Dark Goddess, page 23
“Which are what again?” Kane asked.
Brigid didn’t respond for so long, Kane almost repeated the question. At length, she whispered, “Like she said, a reckoning.”
She glanced over at Enlil, who affected not to notice.
Rhea reached the base of the ziggurat, but her steady, almost somnambulant gait did not falter. The smooth alloy skin swirled, shifted and opened. Jeweled fire spilled out. Rhea stepped through and vanished from sight. Everyone stared in silence, gaping at the unearthly beauty of the rainbow radiance.
Lilitu spoke from behind them, gloating and awestruck at the same time. “The womb of Tiamat.”
Chapter 31
At a sharp command from Lilitu, Quarlo and three of the Nephilim herded Brigid, Kane, Grant, Shizuka and Enlil toward the ziggurat. Enlil resisted, digging his heels into the deck.
“No! You cannot do this!” Enlil struck out at them, struggling. “I will not permit it!”
Lilitu snarled out a laugh. “Oh, no, my little Overlord. You have no choice.”
Enlil snarled, reaching for her throat. She evaded his grasp and snatched Brigid’s pistol from her holster. With a speed that blurred the eye, she raked the barrel of the TP-9 across Enlil’s forehead.
Crying out, he staggered and would have fallen, if not for the Nephilim at his back. They set him down on unsteady legs. Lilitu watched him. Her lips smiled, but her eyes were hateful. Blood ran down the sides of Enlil’s nose.
The throbbing glow blazing from the portal held every hue and tint in the spectrum, from brilliant rays of yellow to auras of deep purple and shimmering bands of variegated pink and red.
“Why do you want us in there?” Kane demanded, trying to keep the fear within him from building to mindless terror.
Lilitu’s smile became a fierce vulpine grin. “I do not want you in there. It is the wish and will of Tiamat. This is the night of the gods which was preordained.”
As they were force-marched to the base of the ziggurat, Kane saw what he took to be a pulsing black membrane stretched over the opening. Brigid touched it with careful fingers. “It’s some sort of force field, not cloth or anything organic.”
Kane was not comforted by her description, especially when she stepped through the field and disappeared completely from view. Taking a deep breath, he followed her. A blast-furnace gust of air scorched his face, but in spite of the heat, he felt cold.
Then he was lost in total darkness, unable to feel or sense anything but darkness. He tried to speak, but his vocal cords seemed paralyzed and although he extended his arms, he touched nothing.
Slowly, sensation and sight returned to him as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Kane stood with his companions in a dim vestibule. There was the silence of death in the cold air, and the dry, faint odor of eternity. Despite the gloom, he saw that the Nephilim had not been admitted.
“What the hell is this place?” Grant muttered, his voice sounding curiously small.
“We are within the essence of Tiamat,” Lilitu stated. “All of her ancient wisdom and ancient science are stored here. We are but dreams within her and like all other dreams, we will fade, but she will remain.”
“Nice and mythologically correct,” Brigid muttered dryly, sounding not the least impressed. “More than likely we’re in the equivalent of an access port to the ship’s main CPU. A maintenance tunnel.”
A faint, chiming melody rang through the darkness, a ghost of crystal bells, the echo of haunting music.
Lilitu moved forward. “This way.”
They walked down a narrow, low-ceilinged hall, Enlil’s gait was slow and reluctant. A pallid light shimmered down the length of the passageway, guiding them. It ended against a blank wall. A solitary seat, molded of metal, faced them. Upon it sat Rhea, very still, her hands folded over her breasts. A capsule of pale golden light surrounded her. She reminded Kane of an insect trapped in amber.
Her eyes glinted like two pieces of yellow diamond in her pale, angular face and although they were not Rhea’s eyes, they were full of a deep sorrow. For a moment, Kane’s fear was tempered by pity for the intelligence behind those eyes, entombed for thousands and thousands of years, following a single path, a program without deviation.
Brigid was the first to find her voice. “Rhea—can you hear me?”
Again came the faint music as of wind-touched crystal chimes. Rhea spoke softly, “I hear you, child of Earth. But the spirit of Rhea is blended with all of my other children. That is ever the blessing and curse of Tiamat.”
