.
Long, long ago, when even humanity's gods were young...
…lived a goddess of light and life named Inanna, who yearned to visit and console her sister, the widow Erishkigal, goddess of darkness and death. But Inanna knew that none visit the Great Below and return.
As she descended, she lost the trappings and powers of her godhood, until she knelt, shivering, before her dark sister, who struck her down.
But this would not be the end of her story. Moved, the dark goddess Erishkigal returned her sister to the light, and seized a wicked man in her place. Thus the sisters reconciled, and together they wove wonders of darkness and light.
This is a story from long, long ago, when even humanity's gods were young….
— The Descent of Inanna
The door locked behind her.
I'm gonna die, Kino realized. Not "someday." Today.
Kino looked around the concrete cell, painted an unpleasant shade of drab green: a bare steel toilet, a sink with push-button faucets, a slab with a thin mattress, barred window, and a heavy steel door. How do I get out of this. I don't see how—!
No, get hold of yourself, Kino. This is not how it ends. Control, like Master taught you. One... two... three... lemmeoutlemmeout — stop that!
She turned to the door: bars at the tiny window, just over her head, and fiberglass beyond that. Can they hear me? It was absurd, but she tried the door anyway. Didn't budge. The bars were solid too.
"Please, this is all a mistake," she called out. "Please let me out. I didn't do anything wrong. If I did, I'm sorry. I'm a silly foreigner who doesn't know any better!"
Your voice is breaking, Kino. You're scared.
Damn right, I am!
"I come from a very rich family. They'll pay money." A lie. Who cares! "Please?"
This is undignified. The brave don't keep their courage in a holster.
I don't want dignity, I want out!
The most important thing is not to lose your life.
I have, haven't I?
Kino sank to a crouch on the floor. Just this morning, the world had seemed so large, and she'd had a whole lifetime to explore it. The town, she'd been told, was rich and warlike, with an exciting, vibrant nightlife. Money hadn't been a problem for a while. She'd lived a lean life for months and had also found several profitable odd jobs. Overdue to spend and enjoy.
She'd stopped in an inn to freshen up, and immediately a trio of the local law-enforcement was all over her, asking questions and demanding she come with them.
I should have drawn on them.
They already had a gun trained on you and you hadn't done anything wrong.
Still should have drawn on them! Better to die fighting.
She'd gambled, protesting that she was a law-abiding person, and allowed them to take her gun-belt from her.
Never, ever make that mistake again! If there is any "again."
Why are you going over this? You need to find a way out.
Because there is no way out!
They marched her into a courtroom almost immediately. The judge spoke very kindly, called her "miss Kino" in a respectful voice, asked her a few simple questions, and then declared her guilty.
"What? Sir, guilty of what? What am I accused of?" she'd howled as more muscle men dragged her out of the courtroom.
This is all happening too fast. The judge said I was to be executed after the sun set. Kino looked up at the window. The sky was already turning orange. Why? Why, why, why?
All she had to go on was a mysterious word: "Renewah." She got up and walked, hobbled though she was by anklet-chains, over to the window. But the angle was wrong, she couldn't see the sunset. Naturally, she tried the bars: solid as stone.
My last chance to see the sun, and they deny me even that.
Kino, stop it! You're going to get out of here. This is all a mistake. You'll see the sun rise tomorrow morning.
Will I? How?
.…
"Thought so," Kino whispered. She sank down onto the mattress. I'm losing my mind. I'm talking to myself. Hermes, I need you!
So this is what it's like to die. Even when things were at their worst, you were always looking for a way out. There was always a tomorrow, and a chance.
No... this is what it's like to be murdered. You're about to be murdered over some trumped-up charge by a kangaroo court. This is what you get for being careless. You've got to scope out the places you visit more carefully - remember the coliseum?
But that would spoil the surprise.
...You're an idiot.
Kino prowled every inch of the stone floor, her eyes raked the walls, gazed up at the ceiling. A few cracks… if she had a knife and a month, she might be able to work her way out. If her hands weren't cuffed, if her legs weren't chained, if she'd never come to this horrid city in the first place — if, if, if!
I have an hour, maybe less. It's such a senseless, useless way to die. How do they execute people here? She sat back down on the mattress. I am not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me break down. I'm not! I will not beg. I can manage that at least.
Kino felt a flare of pure rage when she noticed that, while she was in the courtroom, someone had sewn some sort of badge onto her khaki coat: twin triangles, one pink, one black. She dug into her jacket pocket for a knife, but the guards had searched her thoroughly and confiscated every last one of her weapons. She still had most of her things, though.
...including one last, pathetic shred of hope. She found it in a plastic bag, secreted safely inside her breast pocket.
"Kana," she gazed down at the pale gray feather in her hand. "...help me."
Kino waited. Silence.
Kino, you're being silly, the pragmatic voice nagged at her.
But... couldn't there be some magic left in this? It's my proof, after all. I wasn't hallucinating!
Maybe you'll see Guri again soon, huh?
Kino put the feather back into its pocket and sagged. Her last ember of hope went cold.
A wave of weariness crashed over her. She sank.
You have a last hour, Kino. You'd better make the most of it.
But I'm tired, and there's no point. I want to remember.
So Kino...
...fell into a field of red flowers, laughing at Hermes' jokes.
...clung to the rigging of a ship's mast, the wind's plaything.
...found Hermes at last and hugged his handlebars.
...had rough and hungry sex in back of a bouncing truck.
...danced and laughed in the desert while a life-saving downpour washed the heat, dust and sweat from her.
...watched a whole lunatic town dance wearing cat-ears and tails.
...chased a rattletrap flying-machine.
...shared tea and supper and stories with a trio of bona fide angels.
Oh, what a life! Even if it's all over, I am so grateful.…
The vault-like door opened. Sakura peeked in, the fading sunlight setting her red curls afire. "Are you in trouble, Kino?"
"Oh thank heaven!" Kino gasped. "I was locked in."
