Endless Pantheon Suggested Read order for Endless Pantheon
Book 1: God's Eye is concurrent with...
Book 1: God's Eye is concurrent with...
Endless Pantheon: God's Blood [Stargate/Dresden Files]
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Chapter 1
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
Endless Pantheon Suggested Read order for Endless Pantheon
Book 1: God's Eye is concurrent with Book 1.5: Shattering Occam's Razor
Book 2: God's Blood is concurrent with Book 2.5: Manifest Disaster
The Murphy's Law short story falls between books 2 and 3.
Book 3: God's Heart
The Short Story Threads are supplemental to the main stories.
Visions of the Pantheon is from the POV of Goa'uld or Tok'ra. Letters From Home is from human or near human POVs.
This is the sequel to my previous story, God's Eye. It will not make sense if you haven't finished that one.
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Not for the first time, I woke up hoping that I would be in my Chicago apartment only to find myself lying in a bed that would have took up my old bedroom twice over covered by sheets worth more than ten years salary as a private investigator. I had been dreaming about my old life – a bad habit that I never quite seemed able to shake. It was stupid, but part of me kept expecting someone to pop up, say "april fools," and toss me back into the comfortable familiarity of my second-hand furniture in the little apartment I shared with dog, my brother, and a oversized tomcat who deigned to allow me into his presence. I missed needing money. I missed paying bills. I missed arguing with my brother about doing the dishes and puttering about in the sub-basement lab and its cluttered chaos.
I missed my old life. I missed being Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I missed the time before I'd become the "Lord Warden, God of Magic and Chaos – Dre'su'den the Ha'ri." I held up my pale hand, examining the inky black veins beneath my now porcelain skin. I knew from experience that my blood was now a shadowy substance flecked with starlight, forever altered by the ritual of ascension I'd underwent to save my life – a lesser version of the Darkhallow that had stranded me in the past.
The long-term effects of saving my life were still unclear, but suffice it to say that I was no longer the Wizard I had once been. I was now a "god" – whatever that meant. Note the lowercase "g." I wasn't going to be able to start slaying the First Born of Egypty any time soon, but I was damn sure that I could go toe to toe with any individual member of the White Council's leadership and at least have a chance of coming out on top. But that power came at a price, and with obligations.
I was the "god" and sovereign of Nekheb, but that meant that I was suddenly responsible for ruling an entire Empire. Countless men and women looked to me as their ruler and protector, convinced that I was capable of doing anything I wanted. All things considered it was probably not a great choice to entrust the leadership of your intergalactic empire to a man who failed eighth grade civics.
Even my name was no longer my own. The hieroglyphs that now represented me felt alien, unnatural – especially the quail chick. No amount of allegory was quite enough to have me reconcile the quail chick and vulture that were now part of my written name. I barely recognized it and I'd been there when first Ul'tak had mangled the phonetics of my name into the proto-Egyptian language of the Goa'uld.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, sitting up as a familiar shape wandered into the room. Amun, the former Eunuch and head of my household staff, strode in to my palatial apartment with near insufferable pride. Nearly a year in my service had only served to convince the man that he was in service of the greatest power in the universe, regardless of my repeated insistence that I neither wished to be worshipped nor deserved his prayers. I could never quite shake the sense that he was humoring my eccentricities as he served as my butler and manservant, in spite of and often ignoring my continued insistence that I'm more that capable of both dressing myself and finding food.
I gave up trying to convince him that I didn't need domestics about two months in. All that my continued protests achieved was to further convince him that I very much was in need of him and his seemingly invisible army of servants. I'd had a small contingent of fairy folk cleaning my Chicago apartment who'd been less capable of seeing to my needs in secret than his armada of maids seemed to be. My clothing seemed to have been laundered and hung almost as quickly as I stripped out of them – not that Amun would have ever tolerated me dressing or undressing without his assistance. In truth, I wasn't sure if I could actually get into or out of the complex costume of the Goa'uld Lords unassisted but that wasn't the point.
I managed to draw a line in the sand when it came to the "groom of the stool." Divine Lord Warden or not, some activities were single player events. I'm not sure if that was something that fell into the realm of "old fashioned" or "newfangled" but suffice it to say that the "groom of the stool" was given a generous pension and the position was done away with.
I stood up from my bed, cinching the silk belt of my sleeping clothes as I lazily sauntered over to my breakfast, fully aware that by the time I'd scarfed down my morning meal that Amun would have selected the clothing he felt was best for me to wear that day. I was reasonably certain that I'd had next to no input in what clothes I'd worn for the at least the past two months.
As usual, Amun's idea of a proper breakfast was a feast fit for any three state dinners. And like always, only a handful of items turned out to be things that I found even remotely appetizing. It was the sort of thing I would previously have found to be decadent, even disgustingly wasteful – but the head of my household and I had found a balance between his need to give his god a lavish offering and my hatred of wasting food. The food that I did not eat was to be taken to the front gates of the place and distributed to the poor. It had the unintentional side effect of being interpreted as a sacrament by the priestesses, but since the only real fallout was that people thought that wasting food was a sin I hadn't gone out of my way to discourage their interpretation. Hopefully some homeless people got a decent meal out of it. I took a plate of the things which appealed to me, a couple of meat kebabs that reminded me of beef, though I knew they were from a local reptile, and a porridge that tasted of honey and cinnamon.
Sitting down at the head of my table I tucked in to my meal, using folds of something vaguely like naan en lieu of a spoon to get the porridge into my mouth. The local custom of Nekheb was to eat with one's fingers rather than a knife, fork, and spoon. I was about halfway through my meal when there was a soft rap at the door, and a caramel skinned beauty wearing tattoos and piercings, but not a damn thing else, poked her head into the room. "My Lord Warden, you look well today."
My back stiffened as I was approached by Muminah, High Priestess of the Lord Warden. I was terrified of Muminah. I was afraid of all the priesthood of the Lord Warden, if I was entirely honest. Muminah was a true believer. She had been a devout worshipper of Heka before me, and had transferred that loyalty to me when I'd slain her previous master. She was willing to do anything for me, and I mean anything.
Heka had raised his priestesses from childhood as fodder for the system wide Genius Loci he'd created as a way to monitor and control a star system's worth of wards and defenses. He'd spent centuries getting women to willingly sacrifice their lives after knowing his flesh, corrupting them into willing weapons. I knew at least one woman who Muminah had killed, I'd felt the sacrificed woman's lips upon me when the dark god of magic had possessed me. I'd forbidden human sacrifice and forbade the clergy from killing except in self defense, but I lived in fear that one of the Priestesses would misinterpret something I said and start a jihad in my name.
Lash, the shadow of a fallen Angel, had done her best to feed the clergy of the Lord Warden a functional set of morals that would ensure my power base by taking liberties with her translation from English to Goa'uld. It had not been till after she was removed from my mind, along with the parts of my soul infected with Heka's memories, that I would realize precisely how calculated her translations had been. The Goa'uld language was limited, but not quite as limited as she had implied. I wasn't entirely sure if the dozens of languages I found myself able to fluently speak was a byproduct of her deal with the Metatron or a fringe benefit of ascending to godhood, but I was astonished by how completely she'd managed to twist my words to suit her purpose of establishing my power.
"High Priestess Muminah. To what do I owe this visit?" I replied, doing my best to keep my tone neutral. I did not want to encourage or discourage her behavior until I knew what she was actually doing. Too many offhand statements had already found their way into the salacious mix of fiction and philosophy that the clergy was cobbling together in an effort to please their new god.
"My Lord Warden. I have a question of faith from your flock that I do not know your will to answer." The priestess bowed in supplication, crossing her arms over her chest.
That… boded poorly. Muminah never came to him with that sort of a question unless it was something soul crushing. What happened to the souls of the still born? Why do bad things happen to good people? The sorts of questions that nobody could have the answer to, not truly. I'd done me best to answer her truthfully, telling her when I didn't have an answer and explaining that nobody ever got to know everything in life. Some questions, especially those that felt the most unfair, weren't questions that had answers or ever would have answers. "Questions about what?"
"Your stories to the children." Muminah replied.
"My stories to the children?" I raised an eyebrow in surprise. Chronos' invasion of Nekheb had resulted in a number of unfortunate war orphans. A child raised in the foster system myself, I had been unwilling to abandon the children who'd been left without families as a result of my war. I'd taken in the children, doing my best to see to their needs and their education. Managing the needs of a kingdom hadn't left me with a lot of time for foster parenting, but I had gone out of my way to tell them a story every night for the past year. I had a lifetime worth of history, movies, books, and comics to pull from and an audience for whom Luke Skywalker was an entirely new experience.
"The conclave of priestesses has been deliberating on it for some time." Muminah asked. "The War of the Stars, the Spider Man, the Super Man, the King of Arthur, the Aladdin and his Genie, the Beauty and the Beast, the Davy Crockett, the Abraham Lincoln and the rest of your stories? Are they truth or allegory? We cannot give sermons on their teachings if we do not understand their truth."
I blinked, nonplussed. "You're asking me if Star Wars is real?"
"Yes, Lord Warden." Replied Muminah.
I bit back the sarcastic response that I really wanted to give, thinking 'not now Harry if you actually say that, you're going to end up with a cult of Kal'el on your hands' as I gave a more measured reply, hoping against hope that I wasn't going to end up making things worse. "Some stories are true, some only have elements of truth in them, and some are outright lies. Even the stories I tell that are based on true events have been told and re-told so many times that they only give an impression of what happened rather than literal truth."
"And the Jedi?" Muminah asked hopefully. "Were the Jedi real?"
I smiled. "You like them?"
"Yes." The priestess replied, blushing. "I am, fond of the tale of Luke."
"Yeah, Luke is pretty darn cool." I replied grudgingly. "But, no. That story is one of the ones that has more fiction that truth."
"Err, not quite boss. You're drawing distinctions that don't really count." Chimed in an opinionated voice from my dresser, as a pair of orange lights flickered into view. Bob the skull was my spiritual advisor, both literally and figuratively. He was not actually a skull, but rather a spirit of intellect inhabiting the piece of enchanted bone.
"Between reality and fiction?" I blinked in confusion as I turned to the skull.
"What? You think that your universe is the only universe? Harry, come on. Creation is totally freaking huge. Room enough for you and Luke Skywalker to both putter your way around the galaxy." He rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not a faith guy. I don't know what happens with a lot of things. But I know a shell game when I see one."
Muminah looked like a child who'd just been told that there were going to be two Christmases this year. I groaned, realizing just how much damage Bob's correction was going to do in the long run. It had not gone unnoticed by the priestesses how Bob the Skull was essentially my primary source for any information I didn't know offhand. If I wasn't around and Bob said something or if Bob said something that corrected a factual error in my own speech, they had more or less decided to accept that as the gospel truth.
That was part of the reason that Bob was in my room in the first place. I was afraid that if I left the spirit of intellect to his own devices he'd end up re-instating the practice of sacred prostitution or establish some sort of Eyes Wide Shut style ritualistic orgy. Bob might have centuries worth of magical theory under his belt, but for someone without biological urges he somehow managed to have both the libido and emotional maturity of an entire platoon's worth of teenage boys. Given the obligate nudity of the priestesses, leaving him unattended in their presence felt deeply unwise.
I switched to English to chide the skull. "Just remember that we live in this universe, ok Bob. Once interdimensional travel becomes an actual thing, then I'll start worrying about the men with goatees. Until then ixnay on alkingtay to the iestesspray."
"Really boss? Pig latin? It's not like she speaks English." Bob replied. "And you don't let me have any fun. Honestly…"
"Shut up Bob." I replied harshly, a shiver running up my spine.
"Oh come on Boss - If you're not going to use your harem at least let somebody have some fun." Bob replied in irritation.
"Shut up unless you want to let Mab know exactly where you are." I snarled, the everpresent awareness of Traitor's Bane feeding me the specifics of a the Winter Queen's sudden presence in my realm. "She just entered the Throne Room and I don't want her to hear you."
"Meep!" Bob replied, eyelights dissolving as he hid in his container. I'd never quite gotten the specifics of his feud with Mab, but Bob had been forced to flee fairy in a hurry. If there was anything that got him to comply, it was the threat of an imminent visit from the Queen of Air and Darkness. I tossed a blanket over the skull and motioned for Amun to dress me. He'd removed my night clothes and put me into the regalia of a System Lord, complete with crystal foci, in less time than I used to take to put on a pair of blue-jeans.
I kept track of her with the monstrous Genius Loci of Nekheb, Traitor's Bane. The spirit did not like the Queen of Winter, she was a powerful entity – powerful enough to do grievous harm to the solar system it was entrusted with protecting. It was willing to tolerate the intrusion, however, given the Queen's state of alliance with Harry. And Harry could be reasonably certain that the Queen meant him no imminent harm. That she was able to enter the palatial stronghold of Nekheb without an invitation meant that she would be bound by the laws of hospitality, and for a Fairy Queen violating those laws was not even remotely an option.
That she didn't intend to murder me in the imminent future was only a minor comfort, all things considered. Mab's arrival could only mean a couple of things, few of them good. My best-case scenario was that she had arrived to discuss our mutual war upon the god Chronos. The Titan had only a shadow of his former magical might, but his willingness to employ outsiders and dark things from the worst parts of the Nevernever greatly complicated the process of re-taking the worlds that had once been Heka's from their new overlord. While we had agreed upon the necessity of taking out the outsider aligned god, we'd had several major differences of opinion when it came to both allies and strategy.
Most recently I'd drawn the Queen's ire by starting a war with Moloch at what had been intended to be a meeting to discuss the terms of an alliance. Moloch's idea of how to "celebrate" the arrival of a potential ally had been biblical, as in old testament style levels of messed up. I actually had trouble even describing the things his people had done without feeling on the verge of vomiting. Call me a chauvinist if you will, but I get especially mad when someone hurts a woman.
And I don't give a damn what you call me, if you're willing to rape a woman to death before tossing her into an oven with her newborn baby girl I'm going to put whatever is left your ass in a pine fucking box. The Moloch had managed to escape with his life, but just barely. His Jaffa had not, nor had anyone else who'd willingly participated in the ritual feminicide.
Now I had two wars for the price of one.
Yay me.
Ul'tak, the head of my armies, had not been thrilled at the additional stress upon our already stretched out armies, but he'd been at the meeting as well. Neither he nor the Ancient Jaffa had questioned why I'd done what I'd done.
Mab had not been pleased, nor had she understood. The lives of individual mortals aren't the sort of thing that the Queen of Air and Darkness troubled herself with. In her mind I'd sacrificed the long term benefit of thousands of capable troops for the short term satisfaction of "saving some chattel." We'd had words after that. They had not been friendly.
So, I was understandably on edge when I walked into the throne room to find the Queen of Air and darkness standing in my court, looking through a book bound in what looked disturbingly like human flesh based off of the tattoos. She was seated upon a throne of ice she'd summoned to be slightly taller than my own, and flanked by a pair of armored trolls.
As I entered the room, the Fairy Queen looked up at me. Her opalescent blue lips quirked up into a smile as she saw me, her eyes twinkling with a gleeful malice that was painfully obvious. "Lord Warden. It is good to see you."
"Queen Mab." I replied, seating myself upon the throne. I was painfully aware that Muminah had followed me from my apartment, intending to add my meeting with the Queen of Winter to the volumes of scripture held by the priesthood of the Warden. "I had not expected you so soon."
"So soon after you treated me with such discourtesy, you mean." Mab tutted disappointedly. "I have killed for lesser insults. I did warn Moloch to curtail his usual honors, but I it would have been better for you to have seen the greater picture."
"He was murdering children." I ground my teeth. "Raping women. It was wrong."
"And how many children do you think will die from a prolonged war? How many women will be raped as Chronos' troops pillage your worlds?" Mab shook her head. "You are not some gumshoe in Chicago any more, Warden. You must see the bigger picture or you will sacrifice your entire kingdom in your bullheadedness."
