My tears formed a whirlpool around me and threatened to suck me down, so I did the only thing I could think of. I willed those six trees arms and legs like my own. They uprooted themselves and began to walk about the muddied bank. I called to them, but they could not hear for they had no ears. So I willed them.
“Come quick! I’m drowning,” I yelled, and the trees heard me, but they were blind and bumped into each other and walked in all directions. So I gave them eyes. I thought for sure I’d be saved then, but when the trees saw how beautiful they were, they forgot all about me and began preening each other’s leaves.
So I gave them all hearts, hearts that loved only me, and they came rushing toward me, dipping their branches into the water. With all my might, I grabbed onto the nearest branch, saved at last! But then one of the other trees, ruled by jealousy, swatted me away so it could be the one to save me, its love. Bruised and battered, I willed them all minds so that they could work together.
Moments later, I found myself on the shore, lying on my back. I’d swallowed too much water and had lost my breath. I was dying! With my last thought, I willed the trees breath, and they breathed into me, each in turn until my lungs cleared of water and my lips tasted of bark.
I was so grateful that I took those six trees as my wives and made proper women of them, seeing as they could already walk and hear and see and love and think and breathe. With a hammer and chisel, I sculpted them faces and breasts and hips. I was meticulous, spending hours on my first wife’s earlobe until I thought it to be perfect. For months, I did not eat. I grew thin and weak, and thought I would die. But then a crab crawled out of the water and right up to my feet.
“Mr. Tau,” the crab said. “I have been watching you for months and am in awe of your creation. Her beauty is unmatched on this earth, and I could not bear for her to go unfinished. Please, Mr. Tau, you are weak. Eat of my flesh. I would be grateful.”
So I blessed the crab and gulped him down with one bite, all except for one of his claws. With my new burst of energy, I carved a hole in the first tree’s chest and placed the claw at the heart, and immediately she sprang to life, laughing and dancing and singing.
“I am so happy to be alive!” my crab-tree wife told me, and that night I lay with her, and she blessed me with the first of many children.
We were happy, my wife and children and I, and for a thousand years, I forgot about my other tree wives I’d left on the riverbank. But one night, I had a dream about the five of them, all lined in a row and looking sad and pitiful. Not quite trees, not quite women. Each night, after I’d satisfied my crab-tree wife, I’d sneak off to the river. For months I’d work on a single detail, the curve of my second wife’s lips, until finally I forgot all about my crab-tree wife and spent the entire day there without eating.
Months passed, and when I was weak and about to die, a peacock waddled up to me and said, “Mr. Tau, I’ve been watching you for months, and I am in awe of your creation. Her beauty is unmatched on this earth, and I could not bear for her to go unfinished. Please, Mr. Tau, you are weak. Eat of my flesh. I would be grateful.”
So I blessed the peacock and swallowed him whole, all except a single feather. With my new burst of energy, I carved a hole in the second tree’s chest and placed the feather at the heart, and immediately she sprang to life.
We were happy, my peacock-tree wife and children and I, and I forgot about my other tree wives I’d left on the riverbank, and my crab-tree wife I’d left alone with our children. Until I had another dream.
Each time I nearly died but was saved in the nick of time by a dolphin, then a rat, then a serpent, then an eagle. After six thousand years, I had six thousand children, each and every one with the power of gods. Those descended from the eagle could fly, and those from the peacock had beauty that made the others weep. The serpents could charm, and the rats could manipulate without being seen. The dolphins ruled with their intelligence. The poor crabs came up empty though, and with competitive siblings, they often found themselves at the receiving end of pranks and practical jokes. I took pity on my crab children. They became my favorites, and I granted them each the power to bend the others’ will.
With this shift of power, it wasn’t long before sibling rivalry turned deadly. Brothers and sisters fought and killed each other, and my heart broke every time one of my children fell at another’s hand. I tried to control them, but together, they were too powerful. Only when there were six left did I have the ability to put them to sleep. And in their dreams, I wiped their memories, made them forget. But I could not deny them completely of what made them my children, nor could I erase the birthright of the animal spirits they’d inherited from their mothers. So I let them keep their powers, but I hid them so deeply that they’d never find them, and so it has been ever since.
In her vision, Sydney had seen crabs and dolphins and peacocks and rats and serpents and eagles, not physical manifestations, but hallucinations caused by a drug. They were memories, Sydney knew. Memories hidden for countless generations within these humans’ DNA. And those two inconsequential gene sequences affected by the dik-dik virus, those are like the safety switches holding back humanity’s true potential. Chaos will rule once again, 8.7 billion descendants of demigods warring together on this planet.
And that means there will be fear.
There will be lots of it.
Chapter 14
Muzi
Well, it happened, and now his corneas might be permanently fused. He should have knocked, but when the tip of your penis feels like someone lit it on fire, and your bladder’s about to burst from trying to avoid anything that involves making use of that general area, and your great-grandmother decides she wants to take a cold bath in the middle of the afternoon . . . well, put that all together and it’s just screaming for trouble, isn’t it?
So he saw her. All of her. In the flesh. Including some little bits and pieces that he’d only thought grew on the undersides of old battleships. But even walking in on his naked grandmother isn’t more frightening than the thought of talking to Elkin. Really talking, not like the past half-dozen conversations they’d had, the calls lasting an average of five seconds, and consisting of Muzi apologizing and Elkin getting exponentially more creative with cuss words.
He’s got to go over there, though the thought of walking that far sends a chill up his spine. Ice packs can do only so much. Then he remembers that little vial Elkin had given him.