PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  "Sir, yes, sir!" came the answering chant.

  As Mordred gathered his things up, he felt a slight twinge in his chest. Even though the day was already hot, and sweat was beginning to pour down his back, the young soldier felt an icy cold wind blow through him.

  Right through him.

  As if there was a hole in his chest.

  9—The Next Day

  Louis Keye was not having a good day. The drug that he had been given had spun his head into oblivion and this afternoon's shooting had proven to be a waste of film. His co-star, glam actress Lindsa Lenner, had finally stomped off the set in a fuss. Loki, himself, had finally been sent to his trailer as if he was a naughty child. Sulking in the darkness, he held up the small vial, which, no matter how they had used last night, was never empty of the nasty little pink crystals. "Spoiled rotten prima donnas," he muttered, bitterly to himself. "I shall show you. I'll show you all what damage I can do."

  He picked up the phone and called his publicity agent. "Loreta, send out the notice. Tonight, my home. I have an announcement to make and I want it to be a party. Notify the press, invite as many influential entertainers as can make it."

  "What is going on, Louis?" Loreta asked.

  "Be there tonight and you'll see," Louis said, quietly. He held the vial up to his eyes. "I'll tell you, it is to die for."

  He hung up the phone and memory of another party filled his head. Aegir's feast, where he had at last let his evil come to the fore. He had let himself become what it was his destiny to become. He had brought down the Gods with his clever insults!

  This would make that look like a debutante's ball.

  ***

  Father Jude Carillon healed a young man with a crippled arm, two old women with weakened bones and an infant whose tender skin was flaking off in great strips. Those were travelers who had come through in just the past fifteen minutes. Word had reached the farther off villages and they were coming in droves.

  "Oh, Father, see." Said Prima. She stood next to him, as usual. She had been his first, and she was still his greatest supporter. "There will be three hundred or more by dawn tomorrow."

  Judas closed his eyes. Unhappily, it was just as Lucifer had forecast.

  "You will have the chance to save many. You will heal them and bring them to the Lord." Prima wrapped her little arms around herself, her skin seeming so dark against the pure white of the dress she wore. "Oh, Father, does it not make you so proud?"

  He sighed. No, it did not make him proud. It hurt him as surely as any nail through his flesh. He rubbed his wrist, where the phantom pain left from his dream throbbed in reminder of the task at hand. He thought of the crystal bottle in his room and the peace that it offered. He was damned as it was. Maybe for once, he should think of Judas's comfort. Maybe for once he should do what he pleased and pay no heed to the guilt that so plagued him. Maybe for once he should accept the peace that was being offered.

  "Prima, run to the kitchens." He said, finally, his voice hoarse in his dry throat. "Tell them to prepare enough food for the newcomers. Tonight we give thanks and pray that we may join our Lord."

  Then, he turned and walked away.

  ***

  Morgan Lafayette stood and looked at the ruined village in dismay. This was indeed the place he had been lead to in his dream. He bowed his head. He was going to have to do as he was ordered. Everyone in this village would be dead by dawn, though he was loathe to do it.

  He was not a murderer, he was a warrior, a knight, a prince. Yet, he knew that he would, indeed, do what he was told. Mordred took a deep breath to set his nerves. He could kill the enemy without qualms. That was his duty, that's what his commanders charged him to do. He would do it and not think twice about it.

  But there were women and children hidden in the ravaged buildings here, and Mordred did not think he could kill blameless civilians. He was a evil man by a trick of fate, not by birth. It was conditioned in him to betray those who he should show the most loyalty to. There was nothing that he could do to change that. But women and children? Innocent villagers caught up in this terrible war that was not of their doing? Wasn't his duty, as a soldier, first and foremost to protect them? His newly restored heart found this hard to forget.

  However, then the voice of his master filled his head and he realized that he already had a duty beyond what he had been given by this army that fought for a country that did not even exist when he lived. He had a responsibility to fulfill already. The refugees hidden like rats in the rubble that had once been a city would all be dead by dawn.

