The Goddess Embraced Page 5

  “I don’t actually want the weight of their attentions, believe me. But if the first one doesn’t work, I will recite the Name of every daeva that I know!”

  Rig condensed the illusion of the cave to just the immediate surroundings, and, at the far doorway, placed another image of himself, this time an adult version. Not quite realistic. He made his hair long for this effigy, and made himself a little taller. Put a distaff in one hand, and a sword in the other. “Foolish spirit. You would fight me?” he taunted.

  I know whom you appear to be. The spirit stepped into the cavern. It is a lie. Loki fled this world, foolishly abandoning his power. You are not him.

  Closer, Rig thought. Just a little closer. “Oh, I don’t claim to be Loki,” his effigy replied, calmly. “Just his son. Of course, I’ve never actually met a daeva before. Are you all this clumsy? Really, adopting your full form, so quickly, too?”

  I would not have needed to, had there not been three god-born awaiting my awakening. The daeva’s admission was sour. I would have just gone from bed to bed in this place of suffering. A helpless child in need of comfort, and I would have devoured a thousand lives in a night, before a single human awoke to my reality. Then I would have assumed my true form, and devoured the physickers and the nurses before making my way through the rest of your camp. A shame I’ll have to forgo the slow and exquisite deaths of pitying hearts, but to revel in the fear and the pain of a thousand or more is also no bad thing. I have many appetites, and all require sating.

  It took another step, and froze in place, as if it had just run into an invisible wall. You seek to bind such as me? How amusing. I allowed myself to be bound into that jar, the better to be transported to my prey.

  “I watched Baal-Hamon die,” Rig said, dropping all illusion, and stood in the door of the radiological room, his assault rifle in his hands. “Dagon and Baal-Samem, too. You? You’re a servant, daeva.” He saw the eyes widen, just for an instant, and then he opened fire.

  Magically-enhanced bullets tore through the four arms, the torso, and the wings, throwing the creature back, pinned against the far ‘wall’ of the summoning circle. Unable to move forwards, unable to escape, the creature healed almost as rapidly as the wounds appeared . . . but not quite. “Now!” Rig snapped, and the Magus raced through the banishing incantation, gasping out, at the very end, the Name Tawrich. Rig could feel the energies building, which surprised him, mildly . . . but what surprised him more was the fact that he could see the rift to the Veil form below the creature, circumscribed by the binding circle. And then the spirit was pulled out of the child’s distorted body, and Rig could hear it screaming in fury as it was sucked back into the Veil.

  The portal closed, and the Magus staggered, dropping to his knees to wipe blood from his nose. The body possessed by the daeva twisted, distorted, and fell to the ground. Rig leaped forward, and put two fingers to the child’s throat, looking down at the face, which was . . . covered in blood. Some the boy’s own, some that of the man the spirit had killed, using his body. The wounds were still healing, if more slowly than before. “Oh, gods,” Rig muttered. “He’s alive. The body is, anyway. I don’t know . . . .” He concentrated, hard, and could see flickers of a spirit left in the body. Oh, gods. This isn’t . . . “Latirian!” It was a shout. “Get in here!”

  Latirian scrambled into the room. “Sol’s still out cold . . . oh, gods.” She dropped to her knees, and checked the child’s vitals. “I can’t believe he’s still alive.”

  “I don’t know if he is. The spirit’s almost gone from the body. I think most of it was devoured by the daeva—” Rig was dazed. “This is a little past where I can help.”

  There was a thud that made the whole building shake. Dim awareness, for Rig, of people returning, hesitantly, to the building, murmurs of consternation everywhere. What was that thing? What just happened? Doctor! Doctor, this patient pulled his stitches getting to the door, he’s bleeding out—

  Ilam moved to look down at the boy. “It would be a mercy to kill the body,” he told them, quietly. “Look at him. Even if the mind were intact, look at him. He’s got four arms. A counterbalancing tail. Wings. You want him to grow to adulthood, like that? Even assuming the heart can take the burden—”

  “He’s regenerating,” Latirian replied, tersely. “The heart will repair itself constantly, but I’d be willing to bet the daeva also adjusted the heart’s size—” She peeled back an eyelid, checking pupillary reaction. “But if I remember Da’s lessons right, the daeva still might have a link to this body. It’ll be able to use him like a lodestone, always coming back through the Veil to him . . . .”

