War of Gods, page 65
part #3 of Paternus Series
59
Erset La Tari 21
Pratha Rising
The locusts beat down upon the Deva in an endless barrage. Mrs. Mirskaya’s lightning is losing power, her voice growing feeble. Sekhmet is forced to one knee by the pressure against her shield. Even Freyja staggers.
With a groan, Pratha tries to rise. Freyja says, “Prathamaja Nandana, be still!”
The tempest roar of the locusts changes, growing higher in pitch. The sky above darkens, then beams with white light. The locusts cease their assault. The Firstborn women breathe in relief, and all eyes rise to the sky.
The swarms strain against the sucking wind, but are drawn inexorably into a funnel cloud of astonishing proportions.
Buffeted by gale-force winds, Fi’s group halts to marvel at what looks like a white tornado. Farther away, over the swamp and ocean, locusts are able to escape its pull, but those above the field are being sucked into its beaming core of light. There’s the sound of a thousand chipping machines and the core sparks silver and gold. Fragments of locusts spew from the top of the cyclone, chopped to bits like they’ve passed through a blender.
The grinding sound lessens and the tornado spins down. The glowing core dims and Ganesh rotates to a stop, his three blades notched and smeared with locust gore. Breathing deeply, his red eyes gleam over the field.
Myrddin gazes up, mouth hanging open. He’s gashed from locust strikes, soiled with dirt and blood. An eerie calm settles over the field. Only the shrieks of Typhon and harsh rush of his blasting flame as he does battle with Aegir near the sea can be heard.
The locusts stay back, a circling hurricane on the bruised horizons. Hundreds of thousands of them. Perhaps millions. The Deva are merely in the eye of the storm.
Azh flaps down and alights among them. He’s marked with soot and blood, but the bleeding from Ziz’s teeth marks has slowed to a trickle. He waddles to Quon Kiang, who places a hand on his knobby shoulder. Azh heaves a heavy sigh.
Ganesh floats to touch down, though not as lightly as he once did. He sheathes his swords back into the aether. He’s scratched and bleeding, one of his ears badly torn, and even The Elephant appears fatigued. But his concern is not for himself. His soft eyes fall on The First Daughter. “Prathamaja Nandana...”
Pratha’s eyes meet his, but she says nothing.
The others crowd closer. Rumbles and shrieks erupt from the Asura that surround them as they prepare to resume the battle.
Myrddin swallows and says, “We could go...” They look to him.
“Where?” Freyja says with derision.
“Our world. Gather our strength and return.”
“When Khagan has also gathered his? You are a fool.”
“Perhaps Father—”
Freyja snaps at him. “Perhaps Father is not coming back.”
The others shift uncomfortably at the thought.
Myrddin looks to the mountain. “Khagan has still not taken the field… I cannot help but wonder if he may be up to something more than simply enjoying the view.”
“And if he has other nefarious plans,” says Freyja, “what would you have us do about it?”
Myddin has no answer.
“Sister Freyja has the right of it,” says Ganesh. “We must continue, come what may.”
Quon leans on his staff and looks down upon them. “Deva we have lived, and Deva we shall die.” The women narrow their eyes at him. Azh squawks. “When we die, that is,” Quon adds. “I did not mean it will be today, necessarily.”
Shouts and roars and the clang of weapons erupt from outside the perimeter in the direction of the swamp. Asura bodies go flying, green fire flashes as those brought back are returned to the dead, and Gog crashes through, trampling the enemy as he comes.
The Aesir and Valkyries are right behind him, and with them are Fi, Pruor, Mol, Edgar, the colonel, and a menagerie of Greens, ogres, and exhausted human soldiers.
Gog and the Aesir spin to guard the rear. Quon and Azh join them. The enemy does not pursue – for the time being.
Mrs. Mirskaya exclaims her relief, hugs Fi, and smiles at Edgar. She takes stock of their group. “Where is Akhu? I can no longer speak with her.”
“I was going to ask you that,” says Fi.
“Lady Akhu has passed on to the next life,” Ganesh reports with sadness in his voice. All go silent. “And I feel that Phanuel-Seval is with her.” The group reacts with sobs and moans of sorrow.
