Godslayers

“Wait, we’re going in like this?” I asked. “No weapons, no armor?”

“Apprentice,” Aulof said in a tone of precisely modulated disappointment.

“Okay, fiiine,” I said. “I’m the weapon. Happy?”

He gave me a measured nod.

“Great. Because I’m pretty sure the Old Ways don’t have any nonsense about ‘I am the armor.’”

Val guffawed exactly once. That was still more guffaws than I’d ever heard from him.

Markus was stripping down to his wrap and his underwear—although, given that it was Markus, that didn’t really mean much. Val had just shrugged off his tunic, revealing a form-fitting holster underneath his left arm. Neither of them seemed bothered by the stormwater splattering all over their skin, securing their rebreathers unhurriedly.

Meanwhile, Aulof slipped out of his tunic and demonstrated that he was definitely the member of this team you least wanted to fuck with. Two of those collapsible spears he loved so much were slung across his back, and he’d strung a belt of explosive charges across his stomach. The garment had been loose enough I’d had no idea he was packing any of this shit, and I was suddenly feeling very stupid for landing on him an hour ago.

Like, those probably weren’t the kind of explosives that detonated on impact, but it just wasn’t the most comfortable thought.

I left my clothes on, approaching the little mini-lake that supposedly led to Horcutio’s secret temple. It wasn’t more than a hundred feet across. The circular lip that surrounded it was covered in bright, abstract mosaics that made it look incongruously to my American ass like a public swimming pool. And maybe the locals used it that way, but it was also clearly a living ecosystem. The storm was frothing up the water’s surface, but in the shallower parts near this end, there was evidence of plant life.

“I thought we wanted the Varasites to hit all these,” I said.

“And they will have,” Aulof said with a shrug. “We’ll dedicate the battle to Varas.”

He looked around at the empty, storm-battered streets, then took a running start and dived gracefully into the lake. Markus followed—much less gracefully, with a joyful whoop.

Val looked at the water, bemused, then turned to me.

“Don’t turn around,” he said out loud. “Check my feed.”

I nearly turned around anyway before I caught myself and did as he suggested. At a mental nudge from him, I expanded his view of a rooftop over my shoulder. I blinked in surprise at a dark shape, resolving after a moment into the familiar face of a girl hidden under a cloak.

“Holy shit,” I said. “Good catch. How the fuck did you see her?”

“That’s your friend from earlier, isn’t it?” Val said. “Determined little thing. We’ll have to make a point of associating with your Estheni marks to feed the rumor mill.”

It wasn’t lost on me that he hadn’t answered the question, but what he said next put me so off guard I didn’t press it.

“The commander is gambling our lives here,” Val said, meeting my gaze evenly. “Quite on purpose. If Kives wants to betray us, catching all of us outside the Ragnar is an opportunity he believes she won’t pass up. This would land us all in the crypt, which would trip the Ragnar’s emergency protocols and send us home. The Eifni Organization can then return with an extermination fleet and eliminate the uppity oracle. He’s taken pains not to say it explicitly, but in light of your status as a… let’s say a Velean foundling, I thought it best to give you the explicit opportunity to consent to a possible suicide mission.”

His face was terrifyingly blank, poison-green eyes intelligently noting every micro-expression on my face. I’d left his feed up, and was now treated to a vision of my face through his eyes—the way his attention lingered on the movements of my eyes, the creasing on my forehead, the set of my lips. For a sudden, vertiginous moment of freefall I could see myself thinking more clearly than I could feel my own thoughts.

I closed his feed with an effort of will. That left me staring at an absolute stone wall of a man as he stood unmoving in the storm. My comm gave me no hints as to his intentions, but even as a “Velean foundling”—seriously, fuck you Val—I could tell the vibes were off.

“That doesn’t add up,” I said. “The moment you said it out loud, Kives would know what the consequences are.”

“Ah,” Val said, with the flattest tone of surprise I’d ever encountered. His eyes flickered over my shoulder. “How clumsy of me. And with a witness, too. Not that she knows what she’s witnessing, but there are resonances to these things.”

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” I said. “Because it looks like fucking treason from here, and you’re too damn smart to just announce it like this. I feel like if you actually went rogue, it’d be some weirdass 5D chess thing where you pull the rug out from everyone after it’s way to late to stop you.”

I had my knife hidden under my shawl. He had easier access to his pistol, but I knew his augmentations were less combat-optimized than mine. All I had to do was hit the gun with the knife once. Then I’d be the only one with a weapon and the fight would be pretty much decided.

Val’s examination of my face paused, then he laughed and raised his arms non-threateningly.

“I’m not going to fight you, Lilith. I thought you’d approve. We’ve just secured billions of lives with a handful of sentences.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “You know I give a shit about that. Do you?”