"You better hurry, the show's about to start." The girl bounced up and down, and her little school scarf rustled in the air. "C'mon!"
Sakura led her through the dim and battered labyrinth of their high school toward the auditorium. "I never can find my way around in here," Kino confided, pausing long enough to tie the laces of her own buster-browns. They could hear the noise of a crowd. A door burst open and Nimya yanked Kino inside.
Sakura gave Kino a final thumbs-up. "Break a leg!"
Nimya hustled Kino backstage, where she was confronted by a strange, archaic costume of white and silver.
"Hurry up and change," Nimya commanded. "You're late! I'll go get things started. Please tell me you remember your lines?"
"Lines?" Kino squeaked, but the blonde had already charged out the door. Kino ducked out of her sailor suit and skirt and yanked on the costume. She peeked outside, and saw Nimya lit by a spotlight on the stage.
"And without further delay," she announced, "The Descent of Inanna!" The lights dimmed. Soft music began playing... a tune that Kino thought she remembered from long ago, and Nimya darted back to her and shoved her onstage, toward an iron gate.
Behind the gate stood a peculiar person wearing ornate robes, a hood and a familiar, intimidating cyclopean mask. He said in a low, resonant voice, "from the great heaven the goddess set her mind to the world below. From the great heaven Inanna set her mind to the world below. From the great heaven she came to the gates of the world below."
The masked Speaker turned toward her. "Wait here, Inanna. I will speak to my mistress. Stay here, Inanna. Neti, doorman of the underworld shall speak to his mistress. The doorman of the underworld shall tell Erishkigal you have come." The Washi then crossed the stage, and the spotlight followed him to illuminate a woman with obsidian-black skin, flowing opal hair, and clad only in gold necklace, bracers and belt. Erishkigal reclined upon a wide throne.
"My mistress, a lone woman has arrived at the palace. My mistress, your sister has arrived at the palace. My mistress, your sister has abandoned the sun and arrived at your palace."
The strange inky figure rose from her couch. "Come Neti, chief doorman of the underworld, and do not neglect the instructions I will give you. Let the seven gates admit my humbled sister. Let the seven gates of the underworld be bolted behind her."
The Speaker returned and opened the gate for Kino. "Come, enter. Come, Inanna, and enter. Enter freely and of your own will." Then he took away the turban from Kino's head.
Kino blinked. She looked out at the faces in the crowd. So many... there was Master, and beside her old granny, there Dame Corina with Sakura's parents sitting behind. Shizu passed popcorn to Johnny Noble and the little girl they called "wise one." And there beside Kana, a crow playfully nibbling her ear, sat a pale, long-faced stranger all in black, his long, knobby fingers steepled, with shaggy raven hair and eyes dark as midnight, yet sparkling with stardust.
Kino recalled the moment she'd beheld an eerie woman in a humble cart who'd turned out to be a fertility goddess. Who is that?
"Psst!" the Speaker whispered to her, "your line. 'What is this?'"
"What is this?" Kino blurted.
"The rites of the underworld are perfect. Question not the rites of the underworld."
Then he took away her bead necklace.
"What is this?"
"The rites of the underworld are perfect. Question not the rites of the underworld."
And so on, until finally Kino wore only a white linen gown, which now seemed more a shroud. This too he took from her, and Kino stood bared, blushing and cringing on the stage.
"Wuh- what is this?"
"The rites of the underworld are perfect. Question not the rites of the underworld."
He brought her before the dark one's throne, and made her to kneel before Erishkigal.
And Erishkigal rose and glared down at her, and she said, "when she looked, it was the look of death. When she shouted, it was the speech of anger and heavy guilt. And when she struck, it was the end of life."
All Kino's strength failed her. She fainted and fell onto her back beneath the shadow of Erishkigal. Then the gatekeeper lifted her and wrapped chains around her until she dangled, limp and helpless, over the stage.
The masked man proclaimed, "And the corpse was hanged from a hook. But this is not the end of the story."
I am what I am and can't be anything else.
It's the world that changed.
—What—
A key rattled in the door. Kino jolted upright, onto her feet as if shocked. Dozed off! I dreamed... something...? Oh for pity's... this is no time for another stupid high school dream!
A quintet of guards grabbed her arms and yanked her out of the cell into a dim corridor.
The long walk.
But it isn't a long walk, the corridor's too short. It's supposed to be a long walk, but it's more like walking through an airport, except for the chains rattling. You're leaving now. Nothing left but to leave. Let's get it over with.
This is torture! This isn't right. I haven't done anything!
"It's not right," she tried one last time with her guards. "I don't even know why you're doing this."
"Shut up," one of the guards said. He was trying to sound tough, but Kino heard something in his voice.
"You don't like it any more than I do. Why do it?"
"I said be quiet." The man opened a double-door.
They walked into a grassy courtyard. There was an open gate on the far side. Out that gateway lies the whole world! I'd give anything to just be over there. It was night now, and she didn't see it at first: in the middle of the courtyard waited a gallows.
A noose. Hanging. — No!
"P-please... I brought guns. Shoot me. Please! I won't die like this."
No answer. They were ignoring even her last pathetic plea. Then some strangely distanced and dispassionate part of herself observed as everything else in her jumped and bucked and fought like a terrified animal. For an instant she had one arm free, but it was hooked again before she could do anything.
Kino, this is useless. Show some dign—shut up you! They grabbed her under her armpits and carried her like a sack, her legs flailing and trying to get even one good kick in, chain rattling madly.
"Let me go! Uuuaaghhh!"
Oh, this is too much! Couldn't I at least go into shock or something?
A hand yanked at her collar and a button vanished into the moonlight. The air felt cold against her neck and bared shoulders.
"I don't want to die!"
They reached the wooden stairs and she kicked against them. Even in the darkness, every detail of the wood burned into her eyes. Her blood roared in her ears. Damned if I'll just walk up these stairs for — that's way too bright for moonlight.
