Root and Branch
Page 12
I could just about hear Old-Father cackling, Like father, like son!
I looked Achy in his bright eyes and said, "You can actually feel what Saul feels. From more than 60 miles away."
He sat thoughtfully for a few moments and said. "Huh. Yeah, I guess." Then a minute later, he yelped and said, "Yes I do! He just got stung by a bee while eating a flower! Mama Coulter is coming to rescue him!"
"That's amazing!" I exclaimed.
"Mama Coulter rescuing Saul?" he asked, looking confused.
"No! That you can connect with Saul at all!"
"Oh. Is it more amazing than me being a living cigarette lighter, ya think?" He lifted his hands, and flames flowed out of his palms for a second.
"No! Maybe! This is astounding!" I shouted. "Do you think you could communicate through him to the Mamas?"
Acheron looked at me for a moment, then said kindly, "Sure, Dadinator. He can tell them goo, gah, and coo. He's just a few months old, man!"
"Okay, maybe we could get him to write letters in the sand. Or use goo-goo gah-gah code."
"And scare the Mamas to death? Are you crazy? My Saul ain't no Ouija Board!"
"What's a Ouija Board?"
He swiped that away with a dismissive gesture. "Doesn't matter. At least we know what's going on back home… some. We know my Saul is safe." He thought a minute. "Okay, so I got a glimpse of Mountain Mama, and she was carrying Everest around. Goddess, he's a big 'un. I'm not remembering or seeing anything off." He made a face. "Ewww, Mama Coulter's putting chewed tobacco on the bee sting!"
"It works," I told him, having had my share of bee stings as a child.
"I know, but what a waste of perfectly edible tobacco!" Achy rubbed his chin. "Hmmm. The name 'Mountain Mama' reminds me of something… Oh, I know! I just remembered an old song!" And he croaked out, "Almost heaven, West Virginia… Indigo Mountains, something-something river…" and then went on about a Mountain Mama and country roads taking him home as I winced. Have I mentioned that Acheron can't sing?
"I take it you got that from Kait's memories," I said when he was done, and he nodded.
"Yeah, and the singer's name just popped into my head. John Henry Deutschendorf, Jr.!"
I winced again. How'd they even fit that on the record label? Then something struck me. The song had mentioned a place called "West Virginia". "Hmmm. I've heard of Virginia, but what's this about West Virginia? Why not western Virginia, like we'd say 'western Tejas'? The song uses it like we'd use North or South Carolina."
Achy replied, "Oh, West Virginia was the part of Virginia that stayed with the Old Union in the War Between the States. They made it into a separate state later." Then he looked into the distance and said wonderingly, "No! Surely that can't be the only reason!"
"That's right," I said slowly. "The Old Union won the War Between the States in the other worldline, didn't it?"
"Yup. Could be that's the only reason the USA survived over there," he said thoughtfully. He rubbed his chin. "Huh. Too bad I can't grow one of those goatee thingies."
I'd never seen a Dixie or Imp with any facial hair, so that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. "What's a goatee?" I asked.
He blinked and said, "You know, one of those combos of a mustache, and a beard that only covers the chin?"
"Oh, you mean a van Dyke."
"If you say so. Where Mother comes from, that's the name of a comedian clan… but yeah, one of those. Anyway, I'll be going along just fine, and then I'll stumble on something that doesn't match, like calling this place Tejas instead of Texas, or the metroplex being Palestine instead of Dallas/Fort Worth… and then I kinda feel like Mr. Spock from that mirror universe on Star Trek."
"The who from where on what?" I asked, dumbfounded.
Achy face-palmed. "Seriously? This world got a plate-painting Schicklgruber and Gilligan's Island, but not Star Trek?"
"I don't remember Gilligan's Island, but Old-Father used to sing that castaway song from a show called Mary-Ann's Island," I said thoughtfully, "and the only space show he ever talked about was something called Lost in Space…?"
"Gah!"
Achy pretended to gag, and a voice that filled up our heads said solemnly,
"BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY, THERE'S NO INTELLIGENT LIFE ON THIS PLANET!"
I sat there, shocked and awed, as Acheron laughed like a maniac and revved up his wings before flying out the window, no doubt to regale his brothers with tales of his weirdo father. As usual.
I leaned back and listened.
You crossed the Hero Dixies, dumb-aaaasssss Waaaykans!
You tried to sass and ate our gas,
And now you're triple sixies!
You got. Your aaaasses sent to Hell right quicksies!
Hooray, Hooray, hooray for Hero Dixies!
Epilogue
The crudely-printed broadsheet in Mistress Sienna's hand read,
PEOPLES OF THE FORMER CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
KNOW THIS:
THE SCHOLASTIC EMPIRE OF WAYKO IS NO MORE.
