Chương 253: Day Two Hundred And Fifty One

Dear Diary, There's a downside to getting a reputation. It's a lot harder to surprise people, and a lot easier to get ambushed. So after a day of maintaining half a dozen Scrying Pools, cycling through the farmsteads two days out from Lancaster House, I'd hit a really weird place between physically kind of tired from the constant Mana expenditure, not to mention re-shaping a Scrying Pool every few minutes, and mentally awake and bored out of my fuckin' skull, what with everything being really, really repetitive.

Honestly? It had more than a little bit in common with my Curing marathon. Except, y'know, being indoors. And the food being better, what with not being delivered to me outdoors. And the horde of kids willing to talk about whatever random little kid things they wanted to talk about. And Marie wandering over when I got tense and rubbing my shoulders.

And getting her to do it just a little more often than that, just to see the looks on the faces of the ready squads of Calverton Heroes, making me vaguely wonder if I got their twig and berries to retract far enough the vacuum suction would implode their codpieces. Okay, so it wasn't much like my Curing marathon at all, but I think I had that on my mind. That thing bugged me in ways I really couldn't put into words. Okay, not really 'bugged' me, but definitely made me feel some kind of way.

Like, okay, yeah, I did leave the dirt outside the walls of Newark and Camden Yards covered in bloody mud. I also spent like a week doing nothing but Curing people of the plague twenty four by seven. Yeah, I wound up in a Dragon's mouth for a minute or two because I was the tiniest bit too slow to avoid it, but it's not like I killed the thing. Just kept it busy while somebody else did the killing. I sure as shit wasn't the one who called Leonard Lancaster to heel; that was all Larry. Maybe that was it?

I get that I'd helped folks, but they'd started crediting me with shit I hadn't done. Hey Boss? Yes, Tabitha Diaz? How do you deal with it? Getting the credit for shit other people do? I mean, that's what Glory is, isn't it? That got me a long pause, followed by a thoughtful sounding, some of it, of course, is tradition. Mortals strive, and their Deities receive the Glory. But I'm not sure that's how it always was, and I'm certain that's not how it's supposed to be. So how is it supposed to be?

I spend a lot of my time thinking on that, since I met you. There are differences between Mortals and Deities, but the two most relevant, I think, is that Glory in the hands of Mortals dissipates, typically faster than even the most talented and storied of them can gain it. Unless they hit that breaking point and ascend, their Glory will eventually fade, and the world will be as if they had never been. The Ozymandias thing? The what? Weird that you don't know that here.

It's a poem about a guy walking across a featureless desert. Eventually he comes across the base of a statue, nothing left of it except, like the base and the feet, and nothing else in sight in an ocean of sand. The base has a plaque that reads 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair'. A longer pause than earlier. The plaque is different here. But not vastly. The meaning is identical. But the difference between your old world and this one?

After he'd been silent a bit, I asked, the difference? In this world? The statue still stands, as does the city around it. I think that might be part of why we're here. To maintain. To keep chaos from dissipating the gains Mortals make. And the rest? Inspiration, my daughter. To inspire others to make those gains, to make the world a better place. I thought about that for a while as we shut the Scrying Room down for the night.

So far the Rogue Heroes had moved in at dusk, so if we kept up the vigil until maybe an hour after, we were good for the night. I guess even evil assholes want to get under shelter when the thermometer drops down to 'fuck you, I freeze your junk off' temperatures. As I trudged up the steps, Saffron thought, incoming exhausted wife. A moment later she dropped into my waiting arms.

"Hey, Kitten." She just put her arms around my neck, laid her head against my shoulder, and murmured, "Always here to catch me. I love you."

"Right back at you." I went silent for a flight of steps, then said, "I've been thinking."

"Is that what that burning smell is?" I laughed.

"Yeah, probably. Talking with Loki, he said that he thought the proper role of gods was to inspire Mortals to make the world a better place, then help them keep it that way by helping, I dunno, remember how far we'd come? Stopping shit from backsliding? Does that track for you?" She sighed.

"A world where that's true would be a paradise, I think." A barked laugh slipped out of me.

"Yeah, no." The Internet never forgets, but people filled it with bullshit that fit their own preconceptions. Ah, but gods are not machines. They... As we got to the top floor, bypassing the dinner neither of which either of us really wanted, I asked, "What's wrong, Kitten?"

