He shook his head. Why won’t you let me help you? All I asked her to do was help you. And then I thought that the best help she might be able to give would be . . . to acknowledge you. But she did more. Reginleif turned aside, sharply, but Brandr caught her face in his hands, gently, cradling it. You are as stubborn as any other god-born of Valhalla, but I am far more stubborn than you are. Either of us could die at any moment, in some stupid, pointless war with Rome, or Persia, or because of the mad gods, he told her, gently. Let me help you, as much as you help me, before that happens. And it will be enough.
December 22, 1993 AC
At the end of the year, Tepeyollotl, the Nahautl god of earthquakes, came to Rome itself, defying its gods, and slipped below the Colosseum. And there he challenged Orcus by shaking the entire city. Buildings swayed, foundations cracked, and the Colosseum, recently re-roofed, had metal scaffolding and a million red tiles fall to the sands below, killing five gladiators and three hundred spectators. The aqueducts cracked, and water from them began to flood the neighborhoods through which they entered the city. Then Tepeyollotl fled, trying to draw Orcus back to Nahautl, where his power was strongest. Where the bulk of his belief lived. Where he was receiving the lives and blood of mortals.
Orcus chased him. And when the combat began, it was in the bowels of the earth, and Nith, back with Sigrun in Novo Germania, could feel it like a human passing a kidney stone. Gods are fighting. To the south of us.
The gods of Valhalla were blind without mortal agents there, and no lesser spirits could be prevailed upon to go and watch. All Nith knew was that earthquakes were radiating out of an area north of Teotihuacan . . . and he knew, immediately, when one of the gods died. The shockwave slammed through the ley-lines and dispersed itself, with seismic rumblings as far away as Divodurum and Nimes.
The radius of the god’s actual dispersion, in spite of the fact that Orcus had absorbed a great deal of his power, was four hundred miles. Enough to touch both the Pacifica and the Sea of Atlas. The entire city of Tenochtitlan was devastated, the beautiful bridges over the canals collapsing as the pyramids shuddered, their steps cleaving away like icebergs calving into the sea.
Hours later, Nith shrank down to lindworm size to allow him to crowd into a taverna’s dining area with Sigrun. Lindworms were the size of elephants, so this occasioned some rapid alterations of size as he squeezed through a doorway. Sigrun usually told him that he looked like a ship in a bottle when he finally made it into any human habitation. Tonight, he sat with his head on her lap, watching as the globe-shaped far-viewer in the corner of the taverna blared the bad news. The reporters had taken their video from up on the balcony of one of the few buildings taller than five stories that still stood, and whispered into the microphone that they did not dare to go down to street level. Not until the military arrived.
Below them, people were wandering through the streets, but hundreds of them were . . . not particularly human anymore.
There were creatures roaming the streets that looked like a cross between dogs and monkeys, but still had the eyes of men, and had savage claws. They still wore the clothing they’d dressed in that morning—heavy stripes, in scarlet, vermillion, gold, and green—but they were leaping up atop piles of rubble and hooting to one another . . . and whenever they dug up a human body, alive or dead, they began to feast on it, tearing at the flesh. “Ahuizotl,” Sigrun muttered, her voice sick. The people around them, who’d been giving them slightly wild-eyed glances, now stared at the far-viewer, and Nith could smell the fear pouring from their skins.
The camera jerked to the right, to show the viewer another horror. Flayed men wandering around. Nith wasn’t entirely sure how they could still be alive, but they stumbled through the streets, with their intestines loosening and unwinding around their legs, like an obscene kind of skirt. Their blood pumped in their veins, and continuously wept from their exposed muscles and viscera, and the camera paused on one of them long enough to show the bloody footprints he left behind him on the dusty sidewalk as he staggered into another rubble-strewn area. They howled, almost constantly, with agony, and most of them attacked anything and anyone who crossed their paths—the camera shook as it caught sight of a flayed man chasing down a woman, who was carrying her injured child over her shoulder. The distance made the woman’s expression mercifully undistinguishable as she turned and ran, carrying her heavy burden.
