The God Eaters

  We have business, Kieran sent.

  Ka'an agreed with a mental snarl.

  The body crumpled to the sand as they leapt into the battlefield of dreams.

  --==*==--

  Thelyan paused in mid-word when he sensed the surge of dark power to the west. His subordinates looked at him curiously, concerned. They had never seen such an expression cross the Director's face. Some of them had felt a pale shade of what Thelyan had sensed, but none of them knew what it meant. They were already confused by his preparations.

  He pulled himself together, wrapping himself in the chill calm that was his strength.

  "Gentlemen, it seems the Situation is, in fact, occurring. Warren, begin evacuating the research section. Vaughart, I want the northern wing locked down and cleared. All viable subjects are to be terminated. Rine, contact Strindner at Splitwood; have him leave a four-man team on standby and pull the rest back here. Liss, prepare your men for deployment."

  Sergeant Liss hesitated as the others scattered. "Sir, do you have a time estimate?"

  Glancing at the map, Thelyan performed some calculations. If Ka'an were in a hurry, he might use wind and Kinetics to 'fly' here; in such a case, his speed would be governed by the kind of wind he could summon. That method was wasteful of power, though. More likely, the evil one would simply run, and there were limits to what a body could do, even with a god's power in it.

  "Six hours," Theylan replied. "Expect Strindner to reinforce you."

  "Thank you, sir." Snapping off a salute, Liss removed himself.

  Satisfied that there would be troops enough to weaken Ka'an, and that what could be preserved would be, Thelyan left the meeting room by a different door. He would wait outside, atop the mountain. He didn't want anything interfering with his senses now.

  Just because he expected to win didn't mean he'd make anything less than a full effort. He had nothing to prove by holding back. No one but he and his enemy even understood the conflict.

  --==*==--

  Ash grunted as Chaiel let him fall. They'd been standing on the soles of each other's feet so Ash could probe the bubble's surface, when Chaiel had suddenly curled up like a pillbug. Ash collided with him, getting tangled in the ludicrous ropes and nets of Chaiel's hair and grazed by Chaiel's overgrown toenails.

  "Damn it, would you pay attention?" But just as he said it, he sensed what had set Chaiel off. A thing like tugging and pressure both at once, a rolling wave of needles. It washed over and through him, left him gasping. "Kieran," he breathed. He'd tasted Kieran's personality in that.

  And the greasy menace of Ka'an as well.

  How had it reached him, here in the bubble? A thought snapped into focus, and he followed it without taking time to analyze. Shot his attention down the wave's backtrail, searching.

  Somewhere out there was a bullet with his name on it, his scratched initials resting against the skin of Kieran's throat. That connection, somehow, was on a different level from the null sphere's blocking, just like Chaiel's visions. That meant that he and Kieran weren't completely cut off from each other. He would have wept in gratitude, if he could have spared the attention.

  Dimly, he sensed Chaiel babbling. That wasn't important. He was going to find Kieran and help him, even if he used himself up doing it.

  --==*==--

  Kieran stood barefoot on a white limestone floor, beneath a roof painted scarlet, between pillars carved in the shape of bundled reeds. Before him, above him, Ka'an sat on a gilded throne. The dark god wore a body like a pampered version of his own; smooth of skin, attenuated and graceful, impossibly beautiful. Scarlet cloth brocaded with gold draped the god's slender body, leaving his chest bare to reveal a collar of gold and gems that spread across his shoulders. Bands of gold circled his upper arms, wrists, ankles, and waist. Atop his intricately braided hair sat a tall, sun-rayed crown of soft gold, its points decorated with looping strands of lapis and ruby.

  A tight sense of anticipation bubbled up in Kieran's throat, and came out as laughter. There was going to be a fight. He felt it coming, like a hot wind, tensing his stomach, baring his teeth. The indignant expression on Ka'an's face just made him laugh harder.

  The god rose slowly from his throne, jingling. "You will regret your laughter, Ghost," he thundered.

  "You have no idea," Kieran gasped, "how stupid you look."

  "See how the vision has dressed you." Ka'an pointed theatrically, arm straight out. "Deep down, you know yourself to be a slave."

  Kieran glanced down, to see that all he had between himself and the world was a loincloth. All his scars and tattoos were on display. He looked up grinning. "I'll whup your ass buck naked if I have to, boy."

  "I think not." Ka'an passed his arm through the air, and a golden shimmer coalesced into a curved sword in his hand. He stepped down from the throne platform. Green lightning crackled in his eyes, and his robes fluttered around him in an intangible wind.

  That was a nice effect. Kieran watched the god stalk toward him for a moment, to see how it was done. Then he pushed with his mind, clothing himself in half a second, not bothering with theatrics. The same stuff he'd been wearing before; he doubted Ka'an would be intimidated by flashy clothes.

  He reached into his pockets and held up what he found: three spare magazines in his left hand, the Hart all cleaned up and loaded and chambered in the right. He spun the gun on his finger, showing teeth.

  Then he aimed it at Ka'an and put five slugs in him, center of mass.

