Jay stopped singing to yell, “Virginia, no!” but his cry could not reach the fury who flung herself on the goddess.
“You killed him to feed that!” Virginia flung a wild hand at Antaeus, little more than a puddle now.
“Killed him too soon,” Earthma said, fending off Virginia’s blows.
“Had I waited longer, Antaeus would have been stronger. I erred in my enthusiasm.”
Idly, she flung Virginia to the floor. The tile cracked with the impact. Virginia struggled to one elbow, a loaded CF pistol cocked in a trembling hand. She pulled the trigger, did not know that the Lord of Entropy added his force to her attack. Dying, she saw Earthma’s manifestation shiver, begin to unravel, and fragment into nonlinear code.
“But there’s a hole in the bucket…”
“Markon,” Virginia whispered, and then she died.
Had it not been for Tranto and Mizar, neither Jay nor Alice would have made it out of the crumbling Palace of Bones. The phant sheltered them with his body, concentrating on keeping Mizar in sight as the hound found opening after opening, the structure collapsing to rubble around them.
Barely dodging a falling support beam, Desmond Drum recalled his virt form to the Verite, shouting that he would meet them at the Union Station site. Death, of course, was immune to danger from destruction and Phecda remained coiled within his cowl.
Once on the battlefield, a weeping Alice withdrew—saying between sniffles that she would brief the Brass Babboon and the remaining ghosts—and Jay was left alone with Death. Although he tried to face the Lord of the Lost with appropriate courage, he could not hold back his tears.
“Do not mourn too greatly for Virginia, Jay,” Death said with surprising kindness. “She had seen the moire, nor did she care to live on, a cripple in Verite, bereft in Virtu. Remember her kindly and do not think her a coward for choosing this way to end her suffering.”
Jay snuffled back a fresh bout of sobs.
“She’s gone, both here and in the Verite?”
“Yes. Her Veritean body was eaten with disease. When Markon died, only her desire for revenge kept her living. Having achieved something of that, she let herself believe that the injuries she had sustained battling Earthma were fatal.”
“But it isn’t fair! She didn’t really harm Earthma.”
“She may have done more damage than we know.” The Lord of the Lost sighed a very human-sounding sigh. “Antaeus represented a great expenditure of resources on Earthma’s part. The CF rounds fragmented his programming and your song made it difficult for him to use his moire to draw power from his own destruction as he had done time and again on the battlefield.”
“I wondered what he was doing,” Jay said. “I knew it had to do with creation and destruction, but…”
“Song—patterned sound—is not natural to Deep Fields, where everything loses its pattern. Your live song, as opposed to recordings, created patterns and thus created interference for the moire, which breaks down patterns.”
“I’m glad we helped.”
A glint of white within the cowl. “I wish you had picked a more lovely piece of music. Your father, at least, had taste in such things.”
“Next time.”
“The next battle will not be here, Jay. Nor will I be able to direct it, although I will assist indirectly.”
“The next battle?”
“Surely you intend to oppose the crossover,” Death said dryly. “Or do you want the likes of Earthma and myself to have free reign over the Verite?”
“You have a point.”
“But first, Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack, you and your allies need rest. Deep Fields is good for this, but alas, this time I cannot offer you a bed. I suggest you retreat to Castle Donnerjack. We can confer another time.”
“I don’t know if I can sleep,” Jay said.
“I’ve heard that before. Go. We will speak again.”
Jay sketched an awkward bow and left for the Brass Babboon. As he walked a high-pitched, broken sound followed him.
Surveying the ruins of his restored kingdom, Death was whistling.
FOURTEEN
“Four days! Can we possibly manage to stop them with only four days?”
The speaker swung by his tail from a cherry tree that swayed slightly with the motion. Caltrice worked programs to stiffen the tree; the swaying stopped; the swinging continued unabated.
“Dubhe, what choice is there?” Reese Jordan said reasonably.
“The Judeo-Christian tradition says that all the earth was created in seven days,” Desmond Drum added. “Most humans believe that Virtu came to be in a matter of hours. Thanks to Caltrice’s altered time flow, we have extra time with which to plan and some privacy.”
“That’s a hint to stop whining and get to work.” Jay reached up and patted Dubhe.
“Right. Hand me a banana, would you?”
Clad in neat black jeans, a white tee-shirt with the “Ginger Rogers” slogan printed on it in black, and sandals, the Lord of Deep Fields sat on a rock near the banks of the stream. Out of courtesy for Caltrice, this manifestation did not emanate the moire. In fact, he could have easily been mistaken for a pale man of somewhat ordinary Caucasian features if it were not for the mien of authority he bore and the fearful deference all accorded to him.
“Actually, Dubhe, there is every reason to believe that we will be able to stop the crossover attempt—the question is how to minimize casualties to our side. We have extraordinary resources at our disposal and, when you consider it, the crossover attempt is so outrageous as to be improbable. In Virtu, such things can change the outcome.
“Moreover, I have considered the effects of our battle in Deep Fields on their plans and I believe that the loss of Antaeus will hurt them sorely.”
“Could you explain why, sir?” Alice asked. “He was powerful, but he struck me as rather mindless.”
“He was, but had he defeated me and taken over my kingdom, he would have been imbued with all my knowledge and resources. To explain why this is important, permit me a diversion into matters that some, but not all, gathered here know.
“Quite simply, the crossover attempt is the most important element in a series of actions that will be coordinated around it. The armies that Skyga, Seaga, and, to a lesser extent, Earthma are gathering are not meant to cross into the Verite. Their conflict will occur in Virtu. Further, Skyga is the divine principle behind the Church of Elish.”
“The Hierophant?” Alice asked.
“No.” A very small grin shaped on the lips of the Lord of Entropy. “That is another. Skyga, however, has provided the Hierophant with power and allies. His design is to establish a beachhead within the Verite while in Virtu his forces contend with those of Seaga. If all goes according to plan, there will no longer be the Highest Three, but the Highest Two.”
Jay frowned. “If he has that much power, why would he share with Earthma?”
“Antaeus. The plan was that Earthma would maintain vassalage over her son and thus over the powers of Deep Fields. As both you and Alice have reason to know, the Great Ones create many of their troops from within their imaginations. With Antaeus in charge of Deep Fields, those troops could be ruled immune to the touch of moire. Thus their creator would be freed from the need to resurrect them. That concentration could then be directed elsewhere.”
“But when we came to your rescue,” Jay said with a certain degree of satisfaction, “we kept that from happening.”
“Precisely.”
Desmond Drum briskly rubbed his hands together. “This fits very nicely in with everything else we have learned. My guess is that Skyga no longer maintains whatever trust he had for Earthma…”