I sighed, Mab was treading back on old ground to get me mad. She wanted me to say something foolish that would allow her an upper hand when she asked for what she really wanted. I wasn't in the mood for games, "Did you come to just have the same argument again, oh Queen of Winter or do you have a greater purpose in coming? My godmother has led me to believe that the entry to Nekheb from the Nevernever is a bit distant for anyone to consider traveling here for a social call."
Mab laughed, it was a harsh and grating sound. "Warden, you have no idea. The place that lies on the other side is a land of nightmare. Your Godmother's payment was far too little for the service she is forced to render. But you are right, I have not come here for old arguments or idle banter. I have a task for you."
That got my attention.
When I had been a teenager I'd entered into a foolish deal with my Godmother. Yes, I have a literal fairy godmother and she is god damn terrifying. That debt had then been traded to the Queen of Winter, three favors owed before I would gain my freedom from her debt. Two had already been paid. Once I completed the third, I would be free of all obligation to the debt once owed my Godmother.
I would be free.
I tried not to look too eager as I felt on the verge of bouncing out of my seat and whooping in excitement. "What task?"
The Queen of Air and Darkness walked down from her throne to a wide stone table that sat between our thrones. She opened the book bound in human skin, tearing a page from it and casting it across the diorite surface of the table. Seven symbols around a world marked with a laughing skull – a gate address. Not to anywhere pleasant judging by the source material.
The Queen of Winter put down the book, rubbing her thumb across the spine in a way that couldn't help but be deeply unsetting considering the material it was stitched from. "You will leave this planet, with a retinue of three, and go to the address I have given you at the appointed time. You will not return to Nekheb for at least seven days."
"That's it – just go to a planet?" I replied, incredulous. "No impossible task? No crazy artefact you need me to recover? No mystery to investigate? You'll excuse me if I'm skeptical."
"And yet it is no less what I require of you, Warden." She replied, smiling broadly.
I shook my head. "No."
The Winter Queen chuckled, leaning back against the wide stone table in a way that accentuated her impossible curves. The pattern of black vines along her blouse grew and wriggled as she moved. "You think that you can deny me wizard?"
"That was the deal Mab. I get to pick which jobs I do for you and don't do." I shook my head. "I've done two jobs thus far. I know that whatever you've got lined up for my third must be big enough that it merits losing your hold over me. So unless you're planning on telling me why I need to be on this specific planet at that specific time – I'm out."
"Warden, you wound me. This is not a favor for which we bargained. This is simply friendly advice from one who has your best interests at heart." Her predatory feline gaze made me feel distinctly uneasy. I was glad that my eyes no longer betrayed emotion, my pupils would have been dilating with fear.
"You're not even paying me for this one?" I snorted. "Gee whiz, now I really want to go."
Mab's predatory grin never faltered. "You will go Warden, as the Queen of Summer has negotiated for safe passage into your kingdom. Even your godmother will not be able to stop her agents from arriving in full force."
"Ok, I'll bite. Why am I worried about the agents of summer coming here?" I sighed. It wasn't as though fairies showing ever meant anything good, but the Summer's agents were generally less malevolent than those of winter. I'd been enjoying relative popularity from both fairy courts, given that the legal route to fight the Goa'uld was through me and my armies.
"Because the Solstice is a week hence, and Queen Titania knows both that you are responsible for the death of her daughter and that to avert her daughter's death risks cataclysmic paradox." Mab replied. "As she can't avert them without risking the destruction of a quite substantial portion of history, she has elected to take her revenge upon the Goa'uld who set things in motion instead."
"What?" I screeched. "How!"
"I would have thought that part was obvious." Mab shook her head, sighing in exhaustion as though she were talking to a simpleton. "She knows that you are responsible, because I have told her that you are responsible."
Well… fuck.
Book 1: God's Eye is concurrent with Book 1.5: Shattering Occam's Razor
Book 2: God's Blood is concurrent with Book 2.5: Manifest Disaster
The Murphy's Law short story falls between books 2 and 3.
Book 3: God's Heart
The Short Story Threads are supplemental to the main stories.
Visions of the Pantheon is from the POV of Goa'uld or Tok'ra. Letters From Home is from human or near human POVs.
This is the sequel to my previous story, God's Eye. It will not make sense if you haven't finished that one.
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Not for the first time, I woke up hoping that I would be in my Chicago apartment only to find myself lying in a bed that would have took up my old bedroom twice over covered by sheets worth more than ten years salary as a private investigator. I had been dreaming about my old life – a bad habit that I never quite seemed able to shake. It was stupid, but part of me kept expecting someone to pop up, say "april fools," and toss me back into the comfortable familiarity of my second-hand furniture in the little apartment I shared with dog, my brother, and a oversized tomcat who deigned to allow me into his presence. I missed needing money. I missed paying bills. I missed arguing with my brother about doing the dishes and puttering about in the sub-basement lab and its cluttered chaos.
I missed my old life. I missed being Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I missed the time before I'd become the "Lord Warden, God of Magic and Chaos – Dre'su'den the Ha'ri." I held up my pale hand, examining the inky black veins beneath my now porcelain skin. I knew from experience that my blood was now a shadowy substance flecked with starlight, forever altered by the ritual of ascension I'd underwent to save my life – a lesser version of the Darkhallow that had stranded me in the past.
The long-term effects of saving my life were still unclear, but suffice it to say that I was no longer the Wizard I had once been. I was now a "god" – whatever that meant. Note the lowercase "g." I wasn't going to be able to start slaying the First Born of Egypty any time soon, but I was damn sure that I could go toe to toe with any individual member of the White Council's leadership and at least have a chance of coming out on top. But that power came at a price, and with obligations.
I was the "god" and sovereign of Nekheb, but that meant that I was suddenly responsible for ruling an entire Empire. Countless men and women looked to me as their ruler and protector, convinced that I was capable of doing anything I wanted. All things considered it was probably not a great choice to entrust the leadership of your intergalactic empire to a man who failed eighth grade civics.
Even my name was no longer my own. The hieroglyphs that now represented me felt alien, unnatural – especially the quail chick. No amount of allegory was quite enough to have me reconcile the quail chick and vulture that were now part of my written name. I barely recognized it and I'd been there when first Ul'tak had mangled the phonetics of my name into the proto-Egyptian language of the Goa'uld.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, sitting up as a familiar shape wandered into the room. Amun, the former Eunuch and head of my household staff, strode in to my palatial apartment with near insufferable pride. Nearly a year in my service had only served to convince the man that he was in service of the greatest power in the universe, regardless of my repeated insistence that I neither wished to be worshipped nor deserved his prayers. I could never quite shake the sense that he was humoring my eccentricities as he served as my butler and manservant, in spite of and often ignoring my continued insistence that I'm more that capable of both dressing myself and finding food.
I gave up trying to convince him that I didn't need domestics about two months in. All that my continued protests achieved was to further convince him that I very much was in need of him and his seemingly invisible army of servants. I'd had a small contingent of fairy folk cleaning my Chicago apartment who'd been less capable of seeing to my needs in secret than his armada of maids seemed to be. My clothing seemed to have been laundered and hung almost as quickly as I stripped out of them – not that Amun would have ever tolerated me dressing or undressing without his assistance. In truth, I wasn't sure if I could actually get into or out of the complex costume of the Goa'uld Lords unassisted but that wasn't the point.
I managed to draw a line in the sand when it came to the "groom of the stool." Divine Lord Warden or not, some activities were single player events. I'm not sure if that was something that fell into the realm of "old fashioned" or "newfangled" but suffice it to say that the "groom of the stool" was given a generous pension and the position was done away with.
I stood up from my bed, cinching the silk belt of my sleeping clothes as I lazily sauntered over to my breakfast, fully aware that by the time I'd scarfed down my morning meal that Amun would have selected the clothing he felt was best for me to wear that day. I was reasonably certain that I'd had next to no input in what clothes I'd worn for the at least the past two months.
As usual, Amun's idea of a proper breakfast was a feast fit for any three state dinners. And like always, only a handful of items turned out to be things that I found even remotely appetizing. It was the sort of thing I would previously have found to be decadent, even disgustingly wasteful – but the head of my household and I had found a balance between his need to give his god a lavish offering and my hatred of wasting food. The food that I did not eat was to be taken to the front gates of the place and distributed to the poor. It had the unintentional side effect of being interpreted as a sacrament by the priestesses, but since the only real fallout was that people thought that wasting food was a sin I hadn't gone out of my way to discourage their interpretation. Hopefully some homeless people got a decent meal out of it. I took a plate of the things which appealed to me, a couple of meat kebabs that reminded me of beef, though I knew they were from a local reptile, and a porridge that tasted of honey and cinnamon.
Sitting down at the head of my table I tucked in to my meal, using folds of something vaguely like naan en lieu of a spoon to get the porridge into my mouth. The local custom of Nekheb was to eat with one's fingers rather than a knife, fork, and spoon. I was about halfway through my meal when there was a soft rap at the door, and a caramel skinned beauty wearing tattoos and piercings, but not a damn thing else, poked her head into the room. "My Lord Warden, you look well today."
My back stiffened as I was approached by Muminah, High Priestess of the Lord Warden. I was terrified of Muminah. I was afraid of all the priesthood of the Lord Warden, if I was entirely honest. Muminah was a true believer. She had been a devout worshipper of Heka before me, and had transferred that loyalty to me when I'd slain her previous master. She was willing to do anything for me, and I mean anything.
Heka had raised his priestesses from childhood as fodder for the system wide Genius Loci he'd created as a way to monitor and control a star system's worth of wards and defenses. He'd spent centuries getting women to willingly sacrifice their lives after knowing his flesh, corrupting them into willing weapons. I knew at least one woman who Muminah had killed, I'd felt the sacrificed woman's lips upon me when the dark god of magic had possessed me. I'd forbidden human sacrifice and forbade the clergy from killing except in self defense, but I lived in fear that one of the Priestesses would misinterpret something I said and start a jihad in my name.
Lash, the shadow of a fallen Angel, had done her best to feed the clergy of the Lord Warden a functional set of morals that would ensure my power base by taking liberties with her translation from English to Goa'uld. It had not been till after she was removed from my mind, along with the parts of my soul infected with Heka's memories, that I would realize precisely how calculated her translations had been. The Goa'uld language was limited, but not quite as limited as she had implied. I wasn't entirely sure if the dozens of languages I found myself able to fluently speak was a byproduct of her deal with the Metatron or a fringe benefit of ascending to godhood, but I was astonished by how completely she'd managed to twist my words to suit her purpose of establishing my power.
"High Priestess Muminah. To what do I owe this visit?" I replied, doing my best to keep my tone neutral. I did not want to encourage or discourage her behavior until I knew what she was actually doing. Too many offhand statements had already found their way into the salacious mix of fiction and philosophy that the clergy was cobbling together in an effort to please their new god.
"My Lord Warden. I have a question of faith from your flock that I do not know your will to answer." The priestess bowed in supplication, crossing her arms over her chest.
That… boded poorly. Muminah never came to him with that sort of a question unless it was something soul crushing. What happened to the souls of the still born? Why do bad things happen to good people? The sorts of questions that nobody could have the answer to, not truly. I'd done me best to answer her truthfully, telling her when I didn't have an answer and explaining that nobody ever got to know everything in life. Some questions, especially those that felt the most unfair, weren't questions that had answers or ever would have answers. "Questions about what?"
"Your stories to the children." Muminah replied.
"My stories to the children?" I raised an eyebrow in surprise. Chronos' invasion of Nekheb had resulted in a number of unfortunate war orphans. A child raised in the foster system myself, I had been unwilling to abandon the children who'd been left without families as a result of my war. I'd taken in the children, doing my best to see to their needs and their education. Managing the needs of a kingdom hadn't left me with a lot of time for foster parenting, but I had gone out of my way to tell them a story every night for the past year. I had a lifetime worth of history, movies, books, and comics to pull from and an audience for whom Luke Skywalker was an entirely new experience.
"The conclave of priestesses has been deliberating on it for some time." Muminah asked. "The War of the Stars, the Spider Man, the Super Man, the King of Arthur, the Aladdin and his Genie, the Beauty and the Beast, the Davy Crockett, the Abraham Lincoln and the rest of your stories? Are they truth or allegory? We cannot give sermons on their teachings if we do not understand their truth."
I blinked, nonplussed. "You're asking me if Star Wars is real?"
"Yes, Lord Warden." Replied Muminah.
I bit back the sarcastic response that I really wanted to give, thinking 'not now Harry if you actually say that, you're going to end up with a cult of Kal'el on your hands' as I gave a more measured reply, hoping against hope that I wasn't going to end up making things worse. "Some stories are true, some only have elements of truth in them, and some are outright lies. Even the stories I tell that are based on true events have been told and re-told so many times that they only give an impression of what happened rather than literal truth."
"And the Jedi?" Muminah asked hopefully. "Were the Jedi real?"
I smiled. "You like them?"
"Yes." The priestess replied, blushing. "I am, fond of the tale of Luke."
"Yeah, Luke is pretty darn cool." I replied grudgingly. "But, no. That story is one of the ones that has more fiction that truth."
"Err, not quite boss. You're drawing distinctions that don't really count." Chimed in an opinionated voice from my dresser, as a pair of orange lights flickered into view. Bob the skull was my spiritual advisor, both literally and figuratively. He was not actually a skull, but rather a spirit of intellect inhabiting the piece of enchanted bone.
"Between reality and fiction?" I blinked in confusion as I turned to the skull.
"What? You think that your universe is the only universe? Harry, come on. Creation is totally freaking huge. Room enough for you and Luke Skywalker to both putter your way around the galaxy." He rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not a faith guy. I don't know what happens with a lot of things. But I know a shell game when I see one."
Muminah looked like a child who'd just been told that there were going to be two Christmases this year. I groaned, realizing just how much damage Bob's correction was going to do in the long run. It had not gone unnoticed by the priestesses how Bob the Skull was essentially my primary source for any information I didn't know offhand. If I wasn't around and Bob said something or if Bob said something that corrected a factual error in my own speech, they had more or less decided to accept that as the gospel truth.
That was part of the reason that Bob was in my room in the first place. I was afraid that if I left the spirit of intellect to his own devices he'd end up re-instating the practice of sacred prostitution or establish some sort of Eyes Wide Shut style ritualistic orgy. Bob might have centuries worth of magical theory under his belt, but for someone without biological urges he somehow managed to have both the libido and emotional maturity of an entire platoon's worth of teenage boys. Given the obligate nudity of the priestesses, leaving him unattended in their presence felt deeply unwise.
I switched to English to chide the skull. "Just remember that we live in this universe, ok Bob. Once interdimensional travel becomes an actual thing, then I'll start worrying about the men with goatees. Until then ixnay on alkingtay to the iestesspray."
"Really boss? Pig latin? It's not like she speaks English." Bob replied. "And you don't let me have any fun. Honestly…"
"Shut up Bob." I replied harshly, a shiver running up my spine.
"Oh come on Boss - If you're not going to use your harem at least let somebody have some fun." Bob replied in irritation.
"Shut up unless you want to let Mab know exactly where you are." I snarled, the everpresent awareness of Traitor's Bane feeding me the specifics of a the Winter Queen's sudden presence in my realm. "She just entered the Throne Room and I don't want her to hear you."
"Meep!" Bob replied, eyelights dissolving as he hid in his container. I'd never quite gotten the specifics of his feud with Mab, but Bob had been forced to flee fairy in a hurry. If there was anything that got him to comply, it was the threat of an imminent visit from the Queen of Air and Darkness. I tossed a blanket over the skull and motioned for Amun to dress me. He'd removed my night clothes and put me into the regalia of a System Lord, complete with crystal foci, in less time than I used to take to put on a pair of blue-jeans.
