Wine of the Gods 1: Exiles and Gods

by Pam Uphoff

  On deck, a few last boxes where being toted toward the hold. The Captain had his watch in hand, the crew was standing by the lines.

  River leaned on the wall of the forecastle, as much out of the way as possible, as the hatch was barred and the Captain closed his watch with a snap and nodded to the officer beside him. The crew leapt into action. "Cast off!" was the first and last command she completely understood. The ship drifted away from the dock with no tendency to get washed back against it, as she’d expected. Sails rose, snapping in the breeze and filled. Hundreds of ropes were loosen, tightened, or moved. The ship picked up forward speed, and took aim for the opening in the breakwater and the open sea beyond.

  She controlled her stomach with stubborn willpower.

  To her surprise, they turned north and sailed up the bight for the better part of the day. An ominous cloud covered the sky to the north, and the scent of burning reached her as they tacked wide of the shore, then cut in closer.

  The mate answered her query. "That meteor, the captain wants a closer look. It’ll settle the crew down as well. Nothing like the unknown to scare a grown man."

  In the later afternoon a fine ash began floating down on them.

  "There don’t appear to be any settlements up this way." A passenger at the rail nodded politely to her, and turned back to his friend. "And the winds don’t indicate a firestorm, so it must have been a small one."

  His friend nodded. "This time."

  River frowned. "I’ve always heard that while there was a chance of meteors reaching the ground, it was very rare. Am I overestimating ‘rare?’ Is this likely to happen again?"

  "Well, the risk is higher when the comets are closer, lots of debris in their vicinity." The first man shrugged. "We can only track the ones that are large enough to see through this damned tail gas. Or, of course, the very large ones that we can see with telescopes from a very great distance."

  She nodded. "I took in a lecture of Dr. Havier’s. He said they were following a hundred and twelve solid bodies, hopefully all the large ones, and that none would actually strike the world, although every time they come close to Earth, they’re diverted again and they have to recalculate their orbits. According to him the largest comets will eventually spread out so far that nearly every winter we will be at risk of a dangerous meteor strike."

  "Yes. I’m surprised they didn’t see this one coming, it must have broken off recently from Comet Cow." He jerked his head skyward, where a paler patch of the creamy sky marked the position of the last big comet. "I’m Dr. Simon Golan, this is Dr. Neil Frasier. We’re actually from Cairo, although we rather downplayed that while in New Miami. We’re both picking up and disseminating up-to-date knowledge." He cleared his throat. "Selling our textbooks." Golan was probably in his mid forties. Thin and fit, brown hair and eyes.

  Dr. Frasier was older and larger. Plump and pale. "I’m a geologist, Simon’s a physicist. Good thing the Captain’s the curious sort, otherwise I’d be frustrated to have been so close, and not investigated this phenomenon."

  "Yes. I have that itch of curiosity, myself. And who knows? It may be good for another textbook." River’s eyes drifted toward the rising smoke column. What had the Goddess said? "The meteors are out too far and come too fast. I can’t touch them." River shivered and hoped that did not indicate a desire to try. But I will mention that to the Boss, when I report. She shook herself, and introduced herself to the two scholars, and when her cabin mates joined them, added them to the round. More passengers were coming out to watch the smoke and speculate. The only other women traveling were with their husbands, the majority of the men were traveling on business and not much pleased by the detour.

  The sun was still above the horizon when they came opposite the impact site, but the light was dimmed by the pall of smoke.

  The Captain lowered two boats over the side, manned by rather frightened looking men. Is this actually going to reassure them? Several passengers joined them, and seeing an open spot in the bench beside Dr. Golan, River pounced on the chance to set foot on dry land. She eyed the boxes on his lap.

  "It’s called a camera. It focuses light on a sensitive film deposited on a pane of glass, and creates a permanent image."

  "I’ve heard of such thing, from the Exile. I didn’t know any still worked."

  "They don’t. I made this one. Some chemists at. . .various universities have come up with the sensitive films."

