A stance must make itself known
A kingdom rises with one on the throne”
“I got it!” Adaela shouted.
“Quickly, Adaela. What is it?” I asked, nearly wanting to shake her in my desperation to figure this out.
“The first line is about us, and about what we’re up against. The second through fourth, about thePaxand our desires to live peacefully. Line five, the one we’ve been scrambling over. We need to work together. We need another container for Typhon,” she told me.
I nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“Lines six through eight only have to be viewed through the lens of the worlds—it’s about the hate and division that’s plagued the worlds over the years. These three lines are about Typhon and Marung. They’ve played the long game—one we didn’t even know anyone was playing, right?” Adaela was getting more animated, and I tried tuning out everything else around us.
“I believe,” Adaela started, “that we’re in a simulation. I think Marung gave herself away. ‘A hero must not take the bait.’ I think we need to figure out if we can destroy her and Typhon in this simulation, or if we need to find a way to break it.” Adaela started for the front lines, but I pulled her back quickly, giving her one last lingering kiss, before we pushed our way through the crowd to fight our waytoward Marung.
There were so many dead already. We crawled over piles of bodies, some I recognized but tried to tune out as we made our way toward where Marung was fighting with four swords. She had expertly weaved those swords in her arms as she battled Medb. They were evenly matched, but we had some tricks up our sleeves, too.
Adaela grabbed the minds of most of the soldiers on their side, putting them in stasis. Unfortunately, this was a big drain on her energy, but it was a necessary tactic. I invaded their dreams and into their subconscious this way, and it allowed me to quickly pull pieces together from all of them about how we wound up where we were. Backdoor deals, money, luxury items, and promises of safety through the scriptures and false prophets. Typhon and Marung dealt in fear and strength. Power, much like lust, was built on the backs of the belief that one person had more power than another. Many of the people fighting for their side had inklings of doubt, and I pulled on those threads, feeding them the truth. All of this was a fucking lie. Their religious texts, and fanaticism, were the opposite of what their Gods had conveyed.
We finally got to Marung as Medb decapitated one of the snake heads from her body. Marung was a smaller version of her father in many ways. She screamed out in rage more than pain, and I summonedVindictawith anticipation. Adaela sauntered over as if she didn’t have an ounce of fear, landing a roundhouse kick to Marung’s face. I smirked, knowing that had to have been satisfying for her. Marung disengaged from Medb, and I nodded in her direction, letting her know we’d handle herfrom here. She moved over to help the rest of the Gods with managing Typhon.
I circled to the other side of Marung as she and Adaela battled it out. Adaela’s shadows had incapacitated two of Marung’s arms, preventing her from using four swords as Adaela worked to figure out how to get past her defenses. I wasn’t sure how they’d figured out how to overpower her after she’d batted them away earlier, but I’d take any win at this point. I stood back, guarding the area so Adaela could get her revenge. Her death magic would likely not work on Marung if her ex was able to get past it previously, and I wondered if the reason for that was because she wasn’t alive in the first place.
I fought off and quickly disarmed two soldiers who came to help Marung out, bringing them to their knees before removing their heads withVindictain its scythe form. I sent them straight to Hell, right in the clutches of the Leviathan. They could spend their lives with the envious demon who would tear them apart for the remainder of their afterlife, day by day.
Adaela was still holding her own against Marung, but I could tell she was starting to tire out, so I focused on moving back toward her and Marung. The deafening noises from Typhon’s snake heads prevented me from hearing anything they were saying to each other, and I wasn’t even sure they could hear themselves speak. We’d need a miracle to get through Marung, Typhon, and their army.
Another portal opened, which stole my attention briefly. I wasn’t sure if this one was ours or if it was about to overwhelm us with opposing armies. I dropped to my knees in both relief and fear when I saw who came through the portal. Ceridwyn, followed by Baba Yaga and her hut, then the Stag. Underhill was here, and it had brought the entirety of the realm with it. All four courts poured through the portal, and I knew in my bones that we were on the right track.
Adaela perked up at the energy Underhill threw at her, then began fighting in earnest. I army-crawled behind Marung, trying to figure out the best way to help Adaela. From my periphery, the amassed armies spread out to fight, some moving to help the Gods with Typhon. I got up, then stepped forward, throwing my succubus energy at Marung to see if it’d stick. She stuttered back momentarily, and it was enough of a distraction that Adaela got the upper hand. Her shadows formed a tight binding around Marung, and I transformedVindictainto a sword, stabbing it through her snakelike tail and deep into the ground underneath her so that she couldn’t move any further.
Marung screamed out, rearing her head back, breaking momentarily out of the shadows that bound her. They instead entered her mouth, going deep before practically exploding out of her, tearing her to pieces. I went to my knees, stunned for a moment. I looked at Adaela, who had an identical expression of surprised horror that mirrored mine.
