Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

  He lay naked in what little grass grew on the island, his useless wings spread out on either side of him, the shreds of them snapping in the ocean wind like a torn tarp. He didn’t move when Olivia ran to him and clumsily fell down at his side, but his eyes opened with golden light when she put her hands on him.

  She recoiled as the Great Spirit said, “You came.”

  He didn’t move. The sand beneath him was stained black in the moonlight. Stained and churned around, as with a very particular kind of violence. He’d been with Urga. He’d used Kodjunn to be with Urga. Kodjunn, broken and bleeding.

  “How could you?” Olivia whispered. “Couldn’t you just once—just once!—be a man and not a…not a rutting goat!”

  “It was the only way I could keep her with me,” the Great Spirit said without emotion. “The only way I could hold her from further vengeance.”

  “Get out now. Get out so I can fix him!”

  “This body is beyond your power, Olivia. Beyond all power. When I depart it, it must succumb.”

  “No!” she shouted. But when she pushed herself out to the place where she could see his damage, all she saw was blackness, death wrapping him so deeply that her hands on his chest were sunk in it all the way up to her wrists. The only light in him at all was the gold of the god, and even that was dim. Nevertheless, she tried, gathering her will and preparing to pour whatever she had—all she had—into him, to bring him back.

  “Don’t,” Kodjunn said.

  Olivia’s spirit spun around and there he was, sitting in the sand, whole but tired, where he could watch his body die. He let her fly to him, even stroked her hair when she wrapped her spirit arms around him, but otherwise didn’t move.

  “I can fix you!” she insisted. “Kodjunn, you know I can!”

  “Not and still do what you have to do. Look around you, Olivia.”

  She did, and with her spirit eyes saw the true pool, the Binding Place, pulsing with unnatural life within its imprisoning stone, and on every side of it was Bahgree—Bahgree’s face in every sliding slick of foam, Bahgree’s hands snatching from every wave that lapped the shore, a hundred Bahgrees rising and submerging and swirling around them. Never dead, always watchful, Bahgree.

  “Then wait,” she said. “Wait until I’ve done it and I’ll—”

  “He has to unbind the pool,” Kodjunn said quietly. “He has to leave me to open the way.”

  Her mouth worked in silence. Her eyes couldn’t give her tears, not here, but she was crying anyway, crying with her whole soul. “Then make him fix you! Make him do something!”

  “He is,” Kodjunn said, stroking her hair again. “He is enduring my death for me so that you can say goodbye.” He smiled a little. “I dreamed of this, do you remember?”

  She turned around and saw their bodies together on the with the ocean behind them. He lay there sleeping and she knelt beside him, her hands resting on his naked body and her hair falling down around them both. It was just as he’d described it, and it was horrible.

  “I’m going back inside now,” Kodjunn said, his eyes already fixed and dreaming. “Please don’t cry, Olivia. Don’t let that be the memory I take with me into eternity.”

  She could have held him back, she sensed that. No one had been strengthening him all this time, teaching him how to bend his power and use it for a weapon. He only had to be the host that carried her here, only had to be strong enough to host the Great Spirit’s divine essence. She could have held him easily, but not without hurting him, and so she let him go.

  Olivia fell back into her body, into tears and pain and the awesome weight of the flesh. She saw the golden light fade out of Kodjunn’s eyes as the Great Spirit left them. She wiped her own dry and bent, shaking, to fill what sight he had left with her face. She pressed her lips over his and took in his breath and told him that she loved him. She felt it when he smiled. She felt it when he died.

  She slipped out at once and looked around, but he was gone. Urga stood in his place, glowing as the moon, expressionless.

  A thousand words flooded Olivia’s mind, a thousand black emotions. She could say nothing, do nothing. Grief paralyzed her.

