Ch7.63 Revelations

The water rises up and deposits Sky and Lady Alma on the floor of the glimmering pool’s cavern, Sky holding her protectively. He sets her down and uses his oceanic divine sphere to whisk away most of the water. He cannot dry her off, like Somrak can, but he can at least make sure she’s not dripping wet. He hears splashing behind and turns to see that Dion is in the water. It takes Sky only a moment to be sure that this is his Gwydion, Sergeant Gwydion of the Three Rats Guardia Dei and not Senator Gwydion of the other universe. Aside from the uniform, this Dion is built like the rock-solid martial artist he is, and not a soft político. Extending a hand and waving at the water, Sky creates a lifting swell and sets Dion on solid ground as well. Then he looks back at Lady Alma and sighs, cursing “Demônios e diabos…” under his breath in the local dialect of Three Rats.

Dashing water from his eyes, Dion demands, “What have you done? Where is Alma!?”

Lady Alma, who has been looking down at her wet dress, hides behind Sky with a little squeak at Dion’s outburst. “Oh, daisy stalks…” 

As the pool’s magic fades and its light fades along with it, Sky summons another glowing globe of water from out of the puddles across the cavern floor. It gloops together and births an aquamarine luminescence. “I am sorry, my friend. She… I…” He gestures helplessly at Alma. “Lady Alma…we have crossed over to the other Insula.”

Dion’s fury is gradually replaced with a helpless expression. “Our Alma saw something…leaned too far. It was like the world tilted and she and Sky both went in. I dove in after her but…”

“The God Striker?” Sky asks, putting a comforting hand on Lady Alma’s trembling shoulder and pulling her a little closer without thinking. “Is that what she saw? Did she get it?”

Alma stays close to Sky. “Did I…” She swallows, her voice shaking. “Did I do something wrong?”

Sky can see the conflicting emotions battling across Gwydion’s face: shock and grief at his Alma’s disappearance, the desire to comfort this smaller, frightened Alma, repulsion at how closely she resembles his Alma and yet is not, self-recrimination for being so rude before a delicate, high-born flower of his own class.

“He is merely worried for his own Alma,” Sky says after seconds of awkward silence. “She has switched with you, and is now with your family. He is worried for her.”

Dion straightens, regaining some of his composure, though his dampness and shaken state cannot allow for a full restoration. “Forgive me…Lady. I…I am Gwydion, Sergeant, Guardia Dei. I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

Alma hesitates a moment but then comes out from behind Sky and holds a hand out for him to take. Playing her familiar role as a Senator’s wife gives her comfort and confidence, Sky notes. “Hello. I…I am sorry for this horrible mess. I just saw a glimmer in the pool and I thought it might be what we were supposed to be looking for and–” 

Alma’s eyes widen and her momentary confidence evaporates. “Oh no…oh no… My baby! I-I must go back. My baby will starve!”

Dion looks confused while Sky’s brown skin, lightened a bit by all the weeks he has lived underground, turns even more pale. Sky stammers, “I-I’m sure they’ll think of something. Perhaps Alma…” He hesitates. His thought is that Acting-Inspector Alma, with her Life sphere, may well be able to feed the child, but the thought of another goddess letting her baby suckle might not go down well with Lady Alma. “Well, they’ll think of something.” Dion, who has had a decided lack of babies in his life, gets a look of dawning comprehension after a moment.

“He is just a baby! He is not eating solid food yet. And he has never had any other types of milk.” Alma looks very worried. “Oh, Dion will be in a panic, not knowing what to do. He loves the baby, but he is not very good at such things…”

“You have Rose and Cherish and May there,” Sky reminds her, putting his big hands on her delicate shoulders. “And your world’s Sky. He, um, has helped raise a few babies, believe it or not. It will be all right.”

Dion looks from one to the other, and seems to swallow some considerable impatience. “Ahem…well, what is the situation there, Sky?”

Sky puts his hands on his hips, considering back over the past day. “Calm, for the moment. They are all in the caves. It’s Somrak and Machado, Cala and Aliyah, the Senator – you know about him?”

“Yes, yes, you – the other you told us all that,” Dion says impatiently. “Are they in danger?”

“They should probably move soon,” Sky says. “Oh…the other Sky wouldn’t know… Saira is with them. As a prisoner.”

“What?!” Now it is Dion’s turn to be pale, or at least more than usual.

“She led a team of assassins,” Sky explains. “Apparently she’s working for Nekh, not knowing he had her gang killed.”

“Uhm…excuse me…does this…does this mean they are still in danger even after moving to those dreadful caves?” Alma asks. “And are we in danger as well?” She looks pale, frightened.

Sky says, “We are not in danger here. But Doria was murdered in the cave, and their Oracle seems to have disappeared. I do not think Somrak will allow them to spend another day in the Grotto.” 

“Away from the pool,” Dion grinds out. “Away from any chance to switch back!”

“I…I am sorry.” Lady Alma hides her face behind her hands, her voice betraying tears. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to – this is all my fault!”

Sky puts a comforting hand on her back. It all feels very strange – though he has comforted his Alma before, she certainly would not be wasting so much energy on pointless self-blame. But he has to remind himself that this is not his Alma. Her life took a very different path from early on, and she is overwhelmed by all that has happened in just two tumultuous days. “It is not your fault. We are in the Hands of the Fates. And the people there are armed with a mighty weapon, now, and a warrior who will put it to good use. We will get you back home, and our Alma back home as well. Be assured of that.”

“Oh, my poor husband…” Alma’s voice is miserable despite Sky’s words. “He will be so worried. We have never been more than a few hours apart. He will be so lost. And our children. They have never known danger. And now all of this happens and…” She trails off at the sound of boots crunching on gravel and debris in the tunnel leading into this room.

The litany of woe is broken by the scuffing of rock chips and dust in the rubble-strewn hole that serves as doorway to this chamber. “How come I never get invited to pool parties?” Somrak looks in, a fiery orb floating by his head, bringing a warmer light to the chamber than Sky’s watery one. “Oh right, it’s because I hate swimming. What, no ‘Somrak, what are you doing here? Did you get kicked out of the Guardia again, Somrak?’” He looks at the three of them, then his looks settles on Alma, and his brow knits.

Dion sighs. “We have…a situation. Why are you here?”

“I just finished a case. Few days off. Thought I’d come…” As he speaks, his words slow, and his eyes never leave Alma. “Did you…change your hair?”

Lady Alma looks at him, then at Sky. “He is smiling!” She grins. “The other one never seemed to do that! And the scar is gone. Has he come to protect us?”

Somrak frowns. “All right, what’s going on? Is this some…alternate-universe Alma or something?” He chuckles, scoffing at the very idea.

Sky nods slowly.

“Shut the Hell up!” Somrak exclaims. “What’s going on, really? Come on!” 

Gwydion mutters, “They may not be able to return to the pool in time. There must be other ways…” He looks at Sky. “I need to consult the library at the Academy of Magic.”

Sky considers this for a second, then nods. “It would be best to have a backup plan. I will stay by the pool. I won’t budge.”

Dion nods. He looks at Somrak, his eyes carefully avoiding Alma. “Can I leave the station in your hands?”

“Holy Fates,” Somrak whispers. “You people are serious. Uh…yes,” he says aloud. “I’ll take good care of it.” Dion starts to leave.

“Dion?” Alma speaks up. “I mean…Sergeant?” She walks up to Gwydion, blushing a little. “I-I know you are worried but…I assure you, my husband will not let any harm come to her. She will be protected and well cared for.”

Dion stops at her words, half turning but not quite facing her. “Thank you. And you will be safe here.” His tone is perfectly polite. He almost says something more, but then leaves quickly.

Damp and miserable, Alma momentarily shivers from cold and fear. Sky comes to stand beside her and puts a protective hand on her slender shoulder. He can tell how much she is in need of comfort by how the Senator’s lady not only allows this, but leans against him for warmth. “He is upset. Frightened. He will do all he can, as will we. Come…you need to warm up.”

“He hates me,” Alma says, voice barely audible, sounding all the more miserable for talking about her husband’s counterpart in this world.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sky says, softly.

“Would somebody tell me what is going on?” Somrak asks. “Are we in for some trouble here or what?”

“We’re safe,” Sky says. “Alma is in an alternate timeline. Which I’ve just returned from.”

Somrak looks around at the claw marks, astonished. “You dug all the way to another world??”

Alma squeaks and squeezes a little more against Sky. “Oh, he is getting angry again.”

Sky shakes his head. “That’s just Somrak’s resting expression. Let’s have some tea, and I’ll fill you in.” 

神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎

After bringing breakfast and meeting Lady Alma, Doria, priestess and servant to the Oracle Nevieve takes her leave, leading Sky’s puppy – another surprise for Somrak – out for a walk. It’s only after she’s gone that Alma sniffles and wipes away a tear, and relates to Somrak how she sent the ghost of the other world’s Doria to the Wheel, to rejoin the rest of her soul. Somrak finishes boiling another small pot of coffee on the palm of his hand, and pours the powerful, dense brew into the tiny cups in Sky’s room. “So over there, Doria’s dead, the Oracle is missing, I still have the scar, Dion is a bigwig politician, Alma is…here, and Saira is trying to kill us all. And there’s a war going on.”

Sky nods.

“Terrific.” He looks over Alma again, marvelling. Especially while she was sleeping, curled up with Pharaoh the Pup, she has been reminding him strongly of the first time, the very very first time, he met Alma. He had been sent to the home of the Death Clan with a message from the Commander to Lord Death, and encountered a feverish little godling, and had helped lower her fever until her nurse could come. It wasn’t until much later, after he’d known the adult Alma for awhile, that he realized he’d met her long before. Alma herself had not remembered him at all from that fevered encounter. He wonders if they met in that alternate world. “What are we going to do with you, then?”

“I…I do not know,” Alma replies, shaking her head. “I guess…whatever does not upset this Dion of yours any further? He seemed ready to bite a limb off me.”

“Nah, that’s the kind of thing Sky does. Dion’ll be fine. Besides, there’s not really much we can do that won’t upset him more right now. He really, really, really wants his Alma.” Somrak looks around Sky’s quarters. “You know, keeping a lady here is cruel and unusual punishment. ”

“Somrak, if she leaves, she could be seen.” Sky sounds doubtful.

“We’ll just say she’s Alma’s identical cousin,” Somrak replies. At Sky’s skeptical expression, he says, “Come on, that’s one of those ridiculous lies that people just nod their heads at and go, ‘Oh yeah…identical cousin. Yeah, I’ve heard of that…happens with some god families, sure.’ They don’t want to sound ignorant, so they believe it. Besides, she might be here for a reason. And if she is, it’s not likely to be found here.”

Alma, who almost started giggling at Somrak’s fabulism, blinks and says, “Oh, I would not want to impose.” She pauses. “Is it true, then? That in this reality my other self is a Guardia Inspector, unmarried and with seven children of her own. No father to raise them with her?” She sounds doubtful and lowers her voice to a whisper. “And that she killed that dreadful Archon Nekh who murdered my husband’s uncle?”

Somrak says, “All true. Though Nekh didn’t murder Math here – Math’s still the same schemer as ever. Probably arranged the whole thing to knock off Nekh.” He knows his voice is full of grudging admiration. “So do you want to sit around with this guy, or take a look around the neighborhood? You can meet the kids…”

“Somrak, we shouldn’t…” Sky cautions.

“It’ll be fine,” Somrak insists. “Look, why else would I show up at this moment? Because the Fates need someone as irresponsible as me to play a part, that’s why. So she’s supposed to visit the station. Obviously.”

Alma finally giggles aloud, unable to stifle it further, and Somrak has to admit, it’s pretty adorable. “Oh, you are much kinder than your other self. I would love to meet the children. But…is it not dangerous out there? The ward was so grim and gloomy…”

“Oh, we took care of all the really bad people in this ward,” Som says. “All right, Sky, Dion, and Alma did most of that, but I helped here and there.”

“Helped,” Sky grunts.

“I did help! Most of the time. And you haven’t slept in a couple of days, have you?” Somrak gives Sky a stern look. “I can tell. You let Alma here sleep for five hours – that’s a very cute snore you have, by the way, your Ladyship – and you’re not going to sleep until our Alma’s home, are you? Yeah, well, you’ll be rotten company then. I’ll tell Doria to keep the coffee coming.”

Alma can’t stop giggling, but gasps and insists, “No, I do not snore! Do I? You’re just teasing, aren’t you?”

The way Sky’s shoulders slump, Somrak knows his old partner has surrendered. Speaking in Batepepo, the local language of Three Rats, Sky insists, “You need to protect her as you would Alma. Our Alma. Even more so, for this one is much weaker.”