"Just realizing that perhaps that's what's wrong. The Gods have failed to inspire actual progress. Instead they've assumed that if things never change, they can't become worse. They have filled themselves with their own preconceptions, that they are inherently better or more important than Mortals." I nuzzled her a bit while she reached down and opened the door, what with my hands being occupied with important things like carrying her and trying to cop a feel.

"Other than, y'know, the not-being-Mortal part, how are they different then?"

"That's it, though. They're so very not different. At least most of the ones I know of. They're more powerful. Bigger, in a way. But not better. And while a single God might make a bigger difference than a single Mortal, there are so many Gods with so many different goals that it would be undone within a generation. Within two, mankind might be back to living in caves and hunting with sticks, as Deities warring in the Mortal Realm are ever so much more destructive than Mortals have ever been."

Stolen novel; please report. Not as destructive as we could be, I thought, images of nukes from old newsreels in my head. Aren't you the one who could erase the planet if she felt it best, my Goddess?" I kicked the bedroom door shut behind us. I didn't bother with anything beyond making sure the latch caught. Not like Marie would notice anything short of a foot of concrete that we put in the way of opening it.

"Yeah. I guess I see your point. Why don't they do that, then?"

"That, my love, was what the Pact was ostensibly about. Preventing apocalypse by keeping the Gods in Metaphoric Space, forcing them to go about their bickering via cat's paws in the Mortal Realm." I shook my head, banishing our clothes to the bathroom as I did. I held her next to the bed while she reached over and pulled the covers back.

"Seems like they meddle as much as they want anyhow."

"That they do. But they don't face one another down here."

"You say that like they actually get rowdy in Metaphoric Space." I slid her under the covers, then climbed in next to her. She pulled the covers up over both of us, and we settled in to sleep, snuggled up to one another.

"Of course they don't. They've become so used to the status quo that they would hardly imperil themselves." I scooted her toward her edge of the bed until there was a Marie sized gap behind me. Hopefully she'd take the hint.

"So nothing ever changes, because they've set things up so nothing ever changes. So it never gets any worse, but the status quo is shitty for everyone but them." She nodded, muzzily muttering, "that's about the size of it." Before I could reply, she started snoring. I lay there for a bit, but sleep took me before Marie and the horde hoard arrived. Mimic dreamt of squares arranged in a simple four pointed star pattern. One in particular, just up and to the left of center, flashed white. I woke on the floor.

Not, like, in an uncomfortable way, though. Somebody'd moved what passed for our mattress out to the middle of the floor. Okay, the somebody was obviously Marie, who'd curled up behind me. The three of us made up a comfy little hill in the middle of the kid-filled floor. As I glanced around I realized that most of the kids lay between us and the two featureless walls.

Of the braver kids, the ones who slept nearer the armoire-covered doors, Isnomi lay furthest toward the living room, and Liam the furthest toward the bathroom.

"That's my girl," I whispered. Yeah, I worried about her, but in a flash of insight I realized the thing that Loki and Saffron's explanations had been missing. Protecting Mortals from things they couldn't protect themselves from. Dragons. Plagues. Gods. Somehow that realization settled my racing brain, letting me enjoy just laying there with Marie and Saffron sandwiching me between them, listening to the soft sounds of dozens of kids making adorable little kid snores.

At breakfast, I gave voice to something else that had been bugging me.

"Why do so many of these attacks happen right at dusk?" General Hargreaves laughed a bit, but held out a hand, palm down, asking for a moment.

"Sorry, no offense intended. Some of the biggest advantages that Calverton Heroes have over our common soldiers are our abilities in the realm of perception. So in cases like this, when likely to be outnumbered, they'll attack at dusk, giving them the biggest advantage they have for the longest time possible."

"Huh. Wouldn't work against defenses with, y'know, lights and walls."

"Fair point, but the farmsteads don't have those." I heaved a sigh.

"Yeah. Well, lights in the courtyards aren't uncommon. But I get your point." Something else struck me right then.

"Hey, General? Where are your troops camped?"

"The same place we originally encamped, mostly to the south of Lancaster House's fortifications." I turned to Larry, "is there room for them all inside the fortifications?" At his nod, I said, "General, unless there's a pressing reason why not, could you please move your troops inside the fortified ring? I really don't want those assholes attacking your troops at night and fading away before you can get a runner to us." He nodded, which made me a lot less uneasy, but something still bugged me.

