Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (18 page)

“Well?” Evelyn called to me, after waiting for some length of time.

I crawled back out of the heap of carcasses and, grimacing, dusted myself off.

“He is not there. He must have transported himself away. Or else…”

“Or else they took him?”

“Maybe.”

I sighed, pursed my lips. A number of things nagged at the corners of my mind, but they could all wait.

“I think we need to get out of here,” I said.

I led her back to the safe house. She was doubtlessly puzzled. By this point, though, she apparently had come to trust that I knew what I was doing, even if things did not always work out for the best. I’d like to think so, anyway. But, in all honesty, what else could she do?

Entering a small room to the rear of the building, I felt with my right hand along the rough, paneled wall. Now that my body had recovered from its earlier strains, I could once more feel my hands, and thereby feel the texture of spacetime around me. Quickly a sensation developed as of something tugging at me.

“Ah. Here it is.”

I gave the empty air a small twist, as if turning a doorknob. The wall vanished, replaced by a blue, iridescent tunnel. I was somewhat amused to notice that Evelyn exhibited no surprise at this whatsoever. She had already become a veteran of interdimensional travel.

“After you,” I said.

Nodding once, she stepped through the portal, and I followed after her.

# # #

We stood at the edge of a bronze desert, beneath a vivid, purple sky.

I looked out at it, at that desert of my dreams; at its strange, alien, shifting sands, and the depths of its overwhelming emptiness. I felt strongly that it represented a metaphor for… something. For what, I had no idea. Frankly, at the moment, I didn’t much care.

Beside me, Evelyn moved through a series of stretches, extending one leg out, then the other, working out the cramps and kinks. Straightening, she ran her hand back through her hair and gazed out toward the horizon.

“We have to cross this?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.

Much to my surprise, Evelyn only nodded.

“Okay,” she said. And then, “I think things will begin falling into place for us on the other side.”

“Oh?” I looked at her, raising one eyebrow. “You know something? Something you’d like to share?”

“Of course not. Just wishful thinking.”

I drew back my lips into a tight smile, shading my eyes with my hand.

“Good enough.”

We started to walk.

As we traveled, I think I came to understand that desert a little better—and, perhaps, to better understand what Evelyn had meant, as well. I got a sense that if I should succeed in crossing it, and move beyond it, I would also be making some fundamental change within myself. The shape of that change, like that of the desert itself, did not immediately present itself to me. But I knew, at some fundamental, almost instinctual level, that success or failure, death or redemption—or both—lay on the far side of that sparkling expanse.

The sand shifted beneath our feet, despite the absence of wind, as if some vast creature writhed deep below the surface—or as if this world had determined to take my metaphors literally. I had visited this plane a hundred times before, and it always unnerved me, threw me off my game. Gritting my teeth, I pressed on, and Evelyn followed.

Hours passed, with only the whistling of the wind to serve as company for us. I counted the steps we had taken thus far, and worked out how much farther we had to go. Too far for my taste. Still, it beat a snowstorm or a demon horde. Resolute and determined, we pressed on.

We had made relatively good time since leaving the not-so-safe house. A brief stop at an isolated oasis I mercifully remembered revived us somewhat. We located it just as our hunger and thirst, not to mention weariness, truly caught up with us. While hardly able to partake of an ideal meal there, we did enjoy some fruits and cold, clean water, and Evelyn refilled the water bottle that was integrated into her flight suit. Then we stretched out for a brief nap. Afterward, we both felt somewhat better, and capable of continuing our journey.

Evelyn had said little since our departure from the safe house, so that when she finally spoke it startled me.

“So, what’s the goal now?”

I sighed, glancing over at her.

“What?”

“I mean, I know you’re thinking to leave me at an undisclosed location, and then go looking for ways to protect yourself—putting it generously.”

I said nothing.

“But beyond that,” she stubbornly continued, “what is the greater plan? The real goal?”

I was not certain how to answer, how much I should share with her. So:

“My original plan—-if you can call it that, generously—-was to search for evidence that indicated who framed me for the killings. But just avoiding capture—or worse—has become such an all-consuming task that we have hardly had any time to investigate. It is maddening.”

She nodded. “It makes me wonder if someone wanted it that way.”

I looked at her, arching my eyebrows, then nodded once and turned away.

After a few moments, she said, “You do have a plan in mind, though, right?”

