The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2)

by Deborah Davitt

  “The others are going to foll—”

  “Don’t,” Kanmi said, sharply. “Don’t tell me, Min. The less I know, at this point, the better. He’s in my head. Completely. I had to let him in. I had to sacrifice myself, Min. I’m Baal’s servant now. Bound in every way. He . . .” Kanmi grimaced. Baal was watching him now, and the attention was a tangible pressure, as always. “I have . . . leave . . . to free him from the others’ . . . machinations . . . now that he’s aware of them. But any plans you have, that . . .” Kanmi fought to get the words out, “that Baal-Hamon might not agree with . . . don’t. . . .” A splitting, migraine-intensity headache spiked through his left temple, and he stopped talking, entirely. Baal-Hamon already disagreed with him. The god thought that he should know all of the others’ plans. In their entirety.

  Minori’s eyes were wide, and then she closed them, briefly, in an expression of mute suffering that cut into Kanmi. When she opened them again, however, her expression had turned calm once more. “There isn’t any more of a plan than any other time we’ve had to deal with this sort of thing. It always seems to start as ‘find out more’ and then we walk into something very bad, and have to fix it. Of course, in this case, we’re forewarned. We already know more or less what’s happening. And we already know we have to fix it.” She nodded. “You have to take us both with you, Kanmi. Asha can’t follow Rig. She can’t follow you, either. So you need to take me, too. I’m your tracking device.”

  Kanmi swallowed. “Min, I could take Himi along with me, no problem at all. All I’d need is a gun. But you . . . what story could I possibly sell for bringing you along?”

  “We’re about to have a really public fight.” Minori grimaced. “The kind that destroys property. You’re going to be exceedingly male at the end of it and grab me by the hair to prove once and for all that you are right and I am wrong, more than likely by showing off how much power you’re about to receive.”

  Kanmi lowered his eyebrows and leaned forwards, trying to look as if he were about to explode in bad temper, but his voice was as gentle as he could make it. “I have fond memories of this place. I keep meeting this amazingly beautiful woman here. Why would I want to wreck it?”

  “You know what?” she said, quietly, looking around at the café. “The first time, when the proprietor thought I was just a lost student? He was nice enough. Every other time? He’s tried to arrange for my . . . services. Several times, he’s been rather pressing about it.”

  Kanmi’s mind went blank. “You mean to say that you wouldn’t feel bad about destroying his place of business?”

  “Not even remotely. Shall we?” Minori’s smile was only in her voice as she stood, glaring at him, and with a surge of power, threw the table at him.

  Wizards’ duels, like the one Trennus had once mentioned that his ley-master, Senecita, had engaged in with a summoner, decades ago, were charmingly old-fashioned, and best left for the era in which spells really had been passed down from generation to generation, and people’s understanding of the world around them, and the forces available to them, had been limited. Even in the desert training camps, Kanmi and the other powerful sorcerers in the desert encampments were strictly forbidden to test each other’s limits. This was primarily to keep the little everyday pissing contests that invariably went on between men chafing together in close confines from turning into murderous conflicts. Thus, they could train their students in the camps, but nothing more. He’d watched the others training students, however. He had a mental dossier on every one of them, which he’d passed along to the Praetorians.

  He and Min pulled their punches, of course. As such, he caught the table easily and redirected it, hurtling over several other patrons’ heads, to slam into the wall of the café, where it projected out, at an odd angle, embedded in the drywall, and probably protruded through into the next shop over. Kanmi, still sitting in his now-exposed bench, beckoned a pot of coffee and a cup to fly over to his hands, and allowed one to pour into the other, even as he flicked his fingers and hurled Minori across the room . . . gently, letting her skid to a halt before the back wall.

  Patrons ran for the front door of the café, even as the proprietor raised his hands and clapped them to his shaved pate in comical despair. Shouldn’t have tried to buy my wife’s favors, fucker, and I don’t care if she was in disguise as a whore at the time.

