The Afterlife Series Omnibus: Heaven, Hell, Earth, Wasteland, War, Stones

by Mur Lafferty

  This boy, however, looked at her with curiosity. Interest. His eyes were a warm brown, bright and intelligent. His face was round, innocent, and complimented by a beautiful mouth. His skin was the dark brown commonly found in Dauphine, not Meridian, and she wondered where he had come from, why he lived on an airship, and why he seemed to hold himself with more confidence than other boys she’d seen.

  This boy would understand her. This boy would listen. He would curl up in her lap during the day, and be her servant and right hand man at night. When he became a man, he would be her lover.

  But first, to join her in her new home, he would have to die.

  Morrigan let him watch her, captivated, for a moment more, and then she took flight, spiraling up and up, ignoring his pleas for her to return.

  * * * * *

  As the sun dipped low, the rare rays touching the glass and metal buildings of Lathe, a voice groaned from behind inside a rubbish bin tethered to the rear of a grocer.

  Sewer and trash issues were not discussed in Meridian and Lathe. Meridian residents paid a great amount of taxes that went toward the creation of machines to transport or transform their trash, and a year of tax revenue had gone toward the huge water cleansing building, where all waste water from the city ran through for purification. The waste collected was also transformed by some of the better tinkers. The upper-class snobs of Meridian joked that the waste was transformed into bricks that Lathe residents used to build, but no one really knew.

  Barris knew, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone. Secrets were all he had.

  Well, secrets and a massive idea hangover.

  He was planning on using one idea to take the edge off, and save the rest in case Daniel and Kate wanted to drag him off on another ridiculous rescue.

  Unfortunately the second bad idea was, “To fully experience something it is best to consume all you can at once.” That one blew his mind to the extent that he stumbled for the nearest place to hide to consume the other three ideas, and was out for the day. Now, with the great fireball that was the focus of all his power ebbing, he stood shakily in the bin, rotten vegetables dropping off him. He clutched his head, too full of ideas to comprehend any of them, and wondered what day it was.

  The sun slipped below the horizon at that moment, and Barris transformed.

  The lethargy, the drug, the weakness, the self loathing, the gnawing addiction, they all sloughed off Barris as he launched himself into the sky, the power from the sun returning to him in a rush that felt as if he’d been punched with something glorious.

  He reflected that his earlier vow to lay off the ideas had apparently amounted to nothing. Apparently, indeed—he was still covered in refuse from the rubbish bin. He grimaced and concentrated briefly, his skin heating to hundreds of degrees to burn off the foulness.

  Ash floated from his skin as he climbed higher, aiming for the underside of Meridian, dancing between the massive cables that anchored it to the ground that refused to let it rest upon it. Clouds always coalesced on the underside of the city, the moisture drawn to the mass of the buildings. Tendrils of cloud whirled around as he broke through them, his heat evaporating the water droplets immediately.

  Barris paused underneath a tower on the outskirts of the city. He was tuned to all of the divine powers of the city: the founts of power that were Kate and Daniel, Fabrique and Prosper, both formerly imprisoned in Lathe, and Gamma, who had been imprisoned in the tower right below him for eons. But now there was a new presence, and he tried to remember what he had seen when his power had been stored in the sun.

  There. Right above him. The power radiated strongly female, intense hatred, and seemed to — unlike the other gods in the world — to represent two things instead of one. Very curious.

  Barris left the underside of Meridian and climbed higher, eager to meet this new goddess, to see if she was like him, unknown to the others, recently freed, and in love with her own power.

  The nighttime lights of Meridian caught a flash of white, and Barris pursued. She was in the shape of a bird, a large white crow. Persi was the only other goddess he knew of who could fly, and she always did so in dinosaur form. Kate didn’t shape-change. Gamma traveled via weapons, and Fabrique would sooner build a flying machine. Who was this woman?

