Godslayers

The missile struck Maxwell's office at 3:17 in the morning.

The primary explosion was quickly followed by the accelerated raindrop patter of submunitions vaporizing against the kinetic field. It was a distinctive pattern—KM Valkyrie series, perhaps KM-97.

Maxwell sighed. That had been a terrible vintage. He could only think of three people for whom the indignity of maintaining a stockpile was worth the embarrassment it would cause their enemies, and it certainly hadn't been him. It had to be Drafar; the chair of SecEnf was nothing if not predictable.

He dismissed his paperwork and contacted the head of building security.

"Peren," he greeted her.

"We got him," she said without preamble. "He tried to flash out the moment he fired, but quarantine stopped the flash tunnel. He's in a soulbox now."

That, Maxwell reflected, was the worst part about these little games. An insultingly under-equipped assassin was one thing, but responding with excessive force would have made him look insecure. Peren and her quick-response teams had judged the situation perfectly under pressure and deserved commendations. Not verbally; they were professionals. He'd see to it that a note found its way into their files, along with an unlabeled bonus.

He passed over that for now, turning to the implicit question of what to do with Drafar's piece of theater. Well, one turn deserved another, did it not?

"Splice his memories," Maxwell ordered. "Drafar has a custom body shaped like a llama, and our new friend was ordered to comb Drafar's fur while delivering reports. We found out. He came here to suppress the information, and now that he has failed, his only hope of survival is to spread the information so that he's not the only target. Deliver the soulbox back to SecEnf when you're done. Official channels, high priority."

Peren's amusement echoed through the comm channel. "I'll see it done."

Maxwell pinged acknowledgment, closing the connection.

His next call went through automatically; Gheresh was asleep.

"Good morning to you when you get this," Maxwell said genially. "I hope your new report is settling in. When you get a moment, please inform Kaelen that she is not to leave the compound under any circumstances. It's politics, I'm afraid. In light of the circumstances, we'll need to be flexible if her onboarding process encounters delays."

He closed the connection. All that remained was dealing with Drafar, which would under no circumstances happen any time soon.

If Drafar wanted a prompt appointment, he should have shelled out for a better assassin.

*

Eifni's Admin Division was headquartered in the Cepa Arcology, one of the great northern biospheres. It was planted in harsh, sleet-lashed land, straddling the ocean where ancient Veleans had raided in their longships. Now they drew life from the sea in other ways: the arcology drank millions of gallons of seawater every day, straining and filtering and streaming it through a byzantine series of translation processes to produce the building blocks of civilization.

The arcology was a titanic sphere, coated in a prismatic black substance refined by a hundred generations of brilliance to steal every last calorie from the sun. It was crowned with hundreds of spires, available for rent to anyone with the luxury credits to splurge.

The Garden at Entiad stood above the other splurges—literally. The open-air restaurant topped one of the spires on the south side of Cepa, constantly employing translation to scrub the air into something temperate and pristine. Somehow, it still felt like outdoor air. The exclusivity of the restaurant, combined with the spire entrance's close proximity to Admin Division's headquarters, rendered it a frequent destination for clout-seekers trying to make inroads with the Eifni Organization.

They'd all need to wait. Drafar had reserved the Garden for the whole day of their meeting, plus the day before. It was an inside joke that had endured longer than most civilizations, a callback to that stretch about two thousand years ago—or was it three, now?—when both of them had competed to see who could show up first to negotiations like these. These days, Drafar showed up exactly fifteen minutes early and Maxwell let him.

But that didn't stop him from probing his opponent in other ways. Drafar had used a broker to make the reservation, which gave Maxwell some room to maneuver. Maxwell had arranged a clerical error for yesterday's reservation, then placed his own.

Maxwell owned the restaurant through a shell company. What superficially appeared to be an insult was, on a deeper level, a reminder to the paranoid old soldier that they were meeting on Maxwell's terms, on Maxwell's ground.

But of course Drafar had never needed that reminder, so on a level deeper still, it was mostly just an insult.

Maxwell arrived arm-in-arm with Shay, who'd chosen a sleek projective dress for this meeting. Flashing and discordant colors swam over the contours of her body, assaulting the eyes of everyone in view. To his delight, Maxwell had discovered that the dress could detect when it'd been artificially blocked from perception. The colors would then shift into an unflattering caricature of the offender.

No one made art like his treasure.

