The Goddess Embraced

by Deborah Davitt

  Local Nahautl residents and international reporters, at risk to their lives, managed to smuggle out footage of Quechan captives behind chain-link fences, being herded in like cattle. The camera-work was jerky, and usually from a distance, set up in a window overlooking the detention areas . . . and then there were the other pieces of footage sent out by news crews by satellite, of sacrifices being conducted.

  Similar footage from the northern districts of Quecha. Most of the victims were rebels who, seeing the better standard of living in Tawantinsuyu after Mamaquilla’s reforms, had begun demanding an abolishment of the Quechan caste system. These rebels had been fighting for decades, and had hidden in the jungles, or crossed the border into Tawantinsuyu. On being captured, these Quecha rebels were brought to detention facilities, and then, one at a time, led out to temples. Painted blue from head to toe. Forced to arch over stone altars by four priests, and then their hearts hacked out by the chief priest, who presented the still-beating heart to the gods, and rubbed blood on the statues around the altar. Then the body was heaved over the side of the pyramid, and where it fell, it was hacked apart. Flayed, so that a priest might wear the skin. The hands and feet given out to observers as trophies. In the case of a rebel leader, highly-placed in the Quechan Resistance? There was footage of his flesh being passed out to the crowd around the temple, slivers of it being pressed between people’s lips, as a kind of sacrament.

  All of these reports were preceded by an advisory by the Roman news networks that the footage was highly graphic. And it was. A Roman’s sensibilities might be a bit jaded by seeing public executions on the far-viewer, and the occasional accidental death of a gladiator on the sands, but ritual sacrifice and cannibalism were so far outside the realm of what the typical Roman encountered as to be entirely alien. And the first jerky, grainy footage, initially decried as a hoax by Nahautl and Quecha groups alike, began to be substantiated as more videos surfaced.

  At the three-week mark, Mazatl managed to get Ehecatl to Judea; travel was still possible, but very hazardous. “There were a few people ahead of us for tickets,” Mazatl admitted. “I may have abused my Praetorian rank a bit to get us on an ornithopter for Divodurum as quickly as I did. Novo Gaul has stopped accepting most Nahautl flights.” He rubbed at his face, as Sigrun and Adam both clasped Ehecatl’s wrist gently. “Some of this had to have been going on in the back country for years. Quietly. For it to have all just come to a head like this, so quickly . . . .” Mazatl’s face was gray under his tan.

  Ehecatl’s hair was completely white now, but his eyes were still sharp. “I hate seeing this happen to my country,” he said, grimly. “Centuries of progress. And now, a revival of the old ways. The bad ways. I guarantee that very shortly, it won’t just be ‘enemy tribes’ like the Quecha or ‘outsiders’ like the Gauls. It will be anyone that the priests don’t agree with. Anyone who threatens their political power. And our emperor agrees with them that this must happen. To save our people from the mad gods.” Ehecatl snorted. “I was almost opened up on Tlaloc’s altar, long ago.” He looked around the living room where they all sat, his face set in lines like carved jade. “I think I can say that if my people sacrifice who we are now, on the altar of what of what we once were? We don’t deserve to be saved.”

  “There are millions of innocent people there, Father,” Mazatl reminded his father, gently. “They deserve to be saved. But with Novo Gaul and the Diné closing their borders . . . we’re going to have thousands of people fighting to cross the Tó Baʼáadi river, to get north. To escape.”

  “And the legions will be caught in the middle,” Adam added, grimly.

  The legions were already caught. Public outrage in Rome was at an all-time high, and Caesarion IX made a public speech condemning the violence in the new world. Local customs and the culture of each nation in the Empire are the birthright of that nation’s people. Diocletian’s Edict provides for freedom of worship within each subject nation. But the ban on human sacrifice is far older than Diocletian’s Edict, and will be enforced. The local civil gardia have failed to stop this madness. Therefore, I am declaring martial law in Nahautl and Quecha. The Emperor of Nahautl will be brought before the Senate in chains, and the King of the Quecha will be, as well. The priests in charge of these atrocities will be crucified, as well as anyone who willingly participated in these rituals.

