Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (4 page)

“I’m not buying any of this,” he said.

I shrugged.

“Lieutenant,” Evelyn said to him, softly but tersely, “I was just apologizing…”

Kim ignored her.

“That big guy seemed awfully sure you were guilty of something,” he said.

“Occupational hazard of being the ‘dark god,’” I replied. “Of course, I am indeed guilty of… much.”

He looked down at me, shaking his head in wonder.

“I’m supposed to believe there’s really some kind of ‘dark lord?’ And he’s you?”

“You can believe what you like,” I replied sharply. “I seek no followers among your kind. Not any longer.”

“Our kind?”

“Humans. The Terran Alliance.”

“Who would ever follow you?” Kim growled.

I shrugged. “I had supporters aplenty among the Outer Worlds. Soon enough, we would have been standing triumphant on your Earth, your old order swept away.”

And then I cursed soundlessly. I had given in to anger, and given away something I had wished to keep hidden. Who was the god, here? How could I have allowed these mortals to push me so, and cause me to slip?

The third human, Cassidy, approached then, eyes wide.

“I do know this guy!” he said. “I recognize him now!”

The captain and Kim turned, regarding him with questioning expressions.

“We’ve believed for years,” he began, “that a family out among the Outer Worlds was building a coalition against us, either through intimidation or outright conquest of their neighbors. They’ve always kept a low profile, working through intermediaries and puppet rulers, so not much has been said about them publicly within the Alliance. Their current head is supposedly called Markos, probably named after the original one, years ago—who probably didn’t even exist, anyway.”

My dark eyes studied Cassidy carefully, but I said nothing.

He snorted a laugh.

“We’ve only been able to acquire a few pictures of him or the other leaders, over the years, and a bunch of us in the Directorate had begun to think maybe it was all a myth—something the Outies cooked up to scare our security forces out along the frontier. But—I’ve seen what few pictures we do have, and this guy has to be a part of that family. Maybe a son or a nephew—though he looks just like the guy from a generation ago.” Cassidy paused and nodded slowly, his eyes drilling back into mine. “The secret leader of the Outer Worlds. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, well,” I breathed. “An intelligence man.” Something from my dim, distant past reacted to that thought, but I quickly, reflexively suppressed it before it could fully register.

“Though not a particularly discreet one,” Evelyn noted. She looked at me, waiting.

“Guilty as charged,” I said then.

Cassidy nodded again, his jaw setting, his mouth curling into a self-satisfied smile. “You’re the son?”

“I am Markos. The only Markos there has ever been.”

Cassidy frowned. “That’s impossible. You’d have to be…”

“Immortal?” I laughed. “What part of ‘god’ don’t you understand?”

Cassidy grew visibly angry again, but held his tongue.

“I was Markos, rather,” I said finally. “But no longer. All of that has turned out to be only a momentary diversion. A sideshow.”

“Why?” Evelyn asked.

How much to tell them? I inhaled deeply, considered for a few seconds, then decided that recounting a bit of the story might actually do me some good.

Sitting back, I spread my hands before me and began. “A thousand years ago… well, let us say that I objected—strenuously—to the prevailing power structure in this City. For my troubles I was exiled to your mortal realm.”

“They kicked you out,” Cassidy said.

I ignored him and continued. “After a brief time of casting about for something to occupy me there, I seized control of the planet Mysentia in the Outer Worlds. It was not difficult for one with my knowledge, my abilities. And there, under the name Markos, I ruled, subduing your fellow humans to my will.” I smiled. “For a time, life was at least tolerable. Security and safety I possessed there in full measure, along with control over the destinies of millions. Leading a world in rebellion against your Alliance was nothing to me—a entertaining diversion, at best.”

Even as I said those last words, though, I knew them to be false.

Evelyn frowned.

“Why ‘Markos?’” she asked, after a moment.

“I—because—” A veil of fog descended over my mind as I pondered that simple question. “It seemed—”

She stared at me, waiting.

I felt that an answer—a good answer—hovered out there, somewhere just beyond my reach. The fog…

“This is all preposterous,” Cassidy growled.

I was grateful for the interruption. My mind cleared at once, as I set Evelyn’s question aside and faced Cassidy.

“Look around you,” I said. “How did you come to be here? Are you so sure your understanding of the universe is the only possible one?”

Cassidy looked away, unsettled.

“This is just ridiculous,” Kim said. “Bad enough he’s an Outie rabble-rouser, but one with delusions of godhood, to boot.”

I glared back at him.