A sense of peace and contentment washed over them as they entered the building, courtesy of etheric amplifiers just over the line of legality for a civilian business. The gentle trickle of water arose from water features at various points along the wall. Drafar's security was already cloaked in strategic areas of the room, compromising between tactical efficiency and denying key locations to Maxwell's bodyguards. They'd have to negotiate it themselves; that was what he paid them for.

Drafar was already seated. Maxwell had foregone wearing a statement piece—which was a statement in itself—but Drafar wore a hakmir over shirt and pants in very particular shades of black and teal. An innocent choice, except between veterans of the Klovinter Rebellion.

Maxwell's smile slipped. Those were the colors of the courageous soldiers Drafar had slaughtered, trotted out just to taunt Maxwell for losing the war.

He regained his composure instantly, striding toward the table, Shay in tow.

"Drafar."

"Max."

Drafar didn't look any happier to be here than Maxwell felt. His eyes lingered on Shay, then returned meaningfully to Maxwell with the slightest curl of a lip. Maxwell's eyes crinkled with humor.

"Drafar," Shay said, dropping into a chair. "I mourn your schedule with you. Tomorrow will be better. Less exciting."

"Your condolences are accepted in the spirit they are offered," Drafar said blandly, not looking at her. "My thanks for your hospitality."

"Anything for an old friend," Maxwell said as he passed his hunger profile to the restaurant's comm node. "We know how you are about your security."

The barb had no visible effect. Drafar had seemingly run out of unscripted reactions centuries ago.

"Today, however," he replied, "we're here to talk about yours. Eifni Theolytics is a security concern."

"We've been over this a hundred times—"

"—and I am willing to make it a thousand if I have to. You will of course be dismayed to learn that the recent incident involving the Spear was perpetrated by civilian license 4472VT-M68C-0498, self-designation Kaelen, whom you have just hired."

"I'm not in charge of personnel for Theolytics."

"I am out of patience for your games, Max. She held the Spear hostage. The circumstantial evidence implies that it was at your instigation."

Maxwell made a face, it is what it is. Drafar noted it but gave no indication of his thoughts.

"You have always thought you were untouchable," Drafar continued. "It is not to your credit that you've managed to make it functionally true. What you desperately need is a comeuppance, and as your 'old friend,' I am more than willing to provide it."

"Goodness me, I've never heard that one before," Maxwell replied.

"I was there," Drafar said, the emphasis too perfectly calibrated to be a genuine display of emotion. "At the Victory. Eifni would be ashamed of what the organization has become, and the bloated egos that drove it there."

"What a coincidence," said Maxwell. "I was there too. Remember when Eifni slept with your sister?"

"Would that she had the honor," Drafar said, shaking his head.

He didn't have any siblings.

"You crossed a line, Max. The Spear is one thing; there's no policy against reckless hubris, but it does invite a lot of scrutiny. And now the central narrative of that scrutiny is a Code Four divinity quarantine where you walked right out with the culprit."

"Go on," said Maxwell. "Scan me. If I'm compromised, you can shoot me right now."

"Yes, yes, your record is impeccable," said Drafar, resting his gaze on Shay. "What about hers?"

Shay tensed. Maxwell's face went blank.

"Possession of ritual materials," Drafar droned, as though reciting a grocery list. "Criminal spiritualism. Tampering with divinity detectors. Conspiracy to commit religious practice."

"Serious charges, considering no evidence exists," said Maxwell.

"Whoever you paid to remove it did excellent work," said Drafar, nodding. "But that was four hundred years ago. Excellent means something else now."

"Always with the stupid games," Shay grumbled. "It was an altar with a mirror in it. Point was never spiritualism. Point was you're stupid."

Drafar smiled humorlessly. "No more games, then. Secular Enforcement has a mandate. It is more important than Eifni's reckless desire to play around in the ribcages of dead gods. Toe the line, or I'll make you."

"This isn't like you," Maxwell noted.

"Isn't it?" Drafar said. "I'd expect an Eifni Org board member to know the stakes. Give me Kaelen."

"No."

Drafar nodded. "Every time, I wonder why I bother asking. You never change."

"And you never win."

"Except when it matters, Max. Except when it matters."

Drafar stood up, casually adjusting his teal hakmir—drawing the eye, seemingly by accident. Max stood as well.