Somrak replies in the same tongue. He’s not as fluent as Sky, but he learned quickly in the periods he was stationed here. “I’ll keep her safe. Come on, brother. You know I sometimes see things. She’s meant to meet the others here. I don’t know why, but it’s important.”

Sky looks at him very seriously. Then he gives the same look to Alma. “Lady, go with him. But regard him as your protector, more knowledgeable than you in the ways of this world.”

Alma looks back at him, then nods, equally serious. “I will. Will you be all right, left alone here?” She puts her delicate hand on his.

Sky’s expression brightens a little, and he pats her hand. “I have been alone here a great deal. I will be well. Besides, I need to speak with the Oracle. If she is here, at all. Doria said she is not in her usual cave.”

“Come on, he’ll be fine,” Somrak says. “And by the way, I’m not calling you Lady. You’re undercover. Let’s see, Alma doesn’t have any sisters, so we can’t say you’re her little sister even though that’s exactly what you look like. Cousin it is…fine, fine, I’ll drop the ‘identical’ bit. So what are we going to call you?”

“Oh, I…I have never been undercover before, I…” She looks rather befuddled.

He stands, offering her his hand. “How about…Malma? Dalma? Come on, help me out here.”

She giggles as he helps her up. “Oh, those are horrible names!”

“We could do an anagram. Lama? Or reverse it: Amala!”

Over the giggles, Somrak hears Sky snort in almost-laughter behind him as they leave.

Ch7.61 Revelations

Sky’s heavy sigh makes Pharaoh wake up. The gangly dog blinks sleepily from his position on Sky’s lap, then thrusts his snout into Sky’s hand, insisting on getting his head petted and scratched. Sky smiles a little and complies, but complains to Gwydion and Alma, “This has been the longest day of my life. I’ve crossed over into another timeline, and they only thing I’ve done is made friends with a dog!”

Gwydion smiles. “At least there’s that. He was really barking at you at first. You know we couldn’t let you leave the Grotto. You would have done more harm than good.”

“Too many people know your face in this ward,” Alma adds. She stretches, having woken from a nap snuggled against Gwydion, seated on a blanket-bedecked stone bend in her Sky’s living chamber. 

Most of this long, boring day, at least one of them has been here, though after some time they trusted him to spend some time with only Doria to watch over him. Now that midnight approaches, Gwydion returned from his research to join Alma, reporting that he has been unable to find the God Striker in time, nor find much information pertaining to crossing into another timeline. 

Alma continues, “Our Sky says hello to everyone as he passes them on the street and he’s come to know most of the people he sees regularly. The news of his return would spread like a wildfire.”

“I know…” Sky feels glum. It is hard to imagine having the life this world’s Sky has. So many connections, while he himself keeps connection to a minimum. As a devil, he should have no empathy – it is something that all those of Hell lack, all except for the rumored, legendary Enlightened One, demon with a complete soul who is supposed to be a kind of saint. Just that legend…and Sky, who was created so as to have it, because the previous agents sent into this world by Hell did not, and were too easily detected and destroyed. Sky, and however many other such agents Hell created, has empathy, and sometimes there is nothing more painful. The most creative tortures of Hell are nothing compared to loving someone. Sky found that out in his years on Earth.

Apparently, this world’s Sky forgot that lesson. Or decided that the love is worth the pain. Sky feels simultaneously jealous and contemptuous of his counterpart. But the jealousy has the upper hand.

“And why exactly would that be a problem?” Sky asks. “You said the guy was almost recovered from his torture. If this crossover doesn’t work, I can pretend to be under the weather. Help ease him back into society, for when he does return.”

“And what do I tell my children when they hear that their beloved friend and protector has been seen walking about but didn’t come home to them?” Alma insists, arching an eyebrow at him. She has stopped being so very cautious about him, even laughed with him once or twice in the course of the day, but still she resisted telling him very much about the world outside, unless it seemed to directly pertain to Math and Nekh. “To his family, who misses him dearly? They would be distraught. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to trick Bunny noses and ears? How many spells we need just to conceal the fact that Sky never left the ward? That we visit him every other day?”

Sky is quiet for a moment before he asks, “They’re really that worried about me? Him, I mean. Beloved protector? How did that happen?” The more he thinks about it, the more unsettled he feels. 

Dion – Sky finds it easier to think of him by that shortened name, as he is so unlike the Senator – explains, “After Nekh’s death, there was a trial. Alma and I were detained in the first Ring for weeks. Sky was left alone here, the only Dei in the station. In the middle of the Shard War, the massive Dukaine criminal organization shattering and fighting. And Sky was in charge of looking after the Bunnies as well. That’s how they came to see you as an uncle, especially the younger ones.”

“Uncle Sky…” He still can’t believe it. They mentioned it before dawn, but since then the discussions have mainly been about the death of Nekh, other information about the Council, the Dukaines, the God Striker, and so on, as they have gone in and out. Suddenly Sky feels an urgent need to know more about how his counterpart fits into all this. “Well I wouldn’t want to mess that up. But I’ll tell you what, those three on my side will hardly look at me without turning pale. And I think they’re even more scared of Somrak…though come to think of it, they look at him a lot, when he’s not looking. I think it’s the tight leather pants.”

Alma snorts, and Sky feels glad he could make her laugh again. Careful…you’re letting your guard down because you think you’ll never see them again after tonight. That’s not necessarily the case. What if it doesn’t work? What will you do then? 

“Bunnies can detect the strangest, tiniest things,” Alma tells him, looking at him as if she too knows she is letting her guard down and isn’t certain of the wisdom of that. “Attraction, jealousy, fear…you would be amazed. But my Bunnies hardly let a day go by without mentioning Sky. These weeks of his healing have been grueling on us. And them. Please, I know it is a tremendous vote of confidence we are asking you for but there are so many people who have been asking, nagging and begging just to be allowed to visit Sky. If they were to meet you, then you and he change places again and he cannot go home immediately… It will break their hearts.”

“And it would most likely force us to reveal his secret,” Dion reminds him.

Sky holds up a hand, the other now gently rubbing Pharaoh’s belly. “Very well. I agree. Though if I don’t go back to my world tonight, we shall have to come up with an alternative to keeping me in here for the rest of my life.” He looks down at the happy dog, who is falling asleep again. “You’re making me envious of this version of myself,” he admits. “How he thinks he can have all these attachments without revealing his true nature, though…” He looks up at Alma and Dion. “It’s going to happen. You’ve found out, and others will, too. I’m glad he can have a couple of good friends like you who know and accept him. Mortals though…”

“Yes…we know,” Alma breathes, morose at the thought. “And considering he is in love with Mayumi and she with him – but…” Alma shrugs helplessly. 

“That…has been hinted at, too,” Sky stammers. “That’s really hard to believe.”

“She is currently at the Academy, looking to become Guardia,” Dion says. “We haven’t even told her about Sky being wounded yet…” He grimaces at the difficulty of the situation.

Sky shakes his head. “She’s – I mean, the one I know – has hardly said a dozen words to me, just politenesses. And here she’s a cadet. I mean, I know your Sky must be lonely but…” He looks at Alma, almost cringing. “And…you don’t have a problem with this?”

“Should I?” Alma’s voice is calm, reasonable. Though at the same time, Sky thinks he can detect a slight strain. “He is an adult, she is an adult and he knows that should he wrong her, I’d have his soul for a rattle.” A little puff of air from her nose, a silent snort at the idea. She looks into Sky’s eyes. “I have very good reasons to trust Sky. I know he wouldn’t be bad to her. Unless she wanted him to.”

Sky opens his mouth at this, but the last five words make him shut it for a moment, and he feels his cheeks warm with a slight blush that brings a smile to Alma’s lips. He clears his throat and says, soft and serious. “He wouldn’t do anything bad to her, directly. But…did he tell you about Earth? His family? Lara?” He hasn’t mentioned that name to anyone else in many years, and bringing up such close-held memories is not easy for him.

Alma nods, sympathy in her eyes. “His picture album was one of the few things we managed to save when his sanctum was destroyed.”

“Oh…thank you.” It feels a bit strange to be grateful for something she did for the other Sky, but grateful he is. “I should really get that duplicated… Anyway, he was able – rather, I was able to tell Lara about what I really am, because at some level she never really believed it. Even though the religion she was raised in primed her to believe in devils, it was just beyond her comprehension. So she thought, ‘My husband is a devil. That’s very strange, but all right, because he is kind.’ Here…people really understand what creatures from Hell are like. And they generally don’t believe there are omnipotent gods holding them in check. On top of that, there was nobody on Earth to rip that knowledge from her unprotected mind, or to threaten her with prison just for knowing classified information. So revealing his secret to her is…it’s just a bad move. And…he couldn’t become fully, uh, intimate with her if he can’t do that. If he thinks he can, he’s just fooling himself.” As he speaks, Sky finds himself becoming more and more exasperated with this world’s version of him.

Alma and Dion both listen with sorrowful expressions. “All those things are true,” Alma says. “But all those things are for him to acknowledge and act upon. And they are for Mayumi to decide as well. Even before I knew Sky’s nature, I warned her that affairs with a god, any god, seldom have good outcomes for mortals. All I can do is be ready to ensure her safety or dry her tears. The rest is up to them.”

“Put me in the same room with him and he’ll get a punch in the guts,” Sky grumbles. He looks at Alma and Dion, and points a finger. “One of you, tell him what I said. He knows it already. He’s just not listening to himself because he’s in love, the idiot.”

Dion crosses his arms and smiles sadly. “And just a few minutes ago you were envious of him. I might think the idiot is still coming out on top.”

Sky shakes his head. “If this does go forward, May’s going to need to understand down to her bones the need for secrecy. It’ll make her feel a little apart from her siblings. And she’ll need a spell, an enchantment, an item, a medallion, something to protect her thoughts from leaking out for any telepath to catch.”

Dion shakes his head, weighing in as a professional. “Items such as medallions and other assorted jewelry are usually a bad idea. They can be easily removed, lost or plainly forgotten. I daresay I can find something more lasting and less prone to being misplaced.”

Alma stands up, adjusting her sword and her vest. “Before you two start making up plans and discussing the strong points of your theories, perhaps we should let my daughter and her paramour make up their own minds and decide on their lives,” she admonishes with a sigh. “We should not indulge our divine natures and forget that this is not our game to play or our pieces to move. And it is almost time.”

“Oh…” Sky puts Pharaoh down, and pets the dog’s head once again. “Let’s get your guy back, huh, boy?” He looks into those eyes for a moment longer, those big bat-like ears, that cocked head with that eternal dog desire to understand what their people are saying, then sighs and, with a mental promise to find a way to adopt a dog once things calm down in his world, he pulls his mesh-reinforced leather jacket back on and makes sure his sword, other weapons, and any other equipment are all in the right place. He looks at Alma and Dion. “Ready.”

He leads the way to the pool. It’s a straight path, and both of the other two have already gone to take a look at the pool, but it is his counterpart who dug the passage, so for some reason it feels right that he takes the lead. He conjures a glowing water glob to light their way, and as they walk, he thinks about all he has learned. The knowledge of Nekh and the Dukaines, Nekh’s lieutenant and the necromancer Nua, the God Striker, all of that is big enough. But it is the less-important things that have him dazed. But are they really less important? 

A father figure. I was a father once. A husband. I loved. I was loved. When Lara died I let the rest of it slip away. I left. I meant to come back, but I left and I got stuck here and they’ve all died or forgotten me by now. And I just couldn’t bear it happening again. Only this Sky, he let it happen. Look what it got him. Tortured, soul-flayed, exposed. In love with a mortal girl who deserves better. Yes, that’s her decision, she’s an adult, but she can’t make that decision without all the facts. And all these others, hurt because of him. But would they even be alive now, without his help?

And a further thought refuses to let him shake it. If this doesn’t work, if I don’t make it back, I will be the one who has to live his life here.

He enters the room and walks up to the edge of the water. It is motionless, not glimmering, except for the moon-like reflection from the light-sphere over his shoulder.

He looks back at Alma and Dion. They look so…capable. So strong. And yet he knows they are wounded. And he can see the kindness on their faces. The concern, not just for their friend, their brother, but for him as well. 

“Tell him,” Sky says. “Tell him he needs to tell her, or break it off.”

Alma walks up to him and reaches up to cup his cheek, whispering, “What you forgot to mention about Earth was how much you loved your wife. And your children. How you miss them all. And how you closed yourself to new connections for fear of the pain of their deaths. Perhaps that is something you should take with you when you return.”

He feels tears fill his eyes at her words, which reflect his own thoughts so closely. He cannot speak for a moment, but finally he says, “If I had friends like you over there, I might be ready to risk falling in love with someone.”

