by Danny Bell
Gingerly, I got to my feet and could see that Chalsarda was doing the same from the end of the room. I hobbled my way to the back to see the damage with my own two eyes. A massive sinkhole had opened up, maybe a dozen feet in diameter and at least thirty feet deep had swallowed everything around it in a flash. The structure above had collapsed, there was no longer even a roof. It was carnage. And at the bottom were the eight of them, hip-deep in the rising waters and colored with hundreds of gallons of beer, struggling with the debris. Olivia comically swung the door over nothing and looked positively pale. With an effort, she shimmied over along the edges to stand next to me, her hands trembling as she gripped the rod and mirror. I gave her a look, and she returned a reassuring nod of her head.
Feeling better about my friend, I called down to the Orochi. “When Susano-o killed you all the first time, he got you drunk and took off your heads, right? That’s at least one version of the story.”
“This only delays the inevitable!” their leader called back, completely ignoring my question. “You will never be safe!”
“Rude! I’m explaining something here! Shut up!” I called back down. Kind of surprised at the last part of my retort, I continued as Chalsarda appeared at my side, an arrow trained on them. “Now, do you want to know what I figured out? That’s right, it’s how the storm god kept you subservient ever since he kicked your ass! I know what hurts you, and it’s part of his domain. Lightning. And if you don’t do as I say, I am going to call one point twenty-one gigawatts of it down into that hole and see what happens.”
“You stupid child!” the leader seethed. “The lightning belongs to our master; he will not permit it to bring us harm!”
“Oh, I’m not going to pull it from the sky,” I clarified. “I couldn’t do that on my best day. Well, maybe on my best day, I did it the once. No, I have something else for you.”
I pulled off my lightning ring, the one I’d been working on for months, and let it drop down into the hole, making an almost imperceptible plop sound as it hit the rising pool of water at their knees. “Y’all can sense magic, right? First, look at where you’re standing, and then tell me just how much juice I have stored in that, and maybe just how tenuous my grasp is on holding it back.”
No one said anything for a long moment until, at last, their leader spoke up, terror lacing his voice. “You wouldn’t! You’d kill us, so many people would never forgive you!”
“Well, I’m pretty sure they also wouldn’t forgive me if I left their souls to be devoured when you lot got ahold of your mirror and became an extinction-level horror,” I countered. “This is just practical. So, what’s it going to be?”
I was bluffing to be sure, but I was bluffing with every card in the deck. “These people aren’t worth saving,” the leader tried. “Their hearts are selfish, depraved. Even without us, they are still powerful among the mortals, and they will never change.”
“Dude, last month I was eating SpaghettiO’s out of a can, now I heat them up in a microwave. People can change.”
There was a tense silence, but I knew I had them. I could feel it in the air. Finally, he spoke. “What are your terms?”
“Release them from their deal. Openly admit defeat on behalf of your master. And swear to stay out of Los Angeles for all time,” I demanded. “I’m not asking twice.”
The eight of them looked at each other in resignation before they began to shout something in Japanese in unison. Impossibly, grotesquely, eight massive snakes wriggled out of the mouths of the people below before vanishing in a flash as the rain all at once disappeared, leaving perhaps the clearest night sky I could ever remember seeing in the city. Chalsarda put away her bow and staggered off a few feet to find someplace to sit. Olivia looked at me, still trembling, and said, “Thank you. For just…I don’t know what Logan…”
She was trailing off, and I finished for her. “It’s okay. It’s over.”
Olivia nodded, and her eyes widened as she remembered something. “You probably need this back now.”
I looked down at the rod and then back at my friend. “No, this is yours,” I said, gently pushing it down.
Olivia looked shell-shocked, probably more by the experience than the gesture, with her mouth agape until she managed, “Are you sure?”
“I was wrong to try and make you practice like me, to cast like me,” I admitted painfully. “You need something to keep you safe, and this is it. It feels natural when you use it, doesn’t it?”
