by R. Lee Smith
Olivia had no idea what caused her to look up. It was as incomprehensible as looking away from the man aiming a gun at you, only to see a plane crashing down on top of you instead. There was no reason, no warning. She just turned her head, looking away from Bahgree’s mad, hungry dance, and up over Kodjunn’s shoulder, in time to see Urga dive out of the silver slice of the moon, her legs lengthening into lances of bone, her wings shining like the face of the River below them, and her eyes…ah God, her eyes…
There wasn’t time to scream. Urga slammed into them without impact, without weight. She kept her oath; Olivia felt only that silvery tingle as the goddess drifted intangibly through her, and then she was out and turning, hovering impassively in space to watch them. Her legs were drawing back up into their original shape, but they were different…black…black in the moonlight.
Kodjunn coughed. Olivia’s belly was hot and that heat was spreading. She looked up as the Great Spirit looked down, his golden eyes round with shock.
“I bleed,” he said, his brows puckering. “This body bleeds.”
Kodjunn’s arms were loosening. The Great Spirit didn’t seem to notice. He looked at Urga, floating impassively with them through the sky. “Betrayer!” he bellowed.
The River was below them, opening wider and wider, like Kodjunn’s arms.
“I will see them all dead,” said Urga in her moon-distant voice, “before I give you to another.”
“I curse the day I dreamt you into life!” the Great Spirit roared, and let go of Olivia to cut his claws at his mate, but she remained serenely out of reach.
“Then curse me. Only me.” Urga caught the back of Olivia’s shirt (she never touched her skin, though, not so much as a finger), tugging her free of Kodjunn’s failing grip. “Only me,” she insisted, dropping Olivia behind her, but of course, they were already falling, falling together toward the River’s grasping hands.
The Great Spirit slashed Urga open, but the wounds bled only white light and closed again. Urga glided up against him, enduring blows and lethal claws without resistance, wrapping her legs tenderly around Kodjunn’s hips. She spread her wings and their descent turned to swooping flight, just the two of them. Kodjunn roared, the River rose up, Olivia screamed, and the world broke apart.
5
Water bashed into her from behind, then closed her inside its monstrous fist, yanking her down. She could still see them for a second—Urga like a second moon with her wings full around her, motionless; Kodjunn in tatters, battering at her as he was borne away—and then the water was too thick, blacking out her eyes and numbing her ears. She could feel Bahgree’s eager fingers at her mouth, trying to pry open her locked jaws, to be the thing she breathed in when her aching lungs ran out of air.
Olivia visualized the golden armor that had saved her once from Urga, pushed it out with a bubbling cry, and heard Bahgree scream in frustration. The River churned, a storm of black water on every side. Which way was up? Olivia darted out of her body to orient herself and Bahgree snapped into sharp focus right before her. Before she could move, the River Woman was on her, shrieking as she wrapped her soggy claws around Olivia’s neck—again with the neck—and tried to shove her head into Olivia’s mouth when she screamed.
Olivia bit, grappling with the twisting, keening wraith that rode her out through the aether. The River boiled around them both, alive with Bahgree’s rage, and somewhere in there, Olivia could see the faint golden flicker that was her own body being carried away.
Don’t fight, the Great Spirit had said, but she didn’t have time to sit around and let him save her, if he was even coming at all, and not, well, cumming somewhere else. She had no illusions; the Great Spirit was who he was. Olivia yanked her legs up and locked them around the waist of the thing struggling with her, holding her fast. This is not my body, she thought, letting go of Bahgree’s wrists. This is my spirit, not my flesh. She can’t choke me here.
The pressure at her neck subsided, not all at once, but slowly, like she was turning down the volume on the radio. Bahgree’s face rippled in surprise and something else, something furious and lost and fearful. She tried to get away then, but Olivia had her and now Olivia let her know it.
She punched her fist into Bahgree’s face—It isn’t flesh. It’s only water—and grabbed onto her there, on the inside. Bahgree shrieked, jittering wildly on the end of Olivia’s wrist as she drew back her other arm and drove it into Bahgree’s chest.