Typhon’s roar draws Ganesh’s gaze. The monstrous Elemental is driving Aegir back, toward Aegir’s Billow Maiden daughters and the main force of Greens, who are fighting their way up the slope of the plateau in the distance. Ganesh looks back over the group, then to Pratha.
“Go,” she whispers. Their eyes meet and linger there, then he nods somberly and transports himself away.
A shrieking caw from above causes all to jump. The Ravens streak from the sky, clutching each other, and slam to the dirt just inside the perimeter, throwing up feathers and splattering mud and blood. They lie in a heap, one atop the other, chillingly silent and still.
Fi is the first to dash toward them. She skids to them on her knees. Hugin lies on top, wings out. Blood leaks from beneath the plate in his head, feathers are plucked from his hide, his skin scratched and bloody beneath.
The others gather near, craning to see. Fi reaches a shaking hand and flops Hugin to the side. Munin’s little sword is stuck through Hugin’s breast – but Munin is bloodied as well, and he isn’t moving.
Fi’s hand flies to her mouth and she grabs her chest, as if she has taken a blade to her own heart. Munin takes a rasping breath, then exhales and inhales rapidly while staring at the sky with his big wet eyes.
“Munin,” Fi croaks. She wants to touch him, to comfort him, but she’s terrified she’ll aggravate his wounds.
His eyes find hers, and he smiles.
“You’re going to be okay,” Fi says, then repeats it as if trying to convince herself. “You’re going to be okay.”
With great effort, Munin raises his arm in salute. Then he can keep his eyes open no longer. With a sigh, they close, and his little hand slumps to the ground.
“No...”
“Let me to him.” Freyja pushes her aside, then snatches Munin up and walks away, mumbling words, one glowing hand pressed to his chest.
Khagan scowls, a low rumble forming in his throat.
“What is it, Iblis?” Kleron queries.
Khagan’s gaze snaps to him at the use of his Truename, and his eyes flash. Kleron doesn’t flinch. Khagan’s eyes return to normal. “Hugin is dead.” At the questioning look on Kleron’s burned face, Khagan taps his own head. “I know.” He gazes out at the field, and in a low voice says, “Goodbye, Little Brother.”
The Great Khagan’s forces still outnumber the Deva and their allies thousands to one, and all around, hundreds of thousands of locusts have survived, and await.
A roar like a freight train approaching grows louder. The Deva turn, watching and listening. Khagan’s terrible voice booms from the mountain, and a pillar of wind blasts down from the clouds, blowing away the fog from the area where they stand, leaving them bare and open to the sky.
The darkness that circles on the horizons contracts. Locusts diving from the heights of the inward edge give the impression of a 360-degree waterfall. They’re coming back. All of them. And they sound pissed.
The Asura that surround them back away, not liking the look of the swarm any more than the Deva do.
Mrs. Mirskaya holds out her arms, trying to call back the fog. Khagan’s intonation rises. Her voice quakes and arms shake, then she nearly collapses, barely able to hold herself up with her hands pressed to her knees.
The locusts keep coming, much thicker than before, and there’s nowhere to go.
With a pained groan, Pratha pushes unsteadily to her feet.
“Pratha, you are not well,” scolds Mrs. Mirskaya.
Pratha glares at the locusts closing in. “I am well enough to do what must be done.”
She closes her eyes. Arms out, palms up, she chants. Blue light emanates from her body. The ground trembles. Rocks bounce and begin to rise. And so does she.
Higher and higher she floats, glowing brighter and brighter. Drawn by the light and her words, the locusts follow.
Khagan speaks in his dreadful language, but the locusts do not obey. He shouts his terrible words, calling upon his fell power. His armor beams red.
Pratha’s eyes snap open, gleaming gold, fixed upon her son.
Khagan’s power flows to his weapon. He aims it at Pratha and looses a hellish beam of red lightning.
Chanting louder, Pratha thrusts out a hand, blocking the searing blast with a shield of blue. The blast keeps coming. Pratha strains, keeping it at bay, then pushing it away.