  He took the cup out of the air, and prepared to sip, gingerly; hot and cold aggravated his aching teeth horribly, just as Min countered, sending braided coils of wind through the room, lashing the cup out of his hands and trying to bind his hands with loops of air that solidified into ice, wrapping around his hands like gloves. Kanmi swore at the first burning touch of the solid-state oxygen, and shattered the pieces and sent them back at her like bullets, as “Himi” raised his cane and tried to hit Kanmi with it. A backhand, to slap “Himi” up against a wall and then the metal sconces holding the lighting fixtures bent and twisted, wrapping around the younger man’s wrists. That gave Minori enough time to counter the rain of ice-shards, and she pulled out one of Erida’s favorite attacks, a bubble of vacuum around Kanmi that threatened explosive decompression. Except, she left enough oxygen and pressure in the sphere that Kanmi had to pop the blood vessels in his own eyes—a delicate procedure, that, even though it hurt like hell—before reversing the flow of air in the room. He superheated the air around her, and she immediately brought up a defensive shell of cool air . . . but the heat was enough to set off the fire sprinklers overhead, which gave her a ready source of water to work with. Min practically braided her fingers, and Kanmi’s eyes widened as she increased the surface tension of water locally within the café—any remaining cups of coffee were going to be rocks, at least for a while—and increased the force and speed of the water droplets spraying from the sprinklers. It felt like a blast of sand whipped by a sirocco at first . . . and then, as she reduced the effects of friction on her improvised projectiles, they started hitting like shrapnel.

  “Himi” shouted in pain, and Kanmi took everything she’d given him, all the energy in the air, and redirected it. Channeled it into his least favorite natural force . . . gravity . . . and tripled its effect on her mass, forcing her to the ground with a thud. Gods, I hope that didn’t break anything on her. We’re getting far too old for this shit. He wiped the blood off his face, wincing. Min . . . I really don’t want your last memory of me, to be of fighting me.

  He improvised a shackle for her, a twist of metal ripped from one of the chairs and formed with will and heat around her slender wrists. It gave him a chance to grip her arm, lightly, before he tore the hem of his caftan and gagged her with it. “I’m so sorry,” he told her, quietly, before drawing a gun from his pocket, and easing Rig down from the wall against which he’d been pinned. “Himi? Walk in front of me. Minori, my dear . . . move.” He pushed her ahead of him, keeping a hand on her arm. But the pressure of his fingers was as gentle as he could make it.

  The proprietor just stood there, gaping at the wreckage of his cafe. Sprinklers still running, tables shattered, one protruding from a wall, ley-bulbs flickering madly, crockery shattered. He turned, and stared at Kanmi as he approached with his two ‘captives,’ his mouth opening and closing several times. “Sorry about the mess,” Kanmi told him, not meaning it at all, and pushed Minori out the door, keeping the gun on Rig’s back, and got them both to his nearby motorcar, even as he heard the sirens of gardia vehicles in the distance. Time to go.

  The automobile ride out of Alexandria was silent. The chances of his vehicle being bugged were extremely high. He knew that ‘Brother Carthage’ was paranoid, and kept tabs on all of his recruits. Once Kanmi had been able to give images of all his ‘brothers’ in the camps to Lassair, the Praetorians had been able to track down the identities and backgrounds of those involved in the conspiracy. They’d identified Brother Carthage as Salicar Germelqart. And they’d been able to give Kanmi some slightly more objective information to keep in mind while listening to
his daily doses of indoctrination.

  For instance, Germelqart’s nightly speeches in the camps typically began with how the man had come to understand that Rome was destroying their people. In his case, his brother had been arrested on what Germelqart considered trumped-up charges of the rape and murder of a young Roman noblewoman, who’d been sent to Oea by her patrician relatives on a ‘fact-finding’ tour regarding working conditions in their factories there.