Lilitu chuckled, a sound like the buzz of a rattlesnake’s tail. “That is what Rhea was bred for—to serve as your voice, your limbs, your eyes and ears.”
Rhea’s head slowly turned toward her. Although her face did not register any particular expression, she said, “Explain.”
“You have lived long, Mother, but your existence has been restricted to these artificial catacombs. I know you want to leave them, to experience a new life, walking through green fields, breathing fresh air, knowing the touch of the sun on your face. This is my gift to you, Mother.”
A sickness rose in Kane as he began to understand.
“Explain,” Rhea said again.
“The organic body your spirit inhabits was created at the same time mine was, so like all of the overlords, it possesses a compatible genetic imprint. We will rule together, you and I. As mother and daughter, we will impose a new order on Earth, that is neither human nor Annunaki. But before that can be done—” Lilitu swung around toward Enlil “—we must depose the Supreme Council.”
“You dare not, witch!” Enlil snapped.
Lilitu regarded him with mock surprise. “Do I not?”
“No,” he grated. “To depose me, you will have to kill me.”
“And your infant mate, Ninlil,” Lilitu said sibilantly. “Do not forget her. She must die, too. I will not tolerate pretenders to the Annunaki throne.”
The sickness in Kane became a violent revulsion for the ancient, evil ways of the Annunaki. He fingered his Copperhead, loath to open fire in such a small space, but not seeing very many other options to keep Lilitu’s scheme from succeeding.
Rhea’s voice echoed hollowly. “Those of the Supreme Council who would visit violence upon others of the council will perish by it. That is the law, ever and always.”
“We will make new laws!” Lilitu shrilled, malignant fires burning in her eyes. “We are now free, not bound by the strictures of the past.”
“And that was why you kept Rhea with you?” Brigid demanded. “You figured that if Tiamat took possession of her, you would have control over her and so be exempt from the old system of Nibiruan justice.”
Lilitu pointed Brigid’s TP-9 at Enlil. “I don’t need Tiamat to exact my own justice!”
“I am the leveler of justice among the Annunaki,” Rhea said matter-of-factly.
“Then level it!” Lilitu cried, finger tightening on the trigger.
“And betimes,” Rhea went on in a detached tone, “my justice was harsh and swift.”
Her heavy-lidded eyes closed and the strange crystalline melody suddenly increased in volume.
The autopistol in Lilitu’s hand exploded with a brutal concussion and a blinding flash of flame. Lilitu shrieked, staggering on wide-braced legs, staring at fingers seared to the bone by smart metal turned molten. The stench of seared human flesh cut sharply into everyone’s nostrils.
Clutching her smoldering, mutilated hand by the wrist, Lilitu fell to her knees, keening in agony and disbelief.
Enlil voiced a deep roar of joyous fury and pounced on the kneeling figure of the woman, fitting his hands around her neck. He uttered a bellow of triumphant Nibiruan.
The bellow turned into a gargling cry of shock when his body froze, locked in position. Enlil turned toward Rhea, eyes wide and accusatory, opening his mouth to voice a demand. Instead, he cried out in frustrated fury as he arms were jerked backward, as if responding to powerful tugs of invisible puppet strings.
Then, his body armor came apart, flying away from his limbs and torso in a litter of fragments. The fragments dissolved into handfuls of glittering dust. Flesh and blood came away with the armor. Throwing his head back, Enlil screamed, tongue protruding from between his jaws.
Face wet with tears, Lilitu gasped to Rhea, “How can you do this to me? This was all for you!”
Rhea opened her eyes and when she spoke the timbre and tone were more like her own. “I share my mind with Tiamat, so she has the same memories of your cruelty as I do, sister. If the old laws are not to be obeyed, if the ancient ways are to be spat upon as barriers to individual ambition, then there is no longer any reason for Tiamat to exist as she has existed.”
She closed her eyes again and Tiamat’s voice intoned, “Nor is there a reason for any of her children to continue to subjugate and enslave one another. As long as Tiamat exists, she will be used to further these ambitions. Before this night has ended, the rule of the old gods and their old ways will come to an end.”
