Fritti’s lips opened, and closed, and a faintly mutinous look touched her face. “Your sister wants to keep me safe, but at least tells me I can make my own choices. You tell me I don’t have any.”
“Oh, you have choices. You’re just going to make the ones you were always going to make for all the reasons that make you, you.” Sophia didn’t turn her head. “Latirian! Get down from the palm tree!” That, in clear Latin.
“How do you always know?”
“Because I saw you climbing it a half hour ago, silly, that’s how.”
“A half hour ago, we were having lunch.”
“I know.” Sophia smiled at the girl peacefully. “It’s time to go inside, everyone. It’s going to start raining in the next ten minutes.”
Aprilis 22, 1970 AC
A few hundred miles away, beyond Domitanus’ Wall, Erida had come to a brutal and unwelcome realization. Her marriage to her husband, Isam Badal, was something of a sham, and she’d been fine with that. She had certain . . . relatively important intimacy issues. Chief among which was the fact that her last lover had betrayed and attempted to murder her. A husband who slept in a separate room, and who had rarely troubled her once their son had been conceived was entirely to her liking. She had her life; he had his. The fact that he took lovers had scarcely troubled her, at first. It merely meant that she did not have to pretend to passion nearly as often as she had before their son was born, and let her have more time for her work. She was, after all, one of the Magi, and the first of them accepted and trusted by Rome. She had had a collection of important documents and artifacts to curate and protect, as far away from the fighting as she could take them, and her own studies to pursue. Bargains with spirits to keep. Correspondence with certain deliciously provocative Carthaginian sorcerers to pursue.
She’d been amused at her own mild jealousy when Kanmi had married; she hadn’t thought herself capable of the emotion, and, laughing at herself in the privacy of her study, had written them a congratulatory letter and sent a wedding present. When they’d come to visit, she’d still found the man’s mind devious and fascinating, and, given that she found her husband about as attractive as the average garden statue—pretty to look at, but cold to the touch—she wouldn’t have minded an affair, at all. But Kanmi had set her down, and firmly, and after actually meeting Minori, and getting to know the mind behind the calm eyes and reserved, delicate manners, Erida had sighed and consigned that particular fantasy to the far corners of her mind. She’d let herself, it seemed, fall a little in love with him, but at a distance. Intimacy was easy if there were no consequences. No possibility of getting hurt. She’d allowed herself to slip into an illusion of it through their letters, and she cherished the friendship . . . but she’d been quite stupid to think that there was more, at least on his side.
So no, she couldn’t interfere in their relationship, even if they’d permitted it; they were happy. She couldn’t diminish their happiness, by attempting to steal some of it to warm herself. Erida knew that she had very few scruples—she was of the Magi, and such delicacies were for other people—but apparently, this was one of them. Much to her own surprise.
Their happiness, and her marginal jealousy of it, had been her first real inkling that she was, herself, unhappy. It had startled her. Happiness in marriage had seemed such a . . . lower-class ideal. And yet, she craved warmth. She craved fire.
The fact that some of her husband’s lovers were male did impinge upon her awareness, mostly as mild discomfort. The other women, she did not particularly care about. The men . . . that was, somehow, more of a slap in the face. They had, however, thirteen solid years of minding their own business in the same household. She couldn’t really broach the topic, and so long as the relationships were consensual . . . she had made it not her business, hadn’t she? And since most of what went on, went on over in his rooms, where she rarely intruded . . . it was actually rather hard to say what went on over there. He had his servants, she had her staff, and if the two groups mingled in the kitchen, what they saw and what they knew never percolated upstairs to her.
And so she’d gone about what was her business, until the day she realized that one of her grimoires had gone missing. Not just any grimoire; it was the one in which she kept ancient Names that she had to curate, but rarely, if ever had called upon. Many of the spirits whose Names were lodged in those pages were dangerous, if not outright malefic. One wanted to preserve that kind of knowledge, if only to be damned certain that one did not mispronounce or miswrite a name into a distortion that came even close to what was on one of those pages.
Erida had swallowed, hard. She didn’t allow servants into her library, not even to clean. This was where she held the artifacts of the Magi, including the relics of the godslayers. She assembled her staff, and interviewed them, until one of the maids mentioned having seen the lord on this side of the house, most unusually, two days before. Erida exhaled, and summoned Nefthys, her bound spirit that preferred hawk form, to go and check if the book was, indeed, on her husband’s side of the manor. And to retrieve it, carrying it back through the Veil to her hands.
The spirit returned with the book, shaken. Yes. And he has used it. You must go. You must see with your own eyes.
What? He is no summoner!
It does not take a summoner to read the words and trace the symbols. It only takes a fool.
Erida called the rest of her bound spirits to her, girding herself for battle as she had not had to in years. The snakelike spirits coiled around her waist and wrist, providing armor and resistance to poisons; Nefthys perched on her shoulder, shimmering like moonbeams, as she crossed the line of demarcation between her half of the house, and the rest.