  Pillars rippled and light tore as Ka'an's overdecorated body jerked. When it fell, though, it fell not as a dead body but as a multitude of snakes. A susurration of rattling arose as they multiplied across the floor.

  Kieran's grin turned to a grimace. He couldn't shoot them all. What did he want, a net, taller boots, some kerosene and a match?

  Wait, why was he letting Ka'an set the stage? It was the same as clothing himself, really: he moved the dream with a thought, and instantly he was standing on a lone rock in the middle of an endless stretch of water. Snakes thrashed and drowned.

  His rock lurched, crumbled. As he fell, he grabbed the idea of frost. He fell on ice.

  Ice turned to stone. Bare desert, now. As he scrambled to his feet, Ka'an's shape coalesced before him. They glared at each other for a long moment.

  "Well played, for a beginner," Ka'an said. "But you have not yet felt my true strength."

  "Bring it," Kieran growled.

  Everything happened at once, then. Too fast to analyze. He countered instinctively, shifting himself and the world in flickers, as Ka'an did the same. Storms raged. Armies charged. Fire, earthquakes, floods. Serpents, insects, sandstorms. One moment he was drowning in blood, the next he was miles above the earth and falling. Freezing, burning, deafening, blinding.

  He was on the defensive from the moment it began. All he could do was keep coming back to images of safety. Empty desert -- but that was where the storms found him. City streets -- which cracked to chasms. Familiar buildings went up in flames. Green fields erupted with boiling masses of scorpions. Kieran was pushed farther and farther back into himself.

  He was losing. Ka'an was going to win.

  Of course I am. Did you think you could fight a god?

  His dream-body was shredding, going to mist. A thousand different kinds of pain beat at him. He could endure it, but he couldn't find a place to attack from. This was no good. He had to think of something -- but Ka'an was giving him no time to think.

  Surrender, Ghost. Why cling to this painful life? Death is your home.

  He was a ghost? He remembered being dead, remembered dying. But then there was living after that. Ka'an was lying...

  So why did the word ghost sound like it belonged to him?

  No, he had a body... somewhere... this dream-body was modeled after it, this torn and tattered thing... he had arms and legs, he had skin, he had scars...

  Taking a step backward into himself, he clutched at his memory of flesh. Hands, feet, clothes,
something hanging around his neck -- he grasped it --

  Bright as a scalpel, a thought cut through the fog:

  Fight him, Kieran! Beat him and come back to me!

  In a rush, he remembered. Eyes, hands, mouth, words, thoughts, Ash. Ka'an threw more horrors at him, but he realized that they were repeating. Ka'an had run out of ideas. They weren't doing anything, anyway. He'd gone past that part of the battle. Ka'an had won that part.

  It doesn't matter. You're still you. Remember. Kieran Trevarde. Your name is Kai, which means courage. Do you remember?

  I remember, he returned, and let the pains and horrors wash by him. Why had he let them matter in the first place? He didn't even need a body, in a dream. Or, if he wanted, he could have a body that just plain wasn't affected by all this weird shit Ka'an was doing.

  At the moment he realized this, it all stopped. He was alone in a dark place. He swallowed down the urge to tense in expectation. Whatever happened, it wasn't going to affect him, because this was a dream.

  Oh, really? That was Ka'an, sounding smug. He had something up his sleeve.

  Kieran sent the sense of a snarl. You waiting for an invitation? Do your thing. Let's see if you can touch me.

  Light swelled. Dim, flickering. It outlined a rounded, uneven space: a cave. Messy little lamps burned here and there, and the air was filled with a complex stench of rotted meat, burned meat, fresh meat, and unwashed bodies. In the middle of the cave a frail figure sat crosslegged on a wad of greasy fur.

  It was even weirder seeing this version of Ka'an than the clanking emperor in gold. Seeing his own face smeared with yellow ochre, dotted with black. Yellow grease matted his hair into dreadlocks. His wrists were like twigs, his ribs standing out, his feet looking ungainly at the end of legs that were sticks of bone. He was dressed in nothing but blue beads. Ropes and ropes of little turquoise beads. His eyes were closed, the eyelids decorated with the smeared remains of dots meant to make it look like his eyes were open while he slept. Before him on the fur, between his feet, there was a stone bowl encrusted with something brownish. Food?

  Opium. Kieran had almost lost himself in observing, but the realization of what was in the bowl jerked him back to himself. He knew, abruptly, what Ka'an was showing him: a past so distant there were no records of it. This was what Ka'an had been once. Mortal, and on the nod.

  Vertigo hit him as he began to sense the enormous weight of time involved. Thousands upon thousands of years. How many thousands?

  "Too many to count," the emaciated figure said without opening its eyes. Its voice was hollow, otherworldly. "Time is a figure like any other. Past and future are the same. Behold, I have dreamed: the People will grow greater than the number of seeds in a field of grain. All good things will come to them. For many years, it will be thus. Too many to count. Then will come a dark time, when the People fail and become less. In that time, I too will fail and become less. But it will only be as a sleep. I will return to bring the People back to the light."

  Ka'an opened his eyes and fixed them on Kieran. Hollow, sunken, brilliant green. "I was given these eyes that I might see into the spirit world. I am holy. None may touch me. You may not touch me."

