12.30.07
The Serpent in the Tree.
This tree is beautiful.
Its trunk is strong and smooth, made of firm gray wood that puts all other wood to shame. Its branches part elegantly from each other, curving gently upwards, cradling the moon and the sun, growing the stars on their ends, shaded by bronzed emerald leaves.
The stars. They are beautiful, are they not? And mine are so much more approachable than those distant pinpricks in Heaven’s vault. The unenlightened call my stars golden apples, but those people have clearly never been close enough to see these divine fruits for themselves. There is no resemblance. Calling my stars “apples” is like calling a diamond “coal” because both are found under the ground. It’s ridiculous.
And my stars hold power — great power. The power to rock this world to its core, to knock those called gods from their thrones…
The power of incorruptibility.
No, that’s not a mistake. Immortality is a bitter pill — aging but never dying, falling ill but never knowing peace. Incorruptibility is different — it is the state of being untouched by time, death, illness, fatigue, or injury. It is immortality taken past its limits.
It is sought after by all who do not already have it.
Why else would I be here?
I am the Serpent, the one who rests my coils in the branches of this Tree, the one who has eaten of its fruit, the one who tirelessly watches over it, from leaf to root. I am the one who guards it from those who would seek to steal my stars — or those who would seek to destroy the tree itself.
I would do anything to defend my tree, my stars.
I would even damn you from the Garden for it…
Grail Castle.
He really hated the south of France. Fucking Pyrenees.
Dr. Cain scrabbled up another cliff, his head pounding from his magically-induced eyesight. He barked his shin on an outcropping, cursed, and kicked it again just out of spite. It hurt his toe, but it made him feel better.
Times like this, he wished he’d never been given the ability to make his eyes work. Then he could’ve told Francis to fuck off.
Dragon talons did come in handy for scaling mountains, though. Dr. Cain wheezed out a laugh. Kathleen had told him he climbed like a gecko. Not strictly true, but amusing nevertheless.
Dr. Cain pulled himself onto what was more or less the mountaintop and curled up in the brush, blending in seamlessly. Being able to turn “green as spring grass”, as his brother had put it, had moments of usefulness.
All in all, thought the scientist, he had too many useful traits. If he were more boring, he’d never have been sent on this damn fool errand.
He poked his watch irritably. “Francis.”
The watch twitched. “What?”
“Why am I breaking into your family’s ancestral castle, again?”
The watch sighed. “Because I’m holding your laboratory hostage.”
“Besides that.”
No response. Dr. Cain poked the watch again. “Francis. If you don’t tell me exactly what’s going on, I’m going to jump off this mountain and go home.”
“Most people ask before they leave, you know,” Francis muttered irritably. “And I told you. Something weird’s up there. I don’t know what, and I can’t exactly scale a mountain, and I don’t exactly trust the rest of my family to check it for me.”
“That’s really a sad commentary on your family,” said a third voice as its owner hunched down next to Dr. Cain.
Dr. Cain promptly punched him.
Or tried to, anyway. The stranger ducked back and got to his feet in one smooth motion.
Something tugged at the back of Dr. Cain’s mind.
The man twitched his disheveled robe straighter, ran a hand over his cropped white hair, and half-grinned down at the green man.
“So, Mordred, has anyone ever told you you climb like a gecko?”
New Year’s Day.
If there had been any psychic in the city, he might have noticed the ripple of awareness that ran through the rocks on the edge of some greater wave. It’s highly doubtful, however, that our theoretical psychic would have realized what that awareness meant before he died.
It’s a moot point, anyway. There were no psychics in the city that New Year’s. There were, however, a lot of other people.
The operative word in that sentence is “were”.
Sometime after sunrise, the earthquake struck – and kept quaking. The ground tore open. Huge sinkholes swallowed whole neighborhoods. Spurs of rock shot up from the earth to tear through homes and public buildings. The city, being built largely of brittle stones from upriver, collapsed as the walls began to rip themselves apart.
Around midmorning, the wind picked up, ripping through the still-quaking city, catching up anything loose – stones, livestock, people – and dashing them into the ground. Pitch-black clouds formed spontaneously over the city, releasing torrents of rain that seeped into collapsed buildings and drowned any survivors trapped inside. Wild lightning tore through the air, clinging to every corner, crackling and hissing but never dying, picking off those unlucky enough to have survived.
