The pitch of the chorus rose, shrilled, rose again to a high note sustained by the priestesses. Kelsey wondered if he was the only one who was nervous, but couldn’t very well turn to look. He must be impassive passion, devotion come to flesh and blood, a holy man singing forth the gods from mythology into reality.
And then the miracles commenced and Randall Kelsey’s anxiety fell from him to be replaced by awe and by terror.
First emerged a pair of winged lions with the heads of wise, bearded men. Kelsey knew them—two lesser deities of wind and storm. They had been among the first to attempt the crossover via patrons in Verite. Today, however, they were not making the effort via their patrons (or “serfs,” as Kelsey had once heard one say scornfully), though those blessed two stood by, waiting to strengthen the contact if needed.
The winged ones launched into the air—impossibly aloft. Kelsey knew that within the media corps there would be those equipped to unmask a hoax, to detect a robot, a hologram, a balloon. They would strive in vain. The gods, Little Storm, Little Wind, were truly among them, soaring over the entranced, enthralled, entertained throng.
This would be enough—enough to establish the Church of Elish as a major player among the religions of the world, the bringer of an old truth made new, but Kelsey knew from the pounding of the drums, the clanging of the cymbals, the tootling of the flutes, that what he had dreaded was about to happen.
A shadow darkened the doorway of the shrine, then into the sunlight of a New York City afternoon in summer stepped Bel Marduk.
Nine feet tall stood Lord Marduk, Bel Marduk, Belos, Merodach— son of Ea the Sea and Damkina the Sky. In one hand he held the bow with which he had slain Chaos in the person of the dragon Tiamat. In the other he held the pine cone, emblem of his multifaceted nature, for he was also a creator: bringer of law, crafter of the calendar, and husband of Zerpanitum.
Bel Marduk mounted the ziggurat to stand upon its flattened apex so that the gathered worshipers might look upon him. In all things he was doubly blessed—two heads, four eyes, two mouths, four ears. The bulge beneath his robe suggested that duality did not stop at the head. When he breathed, fire blossomed from his lips.
The god looked out over New York City and found a world that had not believed in him, but soon would repair that failing. He smiled two smiles and breathed out more fire. Then with a wave of the hand which held the pine cone, he summoned Little Storm and Little Wind to him.
“This isn’t in the script,” Juan muttered to Kelsey as Bel Marduk set his feet one each upon the backs of the lesser gods and commanded them to bear him into the sky.
“This isn’t on our script,” Kelsey hissed back. “That maneuver looks rehearsed. What in God’s name does he think he’s doing?”
“God’s name is right,” Juan replied. “I think he’s exerting his divine right.”
“Shit.”
Helplessly, the priests and priestesses of the Church of Elish watched as the Greater God and his lesser minions toured over the crowd. They must hide their fear and dismay, taking their cue from Sven, the High Priest, who stood with his arms folded, incanting the lay in praise of Bel Marduk (which fortunately was quite long, Marduk’s deeds being more numerous than those of any other deity in the pantheon—if one left out Ishtar’s various mischiefs). They must raise their voices in song and hope that all would turn for a profit.
All indeed might have gone well but for the accident to the balloon vendor. It happened thusly.
Tandy Rae Dallas, acolyte of the Church, she of the long legs and blond hair, the same who had earlier in the day sold balloons to both Jay Donnerjack and Link Crain, was standing staring up into the sky, watching the miracle. It had been a good day. She had sold out of her first bunch of balloons and had time to make a good dent in a second before the service started. Those that remained drifted gently above her head, evoking images of a divine aura to those sophisticated in such things.
An underling in the Church, Tandy Rae had no idea that Marduk’s actions were at all exceptional. She watched along with the rest of the crowd, admiring the grace with which the god maintained his balance on his dual mounts. Having done trick riding for a rodeo, she knew how difficult this could be.
Absorbed as she was, she did not sense the sneak thief (or perhaps merely a mischief maker) behind her until it was too late. A single snick of a knife blade released her balloons from their anchor, and before she could do more than wildly grab for one, they had risen into the air.
Cries of dismay, command, and simple surprise rose after the balloons. Perhaps they were what drew Little Wind and Little Storm to the vicinity, but for whatever combination of reasons, the two deities swept directly into the flight of mylar shapes.
They balked. Bel Marduk—slightly unbalanced—breathed fire, setting the balloons and their contents alight. Someone in the crowd screamed, someone pushed, someone punched. With a single smooth motion Marduk strung his bow. Little Storm lived up to his name and peed a mighty stream of strongly scented urine (a thousand cat boxes in a drop) over the crowd.
“Holy fuckin’, holy fuckin’, holy fucking shit!” Randall Kelsey cried, looking down from his perch on the ziggurat. “Call Aoud Aral! We’ve got a riot on our hands.”
When the riot first began, Jay Donnerjack watched with interest, thinking it another part of the entertainment. Only when he saw a child torn from its mother, an old man knocked down, a vendor abandoning his ice cream wagon to flee did he realize that this was for real and that no genius loci would intervene if events progressed beyond the program.
On his perch upon the statue’s base, he had been spared the attentions of the mob. Now he rose to his feet, looking not so much to escape as to make amends for his previous stupidity. In many a virtventure, he had been the hero, but unlike those from Verite who played the programs, he had crossed the interface in body as well as mind. The skills he had learned exploring the jungle that harbored Sayjak and Tranto or hunting with Mizar were his in Verite as well as in Virtu.
Glancing around, he saw that the young man with the wrist recorder stood straddling his older companion from whose head blood ran. Jay could easily guess what had happened and admired the youth for not leaving his friend to the mercy of the crowd.
Climbing a small way up the statue, Jay swung over into a tree and then crossed into the tree that had sheltered the two men. These were not the forest giants he was accustomed to climb. Their less elastic boughs creaked enormously at his weight, but he arrived safely and dropped down onto the now-muddied picnic blanket.
The air was thick with the smell of cat piss and the humidity seemed increased. Jay hoped that the resident aion would have the sense to delay the storm, then realized with shock that Verite had no aions. The enormity of such disorder shook him so that for a moment he did not realize that the young man was speaking to him.
“Stay back! I’m armed.”
Jay grinned at him. “Me, too, only I’ve only got two arms—not like Bel Marduk.”
He glanced up. The Greater God and his minions seemed to be circling back toward the ziggurat. When he looked back at the young man, he saw that he was being studied uncertainly.