Khagan is forced to take a step back, and he ceases firing. Then the locusts are between them and the golden eyes of his mother are blocked from sight.
Inside Pratha’s globe of protection it is nearly dark. The surface of her shield pulsates at the press of the locusts. She throws her head back, and with a shout, locusts ignite like phosphorous.
Fi and the others gape at the fire spreading from the core of the locusts, like the supernova of a tiny sun. The infernal insects at the outside scatter and flee. Those closest to Pratha are incinerated to ash, their helmets and claws reduced to slag. Further out, they fall, twirling and flaming like thousands of downed fighter planes.
And still, Pratha continues to rise. Higher and higher she goes, beyond the top of the mountains, and higher still. The locusts that are spared, still a great multitude, swarm to her, screeching their insectile rage.
Pratha quakes with the effort of holding them back. Her nose bleeds, as do her cracked lips. The blackened flesh around the infected sorcerous wound Khagan inflicted upon her throbs, pumping out black pus and blood. Her breathing comes in gulps. She furrows her brow and clutches the red pendant of her necklace.
With a word, it snaps open like a locket. From inside she draws a single grain of rice. She pinches it between her fingers, still chanting, and clenches her eyes shut. With all of her strength focused on the grain, her shield weakens, and the locusts attack. Her third eye snaps open, and she shouts.
The grain detonates with the force of an atom bomb.
60
Erset La Tari 22
Ajna Chakra
Kleron raises an arm to shield his face from the blinding flash. Khagan squints and sucks in breath through both mouths.
Ganesh draws back from Typhon, and even the titanic Elemental pauses in his conflict with the indefatigable Aegir to look to the sky.
The Deva stagger and cry out. The residual blast wave slams to the field, knocking mortals to the ground, then collapses back into a vacuum with a crack that shakes the landscape.
All but a few dozen locusts are cinders floating in the air.
And out of the sky, Pratha falls. All watch, frozen in shock, except Quon Kiang. He sprints and leaps, catches her in one hand, then lowers her gently to the ground.
The women sprint to crowd around her, including Fi.
At the peak of health, The Prathamaja Nandana may have only been injured from such a blast. Now she is terribly burned. The fingers and half the palm of one hand are gone, and one of her eyes is a bubbling socket of vitreous fluid. And yet she still takes wheezing breaths.
Freyja hands Munin, who is still unconscious but breathing, to the colonel, then kneels and places her palms on Pratha’s chest and abdomen. She mutters a mantra of healing, while Mrs. Mirskaya takes Pratha’s hand.
Freyja shakes her head. “She is dying.”
Edgar pushes his way to them, tears in his eyes. “Milady...”
Pratha is racked with a coughing fit, her ruined face clenched in agony. Sekhmet puts a hand on her forehead and whispers soothing words. The coughing subsides.
Fi says, “Can we save her?”
“Not from this,” says Freyja. “How she still lives is beyond me.”
Mrs. Mirskaya squeezes Pratha’s hand and says softly, “There is a way...”
“Mokosh,” Freyja snaps at her.
Mrs. Mirskaya will not be dissuaded. She presses Pratha’s shriveled hand to her cheek. Pratha’s remaining eye opens and looks at her. Mrs. Mirskaya says, “Take me.”
“What?” Fi asks.
Sekhmet says, “A life for a life.”
“She can do that?”
Freyja says, “She can.” She takes a deep angry breath and growls, “I will do it.”
“No,” says Sekhmet, leaning closer to get Pratha’s attention. “Allow me.”
Pratha’s glazed eye stares at the sky. Hoarsely, she whispers. “No.”
Mrs. Mirskaya pleads. “The Deva need you more than me, Sestrenka. The world needs you.”
Freyja says, “More than anyone.”
Pratha croaks, “Not.... true.”
Mrs. Mirskaya curses in Russian and says, “Listen to me once in your life, ty glupaya suka. Take me.” She sobs. “Please!”
Pratha whispers, “No.”