“You need to be willing to risk being a friend first,” Alma says. “I know for a fact that you can be a very good one. If you try.”

He looks at her pale, smiling face, with those strange, beautiful eyes, and he puts his arms around her. He feels her hold him, and he nearly cries out at how good it feels, to be held, to be loved, by anyone. For so long, this has been so rare, but how he needs it.

“What is that? In the pool?” Alma’s face is turned toward the water, her cheek pressed against Sky’s chest.

“Do you see something?” Dion asks.

“Just…a glint.” She let’s Sky go, and as he releases her she leans over the edge, her hand gripping his jacket so that she won’t fall. “A familiar one…I see it!”

Sky puts his hands on her waist to steady her and leans over to look. “I see nothing, other than that the colors are already starting. What do you see? Hey, don’t lean out further!”

“The portal must be opening. Alma, get away from it!” Sky can hear the concern in Dion’s voice, which grows louder as he approaches them.

“I see it!” Alma cries. “She needs me to help her…”

Sky tries to pull her back, but the ground shifts and spins under his feet and his vision fills with the glimmering colors of the pool. Alma tries to pull away, and, panicking, Sky pulls her close to him. Is she trying to jump into the water? Trying to jump away from the water? Disoriented, Sky can’t be sure which way is to or from, up or down. He takes a step back.

And there is nothing under his boot.

Until the cold wet splash envelopes them both.

Ch7.58 Revelations

“Longing to…what? From me? What do you mean?” 

Pharaoh barks to welcome Gwydion and Alma as the enter the living-chamber. Doria flashes them a bright smile. “Oh good! He can barely eat or drink with the shackles on. I’ve been feeding him like a baby. Did you know his May doesn’t have the slightest interest in joining the Guardia?”

“She’s not my May,” Sky protests, still absorbing Doria’s teasing tone that clearly insinuated a romantic attachment between himself and the admittedly pretty but otherwise uninteresting Bunny. But looking at Alma and her paramour, both serious and right now looking exactly like experienced Guardia about to interrogate a subject, he finds himself revising his assessment of how impossible that must be. If this world’s Alma and Gwydion are tough and skilled Dei officers, might not this world’s May have just as much potential? Now he wonders if the two older girls are private detectives or mages or professional boxers over here. 

Alma takes out Sky’s keyring and hands it to Doria. “Thank you, Doria. Feel free to release him. I see you have been in good company while I was out…Sergeant. Did it get too much in the way of picking the lock on your handcuffs?”

“You chose a charming jailer,” Sky replies, noting the hesitation over what to call him. “I just felt it would have been rude to escape with her here.” He points to the smallest key on the ring. “That one, Priestess. Thank you.” He looks over Gwydion’s uniform, taking in the impeccable tailoring. This one and the one in his timeline at least share a fastidious sense of style. “Sergeant Gwydion. I understand you know me here as well?”

Gwydion looks him over before he nods. “I do.” He looks at Alma. “You weren’t kidding when you said this was the definition of strange.” 

“It is, isn’t it?” Alma puts her hands on the back of the chair on which Doria sits. “But the soul matches. Other than being too whole to be Sky’s.” 

Doria finally unlocks the right shackle, and mana begins flowing freely again throughout Sky’s body. It is an enormous relief, but he cannot help but feel disturbed at the thought of his doppelgänger’s damaged soul. 

“Maybe I can find something to explain what is going on.” Gwydion turns to Sky. “I hope you don’t mind if I examine you.” With a murmur of apology, he takes Doria’s place on the wooden chair, grimacing as he discovers he has just sat in a puddle of water left behind by the ever-wet naiad. 

Sky chuckles in mild astonishment at Gwydion’s words as he unlocks the left shackle and frees himself, putting his shackles and keys into their appropriate pockets. “Please, go ahead. I wouldn’t think you could find anything, but Acting-Inspector Alma apparently can see my soul, which indicates ability well beyond my experience with her counterpart. And the Senator Gwydion that I know does not seem to have any divine ability of note at all. But Alma tells me you are the Hammer of Devils.”

“That’s right. I also happen to be trained as a mage. Senator…” Gwydion mulls over the word. “I enjoy politics about as much as having all my teeth pulled out one by one,” he mutters as his eyes glow golden, and Sky feels his hair stand on end and his skin prickles. As Gwydion’s aura expands, Sky feels an atavistic fear, coupled with a desire to attack. He is the Devil’s Hammer! But Sky clenches his jaw to master his fear. 

“Why don’t you tell Gwydion a little more of this other version of us you say you’ve met?” Alma suggests. Sky realizes she is trying to help them both relax. Sky’s own aura is beginning to flare in reaction to Gwydion’s, making them both uncomfortable. “He was rather curious about it when I told him what you told me.”

“Well…keep in mind that I hardly know the two of you there,” Sky says. “We met just yesterday. And the briefing was hurried. Since then, it was a lot of moving around.” He considers how best to describe him. “The Senator loves his family very much. He is quite protective of them. Of course he’s in an extreme situation just now – becoming more protective is a normal response. But his wife had to arrange a secret meeting with me to convince me to go to the grotto. Apparently she didn’t trust him to believe her.”

“I’m married? To someone who doesn’t trust me?” Dion shakes his head and glances at Alma. “Lovely…”

“I didn’t tell him that part,” Alma explains to Sky.

“I see.” Sky pauses, then says to Alma, cautious, “What else does he know about me? The me from here that is. I don’t wish to accidentally reveal some secret of your Sky’s, something which you may know but Gwydion does not.”

Alma thinks about this. “I don’t recall anything that might come up in conversation that Gwydion doesn’t know about.”

“Sky is a close friend.” Gwydion says, still focused on examining Sky. “More, he is a brother. You don’t need to tiptoe around the devil in the room with me.”

“A brother…” The idea is barely believable. But then so is the thought that he has fallen in love with a Bunny. He has not allowed himself such freedom with his emotions for decades, not since he left Earth. There have been moments, with Somrak a handful of times, and with the Commander’s little girl. But even so, he would stumble over trying to describe Somrak as a friend. He looks at Alma. “And he is one of your closest friends, even though you know what he is. The Sky of this world is truly blessed.” To Gwydion, he says, “And your brother, though you are the Hammer of Devils. Astonishing.”

Gwydion slips off his jacket and rolls up the sleeve of this shirt, showing the mark left by an apothecary’s poison in the form of a black glyph. “Hammer of Devils is what Sky calls me. A sphere awakened in me when we had to rescue him from imprisonment and torture.”

Sky examines the glyph. He recognizes it, from one of the classical languages of Hell. It reads ‘gatekeeper,’ which, due to his background, has a connotation of ‘prison guard.’ “There have been none for…well, it’s legendary. And if you have that sphere here, just recently awakened, then…”

“It must still be dormant within your Senator,” Gwydion confirms, nodding. “Whose wife you haven’t told me about yet.”

“Ah…well she is…sweet. To her family. Quite insistent on proper forms – she’s called out Somrak a couple of times for ordering them around. Amusing to watch him grumble. She looks like a strong wind, or a powerful shout, would blow her away. But I see a glimmer of this Alma in her.” Sky smiles a little at Alma and Gwydion. “Though I think she’d squeak like a mouse if she saw either of you. And faint dead away.”

Gwydion looks at Sky, shocked. “You…are saying I am married to a meek, frightened Alma in this….reality of yours?” He looks like he’s having trouble even processing it.

“Well, for all I know she normally dresses in leather and goes around hunting vampires,” Sky replies. “But that’s my impression of her, yes.”

Alma drapes her arms over Gwydion’s shoulders from behind, prompting a smile from Sky at the show of affection. “And we have four lovely children, one of which is a baby godling and the other three are Rosemary, Cherry and Mayumi.”

Dion freezes a moment. “Cherry and Merri are my…daughters?” His eyes lose their golden light and he starts to laugh.

Sky lets the laugh run its course before saying, “They call you Daddy, and they seem to think you hung the stars in the sky. May feels the same way. You say that here she is called Mayumi?” 

Alma nods, “She is. In fact, people call her May but she doesn’t much like that.” She kisses Dion’s cheek. “So how is that for strange?” she asks him.

Dion shakes his head in wonder. “Strange does not begin to describe it. Just yesterday, Cherry and Merri were teasing me by offering to clean up my bedroom in very short, frilly maid outfits.” He takes a breath, thinking. “It seems this other couple have known each other for quite a lot longer. And that something in their past was substantially different from ours.”

“They do all seem very familiar with each other,” Sky says. “As if they’ve been together for decades. All their lives, in the case of the children. So…you two have seven children here?”

“Oh? Oh no… we have only known each other for a few months. Been together for less than a year.” Gwydion turns his head to look at Alma and smiles, and Sky thinks he can see some of that tender regard that the Senator has for his Lady, but not cloying. Yet.

“The Bunnies are mine. From a previous relationship.” Alma explains, looking at Gwydion but talking to Sky. “Gwydion is mostly just a very dear friend to them. Part of the family. Though one or two regard him as a father figure.” She looks at Sky with a grin. “And the same is true for you, Uncle Sky.”

Sky blinks at that. “Me, a father figure?”

“Not for Mayumiii…” Doria says in a low singsong as she hands cups of tea to all three of them.

Sky feels himself blush at the humor evinced by the others. He clears his throat. “And they have the same names? Or almost the same. Wait, do they even look the same?” He puts his hand at the height of a rather short human. “Rosemary is about this tall, red curly hair, green eyes, pale with freckles. Cherish about the same height, golden-brown skin and eyes, big poof of kinky hair. May is a little taller, olive skin, straight black hair, brown eyes with epicanthic folds. All with long ears and puffy tails. Do they sound the same?”

“Sounds like them,” Dion concedes. “Though… Cherish?” He looks quizzically at Alma.

She shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She looks at Sky. “Ours goes by Cherry, and Rosemary usually goes by Merri, but she doesn’t care one way or the other. The four remaining ones are Sage, Kori, Chime and Tulip. Each looks different, though all share the ears and tails, each with their own accents except for the younger ones, who mostly sound local to Three Rats.”

“Accents? As in speaking styles?” Alma nods at Sky’s question. “Huh. The three I know sound like average, well-educated Leeward First-Ringers to me. Same accents as their parents. But it seems that although they have a different father, they are counterparts to the ones here.” He sips his tea, grateful that he doesn’t have to let Doria hold the cup for him this time. “Anyway…I do have a guess at what’s going on.”

“If you are going to suggest a parallel reality with slight temporal asynchrony, then your guess is probably correct,” Dion says. “Which is why I am choosing to accept your story as truthful. Even though all scholars of repute agree that crossing between diverging timelines is impossible.”

Sky grins sheepishly. “I wouldn’t have come up with quite the same vocabulary, but basically, yes. With a big scoop of Fate tossed in.”

Doria, who has been keeping Pharaoh occupied for the past several minutes, speaks up. “You said you went through a pool with rainbow glimmers? I…fell into such a pool once, myself. I think it was in that direction.” She nods toward the rage-digging chamber. 

“You switched between timelines?” Gwydion asks, turning to focus on her in urgent interest. “When did this happen?”

“Oh, decades ago,” Doria says. “And I don’t know that I did switch. But things felt…off? And when I went to ask the Oracle about it, she studied me like you just did with Sky. And told me I had to dive once again into the pool the next midnight. After that, things felt fine, but the next day the tunnel to that pool was plugged with rock. I’d forgotten about it years ago, until now.” She looks back at the expressions on the other three. “Hey, living with the Oracle, as strange things go, that’s pretty minor.”

“And now I’m here,” Sky says after a moment. “And your friend is there for a reason. He must have some knowledge from here that will tilt the scales, allow something important to happen. Something I wouldn’t know to do. Perhaps something to do with this Nekh fellow.”

“Well, that is another confusing bit,” Gwydion notes. “You claim my Uncle is dead in your reality and Nekh is alive. However, Nekh never moved against my Uncle here. And also, Sky had very little to do directly with Nekh’s death. Alma and I were the only gods fighting him.”

Alma taps her lip with a finger. “True. Some of those parts don’t make sense. Unless…” Alma turns to Sky. “How powerful are the Dukaines in your world?”

“Very,” he says. “It’s only recently become clear just how powerful. They have taken over all organized crime on the Insula, as far as we can tell, coopting gangs and eliminating any resistance. They’re the ones who assassinated Archon Math and numerous other key figures. And Nekh has taken over the Guardia and is using them to wage an all-out war against the gang. That’s why so many people are supporting him. But…I’m more convinced than ever of what I was already suspecting. Nekh controls the Dukaines, doesn’t he?”