  He would be the man that he had always wanted to be.

  10—Night

  Loki slipped a crystal between his teeth and ground it into a powder that melted like liquid fire on his tongue. Instantly, his mind cleared from the fog it was in and he felt better, stronger, almost like his old self again. He had been a god once, albeit a dark one. It irked him to be a mortal. To be trapped in this body with all its weakness and frailties annoyed him. He lay on the great bed that he had bought and let the world spin around him. How wonderful this life was other than its mortality. He lived in this great mansion overlooking the ocean. There was none of the cold of his previous home. What had been opulent four thousand years ago was now almost poverty.

  Outside his room, he could hear the caterers setting up for the party. He had no idea what was going to happen tonight. Loreta was to notify the press an hour after it began. She thought maybe he was going to announce his engagement to his girl of the moment, or something similar. How could she possibly know that they were going to find the dead and dying of the entertainment world?

  His last party had ended in his banishment from the gods. His wrath had infected each and everyone who he had come in contact with, then, and so it would be tonight.

  But, as he lay in his plush bed, his every need and whim within reach, he mourned the loss of this life he was so enjoying. Why just today he got the notification that he was nominated for yet another award for Excellence in Acting. The public truly believed in him.

  His red and green eyes sprang open. Believed in him?

  He held out his elegant hand and concentrated on a magic that he had almost forgotten he had. His hand became a slender woman's hand, then the wing of a hawk.

  "Oh, Odin . . . " he murmured. "It's back. It's back!"

  "Of course, it is," came a new voice.

  Loki half-leaped off his bed. A man stood there a man with one eye and a wide

  brimmed hat. A man with a blue cloak on his back and a pair of ravens on his shoulders, thought and memory they were, Huginn and Muninn.

  "Odin, my king and brother," Loki whispered. "It is you."

  Odin did not come near his once-beloved foster brother. "And, it is you."

  Loki narrowed his scarred eyes. "I have suffered my punishment, All-Father. Don't think you can come here now and threaten me."

  "I do not come here for that." The specter said, softly. "Ragnarok has come and gone. All our old quarrels are over."

  "Then why are you here?" Loki asked. His head still spun with the drug that floated in his system.

  "I'm not here,” Odin said, “I am but a dream, a phantasm to help you to understand what is happening to you. You are myth, Loki, like the rest of us. You are myth and you have power only when you have the belief of the people. That is how we came to be. That is how we come to be."

  "I don't understand," Loki muttered.

  "You never did," Odin said, with a sigh. "That is why you were chosen to harbor the Darkness of Chaos within you. The belief of the mortals give us life, Loki Sky-Traveler, Foster-Brother. There is a remarkable responsibility that goes with that. Don't you understand that?"

  "I understand, but I don't care," Loki scoffed. "I am the Trickster. I have never cared."

  "And that is why you are damned," Odin said and the sorrow in his one eye was plain.

  Then, he was gone, and Loki was alone.

  The doorbell rang and he looked at t
he clock. Hours had passed since he had laid down in here to get ready for the party. Now, the first guests were arriving. He passed his hand over himself and his regained abilities transformed his clothes into more suitable attire. Checking himself in the mirror, he was astonished to see the image of Lucifer watching over his shoulder, but there was no one there when he spun around to see.

  He snatched up the little vial on his bed and murmured, "Fire in their blood."

  ***

  Judas stood at the head of his table and looked at all the smiling faces that awaited his words of prayer. The crystal bottle was tucked securely in his pocket, waiting too, for the moment when he would administer it to each and every man, woman and child here.

  "Let us pray, children," Judas said, his voice quiet yet, strangely resonant. "Father, we thank thee for thy bounty. We thank thee that those who have traveled so far and reached this haven in safety. We pray that those who fell along the way might find peace in your bosom and those who they left behind will someday be reunited with them in thy love and harmony. We pray that soon we shall join them in thy heavenly abode and walk in the Garden that thou hast promised us when we pledged our hearts and souls to thee. In thy name, we pray for forgiveness and we pray for thy charity and we pray for thy love . . . Amen."