She looked over her shoulder: blinding light!
—What—
"C'mon, get in!" A female voice. Kino felt grass. She was lying on wet grass. She fell?
She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was the ruin of the gallows, lying half-off its mountings, planks all askew. She rolled over. A tire, and meat, fresh red meat wrapped around it. Looked like an intact intestine. She'd once tried a meal called "chitterlings." Kino, get up, you idiot!
"...flossing," a woman's voice over the rough flanging of electric guitars. A hand. A car door, open. Gia!
Gia popped the hasp of her elaborate seat belt and towed Kino with all her might into the car. The—
Car! Kino's mind gibbered to itself. Car! Car! Car! Car!
Horror piled upon horrors! She'd just been rescued from the last dance by a thing that haunted her nightmares. But... was it not always better to live? Kino found herself face down on warm, giving leather, her legs lying over Gia's.
"Kino, move over already. You're spoiling our rescue." Kino squirmed away and obediently righted herself, just in time to see the last survivor of her former guards running away from them toward the courtyard gate.
"Oh, you think you're getting away, don'cha shitter? Nooo you don't!" Gia gloated. Acceleration shut the door for them.
Just as the man's hand was reaching for a door handle, he went under the car. Kino winced at the awful, unforgettable sound of bones snapping beneath them. There was a bump upward, and Gia whooped and laughed her triumph.
"Fifty points," a voice said, not Gia's.
"Someday you're gonna explain that joke to me," Gia replied.
"Way before your time. Let's motorvate!" The demon-on-wheels spun around the dim grassy courtyard in a bootlegger turn and, in a flash and a guitar riff, the gateway vanished and they were free!
"Welcome back to the land of the living," the voice came from the dashboard's AV system, and for the moment sounded like it was talking with its mouth full.
Kino felt for a chilling moment as if a boa constrictor was wrapping around her, and watched as a racing harness hugged her of its own accord and pulled her tight against the seat. She yelped. Next to her sat Gia, lit by the dash's eerie green glow, her sable hair grown back even longer than she remembered, and flapping freely to the beat as she belted, "Who do you trust when everyone's a crook? Revolution calling!"
"Christine, take it for a moment will'ya?" Gia asked the air. Then she abandoned the wheel to produce a thin set of metal tools hidden up her left sleeve. With practiced ease she opened the handcuffs and leg-chains. "You okay?"
Kino managed a nod. The car drives itself!
"Toss those out the window, unless they're your idea of a fun evening." Kino meekly did as she was told while Gia refastened her own driving harness, then returned to steering. "I got it," she told the car. "By the way, the prog-metal sent that completely over the top!"
Gia and the voice laughed as one. Automatic wipers lobbed blood out of the way. Kino watched, mesmerized, as bullet-holes in the windshield shrank and vanished. Kino heard wind whistling even through the thick glass, the snarling motor and the vintage Heavy Metal music. She could just barely see the surrounding hills in the country darkness. They were going two hundred clicks an hour, maybe more, and while she could see Gia was skilled, the way this heavy car held the road confirmed something Kino had suspected: it could cheat the laws of inertia when it chose. Even so, Kino's heels involuntarily ground into the floorboards. The aftermarket stick shift with attached nitrous button and the neat bulge in the front hood all took on frightful significance.
Yet, perversely, Kino felt a twinge of envy; tearing through the night in this womb-like heat and head-banging to Heavy Metal music did look like terrific fun. Car and driver finally paused their loud duet. "Don't be scared," Gia said gently, her eyes still glued to the road.
"Gia..." Kino began, her brain still trying to catch up with everything that had happened. I'm scared for you, she'd almost admitted. She swallowed, and her dry throat felt lined with sandpaper. "How did you find me?"
"That's my doing, hun," a silky, familiar voice answered from the GPS console. The Fury! Kino had not heard that contralto since her one encounter by a foggy morning's dreamlike light. "Gia had an unpleasant recurring dream about you getting strung up, so we started keeping track of you."
"It was really scary!" Gia added as a new song queued up. "We were in this dark cave, and I was mad at you and then you were hanged. Anyway, figured once you headed this way you'd run into trouble."
A dream…? A few hazy images and half-memories flitted through Kino's head, but they vanished like smoke even as she tried to grasp them. "Trouble. Yeah, one way to put it. I'm... very grateful. Gimme a moment, okay? I was looking death in the face two minutes ago."
Gia grunted. "Been there. Crack open a beer."
"You drink while you're driving?"
"Me? Nope, but you need to relax. What're they gonna do, hang us twice?"
The last thing I need right now is to deaden my reflexes. What I need to do is get my strength back and figure out how to get out of this mess, before "Christine" there decides to turn Hermes' driver into mulch.
"Water?" Kino begged. Gia produced a canteen and Kino sucked the warm, stale-tasting water down, greedy as desert sand. The world spun and went dim "Sleep with one eye open," she dimly heard as her head swam. "Gripping your pillow tight."
Oh, now I go into shock? Terrific!
"Exit: light! Enter: night! Take my hand," the dashboard-mounted screen belted until Gia tapped it silent. "That's enough headbanging, partner. Kino's trying to rest."
"That's why I was singin' her a lullaby."
"That was so cruel," Kino whispered from the depths. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"We know." The Fury's voice, soothing and kind. "How about I promise not to do anything horrid to you for at least an hour, hmm?"
"Don't worry Kino, when Christine makes a promise, she keeps it," Gia added. She eased her foot off the throttle and they slowed to a more reasonable pace.
Kino shivered and rubbed her face. She was drenched all over. Sweat or tears? The empty canteen slipped from her clammy fingers. She listened to the deep growl of the engine muffled by thick floorboards. The Fury's interior was showroom perfect, neatly organized and free of clutter, the leather soft and comfortable. Exactly as she remembered.
Gia picked up the dropped canteen. "Don't wanna be messin' up Christine like that."
