All four people shared similar thoughts, similar goals—they needed to survive Deathlands, and in order to do that, they had to travel, salvaging what they could from stockpiles laid down by the pre-nukecaust government. In Danielson’s mind was the vivid image of a man he considered both an inspiration and a competitor in his profession. The man went by the name of the Trader, and the god glimpsed pieces of memory of vehicles called war wags. Danielson envied the Trader, but he also admired him, even though he had been cast out of the Trader’s organization a short time before.
Looking into the minds of Javna and Stockbridge was like peering into the minds of small, venal rodents. Greed, anger and the resentful suspicion that they had been cheated by Danielson, Harrier and even the whole world dominated their thoughts and emotions.
The god focused on Harrier, and he realized that he was looking at her form rather than her mind. He felt a strange inner pang. It took him a moment to identify it. The pang was an emotion—remorse, seasoned with just a pinch of regret.
Harrier was a slim woman in her early twenties. She had no idea just how old she really was. Her hair was dark, and it framed her face in a silken bell. Her first name was Connie. The god realized that Connie was a diminutive of the ancient Celtic name Connaught.
The pang slowly built to a sensation of yearning, and it had been so long since the god had indulged in something so common, so mortal as feeling, he didn’t immediately recognize the emotion.
He did, however, allow himself a certain small pride in staging a dramatic entrance. He drew breeze-driven grains of sand to him and directed them to swirl about him until he had the appearance of a miniature cyclone, a man-size dust devil.
The god moved toward the portal of his tomb, and he appreciated the expressions of dismay and surprise that crossed the faces of the people when they spied the whirling cloud of grit. When he reached an appropriate distance from the four mortals, he allowed the wind to dissipate and the sand to fall away from his body.
Danielson’s mouth gaped open in shock. His leathery right hand fumbled at his hip and came up with an automatic pistol, one the god identified from the man’s mind as a 9 mm Steel City War Eagle, manufactured 120 years before. The god knew the gun—the “blaster,” as Danielson thought of it— contained only three projectiles. Though all four people were armed, only Javna’s Taurus PT-99 carried a full 15-shot clip.
As it was, although all four people drew their blasters, they were totally unnerved by his sudden materialization. For an instant, he saw himself through their eyes.
They saw a giant, bronze-skinned man whose life hadn’t been spent in savage conflict with the new nature of Deathlands, but a man whose form bespoke the intention to bend that nature to his will. That intention showed in his strong, moody face, the hard-muscled economy of his form, his heavy arms, broad shoulders and massive chest. He wore a linen loincloth, gold necklace and a royal king-cobra headdress that—the god saw from their minds— none of them recognized.
Nor did they recognize the silver, three-foot long, forked rod he held over his muscular chest as a weapon. Or perhaps they were too distracted by the shimmering crimson of his eyes.
“Good day,” the god said, manipulating the pitch, timbre and vibrations of his voice to be sympathetically resonant to the inner ears of his worshipers. “Would you care to step inside, out of the sun?”
Some of the shock went out of Danielson’s face, but he didn’t lower his pistol. He eyed the god’s six feet five inches of hard muscle and replied cautiously, “We might. You staked a claim on this here stockpile?”
The god glanced toward Connie Harrier, who stared at him with a blue-eyed intensity. He gave her his most disarming and human grin before replying, “It’s not a stockpile, Mr. Danielson. It’s my tomb.”
Gesturing toward the heavy metal door, the god announced, “I require worshipers to help me build a dynasty. You four will do for a start.”