“Up there with the device. I said we’d cover.”
“Good thing.”
Alice pointed. From the artistic forest of hibiscus that masked the base of the grandstand, a pride of lions was emerging. These were not the lazy, sleepy creatures frequently seen in zoos or at midday on safari. These were the lean carnivores that the kings of Babylon had taken such joy in hunting that they had caused their exploits to be preserved in stone.
“Those are going to be able to climb,” Jay said, doing some climbing himself.
Whatever Alice’s reply might have been, it was drowned out by a thunderbolt crackle. Bells, chimes, rattles, gongs, drums, and shrilling fifes rang out. An enormous shadow blocked the sun.
“Shit,” Jay said again. “Bel Marduk.”
Ears folded, the lions had shrunk down at the first thunder rumble, but they were not intimidated for long. Already they sought the easiest route up to Jay and Alice.
“Don’t feel like you need to take your time, Dubhe,” Jay called.
The monkey’s response was almost incoherent, but what came to them over the music was clearly obscene.
“Will a CF pistol work on a lion?” Alice gasped as they climbed after Dubhe.
“Don’t know. Depends on their place of origin.”
Jay threw a potted hibiscus at the lead lioness. His aim was good, but the feline shook the dirt and flower petals from her head and kept climbing. Alice followed suit, nailing a black-maned lion in the shoulder.
“I hope no one notices us,” she said.
“Doubt they will,” Jay said. “Look up.”
Alice did. The skies were full of gods and monsters.
Bel Marduk stood atop the northern ziggurat; an impossibly beautiful dark-haired woman accepted the crowd’s homage from the south. Both of these figures were on the heroic scale, but more realistically sized beings were taking flight, some upon winged steeds, other by spreading wings that recalled those of angels.
Most were strikingly handsome or beautiful and clad in costumes similar to those worn by the Elishite clergy. Amid this pageant, one figure stood out—a pot-bellied fellow who appeared to have a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. A pair of brilliant orange sunglasses hung from a multicolored braided lanyard around his neck. He was clearly laughing, although the sound was inaudible through the cheers of the crowd and the blaring music.
“Jay,” Alice said, “something’s happening over at the ziggurat across from us—at the eastern one.”
“Great!” Jay kicked out, landing a booted foot solidly on the nose of a lion. “And Dubhe?”
“Almost there.”
Alice heaved another potted hibiscus at the approaching lions. She wondered why she and Jay hadn’t brought more weapons, reminded herself that they had decided that in RT weapons would endanger innocents in the crowd. Still, she wished she had at least a can of mace.
“I wonder,” Jay called, “where the Elshie security team is?”
“Jay,” Alice answered, “I think those lions are part of the security team.”
“Shit.”
The crossover was complete. After millennia, the gods and goddesses of Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria again breathed the air of the world they had once ruled. If some of them were disappointed at the pollution or that their worshipers radiated amusement and excitement rather than awe, they kept their thoughts to themselves.
Then, from the east a great light shone forth, a light that caused even the brilliance of the sun to seem dimmed. Forth from the heart of that glow stepped a mighty figure. This time the crowd screamed in fear
(especially those in the eastern grandstands), for what towered over them was an enormous multiheaded dragon.
“Tiamat!” Bel Marduk roared, fire bursting from his lips.
The dragon screamed a challenge, a shrill sound like dozens of cartoon pterodactyls falling on their prey.
The lesser gods got out of the way, heading north or south. A few forgot the warnings that the western ziggurat could not support significant weight and landed on its jutting steps, causing the structure to shudder and chunks of plasterboard sprayed with decorative pseudo-stone to plummet down.
From within the halo of the multiheaded dragon, lesser beings were emerging: small dragons the size of Cadillac limousines, blobs like manta rays that flew on the air, squid that jetted through the ether.
The deities of Sumer and Babylon heard Ishtar give the call to battle, surged again into the air, the Celebration forgotten, aware of the terrified humans only as a fit audience for their first epic battle of the post-crossover age.
Bel Marduk raised his arm to smite Tiamat; Ishtar cried out commands to the rallying godlets; Tiamat shrieked her defiance.
Huddled behind a particularly well-arranged cluster of honeysuckle and hibiscus, a skinny black spider monkey flipped a bronze switch. For a terrifying moment, nothing happened. Then the ruby crystals glowed like coals and the white like stars. There was a resonant buzz that caused all who heard it, divine or mortal, human or animal, to cover their ears.
“CROSSOVER CANCELED,” noted the crystal screen. When Dubhe dared look up, he saw that this was true.
Tranto the pliant stood beside Death on the plains surrounding Mount Meru and watched as the gods boiled out of the crossover area. Death sat upon the horse that Jay Donnerjack had coveted, clad in armor of bone and rust. The hound Mizar sat at his feet, sniffing the winds.
Now that there was no more need for the facade of Babylon and Sumer to be maintained, many of the deities shed their costumes, transforming into fantastic shapes from every myth and legend remembered in the Verite and from many forgotten. Some, such as Bel Marduk and Ishtar, remained as they were since this was as they were.
“Jay and Alice have done it.” The Lord of Deep Fields could not be imagined capable of cheering, but his deep-voiced words held something of the sense. “And the denizens of Virtu come back to their mountain to fight for precedence as they did in the days of old. Now the armies gathered will meet as they did during the millennia following the Great Flux.”
“And you?” Tranto asked.
“As always, my Fields will be enriched. I am here to settle a few scores.”
They watched as great birds clashed with dragons, as whales swallowed tanks, as trees bombarded elven hosts with acorns.
Sayjak, eyes bleared with visions and lack of rest, led the People to fall on a horde of icy slugs. A phant who might have been Muggle tore up tree trunks and flung them at a pack of dire wolves. A Red Cross ambulance bore Paracelsus and Sid to bring aid to those proges judged too minor for repair by their divine generals.
“Where will you seek your prey?” Tranto asked.
“I have no need to seek,” the Lord of Entropy replied. “In the end, I am always in the right place. Mizar, step about a meter to the left.”
The hound did so, moving just as Jay Donnerjack, Alice Hazzard, and Dubhe appeared in the place where he had stood. The Lord of the Lost permitted himself a small smile.
“You have done well, Jay,” he said. “Why do you return here?”
“We’re looking,” Jay answered, “Alice and I, for our missing parents.”
“Alice, I owe you for your assistance,” said Death, “and I prefer to pay my debts swiftly lest they are embarrassingly recalled at a later date. Your father—having performed his roles as the Master and the One Who Waits—has again become the Piper and, as such, is fighting with his Legion.”
In a single motion, less a dismounting than a dislocation, Death dismounted his steed.
“You and Jay may take my mount and seek the Piper. It will shield you within my aura until you choose to take part in the battle. After that, my protection is lifted.”