《Book Three: A War of Sin and Signats》


 One: The Death of Henry Dyson

    Mattias insisted Henry Dyson was not dead.


    Hawk West knew differently. Henry Dyson¡¯s body lay on a plastic tarp, amid glorious crystal spires and the deep heart¡¯s red of his own blood. One of the soldiers under Captain Michael Spectre¡¯s command had done a very cursory examination of the lethal wound. It had pierced Henry¡¯s heart. He had bled out rapidly, in the arms of his lover, Emile Yong. They knelt beside the tarp wrapped body, touching it infrequently. Not as if for comfort, but as if they could not believe this thing, this hundred-eighty odd pounds of meat, had been their moving, living, breathing person just a few minutes ago.


    ¡°He is inside of me,¡± Mattias insisted again, and then he paused. ¡°I can hear him speaking. He is confused, he is¡ª¡±


    And then another shuddering seizure; Mattias had just come out of a dreadful Grand Mal. Hawk and two of the soldiers, including the lone medic, both lurched for him. He¡¯d begun seizing when Kaiser Willheim, billionaire Lion of Industry and all around scumbag asshole had stabbed him with a syringe. Hawk was very worried about what might have been in that syringe, given that moments before he assaulted Mattias, Kaiser had mur¡ªno, not yet¡ªstabbed Henry Dyson with a scalpel. They¡¯d found it lying on the floor of the enormous geode they were currently hiding in.


    And Henry Dyson was dead.


    No, she thought. Focus on something else. Anything else. The Geode. What the Holian residents called the Nexus. It was a round, huge room, hundreds of feet by hundreds of feet, a dream cavern for a spelunker, filled with milky white crystal. At first Hawk had thought that it was quartz, but it wasn¡¯t. It had properties that defied the laws of physics, was mailable in the hands of newly discovered beings called Archetypes. It was everywhere in this room, encompassing the whole of ceiling and floor; it had a comforting warmth that almost made the spreading red beneath Dyson¡¯s body less horrible.


    Dyson is dead.


    No. She wasn¡¯t ready for grief, yet. Think of something else. Like why she was here.


    Kaiser Willheim had brought her here, though he¡¯d also done his best to get rid of her. She and her husband, Alisdair ¡°Alex¡± West, had encountered the ninth in a series of Events. Glass Events, they were called, because they occurred when a specially constructed device, called a Prism, ripped a hole in the fabric of reality itself. The Rifts, as Kaiser liked to call them (it was a better name than ¡°murder hole¡±, which was Emile Yung¡¯s contribution) opened to newly created pocket universes. But it came with a terrible side effect: energies seemed to storm out of the hole, ripping life from matter and rendering organic substances a kind of inert, fragile silica. Humans could be reduced to a pile of glass-like ash in moments.


    While exploring this Rift, Hawk had discovered why: There were beings down here, Archetypes of whatever happened to be within the Prism when the Rift was created. And they were draining the world above of life. Their powers to create and sustain the reality inside the rift came at the cost of the reality outside of it.


    And her husband Alex was one of them.


    There had been five Archetypes down here when Hawk started exploring this Rift. There were four now. She and whatever was left of Alex had killed one¡ªand there was another subject she had to dance away from. She was not ready to think about it, not ready to fully explore the horrors that Kaiser Willheim had created.


    Because it was all his fault. He, manipulator that he was, had played his own business partner, Edgar Studdard, into attempting suicide. He¡¯d tried to kill Alex and Hawk multiple times, using their own morality, their own drives against them. When that failed, he¡¯d maneuvered things so that when Naomi Studdard looked to attain godhood, she had Alex to use to attain it. And then, in the end, when he¡¯d been cornered by the General and informed that he would, in fact, be held accountable for what he¡¯d done, he¡¯d stabbed Henry in the heart, and injected Mattias, Archon of Light and friend to the Shadowmaster (neither title something to be held lightly) with something that caused immediate seizures. And now Hawk was caught between a collegue she¡¯d known for decades, dead, and a man she¡¯d known for perhaps a week, alive and distressed and swearing that Henry, the dead man, was alive inside his head.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Em stood and stalked across the Nexus, across the sheets of heavy duty plastic they¡¯d all laid down to keep the razor sharp crystals from shredding them to bits. They were always a hard-wired bundle of nerves, but now they looked like they wanted to murder someone, drink their blood, and make bird bait out of their entrails, and they didn¡¯t look too willing to discern between friend and foe right now. Hawk, knowing a bit about what they were going through, intercepted.


    ¡°Do not hurt him,¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°Henry¡¯s dead.¡± Em said. ¡°He¡¯s dead. He died in my arms. He¡¯s dead.¡± It was as if the fact of it had filled her mind. Which it had, Hawk knew. When you lost a loved one like this, it filled the world with sharp edges and hard turns.


    ¡°I see that too,¡± Hawk said, and waited.


    ¡°How can you look at me like that?¡± Em said. ¡°He¡¯s dead.¡±


    ¡°Because we have to make it worth something.¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°Yeah, but you had hope.¡± Em said. They didn¡¯t wail, and their tears were starting to ebb. The iron hot control they kept over themselves was clear. This was an emotionless accusation, clear and sharp as a stiletto.


    ¡°I don¡¯t anymore,¡± Hawk said. And her friend finally started to still. ¡°Alex is as¡­¡± Deep breath. She could do this. Bare her own wound so her friend would know they were not alone. ¡°He¡¯s as dead to me as a stone. I can¡¯t get him back any more than you can Henry.¡± And she caught Em¡¯s hands before they could launch themselves into a grief-stricken outer orbit. ¡°Kaiser did it. To both of us. And there¡¯s a lot more here than Kaiser stabbing Henry.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Em¡¯s grieving eyes begged for an answer.


    ¡°He injected Mattias with something¡ª¡±


    ¡°He injected me,¡± Mattias interrupted, ¡°With Henry.¡±


    A breathless silence followed this.


    ¡°Henry is explaining it. I have to use his words¡­I don¡¯t understand half of it. He¡¯s speaking in my head. It¡¯s hard for me to keep him separate¡ªhe says, it¡¯s a backup that Kaiser has, in case his important people die. He uses¡­what is a spinal tap? Or Stem Cells?¡± A pause, as the rest of them stood aghast. Hawk was, certainly; a lifetime drowning in decent science fiction had her filling in the gaps immediately. An injection, with stem cells. Some sort of concoction that could transfer memory from one person to another? Mattias continued, ¡°He does not know me. He does not know why he¡¯s here. All he knows is this means he¡¯s died, and Kaiser¡­Kaiser will want something from him.¡±


    ¡°Well, he¡¯s not fucking getting it,¡± Em said. But she was still lingering near the tarp-wrapped body. ¡°Henry¡¯s dead.¡±


    ¡°But he can still speak through¡ª¡± And then Mattias¡¯s eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and Captain Spectre and his medic both had to lunge to keep the man from flinging himself backwards into the milk-crystal.


    And Hawk had an idea. ¡°Grab him and shove him up into Earth,¡± She said.


    ¡°But Hawk¡ªwe don¡¯t have the tools here, but they won¡¯t have the time there¡ª¡±


    ¡°We need more time down here than maybe he¡¯s got. Shove him up into Earth and wait for me. I¡¯m going to go get help.¡±


    ¡°Who the hell would help¡ª¡± Began one of the soldiers.


    Em interrupted, their face tear-streaked and still deluged with grief. They were a flood-plain, levies broken, unable to stem the tide. ¡°Please tell me you¡¯re not going back down there to find that¡­that¡­¡± but she couldn¡¯t scrape enough horror off her sorrow to even act properly terrified. ¡°He¡¯s not any good. You walked away from him. You know he¡¯s not any good. Not any more.¡±


    Em had bought her disgust for the Shadowmaster as true. Her heart was suddenly somewhat flooded with hope. Not that she could ignite anything with the Shadowmaster, but that she¡¯d successfully distanced herself from him. Because if Em could buy it, knowing that the Shadow was whatever was left of Alex, when Em knew how much Hawk loved him¡­maybe Kaiser bought it too.


    And if Kaiser had bought it¡­


    That doesn¡¯t matter, now, she thought, with an even brighter flare of hope. Kaiser is going to jail.


    And if you actually believe that, babe, I¡¯ll sell you every bridge in this country. That¡¯s what Alex would have said. And her imaginary husband had a point: Billionaires do not get punished for crimes in this country. He could say anything he wanted¡ªthat he panicked, that he was afraid, that he hadn¡¯t known he was killing Henry¡ªor say nothing at all, and as long as the right people were paid, he¡¯d be fine. Justice wasn¡¯t blind in this country; it was gagged.


    One deity at a time. She thought. Our secular god is neutralized for now. I just need to worry about the ones that are still down here.


    Who are, mind, still hunting me down.


    ¡°I¡¯m going,¡± Hawk said, to her friend. ¡°Because I can¡¯t see another way out of this without going after Kaiser, and that¡¯s what he wants.¡±


    ¡°He wanted this? What, Henry dead? A stranger he doesn¡¯t even know incapacitated? What did he even want with this?¡± Em sobbed, looking at the tarp-covered body like a moth to a flame.


    ¡°Put the body Earthside, too. Mattias and Henry¡¯s body. Get them out of time so nothing else can happen to them while I do this.¡±


    ¡°While you do what, ma¡¯am?¡±


    She took a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯m going to go get the Shadowmaster.¡±

 Two : Down, and ever Down

    ¡°There are stupid ideas, Hawk, and then there¡¯s going back into a fucking murder hole for¡ª¡±


    ¡°Henry,¡± Hawk said, heartless. ¡°I¡¯m doing it for Henry. You want to tell me it¡¯s not worth it?¡± She paused for a moment, trying to decide if her words were justified or not, because she knew she¡¯d just gone for the untested jugular. Yes, she decided, for one reason. ¡°I went for Alex. Shouldn¡¯t I go for you and Henry, too?¡±


    ¡°Henry¡¯s dead,¡± Em said, miserably.


    ¡°Right. So get his body up where it¡¯s not going to decay fast and let me go get help.¡± Hawk said. Not that she had to. Captain Spectre and the other military boys had already hefted the terrible bulk of black tarp to their shoulders. They moved quickly, hastily, with awareness that for human medicine, the time to act had already passed. That was why the help Hawk was about to go for wasn¡¯t human.


    Spectre, having gotten his people moving, now returned to Hawk. He overheard a small amount of their conversation, and he interrupted them at Hawk¡¯s last words. ¡°Ma¡¯am, I hate to interrupt, but¡ª¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re going to stop me, shoot me. If you¡¯re going to send help, they¡¯d better be really damn good. I¡¯m going down that spire and I¡¯m going to get help, and I¡¯m doing it right now.¡± She said.


    ¡°I was going to say you can¡¯t go, and then I was going to tell you it¡¯s what I have to say.¡± And he glanced up, where General Mulligan, the guy several ranks above Spectre¡¯s own CO, was heaving Henry¡¯s body up the rope ladder towards Earth. ¡°And then I was going to say, if you wanna go, you gotta go now.¡±


    She gave a thin smile. ¡°You won¡¯t get in trouble?¡±


    ¡°Not as long as I tried to stop you.¡± He paused. ¡°That was it. That was me, trying. Get going, you two, before the boss sees you go.¡±


    Hawk, who had planned on going alone, looked at Em expectantly. Em, who¡¯d had zero plans of going, looked back. And then, as one, they started towards the world within the Rift once more.


    ***


    They did not use the Shadow¡¯s small, secret entrance to their Nexus. Hawk suspected it might not be there anymore. None of them had known what was going on when they¡¯d entered Holia, their name for this dark, gods-infested universe, the first time. Shadow had come, and he¡¯d been hostile. He had known only that people were digging through his blocade, and had responded with rage. Justified, as it turned out; this Nexus, and the crystal it was made from, were all that kept the Archetypes¡ªthe so-called Gods of this world¡ªfrom draining Earth dry. Their power was fueled by life, and as drawing power from Holia would have reduced it to cinders and ash in seconds, they pulled what they needed from Earth. This resulted in the increase of Glass energies, the strange and unknown energy signature that transformed organic matter to something more frail and silica based. Holia was draining Earth dry.


    It would end, and relatively soon; Holia, like any Rift, was created when light refracted through a specially built Prism, a device of carved crystal that functioned off light. It was Kaiser Willheim¡¯s invention, just as it was Willheim¡¯s plotting that put Hawk and so many other humans in harm¡¯s way. This was the third Rift Hawk had encountered, the third Prism blasting its way through our reality with galactic force, the third time Glass had spread like salt across the wounded ground. The first Rift Hawk had encountered closed while she was on site, sending her and Alex into the wreckage of his client¡¯s mostly destroyed house. The second had been in the Bronx zoo. While it hadn¡¯t yet closed the last time Hawk was topside, reports showed it was nearly there. Hawk hadn¡¯t worried too much about the first, but she also hadn¡¯t known that there were, indeed, people on the other side. People were found at the Bronx zoo, when she met the highly evolved Apes that were descended from the gorillas in the zoo¡¯s monkey house. That was also when she¡¯d met her first Archetype.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    The Prisms would kill; this was obvious and clear from the first moment, and that first Rift, which killed an old woman, her dog, and god only knew how much wildlife in its dead zone. It had killed in the Bronx too, murdering humans where they stood, skeletonizing trees and worse, eating deep into the soil to destroy the organics there. Only Apes, honeysuckle vines and honeypot ants had survived, all of them drastically changed by the environment and the massive amount of time it took for these pocket universes to collapse. Time ran faster inside them than outside, after all. A single day Earthside could be a hundred years inside a Rift¡­or a thousand.


    Apes, honeysuckle, and honeypots. All had immunity in the Bronx because all three species had a representative inside the Prism¡ªa drugged gorilla, a case of honeypots, and the vine the honeypots were feeding off of. If you wanted to survive a Rift, you, or something very much like you, had to go down inside of the Prism when the Rift was made. Or else, you had to consume honeypot nectar, the golden fluids built up in a honeypot ant gaster. That had kept both Hawk and her husband, Alex, alive for their first and second rifts.


    Humans could survive in this, the third Rift, because Alex had been inside the Prism¡ªalong with all of Bittermoss School¡¯s 4H projects. And they¡¯d quite clearly populated this whole realm in the time that they¡¯d had.


    Hawk didn¡¯t know what would happen to everyone down here when the Rift closed. Down below her was the Temple of Light, the building constructed out of the remains of the Prism. That was what would ease back into the hole above, hidden by the Nexus¡¯s bright crystals. She had no idea what would happen to the people living down here when that happened. That might be something they all needed to consider.


    Em lead her to a small outcropping of crystal and stone beside the central pylon. Here lay climbing equipment, discarded and corpse-like in the milk-crystal¡¯s light. They were going to need to rappel down the pylon¡­which was hundreds of feet above their goal.


    The Temple of Light glowed in the distant down like a beacon of hope. Hawk knew better. Nothing of the Holian religion was good. Their gods were real, former humans who had been converted to Archetypes not by surviving inside of a Prism but by eating part of the proper Archetype¡­who had been her husband, Alex.


    She wasn¡¯t sure how much of Alex was left in the creature this pocket universe named the Shadowmaster. He¡¯d been disabled, somehow, reduced to the core, which the Gods of Holia had consumed. What was left was powerful, not very human, and not a whole lot like Alex¡­except when he was. What Hawk did know for certain was that he didn¡¯t know anything about his life before the Prism¡ªdidn¡¯t know her, didn¡¯t know Earth, didn¡¯t know the Gods¡¯ human identities¡ªand that he was incredibly dangerous when he wanted to be.


    And he loved Mattias, the Archon of Light.


    She guessed, as they began rappelling down from their lofty heights, that she had achieved her goal: She had convinced Kaiser that she did not love the new Alex, that the Shadow did not love her. She had forgotten, though, the number one rule of survival: You don¡¯t have to run faster than your enemy; you just need to be faster than your friends. She had shown Kaiser that the connection between Hawk and the Shadow was too much work. But the connection between the Shadow and Mattias, the reluctant and battered priest, that was easy pickings.


    After what felt like hours and miles piled in layers, Hawk¡¯s feet reached the solid moss lawn of the Temple of Light.

 Three: Gods are Watching

    It was not radically changed since the last time she¡¯d been here; that had only been a few hours ago. The great expanse of lawn was a welcoming moss-green¡ªStar-moss, they called it down here. The walls stood as walls ought to, carved about as they were with every living thing its carvers were familiar with. There were no elephants here, no roaring lions or giraffes or tigers, or improbable pelicans wounding their own breasts. There were a lot of rabbit-shaped things, because the Gods (or, she hoped, evolution) had used rabbits as the foundation for domesticated animals. There were Fleet-Hares, with big bunny ears and legs for days. There were heavier, burlier pack animals, also rabbits. And here and there, hidden in the carvings, were Shadowbeasts. The Shadowmaster¡¯s token animal.


    She should have known the first time she saw the walls.


    But one difference was striking: the fire. Argon, Firemaster and former gym teacher, had started it. How, she wasn¡¯t sure, but the things burning within it were still animate. Hopefully not still sentient; she couldn¡¯t imagine a thought surviving that hell. This fire, which had chased Hawk across what felt like half of Holia, had now gathered at the Temple¡¯s base. Billows of black smoke cut through the sunlit glow of the place, choking thick and worrying. There wasn¡¯t that much oxygen down here.


    Immediately after their feet touched the moss lawn, white robed acolytes of the Temple of Light swarmed towards her. They were panicked, arms fluttering, speaking in a tongue Hawk could not understand. At first she thought they were attacking¡­then she remembered, she hadn¡¯t had enough time to change her clothes. She, too, was in the white robes of a temple acolyte.


    ¡°Help us!¡± One of the temple servants said, in English. It was the Holian¡¯s most ancient and sacred tongue. A kick in the teeth, that. It made sense: the seed population for this world had been six hundred children, carefully selected to attend a school that was eugenics in all but name. While she expected there¡¯d been a few sophisticated polyglots in the bunch, English had become the lingua franca down in this dark and burning place.


    Hawk looked at Em, helplessly. Em looked back, focused and sharp.


    ¡°It¡¯s a delay,¡± Hawk said.


    Em¡¯s gaze gained a tinge of disgust. ¡°Henry¡¯s dead. He¡¯s not coming back. And he¡¯s Earthside. I help people, Hawk. And these are people.¡±


    Chastened, deservedly, Hawk turned to the fearful. There was soot all over their clothing, marks on their faces. Had any of them witnessed the battle that she had fought here, just a few hours ago? Did it matter? ¡°Go up the pylon,¡± She told the nearest. ¡°Take the ropes and start climbing.¡±


    ¡°No. We can¡¯t. That¡¯s forbidden territory. That¡¯s where the Shadow waits.¡±


    ¡°Shadows are nothing,¡± Hawk said, hotly. ¡°They¡¯re an absence of Light. You want to know who your master of Light is? Who you should be bowing to? The Shadowmaster was your precious First God. He¡¯s all that¡¯s left after your rancid pantheon ate him down to the rind. So you want to do honor to your God? You ignore everything you¡¯ve ever been told and you start to climb.¡± A shattered look crossed the nearest faces, telling her who was educated enough to understand.


    ¡°No, Hawk. Don¡¯t fight with them about Religion. They¡¯ll never accept it. They¡¯ll never believe you.¡± And Em grabbed the nearest warm body, a slight and slender girl that they dwarfed in frame. Which was impressive. Em wasn¡¯t exactly a linebacker themselves. They took the poor, sobbing girl and put the ropes harness they¡¯d been wearing on her. ¡°Climb.¡±


    ¡°The God will punish me,¡± The girl insisted.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Are they here?¡± Em said. Waited for a shake of the head. ¡°Does God know everything? Then he knows you¡¯re climbing.¡±


    ¡°She,¡± came the sob. ¡°She knows. It is Nasheth, and she knows all.¡±


    ¡°And you are fleeing her.¡± Em agreed. ¡°Start climbing.¡±


    Another gulp. Another sob. ¡°Maybe the fire will go down?¡± She said, and coughed.


    ¡°It won¡¯t. Climb.¡±


    ¡°But God¡ª¡±


    ¡°If they cared, they¡¯d be here. GO. And you tell the people you find up there that more¡¯s coming. We need more harnesses. We need more ropes. Go on, girl, your whole world is waiting for the help you¡¯ll bring. Start to climb!¡±


    She trembled like dew on moss. And then she took the first step up. And the next. And the next. Bravely bypassing every logical barrier in her head¡ªthe Gods, Hawk thought, and gods and gods and more. She was so sick of gods¡ªthis near-child began to pull her way up through the ropes, using the harness. Em grabbed the loose end of the rope and held it down.