Let go let go let go of me bitch you are let go you are my own my daughter one of mine let go oh you’re HURTING MEEEEE
Olivia opened her hand around the pulsing, throbbing, living thing that her mortal mind could only perceive as Bahgree’s heart and—
LET GO LET GO YOU ARE MINE ONE OF MINE YOU CANNOT DO THIS
—crushed it in her fist.
Bahgree’s voice became a piercing shriek that Olivia could feel and taste as much as hear and then there was nothing, only water. She hung there, poised for a counterattack that never came, remembering only when her spirit-sight began to blur that her real body was still out there somewhere. Drowning, by the feel of it. She found the tether that tied her to her body, but it was disturbingly slack, giving her only the dimmest resistance to follow as she hunted for herself.
She was going to be dead by the time she got there, she knew that, didn’t she?
Yeah, she knew it. Shut up about it already.
There she was, tumbling through the River like a broken log, just a flicker of life-light in a cloud of swelling black. Olivia threw herself at her lifeless, water-tossed body, expecting to come up kicking at the bottom, if she came up at all. Weight crashed into her, and pressure, and noise, and the next three seconds were the worst she’d ever had to get through—the battering rocks and logs, the crushing agony of her lungs, the confusion, the convulsions, never knowing even if she was vomiting water out or breathing it in—but at least it only lasted three seconds.
Then she was dead and it was all okay.
A MOMENT OUT OF TIME
Olivia came home, all her body aching as if she’d spent the day under a box of bricks instead of in the front office at Gibson’s. She put her purse on the bookshelf and her keys on the desk. She was too tired to cook dinner, too tired to order out. All she wanted was to get out of these pinchy shoes and go to bed. There was a light blinking on the answering machine: Mom, no doubt. God. She’d call tomorrow. It wasn’t like the world was going to end if Olivia just went—
Home.
Olivia came home, climbing up the narrow chimney to the first of Vorgullum’s many rooms. Her arms hurt, as if she’d climbed all the way out of the mountain that morning and then mostly fallen back inside. She took her claws off, sat down on the nearest bench and rubbed at the old, raised scars on the soles of her feet. Oh, she hurt. Why did she have to hurt so much? When was she ever going to adjust and start to feel like this was—
Home.
Olivia came home, because it was always home, wasn’t it? No matter how old you got or how long you’d already lived at that cheap little two-room at the edge of town, it was always home when you walked up the driveway where that big yellow bus used to drop you off, always home when you opened the door on the smell of spaghetti and caramel apple pie just because Mom knew it was your favorite, always home when Dad put his arms around you and called you his Punkin. Twenty-four years old didn’t matter and three years of college didn’t matter and Bobby and his half-assed talk of maybe marriage didn’t matter when you came home, when you finally got to be someone’s little girl again, when you were picked up and taken in and taken care of, when you were—
Home.
Olivia came home down a dark stone corridor and out into the golden light of the forge. Sudjummar was at his anvil, tapping shape into a spear-head with his hands and rocking a cradle made primarily from an ancient dynamite crate with steady strokes of his left foot. Somurg chewed his fist and gave Olivia a punch when she lifted him into her arms, then opened his eyes and
gave her his frowning, toothless snarl. She sat on the edge of the table between a half-finished fry pan and a broken pick, bringing Somurg to her breast as she watched Sudjummar work. In a moment, he would finish, he would find some cheerful subject to get philosophical about, he would come and put his arms and his broken wings around her, and he would make her feel at—
Home.
Olivia came home, pouring herself down a thousand rivers to burst from the crust of the Earth in a flume of steam and spray. Here, she stretched out her consciousness through rivers and lakes, over falls, up geysers, into pipes, out of faucets. She was falling from the sky in storms, trickling over bodies in shower stalls, filling glasses and passing in swallows into human throats. The world was a muscle and she flexed it, bringing all her seven billion hosts together as one under her will. She was whole now, she was alive, she was—
Home.
