish, savoring the taste of this one. It was big enough to require more than one swallow—man-size, but far less bony, and better designed for the gullet. Like everything else, it tasted as wonderful as he remembered.

  He was living in a fantasy. He knew that, but he didn't care. Perhaps this was the first sign of senility, or of madness. He didn't care about that, either. After long wandering, he was home.

  This place would be better if it had families here—drakes and jennies soaring through the air with their still-flightless sprats shrieking up at them for food or attention; and singers on the high places at dawn and dusk; and craftsmen carving the spire-cities from mountains; and warriors sparring in the dusty areas, battling for play when they were not battling for real. It would be better if it encompassed the whole of this world.

  It would be better if it would survive.

  He closed his eyes against sudden pain.

  He found himself with something he wanted to keep, something he cherished. He did not want to see this place destroyed. He wanted to fight for it. He wanted to save it. And the two creatures who might help him were the two in all the universes who most wanted to see him annihilated, Lauren Dane and Molly McColl.

  CHAPTER 14

  Daisies and Dahlias, Cat Creek, North Carolina

  "THIS IS AN UNOFFICIAL HEARING of the Cat Creek Sentinels. We are questioning Lauren Dane as part of our fact-finding mission before we determine whether or not formal charges of treason should be brought against her in this body or carried up to the Council of Sentinels. Because this is a fact-finding mission, no areas of questioning can be marked off-limits, and no evidence can be ruled out or removed from consideration." Eric MacAvery looked down at Lauren and said, "That means for this inquiry we will not be leaving your parents and the fact that they were found guilty of treason by the High Council out of the evidence. If we bring formal charges against you, a member of the High Council will take your side as your advocate, and may rule that what your parents did has no bearing on what you're doing. But for now, we're looking at everything."

  Lauren nodded. She sat with her back to the wall, with Eric and the gate-mirror to her left and the map table to her right. They'd given her one of the few metal folding chairs, instead of one of the wooden ones; she had the chair that sat unevenly on the floor, one leg shorter than the others so that it rocked slightly every time she shifted. And, like all metal folding chairs, it had been designed for maximum discomfort. Behind her was a floor mirror she'd brought with her—her version of a presentation screen. For the moment, it reflected the room and the peo
ple in it, and nothing more.

  Jake had been on her lap, but even before everyone arrived he'd grown restless. Now he sat on the floor beside her, mostly under the table, drawing on a small stack of the Sentinels' vector-charting and mapping paper with a blue ballpoint pen she'd had in her bag.

  The Sentinels sat in two rows facing her. They mostly looked grim. June Bug Tate and her sister, Louisa; George Mercer; and Darlene Fullbright had the front row. Terry Mayhew, Betty Kay Nye, Raymond Smetty, and Pete had the back row.

  Heyr sat in the gate-mirror, keeping track of movement between the worlds for the duration.

  Pete had wanted to sit in the front with her. Eric had refused the request. Heyr had told her that he would level the town and reduce the Cat Creek Sentinels to their component atoms before he would let them charge her with treason or pass a death sentence on her, and she found that she believed him. Heyr had informed the Sentinels that he was watching the gate during their inquest. They had not been happy about it, but they'd had to concede that he was the 600-pound gorilla. If he wanted to watch the gate, none of them could do anything to stop him.