Enlil fell limply to the floor, blood dripping from dozens of wounds about his lean frame. The cocoon of amber light enclosing Rhea began to constrict. At the same time, the cold, crystalline music pealed, sounding note after note, increasing steadily in volume.
“That sounds suspiciously like a countdown to me,” Brigid murmured tensely.
Shielding his eyes from the lambent glow, Grant said curtly, “I think this is probably as good a time to get the hell out of here as any.”
“I agree,” Kane said vehemently. “Let’s do it.”
As he stepped toward the passageway, he glimpsed a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned back around just as Brigid plunged through the shimmering haze surrounding Rhea and secured a double-grip on her wrists.
With one swift, practiced movement, she pulled her up from the chair and draped her limp body over a shoulder.
She locked eyes with Kane for an instant and said flatly, “She didn’t ask for this.”
Before Kane could reply, the sweet tinkling of music chimed wildly through the chamber.
“I don’t think Tiamat approves,” Grant observed.
Brigid stepped past him. “She ought to be used to disappointments, particularly with the psycho crew she called her children.”
Chapter 32
The floor shivered violently beneath their running feet. As Kane put out a hand to steady himself, the vibrations running through the wall stung his fingers. He hazarded a quick over-the-shoulder glance. Coruscating light like a miniature sun going nova flared at the far end of the passageway.
Brigid stumbled, burdened by Rhea’s deadweight. Reaching out, Kane slid the unconscious woman from Brigid shoulder to his own, making the exchange as they ran.
She gave him a grateful smile. “What’s the plan?”
“The hangar bay is our best bet,” Kane answered. “We don’t have the keys to activate the threshhold.”
When the opening through the ziggurat came into view, Shizuka blurted, “It’s shrinking!”
“It’s closing!” Grant barked. “Don’t stop!”
Putting her head down, Shizuka increased her speed, legs pumping. She leaped through the opening in a headlong dive. Grant followed her half a heartbeat later, tucking his head against his shoulder.
Brigid jumped next, and Kane hurled Rhea through the aperture before springing up, arms extended before him, legs held straight and close together. A gust of heat seared his senses, followed by a deep bass hum in his ears. He felt double, glancing impacts against his heels as the portal silently sealed.
Even as he hit the floor, he realized he had avoided having his feet amputated by a fractional margin. Raising his head, he squinted through the smoke-filled bridge. The disk bearing the likenesses of Tiamat revolved in a blur of gold, shedding an iridescent radiance. A screeching rumble pressed against his eardrums.
Fragments of metal pattered down all around. The bulkheads showed cracks, and the vast deck creaked, heaved and shuddered all around them.
Overlords and Nephilim alike, half blinded by smoke, were running like panicked deer. Grant, Brigid and Shizuka were close by, looking around in confusion. Rhea stirred on the deck, eyelids fluttering.
Kane lifted his Copperhead and slowly raised himself to his knees. He was almost instantly knocked back down by a green-armored Nephilim lumbering past. The white-eyed soldier turned toward him, leading with his ASP emitter. Kane put two bullets into his forehead before he could launch a plasma bolt.
The bridge was screaming pandemonium, with overlords shouting contradictory orders and Nephilim darting about madly. Through a part in the roiling vapors, Kane saw half a dozen blue-armored men hustling Marduk toward the lift doors.
The air suddenly filled with the sizzling phosphorescent buds of ASP bolts. The plasma rounds smashed into the group of Marduk’s Nephilim from the rear, punching holes in their body armor and knocking them down. The fusillade sent them scrambling to take cover behind the control consoles.
The overlords and their Nephilim were turning on one another, like trapped animals, savagely attacking anything that strayed within their range of vision and weapons.
A cluster of Lilitu’s Nephilim hove out of the smoke, their emitters flaming. Kane and Brigid directed a barrage of gunfire in their direction. The bullets clanged against their armor, sparks flaring up at the impact points and the kinetic energy sending them staggering.
Another group of Nephilim opened fire, shooting indiscriminately. Kane flattened himself on the deck, covering Rhea.