Kino closed her bulging, ping-pong-ball eyes and, despite everything, some romantic part of her returned to a sunny truckers' rest-stop, glittering after a rain, where she had met Georgiana. Hermes had called it chemistry, she'd called it infatuation. By whatever name, Gia had kindled a fire under Kino that only one thing could quench.
But within that very day, Gia's pious parents had taken their girl, unsuspecting, to Kino's hometown for the dreaded operation, and robbed Gia of her free will. Kino was left shattered, lost in grief and self-recrimination, drowning in feelings for which she had no name and which, perhaps, ought never to be named.
Then the most sickening shock of all: the dreadful Tisiphone, Hermes' nemesis from across an unimaginable gulf of years, claimed Gia as her thrall.
And out of nowhere, they come to rescue me? How? How on Earth...?
Here iℱ ℱaid thee Kinge of dreamℱ
...off to Never-Neverland!
The applause faded, the houselights came up, and Kana watched as each of the dreamers stirred and vanished from the intimate little theater until only she, the dark stranger at her left with his black-feathered companion, and the Washi, who had played "Neti," remained. The pair stood from their chairs, and Kana rushed to help the old man step down from the stage.
"You have done well, little Wonder, and kindly." the masked Speaker said, and Kana now found the resonant voice reassuring and nostalgic rather than intimidating.
"Little?" the oversized crow creeched from the tall person's bony shoulder. "With wings like that?"
"Matthew, it is rude to discuss a woman's imperfections," the dark one chided his familiar gently.
"I'll grow into 'em." Kana smiled and shrugged, sending a rustle through her massive cloud-colored wings. Then without warning she wrapped her arms about the Washi in an embrace. The Speaker for the Haibane Renmei deigned to place an arm around Kana's shoulders, little bells jingling from his robes. "It is comforting to see you again," he admitted, "even if but in a dream."
"Kino will be alright?" Kana asked urgently, looking from the Washi to the dark stranger.
"The myth of Inanna is ancient and potent," the gaunt one answered, his voice an airy, mystic whisper compared to the Keeper's. "The mortal's friend shared in this dream. If their friendship be true she will come, and a marquess of Hel shall follow."
"Your friend's return from the underworld, in some form, is now all but guaranteed," the masked Washi laid a gnarled palm on Kana's head.
Then he bowed low before the dark one. "You honor us with your presence, Lord Shaper. This story demands the scion of the sun reconcile with her dark sister, child of the moon. Are the mortals the only creatures of Hyperion and of Hades who must come to terms this day?" the Speaker ventured, daring to approach the Lord of all that is not, was not, and will never be.
An eyebrow rose over a star-speckled void. "Perhaps, aviarist..." the Shaper returned the Speaker's bow. "...This is a tale of restored harmony. Perhaps certain feuds have outworn their time." Then he smiled down to Kana. "You understand little bird, by calling for my aid in your distress, you have placed yourself in my debt? It is one of the rules: there is always a price."
Kana nodded gravely.
"Then come." With a final nod to the keeper of the ashen wings, he turned to a theater door. "Matthew will supervise you."
"Yes, Lord Morpheus." Kana gave her old master a final, deep bow, then rushed to open the door for her new one, revealing an opal throne in a lavish court of lapis lazuli and mother of pearl.
"Not Morpheus," the King of Dreams corrected. "Not any longer."
"Oh, don't be so formal, you guys!" Matthew the raven squawked. "Call him Daniel, or the Sandman. Everybody does."
So the real question is...
...when do we start defining who we are?
"Hermes! I don't know what became of him!" Kino jerked upright in the car.
"Gyaah! Don't startle your driver like that," Gia complained. "Don't worry, we got him. Bought him out of the impound lot this afternoon." Gia grinned, and Kino felt a sick lurch in her stomach because Gia's smile was so very wrong in a so-very-familiar way. Once upon a time I thought that was normal?
"Have a nice nap? You were out for a good hour."
Kino let her lethargy smother her reaction to Gia's imbecilic grimace. My fault. "I can't pay you back. They confiscated all my money."
"Don't worry about the money," Gia gloated. "It wasn't real. We know some excellent counterfeiters."
The car chimed in, "They ever tell you what you were accused of?"
"Never did."
"Few months ago, an army came in and conquered this place. Found themselves a handsome source of income criminalizing anybody who doesn't conform to their views," the car explained.
"Huh?" Kino struggled out of her personal tar pit and tried to follow what the car was talking about.
"That's Christine's polite way of saying you stood out like a transvestite," Gia offered.
"Oh... damn!" Kino smacked her forehead. "The sheriffs arrested me right after I came out of the bathroom... the ladies' room!" Another mistake I won't repeat!
"And then brought you into court in your usual cross-dressing clothes," Gia said. "I was there in back, watching. You never had a chance."
"How could I be so stupid?" Wish I could split myself in two so I could slap myself! That's why the trial was so quick. Dumb dumb dumb! Just because people wear nice clothes instead of bear hides doesn't mean they're civilized!
...Well, I guess I shouldn't complain. Hermes is okay and I'm alive, so far. How long have these two been spying on me?
The car said, "they don't do public executions, so the word's not out yet on the usual grapevines. This time, you're gonna be sure to tell your story and warn people away. You listening, Kino?"
"What is that...?" Kino asked. To their right, a town was being consumed by a roaring inferno.
"Bit 'a history," Gia answered. "Fury-vision, I call it."
"There was a close election about a decade ago," the voice from the AV explained. "Incumbents decided they could win by setting fire to a town that favored the opposition. Same incumbents that just got themselves overthrown."
"Traveling in Christine's like traveling through time," Gia added.
Kino quaffed the last of her beer. Liquid courage.
"Up ahead and to the left," the car continued with the breezy tone of a tour-guide, "you'll see the indigenous massacre a century ago. We're too late to ever avenge them. There's only so much the three of us can do. And now with this new government... Gia, we're gonna be cruising this place for a long time."
