Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (39 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Some indeterminate time later, I stumbled down the stairs and stood, shaking, in the courtyard. Evelyn leaned against me, herself scarcely able to stand.

We examined the remains of the Dark Men, and discovered what we had feared to be the case. They had, all of them, turned to dust. Their animating spirits ripped out by Vorthan, then dropped into the Fountain, it had become as if they had never been.

I had no tears left to give them. I stood there, in the courtyard, the Fountain roaring behind me, and I came as close as I ever have to utter despair.

There silver Karilyne came to me. Whether she had defeated Vodina outright or simply benefited from the destruction of the large, controlling jewel, I never discovered. It scarcely mattered. She, too, lived, and she had come looking for me.

She knew what had happened. She knew Baranak had died at my feet, his last energies going into me. How she knew this, too, I never discovered, though many of us possessed rudimentary telepathic abilities that manifested from time to time. Those two warriors, so alike, surely had shared a greater link, in life, than most of the rest of us.

And so I faced her, waiting for the blow to fall, for the chop of her axe or the swing of her sword. Baranak was dead, and I had no doubt she somehow blamed me for this. Blaming me had practically been our national pastime, after all. In this, though, I had to admit to myself, she was not entirely wrong. I was the only one still alive who shared any culpability; who had, in any way, contributed to his death. She surely wanted vengeance and, at that moment, I felt no strong urge to resist her.

Squaring up before me, she drew forth a sword. It was not silver, though, but golden, and much broader than the sword she usually carried.

I fought through the anger and sadness and depression, and I looked at her questioningly.

“This was Baranak’s blade,” she said flatly, “though he rarely carried it. He rarely needed it. He felt few—including you—were worthy of being struck by it.”

I nodded. That much was true, without question.

“It would only work for him—only conduct his unique form of the Power. But, in his hands, it was… formidable.”

I nodded again, wondering why she was telling me this.

She held it out to me, point down, offering the pommel.

“Perhaps, one day, you will find a use for it.”

She looked about, then back at me.

“Until then, let it serve as a reminder to you of Baranak’s sacrifice this day.”

I did not know what to say. Numbly I reached out, accepted it.

She nodded, then looked around again at the City.

“I am finished with this place,” she said. “I have no more love for it. None at all.” She paused then, meeting my eyes. “Nor for anyone in it.”

Turning about sharply on her heel, she strode away.

And that was the last time I ever saw Karilyne, the silver warrior goddess, late of the Golden City.

# # #

The human worlds survived their ordeal, not terribly worse for the wear. The demons assailing them all vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, once the events at the Fountain had concluded. I had suspected they might. Notes I found later led me to believe that Vorthan had summoned them—that he had believed all along that he could control them. He never could, though he continued to employ them till the very end. He had set them, and the Dark Men, upon us at different stages of our journey for various reasons—to herd us along, to remove us from Karilyne’s custody and put us back on the game board, to spirit Alaria away when we asked her too many questions about Arendal’s memories. He had even fought them himself, when they had gotten free of his control and looked to actually kill us, back in the bowl-shaped world.

Control. That was what he wanted. Control over demons. Control over the gods.

His creation of the Dark Men had come from that, from his work in controlling beings of power. He wanted an army strong enough to accomplish his aims, but completely obedient to him. If he could not get that from creatures from the Below, he would manufacture them in the Above, from his fellow gods. What monstrous evil. Arendal had claimed he had not known the full scope of it all, and I believed him. The same could not be said for Alaria. She had played upon the greed for power, the vanity, of both of them, from the start. Fools, all of them. Damn them to hell forever.

Evelyn was hurt more than either of us had known, there at the battle before the Fountain. I kept her with me in the City for some time and we both healed from our various wounds, visible and hidden. I would like to believe we grew closer during that time, but I know she regarded me with suspicion and distrust, even after all I had done and tried to do to make amends. She had lost so much, though scarcely more than I.

At the time of our parting, I was still unsure of her feelings. At least, I told myself that was the case. Perhaps at that time I believed it. I took her home, finally, to her mortal Earth, and left her there.

I visited Malachek some time later and sought his wisdom, but he had little to offer beyond, “Follow your heart.”

Yes, Malachek survived, as did twenty-one others who had possessed the good sense to stay away and let someone else—me—clean up the mess. The others, now including Baranak, Vorthan, Alaria, Vodina, and Arendal, were all gone, all of them, forever.

Irony of ironies: I followed my younger heart, and lived my fondest dream. I ruled in the Golden City. And served as its entire population. The others dispersed, as Malachek had done long ago, and as Karilyne had done more recently, for more exotic locales. I doubted I would see many of them again.

I reigned. At last, at long last, I reigned.

Hooray for me.