I smiled. “Yes. Several, in fact.”

“And they include finding Cassidy and Kim.”

I nodded. “If everything works out, we should both get what we want.”

“Plans with happy endings,” she said. “I like that.”

“Oh, most of my plans feature extremely pleasant endings. Many include Baranak on his knees, begging me not to drop him into the Fountain.”

Evelyn frowned her evident disapproval.

“Oh, relax. However pleasant that scenario might be, I would probably be willing to settle for an abject apology from him. Along with a binding oath of fealty, of course.”

She looked sidewise at me and laughed. I found myself smiling, though why I could not say.

We walked on in silence. The time passed quickly. After a while, she spoke again, her voice startling me again as it broke the still silence of the desert.

“So you have a short-term plan. But what are your long-term goals?”

I blinked.

“Goals?”

“What you want to accomplish. Where you’re going. Does being a god—or whatever—preclude you from having goals?”

She moved to where she could look back at my face.

“Has anyone ever asked you that?”

I looked down, avoiding her gaze.

“Once,” I whispered.

She backed off for a moment, obviously surprised by my response, but I could tell she was not satisfied.

We trudged on for a bit, the broken ends of the conversation hanging like tangible objects between us.

“I’m trying to come to grips with you, with all of this,” she finally said, gesturing to the bronze desert around us, the bright violet sky overhead. “I think it would help if I simply understood you a little better.”

I frowned, uncertain of where she was going with this, and found myself hoping she would change the subject. Instead, inevitably, she seemed to warm to it.

“I’ve been thinking about all of this,” she said. “Does extreme longevity remove the imperative to get anything accomplished?”

I tried to wrap my weary brain around that one.

“Oh,” I finally said. “You’re asking if immortals procrastinate a lot.”

“Right,” she said. “Because there’s always tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and you don’t ever have to be in a hurry.”

I shrugged.

“That depends on the individual, I think. We’re all pretty different.”

She considered that.

“Maybe it seems that way to you,” she said at last, “but, from what I’ve seen, I think there are more similarities among you than you realize.”

I frowned at that, and said nothing more for a time.

The desert passed beneath us, step blending into step, mile into mile. Her voice, when she spoke again, startled me out of a sort of waking dream.

“Hasn’t anyone ever asked you what it is you really want from your immortal life and your immense power?”

I blinked, glancing back at her.

“Yes. But not in a very long time.”

“Well then—what are your goals?”

“To rule. To conquer the Golden City and make it my own.”

She stared at me, blank-faced. Absurdly, I felt somewhat uncomfortable.

“That’s it?” she said.

I stared back at her, feeling at least as bewildered as she seemed.

“The Golden City,” I repeated. Could she not understand that? I hadn’t said I wanted to conquer the Terran Alliance, or carve out my own empire among the Outer Worlds—though those prospects had seemed quite attractive, very recently, now a lifetime ago. I was talking about the Golden City! She had seen it. She had walked its streets, albeit not under the most ideal of conditions for appreciating its beauty, its glory. But still—!

“And,” she continued, “to mete out some sort of revenge against all those you feel have wronged you over the years, right?”

“Exactly!” Now she seemed to be getting it!

But instead she only shook her head.

“You’re a god, you say. You have the power to do so many things. During your exile, when you say you had almost no power aside from longevity, you still managed great things. Have you forgotten all of that so quickly?”

I was overcome with frustration, and became aware that I was grinding my teeth together.

“The Golden City,” I repeated yet again, this time with a weak and halting voice. Did that not answer everything? Why couldn’t she understand?

“And then what?”

I frowned. “Pardon?”

“After the conquering and the vengeance? Then what will you do? I mean, this is an immortal lifespan we’re talking about, right? So—what then?”

I paused, thinking. I did not want to admit to myself that I had not devoted terribly much effort to considering such a time. The pursuit of victory in the City had consumed my thoughts for longer than I cared to remember. Finally, I hit on an answer.

“I reign,” I said, firmly.

“You reign.”

“Yes.”

“That’s it.”

“Yes. I reign in the Golden City, and a new age sweeps across the universes.”

She frowned, bit her lip, and looked away.

For reasons entirely unknown to me, I felt more hurt by that reaction than by anything I had experienced in centuries. My stomach twisted, turned upside down. I felt nauseous. Had I caught some sort of illness? What illness could possibly affect me? My confusion and my indignation were enormous.