In her husband’s office, several shocks. A summoning circle, scrawled on the ground, crudely, in ink on the hardwood floor. Cups of blood and wine as offerings. And . . . a servant boy, huddled in on himself against the wall, a knife in his hand. A blank, empty look on his face as he stared at the knife, as if he did not know if he wished to use it on himself, or on another. He looked up as Erida entered, and as he surged to his feet, Erida raised a hand and pushed him back against the wall with a gust of air. Held him there, as she spotted the bandage on one wrist. “The blood,” she asked, pointing at the cup, and walking around the room carefully, placing her feet delicately, so she did not disturb anything. “It is yours?”
His face crumbled. “Please . . . please, m’lady. Don’t put the demon in me again. Don’t . . . don’t do . . . what he did . . . .”
Her stomach churned. That expression did not belong in any human’s eyes. Desperation, shame, pain, humiliation. “Drop the knife,” Erida told him, quietly. “I will release you. What’s your name?”
“J-jamil, m’lady.” He let the knife fall.
“Kick it to me. Thank you.” Erida knelt and retrieved it, and banished the wind that held the boy to the wall, studying him. No more than fourteen, she realized, numbly. “Now, tell me everything that passed here. Everything, mind you. I will know if you lie.” That was a bluff. “I will not punish you for the truth, no matter what you say. I swear it on my Name.”
Trembling, the boy came to her, and the story spilled out of him like muddy water. Her stomach churned. Their butler had done his best, over the years, to ensure that he only hired adults, but the war had resulted in a shortage of able-bodied men. And while the war had been over for a few years now, he’d had to hire younger servants for smaller jobs, such as Jamil’s position as an undervalet to Isam. He worked mostly in the laundry, and polished boots, folded clothing, brought the lord his books, his papers, whatever was needed. There were other servants his age. Girls who worked in the laundry area, girls who worked in the nursery, helping keep Erida’s son, Athim, amused and healthy. She’d spotted bruises on one of the girls about a year ago, but the girl had sworn, at the time, that she’d fallen and bruised her arm, nothing more. Erida had suspected that the girl had an abusive father, and had offered to let her stay o
n at the house in the servants’ quarters, as a way of getting her away from her family, but the girl had, terror in her eyes, refused. Erida had told her, calmly, that no one needed to tolerate betrayal and pain, and that she was always available to help. And the girl had curtseyed and thanked her, and that had been that. Oh, gods. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. How did I not know . . . .
And apparently, starting about six months ago, Isam had begun making overtures to young Jamil. The boy hadn’t dared to tell the other servants, and had simply done his best never to be around the master, except in the company of others. Until yesterday, when Isam had sent for him, specifically. Had told him that the game had gone on quite long enough. And had bidden him hold out his hand over a cup. Jamil, shaking, had obeyed. A little blood seemed . . . much less bad, than what he’d thought was going to happen in the dark study. “And . . . and then . . . there was something in my head,” the boy whispered. “It was dark, and it was cold, and it . . . talked to me. Said I was . . . bound to it. That it was going to enjoy using my body, as much as the master was.” He closed his eyes, shaking. “I couldn’t scream. It wouldn’t let me.”
Erida hesitantly put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and he jerked away. “They . . . they used me,” he said, quietly. “They both used me. The master used me like a woman, and the . . . voice . . . the voice used me, too. And it said this was . . . forever.” Jamil raised his dark eyes, in anguish. “M’lady . . . I’m telling you the truth.”
Her mind went blank. She wrapped a blanket around the young man, hardly more than a child, and put warmth into his body with sorcery, not calling any spirits. “I know truth when I hear it,” she told him, simply. “Justice will be done.” Gods. For all of you. I should have known. I should have done something before this. But I didn’t know.
The boy sniffled, and looked at her, doubtfully, and with so much shame in his eyes that Erida writhed inside. “He . . he’s the lord, m’lady. He’s the magistrate, too. I . . . I can’t accuse him. And if anyone knew that I . . . I was . . . used . . . .” He swallowed convulsively, and hung his head. “I should just . . . I was trying to nerve myself to use the knife on myself. Or on him, and then myself. Spare my family the shame. But I don’t know. . . if the voice can follow me . . . even in death.” He closed his eyes. “I’m . . . sorry, m’lady”
Erida shook. “You have nothing to apologize for,” she told him, and put her arms around the boy. “His is the blame. His is the shame. And I tell you, as a Magus,” and the boy looked up in stark terror at the word and her tone, “that you will be safe after I am done. I can never make this right. But I can ensure that it never happens again. To anyone. And that the spirit you’ve been bound to will never touch you again.” She reached down, and tipped the boy’s head up. Made him meet her eyes. “No shame to you, Jamil, you understand me? No shame.”
She surveyed the marks on the floor. Picked out the spirit’s Name. And swore internally. The name had come from a cuneiform tablet found at an archaeological site outside of modern Babylon. There had been few notes from ancient summoners on the name, besides hungry for mortal life, which was a sure sign not to summon the creature.