I reigned over a ghost town. Had any subjects been present to look upon the new lord of the realm, they would have been woefully disappointed. Filling the seat of power, I became a solitary and forgotten figure, who might as well have hurled himself into the Fountain along with the others.

In the end, I did the unthinkable. I abandoned my throne and my lonely outpost. Willingly I walked away from it.

I would like to believe I had matured beyond the desire to possess such a place, but the truth is not so clear-cut, or so flattering. The City, as I have said, reflected in its nature the esteem its inhabitants felt for it. With one lonely and discontented god as its only inhabitant, how glorious could it have been? And if its nature seemed cold and dismal, what did that say about the esteem I felt for it then? What did it say about me?

Thus did I come to turn out the lights and lock the gates behind me, and embark upon the long journey back down the winding Road. With the gods and Dark Men gone, the passage would be forevermore uneventful, and for that fact I found myself both relieved and disappointed. But I had no further doubts. I turned my back on my former Heaven and followed my new heart, my crisply laundered soul.

# # #

All along, when pressed, I would admit the possibility that we gods had not always held the form we now did. What we had been before, where we had come from, I did not then know. Perhaps I had known once, millennia ago, and simply forgot. Perhaps something greater, or more insidious, was to blame. But if we had indeed once been something different, something closer to human, then perhaps we were not as trapped by fate and by the great cosmic forces surrounding us as I had once believed. Perhaps other… career options… yet lay before us, if we could only allow ourselves the luxury, the agony, of change.

And so I became Markos again.

Thus, six months after my return to Mysentia, my flagship rendezvoused with the Terran Alliance fleet on the fringes of Alliance space, near Trinity, just as arranged. At the appointed time, the peace delegation from the Alliance walked across the docking link and entered my ship, to a stately and formal reception. A dozen immaculately dressed diplomats and officers led the way, with more entering behind them, and I greeted each of them in turn, introducing each to his or her counterpart on my own staff. The entire time, however, my true attentions lay elsewhere. My eyes looked past faces and over shoulders, searching the crowd, looking, looking…

There.

Bowing courteously and making quick excuses, I maneuvered around to the rear of the delegation, at last finding the person I sought.

I found I had gotten used to her wearing the black flight suit from my own ship. Now, though, she looked very different. Resplendent in her dress uniform, navy blue with polished gold buttons and red trim, the Terran flagship’s captain greeted me formally. Then she smiled.

“So, the Mysentians were willing to believe you were their leader.” Her mouth twisted in a wry grin. “And that despite your extended absence and your… remarkable physical rejuvenation.”

“It took some time to convince them all,” I replied, “but eventually they all came around.”

Taking a couple of drinks from a passing tray, I offered one to Evelyn.

“Some cling to the notion that I am Markos’s son. Others figure I discovered a fountain of youth, some restorative drug or procedure, and they hope I will one day introduce them to it. Many of my subjects have dreamed up even more bizarre explanations. Given recent events, they are not so terribly unbelievable.” I shrugged.

“In any event,” she said, “Mysentia is yours once more.”

I nodded.

“And you are… satisfied? You have personal fulfillment?”

I started to nod again, then remembered our earlier conversation, during our long journey together. A touch of anger flared within me, but I quashed it with surprising ease, and merely smiled.

“Somewhat,” I said.

A knowing smile playing about her lips, she looked away for a moment, then turned back to me, her eyes moving toward the knot of officers gathered about the tables.

“The admirals were a bit nervous about your demand that I captain this mission,” she said.

“If I have to spend time in the company of Terrans,” I replied, “the least they can do is to make one of them an old friend.”

She smiled, then looked around the room at the array of bigwigs and muckety-mucks filling most of the space.

“So, you’re going to make a truce with us, then. With the Alliance.”

“It seems prudent.” I shrugged. “And perhaps, as well, I have found some… deeply personal motivations… to work toward better relations between the Outer Worlds and your government.”

“Until the time comes to launch your next attack, either on one of your neighbors or against us,” she suggested, only half-playfully. “I know how you think.”

I placed a hand over my heart. “You wound me, lady. Surely you see that I have become a man of peace.”

She leaned in closer, looking at my hand.

“You’re not fooling me,” she said, shaking her head. “I already know there’s nothing under there.”

Then she laughed, and I deflated a bit and joined her.

“I would hate to think that were so,” I said then.

She paused, looking around the room again, and I waited. Part of me once again looked on from above in shock that a human could so disconcert me. Another part of me—now the greater part—rejoiced in her company once more. Yet it was all so awkward, so different from before. Perhaps we had both moved on, I reasoned. Perhaps I should have just been grateful for the time I had spent with her, and for what I had learned about myself during that time, and left it at that.

Turning back to me then, she bowed slightly and started to move away.

“I have to get back to running the ship,” she said.