"Hope not. We gotta take down the bad'uns fast! Longer we stay, the more they'll try to hit back, and rescuing Kino was real loud."
"Don't get used to rescues, Kino." Christine cautioned. "Gia, we have a job to do. We can't afford to get sidetracked like this."
They're plotting murder right in front of me.
"Hey big sis, don't be such a downer! We avenged a murder before it happened for once. Crank up something fun."
Kino stared at Gia. The sweet trucker girl she'd been so enamored of didn't correspond at all with this sardonic, refined goth who could pick locks in seconds and spoke so blithely about counterfeiting.
She ran over five men, and now she's singing. Pretty well, too! But I can't get that horrible crunching sound out of my head. I've got to get the hell out of here!
"Highly deadly black taran'chla! C'mon, Kino!"
It's just like Hermes told me. The Furies seduce and corrupt their drivers, and now my guileless Georgiana's a murderous criminal. The rapid-fire popping of ribs beneath the car's tire echoed in her mind. I've killed, but never someone who was running away, and I've never killed and laughed.
"Hey mister tally-man, tally me banana..." Kino husked obediently.
"Sometimes," Christine mused aloud as the song faded, "I think evil's a cultural thing. The kids drink it in with their mothers' milk. If we can score the worst of these shitters, we can shorten bad times like these. Like a wolf culling the sick from a herd."
"Culling...?"
Gia didn't take her eyes off the road. "I guess you must disapprove of us, huh?"
Careful, Kino! "Uhm... I suppose I'm starting to understand your perspective."
"Christine's not the only Big Bad Wolf out there, Kino. My mom used to tell me a monster would eat up naughty children. Ho, if she only knew!"
Kino took the plunge. "Christine, I thought you and Hermes were feuding."
"Oh, we are!" Christine said smugly.
"He hasn't done anything wrong. And I expiated your complaint with me. Not that I'm complaining, but why did you rescue me?"
"First, you dying that way would not have been just. Second, I enjoyed the nice supper and the look on your face. Third... Hermes was part of a conspiracy to deprive the Furies of our proper role in things. I mean to finish that feud tonight."
"Oooh, scary!" Gia mocked. "And I notice you waited right until Kino was looking through that noose before making your move. You are such a bitch."
"You know it."
They're insane! Kino felt the urge to grab the door handle, but instead let her head sink into the leather seat, much too drained now to rage against impossibilities. Even if the door would open, I couldn't jump out at this speed.
As if reading her thoughts, the car slowed, and turned off the road into hedges.
"What's Gia's part in all this, Christine?"
"I'm holding the leash," Gia answered warmly. "Besides, everybody needs a confidant, a family—"
"I'm surprised Hermes never taught you this," Christine cut in. Kino noted that Gia's car seat nudged forward just a little. "With a few exceptions, we all choose a human to consort with. In an older time people would call it a high priest or priestess. Gia's job is especially important. Those like me, we need somebody to say, 'this one, not this one. Throw the little one back. Mercy on that one.'"
"Wait, 'we?' You mean... entities like you and Hermes." Kino remembered the strange pair Hermes had summoned to help them. What was it Horo said...? We'd all do anything to protect our mortal consorts? "Well, that puts my relationship with him in a new light."
"He's a teacher. What's a teacher without a student?" the car said.
"I see. But — and no offense, Gia! — is she fit to do that?"
"S'okay Kino, I know I'm impaired."
"She's fit," the car answered. "Gia suffers; she won't be too lenient."
Kino shivered.
"And there he is." Gia announced. The car's headlights found a motorcycle and a small campground.
Gia put them in park and exited with a pistol drawn. Soon satisfied they were alone, she waved to the car. "We're good. We're well clear of the border now."
Christine shut down on her own. Kino tried the door and found it opened. She got out into the cool dry air of a desert at night, and was mildly surprised that her legs weren't wobbly. She promptly dashed over to Hermes.
"Kino! You made it," the motorcycle's familiar, child-like voice immediately made Kino feel better.
"Yup. You alright?"
"Fine. I was worried, though. You never came out of the restaurant, and then some policemen loaded me onto a big truck."
Kino was thrilled to find her confiscated gun-belt stowed under Hermes' saddle. Wow, they're incompetent! She buckled it on and immediately felt safer. Am I ever gonna feel safe taking this off again?
"'Well," she husked, "now I can stop talking to myself. I'll tell you all about what happened later. I need a... a moment."
"Oh! Sure."
Kino started to walk away.
A concerned look crossed Gia's face. She hopped up and retrieved a blanket from the backseat, then wrapped it around Kino's shoulders. "I'll just get a campfire going," she said. "Get some dinner ready. Hope you don't mind hot dogs?"
You have feelings, you just pretend you don't.
Only crazy people don't have feelings and pretend they do.
"She's been gone a while," the talking motorcycle sighed. The campfire glittered from the chrome of Brough Superior and Plymouth Fury alike.
"She doesn't want to be seen, Hermes. Leave her be. I remember after the operation, I desperately wanted to cry. Funny, I still can't, 'cept when I'm happy, but that's not the same thing."
The hiss-crunch of dry grass under boots announced Kino's return to the camp. She sat down in the ring of light, blanket wrapped around her. She'd straightened her clothes and her hair, but the puffiness around her eyes gave her away.
"Better...?" Gia ventured.
"I've never felt so humiliated in my entire life," Kino answered, her voice gravelly and hoarse. "I panicked. I thought I was tough, thought I could face dying. Tisiphone, thank you for running over those men. Saves me the trouble of gunning 'em down."
"Kino...!" Hermes didn't try to hide his disapproval.
"Can I have some hot dogs?"
Gia handed them over. "Don't be embarrassed. You have no idea how often I've been scared outta my mind! Something similar happened to me in a place called Zachry. I peed my pants."
