IGMS Issue 30 Read online

  "You can sell the darkstones for a little money," he said. "I know a boarding house that will take unaccompanied women."

  She fastened the cloak around her neck. Spencer was tall and the cloak draped from shoulders to foot. Only her disfigured face was visible. "No," she said. "Charity I'll not take, but these darkstones are mine." She swirled the cloak about her, the motion swallowing all the light between her and Spencer, and left.

  She turned when she reached the theatre doors. Spenser still stood in the stage's center as if awaiting a prompt from the wings. She raised the cloak over her face and left the theatre.

  Edward was not home. Oscar's sticky dried ink-blood was still splattered all over the bathroom, the brass cogs and wooden splinters of his body in a haphazard pile. Edward's diary still lay atop Oscar's body.

  She shouldn't have destroyed him. Now she couldn't even be sure that his mouth mechanism wasn't too damaged for speech.

  She moved to the study. The envelopes with their profane photos were still scattered about the floor. She swept them into a high pile on the desk and set them alight. Every time the fire threatened to die, she added another photograph until there were none left. The flames cast an orange light that bent around her cloak like water around a rock in a stream. When the flames threatened to catch the desk, she was faced with the danger of the room and thence the house burning down. For a moment, she considered letting it happen, but she couldn't leave Edward homeless.

  She threw her coat over the desk and the flames died. Inspecting the cloak revealed almost no damage. The darkstones absorbed light and heat. That meant she could retrieve the ink from boiler using the cloak as a shield. And then write personas. She could. As she hurried down to the basement, she noticed but did not register the open front door. She ran down the stairs, almost tripping over the axe she'd left by the stairs.

  Edward stood by the boiler, holding the diary she'd dropped onto Oscar's body. He wore a dressing gown, the belt tied loosely enough for his belly to peek through, his eyes yellow with age and fine grey hairs sprouting from his ears and nose. There was something in his eyes that she hadn't noticed before. It had been there a long time, maybe as long as she'd been married to him. It wasn't guilt or fear at the discovered diary. No, it was utter fury, anger so deep and inhuman she wouldn't have recognized it if she hadn't seen Spencer act earlier.

  "You read Samhazai's persona," she said, realizing the truth. "Right after you married me. The time limits require a clear hand and your handwriting has always been poor. You mispronounced your own persona and then never sold it. That's why you laughed when Spencer asked if you'd written it already. "

  He inclined his head as if he was trying to hear a faint tune. He said,"I never existed beyond the pages of the play, yet I hear God telling me to submit." He flipped through the diary. "What you read was my record of how weak men are. What their petty desires will make men do. And God has the temerity to place them over me?" He threw the diary into the boiler's fire, where it did not burn but instead grew damp and then crumbled in the water. "You destroyed Oscar. You destroyed my photos. Those were my property and you're my wife. To destroy a husband's property is a sin against God," he said, his voice both sardonic and serious.

  What could she remember about Samhazai from the play? He hated God for taking away the free will of golems, for making them submit to the commands of men. He fought against being a slave and forced Gabriel, King of Golems, to hunt him down. "You bought Oscar to control me. I thought you were against slavery?"

  "Men are puppets. Now I make men do what is unnatural simply by offering them fame. God will see that his precious men are slaves as much as golems." The anger in his eyes sucked all life out of the air. "Give me Oscar's head. I'll buy a new body for him."

  "No," she said. "Let them buy the personas if they wish, but that is all."

  "Why do you care?" he said. "Each man thinks no more of you than the dirt beneath his feet."

  She pressed her fingertips to her face, the lumpy flesh underneath the skin yielding slightly. "I've hidden from the gaze of men all my life." She tossed Oscar's head into the flames. It clinked against the glass ink jars and then bobbed in the water. "You might be Samhazai, but your body is still Edward's. And if you reach into that boiler, you'll burn."

  "I'll hire a golem to retrieve it," he said.