    ¡°It¡¯s going to take her hours to climb,¡± Hawk said. ¡°This fire reached the base of the temple in the time for us to climb up and back. We have to find a way of fighting it if we¡¯re going to get these people out of here alive.¡±


    ¡°Yep. Them, and the villages that just got burned out because of Argon¡¯s tantrum.¡± Em didn¡¯t let go of the rope, despite the gasps and signs against blasphemy that greeted their words. They looked around at the pale faces and said it again, ¡°Argon¡¯s tantrum. Argon threw a fucking tantrum because we ran away from him, and he can¡¯t get us back. There¡¯s the truth. Do what you want with it.¡± There was a pause as they worked against the twisting line in their hands. The girl was only a few feet along. ¡°Go, Hawk. You¡¯re aching to. Go find him.¡±


    And Hawk didn¡¯t need another word.


    The gates to the Temple were closed. ¡°We need to get those gates open,¡± she said, to the nearest white robe.


    ¡°Why? There are refugees.¡± The white robe wrung her hands together, twisting them like paper in her own grip.


    ¡°Exactly why. There are refugees.¡±


    ¡°But they don¡¯t belong here in the Temple.¡± The white robe insisted.


    ¡°It¡¯s a temple. Where else should refugees go? Get those goddamn gates open!¡± And she strode across the moss lawn herself, blinded in a way by the callous reaction. Maybe that was an Earthside bias. Maybe it wasn¡¯t fair to expect another world to care as much for its fellow man as she did. Maybe it had taken centuries, even millennia to bring humanity to where it mostly cared about itself, where churches and temples and tabernacles opened their doors to the desperate. Maybe the modern view of compassion had needed the shoulders of religion to stand on, and the shoulders of poverty and disaster beyond counting. Maybe, down here, this was the first disaster where they needed each other to survive. Hawk should have mercy, and lowered expectations, and should teach instead of chastise.


    Fuck that noise in the ear, was her response. If it took centuries to reach the ¡°right¡± point of view, the view of compassion and mercy, then those were wasted centuries, and time itself was wrong. There was no excuse for a dearth of mercy. She¡¯d get those gates open if she had to force it all herself.


    And then what?


    Em would get people up topside. They might even be able to respond if they moved fast enough.


    She coughed in a ghust of smoke from the fire, then reached the doors. They opened inward; she was on the wrong side to push it open. Well, might as well start climbing, then. These gates were not staying barred. They were easy enough to climb on this side. She found handholds in sculpted birds and rabbits, inch by inch making her way up the warm milk crystal¡­and it was warm. Like heat from a summer¡¯s day. Foothold here, handhold there. It was also getting hard to breathe. The Temple stood on a spire of milk crystal, with a road that lead up to its great gates. The fire that Argon had started had lashed across the land, curled through mossy meadows and eaten trees whole, and now it was gathering at the base of the spire. Not good, Hawk thought. Not good at all. Especially not when there were a very large number of people gathered at the base.


    If I were Alex, where would I be, was an easy question to answer: Down there, where all the people were, trying to get them moving. But they were likely faithful Holians, to whom the holy processions and pavilions were places of joy¡ªgive a little food, maybe a bird or two for sacrifice, and in return they could take the pavilions down and keep whatever they pleased. If they knew about the bevy of human sacrifice and cruelty that actually happened inside¡­so he¡¯d use his reputation and fearsome appearance as the Shadow to chase people up the spire. The absolute last thing he ought to do.


    She had to get down there. Fast.

 Four: The Fire Tide

    She hadn¡¯t gone down the spire on foot before. She¡¯d been given a Fleet-Hare, the giant deer-like beasts, and been told to let it follow the rest of the procession. Now she had to make the same trip, alone and shod in combat boots, which weren¡¯t the best choice for the hike. They were a size and a half too large. Once she was over the gates and on the proper path, she felt a great deal of her energy and focus drain out, replaced by confusion and fear. Maybe she was wrong to do this. Maybe she was dying of oxygen deprivation as she stood. Maybe¡ªthere were too many maybes. She could do the next right thing, which right now was putting one foot in front of the other and moving, until she got to the Shadow and could¡ª


    --could do what, sunshine? You really think he¡¯s going to listen to you? She ignored this voice. A harder question to ignore was, do you think it¡¯ll be a good thing if he does? She was already petrified of Kaiser Willheim figuring out that he could put a gun to her head and make this Shadow-Alex do what he wanted. The only prophylactic to this she could think of was distance, and here she was eating that up by the footstep.


    But while she had recognized the loyalty she loved in the Shadow¡¯s eyes, she¡¯d missed who it was pointed at. So caught up with her own grief, she¡¯d missed that the Shadow was loyal to Mattias, the Archon of Light. Which was how they wound up in this current mess. Kaiser knew his best chance to escape arrest¡ªan arrest, mind, that was flimsy in Hawk¡¯s eyes¡ªwas to delay Hawk and the others, and he¡¯d done it by stabbing Henry¡ªwho had apparently lost all importance to Kaiser¡ªand injecting Mattias with that unknown substance. She¡¯d selfishly misjudged¡ª


    --No, Hawk. You didn¡¯t selfishly do anything. She forced herself back down that path of thought, even as she tentatively and fearfully made her way down the spire. She¡¯d done things, yes, but it wasn¡¯t self-centered to think that ones¡¯ husband (or at least, the pieces of him the Gods had left un-eaten) still cared about you. Kaiser had created this situation. He¡¯d even given it that little twist, aren¡¯t you so selfish, thinking only of yourself while I¡¯m murdering your friends. And she wasn¡¯t an idiot; that was as purposeful a motion as any step Kaiser ever took towards a goal. He was the kind of survivor that came with a billion dollars, or a knife in the back of others.


    Her hate got her down the spire. She knew when she¡¯d reached the main crowd of frightened people, because fewer and fewer of them were trying to get up the crystal spire to the temple. Most were crowding around the nearest colored robes¡ªRed robes, blue, green, and yellow¡ªin the hope that they and their God had a plan.


    People mostly went to the red robes, representative of Argon, god of war and Master of Fire. These were supposed to be the men with the plans in the face of their gods¡¯ wrath, so they should have known what to do. This was, after all, Argon¡¯s fire. Shouldn¡¯t Argon¡¯s priests be able to stop it? Hawk saw five red robes from where she stood, all of their so called holy garments singed (and in one case burned from hemline to waist. Two of the other red robes stood around this wounded third, looking from burned robe to their fellows and back, fear on faces that should know better) and all of them lost, hurt, and clueless.


    She did not see Shadow. She felt Him, though. There was a leonine purring to every shade, a lingering touch in the darkness, and a growing rage that seemed to begin the moment she showed up.


    Whelp. In for a penny, in for a pound. She chose the nearest high object and elevated herself and her white robes above the heads of others. Beyond she could see the angry reds and oranges of fire, clouds of smoke muting it from draconian roar to a more sedate crackling, the occasional pop in the roar a promise of things to come.


    ¡°We¡¯re asking everyone to go to the Temple of Light,¡± she announced. Not that they had anywhere else to go. The flames had already wrapped around the spire. ¡°Please, come on. Please hurry. Up the spire to the Temple. Please go.¡± And then, on pure impulse and falsehood, she said, ¡°There will be water and medical attention. Water and medics, up ahead.¡±


    And then a voice no one else would (or, for that matter, could) recognize seemed to spill from several sources. Hawk had the feeling this voice would sound just behind you, perhaps a few people away. That¡¯s where it appeared to her, first. She didn¡¯t understand a word it said, but the unrobed throngs seemed to relax and turn reverent faces towards Hawk.


    ¡°White Temple, yes?¡± The nearest asked, in a thumb-fingered version of English she could barely understand. Something the uneducated spoke in the dark, with more than enough rough edges to bleed the ear.


    ¡°Yes. The Temple. Go up!¡± And she pointed. ¡°Go up to the Temple.¡±


    Her instructions were repeated in alien tongues¡­and the people who heard them began to move, delightfully, upward. She wasn¡¯t going to have to watch the immolation of the innocent¡­as long as she hurried.


    Now everything narrowed from Alex and Mattias to these individual people. Each one she knew for one instant, and she took them in, drew on them like incense in a temple, the fragrance of their thought, the unique revelations of each face. She could see the progress of phenotype, the remains of those missing kids who had gone down, down into the darkness built by Kaiser and Naomi Studdard. And then she told them where to go, and they were gone, and the instance of revelation gave way to a new one. This one smaller, or maybe fatter. The next, myopic, squinting at the world. Have you seen my glasses? She heard the question in the alien phrase and could give no answer but up. Go up. Gone through the smoke and ember flames. So focused was she on Up, go up! That when she was caught by a pair of violet hands, subtly clawed, elegant in their own way, she had no other message. Go up! Get away from the fire!You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    ¡°Hawk!¡± A voice, angry, but most of the voices had been so. Wanting to know why their beloved gods were venting their ire so thoroughly.


    ¡°It¡¯s not safe here, go¡ª¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nearly no one left but me and you,¡± the voice said, and gave her a shake, and he sounded enough like Alex to pull her out of her robotic rescue. She looked around, and he was right. There was nearly no one near¡­save for the fire. It was essentially on their doorstep.


    Great. She wasn¡¯t going to waste time trying to save Mattias, only to have him burn up into nothing. ¡°Okay. What can we do about the fire?¡±


    He stared at her for a moment in a sort of open mouthed horror. Which was a bit unfortunate for him. It exposed how inhuman his teeth had become. Not that it was unattractive. But¡ªStop it, Hawk. Emergency now. You can think about how hot he is later. It was safe, after all, to think such things about someone she could not touch.


    ¡°We cannot do anything for the fire, as we have not started it and Water is not under my command,¡± he said this as if to a child.


    And there weren¡¯t any firemen down here. She had exhausted her bystander¡¯s knowledge of fighting fires.


    ¡°Could Argon stop it?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Yes. And I imagine the price he¡¯d pull out of you would be more than you could pay. He will not listen to me. I¡¯ve struck first, and hard, a few too many times for trust.¡±


    Good, she thought, but did not say. And she was glad for this, because his next breath nearly cut her off at the knees.


    ¡°Illyris¡­¡± he said, and then stopped himself. ¡°No. She would never go against the other three¡ªtwo, now, thanks to you. And I am pretty sure that news is not a-wing yet.¡± This came from the musing shadow, as he rubbed his pale, bare face. ¡°She might have been more apt to help us if it was more known we had killed Kali¡¯Mar. Not well known, but more known, you understand? There were grievances there, things I¡¯ve used for a long time to¡­well, keep people safe, is the part you¡¯d care about.¡±


    She ignored the backhanded barb. The roar of the fire seemed ever louder, the line of firelight almost white where it ate at the ground. Each breath burned, in and out, and a cough made lungs feel full of nails. ¡°Can we use them? Like, if we found her, if we could get word¡ª¡±


    ¡°Word would help, surely, but I don¡¯t think it would get her to stop Her Brother¡¯s fires.¡± And he added enough emphasis to remind her that Illryis and Argon were both technically gods. And, technically, it was his forehead they¡¯d sprung from¡­or rather, that was the location of the parts of him that they¡¯d eaten.


    And oh, was she going to make them pay for that. Just not right now.


    ¡°We need to leave, before the fires reach us.¡± He said.


    ¡°We weren¡¯t worried about them when we fought Kali,¡± Hawk said, ignoring everything after the dead god¡¯s preposterous apostrophe.


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t as close. I can carry you, if you¡¯d like?¡± And there was more than a growl to his voice now. Implying that he could become the Shadowcat, which was something Hawk already suspected. Meaning he¡¯d drag her up that spire if he had to.


    ¡°I can walk. We¡¯ll have somebody from emergency response up there by now.¡± They were stuck with what they had for who knew how long, but somebody would have responded to Henry¡¯s body by now, right?


    And Kaiser will be running from this hole as fast as he can.


    ¡°Just bring more people down from the God-World,¡± The Shadow said, and he began walking, very deliberately, up the spire, pausing only once to look back as he asked the question. Then he looked at her expectantly. She could feel his demand crawling across her skin. Given that she could also feel the heat, this demand was entirely reasonable: Get her ass away from the fire.


    ¡°We can¡¯t,¡± Hawk said. ¡°In fact, we put Mattias and,¡± Deep gulp of air. She could do this without crying. ¡°Henry. We put them up the Nexus, what we¡¯re calling Earthside, so that we can help Mattias.¡± Henry was dead. She¡¯d seen the stab, watched him die, and held Em afterwards, which was a bit like trying to comfort a screaming octopus. Her gut threatened to rebel, and she wanted to start screaming, too. Instead, she wiped out a few rebellious tears and said, ¡°Time moves faster¡­¡± And she stopped. Bad comparison. ¡°Time moves slower in the God-World than it does here. Five minutes up there can be days down here. And it takes more than five minutes to mobilize a fire brigade.¡±


    ¡°Or to respond to an invasion,¡± he breathed, suddenly fully turned to her, his alien gold eyes wide with horror. ¡°I always thought you had enough people to stop the Gods if they should choose to ride. That I only had to buy you lot response time.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t the first time someone had mentioned the Gods¡¯ ultimate goal of taking over Earth. It was, however, the first time he¡¯d confirmed he was part of the reason they weren¡¯t already overrun.


    ¡°Well, the fire¡¯s taking care of that, for now. But we can¡¯t just let it burn.¡± She paused. ¡°Can we?¡±


    ¡°Argon will eventually let it die. Or Illyris will do something before it threatens her people. But nothing says that will happen before both of us are cooked if we stay here.¡± And his tone shifted to something more Alex-like. ¡°Hawk. Please.¡±


    And she felt something inside of herself melt. Both good¡ªoh Alex¡ªand bad, because it was a deep vulnerability when the people down here ate the vulnerable for breakfast. ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here,¡± she said, when what she really wanted to do was go cry.


    And with those words, he began helping her up the spire.

 Five: Water and Wounds

    There were hundreds of people in the Temple of Light¡¯s mossy courtyard. She couldn¡¯t see even a glimmer of the small, star-like lights this moss emitted. There were only feet, attached to legs, attached to frightened people who would not sit still. They were constantly moving, asking questions, tending burns¡ªshe winced at her own criticism here, because the burn center they¡¯d set up with the help of two Earth-men, Captain Spectre and one other, held the wreckage of people. Blackened flesh, cracked and oozing. Blisters the size of apples, or bigger. And these were just the survivors, the people who made it. There were whole villages out there, razed to the ground, and she¡¯d been sitting here focusing on her own sorrow.


    Idiot.


    She pulled herself together and headed for the medical tent first. That¡¯s where Captain Spectre was, with two other soldiers, one female. He greeted her with a grunt and a warm body in his arms¡ªa child with a severe burn on her forearm. ¡°Nice amount of work to send us.¡±


    ¡°Jesus. I didn¡¯t think¡ª¡±


    ¡°You did think, and you did right. I wish the air quality were better, though. I sent word through Earthside to get us more medics and some fire response, but¡­well, that¡¯s going to take time.¡±


    ¡°How long has it been up top, you think?¡±


    ¡°Kaiser booked it and the old man¡¯s gone, but I can see¡­the body¡¯s still there. In the bag. Of your friend.¡± A pause. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for your loss. I didn¡¯t know him long, but Henry seemed like a good person.¡±


    ¡°He was. A very good person,¡± Hawk said. Sighed. Wiped at her face, though she didn¡¯t know if the damp were sweat or tears. Both, she figured. It was a ¡°both¡± kind of day. ¡°How about here?¡±


    A deep breath, heavy sigh. ¡°I¡¯d love to say we¡¯re hauling the worst of the wounded to the hole, but the worst we got¡­I can¡¯t justify moving them, Hawk. One of them is a woman burned on her back¡ªfrom shoulders to lower thighs. Another one is a kid who dropped, probably cracked a vertibre, and then got bad fire on his legs. I can¡¯t move them. I¡¯m not a medic, our medic doesn¡¯t have the training¡­¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll get a doctor down here. And soon. They¡¯re going to see the wounded¡ª¡±


    ¡°Hawk. Their priority is going to be getting Kaiser. Then helping us. Normally it¡¯d be a one, two punch, a matter of minutes¡ª¡±


    ¡°But down here, that could be all day.¡±


    ¡°And most of the next day. So we¡¯re moving the people who can be moved, and hopefully they¡¯ll be able to warn the others.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s the General?¡± Hawk asked.


    ¡°Mulligan went topside with the Archon and Henry,¡± he said, naming the title Mattias no longer claimed. ¡°Figured he¡¯d be heard over Kaiser¡¯s bullshit. But with all the people we¡¯re hurling his way¡­¡±


    ¡°I never had much hope the arrest was going to stick. Even with him stabbing Henry, and all of us to watch¡­he¡¯ll buy his way out. I¡¯m not too worried about catching a leach that¡¯s slicker than snot.¡±


    ¡°Right. So right now,¡± Spectre said, ¡°We¡¯re focusing on keeping as many people alive as we can.¡± A pause. ¡°I can use you. All hands on deck.¡±


    She nodded, then pointed at the bemused looking Shadow standing in the middle of it all. ¡°I¡¯m handling him.¡±


    ¡°And he is important¡­how?¡± Spectre said.


    ¡°He might be the Archetype for down here. Right now, he is not pissed off at us. Let¡¯s try real hard to keep it that way¡± She paused. ¡°I¡¯m going to see what he can do for the wounded.¡±


    ***


    He said, ¡°I¡¯ve never done much healing. You said there¡¯s something wrong with Mattias. That¡¯s why I¡¯m here. Not to play nursemaid.¡±


    Hawk considered a dozen things she could say, including screaming until she was hoarse¡ªnot over this, mind. But once she started screaming she was pretty sure she wouldn¡¯t be able to stop. And then she remembered one of Alex¡¯s tricks, Just say okay, so that¡¯s what she did. ¡°Alright. The way up is that way, as I¡¯m sure you know. Go ahead.¡± And she started walking back to the medic¡¯s center, which was getting its own makeshift tent out of Mattias¡¯s precious store of white silk. Six steps, she thought. One. Two. Three.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    She made it to five before a disgusted sound brought the Shadow up behind her. ¡°You are infuriating,¡± he said.


    ¡°You¡¯re the one choosing to follow me. If you¡¯re going to help¡­how can you help?¡±


    A flicker of helplessness in alien eyes. ¡°Very little. Those abilities have not returned after¡­¡± the Shadow trailed off. After the Gods ate him, Hawk filled in the blank.


    ¡°Can you tear up bandages? And maybe find some water we can use to soothe the worst of them, the ones who can¡¯t be moved.¡±


    His eyes brightened a bit. ¡°Water. Water, I can do. Bandages¡­use the goddamn silk. There¡¯s never going to be a white pavilion in this hell we call home, so use the silk. Lay claim to the white.¡±


    Those words stood out starkly. Lay claim to the white. Oh, she liked that idea. She liked it just fine. But that would come later, when they weren¡¯t frantic against a fire. ¡°Water. What do you need?¡±


    ¡°A bowl,¡± he said, after a long hesitation, ¡°and a clear space. They should be getting some water from the springs here?¡± He looked hopefully at Hawk, who had no idea.


    Captain Spectre, watching, had come close enough to eavesdrop. He interrupted. ¡°We¡¯re pulling from the sources we can find, sir, but we¡¯re not getting nearly enough for everyone.¡±


    The Shadow turned pensive. ¡°I¡­may be able to fix that.¡± And he bounced a moment on the balls of his feet. The moss lawn was mostly damp, held together by fibrous structures and an absence of roots. Hawk heard the squish as his weight came down, hard, on the ground below. ¡°Maybe. There¡¯s not as much moisture here as I thought. I¡¯ll need containers. As many of them as you can get. And a clear space. No humans or anything else you don¡¯t want harmed in the circle.¡±


    Hawk realized what he was doing. ¡°You¡¯re going for the free moisture in the air?¡±


    ¡°And in the ground, and in the plants, and anything else in the circle.¡± He sighed. ¡°If you allow me to pull life, I can make all the water we require.¡±


    Hawk, hesitant, said, ¡°Pull¡­life?¡±


    ¡°All things must come from somewhere. Energy can make matter, but it takes so much energy to make so much matter.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. E equals MC squared,¡± Spectre said.


    ¡°I can get specifically water, gather widely spread¡­¡± He trailed off. ¡°I don¡¯t know the words in the old tongue for it. I can remember only magic, which is not it at all.¡± A sigh.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just agree there¡¯s bits of water in the air, and you can get to them,¡± Hawk said, neatly avoiding all questions of atomic structure.


    ¡°But it won¡¯t be enough. Even if I pull every drop of water from the moss and the trees and the rest of the plant-life, it won¡¯t be enough. But the other alternative is to draw on life, on its energies, the way one would draw on water. It doesn¡¯t take much energy to make much water, but I think it will take all of the energy of a good chunk of this lawn. And I cannot differentiate between kinds of life. A blade of grass and a beating heart both feel the same to me. A reservoir of energy. That¡¯s all anyone and anything truly feels like. I¡¯ve tried to learn the difference,¡± he said, apologetically, to a stunned looking Captain Spectre. ¡°But that¡¯s never gone too well.¡±


    A cry from the medic tent.


