“It is My tradition and My command. Why would you dare place a demand on me?” Argon stood out of his chair. “You outsiders. You Earthlings. You small and pathetic creatures. You dare pit your will against mine?”

“Emile Yong is an anarcho-communist with serious authority issues. She—I’m sorry, they,” And Kaiser put special emphasis on that they, “are capable of offending a dead stick.”

There was a pause after this statement, as if Argon had his fuses blown for half a minute. Then Emile said, “Please, kill him. I can forgive almost everything else if you’ll just put him out of our misery.”

“Be silent. He may listen,” the Light Archon said.

“That’s what I’m hoping for.” Em said.

The whole time they’d been speaking, Hawk had been aware of a backbuilding energy, a thrumming like the pulse of a forest that ebbed here, surged there a little more than it retreated. A growing sense of something coming. Now it finally broke open, as did a significant section of the green-and-gold pavilion in a blaze of green light. It was filled with the sense of growing things, of roots twining through soil, leaves spreading wide and aching for the sun, of floral ecstasy and of ungentle withering. This was a life that brought death in its pocket, as much poison as it was perfection.

And then She stood beside Argon. It was She in the sense of an H. Rider Haggard story, a fierce and fearsome femininity, the sort that vacuums in heels and pearls. She had pearls around her neck, on her wrists, dripping from the folds of green silk and velvet adorning her person, and she wore a crown of pale leaves on hair that was the bright green of new plants. Her flesh was very pale, the skin of a white rose fresh from the bud. Her eyes were a deeper, more venomous green than the living emerald of her hair. It was more the color vegetation turns when it begins to die, just before the basic structures melt down. Her robes fell in panels of gold and green to the soft moss underfoot.

She appeared behind Argon and the Archons, radiant and cool, and with a gesture forced roots out of the ground. They wrapped around each other to form a great mat of roots, each of them thick as Hawk’s upper thigh. The leaves that raced across these roots were a vibrant green, and were every kind of leaf Hawk could recognize and then some. Philodendron leaves beside mint, oak leaves beside a pothos plant. The flowers that bloomed were earth varities, and some of them—small white blossoms—immediately swelled and reddened into fruit, apples, strawberries, raspberries. Earth fruit she had not seen since her arrival.

“Bring my throne,” said the woman, tall and broad and definitely an Archetype. “Your Goddess Nasheth has arrived.”

***

There was a great squawk from the musicians as they struggled to swing from one of Argon’s martial tunes to something more Nasheth’s style. She held up a hand, and they silenced themselves entirely. Then she turned to her Archon. “I will see these outsiders. Immediately.”

“That’d be us,” Em said, getting up off the pile of pillows. “Me, him, and him.” They pointed at Dyson and Kaiser. “Just saved all of us a whole lot of posturing.”

“And took all the fun out of it,” Henry muttered, from the other side of Hawk.

“Hush,” said the Light Archon, desperately.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Nonsense,” Nasheth said, in a different sort of voice. “I recognize this bravado. Earth produces some of the best sorts, doesn’t it?” And she at last crossed to her newly grown throne. “And look who else surfaced. Hello, Kaiser. It’s been quite some time.”

“Couple months for me,” he said, still standing. He was studying the new hole in the tent ceiling. “Bet it’s been a bit longer for you.”

“You’re right.” She kept smiling, and watching him with leaf-green eyes. There was a greatness to her gaze, but also something overripe. “And you were right back then. This is the ticket to effective immortality. Thousands of years and counting. Our control population did very well too. The normal four-score-and-ten years per human, but they live robustly. My selections for Bittermoss School have paid off…and my breeding population is better than yours.”

“But you don’t have my contacts back home now any more than you did then. And I know my Naomi—”

She raised a hand, and he cut off with a terrible choking sound. She gestured, and he was lifted off his feet, still choking. “You don’t understand, do you? I’m as far beyond you and your little fiefdoms as an ant is from a mortal. And you are no more important to me than that.” She dropped him.

“Then why come here?” he choked out.

“Because you four are a novelty. Oh, yes, I said four. Don’t think I’m stupid. The Archon of Light’s pretend successor. Child, you’re several shades darker than our breeding programs permit at this point. I assume the two wayward children over there are more of your precious Ararat Project scientists. So who are you, my mystery maiden?”

Hawk stood up with a shrug. Her game was over now. She felt the Earth Archon’s angry glare at the back of her head. “I’m Doctor Haven Centered…” She paused, as sudden panic gathered in her throat. One game was done. That didn’t mean she didn’t have another game to play. “Rayne,” she finished.

Nasheth, Master of the Earth and God of fertility and death, glorious creature in her own right, looked at Hawk with disgust. “Haven Centered What?”

“Rayne,” Hawk said, and spelled it. “My preference is Hawk.”

“That’s an improvement, certainly. Doctor of what? Medicine?” she said with fresh contempt.

“Ants.” Hawk said.

Another long, slow look. “I beg your pardon?”

“Specifically, I have a doctorate in Entomology with a specialty in Myrmecology and a focus on varieties of Myrmecocystus. And to be less of a pretentious twit, that means I study bugs, specialize in ants, and focus on Honeypots because I think they’re cool.” Deep breath. Time to try and get the Archon off the hook. “I…fell off the Nexus. I guess the Archon found me. I woke up in his Temple, and decided that I’d pose as some kind of penitent, maybe a wanna-be novice, until I got a better handle on what the hell this world even is. And things just…spiraled out of control.”

“Or you’re covering for him, because rescuing an outsider and convincing her to pose as his acolyte is exactly what he tends to do.” Nasheth sounded tired in that moment, almost resigned. Then she waved a hand, which fortunately did not mean someone was about to get force-choked by magic-whatsis. “Besides, you made it here, and you weren’t in chains or tortured, which means you’re smart and you know when to keep your mouth shut. I like people like you, Dr. Rayne.”

Okay. Now she could take a risk. “So…maybe I can ask a boon of your person?”

Nasheth, who had been rubbing the bridge of her nose rather intently, stopped and looked down at Hawk in surprise. “Go on.”

“There was a fourth member of our team. Alasdair West. He goes by Alex. He was supposed to be visiting Bittermoss when it vanished. That’s why we’re down here. There are six hundred families who want to know where their children are, the staff who were there and their families…and Alex. We’re not coming to invade or take from you. We just want answers. Genealogy records. Something we can give the families as closure.”

Nasheth was staring down at her now, her face almost hungry in its attention. “You knew Alex West? You counted him as…what? Coworker? Friend?”

Bingo. Hawk thought. And before anyone could say the fatal word wife, she said, “Our team had only been together a couple of days. But he seems…seemed,” and it gutted her to say that out loud. It was the first admission of loss, the first domino in a shift in thought and life that she did not want at all. She forced herself to stay on the subject. “He seemed like a good man.”

“Yes. He seemed the same to me. I allowed him to call his wife and say goodbye because of that. Tell me, do you know much about her? About Mrs. West? I would very much like to know this person. I crave this knowledge, in fact. Give it to me.”