Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) (39 page)

She turned at the t
hump of feet on the stairs. Oscar and Bran, bright-eyed and no doubt ready for yet another adventure.

As good as they are at getting into trouble, maybe it's time to leave . . .

She took another circuit around the museum and found Xen perched on the lead horse of the four running yearlings, and when she reached mentally, she could feel the life inside the layered bubbles.

"I think I'l
l see if I can get a god to come check these things out. C'mon, Xen, let's go to Ash."

1375
Late Winter

Ash
-New Tokyo-New Lands

Trying to pretend he wasn't attracted to Rustle just wasn't working.

And Rustle kept almost looking his direction, even as she dangled temptation in front of her parents.
". . . The New Tokyo Art Gallery. We've got the front door open, and are now trying to decide which statues are people and which statues are statues."

Never
snorted. "I trust the statues aren't anything like the last one."

"And that it didn't take a fourway to open it."
Dydit glowered.

"
Apparently the trigger was something along the lines of sketching from a live nude female figure. Gre tried to draw a picture of little Kohl, who was sans diaper in the heat and humidity."

Never sputtered indignantly.

Harry grinned. "That sounds like Art."

Rustle
finally looked over at the Auld Wulf. "If you can't come, I can probably get Romeau to try. There are several horse sculptures that might be his missing yearlings."

"Oh really? Arty Marty. Well, I suppose the sooner we get everyone together, the better. C'mon." He took her h
and and stepped to New Tokyo.

He recognized half the statues. The
animal statues were indeed alive. That put an interesting perspective on all the artwork he'd admired, over the centuries before the comet. And the howling wolf . . . he peeled that one first.

Rustle watched carefully.

"It's nothing like those outer shields. Nothing special in the way they're sealed and layered. Two layers of bubbles. You put a bunch of power into a hard scratch at the closing spot." He demonstrated.

The
big wolf blinked at him in surprise, then stood up and transformed into a naked young man.

"Rustle may I introduce the God of Eternal Youth? He's generally called 'that disgusting young man' and on rare occasions, Richie."

"Hi, gorgeous. Don't tell me you ran around with this Old Man while I was unavailable? That's just
wrong
."

Rustle snickered. "That disgusting young man. I see. Richie, why don't you come out here and meet some friends of min
e. I think you'll get along really well with the witches."

"Oh, I always have." He winked and followed her.

The Auld Wulf suppressed a desire to go too, and make sure he kept his hands off Rustle . . . but if there was any way to get Richie's enthusiastic assistance, it would be to save a place like Rip Crossing. He strolled among the statues, remembering people.
When Rustle returned, he waved at the bronze figures. "High society rich people. Not a one who knows how to survive after a disaster. Upstairs, mostly mages, a single pyramid of witches."

"With layer
ed bubbles, that ten thousand to one time dilation . . . "

"Turns into a hundred million to one. God forbid Arty
's statues move from their allotted position." He cleared his throat to get the growl out of his voice. "And then with the outer shield, if meshing a magic shield with a dimensional bubble didn't change that time ratio . . . They've barely had time to blink." He frowned around the room. "I hadn't realized Arty was collecting living animals. And people."

Ask
returned, toting babies. "The other witches have decided that an orgy with the God of Eternal Youth is exactly what they need. And what he needs to get over losing a thousand years."

Gre herded the toddlers in and suggested that they ride the horsies.
Xen made a beeline for the leading horse. The toddlers—five of them—looked on with big eyes, stampeding away from the rattlesnake, and then the bull.

The Auld Wulf shoo
k his head in faint amusement. Whose idea was that wine? Mine or Gisele's? These children have changed Ash forever, and Rip Crossing is a scandal and a half. He glanced out the door.

Five
witches, blankets and a picnic basket in hand. He decided against asking if they'd managed to find any more of that wine.

"They're all heading down to the beach
—such as it is. Any other gods wrapped up in here?" Rustle asked. "What about that guy on the top floor?"

"Yes, that's Arty." The Auld Wulf
started up the stairs. "I suppose we'd better go get this over with."

He touched the man on the shoulder and stepped back as the metallic sheen
popped, revealing normal skin.

"Hey Ma
rty, guess what?"

"You finally found a se
nse of artistic appreciation?" The man spun around and looked out over the ruins. "Wait. What was going on? There was a , a . . . " he turned back around frowning. Studied all the metallic figures standing around him. "What the hell?"

"Do you remember the comet?"

"The . . . Oh." He leaned on the window and stared a long time. "What happened?"

"Almost everybody die
d. We just found your building five years ago, finally worked out how to open it yesterday. I came to see if I could unpeel anyone."

"So, my friends and I are nearly the last people on Earth?"

"No, you've been tucked away for a thousand years, the population has grown quite a bit."

