The Goddess Denied

by Deborah Davitt

  “I know.” The timing was . . . suspiciously good. “But they’re having me meet with a sorcerer named Ameqran Idir at the conference. I doubt he’s the one in charge. But it’s . . . one layer deeper.” Kanmi lay on his back, one hand on his forehead. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be relaxed. It was so easy, without Min around, to go back to who he’d been before he’d met her. Back to being the angriest man alive. As Adam had known, damn him, that he would. No subterfuge required. “Min . . . I really hope this is over soon.”

  “It could take years. We discussed that.” She kissed his cheek. “It’s important. And I’m with you. Lassair says that if you take a binding amulet with you, she might be able to . . . let us talk to each other.”

  “Someone finds a binding amulet on me, that’s going to lead to questions.” Kanmi caught her hand, and kissed her palm. “Gods. I miss you. I miss the children. How’s Bodi doing?”

  “He asked Jykke to marry him. Gods defend the first idiot who asks her if she’s an exotic dancer. She’s showing a real affinity for fire—yes, I know, I’m ensuring that she’s more flexible than that, but she’s doing her thesis in thermodynamics.” Minori grinned outright. “Listening to the two of them argue the proper balance in a spell brings back memories, Kanmi-kun.”

  “I’d be happy to make a lot more memories with you, Min. Running . . . out . . . of . . . time.” Kanmi punctuated the words with kisses. “Make sure he invites me to the wedding. Cover or no cover, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Kanmi kissed Minori one more time. “Masako?”

  “Still upset. She likes living across the street from the Matrugenas, but she misses you.”

  “Keep an eye on Matrugena’s boy. I know what he’s thinking every time he looks at her.”

  Minori chuckled and pushed him back against the pillows. “You just say that because once, ages ago when the world was young, you too were a seventeen-year-old boy.”

  “Yes. I know of what I speak.” He reached up to stroke the hair back from her face. “Be well, Minori. Take care of them. I love you, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Unfortunately, that was the last time any of them saw Kanmi Eshmunazar for three years.

  After two weeks without word from him, Lassair stretched out her feelers of attention, trying to find a familiar mind, to no avail. Saraid, likewise, could not find the Carthaginian sorcerer anywhere.

  It was as if he had vanished into the deserts of northern Africa, and had not even left behind a ghost.

  Chapter 10: Angle of Repose

  Whether you’re talking about a soldier missing in action or a kidnapped child, a missing person causes a yawning absence in the lives of those who know and love him or her. Death is, in its own way, almost easier to deal with, I find; there’s a recognized psychological process to grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Admittedly, few people go through them in that neat, classic order, and some people skip stages entirely. But at least, with death, the family knows what’s happened. They can move on, when they’re ready, and in their own time.

  With a disappearance, the lack of knowledge is a torment. There is the constant hope that the missing will be found. There is the constant, gnawing despair that they might be dead. Contemplating the notion that they might be dead feels like betrayal, so there is guilt. There’s usually some rage at the missing person for whatever they did to vanish in this manner—blaming the victim isn’t just, but we do it, because we’re angry, and we need a target for the anger.

  People with missing family members and friends often want to know why gardia and search and rescue teams can’t just take a sample of DNA, have a spirit ‘sniff’ it, and go find their loved one. The truth is, we could. But the spirits who are best at hunting humans, however, are usually good at it for a reason: they tend to be malefic, and have spent centuries hunting humans to feed on them. Bargaining with them very often runs into unethical territory rapidly. Also, spirit-searching isn’t necessarily efficient. Being able to limit the search to a geographic area helps, certainly. That’s usually when spirit-searches are the most effective: given a geographic region with which the spirits are highly familiar, such as their own territory? With few humans present? Yes, a spirit can find that lost woodsman or hiker.

  Spirits are deterred, sometimes, by sheer numbers of humans. If they don’t know the human in question personally, don’t know the resonance of the human’s spirit, they have to check each one present for the required DNA; they can’t just take a glance at a crowd and recognize a face. Their minds are not built the way human minds are. Say that they have to search a city of a million people. They effectively have to ‘sniff’ a million people, and humans don’t conveniently stay seated in one place at all times. We move around. Yes, they can slip into locked houses and rooms where humans need . . . warrants and whatnot to get into. But say it takes one minute to ‘sniff’ one person. One million people, one million minutes. Sixty minutes an hour, twenty-four hours a day . . . six hundred and ninety-four days. You can reduce that by adding more spirits to the equation. How much are you willing to give them in exchange for their assistance? I’m not even talking about gold. I’m talking about years off someone’s life. Either the summoner, a volunteer, or an unwilling individual, and there’s where we fall into unethical territory again.

