The woman walked a good long way, until she reached the outskirts of the city; she was heading toward a house on a corner of one of the islands, one that was well-appointed by the standards of the city. She reached the door around mid-day; she supposed she could have come here by a more direct route, but the walk had given her time to think. And it did not tire her. Nothing could.
She reached to knock at the door, when a slight hissing noise drew her attention. She turned to her left, and saw a nine-foot-long python. The great serpent drew itself up, until its head was almost even with hers. And then, it did a most peculiar thing.
It bowed.
A human watching the display would have been startled, and would have assumed that she had misinterpreted the actions of the snake. But the young woman simply nodded back to the beast, and said, “Nyoka, it is good to see you again. I seek your mistress; is she in?”
The snake nodded, then jerked its head in a move that unmistakably said, “Follow me.” As the snake turned and slithered around the house, Aphrodite did just that.
Soon enough, snake and goddess arrived behind the house, where a woman was floating a good thirty meters out into the river. Before Aphrodite could call to her, the woman dove under, and moments later resurfaced right by the banks of the river. She rose out of the water, and had a human been there, no matter their gender or sexual orientation, they would have gasped.
She was beautiful – fully as beautiful as Aphrodite Herself. She pulled her hands through wild, kinky black hair, which she pulled back quickly into a single braid behind her, doing in moments what would take an average woman hours. Her café au lait-colored breasts were bare, and she wore a simple black, red, and green skirt which clung to her hips. Nyoka slithered up to her quickly, gliding around her shoulders, and laying its head on her ample bosom. The woman looked at Aphrodite gravely, and nodded.
“My Sister Goddess, welcome to my home,” she said, with a melodious West African accent.
“Hello, Mami Wata. It is good to see you again.”
“Hmm. Aphrodite, you have never come to visit me here, and I know full well you would not if the situation was not dire.”
“Mami Wata! You and I have visited many times – did I not visit you on Trinidad just eighty years ago?”
“That you did, child, but you have never visited me here, in the land of my birth. You Greeks never come further into Mother Africa than Alexandria.”
“But –”
Mami Wata could not keep her face straight. “Aphrodite, do you not know when I am teasing you? It’s lovely to see you. I see far too few non-African Gods or Goddesses in my territory these days. Mostly Allah, and he’s far to interested in preserving morality to give much respect to me. It’s lovely to see you, no matter the circumstance.”
“Hmpf,” said Aphrodite, returning the smile that Mami Wata now showed her. “I know what you mean. You didn’t have to put up with Yhwh, though.”
“And yet I did,” said Mami Wata, “as they’re the same God.”
“Only in the way you and I are the same God. Right?”
“Child, you have much you have not learned. But that is not surprising; most Gods and Goddesses have not spent time learning the Deeper Truth. And that is why you are here, is it not? To discuss the Deeper Truth?”
“I have come,” she said, “because of a dispute between myself, Hephaestus, and The Adversary.”
“I know,” said the African Goddess of Love. “I’ve seen the case. I am Of Council, still. Which is why you sought me, yes?”
“It is,” said Aphrodite. “I need your help, Mami Wata. I have never argued before the Council. And –”
“You most certainly do,” said Mami Wata. “But first, come in. We will have lunch, and discuss Truth. For what you are doing is far more than simply trying to reunite lovers. You are now fighting for the survival of humankind. I will try to help you, so you do not fail.”
And not waiting for her Greek counterpart to answer, Mami Wata headed up to her home. Nonplussed, Aphrodite followed.
* * *
It had been several hours since he’d been placed in the cage, and Adam was beginning to despair.
He couldn’t imagine that he’d been captured only to be put in a cage and forgotten; that made no sense. Surely, someone would be by soon to at the very least feed and water him. (Well, he had water – someone had hooked up a gerbil water bottle for him to suckle at. It was something.) When they came, he would plead for them to let him go. This was a lab – probably the person who ran it was looking to unlock the secret of his shrinking. Maybe he could agree to let them study him, in exchange for bringing Stephanie here. It wasn’t perfect, but they had to be decent people who he could reason with. Right?