“Fuck you,” he said, noting my surprised reaction with amusement. “Oh, did you think you were the only one here with feelings? Of course I care. But”—he’d timed it perfectly, I was just in the middle of processing the previous bombshell and now I was just reeling—“a good Velean never does anything for only one reason. It furthers my goals to continue operating here, and I believe it will advance the rest of your careers as well. So yes, Kives may consider herself forewarned. If she’s too stupid not to take obvious bait, she is of no use to any of us.”

Something about that phrasing sounded off, but I decided I was done dealing with Val’s bullshit.

“Alright, man,” I said. “If it’s cool with you, I’m gonna go do the mission before the commander thinks we’re plotting a mutiny or something.”

Val smiled indulgently and raised an inviting arm toward the lake, like some kind of crazy, sinister, bare-chested butler. Tightening the straps of my rebreather, I retreated toward the water and backflipped into it.

I flipped off a certain rooftop on the way down.

*

The sea tunnels were actually pretty cool. There was a bunch of bioluminescent gunk on the walls that made it possible to see where you were going. I’d anticipated more of a straight shot down to the temple, but it seemed like there were multiple exits from the more or less straight shaft we’d plunged into.

I could see Markus and the commander heading for one of them in particular, near the bottom of the shaft. My ears had automatically locked themselves down against the pressure. I floated there for a moment, enjoying the calm. I’d always loved the water as a kid. My hands were stinging like mad in the salt water, but I’d been carrying the medical translator around ever since Enochletes saw me use it—didn’t want anyone rummaging through my shit and melting themselves on accident—and it was nearly done repairing them.

Val dived into the water ten feet away, his form immaculate. Without so much as a sidelong glance, he began swimming down to catch up with the others.

I decided to work smarter, not harder. A quick visual sweep of the area revealed a biggish-looking rock, which I levered out of its position. Being underwater made it easier to carry, but not that much. I staggered toward the open draft of the shaft and heaved myself out into open space. Gravity did the rest.

I shot Val a shit-eating grin as I passed him, hair streaming in the water behind me.

Markus and Aulof had left the main shaft by the time I reached their level, so I ditched the rock and chugged after them. I probably should have taken off the hakmir; it was causing a lot of drag. Oh well, it’s not like I could have just ditched it up on the surface like the team had done with their shirts.

The bioluminescence was here too, illuminating the silhouettes of schools of tiny fish that scattered as we passed. It coated the walls and the floating streamers of plant matter that hung off the wall in tentacle-y patches. I also saw a cute turtle, but didn’t know if it was the kind of turtle that bites your fingers off and I wasn’t super interested in finding out.

The tunnel forked a couple times, but Aulof and Markus seemed to know where they were going. It took me a minute or two to realize I could scan for the temple myself, at which point I too had a beacon pointing me in the right direction.

The hint we’d reached our destination were the columns. The tunnel curved slightly upward until we breached the water’s surface in a small grotto. The bioluminescence was strongest here, lighting up the water like a hotel swimming pool and casting beautiful spiderweb reflections on the grotto’s ceiling. Rows of columns pointed us toward the far end of the cave, which was dominated by what was apparently a statue of Horcutio.

I’d sort of assumed he was supposed to look like Poseidon, but they’d depicted the Lord of Tempests lounging on a simple throne like the disaffected son of a CEO. Instead of the beefcake look that Markus loved so much, he cleaved more to the Estheni ideal—still in good shape, but leaner, a little more effeminate. There was a splat as one of the commander’s explosive charges attached itself to his face.

“Where’s Val?” Aulof asked.

“Behind us,” I said.

Did I sell him out here? No, I decided. Not until I had more information. “There was someone watching us.”

“Hm,” said the commander. “Well, disguise changes for the rest of us. We’ll have to figure out what to do about you. Here.”

I took the proffered spear—which, in its collapsed state, just looked like a thin metal club. My comm initiated contact with its primitive internal mechanisms the moment it touched my palm. The three of us waded through increasingly shallow water until we reached the statue. I leaned against it.

I cast a glance up at the explosive booger on Horcutio’s face.

“Man, wouldn’t it be funny if that blew up and killed all of us?”

Markus laughed. The commander eyed me searchingly. In a sudden flash of insight, I realized that—through some information vector I’d completely failed to account for—I’d somehow given Val up. Fucking Veleans.

Aulof did not, as I’d feared he would, immediately murder me. Instead he snorted and pursed his lips, the Velean equivalent of an eye roll.

Val breached the surface at the other end of the grotto. The commander twirled his spear once to deploy it; I copied him, inexpertly. I could feel the slight shift as the spear’s internal translator removed the separations between its components. Inspired, I told the medical translator that the seawater all over me was actually sweat and told it to start siphoning it away. The correspondence was poor enough that it didn’t really bump the reserves at all, but the important thing was that I was drying out.

