He swerved, ducking around a tendril that was the width of a telephone pole, and powered his way towards the ruins of downtown Burgundoi. The afternoon sunlight slanted through the clouds, showing billowing pillars of smoke where the skyscrapers were on fire, or had collapsed, entirely. Ash fell down from the clouds, mingling with snow, and then they were hovering above the Odinhall, the only skyscraper untouched by the earthquakes and the mad godlings’ destructive spite. The sides were bare of the usual gargoyles, rising clean and spare to the heavens, and Nith wheeled around it, letting Sigrun get a better look at the tactical situation. I’ll take the smaller ones around you! she called to the other gods. I have your backs!
Huginn, still keeping pace with them, once more landed on her shoulder as Loki fell in at their side, on Sleipnir, and she darted the trickster a glance. No laughter in his face right now. Just the deadly concentration of seiðr being invoked, power being channeled. Where in combat against mortals, Sigrun usually kept a shield of power around them to protect Nith from missiles and bullets; now, she was almost wholly reliant on him to keep her safe while she fought in a fashion that she couldn’t have imagined herself doing, decades ago. Not with steel or guns, but with mind and will and energy. And then she and Loki began tearing at the closest godlings, which were up to a mile away. Tugging at them, at the end of long lines of force. Trying to pull them apart, before they closed on their position.
Thor, bleeding heavily, arrived from the south, and threw Mjolnir up into the sky, lightning following in its wake, striking the largest mad one above. Sigrun glanced up at it, sickened. The godling absorbed light. Absorbed everything around itself. The clouds in its near vicinity sucked in around it. It truly is a black hole. But one with . . . marginal sapience.
Tyr and Njord lingered over Candela Arena, right on the bay, trying to defend groups of humans packing their way into the huge arena. Sigrun could feel the minds of the humans below, being snuffed out, in tens and in hundreds. We must save them, she thought, her eyes filling with tears, as tendrils once more divided and snaked through the air, sizzling through her armor and biting into her. Huginn snapped and bit at the tendrils, trying to defend her, but she felt the first hot trickles of blood under her cold armor.
Loki, Sigrun, Niðhoggr, stay on the small ones. All others, on the great one, with us, Odin ordered, his voice strained. If we shatter it . . . it might well take the entire city with it, if we are not careful. And all the smaller godlings.
And us, Loki said, his tone almost light.
Be ready to absorb as much of it as you can, Odin commanded. Be also ready to transit to the Veil, if you can. If our deaths are required, so be it. But not without a reason.
Sigrun’s mind hummed with the power that the others were unleashing. Nith ducked and dodged, agile as an eel, and Loki kept beside her . . . and then one errant tendril of power from the godling lanced out, and struck Njord, full in the chest. The god of the sea gave a choked cry, and Thor shouted, Brother!
And the world went white once more. This time, they were no more than a quarter of a mile distant from the detonation point, and the shockwave hurled them, away bodily. Tumbling in air, impact. Pain, thumps and thuds and force, all while Njord’s power poured into her. Free-fall, presumably down, landing on her back in rubble. And then . . . agony. Agony that screamed down the soul-bond between her and Nith. Blinded, her body and mind still absorbing the energy liberated by Njord’s death, she managed to heave herself up, and scrambled forwards, not knowing if she were crawling or flying. Nith! Nith, what’s wrong? Speak to me, please, beloved!
Othersight cleared first. She was inside a skyscraper; they’d been hurled through a wall, and then fallen through what looked like several layers of shattered floors, judging by the gaping hole in the ceiling above them. The impacts she’d felt had been falling bricks and debris. This might have been the Feoh Bank building. The floor they were on was open to the sky on all sides, and she could see the sky outside, moving back and forth, framed by one of the shattered windows as the building swayed.
And Nith . . . she turned to her right, and keened at the sight of him, rushing forwards.