Before the Day of Ruin 25 New-Years ago, Baylor University in Wayko, Tejas was a bastion of higher learning. Its medical school produced some of the finest physicians and surgeons in all the Americas. After the Ruin, the surviving scholars of Baylor rallied the survivors of Wayko and welcomed them into its fortified walls. After the Waykans renamed their city the Scholastic Empire of Wayko, it fell into decline, tarnishing its heretofore sterling reputation.
Ultimately, it became a nest of cannibals.
The slate has now been wiped clean. The cannibals, their kith, and their kin have been eliminated, root and branch, by order of the Dawn Goddess Aurora. Wayko is starting anew as the latest member of the Commonwealth of Icarus, under the leadership of All-Father Fell Tobias.
SO IT IS.
SO MOTE IT BE.
"Interesting," the Mistress murmured, as she patted the head of her favorite male. He leaned affectionately against her side as she put down the grubby paper and picked up a fresher, cleaner one. Another proclamation of the self-styled All-Father, a week or so newer than the last, better printed and on finer paper. The Icarans learned fast.
PEOPLES OF THE FORMER CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
KNOW THIS:
THERE ARE NO DEMONS. WE ARE ALL HUMAN.
Twenty-five New-Years ago, our Earth and another much like it merged catastrophically. We still do not know why. Nearly 12 billion people vanished. Baseline humanity became rare on this world, and we found ourselves host to a wide variety of heretofore mythological races including Succubi, Harpies, Minotaurs, Faunlets, Giants, Angels, Centaurs, Pixies, Fairies, Kappas, Pookas, Cobbers, and many more besides.
We of the Commonwealth of Icarus have learned that these new races, collectively called "demons" by many, are in fact the survivors of the other Earth that our Earth merged with. They were born as human as any native of this Earth. They remain human despite their altered appearances. THIS INCLUDES ALL HUMAN RACES CALLED BEASTKIND BY SOME. Know that killing any of these people is murder and that eating their flesh is cannibalism, no matter how beastlike they may appear.
The Commonwealth of Icarus will not allow cannibalism in any form within the boundaries of the former Confederacy. The people of any nation or community that encourages or even allows cannibalism will be exterminated root and branch, at the order of the Dawn Goddess Aurora; her consort, All-Father Fell Tobias; and their son Eos, God of Morning. There will be no quarter nor mercy given, and the territories thus depopulated will be added to the Commonwealth of Icarus.
SO IT IS.
SO MOTE IT BE.
Rolling her eyes, Sierra crumpled the second broadsheet in her hand; then, as she had done with the first, she reconsidered, smoothed it out, and read it again. Then she tossed it down onto the exquisite gopherwood table one of her artisan adherents had crafted for her. "Cocky bastard, this Fell Tobias," she muttered. "All-Father, is he?" She looked down at the male. "What do you think of that, Clyde?"
C
lyde could only whine happily, since he had little in the way of higher brain function left. But his arousal was evident, and she smiled; perhaps it was time to quicken their eighth daughter.
She stretched, flaring her wings wide, pleased at how well the pattern her eldest daughters had dyed into her feathers the day before had taken. The Angel ran her fingers through Clyde's long, silky hair and smiled. "It's time we paid the Icarans a little visit, don't you think?"
The Confession of Fell Tobias,
First President of the Reconfederated States of America
(This manuscript was handwritten in Fell Tobias's own hand, and sewn into the back of the master volume of this book many years after binding.)
On October 18, A.R. 25, I damned myself to Hell.
The Cyclone-B I can forgive myself for. It was an area-of-effect weapon specifically designed to kill cannibals, to end the spread of their cancer. Even though it killed almost 3,000 of the Waykans, not one of my people died, and I saved over 7,000 children and Gormless from the clutches of that vile "empire."
My sin is that I murdered children, including an innocent one, when I personally killed the Provost's family to eliminate the possibility of a survivor later leading a civil uprising. There are seven people whose names I recite each morning when I awake, forcing myself to remember how each died, so that I will never forget.
Before 6 AM, before I led the gas attack against the rest of the Scholars, before their children went catatonic in horrified mourning, I kicked in the front door of the Provost's mansion, having killed his guards myself. I was alone; I would have this stain on no one's conscience but my own.
I already knew all their names; the Gormless told me. I already knew this would ruin me.
First I slit the throat of erstwhile Scholar of Recovered Literature Wilfred DoSigil, 47, as he still lay in bed, barely awake. His hair was iron gray; I never saw his eyes. Unfortunately, he let out a shriek as he died, but I was able to bury my Dawn steel dagger in the heart of Jorney DoSigil, 27, his golden-haired, blue-eyed trophy wife and Scholar of Bones and Stones, while she still lay confused and half-asleep.
Wilfred's eldest son, Christian DoSigil, 22, met me in the hallway outside his parents' bedroom, half-naked and armed with a luminium-edged gopherwood sword. His hair was chestnut, his eyes as gray as his father's hair. I cut off the Weaponry Scholar's left hand with the Dawn Sword, then took him in the throat with its point and left him to bleed out onto the polished hardwood floor.