Alma nods, her eyes darkening. “And he unleashed them on us, even inside the Curia. Thankfully we were able to stop him before he took control of the whole of the Fourth Ring, though, so there was never a real civil war. Well, there was a war as the gang broke into shards but a coordinated attack of a whole gang would have been much worse. Three Rats was meant to be the final link in Nekh’s chain, actually.”

“It shattered before he managed to close the circle,” Gwydion adds.

“I suppose that’s valuable information for me to carry back,” Sky says. “But I will need to know everything, in case something that may even seem insignificant turns out to be important there. And most important…how did you kill him?”

“We…” Sky can see that Gwydion looks uneasy at this. He glances at Alma. “He was weakened by the Godstriker. Something of a soulbound weapon. And then…” 

“And then I burned the soul out of his body,” Alma says with a sigh, as if this is some part of an old disagreement of theirs. Sky files that away but sees no point in asking. “Something we have been thoroughly punished for, I assure you.” 

Sky looks from one to the other, frowning. “Punished for taking out the biggest threat to the peace and welfare of the Insula. Typical. Can you get this Godstriker? Maybe I am meant to take it back with me.” He taps his short sword. “Clearly it is possible to bring equipment across.”

Alma thinks for a moment before she explains, “We have no idea where the Godstriker was taken. They wouldn’t allow an assassin of Archons to know its location, after all.” 

“That’s too bad,” Sky says. “Still, worth looking into. If I’m meant to return with it, it may well turn out to be acquirable after all.”

Alma turns to Gwydion. “How will he return?”

“The same way he came.” Gwydion’s voice is confident. “Like Doria did. In examining his life force, I can see that this reality is pushing him out. It should take a little less than twenty-four hours for the passage to open again. This coming midnight.” Dion looks at Sky. “And you must be ready to leave by then. You are just similar enough for a biphasic effect, I think. If you don’t return to your reality at the proper moment, this reality will try to assimilate you instead.”

Sky nods, thoughtfully. “Then I will be in the chamber.”

“You will need to stay here,” Gwydion says. “The Bunnies–”

“Alma has already mentioned that,” Sky replies. “And it is clear from what Doria told me, as well. It’s too bad – I would like to meet them, and to explore this world more. But that doesn’t seem wise. And I still don’t know if there’s something I need to learn or acquire here. But perhaps I already have. Or your Sky has. You say his soul is damaged, and he cannot control his form well? I hope he is not getting into too much trouble there.”

“He is you.” Alma says, reaching out to touch his leather jacket sleeve, in an affectionate gesture that speaks of her developing trust. “Trust him. He’ll figure it out. Now, it may be three in the morning, but there is no time for sleep. Let’s get you caught up on everything you need to know regarding the state of the world.”

Ch7.56 Revelations

Sky’s head erupts from the water of the pool, his shaggy hair slicked against his skull. He looks around warily at the chamber as multicolored glimmers fade and and then releases his breath with a snort. He swims to the edge of the mysterious pool and, placing his hands flat on the floor of the chamber, lifts himself out of it with a loud rush of water.

Standing, his steel-mesh-reinforced leather jacket still heavily dripping, he notes the rubble-plugged passageway through which he entered moments before. Then he sees the debris on the floor under a smaller hole in the wall that did not exist when he fell into the pool. From the looks of it, someone dug into this chamber from the outside. There are marks of bare footprints in the dust. Someone with quite large feet.

Thoughts of feet bring to mind the fact that his own feet are aswim in his water-filled boots. Sky leans against a wall and pulls up a trouser leg, then unsheathes a combat dagger from the boot. Setting it aside, he pulls off the boot and dumps out the water, then does the same with the left boot, though there is no knife in this one. He grimaces at his wet socks, pulling them off and squeezing them out. By adding a little of his sea-deity magic to the effort, he gets them nearly dry. 

About to put them back on, he pauses, looking at those footprints near the hole. Then he looks at the blocked tunnel he came in by. 

There are no bootprints leading to the pool.

He looks again at the footprints and walks over to them. He picks one, the clearest one in the dust, and turns to align himself with it. He carefully places his own wet foot next to it, then steps away.

The new, damp footprint is a perfect match.

“Oookayyy,” he breathes, falling back on an old slang-word from Earth.

神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎

He tries to move quietly. But he cannot completely avoid the scrape and crunch of the many chips of stone on the rough floor of this long, narrow chamber that smells of stone freshly ripped apart. He can see the claw marks on the walls, and they are familiar. He even finds, in one long scratch in the stone, a broken-off talon. He pulls it out and examines it. Red-black, the same shape and size as his own. 

Did Hell make two of me? I have always known it was possible, even likely, that many minor devils like myself were created to infiltrate Urbian society, but so far this one seems like a copy. But that theory falls apart on closer analysis. The human-shaped body he wears was acquired after he betrayed Hell and fled the Insula for Earth. But feet as large as his are rare, even among gods.

There is light at the end of the chamber, and a dog begins barking. A small dog or puppy, probably reacting to the sound of his boots on the broken debris. And a feminine voice, saying, “See, Pharaoh? I told you Daddy would be back soon.”

Sky takes a deep breath and enters the light. The first thing he fixes on is the beautiful goddess who is placing a white cardboard box of the type that tends to hold baked goods on a wooden table in the middle of the room. She has long snowy hair and flawless pale skin, and is clad in a lovely indigo outfit that manages to be elegant, alluring, and at the same time practical for combat. Like him, she wears a sword on her hip, though his is shorter and broader than her long, slender blade. Next to her is an excited puppy of two to three months of age. Sky immediately thinks ‘Alsatian,’ from the general outline, muzzle shape, and distinctive brown-and-black coloration. He had a dog like that once, on Earth. But though he longs to pet the dog, he gives most of his attention to the goddess. 

“See, there he is–” She smiles at him and for a moment he feels as if he has met a dear friend after long separation, so bright and affectionate the smile is. But the smile fades as she studies him with narrowed eyes, her strange mottled pearlescent eyes. He is not who she thought he was, he can see that in her face. And he knows how she feels, for until he saw her eyes, he could have sworn at first glance that this was the Lady Alma, that silly high-society political wife, who talked him into this foolish mission to investigate the grotto.

He studies her as she studies him, her face growing cold and cautious, her back straightening and her hand flexing, ready to reach across and draw her sword. Her stance, her toned muscles, her expression and her general aura tell him that this is not the same goddess he left back at the station an hour ago. This one knows how to fight. Not only that, she knows how to kill. 

She is taller and more mature in every way. And older sister? Mother? Aunt? And she is looking at him as if he has murdered her best friend.

Over the sound of the pup’s accusatory barks, Sky asks, “What…is going on?” 

“I could ask you the same thing,” this stranger says. The swirling colors of her eyes to a shadowy undertone as the air seems to become charged with the energies of death around her. “I have heard of clones, but whoever made you is not yet good enough to fool me. Not when I was just here two days ago.”

He stands, relaxed but weight on the balls of his feet so he can move quickly. He just looks at her for a moment, gauging how close she is to killing him. Then he looks down at the dog – this must be the Pharaoh she was talking to earlier, whose barking is growing even more angry. And I am Daddy to this dog? “Your dog doesn’t seem to like me, either.”

“He is not mine.” Alma doesn’t take her eyes off his. “And he is not being fooled into recognizing you as his master, either. Where is Sky?”

Sky blinks, confused. As strange as all this seems, he feels sure the truth, when it comes out, will be even stranger. And if she knows a Sky, then perhaps she is no aunt after all. “There appears to be some sort of mixup. I am Tuma-Sukai. Some people call me Sky, but I had no idea you would do so…Lady Alma, is it?”

“It is Acting Inspector now,” she replies, her voice tight. “And Sky would not address me by title or rank. Which begs the question…” The shadows around her grow and spread like dark wings to hide the exits from the chamber, the one to the claw-hewn place he just emerged from, and the curtained one behind her. She reaches across her waist and places a hand on her sword hilt. “Who are you and what have you done to Sky?”

He meets her eyes, then looks pointedly at her hand, to make clear he knows where it is and to show it does not worry him. It does, but there is no good letting her know that. Then he raises his eyes to hers again, holding it for a moment. Then acting as if all is normal, he glances to his right and takes a seat on a polished bench carved out of the wall. “Well…it seems I am your prisoner, Acting Inspector Alma. Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question, as I am Sky and, if I have somehow replaced him, no one has told me about it. But I will do my best to answer all questions.”

“Pharaoh, stay.” At her words the barking stops and the young dog sits. Sky raises his eyebrows a little in approval of her skill – he knows well that training a puppy of that age so well is not easy. Pharaoh looks up at her, head cocked. Alma moves closer, slowly, still very much ready, though by sitting and rendering himself unable to move quickly, he has lowered the threat to her. De-escalation, they call it at the Academy. “How do you know me?” she demands.

He hesitates only a moment. He is the one being interrogated, it is true, but one can learn a lot from being interrogated. The questions asked, the body language, the things the interrogator will let slip, explicitly or by inference. But to make it work, he will have to answer at least some of her questions. Seeing how she reacts to the answers should prove interesting. 

“I was assigned to protect Lady Alma and her husband, Senator Gwydion, and their children. With the assassination of Archon Math, it seemed prudent to take them into hiding, so we brought them here, to Three Rats.” He does not mention where in Three Rats. The fact they are in this ward will be obvious, so no point in hiding it.

“Lady Alma?” The Acting Inspector looks at him in confusion. “And her…husband…the Senator?”

Sky nods, watching her face. “And their three daughters and infant son.”

Alma blinks, much as he did a moment before. Her hand moves away from the sword but she remains standing. “And who are ‘we’ in your story?”

“Oh, that would be myself and Sergeant Somrak,” he says, his voice casual but his eyes alert. He smiles a little, thinking, Somrak would like this one so much more than the other one. “Do you know him?”

“I do. And he would be laughing at the thought of my fleeing for safety to a crime-ridden ward such as this one under his protection.” She reaches back with a foot and, the legs scraping across the stone floor, pulls a wooden chair closer to take a seat opposite him. “And who is trying to kill me this time, pray tell?”

“Well…that I’m not certain of,” Sky says, relaxing further as this Alma de-escalates things on her side. “The Commander’s briefing didn’t include that. But from the way things have been going, in the news reports and in other rumors…I suspect an Archon named Nekh.” He sees her eyes widen, and if her face were not already so pale and deathly from the activation of her sphere, he is sure it would have become whiter. But wasn’t Lady Alma full of Life energy? “Ah. You have heard of him, too.”

“You could say that, yes,” Alma says. “Though he would have to reach all the way from the spectral realms to kill me.”

It is his turn for his eyebrows to go up. At this rate, his forehead will become one enormous muscle from all the surprises this day. “You mean Nekh is dead? When…?”

“When I killed him,” Alma says, deadpan. “After he tried to do the same to my seven children.”

After a moment to take that in, Sky says, “You…killed an Archon.” He looks her over and revises his initial assessment of the impossibility of that. “Well…maybe you’re something like a werewolf. You were bitten by a bigger, stronger version of yourself, and you just switch back and forth.” He sees her brow wrinkle at that, so he expands on it to explain. “You see, the Lady Alma I have come to know, on rather short acquaintance I have to admit, would faint at the very thought of killing a chicken for dinner, let alone an Archon.”

“The Sky I know was tortured to within an inch of insanity, and his soul, much unlike yours, is very much ripped to shreds…” She tilts her head to lend emphasis to the next word, “…Azzageddi.”

He feels his heart go cold, and his face, which he was trying to maintain as affable, become as stone. He feels the black tattoos coming to the surface, the first time in three years that he has lost control of his emotions this much. But this is his true name, knowledge of which gives power to those who know how to use it. After a moment, he says in a cold, strained voice, “That name…is not meant to be said aloud. Would you tell me how you came to know it?”

“Sky is one of my closest friends,” Alma says with a nonchalant shrug. “It is a secret we share. And considering what I and others have gone through to rescue him from the necromancer he sent to Hell when he first came into this world, I am truly torn as to what to do about an impostor like you.” 

Necromancer I sent to Hell? Does she mean…Nua? It took him a moment to retrieve that name from two centuries ago. And something happened to this other Sky. Torture? From the necromancer? “He sounds like someone I should get to know,” Sky says, keeping his voice level. “I was sent to these caves by a smaller, meeker Lady Alma, who as I said is my assignment to protect, along with her family. She had a dream. She told me that a voice in her dream revealed to her that there is something in these caves that will save her, save all of them. She was very convincing. I elected to go, and I discovered a pool, back there.” He indicates the rough-hewn chamber with his head. “The pool began to glow as I looked into it. The next thing I knew, I was in the water. I’m not sure how. I sank as if it were bottomless, and swam up…and then come into here.” He indicates the chamber. “This chamber. It’s mine, isn’t it? I mean, your Sky’s.”

