Finally, Odin and Taranis and Tyr managed to pin the damnable thing, and the Morrigan swept in, thousands of black lines sweeping around her like a flight of raven-shafted arrows, and every one pierced the creature’s heart. Created fracture lines. And then the rest of them pulled . . . and a hundred smaller godlings raced away, chasing the ripples of their progenitor’s power to the horizon.
Sigrun groaned. It was almost dawn, and they’d been at this all night. There were scores and weals along Nith’s hide, and her own armor was shattered in three places. We will need to hunt them, she said, wearily, as Nith let a thermal carry them, gently, back to the city.
You will, I think, have another task, Freya said, sounding furious, as they came in for a landing. Sigrun slumped off Nith’s shoulders, and realized that Min and Lassair were waiting in the frame of what had once been a building.
They brought you. Good. Sigrun offered Min a quick embrace in greeting, and the phoenix drifted down from a wall nearby. Was it the hydrogen spell?
“Yes,” Minori replied, her voice heart-broken. “Whoever stole the pieces of it that Tehro had been working on . . . they knew their sorcery well enough to put together a more or less workable spell. But . . . it was clumsy.”
It was broken, Kanmi said, appearing beside her. Sigrun’s head rocked back. She hadn’t seen her old friend this tangible before. He looked solid and real, in fact. His lips moved, and he formed the words out loud now. “These fuckers didn’t set their parameters, Sigrun. They didn’t account for the fact that the river would continue to flow. Would continue to bring fresh fuel for the hydrogen reaction. It’s a mercy that they actually didn’t set it to chain-react along its entire length, or we’d have a hundred miles of riverbank that look like this.” His voice was disgusted, angry, and . . . utterly Kanmi Eshmunazar. “The only parameter they set was a self-termination clause. ‘If reaction continues past four minutes, terminate uptake of hydrogen.’” He scowled. “Baal’s teeth. I don’t know if they’ll be that kind next time.” He looked around. “And believe you me, if they’re not stopped, there will be a next time.”
Minori had spun towards him, and Sigrun’s heart ached in her chest at how young they both looked. How much hope and surprise and joy was in Min’s face. “Kanmi-kun? You’re . . . “
“There was enough energy leakage for me to make myself a body, yes.” His tone was grim as he somehow turned the miraculous into the mundane. “I have no idea if that’s going to last, or if I let it go, if I’ll be able to get it back. Energy-to-matter transferences should require a matrix of some kind, and I just did it. I’d be happier if I understood how I managed it.” He looked around the circle of faces, and an irreverent smirk crept across his face for a moment, gentling into a genuine smile as Minori wrapped her arms around him. “But I’m here for the moment, and apparently just out of the nick of time.” His dark eyes found Sigrun’s mask. “As usual, eh?”
Sigrun found her voice. “Just like old times, Esh.” She swallowed, feeling Nith’s bulk behind her. “Who did this, Esh? Min, any ideas?” In spite of her words, she could feel . . . tugging. It was still completely dark outside, and there was so much death around her . . . “Five million people died here. I can . . . feel all of them. I want to know why. And who.” Her voice had become a bare whisper of sound.
So do we all, Loki said, moving to her side.
Five million of our worshippers. And not just humans, but two gods, Taranis said, landing beside them, glowering. Could this have been a strike by the humans of Rome? Intended to weaken us, and attract mad godlings?
Min’s expression went agonized for a moment. “The fact that the power attracts godlings is why I refused to go further with researching the spell,” she told them all, her voice sick. “We locked it down. We put it deep in the archives, and . . . this is our fault.”
Kanmi wrapped an arm around her, tightly. “No. It’s not. You and Erida and all the others involved, right down to Athim, Masako, and Bodi, did the right thing. You secured it. Whoever this is, didn’t get the whole thing.” He looked up. “It could be Rome. But I’m guessing we’ll get someone claiming responsibility in a few hours. One way or another.”
