The Constitution chugged through the placid waters of the Platonic Sea. The air was misty with a fog that had blown off the coast, and Liam found that he was completely unable to sleep. He watched the waters smoothly sailing by while crew moved about their tasks quietly – no one seeming interested in making too much noise. Night had fallen a few short hours before, and Liam knew that he should rest. Tomorrow was another day that would require his tact and diplomacy.
Liam snorted quietly.
The voyage to Uten-Ha had been uneventful – most of Liam’s time had been spent reading missives sent via the watch stations. Meg had kept him up to date on everything that was going on in Babylon, as well as including several paragraphs that caused the goblin signals officer on the Constitution to turn the most amazing shade of dark green. Reaching the city itself had made Liam feel a dawning sense of hope.
Uten-Ha had been a thriving place. With high walls and about five cannons, it had boasted the vast statues and monuments that the Pesdjeti used to focus their god’s devotion and powers. Statues of Anubis had held aloft ever-glowing torches, while small shrines to lesser gods and spirits and ancestors had provided heat, directions, even fresh food to those who came to lay coins in their offering bowls.
But best of all had been the person who greeted Liam as he and his honor guard walked off the gangplank.
“Liam Vanderbilt!” Neb beamed at him. She looked shockingly good, considering she was six months pregnant. She still had a dainty muzzle, triangular ears, and a cutely wagging tail but now her breasts were fuller and slumped only slightly against her shift, which strained against her rounded belly. Her paw rested on that belly and she had that slightly submissive glint to her eyes, which reminded Liam of the times she had begged for him to lead her around on a leash. Liam forced those memories back and bowed low.
“Neb Maatre,” he said.
“Ah, no, it’s Neb Culhain now,” she said, wagging a single finger at him. Smiling, she whispered. “So, no more domination.”
Was there a hint of wistfulness in her voice?
Liam decided it was safer to believe that, no, no there wasn’t.
Neb and her escort – a pair of burly men wearing ornate jackal helmets and thick bronze breastplates – walked Liam through the center of Uten-Ha. Neb gave him a running narration of not only her life, but the life of her city: “This is my home city, you know. Where I came from when I was sent to Brigid’s library to learn all I could of their embalming techniques.” She chuckled, softly. “Anubis was more than happy with what I had learned. I married a scribe from Olimurias – a darling, darling man, I hope you’ll have time to meet him. He moved here, pledged himself to Anubis...”
Liam had listened.
And smiled.
And tried to not remember the way that Neb had sucked him off in the libraries of Olimurias.
The palace that Anubis dwelt in was similar, in many ways, to the palace that Liam’s government used as its headquarters. The differences, though, made it easy to remember that he wasn’t at home. For one thing, the Free Lord’s palace had been carefully made as religiously diverse as possible. Tiny shrines to all the gods that had a stake in Babylon peppered the place. Meanwhile, Anubis’ palace was bedecked with symbols and iconography of his particular cult.
Secondly, Anubis had quite a few of his Chosen about. Muscular human-jackal hybrids stood guard with ceremonial kopesh swords on their backs, while scribes so achingly similar to Neb that Liam caught himself watching their tails hurried by. The human servants were mostly in the shaved-headed Pesdjeti mode, with bronzed skin and bared chests.
Anubis himself, to Liam’s relief, didn’t meet them in a throne room or a palatial meeting hall. Instead, he was found in a library, bent over scrolls. Despite being similar, in many ways, to the furred human-jackal hybrids that made up the ranks of his Chosen, Anubis shone. His body radiated the raw power of a god. His muscles might not have bulged as intensely as his guards, but strength oozed from his lean, athletic form. His fur shone with a glossiness no mortal could match, and his eyes glowed with golden power. He was using his claw to indicate where he was reading, muttering under his breath.
“My lord?” Neb said, curtsying gently – her pregnancy didn’t make her awkward when it came to that gesture. “Lord Vanderbilt of the Free City of Babylon is here to see you?”
Anubis started and jerked his head up from the scroll. His eyes widened.
Then he beamed. “Liam Vanderbilt!” his voice boomed and echoed as he stood, his tail wagging excitedly. “As I live and breathe – I had heard you would come, but I never expected it to be so swift. So fast.” He took Liam’s hand. Liam shook and found himself immediately liking the god. It took him a few seconds to realize what it was.