Olivia came home, bucking in abandon and crying her pleasure to the whole mountain as she rode Doru down from the heights where he sent her so easily, so often, so well. She fell back, her hands grasping at his broad chest as he arched, back against Bodual, panting and thrumming in her ear as his movements became more urgent. It would be so simple for her to push out of her body into space, bring the three of them together in sync for a single shared climax, but she didn’t. She groped for Doru, reaching back her other arm for Bodual, and when they both had her, held her, she gave up all restraint and just came—
Home.
CHAPTER FOUR
JOURNEY’S END
1
Air battered her lungs. Once. Again. Again. Olivia thrashed. Her chest spasmed. She threw up blindly and was thrown onto her side to choke on air like razors. Someone’s hand hammered on her back. Someone else had her head, holding it up out of the mud since her neck was as weak as green reeds. The Great Spirit couldn’t manifest next to Kodjunn…Had she been found by humans again?
Olivia forced her eyes open long enough to see a gullan face above her, but it didn’t come in clear. The sun was up, that wasn’t the problem, but her eyes hurt too much to focus. She closed them again.
“Is she breathing? Olivia, are you breathing?”
Familiar voice. She couldn’t tell whose. Her ears were pounding, water-logged.
“Yes. Yes, I think so. Olivia, look at me.”
That voice was unmistakable. Even as strained as it was, only one gulla had a voice that deep.
Olivia’s hand swam through the air and struck a broad chest covered in wet fur. A very broad chest. A mastodon, he’d called himself. “Doru?” she croaked.
None of this could be real. She’d cracked her head on the edge of Cheyenne’s pit and fractured her skull and dreamed up this whole thing.
“It’s me, Olivia,” Doru said.
All a dream. Olivia got her eyes open again and sat up with help from four hands. The jungle was there and it still looked real. The River was there, flowing quietly by like it had never reached up and pulled Olivia down to drown while a crazy ghost tried to kill her. She was even on the other side of it, which all but proved this was a dream. And Doru was there, and Bodual was right beside him, and as hallucinations went, they looked good.
“Where’s Kodjunn?” she asked, wincing. She needed to fix herself. The Great Spirit said not to use any more power, but he didn’t have to live with pain. “Is he all right?”
“He isn’t here,” Doru said. “I saw…I don’t know what I saw, but he’s not here. He was…taken. I couldn’t follow him, Olivia. I had to find you.”
Through the foggy confusion of the night’s memories, she saw Kodjunn again, thundering away at Urga in the Great Spirit’s voice as he was taken away. Toward the Forgotten Waters? Away from it? And to what purpose? Good mate that she was, Urga would never try to harm the Great Spirit, but what about Kodjunn? He was one of the full-moon children, one of those sacred few who embodied the souls Urga herself conceived. She had to know that, didn’t she? She’d never hurt her own son…would she?
She had to get out of here. She had to go on.
Olivia looked at the River, the gently-flowing River, and the tangle of deadfall, broken canoes, rotting plastic, and all the other flotsam at one of nature’s many U-bends where she’d doubtlessly washed up. She didn’t know where she was, but she knew she wasn’t far from the place where Bahgree’s energy was bound. She could feel the pull of her destination, physically feel it, light as a single thread tugging at her shirt, maybe, but it was there. It was enough to follow. She could go on alone if she had to.
She did have to.
Doru and Bodual were still sitting there, stubbornly real, looking back at her. She reached out a trembling hand to touch Doru’s face, then Bodual’s arm. They couldn’t be here. They just couldn’t. How many hundreds of miles had they come? How many thousands, maybe? They couldn’t be here!
“I couldn’t let you go,” Doru said hoarsely. “I tried. But I thought… you might need me.”
“How did you—”
“I saw which way you went when you left the aerie.” Doru shrugged. “I went that way.”
“He told me he was leaving,” Bodual added. “Like he expected me to say his goodbyes for him and not follow after. He’s big, but he’s stupid.”
Doru didn’t react to the nervous attempt at an insult. All his attention remained fixed on Olivia. “We saw you a few times in the beginning, but we could never seem to catch up.”
