Gods of Earth (23 page)

And then, like the flood of a stream, the entire history of Hexus in this time—in Chance’s time—flooded into Chance, like water racing over a cliff edge and into the pool of his mind. Chance jerked and shook in a seizure of comprehension. He pulled away. Slowly, while Hexus reached for him again, his eyes focused.

He felt, in that moment, an urge to turn and ask Hexus,
how can I help you? How can we redeem all this?

Chance took two deep breaths.

Then he spun and punched Paul’s face: a square, solid hit with his top two knuckles striking the left cheek above the corner of the lip. Paul’s body staggered back a step, and then his heel caught on one of the rods along the bottom of the trap. He tripped and fell backwards, and lay in the center of the frame of the cube.

Chance jumped behind the dais. Hands shaking, he pressed the colored keys as he had learned.

Hexus laughed, in Paul’s voice. “That was a surprise, Potentiate. You always let Paul have the first swing at you in the past, so I failed to expect that.”

“Some things have changed,” Chance said, still pressing at the keys.

“You know: you would have won every fight with him, if only you did not have such a sense of fair play. Or is it a sense of suffering, of martyrdom, that made you let him get the advantage?”

Chance did not answer. Hexus floated into the air and righted himself, before setting his feet down. The cage began to form as a dimly visible sheen. Paul’s body was dressed now in a fine suit of black, with a crisp white shirt and white collar buttoned at the throat with a black stone. For a moment Chance had the absurd
desire to chastise Paul for wearing what were clearly not Puriman clothes. And though he realized in a moment that that was ridiculous, he was shocked to see Hexus now thieving Paul’s mannerisms: he pulled the two sleeves, each in turn, then straightened his collar before he ran his left hand over Paul’s red hair.

Chance felt a swell of anger and sorrow to see this hint of his brother remain, a mockery of Paul’s life and ways. Or was Paul still in there, still himself, buried alive?

“Now begins the New Age,” Hexus said. “Come.”

“No,” Chance said.

“There’s nothing here that can stop me. My Hieroni have the last two Numin Jars. Did you know that? And there was never anything else in this world that could harm or bind a god. Except another god.”

He held up his hand and the air seemed to shiver and writhe like a snake, twisting from the eye in his palm to the dim barrier—and through it. The shimmering form seized Chance, gripping his right arm, and dragged him toward the cube. But Chance leaned back and resisted the pull. His feet scraped on the damp stone floor.

“What’s this?” Hexus spat. He felt the weakening of his grip. He reached back, tugging at the extension of his hold, but the dim silvery limit of the cube pulled back, and Chance did not move.

Hexus lowered his head and shouted, and then with a savage twist of Paul’s whole body, pulled with all his strength. The line of his control trembled, and then it jerked Chance forward.

Chance slammed into the side of the cube, and fell back to the ground, dazed. A sharp pain pierced his arm where Hexus had seized him. But the connection between them was severed.

“What is this?” Hexus repeated. He walked forward—

And bounced off the slowly forming wall. He fell back onto the ground. He looked at Chance now, where they both sat on the floor, facing each other, on opposite sides of the congealing barrier.

“The first Numin Jar,” Chance said. “Threkor’s mold.”

“Ah. And I could have just walked around it. It’s your brother’s plodding, stupid brain that slows me, Potentiate.” He stood.

A shout echoed down from above. And another: this one Sarah’s. And the ring of a sword. Chance started to reach down with his right arm, to push himself up, but then felt a stab of pain. He pulled back his sleeve, and found that a lump protruded on his forearm: one of the bones in his right arm was broken, and it pressed painfully against his muscles, as if it might pierce through his skin if he put any weight upon it.

There was another cry on the stairs. He slowly got up, holding his broken limb as still as he could with his left hand. It did not hurt yet, though he felt lightheaded. He hobbled to the door and called out, “Sarah!” But she did not answer. A man and woman, both shirtless and carrying axes, were descending the stairs. Chance had no choice: all was lost if the Hieroni freed the false god. He pushed the heavy door closed, and set the crossbar behind it, just as the two Hieroni flung themselves against the rusted iron with a loud clanging.