  “How long will the banishment last?” Rig asked Ilam.

  “I don’t know. They have to be summoned. They can’t walk between the worlds, freely. But they’re powerful.” The dark eyes studied Rig. “You were there when Baal-Hamon died?”

  Me and my big mouth. “I was taunting the creature. Getting its attention locked on me. I’d have said its mother was fat, but I doubt it ever had such a thing.” Rig grimaced, and locked eyes with the man. Forget.

  “Ah, true enough.” The Magus shook his head. He had a stubborn, strong mind, but Rig’s will was an insidious thing. He’d discovered this particular ability after Baal-Hamon’s death, and for the most part, it horrified him. He could influence people, with suggestions like this one. He’d only spoken of the talent with three people: Inghean, his mother, and Aunt Sigrun, and the advice from all of them had been the same: don’t use it if you can avoid it. It’s a crutch. Still, it was useful for situations like this. A little delicate pressure and a plausible, rational explanation, and Shin Ilam would probably never think about it again.

  “Rig, I don’t know what to do,” Latirian said, her voice miserable. “We could try removing the extra arms surgically—”

  “How about if we ask him?” Solinus said, from the doorway. He was leaning against the wall, a sheet wrapped around his waist, looking battered. He needed to go to flame-form to heal properly, Rig knew. That he hadn’t yet was a strong indication that he couldn’t, at least not yet. That’s not a good sign at all. Inghean’s going to have my head if her twin is badly hurt.

  And then, behind Solinus, a shorter figure appeared, a black, feathered cloak over the shoulders, hood shrouding the face. A hand lifted, and landed on Solinus’ shoulder, and the centurion shuddered and swung around, every bruise and scrape and contusion vanishing from his face. “I see you have all been busy,” Sigrun said, her voice weary as she stepped forwards into the room, having taken Solinus’ wounds. “I think it best if all of you start at the beginning, and tell me everything that’s transpired here.”

  The previous night, a hundred miles to the south, Sigrun had managed to get control of herself, and washed her face before going home. All too aware of the stares from the people she knew, and feeling as if she’d grown an extra head. Come look at the ettin, she thought, blankly. It had started raining again, but it was light enough to be scarcely more than a mist. Too numb to feel much as Nith had insisted on taking her home, she’d had walked in through the door to familiar, prosaic smells. Adam had started dinner in her absence, and at the sound of the door, came around the corner, looking startled. “Sig! You’re home? You’ve only been in Germania for two days.” Nothing but startled pleasure in his tone, followed by worry. “What went wrong?”

  She’d kicked off her boots at the door, not wanting to track water through the house, and shed her cloak, her back turned. It was an effort to speak at all, and the words clung to her lips like lead. “Zhi’s expedition to the Arctic turned up Jormangand. He has awakened. And is being driven mad by godling attacks and ley-line disruptions. Zhi and Hecate came to me. They wanted to consult with Prometheus. Sophia. My gods.” She faced the cloak hooks on the wall, terrified to turn. She didn’t know if he’d be able to tell just by . . . looking at her.

  “Harah.” Adam’s footsteps, coming closer. His hands, warm on her shoulders. “Well, that’s
. . . a really bad reason to be home so soon, but it’s nice to see you, nevertheless.” He paused. “Do I get a hello? Maybe a kiss?”

  Sigrun turned, slowly. He’d been so irritable of late. He wasn’t, by nature, an angry person. Far from it. But she knew what it all came from. Feeling useless. The age of his body, and increasing physical discomfort. Her physical age was practically a taunt . . . and the fact that the only retirement the god-born received was a funeral pyre had to grate at him. If she were human, they’d be old together. Limping around the house, trying to help one another up and down the stairs. Debilitated, yes. But also together. Instead, she’d spent half to three quarters of the past several years on the front lines.

