Baal-harmon. Destruction’s Regal. The subtle one. Son Of A Bitch. Damn you, Terminus.
What the Hell does Ananda want me for? I can be pretty damned sure that Gwen didn’t manage to attract his attention on her own.
Protocol. Gift? …..no. Too much like sucking up. Besides, what would I give out? Storeyville Resort gift certs? All in all I’d rather not have Murder as a guest.
Wonder how much of City Back’s electrical grid I could curse to hell and gone. Not that I want to. Gwen seems to be unharmed. No gratuitous insults so far. And I’d rather go on breathing.
MACY rested as best she could with Joktan somewhere in the Chancel, which is to say badly. Joktan, Joktan, how to nettle Joktan?
A prayer interrupted her musings: Jessica. Jessica managed to bypass Macy’s evasions and convey her message. She’d had enough of being supergeriatric and wanted Macy to either fix her or retire – kill – her.
Macy went to Locus Noctis and from there via fairy ring to Jerusalem. She studied the political and social situation vis a vis the Palestinians and Israelis for some time and concluded that the best way to de-scorn the place was to twist some incident involving representatives of all parties wherein they would have to work together and could – with help – develop a little mutual respect. She perched atop a building and listened.
JUNE couldn’t contact Hank. Little did she know that Terminus had struck both Hank and Vera with amnesia. In Vera’s case she’d nearly forgotten how to talk. Hank’s instincts kicked in and he ran, hopped a bus to Chicago.
Meanwhile June was on Alcatraz Island where the ground shuddered in reaction the the Excrucian Pet while Iaziz And Company – all his shards and minions -- drew nearer on a tourist boat. June caused the tourists to all point their flash cameras at the magnificently photo-worthy Excrucian and blind him for a moment. June used it to make her anchor part of a crumbling concrete wall, then search for the Pet. She intends to twist it so that it would be useless to Iaziz.
TERMINUS had timeshifted to February 1973 and gone to Wounded Knee, South Dakota and nettle Meon, Desecration’s Regal, by un-desecrating things from a Lakota perspective. The improved Ghost Dance was not working against Meon’s influence. Terminus went ahead and used the power given him by the Excrucian Strategist Iaziz. He shoved the Alien Death Blade into the ground and spread the energy about reinforcing the Sioux shamans’ efforts with power that could ignore the time-stresses binding everything native to our Reality.
Next he visited his Noble Sister June’s husband and struck him down with the wasting disease (via poison apple – Terminus is a traditionalist) that had made much of June’s pre-Ennobled life a kind of Hell.
Terminus returned to the present day and collapsed in hideous pain. It took him some time to sort it out. The alien power had strengthened the Ghost Dance to the point where those empowered by it were practically unkillable, immune to Death. In the intervening forty years word had spread around, the Ghost Dance ritual was shared with tribal peoples and rituals resembling it had started to work too. Even among the rest of Earth’s population it was known that some men had learned to beat Death.
DONNER checked in with the Chancel’s Camorra liaison and learned that Lord Entropy had assigned Baalhermon, Destruction’s Regal, to nettle him. Destruction was the subtlest of Entropy’s Powers. The Camorran suggested a Destruction of Trust between Donner and his anchors. Donner denied that there was any such Trust; he preferred Obedience. So much for making a deal with Meon or the advantage of having Joktan right there in the Chancel where he could be watched. Wait… Was that really Joktan?
Donner attempted to contact Gwen to warn her. No dice. He Divined her location: zip. Not on Earth then. He zapped to New Orleans and then to City Back and tried again --- lots of electricity there, made Earth look sad by comparison --- and found her. She was very, very nervous and so paranoid that she used elaborate circumlocutions even in mental speech. Donner boosted his Aspect and searched her locus for electronic equipment, bugs, cameras, etc. She was in a football stadium sized penthouse office and not alone. There was Emma LaRue, the Power of Cities, some big hairy brute standing a good 7’ tall and weighing at least 300 pounds, a veiled woman and someone who fritzed out the cameras every time he paced in front of them. Shit.
Donner told Gwen to hang tight and zapped back to the Chancel. He pulled Thunderbolt out of its hidey-hole and did a little research in the library. Then he put Thunderbolt back. The brute was Murder, the veiled woman probably the Fourth Age and the unseeable one Ananda His Own Self, Lord of the Infinite and the future ruler of the Fourth Age. Donner looked up protocol for visiting an Imperator in his own Chancel. It was an honor, really, in a Fuck Me kind of way. He loaded up on flowers and wrote a note to Amaciel. The Boss replied immediately, "Don't start a war."
Donner prayed to Cities from City Back.
“Donner, I’m sure you’ve located us by now.”
“Yes. What is this about?”
“We need to talk.”
“Alright, provided you guarantee safe passage for me and my agent. So far as I know neither I nor any member of my Familia is at odds with any member of yours.”