  Public opinion supported this measure, and it was vigorously endorsed by the current Tribune of the Plebeians as well. Public outrage crested the first time a battalion was ambushed in the jungles, and shaky video of the legionnaires being dragged back as captives emerged. Of them being sacrificed. Adam had happened to be visiting Ehecatl at Mazatl’s home; Mazatl sent his grandchildren out of the room so that they couldn’t see the footage. Ehecatl put his face in his hands at the sight, and rubbed, gently, at his eyes. “My people have just signed their own death warrant,” he said, quietly. “Rome will put aside their petty dispute with Germania and Gaul, and bring down the full force of the Legion on Nahautl and Quecha. The cities will be firebombed.”

  Adam put a hand on Ehecatl’s shoulder. “I don’t know,” he said, quietly. “We’ve still got ettin and grendels coming from the north, and Persia won’t stay quiet for long.”

  “That’s hardly reassuring, commander,” Mazatl told Adam, tiredly. “This has to be stopped. That building right there?” He pointed at the far-viewer. “That’s the school my children went to before I brought them to Judea in the seventies. It’s the school I went to, twenty years before that. It’s being used as a prison and preparation facility for the sacrifices.” He thumped one hand against the wall, gently. “Quetzalcoatl . . . stop your people from this madness. Stop the other gods.” He turned his face away, but not before Adam caught a glimpse of tears in the younger Jaguar warrior’s eyes.

  Aprilis 5, 1993 AC

  Brandr was drinking his breakfast. It was Thunresdæg, Thor’s holy day, which meant the day really did start with a full tankard of honeybeer, steadily quaffed in one long pull, with the last inch poured out in libation to his god. Fortunately, given his metabolism, Brandr had never been drunk in his life. On his graduation from the Odinhall, back in 1910, he and all of his classmates had been given a cask of mead as wide around as a storm-drain. The bear-warriors had emptied it that night. And while they’d been merry, Brandr was fairly certain that not one of them had actually gotten drunk.

  He didn’t want to turn on the far-viewer. The news was too bad right now, and Thor had warned him to be ready to help move the entire population of Little Gothia up into the Caledonian Forest, if things turned even more sour.

  An unexpected tap at his door made him frown, but he didn’t answer in words. Just moved to the door, hammer in hand, and opened it, catching the person on the other side with her hand still lifted. “L-lorelei.” No acknowledgement beyond her name.

  “Æðelinga Chatti sent me,” the siren murmured. “You’re to come at once to her office. No questions, she said.”

  Brandr shrugged, and stepped out, closing the door behind him, latching the lock. Lorelei sniffed at him, and frowned momentarily, before her face cleared. “I was about to ask if drinking your breakfast was a common thing for you, till I remembered the day,” she admitted in Gothic, putting on a light smile. “Of course, you are also in your full armor, as well. That should have been a reminder, in itself!”

  Brandr nodded, not replying, and registered the expression of light vexation that crossed the siren’s face as they got into a motorcar, which had the logo of the refugee center on the side. Too small for him, of course. He liked spending time with jotun, simply because they understood how to build furniture that didn’t creak under his weight, and they needed more head and leg room in automobiles than he did, himself. He pulled his knees up to his chin in the small vehicle, and endured the drive, silently. “You know,” Lorelei said after a while, her voice shimmering with all of a siren’s seductive harmonies, “If you practiced speaking more often, it might not be
so uncomfortable for you. It might begin to flow more naturally.”

  Brandr stared at her profile. She really did look like Reginleif, though her tone at the moment was far gentler than the valkyrie would ever have used. The cognitive dissonance whenever he spent time around Lorelei was . . . intense. After a moment or two, they came to a red light, and Brandr settled his hammer on the floor of the car. Heaved off his chain shirt, wrestling with the seatbelt as he did so. “What are you doing?” Lorelei said, her head jerking towards him.

