Wine of the Gods 1: Exiles and Gods (18 page)

Chris turned his attention back to the Compass.

Lance was pouring on the power in the
East position. Matt was South, strong and solid. Vince was West, excited, but in control. With Tyrone sandwiched between Lance and Matt, he couldn't get into much trouble. Hugh was the weakest magically, but he was safe beside Chris. Dane and Javier were young, but strong. They worked so well together you'd never guess their inexperience.

Power flowed around the compass,
strengthened, flowed faster. Lance held a physical shield over the compass as a whole, Matt took over the mental shield.

Chris
held the beautiful spinning loop of pure power and turned his head to gaze at the two gods striding down the street towards them.

No.

Problem.

He could see clearly, as Pax flicked out power in the form of a fireball,
and batted it away. He braced and absorbed the quick shock of a stun spell. He reached out with a delicate slice and the red vest dropped away from one shoulder. Pax jumped in shock, flicked a glance at his shoulder, then turned and threw a wave of kinetic energy at them.

Lance shifted the base of the shield out, sank it into the marble, and the blast of energy
screamed up the slanted shield and passed over them.

Dane created heat, up high, and the air rose. Clouds formed with uncanny speed.

Chris sent another precise slice, the vest dropped. Another, and Pax yelled in pain, scrambling backwards, clutching his pants, blood on his side and his hands.

"Oh,
damn, sorry! Very clumsy of me," Chris called. Thunder grumbled like deep, distant laughter. The day darkened.

"Damn it Marty, do something," the golden boy snarled.

Chris looked over at the other fellow.

"Engage in a dock-side brawl? Oh, I don't think so." He turned away, and Pax lunged, grabbed him.

"You're going to let them get away with that?"

"They seem to be getting away with it."

Pax's grip tightened as he swung the man around, between him and
the Compass. What he threw had aspects of mental magic in it; the part of the Compass that was Matt threw everything he had into that shield. Black and poisonous, the magic seeped around, under, through . . .

The Dane part released the lightening. It struck the apex of the nearest building, danced down to the fence. Too fast to see the strokes and return strokes, it bounced down and left scorch marks as it was forced toward the gods. Pax and his shield scrambled backwards, and abruptly disappeared. Dane let the lightening go. He and Matt leaned on each other, barely keeping the circle intact
.

The poisonous spell seeped away.

Chris eyed the remaining gods, and goddesses.

Edmund was laughing. "Oh, good show, but now we could blow you over with a huff and a puff."

Logic pressed her lips together, then raised her voice. "God of War, I summon you!"

Chris barked out a brief laugh . . . Barry and Edmund were both grabbing for the beacon. Chris threw a push, staggered them. Pushed again. Threw a flash of light.

Light gleamed off sword and armor, the rearing horse touched down.

Chris yelled and pointed. "The beacon!"

The black horse leaped for it, the warrior leaned to grab. Barry and Edmund tackled the beacon. And they were all gone.

Chris cursed under his breath and looked around.

Mercy turning back to face Logic, Richie watching from up the hill.

Logic's mouth quirked up in a grim and confident smile.
Mercy stepped back and disappeared.

Chris straightened in alarm, as he felt a wave of powerful magic.

"Not to worry, that was just Mercy taking her whole house with her. I do hope she doesn't come back." Two more waves of power swept over them. The goddess nodded in satisfaction. "Just as well. Those five are not suited to be leaders." Logic dusted her hands. "I must say you young men were impressive. Why don't you stay for a while? You can get your refugees settled, and train some of the people here." She cast a judicious gaze toward the embarrassed Richie. "Set a good example for someone who needs one. And I will show you how teleportation works."

Teleportation, the conscious control of it, involved holding precise patterns in one's head. The recognition of where you were, the recognition of where you wanted to go, and a bridge of spells that swapped mass, momentum and orientation.

Chris learned first how to jump around New Bombay. Then he brought up his memory of the Inn. The front porch.
Home.
He stepped there.

Jamie yipped in surprise then grabbed him and kissed him. "How did you do that! Good grief. Everyone isn't going to start popping in and out of places are they?"

