NOVEL NEXT Book 3, Chapter 35 - The beginning of the end
I stepped through a portal in front of Aresk's bronze statue, high above his marble plateau. The statue's eyes were closed, a faint smile on its lips.
"It's time."
Aresk shrank down to the size of a normal human and looked up at me.
"Ha! I thought you'd do it. Little brother no more. How does it feel?"
I moved with a thought, stepping out of his shadow without crossing the intervening distance, and he spun to face me. "Strange."
"Tezca must be angry."
The buzzing at the back of my mind, the occasional impulse that I knew came from somewhere, something else…
"I retain control for now," I admitted. "Who were you before you ascended?"
"Not who. What. I was a legend, but you wouldn't know my name. It was never written down, and memory fades quickly when time loses most of its meaning. I was selected for a game back when human empires involved a dozen primitive tribes, and I've survived ever since."
I produced my Source and rolled it across my palm. "Does this have to go to Urth?"
"Eventually it will, Knife."
"Don't call me that."
"You must embrace what you are."
"Just call me Mond. Are all the gods winners of the games?"
"These days? Pretty much, Mond. A few of the primals have never been usurped. Amusingly enough Time is the only one that is active. I think… I think we need to be reinvigorated periodically. Gain a fresh sample of a mortal perspective. You saw Velkit's realm. The people who gave him that name thought shaped flint was the height of technology."
I pulled the source into the skin of my palm and sent it through my body to hover next to my heart. With it inside me, I felt more connected to my divinity. I didn't become weaker when it was gone, but I felt reduced.
"I destroyed Life and Death's Sources."
"And that is why we will triumph. Aphrodite thinks we operate on a metaphorical level as much as a divine or physical one. Their view of the world is truly bizarre. I was surprised they agreed to ally with you. The pair of you are somewhat opposed."
"Lovers killing lovers is more normal than you might think."
"Puppy. Don't try and lecture your elders. You're no longer a child, but you're still naive. An innocent. A lamb among wolves," Aresk said with a metallic grin. He crossed his arms and looked me up and down. "Don't be precocious, Mond."
"Aren't we all at the beginning?" I asked, unmoved. He couldn't kill me; I was the killer now. His power was dependent on mine, to an extent. There are many ways to make war on someone. Economic, emotional, psychological, killing didn't have to be involved. But at the crudest level, he needed me.
"And I need you as well. For all the reasons to kill… War is still the most common."
"Hardly, Mond, but our connection runs deeper than you think."
"That first dream… when Kril used the powder on me. Did you know then?"
The statue rocked backwards with laughter, slapping his thigh and causing a clanging noise. "Not at all. You weren't bloody chosen, you arrogant ass. You've stumbled your way to somehow not dying. It's rare for a contestant to succeed."
"This is all a way for you to keep going. You– we need human belief. The games, the fake worlds, the heroes you send back to Earth, it's all to remind mortals you exist. And every now and then, one of us rises up and revitalises the genepool." The realisation hit me like a brick. This was how gods reproduced. No, not reproduced, it was how the gods extended their lifespans. "We're desperate."
"We don't need them."
"We're a fucking fertility clinic to you!"
"We?"
That hit me as well. They. I wasn't one of them anymore. I'd steered clear of Faye since ascending. It wasn't unusual; I'd spent a lot of time in my domain with Prender or gallivanting around to check on things in far-flung locales recently. But something had changed in how I viewed mortals, now that I wasn't one.
"They," I admitted reluctantly. "When does it start?"
"Knife, it started a long time ago. When Poseidon slipped that blade between your ribs, remember?" The statue smiled, almost sadly.
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"I've got my end of things in line. When does the beginning of the end start?"
"Now, if you like."
My weapon against Poseidon was ready. The weapon Prender would use was ready. I'd enlisted Aphrodite, Winter and War. Was I missing anything?
"Who else is on our side?"
"Hermes opted to bow out, but he is going to pay particular attention to your career. It will just be the four of us, outnumbered, outmatched. Like Leonidas at Thermopylae, we will hold the gates and triumph in the end."
"The Spartans all died in the end."
"Details. And no one dies the truth death until their name is no longer spoken. We just resurrected one of those heroes. Aristodemus and Eurytus, that's two more immortals."
Names. Power. Life. The gods were fading because no one believed in them anymore. The ancient god of battle was hinting at something, I was sure of it.
"Are you prepared?" Aresk asked in a serious voice.
"Yes."
"I'm already there." A portal appeared on a windswept expanse of snow and ice. Beyond it, chaos ruled. Automata faced off in ranks against sea monsters. Perfect men and women fired arrows from behind them into battalions of skeletons and shambling zombies. The arrows caused apple trees to spring up, tearing apart the animated dead.
We stepped through, the cold somehow managing to bite into my flesh despite my new status as a divine.