Finally, after a fitful sleep on the ground, a noise woke him back to reality. He heard the click of a key in a lock, heard the squeal of a door opening. He rose, conscious of the fact that he was naked, and walked to the bars.
His heart skipped a beat, and his stomach plunged.
The blond woman was running a hand through her pixie-cut hair. She set her purse on a desk, and walked directly to the cage, flats clack-clacking on the floor of the lab. She smiled a cruel smile as she saw him standing up.
“You!” he called out.
“Well, you’re awake,” she said. “You shouldn’t have run. You made Dr. Marbas very angry with me. Very angry. He had to call in Andousha to look for you. And that…that made him very angry with me.”
“I’m sorry if Dr….”
“Marbas,” the woman reiterated. “His correction was most unpleasant.”
Adam paused at this. Even with all that was unusual about his life, this woman was more unusual than usual.
“I…I’m sorry if I got you in trouble. But to be fair, if this is where you were trying to take me in the first place…it’s not really where I wanted to be.”
“You will change your mind,” the woman said. “Dr. Marbas is brilliant, and very persuasive. He will make you see that this is all for the best.”
Adam paced. “I don’t know your name,” he said, after a moment, his mind reeling as he tried to figure out how to reason with someone who seemed crazy.
“I am Tanith,” the woman said, writing on a vast sheet of paper. “Tanith Nightingale. A pity. If you’d let me bring you here, and if I knew I could trust you, I’d be happy to pleasure you right now. But I am not allowed. Not yet.”
“That is…a kind offer, Tanith, but I am married,” Adam said. “I mean, unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying…but if you meant something sexual, I’m faithful to my wife.”
“You won’t have a choice,” she said. “Do you think you can resist me? I may not have Andousha’s powers, but I have enough height on you that you will be unable to do anything but submit when the time comes.”
“So you mean to rape me,” said Adam, directly.
Tanith came right up to the cage, bent her head down so that Adam’s entire view was her pretty, ugly face. She stared at him cruelly, a twisted smile tugging the corners of her lips.
“If that is what you force me to do,” she growled, and Adam could not help but feel she was rather counting on his forcing her hand.
There was the squeal of the door again, and Tanith rose. “Dr. Marbas!” she practically squealed with delight. “The subject is awake!”
“Excellent news, Tanith. Go fetch me coffee.”
“But….”
“Leave us, Tanith. I told you that you would have your turn. But not before me.”
“Of course not, Doctor. Of course not. When shall I return?”
“Ten minutes,” the man said. “Now, leave.”
Tanith left the room abruptly, and the new figure now loomed. He appeared to be forty-something, slick black hair fading gray at the temples, horn-rimmed glasses framing eyes that were so brown as to be almost completely black.
He appeared to be the very model of a scientist of the 1950s vintage, with the exception of an earring in his left ear of the same design as the logos on the wall – three lines radiating out from a circle, each capped with a circle at their endpoints, resembling nothing so much as a pyramid with no bottom. Two crosses ran orthogonally from the outer lines. The whole design was inscribed in a circle. Adam could not help the feeling that he’d seen it somewhere before.
“So, you slept,” the Doctor said, grabbing the chart hanging below the cage.
“Doctor…Marbas, look, please, I –”
“You slept?” the Doctor asked again, his tone indicating that he was not going to be conversing with the specimen until his questions were answered.
“Yes,” Adam replied. “But….”
“Have you evacuated your bladder? Voided your bowels?”
“Uh…the former. Last night.”
“I see. Let’s see here….”
The doctor took out a red laser pointer, and aimed it into Adam’s eyes. “Hey!” he shouted, but quickly, the light disappeared; it seemed to have headed for his feet.
“15.9 centimeters. Based on the information I have, I’d expect you to be at 14.4 tomorrow at this time, but we’ll see.”
Adam blinked, trying to get his sight back. “Dr. Marbas, please, I was kidnapped. My wife –”
“…is currently being drug through the court of public opinion and found wanting. Not that the police have any real reason to suspect her, but they will; it’s always the spouse, even when it isn’t. They’ll spin their wheels for at least the next seven weeks, by which point my calculations indicate you should be about one millimeter tall, and so small that I could drop you on Nancy Grace’s desk and she’d never find you. Save your breath, Mr. White, you are not going to leave this laboratory alive. Your reward comes after death.”