  "Amen," the people responded.

  "Children, tonight is a special night," Judas said, his voice not betraying the nervousness and self-loathing in his heart. "Tonight we thank the Lord for our new friends and we humbly beseech that we may join Him in paradise." He brought out the crystal bottle and laid it on the table before him. "Tonight, we shall be with the Lord," he said as he gazed over the crowd. "Tonight we meet our God."

  Prima looked up at him with shining eyes and more hatred of himself filled his heart. Father Jude looked over the crowd and saw, in the back, the shining figure of Lucifer

  with wings outstretched.

  "Peace, Judas." Lucifer promised. "And, you shall rule Hell by my side, rule Hell as you can never rule in Heaven."

  Judas bowed his head.

  ***

  Mordred and several other members of his squad crept through the darkness of the ruined village. They had already captured fourteen rebel soldiers and had killed twice that many more. But, as of yet, they had not found the civilians.

  "I just don't get it," one of Mordred's squad-mates muttered. "This is supposed to be a refugee camp. Where the hell are the refugees?"

  "They're here," Mordred muttered.

  His mates looked at him with disbelief. "What are you, psychic, Lafayette?" One grumbled.

  "I just know," Mordred said, quietly. He did not like his mates. They were undisciplined louts whose minds were on everything but duty. They laughed at him behind his back, he was sure of it, just like all those asinine knights Arthur had gathered. They laughed at him, too.

  Well, he'd show them. He'd be a hero beyond any of them. He'd wipe out this village and the enemies within and they'd decorate his chest with ribbons.

  There was movement up ahead and Mordred brought up his gun. "Freeze!" he called out.

  A woman appeared, her dress torn and raggedy, a child in her arms, a small boy tailing behind her. "No, sir," she said in heavily accented English. "No shoot."

  "Hey, looky-here." One of Mordred's squad-mates, a rough man named Quentin cooed. "What's a good looking girl like you doing in a place like this?" The others laughed, rudely at the old line.

  The woman suddenly whipped a pistol from beneath her skirt. "You no move. I shoot," she snapped. Instantly, she found herself staring into the barrels of five guns that made her pistol seem like a child's toy. But she did not drop her weapon. "You shoot me. I no care." She spat. "But you leave children alone."

  "You are in no condition to give orders her, babe," snapped Quentin. His foot shot up and kicked the gun from her hand. She fell, hard, and the baby began to wail. "Shut that brat up!"

  The woman covered the baby's mouth with a dirty hand and crooned softly to it. The little boy cowered behind his mother, his eyes so dark they were almost black.

  Quentin smiled at the others. "Well, what do you think, boys? I think we have a little prize here. Anyone up for a quick frolic with yon buxom lass?"

  "What?" Mordred gasped, quickly grasping the unholy thing his squadmate was suggesting.

  "Don't be such a fruit, Lafayette," Quentin snapped. He thrust his gun at the nearest soldier and said, "Besides we're just going to kill them when we're through anyhow.

  He unbuckled his pants and smiled up at Mordred. His face was suddenly Lucifer's.

  11—Betrayal

  Loki stood before the crowd that had gathered to hear what he had to say. One hand thrust into his pocket, clenching the vial of Fire that was his to give to the people. He looked down into their eager, anxious faces with a smirk. The known and the unknown alike awaited his words.

  With one word, the drug that was already in the veins of so many would ignite. Those who were with him last night had spread fire to others. Most of those here had already sampled it, willingly, or in the spiked drinks that were served at the bar. This great drug would bring the

  flame that it was named for and tempers, desires, fears would flare as Loki's words inflamed them.

  It was what he had done four thousand years ago, without the use of some manufactured opiate. His words alone had brought the Gods to his knees.

