“There was a god who came here from a far land, and whose power and influence waned as belief in him faded. He was a god who took his power from sacrifice, and from death, and especially from war. He would have deaths of those who fell in war dedicated to him—whole battlefields which, in the old country, gave him power and sustenance.
“Now he was old. He made his living as a grifter, working with another god from his pantheon, a god of chaos and deceit. Together they rooked the gullible. Together they took people for all they’d got.
“Somewhere in there—maybe fifty years ago, maybe a hundred—they put a plan into motion, a plan to create a reserve of power they could both tap into. Something that would make them stronger than they had ever been. After all, what could be more powerful than a battlefield covered with dead gods? The game they played was called ‘Let’s You and Him Fight.’
“Do you see?
“The battle you’re here to fight isn’t something that any of you can win or lose. The winning and the losing are unimportant to him, to them. What matters is that enough of you die. Each of you that falls in battle gives him power. Every one of you that dies, feeds him. Do you understand?”
The roaring, whoompfing sound of something catching on fire echoed across the arena. Shadow looked to the place the noise came from. An enormous man, his skin the deep brown of mahogany, his chest naked, wearing a top hat, cigar sticking rakishly from his mouth, spoke in a voice as deep as the grave. Baron Samedi said, “Okay. But Odin. He died. At the peace talks. Motherfuckers killed him. He died. I know death. Nobody goin’ to fool me about death.”
Shadow said, “Obviously. He had to die for real. He sacrificed his physical body to make this war happen. After the battle he would have been more powerful than he had ever been.”
Somebody called, “Who are you?”
“I am—I was—I am his son.”
One of the new gods—Shadow suspected it was a drug from the way it smiled and spangled and shivered—said, “But Mister World said—”
“There was no Mister World. There never was. He was just another one of you bastards trying to feed on the chaos he created.” He could see that they believed him, and he could see the hurt in their eyes.
Shadow shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.”
There was silence, in the high place.
And then, with a shocking crack, the lightning bolt frozen in the sky crashed to the mountaintop, and the arena went entirely dark.
They glowed, many of those presences, in the darkness.
Shadow wondered if they were going to argue with him, to attack him, to try to kill him. He waited for some kind of response.
And then Shadow realized that the lights were going out. The gods were leaving that place, first in handfuls, and then by scores, and finally in their hundreds.
A spider the size of a rottweiler scuttled heavily toward him, on seven legs; its cluster of eyes glowed faintly.
Shadow held his ground, although he felt slightly sick.
When the spider got close enough, it said, in Mr. Nancy’s voice, “That was a good job. Proud of you. You done good, kid.”
“Thank you,” said Shadow.
“We should get you back. Too long in this place is goin’ to mess you up.” It rested one brown-haired spider-leg on Shadow’s shoulder…
… and, back on Seven States Flag Court, Mr. Nancy coughed. His right hand rested on Shadow’s shoulder. The rain had stopped. Mr. Nancy held his left hand across his side, as if it hurt. Shadow asked if he was okay.
“I’m tough as old nails,” said Mr. Nancy. “Tougher.” He did not sound happy. He sounded like an old man in pain.
There were dozens of them, standing or sitting on the ground or on the benches. Some of them looked badly injured.
Shadow could hear a rattling noise in the sky, approaching from the south. He looked at Mr. Nancy. “Helicopters?”
Mr. Nancy nodded. “Don’t you worry about them. Not any more. They’ll just clean up the mess, and leave. They’re good at it.”
“Got it.”
Shadow knew that there was one part of the mess he wanted to see for himself, before it was cleaned up. He borrowed a flashlight from a gray-haired man who looked like a retired news anchor and began to hunt.
He found Laura stretched out on the ground in a side-cavern, beside a diorama of mining gnomes straight out of Snow White. The floor beneath her was sticky with blood. She was on her side, where Loki must have dropped her after he had pulled the spear out of them both.
One of Laura’s hands clutched her chest. She looked dreadfully vulnerable. She also looked dead, but then Shadow was almost used to that by now.
Shadow squatted beside her, and he touched her cheek with his hand, and he said her name. Her eyes opened, and she lifted her head and turned it until she was looking at him.
“Hello, puppy,” she said. Her voice was thin.
“Hi, Laura. What happened here?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Just stuff. Did they win?”
“I don’t know,” said Shadow. “I think these things are kind of relative. But I stopped the battle they were trying to start.”
“My clever puppy,” she said. “That man, Mister World, he said he was going to put a stick through your eye. I didn’t like him at all.”
“He’s dead. You killed him, hon.”
She nodded. She said, “That’s good.”
Her eyes closed. Shadow’s hand found her cold hand, and he held it in his. In time she opened her eyes again.
“Did you ever figure out how to bring me back from the dead?” she asked.
“I guess,” he said. “I know one way, anyway.”
“That’s good,” she said. She squeezed his hand with her cold hand. And then she said, “And the opposite? What about that?”
“The opposite?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I think I must have earned it.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
She said nothing. She simply waited.
Shadow said, “Okay.” Then he took his hand from hers and put it to her neck.
She said, “That’s my husband.” She said it proudly.
“I love you, babes,” said Shadow.
“Love you, puppy,” she whispered.
He closed his hand around the golden coin that hung around her neck. He tugged, hard, at the chain, which snapped easily. Then he took the gold coin between his finger and thumb, and blew on it, and opened his hand wide.
The coin was gone.
Her eyes were still open, but they did not move.
He bent down then, and kissed her, gently, on her cold cheek, but she did not respond. He did not expect her to. Then he got up and walked out of the cavern, to stare into the night.
The storms had cleared. The air felt fresh and clean and new once more.
Tomorrow, he had no doubt, would be one hell of a beautiful day.
PART FOUR
Epilogue: Something That the Dead Are Keeping Back
CHAPTER NINETEEN
One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map which is the territory. You must remember this.