Nith was impaled, at the center of the building, on the twisted metal girders that had comprised the central shaft of the building, and had held its elevators. He’d landed, belly-down on the metal, and it ran through him, and jutted out his back, having missed his enormous vertebrae by inches. Two of his multiple hearts, necessary to his huge frame, were damaged, however. No paralysis. No numbness. Just agony, and as his wings lifted, and his tail lashed through one of the crumbling walls, sending a conference table and chairs tumbling out what had once been windows, the entire upper portion of the building shuddered.
“No,” Sigrun said, her voice breaking, as he managed to lift his head. “Oh, gods, oh gods, no.” Deathsense swept through her, vile and untrue. She’d make it untrue. He’d been injured repeatedly before this. His inner core was unstable from all the energy he’d absorbed, and the I-beams had pierced through him in three places. But she’d make this a lie. He was not going to die. The universe was in error.
I did . . . not remember . . . this.
“You’re not going to die on me. You’re not. I forbid it.” Frail, cracked, human voice, but behind it, all the will of a goddess. Yet she couldn’t lift him free. She didn’t have the strength.
Moonfire eyes, as big as her head, regarded her. I accept . . . the price. At least . . . you can hear me . . . this time. I love you . . . and if you go on . . . we two will both go on. Together. We . . . are . . . eternal. We . . . are . . . one.
You are bound to me, Niðhoggr, and I do not permit you to die! I will not permit you to leave me! Enter the Veil, and live!
I . . . have not . . . the strength . . . .
His heartbeat was faltering, and Sigrun reached out, and put a hand to his muzzle. Then use mine. I love you, Malice-Striker. Live. Live, so that we both might not die. I command this.
She’d never wrenched open the Veil before, torn a hole between the two realms. But she’d seen it done. Hundreds of times. So she tore reality apart, and hurled her lover into the Veil, calling after him, Live, damn you! Live! I will never forgive you if you do not live for me!
Would never . . . .willingly . . . leave you—
And then he was gone, and the tight ache under her breastbone eased, very slightly. The soul-cord was . . . intact. She could still feel his pain as if it were her own, but he lived. He’d transitioned to the Veil before his main heart stopped.
She flew away from the building as it once more sagged, and fresh pieces of it began to fall to the ghul-filled streets below. She raced back to the others’ sides, and Freya tossed her a glance, but continued the fight. It is well that you sent him away. Another undirected death would only feed the mad ones.
A directed one might, however, shatter the great one, Tyr said, simply. I volunteer.
There was a moment of thought, flickering back and forth between all of them. Weighing the risk to the ley-lines, which were already in such peril, thanks to the deaths of so many gods in this fragile area, where there were so many ley-lines already tangled in the earth and air. Tyr slashed away another tendril that threatened him. Sigrun’s spear materialized in her hands, and she did the same. Loki shrouded them all in his illusions, and the tendrils turned to probe at the ground and buildings instead, tear into the façade of the Odinhall, itself. Searching for the sources of power buried deep within. Releasing all your energy may destroy the entire city, Freya warned. And we may be too few to absorb what you and the mad one release.
The city is already in ruins. This may protect the humans. Sigrun didn’t understand the expressions of steely resolve all around her.
From inside the Odinhall, Loki said, suddenly. Use the building as a focus. A conduit. Keep the blast from spreading out, and arrow the energy directly into the mad one, like a . . . spear. A fey, mad grin. Skyscrapers have always been so nicely phallic, after all, wouldn
’t you say? And a spear is your symbol, brother.
Tyr’s sudden laughter was almost as fey as Loki’s own. Fitting, yes. I could ask for nothing better.
Everyone, inside, then! Freya called.
In the streets below, thousands of people had packed into Candela Arena, on the edge of the bay. Drust and Sadb weren’t among them. When they’d seen the cracks in the walls of the stadium, they and others with similar misgivings had stopped at one of the training buildings for the athletes outside, and broken in, instead. Inside the training facility, it was dark. All the copper wiring that carried the ley power from the grid had broken or been looted by scavengers. The roof was cracked, but it felt somewhat safe to them, and to the others who’d taken refuge with them—a handful of Nahautl, Gothic, and Gallic refugees. A bear-warrior, who’d carried an unconscious valkyrie into this uncertain refuge, with them. He wiped the blood off her face, and watched the doors and windows with the rest of them, silent and grim. None of them spoke. Finally, the bear-warrior broke the silence. “The gods are assembling inside the Odinhall. A last-ditch effort to kill the mad ones.”