  She couldn’t even look up. Just put her head on his shoulder, and rested there. “Sig? Something is wrong, isn’t there?”

  “When isn’t there something wrong?” she asked him, tiredly, still not looking up. The only thing that’s wrong in this house is me. “Nothing new to report.” Apparently, my condition has been present for some time.

  His hands, gentle on her chin, lifted her face up. For a moment, she met his eyes, and begged, silently, Don’t see it. Please, don’t see it. Don’t hate me.

  And for a wonder, he leaned down and gave her a kiss. “Come on. Let me get some dinner in you. You look like the world just ended, and I’m . . . ninety percent sure it hasn’t yet.”

  “Only ninety?” She couldn’t even force a smile for that.

  “The odds do keep getting worse.” He took his cane from the umbrella rack, and leaned on it. “Damn weather. It gets cold and wet like this, and I feel it in my hips.”

  She froze and swallowed, hard. Pulled her self in, even further than before. Tiny, diamond-hard point in the center of her chest. Nothing in. Nothing out. She couldn’t let what she was affect him. She couldn’t let the weather cause him pain. Not unless it was a perfectly natural pattern for the area.

  Of course, after dinner, there had been . . . hours to fill. She’d stared at a book, not reading, and Adam had grumbled a little that there was still so much cloud-cover, preventing him from looking at his stars. “On the other hand, makes it a good night to light a fire and curl up on the couch with you,” he added, looking at her, an expression of hope in his eyes.

  “Whatever you would prefer.”

  So she’d built up the fire, and stared at the flames instead, as he dozed off with his head pillowed in her lap. Helped him up the stairs around two antemeridian, when he’d woken up, stiff, on the couch. He’d loosened up by virtue of getting up the stairs, at least enough to be amorous once they reached their room. Age didn’t, cruelly enough, take away desire. It only took away the ability to do something about it. Their encounters ended, at least half the time, with a muffled curse of annoyance from Adam, all excitement lost after considerable exertion. Sigrun did her best to show him she loved and appreciated him, and that it didn’t have to be about . . . penetration. That she felt loved and cherished just by being held. That that alone was really enough to content her, many nights. Oh, her body was still cursedly young, and she couldn’t deny that some evenings she did feel somewhat twitchy . . . but her mind was older than his, and she’d rather be twitchy than sense the frustration pouring out of him. It didn’t help that this was a large portion of a male’s self-image, too. It all tied back to the ill-health and decline of age, and how angry he was at his body for failing him when he needed it most.

  Tonight, however, went a bit better than it usually did of late, and Adam pulled her close afterwards and fell asleep, still on his side. And in the darkness, Sigrun stared at the wall as tears slipped from her eyes again, silently. Not a shudder of breath to disturb him or wake him. He’d only misunderstand why she was crying, she couldn’t tell him the real reason . . . and she didn’t dare let him see that the damnable tears were freezing as they fell down her face.

  She’d finally gotten a couple of hours of sleep, around sunrise. And then had gotten up. Put on her damp swan-cloak, in spite of the fact that it was dies Mercurii, or Wodensdæg. “Wrong day, Sig,” Adam had told her in the kitchen as he’d made her breakfast, and tea.

  “I know,” she’d murmured. “I just feel the need to remind myself that I’m a valkyrie, today.” Striving to sound . . . normal. Her life as a role on stage. This is how it’s going to be from now on. The life at home is a lie. My tiny fraction of humanity has been sacrificed, like my chance of having children, my entire life. And the life outside the home is a lie, too. I might have powers I never asked for, but that does not make me a goddess, or worthy. My entire existence is a lie. I just hope that it’s enough. Giving up everything I am, everything I was, everything I ever could have been . . . surely that’s enough to avert Sophia’s future. Isn’t it?

  “Funny. I thought that was never far from your mind.” Irony in the words.