An hour later, they had precisely that, as Potentia ad Populum called in a statement to a news station in Divodurum. “The gods are to blame,” was their statement, read by an anchorwoman in a shaking voice. “The gods, the god-born, and the sorcerers, all of those who have thought themselves above the common man, are at fault. They created the mad godlings, as their own scourge. They are at fault for the sacrifices in Nahautl. They will pay. The god-born must die. Sorcerers who do not serve the common man must die. And the gods will pay with the blood of their worshippers, and then they, too, will die. A new world will be born in the ashes of this one. A world in which all men are equal, and there are no gods.”
Insanity, Tyr muttered. If they kill us, our power erupts out over the earth, destroying whatever it touches. Without us, the mad gods sweep in, and destroy everything. Consume everything.
“Potentia has always been populist in focus, with the goal of tearing down god-born and sorcerers, or enslaving them to the common good of mankind. With themselves in charge, naturally.” Kanmi’s voice was acid. “Some of their splinter groups have wanted to put the power of the gods in every hand, but this particular faction sounds as if they have a healthy dose of nihilism going for them,” Kanmi was sitting with Minori, in a shelter Freya had created, watching the single working far-viewer he’d found in the ruins of the city. “Their end-game seems to be the destruction of all existing power structures. They may actually think that the godlings will leave them alone, if they kill the gods, after weakening you by killing your people.” He sighed. “Of course, once you feed the lions to the piranhas, all you’re left with is piranhas. But in the meantime, they aim to starve you.”
Odin’s expression hardened. That will not entirely work, not for decades or centuries, at any rate. Most of us have accumulated power for a very long time. Two thousand, three thousand years. Baal-Hamon was particularly powerful, with five to seven thousand years of worship behind him . . . though his worshippers were not as many as those of Rome, or even our own people. Odin looked at Sigrun and Tyr. Can you find the attackers?
I’ll bring Fenris, Tyr said, grimly. He can find them.
I can feel them, Sigrun murmured, feeling as if she were floating above herself somehow. Out under the cover of darkness. Some of them . . . feel guilty. Some of them exult, but they’re bound. They’re bound to this place, by the blood of their victims. I think I can find them.
Good. Do so, Odin said, and glanced at Taranis and the Morrigan. Do we have leave to hunt the evil-doers in your lands?
Yes, the Morrigan replied, instantly. But only kill them if they resist. We will have them executed by our own people’s hands. We would make justice known and plain to our people.
I am all too tempted to revive the old customs and have our people burn these criminals alive, Taranis admitted, looking out the window of the shack at the ruins of the city. Everyone . . . to your places. We have people alive under the rubble. I can feel them.
Sigrun drifted out of the shack, and looked up at the night sky. Lassair hopped down from the roof, and landed beside her. May I hunt with you, Stormborn?
You wish to do so?
They used fire . . . the very fire that renewed me . . . to destroy an entire city. Millions of innocent lives. Yes. I wish to hunt. Lassair’s voice was furious. I will show them what fire means.
Give me a few minutes. I need to rest in the Veil, and Nith needs to heal.
I will come with you.
Sigrun turned around, and saw Kanmi and Min emerging from Freya’s shelter. She moved over, and gave her old friend a tight embrace. “You bastard,” she muttered in his ear, and heard him laugh. “Start making a list of other likely targets—”
“Already started in my head.” Kanmi made a shooing gesture. “Go. Min and I can help with the recov
ery here. Go.”
Sigrun paused, and gave him another very tight hug, and then Min one, too. Minori, it was not your fault. Nor Erida’s. Start working on a counter to it, if it will help assuage your grief . . . .
“Diamond,” Minori blurted. “They’d have needed a diamond of considerable size to store the spell, unless they wanted to be at ground zero when it went off. Lab-grown is fine . . . Sigrun, if we find where their diamond source is, we can use that to find any other places they might be getting ready to attack—”
And that is the Minori we know and love, Sigrun told her. Always thinking. Good. I will be in touch.