Adam stumbled backward, and sat down.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Oh, it’s not what I want,” he said. “It’s what my boss wants. He wants what made you small, Adam. He wants it very badly. This is novel, you see. The One who did this to you has hit upon something that my organization wants. With it, we will be able to do many great things.”
“I don’t know what made me small. Nobody does. And doctors….”
The Doctor laughed a mirthless laugh. “No, they wouldn’t find it. They couldn’t. It’s not a part of their science, and the real answer would just confuse them more. No, Adam, the truth is that what made you small was a form of magic, but a slightly different form than had existed before. The one who shrunk you did not realize what power She had stumbled onto, or she never would have wasted it the way She did – on one pathetic man at a time.”
“You’re crazy,” Adam said.
“Am I? Explain to me how you shrunk. Explain it in terms that do not reference the terms ‘miracle’ or ‘magic.’ Explain how it is that a human man became the size of a doll, in a universe where such a thing violates the square-cube law. You cannot. By the laws of science, you are an impossibility, Adam White. And if you cannot be explained by physics, then your explanation must lie in metaphysics.”
“Look,” Adam pleaded, “I don’t know who you are, or what your organization does, but I’ll let you study me – really, I’ll even stay in the lab. Just let Stephanie see me one more time. Let us say goodbye. Please, show some human decency, at least.”
Marbas laughed uproariously at that, a bitter, smoky laugh that made Adam’s stomach turn. “That, Adam White, is not something I show. Ah,” he said, as the door opened. “Tanith. Right on time. I will need measurement of shame. Here is the sensor,” he said, handing what appeared to be an enormous ruby to the giantess. “Take him into the back room, and shame him to your heart’s content. Be back in an hour. Try not to break him.”
Tanith beamed at Marbas, and literally skipped over to the cage. Opening it easily, she reached in.
Adam backed as far away as he could, but of course there was nowhere for him to run; the hand locked around him tightly, squeezing him like a garbage compactor as Tanith wrenched him out of his prison, and carried him, humming, to some place worse.
* * *
The Hall of the God-Teachers resembled Socrates’ academy to Eros, something he remarked upon immediately upon seeing it.
“I love Eye of the Beholder,” Jake agreed. “And that would be an appropriate visualization. I see the University of Wisconsin—Madison, which is funny, I suppose – spent most of my life trying to get over Madison, now most of my afterlife roaming its campus. But it’s appropriate for me; it is what I think of when I think of a school. And that is exactly what we do here. Ah, Shigure-san. Do you know where Master Yoda is?”
A solemn, pretty young woman was standing near the entrance to the hall, practicing alone with a largish katana. Eros could not help but notice that she was built improbably for a swordswoman, with overly large breasts that had to interfere with her movements. But she had been moving with amazing fluidity, and if her bosom affected her, she showed no sign of it.
“Hello, D.X.,” she said quietly, not breaking the rhythm of her movement. “I believe Master Yoda is in the tearoom. He was planning to have lunch with Gaius Baltar and Number Six.”
“Head Six and Head Baltar? Haven’t seen them in weeks. Weren’t they off on a mission with Morpheus?”
“And Emmett Brown. They just got back last night. Are you going to be joining us for Daihinmin this evening?”
“Probably. Who all is coming?”
“The Stranger will be there, as will The Dealey Lama and your friend Katrin. And I believe Mickey Goldmill said he would come, if he was able to complete his class on time.”
“Mickey will be there? Well, then I’m in for sure. That guy has the best stories,” he said to Eros. “I mean, he should. He was there for Balboa-Creed, and the rematch – those are some of the best fights in any reality.”
“I believe I heard about those – weren’t they in a movie?” said Eros.
“Yeah, Mick tells ‘em better. Anyhow, dear, we’re in a rush, or I’d ask you to try to teach my slow, maladroit self a few more moves. Thanks for pointing us in the right direction. Mata atode, Shigure.”
“Until later, D.X. Oh, and it was nice to meet you, Lord Eros. And curse you for how you interfered in my training with Kenichi. And thank you as well.”