  Sigrun hunched in over her tea, and didn’t reply. Thanked him for making breakfast, and, an hour later, had arrived at the sanitarium in time to see Erida’s chauffeured motorcar pull up with Prometheus and Zaya aboard. She caught the girl’s wide-eyed glance, and retreated further into herself. “Titan,” she greeted Prometheus, quietly. “I’ll go in first. See what her mood is. Then we’ll let Zaya come in and cheer her up a little. And then we’ll see what I can do about . . . ensuring you don’t stand out in her memory.” Her voice was dull.

  Zaya looked anxious. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

  “Your presence makes my sister relaxed and happy. I do not see how you can ‘mess up’ being yourself, Zaya.” Sigrun gave the girl a steady look. “I envy you, Zaya. Young, brilliant. You have it all in front of you. Cherish what you are, Zaya, and what you have.” Sigrun turned away, and led them towards her sister’s room. Signed in with the charge nurse, and Prometheus sat down with a book, much to her surprise, in the waiting lounge. “You read?” Sigrun asked, as Zaya signed in, as well. Her voice was flat, and incurious. She was pretending to normalcy, though she suspected she would never quite forgive the demigod for yesterday’s events. “Freya does, I know. Asha, however, does not.” The code-name for Lassair, always used in public, rolled off the tip of Sigrun’s tongue easily.

  Yes. I taught the Mycenaeans the concept, after all. But not all Veil denizens can read. It is an abstraction that some of us cannot grasp. We do not perceive the words in your minds, in all your hundreds of languages. We perceive the concepts, and we communicate with you in those terms. Your minds formulate our meaning into your own languages.

  “That is how Asha translates for Trennus.” She read the notes on a bulletin board, filling her mind with meaningless words.

  Correct. For many of us, words on a page are meaningless. A tangle of pretty shapes. He paused. Much like what you see right now, as you stare at those notices.

  Sigrun’s stare snapped back into focus, as he continued, calmly, That is why a binding circle works on us. Most cannot recognize the words and shapes until they are on top of it, and the summoner’s will, channeled through the words, and reinforced by them, takes effect. Some of the symbols and shapes have what I would call morphic resonance. They represent folds in space accurately, and then become folds in space, when a summoner uses them correctly. This interests me. Not least because I taught some of the basics to the summoners of Hellas, three thousand years ago. Of course, they thought they could contact the dead this way, in spite of everything I said. All they ever called were Veil spirits, but that did not stop them. Humans are like that.

  Zaya sat beside Prometheus, practically quivering in place. Sigrun turned to study the book in Prometheus’ hands. Even upside down and backwards, she could read the Attic Hellene words. “Aeschylus’ Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, I see. Vanity?” Her expression never changed.

  Curiosity. I’m struck by how accurate the account actually is. The author shows how I tried to convince Odysseus and Agamemnon to leave. How I tried to convince Priam to surrender. And he recounts those events as if he were there. I wonder if this man could ha
ve spoken with the godslayer who released me? Prometheus touched a page gently. And it is moving to see myself avenged. Dying was painful. And I never expected to return from that darkness. But I suppose it is true. There is a difference between dying, and being unNamed.

  “UnNamed?” Zaya asked, sounding confused.

  You have not yet stumbled upon that process in your Archives, Fireflower. It is largely a forbidden practice . . . but I can sense that Worldwalker has done it at least once in his life. But then, I can see the past even more easily than the future. At least the past has no more probability.

  Sigrun left them to their conversation, as one of the nurses escorted her to Sophia’s door. She put a smile on her face; Sophia was so lost in time, there was a good chance she wouldn’t see what was right in front of her, if Sigrun didn’t let her. Then she stepped inside, and greeted her sister. “I brought a brush,” Sigrun said, quietly. “May I do your hair?’

  Sophia smiled at her, glassy-eyed, and pointed at her walls, proudly. “Look! They painted my walls over, and told me it was fresh canvas.”

  There were, in fact, new murals. On one wall, a sky with a single sun, one so large and so bright, it looked as if it were poised to swallow the person who’d painted it . . . pictured as a silhouette of a female form, long black hair, no more than two inches tall at the very bottom of the wall. “I like that one,” the nurse offered, from the doorway, nodding. “All the yellow is so cheerful.”