But then it clicked.
It wasn’t something.
It was a lack of something. Anubis had no pretensions. He had no arrogant assumptions of authority, no blithe sureness that all mortals existed to be ordered about by him. The only thing in his eyes was an honest happiness at seeing Liam – and a measured, careful perceptiveness. Liam felt himself being weighed by those eyes. Anubis made a quiet huh sound, and said: “Well, I’d have expected to be more intimidated.”
“Why’s that?” Liam asked, grinning easily.
“Well, your title is The Godkiller,” Anubis said.
“It was mostly other people,” Liam said, cheerfully. “And the gunpowder.”
A faint creak of deck planking drew Liam from his reverie.
He turned and saw Captain Harold walking to the railing beside him. The crew had given him the distance of respect, but Harold kept up the cool, calm, slightly distant affect that most ship captains seemed to adopt as a matter of course. Liam and he looked out at the night sea for some time and Liam felt the slow, crawling fear that sometimes still stole up on him. On Purgatory, people were raised to be used to the idea that an ocean naturally reached upwards and upwards and upwards, like a great wall of water. But sometimes Liam could find his mind slipping backwards to his Earth attitudes and his brain would whisper: It’s going to fall on you. It’s all going to fall on you.
“Captain!”
The call drew both Liam and Harold’s attention. The signals officer waved at them from the forecastle. Liam and Harold exchanged a glance. When they came to the forecastle, the signals officer murmured quietly down to the both of them.
“We’re getting a priority two signal from the watch stations,” he said as Harold clambered up the ladder onto the forecastle itself. There was the small lantern and signaling mirror that could be used to send messages back up to the floating watch stations that glinted in the night sky like tiny stars. The signals officer took their seat, grinning. “And it’s not from Lady Megara this time.”
Liam chuckled – remembering how red the signals officer had gotten when the first of Meg’s ‘private’ messages had come through. Meg had to know that her salaciously described missives went through several pairs of eyes as they were blinked from Babylon to the watch stations to the Constitution.
She just had exactly zero shame.
Liam’s vestigial shame did squirm, knowing that several dozen people now knew that she was ‘eagerly fingering herself every night as she waited breathlessly for her most devout and best lover’ and how ‘no cock in Purgatory could compare to Liam’s immensity’ and so on.
This message was from Fizit, and so not likely to have descriptions of hypothetical titjobs. Instead, it said: Watch Station 22-09 spotted huge explosion on island of Melos. Known pirate stronghold. Longship sailing away.Tuathan or Aesir. Sails, no oars. Fizit.
“Huh,” Harold said. “Pirates with gunpowder?”
“Some of them have muskets or pistols – God knows there’s enough of them in the markets. But cannons?” Liam shook his head. “The only people who make cannons are us and Ares. And neither of us are stupid enough to sell them, right?”
Harold nodded. “Send a message back to station 22-09, ask them if they have a heading and rough position for the ship.”
“Aye, sir,” the signals officer said, bobbing his head.
As they waited for a response, Liam rubbed his hands along his face. “It’s not going to last forever, you know. I think, maybe, we should think about clearing out the Tuatha coast. Make a good Spanish try of it. They were the ones who burned the last pirates out of their dens back in the 18th Century...”
Harold shrugged. “It’d be a good test...” He paused as the signals officer was starting to write down notes. Liam looked up at the watch stations. Liam squirmed inwardly. He knew that they changed their signal codes regularly, and that the code books were kept as carefully locked and sealed as possible, and additional ciphers were layered in at every level. But even Fizit wasn’t perfect.
“They say that they’re heading our way!” the signals officer exclaimed.
“Interesting,” Harold said, quietly. “They can’t be thinking of an attack...”
“Maybe we should-” Liam started.
“Sir!” the signals officer started. “We’re getting a priority one signal now.”
Priority one meant that every station had to drop what they were doing and transmit the signal immediately. It was used only for the most dire, most important messages. Liam felt his heart clench – but before he could start to panic about what it might be, the morse code officer read it out: “Conspirators confessed. Bomb on Constitution. Defuse immediately. Fizit.”
“Beat to quarters!” Harold shouted, immediately.
