CHAPTER 20

Now

It happened simultaneously in every city, only an hour after the end of the ritual, while the bodies still lay on the ground and the breeze blew debris this way and that. While the protestors were still mourning for their dead, and while Tiv and Yasira and the Seven still reeled, in their lair, at having lost Luellae. After the angel troops policing the protest had retreated, a single angel reappeared in each city, out of the nearest relief station or out of a ship, unarmed and unarmored, clad in the blood-red and midnight-black livery of Nemesis.

Many of these angels were Vaurians, and they had molded themselves into a very specific shape. A tall, straight-backed woman with close-cropped silver hair. Her face was lined with age; her eyes were sharp and seething. Seven medals glinted at her collarbone; seven rings glinted on her hands.

But there were so many cities, and not enough Vaurian angels available for each one. Where Vaurians were not available, the angels used whichever female member of their local team was oldest or tallest or most commanding. They went without the medals and rings in these cases – those were only for the angels who properly looked the part. Nemesis was not a human, nor did She take human form, but this was the form in which humans often depicted Her, and angels – even Vaurians – only used it in public when directly commanded to. For a purpose like this. For a message.

Precisely in time with each other across the planet, each angel mouth opened and said the same words, in the same inflection, with the same facial expression. A message like this was not merely a list of words to say. It was a program which, for the necessary minute or two, took over the body completely.

“People of the Chaos Zone,” they said, and each voice was artificially amplified to carry for hundreds of meters – in some places, for miles. The mortals had already vacated the immediate area, in most of these places, but there were enough of them watching at a distance, hearing the earthshaking words from inside their homes. Where there were television screens, wired to receive the daily broadcasts, the nearest angel shimmered into focus on all of them. In the lair, Splió – still watching the protests’ aftermath through the portal – heard the whole thing firsthand.

“People of the Chaos Zone,” they said, “this is a message from Nemesis Herself. You have been heard. You have coordinated to voice your defiance against the Gods on a scale never seen since the Morlock War, and We have heard you. We will grant your wish. Since you so desperately desire not to be under the rule of the Gods, you will no longer be.”

Every heretic and protester in the Chaos Zone simultaneously held their breath. This was an acknowledgment beyond their wildest dreams – and they knew enough to know it could not be a good thing.

“Effective immediately, the forces of the Gods will be withdrawn from this part of your planet – all the land that has been touched in any way by Outside. We will not police you for heresy. We will not keep order in your towns. We will not provide food or water relief nor medical care. Our priests will not officiate in your temples, nor will we answer your prayers. Nor will Nemesis’ forces protect this world from outside threats, be they alien or Keres, further visits by the woman you call Destroyer, or mere natural disasters.” Each angel paused here – not quite uncouth enough to smile, but there was some faint relish in their voices. “As a parting gift, we will grant you some information. You are aware that the Keres has been interested in the Chaos Zone from its beginning. Only recently, we discovered a battalion of Her forces moving in Jai’s direction, far larger than those we have defeated here so far. The largest we have seen in hundreds of years. By our estimates, they should arrive in two weeks. As you prefer to solve your problems on your own, we will leave Her for you.”

Across the Chaos Zone, in every home, on every doorstep, there was dead silence.

The messenger angels raised their heads. “Goodbye, people of the Chaos Zone. Your destruction will be richly deserved.”

[Time is a Lie]

Yasira, by rights, should not have seen all this. She was asleep. She’d fallen into her bed almost as soon as she arrived back at the lair. Especially after hearing the news about Luellae, which had thrown her brief confidence back into disarray. It had taken a struggle for Tiv to get her to eat anything first – even though she knew how much worse it would be if she didn’t eat food after something like this. It had been difficult to move the food to her mouth, to chew and swallow.

But in her dream, she was everywhere.

Usually when Yasira dreamed, her body worked the way it did while she was awake. There was just one of it, and all her jangling, jostling selves were crowded inside. But tonight she was not in her body. She was something like a flock of birds moving in synchrony. She glided through the air together, unfettered, and she saw what was going on below her.

She heard the angels’ speech, and she knew, at some deep Outside level, that this part of the dream was real.

It’s our fault, said some of her. We tried to make it better, and we made it worse.

That’s what they want you to think, said the Scientist, a bigger bird than most of the others, plumed like a raven. She was watching the speech raptly, trying to trace its strategic implications. This costs them something. They wouldn’t be doing it if they weren’t feeling pressed, and they wouldn’t be feeling pressed if we hadn’t won today.

We’ll fight them, the Strike Force promised in unison, a pack of hawks.

We can’t, wailed everyone else. It was one thing to defend a few mortals. It was another to fight a being like the Keres who could scorch whole cities to cinders and glass. Yasira was strong, but not that strong.

Was she?

The whole flock turned on itself, angrily pecking. The landscape shifted, as it did in dreams. Yasira curled in on herself in pain, and when she uncurled she was in one body again, just a girl like she usually was. She was crouched on a plain of blasted rock, in a place that had used to be called Zhoshash, back when there was a village there with people and buildings and roads and it hadn’t all been melted to slag. It was very cold.

She looked up, and there, standing over her amid the rock, was Dr Evianna Talirr.

Ev looked the same as she had the last time Yasira saw her. She was tall, pale, and plain; she was almost old enough to be Yasira’s mother. She wore a scuffed white lab coat, and her hair fell down in a limp ponytail.

“You,” Yasira said, voice hoarse, and she didn’t know which part of her was saying it. “You did this. You did this to the whole planet, you changed us so we couldn’t do anything except provoke the Gods or die, and then you left.”

“Did I leave?” said Ev.

“Yes, you fucking did. You left us to die.”

Ev walked closer to her, crouched at the ground at her side. Yasira wanted to flinch away. She wanted to leap at her and attack. She wanted to collapse and beg for her mentor to return, to guide her, to fix this for her.

“No,” said Ev. “You only didn’t want to see me. I’ve been right here.” She smiled, mischievous and confident, like a child about to get her own way. “I’ll see you in the morning.”