"I hope not." He swayed and grabbed for a chair. "It . . . takes a bit of energy."

She stuck her head in the door, and returned. "I see that. And how far away were you?"

Chris grinned. "Very. Look, did the Old Wolf get back? Did he get the beacon away from Barry and Edmund?"

She shook her head. "He came back empty handed. Everyone's
in an uproar about it, and over-reacting to everything else. Ira Penner tried to—oh, grumpy old Vito caught your mares in a cattle drive and they have the cutest little black foals—and Penner tried to have them put in the auction, and Vito, can you believe it? Stood up and said, no, they were your mares, branded with your registered brand, and they and their foals were yours. They nearly came to blows over it. And Lillian is pregnant. Cassie and Iris too, which isn't helping the situation with Penner."

Milly hustled out then, and handed him
a glass of what proved to be apple juice. With the first swallow Chris could very nearly feel the energy flowing back into his body.

"Dinner for you in five more minutes. Honestly, Chris! We might have known you
'd learn how to teleport."

Sky and Sea blasted out the doors and climbed all over him.

"You came back!"

"What did you
bring us?"

A snort from the street was Vito.

"Hey." Chris struggled to sit up straight under the lapful of kids. "Vito. Thank you, I understand you caught those wretched mares."

The man gave him a surly shrug.

"Tell you what. Why don't we breed them both to another stallion, your choice, and you take your pick of which foal you want, next summer."

The grumpy man
blinked. Opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. Finally found something negative enough to get his voice back. "Most likely some wild stud bred them already."

Chris grinned. "There's always the year after. And, you know, you really o
ught to come along to the winery, learn how to use that power you've got."

"Me? Do your weird shit? No way."

A laugh behind him. Harry and Wolf.

"Vito you might be surprised."

Huh!" Vito faded away as more people started their direction.

Phaedra and Miriam were apparently deep into an argument.

"It hardly matters."

Harry looked over at
them.

Miriam
scowled back. "Tomorrow is the solstice, a bit over two years since we were marooned here. But we don't have the beacon. So it doesn't really matter, does it?"

Wolf nodded. "But having a choice really does matter, doesn't it?" He
pulled absolutely nothing off his arm, reached in and hauled the beacon out.

People started crowding around as he unfolded the solar cells.

"You can juice it up a bit, plug it into a generator right there."

Chr
is pried himself out of the chair and wiggled through the crowd. "But what are you gods going to do?"

"
Go away. When I get back, you can tell me all about it." The Old Wolf glanced at Harry, then over the crowds' heads to where Romeau and Gisele were walking down, attracted by the hubbub. "Us."

"But, but. . . " Miriam looked worried. "What should we tell them?"

"I'd recommend the truth, it's easier to keep track of. But it is entirely up to you. You are free to do or say whatever you wish. That is the one principle we must always cling to." He shifted his gaze, and met Muriel's.

She glanced from him to her children, back to him. She looked panicked, and pale, tears shining in her eyes as she shook her head.

Chris winced in sympathetic pain.
Not even for him will she abandon her house, uproot her children, again.

Wolf
turned and walked away. Harry followed. They joined Romeau and Gisele, and spoke briefly. Then Wolf went to the winery, and Romeau and Gisele to the Temple. Both buildings vanished. Harry walked out the north gate, toward the wharf.

"Humph. Ought to have arrested them!" Ira Penner
glanced north, shrugged and stomped away.

Chris looked around for the bus kids
.

He
jerked his head to the west. "C'mon. We got a couple of holes in the wall to fill up. Mark, Derry? Can you guys go cut trees? Erik, you lay out the lines and I'll start the ditches . . . "

He could hear snatches of conversations as he walked away.

"We should revise that list of things we need . . ."

"Now we
can finally have the store . . . "

". . . will they come back?"

George Wilson was volunteering his generator if anyone had fuel.

Milly hustled over, looking worried. "But where did they go?"

Erik shrugged. "Stop worrying about the old gods. They can take care of themselves."