  He faced the crowd and looked at the sea of men and women. He saw the glaze in their eyes that the fire had given them and he chose his next words carefully, certain that they would, indeed, do what he intended them to do.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, I welcome you to my home. I see many faces that have come to love in my time here in this great and wonderful world." He said, his voice strangely accented, the true voice of Loki Laufeyson, trickster and god. "There are those of you who think you know what I am about to say, but I can guarantee that you are wrong," He looked over the crowd until his eyes, their red and green light almost glowing, alit on someone that only he could see. "A long time ago, I was born to destroy the world. I was given a spirit that could not be satisfied even though all I wanted was handed to me on a silver platter. I betrayed those who loved me because it was not enough for them to love me. I needed them to fear me, as well. I brought you all here tonight to make you fear me, too."

  The crowd began to mutter amongst themselves. The Fire in their blood was beginning to simmer. Lucifer, standing invisibly in the back of the crowd, leaned forward anxiously.

  "I am not what you think I am," Loki went on. "I am the Shape-Shifter, the Sky-Traveler, and better creatures than you have loved me, feared me." He met Lucifer's eyes then and said, "And, yet, none has ever believed in me before."

  Lucifer blinked in concern. This was not in the script. "What is going on?" he murmured.

  "I brought you here today to destroy you. That is what I do. It is what I have always done. And, I might very willingly do it. Sheep such as yourself will follow me to Hell and back if I only asked!" Loki ignored the rising anger of the crowd. "But you believe in me, you believe in me where others did not. You have given me back something that you would never understand. Because of this, because of your faith, and against everything that I know and feel, I choose not to act as is my nature to benefit the one who set me on this path. I cannot deny I am a traitor but I have chosen who it is that I will betray this time, chosen more wisely."

  There was a sudden flurry in the air and Lucifer rose above the crowd on His unsteady wings. His wrath gave them strength, and to the bewildered eyes of the crowd, he was a monster of shadow and darkness, the light that he had once brought. "What do you think you are doing?!"

  Loki smiled and gave a haughty little bow, "I am doing what I am best at, Master! I'm betraying you!"

  The crowd watched the strange exchange with amazement. No one moved, not quite sure what was happening.

  "How dare you!" Lucifer hissed. "I own you! You will do as I say!"

  Loki threw op
en his arms and from his shoulders sprouted the wings of the hawk that was his favorite bird. "You can do nothing to me, child. Do you forget that I am older than you? I was destroying this world long before you and your paltry religion came into being! I suffered a thousand times before you had fallen!"

  "I have kept you prisoner for thousands of years!" Lucifer reminded, his confidence suddenly faltering.

  "I am myth, Fallen One." Loki laughed. "I need the belief of the mortals for strength." He indicated the awestruck faces hovering in the crowd before them. "They have given me back my powers, back my immortality! You forget, Prince of Hell, I am the original destroyer of worlds! You have no power over me! Be gone, or I shall show you what true evil looks like! "

  "I have two others!" Lucifer snapped, "You are not the only one!"

  And, then He was gone.

  Loki was alone with his subjects, then. He smiled as he landed, folding his wings back into the magics from which they came. “Well,” he said, “what next?”

  ***

  In another place, Judas looked over the smiling faces of his followers. They were eager to meet their Lord, though they were unaware how close they were to it, and yet, how far away they were. The healed bodies and souls of these poor uneducated people were an affront to God, for it was the Devil who had made them whole. Judas wept as he looked over them and his hand closed over the crystal bottle that contained the poison that would end their search.

  They would finally learn what lay beyond this world . . .

  ...and, his own guilt and self-loathing would be laid aside.

  At last, he would truly be the evil that he had become when he sold his soul for thirty pieces of silver.

  Prima watched him, her face bright and cheerful, despite the late hour. "Father?" she murmured. "Are you OK?"

  Judas took her sweet face in his hands and told her, gently "I am not the man you think I am. I am a betrayer. I will lead you to death."