The world around us exploded into color so vivid, it took my breath away. The fighting stopped as every being glanced around, confused. Earth, the one I remembered, unencumbered by technology and pollution, showed its true form. Flowers of all colors blossomed at the base of the mountainside near the caves, and the sounds of nature’s quiet tune hummed all around us.What the fuck?
Typhon was still alive, though, and we didn’t have time to capture the beauty this realm fracture created. We needed to get him contained, and fast. This world needed to heal, and it appeared we had a lot to talk about. The Stag ambled its way toward us, and Adaela reached out to pet its flank. Once she did, she went still, and it seemed as if Underhill was speaking directly to her. I stood behind her, keeping an eye on them both while also watching the armies around us. The confusionseemed to be changing their minds about many things, and I was interested to see what would come of this.
Adaela caught my attention as Typhon’s snakes started screaming again, and she pulled me along, sprinting with the Stag keeping pace with us as we charged toward the base of one of the mountains. There, some of the most stunning neon purple and teal flowers I’d ever seen caught my eye, and I bent down to pick one of them. Adaela pulled me back quickly. It was so loud, I couldn’t hear what she’d mouthed at me, but she was frantic. She shook her head, and the Stag put himself between the two of us as she bent down to pick the delicate flowers herself.
The Stag procured a vial and satchel for Adaela. Flowers bloomed all along the base of the mountain almost as far as the eye could see, and I wondered if the Stag’s magic was helping their growth along, or if it was because the illusion had been broken. I wondered, since this area seemed so familiar to me, if this world had been wrapped in an illusion by Sabine for centuries, and what that would mean once we left here and went back home.
Home. When did I start thinking of St. Louis as home?
Adaela used the satchel like a cheesecloth, throwing a bunch of the flowers into the bag, then squeezing the bag into the vial, producing a milky white substance from the flower. When she was done, she looked up at me, and I put my hand out to help her up. She shook her head, mouthing “poison,” at me. I now understood why she had pushed me out of the way, but I didn’t understand how she could touch it, but not even the Stag could.
Adaela stood up and got as close as she dared, asking me to bend down so she could yell in my ear over Typhon’s raging snakes. She told me what theLus Mórwas, and how she planned to use it. My goal was to gather everyone else tocombine power and strength to defeat him. Typhon was a solo creature, and the only way to defeat individualism was by collective action. This was a core tenet of thePax, so I understood what she was saying, but I wasn’t sure how to do that when there was an active battle happening.
We’d make it work. We had to.
I ran toward the action,Vindictain hand, anxiety thrumming through my system. The illusion breaking meant that those who had been fighting with Typhon and Marung were now fighting Typhon, and it was a wonder to see. I wasn’t sure if it was my influence on them that made them change sides, or if it was the illusion, but I didn’t care at that moment. I ran up to the first being I saw, a Cryptid that I think was called a Yeti, and pulled on his hand. He was confused for a moment before snarling in my face. I backed up with my hands up, and he settled down. He leaned down as I yelled directions in his ear, and he nodded before moving off to the next person. Great, we were going to play a game of Telephone while Adaela and the Stag got into place.
I got the attention of several others, shouting the same thing in their ear as I fought my way to the front of the line with the Gods. The storm Gods were fighting off Typhon’s storms as best they could, while those venerated for their strength in battle fought Typhon directly. The ravens I’d seen so often at thePaxwere circling his head as a distraction, and I wondered again, not for the first time, whose ravens these were.
Winged creatures were flying around his shoulders, cuttingoff the snake heads while ducking the fire coming out of their mouths. It seemed like the collective action was already in place somewhat, but I could tell it was taking its toll. Typhon was the monster nightmares were made of and was born to defeat beings stronger than us. But if Zeus was able to defeat him before, then we’d be able to do so now, too.
I ambled my way toward his snakelike legs, intending to do the same thing I had done to his daughter and stab him withVindictato prevent him from being able to move about, but he was much bigger than Marung was, and I wasn’t sure only one blade would make a difference when he had two legs made out of the bodies of snakes. I looked around, seeing folks beginning to gather after that game of telephone, and I saw Charlemagne nearest me. I wasn’t a fan of Charlemagne, and I also wasn’t sure if he was originally on our side or on Typhon’s, but it didn’t matter right now. He hadJoyeuseon him, his legendary sword, and that was what I needed. I dragged him over with me and pointed withVindictato show him what my intentions were. He nodded, then proceeded to count with me before we stabbed our swords as hard as we could through the snake legs, pushing through so that the tip of our swords were embedded in the ground as far as we could get them.
A trickle of blood ran down my ears as the collective screaming got louder, and I stepped back quickly as Typhon’s arm with snake fingers swept down to grab at the swords. His hands were so large, and those fingers weren’t designed for fine motor skills, that he could not pull the blades out of his legs. However, those snakes could blow fire, and though Charlemagne and I couldn’t die, I wasn’t ready to try to heal from fire. That shit hurt. I knew from experience.