"But, but . . ."

"And if we have an emergency, I suspect we could call them, and they'd come."

Vito was talking about not telling any police or military that the gods had ever lived here. "Just play dumb."

"I'd tell them where to look, if I had a clue." Ben's voice over rode the background chaos. "I'll bet they can find Mr. Bad Karma. And I'm sure going to tell them to shoot those hell hounds on sight!"

Chris
grabbed Darren's sleeve as he turned toward Ben. "Everyone is free, including the gods. Including the assholes. Free to act, move and speak. And that must never change, no matter what else happens."

"And what if nothing happens?"

Chris grinned. "Then we keep on the way we have been. Building a very strange new world."

118 years post exile

Pam Uphoff

Two magic globes glowed on either side of the door, too dim to light the courtyard. No sign of dawn lightened the horizon. The night sky was a dark dove gray, eerie and unnatural.

"I hate Comet Winters." River tried to make out the constellations, but the pervasive faint glow of the comets’ tails erased too many of the middling bright stars.

The beautiful woman beside her shrugged. "It’s just a few weeks, every three or four years. I admit I haven’t seen it this bad for decades. The astronomers are saying that there's been a few collisions and further breakup of a few of the larger bodies. So fresh ice is now exposed to the Sun." Her warm voice drew one in. The Goddess of Mercy, glowing with power, connected at some deep subconscious level with every person on the World. "The astronomers think there’s a small trailing cluster that could be a problem next year as well. I’ll have to store more food, if these lazy supercilious merchants won’t listen to me."

A bright streak flashed across the sky, then two more.

"The astronomers say those are just dust, burning because of their high speed." River watched as the next streak expanded into a bright fireball and crossed the sky with deceptive slowness. "And a few pebbles. It’s probably a hundred miles high."

"All in all, just a pretty show. Now, about the Witches of New Tokyo?" Mercy turned in the darkness and faced her.

"We had a telepathic conference early in the night. They will support you, as always, this time by backing up the God of Art. They will gather power for him, and thus strengthen him. That should nearly double the number of trained magicians who are aligned with your side."

"Excellent. Come back inside, now, this sky is unnatural." The Goddess turned; her figure brightened suddenly.

River spun and winced back from the brilliant line of light in the north. A last bright flash from below the horizon. "Did that one hit? I’ve seen some of the old craters . . ."

The ground shuddered beneath their feet.

The Goddess stepped out beside her. "Yes, that one hit. Pity it wasn’t further west. A meteor hitting New Bombay would have solved half our problems so fittingly." She cocked her head thoughtfully. Shook it. "The meteors are out too far and come too fast. I doubt I could touch one."

Rain shivered. "But, you wouldn’t kill a whole city. And the Goddess of Logic is there."
And I thought the problem was the "King" of the Mages, in between here and New Bombay?

"Indeed. Killing her with so much power would bring all these stupid mortals to heel quickly, with, in the end, less bloodshed." The Goddess looked at the witch, and the last glimmer of light from the north showed the hint of contempt in her smile. "Mercy is not something you would truly understand. Its scope is larger than you can see. Come inside and pack. I’ll just add some last thoughts to a letter for you to deliver to Art. It is time you were on your way home."

River stopped to watch a sputtering trio of meteors, but they all died out quickly.
I hate Comet Winters.
She packed quickly, shedding her sari and donning the sort of  pants suit that business women wore as a declaration of their professionalism. A tossup whether she’d get more unwanted advances in this or the other, but negotiating ship’s ladders would be easier in pants.

She carried her two cases, one large, one small with multiple locks, both ordinary and magical, on it, out to the vestibule. She opened all the locks on the small case and added the two letters Mercy handed her.

The building shuddered. For a moment, River thought another meteor had hit, then she heard the moan of the wind and swallowed to equalize the pressure in her ears.

Mercy sniffed. "Air blast. It travels more slowly that the ground shock. I’ll walk part way with you. I need to keep up with the mood in the street. We gods are too influenced by the people as a whole to ever ignore them. Unfortunately." Mercy walked off as she spoke, leaving River to negotiate the door with her cases. None of the goddess’s cowed servants rushed to hold the door.

