If a god was too well known, they couldn’t manifest either. Everyone’s Jesus and Buddha looked different, and the conflicting ideas canceled each other out. The holy people of the larger religions packed a lot of power, however.
That left a lot of mid-sized gods, who were famous enough but not worshipped too widely. Specificity helped, and “functional” gods got the first dibs on followers. Few neopagans prayed to Zeus aside from the annual rites. A lot more people prayed to Eileithyia and with a greater passion, even though some of them had no idea who she was until they were about to become parents. Chances of being struck by lightning were low, but dying in childbirth or losing a baby to some sickness was a real possibility.
If a water god appeared, they were likely in charge of a specific body of water, like a river or a lake, or performing a specific function like Satet, who oversaw the Nile’s floods. Yet here we were, heading toward the ocean. Encountering someone like Poseidon should have been highly unlikely, but it wasn’t impossible.
It might not even be a water god. It could be an animal god that lived in the ocean, although animal gods had yet to demonstrate the ability to speak. I’d run across a few—and Curran had eaten several of them—and all of them were more on the level of abnormally powerful magic animals rather than true deities.
It was pointless to try to figure it out. I simply didn’t have enough data.
We reached the pier. I looped Cuddles’ reins on the rail and tied a run-away knot. If things got scary, and she jerked her head, the reins would come free. Having a horse or a mammoth jenny wander about with several feet of reins dangling over them would be a recipe for a broken leg or some other disaster, but it was still better than getting eaten outright.
“If shit hits the fan, take off like a rocket.”
Cuddles ignored me.
I stepped onto the pier. It held against all expectations, and I started walking. The ocean spread on both sides of me, teeming with life. A lot of that life glowed softly with a rainbow of colors.
Too much glowing. Especially around the ship. In fact, entirely too much marine life altogether. The waters by our fort weren’t nearly so crowded. Not a good sign.
I cleared the pier. A metal gangway, slightly rusted and crusty with salt, was attached to the side of the ship, leading up to the first intact deck at a sharp angle. It was barely wide enough for one person. Okay.
I climbed the gangway. It didn’t collapse. Thank Fate for small favors.
A school of fish, pulsing with green, darted below me through the water, narrowly avoiding a jellyfish as big as a tire shimmering lemon-yellow and sparkling with magenta. Yep, definitely not a normal ocean. The ship was a magical nexus of some sort.
I climbed to the deck and almost collided with a heavy-set man carrying a big club.
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to see Aaron.”
“The fuck you are!”
He swung the club. I swept his legs out from under him and shoved him left. He made a lovely splash.
Ahead a wooden double door stood open. It seemed out of place on the ship. They must’ve retrofitted it. I went through it, into a short, arched hallway, and came out into a large space.
I wasn’t sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. It looked like the inside of a mall. Exactly like the inside of a mall. A long passageway stretched to both sides, with a curved storefront with golden letters spelling out GUEST SERVICES directly in front of me. Shops and cafés lined the walls. A Starbucks, a karaoke bar, some kind of Italian restaurant. Most of it had been abandoned and stripped down to the bone. The air smelled of salt and bacon.
On the right the passage was dark. On the left, feylanterns illuminated what looked like a plaza. Left it is.
I strolled along the storefronts. The plaza lay ahead, a well-lit round space with ten tables, a restaurant manned by a woman who was cooking bacon, and a bathroom at the opposite end. Six of the tables were occupied. Fourteen people total, some eating, some playing cards, wearing normal street clothes. It was close to midnight. The acolytes of Aaron were night owls.
One of the benefits of being married to a shapeshifter and having a shapeshifter son was that I’d learned to move very quietly. I was right on top of the nearest occupied table before a young woman sitting at it looked up and jerked back.
Everyone looked at me. None of them seemed to be packing a lot of magic power. Most of them didn’t look well fed, and there was a lot of apprehension in their eyes. Small fry followers. Followers were good at taking orders.
“One of you is supposed to take me to Aaron,” I told them.
“Umm,” an older man said. “Why?”
I gave him a hard stare. “Who are you that you’re asking me about my private business?”
“Nobody,” the woman next to him said. “He’s a nobody. I’ll take you.”
She got up. “This way.”
We left the plaza, walked along the mall hallway some more, and then took stairs down. One deck, two, three…We had to be below sea level or close to it.
“So is it true that Aaron is a god?” I asked.
“He isn’t a god,” the older woman said quietly. “But he has god powers.”
“How did he get them?”
The older woman didn’t respond.
There were only three ways to get god powers. You were born with them, which made you an avatar or some variation thereof, you were granted them as a reward, or you bargained for them. Technically, you could merge with them or devour them, but that almost never happened. Almost.
An avatar wouldn’t have to rely on gangs to steal people for him. He would be powerful enough to take what he wanted. The reward was equally unlikely. There were no signs of any gods around us. A god who was rewarding a follower would want their name glorified and their symbols displayed. That left only the third possibility. A bargain had been struck. Probably under duress of some sort.
Another formerly luxurious hallway. Doors stood open on both sides. They looked like luxury dining rooms or maybe casino rooms converted into kitchens or possibly laboratories. Long metal tables everywhere.
A hint of magic pulled on me. I went through the doorway on the right, following it.
A large tank sat against the wall, glowing bright enough to light up the whole room and emanating faint magic. An assortment of feylantern glass lay on the tables next to it: globes, tubes, and bunches of small spheres. Some sort of bioluminescent algae, but magically charged. I was wondering why the feylanterns here were so bright. Normally they were glass vessels filled with magically charged air, but here they were filled with water and that algae.
“How long do they last?” I asked.
The woman had stopped in the doorway of the lab. “About a year.”
“You sell these?”
She nodded. “Garvey does.”
“Who is Garvey?”
“The CFO.”
Interesting cult they had.
I moved to the next table. A big plastic bin filled with pearls of all sizes and colors. Golden, white, pink, purple, black…They came in a variety of shapes. Some were oval, some were round, others had ridges. A few were teardrops. A small fortune.
I glanced at her.
“The kids get these,” she said. “When Garvey can convince Aaron to let a couple of them forage on the ocean floor. Aaron hates it, but Garvey says we need the money.”