  The boats grounded on a beach of white sand, with blowing drifts of darker ashes leaving lines on the sand where the sea water had dampened them and stopped their progress. Beyond the beach, what had been thick subtropical forest and brush was now a charred wasteland.

  Dr. Fraiser surveyed it triumphantly. "See the tree trunks, all snapped and knocked flat the same direction? The meteor’s kinetic energy transformed into a hot blast wave, not unlike one of your experiments with black powder, Golan."

  "It certainly seems so." Golan climbed onto the trunk of a palm tree and walked down it, crossed to another . . .

  Their progress wasn’t fast but the crater was less than a mile inland. And more than a mile across, as she paced it out. No sign of the meteor. Dr. Golan set up his camera, hustling about doing things under a heavy black cover.

  Frazier was climbing about, exploring the crater. Golan climbed out from under his shroud and wiped sweat from his face.

  "Did the meteor bury itself?" She frowned at the empty crater.

  "No, I expect it shattered, or the part that wasn’t molten did." Golan shot her a look. "Think of it as the reverse of a seasick witch. Instead of a body without power, what did this damage was very close to a huge amount of energy, without a body."

  She raised an eyebrow, and didn’t respond to his implicit assumption of her magical status. He didn’t have much glow about him, but he didn’t feel like a magician with closed mental shields. Powerless or extremely well trained and controlled?

  She got her feet down onto the scorched ground and meditated, looking for density concentrations. She managed to track down half a dozen small blobs of still hot metal and rock, much to Dr. Frasier’s delight. He was talking about chemical analyses and how to determine which were meteor and which were local material, melted and thrown out of the crater. How much they might have mixed . . . Dr. Golan didn’t quite have to manhandle him back to the ship.

  "I should be spending days here, not a few hours!" The older man looked wistfully back at the devastation.

  The sailors seemed impressed by the crater, but less afraid. The Captain knows his men. Still, it was a thoughtful group that returned to the ship. They raised sails and anchor, and headed southeast with a good following wind. River picked at her dinner, and spent two hours on deck afterwards. Just in case willpower failed. Sleeping in the enclosed room made it worse, and she rose early and returned to the deck. When the sun rose she felt a bit more energetic, if just as queasy.

  With the wind behind them now, they made good time down and around the broad peninsula of Indonesia, and standing well out from the coast they found favorable winds and currents to carry them up the coast to New Tokyo.

  Chapter Two

  February, 2236

  New Tokyo, Pacific coast of Asia

  All told, the voyage consisted of three weeks of borderline queasiness and eating more dried toast and biscuits than anything else.

  She staggered ashore in New Tokyo and simply stood on the bricks of the sidewalk, enjoying the sensation of being whole and able again.

  People converged on her. She recognized the sleek black carriage and stooped to her luggage. Dug out the package and letter and handed them to the God of Art as his driver stopped beside her. He tossed her a little bag and the driver cracked his whip and took his master off.

  Simon—Dr. Golan—had stopped dead to watch the interchange. Now he approached more cautiously. "Perhaps I should have been calling you Lady Sally all these weeks?"

  River laughed. "Heavens, no! He’d have offered Lady Sally a ri
de home, instead of tossing her a tip. I’m just a lowly messenger, and glad to be done with it." She nodded toward the two advancing witches. "But you can amuse the other parts of my Triad by calling me that, instead of River."

  "Ha! I knew it. No one gets seasick quite like a witch."

  "Oh, I thought I had quite a minimal case of it. I never lost my lunch overboard."

  "That’s because you never ate much of it." Simon turned his eyes back to the pair of witches.

  "Simon, may I present Amused and Flattered? Guys, this is Dr. Simon Golan. He’s a physics professor."

  "Oh my." Amused was a well named young woman. "We have been talking about advancing, haven’t we?"

  Simon turned beet red.

  River felt her own cheeks warm and Flattered laughed.

  "A pleasure to meet you, but I’m afraid we have to grab River and run off. Our Senior Sister wants the news from the south."

