“And my mother… Ayradyss?” Jay asked.
“Keep your eyes to the sky,” Death said cryptically. “Let Dubhe bide with me and Tranto. I promise that no harm will come to him.”
The two scions of Virtu and Verite rode into the maelstrom of battle.
“I can’t tell who’s winning,” Alice said, something of Link Crain in her voice. “I can’t even tell who’s on what side! I’m glad I don’t have to cover this war.”
Death’s steed carried them to where the sound of bagpipes cut through the noise of battle and there they found Ambry standing over a fallen comrade, playing mightily, his cheeks red and rounded. As they advanced, the fallen soldier vanished, reappearing moments later fit and ready again to fight.
“I’ve no choice,” Alice said. “Get me up close to him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Draw him through into the Verite. That’s the only place where he’s safe from being used by Skyga as a pawn.”
“Can you do it?”
“I can only try.”
Before Jay could protest, she had slipped to the ground and away.
“Alice!”
The young woman only ran, and when she reached the side of Wolfer Martin D’Ambry, he seemed to know what she intended. Ceasing to play, he gave his hand into hers. A glow surrounded them, but before Alice could effect the crossover, something blotted out the sun.
Jay turned his gaze upwards and saw Alioth, the black butterfly, now again the mighty thunderbug. Skyga was seated upon the bug’s thorax, his face terrible with rage. Ball lightning was forming within his hand.
The god had raised his hand to hurl destruction upon his fleeing minion when a slender, graceful form that seemed to swim through the air as much as fly on its dragon’s wings rose from the battlefield. Ayradyss swung the Sword of Wind and Obsidian into Alioth’s underbelly.
“No!” Jay screamed.
The blast of ball lightning forced tears from his eyes, tears that blurred his vision of the duel between the Angel of the Forsaken Hope and Alioth, the Black Butterfly, Mount of Gods. When Jay had scrubbed his eyes clear again, the winged mermaid was no more, leaving a great emptiness in his heart. Dots of moire scattered the landscape, dust from a butterfly’s wings. Nothing was to be seen of Skyga, Alice, or Wolfer Martin D’Ambry.
Jay sobbed. “What’s happened?”
“The combatants destroyed each other,” came the voice of his father from his wrist. “I could not perceive what happened to Alice and the Piper. They may have been slain by Skyga, or they may have made their escape.”
“You’re so cold.”
“I am merely an aion.”
Jay bent over the horse’s neck. The steed wheeled through the quieting battlefield and the scattered moire parted as it bore Jay hack to
Death. Still sobbing, Jay murmured a rhyme he had learned when he was little more than an infant:
Butterfly, butterfly. Flutterby, flutterby. Come to me, come to me. I’m lonely todee.
This time, nothing came to his call.
FIFTEEN
Randall Kelsey stood atop the westernmost ziggurat surveying the damage below. He had not noticed the device of crystal and platinum hidden in the shrubs near his right foot. Nor did he notice when a small black monkey appeared from nowhere, grabbed the machine, and vanished again.
He did hear footsteps that approached from below.
“Hello, Randall.”
“Hello, Emmanuel.”
“Arthur.”
“I know. I just never stopped thinking of you as Emmanuel Davis. Arthur Eden was a bugaboo to scare Elshies with. I always rather liked Davis.”
“Thanks. So what are you going to do now that the Church of Elish is bust?”
“It is, isn’t it? With the Hierophant going on the talk circuit to explain that the entire idea was his greatest joke ever there will be no fancy talk getting us out of trouble this time.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Maybe I’ll write a book, call it something like Butt of a Joke. I know lots of things that the Hierophant—Aisles—won’t be admitting.”
“Good idea. Want a collaborator? I have lots of experience and some great publishing connections.”
Kelsey grinned. “I like the idea. Can I buy you a drink? I’d love to know where you’ve been all these years.”
“Sounds great.”
They walked away from the ruins of a place where once, briefly, gods had again walked the earth.
Sayjak led the People back to the jungle, but he no longer gleamed with golden light, nor did tactical brilliance come to him in dreams. Devastated by the battles they had fought, their families weak and ruined, the other bosses turned on the one they had hailed as the Boss of Bosses.
They had begun the delightful process of beating him within an inch of his life when the biggest phant anyone had ever seen emerged from the jungle and trumpeted loudly. Dropping the head of Big Betsy behind him, Sayjak fled.
Secretly he was relieved. Being Boss of Bosses just wasn’t for him.
“We’ll come up with a story to explain Ambry,” Alice promised. “Drum is a wizard with fake identities.”
Wolfer Martin D’Ambry, his hand firmly entwined with that of Lydia Hazzard, grinned at his daughter.
“I have an answer I think will work. Why not say that I am Warren Bansa returned from imprisonment in Virtu?”
Alice gaped. Lydia giggled, sounding more like a girl than Alice ever did.
“We talked about it last night. I took Ambry to my lab and ran some preliminary tests. Detailed DNA work will take longer to do, but I think we can prove without a doubt that Ambry is Bansa.”
‘What a story that would be…” Alice mused. “Please, let me handle the press release! I can get the story in all over the place and guarantee you a fair review. There are going to be all sorts of protests…”
She beamed, imagining breaking one of the great stories of the year. Visions of Pulitzers danced in her head.
“When we have the test results, we’ll let you know.”
“Great!”
The door buzzer rang. Alice’s delight faded.
“That’ll be Milburn from the Donnerjack Institute. I’ve got to go.”
“Good luck with Jay, honey,” Lydia said.
“He’s in bad shape according to Dack,” Alice answered. “The last straw was learning that Reese Jordan had died. I’ll do what I can, but he’s the only one who is coming out of this mess with nothing good.”
Wolfer Martin D’Ambry nodded. “I understand despair, Alice. If I can help…”
“I’ll call.”
Jay Donnerjack was getting drunk with the crusader ghost in the upper gallery of Castle Donnerjack when Alice arrived. He raised his glass and toasted her, but standing seemed beyond him. The ghost was in little better shape.
“Hi, Alice. I have a story for you.” Jay’s words were slurred. “Do you know that for the first time in centuries Castle Donnerjack doesn’t have a wailing woman?”
“It doesn’t?” Alice sank down on the floor next to him.
“Nope. My mom took the job and then Seaga swiped her and she got wiped fighting ol’ Alioth. I loved Alioth, y’know. That flutterby was my buddy when I was jus’ a squirt with no parents and nobody. Weird that my mom killed my bud or my bud killed my mom.”
“Yeah.”
“I hear that you did the crossover like a pro. Dubhe tol’ me. Now you got a mom and a dad. I don’t got either.”
“Poor Jay.”
“Yeah,” he sniffled. “Poor me.”
“Poor Jay. He has millions, a castle in Scotland with ghosts, an Institute at his command, and freedom of both Virtu and Verite. Poor, ol’ Jay Donnerjack.”