I kept track of her with the monstrous Genius Loci of Nekheb, Traitor's Bane. The spirit did not like the Queen of Winter, she was a powerful entity – powerful enough to do grievous harm to the solar system it was entrusted with protecting. It was willing to tolerate the intrusion, however, given the Queen's state of alliance with Harry. And Harry could be reasonably certain that the Queen meant him no imminent harm. That she was able to enter the palatial stronghold of Nekheb without an invitation meant that she would be bound by the laws of hospitality, and for a Fairy Queen violating those laws was not even remotely an option.
That she didn't intend to murder me in the imminent future was only a minor comfort, all things considered. Mab's arrival could only mean a couple of things, few of them good. My best-case scenario was that she had arrived to discuss our mutual war upon the god Chronos. The Titan had only a shadow of his former magical might, but his willingness to employ outsiders and dark things from the worst parts of the Nevernever greatly complicated the process of re-taking the worlds that had once been Heka's from their new overlord. While we had agreed upon the necessity of taking out the outsider aligned god, we'd had several major differences of opinion when it came to both allies and strategy.
Most recently I'd drawn the Queen's ire by starting a war with Moloch at what had been intended to be a meeting to discuss the terms of an alliance. Moloch's idea of how to "celebrate" the arrival of a potential ally had been biblical, as in old testament style levels of messed up. I actually had trouble even describing the things his people had done without feeling on the verge of vomiting. Call me a chauvinist if you will, but I get especially mad when someone hurts a woman.
And I don't give a damn what you call me, if you're willing to rape a woman to death before tossing her into an oven with her newborn baby girl I'm going to put whatever is left your ass in a pine fucking box. The Moloch had managed to escape with his life, but just barely. His Jaffa had not, nor had anyone else who'd willingly participated in the ritual feminicide.
Now I had two wars for the price of one.
Yay me.
Ul'tak, the head of my armies, had not been thrilled at the additional stress upon our already stretched out armies, but he'd been at the meeting as well. Neither he nor the Ancient Jaffa had questioned why I'd done what I'd done.
Mab had not been pleased, nor had she understood. The lives of individual mortals aren't the sort of thing that the Queen of Air and Darkness troubled herself with. In her mind I'd sacrificed the long term benefit of thousands of capable troops for the short term satisfaction of "saving some chattel." We'd had words after that. They had not been friendly.
So, I was understandably on edge when I walked into the throne room to find the Queen of Air and darkness standing in my court, looking through a book bound in what looked disturbingly like human flesh based off of the tattoos. She was seated upon a throne of ice she'd summoned to be slightly taller than my own, and flanked by a pair of armored trolls.
As I entered the room, the Fairy Queen looked up at me. Her opalescent blue lips quirked up into a smile as she saw me, her eyes twinkling with a gleeful malice that was painfully obvious. "Lord Warden. It is good to see you."
"Queen Mab." I replied, seating myself upon the throne. I was painfully aware that Muminah had followed me from my apartment, intending to add my meeting with the Queen of Winter to the volumes of scripture held by the priesthood of the Warden. "I had not expected you so soon."
"So soon after you treated me with such discourtesy, you mean." Mab tutted disappointedly. "I have killed for lesser insults. I did warn Moloch to curtail his usual honors, but I it would have been better for you to have seen the greater picture."
"He was murdering children." I ground my teeth. "Raping women. It was wrong."
"And how many children do you think will die from a prolonged war? How many women will be raped as Chronos' troops pillage your worlds?" Mab shook her head. "You are not some gumshoe in Chicago any more, Warden. You must see the bigger picture or you will sacrifice your entire kingdom in your bullheadedness."
I sighed, Mab was treading back on old ground to get me mad. She wanted me to say something foolish that would allow her an upper hand when she asked for what she really wanted. I wasn't in the mood for games, "Did you come to just have the same argument again, oh Queen of Winter or do you have a greater purpose in coming? My godmother has led me to believe that the entry to Nekheb from the Nevernever is a bit distant for anyone to consider traveling here for a social call."
Mab laughed, it was a harsh and grating sound. "Warden, you have no idea. The place that lies on the other side is a land of nightmare. Your Godmother's payment was far too little for the service she is forced to render. But you are right, I have not come here for old arguments or idle banter. I have a task for you."
That got my attention.
When I had been a teenager I'd entered into a foolish deal with my Godmother. Yes, I have a literal fairy godmother and she is god damn terrifying. That debt had then been traded to the Queen of Winter, three favors owed before I would gain my freedom from her debt. Two had already been paid. Once I completed the third, I would be free of all obligation to the debt once owed my Godmother.
I would be free.
I tried not to look too eager as I felt on the verge of bouncing out of my seat and whooping in excitement. "What task?"
The Queen of Air and Darkness walked down from her throne to a wide stone table that sat between our thrones. She opened the book bound in human skin, tearing a page from it and casting it across the diorite surface of the table. Seven symbols around a world marked with a laughing skull – a gate address. Not to anywhere pleasant judging by the source material.
The Queen of Winter put down the book, rubbing her thumb across the spine in a way that couldn't help but be deeply unsetting considering the material it was stitched from. "You will leave this planet, with a retinue of three, and go to the address I have given you at the appointed time. You will not return to Nekheb for at least seven days."
"That's it – just go to a planet?" I replied, incredulous. "No impossible task? No crazy artefact you need me to recover? No mystery to investigate? You'll excuse me if I'm skeptical."
"And yet it is no less what I require of you, Warden." She replied, smiling broadly.
I shook my head. "No."
The Winter Queen chuckled, leaning back against the wide stone table in a way that accentuated her impossible curves. The pattern of black vines along her blouse grew and wriggled as she moved. "You think that you can deny me wizard?"
"That was the deal Mab. I get to pick which jobs I do for you and don't do." I shook my head. "I've done two jobs thus far. I know that whatever you've got lined up for my third must be big enough that it merits losing your hold over me. So unless you're planning on telling me why I need to be on this specific planet at that specific time – I'm out."
"Warden, you wound me. This is not a favor for which we bargained. This is simply friendly advice from one who has your best interests at heart." Her predatory feline gaze made me feel distinctly uneasy. I was glad that my eyes no longer betrayed emotion, my pupils would have been dilating with fear.
"You're not even paying me for this one?" I snorted. "Gee whiz, now I really want to go."
Mab's predatory grin never faltered. "You will go Warden, as the Queen of Summer has negotiated for safe passage into your kingdom. Even your godmother will not be able to stop her agents from arriving in full force."
"Ok, I'll bite. Why am I worried about the agents of summer coming here?" I sighed. It wasn't as though fairies showing ever meant anything good, but the Summer's agents were generally less malevolent than those of winter. I'd been enjoying relative popularity from both fairy courts, given that the legal route to fight the Goa'uld was through me and my armies.
"Because the Solstice is a week hence, and Queen Titania knows both that you are responsible for the death of her daughter and that to avert her daughter's death risks cataclysmic paradox." Mab replied. "As she can't avert them without risking the destruction of a quite substantial portion of history, she has elected to take her revenge upon the Goa'uld who set things in motion instead."
"What?" I screeched. "How!"
"I would have thought that part was obvious." Mab shook her head, sighing in exhaustion as though she were talking to a simpleton. "She knows that you are responsible, because I have told her that you are responsible."
Well… fuck.
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subsider34
Forum Lurker Extraordinaire
- Location
- Houston, TX
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Really? Seemed to be consistently from Harry's POV to me.
Shippou
Kitsune Trickster
They're talking about how it keeps swapping between 1st and 3rd person perspective.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
Pfft, nah.
Maybe in the apocalyptic trilogy, but then everyone's fucked, so...
The most terrifying thing about this is the realization that Mab and Titania are twin sisters, and Aurora isn't the only faerie daughter that his mortal counterpart will end up killing. Mab is no less attached to Maeve than Titania is to Aurora, she just expresses it along the Blue end of the spectrum, as opposed to Titania's Orange way of viewing the world.
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
For fuck's sake..
It was a single pronoun issue in one sentance, and it was fixed yesterday.
Chapter 2
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
I blinked twice, thinking about what Mab had just dropped on me. Having the Queen of Summer gunning for me was terrifying, it was the sort of thing that made wise men looking for a nearby hole to crawl in and die. I was smart enough to know before I said something that a year prior would have sounded impossible to me.
"No. I'm not going anywhere."
Mab arched a single brow.
"Unless you've forgotten, I was there last time. Heck, I'm the one who told you what to expect. And I sure as hell remember the timeline of the next couple days where the world of fairy is concerned. There is no way you told The Queen of Summer what is coming until after the Summer Knight died so that you could be sure to have as much control over the situation as possible. Even if they're sending their heavy hitters my way, Summer can't afford to send that much at me at once and the Summer Queen can't afford to waste too much power on vengeance while she's missing her knight. If the Summer Court shows that much weakness and foolishness you'd be on them in an instant. So - Summer's heavies are going to have to go the long way round and Nekheb isn't exactly easy to get to." I shook my head, the idea of it seeming more and more absurd by the moment. "I've listened to endless rants from Lea about how much trouble it is to maintain two fortified positions in the Nevernever. And I'm not stupid, even if you negotiated passage through the Nevernever for the forces of Summer you left enough room for Lea to fulfil her obligations. Heck, even if they get through the worst parts of the Nevernever to get here, they're walking into a fortress city made with the expressed purpose of repelling the supernatural. I don't have all the wards working yet, but I've got enough that I feel confident in my ability to make sure that some supernatural nasty can't sneak into the Palace without me knowing. And I've got a whole army worth of Jaffa just itching to put the hurt on any Furling who looks at me funny."
I reached out and picked the page Mab had discarded upon the table. "So as far as I can tell, I am in a highly defensible position behind ancient wards, defended by a massive army, and guided by a Genius Loci that will happily aid me in crushing anyone who invades my city. Summer is stretched thin and able to only toss a token effort to kill me. I don't get how it even remotely benefits me to strand myself on another planet and just make myself an easier target."
"There are many reasons Warden. The first is that you over-estimate your ability to repel the Summer Fae. There are warriors of Summer who did not participate in the war as you described it to me, great and terrible things." The Winter Queen's eyes twinkled with malice. "Precisely the sort of things my opposite might throw at the one who engineered the death of her child. A week of fighting those creatures would force you to withdraw soldiers from your front lines and allow Chronos and Moloch to decimate your forces."
"Force you are pledged to aid." I retorted.
"How, and when I aid is very much a matter of my discretion, Lord Warden." The Winter Queen disagreed. "And as my pledge of safe passage is only through my own territory to reach where you are, thousands of your vassals need not die needlessly in the crossfire between your armies and the forces of Summer, provided that you are not actually on Nekheb. In a week, the only viable way for them to travel here will once again be as guests of your war against Chronos. The Summer Queen cannot afford my price a second time."
"Oh, I see, you're redirecting me from a hardened fortress for humanitarian reasons." I snorted. "Now it all makes sense."
"Many of your vassals will die if you stay Warden. I do not lament their passing any more than I would for any other mortal, but they are your people and your responsibility. How you choose to fail them is, of course, your prerogative." Mab's smile widened. "But if those lives alone are insufficient, there is a more personal reason to comply. Because if you do not, it seems entirely likely that a son of Margaret Lefay will meet a most unfortunate fate."
"Hah," I snorted. "You don't say."
"No Warden, I am referring to the other child." Mab might as well have stabbed me.
The other son of Margaret LeFay, our mother. Thomas, she was talking my half-brother. A vampire of the White Court, Thomas Raith wasn't someone whose relation to me I publicly advertised. Neither one of us wanted it to get out and end up being used as blackmail against either of us.
I'd gone out of my way not to tell her that Thomas was my brother when she'd asked me about the future.
Somehow, she'd found out anyway.
Bitch.
I'd already been planning on doing what she told me to, I just wanted to see what information I could bleed out of her to explain what her goal actually was out of this, but this changed the stakes, and she knew it. It was stupid and selfish for me to be more worried about my brother than the citizens and soldiers of Nekheb, but he was family. Being irrational about family was kind of par the course.
A rush of emotions ran through me, shock at the threat she'd just made, horror at the realization that Mab knew of the connection between me and my brother, and then abject confusion at what the threat implied. "But – he is alive, I mean he keeps being alive for years more. He was still alive when – " I paused, avoiding saying more in front of my household staff. Mab, of course, already knew, she'd spent days grilling me on the specifics of the next couple of years – milking me for every possible detail no matter how insignificant. I considered my next words carefully. "His future was already set."
"I have altered his course." The Queen of Air and darkness replied with a tone of arctic cold. "It took remarkably little effort really."
"But – that's insane." I sputtered, my metallic voice boiling with rage as my eyes glowed like angry coals. "If he dies then you're going to cause a paradox! You could destroy everything!"
"Paradox is an overrated threat, Warden. Important events in history that have happened have a tendency to continue happening. Certainly, the events that brought you here will unfold. If they still happen in a pattern that pleases you, however, is up to you." The Queen of Air and Darkness strode around me, cooling the air by ten degrees simply by virtue of her proximity. "The Vampire is important to you, but you'll find that few men transpire to be important to history. If he lives or dies, history will stay much the same. The life of any one man is rarely enough to turn the tide. He has saved you many times, but you are not without friends and allies. Had he not been there one of your other compatriots would have been."
"That's a hell of a gamble to make." I replied, wanting very much to set the evil Queen of fairy on fire.
"Not especially." The Fairy Queen replied. "Surely you've noticed that certain memories are fading and others are clear in a way that seems disconnected from the norm."
"I don't…"
"Don't waste time lying warden." Mab sighed in exasperation. "We've already spent more time discussing this matter than I'd care to and every instant you waste on denying truth is a moment that the child of Margaret comes closer to lasting harm."
"Yes, I've noticed." I had taken it for homesickness at first, the brief little bursts of insight and clear daydreams. Not often at first, but with increasing regularity I had begun to remember days that I was certain had never happened or had happened in a slightly different way from how I was equally certain was the truth of how that day had unfolded. "I'm – I'm remembering how things happened before and after I changed the timeline, aren't I?"
"Warden, were you some mere Wizard you wouldn't even have that much insight. You would just accept the reality you caused to be the only one to have ever happened." Her matter of fact tone was clinical, as though she were talking about a fond hobby rather than re-writing the fabric of reality. "Even your memory of events that once that might have been will be only fleeting. If he dies, you might never even discover his existence."
"But if I go then he'll live." I replied, not bothering to keep the venom from my tone.
"If you go, you'll have a chance to keep him alive." Mab touched the page in my hands, motes of blue light dancing down from her finger to the gate symbols on the page. "What you do with that chance is no business of mine. I lose nothing of great consequence if the vampire dies and no matter how angry you become once he is slain, you will soon forget and return to being a valuable ally."
I shook with fury, the page crumpling in my fist as I tightened it. My knuckles popped loudly as I snarled. "You had no right to bring him in to this."
"I had every right." She replied. "I am Mab. Now you may gamble the child of Margaret's wellbeing on the goodwill of his father or you can take my chance to save him. I leave the choice to you."
Check and mate. By the time I'd been sent back in time the White Court had been taken over by Thomas' half-sister Lara, leading to a "kinder, gentler" White Court. But back before I'd known who he was, house Raith's leadership hadn't been quite so cuddly. Mab knew that there was no way that I would leave Thomas to the "mercy" of the King of the White Court. The man was a monster, plain and simple. A monster my mother had cursed to be unable to feed and replenish some of his nastier mojo, but still a monster. That whole thing about a "kiss of death" that the Mafia ripped off? That was based off of him.
"Fine." I snarled, my lip curling. "I'll go."
"The Tau'ri will meet you at the address I have provided." Mab replied.
My anger evaporated back into confusion. "The Tau'ri… you mean humans from Earth? Soldiers?"
"They bore the uniforms of Earth's warriors, yes." Mab replied. "Lest you forget, I too have a war to wage with Summer. I cannot convey you to the First World myself else I risk bringing Summer's vengeance upon me and mine for the harm you will bring its Lady. And the Asgard are reluctant to allow anyone to arrive through the void."
