Eric Nylund - All That Lives Must Die

My gratitude to the following people for their help, confidence, and being some of the best friends a writer could have: Richard Curtis, Tom Doherty, Alexis Ortega, Eric Raab, and John Sutherland.

We at Tor have received numerous requests to publish the many-volume set of Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, as well as the notorious Golden’s Guide to Extraordinary Books and, of course, the apocalyptically difficult to obtain and decipher Mythica Improbiba. At this time, however, the rights for these rare books (and others within All That Lives Must Die) reside with academic institutes, religious organizations, and private collectors. While excerpts have been graciously provided for Mr. Nylund’s footnotes, the remaining bodies of these works are fated to remain in obscurity (and please, please stop sending me e-mail and letters about this).

ERIC RAAB

Editor, Tor Books

New York

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET

Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hamlet (act 1, scene 2)

This summer, my brother and I joined the League of Immortals. One minute, I’m a homeschooled hermit; the next, I’m a fledgling goddess-in-training and the newest member of the Order of the Celestial Rose.

You’d think, being an actual goddess, I’d end up with killer Botticelli hair. No luck there, I’m afraid.

Let me start at the beginning.

Gods and fallen angels exist.

And they don’t get along.

Despite this, sixteen years ago-Atropos, the Eldest Fate, and Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, fell in love.

They’re my mother and father.

When my twin brother and I were born, my mother didn’t want either side of the family finding us. Neither the gods nor fallen angels treat their nieces and nephews well: turning them into animals, trees, weeping stones, or casting them into pits of eternal torture. Nice, huh?

So for fifteen years, my brother, Eliot, and I were hidden from our relatives and raised to think we were nerdy and normal.

The Immortals found us, however, and to decide which family we belong to-diabolical or divine-they subjected us to three life-or-death tests (what they prosaically called heroic trials).

Long story short: We passed their tests and came out divine.

It wasn’t all happy endings, though. My father’s side of the family still wanted us. The Infernal Lord of All That Flies, Beelzebub, almost killed us and dragged our souls to Hell. That ended in a huge fight in Del Sombra (where we used to live); I killed Beelzebub, and the entire town burned to the ground.

Our father said he still wants to get to know us, but I don’t think Mother is going to let him.

I agree. I don’t trust him.

After all this, my brother, mother, great-grandmother, and I went to San Francisco, and we’ve barely moved into a new place in time for school.

It has been a tumultuous summer. I just want to settle down and begin at the Paxington Institute so I can figure out how I fit into this new world where legends are real.

September 22, San Francisco

________

This summer, I found out that my father and mother are alive. My sister and I spent our entire lives thinking they were dead, told that they were drowned in a boat accident.

One more thing: Our mother is the goddess Atropos, and our father is Lucifer, Prince of Darkness.

Mother’s side of the family are gods and goddesses in the League of Immortals. They smile at you, but you can see them thinking behind those smiles, wondering how you fit in their orderly view of the world.

And Dad’s side of the family? Not so wonderful, either. They tried to kill me and my sister, Fiona. They also managed to poison Fiona with a box of magical chocolates.

Besides our parents, we discovered another important thing this summer: We inherited special powers from our families.

Fiona can cut with a thread stretched between her fingers, kind of like a wire cheese slicer. When I say “cut,” I mean she can cut through anything when she puts her mind to it: cinder block walls, a solid steel vault door, even a person. I’m not sure how she keeps the thread from cutting off her fingers. She doesn’t talk much about it.

I think it scares her. I know it scares me.

I learned how to use the violin. My father showed me the basics, but I play like I’ve been practicing all my life. . and my music makes things happen. Magical things, like conjuring a fog filled with ghosts or charming a million hungry sewer rats so they wouldn’t eat me.

Then, once, I got a glimpse of the end of the world. I played a song about the end of things, which I call “The Symphony of Existence.” If that sounds dangerous, it was, but I had to, believe me, because I was facing the Infernal Beelzebub, Lord of All That Flies, who was trying to part my right side from the left with a gigantic obsidian knife.

When I played that song, I felt the world come apart around me, and I heard the death rattle of the universe as protons and neutrons and electrons tore into smaller subatomic bits. . and then into void.

I still hear it in my dreams. It worries me sometimes.

I’ve learned a lot this summer, but I’m ready to learn more at Paxington and find out what I’m supposed to be doing with these amazing and dangerous gifts.

September 22, San Francisco

________

Eliot watched and worried as his sister read his essay.

Her brows furrowed.

Eliot knew people liked his writing style better, but Fiona was good at putting facts together and impressing people with her logic. Besides, her essay pretty much told the entire story of what had happened to them this summer. He hoped the teachers at Paxington read his paper first.

“Well?” he asked her. “What do you think?”

“Just a second.” She held up a hand, rereading from the top of the page.

Eliot paced. Sunlight filtered into his new bedroom from the garden. Outside were rows of pink and yellow daisies, and beyond, he could make out misty San Francisco Bay-a spectacular view.

Inside their new house, however, especially in his bedroom, the view was not so spectacular-crowded with mountains and mazes of cardboard U-Haul boxes, each one filled with a hundred pounds of books. If there was the slightest shudder from the San Andreas Fault, Eliot knew he’d be buried under an avalanche of Chaucer, Twain, and Shakespeare.

Fiona looked up from his essay and brushed her long, dark hair from her face. “You don’t have all the facts,” she said. “You should have added something about your girlfriend .”

“She wasn’t my girlfriend,” Eliot replied.

Fiona meant Julie Marks, the girl he had met this summer, the girl he had liked an awful lot. She’d even kissed him. . but then ended up leaving. Every time he thought about her, he felt that he had done something to drive her away. Fiona had never liked Julie, for some reason.