“I don’t remember Kodjunn ever being that fast,” Bodual interrupted. “Or being able to fly for so long. He never seemed to land!”
“Even after we fell behind, we kept finding your dens, so we knew we were going the right way,” Doru said. “We lost you only once…but we just kept going. Last night, we picked up your trail again.”
“The coals were still warm at your fire. And then we came to the river and saw…” He and Doru exchanged glances. “I don’t know what we saw,” Bodual confessed. “But we didn’t want to get very close. We were flying around, and then we saw you.”
He’d lost weight, Olivia realized, looking at him again. They both had, but on Bodual, it really showed. He didn’t have a lot to lose.
“We saw you fall,” Doru was saying. “And Kodjunn…kept going. Olivia…”
“Go home,” she said. She rolled onto her belly and put her palms in the mud. First one foot, then the other, and then she heaved herself upwards and stood, swaying. Everything hurt. Did that even need to be said? Her chest hurt when she breathed. Her throat hurt when she coughed, and she had to cough a lot. Her pruney skin hurt where her wet clothes rubbed on it and hurt even worse as it dried in the open air. Her feet hurt when they had to take her weight. Her hair hurt on her head and her blood hurt in her veins. She supposed she was glad she was alive and all that, but oh God, everything hurt!
Never mind. She had to go on. Her legs shook a little, but they held her. She took a few practice steps, never turning her back on the River, but the River ignored her and flowed on. Everything was flowing on. Even time. Especially time.
She started walking. Bring out your popcorn, baby. The last act was about to start: In Which Our Heroine Marches to Glory. Not a dry eye in the house.
“No.” Doru caught her by the arm, and when Doru catches something, by God, it stays caught. He stepped in front of her, his broad face set and his horns lowered against her. “Olivia—”
“I have to finish!” she cried, struggling in absolute futility against his grip. “Let me go! I’m stepping up, goddammit! I am going to finish this!”
“I know you are,” Doru said quietly. “And I’m going to carry you.”
2
The River opened up at the edge of the world and emptied into the sea, and right where the two waters met, there was an island. Doru circled it twice, suddenly trembling with exertion after hours of effortlessly carrying her, then flew back to the mainland and dropped onto the beach. “I can’t,” he panted, and fell heavily to his knees.
“I could try,” Bodual sa
id uncertainly, but he didn’t argue when Olivia simply shook her head.
“I don’t think you’re meant to go,” she told them.
“We’ll rest here then.” Bodual took half a step away from her, looked at Doru groaning on the ground, and then back at her. “For a while.”
She hugged him, and felt his arms tight to the point of pain around her. “Make him go home,” she whispered. “The tribe needs him. They need you. You can’t wait for me forever. Please, make him go home.”
“I can make him,” he whispered back, and pressed his lips fiercely to her cheek. “But who’s going to make me?”
She let go of him, bent down and kissed Doru’s brow. He caught her arm, pulled her back, and made her do it right, his hands on her body and his breath inside her one last time. Then he released her and covered his eyes. He didn’t watch her go. Bodual sat down in the sand beside him, his arm resting around Doru’s broad, shaking shoulders, and the two of them stared at the jungle as Olivia walked away.
The tide was in, but the waves had a way of breaking around the island, not on it. It wasn’t hard for Olivia to swim out. In fact, the closer she got, the easier it became, as if she weren’t swimming as much as lying on the water and being pulled toward it. She climbed out onto the shore feeling stronger than when she’d waded out and started swimming. It was little more than a few hundred meters of rocky ground raised up over the waves, a few dozen overgrown bushes, and at the center of it all, a wide, flat rock, oddly rippled, like a pool someone had turned to stone after dropping something into its shallows. There was no sign that anyone had ever been here before them, no litter of beer bottles or discarded sandals, no weathered pier or rusty tie-downs for passing boats, no footprints to break up the water-carved dunes, not even birds nesting in the bushes or paddling near the beach. Nothing and no one, apart from Kodjunn.
