Chapter 395: Under Terms

The fog lanes fell away from them in transfers until the nine stood within a sealed Continuum hall that did not claim to be a prison, or free.

Pale stone and muted gold thick with unburied law. No scavenger traffic, no nets for recovery visible. Tohu’s claim on temporary grounds hovered over the space like a breath, while Jehovah’s supervision rendered the air as something weighted for inspection. Sera was not present and the feeling was more loss than triumph.

Poseidon was the first to talk after the escort withdrew. ’So this is the nicer cage.’

’It’s a holding site under temporary protection,’ Athena said, though she was studying the hall’s entrances thoroughly. ’Call it what’s it supposed to be. We can stand here and not be seized for the time being, that’s all.’

Wukong tested his bruised shoulder, using his staff to lean. ’I preferred when the possessors had the grace to pursue.’

Kratos kept to the main entrance, chains loose on his wrists as if the next attack might come regardless of his own terms. Hermes examined the corners on instinct, while Odin listened to the hall’s weight with an eye nearly shut. Hades stood some distance from the rest, his light low and green, face unyielding. Loki studied the higher beings rather than the room.

Both Tohu and Jehovah had come with them.

This surprised Zeus, coming when he had already seen the face under clean lamplight as something familiar, body reacting before logic caught up. It was not the same visage as the one that had opened up and beckoned judgment against their world, only to crumble, but it was close enough to wound. The same structural rigidity, the same stillness of dark eyes, the overall impression of a being who might examine the living universe for a flawed design.

That was when Poseidon went rigid at his side.

’That face....’

’I see it,’ Athena whispered. Her knuckles had gone white as she gripped the spear. ’Too close.’

’It seems similar to the ender of our days,’ Hades’ voice rumbled.

Jehovah caught how they reacted and he should have, beings of his standing always notice when inferiors hesitate. ’You react to a similarity,’ he said easily enough. ’The figure that worn a stolen vessel in your twilight days was not myself, only a degraded sample that forgot its task. I am only the original structure-maker of the assignment, nothing more nor less.’

Tohu exhaled something very close to amusement. ’You put it better than that, they saw a pale copy of you stand and part the gateway from nothing, erase their days with nothing but your presence and then of course they regard this like a projectile from your shoulder.’

Zeus forced his hands to relax at his sides. Chaos under his skin writhed in response to the Jehovah’s presence, not over recognition of fatherhood, but the feeling was similar as it regarded opposing order. ’You’re the original and you let that world run, you forgot, while the copy stayed long enough to decide we were refuse,’

Jehovah gave no argument. ’Yes.’

Perhaps he found too easily accepted that the simplicity of truth was more effective defense.

Athena moved closer. ’Say the rest, you were Tohu and together designed our sphere for the purposes of an assignment. You both received approval, you both moved on while leaving behind an entire existence composed of lives and thrones and battles and deaths. And what decided the survivors as fit for extinction was the one stray bit of your visage that remained, and that is the truth we are here to acknowledge.’

Tohu stared at Athena, then Jehovah, then away toward the pale walls as if the room made him more annoyed than anything. ’When a design active without care is not allowed supervision there should be no surprise at the varied results. I left residual variables in the process, he left structure, both of us thought completed review meant it could be disregarded and now it stands in this chamber demanding answers with its people’s blood still fresh.’

Poseidon gave a harsh laugh. ’So we were forgotten first.’

’Then judged,’ Tohu said. ’Consider it one sentence if you want a version without qualification.’

Hades’ eyes glowed a dull green. ’Persephone died in the forgetting.’

They did not answer, and there was nothing that could be said in response without feeling cheap.

Jehovah was the one to end the silence when it stretched long enough. ’The terms remain intact, temporary possession of Tohu, my supervision, the group remains whole, Sera does not take, the residual force in Zeus is examined in open process and beyond that, further matters are decided with the knowledge gained from the survivors of the review.’

Sun Wukong tilted his head. ’And if we say no?’

’Then you return to contested circulation with two hunters and every scavenger that noticed the pursuit,’ Jehovah said, ’you’ve already seen that version.’

Kratos did not look away from him when he said, ’You want our compliance because you offer the worse alternatives.’

’Rightly observed,’ Jehovah said. ’I don’t offer comfort so much as contain the problem that should not have got this far.’

Zeus felt the old weight of anger and the newer weariness tangle in his chest. He remembered the cut, the fog, the agent on the floor, Sera’s net, Tohu’s terms, the hunt over a power he still barely understood, but he also remembered that his people lived with him, having made the decision to endure the difficult alliance over final death in the lanes.

’We accept the terms, together, fully aware, no one examines me like a sealed bundle in a back room. If the residual force in me is the result of what you left behind then you both take responsibility for that while you study it.’

It almost smiled, Tohu, not kindly. ’To the degree acceptable, yes.’

Once again Jehovah regarded Zeus in something more lengthy than assessment, as if reviewing the carrier rather than the cargo. ’The reading will begin shortly. Until then you remain within this claim, with no independent missions, no arrangements with Sera’s people and no violation of Continuum law for the sake of arrogance.’

Loki smiled. ’A cage that comes with chores,’

’A cage that still has the breath of all nine within it,’ Tohu countered.

Once the higher beings were away to finalize the process the nine stood as they were, with their injuries and the silence, until Poseidon finally gave up and sat against the wall, his chin in his hand. ’He has that bastard’s face. I wanted to run the trident through it on principal.’

’I know.’ Zeus said.

Athena laid the spear aside. ’The similitude does not dictate definition, but neither can that be denied, if Jehovah abandoned the structure and the likeness of him completed the termination, then both share the ownership of the results.’

Hades turned his back on them all. ’I do not need the philosophy. I need one of them to declare the killed valued beyond the calculations of residue and incomplete orders.’

None of them had that for him.

Wukong lowered himself into a crouch, staff across his knees. ’So we live long enough for them to say that.’

Zeus turned his gaze away from the sealed doors, where the reading was to start, and felt chaos under his skin stir early, stronger than he had in the fog, as if a heavier law in Continuum allowed him to feel the abandonment of the force easier. He held his hand tightly closed.

They were done with running,

within the consequence of being remembered much too late by those who had forgotten them first.

And in the end, when the force within him was completely read, Zeus was already aware the even this peace was fragile under what the architects of his world had yet to learn and admit.