  She left the lights of Meridian and flew south, with Barris behind her. He quickly caught up with her, but she closed her wings and dropped, missile-like, and pulled up a hundred feet below him. He nearly pulled up in surprise, but grinned and followed.

  She turned on a wing and headed west toward the ocean, climbing as she went. He put on a burst of speed and caught up with her.

  He was faster than her, and she knew it, relying on quick changes of direction and altitude to evade him. He relished the game, his burning fingers nearly closing on sooty tail feathers more than once.

  The crow glanced at him once, clearly irritated, and dove again, skimming the marshlands closer to the ocean. Barris had no problem following, and gouts of steam rose from the swamps as he neared the water.

  At this point he didn’t want to catch her; the chase was too much fun. He let her gain a bit of a lead, climbing again and heading southwest. He stayed under her, admiring her strength and speed. He just wanted to talk to her; why did she run away?

  The ocean glittered under the moon as they neared, and Barris put on some speed to end up right under her. He shot upward, then, with the intention to catch her by surprise and grab her, make her talk to him.

  His fingers closed around feathers, but feathers nearly as big as his hand. He plowed into the soft feathery breast of the crow, and her now-massive wings closed around him suddenly, trapping him.

  He struggled against the prison, but feathers were everywhere and he couldn’t move. He tried to increase his skin’s temperature, to burn the crow, but she grabbed his leg with her talons and sank in deep. The hotter he got, the tighter she held him.

  In his panic, he didn’t realize if she held him in her wings and talons, she was no longer flying, and they hit the ocean with a massive splash and hissing steam. The crow flailed in the water, her talons dragging him under.

  The dull, stifling feeling was nothing like he’d felt before, even during the day when his power had to go into the sun. His fire went out, the water clogged his pores, his eyes, his ears, his nose. He opened his mouth to scream and the water rushed in. Cold water seeped into his very bones, and he became only dimly aware that the crow had let him go, and was gone.

  His waterlogged wings beat once under the waves, and then were stilled.

  * * * * *

  Morrigan did not know who he was, but her instinct had taken her to the ocean, one of the places where she felt her power most purely, as the water did her bidding. A creature of fire would not be happy in the water, she reasoned, and once she had shoved him under all of the fight had gone out of him.

  But as she stood on the beach, water sloshing around her robe hem, she felt a great weakness strike her. She looked up at the moon for her validation, and the light began to fade.

  That would be why she felt great strength even as the man had grown hotter and hotter in her grasp. She swore and tossed her mask aside, gripping the burned skin as she held her head, trying to will the dizziness away.

  Why had the sun been so abysmally stupid as to fly over the water? Now with his power dying, he would doom not only himself, but also he would rob her of the power they shared, and the world itself would freeze.

  Morrigan straightened, determined. She didn’t much care for the sun god, but for her to continue existing, he had to continue existing. She set her teeth and concentrated.

  The moon in the sky regained some of its luster, showing a waxing moon close to full. The water began to churn violently as she forced the tides to conform to her will. She had to do more than get him to the surface; he needed attending.

  Leviathan City was nearby, and their submersibles patrolled the waterways. She had seen them frequently when hanging above
the ocean, or when seen through the eyes of albino, deep-swimming fish. The rip tide Morrigan created caught one of the submersibles and dragged it to the floating body of the drowning sun god. She could feel the engines fighting as they tried to correct their course in the water, but she was too strong for them. She lifted the heavy submersible despite its efforts to stay deep, and presented the god to them.

  The hatch opened and two pale faces peeked out, shouting in alarm. One woman with glittering hair and a bald man leapt out of the hatch and ran down the length of the sub to catch Barris’s outstretched arms. They pulled the unmoving god into their sub, and Morrigan relaxed at last.

  As for the goddess, she collapsed on the beach, utterly spent.

  The sub did not dive yet, though. The two pale faces appeared again after dragging Barris to the ship’s medic. They looked at each other and then at the glowing body.

  “She would want us to take that one too,” the man said.