Kilma DoSigil, 15, Junior Scholar of Gymnastic Artistry, did better than her brother. Also chestnut-haired and gray-eyed, she dashed into the hall still wearing her nightgown seconds later, and literally bounced off the walls as she tried to protect her family from me. She managed to stab me in the right hand with the gopherwood dagger that was her only weapon, but I dropped the sword into my left hand and beheaded her. She was brave, and deserved a clean death.
Kizmet DoSigil, 68, Wilfred's mother, Scholar Emeritus of Dental Hygiene, came at me with a kitchen knife. I lopped off her hand as I'd done Christian's. Afterward, she just crouched against the wall, gray head down, eyes closed. I ran her through.
Jamie DoSigil, 14, Junior Scholar of Modern Weaponry, was a smaller version of his brother. I narrowly avoided the three gopherwood shuriken he fired at me from his starcaster, slicing through the netgun's cords before they reached me. Then he wrapped himself around a smaller figure and huddled in place. He had managed to don armor, including a thickened helmet of layered luminium with a neck guard, something like a pre-Ruin fireman's helmet. It was no match for Dawn Steel, and rolled away with his head in it.
It was then, as his body fell and the little one he protected stood up, that I realized that none of them had shouted, or cursed, or even said a word since Wilfred's scream of alarm. They knew exactly what was happening, and accepted it stoically. None of them even tried to beg.
Not even Ivalyn DoSigil, pre-Scholar. Just 11 years old, she was a stunning little thing, with the family's chestnut hair and gray eyes. "Fell Tobias of the Commonwealth of Icarus," she said calmly, though her eyes were brimming with tears. "I see you."
"I see you, Ivalyn DoSigil of the Scholastic Empire of Wayko," I replied, proud that my voice remained steady.
"Finish it," she said in her high-pitched little-girl voice. "I read your broadsides, and the Articles of War you published."
"You're no Scholar," I said. "Not a cannibal." Just to be sure, I reached into my pocket for a tiny atomizer of Cyclone, and sprayed a puff in her face. Her only reaction was a scowl. "You're not."
"Does it matter?" she asked, as she glanced down at the blood pooling around her slippers, the tears racing down her cheeks now.
"No," I admitted when she looked up. "It doesn't."
She just nodded, straightened, and held her head high, leaving her throat exposed. I stepped forward, swung the Dawn Sword in a horizontal arc, and damned myself to Hell.
Wilfred DoSigil, age 47.
Jorney DoSigil, age 27.
Christian DoSigil, age 22.
Kilma DoSigil, age 15.
Kizmet DoSigil, age 68.
Jamie DoSigil, age 14.
Ivalyn DoSigil, age 11.
When I left the Provost Mansion, all seven were dead. Daily, I remind myself of their names and contemplate how they died: most of them bravely, mostly with dignity.
I feel no guilt for killing the Scholars, who knew exactly what they were doing and what they were. But for killing Ivalyn DoSigil, who was an innocent, who might have been saved, I have no excuse and will never forgive myself. Even now. Even all these years later. Even after reuniting the Confederacy. Even after what the Wold did on that battlefield near the Ria Santa Antonia.
If Hell exists, I accept my place there. I regret only that I will never be reunited with my wives, my children, and my Goddess in the fullness of time. If Hell does not exist, I insist that it be created so that I may pay for the evil that I have done.
Tobias Angus Fell
March 19, AR 73
CONTINUED IN THE FOURTH BOOK OF FELL TOBIAS,
MARCHING ON TEJARKÁN
Afterword
Dun-dun-DUHHHHHHHHH! Now that Fell Tobias has been disowned by his Goddess, is his dream to reunite the Old Confederacy doomed? What happens to Little Magic? How long before the Tejarkanye strike again? Where does the Bejar Coven fit into all this? Find out in Book 4, Marching on Tejarkán. At this point, I expect it to be significantly longer than each of the first three novellas, likely a full novel in its own right. There's a lot that has to happen between where the Commonwealth is now and war with the Tejarkanye, which is inevitable. What's not inevitable is a Commonwealth victory, despite their patron Deities—especially now that they're on the outs with the Goddess, and Little Magic is missing. Tejarkán, unlike Wayko, can almost legitimately call itself an empire.
If you haven't already figured it out, I'm enjoying working on this series, and I hope you're enjoying it as well. I would love it if you'd leave this book a review. Feel free to tell me what I did wrong, and what I did right. In time, I'm going to collect these first three novellas into an omnibus edition or single novel, and I'll be sure to take your opinions into account for the rewrite. Book 5, provisionally titled Saving Magic, is also likely to be lengthy. I'm planning for other books beyond Book 5, though I'm not sure when they'll come out. After all, Fell Tobias has vowed to reunite the entire Confederate States of America, which was even larger in his worldline than in ours. That's gonna take a while.
Until next time, cheers!
Tripp
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