The God Eaters

  He babbled and whimpered, begging, blustering, warning, promising, but Thelyan paid him no mind. Like a statue carved from salt, the Judge watched until he was certain the blank-faced boy had no material on him that might be used for a tool, then steered the unresisting creature to the wall of the sphere. He touched a seal he'd never released before.

  Chaiel gasped as air moved against his skin. The bubble was open, it was open! He could get out, if only he could get to the surface he could reach through, he smelled things and felt a breeze on his face!

  Thelyan gestured, and the idiot boy was jerked through the air and into the sphere. He fell limply against Chaiel, who shoved and clawed to be free of the entangling limbs, to get out -- but Thelyan touched the seal again, and the sphere went stagnant as before.

  "Fuck you, Judge!" Chaiel screeched. "Fuck you! Shit on you! I hope your eyes fall out! I hope bugs eat your bowels!"

  "I'll leave you a light," Thelyan replied. "So you can get acquainted." He sent his glowing spot up to cling to the ceiling. He went out of the room, and the door clanged behind him.

  Weeping in rage, Chaiel punched and slapped at unresponsive body that sagged all over him. It was drawn to the center of the sphere, as he was, and thus it pressed against him no matter what he did. Briefly he entertained the thought of eating it. When it was dead, he could vomit it out, and it would fall out of the sphere and leave him alone.

  Alone. A groan wrung out of him. He didn't want to be alone.

  But this flopping doll was no company. He turned it around, held it away from him with his feet against its chest. It looked a little bit familiar -- but then, didn't everything? As he watched it, its eyes slid meaninglessly sideways, clearly not seeing anything.

  Bewilderment rushed through him. It was quickly followed by regret, then longing, then worry for the safety of -- someone.

  Chaiel sucked in his breath. Those weren't his own feelings. The floppy boy was sending them.

  Forcing himself calm, he sorted through what had been said, trying to separate his stuttering visions from actual dialogue.

  Medur. In a male body. Given to him. This. The Green Lady who wove the vines between hearts; voices babbling about a Green Man; emotions coming up through the soles of his feet. Chaiel squatted on the stranger's chest, peering at him. Well, he looked like a Yelorrean, and immortals tended to incarnate near where they'd first come to power, and there was something foggy about him, like thick clothing, only underneath his skin. Remember. You know how to do this. It's been so long... you know how to do this, Chaiel. Look properly.

  Centuries since there had been any pattern in here but his own. He'd stopped seeing it. Blinded by too much information. Making his sight work on the body in front of him was a long, frustrating chore, exacerbated by the leaking emotions that came out wherever their skin touched. And he could not keep from touching, because the stupid sphere pushed them both toward the center, and stupid Thelyan made them be naked so Chaiel couldn't find a way to kill himself with his clothes. Or make a noose of them and swing out to catch the seals when the sphere was opened -- I could have used my hair, I could have made a braid and swung it out and caught it on a seal when he put this person in, oh damn me why didn't I do that? Too late now; he bit himself hard on the forearm, then returned to his task.

  Just when he thought he'd forgotten forever, would never remember, pattern bloomed before his eyes in all its brilliant colors of thought.

  His own pattern was not pleasant to look at. He was insane, and it showed. Chaotic, jerking and spiking with nauseating randomness. He focused instead on the boy's. It was hard to make out; that fog was still there. Chaiel thought its regularity was a bit reminiscent of Thelyan's style. A spell of passivity, of course. He could shatter it with a word, but stopped himself -- stilled himself, though it was difficult -- and carefully spun off the power in it, instead. Not nearly enough power to break out of the sphere. There might not be enough in the world for that. But more was good anyway. As the last shreds of the spell pulled free, the blue-eyed youth blinked and twitched, distaste and panic spilling out of him.

  "Hold still," Chaiel barked. "We'll just get tangled if you move."

  Looking from Chaiel's face to his own body to the room beyond the ripple of the sphere, the stranger let out a groan. "What is this?"

  "You're in the sphere. Thelyan said Medur's in you. Let me look."

  Hands hovering in awkward consideration near Chaiel's feet, the stranger spilled out confusion shading into anger. "Who's Thelyan?"

  "The one who brought you here."

  "I don't remember that. I don't remember coming here. What's Medur?"

  "You're not very bright, are you?"

  The boy's brows snapped down. Suddenly he moved, grabbing Chaiel's ankle and thrusting him away. Chaiel began a laugh as he bounced up and began to come down again, but it was cut off when the boy's fist smacked into the side of his jaw, spinning him around. As he yelped in surprise, the stranger reversed their earlier positions, so that he was now kneeling on Chaiel's chest, and he had a fistful of Chaiel's hair.

  "Just so you know," the boy said tightly, "I've had one hell of a rotten day, so I advise you to leave off smartassing and answer my goddamned question."

  Chaiel gaped at the newcomer. His jaw hurt now. The boy looked so thin, but he'd hit awfully hard. And he was so angry. He was still leaking emotion, which meant he was an empath like Medur's vessel should be, but the feeling coming out of him was a cold burn of fury. Chaiel whimpered. "Don't hit me anymore."