Alma nods and gets up, turning and walking toward the table. “He lost his ability to shapeshift at will after the torture. He has been staying here to heal and he is nearly ready to return home, I hope. At least he looks that way, even if he does not trust himself to do so yet.” From her voice, he can tell she is protective of him. Worried for him. He almost laughs at the thought that someone in this world would worry about him. “Pharaoh is his companion. We brought him here to aid Sky in his recovery.” She picks up the white box, draws an inward-curved dagger that looks as if it is made of a tooth or claw, and cuts the string before returning to Sky’s side to hold the box out in offering. He looks in and sees it is filled with chocolate eclairs. “Sky’s favorite. From a local bakery. I am guessing you were never sent to serve in Three Rats as Inspector or even met the Oracle who lives in this grotto, then?” 

He looks up from the pastries in shock at the mention of the rank. Definitely going to have a huge Neanderthalic forehead before this mission is done. To give himself time to think of his answer, he takes an eclair from the box and, after admiring its beauty, bites into it. As he chews, he says, “Me, an inspector? That’s even more difficult to believe than the Senator’s wife killing an archon. Oh…this tastes good. Well, in my exploration of this grotto I found no one living other than you and little Pharaoh. Oh, except for a ghost, I think. Some water spirit. Perhaps her bones have not been properly laid to rest. She flitted before me, leading me to the pool. I cannot say if she was friend or foe.”

Alma’s eyes narrow at the report of the ghost. “I see.” She sits down across from him again, the dark aura that was surrounding her subsiding, though Sky is under no illusion that she is ready to leap into action if he makes a suspicious move. “Well, considering how little interest Gwydion has in politics, thinking of him as a Senator is just as strange to me. And you say we had four children together? I assume they all have long ears and fluffy tails?”

“Three of them,” he confirms. “The adults. Um, Rosemary, Cherish, and May.” He sees her look of surprise at the names – or only the middle one? “They seem to be mortals. The baby boy is a god, however.”

That last intensifies her surprise to jawdropping shock. “A godling child? How old?”

“Maybe two?” Sky answers, uncertain. Godlings can age at such variable rates. Some gods can tell at a glance how old a god-babe is, but Sky only knows that the infant is at least a little older than he looks. He could be as old as his mortal sisters, for all Sky knows, but if he were a human babe, he would not yet be a year old. “I have more experience with human babies than divine ones.”

Alma shakes her head in astonishment. “I haven’t known Gwydion for a year, even. And Nekh is still alive? Math is…” she looks at him in disbelief. “Dead? Something about this world of yours must be fundamentally different from mine.”

Sky shrugs. “Your daughters all call him Daddy, so I assumed the two of you have been together at least twenty years. And yes, things seem quite different. At first I thought you were some sort of shapeshifter, perhaps something like, well, myself. That simply doesn’t add up, though. It seems as if we are talking about two different worlds. Two…timelines. And with all the torturing here and assassinations there, I’m not sure which is worse. But if your Sky is stuck in my world…I wouldn’t want to leave him there.”

“I would rather have him back, if it’s all the same to you.” Alma looks as if she is considering what to do next. After a moment, she stands. “Your handcuff keys. Give them to me.”

He looks at her outthrust hand, then sighs. He reaches into a jacket pocket and pulls out a ring of four keys, one of which is for Guardia shackles. He places them in her palm. “Are you going to take me prisoner after all?”

“I am going to ask a few questions to a few people and probably bring you some visitors to hear your tale,” Alma explains, pocketing his keys. “Sadly, the Oracle is away in the First Ring but you might want to meet your dead naiad. And my Gwydion. The Hammer of Devils Dei Sergeant.” She pulls out a pair of Guardia handcuffs. “And since you will have to forcibly stay here, I just want to make sure that this is where you will stay until I return with him.”

Sky groans. He hates being bound – even more than most people do. It goes against his nature. “Come on! I promise I’ll stay put. I don’t intend to go anywhere, and I’d be more comfortable unbound and with my mana flowing properly. Besides…what if a cave bear attacks me while you’re gone?”

Alma snorts. “Knowing you, I’d come back and find you with a bearskin rug to decorate your little den here. But while the Sky I know has sworn the Adamantine Vow to me, I rather doubt it applies to your soul as well.”

“The Adamantine Vow…” He shakes his head. This other Sky is incredibly trusting. He has friends. He’s an Inspector. In a station! And he makes the Adamantine Vow to gorgeous death goddesses. And it is only just sinking in what she said about Gwydion being the Hammer of Devils. So much to ask…but not now. “Very well. Let me get comfortable, anyway. And could I get some coffee for these pastries? You are going to leave them, right? It would be inhumane to take them away at this point.”

“I am most definitely not human.” Alma teases. “But I will have Doria bring you some coffee. And take Pharaoh away to where he will be more comfortable as well. After, of course, you give me the spare key sewn into the waistband of your trousers.”

Sky closes his eyes. He had been planning to unlock the shackles with that key as soon as she was gone and go out scouting. He glares at her.

“My Sky always kept one hidden away,” she says. “If you hand it over now, I’ll shackle your wrists in front of you rather than behind, making it easier for you to eat. And sparing you the indignity of stripping you to your undergarments.” She raises an eyebrow. “You are wearing underwear, aren’t you?”

Sky sighs and uses his thumb to pop a couple of stitches on the inside of his belt line. He fishes the key out and hands it over. “I’m not particularly keen on showing you my boxers. They were a joke gift from my partner.”

Alma’s aura activates again, but so very differently this time. Her skin gains color and a fresh spring breeze blows through the air, bringing hints of birdsong and sandalwood. And from a crack in the wall, thick, tough vines grow, looping out and back. Seeing how impressed he is, she gives him a little smile, but still locks a shackle around his left wrist, puts the other end through the root, and then shackles his other wrist. Sky immediately feels his mana almost…congeal. He cannot use his powers, now. 

“Out of curiosity…are they the ones with the yellow ducklings in rubber floaters?” Alma asks after she clicks her tongue at Pharaoh, who pops up from his seated position, ready to follow.

“Little bears on unicycles,” he says. “Juggling hearts.”

She chuckles. “Classic Somrak. Sit tight. I will be back soon.”

“Feel free to bring more pastries,” he calls after her, as she and the little dog depart.

Ch7.48 Revelations

“Hello there!”

Doria’s voice is at the entrance, on the other side of the privacy curtain that Sky hung up a few days previously. The nature of the tunnel opening into his living chamber doesn’t really make installing a door practical – it could be done, but it would take considerable work and materials. Instead, from a bolt of bright-patterned cloth, a bamboo pole, and some hempen cord, Sky fashioned a little screen that now hangs over the opening. And he can see Doria’s shape silhouetted against it.

“Come in – Pharaoh!” The puppy, who Sky was drying after a bath, wriggles free from the towel and bounces toward Doria. The naiad priestess flings the curtain open, both hands flipping aside the two halves where it is split down the middle, and she goes, “Rarr!” at the little dog, her hands held up like the claws of a werewolf. This is all the more comical as she is wearing a purple swimsuit today, a bikini, quite different from her usual simple but flattering one-piece. The more-revealing outfit makes it even clearer how muscular her body is, particularly her back and shoulders. Pharaoh skids to a halt and crouches, butt in the air, barking at her with his tail wagging. Doria pounces and catches him, cuddling him as he licks her face.

“He still still has a lot to learn about obeying,” Sky says as he rises, “but at least he’s not wandering out of the chamber anymore. What’s up?”

“You were in the bath washing this little cutie when Dion arrived,” Doria says. “I sent him ahead to meet Pak.” She kisses the top of Pharaoh’s head with a big squeaking smooch, which makes the puppy’s ears go back and his eyes narrow.

Sky laughs at Pharaoh’s expression. “Is it that time already? It’s so easy to lose track down here.”

“Well that’s why you need this training,” Doria says, patting Sky’s chest. Her hand, with webbed fingers, leaves droplets of water behind. “Go on now. I’ll take care of Pharaoh.”

“All right, but he needs to dry off.” Sky doesn’t want to come right out and say that Doria, whose naiad skin is constantly wet, is dampening the little dog’s fur right after being dried.

“I’ll throw his ball for him!” She rolls her eyes. “He’ll dry off from running around! Now go on, don’t keep Dion waiting.”

After cuddling and kissing Pharaoh’s head, Sky grabs a t-shirt off the back of a chair and exits, pulling it on as he goes down the tunnel. The shirt goes along with his white cotton pants – cheap, disposable clothing in case he shapeshifts accidentally. He is continuing to improve, however, adapting to Pak’s techniques, and as he turns down a side tunnel, he feels his eyes change. The chthonic darkness is no barrier to eyes adapted to the ocean-floors of Hell.

This has become a common route for him, to a chamber deep enough and large enough for the sort of training that Pak has had him doing. When he reaches a tight spot in the downward-spiraling passage, he absently notes how he can slip through it more easily than once he might have. Doria has been chiding him for being skin and bones, and it is true, he has lost weight. The form he wears fit the ideal of male beauty in the culture this god ruled over: tall, broad, powerfully built, but lacking the muscular definition that so many male gods here on the Insula, such as Gwydion and Somrak, seem to favor. To be honest, beside them, he looked just a little…pudgy. But now he is tending toward that more popular look as fat is melting away. He simply seems to have little appetite. But he knows, from long experience, that the false form he wears always tends to reassert itself over time. Whether he takes up beer and ice cream again or not, he will return to his former appearance soon after he starts eating normally.

Soon after there is light ahead, and voices. The tunnel opens up, the chamber shaped to Sky’s mind like a stomach coming out of a twisted esophagus, complete with a pool of milky, mineral-thickened water in the center, inhabited by tiny glassine fish and albino trilobites. Dion, dressed in the standard Guardia exercise uniform of blue shirt and shorts, is saying, “–it is my honor to rely on your experience, Grandmaster Pak.”

“Ever the polite student,” the gnomic Pak says in a dry voice. “And here is the other, late. Tuma-Sukai, it is time to take your training to the next level, and you keep us waiting. Probably playing with the silly dog.”

“The silly dog that you always bring treats for, Master” Sky says. “Hello, Dion.”

Gwydion turns to him and gives him a look over, his face becoming concerned. “Oh, Sky…have you been sleeping?”

Sky grimaces. He can feel the background exhaustion of near-sleepless nights, the low-level pain behind his eyeballs, the slight tremor in his hand. “Nightmares,” he says by way of explanation. But he sees the shadows under Gywdion’s eyes.

“I have learned some sleeping spells recently,” Dion says. “You wouldn’t want to use them too often but if you need a quiet night…”

“I may need that. But why have you been learning them? Having trouble yourself?” Sky knows the answer, and feels a stab of guilt, because Dion’s nightmares are the result of the trauma he went through in rescuing Sky.

Dion looks away from him and takes a deep breath. “Sometimes. Not always me. Just the need to go back to sleep after a dream. Especially when our shifts have us waking alone.” He seems a little shy at this – perhaps he still isn’t sure that Pak knows about his relationship with Alma.

Feeling miserable at the pain he is responsible for, Sky says, “I will try to return soon. I still have accidental changes, but…I am improving.”

“Both of you need more training.” Pak’s voice is firm. “Tuma-Sukai, you still need to develop true control over your form, so that you can use it as you were always meant to, but nevertheless keep your origins secret, until the day that is no longer necessary. While you, Gwydion, have no one to teach you how to use your sphere. Except, coincidentally, me. And Tuma-Sukai.”

Dion looks from Pak to Sky, an inquiring eyebrow lifted. Sky feels his nervous anticipation.

“Come,” Pak says. “Let us get you both so tired you will sleep like small children with terrible nightmares tonight.” Pak pauses and shakes his head. “That didn’t come out right. Still, you shall be sparring with each other. Because you are both capable of hurting each other, I am here to prevent serious damage. Gwydion, your sphere is meant to kill opponents like Tuma-Sukai. So this will be good training for you both.”

Sky feels alarmed, and Dion looks concerned. “Yes, Teacher. However…is this the best time? We are still recovering and–”

“It is the perfect time, Gwydion. Your wounds are of the soul more than any other. And it is the soul to which you give focus and purpose. That is how you heal.”

With a rigid nod, Dion says, “Very well, Teacher. I fully trust your judgement.” He gives Sky a look of empathy.

Feeling forlorn, Sky gives Dion a nod but says, “Teacher…I fear I may hurt him.”

“You probably will,” Pak says, grim. “And he you. Fear not. I have brought along ways of healing. And I will stop you both before things go too far.”