By the time the sandstorm tore through the area at noon, no one was left alive in the city. The howling sand twisted in on itself, drawing away from the sinkhole it had emerged from. It flowed throughout the ruined city, flinching back from every quake of the earth, curling away from every snaking bolt of lightning.
The man who arrived in the city that evening was no psychic, but he’d known enough of them to have acquired something of a sensitivity. He staggered across the broken ground, ignoring its half-hearted quakes, to sit on a fairly stable boulder near the sand, which had by now pulled itself into something of a twister. The stranger ducked as a stray lightning bolt flashed over his head, then straighened up and looked at the sand twister.
“You can calm down now,” he said.
The twister hunched over. The wind howled, raged, and died.
The man braced himself against the boulder as the earth gave one last lurch, then settled. “That’s a bit better,” he said, eyeing the dancing lightning warily. “Can you do something about the sparks?”
This time, the man did fall, trying vainly to cover his ears as the loudest thunderclap on earth boomed through the city. The lightning all struck the twister, which seemed to be trying to force itself into a shape.
Cautiously, the man raised his head. His ears were ringing something fierce, and he could barely hear, but he didn’t think the damage was permanent. He stood up again and slowly approached the twister.
“Your mother’s waiting for you,” he said, and the twister collapsed into a thin man with haunted eyes. Gently, the other man caught him and led him away from the ravaged land.
There was now one psychic in the city, but only for a bit.
The Stranger.
He must be mad, said the locals, since no sane person would cross the death worms’ wasteland. But this white-haired stranger had just murmured his thanks and promptly ignored all their warnings, and had left with the sun.
The old men gathered the young ones outside their yurts and told them about the death worms. Huge, red, slithery creatures, they were, that hid beneath the dusty earth, only to pop up and snag the unwary in their slavering jaws. They breathed a foul yellow cloud that would burn out a man’s lungs in seconds and turn his own blood into corrosive acid. Some stories even told of the worms making their own lightning and flinging it at those who trespassed in their territory.
They told of the red sun, and how it brought all the foul worms to the surface, so the whole wasteland was covered in writhing beasts. They mated then, and it was the only time of the year that the worms went on the hunt, going far from their desolate home to drag cattle and men alike back to the dry plains. The old men regaled the young with gruesome stories of men stuffed with worm eggs and kept alive until the young death worms hatched and ate their unwilling incubator. They told more stories of hapless travelers, all unknowing, wearing some bit of yellow and attracting the death worms, and they cast their gaze at the stranger’s path when they told this. The children listened, all in awe, until their mothers came and called them for chores. The old men continued to talk, wondering now about the latest traveler’s fate.
He came back with the sun.
No one said a word to him; they followed the customs of hospitality to the letter, but could not bring themselves to welcome this strange man who had survived a night in the death worms’ wastes. He did not press them; he merely took a little food, speaking only to ask for a poultice for his eye.
When the tribe’s herb-man saw the stranger’s eye, he almost refused to help him; indeed, he went and purified himself thereafter. For where the strange man’s eyes had both been a deep purple, one was now a pale, sickly yellow – the color of the death worms’ poison.
Damsel in Distress.
Elaine was not having a good day. She and her father had been on the road to Camelot to finally – finally! – introduce Elaine to the court, when they’d been set upon by a band of robbers. Now Elaine’s father and their men were dead, their belongings stolen and Elaine’s handmaid taken, and Elaine herself was gagged and bound securely to a tree.
She supposed she should be grateful that her mother’s charms against injury and the unseemly lusts of men held, but after four hours in the rain, with the coarse rope chafing her skin and the gag cutting into the corners of her mouth, Elaine really couldn’t bring herself to be anything other than angry.
What made her even angrier was that here she was, tied up within sight of the road, and two different people had simply passed her by. Okay, so the first traveler had been a drunkard, and quite probably hadn’t even seen her, but the other had been a knight, curse it, and knights were supposed to help.
Angry tears prickled at Elaine’s eyes, which only added to her frustration. She was fourteen, damn it all, and a lady now. She should be calm and composed in all situations.
And of course someone would choose now to come up the road. It was bad enough that whoever-it-was would see her tied up, they didn’t have to see her crying too. Elaine sighed around the gag and glared at the road. This day was just going from bad to worse.
The redhead who walked by had clearly been caught off guard by the rain, and was just as clearly unhappy about it. He walked with a slow but ground-eating pace, squelching along in the mud and muttering imprecations under his breath. As he drew even with Elaine, she caught a glimpse of the badge on his tunic, and her eyes widened.
