Eric Nylund - All That Lives Must Die

“I get it,” he said to Cee. “So once there, how are we going to get back?”

Streetlamps flickered on Pacific Avenue as the sunset faded and the eastern horizon darkened. Two crows landed on top of lampposts and stared at him.

Cee took Eliot by the crook of his elbow, sped up, and surprisingly pulled him along with her.

“You are an Infernal Lord now, Eliot. It is time you started thinking like one. You will find a way back if desire it. You will make your own way if necessary!”

Eliot didn’t know about that. Crossing dimensions was something only. . only what? Only something fallen angels could do? Only the mighty Titans and gods had ever managed?

In his blood pulsed all those mingled lineages.

He was strong. He would find a way.

“And here’s something that will help.” Cee stopped, reached into one of the carpetbags, and pulled out an object wrapped in brown paper. She handed it to Eliot.

As he took it, Eliot felt that the thing possessed a gravity all its own. He felt a thrum of power within the paper and he heard a distant music, echoing and calling to him.

He unwrapped it.

A fist-sized gleaming sapphire nestled within the paper, and hundreds of water blue facets reflected his amazed face back at him. A tiny silver loop clutched the top of the stone, and a cord of leather snaked through it.

Eliot knew this thing. The last time he’d seen it, Fiona had pulled it through Beelzebub’s neck-decapitating that monster and saving them both.

“Every Infernal lord has a talisman,” Cee told him, as if that explained everything. “But hide it well. Even your mother does not know I took it. It is dangerous. But I believe it is absolutely necessary if you are to claim your rightful place.”

Eliot touched the stone. It felt cold, but warmed quickly under his fingertips. The dazzling blue tinged to midnight dark and then a coal black.

He made a fist about the stone.

It was now his-the power within, along with responsibilities he had yet to fathom.

He was Eliot Post, Master of the Burning Orchards, and Infernal Lord and Prince of the Lower Realms.

He undid the leather cord, pulled it through, and tossed it. There is no way he’d ever wear this thing around his neck.

“Let’s catch that train,” Eliot said, “or it’s going to be a long walk. We have a lot to do before school starts next year.”

The Mortal Coils series continues soon with

Book III: What Fools These Mortals.

74. Rheinardia ocellata, also the crested argus pheasant, is best known for its wild tuft of feathers spiking up from its head and its long (up to six feet) tail feathers. -Editor.

READER’S GUIDE

In the second book of the Mortal Coils series, Eliot and Fiona enroll in the Paxington Institute, a most unusual high school for the children of the gods, Infernals, and the mortal magical families. Here more of the legendary world is revealed-filled with high-stakes politics, intrigue, and magic as well as the normal high school social dynamics that any teenager must survive.

[ Warning: if you haven’t read the book yet, there are definite spoilers in this section!]

1. One of the concepts drilled in at the Paxington Institute is to win at any cost. Is winning at any cost justified under any circumstances? Is there a difference between winning in gym class and winning on a real battlefield?

2. At Paxington there are definite social layers based on which family the students come from. Why do you think Jezebel, an Infernal, is set so high in the social order? Why do you think that when Fiona’s origins are revealed Eliot’s social standing doesn’t change?

3. Name as many things as you can that seem unfair to you about the Paxington Institute. Is/was your high school in any way similar? Given the chance, would you want to go to such a school?

4. While some Paxington instructors have been explicitly identified, two have not: the Headmistress, Miss Lucille Westin, and the music instructor, Ms. Erin DuPreé. Who do you think their mythical counterparts are?

5. When Fiona wounds Mr. Ma, Robert tells her that everyone is afraid that this is an omen of Armageddon. Is there any evidence that this might be true?

6. In Mortal Coils , Sealiah’s Twelve Towers is a large but otherwise ordinary villa. In All That Lives Must Die , the villa has transformed into a formidable castle. How is this possible? What does it imply about the Infernal rulers and their domains in hell?

7. At the end of the war, Eliot is offered a reward for his assistance, while Fiona is not. Why? If she was offered a reward, would she have taken it?

8. Why does Fiona consider Mitch’s offer to join him at the end. . even after he had deceived her? What would you have done?

9. There seem to be three “sides” in the upcoming conflict: the League of Immortals, the Infernal clans. . and a different third group of individuals. Who’s on this side? What are their goals? How does the “win at any cost” lesson learned at Paxington apply here?

10. What would you have done about Jeremy and Sarah Covington after they betrayed you? Would you have believed Sarah?

11. Do you think Amanda’s reaction to the twins at the end of the book is justified?

12. Who is more powerful, the League of Immortals or the Infernal clans? On a modern battlefield who do you think would win?

13. Eliot and Fiona end up on very different paths at the end of this book. Would you have made the same choices?

For more information on Eric Nylund and the Mortal Coils series, visit www.ericnylund.net, which includes a biography on the author and additional information about his novels.

Verruciform: having the shape of a wart. -Editor.

Vermiform: worm shaped. -Editor

The Door of Four Paths and the Post residence were some of the few structures to miraculously survive the devastation that flattened the San Francisco peninsula in the War of Last Judgment. The four windows depict (or some claim are) doorways to the Middle Realms. This artifact from the Fifth Celestial Age continues to undergo intense and cautious study. For humanity, these windows remain symbols of mystery, wonder, and hope. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 11, The Post Family Mythology. Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.

Fragments of one Towers set were found in the Neolithic hunter-gatherer settlement, Göbekli Tepe (southeast Turkey c. 9000 B.C.E.). This makes Towers the oldest (nontrivial) game, predating Chinese Go and Egyptian Senet by more than four thousand years. A Towers board is circular. Lines radiate outward to make thirty-two spaces of alternating color on the circumference, a second tier closer of sixteen spaces, a third tier with eight spaces, and a single circular space in the center. Placed on the board are sixteen white cubes and sixteen black. A simple checkers mechanism was assumed, but in 1753, a set was discovered in Pompeii preserved in the middle of a game. Cubes were stacked into towers (of increasing size) on the inner circles, while others remained as single stones, indicating a complexity of rules that experts agree no Neolithic hunter-gathers could have developed. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 1, Earliest Myths.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, inspectors from the State, Fire, and School Accreditation Boards easily found the Main Gate entrance of the Paxington Institute, but when reporters or tourists attempted to locate the entrance, they failed. This might simply be the nature of San Francisco’s convoluted street geometry. In old satellite images, the original Paxington campus does appear exactly where school officials claim (adjacent Presidio Park). Similar modern accounts, however, of the school’s “selectively appearing entrance” have been claimed of the new Paxington Institute on the San Francisco Archipelago. Inquiries made to the Institute result in a detailed set of directions. . which ultimately prove useless. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 6, Modern Myths. Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.