Evenstar (65 page)

Belial spoke into his shirt sadly, “You are happy?”

Andy closed his eyes.
 
“Happy as the day I saw you for the first time.”

She nodded and hid tears from him.
 
“Then this was a good thing.”

***

Dahlia and Lucifer were locked in an embrace of fire and ice, of blue and red.
 
Mindless, the joy and energy between them grew with each caress and touch.
 
Dahlia held on to him and called out his name as she shuddered in pleasure.
 
Lucifer held her and moved as she shook.
 
He whispered words of love into her hair.
  

Dahlia flipped him to his back and straddled him, hips pumping.
 
She arched her back.
 
He held on to her, his eyes locked on her face, watching her every moan, smile, and breathless gasp.
 
He pulled her down to him and kissed her as they moved together.
  

The world around them shifted and awoke.

Mountain ranges shook as molten rock churned deep beneath them.
 
Seas burst with new creatures as the evolution of small organisms erupted, filling the seas with fresh life.
 
Plants bloomed and cycled through the seasons in minutes.
 
Winds picked up and clouds streaked the sky, bringing rain to the dry places, the deserts that had not been touched in a very long time.
 

Gaea sat on an empty tropical island of sand and trees.
 
Her feet descended into roots that hung in the water like mangroves.
 
Her tendrils reached and touched living things across the planet.
 
She felt the change, the surge.
 
Her worn and tired features were renewed.
 
She blinked and lost age.
 
She smiled, a bright-eyed girl once more.
 
The pain that wracked her body ceased.
 
She stretched, able to stand tall.
 
She glowed with an emerald green fire.
 
She laughed and pulled her roots in.
 
She twirled as trees and flowers bloomed around her.
 
She sang into the air for her brother.

In London, the earth rumbled and stirred around a pivot point.
 
The concrete crumbled away as dust.
 
Black rats emptied out of buildings and sewers and raced towards the epicenter.
 
The rats ran and when they found each other, they melded into one form.
 
Larger and larger vermin bounded down streets, flipping cars and destroying shops.
 
The rodents’ eyes blazed blue.
 
The beasts descended into the steadily growing sinkhole hole and met with a graying force.
 
The two combined.
 

Chronos awoke.
 
The keeper of decay shook off his self-imposed sleep.
 
He heard his sister’s call.
 
He perceived the swirling essence of his father and mother.
 
His timeworn face broke into a grin.
 
He wrapped shadows around his body and became clothed in age and disrepair.
 

A gray miasma fell over the city.
 
Buildings aged, cars rusted, people grew tired, and some fell asleep where they stood.
 
Chronos stepped out of the ground a youth, gray in the flesh, his hair white.
 
His eyes burned blue.
 
Humans that managed to stay awake stopped and gaped.
 
He looked over them, uninterested.
 
He dissolved into the air.

At Gaea’s feet, shadows rippled and pooled.
 
Chronos stepped out of the sand.
 
He saw his sister and the two hugged, children again.
 
Gaea and Chronos, eldest of the Lilliam, looked out over the blue sea and clear sky.
 

Chronos had not felt so alive in some time.
 
“Mother?”

“She has returned.”

“And Father?”

“They are reunited.”

“Then do we allow the others to wake?”

Gaea nodded.
 
“It is time I think.”

He smiled.
 
The two touched hands and sent out a pulse to their long-slumbering siblings.

***

In the abyss of the ocean, the pulse shook the water.
 
A presence stirred in silt.

Far above the ocean floor, an aircraft carrier cruised through the water on routine.
 
A blue whale surfaced and passed them by.
 
The crew gaped and smiled at the animal so rarely seen.
 
They pointed.
 
Another blue whale breached the water by it, then another.
 
The ocean around them filled with the enormous mammals.
 
The crew stared in shock as the behemoths centered, breathed in, and as one descended into the water.

The whales dove, surged, and merged into one creature.
 
A red light raced out of the deep to meet them.
 
Leviathan took flesh.
 
Fins as wings grew out of the whale.
 
It elongated and grew in mass.
 
Dozens of crimson eyes opened along the sides of her body, illuminating the depths around her.
 
Lilliam city ruins glowed red.

Lilliam of the deep swam through ancient halls and buildings and followed Leviathan to the surface.
 
She breached the water; her myriad eyes examined the aircraft carrier, many times dwarfed by her size.
 
She had not been awake in dozens of centuries and the creation that rode the water with her was a curiosity.
 
She heard the pulse and looked way.
 
Matters that were more important drew her attention from the human creation.
 

Leviathan shook and made a noise that sounded like laughter.
 
The waves rocked the ship.
 
She leapt into the air and sailed over the carrier.
 
She dove under the surface of the water and surged towards Gaea and Chronos.
 
The sailors stared after Leviathan in astonishment, unable to do anything other than gape.

***

Pigeons around the world went still.
 
They listened.
 
They cocked their heads at one time.
 
The pigeons stared at the sky.
 
Humans in cafés, parks, and at monuments stopped and gaped.
 
Animals whined and ran from the birds.
 