As if that were not enough, there were men who looked like toads, and women with skeletal faces and empty eye sockets, but swollen, pregnant bellies, who, on encountering anyone, human or monster alike, in the streets, would attack them with eagle-like talons on their hands.
Rescue workers were attacked as they tried to reach shattered buildings. Ambulances were overturned, and the people inside them were hauled out by one creature or another. They are all mad, Nith observed, grimly. Loki was of the belief, long ago, that the ettin, the grendels, and the lindworms came from human criminals, and the insane, in the first generation, at least. In a population that was already living in fear and hysteria, due to the sacrifices, and the terror of perhaps being the next one dragged to the altar . . . .
What wonder is it, that when a god’s power touched them, they became precisely what they feared?
Exactly so, Sigrun. Exactly so.
Four hours after the death of Tepeyollotl, the Nahautl Emperor, Quauhtli, emerged from the seclusion of his palace, and showed his face to the world. He was a flayed man, and was barely holding onto his sanity in the face of the agony of his existence. Nith felt a little distant sympathy for the man; he understood pain, intimately. But while he’d almost lost himself to his progenitor’s . . . tender ministrations . . . and would have done anything to make the pain stop . . . the Emperor’s next words were almost inconceivable to him. “I have been blessed to be given the semblance of Xipe Totec,” the ruler of Nahautl said. “Anyone who attacks a flayed man in the street is committing sacrilege. They are not to be touched or disturbed in any way. They and the ahuizotl are the servants of the gods. The cihuateteo . . . the skeletal women are pregnant with the essence of the gods, and will birth hundreds of god-born to protect us all, and show us the way to the era of the sixth sun, when mankind will die, and be made again.” The lips might have been smiling. It was impossible to read any expression on a human face that was largely made of raw, bloody meat. “The frog-men, the tlatecuhtli, are the divine offspring of dead Tlaloc, and are here to herald his return. I have seen it. I have seen it all. Our suffering, our sacrifice, will renew the world. And any who touch or impede the holy messengers . . . will die and dwell eternally in Mictlan, their faces the cobbles of the gods’ streets, fit only to be trod upon.”
Madness, Nith thought, grimly. Utter madness.
Yes, Sigrun agreed, sadly, her fingers stroking along his crest. But people will believe it. Because they have little choice but to do otherwise. We’ll need to reinforce the borders. Thousands will try to flee, and invading forces could come right behind them. Ehecatl must be weeping as he watches this, in Judea. And I think Quetzalcoatl must be, as well.
Days later, Erida called to Sigrun, across the miles. Nith! Sigrun’s voice held shock. Erida says my sister has been put in restraints in the asylum. That she won’t stop screaming. Nith, I didn’t hear her voice! She didn’t call my Name!
Nith took them directly to Judea, and reduced himself to lindworm size so as to lurk in the hallway of the insane asylum. The various nurses skittered away from him, and muttered under their breath about having to keep the patients away from him; something about his appearance feeding into their delusions. Nith exhaled, and did his best to focus on Sigrun’s voice in Sophia’s room, and not on the men and women who worked in this place of madness.
“Sophia, what have they done to your hair?” Sigrun’s voice was stunned. “It’s shaved off just above the skin!”
“I told you—I told you they’d do it . . . didn’t I already tell you? The night nurse doesn’t like my hair. She
doesn’t like washing it or having to help me brush it. She says that it was wasted on me. ‘It’s not like anyone’s going to see you, girl. And it’s not like you even know who you are most days. So snip, snip, snip, off it goes!’” Sophia’s voice was dull. “I told you this would happen, Sigrun, but that’s not the problem.” Her voice escalated now, going shrill. “The gods are meeting, Sigrun. Jupiter’s called them to Olympus. He’s displeased. Rome, the center of their existence in this world . . . Rome was attacked. I can’t believe it’s 1995 already. But . . . but . . . it wasn’t a mad godling.” She paused. “I don’t understand what I’m seeing. I’m seeing two things at once, and they’re both true—” Sophia’s voice trailed off, and she began to cry. Nith edged a little closer, and let his othersight carry his vision into the room. He could see Trueseer thus, through the walls, her aura like a million particles of pale green dust, swarming around her body. Some larger. Some smaller. Sigrun had undone the restraints, and now helped her sister to sit up, and Sophia curled onto her sister’s shoulder, sobbing like a child now. Zaya, Fireflower, stood in the room, at the edge of the doorway, her red aura dim with unease.