  Loneliness snaked out from his words, threading a chill through Kieran's veins. He wavered as it struck him. A loneliness so immense no human soul could carry it. Holy and outcast. A whole life, and then life after life, without human contact. Any who touched him would be put to death.

  They had to do this, or the contamination of Ka'an's dreams would draw ghosts and sickness, and the people would suffer. All things pertaining to the otherworld had to be sequestered here with the Dreamer, and only the shamans dared even speak to him. It had always been this way.

  Caught in the tide of Ka'an's memory, Kieran was whirled along. Life after life sped before him.

  Hidden in the dark, sacred and untouchable. Change came slowly; a tent rather than a cave, then a temple built of stones. Then there were battles, and the People triumphed. New arts rose. Cities spread and fell and rose again.

  The People conquered to the east and north, many lesser people, enslaving them. Gold and jewels came; strange animals came; there was music and dancing, there was blood and crying, there were beautiful whores in his temples and cruel visionaries in his palaces. There was magic and wonder. Those who rose against him were destroyed. Those who venerated him were rewarded.

  He was worshipped. He was adored. He was feared. He was always alone.

  Time; the weight of all that time; it was unbearable, it was crushing him. He didn't want it. Better to give it up, let someone else take it. To be mortal, singular, to die, it was a blessing, and he yearned for it...

  Kai! I can't hear you anymore! Kieran! Where are you?

  Names. He'd had so many names. What did names matter?

  Fight him, Kieran. Are you there?

  He didn't want to fight anymore. He was so tired. Let someone else fight.

  I love you, Kieran! Fight! I want you to come back to me!

  So someone was talking about love. That didn't have anything to do with him. It couldn't. He was holy. No one could touch him.

  The voice came again, and this time it was angry. Are you giving up? You don't ever give up!

  Loser unity, Kai! Don't you read? The underdog always wins! Confused, he groped after the source of this voice. It reminded him of something, maybe a time when he'd been happy...

  Time? How could he find one moment among the years and years and years?

  Kai, it's me, it's Ash, don't you remember? Remind him who he is. Damn it. Are you there? How am I supposed to do this? Kieran! Kieran Trevarde! Kai, Green Sky, Suneater, each one of these dots is a dead man, do you remember? You died and came back, you called the storm, do you remember? You're too mean to die, too beautiful to die, you don't care what anyone thinks except maybe me and I love you so much, I won't let you give up, damn it --

  Wistfully, he listened to the voice rant. Was that meant to describe him? It sounded like such a strong person. He wished he was strong like that.

  Hey Ka'an, are you listening? Let him go, or I'll personally reach down your neck and rip your balls off. Let him go, he's mine! Kieran, don't you let Ka'an win, you deserve everything good and he's just a spoiled child!

  He was a spoiled child? Or was he the one that was too mean to die? Was he Ka'an, or the one who was supposed to be fighting Ka'an? He was drowning in this loneliness, the loneliness was Ka'an's, Ka'an who was a spoiled child, he didn't want to be Ka'an --

  Shock. Perspective. A jolt like being shot. The smothering of years broke, leaving him light and empty and blind.

  Rage boiled up to fill that space. The son of a bitch had almost won that time. Sneaky fuck.

  I got it now, Ashes, he thought fiercely. You just sit tight.

  For convenience, he built a scene. The barroom of a roadhouse outside Canyon, where the miners went to waste their pay. He didn't people it, left it deserted except for himself and a sort of clockwork bartender to work the taps. He leaned back against the bar and waited. He could feel Ka'an blundering around, trying to change the dream, but Kieran held it. A place this familiar was easy to make solid. Ka'an's many lives were working against him, here -- the god had trouble distinguishing between all the places he'd seen in all the lives he'd lived.

  A minute later, Ka'an stormed in, furious at being made to use the door. He was wearing his emperor getup again. "You look like a twit," Kieran told him before he could speak.

  "How dare you," the god fumed. His voice was low and menacing. "How dare you. You've seen what I am. You've felt how small you are. Yet you persist in this, this satire. I will make you suffer for this."

  "Uh-huh." Kieran raised an eyebrow. "You done?"

  "I am not."

  "That's too bad, 'cause I'm just not impressed. Hey." He knocked on the bar. "Get us a bottle of the hard stuff."

  As the clockwork bartender produced a chilled bottle of bootleg gin, Ka'an calmed himself.
>
  "You're very stupid, mortal, to speak to me that way. I felt your fear. Are you trying to make me angry?"

  Kieran shrugged. "Have a drink with me. We haven't actually talked. You know, you really do look like a moron in that getup. Let me fix that for you." He had to push through some resistance to change how Ka'an looked, but it was only a matter of letting his familiar dream smooth over an anomaly, and in an eyeblink the god was clothed in a white linen suit like the tar runners wore. He could feel Ka'an's fury building.

  Though this little success tempted him to get cocky, he reminded himself that he couldn't afford to. He knew where the battlefield was now. The real fight was still ahead of him, and he suspected it wouldn't be a messy slugfest like what Ka'an had hit him with. It would be like a gunfight. Twitch the right way and live. Freeze and die.