  “Why will you not die?” Urga wondered distantly. Her head tipped. She looked beyond Olivia to something in the real world. “Those are mine. If I wish, I could reach into their soft clay and will their hearts to burst.” She lifted one slender arm, reaching as if the mountain were right in front of her and all its inhabitants at her mercy. There she paused, looking down at Olivia again. “Which do you love best, mortal? Which of your many mates? Which child do you carry highest in your human heart, he who you spawned, or perhaps one of those plucked from the dead one’s womb? Tell me how to hurt you best. If I must guess, I will take them all.”

  “I hurt you once when I was only scared of you,” Olivia said.

  Urga’s bland face grew slowly shadowed.

  “If you make me hate you,” she went on, bringing all her power up from the heart of her where Urga could see it burn, “I’ll kill you.”

  “Nothing immortal can die,” Urga said after a long pause.

  “Only because immortals have no fear of death,” Olivia shot back. “And mortals don’t have the power. But I’m about to have both.”

  Urga’s fingerless hand curled and slowly withdrew. She looked… uneasy. “Did I not heal at your behest and give your human acolyte a child?”

  “And were you not just threatening my tribe?”

  “I saved your life.”

  “You killed Kodjunn!”

  “Olivia.” The Great Spirit’s unmistakable voice sounded behind her, his brilliance slowly turning the aether around them to gold. “It is time.”

  Olivia looked back at Urga. “You better be gone when I come out of this,” she said. “You just better.”

  Urga drifted back, but did not leave.

  “Olivia, it must be now.” The Great Spirit’s voice was urgent. What did it matter to him that Kodjunn was dead and his moon-mate was threatening to kill every other gullan she’d left behind in the mountain? It was all going to work out just fine for him, one way or another. Even if Bahgree triumphed in the end, the Great Spirit would still get laid. Olivia hated him in that moment; she hated them all.

  She returned to her body and stared into Kodjunn’s lifeless eyes for a long time. Then she stood up.

  That’s right, just go along, she thought. There’s no one to paint you tall now, you know. You can finish this thing any way that you want.

  But she would finish it, she knew that. She’d finish anyway, she’d finish grieving and resentful, she’d finish full of hate, but she’d finish because the same lives that Urga could snuff out so coldly were still in Olivia’s hands. She’d finish because it was her son too; it was Amy’s daughter; it was the unknown child that Tobi might let Doru name Mykel, and it was Beth’s and Wurlgunn’s miracle. It was the future, nothing less than the whole damned future, not just for Dark Mountain, but for all of them, and so of course she was going to finish.

  The Great Spirit knelt and put his palm in the center of that flat, ripply rock. The moonlight seemed to thicken, the pale rays of its light hung suspended in the air, trapped and held, like Bahgree’s power, until she could see nothing but the crown of the Great Spirit’s horns, his powerful arm thrusting through the haze, and the black rock itself.

  A drop of water appeared on the stone.

  Olivia glanced up, but the skies were clear. She looked down and the drop had become a small pool, the size of a silver dollar, but welling steadily wider. It began to move, pulling itself towards the center of the stone. Like quicksilver, it left no trail behind, skittering in a thick mass over the hump of a ripple into the valley behind it. It rested, growing, then stretched out an arm, found a gripping place on the next ripple, and pulled itself onward. It rested again, spreading, its surface rippling as if it were panting for breath, then surged ahead and over and on until it spilled out into the shallow bowl at the very cente
r. It grew…boiling…alive.

  The moonlight burned out brighter and brighter, reflecting off the caught water with blinding brightness. Olivia looked away, blinking, and watched Bahgree’s waves come in, white caps streaming out like hair over a thousand frantic, covetous faces.

  “Here was my union with the River Woman sundered in violence,” the Great Spirit said. “Here was that power broken and bound. Here did it become the curse that has devastated my children. And here, at last, it ends.”

  The light in the water intensified briefly, so bright now that for a moment, she could feel it as cold upon her arms and face as sunlight would be warm. Then it died away and the pool was dark, smooth, utterly without reflection. It waited and all the world was silent.