  “You reckon they’re two of the same kind?” the woman asked.

  “He’s got wings. She’s glowing and has a mask and a weapon. I know the heretics in the open air have their odd ways, but I hadn’t heard they were like this. And one of them altered the tides, you can’t tell me that was normal, Kayra Nhoj.”

  Kayra Nhoj nodded slowly. “One problem, though. She’s on land.”

  The man blanched, as much as his pale skin let him. “She … doesn’t need to know. She’d want us to break the rules to get this one too.”

  Kayra Nhoj laughed, a short barking sound. “Dareth! Are you insane? You’re willing to risk exile to test that?”

  Dareth’s eyes narrowed. “You’d report?”

  Kayra Nhoj held up her hands. “Of course not; not me. But you know I can’t stop anyone else from coming up and peeking out. And we’d have to lie about how we got her, keeping our stories straight.” She turned from him back to the white beach that shimmered in the moonlight. She shuddered. “I wouldn’t risk having to live here in the open for whatever that one will get us in glory.”

  Dareth pursed his lips and stared at the inert form. “I’m going for it. You can lick Ishmael’s balls, I’m doing this.”

  “No, wait, it’s too dangerous!” Kayra Nhoj said, grabbing for his arm. But they were both still damp from rescuing the winged man, and her hand slipped off and he scrambled out of the hatch and ran along the length of the sub before he dove in.

  “The fool!” she whispered. She didn’t want to see Dareth commit heresy by putting his feet on dry land, so she climbed back down the hatch to check on the winged man.

  The medic was a young man with skin so pale it was almost translucent; his dark hair and eyes contrasted strongly. His out-of-water beauty often made Kayra Nhoj’s breath catch in her throat. She composed herself by reminding herself of the rules against fraternizing with the crew.

  The cot in the infirmary was soaked, water seemingly to pour out of the man as the doctor put pressure on his lungs and forced air into him to try to force the water out. But the water that came from him streamed from his pores, his ears, his nose, as well as his mouth.

  “Ishmael’s foreskin, but this godfucker is a like a sponge,” Doctor Isaac muttered as he compressed the man’s chest. Water dripped off the cot and pooled on the floor. Kayra Nhoj smiled at the foul words coming from the doctor’s mouth — it was always a thrilling shock to hear such language coming from a beautiful man — and knocked on the doorjamb.

  Doctor Isaac looked up. “I don’t know what you’ve got here, but it’s not human.”

  Kayra Nhoj nodded. “Yeah, we got that much. Will he live?”

  Doctor Isaac paused to pinch the man’s nose and blow into his mouth. More water streamed from his skin, nose and ears. The doctor resumed pumping on his chest. “I have no fucking clue. He’s like a sponge, which is not physiology I’m familiar with. But I do know if he doesn’t start breathing in a moment, he’s not going to plant his seed in any winged women.”

  The man stiffened for a moment, then vomited a gout of water. Ignoring the mess, Isaac reached out and turned his head so he couldn’t choke further, but pulled his hands back quickly, shaking them.

  “The water is hot!” He stood back from the man, who had now begun to steam as he coughed up more water. Sweat immediately started to pop out on Kayra Nhoj’s forehead as she backed out of the room, watching over the shorter doctor’s head. Isaac just stood there, staring at the man, who had rolled over to better express the water from him.

  The man finally opened his glowing eyes and flexed his wings, finding that they filled the room when he tried to expand them. He looked at them both and then slipped into unconsciousness.

  The heat subsided. Doctor Isaac glanced at Kayra Nhoj and then said, “I think we need to let the captain know. And I think we need to get back home rather quickly. The Queen needs to know about this.”

  Kayra Nhoj grimaced. “The problem is, the captain is currently trying to secure another one of these creatures.”

  * * * * *

  Captain Dareth Kagar’s confidence was waning as he swam toward the shore. While touching the sand under the ocean was not forbidden, getting out into the open air fully was. The other creature lay with the tide lapping at her.