Chance turned, his back against the coarse metal of the barred door. A wave of dizziness swept over him. A dull pain started in his arm, and the feel of the broken forearm resting on his left palm made his head reel. On top of this, he felt a growing nausea from the disorientation of Hexus having stolen into his mind again.

And there stood the false god, possessing his brother, right hand held up, the black eye in the palm of it peering back at him.

Tears welled in Chance’s eyes, from mixed pain and regret. “I’m sorry, Paul. I’m sorry. This is because of me. But I will avenge you, and I will avenge our parents. And perhaps.…”

Hexus sneered. “You cannot take the acts of a god on yourself—”

“Shut up, foul thing,” Chance hissed. “I speak to my brother. I know he is there.” He took a shuffling step forward, cradling his arm carefully. Behind him, the Hieroni still clanged, clanged at the door. “Paul, Paul, I ask that you forgive me. I know I was a poor
brother. I judged you. Father told me I was judgmental, that last day, before the guests arrived. And I see that he was right. Can you forgive me?”

For a moment, an expression of Paul’s own seemed to rise out of buried depths. His face sagged, and his chin quivered. His eyes welled with sadness.

Then a sneer broke the expression.

“Don’t weep for him, Potentiate,” Hexus said. “Your brother nearly hates you. Do you know why?”

“Yes,” Chance whispered.

“No you don’t. He hates that you’re a fine farmer, a better winemaker. He hated how you made your own law. You were a Puriman, and yet you broke rules and never seemed to suffer for it. He hated your arrogance.”

Paul’s voice dropped. “And he hated you because you believe. You break all the rules but still you believe it all. You find it so easy to never doubt. He hated your comfortable faith. For that I cannot blame him.”

Chance shuffled another step forward. “Shut up. I’m going to kill you. Do you know that? I’m going to kill you. I will be the vessel of God’s wrath!”

“You would help the Atheos kill me? Who made the Atheos, Potentiate? Why does it want to kill me? Have you asked these questions?”

“Every good man should want to kill you. Ah! Why do I talk to you? I turn my back on you.” But Chance took another step toward the cube as he said this.

“Why turn your back? I cannot harm you. If this wall continues to grow, in minutes I will be locked away in here. Time will slow for me and I will be like a fish frozen into ice. Hear what I would say. I do not seek to harm you.”

“Liar. Do you think I am an ass? I saw you murder my parents. I see you now, murdering my brother.”

“That night at your home, what would have happened if I had not killed the first Purimen to approach me? All of them in that barn would have attacked me, in the end. And many more would have died. I could have killed them all, if I wanted. It would have been easy. But I warned them, instead, with an example. Can you understand that, Potentiate? If you are to rule as a god, you must understand such choices. I have walked in your world. I know what must be done in it.”

“This is not my world,” Chance sneered. “This is not the Purimen’s world. This is your world. You and your kind made it like this. You emptied this city. You caused the Barren. You waged the Great War. If the people followed the ways of the Purimen, all would be peaceful, as it is in the Valley of the Walking Man. Men have tried your way, and it led only to misery and death. Give us our chance, give us our time. The Purimen, not false gods, can redeem the men of Earth.”

And, as he said this, Chance realized for the first time that this should be the calling of the Purimen.

Hexus walked along the thickening wall of the cube, Paul’s right hand held up, the obscene eye looking at Chance.

“Wrong,” he whispered.

But Chance thought he heard, for the first time, doubt in Hexus’s voice.

“Who are you?” Chance asked, “Who are you to return from your unquiet grave and tell we the living how to live?”

“I am a god.”

Bloated red pustules covered the flesh of Paul’s hand and the wrist. Chance pointed at the sores. “You’re not a god! You’re a pestilence! Die, and let us try our own way, you rotting filth.”

“This is mortality, this rot. It is not me. This is you. You’ll rot someday. Every human will rot. Unless we become gods, Potentiate.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“This world has known no greater title of respect than ‘Potentiate.’ And I tell you: I mean you no harm. I want to give you my memories. I want to give you my knowledge. And then I want
you to take my place. Kill me, yes—it will be a favor, Potentiate. You could not conceive my suffering—the demigod Wervool somehow broke my body, and trapped most of it in the moment of its own destruction, so that this tiny fragment of me feels bound and restricted and cannot become its own whole. Kill me, please. But take my place. Become a god. We need a whole god to save this world. Only a god can save us.”

