Bitterwood kept his eyes closed. He hoped Adam would go away. But he could still hear Trisky below, calmly munching on the grass.
Bitterwood sighed. "A lifetime of murder has corrupted me beyond redemption."
"If you believe this, why do it?"
Bitterwood opened his eyes. He looked down upon his son. Adam was a man now, yet still had a boyish softness to his eyes. There was an innocence within him, a hope and faith that the world was a good world guided by a watchful, benign power. There was a light inside him that had long since burned to ash within Bitterwood.
Bitterwood had never been called upon to justify his actions. If he owed anyone an explanation, it was his own son. "It is said that if a man's only tool is a hammer, then he will treat all the problems of the world as a nail."
"Why do you answer me in riddles, father?"
"Hate was the only tool that remained after the dragons took everything else," Bitterwood said. "In a single day I lost my God, my family, my home, my hope. Hatred kept me warm in winter. Hatred slaked my dry throat in times of drought and fed me in times of famine. I would have died long ago if not for my dream of a world without dragons. Perhaps, in the end, all the evil I've done will lead to good when mankind rules this world once more."
"The goddess will never allow mankind dominion over the earth," said Adam. "She says the race of man is unworthy. Listening to your words, watching your actions, I can't help but wonder if she's right."
Behind Adam, the air began to rip. Prisms of light opened to surround a black gate. A woman stepped through. She resembled the goddess statue on a human scale; tall but nothing unnatural save for the hue of her hair.
"Sorry to interrupt this heart-to-heart," the woman said. Bitterwood instantly recognized her voice as belonging to the goddess.
Adam threw himself to the ground.
"Oh, stand up and stop groveling," the goddess said, sounding mildly agitated. "It's starting to get old. I miss the days when guys your age couldn't take their eyes off my breasts. You don't know what I look like above my toenails."
"I'm not worthy to gaze upon you," Adam said.
"Worthy or not, I need you on your feet. Or on your butt, to be precise. Mount up."
Adam rose, still averting his eyes as he climbed back into his saddle.
"Here's the deal. I worked with the first matriarch to design the gene maps that would help her race slip out of the genetic noose it was caught in. But as we speak, Blasphet is attacking the Nest, trying to bring extinction to the entire species. He won't succeed, of course. He doesn't know about the sky-dragon population over in Tennessee or the big colony down in Cuba. Still, I'm a little pissed off that Blasphet's wrecking a thousand-year-old project that's one of my bigger success stories. So, Adam, I'm sending you and the other riders to stop him. I'm sending your dad along. Also, the big guy." She cocked her head toward Hex.
"You want me to fight for you?" Bitterwood asked.
"You've shown a lot of talent for breaking things. Go break Blasphet."
Bitterwood frowned. Was this a trick? Blasphet had long been one of the most difficult of Albekizan's relatives to target. Normally, he would gladly accept an opportunity to face him. But not under these conditions.
"No," he said. "I didn't come here to serve you. I came here to find Zeeky."
"Sure," said the goddess. "So let's cut to the chase. Go kill Blasphet and I won't hurt Zeeky."
"How do I even know she's alive? Why did you send a replica to greet us?"
"I have her busy elsewhere right now," said the goddess. "She's not been hurt. For what it's worth, I like the kid. She's spunky. Reminds me of me when I was little."
Bitterwood ground his teeth as he thought the offer over. What did it matter if Blasphet was attacking the Nest now? Even if they were outside the mountain, the Nest would take several days to reach. This must be a trick.
The goddess waved her hands toward Hex. The vegetation around his jaws loosened.
"How about you?" she asked. "Think you can take out your uncle?"
"Where's Jandra?" Hex asked. With his head free, he strained to stand. The ground beneath him bulged as the full force of his muscles was brought to bear. In the end, the effort was futile. For every vine he snapped, two grew to replace them.
Suddenly, the rainbows behind the goddess rippled and a young woman stepped out. It looked like Jandra, though Bitterwood knew he couldn't trust his eyes. This one was even less authentic than the earlier one. She wore no helmet.
Jandra looked up into the tree, then glanced over to the vines that covered Hex.
"What have you done to them?" she demanded.
"They aren't hurt," the goddess said. "Merely detained. I've offered them a chance to go to the Nest to fight Blasphet. So far, they don't seem all that hot on the idea."
"I'll go," said Jandra.
"This is further evidence you aren't real," said Bitterwood. "Your eagerness to do her bidding shows that you're another doppelganger."
Jandra looked as if she had no idea what Bitterwood was talking about. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said. "But, here's one thing I understand: Blasphet. He escaped from the dungeons right before I left. He's got a cult helping him, the Sisters of the Serpent, and one of them almost killed me. I'm finding there aren't a lot of easy moral choices in life, but this one's fairly simple. Anything that Blasphet wants to do, we should want to undo."
"What happened to your helmet?" Hex asked.
"I'll explain later. You coming?"
"Draw nearer," Hex said.
Jandra walked closer. Hex's nostrils flared as he sniffed her.
"She sweats," he announced, looking up at Bitterwood. "It's her."
Bitterwood nodded. A dragon's sense of smell rivaled that of a dog.
"I'll go," said Bitterwood. He didn't care much about doing the bidding of the goddess, but getting free of these vines was an improvement over his current state.
"And I," said Hex. "My uncle has tarnished my family's reputation even more than my father. Unlike Shandrazel, I'm not encumbered by any romantic ideas of law. I'll gladly gut the old monster."
"Swell," said the goddess. She snapped her fingers and the kudzu began to writhe. Bitterwood was spun downward and deposited on his feet. Hex rose as the vines lost their hold on him. He shook like a wet dog to free himself of the last of the clinging tendrils.
"If I'm going to face Blasphet, I'll require a weapon," said Bitterwood.
"Naturally," the goddess said. She reached up and grabbed a low hanging limb of the cottonwood. The branch snapped off in her hand. Before Bitterwood's eyes, the raw wood warped, the bark and leaves falling away as it straightened into a wooden bow six feet long. The goddess grimaced as she bent the bow into an arc and plucked a strand of her own hair. The hair wove and grew into a long silken cord that knotted itself around the ends. She tossed it to Bitterwood. He snatched it from the air and gave it a pull. It felt perfectly balanced, and was a good match for his strength. He looked up to find that the goddess had reconfigured the bark and remaining wood into a quiver of arrows, fletched with fresh green leaves.
She threw the quiver to him. "I've always believed in recycling," she said. "You'll be happy to know your equipment is 100% biodegradable."
Bitterwood wasn't happy to know this. He wasn't even certain what the word meant, though he felt it was similar enough to degradation that it must mean something unpleasant.
"Time's wasting," said the goddess. Another rainbow opened before her, the largest yet, wide enough for Hex to step through. "Go get him."