Kino saw that the car still had gore all over its grille and bumper, like an animal with blood on its muzzle. Nevertheless she found herself gobbling her dinner. "Death really gives you an appetite. Spend all that time around campfires and I don't even like hot dogs. Go figure. And Christine's put me off shiokara for life."
"No accounting for taste," the car retorted. "I love my steady diet of assholes."
Knowing how much gentle Hermes abhorred murder, mayhem and crude language alike, Kino could just hear him grinding his gears as he said, "Tisiphone? This is awkward, but I am in your debt now. So, one last time... won't you please call off this absurd feud?"
"You can't be serious! Did I neglect to mention... you of course remember that little town with the hospital, Gia?" And by now, everyone could hear her savoring the moment before the knife descended.
Oh... this is gonna suck!
"Did you know...? That's Kino's home."
Gia turned to stare at her friend, startled. Even Kino couldn't hide the revealing flash of shame crossing her face.
"Uh... yeah. That's right," Kino nodded, regaining her stoicism and secretly angry with herself for being caught off-guard like that. These days it feels like the more I try to hide, the more everything just comes tumbling out, and everybody, Hermes and Gia and even that damned car, can read every little nuance on my face. "Hermes and I put a stop to it." She squared her shoulders.
"You mean my sisters and I coerced you into stopping it, after what it did to Gia," Christine corrected. "Don't you?"
"Uh huh," Kino deflated. Her heart sank as Gia's eyes narrowed.
Gia quietly reassessed Kino in light of this revelation. "So... how was it we met just before, then?"
"Sheer chance! I honestly didn't know where that town was anymore. It's not my home! Hasn't been since I ran away from my family." But the more Kino struggled to make the tale convincing, the lamer her excuses sounded. "I want no part of the place. If I'd known I would have... if I'd known what your parents had planned.…"
"What?" Gia demanded.
"Tell the truth, traveler!" Christine warned.
Kino hesitated. Finally she couldn't stand it anymore. She hid her face in her hands.
"Nothing. I would have done nothing," she admitted feebly.
Gia hissed.
"You would have made an exception for her," Hermes argued.
"You wouldn't have warned me?" Gia's lips peeled back from clenched teeth.
"I hate you, Christine," Kino added, provoking another malignant cackle.
"She would have!" Hermes said. "Gia, you matter to her."
"I don't..." Kino struggled to explain, "have the right to intervene in such things. I'm just a traveler. Who am I to judge? I only acted because the Furies forced my hand."
Gia sat silently, assessing, watching Kino fidget, until finally she said, "that... is the most pathetic... self-deceiving... elaborate excuse for cowardice I've ever heard!" Her growl rose and crescendoed to a bellow.
Kino winced, and squirmed like a speared fish.
"Gia!" Hermes rose to his partner's defense, "don't call my rider a coward. It's rare to find someone as capable as Kino who's not a terrible person. Unlike Tisiphone there, she's humble enough not to pass judgment over everybody. Besides, I've never seen her so badly hurt as when she learned what happened to you, ever. She felt very guilty."
"And that is why I took action!" Christine rumbled. "We are the Furies, the servants of justice."
"Servants of vengeance!" Hermes countered angrily. "Do not speak for shame of justice, harridan."
"Shame? Usurper, it is you who lack—"
"Enough!" Gia shouted the bickering down.
Her stoicism held, barely, but anyone who knew Kino could see her suffering under Gia's withering, infernal glare. Is this gonna get ugly?
"What do you want me to say, Gia? Would you have me go around trying to change the people and places I visit? Who am I to try to reshape the world in my image? I'm only passing through, I don't have to live with the consequences. The best I can do is to show others the value of non-attachment and self control."
"Your philosophy knows nothing of justice, Kino." Christine accused. "You travel the world and ignore the evils all around you. You think you can end human suffering by teaching others to pretend it all away like you do? There is no room in your pretty little world for evil, for real evil!" Abruptly, the car's headlamps flared, boring into the trio like a dragon's eyes.
"I am pure evil. I am Christine!" Then the Fury commanded with the voice of a demon, "Gia, do as I've taught you to do: destroy her!"
—Snap!— Faster than the eye could follow, Kino trained her pistol on Gia.
"Stop it!" Hermes shouted. "Tisiphone, don't you dare. I will not forgive this!"
All three waited for Gia, who spent the moment staring down the barrel of Kino's revolver. Kino stared back at the weird, uncanny smile on Gia's face, and knew that even the operation couldn't bring a once-charming and innocent woman to smile like that.
Gia raised her empty hands, and strolled a few steps to her left. A gentle wind blew her hair.
"Wow, you are fast!" she said. "But do you know, Kino, no matter how good you are with that pistol, I'm the one who'd win here? I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. I'm armed to the teeth. And oh, I'm so underhanded and sneaky these days! I've faced much worse than you and lived." Gia glanced at Christine. "When someone believes in you, you can do anything."
Some instinct warned Kino that Gia was stalling. "You know, I actually think—" and that's when the invisible chemical billowing from Gia's mouth bit her eyes. Kino involuntarily gasped in surprise, pulling more of the awful stuff into her throat and forcing a coughing fit.
CRACK! Something hit Kino and sent her sprawling. She was dimly aware that her finger had convulsed upon the trigger, but Gia was unharmed; she had a hand wrapped around Kino's wrist.
Gia spat out the capsule, waved the gas off, put her Taser away and stepped over the writhing Kino to approach Christine.
"Even if I'd lost, you'd get to kill her in revenge. I have had it with you!" Gia stood defiantly between Christine's burning hot dual headlights. "Just when I thought we finally understood each other, you're pulling this crap again."
"Kill Kino," the car commanded calmly.
Gia pounded the rumbling front hood with both fists, denting it. "Fuck off! Leave Kino alone!"
"Are you all completely witless?" The car complained.
And for a moment, the only sound was the great engine idling, and the tranquil crackling of the campfire.