Another knight! And yet, he too kept walking. He didn’t even look at Elaine.
That was it. Elaine was beyond angry now, and threw all pretense of gentle breeding to the wind. She threw herself forward against her bonds, snarling around the gag.
The man stopped dead, then turned his head in her direction. Sweeping his walking stick in an arc before him, he stepped off the road and picked his way towards Elaine.
Elaine, surprised, fell silent.
The man stopped. “If there’s someone out there, you are going to have to make some noise,” he said quietly, in the manner of someone who’d said the same thing too often.
Elaine gasped. The knight was blind! She began cursing herself for a fool as loudly as she could.
The knight stopped in front of her, laughing softly. “I understood about half of that,” he said, extending a hand. “Pardon my rudeness.”
His hand hit her nose, and Elaine bit back another curse.
“Sorry,” said the man, trailing his fingers gently down Elaine’s face. They stilled at the gag, then followed it to the knot under her ear. “Hold still,” he said, and drew his knife. With one swift movement, he cut the cloth, then tugged it from Elaine’s head.
“Thank you,” Elaine rasped. She coughed.
“You’re welcome,” said the knight, running his hand down her arm. The ropes received the same treatment as the gag.
Elaine staggered, clutching at her rescuer’s arm. He sheathed his knife, then grasped her shoulders to steady her.
“Let’s get you out of the rain,” he said, turning towards the road. “Unfortunately, the nearest inn’s still a bit of a walk.”
“I can make it,” Elaine croaked. “My name is Elaine,” she added, straightening out her sodden dress.
“And I am Mordred,” said the knight, ducking under a dripping pine branch.
Elaine gaped, then trudged after him, noting to her dismay that the sun was already setting. But lights were being lit up the hill a way, and Elaine saw that they did not have so far to go as she had feared.
Together, the bedraggled pair headed into the rain-dampened sunset.
Freckles.
A gust of wind blew across the room, grabbed Mordred’s wrist, and tugged up his sleeve. “You’re speckled!” Imulu said, sounding a bit aggrieved.
Mordred sighed and tugged the sleeve back down. He greened his eyes just in time to see the demon lean forward to stare at his nose.
“They’re called freckles, Imulu. People with skin like mine get them, if they’re in the sun too long.”
“Oh.” Imulu kept staring at the freckles on Mordred’s face. “But not all pasty people get spots.”
“Freckles, Imulu. And no, I didn’t say all pasty people get them. People with skin like mine get them.”
“Oh.” Mordred jumped as the demon poked his nose. “There are many kinds of pasty skin, then?”
“Um, yes,” Mordred said, leaning away from Imulu’s touch.
“Oh. Do demons get speckles?”
“Freckles, and I don’t know.”
“Will I get speckles?”
Mordred almost laughed at the alarmed look on Imulu’s face. “Have you ever gotten any before?”
“Nooo…”
“Then probably not.”
“But I don’t spend much time in the sun…”
Mordred paused. “They’re not dangerous, you know.”
“Oh. Are you sure? Humans get spots when they’re sick, I thought.”
“Sometimes. It depends on the sickness. But freckles are just little spots. They’re okay.”
“Oh.” Imulu pondered this. “Is it like how some pasty people go brown if they’re left out too long?”
A pause. “Are you okay? You’re trying to chew your lip off.”
I’m trying not to laugh at you, Mordred thought. “I’m fine, Imulu. Yes, it’s just like that.”
“Okay, then.” The demon vanished from the office in another gust of wind. Freed from the constraints of politeness, Mordred put his head down and laughed himself silly.
Glass Washington.
First, picture Washington, D.C. Got it? The Capital Dome, the White House, the Washington Monument, maybe some memorials; if you’re a bit of a nut like me, maybe some of the museums, or the Mall, or the Reflecting Pool. Now hold onto that image for a moment.
Have you ever seen those kids’ toys that are a set of (thankfully dull) pins set in a frame, so that an object pressed into one side of the pins is modeled by those displaced pins on the other side? Imagine Washington, D.C. as a pin model.
Now imagine it made of glass.
Add one final image: a huge smoked glass arch that spans most of the city.