Eros grinned. “Not sure whether that was my personal doing, but on behalf of my fellow Love Gods, I apologize and you’re welcome, Shigure-san.”
Eros and Jake continued on into the complex.
“I imagine that’s generally how people thank you,” Jake chuckled, “for interfering in their lives.”
“It’s pretty standard,” Eros agreed. “Love is complex, after all.”
“True. I have nothing but gratitude, incidentally. The course of true love may not run smooth – or long – but thank God for it while it runs. I miss Teri – but I am so grateful to have been hers while I could. Thanks.”
“You are very welcome,” said Eros. They continued on for a moment, before the God asked, “So why did she call you ‘D.X.’?”
“Long and boring story,” Jake said, gesturing toward what appeared to Eros to be an open eating area. “This way.”
* * *
Lunch was a simple affair, tigadèguèna – mutton in a peanut-tomato sauce ladled around plantain fufu, some sweet meni-meniyong – sesame seeds cooked in butter and honey – for desert. Mami Wata poured Orangina for them both, not bothering to ask if it was what Aphrodite would prefer. The food had simply been ready when they arrived in the dining room, and Aphrodite briefly considered objecting, as in truth, neither one of them needed to eat to survive. But she did not; it seemed important to Mami Wata that they enjoy lunch, and she did not second-guess the Goddess; indeed, she found the food was quite delicious in its simplicity, reminding her simultaneously of her favorite Mediterranean fare and, oddly, East Asian cuisine.
After some time spent discussing the food, Mami Wata drew the conversation to important things.
“I must say, child, I am impressed that you chose to go to the Council with your case. There was a time when the mighty Aphrodite would have pouted and whined to Zeus to fix things for her. And if that didn’t work, she would have wheedled and stamped her pretty little feet until she finally gave up. More important, she wouldn’t have even bothered caring about two mortals in love; if she had to wait twenty years, or a thousand, she wouldn’t have minded. So while I am impressed with your passion in this case, I still must ask why you chose to go to the Council in the first place?”
Aphrodite swallowed, and said, quietly, “Because my fellow Gods and Goddesses know me as a petulant brat. And they know me as that because, for most of my existence, that is exactly what I have been. But I am older now. I have seen love and loss. And I do not wish to be the cause of the latter again.”
Mami Wata nodded. “An excellent answer, one I am sure you believe. And totally wrong.”
Aphrodite sat mute, frowning.
After a minute, Mama Wati asked, “So aren’t you going to ask me what the Truth is?”
“I…don’t even know what to ask,” said Aphrodite. “What I told you is the truth.”
“Yeah, it’s the truth all right. But it isn’t the Truth, with a capital T. Or if you’d prefer, Αλήθεια with a capital Alpha. The Truth – that’s a big thing. Bigger than even we Gods like to think. Tell me, Aphrodite, has love changed?”
Aprhodite looked at Mami Wata, and said, slowly, “Yes, and no.”
“Always the right answer. Explain.”
“No, because Love is Love is Love. It is what it is, eternal and unchanging. And yet, Love is not simply Love. And that is what is changing. Agape is different now, because women and men are more equal, and that means that a man can love a woman as his equal, and a woman can love a man as her equal, and that means that we do not have the kind of world we had in my ancestral homeland, where men would date boys because at least boys had an education, had learning, and where women would date each other, because what did men know of a woman’s life? Today, men date women and women men and neither is doing so just to find a mental equal – unless men find men more attractive or women find women more attractive – and that brings me to eros, because eros is different now, too. Lust is still lust, but lust takes on a different connotation when you acknowledge the object of your affection is a real, live person. And more and more humans have come to believe just that.
“The feelings are the same, but like the world around us, they are different. They are more meaningful. More real. That was the reason I made the bet with Hephaestus in the first place – because I believe that a couple now is more truly a real couple than they ever were in my day. And that makes all the difference in the world.”
Mami Wata smiled thinly. “Exactly right. Now, explain how that has changed you.”
Aphrodite stopped. “Changed me?”
“Yes, child. Love has changed. We Gods like to think we change and control volitionals, and we do. But they change us, too.”