Cities swore it by the Fourth Age.
JUNE watched a sort of big, metal Venus Flytrap writhe out of the shattering ground, biting the air.
TERMINUS swore off time travel forever.
DONNER, wearing Armani and all the confidence he could manage, reminded himself that it’s good to be the thunder god.
Want to be carried? –Donner
Always –Lust
Can’t talk—I’m making as ass of myself.
--Jackie, putting words in Justin’s mouth.
I wish I could belch on command. –D.
That’s what a husband is for. –Jackie
[Braaaaaap.] – Doyce
It’s from my heart to yours. – Lust, on giving herself a deadly wound.
I am hurt to my heart – Jurai (of the Camora)
Don’t talk to me about hearts. – Lust
This is an aspect five whistle. – Lust, trying to get Orachi’s attention.
It’s about time…Oh. It's you, Raddy… –Orachi, on meeting Radmanghast again.
Baroness, may I have a word with you? –Orachi
Is that me? –Lust
Yes, you're a Baroness. --HG
Do you really want to lip off to something that can kill you? –HG
I’m already bleeding. –Lust
You’re already halfway [to death]. –HG
A third of the way there, technically. –Lust.
You are an impudent soul… --Orachi
I am certainly not one to give advice on emotional matters. –Orachi
Matters of the heart? –Lust
Yes, an impudent soul. –Orachi
Who wished to be a guest? – Donner
Lord Joktan –Griv
Jackie’s fingers freeze on the keyboard…
You didn’t say no. –Donner, on letting Joktan into the chancel.
I said no lots of times. –Lust
1. Hank
Beer. A dark bar that smells like shit. A woman in sloppy clothes drools on the other side of the booth. After enough years, the sculpture underlying a life breaks free of the possibilities it might have had, and only the true form remains. Makes you wonder what kind of artist would consistently turn out such sloppy work. Same damn thing happens all the time; nothing else left to happen. Beer. And drooling women. And booths in dark bars that smell like shit. This is the shape of my life.
I should find June. She has this way of making the chisel marks look less like scars.
2. Escape to Alcatraz
I hate looking into the fairy-lands. I used to get migranes from time to time. It just reminds me of that moment before the migrane comes on, too squint and see critters running around where things should be. You know it’s coming, you know there’s nothing you can do, and out of the corner of your eye are things nobody’s meant to see. I keep waiting for the pain to take over.
I followed the spirit blood out of the corner of my eye to a place off the bay. Alcatraz, Jonathan said. My goodness, if that isn't a place out of the picture shows. I don’t know why it struck me this way (not the kind of thing I’d go remembering, if I’d seen it), but looking at that island made me think of something dead that had been crawled into by something else, eating it from inside out.
We took a boat out there, the waves knocking us around, and beat that Iaziz out there by a couple of minutes. I waved to them, and headed in.
It was like walking in a dream. First Azgard and now the long-hall of Utgard, Fungus stood outside himself seeing everything from a spores-eye view. A figure that looked nothing like him was calmly talking with Ratatosk and Hrungyr. Ratatosk beings, “You are familiar with the legends of Ragnorak?” Of course I am they are as familiar to me as mother’s milk. I grew on them just as surely I suckled at her breast.
He goes on to explain that Ragnorak is a cycle, recounted over and over again. The Norns knew it because they control fate. One by one the gods discovered its true nature. My world was connected to Jotunheim by way of the bi-frost bridge. The life of the gods came to us in myth and stories. They felt real because they were real here. Does that mean that my own life and suffering was pre-determined by the Norns or some other force?
A world serpent, Amaciel came and negotiated for aspects of Ragnorak to be taken away and the cycle changed the connection with my world was lost and the bi-frost bridge now connects to the world tree. Was it really the loss of the aspects of Ragnorak that change the cycle and the bridge between our worlds or was it our own changing world that no longer had a place for the old gods that broke the connection? Many of the gods left to join Amaciel others wandered off to other tasks.
When the Excrucians came Jotunheim was poorly protected. The gods razed Azgard and destroyed the bi-frost bridge so the Excrucians could not use it against my world and others. But the spirit of the bridge was not destroyed and the enemy has rebuilt the bridge. Amaciel has delivered weapons that could destroy the spirit of the bridge. My lord stripped this world of resources to protect our own and now he sees the irony that fate has placed before him. It is only too late the he sees the value of the pawn that protects the king’s flank.
The Giant Hrungyr rumbles “We have decided that they will not have that, if we can prevent it.” It is a shockingly short list - Ratatosk (Stories), Einmyria (Ashes), Eisa (Embers), Thrud, Head of the Valkyries and Hrungyr. I don’t know how I a starving peasant can help them, but I most aid the gods in this task. I wonder if Punishment will feel the kinship of her old world.
I pray to Punishment and Guilt to share the news in turn I get news of my own. - Amaciel and Cathetal were once one.