Brigid blasted off a long staccato burst from her Copperhead, pounding dents in their breastplates. “Grant!” Kane yelled.
When the big man turned in his direction, Kane tossed him the Copperhead. Smoothly, Grant snatched the subgun out of the air and placed the stock against his shoulder, opening up with a full-auto barrage at the armored figures, regardless of their color. He ignored the plasma bolts blazing through the air around him.
The Copperhead’s line of steel-jacketed rounds tore into a purple-armored Nephilim’s head, ripping bloody chunks out of his face. Brigid’s own stream of subsonic rounds caught Overlord Shamash in his armored chest with a sound like a sledge banging repeatedly against an anvil and knocked him behind the throne.
Zu gaped up at the ziggurat and shouted in panicky Nibiruan. Kane followed his stare and felt his skin prickle with a supernatural chill. A pulsing golden flame surrounded the metal structure, and in the heart of it throbbed a ruby-red star.
“I don’t like the looks of that,” he said loudly.
Grant gave the ziggurat a glance, and retorted, “Neither does anybody else.”
The overlords stared up at the ziggurat with terrified eyes, then began a surging run across the bridge. They were hampered by their body armor and the Nephilim bunched around them in a protective bulwark. A console exploded with a bone-jarring bang and a flare of dazzling white light. Hoarse screams interwove with the echoes of the detonation.
Rhea’s upper body suddenly jackknifed up from the floor, her eyes wide and wild. “What is happening?”
Before anyone could formulate a response, her head turned to the left and to the right, absorbing and assessing everything going on around her. Pushing herself to her feet, she said crisply, “Come with me.”
“Come with you where?” Shizuka demanded.
“Come with me to stay alive,” she snapped. “The old order dies this night. Stay here if you wish to perish with them.”
After exchanging very brief glances with one another, the Cerberus warriors followed Rhea across the bridge through the haze of eye-stinging, throat-closing smoke. Brigid stroked a short burst from her Copperhead and saw a magenta-armored Nephilim jerk, lurch and fall.
Blossoms of light mushroomed up from the bases of the black pylons surrounding the ziggurat, spewing vapor and liquid. Splinters of metal swirled in the air. Great groaning shudders racked the bulkheads, the deck plates jouncing beneath their sprinting feet.
Running beside Rhea, Kane said impatiently, “I wish you’d tell us exactly what’s going on here.”
“I wish I could, too,” Rhea countered, her voice strained with exertion. “But all I have is a broad impression of Tiamat’s intentions, of her emotional state. She cannot understand how her beautiful children can be so evil. She is filled with despair and she wishes her existence to end. If you do not wish your existence to end, as well, then you must run instead of question.”
A profane retort leaped to Kane’s tongue, then he felt the heavy jolt of an explosion and a sear of heat, even through his shadow suit. He needed no further urging to run.
He, Brigid, Shizuka and Grant put their heads down and sprinted, following the surprisingly fleet-footed Rhea on a circuitous route through the smoke-occluded bridge. The astringent vapor made everyone’s throats feel raw and abraded. Frightened voices shouted in Nibiruan all around. Fountains of fiery sparks erupted. Glowing sparks of silver showered down. The smell of hot metal filled their nostrils.
Ahead of them loomed an open lift car, much smaller than the one that had whisked them up from the hangar. They leaped into it and Rhea pressed a tab on the wall, sealing the transparent door. Panting, blinking sweat from his eyes, Kane was too breathless to speak. Shizuka coughed rackingly into her fist. Her dark eyes reflected pain.
The descent stopped and the door slid into its groove, opening to reveal a short stretch of polished floor leading to an open archway. They raced for it, trying to maintain their balance and footing on the convulsing floor.
On the other side of the archway lay the docking bay and Enlil’s skimmer. Although they entered the cavernous hangar by maintenance hatch and had less distance to run, dashing across the open space made Kane feel completely exposed and naked. The slow, heavy tolling of the crystalline notes continued to echo through the vast chamber.
To Kane’s deep surprise and relief, he and his four companions reached the disk ship without mishap. They stumbled to wheezing halts around it, leaning against the smooth, slick exterior.