  Simon bowed to them, as Amused and Flattered grabbed her and hauled her away. Drat, I didn’t even get an address where he’s staying.

  "Did you guys see the meteor, three weeks ago? It hit about two hundred miles north of New Miami."

  "That close? Wow." Flattered released her arm, apparently realizing she wasn’t trying to escape and chase down the handsome man. "We saw the fireball, and felt the earthquake. There’ve been rumors about impending disasters circulating."

  "And the mayor called for the Old Gods to intervene." Amused smirked.

  "That must of hurt." River grinned at the thought. Mayor Brigham had often claimed that with so many gods about there was no longer anything special about the old ones. He and Art disagreed about nearly everything. It livened up local politics no end.

  "Anyway, what are the odds that it will happen again?" Amused shrugged the subject away.

  "Go north, away from the city, go north." It was the familiar voice of an old woman, Lady Gisele, everyone called her.

  "Go north, away from the city, go north." The warm bass rumble of the War God.

  "Go north, away from the city, go north." Another man, worried.

  "Go north, away from the city, go north." A woman, detached emotionless advice.

  "Go north, away from the city, go north." "Go north, away from the city, go north." "Go north, away from the city, go north." The voices tangled, male and female, recognizable and strange.

  "River? River! Are you all right?"

  River blinked and looked around. New Tokyo. Just after noon. "Umm. I guess the seasickness took more out of me than I’d realized." Please tell me I'm getting sick. I don't like the idea of pre-cognition. That couldn't possibly be what that was.

  They pulled her along to the next street and then aboard the cable car, to be hauled up the hill. Steam engines, underground, kept the cable moving, and the cars hooked on or released at need. It was all very handy, and less messy than the horse drawn trams.

  The Top of the Hill District was very well to do. An empty corner, fenced, with landscaping surrounding a bare rock hole showed where Mercy moved her home for a part of every summer. Art stayed here most winters but occasionally summered in Scandia; his private museum was an unlikely upside down step pyramid. Edmund Vice had a spot here, rarely used, she was pleased to say. The God of Just Deserts came and went irregularly, unwanted and unloved, his home well down the hill to the south.

  She’d never heard of the other Old Gods moving their homes about with them. Even Pax, who ran with this crowd, remained in New Miami most of the time, occasionally visiting Mercy when she was here.

  Over the hill and down the west side, a large private park, landscaped and trimmed at the edges, a near wilderness in the middle, with little private cabins tucked in here and there. The home of the New Tokyo Pyramid.

  Most witches stayed with their birth pyramids, but a few wandered, visiting other places, and working with other pyramids. River’s mother had been a wanderer, but passed on the enjoyment of travel to only one of her own daughters, before returning to her home here. River’s sisters had stayed in New Bombay, Red River, and Scandia. River had been born in Sahara, and grown up there. Apart from shorter visits here and there. And eventually she’d escorted her mother home. Then traveled down to New Miami, to New Bombay. More than one person had looked over and muttered about her being too pale to be a daughter of the Traveler. She sighed faintly. Wrong Old God. Her mother had sought a return to youthfulness, taking the usual path of seducing the God of Eternal Youth. River spotted the vigorous white-haired woman striding up the path toward her. And she does look closer to forty than seventy.

  "Mother!" River trotted down to meet her, hug her. "You look terrific."

  The tall woman looked smug.

  "Oh, you didn’t!"

  "Well, your father was in town to talk to Art, so I whipped up a good illusion, not to mention an aphrodisiac that has to be experienced to be believed, and gave him a private welcome to New Tokyo." She frowned down at her daughter. "I’ll give you the rest of it, you really do need to advance."

  "I don’t want to be held down with a baby, right now, Mother! I'm doing a lot of traveling for the Pyramid. Even you had to stay in one place when we were small."

  "Bah. I stayed because there was something to learn there. I was usually back on the road within a year or two." She sniffed dismissively. "Generally leaving the baby with someone. You were a good traveler, so I kept you with me for a few trips. But Sandy was raised by the Red River Pyramid while I came and went five times, trying to track down the records of the Twin Gods. And Fantasia and Raw were nearly as bad."