"I...don't... believe it!" Hermes finally said in a shocked voice.
Christine answered with a genuine, authentic, right-out-of-the-movies evil laugh. "Mwah-hahaahaaawwh! You are bested, thrice-great Hermes!"
"What?" Gia turned to snarl back at Hermes. "Am I missing something here?"
"How did you do that?" Hermes asked in wonder. "She just... impossible! How did you—?"
"...heal her?" The Fury offered. Her headlights dimmed and faded; her engine cut off.
Gia's expression changed too, as she realized what she'd just done. "Do it again."
"Kill Kino."
"Go hump a parking meter," Gia answered quietly, astonished. She still felt the odd, disembodied sensation, like wax paper over her mind, but now she could force it away.
"Gia...!" Kino climbed to her knees, coughing. She forced her eyes open to look at Gia's face. Then she waved her hand, fanning the stinging residue off herself as she'd been taught.
"You alright?" Hermes asked.
"Tear gas, I've felt it before." Kino accepted the little packet of tissues Gia offered. "No harm done, 'cept to my pride, again. That was a dirty trick."
"You were pointing a pistol at me."
"I wouldn't willingly shoot you."
"Same," Gia produced a little snub nose with a sleight-of-hand trick, and made it vanish just as ably.
Kino chuckled and holstered her revolver. Then she considered Gia's face from several angles. "Her face is still wrong but, oh Christine... bravo!" and her voice hitched a little at the last. It might have been the gas, or not. "I can't believe it!" Unable to contain herself, she grabbed Gia into a hug.
"I repeat," Hermes said, "how did you do that?"
The Fury didn't even try to hide her smugness. "You forgot the Erinyes are also revered as healers? I treated her like any victim of brain damage, put her in situations that forced her to fight through her impairment to survive. Eventually her head had to rewire itself. Or she'd die of course, which was fine since I had no use for her as she was."
"That's what it was all about?" Gia raged.
Kino's embrace ended as she coughed and spat out phlegm. "Heartless," she finally managed.
"Machiavellian," Hermes added. "You did that without her consent?"
"Hoo! Girl, when we first met I asked you if you wanted to die. You remember your answer?"
"Uhm..." Gia thought, then her eyes widened. "You decide!"
"Yeah, not much of a life worth risking there," Christine concluded, "and that does constitute consent."
"Huh! That it does," Hermes admitted. "You followed the rules, and you did accomplish something beyond me. I'm simply not that ruthless."
"So... why?" Kino asked, still a little suspicious.
"Isn't it obvious? To show me up," Hermes answered petulantly.
"I love being a goddess of vengeance!" the Fury gloated.
"How impressed should I be?" Hermes countered. "You took a law-abiding puppet and turned her into a free-thinking criminal."
"And your Kino isn't a criminal?" Christine growled. "I doubt she's a big fan of your cherished trials and law right now."
"There's a big difference between a drumhead and the courts of a decent society."
"Impudent child, you lead your disciples into a candy-coated fantasy. For too long have humans worshiped and trusted the state. Governments serve justice as well as they do everything else!"
Gia and Kino shared a knowing look, and quietly started laughing as they fell into another embrace.
"Oh, and you and your sisters are fonts of wisdom and mercy? You shouldn't have been chasing Kino in the first place!"
"I had every right! I could smell the guilt on her."
"True," Hermes retorted, "but what happened to Gia wasn't her fault. Kino's busy dealing with her own ailment. You can't hold her responsible."
"...Wait — what?" Kino demanded.
Hermes took a moment to calm down, then, "Kino has what's called a 'dissociative disorder.' It's common in post-traumatic stress. I saw it happen. When Kino begged her parents not to operate on her, they tried to stab her to death! She ran away, and her real feelings have been locked up in a vault ever since."
Gia's eyes went wide as saucers. "That's how you 'left' your family?"
"Hermes...!" Kino scolded and advanced on him, not at all liking her inner psyche being paraded out for some sort of amateur analysis.
"Are you trying to concoct some sort of insanity plea?" Christine shrilled, for once losing control of that perfectly-modulated voice.
But Gia slapped her palm on the car's fender. "No! It's time for you to listen for once, girl." And the speakers fell silent.
Yow...! The Fury really does answer to her. Kino filed that revelation away to gnaw on later. "Hermes, I don't appreciate you saying I'm incompetent."
"Will you listen to yourself? Not just what you're saying, the way you're saying it. She was finally coming out of her shell when she met you, Gia. What happened to you couldn't have happened at a worse time. Kino relapsed."
"If I may, Gia," and everyone could hear Christine spoke through clenched teeth, "she looked pretty emotional when she saw that noose. Didn't she just walk away to have herself a little breakdown?"
"Sure," Gia nodded. "It would take something like that. A normal person would be a complete wreck right now. I thought Kino was just playing it cool but... she really has a problem, huh?"
"And Delirium's realm is outside your jurisdiction, Tisiphone," Hermes concluded with a triumphant note of his own. "She's sane, but you can't expect Kino to go change the world when she's wrestling with her own—"
"Will you all please stop talking about me like I'm some specimen in a beaker," Kino interrupted. Too numb to summon up the tantrum that would refute Hermes, she sat in the dust by the fire to pout.
"'Dissociative disorder,'" Tisiphone scoffed. "All these years, you're still such a nerd, Hermes."
Gia joined Kino and put an arm 'round her shoulder. "Ain't we a pair?" She deliberately smiled her messed-up, creepy smile, and Kino's stony face hid the pain it brought her. "Add in Christine's 'anger management issues' and Hermes is the only sane one in the bunch."
The fire hissed and crackled. A coyote warbled somewhere in the distance. Kino allowed herself to relax into Gia's arms.
"A wake of corpses is not an 'anger management issue,'" Hermes grumbled.