Couldn't figure out what it was. It nibbled at me as I kissed Saffron good bye for the day. Poked at me all day long as I cycled through Scrying Pools. Finally the end of the day rolled around. The light from the big front window had gone all orange and yellow with sunset. As I opened my mouth to send the ready squads back to their tents or bunks or whatever, one of the horde hoard called out, "I see them!"

Larry and I had been squatting more or less back to back in the middle of the room, atop the picture of Lancaster House. The kid shouting was at the Pool to the north of us. Then another kid shouted, "No, I see 'em!" Just to the west of the first kid. A third kid just to the west of Larry and I shouted, "No, I see them!" I'm not sure what it was, but something finally clicked when I stood up and looked around our Scrying Bowls. All laid out in a four pointed star.

I'm no tactical genius, but I sure as shit know how to wreck shit, and in this case, if I assumed they were smarter than me and overreacted? It would just wind up with their asses getting even more kicked.

"Lachlan, Fred, with squads one and two! Larry, Linus, with squads three and four!" I looked around in a bit of a panic until I saw Marie standing there, waiting, watching over the kids.

"Menace! Get all the kids into Raven's bedroom and end anything that tries to come through that door." I'd have put them in our room, but Raven's bedroom had only one way in, and if she could intimidate Conrad, I'd put my little Menace against anything that could fit through that door.

"Marie! Get to General Hargreaves and tell him I need six more ready squads, NOW!" The kids weren't stupid; they'd raced for the stairs the moment I told Isnomi what to do. Marie leapt over the horde hoard tide from a standing start, going to all fours and shouldering the door open when she hit it. I grabbed Lachlan's hand and jumped him and his Heroes to the courtyard of the farmstead to the north, letting go and stepping back to Lancaster House the moment we arrived.

Fred and his squad were next, then I took Larry and his group to the farmstead to the west, dropping Carruthers and his six a moment later. I leapt to the farmstead where we'd left Angel and Bill cooling their heels, landing in the dining room just as dinner hit the table. I shouted, "sorry, guys, I need you!" before stepping to stand between them, lay a hand on each of their shoulders and stepping back to the Scrying Room.

"Raven! Bonnie! With me!" The two had been working on some bookkeeping in the Scrying Room, Bonnie to be near Larry, Raven because working separately on the books was a recipe for disaster. The moment they joined hands with Angel and Bill, I stepped us all to the fortifications. Marie had not only beaten us there, but done so by enough time that a shouting General Hargreaves already had three squads formed up and another three forming.

All of them were Heroes who'd rotated through the Scrying Room, so they knew the deal. Even as some part of my brain thought about how silly they looked holding hands, I grabbed the first squad and jumped them north to join Lachlan and Fred. Two more jumps and I had another six Heroes joining Larry and Carruthers; the telltale non-sound of Slayer already flickering out in the gathering gloom.

I had no time to spare, because our enemies had spent the last few days testing us, feeling out our responses, planning all this shit. I grabbed up Angel and a squad, dropped them at the farmstead to the northeast. Six more jumps, and the other three Cadets and eighteen more Calverton Heroes stood in the courtyard. I Shaped a Fire Bolt and fired more or less straight back toward Lancaster House.

Purely by chance the damn thing glanced off a yellow-and-black shield, but the light of its passage showed over a dozen Rogue Heroes. As our allies shouted battle cries and charged, I looked at my friends and said, "they've got Hestian Healers in the farmhouse; buy time if you have to, I'll be back as soon as I can!" With that I leapt back to General Hargreaves. Before he could say anything, I asked, "how many of the Rogues are Priests of Ares? And how many are Mages?"

"Eight, to the best of my knowledge. No High Priests, thankfully. Eight more were Magi. Why do you ask?" I juggled numbers in my head, assumed the worst, shaped a broadcast Message spell and shouted, "DRAGONSLAYERS! TO THE NORTHWEST WALL, NOW!" The General's mouth opened, but before he could ask me anything, eight lances of fire reached out from the gathering gloom to the northwest, exploding when they reached the fortifications.

Volunteers and Soldiers went flying, but our Dragonslayer Veterans had already started moving to reinforce the two units already stationed there, and they looked around a little stunned by the fact that they'd just survived a bombardment that had wrecked everybody else around them. I turned to Marie as the last light of the sun disappeared.

"You ready to go fuck up some High Priests of Ares?" The General took a terrified step back when Marie turned to me, all rigidity gone from her posture, four hundred years of frustrated vengeance for the near-genocide of her and her sisters distilling itself into a single word.

"YES!"