  "And I’ve barely met them." She shrugged. "Do the Elder Sisters want me to report to them?"

  "Of course. And then we need to talk."

  She eyed her mother with trepidation, but held her peace.

  The warm offshore current kept New Tokyo warmer in winter than an inland city at the same latitude. The Eldest Sister was enjoying the late afternoon sun in her garden, the other Senior sisters with her.

  River delivered Mercy’s letter to the Eldest, and stepped back to be unobtrusive, and hopefully not dismissed, while it was handed around the oldest triad, and then her mother read it and passed it on to the two other witches of her triad.

  Her mother spoke first. "As we expected. This so-called King Kelso has declared his city to be independent of New Miami. New Bombay is supporting him."

  "So, it’s Mercy against Logic." Sister Elm was a tiny wrinkled woman, over a hundred years old. Born just five years after the Exile. "Pity those people won’t either get along or ignore each other. Thought we’d gotten them separated enough to stop any fights. Well. Can’t have kings, now, can we? We’re going to need to support Mercy, which means helping Art and Peace." Her old eyes swung over to River. "We may need to be sending you about. You need to be stronger. You must learn how to channel power. It’s time for you to advance." She looked over at River’s mother. "Firefly, instruct her, and her triad. They should all advance together."

  Chapter Three

  March, 2236

  New Tokyo, Asia

  "Mrs. Gardener, Heidi. What a pleasure to see you again." River’s brain caught up with her tongue. Mrs. Gardener didn’t look pleased at all, but her scowl was aimed at her daughter.

  "Miss Reardon." She nodded stiffly. "We were strolling and admiring the flowers."

  Heidi was pale, apart from the red spots on her cheeks. She looked furious. "I like to crowd watch. I’ve met the most fascinating people along the river walk."

  Now her mother colored up. "Most of them just fascinated by the balance in your Trust."

  River stepped back from what looked to be heading for a nasty family fight. "Enjoy your walk." She turned and walked away.

  A man was watching mother and daughter from the far side of a fruit vendor’s stand. He turned on his heel and matched her steps as she passed. "Excuse me, you’re a friend of the Gardeners?"

  She looked him over. Younger than she was. Dark skinned, bright intelligent gaze. Not actuall
y ragged, but his clothes were built for work and had plenty of mileage on them. A solid glow. "I met them aboard ship, and don’t even know where they live. Traveler."

  "I’m not . . . that influenced. I’m an independent Mage. I write books." He scowled. "About far away places."

  She shook her head. "I really cannot help you, even if I were inclined to get a young girl in trouble."

  His jaw muscles clenched. "I am not trouble. Beside my writing, I’ve got a job as a drover, a share of the business. I can support a wife and children."

  "Heidi is nineteen. And her mother is not about to let go of her. If you don’t want her crying kidnap, you’ll have to wait until she’s twenty-one."

  "That’s barely over a year and a half from now." His aura rippled and darkened.

  "Haven’t you had any magical training at all? You’ve no shield what-so-ever."

  His eyes narrowed. "You’re a witch!"

  "Yes."

  "You don’t know anything about Mages."

  She sighed and steered him down an empty alley. "Picture a piece of glass. Now picture it with a faint rime of frost on it. You can still see through it, but your undirected thoughts are trapped back behind it."

  The scowl deepened, but she could see the drop in brightness even as he dismissed her visualization.

  "Now think of it as a mirror. Keeping other people’s thoughts out."

  He opened his mouth to say something and she flicked a tiny needle of pain at him. He flinched back.

  "Mirror. Reflect it."

  He ducked. Scowled and crossed his arms. Winced at another hit. Bounced the next needle.

  "Nice. Study those two, and you’ll be a lot less vulnerable to anyone with a desire to use you, or attack you." She sighed. "Of course, as you gain power you’ll be pulled more strongly into the Archetype. You’ll be a little god, not a Mage."