"So, you arranged for me to go there through means that are outside of your control." I nodded, "In a way that doesn't cause direct conflict with the Summer Court or the Norse pantheon."
"I have," Mab replied icily, sounding as though she were irritated by my lack of gratitude. A tone that managed to simultaneously be infuriating and patronizing. "They know to expect you. If you go to this address you will be transported to the First World by them with appropriate discretion."
I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "They know what is going on?"
"Of course not. They have a scrap of the image that they've woven into an entire tapestry of ignorance." Mab snorted. "But we make do with what we have, not what we might wish."
I nodded. "That's why you wanted me to take such a small retinue. If I showed up with an army the military would think I was invading."
"Precisely." Mab smiled. "Four individuals are a much more manageable threat. We wouldn't want to scare them away or have them decide to shoot to kill, would we?"
"No," I agreed. "I prefer not to be shot with lethal intent."
"Good." Mab snapped her fingers, opening portal into the dark landscape of the Nevernever. As always she opened a way in front of the massive army she kept on the other side, a retinue of tens of thousands of Fairy warriors. "Happy hunting, Warden."
I waited for Traitor's bane to let me know that my fairy visitors were really, truly gone before I let loose the series of epithets I'd been holding back. I punched the stone table's surface, boring a hole in the diorite with my closed fist. My brother was in danger, likely lethal danger, and it was all my fault.
Of freaking course. I'd known that Mab was going to twist the knowledge that I'd given her – pervert it to her own use and benefit, but I'd made the error of assuming that she was as averse to paradox as I was. Hell, I'd made the arrogant assumption that she would actually treat paradox as a threat. But she was Mab and she would always be Mab – the trials and tribulations of individual mortal concerns were beneath her interest if not her notice. She would kill everyone I knew and loved in an instant if she believed it were in her best interest to do so.
And I could already see about a dozen benefits to forcing me from my stronghold. Even if I didn't manage to get back to Earth, where Titania's retainers would most definitely be able to reach me with ease, I could easily drag them across the galaxy. Some of Summers strongest hit men, and I could drag them halfway across creation for a week. Assuming, of course, that I survived that long. Some of the baddest of asses hung their hats in the court of Summer. Just because they were generally accepted to be the nicer of the two courts didn't mean that they were any less deadly.
Leading Thomas to almost certainly lethal danger? That was barely an afterthought as far as Mab's plans went, just a final enticement to ensure that I danced to her tune. And while I was certain that neither distracting Summer nor saving my brother were Mab's actual goals, I was equally certain that if I stayed I would forever blame myself for the loss of innocent lives in my Kingdom.
I had only recently reconciled myself to thinking of the Theocratic Monarchy of Nekheb as my own, though I'd been living there for the better part of a year. Call me crazy, gumshoe to "divine lord of the galaxy" wasn't a seamless transition. I was already having nightmares about the men I sent into combat, men who I knew were going to die by the hundreds. Hells Bells, I wasn't qualified to actually run a war. But my Generals still came to me when they were at an impasse, turning to their "god" for guidance when all other logic had escaped them. What was I going to be able to tell them that their decades of experience waging war couldn't provide? Who was I to choose who lived and died? Ul'tak and the other Jaffa were better at the strategy of war than I could ever hope to be.
But standing around and just being a rubber stamp for my First Prime's orders? Nah, that wasn't going to happen.
So, I'd done the only thing that I could do to still be able to sleep at night. I made sure to fight alongside them. I found out wherever the fighting was going to be bloodiest, where the battle was sure to be near hopeless, and I made sure to go there and fight with my Jaffa warriors. It didn't mean that we won every time, or even half the time but I knew that some of the men fighting in my name would make it back alive. Even in the most hopeless fights, some of them would make it back to their families.
It doesn't take many battles watching young men die in your name for you to claim their cause as your own. I was a mediocre god at best, but I would be damned if I was going to make these people suffer more in my name than was absolutely necessary. I would commit men against evils like Moloch or Chronos, but against the forces of Summer? Not so much.
Sure, they were trying to kill me because they thought I was an evil monster who wanted to kill their queen. Generally speaking though, the forces of Summer were decent people and good neighbors. They were the sort of beings that Walt Disney would likely have cast as protagonists in his animated films, powerful and dangerous but ultimately good. It wasn't sure if my Jaffa would end up hurting them more or they would do more harm to my Jaffa, but either way I lost in the long run.
"My Lord, do you truly mean to comply with the Demon Queen's wishes?" Muminah spoke, her voice a somber whisper. "Do you mean to travel into darkness with only three companions?"
"I have to." I replied, choosing a tactical application of truth rather than an outright lie. "I owe Margaret LeFay my life. If her child is in danger, I must save him by any means necessary."
"Yes my Lord Warden." Muminah bowed her head in supplication. "My Lord, if I may be so bold as to make a request?"
"You may." I sighed, wiping the diorite dust from my fist. "I don't promise to comply with it, but you may."
"I wish to come with you." Muminah interjected.
"Muminah…. I, I don't think that's wise." I replied. "I am going to be heading into danger, blind to what is going to happen next."
"Do you think me defenseless?" Muminah crossed her arms, the enchantments in her tattoos shimmering nearly imperceptibly as she did so.
"No, I conceded. I do not." The priestesses of Heka, now "Ha'ri" were a blend of Jackie Chan, the secret service, and a portable anti-monster warding tattoos. Muminah might have been five foot nothing and change, including the chestnut hair she'd finally allowed to grow to shoulder length, but I'd seen her take down full grown Jaffa warriors on the practice mats. I doubted the practicality of combining so many piercings with a clergy who practiced a variant on Greco-roman wrestling mixed with Krav Maga as part of their sacrament, but the result was a bunch of fairly badass women.
"Then I wish to be part of this, my Lord." Muminah insisted. "You have spoken that man is judged through his right and righteous action, but am I as a woman merely to stand on the sidelines without the opportunity to prove myself? You have taken men and Furlings into battle countless times, but mortal women have a way of being put on a pedestal and secreted away to safety as though we were made of glass. I am made of faith and fire, my Lord, and I would not abandon you in your need."
"Geeze tell me what you really think." I sighed.
"I have overstepped." Muminah bowed her head in supplication.
"No… no. You're fine." I acquiesced. "And honestly I probably need someone with your talents to come anyway." All but the strongest fairy enchantments and veils fell apart within a few yards of the priestesses' tattoo wards. I probably couldn't afford to not have her with me under the circumstances.
"And the other two? Ul'tak? The Ancient One?" Muminah queried. "The Bob?"
I shook my head. "No, the Jaffa need to stay and direct the war and Bob… Bob needs to be here rather than on the first world."
This was going to be a dangerous journey. If I died I couldn't risk letting Bob fall into the wrong hands, now with all the knowledge he'd gained since we'd come to Nekheb. Not to mention the danger of letting my brother see Bob. If he recognized Bob later on when he and I started living together, it could mean a whole world of paradoxical potential. No, Bob was best left on my throne, behind a shield and under orders not to drop it for anyone but me. He was better at running the palace's magical defenses than I was anyway. With any luck, he'd delay the forces of Summer from realizing they were on the wrong planet till after I'd left.
"Then who my Lord Warden?" The high priestess tilted her head in curiosity.
I smiled, imagining Colonel O'Neill's reaction when we reached Stargate Command. Just because I wasn't showing up with an army, didn't mean I couldn't put on a show. "I know a guy who knows a guy."
"No. I'm not going anywhere."
Mab arched a single brow.
"Unless you've forgotten, I was there last time. Heck, I'm the one who told you what to expect. And I sure as hell remember the timeline of the next couple days where the world of fairy is concerned. There is no way you told The Queen of Summer what is coming until after the Summer Knight died so that you could be sure to have as much control over the situation as possible. Even if they're sending their heavy hitters my way, Summer can't afford to send that much at me at once and the Summer Queen can't afford to waste too much power on vengeance while she's missing her knight. If the Summer Court shows that much weakness and foolishness you'd be on them in an instant. So - Summer's heavies are going to have to go the long way round and Nekheb isn't exactly easy to get to." I shook my head, the idea of it seeming more and more absurd by the moment. "I've listened to endless rants from Lea about how much trouble it is to maintain two fortified positions in the Nevernever. And I'm not stupid, even if you negotiated passage through the Nevernever for the forces of Summer you left enough room for Lea to fulfil her obligations. Heck, even if they get through the worst parts of the Nevernever to get here, they're walking into a fortress city made with the expressed purpose of repelling the supernatural. I don't have all the wards working yet, but I've got enough that I feel confident in my ability to make sure that some supernatural nasty can't sneak into the Palace without me knowing. And I've got a whole army worth of Jaffa just itching to put the hurt on any Furling who looks at me funny."
I reached out and picked the page Mab had discarded upon the table. "So as far as I can tell, I am in a highly defensible position behind ancient wards, defended by a massive army, and guided by a Genius Loci that will happily aid me in crushing anyone who invades my city. Summer is stretched thin and able to only toss a token effort to kill me. I don't get how it even remotely benefits me to strand myself on another planet and just make myself an easier target."
"There are many reasons Warden. The first is that you over-estimate your ability to repel the Summer Fae. There are warriors of Summer who did not participate in the war as you described it to me, great and terrible things." The Winter Queen's eyes twinkled with malice. "Precisely the sort of things my opposite might throw at the one who engineered the death of her child. A week of fighting those creatures would force you to withdraw soldiers from your front lines and allow Chronos and Moloch to decimate your forces."
"Force you are pledged to aid." I retorted.
"How, and when I aid is very much a matter of my discretion, Lord Warden." The Winter Queen disagreed. "And as my pledge of safe passage is only through my own territory to reach where you are, thousands of your vassals need not die needlessly in the crossfire between your armies and the forces of Summer, provided that you are not actually on Nekheb. In a week, the only viable way for them to travel here will once again be as guests of your war against Chronos. The Summer Queen cannot afford my price a second time."
"Oh, I see, you're redirecting me from a hardened fortress for humanitarian reasons." I snorted. "Now it all makes sense."
"Many of your vassals will die if you stay Warden. I do not lament their passing any more than I would for any other mortal, but they are your people and your responsibility. How you choose to fail them is, of course, your prerogative." Mab's smile widened. "But if those lives alone are insufficient, there is a more personal reason to comply. Because if you do not, it seems entirely likely that a son of Margaret Lefay will meet a most unfortunate fate."
"Hah," I snorted. "You don't say."
"No Warden, I am referring to the other child." Mab might as well have stabbed me.
The other son of Margaret LeFay, our mother. Thomas, she was talking my half-brother. A vampire of the White Court, Thomas Raith wasn't someone whose relation to me I publicly advertised. Neither one of us wanted it to get out and end up being used as blackmail against either of us.
I'd gone out of my way not to tell her that Thomas was my brother when she'd asked me about the future.
Somehow, she'd found out anyway.
Bitch.
I'd already been planning on doing what she told me to, I just wanted to see what information I could bleed out of her to explain what her goal actually was out of this, but this changed the stakes, and she knew it. It was stupid and selfish for me to be more worried about my brother than the citizens and soldiers of Nekheb, but he was family. Being irrational about family was kind of par the course.
A rush of emotions ran through me, shock at the threat she'd just made, horror at the realization that Mab knew of the connection between me and my brother, and then abject confusion at what the threat implied. "But – he is alive, I mean he keeps being alive for years more. He was still alive when – " I paused, avoiding saying more in front of my household staff. Mab, of course, already knew, she'd spent days grilling me on the specifics of the next couple of years – milking me for every possible detail no matter how insignificant. I considered my next words carefully. "His future was already set."
"I have altered his course." The Queen of Air and darkness replied with a tone of arctic cold. "It took remarkably little effort really."
"But – that's insane." I sputtered, my metallic voice boiling with rage as my eyes glowed like angry coals. "If he dies then you're going to cause a paradox! You could destroy everything!"
"Paradox is an overrated threat, Warden. Important events in history that have happened have a tendency to continue happening. Certainly, the events that brought you here will unfold. If they still happen in a pattern that pleases you, however, is up to you." The Queen of Air and Darkness strode around me, cooling the air by ten degrees simply by virtue of her proximity. "The Vampire is important to you, but you'll find that few men transpire to be important to history. If he lives or dies, history will stay much the same. The life of any one man is rarely enough to turn the tide. He has saved you many times, but you are not without friends and allies. Had he not been there one of your other compatriots would have been."
"That's a hell of a gamble to make." I replied, wanting very much to set the evil Queen of fairy on fire.
"Not especially." The Fairy Queen replied. "Surely you've noticed that certain memories are fading and others are clear in a way that seems disconnected from the norm."
"I don't…"
"Don't waste time lying warden." Mab sighed in exasperation. "We've already spent more time discussing this matter than I'd care to and every instant you waste on denying truth is a moment that the child of Margaret comes closer to lasting harm."
"Yes, I've noticed." I had taken it for homesickness at first, the brief little bursts of insight and clear daydreams. Not often at first, but with increasing regularity I had begun to remember days that I was certain had never happened or had happened in a slightly different way from how I was equally certain was the truth of how that day had unfolded. "I'm – I'm remembering how things happened before and after I changed the timeline, aren't I?"
"Warden, were you some mere Wizard you wouldn't even have that much insight. You would just accept the reality you caused to be the only one to have ever happened." Her matter of fact tone was clinical, as though she were talking about a fond hobby rather than re-writing the fabric of reality. "Even your memory of events that once that might have been will be only fleeting. If he dies, you might never even discover his existence."
"But if I go then he'll live." I replied, not bothering to keep the venom from my tone.
"If you go, you'll have a chance to keep him alive." Mab touched the page in my hands, motes of blue light dancing down from her finger to the gate symbols on the page. "What you do with that chance is no business of mine. I lose nothing of great consequence if the vampire dies and no matter how angry you become once he is slain, you will soon forget and return to being a valuable ally."
I shook with fury, the page crumpling in my fist as I tightened it. My knuckles popped loudly as I snarled. "You had no right to bring him in to this."
"I had every right." She replied. "I am Mab. Now you may gamble the child of Margaret's wellbeing on the goodwill of his father or you can take my chance to save him. I leave the choice to you."
Check and mate. By the time I'd been sent back in time the White Court had been taken over by Thomas' half-sister Lara, leading to a "kinder, gentler" White Court. But back before I'd known who he was, house Raith's leadership hadn't been quite so cuddly. Mab knew that there was no way that I would leave Thomas to the "mercy" of the King of the White Court. The man was a monster, plain and simple. A monster my mother had cursed to be unable to feed and replenish some of his nastier mojo, but still a monster. That whole thing about a "kiss of death" that the Mafia ripped off? That was based off of him.
"Fine." I snarled, my lip curling. "I'll go."
"The Tau'ri will meet you at the address I have provided." Mab replied.
My anger evaporated back into confusion. "The Tau'ri… you mean humans from Earth? Soldiers?"
"They bore the uniforms of Earth's warriors, yes." Mab replied. "Lest you forget, I too have a war to wage with Summer. I cannot convey you to the First World myself else I risk bringing Summer's vengeance upon me and mine for the harm you will bring its Lady. And the Asgard are reluctant to allow anyone to arrive through the void."
"So, you arranged for me to go there through means that are outside of your control." I nodded, "In a way that doesn't cause direct conflict with the Summer Court or the Norse pantheon."
"I have," Mab replied icily, sounding as though she were irritated by my lack of gratitude. A tone that managed to simultaneously be infuriating and patronizing. "They know to expect you. If you go to this address you will be transported to the First World by them with appropriate discretion."
I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "They know what is going on?"
"Of course not. They have a scrap of the image that they've woven into an entire tapestry of ignorance." Mab snorted. "But we make do with what we have, not what we might wish."
I nodded. "That's why you wanted me to take such a small retinue. If I showed up with an army the military would think I was invading."
"Precisely." Mab smiled. "Four individuals are a much more manageable threat. We wouldn't want to scare them away or have them decide to shoot to kill, would we?"