“Just tell me what you see,” Sigrun soothed Sophia, her voice gentle as if her sister were once again a babe in arms. “I’ll try to fix it.”
“You can’t fix this. It doesn’t make sense. On the one hand, I see Jupiter standing in judgment. The other gods have failed him. Mercury has defied him and slain Zeus, before taking refuge with the gods of Valhalla. I’ve . . . never . . . I’ve never seen that before . . . . And on the other hand, I see great Jupiter shaken. Mars went to hold off a mad god in the Alps, and was killed, defending Rome. The city was leveled by the explosion, as was most of northern Italia . . . .”
That, of course, hasn’t happened at all. At least not yet. And might not, Nith thought.
And then Sophia was back into the realm of the now, seemingly. “Jupiter is angry. He’s telling them all that if they will not fight, they are useless to him. And Vulcan, with his twisted, lame leg, has just stood up from his throne, Hephaestus with him. And they’re both saying, at the same time, that they are not warriors or assassins. They’re craftsmen. And they both refuse to go hunting down other gods. That Valhalla’s only crime was defending themselves, and their allies, and they should never have had . . . tribute demanded for that . . . I don’t know what they’re talking about, Sigrun, none of this makes sense!”
“It’s all right,” Sigrun soothed. “Just keep talking. Get the vision out of your head.”
“. . . Jupiter’s put a hand to Vulcan’s shoulder. He’s . . . calling him a . . . most beloved son, though there’s no actual tie between them . . . . He’s just kissed him on the cheeks. He says that Vulcan has disappointed him. But that it’s all right. He, Father Jupiter, will make it . . . right.” A pause. “Oh, gods. Oh, gods, no. I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to see this—” Sophia’s voice became a wail. “He’s torn the Veil. Taken them all to . . . where am I? Mount Ida? In Hellas. Jupiter wants this to be seen. He wants the court to know. He’s . . . oh, gods. He’s unmaking him. He’s . . . no, he’s not unNaming him, is he?” Sophia’s tone was sick with horror. “Oh, gods, I won’t even remember his Name in a moment, he’ll never have been . . . .”
It would not suit Jupiter’s needs, if all those who saw his punishment forgot the existence of the one punished, now would it? Nith projected the thought, with all the delicacy at his disposal. Jupiter is also not one to throw power away. No. He is devouring Vulcan.
The shimmering green outline of Sophia’s head swung blindly towards the door, but Nith was concealed behind the wall still. “The others are rooted to the spot, too afraid to run, too afraid to move. Pluto and Juno are just watching. They hate this, but neither can move against Jupiter to stop this . . . and I . . . I . . . he’ll see me. Sigrun, sister, he’s going to see me as I watch!”
Nith edged around the doorframe and peeked in. Sophia’s dark golden hair had, indeed, been shorn down to within a quarter inch of her scalp, throwing the angles and planes of her face into stark relief. Sigrun was stroking the violated scalp, her expression distant and pained. “He’s not going to see you,” Sigrun said, gently. “None of your other visions have ever looked back at you, have they? Shh. Be calm. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“He’s . . . thrown Hephaestus, poor shadow that he is, against a cliff wall. Shackled him there, for his refusal.” Sophia’s voice shook. “There’s an eagle perched atop a pillar, looking down at him. Hephaestus just said, ‘So I am to suffer Prometheus’ fate. I wonder if the rumors that his death was yet another illusion by the master trickster are true?’” A choked gasp from Sophia, and then a retching sound. “The eagle just pulled out his tongue. Please don’t make me see more—” The last was a whimper.
“Are the other gods being told to do anything?” Sigrun rocked her sister in her arms now.