  "I'll be gone by then. I can write personas. You taught me to do it by making me copy them."

  Edward seized her by the chin and titled her face upward, his fingers digging deep into her cheek. She gritted her teeth and bore the pain, kept her eyes on him in defiance. "God was right to make you a slave."

  His eyes filled with madness and resentment. Both hands fastened around her neck and squeezed until she was forced to the ground and he was straddling her. The pain in the fragile tube of her throat reduced the entire world to nothing but the rasp of her breath and Edward standing over her, his face expressionless and the tendons in his neck so thick they could be plucked like the strings of a double bass. Somewhere nearby was the axe and she flailed her hands over her head but fell short. Then instinct forced her to try to pry his fingers away.

  She clawed at his face, but he squeezed harder and the world darkened at the edges until there were only his black and glittering eyes. For a strange and clear moment she said goodbye, first to herself and then to Edward. Perhaps there had been a few days where he'd truly been Edward and had loved her.

  There was a voice at the very edge of hearing. Was it Oscar? Impossible. Oscar had no ink. Still, she croaked "Oscar?"

  Edward's grip loosened as he glanced backwards. The axe came to her hands like it had been placed there.

  As Edward looked back, she whipped the axe's handle around, catching him across the jaw. Edward slumped sideways, his head lolling. He didn't get up.

  It took her a second to stand. Each breath was a fist pushed upwards through her throat. Oscar's head still bobbed in the water, utterly inert.

  She hefted the axe over Edward's unconscious body. Edward was Samhazai, the most dangerous of villains, forever seeking to free golems from men's mastery. She raised the axe, ready to split his head from his body.

  I'll not be a slave to men. I'll not serve their pleasures nor will I bend to their will. I'm no puppet for their amusement and pleasure.

  Oscar's head still bobbed in the boiler, his mouth still broken beyond repair. She'd loved Edward once. She understood Samhazai's despair at being a slave. As a woman, she was expected to be a puppet for men's desires. Well, she'd not be one any longer. She had the persona. Maybe the character was not a villain after all.

  Constance would make copies of the persona, give it to any woman who wanted to stand as her own person and not merely a man's possession. She'd sell it to any actor who could show crowds what a free woman was like.

  She wrapped the darkstone cloak around her arm and thrust it into the boiler. For a moment, the blue flames flared and died, leaving nothing but water. She retrieved Oscar's head and the bottles of ink. Selling personas would earn enough money to buy a new body for Oscar. There was enough ink to write twenty or thirty personas, enough to earn a fortune, enough to buy more ink.

  Edward stirred. A long dark bruise had formed across his jaw and for a moment, nostalgia for the deformed girl who had somehow found love possessed her.

  But she couldn't cry, never had.

  She climbed the stairs and left the house.

  Her face was a mask, but it would no longer hide who she was.

  The Last God-Killer

  by Grá Linnaea & Dave Raines

  Artwork by M. Wayne Miller

  * * *

  Sing, O goddess, of great Andern, and of his wrath.

  This line I stole from an ancient writer named Homer. I have millions of such texts in Recorded Mind, and Contemplative Mind suggested this as an epigraph. My writing does not belong in the same class as Homer's. However, I believe it is fitting to replace Achilles' name with that of Andern the god-
killer.

  And fitting irony, that the goddess cannot sing, being dead at Andern's hand.

  It was day thirty of our silent pilgrimage from earth to the goddess's paradise on M89. Daily I uploaded my experience to the All-Net: sight, sound, scent, even touch and taste, twenty-four hours a day. I used low-def and 2-D to conserve bio-energy, holding off the aging process as much as possible. Later I would need Full Immersion recording, and I would Record nearly to my own death; but during travel, essentially nothing happened.

  "Don't truck much with your kind." It was the first time the god-killer spoke to me and to the extent I could be, I was shocked that a man who kills gods would be so conservative. It was more common for those aligned with an old god to dislike the non-born, such as Recorders like me.