“Should you be there?” Sadb asked, her voice thin.
“I should. I can’t get there, though. I can’t fly over the ghul.” He gestured down at the unconscious valkyrie. “If she wakes up . . . she can carry me there. And we can fight.” He shook the woman’s arm, a little, as if trying to wake her.
Sadb found a bench to sit on, and for the first time in what felt like days, remembered the rose that had fallen at her feet, from the miraculous bush that had bloomed downtown, in the very face of winter. She’d have thought she’d lost it, but there it was, still tucked inside her shirt, in the protective cradle of her bodice. As she pulled it out, everyone in the training area went silent, and its scent wafted through the air, bringing with it an odd sense of peace. “What is that?” the bear-warrior asked, his voice reverent.
“I’m not sure,” Sadb admitted. “I was thinking you might know.” She cradled it in her fingers, feeling unaccountably warm. And as she looked down into the petals, which had unfurled further against the warmth of her body, her eyes widened. “That’s a wonder, now,” she whispered softly, as Drust wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and looked down into the rose with her.
Inside its heart, where there should have been golden stamen, they could both see a galaxy’s worth of stars swirling with cold, unending light.
______________________
Outside the Odinhall, the valkyrie and bear-warriors who’d managed to assemble, formed a ring of bodies around the building. They were, in the main, holding back ghul. Inside the building, the hospital workers and patients, the teachers, nurses, and school children who filled the seventy-story structure every day, and who’d taken refuge there during the attack, cowered. They could hear Freya’s voice, telling them Evacuating through the streets is not possible. You must move to the uppermost floors, and enter what we call the interface room. Dvalin will assist you, and the god-born will be the last to follow you into the chamber. This is not a drill. Please use the fire stairs and the elevators, and ascend to the highest floor that you can reach.
With her words drumming in their heads, the humans went upstairs, teachers moving frightened children, and older students helping them. Doctors and nurses carried the most injured patients by elevator, but some simply could not be moved. Crowds of people, slowly moving upstairs as the lights flickered, and the building swayed. Cursing and crying and pushing. The smell of human sweat and human fear.
And then people began moving into the interface room, which most of them had never even heard of before, some people, near the middle of the line, began to grow concerned. The people ahead of them were . . . vanishing. Into a room with no exits? Impossible. They’re being asked to jump off the roof, or tricked, or something, some people muttered, suspiciously. We’re going to our deaths.
But the press of bodies behind them kept them moving forwards, and the building shook and trembled once more. The god-born are going last. They’re being preserved—
No, you fool, they’re holding off the ghul behind us—
Just go in the damned room! It’s empty! How can an empty room be so frightening?
Because it should be jam-packed with people—oh, shit—
And then the doubter was through, and Dvalin caught the man by the arm, and threw him into the Veil. A glimpse of Fenris’ teeth, and then the man landed by the hearth, in Valhalla, where a child-goddess dozed in a cradle beside the greatest of all wolves. It would be well for you to be silent, Fenris told the man, and hundreds of others, as they all stared around them, dazed. Welcome to the realm of the gods.
In the mortal realm, Sigrun stood in the main lobby of the Odinhall, watching as valkyrie and bear-warriors trickled in from outside. She could see, through the windows, the ghul crowding around the outside, and suddenly felt a wash of tiredness. The valkyrie and bear-warriors won’t make it to the Veil, she said. Not without our help. I will hold off the ghul. I will buy them time.
Loki, go with her, Odin said, and Sigrun saw determination in the faces around her.