The crew were roused by the hammering of a drum and Liam hurried forward, trying to school his expressions to calmness. He knew that he’d need to calm Anubis down – as there was no chance that he was going to sleep through the sudden din that screamed through the ship. Crew hurried to their battle stations, and Harold started to bark out commands to petty officers, who started to bawl their instructions to crew. Sailors were counted off to start sweeping the ship.
Anubis bounded to the deck, his hands on his simple white shift, his tail wagging excitedly. Liam stepped down and off the forecastle to go to the god.
“What is going on?” Anubis asked.
“Oh, just a minor dr-” Liam stopped himself. “Wait. You’re... perceptive, right?”
Anubis nodded. “Quite...” he said. “I can weigh a soul at a glance, so it’d be rather embarrassing if I couldn’t spy a gnat’s wing at a mile.” He chuckled, then swept his gaze around. “Are we getting ready because of that ship in the distance?” He pointed into the darkness. Liam looked. His eyes narrowed and he almost could see the shape of sails and wood.
“Can you share your perception?” Liam asked.
“I can try,” Anubis said, sounding skeptical. He placed his paw on Liam’s shoulder and Liam felt the tingling rush of a god’s blessing fill his body. He had felt it only a few times before – back when he had been the servant of Sobek. His eyes narrowed and the darkness surrounding the ship seemed to lighten. Like turning the gamma up on a video game.
“Port guns, clear!”
“We’ve checked the bunks, there’s nothing there.”
Liam narrowed his eyes further and he could see the other ship. Even with the enchantment, it was a faint blur in the darkness. But he could gauge the distance and the direction and the speed of the other ship – and he breathed a slow sigh of relief. They were turning to the side. Pirates wouldn’t want to tangle with the Constitution.
“Are we in danger?” Anubis asked.
“Oh, no, they’re out of bowshot range,” Liam said.
The other ship flared with light.
Liam had enough time to curse himself for ten kinds of a fool before he grabbed Anubis and threw him down.
The cannon struck.
And the world exploded.
***
Kailey jerked back, her hands gripping the wheel. The sudden flare of brilliant light that had filled the horizon filled her eyes with white spots. She blinked quickly and shook her head, then glared at Quinn. “What the fuck!?”
Quinn, who had been standing beside one of the cannons, rubbed at her face. The crew who had been managing the cannons weren’t cheering. They were standing in stupefied shock, their eyes wide. Kailey slowly stepped away from the wheel, walked down to stand beside her lover, then hissed in her ear. “What. Happened?”
“I-I don’t know!” Quinn whispered. “It looked like a merchant ship! It didn’t have a ram or or or-”
Kailey shook her head, then called out orders. The sails were rigged and the rudder turned and the Kiss started to drift closer to the flaming wreckage of the other ship. As they came closer and closer, Kailey shook her head in wonder. The ship hadn’t just exploded; it had gone up like Pleon the Fat’s cannon defenses. As they came close, a large chunk of wood with a massive turret on it started to slurp under the waves. Bodies – and pieces of bodies – floated here and there. They were dressed in ragged uniforms. One, shockingly intact, made Kailey hiss.
“Shit,” she whispered.
“These are Babylonian navy,” Quinn whispered. “I-I swore it was a merchant ship.”
“Note to self, never try a night attack again,” Kailey said, shaking her head in wonder.
“Should we take up survivors?” Quinn asked.
“Yes,” Kailey said. “Some might be valuable.”
The Kiss started to slow and crew used their poles to start prodding bodies. The solitary elf on the ship called out: “I’ve got two! I’ve got two!”
Kailey and Quinn rushed over to the side of the ship that the elf leaned from. The pole was tugging a pair of floating bodies together. One of them made Kailey blink and lean forward. “Is that...”
The crew reached forward, the Kiss rocking, and dragged the dripping, water logged body of Anubis onto the ship. He was slicked with water, his fur glimmering in the torches that flared and danced on the Kiss. Kailey hissed. “Quinn! Quinn! Get the collar! Get it! Now!” Quinn was already gone. But as she looked at Anubis, the other body was hauled on board. For a moment, Kailey wondered if it was another god.