神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎

Sparring is not something Sky has ever enjoyed. He knows it is necessary for training. Practicing forms, footwork, shadow-boxing, semi-controlled randori fighting, and so on have their place, but full-on sparring, just one step short of a real fight, is unavoidable for someone who is more than just a hobbyist, a dabbler, but someone who is going to use combat skills in life-or-death situations.

It is under the stress of such near-real fighting that brings to the surface the Hell-derived instincts and the rage spawned by what seems like eons of torture. Sky tries to bury these things deep, but have they ever really been buried very deep? They are even closer to the surface now, after his treatment at the hands of Nua, the necromancer-turned-diabolist who summoned him to this world two centuries ago. They are so close that they break through at the slightest disturbance. And even at normal times, Sky has always feared losing control. It is his greatest fear, hurting a friend, a fear so great that he has spent the past forty years trying not to have any friends.

He feels fortunate in having failed.

But now he is facing off against one of his closest friends, a brother in all but blood. His relationship with Gwydion was rocky at first, but Sky would readily admit that he loves the charming Sergeant, fiercely loves him despite some less-savory attitudes that Gwydion has displayed in the past. He would surrender his life to save Dion’s without hesitation, not only because Gwydion has himself laid his life on the line for Sky. Dion is dearly loved by Alma and by the Bunnies, but more than that, Sky has come to see the sad beauty that Dion hides behind his façade, the kindness and bravery there, and the wounds that he has suffered. There is a kinship that Sky never expected to find when they first met.

He does not want to hurt Gwydion. And he knows that the only way to use this fight in a constructive way is to try to hurt him, because Gwydion will certainly be trying to hurt Sky. Gwydion is the Devil Hammer. His recently discovered sphere, which he still has little control over, is likely to take control. It wants to kill Sky – that is its nature. It will be a powerful weapon against Hell, and Sky is glad to have it on their side, but he feels sorry for Dion. It cannot be an easy thing to have such a raging beast within. Being a raging beast himself, Sky can only empathize.

Sky strips his shirt off, though he keeps the pants on in a futile hope that he will not shapechange. Should have brought an extra pair, he thinks as he tosses the shirt to the side, away from the pool. He circles the pool, Dion across the chamber from his, on the other side, circling as well.

Even from this far away, in the dim phosphorescence of the chamber, Sky can see the grim expression on Dion’s face. He knows that despite Dion’s fraternal feelings for him, the fact that Sky is a devil makes him Dion’s natural enemy. Dion has admitted that he must constantly resist a background urge to attack Sky, even when things are peaceful and friendly. The conflict of love and hate must be giving him just as much stress as it is giving Sky. Would Pak command them to do this if he realized how much this is hurting them even before the first blow?

Probably.

And Pak is right. They need to learn to control their abilities. Dion needs to learn what his sphere can do, obviously, and how to master its power as well, while Sky…he has only recently come to think of this new, fluid ability to shapeshift as anything but a disability. What would he not give to be just in this human-shaped form, forever, unable to change? But that is not his reality. His body tries to shift and slither, and keeping his shape is like pressing down on a slippery-shelled centipede, writhing and biting and ready to shoot out from under like a watermelon seed. He must learn to be one with it, to control it. He must.

Sky stops circling, letting Dion close the distance. His friend approaches, eyes flashing gold, and Dion suddenly slides forward and strikes, a straightforward punch at Sky’s chest. No feint, no trickery, just a well-executed punch at perhaps Sky’s least-vulnerable spot. With no mana behind it, even if Sky failed to block it, it wouldn’t have hurt.

Blocking it is easy. Sky intercepts the blow with his forearm, turning it aside to bring it off the line of attack, and he counterpunches, going for a kidney blow. Also, quite basic, and countered with a basic block paired with a little footwork. This is the kind of thing Pak might have taught on the very first day to a new student, if Pak taught beginners, which he does not. Sky doesn’t look over, but he imagines Pak rolling his eyes at this childish play.

The strikes come fast after that, progressing upward in difficulty and skill. Sky finds himself smiling, and is happy to see Dion’s smile back, as they test each other, looking for flaws. Sky takes pleasure in countering the different styles that Dion knows, barely stopping some of the trickier moves, and he shows that despite his size and bulk, Sky is not slow or unskilled himself. He is not quite as blindingly fast as Dion, nor is his technique quite as subtle or varied, but he makes up for it with considerably greater strength and reach – though that comes paired with a size that makes him a huge target. Sky’s nervousness fades in this brotherly testing of skills.

But then Dion snakes in a strike at Sky’s eye, his fingers extended, compressed together like the head of a spear. It is so fast that it hits, and if Sky had not lowered his chin just enough, it would have tagged him right in the eye. As it is, the concussive force echoes through his skull from the impact point in the middle of his left eyebrow, and when Sky’s arm sweeps Dion’s aside – too late – he hears Dion hiss in pain.

Staggering back, Sky looks at his outstretched arm. It is red-black, swollen with alien muscle, three sharp spikes projecting from the ulna. One of them glistens with blood.

Sky looks across the short distance that separates him from Dion. His friend, his Sergeant, his partner, his brother, cradling his bleeding right arm with his left, and glowering at Sky. The eyes flashing gold again, the mandala-like golden halo manifesting around his head, spinning with images of devils being slain. It is not the same gold as before, but gold tinged with red. Dion’s shoulders bunch, his teeth clench, the latissimus muscles of his back spreading like a cobra’s hood.

And Sky’s vision blurs as blood from his split eyebrow flows into his left eye. As it closes, Dion leaps, not directly at him but to his left, taking advantage of the momentary blindness. He lands another blow, this one more power than precision, hitting Sky’s ribcage like a sledgehammer. It knocks him off his feet, slamming him to the ground two body-lengths away, and Sky can feel the familiar stabbing pain of at least one broken rib – maybe three.

He looks up to see Dion hesitating for a moment, unsure about what he has just done. But Sky feels his body responding to the presence of the Devil Hammer. It is not only Dion who has something in him that sees Sky as a natural enemy. Gwydion has within him something that Sky’s instincts scream to destroy.

Sky launches himself at Dion, hoof-tipped muscled legs propelling his suddenly massive bulk across the space in an instant. The growth of his body is part of the energy behind the leap, like a spring expanding, and though Dion turns out of the path, Sky nevertheless hits him a glancing blow that spins the smaller god and sends him tumbling. Sky spins in midair and lands in a shrieking, grinding scrape, his hooves and claws scoring deep grooves in the soft stone of the floor.

Gwydion is up again in an instant, however. Some shield, provided by his sphere or by a spell, has absorbed most of the damage, and though his hair is mussed, he seems unharmed.

A part of Sky that has been screaming at him to stop this comes back in control. What are you doing? If his defenses hadn’t been up, you’d have killed him! That’s your friend! Your brother! That is the god Alma loves!

But while Sky is frozen as reason reasserts itself over instinct, Dion’s hesitation is gone. Before Sky can move, Dion charges, faster than Sky has ever seen him. His fist, wrapped in a red-golden flare that dazzles Sky’s eyes, slams into Sky’s side with the force of a rhinoceros, right into the same spot Dion hit before. Regardless of Sky’s much greater mass, it is he who flies back, away from Dion, crashing into a thick stalagmite, breaking it off and cracking a few of his own bones with it. He has just a moment to think, absurdly, At least I’m evened out on each side, before Dion is on him again, raining blows.

Sky retreats. He roars, trying to stun Dion. He lashes his tail, trying to trip him. He spreads his wings, summoning a thick darkness like that floats in the air like the ink of an octopus floating in water. None of it avails him. Dion’s ears seem protected from a roar that can cause heart failure in small mammals. His feet move with a nimble surety past any obstacle. His glowing eyes see past any darkness.

If Sky could bring himself to attack Dion with everything he has, he might just have a chance, despite his injuries. But he can’t. He just cannot unleash his full force on Dion. Images flash in his mind, of Dion proclaiming his intention to protect Alma’s Bunnies even if it means refusing orders, of Dion appearing with Alma just in the nick of time to defeat the demon in the warehouse, of Dion cradling Alma in Margrave’s lair. Dion smiling at him as he and Alma give him Pharaoh.

The train of distracting thoughts are broken as Dion’s aura grows brighter, larger. Sky can read the words forming in it, words written in the same script as those that sometimes appear on Sky’s own skin. Poems of death to all devils, to all demons, to all spawn of Hell. Sky can see the dragons in Dion’s aura, dragons that bring destruction to Hell.

Sky sees his own ending. He raises an arm to ward it off.

The blow fills his vision with red-gold light. And then nothing.

神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎

He awakes to pain, near-blinding pain, but also the sense of bones and flesh knitting back together. It is not like Alma’s healing, which, if done in haste, can be painful but which is usually an intense but ultimately pleasurable sensation. Nor is it like Lyria’s, a more powerful but more refined healing as to be expected from a goddess so much older and more specialized in channelling the magic of Life.

This healing feels almost as if he is being welded back together, sparks of fire burning through him. Sky roars and claws at the ground. But the healing is fast and effective. It is over in seconds and once it is done Sky finds himself blinking in surprise. Even Lyria cannot heal him with quite such speed. The session itself might last the same brief time, but he would be days if not weeks recovering from Dion’s hammering blows. He can feel now something he was too dazed to notice before: Dion’s last blow had been no mere punch, but had blasted a crater of muscle out of his chest. He can feel the ghost of the terrible wound. But it is all healed now.

Something about Pak’s healing energy felt familiar, but it all happened so fast. Sky, ever prone to finding himself in battle, has been healed by dozens of gods and wizards and priests and magical beings over the years, a few of whom used methods best described as “unique.” He knows he has felt this sort of energy before, but where and when does not immediately come to mind.

His wonderment is pushed to the side as he hears Dion gasping for breath. “Back with us?” Pak asks. “You will learn to control your sphere, not let your sphere control you.” Sky realizes Pak is talking to Gwydion. He focuses and sees Dion wheezing, one arm across his belly, bent in a way that makes Sky instantly assume he’s received a strong blow there. Pak is holding his cane, from which smoke smolders as if the cane has just been thrust for a moment into flames.

Gwydion swallows and sinks to his knees, controlled, sitting on his heels. “Forgive my loss of control, Master Pak. And Sky… I’m sorry, Sky. I don’t… I did not intend for that to happen.”

Still between them, Pak replies, “You are the Devil’s Bane, Gwydion. Your sphere hates all things of Hell. It is its nature. But a god ruled by his sphere is far weaker than one who rules his sphere. This is the beginning of that path. As for Tuma-Sukai,” He looks over Sky. “…all fine now.”

“Yessss…” Sky groans in that abyssal voice he has when in this form. “Fine…”

Dion lowers his eyes in shame, as if he knows that though healed, Sky is still far from fine. He shakes his head slowly. His hands grip his thighs as if to keep him from leaping against Sky again.

Sky rises, pausing to find his balance. He focuses his mind, and soon – so much faster than he once could – returns himself to human form. The ragged remains of his pants slide off his right leg to the floor. “I am all right,” he says to Dion, keeping his voice gentle, though it is still rough from roaring. “And I am happy.”

Dion looks up surprised, positively shocked. “Wh-Why?”

“I did not fully lose control. It is what I feared most. I have spent so long in control, only to lose it all. I was afraid I could never walk in daylight again, afraid I could not trust myself not to harm those I love. But even in the face of that, I did not completely lose myself in the red haze of battle lust. It gives me hope.”

But Dion looks down again, ashamed, unable to meet Sky’s eye. “No, you did not lose control. Instead, it was I who was blind. I couldn’t help it…” Dion’s shoulders slump. “I truly wanted to kill you. I’m not sure if this is a good idea at all.”

Sky puts a hand on Dion’s shoulder. “You will learn to master your sphere. You already do so, even now. It wants to kill me, doesn’t it? But you keep it quiescent. True mastery is later, but is this not the best way to find that? You must learn to fight those like me. And with me at your side.”

Sky sees Dion’s jaw muscles flex and knows that his touch is almost sending Dion over the edge. Sky lets his hand fall, and Dion says, “I don’t want to hurt you beyond repair. Or banish you to Hell.”

“Tuma-Sukai is too much of this world to be banished now,” Pak says, his voice ruminative. “Not fully god, but not fully devil.”

“What do you mean by that?” Dion asks, looking at Pak. “And what was that magic you used to break past my defenses?”

But Pak does not seem to hear either question. He looks at each of them sharply. “I have much to think upon. This was only observation. Both of you fight differently from before, so developing new techniques for each of you is needed. Do you wish healing, Gwydion?”

Dion hesitates, then shakes his head no, looking at Pak as if he wants to press for a more thorough answer.

“Very well. Three days to recover, and we meet here again.”