"No," I agreed. "I prefer not to be shot with lethal intent."
"Good." Mab snapped her fingers, opening portal into the dark landscape of the Nevernever. As always she opened a way in front of the massive army she kept on the other side, a retinue of tens of thousands of Fairy warriors. "Happy hunting, Warden."
I waited for Traitor's bane to let me know that my fairy visitors were really, truly gone before I let loose the series of epithets I'd been holding back. I punched the stone table's surface, boring a hole in the diorite with my closed fist. My brother was in danger, likely lethal danger, and it was all my fault.
Of freaking course. I'd known that Mab was going to twist the knowledge that I'd given her – pervert it to her own use and benefit, but I'd made the error of assuming that she was as averse to paradox as I was. Hell, I'd made the arrogant assumption that she would actually treat paradox as a threat. But she was Mab and she would always be Mab – the trials and tribulations of individual mortal concerns were beneath her interest if not her notice. She would kill everyone I knew and loved in an instant if she believed it were in her best interest to do so.
And I could already see about a dozen benefits to forcing me from my stronghold. Even if I didn't manage to get back to Earth, where Titania's retainers would most definitely be able to reach me with ease, I could easily drag them across the galaxy. Some of Summers strongest hit men, and I could drag them halfway across creation for a week. Assuming, of course, that I survived that long. Some of the baddest of asses hung their hats in the court of Summer. Just because they were generally accepted to be the nicer of the two courts didn't mean that they were any less deadly.
Leading Thomas to almost certainly lethal danger? That was barely an afterthought as far as Mab's plans went, just a final enticement to ensure that I danced to her tune. And while I was certain that neither distracting Summer nor saving my brother were Mab's actual goals, I was equally certain that if I stayed I would forever blame myself for the loss of innocent lives in my Kingdom.
I had only recently reconciled myself to thinking of the Theocratic Monarchy of Nekheb as my own, though I'd been living there for the better part of a year. Call me crazy, gumshoe to "divine lord of the galaxy" wasn't a seamless transition. I was already having nightmares about the men I sent into combat, men who I knew were going to die by the hundreds. Hells Bells, I wasn't qualified to actually run a war. But my Generals still came to me when they were at an impasse, turning to their "god" for guidance when all other logic had escaped them. What was I going to be able to tell them that their decades of experience waging war couldn't provide? Who was I to choose who lived and died? Ul'tak and the other Jaffa were better at the strategy of war than I could ever hope to be.
But standing around and just being a rubber stamp for my First Prime's orders? Nah, that wasn't going to happen.
So, I'd done the only thing that I could do to still be able to sleep at night. I made sure to fight alongside them. I found out wherever the fighting was going to be bloodiest, where the battle was sure to be near hopeless, and I made sure to go there and fight with my Jaffa warriors. It didn't mean that we won every time, or even half the time but I knew that some of the men fighting in my name would make it back alive. Even in the most hopeless fights, some of them would make it back to their families.
It doesn't take many battles watching young men die in your name for you to claim their cause as your own. I was a mediocre god at best, but I would be damned if I was going to make these people suffer more in my name than was absolutely necessary. I would commit men against evils like Moloch or Chronos, but against the forces of Summer? Not so much.
Sure, they were trying to kill me because they thought I was an evil monster who wanted to kill their queen. Generally speaking though, the forces of Summer were decent people and good neighbors. They were the sort of beings that Walt Disney would likely have cast as protagonists in his animated films, powerful and dangerous but ultimately good. It wasn't sure if my Jaffa would end up hurting them more or they would do more harm to my Jaffa, but either way I lost in the long run.
"My Lord, do you truly mean to comply with the Demon Queen's wishes?" Muminah spoke, her voice a somber whisper. "Do you mean to travel into darkness with only three companions?"
"I have to." I replied, choosing a tactical application of truth rather than an outright lie. "I owe Margaret LeFay my life. If her child is in danger, I must save him by any means necessary."
"Yes my Lord Warden." Muminah bowed her head in supplication. "My Lord, if I may be so bold as to make a request?"
"You may." I sighed, wiping the diorite dust from my fist. "I don't promise to comply with it, but you may."
"I wish to come with you." Muminah interjected.
"Muminah…. I, I don't think that's wise." I replied. "I am going to be heading into danger, blind to what is going to happen next."
"Do you think me defenseless?" Muminah crossed her arms, the enchantments in her tattoos shimmering nearly imperceptibly as she did so.
"No, I conceded. I do not." The priestesses of Heka, now "Ha'ri" were a blend of Jackie Chan, the secret service, and a portable anti-monster warding tattoos. Muminah might have been five foot nothing and change, including the chestnut hair she'd finally allowed to grow to shoulder length, but I'd seen her take down full grown Jaffa warriors on the practice mats. I doubted the practicality of combining so many piercings with a clergy who practiced a variant on Greco-roman wrestling mixed with Krav Maga as part of their sacrament, but the result was a bunch of fairly badass women.
"Then I wish to be part of this, my Lord." Muminah insisted. "You have spoken that man is judged through his right and righteous action, but am I as a woman merely to stand on the sidelines without the opportunity to prove myself? You have taken men and Furlings into battle countless times, but mortal women have a way of being put on a pedestal and secreted away to safety as though we were made of glass. I am made of faith and fire, my Lord, and I would not abandon you in your need."
"Geeze tell me what you really think." I sighed.
"I have overstepped." Muminah bowed her head in supplication.
"No… no. You're fine." I acquiesced. "And honestly I probably need someone with your talents to come anyway." All but the strongest fairy enchantments and veils fell apart within a few yards of the priestesses' tattoo wards. I probably couldn't afford to not have her with me under the circumstances.
"And the other two? Ul'tak? The Ancient One?" Muminah queried. "The Bob?"
I shook my head. "No, the Jaffa need to stay and direct the war and Bob… Bob needs to be here rather than on the first world."
This was going to be a dangerous journey. If I died I couldn't risk letting Bob fall into the wrong hands, now with all the knowledge he'd gained since we'd come to Nekheb. Not to mention the danger of letting my brother see Bob. If he recognized Bob later on when he and I started living together, it could mean a whole world of paradoxical potential. No, Bob was best left on my throne, behind a shield and under orders not to drop it for anyone but me. He was better at running the palace's magical defenses than I was anyway. With any luck, he'd delay the forces of Summer from realizing they were on the wrong planet till after I'd left.
"Then who my Lord Warden?" The high priestess tilted her head in curiosity.
I smiled, imagining Colonel O'Neill's reaction when we reached Stargate Command. Just because I wasn't showing up with an army, didn't mean I couldn't put on a show. "I know a guy who knows a guy."
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Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
About a year later.
Alphaleph
The Firstiest of First
I think this says a lot about Harry's luck with women.
- Location
- United Kingdom
I didn't really like the last one. Lots of it seemed repetitive and contrived but I suppose I'll give this one a shot
Spirits are raised, and feeling merry!
If it's who I think it is, I just hope O'Neil won't get too emotional when he sees a childhood legend coming to town.
Chapter 3
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
"Go fuck yourself." Replied the reptilian goddess as she flung her goblet to the throne room floor in disgust, casting blood red wine across the stone surface. The crimson liquid sizzled against the base of my throne, evaporating into steam against the glowing orange shield separating Bob the skull from the rest of the world. He looked up from his work briefly, eye lights flitting from me to the Egyptian Daemon Goddess and back, before going back to his work.
He was smart enough not to get involved in an argument with the furious goddess.
At least one of us was.
It was the answer I'd pretty much expected, but it was not the answer I'd hoped for.
"Ammit, Mab is the one who arranged for this meeting. She might be dealing me on the level but I have to assume that the Tau'ri are setting a trap for me." I grunted as my waist cinched unexpectedly. Amun was checking the clasps on my battle armor, fiddling with some part on my back that wasn't easily in line of sight. He handed me a thick armored gauntlet.
Ammit scowled as I pulled the thick black gauntlet over my hand, willing the crystalline foci in my palm to glow – illuminating the dark metal and stone of my segmented breastplate. I'd made a series of small changes to the armor that had once been Heka's over the past year, shaping it to better fit my own style under Bob's guidance. I hadn't dared make any significant changes to its structure. Neither Bob nor I had a working knowledge that we felt capable of altering the underlying structure of wards. I was pretty sure they operated on a similar principle to my old duster, but the only way I could put my working theory into practice would require that I start with an entirely new set of armor.
That would require Naquadah, the ferrous magically charged metal used as the core of all Goa'uld machinery and magic. And not just Naquadah, a refined grade of it several orders of magnitude more than the weapon's grade material that could power one of the Goa'uld pyramid ships.
So, I could either continue to power my fleet of ships, or I could make a fancy new shirt that may or may not work at all. I wanted to look a bit less hellish to soften the whole "former lackey of Space Satan" reputation I had, but I wasn't fashion conscious enough to sacrifice the war effort against Chronos to achieve it. That might be enough to break the stalemate in Chronos' favor.
I hadn't realized just how far outside of my weight class I had been punching when I started this war. At the height of his power Heka owned a handful of star systems and a meagre fleet of ships. Think the former USSR going toe to toe with Delaware – not a fight you're expecting Delaware to win on its own. Chronos was a major player, and apparently didn't take failure particularly well. The aid of the Fairy Kingdoms had been sufficient to limit Chronos' capacity for success, but every decision I made in this war had the potential to kill millions. So no fancy new armor for sullen wizards.
That didn't mean I didn't get any new toys though. A number of silver rings and jeweled bangles hung from my armor, ensorcelled with protections and tricks that would prove useful. None of them were even half as murderous as Ammit's glare.
"Not if you were planning on giving me your entire kingdom for doing so." Ammit shuddered. "There are too many things on that hell world with long memories and appetites too horrible to speak."
"You're being very dramatic for someone constantly asking me permission to eat people." I replied.
"You're the one always telling me that we're 'better than that' or 'that you'll kill me for suggesting that again.' Don't blame me if your squeamishness is contagious Warden." Ammit shook her head furiously, crossing her talon tipped fingers across the thick jeweled necklace on her chest. It was an elaborate configuration of golden links and small stones sized specifically for her reptilian bulk, a gift I'd provided her to protect her from fairy illusions following a particularly uncomfortable day when Mab had sent Cat Sith as a messenger on her behalf.
She'd spent the next two days jumping at shadows, unwilling to leave the protection of my throne room till I'd finally made the amulet for her out of pity. Sure, she was a giant cannibalistic crocodile, but she was still a girl. I was reasonably certain that she hadn't removed it since.
"We don't have enough people in my kingdom to support a practice of eating people. War has a way of preventing the surplus population." I repeated the old argument for what had to be the millionth time. 'It's wrong' having proven insufficient motivation to prevent the goddess from reverting to old habits, I'd been forced to provide a logical reason to deter her from doing something that would require me to provide an extremely permanent correction for her behavior. I liked Ammit as much as I liked any of the Goa'uld, but I wasn't going to let her prey upon the mortals. "I don't need you to like it, just accept the reality of it."
Ammit growled, a metallic basso that sounded like what might come out of an amp after someone rubbed an electric guitar wire with a razor blade. The discordant frustration might have cowed most men, but I'd spent most of the last year interacting with the goddess. I would not be so easily dissuaded. "Ammit, you've been to the First World. You know how dangerous it is. If I bring a bunch of worshipers and sycophants they're just going to assume that I'm going to be able to just magic away all the danger. That sort of arrogance is going to get me killed."
Ammit looked pointedly to the priestess who, other than a long quarterstaff and a leather backpack, was clad only in the hieroglyphic wards of devotion. "Clearly you've gone out of your way to avoid that."
"The Priestesses tattoos are functional wards." I replied dismissively. "We'd be dumb not to bring her, she increases our chance of survival in the long-term."
"Oh, now you start worrying about your long-term survival." Ammit griped, pinching the bridge of her nose in gesture no other Unas had demonstrated in my presence. I wasn't quite sure if it was an affectation she'd picked up to seem more empathetic to humans or a byproduct of spending so much time with the Jaffa, but One Eye and the other Unas tribes since settled in the desert caves around Nekheb found her body language to be odd. "You start adopting a practical attitude towards your own longevity just in time to drag me to my inevitable demise."
"If it makes you feel any better I plan on bringing Enlil as well." I supplied, scratching at the back of my head.
"Bringing me where?" Queried the smarmy voice of the Babylonian god as he entered the throne room. He was haler than he'd been when first he came to Nekheb. The Mesopotamian deity, like Ammit, had chosen to remain on Nekheb and serve as my underlings. The former head of a Pantheon, Enlil had actually proved himself a surprisingly efficient functionary when it came to facilitate the day to day operations of a galactic empire. The man was pathologically opposed to chaos, and had tossed himself into the minutiae of reconstructing the infrastructure of Nekheb. Judging by the white clay drying on the man's sandals, he had just returned from one of his most recent efforts to oversee the installation of decent plumbing into the slums.
"The Warden wants us to accomplany him on his latest bid for public suicide." Ammit replied.
"Oh, wonderful." Enlil replied in dry exasperation. "How lovely. It's been nearly a year since you've tried to kill us all, I guess we're overdue. What fresh hell has he decided needs to be visited this time? I don't think Lord Yu wants us dead yet but I'm sure if we invade the right things that can be corrected."
"The first world." Ammit replied in spiteful monotone.
"Absolutely not." Enlil replied so immediately and forcefully that there was a brief moment of shock on his face as his mind caught up to his lips to let him know that he'd actually said that aloud. "I mean, I… must question the…. You know what? No – I'm not dancing around this. Warden, are you completely out of your mind? What could possibly be worth this?"
"Someone needs my help." I replied. "Someone I owe the help to."
Ammit's eyes narrowed briefly in recognition. "The Queen?"
"No, someone I owe more than her." I replied honestly. "If I do not save him, it will result in a dire consequence."
Which was technically true, Mab seemed to be under the impression that she'd still end up with a supercharged Wizard in her corner but I was somewhat more skeptical that everything was going to end up turning up Milhouse in the end. I hadn't lied to Mab precisely, but I'd gone out of my way not to mention my half-brother in the questions she'd asked me. I hadn't been able to avoid him entirely, which is how she'd probably known to research him, but I might have glossed over just how many times he'd saved my life. Even if he wasn't my brother, I'd probably need to save him out of sheer self-preservation.
"You owe someone more than what you owe the Queen of Air and Darkness." Enlil let lose a string of profanities as he ground his teeth together. "Whose armies you are currently using to fight your war?"
"I owe the sum of my power to Margaret LeFay," I replied. "So, it is right and proper that I should save her son when given the chance."
"You have fun with that." Ammit snorted. "If I want to commit suicide while you're gone I'll order a squad of Jaffa to shoot me. It's less painful and doesn't require quite as much walking."
"There is the matter of debt." I cut across Ammit's tirade. "And what you owe me. Or did you forget our last trip to the First World?"
Both Ammit and Enlil stopped talking at that. A year prior we had been taken prisoner by the Asgard Thor and forced into surrender to the United States Air Force. I'd been forced to give them a space ship in exchange for safe passage back to Nekheb, which suited me just fine. Theoretically speaking Wizards were supposed to be non-partisan when it came to issues of country and politics – it kept people with centuries old ideas about things like "slavery" or "what people got to eat in your restaurant" from using summoned demons to keep up the status quo. But try as I might, I was a capital "A" American and giving "big honking space guns" to the old US of A was ok in my book.
While Thor had been checking the ship for traps I might have, sort have, totally outright stated that all the Goa'uld who'd used my magic to help me escape "owed me" the sort of very real magical debt that Mab had over me. The Fae could buy and sell obligation the way some people sold stock. Given how little every one of them seemed to understand the Fae, and how I was on speaking terms with the Queen of Air and freaking Darkness – they'd accepted my bluff at face value.