  “Come forward, Olivia Blake, daughter of Bahgree. Come and take back the power which was made at the dawning of this world and become what you are meant to be. By virtue of your blood’s birthright shall mine be renewed. Descend, a daughter of Bahgree,” the Great Spirit said, holding out his hand. “And rise as my mate and mother of all.”

  Somewhere, invisible, Urga was watching.

  Olivia took the Great Spirit’s hand and stepped into the water.

  3

  The world fell away, throwing her into blackness without dimension, without end. Blackness, but not darkness; she could see herself easily, in such stard contrast to the engulfing nothing that even the fine hairs on her arm, until now invisible, seemed almost offensively garish. She couldn’t see the Great Spirit, or the sand beneath her feet or the stars over her head, but every drop of water in every single wave was there, a bead of perfect clarity that could not be ignored.

  And she could see the water of the pool crawling up her legs, stupidly and gleefully boring its way into her flesh, into her pores. She could feel it, like a million microscopic worms, swimming in her blood.

  Olivia dropped (onto what? There was nothing!) with a caw of disgust, clawing and shoving at the water, only to have it flow up her wrists, her arms, her shoulders.

  Do not fight it, daughter.

  She spun, a scream on her lips, and there was Bahgree in the blackness, crouching, watching her. Water poured down the currants of her hair and up her arms again. Something long and shiny swam inside her—an eel or a giant fluke—sometimes coming close enough to the surface to shine a flat, fishy stare out at her, but Bahgree’s expression was strangely serene. Her calm magnified, not cloaked, her madness.

  Struggle is futile. Embrace me, my child, this creature said, creeping closer. I am eternity, divinity, and death. What are you but youth and hope? Youth fades, mortal one. Hope curdles into despair.

  The water washed up her neck, over her lips, into her mouth and up her nose, into her open eyes. It entered greedily, refusing to be taken in swallows, but thrust itself down her throat with purpose and living intent. She staggered back, choking and retching, her hands flying to her stomach as it began to bulge.

  You cannot win this battle, daughter. But only embrace me— Bahgree laid her hand upon her rippling breast, noticed the eel, and reached in to pull it indifferently out. Embrace me, she said, crushing the thing in her fist and tossing it aside, and I will work wonders with you.

  Olivia doubled over, gulping water, fighting for control against the invading thing inside her. She was changing. She could feel herself changing, feel her mind warping into a crucible of strange new lines of thought. Her flesh, oh God, her flesh was moving, rippling and bubbling like the water that raped its way deeper and deeper inside her. Soon, they would be one and the same.

  Bahgree laid her hand on Olivia’s breast, her fingers pouring up along the currant toward Olivia’s mouth. Embrace, she crooned. Even I can be kind. Do you think I will kill your son? Never! They will all be my children now.

  No!

  Olivia clawed her way free of the contorting husk of her body and out where she could see it. Her flesh was just a wash of poisonous light and shadow in constant flux. There was nothing that she recognized, nothing she knew as only Olivia.

  It is too late for you, Bahgree told her, bending lovingly to caress this monstrous, frothing form. Her hair drifted forward, caught itself in the current, and flowed upwards to fill Olivia’s throat, each strand waving like the delicate arms of a jellyfish. Her head collapsed, streamed inside her. Then her arms, her breasts, her hips. Her legs became streams, her toes stretching out to playful rivulets for Olivia to swallow. But I will keep you with me, always. When all the rest of the world has forgotten love, I will yet show them your face. Let no one born of me ever forget who brought me back to life.

  Bahgree was there—Bahgree, where Olivia had been. There was no way to separate them, no way to force her out. The water kept coming and coming and Olivia could only keep taking it in. She fought, but her struggles were waning. She was Bahgree, now and forever.

  Wait, what was she doing? The Great Spirit hadn’t been teaching her how to strip power away from herself all this time! Bahgree was in her, and maybe that was the worst thing that had ever been in her, but it sure wasn’t unprecedented. Olivia flew up, past the place where the world dissolved to blobs of light. From here, she looked down and saw only power. From here, it was as simple as it had always been: Power could be translated.

