Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (90 page)

"It looks like King Barabas wasn't kidding when he said they were throwing me a party?" Lucifer said. He stared down at the stadium, a peculiar mixture of ancient stone culture and modern technology.

"If you ask me, it's all barbaric," Eligor said. With his luck it would be
his
head chopped off and dipped in a vat of rubber to be some cannibalistic six-year-old Tokoloshe's brand new birthday
futebol
.

The cocky bastard's lips curved up into a grin.

"Come, now, Eligor. We mustn't judge these people for their religious beliefs. The Tokoloshe wholeheartedly worship their god."

Eligor glanced down at the ant-sized men fighting for their lives. He didn't know what amazed him more, the fact the Tokoloshe were as brutal with their
own
kind as they were with their unfortunate captives? Or that all Tokoloshe kids dreamed of someday joining an
ollamaliztli
team even though, if they ever got good enough to hit the 'pro' level, during each ballgame one player out of every eight never walked off of the field?

From the way the crowd all stood up and cheered, game point had been reached. Eligor banked the shuttle so he could watch the players drag one of their own, arms pinned by his own teammates, before a raised platform where King Barabas officiated. It was the losing captain's own teammates who forced the man to kneel. A third player moved to stand directly behind him holding a sharp metal instrument that reminded Eligor of a machete. His stomach lurched at the sight of a doll-sized head dropping to the ground. The loser's body collapsed onto the field.

The entire stadium stood up and cheered, the noise so ecstatic that Eligor could hear their chants even through the antimatter shielding of the space shuttle. He glanced over at Lucifer, who had his eyes closed, nostrils flared, and his lips parted as though he inhaled a decadent scent.

"His own
teammates
knocked him off?" Eligor exclaimed. "Man! That's just cold!"

Lucifer opened his eyes. The light of the bonfires reflected into Lucifer's eerie silver eyes, turning them red.

"Why, of course, Eligor," Lucifer said. His mouth curved up into a beneficent smile, revealing his perfect, white teeth. "If you wish to make a
fitting
sacrifice unto the gods, you must sacrifice the thing you value
most
."

Horror slithered down Eligor's spine and settled into his tailbone. Man! When Lucifer was jacked up on meds, the man was a fucking snake. He rustled his feathers with disgust.
'Tomorrow, dude, I'm only giving you 50cc's.' 

"Fly in slow," Lucifer pointed at the center of the field. "Circle around the stadium once, and then set down right in the middle of the ball court."

"If we fly any slower, Sir," Eligor said, "this bird is gonna drop right out of the sky."

"It's been a long time since I last addressed these people," Lucifer's grin disappeared. "Winning their support is integral to our interests. I want to give them a show they're never going to forget."

So? Lucifer had addressed these people in the past? Eligor glanced up and met the reflection of Lucifer's gaze mirrored off the windshield. Eligor looked away.

Who the fuck was he kidding? This version of Lucifer had always given him the chills, but it also excited him. As someone who'd been on the wrong side of the law most of his life; wrong place, wrong time kinda shit, what Lucifer was doing right now, telling the two old gods to fuck off and reclaiming what was
his,
gave him a freakin' hard-on!

Lucifer's lips curled up into
a pleased sneer.

Aw, fuck! Lucifer had heard that thought. It was no fun hanging out with a psychopath who could read your mind.

'Just worried the cannibals are going to truss you up and roast you on a spit, Sir,' Eligor thought silently to himself, nice and loud-like, so Lucifer could read his mind. 'With all those fires lit…'

He let the thought trail off and focused on the bonfires which had been lit at regular intervals around the stadium, dwarfed by the enormous one which sat before a statue covered by a tarp. He glanced back at Lucifer's reflection in the windshield. Yes. The evil twin had heard that thought, just the way he'd intended. It was an honest thought; just the kind of genuine worry to reassure the puppet prince that Eligor watched out for his interests.

"Don't worry, dear
friend,
" Lucifer gave him a patronizing smirk. "King Barabas won't eat
me
. If anything, it wouldn't surprise me if he offered me up one of his sons for
me
to eat for dinner."

Lucifer's teeth were reminiscent of fangs. Eligor glanced over at the place on Lucifer's snowy white wings where the chunk of uncooked flesh had lodged, now disappeared since Lucifer had made a trip into the head. Friend? Lucifer had earlier made clear his thoughts about friends.

'I ain't your fucking pet, dude,' Eligor thought clearly enough for Lucifer to hear. 'You want me to watch your ass, fine. But don't fucking patronize me. I'm here because I draw a paycheck. Not because I feel like sucking up to you.'

Aloud he stated with a flat tone:  "Anything you say, Sir."

Lucifer studied him with a bemused expression, one perfect blonde eyebrow arched into a 'vee.'

"I like you Eligor. You're probably the only person on the ship that isn't afraid of me, and isn't out to kiss my backside."

"Sir," Eligor gave a noncommittal answer.

"Are you
really
in all this for just the paycheck?"

Eligor focused on his altimeter instead of meeting Lucifer's gaze. He pretended not to notice Lucifer had picked that thought right out of his mind.

"Nobody's ever in if just for pay," Eligor said.

Lucifer leaned back, no longer interested in the spectacle below, and splayed his wings haphazardly against the co-pilot's chair.

"Then what
do
you want?" Lucifer asked.

Eligor shrugged. "Nothing much."

He shoved the image out of his mind of the Colonel's widow. Where had
that
thought come from? Lucifer? Or his own?

He focused on the descending shuttle, the way the bird struggled to stay aloft as he slowed down to the point the wind no longer gave her lift. He'd been selected as a pilot because he was the best in the fleet, and he could make this bird do things that nobody else could. He banked closer to the ecstatic crowd below, so close that the belly of the shuttle almost grazed the banners. If Lucifer wanted a stage entrance, by gods he would to give him one!