The commander gave Val a very even look at he reached us—which Val ignored—and then we were assembled. The rest of the temple was hidden behind a heavy flap, probably to help keep the moisture contained to the entrance room. The commander pushed through first, followed by me and then Val, with Markus bringing up the rear.

The room we emerged into was once a cave, but had been clearly expanded. There were clear transitions between the natural stone formations and the smoothed surfaces of human industry, which had been entirely painted over with frescos of oceanic battles. Sunlight, of all things, illuminated a patch in the center of the room, where it gleamed all over a golden sculpture of an octopus. There were a handful of religious functionaries standing about, who we’d clearly interrupted when we barged in here unannounced.

“Who are you?” demanded the oldest of them, when he saw our spears.

“I am a warrior of the Old Ways,” Aulof replied, settling into a stance.

In the room behind us, Horcutio’s face exploded.

*

I spun my spear to the side, deflecting the scimitar that was seeking my face. That put the speartip down, letting me skewer the other guy’s foot. The dude reflexively tried to pull the injured foot away, with messy consequences. He fell, howling. I didn’t have a moment for the coup de grace because there were two more of these fuckers coming at me with tridents. I ripped the spear out of the downed man’s foot and braced myself.

Whatever the deal was with these two, they had amazing chemistry. I would dodge one attack only to find myself in the path of the other guy’s anticipatory stab. The fact that I was using a collapsible CQB short spear made it possible to fight in these conditions at all, but it had the disadvantage of leaving me outranged by their glorified fishing hooks. I was stuck on defense, and this dinky little hallway off the main atrium didn’t leave a lot of room for maneuver.

Now that I thought about it, it was pretty stupid of these guys to bring tridents into these conditions. The fact that it was working out for them just added insult to injury.

“Lilith. Drop now.”

Val’s voice cut through the battle and I didn’t hesitate, launching myself onto my back as far away from the tridents as I could manage. My opponents showed brief surprise on their faces before two shots of a disruptor pistol cracked out and they collapsed to the floor as semiotically savaged piles of meat.

“Tridents?” Val said, walking calmly to my position. “In these environs?”

“I know, right?” I said, hauling myself to my feet.

A chorus of shouts echoed down the hall, then three dudes charged at us from around the corner. Val shot them too, then finished off the guy I’d downed. In the face.

“Fuck, man,” I said. “Fight fair, why don’t you.”

Val looked at me sidelong.

“No.”

We walked down the hallway, Val paying special attention to the ceiling as we gradually descended downward. The corridor was dimly lit by ghostlights, like they had back in Vitareas, illuminated walls and flooring that were quite precisely tiled. Arches marked distance at regular intervals. The overall vibe was very clean and inviting, although the blood trickling over the flooring tiles did ruin the effect a little.

“Here,” Val said eventually.

I held out my hand. “Please? Please please please please?”

“This seems like a poor behavior to reinforce,” he said, but gently placed an explosive charge in my hand.

The gel capsule felt a little rubbery, like those omega-3 pills your mom forces you to take to help your brain development or whatever, and then you bite down because it seems like it oughta be candy but actually the inside is full of this rancid fish oil stuff and you’re definitely not bitter about it twenty-odd years later. I hurled the softball-sized capsule with a little too much force at the arch Val had indicated.

It stuck with a satisfying noise.

“This will be our exfiltration point,” said Val, settling into a sitting position against the wall. “If you’ll excuse me, I now need to remote-pilot the Ragnar’s translation engines to tunnel us out of here. Go assist the commander.”

“Sure thing,” I said, resting my spear against my shoulder. “You gonna be okay here?”

Val looked sardonically at the gun in his lap.

“Sheesh,” I said. “Can’t blame a girl for asking. Right, later then.”

Val nodded in farewell, leaving me to find my way back. I took my time. Rampaging through the temple caverns makes it kinda difficult to check the rooms as you pass, and I was looking for something in particular.

“Anyone seen anything about the Crown of Horcutio yet?” I subvocalized.

I was poking around in what was clearly a residential space, and thus unlikely to have the documents Erid had asked me to acquire, but you never knew. Maybe they had a library around here and someone had checked it out as light bedtime reading.

“Sorry,” Markus said. “Not a lot of documents here in general.”

“Nothing here, either,” Aulof chimed in. “I’m prepping the sanctuary and could use another pair of hands.”

“On it,” I said, beelining for him.

The temple complex was laid out asymmetrically—a consequence of its origin as a natural cave system, most likely—with the residential wing meandering snakelike into the earth and a series of utility rooms clumped onto some tunnels on the other side. I basically had to jog across the whole area to meet up with the commander, leaping over the prone bodies of former acolytes and trying not to slip in puddles of blood.