“As you wish, Master Pak. I will arrange for that free time with Alma and Machado.”

“I am at your disposal,” Sky murmurs, deciding as well that now is not the time to try to squeeze answers out of Pak.

“You might tell your death goddess that I am not so old that I forget how long it has been since I last saw her.” Pak gestures with his cane toward Dion to emphasize the point. “Like both of you, she has changed. She has new powers to learn how to use, and new ways of fighting to learn.” He looks at Sky, first up, then down. “And you need pants. I will let Doria know.” The god of martial arts makes his way out of the chamber, looking every bit the stereotypical little old master, moving slowly into the dark tunnel.

Sky watches him go, then says in undertone, “He avoided answering.”

“I noticed.” His voice is dry, and slightly bitter. “He never used that kind of power before. He barely uses magic at all and suddenly…”

Sky nods. “Well, I suppose it was needed in that case.” He pauses. Memories that have been gnawing at the edges of his consciousness like tiny fish become more emphatic. Sky adds, “That healing…it was not anything I’ve experienced before from a god. More like…”

Dion raises an eyebrow. “Like?”

Sky takes his time answering. “Before I left Hell – before I was summoned here, that is – I spent an unknown time being ‘trained’, which amounted mainly to being tortured. Healing a devil of the torture inflicted by demons and devils is not something ordinary divine healing can do much about. But there is another sort of healing, which they would do to me so I could be tortured further. It is fast, efficient, and another sort of torture on its own. And…the damage you inflicted is quite similar to that inflicted at times in Hell. Your sphere is in some ways infernal. The deadliest enemies always become more alike, so this is no surprise. And Pak’s healing… He knows a healing technique I had thought only known to Hell.

Dion looks at Sky, disturbed. “When he stepped between us, I did not see him as a god. My desire to attack him was as strong as the desire to attack you. Not just because he was in my way. Something about him… but by the time I regained control, I could no longer feel it.”

Sky struggles to find a good reason for it. “He is a collector of esoteric fighting styles. He must have learned those of Hell in order to fight demons all the better. And Hell has its own dark copies of the Devil’s Hammers, devils who devoted their existence to killing gods like you. You will need to learn to fight them.”

With a wry grin that does not hide his bitter self-recrimination, Dion replies, “I feel a little too old to be learning all this. I can’t help but think how much easier it would have been to go through this in my childhood, like most gods do.”

“I cannot fathom your uncle’s thinking in the matter,” Sky offers doubtfully, “but he thought it was to protect you, and perhaps he was right. Still, it is done.” He gives Dion a small smile. “And next time, I will fight back harder. If I can maintain control even when not completely defensive, that would be a good step forward.”

“At least it would be a bit more of a challenge,” Dion snorts. But despite his at humor, Sky can tell he is still angry at himself. “Well, I should get back. Alma was worried about this sudden summons for me to come here.”

“Don’t forget to tell her about Pak’s grumblings. And Dion…” Sky carefully reaches out and puts both his hands on Dion’s shoulders. “Please don’t be hard on yourself. There has been too much of that. We are both learning what we need to learn.”

Dion reaches across his chest and puts his right hand on Sky’s. He looks into Sky’s eyes. “Forgive, my friend. I hope it is not too painful a wound. Should Alma come see you?”

Sky shakes his head. “Of course I welcome her company, but you don’t need to tell her about the injury. She has so much to worry her already. And it is healed.” He rolls his shoulder to show he’s fine, and grimaces at the lingering stiffness. “It should be fine by our next training session. Just give her my love.” Sky almost hugs him, but then remembers he’s nude. He squeezes Dion’s shoulders and then releases him.

“I will. Stay well, Sky. It’s always good to see that you’re doing better each time I come here.”

Sky looks at Dion’s sad face, and gives him a pat on the shoulder. “You go ahead. If I go first you’ll have to be looking at my behind the whole way to the exit.”

“Better than looking at your front,” Dion grumbles with a smile and a shake of the head. “That’s it. I am enchanting a pair of pants for you tonight, so they’ll expand when you shapeshift.”

Sky smirks. “Magical pants. Now there is something you rarely hear about in legends about a god’s panoply.” He bows, his expression becoming more serious. “But I will be deeply grateful. As will everyone else, I am sure.”

Ch7.45 Revelations

“Busy?”

Gwydion looks up to see Alma is peeking into their shared office. Even though it is her office too, she always gives a little knock before entering, and he shows her the same courtesy in return. Why they do this, he’s not entirely sure. Perhaps, he thinks, it is because she grew up without privacy, in her father’s harem, a place which she has said had no doors.

He must have missed the knock, so deeply absorbed was he in the book of spells he is studying. Like all such tomes, it is a chore. One would think the old grimoirist would have heard of spaces or punctuation even seven hundred years ago. Not to mention the word games. Every spell in this one appears to be trapped with one step that, if performed, will cause spell failure and even potentially deadly backlash. The word games, which when solved identify the trapped step, are meant to prevent the less-clever wizard from using the spells for sinister purposes. As if cleverness equals an honorable and dutiful heart, Dion thinks with annoyance.

But Alma is here, and he closes the book and puts his hands, fingers laced, on top of it, as if telling himself that paying attention to Alma is what he is doing now, not studying. He knows he has a tendency towards obsession when it comes to study.

“Not really,” he says, in answer to her question. “It’s a slow night. Not even any paperwork.” He furrows his brow as she stays with only her head visible at the partially opened door. “And how are things out there?” He allows the meaning of ‘out there’ to remain ambiguous, either the streets from which Alma has just returned, or the hallway in which she is for some reason keeping her visually pleasing body so cruelly hidden from his eyes.

“Fortunately your sense is borne out by the reality of the streets.” She looks down at a little sound, like the soft whine of a complaining child, and shushes it. Then she looks back up, grinning a little nervously. “I…have someone I want you to meet.”

Dion gets up and rounds the desk. “Everything all right? Who’s come to visit?”

Looking as if she’s been caught in the midst of a minor crime, she says, “A… baby.”

This brings Dion to a screeching halt. He feels the blood drain from his face. Were we incautious? Was a Bunny born from nothingness when we last made love? A thousand thoughts rush and tumbled over and crash into one another: the anger of the Council, the responsibility of parenthood, the disappointment he will surely cause Alma if he tries to be a father, the certainty that the child will grow up to hate him. And buried beneath all them the gleaming golden desire to see it, to hold it, to try, try, try to do right by it. “A b-baby?”

Alma looks at him for a moment, then, realizing the reason for his consternation, she gives one of her characteristic snorts and laughs. “Oh no…not that type of baby.” She steps fully into the office, one arm cradling a blanket-covered, squirming object, and closes the door behind her. She tries to pull the blanket off a little, but the creature inside it uses its snout to flip the blanket up and reveal its furry black-and-brown face. “This is Pharaoh.”

Dion tilts his head at the little ball of fur. It tilts its head back, dark-brown eyes bright, ears like two perky triangles aimed in his direction, shiny black nose sniffing the air. Its paws, larger than he would expect in a creature so small, hang over Alma’s forearm. “It’s a…puppy. A very cute puppy.” It is cute. But he not quite sure what one is supposed to do with puppies, really. “Are you adopting…him?”

Alma smiles in that mischievous way she has when a playful mood comes over her. “Well, since my sanctum isn’t ready, I suppose we’ll have to keep him in your place… You don’t mind, do you?” She raises an eyebrow.

After a moment’s hesitation, Dion asks, “Is he housebroken?” He reaches out to pet Pharaoh’s head, but the dog dodges his hand and licks his palm. Ugh! Why would it do that? He flinches his hand away. “I don’t know the first thing about keeping or training pets. I’ve never had one.”

“Oh…poor Gwydion,” she says, sounding honest in her sympathy. “Well, I was only joking. This little sweetie,” she turns the puppy so his nose touches hers, “had a loving owner who passed away today. The owner had no family to take in a puppy, so I promised his soul I’d find Pharaoh a home.” She looks back at Dion. “And as tempted as I was to adopt him, I believe we know someone who needs him more.”

“Oh.” Dion is relieved he won’t have a puppy making smelly wet spots on his rugs or chewing on whatever puppies chew on or howling at two in the morning or…the other things that puppies get up to. “And who do we know who needs a puppy?” He is imagining she means one of the Bunnies. Is there a birthday coming up?

“Well.” Alma sits, and the moment her bottom settles on the cushions the puppy bounds off her lap and starts sniffing around the sofa with intense curiosity, his tail raised high and curled a little over his back. Alma allows him to do so, keeping a fraction of her attention on him. “Sky wants to come home. We want him to come home. And he’s improving but…he doesn’t really have anyone there, all day every day, to push him to maintain his form as long as he can. But if he has someone who needs him…” She strokes Pharaoh’s back as he jumps over her legs and explores the other side of the sofa, “someone that he needs to take care of…well, you know how Sky is. It’ll drive him forward.”

Dion crouches beside the sofa and attempts to pet Pharaoh again. This time the puppy is too focused on interesting new smells to attempt to intercept his incoming hand with a tongue. The fur of the puppy’s back is soft and warm. “True. Sky cannot really resist helping someone who needs it. But this little gentleman seems a bit young to be introduced to a…” He stops himself from saying ‘devil.’ Sky is his friend, and devils are the enemy of the Insula and are by definition the epitome of evil. Sky is not evil. Dion knows this in his heart. Sky may have started off as a devil, but there has been some change wrought over the course of his life, some alchemy of the heart that has made Sky into something unique. Still, he has seen Sky lose control. “I’m just afraid we might do Sky more harm than good if he inadvertently hurts Pharaoh during a crisis.”

“I truly don’t believe he will,” Alma says with a shake of her head. “I’ve looked through that photo album of his. You’ve seen the pictures, the children, even little babies in his arms. And the dogs. Seems like he was rarely without a dog in those days. I think it will ground him. And we can talk with him and Doria about it. He has enough time to recognize when a change is coming on, to hand Pharaoh over to Doria and go into that soundproofed cave.”

Dion chuckles as scratching the base up the puppy’s tail induces the little animal to raise his butt in the air, raising his snout as well in apparent pleasure. “He does seem quite welcoming of strangers.”

Uncle Math, Dion remembers suddenly, turned down the request for a dog when Dion expressed it at…when was it? He must have been about eight years old. A pet? Too much trouble, my boy. You have far more important things to think about. Besides, they die in only a few years. Dion starts to feel a little jealous of Sky.

“You should have seen him when I arrived,” Alma continues, her voice driving away the memory, to his relief. “Trotted up to me, barked once, then looked at me like he expected me to help, and then turned and led me to his owner.” She teases him by touching first one paw, then the other. He jerks each paw away at her touches, as if he’s annoyed by it, but his offended huffing almost-barks are as playful as her touches. Then he begins to squirm and bounces upright, lands with the paws splayed out, head down, rear high, his tail wagging. He barks loudly and high-pitched, leaving his mouth open to expose sharp white teeth.

“Uh oh… I think you made him angry,” Dion says.

Alma laughs as she pats the sofa, causing Pharaoh to try to slap her hands with his paws, as if trying to trap the tail of a rat. “No, he’s just playing. He was down about his owner, but once Pharaoh sensed that the man was at peace, he seemed happy to come along with me. Cheerful little tyke.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep him?” Dion asks, watching them play. A little hope rises in his heart at the thought. “You seem quite attached already.”

Alma keeps patting the surface of the sofa, making the puppy chase her hands. “Believe me, I’m very tempted. But we are already seeing a pet proliferation here. And I suspect Lexie might try to trick him into falling in the pool. A mature cat like her won’t take kindly to an excitable puppy.”

Dion assuages his disappointment with the knowledge that she is right. Besides, if Sky moves back here, Pharaoh will be around all the time. “Then perhaps we should take him to Sky as soon as possible. Maybe make the best of this slow night and sneak out.”

Alma looks up at Dion and sighs, as the puppy, looking almost shocked that she’s stopped playing, suddenly rolls over and starts writhing on the cushion, grunting as it scratches some itch on its back, or perhaps just enjoying the texture of the upholstery. “Yes, you’re right. Once the Bunnies meet him, it’ll be hard to give him to Sky. I can just hear Kori…” She shakes her head. “And we’d have to explain why – which, no matter what we say, would prompt a slew of questions. Just let me give him a proper examination for parasites…”

“Parasites?” Dion sits beside her, on the side without a puppy. Still, he can’t help but feel his skin crawl at the idea of fleas and worms. He casts a little cleansing spell on his hands. “Helping Sky this way, and respecting the owner’s wishes. This is a good thing you’re doing.”