Welcome to Glass Washington. The memorials are faceless, the Washington Monument has eyes, and strange burrowing creatures snake through what in our world are the Metro tunnels. The city itself is devoid of almost everything save for famous landmarks and touristy sites; the wider world is almost nonexistant. If you brave the rose- and tree-covered wilderness beyond the River, you may make it to the wraith-haunted fields of an otherworldly Arlington Cemetery, with its mirror-bright and perfectly blank headstones.
But if you stay in Glass Washington (which you should), climb the Arch. Then look down, and see the great mosaic of the lights laid out before you in patterns of sun and shadow, and grow wise.
Or go mad. It’s your choice.
First Meeting.
The person at the end of the dock turned to greet them. The Seven stared.
Imulu elbowed Hush. “I thought humans came in two kinds,” it hissed.
“Define ‘kinds’,” muttered Pirig. Imulu glared at it. “I’m serious,” Pirig said.
“It’s how they make more of ‘em, right? There are two kinds, and if you get one of each kind together and their parts fit right, and their plumbing works, they bake babies. Right?”
“Um,” said Hush.
Sigsig choked back a laugh. Nimur stalked over to the edge of the pier, looking like it’d rather be anywhere else. Urbarra and Ushum were studiously ignoring Imulu.
“Your point?” Nimur snapped.
Imulu waved its arms helplessly in the direction of the person, who looked amused. “Does … that look like either of the two kinds of human to you?”
Five sets of eyes looked in the direction Imulu was waving. Imulu stared at its siblings. Nimur stared at the sea they’d just crossed, looking cross itself.
A consternated silence fell.
That silence rapidly became an embarrassed one when Mordred said, in flawless Edini, “Welcome to the White Island.”
The Tzitzimime vs. the White Ring.
The stars kept falling. Already, the tzitzimime outnumbered us three to one, and yet they were still falling.
It was getting rather annoying.
Irina leaned on the wall next to me, fidgeting with her pike. “You’d think they’d snuff themselves out, walking on the water like that.” She nodded towards the gathering tzitzimime.
“I wish,” I replied. They probably outnumbered us four to one by now.
Irina’s gloved fist slammed down on the top of the wall. “We should be attacking them now, not standing here watching them gather.”
“I know. I argued that, Heizhan argued that, Gabriel argued that – hell, Dahut argued that. But no one could agree on how to fight them, so we’re stuck standing here.”
Irina snorted. “As if we’ll magically know how to defeat them once they’ve all landed.”
I gave her a crooked smile.
“It’s getting darker,” Duncan said. We turned to look at him.
“The stars are falling, Your Majesty,” Irina said.
“That should be making things brighter down here, not dimmer. Look up – those are some serious thunderheads gathering.”
Duncan was right – the previously-clear night sky was now covered in dark clouds. The tzitzimime were still falling – but they were falling through the clouds now, and as I watched, several of the falling stars dimmed and died.
“Water vapor,” Irina hissed.
“It’s not enough, though,” I said. “There are still plenty falling – and plenty down already.”
I had no sooner finished my sentence than the storm broke loose – and what a storm it was. Wave after wave of rain drenched the Island and the surrounding sea – snuffing out more of the tzitzimime as I watched. Then the lightning came, but unlike the rain, it was directed. Bolt after bolt struck tzitzimi after tzitzimi, and more bolts rained down on the water under the stars. Whatever art they used to walk on the water broke under the electric onslaught, sending dozens of tzitzimime to the bottom of the sea.
A flash of red caught my eye, and I looked down the wall. Nathan was standing there, staring fixedly at the tzitzimime. As I watched, lightning spiraled up around him, and I understood.
I elbowed Irina. “Looks like someone else didn’t like the idea of waiting, either.”
Strangeness.
Kathleen had just sat down behind her desk when a strangeness walked in her office. She reacted as every disgruntled professor does (or dreams of, anyway) and threw her coffee at it.
Raziel ducked the flying mug. “Either Leonora was lying when she called you a morning person, or she has a very strange definition of ‘morning person’.”
Feeling even more disgruntled, Kathleen retrieved her mug, pulled out a tube of superglue, and set about repairing it. If she ignored the strangeness, it would either go away or become annoying enough to kill.
It wasn’t the particular power that was vexing Kathleen. All angels had it, even Cain, who’d kept it when he went human. She dealt with it on at least a weekly basis, and it didn’t bother her much anymore. No, it wasn’t the power that was bothering her.
Kathleen was just disturbed to find that Raziel made a prettier woman than she did.