I had step carefully once I reached the sanctuary, as there were three bodies lying on top of each other in the doorway. Each one was wearing shimmering blue robes that were stained black from mortal wounds. I squeezed past them, trailing bloody bootprints into the holiest place in this cave.

The walls were adorned in simple wave and storm motifs, drawing the eye toward a regal fresco at the back of the room. Horcutio stood mightily, one foot on the sea floor and and one extended Captain Morgan style onto the shore. With one arm he sheltered a fleet against the winds; with the other he thrust a sword into the heavens to part the clouds in two. Stylized curls extended from beneath his crown and from his beard.

The sound of running water came from a grate in the center of the room, which sported an angled floor—apparently for better drainage. The altar set above that grate signaled its probable intended purpose, but the tables had turned. Those who had shed blood into that grate were now the ones bleeding out into it.

“Note the sunshine,” the commander said as I entered. “They had the same back in the atrium. Obviously you’d need a source of fresh air down here, but it’s interesting for other reasons.”

“You mean it should be pouring rain down here?” I asked.

“The Estheni have glassblowers.” Aulof had soaked a torn section of garment in blood, and was scrawling a messy script across the temple walls. “But what happened to the storm?”

“Huh.”

I looked around the room, in which various treasures rested on display stands. Some of these had been knocked over—from the commander’s fight, I assumed. The closest thing to a crown was a jeweled mask.

“Pick up a rag and get to defiling,” said the commander. “Use an existential proxy. You’ve already got one god after your scent.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I leaned my spear against the wall and tore off a section of robes from one of the corpses. Her throat had been opened, and from the expression on her face, she’d died terrified. Sucks to suck, lady. I might have softened a little on the combatant status of innocent villagers, but I was fresh out of sympathy for anyone enabling a soul-eating parasite.

I headed straight for Horcutio, bloody rag in my hand.

“Does it matter what I write?” I asked.

“Pro-Varas slogans would be best,” said the commander. “But just about anything would work. The blood of the faithful is already a potent symbol.”

“Mm.” I closed my eyes, stepping into that space where I wasn’t doing Varas’s work—just doing what Lilith would do. I became myself as hard as I could manage, then looked up at Horcutio.

Lilith wuz here, I wrote over his face.

“Hey, Aulof?” I asked as I worked.

“Yes?”

“I lost some memories,” I said. “I think from the flash. I had surfing lessons when I was a kid and—well, they’re gone. They didn’t make the jump when I died.”

Aulof nodded, not looking up from whatever he was writing on the wall. I didn’t recognize the language.

“That’s common,” he said.

“Okay, but like,” I started, struggling to put it into words. “You said that only the stuff that didn’t matter would stay behind. I thought that meant… like, I remembered that I had these memories. But they’re gone.”

“It can be harsh sometimes,” Aulof said. “Dying is usually the worst way to discover you’re not the person you thought you were. My first body was male; I had no idea how readily I’d take to femininity, or to the absence of romantic love. My gender, my forays into romance—they were accidents of the body I’d happened to be born in, but it took a long time to come to terms with the arbitrariness of it all.”

“They were just fucking surfing lessons,” I said, walking back to the grate to sponge up more blood. “Like, objectively this is a stupid thing to be worrying about. But… I don’t know, I guess I did think that was part of me on some level. Most people didn’t have surfing lessons as kids. I know that makes me sound, like, conceited, and I don’t really mean it that way, but…”

“It was something unique about you,” Aulof finished for me.

“Yeah. And now it’s gone.”

Blood rag refilled, I was able to finish writing All your temple are belong to us.

“You might be trying too hard,” the commander offered. “It was a life-and-death situation. Sometimes people choke under those conditions.”

“I guess.”

“I noticed something else when you were talking,” Aulof said. “The part that seemed relevant to your identity wasn’t that you knew how to surf, it was that you’d taken surfing lessons. And the memory of that fact, you did actually retain after the flash.”

“Don’t say it like that!” I whined.

“Why not?”

“It sounds so fucking… I don’t know, shallow. It’s dumb to care about something I can’t even do.”

Aulof shrugged, heading back toward the pile of corpses. “I’m sure you’ll come to terms with it eventually.”

I narrowed my eyes. That was a very Velean response, and none of the layers said anything I liked.

“Bah,” I articulated intelligently. “I think I’m out again.”

“I think our inkwell’s dried up,” Aulof said.

I cast a mournful glance at my last, unfinished piece of artwork: I can haz cheezb, with the rest of the word ineffectually scraped out on the fresco with my drying rag. A hand tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to see Aulof offering me three whole explosive capsules.

“Let’s finish up here,” he said.

I smiled. “You know just how to cheer a girl up."