Eighteen hours in the Veil was only minutes in the mortal realm. But enough time to heal the wounds on Nith’s hide, and diminish Sigrun’s exhaustion. Lassair squawked on seeing the pazuzu, and the other allies Sigrun was starting to gather. Mladena, a russalka, was one of them, and had given the phoenix a wary stare as she guarded the front gates. In truth, Sigrun didn’t really need all eighteen of the hours. Twelve was enough to heal her wounds.
But for the final six? She found one of the books she had brought, physically, into the Veil. Sat down in the courtyard under the arbor of flowers with the stars at their hearts . . . and began teaching Nith the basics of modern Gothic and Latin orthography.
A promise was a promise, after all.
Chapter 11: Twilight of the Gods
לָמָה יְהוָה, תַּעֲמֹד בְּרָחוֹק; תַּעְלִים, לְעִתּוֹת בַּצָּרָה.
Why standest Thou afar off, oh Lord?
Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble?
—Psalm 10
ט יְהוָה, נְחֵנִי בְצִדְקָתֶךָ--לְמַעַן שׁוֹרְרָי; הושר (הַיְשַׁר) לְפָנַי דַּרְכֶּךָ.
Lead me, oh Lord, in Thy justice and righteousness
because of those lying in wait for me;
make Thy path straight before my face.
—Psalm 5
______________________
Ianuarius 1, 1994 AC
Adam had spent a solid portion of the morning at Judean Intelligence, trying to read batches of coded enemy signals that had been intercepted. Unfortunately, these days, everything had to be fed into a calculus. There was substantially less art to code-breaking anymore, in his opinion. The afternoon, he’d spent at Caesarion’s palace, going over treaties and notes for meetings with the other governors and the mayors of a dozen cities in the region. Watching, out of the corner of his eye, as Rig made himself more or less unnoticeable in the room, and noting Livorus’ sword at the young man’s side. Young man. He’s older than I was, when I became a Praetorian. God. It goes so fast.
He’d planned on spending a good chunk of his remorselessly empty evening grinding through photostats of documents from the Temple archives; young Zaya had given him another bale. Some of the ancient originals had been papyrus, which meant that they had been written on reeds, cut apart, flattened, and formed together into paper . . . and subsequently, the reeds had broken apart in neat horizontal fragments, and formed a jumbled pile inside their containers.
At least the work kept him from watching the far-viewer, and hearing the estimated death-toll in Crann Péitseog soar to over five million. The numbers numbed him. Certainly, close to thirty million people had died the Day of Hel’s Demise. Millions more had died with Baal-Hamon.
But those deaths had been mostly the results of the gods . . . though there had certainly been human handiwork involved. Adam eyed Caliburn on the table in front of him, the dull gray metal seeming to absorb the light of the room around it. His handiwork, in fact. Though his rational mind assigned more of the blame to the technomancers, than to himself and his friends.
But today’s attack represented the single largest death-toll directly attributable to human hands in the history of the world. Potentia ad Populum has always been a really mixed bag of extremists. Back during the buildup to the Loki ‘experiment,’ they had quite a few technomancers involved in their ranks, which is why they were on Kanmi’s watch list. Rightly, as it turned out. So why does it ring false that here they are, protesting the involvement of the gods and god-born and sorcerers and ley-mages and summoners in the existence of the mad godlings . . . by using a technomantic spell? Is it actually Potentia ad Populum, or some other group, casting the blame on them? Or is it a splinter faction, maybe with sorcerers who worked on the spell, and didn’t entirely realize what their group was going to claim was the real reason for its use . . . god. I can’t think, sometimes . . . . Adam paused. He hadn’t mentioned it to Sigrun, but he’d been having . . . not really memory lapses. But moments when a train of thought simply stopped, and he could sense a yawning chasm in his own mind. There was a road on the other side of that gap, but the bridge was out, and nothing but air beneath his feet. He’d had a notion, and an important one. Something he needed to talk to Kanmi about.
Except that Kanmi was dead. Or a ghost. Or . . . something more than a ghost, if Sig, Tren, and Minori are to be believed on that. Adam grimaced. Gods. What was the thought? It was something Kanmi would be interested in. Adam cudgeled at his brain, and then forced himself to relax. The thought might come back to him if he didn’t stress about it.
