Eric Nylund - All That Lives Must Die

They stared at him, rapt. Louis had them now.

“A good little boy and girl, with all the ingredients that lead to moral downfall, including the most important: good intentions .”

Ashmed nodded, picked up his cigar, and puffed, greatly pleased with this.

“Go on,” Abby said, her eyes sparkling.

“We require a theater of Shakespearean proportions to draw the twins closer. . as they have proved themselves highly susceptible to familial drama.”

“Shakes-whos-its?” Lev asked. “You lost me.”

“Shakespeare: the basis for all those Mexican soap operas you so love, Cousin,” Louis explained.

“How, specifically, would one engineer this ‘drama’?” Sealiah asked.

“We shall do what we do best,” Louis said, and spread his arms wide. He congratulated himself on a smooth transition to using we to refer to himself and the Board as partners on this venture. “We shall do it by fighting amongst ourselves. A war, just a little one, should do the trick.”

Of course, he was telling them all this because wars had their winners and losers. . and where there were losers, there would be pieces of land and power for Louis to scavenge.

Ashmed’s dark gaze was light-years distant. “A sanctioned Civil War could destroy many clans,” he said. “Are these two children worth that?”

“It need not be a full Civil War,” Sealiah said. “Two clans would suffice. Something intimate. With only two involved, the loss to us would be trivial-negligible after we reabsorb the power base of the loser. Naturally, the specifics of how to draw Eliot and Fiona into the conflict would be left up to the individuals with the most at stake.”

Despite this coming from Sealiah, Louis liked the addendum to his plan. With only two factions involved, he would not have to personally risk doing any of the dirty work.

“The destruction, however, of even a single clan,” Ashmed reminded them, “is still a considerable tactical liability, since we are on the eve of war with the Immortals.”

Lev laughed. “Terrible for the loser. Which wouldn’t be me. Sign me up.”

“I, too, want the chance to play,” Abby whispered. “It has been too long since we had such sport. I volunteer my clan to go to war.” Her hand clutched her pet locust, and it squealed.

“As do I,” Sealiah stated.

Mephistopheles hammered a fist upon the railing, and the entire table jumped. “Fools-we all want blood on our hands. I propose we dispense with the usual discussion and move directly either to violence or dice to settle this.”

“Excellent motion,” Ashmed said. “Do we have a second?”

Louis took a step back from the table, feeling gravity condense about the Board members. He weighed who would fight whom. . and who would survive. Lev was powerful but slow. Abby was unstoppable but gullible. Sealiah was ever full of tricks. Ashmed, he had never seen fight. And Mephistopheles? Perhaps the most dangerous here, with his pitchfork of shadow smoke.

With one wrong twitch, Louis could be caught in the middle of the mayhem.

“I will second the motion,” Sealiah breathed, “for dice.”

Louis exhaled.

Sealiah rubbed her palms, and a die appeared: a Naga of Dharma.

The last few times Louis had seen one of the legendary dice, they had decided Charlemagne would become Emperor, that they’d test-fire Mount Krakatoa in the fifth, sixth, and seventeenth centuries, and that some utterly forgettable film would win the Academy Award.

It was a cube of scrimshawed ivory carved from the spine of the world serpent. Only five such dice existed. On the faces were etched six crows, five hands (each making its own rude gesture), four stars, three crossed swords, two prancing dogs, and a single head-eating-tail asp.

Ashmed called for a vote.

Ashmed raised his hand-as did Sealiah and, curiously, even Mephistopheles. Abby and Lev did not.

This shocked Louis. Usually there was at least a minor brawl and a few broken bones on the Board to settle even trivial matters. The civilized approach left him with an uneasy feeling.

“Dice it is,” Ashmed announced. “For such a weighty decision, I will require a broader probability distribution.”

From his pocket, he produced a second of the remarkable Nagas. Sealiah graciously let him borrow her die.

“Highest and lowest numbers shall have sanction to wage open war,” Ashmed explained. “The victor shall have all the usual rights of spoils.”

“Fine,” Lev grumbled. “Just let me roll those bones.”

Ashmed raised an eyebrow at his impudence. The Chairman rolled first, the dice tumbling onto the table. They came to rest neatly on the pass line. A five and a four-hands touching stars-nine total.

Lev scooped up the dice, scowled, shook them violently, and threw.

The dice cracked together like a billiard break-bounced against the far bumpers, and rolled back in front of him. Four and three-seven: dead center in the probability distribution. The worst possible roll.

Lev’s giant hands clenched about the table’s railing and crushed it. He swallowed his rage, muttering.

Infernals heeded no rules. . save one: No one ever went back on an agreement once dice were on the table.

Abby set her pet locust down, and it skittered out under the door. She stood on her tiptoes to reach the dice and rolled next.

A pair of the dancing dogs. Four. The lowest result yet.

She turned to Sealiah, challenge glimmering in her red eyes.

Sealiah toyed with the dice on the table, as if she could commune with their delectable randomness. She snatched them up and, with one graceful toss, sent them flying across the table, bouncing off the far end-impacting each other and coming to rest in the center. Two sixes, twelve crows on the wing-a murder , so called, or more commonly among mortals, boxcars , as they resembled a pair of freight cars on a train.

“Congratulations,” Ashmed said. “We have one side.” He looked between Sealiah and Abby. “Perhaps a matchup?” The Chairman’s face was unreadable.

“Perhaps. .” Sealiah plucked up the dice. To Louis’s astonishment, she offered them to him.

Louis held up both hands. “I’m no Board member. I have no place in this.”

In truth, he had no place because he was not a tenth as powerful as his cousins. Engaging in a war with a landed Infernal Lord was guaranteed suicide.

“You were present when we voted,” Ashmed said. “I do not remember specifically excluding you.” He pointed his smoldering cigar at Louis. “Your children should care for you more than for any of us. So your involvement would guarantee them running to your aid.”

Sealiah smiled. “The way I hear it, they might run to aid his destruction.” Her hand remained outstretched, offering him the dice.

“Stop squirming,” Lev told him. “Roll.” He took a step closer, one meaty hand curling into a titanic fist.

“Well. .” Louis’s smile never wavered as he reached for the dice. “Since you insist. I am honored.”

He grabbed the cubes without touching Sealiah.

Louis tilted his palm. . and with the most undramatic of gestures let the dice fall.

The cubes bounced onto the table once and stopped: a one and a two. A total of three.

His heart skipped a beat.

Abby growled and stamped her foot.

“It seems, Louis, we are fated to dance once more,” Sealiah said.

“Not so fast, peddler of poppies,” Mephistopheles said.

Talons raked the Nagas of Dharma across the green felt. Mephistopheles grabbed them, shook, and tossed. They came to rest directly in front of Sealiah: a pair of the self-consuming ouroboros serpents.

She flinched. “Snake eyes,” Sealiah said. “How appropriate.”