Both men betrayed no hint of their thoughts. Drafar looked bored. Maxwell kept his expression open and his smile perfectly in place. He extended a hand. Drafar glanced contemptuously at it.

"Drafar," Maxwell said. "I do not want to go to war with you. The past is dead. Let it stay dead."

"This is Veles." Drafar swept past him, heading for the exit. "Nothing stays dead."

*

A declaration of war from an old Velean necessitated some schedule alterations. Maxwell canceled his meetings for the day, then ordered their aircar to take them to a villa he owned on the south of the continent.

The passenger cabin was spacious, dark wood panels screening soft indirect lighting over deep, comfortable couch seating. Maxwell and Shay were silent for the beginning of the ride, Maxwell's melancholy intermingling with Shay's anger.

"I am going to hex him."

He reached around her and pulled her close. She leaned her head on his shoulder. The angle was perfect; she must have thought of this when specifying the dimensions for this body.

"What kind of hex?" he asked. It was just the two of them; no need to dissemble. His expression was dark.

"I found a compelling one in the archives. The heartskin of a loras, etched with his name and knotted thrice. Use it as noose for a small rodent. When it dies, a stench arises from the victim that turns friend and ally against him."

"How would you know if it works?" Maxwell said, amusement creeping onto his face. "Drafar doesn't have friends or allies."

"And he stinks." Shay sighed. "Just as well. Your scavengers did not record what is a loras."

"Perhaps I should have approved Anthro's funding requests after all," he mused.

An edge entered Shay's tone. "Perhaps I should just rip his liver from his belly."

Maxwell squeezed her. She pressed against him.

"Don't look so glum," she said. She couldn't see his face, but he had no doubt she knew anyway. "Your friend's threat was stupid. No one believes he can touch us."

"Yes."

"Your world is also stupid. But not that kind of stupid. This was the kind of stupid that makes you complain at me while I'm working."

"It's your world too. You married into it."

"And now I have a stupid husband."

A sharp laugh escaped Maxwell's lips. "How kind of you to grace our little society of immortals with your fire."

She boffed his head without lifting hers from his shoulder. "This is why you mourn your enemies instead of killing them."

He rubbed her shoulder. "Oh?"

"Everything is about your tiny society. This man fights you for four thousand years, but you do not kill him because he is one of you. I call you stupid, you pretend your ancient, stubborn friends would learn from me."

Despite her words and tone, she wrapped her free arm around his chest and held him tightly.

"I am not about you," she continued. "I was Sanek, in the time when it meant something before your scavengers wiped them out. This man threatened my consort, so I burn with a man's anger. But you mope. How can a sad man kill gods? Rage, you fool!"

He pulled her closer. "A thousand years ago, I would have. But this isn't the Drafar I knew. He was always inflexible, but it's gotten so much worse. And that lie about remembering the days of Eifni—I think he really believed it, which would mean he's had his memories spliced. I didn't know it was this bad. I think he's dying, Shay."

"And that is why he is trying to kill you?"

"Yes," Maxwell said without hesitation. "He used to know better. We've always been careful to keep our conflicts indirect and indecisive. I can't think of any other reason he'd openly take this approach."

"Stupid," Shay said again. "Why does any ailing warrior throw himself into battle? Because he does not want to die in bed."

Maxwell paused to consider. "You might be right."

Shay surged onto him, straddling his legs and grabbing the back of his neck for a fierce kiss. He wrapped his arms around her, biting her lip. After a heated few seconds, she pulled herself away. He sank back against the seat.

"Of course I'm right," she said, panting. "No more moping. No one wants to be killed by a baby. You should be angry when you kill your friend."

"There are only a few of us left," Maxwell said softly. "A few thousand at most."

"Hypocrite," Shay said. "Where was this moping when you killed my people?"

Maxwell breathed in, and out. She was right, of course. He put the grief away and let himself sink into another, older emotion. A thing of violence and ruthlessness, forged in the trenches of long-forgotten wars and soaked in the blood of enemies turned to dust in the wind of ages. He looked at Shay and saw a vicious smile on her lips that echoed his own.

"Let's go to war, my treasure."

"There's my husband," she murmured, gripping his shoulders. "Good. I did not choose this body for war. I will pick another. Too bad I did not enjoy this one for long."

Maxwell placed his hands on her waist, the memory of that earlier kiss still present on his lips. "Surely we have a little time before you transition?"

She smiled knowingly. There were no further discussions that evening.