    ¡°Could you reknit their wounds?¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°Aye, if I wanted to kill ¡®em in the process. I can¡¯t tell, you understand? Not even between stored power and not. It all feels the same. It feels like power.¡± A deep breath from the alien being wearing her husband¡¯s face. ¡°But if you can give me a place, a boundary free of anything you do not want destroyed¡­I can trust myself to make water.¡±


    Trust myself, Hawk felt nearly¡­struck by those words. As if there was a tale behind them he didn¡¯t dare tell. ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll tell the white robes to bring all their pitchers and buckets, and to clear a place for you to work.¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°And you think they would?¡± His head came up, golden eyes flashing with sudden anger. ¡°They haven¡¯t realized I¡¯m here yet. It¡¯s the only reason why you still have peace.¡±


    ¡°Then they can handle the burns with insufficient water, and a solid chunk of them are going to die of infection. Probably from dirty water, to start.¡± She held his burning golden gaze. ¡°Your choice.¡±


    He hissed, in a way reminiscent of one of his great cats. ¡°No choice,¡± he said, in a very un-Alex like tone. ¡°You offer no choice but disaster, girl.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve had nothing but disaster since¡ª¡± and she had to stop, because he wouldn¡¯t understand it, how her life was normal until he ate her mother¡¯s cake pearls. Why that moment was it for her, why it meant the fulcrum for the end of all things, she wasn¡¯t sure. But her last normal memory of Alex, untainted by Kaiser¡¯s works and Naomi¡¯s cruelty, was him with the sugary, chalky cake-candy her mother had shipped. She swallowed these memories down, despite their sour taste and poisoned feel. ¡°I¡¯ve had nothing but disaster since I came here,¡± she said, settling for safer ground. ¡°These people are hurt and dying and if you can stand by and let it happen¡­¡± she shook her head. ¡°You aren¡¯t who I thought you were.¡±


    This brought another hiss through his inhumanly sharp teeth. ¡°You dare,¡± he breathed.

 Six: Magic and Mortality

    ¡°Yes, I do.¡± Hawk said. ¡°I do dare. And I always will.¡± It was a promise to herself, as much as a statement to him. And then she caught the little flicker of amusement in those golden eyes. She felt as if a thousand snakes, curled around her ribcage, had suddenly let go. That was the twinkle Alex used to get in his too-blue eyes, when someone moved precisely where he wanted them to. The Shadow was playing with her. Emboldened, she added, ¡°So stop fucking with me and do what you came here to do. Help people.¡±


    He even had the grace to look shame-faced, and the smile threatening the corners of his mouth also threatened to shatter Hawk¡¯s heart. ¡°Perceptive,¡± he murmured.


    ¡°I was trained by the best,¡± She said. Oh, Alex¡­


    ¡°You¡¯ll probably have to keep the Temple acolytes off my back. Some of them are what you¡¯d call mage-trained. They can use the same powers as the Gods.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Captain Spectre said. ¡°We¡¯ve got your back.¡±


    ***


    The soldiers pulled the crowd back into more organized puddles of humanity. It took a lot of work, and he asked, and got, the acolytes to run crowd control. Uninjured refugees were told to gather near the crystal pylon leading to the correct Nexus. The wounded still had priority, but as the smoke grew thicker, and thicker still, they knew they had to start getting people out before the air turned lethal.


    The Nexus was the bottleneck. Spectre told Hawk about how only the first batch of wounded had cleared the ladder up, with each horribly wounded person forced to stand or sit or lay in pain until the precedent managed the climb¡­and then the slow, ever so slow walk into Earth, where people moved at glacial pace. Kaiser was gone. Mattias was gone. Someone had finally gotten Henry¡¯s body out of the pit that held the way to the Nexus¡­but her focus was on Kaiser. Kaiser, gone. It had a chilling and strangling effect on any other form of hope.


    ¡°Do you think they arrested him?¡± She asked, and got a shrug in response.


    While she dithered, the Shadow was busy. When a space was cleared, the Shadow asked for a length of ribbon or chord. The acolyte who brought it to him bristled as she realized who¡ªand what¡ªshe had just handed a large roll of cord. Hawk was faster than logic, and got hold of the acolyte before they could scream.


    ¡°The Light Archon asked him to come,¡± Hawk lied.


    ¡°Why?¡± The pale-faced acolyte said, staring at her religious enemy with a combination of hatred and longing Hawk had never seen before. Well, she got the longing part. Alex was, and always had been, hot. The Shadow had an edge of danger Alex had not, and he had a few monstrous features, but he was still very, very pretty.


    ¡°Because he¡¯ll help. Unless you can see the other Gods answering our panic.¡±


    Nods, but there was still great concern in the acolyte¡¯s gray eyes. ¡°What is he going to do?¡±


    ¡°Make clean water for the wounded. But anything inside the circle will¡ªerm¡­die.¡± Hawk said.


    The acolyte blanched even further. ¡°That magic is forbidden.¡±


    ¡°Good. Go tell Argon. He¡¯s the one who started this fire.¡± Hawk said. ¡°Go tell Nasheth. Have her comfort and uplift the wounded.¡±


    ¡°They are not here,¡± The acolyte said.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± Hawk said.


    The Shadow was ignoring all of this. He slowly, carefully, let out each foot of rope until he had a circle ten feet wide. It looked huge to Hawk, encompassing a great deal of life. Not just the mossy lawn or the one unfortunate bed of flowers that was included in his circle, but the bugs and soil creatures, and other life-important things. All of it was crawling around and breathing and¡ªand there was another cry of agony from the tent. Hawk girded herself for whatever might come¡­but she still had to ask a question. ¡°Could¡­is it possible for you to draw on life at a distance?¡±Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°Without a boundary? I could easily devour the world whole. It¡¯s nearly happened more than once, though not ever by me.¡± A pause. ¡°The Gods draw life from the God-World to fuel their actions. You must have figured this out by now.¡±


    ¡°I have,¡± she said, with reluctance. All those acres of destroyed ground, glass reduced to translucent ashes, humans falling over as their skin hardened and their blood solidified. All that horror. All of it to fuel powers she could not comprehend.


    And it was happening in Rifts that didn¡¯t have Gods in them, she thought.


    ¡°I could do that, too. It¡¯s less predictable. You often find yourself gathering too much power. And whatever is on the other side dies, just as surely as it dies here.¡±


    And she realized, right then, that Argon¡¯s fire probably hadn¡¯t only damaged the world she¡¯d nicknamed Holia. It had probably come from Earth, from the hole centered in the middle of Boston. ¡°I thought you blocked that?¡± She said, weakly. She felt sick.


    ¡°I did. But it¡¯d be a fool who would lock himself out of his own work. I can take it down again. I won¡¯t. I know what will happen if I do¡­But I can.¡± He paused. ¡°And it is not perfect. No one thing can be perfect. It leaks, despite all my efforts to the contrary. They can still draw on the life above.¡±


    And Hawk wondered what, if anything, the events down here had done to Boston. Because they were sitting in the middle of it, on the side of a busy road. The Glass energies had spread for blocks already when she was up there. It spread with a surfeit of inevitability. And now she knew there were hands and fingers and thoughts behind this. Suddenly she could lay the deaths and disasters in Boston at the feet of Nasheth and her cronies¡­but also on the Shadow.


    The question, how many, and its brother, how often, died on her lips. Not yet. Now was not the time to push. They needed water and what first aid he could grant. ¡°Okay,¡± she said.


    And he smiled, sadly, as if the Shadow recognized the questions Hawk had drowned. And without saying a word, he turned to his work.


    ***


    The circle was drawn with silk cord. He did not cut it, but focused on it intently. He held a small bit of moss over it, about a dime sized clump of green and dirt brown. Before her startled eyes, two things happened: One was the uncoiling of the rope¡¯s fibers, reknit to form one circle of cord. The other was the death of the moss. It turned beige and brown¡­but only at the tips, like it had been charred, but only so far. He let the cord fall. ¡°A bucket. A bowl. Something,¡± he said.


    The same acolyte who had brought the cord now breathlessly brought a bucket. She and six or seven other acolytes watched the little tableau with horror and immense interest. He ignored them, and walked to the edge of his circle, where they were nearest. He knelt in the moss and the damp, the glittering, glinting, half-rusted mail shirt he wore clinked like fairy bells. One taloned, violet hand touched the white perfection of the cord, and Hawk thought again, seize the white. We have to seize the white. She felt something rush through the air, and then¡­there¡¯d been a touch she hadn¡¯t recognized, that until this moment she would have called a hand on her throat. Not necessarily a threatening thing, but something there, and leonine. Now it was gone, and she realized it hadn¡¯t been around her throat at all. His talons had been around her heart this entire time, and that of every person in this small field.


    And he met her eyes as the realization spread over her. She remembered again the line from Narnia, not a tame lion, but for the first time she understood what it meant: That the thing you love the most, that you are bound to love, is the most dangerous thing in the world to you. And he could have killed her at any time.


    There was sorrow in his eyes as he looked to her, and he nodded to her, across the safe buffer he had made so that he did no more harm than necessary. His left hand held the bucket, a rough thing of wood and iron bands, and his right reached down as he knelt, once more, in the moss. Now he touched the moss directly, perhaps allowing his awareness to fully encompass it, its life, its beauty. He was almost stroking it, the way one would a fatally wounded cat, as he wound his fingers and claws into its richness.


    Then he drew his hand up, slowly, as if spinning fibers together into yarn, and a trail of water followed after. It was small, a stream that curled about the moss fronds and then spiralled up at the Shadow¡¯s command. He drew this elegant swirl of water up towards the bucket, and then, with an abrupt motion, he gestured and the bucket was filled with water.


    Hawk returned her gaze to the moss. Where his fingers had touched, a spot perhaps the size of a quarter had grown, the soft fibrous plant now ashy, frail, and the terrible beige of Glass ashes.

 Seven : Cold Comfort

    No one would come for the bucket. He held it out, the opposite of an offertory. His eyes fixed, not on anyone in the crowd but on Hawk, and he smiled, a sad and wretched thing.


    No one will take it, this gesture seemed to say. Even if I could, what¡¯s the point?


    Fine.


    She stepped forward, deliberately braving the line. She was sure he wasn¡¯t actively using power now. But he stopped her. ¡°The line is for your safety,¡± he said.


    Okay, that was pretty good. He just hadn¡¯t been loud enough. She kept going.


    ¡°Hawk!¡± He said this loudly. She looked up with the blankest, most white-blond expression she could manage. He stared at her hopelessly, then said, ¡°You cannot cross that line.¡±


    His eyes were fixed on her. Her eyes were darting across the entire courtyard, counting the number of faces turned, eyes watching, ears comprehending their so-called ¡°ancient¡± tongue. Was it enough? She had to gamble it was. So now, obediently, she walked around the cord until she reached the edge nearest him, and held out her arms for the bucket¡ªmaking sure not one finger reached past the line.


    ¡°Do you often flirt with danger?¡± He asked her, whispered and harsh.


    ¡°Half this courtyard just saw you yell at me out of concern for my own safety.¡± And she waited a beat, a beat, and half a beat, until comprehension and¡ªyes, an Alex-like enthusiasm that she always found precursor to a headache. That was there in spades. So she whispered, even quieter, ¡°Be louder, next time.¡±


    ¡°What a delight you are, Hawk,¡± he whispered in return, and finally handed her the goddamn bucket.


    She didn¡¯t hesitate with flirting now. There were wounded, injured, terrified people and she held their only release. Realizing, too, that she didn¡¯t have time to run back and forth, she grabbed the nearest acolyte who did not look like they wanted to murder the Shadow. ¡°Get others and make a relay system so we can get the buckets to the wounded. We¡¯re going to pour this water over their burns.¡±


    Mouth open to protest, the acolyte was interrupted by a scream of pain from the always-filling medic tent. And Hawk felt something snap inside of her own mind.


    ¡°You have people suffering right now, who could be dying right now, and you¡¯re going to focus on the theology from the people who put you here? Your god Argon started this fire, your god Nasheth encouraged it. They could end it right now if they wanted,¡± and that was a total gamble. Probably, they couldn¡¯t. Probably, they wouldn¡¯t want that to be too widely known. She had a lot of things hanging on a probability, so it¡¯d better not collapse. ¡°Who do you want to serve?¡± She said.


    Silence.


    The acolyte wordlessly reached for the bucket.


    ¡°No. I¡¯m taking it to the medical tent. You get more of them and start relaying them back. As if you were putting out a fire.¡± She said. They had to understand fire lines, at least. And they did, because this brought her the brightness of understanding, and a swift move through the crowd. The acolyte did not touch every person, which meant the line idea might work. They would be choosing people who would cooperate. Or else, they¡¯re choosing people who would kick Hawk and¡­and the Shadow out of here, hard.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    And she kept wanting to call him Alex.


    Bitterly, she hauled the heavy bucket to the medical tent and went to the most injured person. The Earthside medic was there, and they didn¡¯t wait even long enough to ask a question. They took the bucket, set it down beside the injured person¡¯s cot¡ªwood lashed together with linen straps, more linen braided over top of it. She remembered this bed from her time in Archon Mattias¡¯s care¡ªand began liberally wetting cloths with it. The medic, a man, worked feverishly and spoke without care. ¡°If we had a faucet I¡¯d be pouring it, but we don¡¯t. Where¡¯s my translator?¡± And an acolyte came forward. ¡°See what I¡¯m doing? Do it to everyone. Get the water as quick as you can, come back, help me keep the burned areas wet.¡±


    Hawk was given a bowl, smaller than the bucket and filled with water. She was told to go to one of the less wounded. She went, and laid eyes on the person who would be the recipient of her kindness. She saw blackened flesh and singed hair, and thought if this was less wounded, what was it like on the worse end of the tent. There was a worse end. She slowly developed this perception while acolytes charged up and down a makeshift path; there was an area they were keeping people out of. Good move, Hawk thought. Lessen the risk of infection, give them a fighting chance if ever they got antibiotics down in the hole. Only acolytes and the Earthside medic were allowed back there¡­and Hawk got the feeling that if blocking acolytes wouldn¡¯t guarantee a riot, they¡¯d be blocking those too.


    Time began to dilate as Hawk carried water. She told herself that was all she was doing: carrying water. She found that if she thought too hard about the people, she¡¯d panic. So she was just carrying water from the bucket relay to the cots and back. It was water. It was only water. And then she reached a patient and that safe, self-made calm evaporated like water an inch from the solar furnace. Because here was a person, skin in varying shades of brown, only it wasn¡¯t at all because it was black Hawk could see. Not the warm, safe, living Blackness humans could supply but something dark and crackled and gleaming. Blood flowed from the gaps in brutalized skin. Blisters had a sickening yellow glow, light refracting through misery. And now it was water, water, and more water. Bring more water. She started with the rags but compassion overpowered reason, and she began pouring water by the cupful over violated skin. This caring touch brought about more agony, screams at the touch of water, screams when the water was gone and she had to go out, go seeking for another bucket, another mere cupful with which she could slake thirst and cool skin. And then she¡¯d be told to move on. Her patient was still writhing but it didn¡¯t matter, because there was always another. More bodies coming in, more bodies on narrow makeshift cots. And then they ran out of cots and the injured had to go on the ground¡­and she had to tell herself it was just water. She was only carrying water. There was no blood. There were no burns. There was herself, and a task she had to do: carry water from here to there. Easy as putting one foot in front of another. One foot. One foot. One foot. And then she was there, and the whole catastrophe fell in again at the sight of burnt skin.


    She didn¡¯t know how long she¡¯d been doing this when a pair of hands¡ªhuman, damn it¡ªgently took her bowl of water. ¡°It¡¯s done.¡± A stranger whispered. ¡°It¡¯s all done. You can let go now. We¡¯ve got everyone well in hand.¡±


    There were lots more people in the white silk tent, all of them in comforting Earthside khakis and camo. She watched as a stranger¡ªa Black man, the yellow stethoscope around his neck screaming medic¡ªadminister an avenging angel¡¯s dose of morphine. The moans of the poor wretch on the cot ebbed, though they never precisely stopped.


    Morphine. All hail the gods of modern medicine. You don¡¯t have to propitiate those.


    She backed away from ¡°her¡± patient, and looked throughout the tent, where rapidly moving soldiers were administering medicine. Real medicine. Not everyone got morphine shots. Likely, there hadn¡¯t been enough on site for all the victims of this terrible, god-driven fire. But the gate had broken. Earthside finally knew what they were up against. Or at least, they knew about the fire.


    Mulligan knows. He went topside. He¡¯s probably already thrown every medic they have up there down here, and then some. Yes, she saw a few civilian doctor¡¯s coats, a handful of people in pale scrubs. They¡¯d blended in with the religious robes of the Holian order. Bereft and cut loose, she drifted through the surge of help until she made it out of the tent.

 Eight: Reports and Reservations

    The Shadow had stopped making water. There was a great beige circle in the moss, not quite to the edges of his boundary line. He was nowhere to be found. Captain Spectre, however, stood near the circle, holding a clipboard. He spoke, quickly, to a soldier who also wore Captain¡¯s insignia. She stood and walked, just as quickly, until she could hear what they were saying. Apparently Spectre was organizing the slow march up the pylon.


    ¡°¡­the most significantly wounded can¡¯t be moved,¡± the Dr. was saying. ¡°Not up that thing, anyway.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re working on a sling and a pulley system. We¡¯ll get them out.¡± Spectre said, with the devout faith of a priest. A trust in his own arms and abilities that Hawk kind of envied. Then Spectre spotted her. ¡°Ah. Dr. West. Gimme a second.¡±


    ¡°Given,¡± she said, and once again sat down.


    ***


    Hawk did not intend to doze. It just happened. The nonstop excitement since they fled Nasheth¡¯s pavilion had finally caught up to Hawk. One moment she was sitting, waiting patiently for Spectre to say something more to her. The next, she was being shaken awake by the man himself. Every fiber in her being wanted to go back to sleep. Crash, she thought, and every bit as destructive as a car impact. She needed to be up. She needed to be moving. She needed to look like she had half a brain for Spectre, who repeated the words ¡°Wake up¡± with increasing frequency.


    ¡°I¡¯m up,¡± she managed.


    ¡°Sorry for taking so long. And sorry for waking you up. I know you¡¯ve been through the wringer¡ª¡±


    ¡°So have you,¡± She said, because if Spectre had seen his bedroll in a while it¡¯d have been a miracle.


    ¡°¡ªbut General Mulligan wants to speak with you. And with that¡­Shadow¡­guy.¡± And Spectre turned a little pale. ¡°He¡¯s¡­formidable.¡±


    ¡°How long was he making water?¡± Hawk asked.


    ¡°Right up until we figured out how to get a reliable supply down here. We made the hole bigger. Right now we can back a whole sixteen wheeler in deep enough to get past the time dilation. From there on, it¡¯s firehoses to the base, and then the bucket relay getting it from there to the medical tent.¡± Spectre said this with some pride.


    She nodded, pushing herself up off the ground. ¡°And Kaiser?¡± She asked. Last she¡¯d seen of the murderous bastard, he¡¯d been climbing up that ladder to Earthside.


    Silence. A long and gaping silence.


    ¡°I see,¡± She said, and her heart was pounding again. There were a lot of secrets she kept Earthside that she didn¡¯t want Kaiser seeing¡­and Kaiser, being Kaiser, would absolutely break into her house if he thought she wasn¡¯t there to report him. He¡¯d done it before, after all. ¡°So he got away with it.¡±


    ¡°He got to a van while we were still dealing with Dyson¡¯s body and getting some first aid for Mattias. He escaped by seconds, Hawk. I swear.¡± Spectre sounded like he was about to drop.


    She sighed. She hadn¡¯t known how much faith she had in the judiciary system until it all collapsed beneath her; some part of her actually believed she¡¯d see Kaiser in cuffs. It still hurt, gut-punch, head and heart, and she saw empathy in Spectre¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°If it helps,¡± He added, ¡°Mulligan is going to kill him.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s going to need to get in line.¡± Hawk said.


    ***


    The path to the Nexus was filled with people. Hawk had to get in the world¡¯s most precarious queue. Here the air was so thick with smoke, people had to wear breathing masks starting about a third of the way up the pylon. Some people hesitated with the unfamiliar devices, so a box was rigged with ropes and nets, secured with long metal spikes, filled with masks no one needed right this second. Hawk accepted hers while still on the ground. The climb itself wasn¡¯t that bad. It was slow, but more lines had been strung and, to her surprise and no small bit of delight, small rest-stations had been¡­well, you couldn¡¯t call these things erected. They were essentially very fancy hammocks, the sort mountain climbers would use to sleep in on long climbs¡ªor, as Hawk suspected, to show off for Instagram.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Hawk was able to bypass some of the queue. The soldiers had built it so that there were actual lanes, one for the refugees and one for the soldiers. Hawk stepped into the latter and was up the pylon in half an hour, her speed greatly increased by the number of helpful ropes. She had to pause, once, as a stretcher with one of the worst of the burned was hauled up the pylon. This was steadied by a medic, who also held an oxygen mask for the injured, to the point of neglecting their own.