No other man she had ever met had been that big. He had to be nearly twice as tall as she was, which meant that he outstripped even the tallest of her crew by a head and a bit of shoulders. His chest was broad and well muscled and seamed with old scars, while his hair was a brilliant blond. One of his feet was a gleaming clockwork fake, still hanging on by water slick straps of leather. But as he was rolled onto his back, Kailey hissed. The man’s neck had been cut open like he was a freshly butchered hog, the cut as neat and as clean as any executioner would dream of. His blood didn’t even pump from it. It must have all gone into the sea.
Quinn came back to the deck, holding one of the null collars from the hold. She knelt down and locked it around Anubis neck.
“Who's that?” she asked, eyeing the other body.
“The biggest missed chance we’ve ever had,” Kailey muttered.
Thaddious shook his head. “That’s Liam Vanderbilt. And we just killed him.”
***
Tethis rubbed her palms together, looking down at the spell she had constructed. Meg watched her from the corner of the room. The curvy valkyrie was perched on a stool, her wings closed taught behind her. Tethis paused from her checking and double checking – when using a spell so delicate and complex and vital, especially when it was to be used on Liv, whose last reaction to a spell had involved blowing up the building she had been in...there was no reason to be anything but cautious.
“Why are you so interested?” Tethis asked, quietly.
“Well, I mean, Liv isn’t my favorite person in the world,” Meg said. “But she’s still one of us.”
“Us?”
“You know,” Meg said. “Part of Liam’s harem.”
Tethis squeaked, forgetting her nerves for a moment. Her cheeks heated. “W-We’re not in a harem. I haven’t bedded him for a year! And you sleep with other men! And-”
Meg snorted, then threw her head back and laughed.
“Oh, you’re teasing me,” Tethis whispered.
Meg, her wings fluttering with her laughter, grinned and nodded.
Tethis scowled at her. She stepped over to where Liv lay. They had carefully moved her from the palace to the old cannon testing grounds – back when Babylon’s best minds had been focused on trying to build a cannon that wouldn’t explode under the immense pressures of gunpowder explosions. This little cottage was made of loose thatch and light wood, so if it did collapse, it wouldn’t be lethal. Hopefully. Meg had insisted that she come, while every other mage who was doing support was in the slit trench about fifty feet away from the walls of the building.
Remembering that made Tethis’ stomach knot all the tighter.
“Honestly, I’m here for incredibly selfish reasons,” Meg said. “I’m strong enough that if this goes wrong, I can get you out in a hurry. Worst comes to worst, I can lift the roof off your head.”
“Why is that selfish?” Tethis asked, her brow furrowing.
“If you die, no one’s going to fix my head,” Meg said, tapping the side of her temple.
“Well...” Tethis squared her shoulders. “Fortunately, this spell will have multiple applications.”
“Goodie!” Meg said. “Like a dildo that’s also a hammer.” She grinned. “How does it work? Explain to me, the leyman. I’ll be Simplicio in your Socratic dialog.”
Tethis blinked. “A what now?”
“An Earth astronomer once wrote a dialog between himself and a man named Simplicio,” Meg said, grinning wickedly. “He gave all the opinions of the Pope to Simplicio. The Pope took it well.”
“Wouldn’t Liv,” Tethis said, gesturing to the comatose demigod, “be Simplicio.”
“Well, I didn’t want to be rude,” Meg said, shrugging.
Tethis snorted, quietly. But under her rueful smile, a deep welling gratitude arose. She walked over and kissed Meg’s knuckles. “Thanks.” She said.
“For what?” Meg asked, feigning ignorance.
Tethis punched her thigh gently, then turned back to Liv. “We have determined everything that Liv’s condition is not. The only way we can learn more is by looking inside of her brain. Since we can’t pull it out through her nose, we shall...well...pull it out through her nose. But we shall be pulling an illusion out, so that we can observe it. Once we observe it, we might know how to cure it.”
Meg frowned, slowly.
“If you could observe her brain, you could observe mine, right?” she asked.
Tethis smiled. “And cure it.”
Meg beamed. “Well, let's get to yanking. Get your embalming on!”
Tethis breathed in. The last time she had tried to cast a healing spell on Liv, she had exploded with energy. She hoped that the alterations to her spell would avoid triggering that defensive impulse – whatever it was. But waiting around wouldn’t make the danger any less. She stepped forward, spreading her fingers, and began to make the passes, to speak the quiet words. The magics of the Ancients, the builders of Purgatory swirled around her as she started to focus them onto Liv’s head.