“They’re . . . they’re being told that it is now open war on the rebellious gods. They are to kill them, and bring Jupiter the tribute of their power, until the other gods have capitulated . . . or until only Rome’s gods are left.” Sophia dropped her head against Sigrun’s shoulder. “This . . . this isn’t the way . . . . I saw each nation and its gods standing separately, being picked off, one by one. But . . . Gaul is allied with what’s left of Germania, isn’t it?” She tipped her head up, as Nith slid his head around the corner once more. “Sister, did I fall through into a different reality? This world will die. It was always going to die, but now it’s different . . . .”
“Do you still see me on the dark road?” Sigrun asked, gently, but with foreboding in her voice.
“Spear in hand, but it’s not your spear. A raven on one shoulder, with one eye like amber and the other like milk. Your hair is soaked with blood, and hangs around your face like a medusa’s snakes.” Sophia’s voice had been dreamy, and now stuttered to a halt. “But . . . Brísingamen is wrapped around your wrist. Well . . . most of your forearm. It’s a long necklace even on Freya. That was never there before.” Sophia’s voice was forlorn. “There’s a vast shadow over your body. It enshrouds you, and it’s part of you, and you are it, and it is you.”
“And the part about the child?” Sigrun’s voice wasn’t bitter. More . . . curious. As if she were tracking down data to give Prometheus.
“. . . it’s where it’s always been. Under your heart.” Sophia’s voice was confused. “And the father is both alive and dead at the same time . . . and you’re both wed and unwed . . . but . . . .” She frowned. “Something is wrong. It’s . . . fluctuating. Sometimes it’s not there. Sometimes, the father is . . .” She stared into space, her lips moving. “This is not possible. You would never . . . you . . . you would never make the choices . . . you could never make the choices . . . .”
Nith’s eyes widened, and he saw a trace of a smile cross Sigrun’s face. Relief. Pure relief. “It’s all right, sister. You’re seeing multiple lines of probability. You’ve never seen those before, and I know it is frightening. But this is a very good thing.”
Sophia’s head snapped towards Nith, suddenly. She stared at him, and then said, abruptly and formally, “Death’s shadow. I would expect to see you nowhere other than at my sister’s heel.”
Do you mean that as an insult, or do you mean, Trueseer, that your sister is Death, and I am her shadow? Nith’s crest rose slightly, and then he exhaled white crystals in a snort as Sophia raised her hands to her shorn head, trying to tug at hair that wasn’t there.
“I can hear you! I can hear you! Why can I hear words fated to be silent until the world’s end?”
Sigrun wrestled Sophia’s hands away, and kissed her sister’s forehead. “Rest now. Rest, sleep, and forget all about these troubles.”
Sophia docilely put her head down on her pillow, and Sigrun began to stroke her head once more . . . and under her hand, the cropped hair grew long once more. Shoulder-length and curly, more manageable, but . . . it preserved
Sophia’s dignity. Sigrun brushed out of the room past Zaya, her cloak, white in the room, darkening immediately. Turning black. Sigrun turned towards the nursing station, and said, “Nith?”
Ah. We are to punish those who cause pain for pleasure and power over others once more? ‘Bullies,’ I believe, was the word used when Visionweaver was young, and you taught him to craft my image. Amused anticipation coiled through him.
You really enjoyed that, didn’t you?
Yes.
Because they reminded you of your progenitor?
That, and perhaps a little of your sense of justice has worn off on me, Sigrun Stormborn. Nith bared white diamond fangs as they came to the nursing station, and he began to loom. Let himself begin to expand, so that his head could now reach the ceiling, though his wings were severely hampered. Planted his paws on the desk, lightly. Just enough to make the entire L-shaped station shake.
“And now that I have your undivided attention,” Sigrun said, politely, in Hebrew, “Which of you is the nurse who shaved my sister’s head? Which of you was the one who told her that long hair was wasted on a lunatic who didn’t even know who she was? She said it was the night nurse. It is currently evening, and therefore, shift change. Which of you was it?”
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