Aphrodite gasped. “You mean…because love is deeper now, more equal, more sacred, more real – but that can’t….”
“Why not? Why can’t it be?”
Aphrodite swallowed, hard. “You’re saying I’m more mature because humans are more mature?”
“Yes. And why do you care about this couple, when you would not have before?”
“Because…because I view humans as equals, or at least, not as playtoys. I see that they have feelings, thoughts, desires of their own, that they may not have the powers we Gods do, but that the difference between us and them is not so great as we once believed. And that just as I would think it wrong to punish two Gods beyond reason, so I think it wrong to punish two mortals.”
Mami Wata beamed like a teacher watching her star pupil. “That is the Truth, Aphrodite. That is the Truth. And now that you know it, we can begin to talk about how you convince the Council of Thirteen of it.”
Aphrodite pulled from thin air a notepad and a pen. This was going to take a while. But it would be well worth it.
* * *
“Excuse me for interrupting, but I have a visitor who requires immediate assistance,” Jake said, coming over to the table. “Master Yoda, Gaius, Six, I’d like to introduce you to Eros, God of Lust.”
Eros nodded to the people at the table. Gaius was a short, handsome man, clean-shaven with long hair, wearing a dark gray pinstripe suit, open at the collar. Six was a tall, gorgeous woman with platinum hair and an athletic build, wearing a red dress that was ridiculously dressy for the situation. Both greeted him with a nod and a smile.
The third man at the table required concentration to resolve. The Eye of the Beholder spell that covered the God-Teacher’s Guild was quite strong, as strong as in Afterlife Processing, or Central Square. And so the spell wanted to present the man in human terms, as a tall, very old, but still dashingly handsome warrior, still carrying much of the muscle of his youth, despite his advanced age. The spell wanted to present him this way, but it did not, because the man wanted to present himself as about three feet tall, covered in wrinkled green skin, wispy white hair attesting to his age, large, green ears sprouting from each side of his face.
Of course, he was still tall and dashingly handsome. Just not for a human.
It takes a certain level of willpower to project one’s true appearance through an Eye of the Beholder spell, and Eros realized immediately why despite Jake’s insistence on familiarity, everyone seemed to use Master Yoda’s title.
“Worry about interrupting us do not, Jacob. Always welcome here, Lord Eros is. Right that is, Gaius, hmm? Six, hmm?”
“Of course,” said the man, in a Received English accent. “Please, join us Eros. We are honored to have you here.”
“Absolutely,” Six said, smiling. Eros felt briefly dazzled – he could sense attraction between these two – they were formerly angels, he thought, or something like them. And they were an unbelievably handsome couple. He felt the normal rush he felt when love was in the air. But he pushed it aside, as he had business to attend to.
“Master Yoda, Eros wishes to figure out what The Adversary has planned for his universe.”
Yoda pursed his lips. “Always difficult to know are the goals of the Dark Side. Twisted desire to cover its tracks, evil has, so determine what it truly wants, that nobody can. If wish to find out what the devil desires, you do, difficult the process will be.”
“I have no choice,” Eros said. “My mother – Aphrodite – she tried to win a Gods’ bet with her husband, Hephaestus. But he was working with The Adversary to bring that about. He clearly had a motive. But I need to know what it is.”
“Power,” said Gaius. “And destruction. Those are always The Adversary’s goals.”
“Not always,” said Six. “Sometimes, The Adversary simply wishes to put humans in position to destroy themselves – He is not always malevolent. But he is always on the side of evil.”
“Exactly,” Jake added. “Much of the time, The Adversary just has to keep the road clear for a little while. For instance, he had almost nothing to do with Hitler’s rise – that was all humans. Stalinism? Humans. Pol Pot? Humans. Humans will go further than even The Adversary would go. It’s our curse.”
“And yet, go further toward good than even the gods, humans will. Powerful is the dark side in humans, powerful too the side of good.”
“That is true. And often, both at the same time. Consider my human counterpart, Gaius. Utterly hopeless, terrible person, behind the worst catastrophe in human history – and integral in preserving humanity. Ultimately redeemed. Thanks in no small part to my beautiful colleague here.”