Fi is stunned by her sisters’ selfless offers to sacrifice their own lives for their eldest. But they’re goddesses, she thinks. The world needs them all. If anyone is going to survive, they have to live. “I’ll do it.” Her words surprise her as much as anyone else.
Pratha sits up, sweeping her arm to knock the others aside, and grabs Fi by the jaw. Her face only inches from Fi’s, she wheezes out, “I was hoping you’d say that.”
As bad off as Pratha is, her breath still smells like lilacs, eucalyptus and the resin of frankincense.
The others gasp, unsure of what to do.
Pratha squeezes, forcing Fi’s mouth open wide, then opens her own. White light passes between them.
Mrs. Mirskaya cries out, “Nyet!”
“Wait,” Freyja shouts, grabbing her arm. “Look...” The light is turning blue, and not passing from Fi to Pratha, but the other way around.
Fi doesn’t entirely comprehend what Pratha is trying to do, but she has a strong feeling it will not end well for her eldest sister. She grasps Pratha’s wrist in both hands and tries to yank it away, but Pratha is too strong, even this close to death. Then the bindi dot that marks Pratha’s ajna chakra, charred over and barely seen, opens wide to bare her third eye. And so does Fi’s.
Blue light floods from Pratha’s mouth and down Fi’s throat with increasing power, then white light beams from Pratha’s ajna chakra to Fi’s. Fi’s eyes lock open and her body convulses violently.
Pratha shrivels as the light grows so bright it drives the others back, and still she doesn’t let go.
The light flashes out. Pratha’s mouth clacks shut and her third eye closes. She’s nothing more than a husk of dried skin stretched on bone. She slumps against Fi, who still quakes, wide eyes staring at nothing, mouth hanging open, her face locked in an expression of terror and madness.
Pratha whispers in Fi’s ear, then sighs, long and final, and crumples back on the ground.
Fi’s eyes roll up in her head and she passes out, dropping to her back.
Edgar kneels next to Fi and takes her hand in his. He looks up at the others, cheeks wet with tears. “What has she done to her?”
No one answers, because they don’t know.
Bad Zeke’s voice rants, rising in volume until his gaunt face is right in front of Zeke’s, the sky in flames behind him. Bad Zeke shakes him and shouts, “Hey dipshit, wake the fuck up!” then backhands him across the face.
Abel and Cain cry out and fall back on their butts as Zeke sits up, looking like a golem made of mud. The crust peels and crumbles away from his body and a swirling wet mist scrubs his skin clean.
Zeke stares at the spectral figures that rotate around them, then looks down at where he still clutches the necklace, and lets go. The phantoms back away, nod in unison, then vanish on the wind.
Zeke remembers having his right arm torn off, but when he lifts it instinctively, it’s all there. It’s grayish, like the pinky he bit off when under the influence of The Wendigo but then grew back. He tests it by forming a fist. It works and feels like it always did. He inspects himself. Still naked, but the bruises and scratches are gone.
Only then does he realize The Twins are there, sitting in the mud, gaping at him. “Where’s Pratha?” he asks with urgency. “Where’s Fi?”
It’s like the nozzle of a firehose was shoved into Fi’s skull and opened on full, then blasted her brains clean out of her head. In its place is a chaotic frenzy of words, symbols and visions that threaten to shatter her sanity and leave her a quivering vegetable. The sound alone is unbearable, the maelstrom of emotions insufferable, the images blinding. With what reason she has left, Fi’s certain her mind is about to snap.
Spinning out of control in the cosmic storm, Fi realizes these are memories of a life. Glyphs take shape, and much like what she experienced when Pratha unlocked her ability to understand languages, they begin to link together. The noise lessens, the barrage slows, and Fi comprehends what Pratha has done.
Along with transferring what was left of her life force, she has passed on the key to all she has ever known. Fi now has unrestricted access to Pratha’s frequency to World Memory. All her knowledge, everything she has experienced, all she believes, all she has learned, invented and understood – including the First Language. It never occurred to Fi before that no one else ever used it, and now she knows why. Pratha had blocked its access with a kind of firewall. Even when Fi heard it before, she didn’t know what it meant and never remembered it after.