Sweat beaded on her forehead as Tethis tried to keep the increasingly complex command sequences straight in her head. Meg didn’t move – but her presence was a comforting reminder in the back of Tethis’ mind.
Tethis got to the end of the command sequence and cried out the Ancient word that set the spell running: “Compile!”
One day, she’d need to figure out what that meant.
The spell swirled around Liv’s head. A moment later, a shimmering, grey-blue blob appeared above her head. Geometric patterns swirled to life around it, growing in complexity and resolution, until Tethis realized that she hadn’t just created an image of Liv’s brain. It had come with Ancient glyph too! She gaped as she walked slowly around the sleeping Liv’s bench. The glyphs were either jumbled or spelled words that she couldn’t read – what on Purgatory is serotonin? - but the brain itself was easily visible.
Tethis reached out and experimentally took hold of the horizontal ring that circled around the image of the brain. She twisted it and the brain twisted with – she tensed and looked down. Liv looked no the worse for wear. So, it was just moving the illusion. Good. Tethis then took hold of one of the other rings – this one was vertically arranged. She was able to rotate the brain up and down this way, so she could look at it from the top and the bottom.
“Neat,” Meg whispered.
Tethis chuckled. “This spell is better than I could have expected...”
“Didn’t you design it?” Meg asked.
“Well...” Tethis bit her lip. “Really, every spell that’s not granted by a god is just calling on things that Purgatory knows. Summoning a fireball is as simple as commanding Purgatory to make fire there.” She shrugged. “Channeling heat is the same way. Using a teleporter shrine, healing biological damage, it’s all just... orders. Sometimes, those orders reveal additional features. Like...” She paused. “Like finding a gold coin in a pair of nice sandals.”
Meg pointed. “What does that stuff do?”
Tethis looked and noticed that a set of rings that floated to the upper left of the shimmering, illusionary brain. She reached up and experimentally tapped one. She yelped as the brain unwove as if it was being torn into by a flenser’s knife. Grey matter vanished, revealing the coiling, curving tissue beneath. Tethis leaped backwards, clutching her hand to her heart. Meg put her hands on her armpits, ready to haul her backwards.
But Liv didn’t squirm. Didn’t even moan.
“Whoa,” Meg whispered.
Tethis squealed in excitement. She couldn’t help it. Adjusting the other buttons, she discovered that each one separated the brain in different ways. One could be dragged around to make specific regions of the brain ‘see through.’ Another bisected the brain into chunks and spread each part apart. And better, she could still rotate and twirl around the brain while it was unfolded or unwoven. Soon, Tethis and Meg were examining Liv’s brain from every corner, and every angle, from inside and out.
It took Tethis less than a minute to find the problem, once she was looking.
“Look,” she whispered, pointing.
“It’s a lumpy bit,” Meg said.
“No, it’s a lumpy bit that is expanding,” Tethis hissed.
“I thought you said it wasn’t a tumor!” Meg said.
“I know!” Tethis frowned. She flicked one of the circles and managed to make the offending part of the brain glow gold. She flicked the rest of the brain away with her fingers, leaving only the golden bit hovering in the air above Liv’s sleeping face. It looked like a lump, roughly the size of a walnut, with tree-like branches that stretched outwards in every direction. They threaded throughout every part of Liv’s brain, and at the end of each branch came other, smaller extrusions that looked like root systems.
“What is it?” Meg whispered.
“I... don’t... know...” Tethis breathed.
A shout startled both of them from their awed reverie.
“Lady Vanderbilt! Spymaster Fizit needs you at the palace! Now!”
Meg scowled. “Shit.” She put her hand on Tethis’ shoulder. “Don’t worry. You got this!”
She turned and she ran.
Tethis bit her lip.
Did she?
***
Meg knew something was horribly wrong when she came to Fizit’s office and found the lizardwoman’s arms clutched over her head, her face mashed against her desk. She wasn’t crying – at least, Meg didn’t hear any tears. But she didn’t respond to her as she walked inside. Instead, all Fizit did was reach out with a single arm, holding up a small parchment. Meg took it and read it – having to puzzle out the cipher.