“Feels like I can do anything,” she admitted softly.
“Yeah,” I agreed, knowing the feeling all too well. “Yeah, it’s yours. So, are you ready for the crap part?”
Olivia nodded. “You need the plate?”
“Or mirror, whatever. Plate, mirror, I literally don’t care anymore.” I sighed as she handed it over. I stumbled out into the parking lot as a wave of exhaustion hit me, and with everything I could muster, I called out into the night sky. “Freyja! Freyja, it’s over! I have what you asked for!”
“Yes, you do,” Freyja said, suddenly standing next to me. “And we must discuss it at once.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Just because Freyja could be literally anywhere she wanted to didn’t mean that I got to travel in style with her. Not five seconds had passed before Bilyana had pulled up, this time alone, in one of the more heavily armored apocalypse-ready SUVs I’d seen. Freyja took the treasure, dismissed my friends, and left me with strict instructions to not utter a single word until I saw her again, and then vanished into thin air. Bilyana must’ve been given similar instructions because she didn’t say a word as I crawled into the backseat and collapsed into a tiny Elana-sized ball of hurt. She gave me a serene smile I wouldn’t have thought was possible coming from that face, but given that the last time I saw her, she wanted to take my head off, maybe it was just a devotion thing and winning the day for her boss endeared her to me. Maybe it was that I always brought her snacks. I had no idea, but I returned the smile all the same before I shut my eyes.
Every bump in the road—and there were more than a few of them—sent a bolt of pain through my stomach. The adrenaline of the fight was wearing off, and so much of what I hadn’t realized was in pain was beginning to remind me. I tried to make an inventory to distract myself as we drove, and the first thing I remembered was that I needed to get these gloves off and never put them on again. They were going to give arthritis if I kept using them. That kick to the stomach had weirdly been the worst of it, but not everything. My quads ached from the run, all the cuts and scrapes stung, especially the ones on my head, and there was a dull ache on my jaw where I was uncertain if a tooth had been knocked loose. When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my ankle began to tingle with pins and needles, which was a portent to being bedridden.
I had no sense of time as we drove to Vanadis, all the turns and bumps no doubt from the streets that had become impassable. But arrive we did, and down in the garage, I discovered I couldn’t move. It didn’t take Bilyana long to figure that much out, and as she cradled me in her arms to the elevator, I was grateful that I hadn’t been slung over her shoulder. I don’t think I would’ve survived the experience. More than that, it felt loving, a feeling that bordered on downright weird. She even propped me up on my working leg with my staff, adjusted my book bag, and smoothed the damp hair out of my face.
Look, maybe I didn’t know who this person was at all.
I rode the elevator alone, and when the doors opened, I tumbled out in a heap with a sharp wince as I tried to put pressure on my leg. I was vaguely aware of someone asking if I was okay, the assistant most likely, and even if I’d been allowed to speak, I wouldn’t have known how to reply to that. Of course, no one made a move to help me up because why would they? Since standing wasn’t an option, I made the noisy crawl to the couch in the reception area, noting the mess I’d made along the way. With a painful grunt, I managed to pull myself up onto the couch on my side, and from that position, I was able to g
et into a seated position by gripping the staff with both hands and using my chest to push myself up. Even that was a mistake, the shot I’d taken from Janet earlier suddenly flared with the effort. When I was done, I thought I might cry.
Fear me, world. I’m the great Wizard Elana Black, and I can do anything.
I hadn’t been seated for more than a couple of seconds before I was told in a courteous tone by Freyja’s assistant that I could go in now and, it was at that point, I felt very un-Rincewind. I didn’t say as much—in fact, I didn’t say anything—but, instead, pulled myself to my feet or, rather, foot, by bracing a hand against the wall before hobbling to the office with a sloth’s pace. My shoulders ached from the effort of staying upright by the time I crossed the room.
Freyja was standing, looking out over the city with a stern, contemplative face and didn’t look to me when I entered, but offered me a word of unintentional relief.
