“Whatever you would give,” the younger Angela says. The quilted jacket and pants she wore for her journey to this spot are torn, dyed with her blood and the blood of the things she slew on her climb here. She holds a bone saber she took from a creature whose face was an oversized, grinning mouth. The sword she carried when she set out on her quest broke halfway up the ziggurat whose summit was her destination, where she has found this woman, this power: the Pharaoh.
“What if I would give you nothing?” the Pharaoh says.
“I will take it,” the younger Angela says.
“What if I would give you death?”
“I will take that too.”
From within the folds of her robes, the woman withdraws a sword. Its blade appears to shimmer, as if liquid. Its hilt is gold, worked into the forms of snakes that appear to coil around one another. She holds it up for the younger Angela to admire. “This,” she says, “was one of my enemies. When I overcame him, I remade him in the heart of a dead star, thus. I renamed him, as welclass="underline" Deus ex Machina.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” the younger Angela says.
“It is a private joke, in the tongue of an ancient land that also borders the dreamlands. Accept this blade from me, and you are of my house, now and forever.”
The younger Angela drops the bone sword and kneels, bowing her head and raising her hands, palms up. (She will awaken a long distance from the place where she lay down to search for the ziggurat in her dreams, her armor still in tatters, likewise the flesh beneath it, a plain longsword by her side.)
The Pharaoh vanishes. In her place stands Magda. She is dressed for instruction, in a tunic and trousers of coarse cloth, plain boots, her gray hair tied back. Her arms are clasped behind her. Her lips do not move. Instead her voice rises from the ravaged earth. “To treat with any of the powers,” she says, “is to court damnation. Those who seek their notice find it either in torment that carries on until long after the stars have dwindled to cinders, or in service that endures longer still. For neither is there the oblivion that is the balm of our suffering lives. Each forfeits that reward.”
Angela’s younger self maintains her position.
There is a time when she is walking, stumbling really, through a dark space, lit here and there by smears of furry moss that emit a pale green light. Her thoughts refuse to cohere for any meaningful amount of time. This may be due to the pain that stabs her head, her neck, her back, with every movement. It may be due to the ringing that keeps all other sounds at a distance from her ears. It may be due to the smell that clouds her nostrils and coats her tongue, the copper odor of blood and the earthy stench of shit.
But she has her sword, out in front of her in the guard called the Horn of the Rhino, and, though she cannot make sense of what the weapon is saying, she finds its tones soothing.
Light dances ahead of her — a torch, jammed into a crevice in the side of the tunnel she is moving through. Its smoky glow shines in the trail of gore at her feet, torn loops of intestine, bloody chunks of flesh and fur. As she approaches the torch, her mind begins to gather itself. She is tracking Brum’s monster; though there’s scant skill involved in following the creature’s lifeblood smeared on the floor. Mortally wounded, the beast has retreated to its lair. Should she find it living, it may be more dangerous still, made reckless by its impending end.
You could wait, her sword says. It can’t have much longer to live.
She shakes her head, wincing at the pain the motion sparks. “I’m not certain how much time I have before my injuries must be answered. Best to finish this quickly.”
On the other side of the torch, the passage feeds into a cave the size of a decent barn. Several more torches have been wedged into cracks in the walls. By their light she sees the creature, on its left side, its entrails a torn and bloody tail. It is dead. Relief pours over her, causes her to lower the sword.
“Is this your handiwork?” The voice is bright and clear as a horn sounded in a forest. The woman to whom it belongs steps from behind the beast’s head. She is tall, easily two heads above Angela, and her bronze skin is roped with muscle. Her tunic is the hide of something whose fur mixes with scales. Her long hair is braided with the teeth and claws of more animals than Angela can identify. In her right hand the woman holds a spear whose polished wooden haft ends in an equally polished blade. Her presence fills the chamber; she is the most vital, the most real thing in it. Angela knows her for a power, and acknowledges her question.
“It is.”
“This was the Lord of Those Who Dig Beneath the Soil,” the woman says. “His worshippers dwelled in cities built far underground. Upon occasion, he and I hunted together for the great worms that plagued his people. When their time passed, he remained, old and alone. I thought to hunt him myself, and end his solitude.” She allows the tip of her spear to drop, catching the shaft in her left hand. “I suspect your motives are not so pure.”
Angela is aware of the woman appraising her, the way a hunter might size up a lion she intends to slay. She squares her stance, lifts Deus ex Machina in a high guard. The sword twists in her hands, as if eager for the woman’s attack.
At the sight of the blade, the woman’s eyes widen. The point of the spear wavers. “What,” she says, “are you doing with that?”
“It is mine,” Angela says. “I received it from the hand of her called the Pharaoh, when she took me into her house.”
The woman pulls her spear up. “If you carry that weapon, then your doom is upon you already. It would be a mercy to spare you it with a thrust to the heart. For the sake of him you have slain, I refuse you that charity.”
Without another look at Angela or the remains of the great creature, the woman walks out of the cave. Angela gives her a wide berth, but keeps the sword pointed at her. It strains in her grip, like a dog struggling to be off its leash. She forces it to remain in position until it settles.
Once the woman is gone, Angela approaches the beast’s carcass. Its fur is clotted with mud and blood. Its mouth is open, showing yellow teeth the size of shields. The claws of its right paw drape its breastplate; the claws of its left splay on the cave floor. Angela considers the creature’s armor. Its edges are bordered by lines that cross and loop and twist like paths on a map. Its surface is embossed with figures that suggest moles and voles and other animals that dwell underground, engaged in some complex action, a dance perhaps, or a celebration — maybe a battle. Whatever it represents, like so much else, is now lost.
Angela circles to the creature’s back. The agreement she has with Brum specifies she bring him the beast’s head. She raises her sword. She tries for a single blow, but the task requires a second.
For Fiona, and for Orrin Grey
Non Omnis Moriar (Not All of Me Will Die)
Michael Cisco
Propraetor Marcus Foslius Felix awoke on the kalends of November to find himself acting proconsul for Hispania Citerior. On being acquainted with the reasons for this change, his first act was to appoint Publius Rutilius Grumio legatus of the twelfth legion, and by noon a thousand men were already scaling the pathway Libo’s party had taken into the mountains. They found the spot where their horses had been tied, and did not like the way some of the hoofprints were scuffed, as if the horses had been dragged on braced legs. The dogs found a patch of soil soaked in blood, not far off the track, but no body. It was as if someone had been run down and killed here, and the corpse picked up and taken away.