  He hauled off his tunic as well, and pointed to a set of talon marks, vicious and curving, that had left ropes of scar tissue along his left forearm. “L-lindw-worm,” he said, cursing internally as he couldn’t form the word properly. “P-poisoned claws.” Up to his left bicep, this time puncture marks, each the size of a solidus coin. “R-rifle bullets. M-mongol c-cavalry.” Left shoulder, a ring of teeth marks. “M-mad f-fenris.” Right arm, a long, clean wound that had gone straight through, between the radius and the ulna, in one side and out the other. “R-raccian inf-fantry knife.” Right ribs, another curving, vicious strike. “S-spear. En-enchanted w-with f-fire. M-mongol, again.” There were more. Dozens of others. In spite of his powerful build and pristine physical health, Brandr’s body was a monument to a hundred and three years lived as a warrior in brutal combat. The only element to which he was functionally immune was lightning, as a god-born of Thor. And Thor required that the scars of his bear-warriors be visible reminders of their service. Badges of courage.

  Lorelei was staring at him wide-eyed, in spite of the fact that the light had turned green, and people behind them were starting to honk. “Every sc-sc-scar is a m-mark of honor,” Brandr managed. “Sh-shows our st-str . . .” The word refused to come out, and he almost hit the side of the door in frustration.

  “Strength.”

  He nodded, pulling on his tunic again, and then pointed at his mouth. “Th-this? H-hard to be pr-proud of this. N-not str . . .” Brandr concentrated, and mastered his lips. “Strength.”

  She got the car in gear, and they rolled on again. “I understand that you were wounded on the Gothic Day of Transition?”

  “Fr-fritti told you?” He let the words sit there, just to see what she’d do with them. If she were Reginleif, she’d have to lie to deal with them.

  “I hear many things.” It was an interesting sidestep, but one easy enough to pursue . . . by someone with a fluent tongue, anyway. The ruby, swan-like eyes glanced at him, and then she focused on traffic. “I understand that you survived an attack by Hel herself. That’s something no other mortal can claim.”

  “S-s-sigrun . . .”

  “Stormborn? They say that she took Hel’s place, you know. That she’s a goddess.”

  Do you actually believe that, or are you trying to sound like a wide-eyed, credulous young woman? It goes with the way you just stared at me when I took off my shirt. That was the same look most young Gothic women get around bear-warriors . . . right up until the moment they realize that reality’s quite a bit different from the fantasy. He cleared his throat. “H-hope sh-she has b-better sense. L-listening to th-that sh-shit w-will mess with her h-head.”

  Lorelei gave him another incisive glance, and opened her mouth to speak . . . and then sighed, and held her tongue. Brandr was grateful.

  At the refugee center, he uncoiled and pulled his chainmail back on, before following Lorelei upstairs to Fritti’s office. This had better be for a good reason, he thought as he entered, and caught sight of another bear-warrior in the office. Tall. Braided blond hair, red-tinged beard. Brandr raised a hand in greeting. “W-waes hael, R-radulfr.”

  It took a moment for his own recognition to process. Wait a minute. How do I know him? Isn’t Radulfr the name Loki used . . . ? Enough time for the man to cross the room to him, and catch his arm before Brandr could shift his hammer to an attack position. Lorelei scuttled out of the way, and Brandr could see Fritti, sitting at her desk, a look of distress on her face. “You,” Brandr grated, as the other lightly removed the weapon from his hand. “It’s you.”

  Radulfr’s facial features blurred and his eyes shifted color, becoming the moon-in-eclipse silver that Brandr remembered all too well. You asked a boon of my beloved, Loki told him pleasantly, and walked him towards a chair. Brandr knew better than to resist. His strength would be as nothing, compared to Loki’s. And, in truth, a debt is indeed owed between us. I regret to say I can do nothing about the speech impediment. Eir, Freya, and Thor have all done as much as they could do. Loki gestured, and Brandr sat down, glaring up at the god, wordlessly. Thor’s obscenely proud of you, I hope you know. He won’t shut up about you, in fact. You’re one of only a handful of mortals who’ve ever taken a direct blow from a death-god and lived. It shouldn’t have been possible. Thor had Freya just about disassemble you to find out how you survived.