“Sit.” She may very well have been commanding it, but I didn’t need to be told twice. I didn’t even really try to brace my fall onto the couch. Her cats barely even acknowledged my landing and went back to their naps.
“Tell me, Elana, are you feeling good about your performance?” Freyja asked, still not looking at me.
“I wouldn’t use good to describe any way that I’m feeling,” I hedged. “But I won, so that’ll have to do.”
Freyja turned to me then, something intense and unreadable in her eyes. “You consider this a victory? You just walked away from the wreckage of a tavern you and your consorts destroyed.”
I wouldn’t say I walked away, but I kept that thought to myself. “Oops.”
“Oops is insufficient,” Freyja snapped. “And what of this additional burden you’ve saddled yourself with?”
She was referring to my staff. I was not getting the reaction to it that I’d been expecting. “It was necessary.”
“Was it?” Freyja questioned dubiously, narrowing her eyes. “Is that to say that I would’ve had you undertake a task and not provided you with the tools needed to be successful?”
I offered an impatient shrug. “Maybe it just got away from us.”
“That is to say nothing of the burden you’ve imposed upon Olivia,” Freyja continued, ignoring me. “It was reckless of you both to pass along that kind of power without an understanding of what you had first. Or the additional deal you made with Wilma Baxter, offering so much and receiving so little in return.”
“W-w-wait,” I stammered. “You’re hitting me with a lot. What do you think that rod was? How do you know Wilma?”
It was a dumb question and one the goddess opted to ignore as she marched toward me. “You awoke your Singasteinn. You awoke her early and subjected her to violence!”
“Yeah, about that, you gave me a child!” I shot back. “What the hell?”
Freyja bulldozed past my objections and continued. “An entire county, to the exact border, flooded for an extended period of time,” she fumed. “The attention that will draw, the anger that will draw, will come for you in time. Some will hold you accountable. The eight people you saved? They know you now and will likely hate you. Countless homes and businesses were flooded. The casualties are in the hundreds. Your city of Wilmington? Largely underwater and uninhabitable.”
My mouth opened in shock to say something, but I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t been precisely fond of Wilmington—I’d been to literal, fictional crime worlds that were preferable to parts of that city—but real people still lived there, and I shuddered to think about the damage and the horror they must’ve felt. “I had no idea; I hadn’t been paying attention to…to the weather reports.”
Freyja gave me a grave nod. “Lower elevation and poor infrastructure. There is much I’ll be responsible for, but there is damage I cannot undo.”
“You?”
“Your burden is my burden, Elana,” Freyja said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Your home is my home. How do you think your bookstore weathered the storm? With a tarp and sandbags or by my grace? As for the aftermath, a generous relief fund will be opened on behalf of the Vanadis Corporation for the displaced, and a viral crowdsourcing campaign will be launched to restore the Angel City Brewery. The things that can be covered financially or with favors, I’ll see are taken care of, but make no mistake, with the eyes you’ve drawn, with the lives snuffed out, this is very much a loss.”
The weight of it was hitting me now that I was being confronted with it. I’d had it in the back of my head that this could be devastating, but I’d been so focused on staying alive, keeping my friends alive, that I never had a moment to consider who ended up paying for it. People died. “I…I got you what you asked for,” I said incredulously.
“You did,” Freyja conceded softly. “And I’m sorry that it was necessary.”
Something overcame me then, and I felt it all at once. All of the violence, all of the destruction, all of the fear from myself and others; something in me broke, and I began to weep. Massive, tired tears for just how powerless I felt to save the people whose faces I never saw, whose lives were upended because I wasn’t fast enough or strong enough, and for how close I’d come to meeting my end along the way. And yet more tears for the knowledge that I was far from done.
Her eyes were sympathetic, and she shushed me gently, all the anger gone from her. “There now, child, do not fret. Come, rest your head upon my lap, that’s good. I’ll comfort you as I would one of my own. Perhaps, even better.”