If it even was a bluff any more – Hell's Bells, I probably could actually buy and sell debt given my new status. Not that I would, Ammit was a bloodthirsty lunatic and Enlil was a scheming little maggot, but nobody deserved to have Mab holding their leash.
I certainly wasn't going to allow either one of them to realize that, however. Ammit and Enlil were dangerous in their own right, conniving and vicious gods who'd willingly been part of Sokar's pantheon. I trusted them to operate within the limits I'd given them, provided that I was able to remain and supervise their actions. In my absence, however, I feared that one or both of them would try to secure some measure of power. Hell, if I died, I would essentially be handing the two of them Nekheb on a silver platter. The magical runes ensuring my Jaffa's total loyalty were entirely contingent on my continued survival. When I eventually passed on, the bindings would die with me and anyone with a remote understanding of a Sanctum Invocation would be able to topple everything I'd helped build.
Leaving them behind without supervision? Not an option.
"You owe me. Both of you." I infused the words with an effort of will, making the smoldering orange glow that filled the star flecked black pits of my eye sockets burn with even more light than usual. "So either help me or I will sell your debt to Mab and I will pay her to make you help me."
Ammit snarled in a tone that reflected Enlil's new string of ancient Babylonian profanity, before she raked her claws against the table with her left hand. Her talons slashed deep into the green-black stone, sending a shower of sparks across the table. "You bastard. You absolute and utter bastard."
"Yeah, here's the thing. We don't really have a lot of time to discuss this." I replied, deciding to put the nail in the coffin on this deal. "The Summer Queen dispatched a strike force to come to Nekheb and kill me and I don't know quite how much time we're going to have before she gets here."
I gestured with my thumb to Bob on the throne. "I've got someone running interference to at least slow down the incoming storm, but Summer's heavy hitters are incoming ASAP. She apparently negotiated safe passage to here with Winter, but I'm sure you'd be able to kill at least a couple of them before they realized that I'm not on the planet. It's not like you have enemies in Summer's inner circle of assassins."
I didn't even realize that reptiles could go pale. Ammit clenched and unclenched her taloned fists several times, visibly expending effort not to go into another bout of rage.
Enlil, however, just flopped down into one of the chairs around the stone table. His face was a mix of horror and fascination as he spoke. "You actually did it, didn't you? That madness you've been spouting about killing the Summer Lady and knowing the future. You sent someone to kill the Summer Lady so that it would be true? I just thought that was some ridiculous bravado that the two of you cooked up to make an alliance you'd already agreed upon seem plausible."
"I will be responsible for her death. Yes." I replied, there was no need to belabor the fact. "Mab has informed her. She will be coming to take her vengeance upon me and mine. It would be prudent to be elsewhere."
"Only you, Warden." Ammit ran a claw over her necklace. "Only you could need to go to the First World in search of safety."
She shook her head in disgust. "Blood of Apep, very well. We're coming."
"We're what?" Enlil groaned, pulling at the thickly braided beard he was sporting. He worriedly ran his fingers about the blue, turquoise beads someone had woven into the braids. His voice was disgusted, but I knew the man well enough to realize there was no real fight in it.
"We're coming. The last time the Warden started spouting something half this insane we ended up mutilating the King of Dragons and using the Asgard as a chauffeur. His brand of crazy has worked for me this far, I might as well see where it leads this time." She rolled her neck, wetly cracking the thick saurian vertebrae as she cocked from side to side. "What's the plan?"
That was a more nebulous problem. Beyond a gate address and the vague goal of not dying horrifically, I honestly had no idea how to go about even finding my brother – let alone saving him. Assuming that the Tau'ri didn't kill us on sight, I wasn't entirely certain what Thomas had been doing before he'd entered my life. I had a rough idea, given that he was a White Court Vampire, an Incubus. It was a life of intrigue and shadows, constantly acting through cat's paws in hope of securing a more stable power base and more interesting sources from which to feed.
I hadn't asked many questions about what it was like to live in the White Court. I hadn't really wanted to know the specifics. I hadn't wanted his past to color the image of my brother in my mild. 'Damn it Harry,' I thought to myself, 'You could at least have found out what City he was living in.' I could probably use the silver pentacle amulet around my neck to point me in the right direction, but short of circumnavigating the globe as the crow flies it wasn't an overly practical method.
I could probably negotiate with the US government in exchange for them helping me track down where he was. I had more than enough resources to trade to make it worth their while. Unfortunately, there would be no way for me to accomplish that without tossing up major red flags. They would continue to monitor my brother after I left, meaning that in saving him today I might well be unleashing the mortal world upon the supernatural one. It was already going to be a risky proposition just talking them into allowing me freedom of movement. The Goa'uld had a well-deserved reputation for being a compendium of cock-weasels, "hey, can I just go searching through Chicago without anyone monitoring me," didn't strike me as a particularly appealing sell.
It would likely have the Colonel pulling his best Ammit impression.
And, once all was said and done, it still wouldn't be over. I was going to have to offer Titania something valuable enough to get her to stop trying to kill me for murdering her daughter. Even if I managed to survive a week and get back to Nekheb, I would be trapped on that planet forever unless I found a way to appease the Summer Queen's wrath. I just needed something of equal value to the life of one of the of the Immortal Queens of Fairy.
No pressure.
Sometimes being a Wizard just kind of sucks. I put on my most wizardly grin, and waggled my eyebrows. "What's the plan? We go in, we save the target, we stay alive for a week, and when we get back, we kick Chronos' ass up into his eyeballs."
Ammit rolled her eyes in a practically Murphy-esque display of sass. "Screw it. We've done more with less."
He was smart enough not to get involved in an argument with the furious goddess.
At least one of us was.
It was the answer I'd pretty much expected, but it was not the answer I'd hoped for.
"Ammit, Mab is the one who arranged for this meeting. She might be dealing me on the level but I have to assume that the Tau'ri are setting a trap for me." I grunted as my waist cinched unexpectedly. Amun was checking the clasps on my battle armor, fiddling with some part on my back that wasn't easily in line of sight. He handed me a thick armored gauntlet.
Ammit scowled as I pulled the thick black gauntlet over my hand, willing the crystalline foci in my palm to glow – illuminating the dark metal and stone of my segmented breastplate. I'd made a series of small changes to the armor that had once been Heka's over the past year, shaping it to better fit my own style under Bob's guidance. I hadn't dared make any significant changes to its structure. Neither Bob nor I had a working knowledge that we felt capable of altering the underlying structure of wards. I was pretty sure they operated on a similar principle to my old duster, but the only way I could put my working theory into practice would require that I start with an entirely new set of armor.
That would require Naquadah, the ferrous magically charged metal used as the core of all Goa'uld machinery and magic. And not just Naquadah, a refined grade of it several orders of magnitude more than the weapon's grade material that could power one of the Goa'uld pyramid ships.
So, I could either continue to power my fleet of ships, or I could make a fancy new shirt that may or may not work at all. I wanted to look a bit less hellish to soften the whole "former lackey of Space Satan" reputation I had, but I wasn't fashion conscious enough to sacrifice the war effort against Chronos to achieve it. That might be enough to break the stalemate in Chronos' favor.
I hadn't realized just how far outside of my weight class I had been punching when I started this war. At the height of his power Heka owned a handful of star systems and a meagre fleet of ships. Think the former USSR going toe to toe with Delaware – not a fight you're expecting Delaware to win on its own. Chronos was a major player, and apparently didn't take failure particularly well. The aid of the Fairy Kingdoms had been sufficient to limit Chronos' capacity for success, but every decision I made in this war had the potential to kill millions. So no fancy new armor for sullen wizards.
That didn't mean I didn't get any new toys though. A number of silver rings and jeweled bangles hung from my armor, ensorcelled with protections and tricks that would prove useful. None of them were even half as murderous as Ammit's glare.
"Not if you were planning on giving me your entire kingdom for doing so." Ammit shuddered. "There are too many things on that hell world with long memories and appetites too horrible to speak."
"You're being very dramatic for someone constantly asking me permission to eat people." I replied.
"You're the one always telling me that we're 'better than that' or 'that you'll kill me for suggesting that again.' Don't blame me if your squeamishness is contagious Warden." Ammit shook her head furiously, crossing her talon tipped fingers across the thick jeweled necklace on her chest. It was an elaborate configuration of golden links and small stones sized specifically for her reptilian bulk, a gift I'd provided her to protect her from fairy illusions following a particularly uncomfortable day when Mab had sent Cat Sith as a messenger on her behalf.
She'd spent the next two days jumping at shadows, unwilling to leave the protection of my throne room till I'd finally made the amulet for her out of pity. Sure, she was a giant cannibalistic crocodile, but she was still a girl. I was reasonably certain that she hadn't removed it since.
"We don't have enough people in my kingdom to support a practice of eating people. War has a way of preventing the surplus population." I repeated the old argument for what had to be the millionth time. 'It's wrong' having proven insufficient motivation to prevent the goddess from reverting to old habits, I'd been forced to provide a logical reason to deter her from doing something that would require me to provide an extremely permanent correction for her behavior. I liked Ammit as much as I liked any of the Goa'uld, but I wasn't going to let her prey upon the mortals. "I don't need you to like it, just accept the reality of it."
Ammit growled, a metallic basso that sounded like what might come out of an amp after someone rubbed an electric guitar wire with a razor blade. The discordant frustration might have cowed most men, but I'd spent most of the last year interacting with the goddess. I would not be so easily dissuaded. "Ammit, you've been to the First World. You know how dangerous it is. If I bring a bunch of worshipers and sycophants they're just going to assume that I'm going to be able to just magic away all the danger. That sort of arrogance is going to get me killed."
Ammit looked pointedly to the priestess who, other than a long quarterstaff and a leather backpack, was clad only in the hieroglyphic wards of devotion. "Clearly you've gone out of your way to avoid that."
"The Priestesses tattoos are functional wards." I replied dismissively. "We'd be dumb not to bring her, she increases our chance of survival in the long-term."
"Oh, now you start worrying about your long-term survival." Ammit griped, pinching the bridge of her nose in gesture no other Unas had demonstrated in my presence. I wasn't quite sure if it was an affectation she'd picked up to seem more empathetic to humans or a byproduct of spending so much time with the Jaffa, but One Eye and the other Unas tribes since settled in the desert caves around Nekheb found her body language to be odd. "You start adopting a practical attitude towards your own longevity just in time to drag me to my inevitable demise."
"If it makes you feel any better I plan on bringing Enlil as well." I supplied, scratching at the back of my head.
"Bringing me where?" Queried the smarmy voice of the Babylonian god as he entered the throne room. He was haler than he'd been when first he came to Nekheb. The Mesopotamian deity, like Ammit, had chosen to remain on Nekheb and serve as my underlings. The former head of a Pantheon, Enlil had actually proved himself a surprisingly efficient functionary when it came to facilitate the day to day operations of a galactic empire. The man was pathologically opposed to chaos, and had tossed himself into the minutiae of reconstructing the infrastructure of Nekheb. Judging by the white clay drying on the man's sandals, he had just returned from one of his most recent efforts to oversee the installation of decent plumbing into the slums.
"The Warden wants us to accomplany him on his latest bid for public suicide." Ammit replied.
"Oh, wonderful." Enlil replied in dry exasperation. "How lovely. It's been nearly a year since you've tried to kill us all, I guess we're overdue. What fresh hell has he decided needs to be visited this time? I don't think Lord Yu wants us dead yet but I'm sure if we invade the right things that can be corrected."
"The first world." Ammit replied in spiteful monotone.
"Absolutely not." Enlil replied so immediately and forcefully that there was a brief moment of shock on his face as his mind caught up to his lips to let him know that he'd actually said that aloud. "I mean, I… must question the…. You know what? No – I'm not dancing around this. Warden, are you completely out of your mind? What could possibly be worth this?"
"Someone needs my help." I replied. "Someone I owe the help to."
Ammit's eyes narrowed briefly in recognition. "The Queen?"
"No, someone I owe more than her." I replied honestly. "If I do not save him, it will result in a dire consequence."
Which was technically true, Mab seemed to be under the impression that she'd still end up with a supercharged Wizard in her corner but I was somewhat more skeptical that everything was going to end up turning up Milhouse in the end. I hadn't lied to Mab precisely, but I'd gone out of my way not to mention my half-brother in the questions she'd asked me. I hadn't been able to avoid him entirely, which is how she'd probably known to research him, but I might have glossed over just how many times he'd saved my life. Even if he wasn't my brother, I'd probably need to save him out of sheer self-preservation.
"You owe someone more than what you owe the Queen of Air and Darkness." Enlil let lose a string of profanities as he ground his teeth together. "Whose armies you are currently using to fight your war?"
"I owe the sum of my power to Margaret LeFay," I replied. "So, it is right and proper that I should save her son when given the chance."
"You have fun with that." Ammit snorted. "If I want to commit suicide while you're gone I'll order a squad of Jaffa to shoot me. It's less painful and doesn't require quite as much walking."
"There is the matter of debt." I cut across Ammit's tirade. "And what you owe me. Or did you forget our last trip to the First World?"
Both Ammit and Enlil stopped talking at that. A year prior we had been taken prisoner by the Asgard Thor and forced into surrender to the United States Air Force. I'd been forced to give them a space ship in exchange for safe passage back to Nekheb, which suited me just fine. Theoretically speaking Wizards were supposed to be non-partisan when it came to issues of country and politics – it kept people with centuries old ideas about things like "slavery" or "what people got to eat in your restaurant" from using summoned demons to keep up the status quo. But try as I might, I was a capital "A" American and giving "big honking space guns" to the old US of A was ok in my book.
While Thor had been checking the ship for traps I might have, sort have, totally outright stated that all the Goa'uld who'd used my magic to help me escape "owed me" the sort of very real magical debt that Mab had over me. The Fae could buy and sell obligation the way some people sold stock. Given how little every one of them seemed to understand the Fae, and how I was on speaking terms with the Queen of Air and freaking Darkness – they'd accepted my bluff at face value.
If it even was a bluff any more – Hell's Bells, I probably could actually buy and sell debt given my new status. Not that I would, Ammit was a bloodthirsty lunatic and Enlil was a scheming little maggot, but nobody deserved to have Mab holding their leash.
I certainly wasn't going to allow either one of them to realize that, however. Ammit and Enlil were dangerous in their own right, conniving and vicious gods who'd willingly been part of Sokar's pantheon. I trusted them to operate within the limits I'd given them, provided that I was able to remain and supervise their actions. In my absence, however, I feared that one or both of them would try to secure some measure of power. Hell, if I died, I would essentially be handing the two of them Nekheb on a silver platter. The magical runes ensuring my Jaffa's total loyalty were entirely contingent on my continued survival. When I eventually passed on, the bindings would die with me and anyone with a remote understanding of a Sanctum Invocation would be able to topple everything I'd helped build.
Leaving them behind without supervision? Not an option.
"You owe me. Both of you." I infused the words with an effort of will, making the smoldering orange glow that filled the star flecked black pits of my eye sockets burn with even more light than usual. "So either help me or I will sell your debt to Mab and I will pay her to make you help me."
Ammit snarled in a tone that reflected Enlil's new string of ancient Babylonian profanity, before she raked her claws against the table with her left hand. Her talons slashed deep into the green-black stone, sending a shower of sparks across the table. "You bastard. You absolute and utter bastard."
"Yeah, here's the thing. We don't really have a lot of time to discuss this." I replied, deciding to put the nail in the coffin on this deal. "The Summer Queen dispatched a strike force to come to Nekheb and kill me and I don't know quite how much time we're going to have before she gets here."
I gestured with my thumb to Bob on the throne. "I've got someone running interference to at least slow down the incoming storm, but Summer's heavy hitters are incoming ASAP. She apparently negotiated safe passage to here with Winter, but I'm sure you'd be able to kill at least a couple of them before they realized that I'm not on the planet. It's not like you have enemies in Summer's inner circle of assassins."
I didn't even realize that reptiles could go pale. Ammit clenched and unclenched her taloned fists several times, visibly expending effort not to go into another bout of rage.