  Germelqart’s brother had died in prison while awaiting trial, when another inmate put a knife through his ribs. The crimes, had he been found guilty, would have had him facing summary execution, possibly in an arena. But Germelqart believed that his brother had been innocent, and that the inmate who’d killed him had been paid to do so, as a way of attacking the rest of their family, who’d been politically powerful in Oea at the time. And by pure repetition, he convinced other people of the same thing.

  Except . . . the Praetorians had reviewed gardia records. There was DNA evidence in the form of the semen samples taken from the woman’s body, which had been used by a local summoner employed by the gardia to track down Germelqart’s brother. The man had sworn that the sex had been consensual, but there had been defensive injuries to the woman, and bruises on his own body. The bruising on her throat, when the corpse been found, dumped naked outside of town, matched a man’s large hands. His story had been that after having had sex at a hotel—without protection—they’d argued, and that he’d left her at the hotel. People in the neighboring rooms did remember loud arguing and crying, but a chambermaid had reported her room-service trolley missing . . . and when the trolley was tracked down, there were strands of the woman’s hair inside. Could someone else have entered the room after Germelqart’s brother had gotten done with the woman, strangled her, and carried her off to dump her outside of town? Possibly, but the Roman noblewoman had known few other people in town. The defense lawyers would have tried to make a case that she’d found out too much about her family’s business concerns . . . except that she’d sent back satisfactory reports on all the factories she’d visited.

  In Salicar Germelqart’s mind, somehow, this Roman noblewoman was responsible for the death of his brother. Nevermind that she was a victim herself. She was Roman. She’d ‘entrapped’ his brother. Hanso Germelqart had never stood trial. And that was Rome’s fault, too, for not having kept a prisoner safe, or the corrupt gardia allowing a prisoner to have a knife, or for the noblewoman’s family paying to have Hanso killed. The details, the reasons for hate, changed from iteration to iteration. But the hate itself never did.

  The other conspirators all had similar stories. Some of them were more legitimate than others. Families businesses bankrupted when Roman competitors moved in. Bitterness at the refugees who were on the dole, and given food and housing out of Carthage’s tax money, when their own families were suffering from the economic repercussions of the turmoil in Europa, too. Rapes of sisters at the hands of Legion troops . . . Kanmi couldn’t condone that, and it was a legitimate grievance. But making it a reason for rebellion against the whole Empire?

  Still, he was lucky to have found out as much as he had. Germelqart and the others used very tight security protocols, by and large, and none tighter than what they’d employed on Kanmi himself—blood-binding to a god, and preventing him from seeing their faces for the first three years of his captivity/recruitment. So many other, similar conspiracies had been brought down, after all. What I’ve never been able to figure out, Kanmi thought, as he turned onto an Imperial highway that would take him back towards Carthage, and eyed his rearview mirror, is how he’s always managed to hide his intentions from Baal-Hamon . . . no. Wait. Baal-Hamon said that some of the others had bound spirits. And Germelqart was the first to offer a human sacrifice. But Baal-Hamon isn’t the only god they’ve been binding themselves to, as Baal-Hamon admitted a few nights ago. They’ve been offering sacrifices and blood-bindings to Baal-Samem, and some of the summoners have been sacrificing to Dagon, too. So Germelqart bound himself to Samem first. Like the Sapa Inca made his agreement with Supay long before he tried to talk Inti around. It tracks.

  Kanmi had driven this road often enough that his eyes flicked right past the subtle variations in the tans and browns and even pale reds that marked the sand and the rocks along the shoulder of the poured-stone highway, and only lightly passed over the greens that marked the date groves and cotton plantations that were cultivated in this region. “So,” Rig said, emulating Himi’s voice with uncanny accuracy. “What, precisely, is your plan, Father?” Heavy sarcasm there.

  A question he must have wanted to ask his own father, many times, over the years, Kanmi thought. “I’m sorry, Himi,” he told Rig, playing it up a little for his unseen audience. “Rome’s oppressed half the world for centuries. And now, finally, we have a chance to stand up to them. I know the cost. I’m willing to pay it, to get that boot off the neck of our people.”

  “And the cost is?”