    She reached the Nexus and was shocked to see the tunnel the soldiers had started¡ªwas it less than a week down here? And what, a handful of hours up there?¡ªhad finally wormed its way through the geode-like edifice. More than enough room for both lanes of injured, weeping traffic to make its way inside.


    The Nexus was filled with people. Holian people, not Earthside military. The whole entirety of the geode had been papered in plastic, heavy stuff to keep the crystal points filling this place from breaking skin. Blankets, cots and white Holian silk had been piled on top of the plastic and people were lead to sit, or lie, or otherwise pose on the safe and comfortable folds of an army blanket.


    She walked past all this misery, feeling accused by it. She should be wearing a red A, she felt, only it would be a red H, for ¡°Healthy¡±. Or maybe also for ¡°home¡± because she recognized the lost look in the refugee¡¯s eyes. It was the same way Hawk had felt when Mattias, then-Archon of the Light, dragged her behind the Earth Archon¡¯s pavilion. Not just lost as in location, but lost in life too. How could these things be? How could there be so many people here?


    She walked, head held high, until she reached someone who looked like they were in charge¡ªwell, in-charge-ish. They had a clipboard. Everything would be okay if she could talk to someone with a clipboard.


    ¡°I¡¯m Doctor Hawk West. I need to speak with General Mulligan.¡±


    The clipboard looked her up and down. ¡°Sure. The wait areas are over there.¡±


    She nodded. ¡°I¡¯ve been ordered to speak with General Mulligan.¡±


    Now he got a little smirk. ¡°I¡¯m sure. Nice try. Go sit down.¡±


    Annoyed, Hawk looked the man up and down, and drew on her life with Alex¡ªit was fading. Oh God. She¡¯d just thought of him without any major wave of grief¡ªand what he¡¯d taught her about observation. Uniforms removed most of the useful information, but she spotted a tattoo of the Zelda Tri force on the side of his neck, its tip just barely sticking out of the collar. There. She could work with that.


    ¡°So are you a Breath of the Wild kind of guy? Or were you old enough to play Ocarina of Time when it came out?¡±


    He stopped looking at the clipboard and stared at her.


    ¡°I was always Link to the Past myself. You also have a little bit of a southern accent, but not like Texas or Tallahassee. I¡¯m guessing maybe Georgia or Alabama.¡±


    Now he was gaping. ¡°West Virginia, actually. How¡ª¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m from Earth, you absolute pill. The General did order me to come speak with him, as passed on by Captain Spectre. Now. Can I follow his orders or do I need to recite the plot to every single Star Trek: Next Generation episode? Because I¡¯m a nerd. I can do that in spades.¡±


    A moment of hesitation. Then he said, ¡°What do you think the worst episode was?¡±


    ¡°The one where a virus turned everybody on the Enterprise into half human, half animal hybrids. They almost made Captain Picard into a Lemur.¡±


    ¡°So why are you dressed like one of them?¡± He jerked his thumb at the refugees. ¡°You look like you¡¯re in worse shape than half the patients up here.¡±


    And she probably smelled worse, too. It¡¯d been a little while since she¡¯d gotten a bath. ¡°I¡­fell,¡± she said, because it was easier than explaining what the Shadowbeasts were. ¡°One of the natives took me in and gave me clothes. He¡¯s up there, somewhere, where I¡¯m supposed to be so I can talk to Mulligan.¡±


    He nodded, and added, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, ma¡¯am¡ªI thought you were one of them.¡±


    And that sure stuck in her craw. ¡°Do you know where these people came from?¡± she said.


    ¡°Something about the descendants of the missing kids?¡± He said, almost hopefully.


    ¡°Right. That makes them part of us. It¡¯s not their fault, and their whole world seems to be falling in right now. So you treat them with compassion. They deserve it, just by being alive.¡±


    Chastened and stinging, the soldier finally let her through.


    She had a horrible moment of hesitation before she got on the ladder, though. Time was technically on her side down here. Days wouldn¡¯t race by in minutes. She felt she had more control, not less, being down in the Rift with the refugees and the fire. Once she went topside, things would be decided and acted upon in the time it took for her to step off this ladder¡­and no-one up there would know.


    Five minutes, she thought. There, and back. Long enough for the General to address things.


    She climbed.

 Nine : Homecoming

    Slowly, like rising out of a dream, she began to hear the familiar sounds of Earthside life. The doppler effect took moaning tones and slowly turned them back into car horns, cell phone rings, human voices, exhaust backfiring into the atmosphere. The scents of smoke and fresh greens, of ashes and of flowers, both gave way to the heavier smell of gasoline. She hurried as quick as she could to the top of the ladder, a climb that should take only seconds but felt like an eon down there in the Rift. And her sense of reality, of the place she called Holia, changed. This was a world of blue skies¡ªthe afternoon sun spread wide and high above her, making her nearly dizzy with the sheer beauty of vertigo. An uncovered ceiling. A breath of fresh air! Home, and all that it entailed, settled around her like fragments of glass.


    Glass. Oh, god, she had climbed from one ashen nightmare to another. Those terrible beige ashes were piled in the corners and edges of this work area. Huge machinery was dragged from one place to another, all of it a warning canary yellow, or else Army beige. Lots of PPE on lots of bodies made her feel suddenly and glaringly naked. Helicopters swooped overhead¡ªor hovered; there was a news copter overhead with brand livery on its sides and front. The marks of capitalism seemed¡­almost strange to her now. As if they were rolls of Nasheth¡¯s green-and-gold silk, or Argon¡¯s fire. Emblems of gods, with a little g, the small and petty ones that govern little household tasks. Here¡¯s this god¡¯s pervue¡ªgod of the morning answers, and the evening gloom. No one ever felt better for watching the news.


    She walked¡ªwell, half limped. Her muscles ached and she discovered every inch she had run through Holia seemed now baked into every cramp. But when she was approached by a soldier with a sort of herding expression¡ªas if he were a sheepdog, and she freshly fled from the pen¡ªshe managed to say, ¡°I¡¯m Dr. West. Mulligan¡¯s looking for me.¡± One brief radio call (How many hours in Holia did that one call burn through? How far away was Kaiser now?) and she was released from figuring out what to do next; the soldier lead her safely to the General, then left.


    The Shadow was already there.


    Mulligan looked at her and said, ¡°Darlin¡¯, you look like something the cat dragged in.¡±


    ¡°It was one of his cats,¡± She said, with a sad smile. ¡°And that was several days ago. For me, anyway.¡± She paused. She really, really wanted a chair. ¡°Can I¡ª¡±


    ¡°Get a chair for this woman before she falls over.¡± Mulligan was already moving. ¡°You might think you¡¯re superwoman on toast, but you¡¯re not, Dr. West.¡±


    And, god help her, the Shadow flinched, then turned disbelieving golden eyes her way. As if she¡¯d betrayed something, lying about her name. It was only fair, she supposed. She¡¯d felt this betrayal every time she lied.


    ¡°I ought to let you know, sir, I used a cover name¡ªmy maiden name¡ªwhile I was down there. I¡¯m sorry.¡± She said this last to the Shadow.


    ¡°I see something else happened down there, too.¡± And the General, who had been looking at missing persons photos of Alex West for the last four days¡ªgood god, it¡¯d only been four days¡ªstudied the face of the Shadow, and made the correct assumption. ¡°So, sir, I have to ask how you are related to all of this.¡±


    ¡°A few moments ago I would have had an answer. Now I do not know.¡±


    ¡°Alex West is dead,¡± Hawk said, in the same moment. She took a deep breath, that blatant lie burning like bile in her chest. But it had to be said. ¡°And unless we all want a mess I don¡¯t think we¡¯re equipped to clean up, it has to stay that way. He died down there in the dark, and the so-called Gods ate him. That¡¯s how the story ends.¡±


    ¡°Is it?¡± The general said.


    ¡°It has to be,¡± she insisted. ¡°I can¡¯t see another way to¡­¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t see another way to keep us from blowing our own heads off because Daddy forgot to lock the gun safe. Dangerous ideas, am I right?¡± the General shook his head. ¡°Where are those kids with the goddamn chair?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need one.¡± She insisted. ¡°I can stand for this meeting and then I can go back to the Rift for rest.¡± It was safer to rest in there than up here; she wasn¡¯t wasting as much time.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°No,¡± The General said. ¡°Sorry, but you¡¯re going to have to go from here to the medical tent. This issue with Mattias¡­well, let¡¯s get into the full briefing for both of you, because out of all of this, you are the best bird-dog I¡¯ve ever met¡­and you, sir, are the only sane person in that hell hole down there.¡±


    The Shadow gave his sharp-toothed smile. ¡°I suspect we are doomed, if that is true.¡±


    Mulligan sobered, horribly. ¡°More than you know, kid. More than you know.¡±


    The general moved warily back to a makeshift desk, literally a board across two sawhorses. ¡°So we¡¯ve got three problems right now. Problem Number 1. Is that damn fire and those, god bless em, damn refugees we¡¯ve got pouring out of that Rift. Is there anyway you can get them to slow that the fuck down, West?¡± He was looking expectantly at the Shadow.


    ¡°No,¡± Hawk answered. ¡°In all honesty, sir, we need to be moving faster down there. There¡¯s some exceptionally wounded people at the Temple of Light. About two or three villages worth of people¡ª¡±


    ¡°Four,¡± the Shadow said, with disgust. ¡°The fire wiped out the three in its path, and took a fourth when it overtook the Temple Spire.¡±


    ¡°Well. We can add that to the fuckers¡¯ ledger, can¡¯t we? Can you give me a straight answer about who started the fire? All I¡¯m hearing from my boys is stuff about gods and magic. Sounds like an L. Rider Haggard novel or something.¡±


    ¡°Haggard wouldn¡¯t be pushing it too far, given that we have a She-who-must-be-obeyed involved.¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°Excuse me, West?¡± the general said.


    ¡°Naomi Studdard, sir. Apparently when you consume a certain part of an Archetype, you can assume a certain amount of their power. You fill the same role¡ªI think. Naomi and three of her subordinates¡­¡± and she glanced apologetically at the Shadow. She was so sorry to be telling him now, telling him this way. She had other, better ways she could have done it. ¡°¡­killed Alex and ate that part of him. They¡¯re basically Gods. Enormous amount of power, it might as well be magic for all we know. And they are behaving,¡± she chose her words carefully, ¡°exactly the way you would imagine someone like Studdard would.¡±


    ¡°The world is their fucking oyster, huh.¡± Mulligan said. And she knew the small path his mind started down. What if I¡­


    ¡°Power corrupts.¡± Hawk said, softly. ¡°Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Whatever else she did in the past or does in the future, Naomi Studdard¡¯s legacy is going to be one of violence, genocide, greed, and destruction. And that¡¯s just based on what I saw.¡±


    ¡°You saw her at her mildest,¡± the Shadow whispered. ¡°You saw her at her best.¡±


    ¡°I saw her turn a few hundred people into fucking trees, and that¡¯s her at her fucking best?¡± Hawk said.


    There was silence in the command center. It was, she thought, a little hard to award something that was little more than boards and dirt ¡°Command center¡± but the sawhorses were there, and ash-laden dirt crunched underfoot, and the choices made now, in these few moments, were going to affect far more people than those men at carven desks, or Nasheth on her throne.


    ¡°So, kids,¡± The general said, pulling things back to his unstated itinerary, ¡°It looks to me like we¡¯ve got three giant headaches. Headache number one, my friend, is you. Half the people from down there, the half that can speak English, are telling me that I should kill you where you stand. Should I?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a monster. Of course you should.¡± He said, in his soft and strange voice.


    ¡°A couple people have also suggested that you¡¯re a Power of the same grade as this Nasheth creature, which I gather used to be Naomi Studdard. Also a reason why I should kill you on sight, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. There¡¯s a plethora of reasons.¡± He said, very mildly. Only a particularly wise person would catch the subterranean growl there, the violence promised to come.


    Mulligan nodded. ¡°But here¡¯s the thing. Power or not, you were one of the handful of people who were there for those people. Sure, it was just water, but it was water for the burning and the desperate, and everything in between. And you stuck around when you knew that whole crowd wanted to shoot you.¡±


    ¡°I can block arrows,¡± he said, diffidently.


    ¡°And you helped my people. And, god help us all, you happen to look a whole lot like a man who is, according to his wife, deader than yesterday¡¯s socks. Hawk West, tell me why he has to be deader than yesterday¡¯s socks?¡±


    ¡°Because an Archetype can spread their power, if someone can consume¡­well, let¡¯s call it their heart, for lack of a better word. And that is as far as I¡¯m willing to go in explaining it.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± The general said, and then, hastily, ¡°I agree, don¡¯t get me wrong. I think we lucked out with your boy here. It¡¯s rare to find someone who has power who is generous in using it. Putting your neck out for refugees is a whole lot more good than anyone else has done around me in quite a while. But you also remind me of a wounded dog. A loyal one, the kind that won¡¯t bite the hand that tends it, but wounded so deep¡­kid, my first thought was to shoot you. To put you out of your misery. And I can¡¯t for the life of me explain why.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not whole. I am ravaged and am only a fifth of what I ought to be. It¡¯s something I feel, every hour. It¡¯s something fundamental. Even an animal can sense that I¡¯ve been broken.¡±

 Ten: Breach

    Hawk finally chose to take a risk. ¡°I think I can explain what happened.¡± She took out her piece of Kali¡¯mar¡¯s orb. Straight out of the back of the man¡¯s neck, it had looked like a smooth, pearlescent orb, about the size of a large orange or small grapefruit. But she and the Shadow had purposefully broken it. The outer rind¡ªthe consumable part, she¡¯d learned, the part that gave you power¡ªthey had both destroyed, though the Shadow had split the Orb in half as some sort of gift. It terrified Hawk, that rind, that promise of power. Even here, now, with it destroyed, she felt the temptation of it. Power. All hers. No more bending the knee to people greater than herself¡ªif she¡¯d eaten the rind, there might not be anyone greater than herself. She could reach for the very sun and swallow it whole.


    But she¡¯d seen who that sort of person was. It was a Kaiser. A Naomi. A Nasheth. Someone who crushed people like Alex and herself, Emile, Henry, and Mattias. The frail beauty of people could not flourish at the feet of a God. Not unless that God could somehow make space within itself for something else, something other. That had been one of Nasheth¡¯s many flaws: there could be no other. No other God, no human higher than Herself.


    She¡¯d been a teacher. Maybe, once, she¡¯d even been a good person. Hawk kind of doubted that; her husband was wealthy beyond wealthy, and her choice was not altruism or charity, but to run an exclusive school and to experiment on her students. But she might have once been someone Hawk would have been glad to know.


    Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.


    She¡¯d let her half of Kali¡¯Mar¡¯s power burn.


    But she¡¯d kept the brilliant, shattered core. Only half of it, but the transparent beauty of it made that unnecessary. This was a glinting diamond to outshine all others. It sat in her palm like an indictment. Her murder of Kali¡¯mar, and of the person he¡¯d been before the Studdards got hold of him, was not something she could handle lightly.


    ¡°There¡¯s an orb,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s some kind of excess organ in the back of the head. It has an outer rind and an inner core. You have to shatter the core to kill the Archetype.¡± And she held Kali¡¯Mar¡¯s remains up to the light, where cracks glinted through crystalline substance, silver-bright.


    ¡°And if you eat it, you become one of ¡®em. Nuts, like they are?¡± Mulligan said.


    Hawk shrugged. Then, hesitantly, ¡°I don¡¯t think¡ªthis information should be considered¡ª¡± she stopped herself. She¡¯d murdered a god. She shouldn¡¯t get all trembly over a general. ¡°I¡¯m not commenting on that. I think spreading that information even this far would be irresponsible. Similar as to why Alex West is dead. He has to be dead. Because if he¡¯s alive¡ª¡± she swallowed.


    ¡°If he¡¯s alive, bad things are going to start happening. Like, for example, what would happen if I threatened your life.¡±


    ¡°That would be unwise,¡± the Shadow whispered, and power seemed to grow, leonine, rich. It was a golden thing, but cold as unearthed jewels.


    Helpless, she looked back at the General, who nodded, musing.


    ¡°Alright. Alex West is dead. That¡¯s going to have to happen, and I¡¯m sorry if that screws with any other plans you had. Same thing goes for this info you¡¯ve got on Archetypes. It¡¯s black-holed. You don¡¯t mention it again. If it comes time to write any of it down, you tell them Mulligan said no. I¡¯ll take the flack and the heat. As far as we know, the Gods are unkillable.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°But that brings us to problem Two: the bad guys we¡¯ve got on our own doorstep right now. What¡¯s your name, since we know it isn¡¯t Alex.¡±


    The Shadow stiffened a bit. He must have seen the pattern of deception as clearly as Hawk did. ¡°They call me the Shadowmaster, or just Shadow. It works for a name.¡±


    And Mulligan almost swallowed it, too. Then he stopped and looked down at the being before him. Hawk hoped Mulligan actually saw him. How shattered he was. Powerful, yes, but broken so profoundly that there wasn¡¯t much of a person left. Then he said, ¡°Shoot, kid. Shadow sucks.¡±


    ¡°It is what it is. Why fight the labels you¡¯re given, when you can work within them?¡±


    ¡°Because labels suck too. Alright, Shadow. Welp, the problem bigger than you are those other gods. Or whatever we want to call them. Doesn¡¯t feel right calling them Archetypes, because¡­well, they¡¯re not the original, are they?¡±


    ¡°At least you deny them honors they don¡¯t deserve,¡± Shadow said.


    A bright, fierce smile at that. ¡°Right-o. Now, the problem they pose is they are confirmed hostile and do not at this moment seem open to negotiation. Now, I am a reasonable man¡ª¡±


    ¡°They are not reasonable. I would argue they are not even sane.¡±


    ¡°¡ªbut this seems like a case of madmen in power, and those are the times that justify having a man like me and an army like mine in play. More than one person has told me that they want to invade our world, just as soon as they can reach it. Which is why it¡¯s so goddamn hard to get up and down here. I¡¯m told you¡¯re responsible for cutting them off from the world up here.¡±


    ¡°Did that make a difference?¡± Hawk interrupted. ¡°The crystal growth?¡±


    A nod. ¡°As soon as that thing appeared, the Glass Line slowed to a fucking crawl. It never stopped, but it went from a few miles per day to a couple feet. But that brings me to problem 3: that little pocket universe down there is doomed.¡±


    It was expected, to Hawk. She knew the Rifts closed eventually, within a week or two Earthside. But the Shadow, ramrod straight, seemed surprised. ¡°Oh? How so?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s draining power from here to fuel the life inside of it, right?¡± Mulligan said. Which was impressive. He caught her look and said, ¡°Yong briefed me. A bit hysterically, but it¡¯s understandable. Half the soldiers I¡¯ve brought would have collapsed under what you went through. They¡¯re good people. Yong, I mean.


    ¡°But the Rifts collapse, eventually. Hawk knows that. You probably knew that, too. It¡¯s why your collection of divine psychopaths want to escape. They know they¡¯re doomed unless they can take ground up here before the collapse begins. Which, by our calculations, is going to be about four days from now.¡±


    Four days? Her horror exploded. There were people down there. At least a few hundred thousand. No modern infrastructure, no cars, no television or radio to announce from, and a natural bottleneck created by the time dilation. How could they get them all out in four days?


    ¡°That is problem 3. We got a lot of people in a hole who are,¡± and he suddenly raised his voice so everyone in the area could hear, ¡°as far as I¡¯m concerned, born American citizens. Which shouldn¡¯t matter,¡± he said, at a more normal volume, ¡°But for some people it does. For some people, having a pulse isn¡¯t enough to motivate a rescue. And we need to rescue them¡­or else we need to find a way to jam the door open.¡±


    The Shadow was silent for a long time. A very long time. Then he said, with the low roar of the hungry cat, ¡°My world is soon to die. Is that what you are telling me?¡±


    My world. Hawk buried the enormous implications of this beneath the mountain of jealousy those words evoked, and then squashed both of them flat with the weight of her own self-respect.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Mulligan said, and he started to say something else when he was interrupted by shouts from below. Screams of pain, followed by a voice Hawk was pretty sure was Spectre.


    ¡°Fire!¡± the captain shouted. ¡°The fire has breached the rift!¡±

 Eleven: A Pillar of Smoke

    Without hesitation the three of them¡ªHawk, Mulligan, and the Shadow¡ªall hurled themselves down the path towards the pit where the Rift lay. Refugees were still coming out of it, but now they were running towards the edge without regard for each other, or even for themselves. And behind them rose, not fire or smoke, but steam. Great, unthinking billows of it in an unearthly and terrible white. Not like fires ending, Hawk thought as she ran, but like them starting, smoking and charring away the moisture before it could devour the leaves, the flowers, the flesh. And she knew the gods were behind this, because only Holia could create something so malignant out of nothing more than steam.


    ¡°Shit, it¡¯s one of them,¡± Hawk said, as the great rise of smoke began to take on a shape in its shadows. Dark billows of steam took on the shape of limbs, and a head hung heavy between them. Then swirls of mist like the folds of a garment, and Hawk knew with a sinking heart what this was¡­Illryis, Goddess of Water, had pushed her way through the Rift.