Enlil, however, just flopped down into one of the chairs around the stone table. His face was a mix of horror and fascination as he spoke. "You actually did it, didn't you? That madness you've been spouting about killing the Summer Lady and knowing the future. You sent someone to kill the Summer Lady so that it would be true? I just thought that was some ridiculous bravado that the two of you cooked up to make an alliance you'd already agreed upon seem plausible."
"I will be responsible for her death. Yes." I replied, there was no need to belabor the fact. "Mab has informed her. She will be coming to take her vengeance upon me and mine. It would be prudent to be elsewhere."
"Only you, Warden." Ammit ran a claw over her necklace. "Only you could need to go to the First World in search of safety."
She shook her head in disgust. "Blood of Apep, very well. We're coming."
"We're what?" Enlil groaned, pulling at the thickly braided beard he was sporting. He worriedly ran his fingers about the blue, turquoise beads someone had woven into the braids. His voice was disgusted, but I knew the man well enough to realize there was no real fight in it.
"We're coming. The last time the Warden started spouting something half this insane we ended up mutilating the King of Dragons and using the Asgard as a chauffeur. His brand of crazy has worked for me this far, I might as well see where it leads this time." She rolled her neck, wetly cracking the thick saurian vertebrae as she cocked from side to side. "What's the plan?"
That was a more nebulous problem. Beyond a gate address and the vague goal of not dying horrifically, I honestly had no idea how to go about even finding my brother – let alone saving him. Assuming that the Tau'ri didn't kill us on sight, I wasn't entirely certain what Thomas had been doing before he'd entered my life. I had a rough idea, given that he was a White Court Vampire, an Incubus. It was a life of intrigue and shadows, constantly acting through cat's paws in hope of securing a more stable power base and more interesting sources from which to feed.
I hadn't asked many questions about what it was like to live in the White Court. I hadn't really wanted to know the specifics. I hadn't wanted his past to color the image of my brother in my mild. 'Damn it Harry,' I thought to myself, 'You could at least have found out what City he was living in.' I could probably use the silver pentacle amulet around my neck to point me in the right direction, but short of circumnavigating the globe as the crow flies it wasn't an overly practical method.
I could probably negotiate with the US government in exchange for them helping me track down where he was. I had more than enough resources to trade to make it worth their while. Unfortunately, there would be no way for me to accomplish that without tossing up major red flags. They would continue to monitor my brother after I left, meaning that in saving him today I might well be unleashing the mortal world upon the supernatural one. It was already going to be a risky proposition just talking them into allowing me freedom of movement. The Goa'uld had a well-deserved reputation for being a compendium of cock-weasels, "hey, can I just go searching through Chicago without anyone monitoring me," didn't strike me as a particularly appealing sell.
It would likely have the Colonel pulling his best Ammit impression.
And, once all was said and done, it still wouldn't be over. I was going to have to offer Titania something valuable enough to get her to stop trying to kill me for murdering her daughter. Even if I managed to survive a week and get back to Nekheb, I would be trapped on that planet forever unless I found a way to appease the Summer Queen's wrath. I just needed something of equal value to the life of one of the of the Immortal Queens of Fairy.
No pressure.
Sometimes being a Wizard just kind of sucks. I put on my most wizardly grin, and waggled my eyebrows. "What's the plan? We go in, we save the target, we stay alive for a week, and when we get back, we kick Chronos' ass up into his eyeballs."
Ammit rolled her eyes in a practically Murphy-esque display of sass. "Screw it. We've done more with less."
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Chapter 4
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
There was real hurt in Ul'tak's eyes as I told my First Prime that he would not be accompanying me through the Stargate. The huge, dark-skinned man actually trembled as he asked me, "Have I wronged you my Lord Warden?"
"Ul'tak – no. Not at all." I shook my head, "I'm nothing but pleased to call you my friend."
The Jaffa warrior winced slightly as I used the word "friend," as though the sheer intimacy of it were perverse. It was less than the first time I'd done it, but the man still struggled with the idea that I was going to insist upon interacting with him as an equal. He'd countered my friendship offensive with a prolonged campaign of staunchly stoic insistence upon proper protocol with his "god." Our ongoing Cold War of manners showed no signs of abating as he replied to me in a formal reply. "Then, my most honorable Lord Warden whose might protects us all, why have you elected to take the priestess with you but not your First Prime?"
His significant glaze in the direction of the two Goa'uld waiting for me at the entrance to the Stargate laying bare the unspoken question "Why have you turned down my protection given that you are bringing them with you?"
It was a valid question, and one that deserved an answer given how the back-stabbing nature of the Goa'uld effectively guaranteed that one or both of my Goa'uld companions would soon attempt a power grab from me. "I need you here Ul'tak, guiding my armies and leading the war in my absence. I can handle Laurel and Snakey, it's Chronos and Moloch that I'm worried about."
And Titania, but who's counting? I'd elected not to share that particular chestnut with my First Prime given that I didn't intend to be anywhere near Nekheb, thus robbing Titania of her opportunity to do harm. I nodded, "I need to protect my kingdom."
Wait – My Kingdom? When had I started thinking about it like that?
I was a PI from Chicago. I had bills, lots of them, and an unpaid parking ticket. People like me didn't have Kingdoms, outside of the metaphorical type. But then I wasn't people like me anymore, was I? I shuddered, once again uncomfortably reminded of my own inhumanness. I was Dre'Su'Den the Ha'ri, Lord Warden of Nekheb – bound to the power I'd taken in a necromantic ritual of ascension. Was I still Harry Dresden? Could I be?
Something of my thoughts must have shown in my posture, because my First Prime put his fist over his heart in salute and rattled off a verse of scripture to me. "Men are defined by their action, my Lord Warden. I will do what is right."
"I – I trust you to do what is right Ul'tak. That's why I'm trusting you to lead while I'm gone." I was grateful for the featureless mask covering my face. The mirrored black surface would conceal the confliction that I felt when someone quoted the "Word of the Warden" at me.
I always found it comforting when Michael Carpenter had quotes scripture to me. There was something in that calm and permanent devotion that soothed the soul and calmed the body. Though I did not share it myself, I believed in the power of his conviction. While Ul'tak had that same manner to him, the effect was somewhat ruined by the knowledge that the scripture being quoted was just one of a thousand similar out of context blurbs that the priesthood of Nekheb was fond of parroting after hearing me speak them. I often couldn't help but wonder if Moses had felt similarly frustrated wandering the desert, perpetually correcting how the Israelites were misquoting him.
Luckily, visions of Michael's disappointment at the arrogance of making such a comparison quickly robbed me of any ego that might come along with that. The knight of the cross was probably the person I respected the most on Earth, though I suppose the man I respected the most in the galaxy was now a more valid moniker given the circumstances. He would have chastised me greatly for having the arrogance to think of myself in those terms. He would do so gently given our friendship, by my "divinity" would not be something he would treat lightly given his absolute faith in the capitol "G" God of Christianity.
I could probably deflect a bit of the inevitable lecture given that the Metatron blessed my coronation, but I was on theologically shaky ground at best. If he was willing to listen, and that was a pretty big "if." I was reasonably certain my day to day activities as of late violated at least four of the big ten "though shalt not's" by which the Catholic Knight of the Cross lived his life.
Hell's Bells – if Charity Carpenter ever found out he might not get the chance. My best friend's wife hadn't even liked me as a Wizard. I couldn't imagine her treating "newly minted god born from a necromantic ritual enacted at the behest of a fallen angel" as an upgrade. Her reaction struck me as more of the biblical variety. She very well might just grab Amoracchius out of Michael's hands and proceed to the smiting. I would be smote.
"Live through today Harry," I thought to myself as I took the staff offered to me by my first prime, feeling the sudden rush that accompanied contact with the magical artefact. Its surface glowed with a dull blue light from the runes and hieroglyphs I'd carved. It was not the Jaffa weapon I'd used when first I came to Nekheb, but a construct of my own making. The first weeks on Nekheb had been the hardest for me emotionally. I'd lost everything I knew. My friends, my pets, and all of my belongings were a galaxy away and years in the future. I'd spent some time crying in private, but falling apart hadn't been a luxury I could afford.
There were too many people counting on me.
So I took that nervous energy and turned it into something productive – learning and applying the magic contained in Heka's vast library of magical theory. It was slow going, even with the assistance of the librarians to point me in the right direction I hadn't even learned a fraction of what it contained. But I had learned enough to give a new spin to some old favorites.
I'd pulled the hardwood beam from the wreckage of the old city, tearing it from the corpse of a burned-out building. Magical items needed to have a certain gravitas to them, a connection to their wielder and purpose. They were symbols as much as anything else, and I couldn't think of a greater symbol for my own need to protect the people of Nekheb than a physical reminder of how I'd failed to protect so many of them or a better icon for taking actions in their defense. I'd carved and shaped the wood over months, lovingly tending to it till I felt it was the proper size and shape to apply magic to it. I'd never applied magic this complex to my staff before. It would have been expensive, time consuming, and the end results didn't seem that much better considering how regularly I just used the damn thing as an oversized cudgel. My new staff was a work of art by comparison, smoky wood inlaid with gold and gems I'd pilfered from the treasury. Well, pilfered might be an exaggeration considering that they people of Nekheb considered the wealth of the state to be the property of the Lord Warden – but even a year wasn't quite enough time to convince me that the vast treasure rooms of the palace were mine.
The down payment on a city block had allowed me to creature a more stable magical implement than I'd ever had in my life thanks to the glimmering emeralds, sapphires and rubies carved with interconnected magical symbols interwoven through a latticework of the magically charged ferrous bloodstone of the Goa'uld Naquadah.
It was worth a fortune in both mortal and magical circles.
It was probably the most amazing thing I'd ever made in my life.
It was still probably going to end up being used to beat someone over the head as an overpriced cudgel.
I patted Ul'tak's armored shoulder with the hand not holding my staff, the ruby on the foci in my palm clacking loudly against its surface. "Good luck my friend. Don't do anything crazy while I'm out."
Ul'tak arched an eyebrow but declined to comment at that one. "I shall endeavor not to do anything that you would not do yourself, my Lord Warden."
I blinked. "Was that a joke at my expense?"
"No my Lord." Ul'tak replied in dry deadpan. "That would have been rude."
"Stars and Stones, now is when you start understanding snark?" I sighed deeply. "A year of you taking everything so damn literally and it's when I'm leaving that you crack a joke?"
"I follow the example of my Lord Warden." UI'tak's lip quirked. "One must save one's humor for when it best frustrates those around thee."
"Good bye Ul'tak." I laughed. I really shouldn't have been surprised that some of my sense of humor would end up rubbing off on the First Prime. The man spent more time around me than any other Jaffa on Nekheb, and my reputation for having a "peculiar" sense of humor was legendary among the people. Attempts from the warrior race to actually execute jokes that pleased the Lord Warden had thus far been mixed, but they were improving with time. The Ancient Jaffa was basically the only one who really seemed to get it, but the rest were catching up. Laughter bubbled up as I walked the length of the gate room to meet my companions.
To my surprise the priestess Muminah was dressed. She was wrapped in a mess of silk scarves that only partially obscured the view of her skin beneath them, but she was actually wearing something more than her traditional piercings. I chose not to comment on it out of fear that she might strip down to nothing just by virtue of me having mentioned their presence. Perhaps it was one of the internal reforms to the clergy that got passed with increasing regularity as of late. She bowed, apparently realizing my gaze was upon her. She looked up at me through her black tresses, hair grown out in apparent imitation of my own, and said. "Are we to go, Lord Warden?"
"We are." I replied, pulling the page from my pocket and pushing the symbols on the circular device next to the gate before pressing the red stone at its center. The gate groaned to life, spinning about before a whoosh of blue spat out from the gate to open the portal within. I gnashed my teeth, wincing at the magic emanating from it and steadying myself on my staff.
Bob had rattled off a complex explanation of wormholes and how they interact with the magical energies of the surrounding environment, and I could bore you with the specifics of what they mean in the grand scale but the long and short of it is this. I hated that damn gate. It had been uncomfortable to be around it as a Wizard, it was agonizing as what I'd become. Every time I got within ten feet of an active gate it felt like someone was actively stabbing me in the back of the head.
"Heh," Ammit's crocodillan lips turned up in amusement when I gripped my staff. "I'll tell you what, that's one part of not having real power that I don't miss. I used to have to psych myself up before going anywhere near the thing."
"Cowering? That's what lieutenants and slaves were for, not gods." Enlil snorted, though it was clear that he'd found the experience no more pleasurable than Ammit judging by his facial expression.
"Well times are lean and your ex-wife is terrifying." Ammit jibed. "So, you're all out of slaves to cower for you at the moment."
"I'll confess." Enlil shrugged. "I wouldn't mind some slaves at some point. I am without holdings at the moment."
I rolled my eyes, hard. He'd been dropping hints that he was owed slaves with increasing regularity. I'd been ignoring them with equal fervor. "You'll be without legs if you don't start walking towards that portal."
Ammit snorted, rolling her eyes as the annoyed Enlil walked through the portal. "You know, eventually he's going to figure it out right?"
"Figure it out?" I replied as the priestess walked through the portal.
"That you like us." Ammit shook her head. "That you don't actually want to kill us. And that you aren't Heka."
I stepped back into a defensive posture, earning another chuckle from Ammit.
"Warden, I am not stupid. I knew Heka since before the death of Apep. We were spawned from the same Queen, have the same memories that inform our personalities. You are not Heka, you never were." She flexed her taloned hand. "I don't know if you're one of his children or just a lieutenant who discovered enough of his secrets to secure rule of his dominion, but Heka had a number of personality traits that you just don't. A mantle will change a man, but that is the work of centuries – not hours."
I continued to stand still and silent, ready to strike at her if she came at me. The goddess was tough, I'd seen her kill a Hydra with her bare fists. If she came for my throat I wasn't positive that I could take her before she injured me. Under the circumstances, even a minor injury could leave me easy prey for the Summer Court.
"Honestly Warden." Ammit's eye was the thing of legends as she rubbed her forehead with the palm of her fist. "I don't plan to attack you for killing my blistering idiot of a brother, the man was entirely wasteful with his talent and resources."
"What tipped you off?" I replied, not exactly relaxing but not mustering any more magical power to strike the goddess.
"The Winter Queen didn't roast you on a spit for forcibly sodomizing the Winter Lady at Chronos' behest at the Battle of Djer's Lament in the last great war." Ammit replied. "Even after she'd secured a deal to fight the forces of Chronos on your behalf, she didn't make any apparent attempt to do you bodily harm or make you suffer. Not even through an intermediary. You're clever, but the demon Queen of Winter is capable of twisting law into a dagger through her enemies' hearts."
"… Yeah, that's a tell." I agreed, my stomach somewhat sick at the prospect of exactly what Mab's vengeance for something like that might be. Pillars of salt came to mind. My eye twitched briefly as I realized that while Mab knew she did not need to seek revenge against me, the unstable Lady of Winter very well might not.
"Enlil is eventually going make the same connection I did, and he's going to be less tolerant of having beholden himself to a god centuries his junior rather than millennia his senior." Ammit smiled. "Or he would, if I weren't around treating you like my former brother."
Ah, a shakedown. I was wondering when she'd get to it. "What do you want?"
"Nothing." Ammit snorted. "I'm not some Furling. You've also gone out of your way to save my life and treat me with dignity. I'll deal with you as honestly as you deal with me. I just wanted you to know that I know, and that I don't care. But if you ever threaten me again with selling me out to the Furlings, I want you to know that I will happily sell everything I know for my freedom from them. To Enlil, to the Furlings, to the System Lords, and to anyone else who will guarantee my freedom. I didn't fight for centuries on the first world just to end up a puppet to the Demon Queen. This trip ends my debt the second I walk through that gate. Swear that to me and we keep being friends."