Loki raised his distaff in a light salute, and then he and Sleipnir trotted out the front doors, along with Sigrun. Huginn tore through the air over her head, screaming defiance, as she began bringing lightning down again, more powerfully than the valkyrie ringing the building could manage. Get inside, Sigrun called to the other god-born. You know the way. You’ve all been there at least once. Dvalin awaits. Go! Valkyrie, carry the bear-warriors up the elevator shafts. Pry open the doors, if you need to, but go!
She glanced up, and saw the greatest of the mad ones hovering directly over the Odinhall, the spire at the top aiming at the creature’s central core. I never thought I would be meeting the end with you, she told Loki.
Nor I with you, Naglfar. Perhaps it is not an end. We both have reasons to live. But if it is an end? It is a good one. Loki’s mad, fey smile crossed his face, but there was a hint of knowing in his eyes . . . and then they both lashed out with all their power. Sigrun hurled the ghul back with blasts of wind, lifting them off the ground and hurling them into the walls around them. Brought down lightning, and tore at them with seiðr. Loki used only seiðr, in its most destructive form, unraveling the cells of their bodies from within, placidly sitting atop Sleipnir as he did so.
Cables of power the width of city buses slammed down into the ground from the mad one above, tearing up the street, and cars flipped over as it reached down, and fed on the ley-lines outside the Odinhall. Sigrun ducked, reflexively, as poured-stone fragments rattled off her seiðr shield. Huginn dove, and landed on her armored shoulder, and somehow, Sigrun could feel the raven’s claws biting through the metal. A thinner tendril broke off from the main one, and arced and coursed down the street, towards her and Loki. Loki spurred Sleipnir forwards, and took the hit, the tendril catching him in the face and chest. And as Sigrun shouted and ran forwards, trying to slash the tendril in half, to sever it, dozens of the ghul, drawing power from the mad one, all leaped, landing on her. Sigrun fell to the ground under their weight. Cursed the fact that it was still just before sunset. And, using seiðr like a whip, disrupted their bodies.
Another tendril from the mad one lashed out and caught her, slicing through her armor as if it weren’t there, and snaking into her torso. Wrapped its way down her spine. Sought her life. The ache under her breastbone that was Nith’s pain in the Veil paled in comparison to this. This was mortal agony, and Sigrun screamed.
No more time, Odin said, simply, and the resolution in the leader of the Aesir’s voice shook Sigrun, as she rolled over in the street, and cut, clumsily with her spear at the tendril connecting her to the mad one. Saw the faces of the ghul pressing in above her. Heard Loki’s shout of pain, saw the blast of seiðr from him that cut the tendril, and scythed away the ghul around her. Now.
The Odinhall trembled, and became a pillar of light as Odin, Freya, and Tyr all liberated their entire stor
es of energy, at once. Radiance spread upwards along the seventy-story tower, and energy coruscated along it, up into the sky, striking the mad one whose tendrils blotted out the sky. Sigrun screamed No! and lunged upright. Her feet didn’t even touch the ground as she raced for the Odinhall’s front doors . . . and then the mad godling in the sky shattered. The power of the gods had been directed, focused, as through a lens. No damage to the humans around them, though the Odinhall itself was melting from the inside out, and collapsing. The mad one’s demise, however, was not controlled. It exploded outwards, and Sigrun’s last sight was the façade of the Odinhall collapsing in on her . . . just as the sun sank below the horizon.
In Judea, it was just midnight. Maccis, Rig, and Vidarr’s landsknechten had just jostled their way back into the city limits, and Maccis was staring up at the stars. The clouds had peeled back just enough that he could identify Mars, and he was daydreaming, idly, of what it would be like to run there. Maybe, on Mars, we wouldn’t have war . . . no, who am I kidding? We’d have wars. We’d have conflicts. But . . . we’d all have to work together to overcome the environment. To make it new. Of course, Zaya couldn’t go there. Not unless Erida let her move part of the Archives off-planet, which I don’t see her doing . . . The incongruity made his lips twitch.
The Goddess Embraced Page 169