  He’d been aware of intensive examinations, but he had thought that those revolved around healing him. Now, he felt a bit like a particularly prized pet. Possibly good breeding stock, if the genes could be passed on to the next generation. Of course, this is Loki talking. It’s probably deception, on some level. Move with what you know to be true. “S-sigrun—”

  Stormborn already held the power of Supay inside of her when my first-born daughter attempted to end her life. Hel’s deathstrike couldn’t touch her. Sigrun was already death. Now, Sigrun did survive several of Supay’s deathstrikes, years before. Probably because she had Tlaloc’s power locked inside of her, but also, she’s a valkyrie. A chooser of the dead. Like cannot always affect like. Just as a valkyrie is functionally immune to lightning . . . but most bear-warriors are not.

  Brandr’s eyes narrowed. There was too much information here. He doubted all of it. As he doubted almost everything he saw, these days. If Loki were to be believed, his old student actually was Hel’s replacement. “And m-me?”

  You do have remarkable powers of regeneration. Thor can’t recall any of his children with better, in fact. And there is the fact that I’d left a small portion of my essence inside of you. It may have helped shield you from Hel. Loki sighed. I established a two-way link between us. I gave you the memories I formed as I trained Fritti as Radulfr . . . in part, anyway . . . and I used your mind to help me train her. I’d never actually taught a young human before. I needed your knowledge of how to do so. Else I’d have been left with Freya’s kindly method of simply imprinting knowledge into the human mind, and watching it unfold. His smile was like an assassin’s knife, there and then gone again. So. Do you trust me to remove the false memories?

  “N-not really. No ch-choice.”

  Ah, honesty. Loki reached out, and touched two fingers to the side of Brandr’s head. The bear-warrior caught a glimpse of Lorelei and Fritti’s pale faces, and then he was gone for an instant.

  . . . meeting Radulfr at a taverna in Burgundoi. Brandr had been born and raised in Novo Trier; Radulfr claimed to be from Gotaland. Enough reason that they’d never encountered each other before. Seamless illusions. Brandr hadn’t been entirely delighted to be leaving Burgundoi to go be the personal pedagogue of Frittigil Chatti, but someone had to do it, and she’d been chosen by two separate gods . . . a flash, and then he was in a field outside of town. Radulfr’s eyes, glimmering silver now. I apologize for this. But it is necessary. You’re going to help make me into the man I need to be for this task. I literally could not do this without you . . . . And then . . . dirt. Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. Choking on soil, almost drowning in it. He’d been put into an earthen womb, just as the first jotun and fenris had been, but without any of the torturous physical changes. The tree roots wrapped around his wrists and ankles, so that he couldn’t escape, and burrowed into his flesh, agonizingly providing him with air and food. He’d been half-aware, the whole time . . . but his mind had also been aware, simultaneously, of watching Radulfr train Fritti. It had been the only thing he’d had to distract himself from the pain and the imprisonment. And then being lift
ed up out of the ground after two long, pain-filled years. Dusted off, his wounds healed—these, without scars for him to question—and two long, cool fingers touched his forehead. And a single word whispered against his ear: Forget.

  Brandr came back to himself, shaking. “F-fikkest thu,” he told Loki.

  You asked to remember. You said that the truth would be preferable to a lie. You did nothing at all dishonorable during the time-span in question. I could erase the memories again, and leave you with that assurance, which you will grow to doubt. You may even come to doubt the images I’ve returned to you. You are knotted within yourself, son of Thor. Loki leaned back, an expression of regret crossing his face. You told Stormborn and her fellows once, that you could only work with the world around you, and trust your senses . . . but verify them. You couldn’t doubt everything, or you would be paralyzed with inaction. Your conclusion was wise.