Arty turned his back on t
he window. "A thousand years?"

"Yep. Just in time for the next comet to hit. Will you help us try to deflect this one?"

"It didn't work last time. Guess I won't unpeel anyone for awhile. When's this comet due?"

"About
a year. If you're going to turtle up again, might I recommend a bit more practical assortment of animals? A single bull? How about adding some cows? You've got four horses, and every one of them is male."

"They are art
, Wolfgang. Living art! Aren't they spectacular?"

"Err, very impressive bull. But really, if you add some cow art, you and your people will live to create more wonderful things."

"Bah! You haven't an artistic bone in your body. Get out of my Museum." His eyes drifted to Rustle, and he smiled. "Now here's a pretty little thing I should save and savor."

Rustle straightened. "No thank you."

Art made a gesture, but Rustle was suddenly not there. And just as suddenly the sparks he hadn't consciously registered in the back of his mind, Ask, Gre and all the children disappeared. He turned and walked down the stairs, most of his attention on Arty. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he reached the ground floor and found everyone gone. The horses too. He walked out the door and closed it firmly behind him.

With luck Arty would get his brains unfrozen and either help, or at least add some survival art
. No one was in sight outside. He listened. Ask and Gre were at Rip Crossing. And all the children. Probably Rustle.
She's nearly as hard to find as she was as a child. Was that enough of an adrenaline rush that Rustle could jump them all there, or did she bubble them and use the corridors?

He
didn't want to show Arty the corridors, so he jumped to the Earthers' Gate Camp and used those corridors to get to the Rip, then walked to the hot springs in the canyon beyond the witches houses.
Where Rustle has made a home, where she has strong enough recognition to grab
everyone
and bring them here.

" . . . and I think he was trying to wrap me up for an exhibit, so I'm not going to apologize for stealing his horses." Rustle turned around and looked relieved to see him. "If I hadn't been in such a hurry, I'd have grabbed
just the kids instead of everything. Was he trying to wrap me up?"

"Yes." The Aulf Wulf cleared his throat, to get rid of what even he could hear was a very threatening growl. "We'll have to keep an eye on him. See if he gets better or worse."
Wrap Rustle up safe, somewhere. Get myself killed by a pissed off witch . . .

Rustle twitched. "What was that?"

"He just moved his building."

Rustle listened carefully, then blushed.
"Didn't disturb the witches a bit, but Lefty's cussing up a storm. Oscar and Bran were peeking inside . . ."

The Aulf Wulf laughed.
"Just as Art moved. I don't know how those two manage things like that."

"Mom! He wants to be my horsie!" Xen was sitting on the lead horse of the four yearling
s. "Dad? I want to get him
out
but I don't see how."

The Auld Wulf grinned as the little boy frowned and concentrated hard. "See this little rough spot here?
That's where the bubble sealed. Watch, I'll take off the first layer. Scrape at it, and when it rips you can peel it all the way back."

Xen
physically and mentally scraped it, and grabbed it and pulled with a will, and it suddenly popped. The dark coppery yearling snorted and put all four feet to the ground for the first time in fourteen hundred years. He pranced in place, and  tossed his head, all without jiggling the boy on his back. "His name is Pyrite, because he's not really gold colored like the rest of them. I want him to meet Phantom."

Rustle looked blank for a long moment. "Umm, Phantom and the Terrible Twins
ought to be in the big barns. I've been meaning to check the weather up on the plains. We left the Wagon at Old Town, in case we needed any more iron. I ought to take the Twins and bring it back. I'd go check, but I really don't have a good recognition spot there."

"May I?" the Auld Wulf held out a hand and jumped th
em to their campsite below the rusted chunks and hints of walls.

The Traveler's wagon was still there. The air was still chilly, but there was no snow on the ground. "I travelled the stuff the Army ordered. Then Verse and Whoop went into labor, and I haven't found the time to bring the wagon home."

"Do you have the time to bother, right now? I could move
it, if you don't want to waste the time."

"Actually, being far away from everything might be good. I . . . have been doing those dimensional exercises, and noticed something. I've wanted to experiment, and now might be the right time.
No distractions. May I show you what I am wondering about?"

"Of course."

She sank down into her usual cross-legged meditation pose.

"What I was noticing about the
Earther's gate, are these things." Rustle had her eyes closed, and she poked at something that wasn't a bubble, but looked more like a cone. "They're like tops, or little whirlwinds. Once you start looking for them, they're all over the place. Not as many as there are bubbles, but . . . watch. They seem to stick to things, see this sheet?  They come and go, all the time. They bring to mind all the descriptions of the Earther's gate. Which I never got back to really study. I was wondering if we could manipulate these things enough to open a gate, not to a World like Earth, but one nearby. One just different enough that the comet is going to miss it."