  "My kind? Unnatural abominations, you mean?" Often it was better to say their words before they did.

  Recording Mind noted my increased heart rate and small adrenaline spike. Contemplative Mind kept me centered and pleasant. I smiled; from long experience I know that smiling puts people at ease.

  But he never looked at me. "There's already too many damn people. We don't need to make more."

  His old-fashioned attitudes showed his age more than his body did. Even so, I observed that his eyes peered sharply from a bird's-nest of subtle shallow wrinkles; skin puckered on the tops of his hands: after multiple anti-aging treatments, these things forced themselves onto the body. The whites of his eyes had turned slightly yellow. Every day, at precisely 0900 and 2100 hours, he laid his hand on the medbot and it pumped molecular-repair bots into his circulatory system. I worried that either one of us might not even last the journey.

  I am a Recorder. Our abilities burn up our cells and double our aging process. The oldest recorder in history died at forty-nine of an embolism. I am forty-three.

  Humans could only speculate how many gods still existed. Once easy to identify, they'd become scarce, but Delight was almost certainly the last of the majors. When gods were plentiful, life was certainly more orderly. People like Andern felt that their lives were not their own back then, but I don't see how that has changed. I have no soul and don't need to worry about anything past physical existence. Born-humans say I miss subtleties.

  Without the gods, there are no heavens. With no heavens, there is nothing after people die, which seems to be how they want it. Still, a god-killer's job makes them hated by half the people and feared by all.

  The next day I heated some nourishment while Andern used the shower bag. When he stepped out I presented his clothes. While he dressed he saw that I'd folded out the eating table.

  "What the null is that?" His voice pitched down in a way I hadn't heard before.

  "I meant no harm. After yesterday's discussion I assumed you might enjoy a meal together."

  He barked a laugh. "We exchanged three or four words."

  Before I thought to censor myself, I said, "You initially spoke six words, I repliedwith nine and you replied with an additional twelve."

  He looked at the ceiling and I waited. He let out a laugh that went on for minutes. Eventually he said, "I'll eat a meal with you."

  "That's an additional forty-three words."

  "Don't push it."

  Delight first attacked when we reached the nominal margins of M89.

  An alarm vibrated the air and the ship shuddered. Ship's voice said, "Quantum storm. We are experiencing a quantum storm. Energy peaks will consume the ship in fifteen seconds. Fourteen . . ." I wasn't well-trained in emergency response, but I attempted to initiate meditative calm while I yelled, "Ship! Instruments!"

  In an instant the wall glowed with telltales and icons, most of them red. "Ship! Reduce power --"

  "Belay that," Andern growled.

  "Nine seconds . . . eight . . ."

  "Andern! You heard. There are energy peaks!"

  "I said belay that order. Ship, continue on course, present power."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  Beneath me the ship gave another shudder. We had only seconds to live. "Andern, we must --"

  "Recorder. Calm down!" He looked at me with contempt. "I thought you beasts had some kind of mind control. I didn't know you panicked so easily."

  "Well . . . but there are energy peaks."

  "Recorder. Have you ever been in a quantum storm? Have you ever even heard of a quantum storm?"

  I did a fast data retrieval. "No."

  "There is no such thing as a quantum storm. Delight is playing with your mind."

  I wanted to argue, which Recorders never do. I engaged Contemplative Mind and attempted to reduce my breath rate. Still my pulse raced. My muscles were locked. The ship continued safely.

  "It's in my mind?"

  "More precisely, it's through your senses. Recorder, on this trip, you'll experience delights of all kinds. Be prepared to ignore them."

  "The ship blowing up is delightful?"

  "There is a delight in encountering danger and overcoming it, a delight to which I am especially susceptible. You were manipulated."

  "I didn't know."