"First times are always uncomfortable, but try to have fun," Aresk told me as his statue resumed its titanic scale and strode forward towards the front lines.
On the left flank, shaggy white shapes charged against beings that glowed bright enough to make most people look away. Apollo had chosen to get involved and joined Poseidon's side.
On the right side… were my friends. My titans stomped forward as nomadic cavalry swept around the edge of the battle and peppered the enemy with enchanted arrows. Huskar legions marched in clean lines to swat at burning beings with their spears and swords. Above, I felt Glimpse keeping a watchful eye, and Wilson slammed to the ground in front of a line of skeletons, shaking them to pieces with his jaws.
But it wasn't them. They were manifestations of my power, not the real thing. The coven launched barrages of spells that cut through ranks that reformed almost as quickly as they were destroyed. I saw Pertabon barking orders as his unit charged into close combat. A sea creature, all tentacles and parrot-like beak, sliced off his right arm and tore him apart. Then he reformed in the rear, his original body dissolving as the new one began driving his Huskar forward again.
The gods themselves were in the thick of the battle. Aresk was now duelling with a giant grim reaper, spear against scythe. The ghostly skeleton spun, and the pale blue scythe blade moved almost fast enough that I couldn't follow it. But the bronze spear caught it, then the statue stepped in close and drove his left fist into the grinning skull.
Morana was facing off against Apollo. A less-than-ideal match-up. Blasts of solar light melted at the ice goddess, parts of her body flashing to steam even as a cold blue aura wrapped around Apollo's body. The sun god was stunning to look at. Wings, fire, light. No human form. Perhaps a hint of a chariot at the heart of the glow.
Aphrodite stepped forward and slammed something into the ground at Apollo's feet. A tree sprang up and twined into and around him, locking him in place as Morana drove a spear of ice towards the centre of his being.
I condensed my power into a dagger. Crude black stone, chipped and worked to give it a slightly serrated, razor-sharp edge. A killing blade.
I stepped through space and time, appearing behind the sun god and lashed out. It was a controlled move; whatever passed for my muscles drove the blade through the dozens of wings to strike something vital.
I vanished as bright, harsh light spilled out of the injury, and the god began thrashing and lashing out. Winter fell back, the beams hurting more than they did Aphrodite. The god of love was not averse to fighting up close, and as their fists flew, the tree trapping Apollo twisted and tightened.
I appeared in Mulius' shadow and fought against the undead on the right flank for a moment. Daggers appeared in my hands when I needed them, and I danced through them. Stats no longer mattered; my divinity had pushed me beyond anything a minion could manifest.
I really was too fast, too strong. The words of the long-dead Areskyn prince echoed in my mind.
The cat-like Titan charged back and forth, crushing everything under his feet. But they reformed and rejoined the battle within seconds. On the other side of the battle, Morana's ice creatures were actually making headway against the avatars of light under Apollo.
Aresk whirled, his laughter booming out and knocking over the lesser beings around him and Death. The giant skeleton was unaffected; the handle of his scythe scooped out and swept one of the statue's feet out from under him.
The ice cracked as Aresk slammed down into it on his back, crushing dozens of golems that bore an uncanny resemblance to Bob, and more than a few skeletons. He spun his legs around like a breakdancer and rose back to his feet, the spear left behind and drove a short sword that he'd snatched from his belt into the core of Death.
Suddenly, we were making progress against the undead. Or the dead, whatever the hell they were. The manifestations of Death's domain stopped reappearing as quickly as before, and the battle shifted. We were making headway, then the sea monsters arrived.
Sharks and squids flew through the air, low to the ground. Jaws slammed shut around a simulacrum of Jandak, cleaving him in half, as tentacles wrapped around Marbo's head and struggled to drag the Titan down.
I saw Wilson die, and winced, missing a dodge and being hurled backwards by a club. I skidded to a stop and sprang back to my feet, a dull ache in my stomach and saw my own forces being pushed back. I tapped the Source in my chest, and the line stabilised.
A few seconds later, the giant bronze wolf swooped down out of the sky, and I felt a little better. Seeing my first friend from my new life die again, even though I hadn't seen it the first time, the sight of him missing a limb after his stupid attack on Amir had been horrible.
Who cares about a mortal? We are the thing that sets them free to move on to the next phase.
Fucking Tezca. I clamped down on the alien thought. I was still me. Mortals–people were still important.
Poseidon appeared a whirl of water that slapped away anything lesser than a god and lunged for Aresk. She didn't have a trident, just a harpoon linked to a length of chain that was attached to her wrist. The bronze statue dodged backwards, attacked by Death at the same time.
His spear was a blur, but it was only for defence. Blocking and deflecting were all that he could manage against two gods. Aprodite and Morana were engaged with Apollo and couldn't help. A pair of daggers appeared in my hands, and I stepped sideways through time and space to make it an even fight.