  The open-air world was so large! He looked around, grateful for the darkness to hide how much open space was around him. The ocean was so much bigger up here, and the sky was a nightmare of exposure. The moon, while the source of the tides and a minor deity to his people, was still a naked glaring orb. And the stars were pinpricks of fear, millions of eyes staring at him.

  For their own safety and sanity, his people — even the submarine captains — were not permitted to surface during the day. The Queen said they could not comprehend the vastness, but Dareth had always wondered. If they exiled people, did they throw them from their home and sentence them to madness? Or did the people learn to deal with all this space, this wind? Kayra Nhoj would say people could deal with it; they could deal with anything. He had chosen his first mate for her pragmatic common sense, which usually tethered his more radical ideas. She hadn’t stopped him this time, though. But he was sure he’d be all right.

  He knew he was splitting hairs, but Dareth reasoned that if he stayed with his feet wet the whole time, he would be safe from The Queen’s wrath. Facing exile was one thing, but presenting Her with this creature could be worth the risk.

  The tide was going out; Dareth’s time was limited. He felt a wave push against his knees and took his chance. He lumbered through the surf, the open air giving a sense of loss and agoraphobia. Gasping and trying to focus only on the figure in front of him, and not the itching feeling between his shoulder blades that anything could come up behind him, he stood ankle-deep in water beside the body.

  The shape beneath the rough robe implied female, but he could tell nothing more. The mask was fashioned from soot-stained bone. Curiosity shackled him for a moment, and instead of taking the body and dragging it into the ocean, he reached for the mask.

  His fingers had time only to brush the mask before a bony hand shot up and trapped his wrist. He gasped and stepped backward, but she kept him in her grip. She sat up, seemingly not noticing her prey. He heard a muffled voice from behind the mask.

  “So he lives. And is returning to power. That’s something.” The mask then turned to face him. It lacked any facial adornments, not even eyeholes, but Dareth could feel her eyes on him.

  “Leviathan City citizen on land?” she asked. “How brave. What other brave things did you have planned, little brave man?”

  “I- I- I-” Dareth struggled as he stammered, but her grip remained unchanged.

  She chuckled. “You wanted two prizes. But I think your people will have enough to deal with when Barris returns full strength.”

  His own predicament forgotten momentarily, Dareth looked back toward his sub, floating silently off the shore. “B-Barris? That was Barris?”

  “Yes. Your people just saved the life of the
sun Himself. And if I am right, you’re going to be in a world of trouble.”

  “Why?”

  “Well. Your people will be. Not you. You’re coming with me.” She rose to her feet and picked up her weapon.

  The strike was serpent-swift, and didn’t hurt at all. She must have missed. Dareth’s hand finally slipped from the deathly grip of the monster in front of him, and he tried to stumble back into the surf to return to his sub, and then home, but his feet no longer stood in the water. He had no feet.

  Dareth’s spirit was quickly losing his corporeal form, and he flailed in panic, watching the wisp of his being dissolve.

  The woman’s mask was cocked to the side, watching. Dareth’s last thought was to warn Leviathan City about the new monster in the open air, but his spirit blew away with a wisp of wind.

  * * * * *

  Morrigan looked with interest at her weapon. It was no longer as wicked as it had been, getting fatter as the moon waxed, but it had done its job of removing the man’s soul from his body. What she hadn’t expected was the shredding of the soul. The man had simply blown away with the night air, unlike her companions in the Underworld who managed to retain a bit of human form.

  With one more glance at the submarine, and her enemy that she had to keep alive, she swung her weapon and split the air. The open, cracking wound beckoned her, and she returned home.

  The boy, James, was back on her mind.

  * * * * *

  Kate opened her eyes, awake immediately at the sound of screaming.

  Daniel grunted under her. “What is that?”

  “Prosper,” she said, sliding out of the huge bed the priestesses had provided them in her temple and pulling on her robe.