    And then it was gone. Collapse happened with a soft shirring sound, steam condensing down to water. Equipment turned wet and slick as the enchanted mist turned to rain. And then there came another surge, more steam, more white, and this time Hawk could feel the heat. This steam was fresh off the ashes of a fire. The face formed, an expression upon it¡­and then, again, it was gone.


    ¡°It¡¯s the time!¡± Shadow said, in amazement. ¡°She can¡¯t figure it out.¡±


    ¡°You know what¡¯s going on?¡± Mulligan said.


    ¡°Yes, General. Illryis likes to announce herself and speak through forms of mist and steam. Or water, but then you¡¯re likely to be drowned when her temper grows. But she can¡¯t work around the time dilation. It will take hours, if not days, for her avatar to form on this side¡­and then she has to guess at how slowly she must speak. A single word could take hours, too. But she¡¯s not even getting that far. She¡¯s losing her patience as soon as the deed is done.¡± And he laughed.


    ¡°Is it dangerous?¡± Mulligan asked.


    The Shadow sobered. ¡°Of course it is. It means she¡ªand we must assume, Argon and Nasheth¡ªnow know which Nexus is the right one. They¡¯re one step closer to invading this world of yours.¡± And oh, his expression turned hungry.


    ¡°They¡¯re gonna be limited by how many people they can get up that crystal down there,¡± Mulligan said. ¡°And that ain¡¯t easy.¡±


    ¡°Yes, but they¡¯re aided by time. It doesn¡¯t matter if they can get only one at a time up the pylon if that pace can get them a thousand men up before you¡¯re ready. Unless you want your world overrun with our divinities, you¡¯re going to have to move a great deal of your hardware down that hole.¡±


    The steam tried once more to form. This time it was detail perfect. Hawk could see Illryis¡¯s beauty, the swan¡¯s curve of neck, the flash of sharp eyes.  The details had been crafted into this avatar with wrath, and that was the expression on the lovely face. As if time itself were defying her¡­and then, once more,  the Earthside wind bore her shadow away.


    ¡°She¡¯s near,¡± Shadow said, and was nearly dancing with the energy throbbing through his wirey frame. ¡°Let me go, sir. Let me face her down once more.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Mulligan shook his head. ¡°No, sir. Because I need someone these people will listen to, and my choices are Mattias and you. And Mattias isn¡¯t well.¡±


    Ah, and now he remembered his friend. Hawk could see it in the pained look shadowing his alien eyes. ¡°Where is he?¡±


    ¡°Medical tent is over there. And listen¡­he¡¯s saying some oddball shit. Stuff he shouldn¡¯t know about. He insists that Henry Dyson is alive inside his head. I don¡¯t see how that¡¯s possible.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t either, but we do know that Kaiser injected him with something, and for him it hasn¡¯t been that long. Less than an hour, I think.¡± She looked to Mulligan, who nodded. ¡°If it¡¯s some kind of drug, he¡¯d still be high.¡± She sighed. ¡°Let¡¯s go see Mattias while Mulligan is trying to jam more troops down the hole,¡± Hawk said.


    The Shadow nodded, but did not look enthused. ¡°I need to be with Mattias. At least for a moment. I may be able to remedy whatever ails him.¡±


    Mulligan chewed on these archaic words for half a minute. ¡°Go ahead. Medics are doing what they can but they swear this looks and sounds like a mental break. I don¡¯t know that there¡¯s much you can do. Either this shit that Kaiser gave him wears off, or¡­¡± this won a shrug, a horrible gesture that exposed the general¡¯s priorities¡ªand they weren¡¯t the old man who had given so much to get Hawk home safely.


    In many ways, she was still on her own.


    Mattias was being housed in a beige army tent with large red crosses on it. So recently exposed to the opulence of the Holian divine pavilions, she was a little non-plussed to apply the concept of livery and banners to the Red Cross. The world as she¡¯d always known it felt strangely malleable, as if the Rifts were leaking through and decaying the fundamentals. Reducing her concepts of reality to beige glass ashes.


    She entered the tent and found Mattias sitting on a cot. He wore a medical gown, a lateral move from the Archon robes of his late office and another reminder that he¡¯d given up everything to help Hawk and her friends. That the life he¡¯d lived and the figures in it were toxic as hell was to be unremarked; the fact of sacrifice is greater than its quality. ¡°Hawk!¡± He said, and tried to rise. Then he spotted the Shadow behind her and his face came alight, not entirely for the better. ¡°My friend! What are you doing here? How can you be here?¡±


    ¡°I walked, the same as any other creature. There were no barriers and quite a few people willing to tell me where to go. Tell me, old friend¡­what is wrong with you?¡± And the Shadow, powerful creature he was, knelt before the old man.


    ¡°I do not know,¡± Mattias said. ¡°I know only that I am no longer alone in my head. I remember things I cannot remember. I know what a¡­a television is. I have a thousand memories of the sun and stars. I remember a career¡ªa college¡ªa life that is not mine. And there is a voice, Henry¡¯s, I think, howling for its freedom. But I am afraid, boy,¡± and now Mattias¡¯ voice dropped hard, until it was a bare whisper above the noise of war-men driving beige vehicles to ruin. ¡°I am afraid of the strength of this. It feels as if I am being¡­¡± he trailed off, staring at the Shadow with sudden horror.


    ¡°As if you are being eaten,¡± The Shadow said, softly. And when Mattias recoiled, added, ¡°Tell me I am wrong. That these memories that are not yours are fading?¡±


    ¡°No. In fact, they and the howling voice are both growing stronger¡­I¡¯m not¡­I¡¯m not¡­¡± and then he reached out with work-strained hands and grabbed the Shadow by his ragged lapel. ¡°It¡¯s coming for me. The voice. It¡¯s reaching it¡­help me! Hell¡­¡±


    His voice ran down like a broken spring, unraveling as both Hawk and the Shadow looked on. His head dropped, his whole body flinching as if strings were cut, and Hawk nearly tangled with the creature beside her in their twin efforts to catch Mattias before he fell. This seizure was almost worse than the one Mattias had suffered when Kaiser, curse the man, had injected him.


    And then he stilled. He was still awake, his head pressed into the Shadow¡¯s mailed chest. But the hands that clenched so tight a moment ago let go, and when he sat up, he looked at the Shadow with shock and no small amount of horror.


    ¡°Alex West?¡± He whispered. ¡°What the hell are you doing here?¡±

 Twelve : The Remains of Henry Dyson

    Well, that secret hasn¡¯t been one for a while, she thought. ¡°What are you saying?¡± She said, aloud. ¡°You know his name?¡± his true name?


    ¡°Of-fucking-course I do,¡± Mattias said, his voice uncharacteristically harsh for such a soft spoken man. ¡°He¡¯s Alex West, and you¡¯re Dr. West, and I have no fucking idea where I am or how I got here. What¡¯s going on, Hawk?¡±


    Her gut was in freefall. She liked Mattias, the way she liked Henry Dyson. Something was off with him in ways that profoundly undermined even her concept of the man. He was moving wrong, for god¡¯s sake. Moving like¡­like¡­


    ¡°Do you know where you are?¡± She said.


    Mattias rolled his eyes, a very un-Mattias look. ¡°I¡¯m in an Army tent. Somewhere. I¡¯m not too sure where. Probably somewhere in Boston though, right? What happened, Hawk? Did I get hit in the head?¡±


    She looked at the Shadow, who looked confused and murderously furious, and she had to hope that boiling rage wasn¡¯t about to be turned against her. She didn¡¯t think it was. Mattias¡¯s condition was very much not her fault. But she¡¯d lied to him, deceived him, and now he knew about it. He wasn¡¯t going to be too pleased with her right now.


    ¡°Tell me,¡± she said, choosing her words very carefully, ¡°Who you think you are.¡±


    There was a long silence, and then the man that looked like Mattias turned a truly vomitous shade of green. ¡°Oh God,¡± he said. ¡°Tell me I¡¯m not.¡±


    ¡°Tell me you¡¯re not who?¡±


    ¡°Not dead. Hawk, please God tell me I¡¯m not dead.¡±


    Heart now somewhere beneath the crust of the Earth, Hawk said, ¡°Who are you?¡±


    And with world-shattering panic, the man in front of her said, ¡°I hope to God you¡¯re fucking with me Hawk. I¡¯m Henry Dyson.¡±


    ***


    ¡°It¡¯s a protocol Kaiser Willheim invented,¡± the man who claimed to be both Archon Mattias and Henry Dyson said this miserably. He¡¯d been hysterical for several minutes while people brought him water and a nurse in fatigues threatened to give him a strong sedative. But he¡¯d steadied, largely under his own willpower. Hawk didn¡¯t know what to say or do, and the Shadow¡­well, he was just watching with amusement and wrath in equal measures. A sort of what will they do today that threatened murder if he didn¡¯t like the answer. And now they were back to where Mattias¡ªor Henry, or whoever¡ªcould actually explain what was going on. ¡°Well, ¡®invented¡¯ the way the man always invents things.¡±


    ¡°Somebody else does it and he buys the patent?¡± Hawk said, drily.


    ¡°Yep,¡± said the miserable man. ¡°And anyone who works for him at a certain level has to use it. It¡¯s in the contract. You can¡¯t say no.¡±


    ¡°Or else you¡¯re fired?¡± Hawk said.


    A nod.


    ¡°So¡­what is it?¡± She said.


    ¡°It¡¯s an injection. You make it out of the stem cells of your target. From there, we¡¯re able to isolate and propagate the cells that connect to memory. It¡¯s way beyond my field. I can¡¯t pretend to understand it. But you can essentially copy someone¡¯s entire mind into a serum. You then inject that serum into someone¡ª¡±


    ¡°And the injected mind takes over.¡± Hawk said, feeling stark cold. ¡°Holy shit.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s complicated. It¡¯s expensive. And you have to have a spinal tap. So either willing, or someone has to be restrained. It only copies the memories up to the sample of spinal fluid, so we have it done regularly. Every six months, or immediately after a big breakthrough, or we ask for it. He called it our save files. I almost thought it was cool.¡± He looked down at his hands. ¡°These aren¡¯t my hands. This isn¡¯t my voice, this isn¡¯t my face¡­oh god, oh god, oh, god.¡±


    Hawk whispered soothing nonsense for a minute, a flood of stop, and slow down, and it will be okay. Then, when he¡¯d calmed a bit, she said, ¡°How does it work with the hosts?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. This is the first time I¡¯ve seen it work. Oh, god, this isn¡¯t my body¡­where is my body? Where am I? Am I dead? Like, really, really dead?¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Kaiser stabbed you in the heart.¡± Hawk said. ¡°You died in Emile Yong¡¯s arms.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± he said, and began to sob a little. Then he managed, ¡°Well, not the way I wanted our romance to end.¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m sure they¡¯re not enamored of Mattias, but I wouldn¡¯t go so far as to call him undesirable,¡± The Shadow said, exposing his wrath with petulance. ¡°You and he and Emile could all form a charming little family. You¡¯d just have to take turns.¡±


    ¡°Take¡­no, no, no, you don¡¯t understand. The serum isn¡¯t permanent. It¡¯s there so that you can exist long enough to be debriefed. Who is Mattias?¡±


    A further bristling of the Shadow. Hawk spoke quickly to interrupt whatever angry screed he was about to lay down. ¡°He¡¯s the man whose body you¡¯re inhabiting. And he¡¯s a friend of yours. You don¡¯t remember him?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t. Last thing I remember is the needle going in for a spinal tap, right before we all left for Boston. I told Kaiser it wasn¡¯t necessary¡ª¡±


    ¡°But the fucker had plans otherwise,¡± Hawk whispered, and then whirled around and struck a tent pole, hard. It made an impotent ringing sound, the whole tent shook, and it made her hand hurt quite a bit. She shook the tingles out and said, ¡°Sorry,¡± to her audience.


    ¡°You said Kaiser stabbed me?¡± He said.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Hawk said. ¡°He was being arrested.¡±


    Musing silence. ¡°I would have killed to watch that.¡±


    ¡°You were killed, watching that.¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°So,¡± The Shadow interrupted. ¡°This inhabitation is temporary? Mattias will recover from this?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. In like, a week. It¡¯s tough on the host body, though. Seizures, sometimes a struggle for control, which can exacerbate the seizures. There¡¯s a real risk of death as long as the serum is still¡­¡± and with that last word, Mattias¡¯s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed onto the bed.


    Instantly medics were upon him, shoving both Hawk and the Shadow out of the medical tent. Shouts for injectables, for IVs, for oxygen, echoed through the khaki walls of the pedestrian army tent. It wasn¡¯t fair, Hawk thought. This is where the gold and the riches and the beauty should have been. It should surround the bedside of a good man, not Nasheth¡¯s megalomania. She had to trust instead the richness of humanity around him, the clever hands and fingers, the minds trained to master medicine, and the hearts that daily broke themselves in care of others. Yes. That was what she had to hope in, believe in. And still she found herself curling bits of her filthy chemise against her body, as if that could somehow make Mattias and the remnants of Henry survive.


    ¡°Did you know this was possible?¡± The Shadow said, his voice soft as panther paws in darkness¡­and as lethal. ¡°Did you allow Kaiser to carry this weapon into my world? And damage my friend?¡±


    ¡°No. No!¡± she said, a new panic rising in her throat. ¡°I didn¡¯t know any of it could be done.¡± She paused, and her mind jumped from one track to another. ¡°Oh God. Em. I need to go check on them.¡±


    ¡°Good. Go. Get out of my sight.¡± His contempt was palatable. All you had to do was breathe the same air, and you could taste it.


    Good, she thought.


    It took every part of her not to cry.


    ***


    Em was at the action station, where a handful of fellow scientists were trying and failing to get a handle on what was going on here. They looked bad, which was saying a lot for them. They usually dressed in a combination of thrift store, anarchist, and dominatrix. Now they were trapped in khaki, and the riotous shades of their hair¡ªpurple and orange figured predominantly¡ªseemed to have brightened in compensation. But the heaviness of their attitude dampened even the blazing neon in their curls.


    ¡°Hi,¡± Hawk said. ¡°You okay?¡±


    They didn¡¯t look up from the papers they were pouring over. ¡°Is that like ¡®Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?¡¯ sort of question? Because otherwise you can go fuck off comprehensively.¡±


    Yeah. They were not okay. ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± They said, very softly. Silence reigned for a few heartbeats, and then they added, ¡°Don¡¯t play that game, that ¡®there, there¡¯ shit. It¡¯s not okay. It¡¯s not going to be okay for a while. I¡¯ll cry, and I¡¯ll hate it, and then maybe I¡¯ll be able to talk. But right now I just want the whole world to fuck off. So can you? Kindly? Just fuck off?¡±


    Hawk thought for a second. ¡°No,¡± she said, cautiously, ¡°but I can sit near and be quiet.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Em said. ¡°Quiet is bad. Quiet is when I think¡ª¡± They stopped. Shuddered. Dropped their head and muttered ¡°Don¡¯t think about it, don¡¯t think about it,¡± rapid-fire, while they turned back to their reading. ¡°I need to be busy. I need to work. I need to not feel. You¡¯re making me feel, Hawk. I need you to stop it.¡±


    Hawk, who had handled her own grief by going down a hole after her husband and who had to admit, that really had only made it worse, sighed and backed down. ¡°If you need me¡ª¡±


    ¡°I will sit on your chest and force the help out of you with bamboo skewers. Right now, I just need you to go away.¡±


    There was, Hawk thought as she walked away, a hierarchy of grief. The people closest to the dead get helped by those who were less near, with each ring being supported by the people who knew less, whose grief was, perhaps, not quite so full. Hawk had known Henry Dyson as a colleague. Emile had loved him. It had been a sharp love, the sort forged of rivalry, tempered, perhaps, by the conflicts and failures that had lain between the two scientists. A little clique of entomologists, the three of them. Emile had kept Henry at arm¡¯s length out of fear¡ªfear of pain, fear of loss, fear of rejection, or just all of the above. And he had loved them back, with apologies and shame because he had stolen their research once. Hawk had seen them fall in love with joy; now that was ashes too. She wanted to force her way in on Emile. Force them to accept her comfort, her performative sorrow. But that wasn¡¯t what they needed. They¡¯d said what they needed and while it was too simple to satisfy her own grieving heart, Hawk had to do what Em needed, and not what she wanted at all.

 Thirteen: Hope

    She left the tent, took two steps further, and looked up into the hot glare of the sky. A sky she hadn¡¯t seen for what felt like eons, but what was most likely a week of Holian time, and less than a day here on Earth. This was the same sun that had shone when she entered the rift, on the same day. In that time, she¡¯d been pared down to her most basic parts¡­or it felt that way. And if she kept thinking along these lines, she was going to be the one to collapse. She couldn¡¯t even think about why. Not now. Not yet. That was why she¡¯d wanted to comfort Emile. She needed something to do. Otherwise her own grief was going to strangle her.


    Maybe she should let it. Stop moving. Go home.


    No. Unthinkable idea. Going home to an empty place, an empty world void of the gods that had given it meaning. If an when she returned home, she would be forced to accept that an innumerable amount of things was over¡­with the first item being her marriage. It would be time to begin the unthinkable, made worse by how pedestrian it would be. Packing up his things. Taking him off bank accounts. Folding life across itself so that she could put it away in an attic somewhere, let it smell of fiberglass and mothballs.


    He''s there. He¡¯s here. You can still run to him and beg¡ªbeg¡ªfor him to love you. Like she didn¡¯t have more self-respect than that. But that dogsbody urge was there, to prostrate herself, to whimper, to beg. To do whatever it took just to avoid that inevitable empty house¡­


    He¡¯s still alive, hope warred with logic. Just walk over to him and explain it. About your fears, about Kaiser, about the Ape and her orb, about how you had this fear since well before Naomi Studdard used her Prism-greenhouse to steal your love away¡­


    But she¡¯d gotten what she wanted now, hadn¡¯t she? He hated her. She¡¯d felt it in that tent, a hot burning that cauterized all possibilities beyond return, that might, if she were astoundingly lucky, be enough to save him from the hands that wanted to exploit him. All she had to do was solve his problems, kill the Gods, figure out how to jam that Rift open, and¡­


    And none of that was hers to carry. She couldn¡¯t control him or Kaiser. She¡¯d been an idiot to think she could try. All she could do was minimize one area of attack. And she¡¯d done that by making¡­and even there she had to pause, because she hadn¡¯t made him do anything. He¡¯d chosen to hate her because of the risk she¡¯d exposed Mattias to. Kaiser had staked all her hopes in the heart with that needle. Probably the one good thing he¡¯d done since they¡¯d met. Now if he could only bury the small little voice inside her, screaming that she was doing this ¡°saving Alex¡± thing all wrong.


    I don¡¯t think I have another choice. That¡¯s the problem.


    And she found her heart sinking even faster, because the Shadow was coming across to her.


    For the first time she saw him in sunlight, the strange smoke-shadows of his hair hanging through the curves of every breeze. It looked like captured night once she had the sun for contrast. His mail was not rusted, but appeared moth-eaten. She realized that each hole was a long-healed wound, likely lethal to someone more mortal, and the rags of what had once been some opulent robes hung in somewhat ordered disarray. He was a mess. She wanted to tell him he was a mess, and then make him less of one. But that wasn¡¯t her territory anymore, was it?


    His strange eyes fixed on her. Golden, with oddly horizontal pupils. She wondered why he¡¯d chosen that, and if he¡¯d chosen that, or if his entire strange, eerie appearance was something forced upon him. Then she dismissed those concerns, because he was drawing near. Damn it, she¡¯d never been one of those people to fawn over her spouse. Now greif and fear were pulling her towards him like metal to magnets.


    ¡°There you are.¡± He said.


    ¡°Yes.¡± She said. ¡°I was checking on Emile. They¡¯re¡ª¡±


    ¡°Wait. Before you do anything else, go and get them. This concerns them as much as me and Mattias.¡±


    Em, Mattias, and the Shadow. That meant they were going to talk about Henry. ¡°Em doesn¡¯t want to talk about Henry. Or to talk at all. It¡¯s their greif. I¡¯m giving them space.¡±


    ¡°Emile loved Henry, yes? They should be the person worthy of speaking for him. And I think we need that. The mind that is occupying part of Mattias is not a person, not fully, not yet. But I think there is hope¡ª¡±


    No sooner had the words left his mouth than he was assailed by a very angry, non-binary honey badger with issues. ¡°Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!¡± And they swung at the Shadow, who caught their fist and released it in part of the same motion. ¡°I held him. I was there. There is no hope for Henry¡ª¡±


    ¡°I can resurrect the dead. There. Will you listen now?¡± And he waited for them to stop swinging. There was another blow, a bit disjointed as their mind caught up with the shadow¡¯s words. And then a fury ten thousand times hotter than grief caught in Emile¡¯s brown eyes.


    ¡°If you can fucking resurrect the fucking dead, why haven¡¯t you done it yet?¡± they were nearly sobbing.


