The Way of the Brother Gods (12 page)

Harskill walked in.

Wolf dropped to the floor and pressed his head down. "I was trying to force her to get me to Cole Watts. I'm sorry I failed you, O Lord."

"You may rise," Harskill said.

Wolf gratefully stood. "Please forgive me."

"No need. You never had a chance at success against her. She is almost a god like me. When she accepts that, nothing you have will stop her."

Wolf eyed Malja with a strange mixture of awe, hatred, and fear.

"Go join the others," Harskill said. "Lead the search."

Wolf bowed and hurried out. Harskill smiled and opened his hands to Malja. "You still haven't answered my question. Will you be my goddess Queen?"

Chapter 15

"Come with me," Harskill said. "I've set up a room for us to work in."

"Us?" Malja said, the venom in her voice unmistakable.

Harskill raised his hand and moved close to the long tube near the wall. He stepped with the enthusiasm of a teacher about to make a key breakthrough with a student. "Look at this," he said, hovering his hand above the tube. "This is not natural. It's not right. Cole Watts needs these half-living conduits in order to amplify the limited magical energy she has access to."

Malja recalled when Cole had teamed with the Bluesmen. Back then, she had used things that looked like flags with mouths, half-living conduits that amplified the Bluesmen's music magic.

Harskill went on, "As a practical point, these things are unstable and will collapse under the pressure of opening a portal. As a moral point, do you understand what she did here? She grew these things — mixing magic, machinery, and dead tissue. If ever there was a meaning to the word abomination, you look upon it here."

"I don't defend Cole's actions."

"But you want her results. You want all the benefits of having access to the portal she'll create, and you'll just ignore the consequences. Ignoring something, pretending it doesn't exist, only makes you naive. You can pretend gravity doesn't exist, but you'll still fall."

Malja crossed her arms. "I don't pretend and I don't ignore."

"Then join me. I can show you how to make your own portals — safe ones that don't harm the world around you."

"Safe from destruction, but not safe. Not when you use the power to control others. We have no right to do such a thing, to take away people's freedom, to make them slaves. Why would I want to be a god like that?"

Harskill opened his hand toward her. "I'll show you," he said, and led her down the hall.

They turned a few corridors and entered a wide office. At one end, an empty metal desk. At the other, a table covered with papers and books. Harskill escorted Malja toward the table while the magician escorted Viper to the desk. He laid Viper down, pulled back a sleeve to reveal an intricate, serpent-like tattoo, and he began a spell.

"Don't worry about him," Harskill said. "That one will take him quite awhile to perform."

"What's it going to do?"

"Just giving the Bluesmen a little boost. Nothing that matters."

"He better not do anything to my weapon."

Harskill pulled back his sleeve to show his skintight, black assault suit underneath. "This is our greatest achievement. It aids us, heals us, makes us stronger, better. It allows us to become the gods we are. It's called a
do-kha.
"

Malja inspected her own assault suit — no, her
do-kha.
She should learn to call it by its proper name. The suit did protect her from cold and heat. It kept her dry and clean. But that it could make her stronger? Better? Godlike?

"You've never learned to use it, have you?" Harskill asked.

Malja frowned. "I knew it was different — special. But it's always done what it wants. I've never really had any control over it."

He looked at her with an odd warmth. Malja detected lust — everybody had a touch of that — but there was something more behind his eyes. It reminded her of the way Uncle Gregor had looked upon her sometimes, but it wasn't so paternalistic. Love? Malja choked back a laugh. He hardly knew her. How could he be in love with her?

"There's so much I can teach you," Harskill said. "How to use your do-kha is just the beginning. I can show you how to open portals, how your do-kha will protect you when crossing through, how to help world after world."

"Enslaving people is not helping them."

"What if I changed my ways for you? What if I said I would stop being a god to these people? If you come with me, be by my side, I will do that. I will show you worlds I have helped and those I have not yet visited. You can see for yourself whether my actions are good or not. After you see, after you understand, if you still want me to step back from being what the Gate were meant to be, I could honor your choice. I suspect you'll understand things differently."

Malja looked at her do-kha starting with her wrists, her arms, her chest. She stared at it as if it were a tattoo and she a magician. She didn't understand the first thing about being of the Gate. Could she really judge Harskill for suggesting they were gods when she knew so little? Maybe they were gods. Maybe that was all a god amounted to — a person of extraordinary power.

"I know you're not ready for all this," Harskill said. "I wish we had more time. But Cole Watts has accelerated matters. I have an idea, though, one that might help you comprehend who you are and what we are capable of."

A familiar sense of danger reached into Malja, but she remained quiet.

Harskill walked toward the door, gesturing at the magician as he spoke. "Your weapon — Viper — is protected by my magician. I lied. He did perform a boosting spell, but that only took a moment. The rest of this time, he's been setting up guardian spells around Viper. Any mortal of this world will fail at retrieving that gorgeous blade. Not you, though. I have the fullest confidence that you will succeed because we are the Gate. We are gods."

Harskill exited, but as he walked out, Malja spied two Bluesmen standing guard. They closed the door, a click of the lock, and Malja was stuck with a magician.

Crossing her arms, she sat on the floor and glowered. This was the same kind of crap Jarik and Callib would force her through. They called them 'little tests,' and she hated every one. Not because they were too challenging or painful or even threatening. But because it was evident from the start that the tests were less about her learning how strong she was and more about them proving themselves right. Nothing different here. Harskill set this up to prove she was a god like him. He could look at her with boyish love in his eyes for the rest of his life, and she wouldn't believe the test to be anything else.