Lucifer pressed his knuckle against his upper lip, regarding him intently like a serpent sizing up a rodent. Eligor felt the intrusion into his mind. Shemijaza had possessed this same ability, but just before he'd sent Eligor off to fetch his son, he'd pulled him aside and made him learn how to fend off just such a violation.

'You must shield your thoughts and always keep them to yourself,' Shemijaza had said.

'Even from your son?'

'-Especially- from Lucifer,' Shemijaza had said. The man's silver eyes had been filled with worry. 'Trust no one. Not even, if I act peculiarly, me.'

  Had Shemijaza suspected his son had inherited his mental health issues and his ability to fuck around with other people's minds?

Eligor filled his mind with sensory input from the three-ring circus just outside the windshield. It was an enormous coliseum, with steep seating which stretched so high it dominated the skyscrapers in the city. It was built of stone, but all around it huge video screens showed in intricate detail the unfortunate team captain's head being dipped into a vat of liquid rubber, until enough rubber had accumulated that the man's skull would make the next game's rubber ball. On both sides of the enormous bonfire lay racks of similarly constructed balls, each one containing a loser's severed head.

Lucifer gave up on his game of
'let's fuck with Eligor'
and focused instead on what had caught Eligor's attention.

"Oh, look!" Lucifer slapped his hand against the dashboard. "This is always my favorite part!"

The three surviving losing team members picked up the fourth member's now-rubberized head and carried it forward to a platform at the head of the ball court. They held it upwards as an offering to the king. The camera cut up to King Barabas, dressed in an elaborately feathered ceremonial costume. The cannibal-king held his arms out to the crowd.

"What's he doing?" Eligor asked.

"Watch," Lucifer's voice held an edge of excitement. He slid his fingers along the dashboard, lightly sliding along the edge of each instrument the way one might caress a lover. His voice grew husky and low. "Come, Barabas. Let your subjects decide their fate."

The cannibal-king held his hands straight outwards, and then he pointed outwards towards the crowd.

The crowd cheered.

"Ooh! Goodie!" Lucifer clapped his hands together like a small boy.

Eligor watched the losing team member's faces on the video screen. Whatever King Barabas was up to, they anxiously awaited his decision.

"What's he waiting for?" Eligor asked.

"Watch," Lucifer crooned, his voice seductive.

Eligor lined up the space shuttle directly over the target area and fired off the VTOL engines. As he guided the shuttle down, he looked up and saw the enormous, thirty-foot-tall video images of King Barabas point downwards with both of his thumbs.

Some of the crowd cheered, but a bigger portion of the crowd booed.

Lucifer frowned.

King Barabas pointed up.

The crowd went wild.

The video camera cut over to close up shots of the three losing players, who all looked as though they might just faint with relief.

Eligor glanced over at Lucifer, who looked disappointed.

"Oh, well," Lucifer said. He flipped out his hand as though to say,
'whatever.'
  "Sometimes, people just aren't
willing
."

Lucifer leaped up and moved back to the passenger area of the shuttle, almost hitting Eligor in the face with his wings. He barked orders at his two cold-eyed goons in a language Eligor couldn't understand.

Eligor finished setting the space shuttle down onto the ground. This whole expedition was a fascinating little anthropological research lesson on negotiating with fucked up militaristic cultures, but as soon as he got back to the
Prince of Tyre
, he swore the first thing he would do was hit the shower and delouse his feathers.

He peered up to the raised platform upon which King Barabas, king of the cannibals, stood triumphant. He hit the 'speaker' button so he could hear the cannibal king announce these were triumphant times, and their god had returned to shepherd their people into a golden age.

Lucifer met Eligor's gaze.

"Stay here."

The two goons hit the 'open' button to the hatch. The ramp slid down. Lucifer strode out onto the playing field like a conquering hero, arms held high in a victorious 'vee.'

The crowd clapped politely, but they did not cheer. Eligor's estimation of the average Tokoloshe intellect went up a notch. Hah! If Lucifer wanted to bamboozle them, he would have to do more than just show up and tell them he was Shemijaza's son.

Lucifer strode across the ball field, past the blood-stained grass that was all that was left of the sacrificed
ollamaliztli
player, past the rack of severed heads to stand in front of the enormous bonfire lit in front of the cloaked statue. The four victorious
ollamaliztli
players came forward and presented Lucifer with the now-rubberized head of the losing team captain. Lucifer held the ball above his head as though he presented it to the people in the stadium.

The crowd cheered…

Lucifer tossed the gruesome ball lightly into the air and bounced it off his hip, straight towards the nearest ballsink. By some miraculous confluence of aiming plus the wind, the ball sailed straight into the hole.

The crowd went wild. Even in his shuttle, Eligor could feel the vibration as two million Tokoloshe clapped their hands and stomped their feet in a martial chant of victory.

Lucifer made a mocking Sata'anic prayer-gesture, and then he bowed, his wings flared gracefully behind him as he gestured first to the crowd, and then the four victorious
ollamaliztli
players. With all the grace their species had been engineered to possess, Lucifer took flight right through the upper tongues of the fire, past the shrouded statue to stand on the enormous, raised platform which rose behind it to provide a stage. Here, Eligor knew, Lucifer was in his element. On stage, Lucifer had always known how to play a crowd.

King Barabas bowed to his guest. The crowd grew silent, sensing this was something they had never seen. King Barabas? Kneeling to a foreign prince? Lucifer placed his hand upon the man's shoulder and bid him, over the loudspeakers, to rise in perfect Tokoloshe language.