    ¡°First, because up until this very moment, that was a useless endevor. I can rebuild the cells, restore them to life. I can order the hard-wired instincts to make heart beat and lungs breathe. I can do all that. But I cannot restore the minds of the dead. The bodies are simply empty shells. Every living being is a template for another, in terms of how a body should work. But I need a template for the mind that was, and humans are so preciously individual that a restoration on that level was beyond me.¡±Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Was,¡± Emile said.


    Hawk caught on. ¡°We¡¯ve got Henry¡¯s mind. Alive in Mattias.¡±


    ¡°Yes. With that, and the body, and a few other things, plus a great risk to myself¡ª¡±


    ¡°What great risk?¡± Hawk said.


    He looked away. A lying tell that Alex would have known to suppress. Then he seemed to have chosen against lying, because he said, ¡°I will need to take a part of me. You know what part.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± she said, before anyone else could respond.


    ¡°It would be infinitesimal, but¡ª¡±


    ¡°You are not carving off still more of yourself.¡± Hawk said, firmly.


    ¡°Not even to save an innocent man?¡± And he waited in the silence that followed. ¡°One you care for? Greatly?¡± Again, he let silence pave his argument. ¡°It would not be the desecration the gods visited upon me. It would be small, no bigger than a few grains of sand. No bigger than a single memory, or an instinct, or the knowledge of how to shape wind just so. I¡¯ll survive the loss, and you will have your Henry back.¡±


    Em did not look hopeful, but they did not look like they¡¯d been run over by a bus, either. ¡°You think you can? Really?¡±


    And oh, if Hawk could have resisted, that stronghold would have crumbled at Emile¡¯s tone. Because Hawk had been their friend for a long time, and she recognized when Emile was fighting off hope. Actively. As if it were an invasion. Not that hope can be beaten. It¡¯s more resilient than kudzu. They were going to have to do what the Shadow proposed¡­if only to keep that sound out of Emile¡¯s voice.


    ¡°I¡¯ve done it before. Just¡­without the template, the resurrected being is little more than an infant, barely even capable of aping an adult, let alone¡­¡±


    Aping. Hawk stiffened, eyes wide and wild. ¡°What about a damaged Orb? Would you be able to get what you need from that?¡±


    He shook his head, and her heart sank. But his next words explained it. ¡°We destroyed the part of Kali¡¯Mar that I would need. I need that rind, and you and I obliterated that together.¡±


    ¡°Did you eat that shit?¡± Em said.


    ¡°No. We destroyed it. Nobody should get access to that shit. But I wasn¡¯t talking about Kali¡¯Mar¡¯s Orb. I was talking about the remains of the Ape.¡± And hastily she described the first Archetype they¡¯d ever encountered. Even Emile softened at the memory. The Ape had come with that god-impression, the urge to fawn not out of fear but out of worship and disbelief that such a being could exist and see you. And she had died of a bullet to the back of the skull, one that penetrated her Orb down to the core.


    ¡°Alex told me to hide it. So I did. I took it home and I put it in a tank full of fire ants.¡±


    Emile blinked. ¡°Solenopsis?¡±


    She nodded. ¡°Invicta.¡± She said. In other words, the dreaded Red Imported Fire Ant, or RIFA.


    ¡°Hawk, you don¡¯t keep RIFAs,¡± Emile said. ¡°Out of moral principle.¡± RIFAs were the most invasive and destructive ant on the planet. Certainly, it was one of the most painful.


    ¡°We had a nest in my back yard I never got around to killing. I dug it up and dumped the ants on top of the Orb.¡±


    Emile shook their head in awe. ¡°RIFAs and a wild harvested colony. Holy shit, Hawk, this crap has you breaking all your ethical barriers, doesn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m putting the little fucks in the freezer as soon as we¡¯ve figured out what to do with the Orb. He knows how to destroy it.¡± She jerked a thumb at the Shadow. ¡°Emile and I can go get it. We¡¯ll have to fly¡­¡± And here her plan started to unravel. The longer they waited¡­


    ¡°The longer we wait, the more damage occurs to Henry¡¯s body. I¡¯d like to keep the repairs to a minimum. You know where you are going. I can use your knowledge to get you there.¡±


    Hawk shook her head. ¡°The body is in the morgue. It¡¯s refrigerated. Degradation should be at a minimum. What I¡¯m scared about is what the gods will do while we¡¯re running from here to Arizona. We cannot get enough people down there to answer them right now. The General and our military need you more than I do.¡± She even meant it. Watching Illryis try and fail to break Earthside three times had made her Earthly refuge feel eggshell fragile. ¡°Besides, it¡¯ll be what¡­one flight to Arizona, one flight back. How bad could that be?¡±


    ¡°That will be weeks in my world. If not months.¡± He paused. ¡°What are you calling my world, anyway?¡±


    ¡°Holia,¡± Em answered.


    ¡°It sounds lovely. Much finer than it deserves.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s based on the word ¡®hole¡¯ because it¡¯s a hole in the ground, and I think the Army kids coined it.¡± Em said. ¡°It¡¯s exactly what that place deserves.¡±


    He nodded.


    ¡°And it¡¯s going to close in like a week¡¯s worth of our time,¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°Buzz kill,¡± Em said.


    ¡°By ¡®close¡¯, do you mean the way to the God-world will shut?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Do you have any idea what that will do?¡± Hawk asked.


    ¡°Why, what happens to anything when you close it up, with no light or food or outside resources?¡± He sounded almost surprised in his anger, as if they should have thought of these things on their own. ¡°It will be the extermination of all within it. The slow extermination.¡±


    ¡°Not necessarily,¡± Em said, a contrarian smile on their lips. ¡°We have eco-sphere bottles. Put everything something needs inside the bottle, give it a bit of a shake-down to stabilize, then cap it off and wait to see what happens.¡± They paused. ¡°There¡¯s always a bit of a die-off, though. Usually of all the big things when they run out of resources. But the plants and other animals can always use the bodies for fertilizer.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but you don¡¯t lock an ecosphere in a closet,¡± Hawk said. ¡°You put it in a window where sunlight can reach it. It still needs that energy from outside of the system, otherwise the whole thing collapses.¡±


    ¡°They don¡¯t have sunlight in the hole, Hawk,¡± Em said.


    ¡°No. We have the vital energies of this world. What is draining¡ªI feel it¡ªfrom the leaves and trees and the very earth itself. Why¡­I can feel it trying to feed upon you two, and failing. It¡¯s something about me¡­yes. I am sure of it. Is that vain?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the Archetype. Your existence is what¡¯s shielding us from the Rift¡¯s Glass energies¡­which I guess means we humans can¡¯t be drained by this Rift, as long as its Archetypes are intact.¡±


    ¡°My point,¡± Hawk said, dragging the conversation back, ¡°Is that the person best equipped to figuring out how to slow that closure down¡ªor stop it completely¡ªis you. We do not need you coming with me so I can get a ball out of an aquarium. We need you here, where if anything goes wrong¡ª¡±


    ¡°I can deal with it.¡± He finished for her. ¡°At least, that is what you believe. I am less sure.¡±


    ¡°What I am sure of is that we can¡¯t do anything about that. Em and I, I mean. We can¡¯t help with Henry¡¯s body. We can¡¯t do anything about the Rift. But we can go to my house and get the Ape¡¯s Orb.¡± She paused, realizing she¡¯d made a dramatic assumption. ¡°Or I can go alone.¡±


    ¡°Nothing fucking doing,¡± Em said. ¡°Kaiser¡¯s a fugitive who holds grudges like fuck. You aren¡¯t going anywhere alone.¡±

 Fourteen: Cant go Home Again

    The flight to Arizona was five hours long plus change. Hawk and Em were crammed together in relatively tiny couch class seats in a world of beige and bad smells. Mulligan had been reluctant to allow them to leave on what he dismissed as ¡°some fool¡¯s errand¡±¡ªHawk had left out most of what they were doing, claiming only that with Kaiser on the loose, securing any and all Orbs ought to be a priority. Hawk was fairly certain that he already knew what an Orb was for, that consuming it would mean immortality to the lucky consumer. She was less sure about her assumption that he could be trusted with it. He was a no-nonsense kind of man, who seemed to want to be a good person. He was also a general in the United States Army, and the only reason Hawk wasn¡¯t more on edge having him here, interfering with the Rifts was the firepower he brought to bear. They couldn¡¯t fight the Gods on their own.


    Be less certain about that, Hawk¡¯s own conscience seemed to whisper. You and the Shadow took out Kali¡¯Mar.


    Yeah. He¡¯d been the weakest of the gods, the least feted. His inclusion had seemed an after-thought, as if they merely had to have a fourth to complete some sort of occult roundness, and he did as well as anyone else could. And Hawk would have died if the Shadow hadn¡¯t been there¡­ditto for the Shadow. It¡¯d come down to the wire for both of them. She¡¯d been leaking blood and lymph from burns. He¡¯d been leaking too, the strange cream-colored fluid that meant an Archetype was on the verge of physical collapse. The other three surviving Gods¡ªhad they figured out Kali was gone? They had to have by now. It''d been hours here, and that meant days to weeks down in the Rift¡ªthey weren¡¯t going to be half as easy.


    Yes, they needed the military¡¯s firepower. Both to fight the Gods and to keep Kaiser from inserting himself again. One thing she could know for certain: Defying an active duty general who gave the command to arrest you wasn¡¯t the smartest idea in the universe, especially when you wanted what the military was protecting.


    But nothing says it will stay this way.


    Time was the thing that bothered her now. She could feel it flying past her, eating into her hope for the future. It was easier when they got to the airport and she could get a rental car¡ªand how strange that felt, how pedestrian, using a car after Fleet-Hares and other Holian beasts of burden. A car felt like something half glimpsed in a dream down there, and the effect hadn¡¯t fully evaporated yet¡ªbecause it meant she was moving. She could tell herself she was racing the time.


    Em was quiet. They slept most of the plane ride, a choice aided by a dose of hot pink Benadryl purchased from a kiosk as they went through Boston airport. Their slight snore had been the one constant on the whole flight. Bleery now, they stood silently as Hawk traded money and a credit card for a new set of car keys. They was even more reticent on the walk out. Their first words came quietly once they were on the highway.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never been to your house,¡± They murmured.


    Hawk shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s nice enough. It should still be pretty clean, too. Kaiser¡¯s people gave it a once over, after they searched my stuff.¡± She was still annoyed with that. All his white, clean-suited people telling her ¡°I think you¡¯ve got ants. You¡¯ve got ants in that terrarium. Want some Raid? You¡¯ve got ants.¡± Goddamn it, they were her pets.


    ¡°You still have Campos?¡± Em asked, and that paved the way for safe conversational ground. No Henry. No Alex. No Kaiser. Just ants. Camponotus got them through most of downtown Phoenix, with Aphenogaster and Pogomyrmex bringing them to the fringes of suburbia, where Hawk¡¯s trim little house resided. A home built for two, now reduced to one. Fan¡­


    ¡­she was going to say ¡°fantastic¡±, but something was off as she pulled up towards her drive. She couldn¡¯t have put her finger on it. Her house was there. There weren¡¯t any strange cars in the drive. She parked the rental in front of her home and studied it.


    ¡°Hey. What¡¯s up with your blinds?¡± Emile asked.


    They were moving. A small bit, but not so small that you couldn¡¯t see it from the street if you knew where to look. Someone, or something, was inside her house.


    ¡°Maybe it¡¯s Kaiser.¡± She said. She didn¡¯t believe it was Kaiser.


    ¡°He wouldn¡¯t be hiding in your house. Maybe he¡¯d go there to pick up the orb, but he¡¯s not going to stick around in your little slice of suburban hell. Let¡¯s go.¡± And without waiting, Emile left the car. They made it a few steps up the walk to the door, and then stopped dead. Stared for a moment, then began making frantic come hither motions at Hawk.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Bracing herself for something vile, she took the keys out of the ignition and followed after Emile. ¡°What?¡± She said, when she reached them.


    ¡°There is a body in your bushes. I think it¡¯s been glassed.¡±


    Hawk turned to the privacy hedge just beneath the windows. There was a bundle of white fabric, blue jeans and shoes just beneath the window-sill, buried in the long brown limbs of her holly bush. Which was looking a bit ragged and brown the nearer to the house it got. And then she realized that what she¡¯d dismissed as dried leaves was a hand, and that neither the hand nor the leaves were dry at all. They were Glass, the crystalline ashes she had come to loathe.


    ¡°Fuck,¡± She breathed.


    ¡°It¡¯s a Rift,¡± Em agreed.


    Hawk decided to risk getting nearer to the dead, which meant crawling through the prickly bush from hell to get to the body. Green leaves, dark in a way that invoked blood and shining with their own tough exterior, slashed at her as cruelly as any alien god might. She felt each scratch, each welling of blood, and counted it to her own tally. She didn¡¯t need to be this stupid, crawling on her hands and knees beside the bush they¡¯d purchased for it¡¯s very inhospitality. And yet she did. For the dead, who owed the world nothing. Or maybe just for herself.


    The body was completely glassed and degraded. She fished in pockets for a wallet and found an ID badge for the Arrarat Project. This body had belonged to a person, and while she didn¡¯t recognize the name, she did know the face. It was one of the people who had broken into her house before, a female tech who had threatened her pet ants with a well-meaning can of Raid. The face on her ID was nothing like the shattered, slightly blush-tinted ruin that had been left on her doorstep. No¡­not left. The woman had been camped out here. There was a sleeping bag beneath her, the ripstop nylon now containing the ashes of feathers, and a few empty soda cans. And beside all of this, there was a pile of notebooks¡ªnow ashes holding their shape through some prayer of physics¡ªand three square thumb drives. On top of all of this had been a note, and one small corner of it remained, just outside of the radiating Glass Line now surrounding Hawk¡¯s house. It had her full name on it, Dr. Haven West, and a comma, and the hints of cursive words, just the tops of a few Ls and Hs.


    ¡°Should we back up? Or call someone?¡± Emile said.


    ¡°Mulligan, I guess.¡± She picked up the thumb drives. She¡¯d check them later, on a system that wasn¡¯t hers, and wasn¡¯t hooked up to any internet. There might be useful information here, but there also might be the kind of digital herpes that turns computers into very expensive paperweights. She backed up, leaving the body in its little cove of ashes. ¡°There¡¯s a few tarps in my shed. I¡¯ll grab one of those when we get the¡­¡± She trailed off.


    She had started to stand, which brought her head nearer the windowsill than it had been. A thick, sharp scent wafted out from the window base, as if it were leaking through a crack. It smelled a bit like vinegar, only planet-sized. It caught in the back of her nose, triggered her gag reflex, and made her back up twice as fast.


    She¡¯d smelled that before, but not anywhere natural. Once, during her studies for her doctorate, she and a scattering of other college students had gathered in a lab for some unsanctioned experimentation. Two of them were there to make drugs. She wasn¡¯t sure what kind. Probably LSD, given that they used blotter papers. She¡¯d been there because she just wanted to fool around with her friends. She didn¡¯t remember who had brought out the concentrated formic acid, only that it hadn¡¯t been herself. She¡¯d been telling a story about trying to help her professor deal with his nest of Asian Weaving Ants, which he wasn¡¯t supposed to have. She¡¯d gotten sprayed multiple times by their formic acid, which had smelled slightly of vinegar, and someone else had decided to get the concentrated bottle, just to see what the smell was like. It had been overwhelming, far worse than the casual attack of ants. Vinegar, curdled, might fit the description.


    ¡°Em. Come here,¡± she said.


    The enby entomologist did, bending down near the body on the assumption that the dead, and not the smell, were Hawk¡¯s focus. But they caught the scent almost immediately, acrid and stinging and strangely hot.


    ¡°Fuck. That¡¯s formic acid. Hawk, did you break a jar of the stuff?¡±


    She shook her head. ¡°I mean, maybe someone did, but I don¡¯t have a concentrate of the stuff. Only things with formic acid in that house are the ants.¡±


    And that was not reassuring.


    Hawk extracted herself from the holly bush and moved to her front door while Emile called the body in. Her heart was strangling high in her throat, as if some part of her already knew what she was about to find. Even her hands had taken on a tremble. This was more than just normal fear. This was instinct, the same ones that had known Glass ashes were lethal before she¡¯d ever encountered them. A primal, more primitive Hawk would have understood, possibly without the necessity of words, what sort of territory she was moving into. But she was a modern human, her instincts blunted by suburbia and shopping carts. Only the strongest of them remained, and this was one of them. If she were making a map of her neighborhood, her own home would have been marked danger, here there be dragons.


    It''s just your fucking house, Hawk. Go inside.


    She unlocked the door.

 Fifteen : Imports

    The smell hit her immediately. One part rotten food, one part decaying meat, but mostly an acrid, unidentifiable stink. Formic acid, yes, but also something¡­else. Something that she could not put a finger on. It was pungent and layered, and seemed to singe hair. She coughed, gagging, and reached for the light.


    Her fingers found a dead light switch. Flicked on. Flicked off. Nothing. Only the square of daylight admitted through the door, that fell across a body. A Glassed body. The ashes had already fallen in a little heap around it, flaking off of what used to be a nose, eyes, hair, skin. The body had fallen across the foyer, one arm reaching out as if they were trying to get to the door.


    My house is Glassed, too. She hadn¡¯t wanted to come back because it would be full of memories and keepsakes, of things to wash and clean and grow. She nudged the door. It hadn¡¯t fully Glassed yet, wasn¡¯t ready to be reduced to ashes. Still, her touch evoked a crunching sound, and when she took her fingers away there were furrows in the door, like fingerprints.


    And then she saw movement.


    ¡°Hello?¡± she shouted. She saw her own couch, polyester upholstery, polyester fiber-fill, but definitely a wooden under-structure, because the arm had partially collapsed. Beneath it, movement. ¡°It¡¯s Hawk West. This is my house. What¡ª¡±


    She broke off, realizing the movement was too small to be human. It was, she thought, about the size of a very small dog. Or else¡­


    It stuttered forward, light flashing off gold-red carapace, and she knew. Knew before she had a chance see mandible or petiole or gaster. Just that brilliant ginger flare. The trademark shade of Solenopsis species.


    Oh, fuck, she thought, as it skittered into the light, and yes, that absolutely was a Solenopsis ant. Brilliant coloring, six spindly legs with surprising strength, mandibles and mouth-parts gleaming in the stolen sunlight. And there, behind it, two more. Three. All running towards her with antennae twitching, and she realized that she was now dinner-sized to these creatures, and slammed the door before they could get any nearer.


    She backed away as mandibles began to chip away at the base of the door.


    ¡°What?¡± Em said, holding the phone in her hand.


    ¡°There are giant fire ants in my house.¡± She said.


    ¡°Right. You put them there¡ª¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re the size of a small dog.¡± She said.


    ¡°Oh,¡± They said, and put the phone down. They looked at the base of the door, which was gaining a jagged edge as red carapace flashed in the darkness beyond. ¡°Well. So much for that.¡±


    Which made Hawk realize what she was going to have to do. ¡°We need to burn it.¡± She said. Hemorrhagic words. They came with the pain of a thousand memories she now had to deny.


    ¡°Burn what?¡± Em said.


    ¡°My house,¡± She said. And oh, that hurt. Sure, she hadn¡¯t wanted to go in when she thought it was empty and safe, but that was because of the memories she would now have to torch. Alex in the kitchen, joking and making breakfast on his days in the kitchen. Sitting together on the couch watching something horrible, MST3K style. His shoes in the closet, next to hers. The long white ghost of his scent in the sheets. ¡°Fire ants the size of dogs? We can¡¯t risk letting that out.¡± Deep breaths. Deep and slow. Don¡¯t panic. Don¡¯t break.


    ¡°Hawk.¡± Em stared in disbelief. ¡°It¡¯s your house.¡±


    ¡°RIFAs. Those were RIFAs. The size of housecats. They¡¯re the most ravenous, cruel, aggressive things on this planet and you want me to do what? Wait for Animal Control? The Fire Department?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll catch an arson charge,¡± Em said, carefully.


    ¡°There¡¯s gasoline in my shed for Alex¡¯s lawn mower. I¡¯ll have to go inside¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªoh fuck that, Hawk.¡±This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°¡ªand lay down a trail. Hopefully this is just Kaiser playing a game and it¡¯ll be easy to irradicate. But if there¡¯s a Queen¡ª¡±


    Em got it. ¡°Fuck me. It¡¯s their reproductive season too, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Same with the honeypots. Right now, they¡¯re contained as long as the wood holds out. But something in there is also Glassing up the place. That door, and the baseboards and the support struts for the whole building, are all wood. How long do you think that wood is going to hold out against ants this size?¡±


    The answer was ¡°not very long¡±, given how destroyed the wood was already.