Chance tried to laugh. “You think I will be tempted by this? I was a Puriman! A man is his memories and his knowledge and his hopes and dreams. Replace those and you kill the most of him.”

“No. A soul is more—”

“You think me so corruptible,” Chance interrupted. “So foolish?”

“No. Not a fool. But ignorant, with a primitive religion.” He squinted knowingly at Chance. It was an alien expression on Paul’s face, a reminder that this was not Paul. “I’m the only one among you to have the respect to tell you this, am I not?”

Chance’s flinch made Hexus nod sagely.

“Yes. The others here treat you as a child. I treat you as an equal. They know there is no supreme god, but they let your errors pass in silence. Am I right?”

Chance did not answer.

“And why?” Hexus spoke through a silvered gray mist now. “Because they think you worthless, another savage who cannot face his lies.”

“The One True God is not a lie.”

“Oh, but Potentiate, what if it were?”

“It is not. I have no doubts.”

“You have no doubts. But believing does not make it true. What if your beliefs were false? What if there were no One True God, but only gods, a great leap above men, but only a leap? Necessary, but faulted also? And as alone in the world as you and I?”

The shield was nearly opaque now. Chance saw the shadow of his own face superimposed on the dim outline of his lost brother’s visage.
Transfixed, he stepped closer to the cube, so that his face and the face of his brother, the stolen face of the god, were just a hand-span apart.

“Then the world would be purposeless,” Chance whispered.

“Yes!” Hexus said, in Paul’s voice. “And what should we do, then?”

Chance refocused his eyes to peer at the reflection of his own, sad eyes, so like the eye of Hexus, and whispered, “Despair.”

“Or? Or? Why not make our own purposes? Make our own gods! Is that so bad, Potentiate? Ponder it! Don’t give in to the easy comforts of the stories you’ve been told.
Ponder it!
I beg you to save this decayed world.” The mirror was complete now. Only a single phrase, spoken as if from far away, managed to slip past the last moments of the barrier’s completion. “Do not cling to an absent God!”

Chance opened his mouth to speak, but seeing in the mirror only himself, he faltered. What was he about to say? He did not know. His reflection gazed back confused, slyly cautious. The doubt in his eyes looked as cunning and worldly as had the scheming eye of Hexus.

“There is only One True God,” he whispered. He saw but did not feel his lips moving as he spoke. His voice was vacant of conviction. His eyes betrayed that his thoughts reached beyond the rote phrase.

“Puriman!” the Guardian called. The metal door clanged hard. Two screams came through the door and then fell, echoing. Chance understood: the Guardian had just tossed down the deep well the Hieroni who stood by the door. “Puriman, it is I. Open the door!” Chance hurried to the door, awkwardly rested his right arm on his chest, and, after a brief struggle, lifted the bar with his left.

The Guardian’s massive shoulders scraped noisily against the frame as he pushed in, scattering flakes of rust on the floor. He was whole, with not a sign on him that he had a short while before been cut in twain. He held the hammer back with one hand and with the other reached out toward the mirrored cube.

“I ken nothing. Is it bound?”

Chance nodded. “It’s bound. In there.”

The Guardian squinted at him.

“What?” Chance asked.

“Here, hold this,” the Guardian asked, planting Threkor’s Hammer next to Chance. “I need to check the cube.”

Chance looked at the hammer. Strange thoughts welled in his mind. He saw again what Hexus had shown him: a huge dark man, like the Guardian in size and form, standing before a blue fire, holding this hammer and staring out from under dark brows. Chance almost reached out, to touch and cling to the hammer, to hold something that meshed with this fleeting vision of Threkor.

Chance took a step back. “I should not. No Puriman should touch such a thing.”

The Guardian nodded with relief. He lifted the hammer. “I’m glad that you are still you, Chance Kyrien.”

Chance’s voice faltered as he replied, “I am glad you’re whole again, and alive, Guardian.”

“And I am sorry for your brother.”

Chance nodded. Then he shouted, “But Sarah! Please, can you find her? She was fighting the others—the Hieroni. And Seth!”

“She is well. She follows behind. The coyote also.”

“Thank God,” Chance said. “Thank God.”