  The emission of anger flickered, but came back almost as strongly. "That's up to you, kid. We can be friends or enemies. Your call."

  "Friends!" Chaiel tugged to get his hair out of the stranger's fist. The stranger let go with a sigh, anger fading to weary irritation.

  "Good. My name's Ashleigh Trine. Call me Ash if you like." He offered his hand, and Chaiel shook it, though the angle was awkward.

  "My name is Chaiel," he said, and waited for a reaction. Got none. Sniffed. "So Thelyan really has erased me from history."

  "What is this place? This thing? How come we're all sideways and sticky?"

  "It's called a null sphere. It suspends me so that Thelyan can try to make me answer questions. It stops aging. Mostly. Hair and nails still grow. But I hope you don't need to piss, because you can't."

  "Yeah, I can see your hair. Do they feed us? I'm hungry as hell, and thirsty."

  "Eventually, you'll bite yourself and suck your own blood, trying to stop the thirst. It doesn't work, but you'll do it anyway."

  "So that would be a no," the boy named Ash said calmly, but there had been a spike of fear in him. "Who's this Thelyan character, then?"

  Chaiel's lips quirked. "Say the name a lot of times very quickly."

  "No thanks."

  "Thelyan Thelan Telan Delan Dalan."

  "So? What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Are you a Dalanist?"

  "You're smartassing again." Ash cracked his knuckles.

  "I'm not. I swear. He's an immortal, a theophage like I am, like Ka'an and Medur -- gods. We were all mortal once, but he's forgotten that. He's eaten all the rest, and made the world think he's the only one. Now he's going to go eat Ka'an, and then he'll eat us. He's incarnated right now, made himself Director of the Watch. That's who put you in here, because you have Medur in you, though I can't see her, I don't know how he knew --"

  "Calm down. Shy -- what was your name?"

  "Chaiel."

  "Okay. Look, I happen to think you're nuts, but let's see if it hangs together. I've heard of Ka'an.

  Tell me about him."

  "You should know. You've been fucking him."

  The newcomer's already pale face blanched gray. "Oh god."

  "Precisely."

  "So Kieran really -- how did you know that?"

  "It's my function. I know things. Just as it's Thelyan's function to divide things, and yours to bring things together, and your evil sweetheart's to do al
l sorts of things no one wants done."

  "What?"

  "Oh, he's a scary one, Ka'an. I can remember when he ruled the rest of us. He was horrible. He must've been buried awfully deep in your Kieran person, if you can regard him with anything but loathing. Just like Medur's buried so far down in you I can't find her."

  Ash shook his head rapidly. "Damn it -- this is all crazy. Okay, who's Medur, and what's this crap about... her... being inside me?"

  "Let me see if I can find her. Draw her out. Then I won't have to explain things."

  "No. I saw that -- Ka'an -- coming up in Kieran, and it scared the hell out of me. I don't think I want to go through something like that."

  "With Medur?" Chaiel laughed. "She's harmless."

  "Nope. Don't try," he added warningly, cocking a fist.

  "And she has the answers you want."

  "Didn't I just tell you no?"

  "And I miss her."

  "Tough. I don't want some girl taking over my mind."

  "Don't you want to know all about the god that's running your starving, hypothermic boyfriend to death right about now?"

  Immediately after he'd said it -- after it had leapt from his lips as things sometimes did if he had a clairsentient moment while he was talking -- he wished he'd somehow kept his mouth shut. The emotion that spilled into him from Ash was more sharply painful than anything he'd felt in a very long time. Its aftereffects were even worse; Ash was just gnawing a knuckle, afraid because something bad was happening to someone he loved, but Chaiel was forced to see how dulled and numb he'd become over the centuries, and was in danger of losing his numbness because of it.

  They remained like that for a time, throwing pain back and forth, until Ash steeled himself and shut down the circuit. His magic was clumsy -- he slammed himself closed far harder than he had to. Still, it was a relief.

  Ash covered his hands with his face for a moment, then took a deep breath and met Chaiel's eyes. "All right. Do it."

  "It's easier if you open up again," Chaiel said reluctantly.

  "If I get scared, it'll distract you."

  "Never mind that. You just startled me. You're no good at this. You never had any training, I suppose."

  "No."

  "Just open."

  Scowling, Ash closed his eyes. After a few breaths, his face relaxed, and his mind's barriers relaxed as well. All he was leaking now was a faint anxiety, which was a sensation Chaiel was well accustomed to.

  There was the fellow's pattern, a pleasingly even one, almost floral in its unfurled receptiveness.

  Shapes of open-minded reason repeated within it. The mind of a scholar. Of course it contained the uneven glyphs of hot-blooded tendencies that were to be expected in someone so young, and the whole was currently underlaid by a deep sense of loss and anger, but on the whole it was a very sane mind. The certain shape of magic which Thelyan's minions had been taught to call a Talent was there, a little stretched and scarred as if he'd been trying to get it to do things it couldn't. Or, Chaiel realized, as if it had recently been caught against a will like Thelyan's. Ash had certainly been interrogated before being brought here, but he didn't seem much changed by it.