  “Your life. But also mine. I know I’m not going to survive. Not in the long run.” There was enough truth in that to make anyone listening in, maybe think twice about what was about to happen. He hoped. “Our leader has been bound to Baal-Samem for a long time. Enough to deceive Baal-Hamon as to the real nature of the plan. I think quite a few of the others are, too. The summoners might be bound to him, and to Dagon. Who knows, really. It doesn’t matter. I’m . . . on board with the real plan. You see, when each of us sacrifices our first-born to Baal-Hamon tomorrow, we’ll be the fully-submitted servants of the god. And then Baal-Hamon will allow us to tear him apart, in his role of rebirth, like Tammuz of old.” Kanmi let his voice go a little dreamy. “All of his power will flow out to the land, he thinks, but instead, it’ll be bound and channeled into each of us, through twenty years of carefully-designed spells.”

  “Fucking magic,” Rig said, his voice so full of contempt, it really did sound like Himi, channeling Bastet. Uncanny. Maybe I’m just filling in the blanks, but . . . my gods, this young man has grown. When I last saw him, he was seventeen, and scrawny.

  Out loud, all Kanmi said was, “Well, yes. It always boils down to magic, in the end. So all that power is going to go into us . . . but our leader is going to get the biggest piece. He’s the one with the vision, after all. But he’s going to, I think, have just enough power to kill any of us who get out of line. And because he’s bound to Baal-Samem? He’s going to have control of that power. He’ll have a god stabilizing him. Letting him use the power, at a distance, like a waldo lets someone control the manipulators inside a hot-lab. Helping him learn to use the vast reservoir of energy at his disposal. And if and when the rest of us get out of line?” Kanmi made a popping sound between his lips. “Out like candles.”

  Minori snorted through her gag. Rig bared his teeth. “And what’s going to stop Baal-Samem from just eating the rest of you, if you’re bound to him?”

  Nice. Plant the seed of doubt in our listeners, if you can. “Oh, all bargains go both ways,” Kanmi said, airily. “I haven’t been bound to Baal-Samem, but I expect those who have been, got something in writing from him on that topic. I mean, I would, if I were them.”

  Rig turned and stared at him in the front seat, regarding the gun in Kanmi’s lap warily. “So, how is this getting rid of the boot of Rome on our necks, Father? This is just replacing one tyrant with another!”

  Kanmi smiled internally. Oh, what a delight it would have been to get to know you better, Rig. You weren’t this sharp seven years ago. You’re honed now. You’re ready to go out there and . . . do what we always used to do. Try to keep the world spinning on its axis. Try to save it, from itself. “Yes, but he’s our tyrant, my boy. That’s what counts.”

  “You’re choosing him, but I don’t see the rest of Carthage and Tyre voting for him. No better than any other petty king or dictator, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t,” Kanmi replied, blandly. “Now, hush, Himi. I wouldn’t want to miss our turn.” He glanced over.
“For the record? I’ll be relieved if he kills me. I won’t want to live long with your death on my hands.” Turn the screw of uncertainty for our listeners just a little more.

  “You’re insane, Father. You’ve gone fucking crazy.”

  He never did catch sight of the other lictors following them, but then, they could stay miles behind him, relying on Lassair’s ability to find Minori. Sigrun could be flying three miles up, a dot that might not even be visible from the ground, if she were dressed in haze gray. And about an hour from the rendezvous point, Kanmi took care to cover Minori and Rig’s heads with bags. No sense inviting your death, Min. He kissed her cheek, and felt a tear there against his lips.

  Once they arrived at the camp, Germelqart was pleased that Kanmi had brought his son, but furious about Minori. “She’ll have to be executed,” he said, grimly.

  “I don’t see any of the rest of you executing your wives,” Kanmi told the man, pleasantly, his stomach lurching. “Besides, by this time tomorrow, it won’t really matter, will it? It’s not like she’s going to escape before the ceremony—I’ll make quite sure of that—and I’ve rather missed her company, sharp-tongued though she is.”