I continued to cry as she stroked my wet hair. All the heat in Freyja’s voice had dissipated into the universe, there was no more anger or disapproval. I’d been scolded and, perhaps, that was the point, but it was replaced with a warmth and love I’d never seen from her before. She no longer sounded like my boss. She sounded like a goddess.
“May the burden of your heavy heart be carried by heavier eyelids. Sleep now, my brave and faithful servant. Yes, it is all right. It will be all right. You have lost today, but it is the only way you will learn to lose. We all lose sometimes, some more than others. Even I’ve lost, you know. I don’t speak of it often, but I lost a husband. The respect of my children. I’m going to lose my brother soon.” The last one hung in the air for a moment, even as I felt airy magic working around me, bringing me rest. As if to break the tension, but doing a poor job of it, Freyja chuckled bitterly. “I even lost my favorite necklace. We learn to live without the things we once thought gave our life meaning. I’m sorry, this is not the time to speak of my troubles. It is not the time to pity you for your troubles yet to come, but I believe I shall anyway. It is not fair, but you never asked for your life to be fair, and none could’ve promised that to you. You sought to be a hero, and I can sadly promise you that you will pay for that in full when the receipt is due.”
I struggled to say something, to even keep my eyes open, but neither happened. My sobs lost their steam, and my eyes shut as I clutched at her legs.
“Rest now. Lose track of time, Elana, for soon every second will be precious. Look up at the stars, never losing your sense of wonder, for their place in the sky is not assured, but you have not grown so cynical as to believe that. Hold those nearest to you tightly, for the sands of time may take anyone through the cracks between your fingers. Do these things with my blessing. You deserve them and much more, but I cannot give you what you truly deserve. I asked too much of you, and I sought to answer questions I should’ve have asked. You are my last, best idea. And you may well succeed in time, but I’m afraid to find out. I’m afraid of you, my dear. You couldn’t have known, but I sent you for that mirror so that I might see you. You would be right to be angry with me, knowing what I know about Yata no Kogami. It may not be possessed, but it may possess others. That was never a danger, of course, it was only able to take an image from you, not your soul, not what matters. With it, I was able to see your reflection and the depths of your being. I have seen what destruction you will be capable of, and I trembled.”
Fre
yja didn’t speak for a moment; her strokes felt automatic. Though when she spoke again, it sounded more hopeful. “But I also saw your capacity to heal and to rebuild. So many live their lives on rails, but the chaos inside of you, it is something I should not abide, something I should not foster, it is something I should destroy. But yours is not a light for me to extinguish. This is the choice I must make, to either help you or hinder you. This is my gift to you, Elana Black. When you awake, your future will be yours for as long as you can hold it. We have much yet to do, but my hand may not be the best to guide you. Maybe it will be. We will find out together, you and I. Hand in hand.”
Sleep was coming for me, spell or no, but not before I felt the gentle hands of a goddess caress my hair and deliver the softest of kisses to my forehead. I was grateful the sleep didn’t take me before that.
* * *
My shoulders ached from the weight of my body against the crutches as the last customer left for the day and Claire arrived in time to help me lock the store. I couldn’t have been more grateful for her punctuality or the takeout from Shake Shack in her hands; if I didn’t sit down soon I was going to die. Claire held the door for the customer, making sure to lock it behind them, as I hobbled over to a chair and negotiated my way into it.
“You’re sure this isn’t too much too soon?” Claire half smiled at me as she pulled the blinds over the windows.
“I’m sure,” I replied, too tired for a joke.
It had been a week and a half since the fight and the storm, and the store had just reopened. My leg was in the process of healing naturally, a painful process made all the more excruciating by the passage of time. I took a quick trip into the Knowing a couple of times, hoping it might do me a solid, but it seemed content to let this one play out on its own. Which, honestly, was a real shame because there’s nothing fun about a high ankle sprain. I’m a wizard, we heal better and faster than most, but for now I was sidelined.