A confusing sense of déjà vu swept through me as I realized that I'd had a similar conversation earlier that day, just with the roles swapped. Stars and stones – I was Ammit's Mab.
I couldn't help it, I burst into laughter. I spoke, hiccupping out the words. "I'm sorry, it's just. I'm not used to being on this side of the equation. I'm usually the one being obstreperous to someone with more mojo than me." I sighed, breathing hard after laughing myself silly. "You have my word Ammit. You take this trip with me and I'll consider us even."
"Good. That wasn't hard now, was it?" She smiled toothily, tossing her saurian bulk into the portal. She shimmered halfway across the galaxy as I considered the goddess. Crazy cannibal though she might be, I was certain that she'd keep her word. Ammit and I might eventually come to blows, but I got the sense that it wouldn't be a surprise when it eventually came. Subterfuge wasn't really her game.
I steeled myself and followed her through the Stargate.
No matter how times I went through the gate I never seemed to get used to the sensation. Bob assured me that it shouldn't be physically possible for me to feel the sensation of having my existence compressed through the capillary in space time, that time and mass didn't exist in the same proportions within the micro-second transitions between realspace and the wormhole.
But I did.
I felt it every time.
And it was agony.
Though, perhaps not quite so painful as the realization that ran through my mind in the split second before we departed Nekheb. I had forgotten to tell the children that there would be no story tonight and that I would not be there to tuck them in.
"Ul'tak – no. Not at all." I shook my head, "I'm nothing but pleased to call you my friend."
The Jaffa warrior winced slightly as I used the word "friend," as though the sheer intimacy of it were perverse. It was less than the first time I'd done it, but the man still struggled with the idea that I was going to insist upon interacting with him as an equal. He'd countered my friendship offensive with a prolonged campaign of staunchly stoic insistence upon proper protocol with his "god." Our ongoing Cold War of manners showed no signs of abating as he replied to me in a formal reply. "Then, my most honorable Lord Warden whose might protects us all, why have you elected to take the priestess with you but not your First Prime?"
His significant glaze in the direction of the two Goa'uld waiting for me at the entrance to the Stargate laying bare the unspoken question "Why have you turned down my protection given that you are bringing them with you?"
It was a valid question, and one that deserved an answer given how the back-stabbing nature of the Goa'uld effectively guaranteed that one or both of my Goa'uld companions would soon attempt a power grab from me. "I need you here Ul'tak, guiding my armies and leading the war in my absence. I can handle Laurel and Snakey, it's Chronos and Moloch that I'm worried about."
And Titania, but who's counting? I'd elected not to share that particular chestnut with my First Prime given that I didn't intend to be anywhere near Nekheb, thus robbing Titania of her opportunity to do harm. I nodded, "I need to protect my kingdom."
Wait – My Kingdom? When had I started thinking about it like that?
I was a PI from Chicago. I had bills, lots of them, and an unpaid parking ticket. People like me didn't have Kingdoms, outside of the metaphorical type. But then I wasn't people like me anymore, was I? I shuddered, once again uncomfortably reminded of my own inhumanness. I was Dre'Su'Den the Ha'ri, Lord Warden of Nekheb – bound to the power I'd taken in a necromantic ritual of ascension. Was I still Harry Dresden? Could I be?
Something of my thoughts must have shown in my posture, because my First Prime put his fist over his heart in salute and rattled off a verse of scripture to me. "Men are defined by their action, my Lord Warden. I will do what is right."
"I – I trust you to do what is right Ul'tak. That's why I'm trusting you to lead while I'm gone." I was grateful for the featureless mask covering my face. The mirrored black surface would conceal the confliction that I felt when someone quoted the "Word of the Warden" at me.
I always found it comforting when Michael Carpenter had quotes scripture to me. There was something in that calm and permanent devotion that soothed the soul and calmed the body. Though I did not share it myself, I believed in the power of his conviction. While Ul'tak had that same manner to him, the effect was somewhat ruined by the knowledge that the scripture being quoted was just one of a thousand similar out of context blurbs that the priesthood of Nekheb was fond of parroting after hearing me speak them. I often couldn't help but wonder if Moses had felt similarly frustrated wandering the desert, perpetually correcting how the Israelites were misquoting him.
Luckily, visions of Michael's disappointment at the arrogance of making such a comparison quickly robbed me of any ego that might come along with that. The knight of the cross was probably the person I respected the most on Earth, though I suppose the man I respected the most in the galaxy was now a more valid moniker given the circumstances. He would have chastised me greatly for having the arrogance to think of myself in those terms. He would do so gently given our friendship, by my "divinity" would not be something he would treat lightly given his absolute faith in the capitol "G" God of Christianity.
I could probably deflect a bit of the inevitable lecture given that the Metatron blessed my coronation, but I was on theologically shaky ground at best. If he was willing to listen, and that was a pretty big "if." I was reasonably certain my day to day activities as of late violated at least four of the big ten "though shalt not's" by which the Catholic Knight of the Cross lived his life.
Hell's Bells – if Charity Carpenter ever found out he might not get the chance. My best friend's wife hadn't even liked me as a Wizard. I couldn't imagine her treating "newly minted god born from a necromantic ritual enacted at the behest of a fallen angel" as an upgrade. Her reaction struck me as more of the biblical variety. She very well might just grab Amoracchius out of Michael's hands and proceed to the smiting. I would be smote.
"Live through today Harry," I thought to myself as I took the staff offered to me by my first prime, feeling the sudden rush that accompanied contact with the magical artefact. Its surface glowed with a dull blue light from the runes and hieroglyphs I'd carved. It was not the Jaffa weapon I'd used when first I came to Nekheb, but a construct of my own making. The first weeks on Nekheb had been the hardest for me emotionally. I'd lost everything I knew. My friends, my pets, and all of my belongings were a galaxy away and years in the future. I'd spent some time crying in private, but falling apart hadn't been a luxury I could afford.
There were too many people counting on me.
So I took that nervous energy and turned it into something productive – learning and applying the magic contained in Heka's vast library of magical theory. It was slow going, even with the assistance of the librarians to point me in the right direction I hadn't even learned a fraction of what it contained. But I had learned enough to give a new spin to some old favorites.
I'd pulled the hardwood beam from the wreckage of the old city, tearing it from the corpse of a burned-out building. Magical items needed to have a certain gravitas to them, a connection to their wielder and purpose. They were symbols as much as anything else, and I couldn't think of a greater symbol for my own need to protect the people of Nekheb than a physical reminder of how I'd failed to protect so many of them or a better icon for taking actions in their defense. I'd carved and shaped the wood over months, lovingly tending to it till I felt it was the proper size and shape to apply magic to it. I'd never applied magic this complex to my staff before. It would have been expensive, time consuming, and the end results didn't seem that much better considering how regularly I just used the damn thing as an oversized cudgel. My new staff was a work of art by comparison, smoky wood inlaid with gold and gems I'd pilfered from the treasury. Well, pilfered might be an exaggeration considering that they people of Nekheb considered the wealth of the state to be the property of the Lord Warden – but even a year wasn't quite enough time to convince me that the vast treasure rooms of the palace were mine.
The down payment on a city block had allowed me to creature a more stable magical implement than I'd ever had in my life thanks to the glimmering emeralds, sapphires and rubies carved with interconnected magical symbols interwoven through a latticework of the magically charged ferrous bloodstone of the Goa'uld Naquadah.
It was worth a fortune in both mortal and magical circles.
It was probably the most amazing thing I'd ever made in my life.
It was still probably going to end up being used to beat someone over the head as an overpriced cudgel.
I patted Ul'tak's armored shoulder with the hand not holding my staff, the ruby on the foci in my palm clacking loudly against its surface. "Good luck my friend. Don't do anything crazy while I'm out."
Ul'tak arched an eyebrow but declined to comment at that one. "I shall endeavor not to do anything that you would not do yourself, my Lord Warden."
I blinked. "Was that a joke at my expense?"
"No my Lord." Ul'tak replied in dry deadpan. "That would have been rude."
"Stars and Stones, now is when you start understanding snark?" I sighed deeply. "A year of you taking everything so damn literally and it's when I'm leaving that you crack a joke?"
"I follow the example of my Lord Warden." UI'tak's lip quirked. "One must save one's humor for when it best frustrates those around thee."
"Good bye Ul'tak." I laughed. I really shouldn't have been surprised that some of my sense of humor would end up rubbing off on the First Prime. The man spent more time around me than any other Jaffa on Nekheb, and my reputation for having a "peculiar" sense of humor was legendary among the people. Attempts from the warrior race to actually execute jokes that pleased the Lord Warden had thus far been mixed, but they were improving with time. The Ancient Jaffa was basically the only one who really seemed to get it, but the rest were catching up. Laughter bubbled up as I walked the length of the gate room to meet my companions.
To my surprise the priestess Muminah was dressed. She was wrapped in a mess of silk scarves that only partially obscured the view of her skin beneath them, but she was actually wearing something more than her traditional piercings. I chose not to comment on it out of fear that she might strip down to nothing just by virtue of me having mentioned their presence. Perhaps it was one of the internal reforms to the clergy that got passed with increasing regularity as of late. She bowed, apparently realizing my gaze was upon her. She looked up at me through her black tresses, hair grown out in apparent imitation of my own, and said. "Are we to go, Lord Warden?"
"We are." I replied, pulling the page from my pocket and pushing the symbols on the circular device next to the gate before pressing the red stone at its center. The gate groaned to life, spinning about before a whoosh of blue spat out from the gate to open the portal within. I gnashed my teeth, wincing at the magic emanating from it and steadying myself on my staff.
Bob had rattled off a complex explanation of wormholes and how they interact with the magical energies of the surrounding environment, and I could bore you with the specifics of what they mean in the grand scale but the long and short of it is this. I hated that damn gate. It had been uncomfortable to be around it as a Wizard, it was agonizing as what I'd become. Every time I got within ten feet of an active gate it felt like someone was actively stabbing me in the back of the head.
"Heh," Ammit's crocodillan lips turned up in amusement when I gripped my staff. "I'll tell you what, that's one part of not having real power that I don't miss. I used to have to psych myself up before going anywhere near the thing."
"Cowering? That's what lieutenants and slaves were for, not gods." Enlil snorted, though it was clear that he'd found the experience no more pleasurable than Ammit judging by his facial expression.
"Well times are lean and your ex-wife is terrifying." Ammit jibed. "So, you're all out of slaves to cower for you at the moment."
"I'll confess." Enlil shrugged. "I wouldn't mind some slaves at some point. I am without holdings at the moment."
I rolled my eyes, hard. He'd been dropping hints that he was owed slaves with increasing regularity. I'd been ignoring them with equal fervor. "You'll be without legs if you don't start walking towards that portal."
Ammit snorted, rolling her eyes as the annoyed Enlil walked through the portal. "You know, eventually he's going to figure it out right?"
"Figure it out?" I replied as the priestess walked through the portal.
"That you like us." Ammit shook her head. "That you don't actually want to kill us. And that you aren't Heka."
I stepped back into a defensive posture, earning another chuckle from Ammit.
"Warden, I am not stupid. I knew Heka since before the death of Apep. We were spawned from the same Queen, have the same memories that inform our personalities. You are not Heka, you never were." She flexed her taloned hand. "I don't know if you're one of his children or just a lieutenant who discovered enough of his secrets to secure rule of his dominion, but Heka had a number of personality traits that you just don't. A mantle will change a man, but that is the work of centuries – not hours."
I continued to stand still and silent, ready to strike at her if she came at me. The goddess was tough, I'd seen her kill a Hydra with her bare fists. If she came for my throat I wasn't positive that I could take her before she injured me. Under the circumstances, even a minor injury could leave me easy prey for the Summer Court.
"Honestly Warden." Ammit's eye was the thing of legends as she rubbed her forehead with the palm of her fist. "I don't plan to attack you for killing my blistering idiot of a brother, the man was entirely wasteful with his talent and resources."
"What tipped you off?" I replied, not exactly relaxing but not mustering any more magical power to strike the goddess.
"The Winter Queen didn't roast you on a spit for forcibly sodomizing the Winter Lady at Chronos' behest at the Battle of Djer's Lament in the last great war." Ammit replied. "Even after she'd secured a deal to fight the forces of Chronos on your behalf, she didn't make any apparent attempt to do you bodily harm or make you suffer. Not even through an intermediary. You're clever, but the demon Queen of Winter is capable of twisting law into a dagger through her enemies' hearts."
"… Yeah, that's a tell." I agreed, my stomach somewhat sick at the prospect of exactly what Mab's vengeance for something like that might be. Pillars of salt came to mind. My eye twitched briefly as I realized that while Mab knew she did not need to seek revenge against me, the unstable Lady of Winter very well might not.
"Enlil is eventually going make the same connection I did, and he's going to be less tolerant of having beholden himself to a god centuries his junior rather than millennia his senior." Ammit smiled. "Or he would, if I weren't around treating you like my former brother."
Ah, a shakedown. I was wondering when she'd get to it. "What do you want?"
"Nothing." Ammit snorted. "I'm not some Furling. You've also gone out of your way to save my life and treat me with dignity. I'll deal with you as honestly as you deal with me. I just wanted you to know that I know, and that I don't care. But if you ever threaten me again with selling me out to the Furlings, I want you to know that I will happily sell everything I know for my freedom from them. To Enlil, to the Furlings, to the System Lords, and to anyone else who will guarantee my freedom. I didn't fight for centuries on the first world just to end up a puppet to the Demon Queen. This trip ends my debt the second I walk through that gate. Swear that to me and we keep being friends."
A confusing sense of déjà vu swept through me as I realized that I'd had a similar conversation earlier that day, just with the roles swapped. Stars and stones – I was Ammit's Mab.
I couldn't help it, I burst into laughter. I spoke, hiccupping out the words. "I'm sorry, it's just. I'm not used to being on this side of the equation. I'm usually the one being obstreperous to someone with more mojo than me." I sighed, breathing hard after laughing myself silly. "You have my word Ammit. You take this trip with me and I'll consider us even."
"Good. That wasn't hard now, was it?" She smiled toothily, tossing her saurian bulk into the portal. She shimmered halfway across the galaxy as I considered the goddess. Crazy cannibal though she might be, I was certain that she'd keep her word. Ammit and I might eventually come to blows, but I got the sense that it wouldn't be a surprise when it eventually came. Subterfuge wasn't really her game.
I steeled myself and followed her through the Stargate.
No matter how times I went through the gate I never seemed to get used to the sensation. Bob assured me that it shouldn't be physically possible for me to feel the sensation of having my existence compressed through the capillary in space time, that time and mass didn't exist in the same proportions within the micro-second transitions between realspace and the wormhole.
But I did.
I felt it every time.
And it was agony.
Though, perhaps not quite so painful as the realization that ran through my mind in the split second before we departed Nekheb. I had forgotten to tell the children that there would be no story tonight and that I would not be there to tuck them in.
- Location
- Canada
Oooooo
That last bit sounds like a set up for a "WHERE IS MY COW" moment.
That last bit sounds like a set up for a "WHERE IS MY COW" moment.
Pratchett reference. Commander Vimes is also a very dedicated strytime reader.
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Alphaleph
The Firstiest of First
Was this Maeve or someone before her?
The Winter and Summer courts have several teirs of high leadership and power. The Mothers (Gaia and "?"), who actually get along and live together, and are not so small g God's themselves. And are the FINAL judges of any conflict in and between the courts. The Queen's (Titania and Mab), who are the most public face of the courts, and do most of the administering. And the Lady's who do something that is important, but never really shown in the HD books. Maybe the equivalent of PR for each court.
Oh, and the Knights. The most human member of the courts, personal guard of the Lady's, and some kind of important anchor to the mortal realm for the courts.
....I misread the question. Possibly, but Mauve became a lady only in the last century. So I think not.
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ecs05norway
Zenryoku Zenkai!
... every time I see that, I keep thinkin "Gaia and Alaya", and remind myself that this is not a Nasu crossover.