“He was a kind old fellow,” Alma says. She lays the puppy on her lap, belly up, and puts her hands on his pink, hairless belly. The air smells like spring as she activates her life sphere. “Hmmm…” The smells and sounds of a green meadow increase for a moment, and the puppy looks astonished. “There. Just needed a little bit of deworming. Good to go.”

“Then so are we,” Dion says. “Oh…what do puppies eat?”

神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎

Visitors.

Sky grunts when he hears Doria’s welcome through the tunnels, and her squeal of delight at something. He checks his body. Is everything…normal? What is normal? he thinks. No wings, no horns, no tail. His skin is a healthy, human brown, not an almost-black crimson, though pale from living underground for weeks. Almost two months now.

But just checking his skin isn’t enough anymore, is it? Once, before Nua’s tortures, Sky would only be one shape or the other, Tuma-Sukai or Azzageddi, tall island god or hulking bewinged fiend.

In the intervening weeks, he has been trying to return to that stage, and he has had some success but…something is broken. Whatever it was within him that drew a thick, clear line between the two forms was destroyed by the damage inflicted on his soul by Nua’s godbound whip. Before, he did not have to concentrate to maintain his borrowed form. Now, it requires constant effort. Perhaps worse, parts of him change without warning. Wings try to erupt, talons grow. Sky has a recurring nightmare of talking to the Bunnies when horns come out of his skull, and they start screaming while he looks around in panic trying to see what is frightening them before he realizes it is him.

But for the past few days he has been receiving a visitor. Pak shows up without warning. It seems that he is one of a very few gods, perhaps the only one other than the Oracle herself, who can teleport into the Grotto outside of the one heavily secured receiving chamber. And the training from the ancient teacher is quite different from that Sky received back in his time at the Guardia Academy. There, Sky was taught to control and focus his rage, yes, but now Pak has been teaching him a different kind of control: not over combat, but over his own body.

“You have locked yourself into each form too tightly, Tuma-Sukai,” Pak told him. “And now that the lock is broken, you have no control at all. Rigidity will not aid you any longer. How ridiculous that a water god ever thought it would.”

“It was not a choice, Master Pak,” Sky argued. “It is how I am made.”

“Have you not overcome the way you were made in more profound ways already?” Pak shakes his head as if tired of the denseness of his student. “A devil who became a god? An agent of chaos who became Guardia? You are of the ocean! Not stone!”

And so Sky has been learning to flow. It has been the most frustrating training of his life. The frequency of random eruptions of his devil form has actually increased, and he has howled at how all his hard work, being able to hold his Sky-shape for hours at a time under strain, has been undone. He has cursed at Pak, barely stopped himself from attacking him.

But now, days later, he is beginning to see the results. The ability to remain fully ‘Sky’ is building up again, and when he does it, there is no strain. None. It is becoming natural. But still, there are those eruptions. Pak insists they will pass, but they upset Sky. They horrify him. What if it happened while he was embracing Cherry or Merri? What if it happened while playing with Tulip or Kori? Or…while kissing Mayumi? Making love to her?

The thought makes him want to vomit.

He shudders and shakes the thought off. He doesn’t need such things clouding his mind, darkening his mood. Not when Alma and Dion are visiting again. He can hear their voices as they approach. Unripped clothes on? Check. Yesterday Doria laughed at him for walking around oblivious that the light cotton trousers he was wearing had a gaping hole in the back from his tail. Despite his skill with a sewing kit, he’ll soon need to ask her to buy another dozen of them for him. There’s a bulk discount.

Alma enters with Dion just behind. They both have an anticipatory look to them, as if there is something they want to surprise Sky with. Dion, indeed, has a satchel over his shoulder, supporting it with a hand underneath, the top of some kind of packet poking out.

In greeting, Sky says, “Whatever that is, it made Doria squeal loud enough to hear from here.”

Alma goes to Sky and embraces him. As he enfolds her in his arms, her voice is amused. “It sounded like a good kind of squeal. She says she hasn’t seen this much cuteness in ages.”

“Cuteness?” Sky asks, looking down at her and then, releasing her, at Gwydion. He begins to worry at what this is all about.

“Oh, he is quite cute, I assure you,” Dion says. Something within the bag struggles and squirms, and the package crinkles audibly. “Ah, oops.” Dion asks Alma, “Shall I put him down?”

One of Alma’s arms is still around Sky’s waist. She looks up at him, hope in her eyes. “Not before Sky agrees to accept our little gift, I think.” It is almost a question.

“A gift?” Sky asks. “A pet? Um, I…I don’t know…” He stiffens, nervous.

“You need a friend to keep you company in your exile, Sky,” Alma says, giving him a friendly squeeze. “Look at you. You haven’t been eating enough. You’re practically skin and bones.”

“And your skin will soon be as pale as Alma’s,” Dion adds as he kneels. Whatever is in the bag wriggles, a snout poking at the rough cotton fabric from within. “This little fellow needs a good home. I am sure you two will do wonders for each other.”

“But I might…hurt him.” Sky’s anxiety is rocketing. He takes his hand off Alma’s shoulder because he can feel the tips of his fingers trying to transform into talons.

Alma nods at Dion, and the handsome Sergeant, laughing, allows a furry creature to erupt from the bag and stumble onto the floor, one of his forepaws slipping on the smooth stone surface so it falls onto its chin. Unfazed, he bounces back to stand on four feet, a black puppy with a brown mask around the bright eyes and the muzzle tipped by a wet nose. He gives himself a shake, the outsized ears flapping, the shake ending at the his rump, back legs lifting off the floor so much that he almost has another spill. But he recovers immediately and then looks at everything with intense curiosity, ears perked up, sniffing the air. He turns back to Alma and Dion and then starts snuffling along the floor, air moving in and out of that muzzle rapidly and loudly as he advances toward Sky to smell his bare feet.

“His name is Pharaoh,” Alma says.

But Sky barely hears her. Entranced more than nervous now, he sinks smoothly to sit on the floor, holding his hands out to let the puppy smell him. Pharaoh snuffles at his fingers, gives Sky’s hand a lick, then dodges Sky’s attempt to touch him. Sky does not try to touch him again, just letting the puppy walk in a circle around himself, then sit, ears perked up and eyes fixed on Sky, a quizzical expression of intense curiosity on his face, head tilted.

Sky feels a big smile growing on his face, something that has not happened so very often of late. He turns his hand palm up, lets Pharaoh sniff him again, then lightly scratches the puppy’s chin. “Hello there,” Sky says in a low voice. “And what do you see, hmm?”

He looks up at Alma and Dion, to see them smiling at his happiness, leaning against each other, Dion with an arm around Alma’s waist. “Where did you get him?” Sky asks.

“On my harvests. An old gentleman who had his only friend in little Pharaoh here, and whose only wish was for the puppy to find a good home. He seemed to believe that the puppy was quite special and from what we have seen, he is.”

“We debated keeping him at the station, but,” Dion says, “we came to the conclusion that this is where he should be. And he does seem to like you.”

Pharaoh is now tilting his head, using Sky’s moving fingers like a massage machine, so that they are scratching the back of one ear now. He is leaning into it. Sky looks at him, imagining what would happen if those fingertips turned to sharp talons. “I don’t want to scare him. I might change. I might lose control.”

The puppy suddenly spins in place and yaps a sharp bark. He crouches, looking at Sky, rump high, head low, his mouth open in a telltale position of playtime challenge.

Sky responds without thought, leaning forward and suddenly putting his hands on the floor, fingers spread, He gives Pharaoh a little playful growl, then moves his hands together, a little left, a little right, like a playful dog’s forepaws. The puppy follows suit, yapping again and panting loudly, like laughter.

Over the loud barks, Sky hears Alma say, “I think this is pretty much settled.”

“Here’s one bag of kibble,” Dion says, pulling the paper packet from the satchel. “I’ll take care of arranging food deliveries for the puppy. Oh, and I have something else.”

But Sky is too focused on play to reply just yet. Pharaoh jumps back with a whimper at a more sudden move, but then returns to the game, jumping toward Sky to try to bite him playfully on the arm. “Ooo, sharp little puppy teeth, eh?” Sky gently wrestles the little dog with one hand, play-growling, not minding that his thumb is being gnawed on. “I haven’t had a dog…any kind of pet, in so long. Haven’t…let myself.”

He closes his eyes against the tears that threaten to spill, and hangs his head, pulling Pharaoh into his lap, rubbing the puppy’s pink belly. Pharaoh grunts softly in pleasure at the belly rub, panting happily with his forepaws limp, relaxed.

Sky has most of his life been drifting from place to place, never staying more than a year or three in a single locale, and therefore not finding it easy to keep a pet of any sort. There were only three places he settled long enough where that could even be possible. In the first, the island where he took on the guise of a local god, he never really had a pet. There were pigs on the island, brought there centuries before by the first humans to arrive, and there were several fish and turtles that he, in his oceanic aspect, became acquainted with. One shark seemed to enjoy shadowing him as he swam the depths, but only because his hunting of fish provided the shark with opportunities.

And in Sky’s time in the Guardia, for so long, until arriving in Three Rats, he kept his emotions so shut down that he never really considered keeping an animal companion. His life was not, really, his own, even now but more so during his time with the off-blues. He felt he didn’t deserve to have such a pleasure. He was still, in a sense, in mourning – for his lost family, for his lost Earth. Joy was not a thing he allowed himself, and it only slipped into his life surreptitiously and rarely.

But it was during his decades on the farm on the Great Plains in America that he discovered what it was to have a dog. He was averse to it at first, just as he was averse to the thought of having children. To be sure, even falling in love with Laura had been something he had struggled against. But his resistance had broken the night he’d almost lost her, on one of their shared missions during the war, and after that he could no longer deny what he felt. They married and, when he could not bear to risk giving her a child – a half-devil child who could very well be a tragic monster – he and she adopted the orphans of the war, the waifs wandering the roads in search of safety. And they raised pigs and goats and chickens and cows, and cats came in search of the barn rats, and there were dogs. Lost puppies and old dogs whose owners could no longer care for them, wild dogs who forsook the wilderness and the whimpering offspring of carefully bred hunting dogs.

And Sky, whose great flaw, his mutation, the thing that made his an object of spite in Hell was empathy – the very thing that allowed him to live among gods and humans without being detected – had found that empathy go into overdrive with the animals of the farm, and perhaps most especially the dogs. There was always a dog, often several, looking to him with the eternal questions: Can we play? Is there food? What do you want me to do?

Just tell me what you want me to do, the dogs’ expression said. I’ll do it. I want to please you. I want to make you happy.

Alma and Dion move closer, Dion squatting, balanced on the balls of his feet to pet Pharaoh’s head, and the puppy stretches in Sky’s arms to lick Dion’s hand. Sky’s feels Alma’s fingers in his hair, stroking his scalp, then caressing down to cup his jaw, tilting his head up. Though he is sitting, she only needs to bend forward at the waist to touch her forehead to his. “I think Pharaoh just told us everything we needed to know about you.”

He murmurs, “It’s all hitting me so strongly. The farm. We had a dog looked just like this. He was lost. Followed one of the girls home. Already getting old, he was, but he took to us so strongly. Especially me. Slept against my leg.” Nuku, Sky had named him. The dog had loved him dearly, and Sky had returned it. He’d needed nursing back to health, and then his health had gone again, with age, but for four years Nuku had been happy, maybe the happiest four years of his life. Sky’s meager healing powers had, in the end, only allowed him to ease Nuku’s passing. He had died curled up on Sky’s lap, Laura petting the dog’s head and weeping beside him. Laura, who had shot a man and knifed another, crying over a dog who was already old when they took him in.

Alma smiles and straightens, leaving a pale white hand on his dark-bronze cheek, looking at him with affection. “You are going to be just fine, my friend.”

“You better be,” Dion says, “because Doria is threatening to charge the Guardia advanced speleology expenses. And you know the Commander hates dealing with extraordinary expense reports.”

Sky reaches out a hand toward Gwydion, who takes it, right hand to left hand, not a handshake but a clasping like two friends might when walking together, in affection or in support against falling on slippery rocks. Sky’s voice is rough as he says to the handsome once-playboyish god, “I know you know this means a great deal to me, but I don’t know if I can ever express how much it really does.” Sky does not wipe the tears from his cheeks. “And it’s just so good to see the both of you here and happy…together.”

Dion squeezes his hand, the Devil Hammer looking with a deep and abiding friendship at his natural prey, and says to Alma, “I think we broke him.”

“Oh, he was always the most sentimental of us three,” she replies, seeming to disguise how touched she is with humor. “Now, we did have to get pretty well organized to manage being so far from the station at the same time so why don’t we make the best of it and maybe…hmm, have dinner and chat in honor of the good old days?

“Yes,” Sky says. “And in honor of even better days to come.”