  His voice softened. "All right. I made a mistake. I clearly should have briefed you on the way here. I'll fix my mistake as soon as I can. But listen, you must promise me when action is called for, let me do the acting. You can stand by and watch all you want. Do not act. You are not competent to face Delight, let alone kill her, and I will not let you bollix up this mission. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good. Now I'm going to sleep." He lay back on the eating table, not bothering to flip up its padded underside.

  I stood there a while. I wondered if this man, who had no reservations about killing gods, would hesitate to kill a Recorder.

  I sat in one of the two council chairs. I thought I heard distant laughter like little tinkling bells. Mind control. I initiated meditation.

  We find gods by observing cosmic anomalies; where physics bend and the universe is distorted, we suspect a god is near. The black hole at the center of M89 is twenty-two light years from the center of that galaxy, which should not be. Delight exists on the edge and draws the black hole from the center with her own attraction.

  Gods are killed, not with knife or gun, but with bare hands and all of one's will. It's a risky business. Six out of seven god-killers do not return from their task.

  Why do they risk their lives? Contemplative Mind throws out hypotheses: gods upset causality and distort the universe, as Delight did M89. Or the gods offend our sense of reason and order. Or the gods meddle in human lives, which control cannot be borne.

  I never report these contemplations. Until now, until this last confrontation between god and god-killer. An era is passing.

  We approached Delight's constellation along its flat plane. It resolved from a fuzzy line to a flat oval, eventually articulating into a white hot disk. Even to my critical eye, the transition from single hot mass of stars to individual systems and suns was sudden and caught me off guard. One would assume the goddess would consider herself the most important thing in the galaxy and exist in its very center, but she was on a small planetoid, in a indistinct system arbitrarily near the edge of the galaxy.

  The ship had already begun its slowdown a week earlier, but Delight's planet rushed into our view disturbingly like a head-on collision. We didn't feel the stop. We were just suddenly immobile in the upper atmosphere of Delight -- the planet named for the goddess. I noticed Andern hadn't watched as we approached.

  We sat in silence for fifteen minutes before I thought to ask what we would do next. Right when I'd decided to ask, he spoke.

  "We'll take the drift shuttle. I need to prepare, but the descent will give me time." He glanced at the planetary display. "We're not any safer here than we will be out there…" He looked at me. ". . . or on the surface."

  I wished for something to pack, or instructions, but he simply pulled a compressed clothes bag from storage. He expanded this and pulled out a white shirt and vest, and a belt that looked
organic, covered in small snap-pockets and tools. He undressed and dressed without modesty while I watched him.

  "You may not speak to the god. You may not touch the god. You may not help me in any way."

  I nodded. Every god-killer had said this in the past. The words never changed.

  To have something to do, I asked. "Do you require nourishment before we go down?"

  He shook his head, snapping boots to his feet. Then he looked up at me. "I want you to prepare a protein pack. Heat it, open it and put it into a plate. Then I want you to clean up, and package away the food into a leftover container."

  I was confused, but tried to understand why he was asking me to do this. Eventually I asked, "But, why?"

  He was almost fully dressed. "So you'll have something to do. Your energy is putting my teeth on edge."

  I noted this for future records, tagging the information for future Recorders how not to annoy god-killers as they worked. As if I would ever join a god-killer again, as if there would ever be another one.

  A drift-shuttle works on a similar principle as our space-faring ship. Just as our starship bends time for energy and is snapped back to Earth while recouping the stolen time, a drift-ship just falls, spinning like an old oak seed.

  The surface grew slowly closer. I observed an ocean that covered sixty percent of my view and we drifted toward a reddish land mass.

  The land mass came to take up my entire view and I saw that we were headed for a coastal area. This soon formed into tangled red forests and cliffs that stood against violent waves.

  "How did we know where to find . . ." I wanted to say "her." But we weren't to refer to gods by name or gender. ". . . the god."

  Andern patted the linen doll on his belt. "This is a genuine worship totem, given freely by a true believer."