Good thing I have long legs and a thick skin.

The streets were strewn with wind blown debris, but there didn't seem to be any serious damage. The few street people about looked a bit nervy, and most of them shifted away from the goddess. Only one approached.

"Support the new hospital, Mistresses?" The beggar was female, young, with big dewy eyes. An hour yet till dawn. What was the girl doing out on the street already? The girl’s eyes lit suddenly with recognition, and she went to one knee.

River lowered her shields enough to see the flaring, untrained glow of the girl’s magic. One of the Little Gods, caught up in an archetype straight from the collective subconscious.

The Goddess waved an arm, and despite the intervening three feet of empty air, the beggar was tossed out of their way. The girl rolled over and scuttled away, uninjured physically, but probably shocked by the actions of her goddess.

"Mercy is swift, and stops suffering, it doesn’t prolong it. I’m getting tired of all these miserable little whiners calling themselves Angels of Mercy. I thought they'd be a good buffer, but they've turned into more of an annoyance."

River nodded obediently. "They don’t follow your guidelines. Fortunately the Witches have outlawed those spells to allow them to have male children, and they're talking about forbidding congress with both mages and wizards, so there shouldn’t be any more of these overly magical children, these little gods." She marched along after the Goddess, suitcase getting heavier with every step. The smaller case with letters and packages was too light to counterbalance the heavier case. She switched sides.

Mercy sniffed. "I’m sure it sounded like a good idea at the time. Foolish witches dreaming of having male babies with god-like powers. And a few of them are nearly that strong. But most are like these soft-hearted idiots! No real training or goals, they just absorb what the collective subconscious sends their way. I make mine drill, so they have some competency. We’ll need them in this war." The Goddess of Mercy curled a lip at the three men in the next intersection, each claiming to be the God of Travelers and capable of blessing their journey. "They couldn’t bless a horse as far as the City Limits. But, like Harry himself, they are loyal to their homes. Loyal to us. When we call, they will form the magical branch of our army."

A very poorly trained branch of the army.
River smirked. "What about all the Army mascots? Every company has their own God of . . .War." Her voice stumbled to a halt.
Big mistake, girl!

"Do not mention that man to me." The Goddess’s brown eyes burned as hot as the dawning sun for a moment.

"I mean, all these little gods take a tiny bit of, well, the focus of godhood or something, away from the real god, don't they? So the more mascots, the weaker he will be. I’m sorry, Mercy, I thought you’d find it amusing."
The God certainly does.

"I do, but there’s going to be a war, and it won’t be amusing if the Real God shows up. The little ones don't take nearly as much ability from us as people think. The people don't realize quite what we are. How dangerous we are. Especially War. He has trained for mindless violence all his life. And he will support New Bombay, he’s always had a soft spot for Logic."

"I can’t see why. She’s cold and well, practically asexual." River bit her lip. "Anyway, you won’t let it come to an actual war, will you? I mean, where’s the mercy in war?"

"War is not about mercy, girl. It’s about power. Those idiots, letting the people who ought to be their subjects govern themselves! The ideas are spreading as fast as their new cities, and this plague of little gods isn’t helping at all. They undermine our authority, people have started treating us as if we were no more than those street corner beggars.  Something amusing. Well, we’ll use them up at need. Little gods and people alike. They'll all find out what a god truly is."

Trained and deadly, honed by over a century of experience. Unlike these sad beggars, flailing around with a bit of instinctive magic.
"I don’t understand why they’re all out now, so early."

Mercy waved dismissively. "Comet winter. None of us sleep well. We have premonitions, clairvoyant dreams. Sometime far in the future there will be a horrible disaster, but I can feel that it’s hundreds of years from now. Now, go back to your witches coven, or pyramid or whatever you’re calling it these days, and convince the witches to continue to support us. Me. Certainly they won’t want to be on the side that is controlled by
males."