"Fine," she said, getting back to her feet. She had no desire to play this game, but she wanted Viper back. No Bluesmen magician was going to stop her.

She marched right up to the desk and reached for the weapon. Electricity arced out of the air and into her hand. Her muscles seized and her skin quaked. With a crack, the magic broke off and Malja was flung backwards across the room.

Shaking off the vibrations coursing through her, she snarled. "You'll regret that," she said. The magician winked and continued his spells.

Malja inspected her arm. No damage to her or her do-kha.
And that's Harskill's point.
He wanted her to learn to use it. Pacing across the room, locking eyes with the magician every time she came forward, Malja racked her brain for an alternative. There had to be some other way to get Viper without using the do-kha. Anything to avoid giving Harskill that satisfaction.

She glanced up at the ceiling. She could go into the vent and drop down on the magician — but any competent magician would protect all sides including above. This man struck her as more than competent.

She could barrel forward and let momentum carry her through the electrical field. It might work, but the jolts going through her would most likely leave her unable to fight at best and incapacitated at worst. Plus, that assumed there wasn't another layer of magic underneath. The longer she took deciding what to do, the more time the magician had to create such a layer.

She looked at her do-kha. A few times in the past, she had tried to make it do her bidding. Nothing ever came of it. At least, nothing she was aware of.

But it had protected her before. Not just keeping her comfortable but real protection. When she chased after Queen Salia up in Penmarvia, Fawbry had fired a gun right next to her. The do-kha had extended over her ears to protect her. It reacted quickly — how could it? It didn't know what was coming. Did it?

Unless it was somehow linked with her. A chill crossed over Malja. Had this do-kha been more than just a piece of her lost life? All along, had it actually been a true part of her, connected to her, within her, perhaps?

If that could be, then why hadn't she been able to use it? Malja thought of Fawbry's finger-twist game. Just because she could see her fingers didn't mean she could make them work right. In fact, it was the act of seeing that confused the brain. Perhaps she had always been "seeing" the wrong part of the do-kha, trying the wrong way.

Then what's the right way?

In Fawbry's game, trying to move a specific finger failed when she concentrated on doing so. She could succeed by ignoring the specifics and focusing on the overall goal.

Malja closed her eyes. As a test, she tried to warm the suit. In the past, she would have stared at it and attempted to command it to warm her. This time, she simply thought about the end result — the comfort of warmth.

The do-kha warmed.

The warrior in Malja understood tactical advantage very well. She lowered her head and looked up at the magician — a dangerous, blood-thirsty look. The magician blanched but quickly returned to his spell-casting.

Malja walked forward, her eyes shifting to Viper. She forced her mind to ignore the do-kha but rather envision herself walking through that magical wall. She pictured the arcs of electricity going into her without harm. She saw herself taking Viper.

Only when she lifted the weapon did she realize that none of what transpired had been in her head. As she had imagined it, so it had happened. Viper sat within her grip. She felt whole again.

The magician — his eyes wide, his chin shaking — pressed against the back wall. "Guards! Help!"

Malja heard the door open behind her. She couldn't give them time to settle into the room. Before they had both entered, she squatted to the floor. If they had guns and shot reflexively, the bullets would sail overhead. She pivoted on her left foot, slicing upward as she shoved off.

She caught one guard in his armpit, the momentum of her strike cutting straight through. His arm thumped on the floor, and the man screamed. His partner froze — astonished. Twisting Viper sideways with the outer-crescent facing her enemy for a fast cut, Malja sliced across the air, taking the top off of the second guard's head.

As she turned toward the magician, a familiar smile crept onto her lips. Though the act of killing never appealed to her, she enjoyed her strength, her ability, and the speed and flow of battle. All the conundrums and confusions life brought her way left as if she were meditating, lost in the immediate moment — nothing else existed.

The magician threw up. Tears dribbled from his eyes, and when he could breathe, he gasped out his plea. "P-Please don't kill me."

Malja was about to answer when she saw that the magician looked passed her. She spun around. Harskill stood in the doorway holding a rifle. The long barrel would insure an accurate shot in such close proximity.

The magician dropped to the floor, pressing his head down, mumbling prayers as fast as he could.

"You've disappointed your god," Harskill said as he pulled the trigger. Flames flashed out of the barrel along with a loud report. The magician went limp — a wide red hole opened in the back of his head. Harskill lowered the spent gun. "He promised that he could challenge you, but I should've known better. How could a puny mortal challenge a god?"

Malja repositioned her feet and held Viper between them. Harskill leaned against the door jam, calm and casual.

"Now this," Harskill said, "is truly a disappointment. Unless threatening me with your weapon is some form of courtship I don't know." His lips rose, and any doubt Malja had concerning Harskill vanished. She saw evil in that face.

"You're a sad, lonely man," she said. "I won't be your plaything."

"I get what I desire. That's one of the joys of being a god."

"You forget," Malja said, lowering her body just enough to pounce. "You've said I'm also a god."

Malja burst forward, swirling Viper in huge half-circle, over the shoulder, and down at Harskill's head. Without moving from the door jam, he raised his left arm to block. Viper landed right in the middle of his forearm. It should have cut through and embedded in his head. Instead, sparks flew out at the point of contact, and Harskill continued his nasty grin.

As Malja pressed down, trying to force Viper through Harskill's arm, she saw the black do-kha peeking out from beneath his shirt. The do-kha had protected him, hardening into a steel bracer according to his need. Malja whipped Viper away and back in at Harskill's ribs. Again, sparks flew from the clash with the do-kha. Whirling around, she went for his head on the other side, but he brought his arm up and used the do-kha once more to block the attack.