Constitution engaged pirate ship. Constitution destroyed. Further information pending.
Meg gaped.
She felt as if her knees, her stomach, her whole body had turned to ice water. She staggered and grabbed for a chair behind her. She groped around and crashed to the floor, unable to find a seat. The words swam before her. She forced her tears back, shuddering as she whispered.
“How?”
Fizit lifted her head. Her eyes were flat and hard.
“Because I’m a fuckup,” she hissed, her words harsh.
“But-” Meg started.
“The pirate ship didn’t destroy the Constitution!” Fizit shouted, springing to her feet, her tail lashing hard enough to smash her stool against the wall. The wood splintered with a crunch. “Somehow, one of those conspirators had a detonator. We thought the bomb was hidden elsewhere, but they got it on the ship. They confessed! If I had tortured the fuckers, we might have learned this days ago, not-”
Meg stood. She turned and walked from the room. Fizit followed her.
“What are you doing?” Fizit asked.
Meg didn’t respond. But she did stop a guard and yank a sword from his belt. The guard gaped in shock, stammering. “L-Lady?”
But Meg was already heading for the stairs.
The two women walked out of the palace and started for the dungeons. As they walked, Fizit stopped asking Meg where she was going – it was becoming increasingly obvious what their destination was. Fizit, though, was trying to think of how to explain this to the kids. Marion, it’d be easy. She was half-lizardfolk, half-elf. She wouldn’t be mature enough to understand words for years. Maybe longer, considering the slow childhood of the elves. But her little Brax, he was already learning basic math. But he had only known his father for... for…
Fizit closed her eyes.
Meg, meanwhile, was focused entirely on the sword in her hand.
“Meg! Fizit!”
The two of them stopped, turning to face Tethis. She was jogging towards them, her short legs making it harder than it should have been to navigate the dusty streets of Babylon. Even at night, there was quite a bit of foot traffic, and Tethis had to swing several wide curves to reach them. Gasping heavily, she put her hands on her knees.
“What?” Meg snarled.
Tethis looked shocked. “I think I know how to begin work on curing Liv, I just need to check some books and... why do you have a sword?”
Meg closed her eyes. “Because some motherfuckers just blew Liam up. With a bomb. Like cowardly-” She clenched her jaw. “So I am going to hack them apart until every last one of them is a bunch of bloody chunks. And then I am going to curl up in a corner and cry my heart out. But only after they’re chunks. Got it?”
Tethis looked confused. “Liam’s not dead.”
“The watch station saw the ship explode,” Fizit said, her voice tight. “It looked like the magazine went up. The whole-”
“No, I mean, he can’t be dead,” Tethis said.
Meg opened her mouth – but then Tethis held up her hand.
“No, no, I’m not just being optimistic! Before he left, I put a spell on him!” She looked from Meg to Fizit. “Remember? When you tried to have me assassinated?” She glared at Fizit. Then her glare softened as she looked down. “He thought it was a silly precaution. He knows how much effort it takes, but-”
The sword clunked to the ground. Meg dropped to her knees, then slumped to the ground, sprawling in the street, as if she had fainted. But Fizit saw that her hard mask had cracked, and she was holding her hands over her face. She sobbed quietly, curling up on herself. Fizit knelt down, looking at Tethis.
“The spell, it just... sustains you, right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Tethis said. “So long as his brain is intact, the spell sustains it – keeps it in stasis. Any healing spell will...” She snapped her finger. “Bring him right back.”
“How long should it last?” Fizit asked.
“Years!” Tethis said.
Fizit closed her eyes. “We have time.” She whispered.
Meg shuddered. Her wings had covered her, wrapping around her like a blanket. Now, they drew back. She hissed: “Yeah. Unless they roll him into the ocean and he gets eaten by a shark.”
Fizit clicked her jaw. Then she stood, her hand clenching into a fist.
“Come on. Let's get to work.” She paused, thinking.
“First thing we can do?” Tethis asked. “Is get Meg’s inner ear fixed.”
Fizit looked quizzical. Tethis snorted.
“Do you really think that Liam can be in the hands of pirates and she won’t immediately go off to kick their asses?” she pointed out.
Fizit nodded slowly. That was a point she was not about to argue.