“Look, this is all fascinating,” said Eros, “but I need to find this out soon. In three fortnights, the man will have shrunk to almost nothing, and the trial is in three weeks.”
“Sorry,” said Jake. “You’ve come to the home of teachers. Expounding on stuff is our favorite pastime.”
Yoda looked thoughtful. “Have to visit Hell, you will. The only way, it is. Need a guide on your journey, you will.”
“Aphrodite had suggested Merlin,” Jake said.
“Hmm. No. Away on business for the Guild, Merlin is. At the heroes’ guild, he is, and return in time will not.”
“What about Rufus? He knows the territory. And he’s funny,” said Six.
“He’s a Kevin Smith creation, which means he’s frakkin’ hilarious, but I don’t know if Rufus fits the mood of the narrative,” said Gaius.
“Wait, I’ve got it!” Jake exclaimed.
“What?” said Six and Baltar together.
“Look, he needs a God-Teacher who knows Hell. Why not send him with Dante’s guide? Yoda, what’s Publius Vergillus Maro doing?”
“Virgil! An excellent idea. The perfect guide would Virgil be. Yes, hmm.”
“Virgil? He should be available,” said a quiet woman approaching the table. “Forgive me, I could not help overhearing.”
“You always have had good hearing, Miyu-san. Do you know where we can find Virgil?”
“He, Homer, and a visiting writer were working on their modern fiction-style narrative of The Aeneid and The Odyssey. They’re quite certain the update will be a hit in the afterworld.”
“Depends on who they’re working with. It it’s Hemingway, it’ll be awful. If they’re smart, they’ve tapped Jane Austen. I think she’d be the perfect person to write the Helen part,” said Jake, grinning. “With your leave, Master Yoda?”
“Please, to Virgil take Lord Eros. You luck I wish, Lord. Need it, you will. Yes, hmm.”
Jake bowed his head to Yoda, then got up, as did Eros. “Thank you kindly, Master Yoda. Pleasure to meet you, Master Gaius, Mistress Six, Miyu-san.”
The three nodded their goodbyes. “Right this way, Eros,” said Jake, gesturing to the doorway. “You’ll like Virgil. I’m pretty sure your avatar Cupid had quite a bit to do with his school years.”
“Well, that was back when such things were pretty commonplace. Especially among schoolboys,” agreed Eros, as the two left the café.
* * *
Tanith dropped Adam on a hard surface, dropped him hard enough that it caused him to wince in pain. “Well, well. You’re a nice size now. A little on the big side for what I have in mind…but that’s okay. I always liked big.”
“Tanith – please,” Adam said. He knew, frankly, that she intended fully to ignore him. But he wanted it in the record. If there was any force out there that judged him on his death, he wanted to be able to say he tried to stay faithful to his wife.
“Come on. Beg. Beg for me not to do this,” she said, mockingly, as she pulled her blouse over her head. “Beg me to leave you alone. Beg.”
“Will begging stop you? Tanith, I love my wife. I love her with all my heart. And I would never cheat on her. Never. If you are a decent person, that will stop you. If not – well, I can’t stop you. But I’ll be damned if I beg you,” he said,.
“You’ll be damned either way. And then we’ll have even more fun,” she said, turning back to him, dropping her bra to give him an unobstructed view of mammoth tits. “But you’re right, little toy, whether or not you beg, it will make no difference. I will say, you will find this less painful, though, if you cooperate.
“Of course, I think I’ll find it more fun if you don’t. So you choose.”
She pulled her panties down to show off her freshly shaved mound, and rubbed a finger over her clit. And then, waiting not a second, she brought the second item over Adam – a plastic squeeze bottle, which she turned over and poured on him.
Adam gagged on the viscous liquid, which he knew from long experience was Astroglide – she wasn’t going to wait to get herself warmed up.
She put the bottle down, and spread her lips wide, pink flesh opening to a chasm, and she pushed the slippery man toward it.
Adam fought. He fought with every ounce of strength he had, hands slipping off of her labia, elbows colliding with her flesh, bringing only a mocking moan from the giantess. She pushed him wrenchingly between the lips, causing him to shout from the pain – he felt a tendon pop in his shoulder. But still, he kicked and fought and squirmed all the way in.