The wind picked up.
 
Clouds formed thunderheads.
 
Weather patterns broke as high and low pressure fronts changed course.
 
The north and south winds met with their siblings of the east and west.
 
Storms erupted in clear air.
 
Funnels whipped through the atmosphere.
 
Lightning struck in cloudless skies.

The pigeons opened their wings and took to the air.
 
They flew straight up, unheeding anything around them.
 
Locals cheered as they found their squares, buildings, and monuments no longer covered in the flying rats.
 
Above them, the skies darkened.
 

The pigeons met the wind.
 
They became a stream of feathers and coos as the air currents raced towards the Atlantic Ocean.
 
At an unmarked spot the pigeons combined, pressed in by the winds.
 
A roping dragon took shape from feathers and blood.
 
His body dwarfed planes in the sky; he snapped his jaws and lightning raced through the air.
 
Ouroboros opened burgundy eyes in the darkness of thunderclouds.
 
He spread his many wings and headed towards his siblings.
 

Beneath him, Leviathan watched her brother reawaken.
 
She blasted water into the air, disrupting his undulating flight.
 
He smiled and buzzed Leviathan as she raced away.
 
The two rolled and played tag, cutting the waters and any vessels they ran into along the way.

***

Scarabs erupted out of the sands around the Valley of Kings.
 
The golden sands turned black and shiny.
 
Animals and people fled.
 
A second pulse went through the ground, rattling the scarabs.
 
The area quieted.
 

The chitenous insects waited.
 
Light oozed out of the sand and formed balls of light, mini stars.
 
Each beetle took position and pushed a sun.
 
They moved without seeming plan or pattern, but each had a purpose reconstructing their god.

The light joined, grew, and shined brighter than the sun in the sky.
 
Ra stepped out of the condensed light and smiled.
 
She danced from foot to foot as her beetles scattered back into the earth.
 
She stomped on the ground and light raced from her, turning the sand to gold dust.
 
She flew into the air, a bright star.
 
She looked at what her land had become and frowned.
 
Things appeared unfamiliar.
 

Ra spread her hands out and focused on the buildings and ruins, the things beneath the shifting sands of Egypt.
 
The ground shook, and the air shimmered.
 
She restored her pyramids and statues.
 
She raised buildings that had fallen; paint and jewels reformed on the surfaces.
 
She enjoyed her objects and found them pleasing to look upon.
 
She grinned as humans gaped.

Ra twirled in the air.

Phoenix appeared beside her, bedecked in red and gold fabric.
 
She looked at her mother.
 
“Mom!
 
You weren’t woken up to redecorate.”

Ra hugged her daughter.
 
“But I want
her
to see what I made!”

“And she will, later.”

Ra kissed her daughter’s forehead.
 
“Why are some of my pharaohs missing?
 
What have my human converts been doing?”

“The Pharaohs were moved by
other
humans.
 
They like to look at them, and you do not have many human converts anymore.”

Ra pouted and gazed at the Egyptians and tourists that waited in the sand.
 
“Well, that just won’t do at all.”

***

Along the Amazon River, spiders packed up their webs and went for a walk.
 
They kept to the shadows, and animals let them pass by.
 
Birds did not feast above the walking carpet of the eight-legged.
 
Life showed them deference.
 
The spiders came to a tree, one that looked like many others.
 
It was tall, ancient, but under the growths of fungus and moss, runes glowed in the wood.
 
The tree burned with gloom.

The spiders began their climb.

The tree turned black, blue, and brown as the arachnids layered its surface.
 
They reached the canopy, spun their webs, and coated the foliage in shadow.
 
Nix opened her eyes among the webs.
 
Blue-eyed and glowing, she breathed darkness like smoke.
 
Her body sparkled with stars and captured moonlight.
 
She stretched, yawned, and opened wings of impenetrable black.
 
The sky around her turned to dusk, spreading outwards from her body.

She smacked her lips and shed her angelic form for one easier to travel in.
 
Nix the owl-eyed leapt into the air.
 
Night descended, an unnatural darkness.
 
It followed her like a cape across the sky.

***

The Himalayas quaked.
 
Ice cracked and slid in rumbling waves.
 
Pack animals fled, leaving their human companions to look around them in wonder.
 
Avalanches went off like dominos falling, covering the base of the mountains with snow.
 
Bare rock glittered in the sunlight.

Along the ridges, Titan’s spine popped and snapped as he awoke.
 
He opened his fists and the stone casing around them burst into splinters the size of elephants.
 
The giant tore himself out of the stone and gazed into the thin air.
 
He blinked and pulled his feet out of the mountains.
 
Like his siblings Leviathan and Ouroboros, he had fallen asleep as a behemoth.

Titan rubbed his nose, knocking loose rock and earth.
 
He yawned and the sound echoed through the Himalayas.
 
He cocked his head and oriented himself on the planet; his ruby eyes scanned air and water.
 
He closed his eyes and felt for Ifrit.
 
His brother had not yet awoken.
 
Gleeful, he took his smaller form, a stone wolf, and dove into the rock.