"Oh no. We don’t let men have any say in our affairs."
Nor gods nor goddesses, unlike the sniveling witches you have under your control, here in Miami. Art may get a bit of a surprise, if it comes to open warfare.

"Good. Then they should be easily persuaded to continue their support."

River ducked her head respectfully, and turned off toward the docks. She should have no trouble finding a trader heading north. No matter what rumors of war were spreading, trade would carry on until the shooting started, and probably past. In New Tokyo she would deliver her report on the Goddess of Mercy to the various people she owed allegiance to. It would be a relief to be done with this trip, however much she generally liked travelling.

"Try your luck with the dice or cards, Miss?"

River looked up and shook her head. The little gods, as people jokingly called them, weren’t physically little. They were just ordinary people endowed with a lot more of the magical genes than the rest of the population. The magic put them more in touch with the collective subconscious. They could influence the psyche of the whole of mankind—or could have if they’d all pulled in one direction. Instead they were controlled by it.

Like the original gods, the Old Gods, they were divided in their desires and goals. Pulled by the influence of the collective subconscious, they were rarely able to resist the strong impulses from outside that tried to shape them into the form of one or another of the Archetypes.

Only the Archetypes, the things nearly everyone believed in, survived coherently to emerge from the collective subconscious and shape the most powerful magic users.

This pretty girl was Lady Luck; something in her personality had biased her magical talents, and now she worked in a casino. River had met the God of Chance, and "Lucky" wasn’t one of the words she’d have applied. "Random." "Unpredictable." "Unreliable," more like. River fished out a coin and tossed it to her. "For luck on a trip."

The girl laughed. "You should give to the Traveler for that!"

She even looks like Chance, I wonder if she’s a descendant?

Some of the Old Gods had children, others didn’t. Mercy had a daughter, tucked away somewhere, rarely mentioned, rarely seen. The Gods of Virtue, Vice, and Chance had bastards spread over the world. The God of Eternal Youth was said to occasionally give children as well as renewed youth to the women who slept with him. The Traveler had a few. The God of War had a habit of marrying widows with children, she hadn't heard of him having any of his own, but that might just be a desire for privacy. The love between the Goddess of Health and Fertility, and the God of Love had never been blessed with a child. The God of Peace claimed to be above common physical desires.
They are such contradictions! Who would think that a War God would strive for peace, and the God of Peace rant about uniting all people, forcibly?

In the harbor she scanned the notices pinned to the board outside the Harbor Master’s office. There were two ships that would be heading north on the tide. Both claimed to have cabins for passengers. She noted their moorings and walked to look them over, and bargain for her passage. The first was small, but bore the blue pennant of the Traveler on the foremast. The second was an ornate fat tub. She sighed wistfully and advanced on the boarding plank. She’d much rather have travelled under the protection of Harry Traveler, but she’d be much less conspicuous, and checked less carefully in New Tokyo if she arrived on the larger ship.

The Kittyhawk’s purser was delighted to take her money and fill the last bunk in a cabin already occupied by three women.

River stowed her case under the last cot. "I’m Sally Reardon. Visiting family in New Tokyo." She swallowed carefully.
Seasick before we leave the dock. Not a good sign.

"Oh?" The older woman looked her over, her gaze lingering on River’s perfectly flat abdomen.

Wondering if I’m pregnant and being sent away to hide the disgrace? Or wondering what business I’m in, wearing trousers.
River knew she looked younger than her twenty-five years, but apparently she passed inspection.

"I’m Mrs. Jasmine Gardener. We escorted my son to the University here and saw him settled in. Now we’re returning home."

"It’s an excellent University. Competition with New Bombay keeps everyone keen." River looked over at the two younger women, neither looked above twenty.

"My daughter Heidi. I brought Heidi along to keep her out of trouble. And the maid. Mary."

Her daughter looked embarrassed, their maid, tired.

"I think I’ll step out and watch the sunrise. Did you see the meteor earlier?" River stepped the very short distance to the door.

"I suspect it was just some silly magician trying to impress someone with illusions." Mrs. Gardener didn’t glance at her daughter, but the girl flinched.