He was inside another woman. He hated this. Even as parts of him reacted to the overpowering vinegary smell of Tanith, his mind was clear and enraged. He realized after a few moments that all his effort was only stimulating the giantess. And so he did something that surprised her.
He stopped.
He stopped, and lay as still as he could. If she wanted to get off on him, she’d have to do the work.
After a few moments, she grabbed his ankles, and pulled, then pushed, a rough grab that twisted his left knee but good. But he lay there, still, as the woman’s ardor filled his world. Again, she grabbed his ankles, and pushed and pulled, trying to make him be her dildo. But he would give her no more satisfaction than that. If she wanted him to be her sex toy, he was determined to be a bad one.
After a minute or two more, she finally pulled him out, and chucked him a good eighty feet onto a cot in the corner. He bounced twice, and came to a halt face-down, groaning in pain. “Bastard,” the woman spat. “If you’re that bad a lay, no wonder Stephanie wasn’t paying attention to you.”
“Stephanie had no reason to complain. I was happy to be her fuck toy. Her pussy didn’t stink. Seriously, did Marbas want you to nauseate me? It’s working.”
Tanith strode over, and dropped a fist next to him, bouncing him several feet into the air. “I would not mock me if I were you! I can destroy you, you know, just a quick flick of my finger….”
“You won’t kill me,” Adam said, gasping for air. “Not yet. Marbas needs to study me. He would be unhappy if you brought me back dead.”
Adam didn’t know that for sure. But he didn’t mind bluffing. He’d already been told that he wouldn’t get out of this alive. If that was the case, then he had nothing to lose by being uncooperative. It seemed to him that death was preferable to allowing himself to be raped.
Tanith glowered at him, then did flick her finger – at his side, enough to leave him groaning in pain. “Well,” she said, standing up, “you appear to be shameless. At least so far. But we’ll see how you feel after a bit more working over. You think I’m tough? Wait ’til Dr. Marbas gets a hold of you. You’ll wish you were back in my pussy. You’ll beg for me, you son of a bitch.”
Adam said nothing. He knew things probably would get worse. But he smiled quietly. At least he’d won the first round. That gave him the strength to keep fighting.
It was strength he would most certainly need.
* * *
They walked a short way across the campus, until they came to a building that briefly stopped Eros cold. “I know this is just my perception,” he said, as they walked toward it, “but I could swear this was the Library.”
Jake smiled. He didn’t have to ask which library. “It is,” he said. “Down to the molecule, at least when it was brought here. Sophocles and Plato were instrumental in making that happen, of course – and we’ve added on since. But still…it’s impressive, isn’t it?”
The Royal Library of Alexandria was the only building in the land of the guild that appeared the same to everyone. Eros looked on it with a wide grin; Julius Caesar had burned it in the first century A.D., destroying hundreds of thousands of scrolls, the most complete collection in the world Eros had patrolled. He had mourned its lost; all the Greek Pantheon did. It was overwhelming to see it here, even if it was just a copy. He hadn’t seen the old girl for two thousand years.
They walked in, and Eros could see that there had been a lot of change done to the inside. The left half of the entrance was much as it had been; to the right, a thoroughly modern set of book stacks were surrounded by computer terminals and open discussion areas. Far distant, he could see medieval books, and he knew, though he wasn’t sure how, that stairs in the back led to a collection of cuneiform tablets.
“We wouldn’t be a teaching guild if we didn’t have a good library,” Jake said, smiling. “Honestly, this is why I wouldn’t be a part of any other guild. Every book, every story, every tale ever written is in stock here. Everything from really bad Harry Potter fanfic to the original copy of Gilgamesh. I could spend years here; heck, I have spent years here. Excuse me, Daneel, have you seen Virgil?”
The last words were spoken to a quiet man with a broad face and flat, bronze hair, who was waiting at an information desk. “Yes, though he is in a conference room and did not wish to be disturbed.”
Jake sighed. “Writers,” he said. “They can pick it up later. Eros is here on urgent business.”