  She stopped trying to fight, stopped trying to pry the River Woman loose from whatever might be left that was Olivia. There was no contaminant at this height; there was only energy, pliable to her will, energy that had helpfully rooted itself in her already. That made it easier.

  Bahgree shrieked at the first touch of Olivia’s mind, but she had insinuated herself too well; there was no wrenching free. Olivia watched her body pulse as the energy invading her was first subdued, then absorbed. The sound of screams penetrated even this high place, but they were of little importance. She concentrated on the light’s wild fluctuations below her, closing her mind to time, and worked it slowly into sync with itself, with her. It wasn’t easy—the levels of focus and control it required were immense, like playing a thousand games of chess at once while flexing each of her six hundred fifty muscles in precise order—but it finally began to happen, and once it began, there was no stopping it.

  She was no one’s daughter now.

  4

  Olivia dropped back down into a limbless, wildly-morphing mass of water. The look of it disturbed her, so as soon as she was back inside, she pulled it all tight into the shape she remembered, vomiting out the excess as she squeezed it from herself, and giving it the look of flesh.

  The world was still black, but now the blackness seemed cheaply false, no different from the way Elvis images jumped off black velvet. It was tasteless, but she didn’t have to live with it anymore.

  Her new thoughts flexed, realigned. She stood upon the beach in a puddle of water atop an oddly rippled rock. The Great Spirit’s hand enveloped hers; she considered this, then turned away, allowing her arm to turn to water rather than deal with the unpleasantness of speech, of friction. Her arm reformed as she moved (not walking, but only moving, and leaving no trail behind) along the beach. She watched the waves roll in.

  “Olivia, it is time.”

  What was his voice but another wave? Olivia closed her eyes and looked beyond, shuffling through lives without interest. She could pull them to her, any one of them, from any distance. They were no different than the cells of her blood, tumbling together in her veins. They were made of water, as she was, and one drop becomes indistinguishable when it falls into the sea.

  The beautiful, the dancing, the eternal sea.

  “Olivia, my children!”

  Children? She remembered now. The children, those brought forth from their two kinds, those this world could not welcome. The Great Spirit was waiting for her, waiting to hear her offer oaths so that he might take their bloodlines and weave them into this world’s tapestries, but why? Why, when it was as simple a thing as taking the waters of their lives and bringing their countless colors into sync with the sea? There! A thought and
they were whole! A thought, and every child born—to human, to gulla, to both—belonged to her.

  One of these was her own. She did not feel the urge to look in on him, but she did wonder why not, in a distracted sort of way.

  The Great Spirit drew back, alarm burning out of him as bright as the sun as he watched her bind the bloodlines of every kind of people to the firmament of this world…without him. He raised his hand to touch her, but seemed to think better of it when she glanced his way. “Olivia,” he said again. “You must take your place at my side.”

  Anger struck her, not her own, but burning at her from the side like a splash of cast-off—

  water

  —coffee. Olivia turned and gazed at Urga.

  “Declare yourself my mate,” the Great Spirit urged. “One last battle and the way is clear.”

  “Battle.” Olivia raised her hand and brought the sea up and around Urga as ice, trapping her mid-transformation, her jaws gaping as for a scream. Rage? Pain? Fear? It did not seem to matter enough to speculate upon. “Why?” she asked, examining the frozen form of the moon.

  “You cannot trust her to forego her vengeance! Her many faces are deceit. Olivia, you must challenge her! It is not enough for me to set her aside, you must confront her and end her spiteful curse!”

  Curse. That’s right, there had been a curse. Urga’s curse, that no gullan should come whole into this world unless it came through her.

  But that was her right, wasn’t it?

  Olivia opened her hands and looked down at the water pooling in her palms. Droplets fell from her fingertips. Onto a corpse, she saw. Not one of hers. She began to ignore it, then paused and looked down again. She knew this carcass, she knew she knew it, and she knew it had mattered once that it had died. Now it did not. Why?

  “There is no love in this form,” Olivia said, frowning at her hands.