She took the boy back to her side of the house, and summoned her staff, again. Told them that under no circumstances was Athim to be allowed near his father, and, in fact, packed him, the entire nursery staff, and Jamil himself, off on a holiday to her family. Her uncle was still the satrap of Chaldea, after all, and her son had not seen his great-uncle Adadnirari in at least two years. She controlled the rage in her expression, but the relief in the eyes of the nursery staff was all too clear. They might as well have shouted, She knows! We couldn’t tell her, but the Magus knows, and now, all will be well!
Erida seethed. If they’d told her, she could have done something, much, much sooner. She kissed her confused son atop the head—the boy was eight now, old enough to realize when something deeply out of the routine was going on—and she told him, as airily as she could, that she was going to redecorate his rooms while he was gone, because he was a big boy now. She bade him behave to his uncle with proper respect, and made a few phone calls to ensure that her uncle knew the boy was coming. “Find a good place for one of my servants while you’re at it, if you would,” she told her uncle. “My husband has wronged the boy. He needs not to be here while I am . . . dealing with the situation.”
Adadnirari didn’t respond at all for a moment. He was pushing seventy at the moment, and had ruled Chaldea as satrap for almost all of Erida’s life. “Do you have the authority to deal with it?”
“He used one of my grimoires and forcibly bound the boy to a spirit so old, we haven’t summoned it by name in over two thousand years. Yes. I am a Magus. I have the authority.” Erida stared out the window. The Magi had been advisors to kings and emperors in this part of the world for literally millennia. She didn’t even need to check in with the others in her society. Everyone knew the rules. No untrained summoners, and certain Names should not be used.
“Oh, by the gods. I knew he was a fool when we married you to him, but I did not realize what kind. We merely thought he had the appropriate money and connections. Well, if you have the power, as well as the authority, he’s yours to deal with . . . Magus.”
What kind of fool, indeed, Erida thought, and, after a few more pleasantries, hung up. All of this had taken mere hours. Isam wasn’t even home yet, when, her affairs in the mortal realm dealt with, Erida packed up a few of her more important books, locked and warded her study, this time with traps, and informed the butler that any servant who touched the door might well die as their blood froze in their veins. She rather hoped Isam would try the doors again, but didn’t think she could be that lucky.
She could have, of course, killed her husband directly. Personally. The problem was threefold, however. First, doing so with her own hand would leave evidence. It would look like murder, and she while she could make a case for herself on the ‘untrained summoning,’ part, it would involve Jamil, require testimony of a boy who might break on the stand due to emotional strain, and generally cause him more harm. That was the practical part of her mind talking. The second problem was that she didn’t think she could kill Isam directly. Oh, she had the power. More than enough, really. She could set up the framework to drain all heat from his body, drop his blood from ninety-eight point six degrees to minus thirty-two in seconds, and know that even if he survived the hypothermia, he wouldn’t survive the water in his blood turning to ice and expanding outwards, shattering all the blood vessels in the body. Or she could suffocate him in a vacuum, as she had Abgar.
No, the technical requirements of death, she was intimately familiar with; it was the emotional toll that she might not be able to bear. She had killed her last lover, Abgar. And while she had certainly never loved Isam, and, in fact, now loathed him, she wasn’t sure she could do this in cold blood.
And then there was the third issue. The demon he had summoned, had used the boy, Jamil, as the price of the summoning, had made the boy into a conduit so that the spirit could return, again and again, freely. It was ancient, powerful, and probably beyond her ability to bind alone. The notes in her grimoire indicated that it had taken a team of summoners to bind it, last time. She didn’t have time to assemble such a team.
And so . . . Erida chose an alternative approach. She found a pleasant meadow, far from the house and its manicured grounds, and began preparing her summoning circle, cutting the lines and symbols deep in the earth with a dagger. The name she’d called on, once, in Judea, in desperation, was not one lightly summoned. She’d promised the efreet a year of her life for summoning him so rashly; he’d rebated the deal, after having killed and devoured the essence of the remaining alu-demons. This time . . . she was going to have to be a good deal more careful. “Illa’zhi,” Erida whispered, at length, as the wind rustled through the long grass. “Light of the dead. You remember the sound of my voice. You remember the scent of my blood. You remember the profit you foun
d in bargaining with me once before. Come, I bid thee. Come from the Veil, to the mortal lands. Let us bargain once more, we two.”
A pillar of black smoke and wind began to build before her. She was standing in a protective circle, and had chosen to summon the spirit without a binding circle to entrap it. A delicate gesture; symbols meant much in diplomacy, whether with other humans, or with spirits. She was summoning the efreet to this world, but not seeking to cage him. The wind and smoke began to churn, turning into a tight spiral, and flickers of flame seethed out of the vortex. The only human-like features, as the vortex surged up, a mere fifteen feet in height, at the moment, were the golden eyes, pure fire, staring down at her. You dare much, human. And yet, I do remember the taste of your blood. The taste of power, as I consumed your foes. You bargained with me in good faith. Unusual, for one of your kind. The efreet laughed in her mind, and surged around the outer edge of her circle, hunting for weaknesses. Lines that weren’t fully joined. A way in.
The Goddess Denied Page 18