  Chaiel resented him for that.

  After much careful sorting and delving, he saw what he'd been looking for. Scented the faintest hint of someone he knew. Following the hint, he found it tightly knotted, incurved in such a way that it could not, of its own action, break free. A touch from outside was needed to release it.

  Medur had made herself a seed that could only germinate when conditions were just right.

  That was so like her. Chaiel smiled as he touched the intricately tiny glyph, teased free a burr of semi-awareness and saw the whole thing start to unfold.

  He drew back into himself and opened his eyes. Ash looked puzzled at him.

  "I thought it would be like a Survey," Ash said. "But that didn't hurt."

  "Doing it right takes finesse. Creativity. Thelyan's people don't have that. He pounds it out of them."

  "Well, I appreciate it. I can sort of see what you were looking at, but I don't feel any different.

  Should I?"

  "Give it time."

  "I don't have time, not if what you said about Kieran is true!"

  "Oh, Ka'an won't break his body while it's still useful. Probably."

  "Probably?" Ash bared his teeth, about to have a tantrum. Then he stopped. His look turned inward. He drew a sharp breath. "Oh."

  Chaiel waited, half fearful and half pleased, while Medur unfurled.

  --==*==--

  Thelyan studied the map. He could get a team into the Burn area within four hours. Faster, if the Splitwood Mine spur was clear, or the engineers handy about shunting traffic off it. But he had to assume the worst, and in the worst case he'd only be throwing those men away. Well, he could withdraw them if the situation changed.

  Interrogating Ashleigh Trine had yielded some interesting results. He'd done it himself, not trusting the information to any of his officers. He hadn't made any special effort to leave the recaptured fugitive sane or alive at the end of the session; giving the boy to Chaiel had been an afterthought. The combination of Survey, Compulsion, and physical stressing had broken Trine wide open. Thelyan now knew that Kieran Trevarde was Ka'an's current host, that Ka'an had nearly awakened at least once, that the two fugitives' homosexual relationship might provide a hold on Trevarde if Ka'an didn't emerge, and that Ka'an had apparently seen something in Trine to startle him. A deeper probe of Trine had told Thelyan what it was: Medur, dormant.

  One of his two enemies had fallen into his hand, without any effort on his part. He had a fairly clear idea of the location and plans of the other. And the weather was clearing, which would allow tracking.

  Either Ka'an had emerged, or he had not. If he had emerged, he would make straight for the Burn as quickly as possible. If he hadn't, he might do so at any point, or he might remain buried. If he remained buried, the motivation would be Trevarde's; either to hide himself, or to attempt to free Trine. That last possibility seemed unlikely, as things stood; some people actually were that suicidally noble, but Thelyan doubted that the multiple murderer Trevarde was one of them. It was also unlikely that Ka'an would remain buried long.

  Therefore it made sense to plan for two contingencies: Ka'an in fresh possession of his power, or Trevarde fleeing for the border.

  Ways to leave the country were limited, and already closely monitored. It wouldn't hurt to have a search team combing the area where Trevarde had last been sighted, in case he tried to find a bolthole within the country. But Thelyan considered it far more likely that Ka'an had awakened.

  In which case, his first action after reassuming his power would be to strike at Thelyan. The evil one wasn't stupid; he knew that planning and preparing were Thelyan's skills, not his own, and would try not to give Thelyan time to be ready. He would not understand that Thelyan had always been ready. Coming fresh from reabsorbing his greater pattern, wearing a body still injured and exhausted from the Watch's harrying of Trevarde, and nearly a thousand years behind the science of magic, he'd be easily defeated.

  The only thing Thelyan wasn't confident of was his ability to fully assimilate Ka'an. He'd failed, last time. He'd only been able to cut Ka'an from his power and kill his body. Though he could easily do that this time, it would mean another long period of watching for the evil one's possible incarnations. He would far rather break Ka'an's will and take him in whole. But the methods by which Thelyan had broken the others hadn't worked on Ka'an. The others had loved their worshippers, and thus were vulnerable to Thelyan's threats to their populations. Ka'an, on the other hand, was perfectly selfish. When Thelyan had warned that retaliations would fall on the Iavaians as a result of Ka'an's stubbornness, Ka'an had been unmoved. If they can't defend themselves, let them die, Ka'an had replied.

  Well, perhaps something would come to mind. Until then, it was better to plan on keeping the body alive, using the null sphere. H
aving three of his enemies in one sphere wouldn't be secure; he would have to build more.

  Then there would be no chance of anyone spoiling his plans. His people would continue to spread across the world, bringing order and righteousness. Gradually, rebellion and sin would be weeded out. There would come a time when all was clear, all voices raised in unison to him, ordered and regular, grateful for the bliss of perfect obedience. There would be no more of the pain caused by conflict. No more pride or lust or anger. Ka'an's diseased legacy would be erased at last.