    And did she have an idea about how these giant ants got here? One that had her kicking herself for her stupidity? Oh, yes, she did. But she wasn¡¯t going to express it just now. Her fence was chain link; vaulting it was easy. It wasn¡¯t crumbling down beneath her, the way it had been at Elizabeth Cumming¡¯s house, all those weeks ago (One week, she reminded herself. One week and change.) No, she needed to keep that hope alive. She half jogged across her back yard while Emile followed her over the fence. It was a simple shed, Rubbermaid plastic, and it smelled of oils and gasoline and grass. The door was latched shut and padlocked. Shit. She was going to have to break her own lock.


    Em reached the shed and made the same assessment. What they didn¡¯t do was hesitate. They reached down and grabbed the nearest rock from Hawk¡¯s landscaping. It was fairly large. Em had a little trouble getting a good grip on it. But once that was achieved, she slammed it down on the lock, hard. And again, and again. The third time the lock gave away with an unhappy crunching sound. ¡°Open fucking sesame.¡± Em said, and pitched away the rock.


    Hawk took the gas can, half full, and a barbeque lighter.


    ¡°They¡¯re going to be on you immediately,¡± Emile said.


    ¡°I know.¡± She said. Hesitated, then picked up a one-by-one Alex had kept around for what he called ¡°percussive maintenance.¡± She paused, looking for Alex¡¯s store of shop rags and coming up with zero. Finally, she said, ¡°your shirt or mine?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I want to make a torch. I¡¯m betting these things have an aversion to heat.¡± Her hands were shaking. She was going on instinct and the knowledge that heat could kill small ants. She had no clue how heat-tolerant these big ones were¡­especially if what she suspected had actually happened.


    Please, no. She thought, and held up the stick. ¡°You hold. I¡¯ll rip¡ª¡±


    ¡°Fuck it,¡± Em said, and stripped off their shirt. The flat expanse of their chest was broken only by a leather harness. It could have been a gun harness but Hawk knew better. She¡¯d wondered how her enby friend had gotten their defiance fix while trapped in khaki. Now she knew. Em began ripping their shirt to shreds. ¡°I always hated this damn thing. It¡¯s too business.¡± And buttons went flying. ¡°It¡¯s also female.¡±


    ¡°And that makes a difference?¡± Hawk asked.


    ¡°Buttons go on different sides. Dumbest fucking thing on Earth but there you go, it¡¯s why I hate wearing fucking button ups. The gender echoes a bit loudly no matter what.¡±


    Hawk took the offered strips of fabric, some of which indeed had little polyester buttons on them, and wrapped them around the stick, which she then dunked in gasoline. She held it out and let it drip for a moment and took a few deep breaths. ¡°You¡¯re not going in with me.¡±


    Em, gleaming pale in a strip of moonlight, said, ¡°Why the fuck not?¡±


    ¡°Because you¡¯re calling Mulligan and the cops and whoever else you can think of¡ªand yes, I know you hate everything about the concepts. But somebody is going to be smart enough to figure out this disaster-in-the-making, just in case I don¡¯t make it out.¡±


    That possibility had clearly not occurred to Em. ¡°You¡¯re going in, you¡¯re throwing gasoline, you¡¯re lighting it on fire, and you¡¯re going back out again. You aren¡¯t going in there for the goddamn Orb.¡±


    Hawk shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s for Henry¡ª¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s for your own goddamn guilty conscience, and you fucking know it. If you and Alex hadn¡¯t gotten involved in this, you wouldn¡¯t have gotten me involved in this, and Henry¡ª¡±


    ¡°Would still be alive,¡± Hawk said, without mercy.


    ¡°No. I would never have met him. Really seen the real him, through all the bullshit grudges and rival history. I love him. I had to lose him to realize it all the way but I love him. And I¡¯m not going to let you take ownership of that. What happened to Henry happened because of Kaiser. Same with Alex. Same with every Rift that¡¯s ever opened. You had nothing to do with making it, and you¡¯re pretty half-assed at stopping it.¡±


    ¡°I want to see you happy. Do you know what got me through all this? Watching you and Henry be happy in the middle of all of this.¡±


    ¡°Hawk. It¡¯s not fucking yours.¡± Em said.


    ¡°But I have to try, don¡¯t you understand? I get what you¡¯re saying, but if there¡¯s a chance¡­if there¡¯s ever even a chance of saving Henry¡­I have to try. Because he¡¯s my friend too.¡± And she took a deep breath. ¡°Besides. The ant room window is right there.¡± She pointed at the dark square of glass, where the blinds had a continual rippling motion. ¡°I¡¯ll go in, grab the Orb, set shit on fire, and get back out.¡±


    Em nodded, chewing on their lower lip while they stood, half naked and gleaming in Hawk¡¯s backyard, wirey and muscled. If there were surgery scars to be found, they were faded to the point of non-existence. They were who they were, comprehensively, and right now they were comprehensively worried for Hawk.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be fine,¡± She said, again.


    And then she was drawn into a tight, impulsive hug. Their scent was a bit musty, like mossy ground, and they smelled of sweat and male cologne. ¡°You come back. You¡¯re my friend and I don¡¯t have that many to lose.¡±


    ¡°I will,¡± she breathed. ¡°I promise.¡±


    And then, as she turned upon the terrifying unknown that used to be her home, Emile suddenly stiffened. ¡°Wait, Hawk. I¡¯ve got an idea.¡±

 Sixteen: The Death of our Favorite Things

    Emile¡¯s idea proved to be brilliant. They picked up a rock and handed Hawk a shovel. ¡°They¡¯ll come for both of us. I¡¯ll book it. You get one of the little bastards.¡±


    Hawk would rather have had a sword. Either the slick, beautiful milk-crystal blade the Shadow had created for her, or her own rough-wrought knife-edge that she¡¯d used to kill Kali¡¯Mar. But a shovel was good enough, for now. She could live with it.


    Em, understanding the brutality of what was about to happen, heaved themselves up onto the shed, the straps of their harness fluttering around their more mundane cargo pants. They¡¯d grabbed a collection of large, heavy rocks on the way, snatching them up while Hawk was busy weighing the shovel in her hands. Now they began to pitch them at Hawk¡¯s back window, underhand and slow. Thonk went the first and the second. The third went crash, and glinting fragments of glass fell across the windowsill.


    And then the horde erupted from it.


    They were a brilliant orange, even visible in moonlight, and each of them at least the size of a large cat, if not small dog. Their mandibles made a horrifying clicking sound as their mouthparts writhed between them. Antennae trembled across shattered glass and windowsill. Black eyes like multifaceted beads glared out of unforgiving heads. And these were just the regular soldiers. Hawk did not recognize any of them as the big-headed Majors or, worse, the aggressive Supermajors fire ants were famed for. Good, she thought, even as she clenched her fists tighter on the shovel. That meant this colony was quite young. Majors and Supermajors only showed up when food and territory were well established, and worth such an investment in resources.


    These thoughts went fleeting through her mind, almost as fast as the ants that advanced upon her. Shovel out, she brought it down, hard, against the nearest rust-red body. It squished like a melon, the carapace surprisingly brittle. Not enough calcium, or something, she thought. Another ant skittered forward with a nearly lazy grace, confident in its jaws, its strength, its venom. She brought the shovel down on the head and felt it go crunch.


    There were two more. One of them was trying to get at Emile. They kept kicking it off the Rubbermaid shed, shouting wordlessly, ha, yah, ha! And the ant would retreat before the combat boot connected with carapace. Hawk had the last, and it was faster, brighter than its siblings. It could follow her with deadly ease, no matter where she walked. And this time when the shovel came down it bounced off the small head with emphasis. This seemed to stun the ant, but not kill it. It retreated a moment, then kept going forward.


    ¡°Hawk! The torch!¡± Emile shouted.


    Nodding, Hawk tossed the shovel across the yard to Emile, who took it with a dangerous grin and began beating on the sides of the shed immediately. This stunned the ant too¡ªthey must have been equally sensitive to sound. Vibrations. Their attacker retreated down to the base of the shed and trembled, as if regaining its bravery.


    Hawk then dashed over to the shed and grabbed the silent makeshift torch, still soaked in gasoline. The ant fixated on her, turning rapidly and racing forward with its mouth agape. Wordless, terrified, she lit the torch and jammed it forward at the huge creature. It made a clattering sound like shaken dishes and retreated.


    They are heat adverse, Hawk thought. A little of her tension died. She¡¯d be able to defend herself, once she went inside. But the ant she¡¯d targeted was stubborn, and better made than its sisters. It raced forward, jaws working, sensing and avoiding the fire. As long as Hawk kept the torch between herself and the ant, she would be alright¡­but the makeshift torch wasn¡¯t going to last for long.


    Em had the shovel. Now they peered down at the ant challenging the base of the shed. ¡°Aren¡¯t you the invasive little fucker?¡± They said with a feral grin, and jumped off the roof of the shed, shovel pointed head down in front of them like a bishop¡¯s staff at prayer. It thumped down hard against their enemy¡¯s neck, which shattered under the blow. The head went flying, mandibles clenching down on nothing but air with a strength that could have cracked bone. The remainder of the body flailed frantically, its stinger working plunging over and over into soil. Venom spilled forth with a thick, pungent smell, and the mostly destroyed grass seemed to melt as droplets of poison sprayed across the yard.


    ¡°Hawk!¡± Em shouted, and tossed the shovel back.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Hawk took her friend¡¯s lead, and dropped the torch on the dry dust that used to be her back yard. Glass ashes were not flammable. She discovered this concern only as it solved itself. But getting the shovel between head and thorax wasn¡¯t going to be easy. The damned thing moved too fast. She dodged its searching antennae, its crunching mouthparts, and slammed the shovel down on its head again. Stunned, it held still for the fraction of a second Hawk needed. She jumped on its back, both feet, and her sudden weight sent its six legs sprawling. Now she flipped the shovel around, held it as Emile had, and slammed the edge into the ant¡¯s neck. It, too, began stabbing desperately at soil, humping its body beneath her in a desperate effort to reach her flesh, to kill her with its toxic venom. Images of old stings flashed through Hawk¡¯s memory, including the terrible knowledge that the venom built up inside the body, that it could not be shed as easily as hope. She wrenched the shovel back and forth, and the mandibles made a dreadful clacking sound like a scream of pain, vibrating together as it struggled in rage and agony. She pulled the shovel up once more and brought it down with all of her might.


    The head at last went flying.


    Quickly, she got off the ant as its death throes brought it further and further across the lawn, away from the dead bodies of its sisters. Hawk took deep gulps of air as she watched the creature die. It hurt, in a way; she considered the ant beautiful. There was an insectile grace, a glory that could not be matched by soft flesh, and she¡¯d spent her entire life studying these creatures. Sure, she might hate RIFAs, but it was a hate born from human activity, that these creatures were ripped from where they belonged in the world and spread out where they did not. And tonight she had a specific person she could hate for this, because it was his actions that had done it: Kaiser.


    Another thing to your ledger, you rich son of a bitch. She dropped the shovel.


    But Em was doing something totally unexpected. They had grabbed the body of their ant, and now they hauled it towards Hawk. ¡°Gimme your shovel.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Hawk said, dazed.


    ¡°You¡¯re still going inside that house, right?¡± Emile said. Behind them, the shattered window flashed every so often with gold-red bodies, ants trying desperately to shore up the fresh hole made in their nest. ¡°We¡¯re gonna smear you with bug guts.¡±


    Hawk considered this statement for a moment, and decided thought didn¡¯t make it better. ¡°What the hell?¡± she said.


    ¡°You¡¯ll smell like the colony. They¡¯ll let you in.¡± Emile said.


    ¡°Em. It¡¯s a dead colony member. They¡¯ll throw me out immediately.¡± She paused, considering the volumes she¡¯d studied on how ants handle their dead. ¡°Probably after ripping open my abdomen.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t smell dead right away. Right now, this body is still twitching. It thinks its still alive. You need to smear yourself with its guts. They¡¯ll let you in long enough to set shit on fire.¡±


    And with a sickening jerk of the shovel, Emile split the dead ant¡¯s gaster wide open.


    ***


    Now freshly covered in bug goop, Hawk made her cautious way through her own rear window. The climb in had to be cautious, because jagged knives of broken glass hung in the shattered window like broken teeth. She picked the largest shards away¡­and was immediately confronted by a large insectile head. Gulping, there was nothing she could do. Not even run. She could only stand there while the ant played over her body with antennae.


    It passed her by.


    She crawled into her house and was confronted with her own destroyed ant room. Terrarium after terrarium was smashed, and her collection of formicariums for less established species all lay broken open on the floor. Vines of ivy and pothos were shredded on the floor, their stems ripped in vegetative agony. Fluids unknown and unknowable dripped from every surface; some of these were sugary. They¡¯d gotten into her nectar supply.


    The tank that had held the fire-ant colony was, naturally, in multiple pieces on the floor. To her surprise, most of the ants were there, still tiny, and dying in quantity. Nearly every ant in this room, in fact, had collapsed. Her camponotus girls were now nothing more than Glass ashes in tiny packets. Limbs broke off like shards of fiberglass even as Hawk watched. Campos are pretty far from Solenopsis, she said. Carpenter ants vs. fire. Of course they¡¯d fall to glass first, if there¡¯s a prism.


    But she didn¡¯t think there was a prism. She thought something else had happened, and she dug cautious fingers through the infested dirt, scoring a few stray rocks and multiple angry ant bites almost immediately. But she did not find the smooth, cool surface of the Archetype¡¯s orb she¡¯d put in there, all those short days ago.


    Shit.


    She splashed gasoline around the room, heartless. She could not grieve over these small things, despite their importance to her. In terms of sacrifice, this one was already commanded. Her ants were dead. Some of them, perhaps, still had the dying left to do. And she¡¯d brought this death upon them. But how could I have known now warred with you¡¯d have guessed it out if you¡¯d thought for five seconds.


    Instead of berating herself, she tried to think. Where would these ants have put their brood? She¡¯d thought the ant room, given how careful she¡¯d been about temperature and humidity, but clearly these ants had decided that was too much of a risk. Usually the brood chamber was the central most ¡°room¡± in a colony, as deep and safe as they could make it, while also being easy to evacuate or move, should another part of the colony better fit the brood¡¯s eternal demands.


    Another giant ant trucked past Hawk. It held a piece of Glassed drywall, mixed with spit, in its arching mandibles. It paused for a moment to sniff at Hawk¡¯s be-gooped legs, then moved on.


    She was running out of time.

 Seventeen: Hail the Queen

    Ants live by chemical pheromones. It¡¯s their entire vocabulary, awareness defined by the scent of home, of colony, of family. But when an ant dies, the scent of decay is very particular, something special to the ant itself, and it triggers an automatic reaction in every ant¡ªmove the body to the graveyard. After, of course, you make sure the body isn¡¯t carrying anything good. And to these creatures, she was five-and-a-half-feet of meat on the hoof. As soon as her goop started smelling like death and not a sister ant, she was toast.


    So where¡¯s the brood chamber?


    The center most room would be the guest bathroom. That¡¯d be her next bet.


    Shedding gasoline as she went, Hawk crept through the halls of her house. The carpet, polyester, was unharmed. The walls and ceiling were beginning the slow, ashen drift as Glass energies ate through their organic components. She watched as ants dug into and through this, digging through to the internal house wiring. She could hear regular crackles from somewhere deeper inside; they¡¯d bitten through the house circuits and freed electricity from its cage. Well, that would make lighting this stuff on fire easier.


    But she didn¡¯t head there first. Instead, she went looking for the garbage dump. All ant colonies have one, a place for the bones and carapace of prey to go when the ants were done flensing edibles from every surface. And Hawk did mean bones. Fire ants were capable of bringing down birds if they got in the nest. Their venom did not dissipate, but built in the system until organs began to struggle, and cascade failures became a possibility. Even humans were at risk from RIFAs of traditional size. These things were big enough to put humans squarely in their prey window, and they¡¯d have no problem dropping one if their venom was as potent as it was plentiful.


    A dump is kept in the dryest, least hospitable part of the colony, usually in old chambers already fouled for one reason or another. The parts of the colony the ants intended to abandon later. However, a house is less like a colony and more like an artificial formicarium. Constrained by boundaries, they¡¯d choose whatever room best fit their needs. So likely the garage. It would be baked dry by Phoenix sun every day. She hurried through her house to the door just off the kitchen (the refrigerator had been totaled. The door lay on the floor, ripped off its hinges by unforgiving mandibles. The reek of rotting meat assailed her, and ants were still working over the pile of waste in search of yet more food for the brood) and stepped out into the alien landscape that had once been earmarked for car storage.


    Her car was comfortably parked where it belonged, but it sat with a strong list. Three of its four tires had been punctured. There were four or five ants inside of it, having crawled in through busted windows. One sat on the steering wheel, where it appeared to be stripping off the leather. And there, in front of the car, was the pile of ant detritus she¡¯d wanted to find. The refuse was nearly hip high, filled with bits of her house, electrical wiring, fragments of glass and ceramic from her dishes, shredded fabric from the linen closet, and bones. Far more bones than she¡¯d ever stored in that fridge. There seemed to be cat bones, dog bones, bird bones, coiled vertebrae from a frighteningly large snake with the shredded remnants of scaled skin, and an awful lot of foam and fiber-fill. The ants had been tearing her furniture apart.


    She knelt beside this and began to rummage. Ants came over, curious at her noises, the vibrations triggering protective instincts. Please don¡¯t smell dead yet. Don¡¯t smell dead. She ran her fingers through the pile, discarding bones, her own car keys, a strip of cloth she recognized as one of Alex¡¯s shirts¡­and then she found what she was looking for.


    It was crystalline and shattered like a hot marble in water. Hawk could even find the small indentation that had done it, from the bullet that had killed the being this Orb belonged to. This was the Ape¡¯s Orb, but just the hard core where life had once resided. The valuable rind, the hope for Henry and Mattias, had been consumed entirely. That was where these great, giant ants had come from. Like the Holian gods, they had consumed the Orb of an Archetype, and gained an enormity of power.


    And I¡¯ll bet the Queen is at the center of it all. Probably drinking in life, too. My house is Glassed, but not by a Prism. Its organic life is being devoured by the Queen. And they¡¯re finding ways out of the house; these bones aren¡¯t Glassed. They haven¡¯t been here long enough to turn to ash. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    We made it just in time.


    But the Orb! She made a fist around it, little bigger than a shooter marble now where once it had been grapefruit sized, the pearlescent flesh of it thick and radiant. This wasn¡¯t going to help Henry; it wasn¡¯t going to help anyone. It had made a small problem into a potentially world ending one, all because of her impulsive stupidity. Damn it, she knew better. These weren¡¯t Acrobat ants with cute little heart-shaped gasters, or honeypots with their swollen jeweled bodies. These were red imported fire ants, and if there was a way for them to fuck something up, they¡¯d find a way to do it.


    She splashed a little gas in here, all across the trash mound. If nothing else, it was full of flammables. And now she lit it on fire. No use waiting now. Not with the Orb effectively gone. She stumbled backwards, away from the heat and smoke as giant ants began to make distressed, skittering noises.


    And now she slammed the door open to her bathroom, ignoring the hole chewed through one corner of the door, and found herself in antkeeper hell: this was the brood chamber, alright. Ants were already moving frantically, trying to haul precious eggs, larva, and pupae away from the abrupt movement¡­and possibly away from the heat. Surely the alarm pheromones had already gone out. And there, in the middle of all of it, sat the Queen herself. She was larger than all the rest, the size of a golden retriever, maybe. Her legs spread lazily over the gelid white mass of eggs and brood. Bits of rotting meat¡ªa bird here, a cat skull there¡ªwere clenched in larval mouths as the brood blindly munched their way through. Here was the seat of eternal hunger, the brood, always the brood, driving the adults to ravish the world with insectile passions. From this mountain of want the Queen watched Hawk, her forehead crowned by three small eyes, the better to see on her maiden flight.


    And, to Hawk¡¯s horror, there were other Queens in the room. Not yet matured, still pale and soft but recognizably maiden Queens, their wings neatly folded across their legs, waiting for eclosure and maturity to pump lymph through arial veins. The end of the world would be heralded by this, at least as we knew it.


    Mute with horror and urgency, Hawk poured the last of her gasoline across the brood. This caused instant panic, but her own scent still matched that of the colony. She pulled the barbeque lighter out of her pocket and lit the brood pile on fire.


    The Queen howled. There was no other description for it, though no sound would ever equal this. It was a combination of scream and carapace clacking, and her great head began frantically waving back and forth as heat and gasoline ended her line for good. And now Hawk had to run. Flame was leaping out of the garage, licking along the floor where she¡¯d left a trail of gas like a fuse. She bolted for that back window, trying to outrace flame. It was a lost cause, for both her and the ants trapped in her house.


    The smoke was thickening. She was having trouble finding her way back to the ant-room. It was left¡­right? She put a hand to the wall, felt the building warmth of the fire she¡¯d started, and began feeling her way down. She needed to be low to the ground, but that put her level with the ants¡¯ frightening jaws. And now that she was sweating and coughing, was the colony-scent starting to fade? She thought it was. Oh, dear god, but she thought it was. Frantic antennae were finding her, and she felt the first nip, a soft bite at her shirt¡¯s hemline.