"Thank you for... taking up for me, Hermes. But Christine's right too." Kino reached up and presumed to reach a hand gently to one of the car's red fenders, and abruptly felt that her hand was touching not cooling metal, but the flank of some great beast curled protectively about the campfire. "The Furies," Kino quoted in a humble, placating tone, "...will not be denied; we get it. Yes, there is good and there is evil in the world. I still prefer not to get tangled up in that fight where possible, and I'm definitely not on your side, Christine. But yeah, I concede your point."
"Mortal," The silky voice warned gently, mollified at last, "in the end, you must choose sides."
Kino turned admiring if bloodshot eyes on Gia. Of Georgiana, the simple, flirtatious trucker's daughter she'd once picnicked with at a roadside rest stop, who worked so hard to be perfect for her upright parents, there was little sign. But there was less of the sickly, twisted parody of humanity the operation made of people. Gia was alive, healthy, predatory, and darkly glamorous. She bore the imprint of her fell companion. Gia frightened Kino, and intrigued her too. She was pale from days spent sleeping and nights awake. She was gaunt but wiry-strong. Her hair, grown out again, was still raven-black against a white hairband and her eyes had grown more vividly dark.
And she still makes my world go sparkly! "Fermions."
"I don't think Gia will ever fully recover; the damage was too great," Christine admitted with sympathy in her voice, "but she is free again. She's no longer something less than human, and she's a great help to me. I hope that Hermes can help you."
Is Gia evil? Is that what evil looks like?
The twisted smile widened. "Well, if you're not gonna make the first move, I will." Gia abruptly took Kino by the arm and tugged her toward the car. "My father gave me an order when I woke up from the operation," She opened the door and reeled an unprotesting Kino into the backseat. "Free, am I? Let's find out. C'mon, music rises, Hollywood kiss!"
"Hey!" Hermes protested, but the trio ignored him. The door closed, the great engine ignited and sped off into the night. Christine's red tail lights vanished and left him alone, to watch the campfire flicker out.
Until...
Leave the mortals to their sport, for they are as mayflies to us. The words of Tisiphone, sounding delighted and amused, reached Hermes in the old language.
For too long have the dark gods been defied. We are old and primal, and we too must be served. A place is ordained in the world for wrath and bloodlust, for revenge and strife and for all things, and their place you must not deny. Your arid wisdom alone cannot satiate your disciple's soul, nor heal that of mine. But I have unlocked Gia's fetters, and donned mine gladly. In her triumph this night belongs to them, and they to the night and to the children of Night. Be at peace, wanderer. They must both go into the dark by and by, and this is as it must be. Leave them to consummate accord between us, which we shall abide by for their sakes, for their lives long.
Question not the rites of the underworld.
Death really gives you an appetite.
In the dim of the dawn, with the clouds blushing pink to welcome the sun, the car returned to Hermes. The door opened and Kino crawled out, naked and spent, to lie down on the soft sand in the fading darkness. Gia too emerged and stood over her, a black silhouette with legs spread and hands at her bared hips.
At last she tossed Kino's clothes and khaki coat out to the scrub-dotted desert with a laugh.
"Gia?" Hermes said. "You have your own volition again. The puppet's strings are cut. But you're responsible for what you do now. That's what being 'grown up' really means."
The woman cocked her head.
"So what will you do?"
"Dunno. I'll hafta think about that." She climbed back into the car, and they drove off to find some shady, secluded spot to sleep the day away.
After an interval the sky brightened and blued, and Kino said languidly, "Hermes?"
"Hey."
"Every time I start to get bored and think I've learned what you have to teach me, we run across something new."
"We've been traveling together for a long time, but there are places and things even I can't show you. I'm glad for you."
"Thank you for waiting so long."
"Hmm? What do you mean?"
"For... how long have you been waiting here?"
"All last night."
Kino sat up, very surprised. "That— ...was a strange trip!"
"I expect it was. I look forward to hearing all about it. You a little better now?"
"I dunno." Kino flopped back in the soft sand, denuded body and soul. "I guess you're right about me, Hermes. But it's not something easily fixed. How does a turtle escape its shell?"
"How does a bird? You should get dressed. The sun's coming up and someone might see you there."
Kino snorted. She stood and stretched, her modesty banished for just this little while as the sun she'd despaired of ever seeing again rose over the nearby hills and chased all the cold shadows away. Finally, almost reluctantly, she reached for her clothes. She was tickled to discover naughty Gia had swapped Kino's boxers with her own silk dainties. Once Kino dressed she rekindled a little fire for her breakfast.
"And for the record," Hermes added, "I still say they're both crazy."
"Do you think Gia will be alright?" Kino asked.
"Well, we're very different from them, but Tisiphone and I have this one thing in common: we take care of those we love. Kino...?"
What will we do now?
- Don't know. We'll have to think about that.
That afternoon, Kino the Traveler approached a town.
"We're not quite out of the woods yet. Maybe you should fit me with a GPS?" Hermes said.
Kino shook her head. "Where's the fun in that? Maps are cheap, and I like relying on my own resources. Terrain association, a compass... Master taught me all about intersections and resections. Don't wanna let all that go to waste. Besides, Christine told me this was the fastest way to get out of the Badlands."
"You trust her?"
"Well... no," Kino smirked. "Wheels within wheels with that one. But I am gonna take some of her advice. I'm my own person and my beliefs are very different. I was raised to be humble and avoid confrontation, and to try to keep everything in harmony. But she has a point. Maybe we do have a duty to take sides when we see something really, really wrong."
"Then what will you do?"
"Whatever I can." She patted the reassuring mass of her holster. "So maybe all this was for the best."
Hermes grunted. The land grew greener and the trees taller as they hummed smoothly forward.
"When you change the scenery," Kino quoted, "sometimes it changes you right back."
"Who said that?"
"I forget." Kino smiled. She glanced up at the real-estate billboard just ahead. It read, "Come visit Stepford, Connecticut. You'll feel right at home."
"Let's just hope we don't have to worry about it for a while."
.