“Well, that changes things,” said the sober man, picking up a telephone. “Hello, Mr. Adams, this is R. Daneel Olivaw,” he said, calmly. “Yes, I am aware. But Jake Thiessen is here with Eros, God of Lust; he says the latter is on business and needs to see Virgil. I see. Very well, I will send them back.”
The librarian hung up the phone, and said, “They are on level seventy three. One moment, you will be transported there directly.”
Without so much as a noise, they were suddenly in a large conference room, around which various parchments, papers, and typewriters were scattered.
“Pardon the interruption,” Jake said, as they walked into the room, toward three men who were looking over a computer screen, “but Lord Eros is in need of assistance.”
“And just in time,” said the one man of the group who appeared in twentieth-century clothing. “We were getting dangerously close to getting something done. This could set us back weeks.”
The man delivered the line with a cheery air, delivering the clear message that he thought this was a fine thing.
“This will put us beyond our original deadline, Jake,” an older man said. He was dressed in traditional Greek vestments, and Eros recognized him at once.
“I think you can make arrangements, Homer,” said Eros, with a tone of command. “My mother is in serious trouble, and I need Virgil’s help.”
“You mother? In trouble? You mean she’s made trouble for some poor mortal. I’ve written enough about your mother to know just how concerned she is with my former fellow mortals.”
“Actually, the trouble is coming from The Adversary, and from what Eros has told me, Aphrodite is working to protect a mortal from harm. Besides, Master Yoda –”
“Oh, don’t let Homer worry you,” said the Brit, who was doodling in a margin on a scroll. “He’s just in a bad mood because Virgil and I didn’t think that Ford Prefect would fit in the story, not even in an unnamed cameo. And he wouldn’t. At all. Not that I’m not flattered. Now, Svald might work, but he’s not a big fan of the Gently books.”
“The Hitchhiker’s brand is bigger. I mean, look, it’ll draw in the non-human realms. If we’re looking for distribution….”
Jake cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said. “But we are in a loose-time corner of the back beyond. If you want a timestop in this conference room until Virgil – who’s been very quiet so far – can return, I can get that done in a half-second. As can either of the God-Teachers – I’m not sure what the Creator’s Guild has for powers, but I imagine you can do something similar, Mr. Adams.”
“I can, Master Jake. I just don’t usually worry about deadlines. Especially in the afterlife. What’s the point of being dead if you have to worry about getting things done on time?”
“Homer, Douglas is right,” said the quiet third man, who’d been staring out the window. Pulling himself up on a cane, he said, “This is a vanity project anyhow. Not that I’m not enjoying it, mind you. I assume that Eros needs me to escort him to Hell?”
“Yes, Virgil,” said the God.
“Well we’d better get going then,” said the writer, with a shy smile. “This will keep ’til we get back. Jake, you want to come along?”
“I’d love to,” Thiessen said, “but Erato let me know yesterday morning that my Author is starting up some project that will require me to be available for a cameo. Probably Delta – he’s been letting that slide for over a year, but eventually he’ll be ashamed enough to get working on it. That’s what he did with Lost Change. Of course, I’m sure I’m around just to point my protégées in the right direction, I haven’t had more than a few lines of exposition in a story since the bastard killed me off.”
“Typical writer,” said Adams, grinning. “Always abusing their characters. If only he’d show a typical day in your life in the afterworld.”
“Fat chance,” said Jake. Turning to the Greek God, he said, “Well, Eros, good luck. I hope you can help your mother, and those two mortals. And Virgil, make sure you bring him back in one piece.”
“Of course, Jake,” the quiet God-Teacher said. “All right,” he said to the God next to him. “Let’s go.”
And with a wave of his cane, they were gone.
* * *
“Almost no shame,” said Marbas, sneering, as he examined the crystal. “Tanith, I’m disappointed.”
“He refused to participate,” she said.
“Well. Intriguing. And a good first step in telling us what we need to know. Don’t be sad, dear,” he said, catching her chin and lifting it. “You’ll get a chance to test pain next. Later today.”
In his cage, Adam closed his eyes, and prayed that he would have the strength to keep resisting. He did not want to give these evil, crazy idiots any indication that they could break him. Even if in his heart, he knew they eventually would.