    She hurried, pushing through the terrible smoke, the fire she¡¯d caused. An Armageddon for ants. Not all that different from Argon¡¯s fire in the swells and secret places of the Holian Rift. She¡¯d done this, and if she died here maybe she¡¯d deserve it. She¡¯d have earned it, betraying her pets. Logic screamed no, you¡¯re not, but logic was fading against CO2 exposure and the growing number of interested antennae as she felt her way blindly towards the exit.


    Just as the mandables were getting brave, and mouthparts began brushing her flesh, she reached the ant-room. It was starting to smolder but the window was there, wide and open. Smoke came billowing out, but oxygen was coming in at nearly the same rate, ready to feed the growing flames. She got up off the floor and bolted for it¡­just as an ant grabbed hold of her boot, and yanked her back down.


    She couldn¡¯t take it anymore. She screamed, a panic driven as much by the fire as by the ants. Coughing, she kicked out, nailing the little beast in the head, right between its bulbous eyes. She kicked again, launching it into a patch of fire, where it¡¯s mandibles clacked and steam screamed out through carapace. But that one ant was replaced by two more. The first one grabbed her by the leather uppers of her boot, the second by the toe. And she felt the enormous pressure of their jaws immediately. If it weren¡¯t for the boot, she¡¯d be bitten all the way down to the bone.


    ¡°Hawk?¡± Emile¡¯s voice at the edge of her haven. ¡°Hawk, can you hear me?¡± And oh, God, it was hope and hell in equal measure.


    ¡°They¡¯ve got me!¡± She shouted. ¡°They¡¯ve got me!¡±

 Eighteen: Superhero

    And in through the window came a valiant enby, rainbow hair as bright as the flames now licking up every wall. Their boots came down, hard, on an ant between Hawk and the exit, and they had the shovel. Down it came with a ringing metal sound, down upon the back of the ant holding her ankle.


    ¡°Don¡¯t take the head off!¡± Hawk shouted. ¡°It¡¯ll latch on and it won¡¯t let go!¡±


    Emile nodded, and jammed the spade into the creature¡¯s mouth instead, wrenching upwards. The mandible broke the way those first, early ants had shattered. ¡°Take that, nanitics,¡± Em shouted, then began wrenching the shovel between neck and head, now that Hawk¡¯s ankle was free.


    Coughing, she dug the toe of her free foot against the heel of the limb still trapped by insectile tremors and pushed. She managed to get her foot away from the crushing strength of the ant, but she¡¯d laced herself in too well. Cursing, she sat up, directly into the smoke. Holding her breath, she reached down and began undoing laces. Could she get her foot out now? No. Em gave a great Hiya!, and jumped now on the ant holding her toe. Instead of smashing with the hammer, Emile dropped knees down on the creature, their grip on legs sure and their expression intense. ¡°Now, Hawk. We don¡¯t have much time.¡±


    Hawk knew it. Her head was spinning and she wanted air. Smoke inhalation was deadly. She pulled, hard, and ripped her foot out of the boot. Then she hurried for the window, ignoring all else. Even the sharp glass cutting her hands was less important than that first gulp of cool air. She felt the pain, she felt the dizziness, and she poured herself from the window onto her destroyed lawn and lay there for precious few minutes, breathing.


    ¡°Roll your ass away,¡± Em said, and Hawk did, giving her friend just enough space to thump down out of the house themself. And neither of them were followed.


    Hawk started to collapse once more. Emile cursed, reached down and began dragging her further away from the house. She wanted to protest and say I can walk, but Emile was faster than Hawk¡¯s thinking processes right now. Soon they were up against the bug-gut-festooned shed, as distant sirens began to sound and flame leapt out of each window.


    ¡°You think we got ¡®em?¡± Emile asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Hawk said, and whimpered as she looked at her foot. It wasn¡¯t mangled, precisely, but the growing throb in it suggested a larger injury than she¡¯d been ready for. She took a few more deep breaths. ¡°They ate the orb, Em. That¡¯s where they came from. The little fucks ate the goddamn Orb. We had the archetypical ant in there and I just killed it, and they ate the goddamn Orb.¡± This last came out with a sob.


    ¡°Hawk, it¡¯s okay.¡± Em said. They did not sound okay.


    ¡°I should have killed her. I should have killed the Queen. She¡¯d have an Orb, too.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know that for sure,¡± Em said, sounding even less okay.


    ¡°Kali¡¯Mar had one.¡± She tried to calm her breathing, and her lungs weren¡¯t having it. Words came between gulps, breath harsh. Her throat felt scalded. ¡°I could have done it. If I¡¯d thought for a minute, I could have saved Henry.¡±


    ¡°Henry is dead. The Shadow thing is a long shot,¡± Emile said, as if they didn¡¯t sob on the first sentence. ¡°I know that. And you would have died. Without the fire, you would have been overpowered. With the fire, you had barely enough time to get out.¡±


    ¡°But Henry¡ª¡±


    ¡°I lost him!¡± Emile suddenly shouted. ¡°And Fuck you if you think I¡¯d be okay losing you in trade! You¡¯re my friend. You¡¯re one of the few friends I¡¯ve got.¡±


    ¡°But I could have¡ª¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t lose you too!¡± Emile shouted, finally overpowering Hawk¡¯s self flagellation. ¡°I need you. You knew him.¡±


    The sirens were almost here. Soon Hawk would have to answer to firemen, and probably the cops. An arson charge for burning down her own home. If she¡¯d done it right, there wouldn¡¯t be any proof of the giant ants within¡­though they did have some rather goopy remains out here. The gaster Emile had cracked open was still half full of lipids and ichor, and organ shapes in unfamiliar lines. Maybe that would be enough to keep her out of jail.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°You know this stuff, too. You¡¯re one of the few who will get it, now. Henry¡¯s dead, and without the Orb¡ª¡±


    ¡°Without an Orb,¡± Hawk said, sitting up as the first of the fire-engines painted the world red with flashing light. ¡°Oh, god. I¡¯m an idiot. There¡¯s more orbs out there.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. If you want to take down another God,¡± Emile said¡­and then stared at their friend in horror.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± Hawk said. ¡°We¡¯ve gotta go back to Holia.¡±


    ***


    Talking to the fire department and police was rather difficult, until a phone call to Mulligan got them all off her back. Showing them the remains of the very large insects in the back yard helped a little bit, though accusations of Hoax were quickly thrown around. Hawk was pretty sure she was about to be arrested when Mulligan¡¯s work came through in the form of phone calls and resentful looks as she was told she could go. Whereupon she was immediately assailed by well meaning paramedics, who insisted she be held overnight for smoke inhalation. They were harder to negotiate with than the firemen; threatening them with a general didn¡¯t seem to accomplish much more than irritation. Finally they agreed to let her sit for ten minutes, on oxygen, while Emile handled the cops. They handled the cops very well. Hawk nearly felt sorry for them.


    ***


    The flight back to Boston was a lot harder to get than the flight out. Apparently Logan was completely shut down to incoming flights; only outbound planes were allowed. Mulligan had somewhat anticipated this, and there was a promised plane waiting on the tarmac, military cut and color of course. But even getting to that plane required some fast talking on both their parts. One woman, one enby, traveling alone to what many news stations were calling the most dangerous place on earth? The number of people who took it upon themselves to try and get between Hawk and her goal was almost impressive.


    But eventually they got through, got to the plane, and got in the air. Where, again, Hawk only had time to think. She held the shattered, useless orb-core in one hand, remembering with regret the beauty and kindness of the Ape. A part of her had thought that this could make that death worth it. But no, her own stupidity had cost them that victory¡ª


    This was the point where Emile, rolling their eyes, had told her, ¡°If you accept any more blame for this fuck-up, I¡¯m going to pitch you out of this airplane myself.¡±


    ¡°But I put the Orb in the tub with the ants!¡± She said.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t know that shit was edible at the time, or that it would have bad effects on the things that ate it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only bad from our perspective,¡± Hawk said. There¡¯d been a bit of that goddess glory sense around the ant Queen. Hawk had just been too scared, too angry, and too determined to let it affect her.


    ¡°Hawk. Giant fire ants would be incredibly bad. Giant sentient fire ants would be even worse.¡±


    ¡°We got no sign they were sentient.¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°Which is good! But nothing says we weren¡¯t in the nascent stages of what that Ape went through. You did the best thing you could think of. Besides, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We¡¯ve seen that in play. You nearly created an ant Nasheth, but you killed it before it could get there. You can relax. You aren¡¯t Kaiser.¡±


    Oh, that last barb went straight to the quick. ¡°Aren¡¯t I?¡±


    Em sighed, disgusted. ¡°How about you do something real spectacular and go to sleep. You¡¯re running on fumes. On less than fumes. And so am I. We can¡¯t be perfectly logical when we¡¯re tired.¡±


    Hawk felt bound to point out, ¡°We aren¡¯t logical when we aren¡¯t tired.¡±


    ¡°Exactly. We¡¯re already working at a deficit. I¡¯m serious, Hawk, let go of this shit for a little while and get some goddamn rest.¡± And, as if to force the desired result, they themselves rolled over on a part of the military cargo they were sharing a hold with, covered themselves with their own coat, and began making loud-ish snoring noises.


    ¡°Em¡ª¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°Can¡¯t hear you. Go to sleep,¡± Emile said.


    Hawk glared at her friend, then chose to follow their example. She leaned back, letting her head rest on the cool metal surface. And it took surprisingly little time for sleep to reach for her. There was something thick and cloying about it, like the promise of bad dreams, but she still sank into it with a sense of gratitude. She hadn¡¯t been ready, after all, for this part of the adventure: the silence. The spaces between applause, so to speak. The crisis so far ahead that she could not respond yet. There was only the guilt-invoking urge to care for herself. And that never felt right. It seemed like theft from the desperate, to take time to herself while the world was caving in. How could she rest when there were people in need? When Alex was gone and the Shadow was all that was left? When Henry Dyson was dead? She should be winging towards them, cure in hand, and instead she was stuck in the bowels of an airplane for five hours, empty handed.


    But not without ideas.


    As sleep crept up, thick and black and hemorrhagic, the small seed of an idea began to germinate. She needed an Orb. This had been the easy one, the simple answer. Now it was gone, and it was time to return to plan B.


    Ragnar?k, she thought, as sleep claimed her. We¡¯re back at last to Ragnar?k.

 Eighteen: Fade to Gray

    ¡°So we learned that these Orbs need to be viewed as highly toxic waste,¡± Hawk said, reporting to a grim audience comprising General Mulligan, Captain Spectre, Emile and the Shadow. ¡°The ants ate it down to the core. I can only hope that we got to the house and the Queen in time, before any alates had a chance to fly¡ª¡±


    ¡°Hold up. Those are the winged ants, right? Alates? The ones who can reproduce?¡± Mulligan said, and shook his head when both Emile and Hawk nodded. ¡°Fuck. I knew ants were bad¡ªno offence, Doctors¡ªbut flying fuckers? We might as well be in that old movie. What was it?¡±


    ¡°Them,¡± said Emile. They were smiling, though it didn¡¯t touch their eyes much.


    Hawk nodded to both of them. ¡°Yes. Alates are the winged reproductives, and yes, it would be incredibly bad if even one of them escaped my house. That¡¯s why I¡¯m courting an arson charge.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re not.¡± Mulligan said.


    ¡°Well,¡± She said, uncomfortable in unexpected ways. This was more Kaiser¡¯s world than hers. She didn¡¯t like getting a free pass, just on a man¡¯s word. She would have liked to think her own words were enough; she knew that they were not. She needed men like Mulligan to survive against men like Kaiser, because both kinds of men had built their necessity into the system. They hadn¡¯t left space for people that weren¡¯t precisely their sort, from khaki clothes to designer wallets. ¡°Anyway, we can say that  other than taking out the ant pile, my trip home was a bust. This is all that was left,¡± and she rolled the dead crystal center across the table.


    ¡°Probably for the best,¡± The Shadow said.


    ¡°Which is why our next target should be one of the Gods,¡± Hawk said.


    A sort of awed silence greeted this. The sort commonly reserved for suicidal ideation. ¡°And just how do you think you can accomplish this?¡± Mulligan said.


    ¡°I did it once. It was by the skin of my teeth but Shadow and I did it.¡±


    ¡°And you may count me out for a repeat performance. I nearly died,¡± The Shadow said.


    Hawk nodded, acknowledging him. ¡°It can still be done. And I don¡¯t see another way to safeguard Earth from their activities.¡±


    ¡°Murder of something that powerful is a big step, Hawk,¡± Mulligan said, gently. ¡°We¡¯re hoping we can come to a more¡­beneficial agreement.¡±


    ¡°Peace,¡± Shadow interrupted. ¡°If it saves lives, negotiations are worth it. And while I cannot know what the gods will do,¡± he held up a hand to stifle Hawk¡¯s protests. ¡°I do know that I do not have the power to stop the Rift from closing. I do not believe anyone or anything does.¡±


    That certainly chilled any focus Hawk might have had. Hundreds of thousands of people, and her casual cruelty had ignored their plight. Not even intentional cruelty, but one born of selfishness. She was more worried about Shadow and her dead friend than she was about the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people living down in the Rift. Way to go with altruism, Hawk, she thought.


    ¡°Right now our greatest concern has to be the evacuation of the Rift, before it closes on all those people.¡± Mulligan said, at last.


    ¡°I disagree. Our greatest concern needs to be Illyris.¡± The Shadow said.  ¡°She has tried to get through the Nexus twice more. And I believe her people are beginning to gather at the edge of the flame.¡±


    ¡°At the base of the Temple?¡± Hawk said, suddenly alert.


    ¡°No. But near it. Where the fire has died down. I believe Argon is keeping it aflame beneath us, to disable any protections we may or may not have.¡±


    ¡°And how is that disabling shit?¡± Mulligan said.


    ¡°They know as well as we do that there will be no help from above,¡± The Shadow said. ¡°Your equipment is will take hours, if not days, to mobilize¡ª¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d feel pretty damn chuffed if we got what I want to bring down here inside of a week, kid,¡± Mulligan said. ¡°You got allies on the ground who might move in our favor? If, that is, we put paid to that fire?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps,¡± Shadow said, quietly.


    ¡°Could it be enough to hold the Temple?¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°No,¡± Shadow said. ¡°We¡¯ve tried before. There¡¯s not enough water. That trick I did for the wounded. I¡¯ve done it before, under far more need than that. There is enough water in that Spire to support an army of a few hundred for a handful of days. That¡¯s all. And we would need many thousands to spur on a proper defense.¡±


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    ¡°Well, fuck,¡± Mulligan said. ¡°I¡¯ve got the supplies for an army right here. No speed required there. Should be as easy as dropping sacks of MREs and maybe some tanker hoses down the hole.¡±


    The Shadow, who had been a dark listlessness at the fringe of this table, suddenly leaned forward. ¡°You would supply an army with the food of the God-world?¡±


    ¡°Now, I can¡¯t promise that it¡¯ll be very big or last very long, but I got the supplies here for a week. I figured we might be putting our folks in quarantine or some nonsense like that, so we made sure we have extras on hand. It might be enough for that couple hundred you mentioned.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t discount the refugees, either,¡± Hawk said. ¡°Sure, a lot of them are mangled, but a lot more of them have just lost¡­well, everything. Because their god threw a hissy fit. If anybody is primed to stand up to Nasheth and the others¡ª¡±


    ¡°Nasheth and Argon. I might¡ªmight¡ªbe able to negotiate with Illryis. Of the remaining Gods, she¡¯s the most reasonable.¡±


    ¡°Not encouraging,¡± Em grumphed from their place at the table. ¡°The least psychotic psychopath is still one very sick puppy.¡±


    Shadow inclined his head. ¡°Indeed. But it is not her I mean to bargain with. The one place I will give her credit is her compassion. She understands that she and her sibling gods are broken in a fundamental way. When she attends one of their conclaves, as we saw in Nasheth¡¯s Pavilion, she imbibes in the same draughts as her brothers and mother-god. But apart from them, there are other voices she listens to.¡±


    ¡°So one of these things will listen to reason?¡± Hawk said, hopefully.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t go that far. But she will listen to compassion, under the right circumstances.¡± He shifted in his seat. ¡°I would propose that myself and at least one other person go to her. It will be a dangerous journey, but unless time suddenly equalizes between our worlds, I see no other way to get defenses in place before Argon and Nasheth make their move.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t your girl be on their side?¡± the General said.


    ¡°She is not mine, nor would I claim her,¡± Shadow said, then shook his head. ¡°Not in this, I think. It has been a long time since Argon let his fires rage. She did not respond kindly the first time. At any rate, I don¡¯t see a better way. There is not much left to burn. A natural fire would have been out days ago. I suspect the only thing keeping it alight now is Argon¡¯s need to raise an army.¡±


    ¡°What about Nasheth?¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°She will wait for her window. She is the most subtle of the Gods. She can allow the others to be the blunt instruments.¡±


    Okay, Hawk thought. Now for the hard part. ¡°So¡­when do we leave?¡±


    And the cacophony that followed was everything she feared.


    ***


    Hawk advocated for herself. She advocated until she felt blue in the face. Mulligan, being an upstanding man about forty years out of step with the rest of the world, did his best to out stubborn her. The person most in her corner was, surprisingly, Shadow. He said he was willing to go alone¡ªan instant veto from Mulligan, who did not seem to understand how little power he had in this situation¡ªbut that the only companion he would tolerate was Hawk.


    When it became obvious that Mulligan wasn¡¯t going to win this fight, Hawk excused herself and went to check on Mattias¡­and Henry.


    It was not a thrilling visit. Mattias had finally traded his white Archon robes for a more mundane set of blue jeans and a T-shirt celebrating the Cowboys. He sat with amusement in the middle of a giant pile of papers, crested by a laptop. From the amusement, Hawk guessed that Mattias was ascendant in his own body. She hedged her guess by calling out his name.


    ¡°¡¯Tis I, ¡®tis I,¡± he said, and waved her near. He was eating a plate of French fries and mustard. ¡°These fried tubers are remarkable. Have you had them before?¡±


    She noticed the McDonalds¡¯ wrappers nearby. ¡°Yes. Many, many, many times before.¡± She said. ¡°It¡¯s fast food. It¡¯s a dietary staple around here.¡± And her lame attempt at a smile died before it could touch her eyes. ¡°Is Henry¡­still in there?¡±


    Mattias sobered. ¡°Indeed. The boy is. We had another of those shaking fits, and he¡¯s giving me command. Those were his precise words. Command, and something about a star journey.¡±


    ¡°Star Trek?¡± Hawk said.


    Mattias smiled and nodded. ¡°Indeed. The very thing. ¡®You have the con, Number One,¡¯ and then he slipped away.¡± A sigh. ¡°It is, I think, getting harder and harder for him to exist within me.¡±


    She nodded against the pain this thought caused, and jerked her chin at the collection of notebooks, print-outs, and the laptop. ¡°What¡¯s with all the stuff?¡±


    ¡°Henry is trying to write down everything.¡± Mattias said.


    ¡°Everything?¡± Raised brows.


    ¡°Everything he ever thought of, but chose not to put down. He hopes that maybe there¡¯s an idea inside of him that will grant him immortality, of a sort. A memory that will echo through time. He mentioned someone named Stephen Hawking, someone else named Einstein, and one Madam Curie. He also seemed morally offended that I did not know who these people are.¡±


    ¡°But now you do,¡± Hawk said.


    ¡°I do not. I know what Henry chooses to share. At first, there was a great deal of bleed-over. He did not know what he was doing, nor did I understand what his fear, his thrashing, were about. But he is more careful with himself now¡­or should I say more parsimonious? He is jealous of me, I think. That I live and he is a fading ghost in the halls of my thoughts.¡±


    Hawk thought she¡¯d be bitter, too. ¡°But he is fading?¡±


    ¡°He believes so.¡± A pause. ¡°He also believes that the age of my skin is a precursor to skin cancer and that I ought to use a white liquid to guard against the sun. It is, I admit, very bright, but its warmth is unlike anything I¡¯ve ever experienced. It goes through to the bone, as only fire can. Why should I need to guard myself against such wonder?¡±


    Hawk, who was trying very hard not to cry, said, ¡°Well, he¡¯s right. You do need to wear sun-screen. The sun¡¯s great, but it does have some bad effects from¡­erm¡­overexposure.¡± Which was a rather barren way to describe a sunburn.  Hawk spent a little more time after that talking to Mattias, who seemed cheerfully overwhelmed by the real world. It rankled on her until, casually, Mattias added, ¡°You and Shadow may wish to hurry. Not that I do not have perfect faith in him, and you. But Henry is fading.¡±


    He was cheerful, she realized, because he thought that their success was inevitable. Not one doubt permeated his consciousness. For Mattias, All will be well wasn¡¯t his mantra, it was the pure song of his soul. It had been buried, she felt, by the cruelties of his gods, by their inexcusable behavior and lack of loyalty. But the Shadow was not one to fail.


    She visited for a few more minutes, then left the tent.