“Delusions? You fool. You insect. You have no idea.” Despite my determination to ignore these creatures, they had succeeded in raising my ire—a fact that further angered me and spurred me to react.

Kim shoved past Cassidy, fists raised.

And again Evelyn was there, between us, voice gentle but firm and eyes unwavering as they met my own.

“Enough!” she said. “We’re all equals now in our imprisonment, and the rebellion is very far away from all of us at the moment.”

Calming myself, I executed a small bow to her and reseated myself on the cold floor, drawing my long coat about me again, turning away from the others.

Evelyn would not be deterred. After a few moments, she spoke again.

“Please—let’s put the accusations and innuendo aside. I genuinely want to understand,” she said. “I want to know who you really are… and where we are. But I don’t know how we’re supposed to believe you, especially when you actually claim to be…
evil
.”

I sighed, then looked up at her again. Her eyes sparkled in the dim light, betraying no deceptions. I found, unexpectedly, that I, too, wanted her to understand.

“Evil is my Aspect as a god, but not necessarily my nature,” I said, for perhaps the thousandth time in my long existence. I paused, considering the strange sense of sincerity I felt behind the phrase this time. “At least, perhaps not my nature any longer.”

I considered my own words, and then laughed humorlessly.

“Not that it matters,” I said. “Baranak has already made his decision, and found me guilty. His one-track mind will not entertain any other possibilities.”

I steepled my fingers in front of my chin, my mind sifting through the strange series of events that had brought me to this point.

“Understand one thing, though,” I told her. “I was a god long before I found myself involved in the affairs of your worlds.”

“And before that?”

“Before… that?”

I looked at her, then looked away and said nothing.

Cassidy and Kim, still lurking nearby, frowning, shook their heads and retreated some distance away. Soon enough, it sounded as though they had set the issue of my presence and identity aside for the moment and were resuming an earlier argument over engineering problems with their ship.

The captain, however, remained. She sat across from me, her eyes penetrating, never leaving mine.

“So,” she said, finally, “you and your people are gods. But what does that mean, really?”

I tried to ignore her, but found I could not.

“We are who we are,” I finally said, by way of answer. “Our origins are lost in the mists of time.”

“Mm hmm.”

She pursed her lips in a way I could not help but find most attractive.

“I can explain no better than that,” I finally said. “Why do you care?”

“Because, if we truly are in some other universe, and you’ve been to mine, I want to know how you got there, and how you got back again. It might help us to get home.”

I sighed.

“It is not that you are in an entirely different universe,” I said, “it is merely that you are… well… a level up from your own plane, so to speak. Whereas subspace, which I imagine you were attempting to penetrate, is a level down.”

I smiled, sitting back.

“One might say that, in your nice, new, experimental ship, you simply lacked for a decent roadmap.”

Evelyn attempted to question me further, but, despite any personal feelings on my part, I studiously ignored her. After a brief while, she gave up and returned to the others.

An uneventful few hours followed, during which Kim cast occasional unsavory glances my way. Eventually the three humans slept, and I sat there in the near-darkness with my mood grown black as my prison and my soul.

I do not know how much time I spent in bleak introspection before being roused back into attentiveness by the flaring of a portal opening. This time I stood, determined to face Baranak down—but it was not our glorious golden god of battle who passed through. Alaria instead emerged from the flaming circle and stood before us, now wearing diaphanous robes, backlit and glowing, leaving her curvaceous silhouette an interplay of shadow and fire.

“Lucian,” she whispered, “whether you are guilty or innocent of these crimes, we both know you will receive no fair hearing from Baranak. He is convinced of your guilt and means to see you consumed by the Fountain immediately.”

“He made that abundantly clear, yes.”

“You deserve the opportunity to prove yourself.”

She gestured toward the blazing portal, and the freedom beyond.

I blinked.

“You mean…”

“Go!” She waved again at the glowing exit. “Find your evidence. Find the murderer. But do it quickly!”

I looked at the portal, then back at her. It didn’t quite add up. I hesitated.

At that moment the human captain pushed past me, the other two in tow.

“If you’re not going, we are,” she said.

I scoffed.

“Going where? You have no idea what horrors await you out there.”

“It can’t be any worse than staying here, at that guy’s mercy.”

“You don’t even know where ‘here’ is,” I replied.

The captain moved very close, gazing up at me. Her eyes sparkled, there in the dungeon of my City.

“You know the way back to Earth,” she whispered. “Or at least to the Outer Worlds. Take us home.”

“I thought you were not going to make any further demands upon me.”