Then, all in a rush. Potentia ad Populum. Need to talk to someone about who would profit by this attack, but who wouldn’t want credit. Rome? Blood Pact? Other groups? Adam found a scrap of paper and wrote it down. If he didn’t, the idea could be forgotten again.
He pushed the godslayer papers aside, and took up his cane to walk to the bookshelf. He needed a break. And he liked to read the Psalms through every few months, though of late, a number of the lamentations had started to sound rather pointed in his mind. Why standest Thou afar off, oh Lord? Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble? The antique Hebrew was far more formal than that used in everyday speech, but he’d asked that question himself, over and over again . . . with no response. Tonight, after settling in at the kitchen table once more, a tallit over his shoulders, he opened the book to a random page . . . and his eyes fell on an admonition: He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully . . . He shall receive the blessing.
Adam exhaled. His hands weren’t clean. He’d chosen his path early in life, knowing that his hands being dirty, allowed others of his people to go through life clean. He hoped his heart was pure, but who really ever knew that about themselves? He thought he was clear on the counts of vanity and of false oaths. And what’s my blessing? I sit and wait to see if an entity is going to take me over. I research it, as if to tantalize my own horror. He flipped the pages, and found another lamentation that fit his mood. Lead me, oh Lord, in Thy justice and righteousness because of those lying in wait for me; make Thy path straight before my face.
He closed his eyes. Yes. Something lies in wait for me. Lead me past it.
He felt a puff of air touch his face, and his eyes snapped open, his hand reaching for Caliburn . . . and froze, staring in shock as Kanmi sat down in the chair across the table from him, holding a bottle of arak and two glasses. “It’s been a bad day,” Kanmi told him, settling the glasses down on the table. “In fact, the things I’ve seen today would have made even Baal’s testicles curl up inside his body cavity, and I know that, since I seem to be in possession of both of them.”
The voice was familiar. So was the face. The cynical dark eyes, the five o’clock shadow that had reliably darkened the jaw by noon, the cap of dark, wavy hair . . . it was Kanmi Eshmunazar. As he’d been when Adam first met him, in 1954.
Adam’s hands shook as he held Caliburn. “You’re dead. I watched you die.”
“Technically, you looked away from a hydrogen explosion, and a good thing too, or you’d have been blinded.” Kanmi shrugged, pouring arak into one of the glasses.
“And you’re not some god in disguise? Maybe Orcus here to pick up where Mercury left off?”
“Oh, come n
ow. The Baal’s testicles bit was pure me. Who else would say that?” He snorted. “You’re paranoid, ben Maor. I never thought I’d live to see the day.” He paused, and took a seat, clearly moving the chair back to do so. “Of course, I mostly didn’t.”
Adam stared at Kanmi’s face, and said, half-angrily, “For god’s sake, we brought your bones home! We used to go to the grave once a year to pour arak on your head, Tren and I usually got marginally drunk, Minori lit candles, and Sig drove us home . . . .” Adam faltered, staring at Kanmi. “You’ve been laughing at us the whole time?”
“Not laughing. Appreciating. It gave me a beacon to steer towards, just like Min’s daily remembrances. And her belief.” Kanmi folded his arms across his chest. “My body died. My spirit, buoyed by Baal-Hamon’s power, coalesced in the Veil. I had my Name, and enough will, power, and self-awareness, to do something with it. And then I followed the lights that the rest of you lit for me.”
Adam gently set the gun down on the table, and just stared at Kanmi. “You bastard. You’re . . . you’re alive . . .” Incredulity warred with belief, and belief was winning. His throat was tight. This was Kanmi himself. The same quick movements, the same rapid transitions of expression, as his face fought to keep up with the speed of his mind. I let him down. I let him get his ass killed. And here he is . . . as if nothing happened? Well . . . maybe not that. His eyes are different. He’s seen things no mortal should see . . . . “This sort of seems an anticlimactic way to see someone rise from the dead.”
The Goddess Embraced Page 86