  Spirits can find a dead body much more swiftly than a living one, in some ways. A fugitive from justice, a kidnapper with a captive, will keep moving. A body is just a body. Even underground, a spirit can find it . . . given enough time and resources. Again, how much of a summoner’s life energy do you want to spend on this? Oh, not all spirits demand that as their recompense—some ask for wine, a bonfire, a song, the sense of a mortal’s passion, a laugh, a tear, a drop of blood. But the more powerful a spirit is, the more likely it is to ask for something significant. The more powerful the spirit, the better the chances of finding the person in question in short order. It’s a balancing act.

  There are other deterrents to a spirit-search. For example, if the person is wearing a ‘mask’ made of the blood or other bodily fluids or materials belonging to someone else, and amplified with sorcery? They become, effectively, a double of that person. Hair, blood, and semen are all effective at creating a ‘mask,’ and a mask becomes even more effective when the two people are emotionally connected.

  Alternately, if the person in question is blood-bound to another, powerful spirit or to a god? Sealed to them in a personal compact of service? Their own spirit will be . . . dimmed, and difficult for even a spirit familiar with that person to perceive. The DNA search is still possible, but once again, we must limit the search by as specific a geographic region as possible. Which means that we always need human eyes on the ground, and human intelligence in charge of a search effort. Spirits are not the answer to every problem. Though that is scarcely a comfort to those who are left behind to watch and wait.

  —Trennus Matrugena, “Effective Summoning in Law Enforcement.” Crimes and Criminology, vol. 45, issue 3, University of Ravenna Press, 1981 AC.

  ______________________

  Caesarius 11, 1981 AC

  Masako sat on the bench in the front garden of Fritti’s house, brooding a little. Though it was the height of summer, the sky overhead was cloudy and gray, threatening rain at any moment. Still, it was over a hundred degrees, and humid. Most of the plants in the various yards were wilting, and in desperate need of that promised rain.

  She looked up as Solinus emerged from one of the houses across the street, caught sight of her, and waved before jogging across the street. Her friend was, like all other members of the Matrugena brood, interesting to look at. In Solinus’ case, he looked like the sun, his namesake. He had shoulder-length red-gold hair, dressed back from his face in Pictish braids, tied off at the ends with leather twists. He had his father’s fire-blue eyes, set in a face so long and rectangular, he clearly needed to finish growing into it. In the current heat, he tended to leave off wearing a shi
rt, and wore only a kilt and sandals as he dropped down on the bench beside her, and she could see the new, very fresh tattoos on his pale arms—clan-markings. Knot-work bears, for the clan itself, and serpents indicating his affiliation with the king’s line. The serpents themselves coiled around the forearms, leaving the wrists bare for the moment, and had suggestions of fire all around them. He’d mentioned that the marking itself hadn’t really hurt much, but that it had taken forever. No idea how my father got so many of them, Solinus had admitted, cheerfully. This is enough for me, for now. The whole clan had come back from Britannia much earlier than usual—with the exception of Aunt Lassair, who’d been absent until yesterday. Masako thought it had something to do with her father, but . . . her father was a sensitive topic at the moment

  Now, all he said was, “So . . . magic practice all done?”

  “As much as I can do until my mother gets back from the university and can check my spell-work with Athim.”

  Solinus grimaced. He wasn’t Athim’s biggest adherent. “When’s he going to start university work, anyway? Isn’t he going to University of Athens or something like that?”

  “His mother arranged for him to go there, yes. He should start there in a month. About when I start at University of Jerusalem.” Masako’s lips tightened. “Of course, they need to hire another technomancer to teach my father’s classes.”

  Solinus nodded, and they both watched as various motorcars pulled up in driveways. It was dies Veneris, so almost everyone was coming home early to get food started in the oven for tomorrow, the Judean weekly holy day. Even non-Judeans got off work early. A flatbed truck with a fenris in the back bumped to a halt in front of the yard beside Uncle Adam and Aunt Sigrun’s house. The fenris, who wore a burlap smock over his white fur, jumped down, and shifted, with the bone-jarring lurch of a lycanthrope, into the form of a huge male jotun. He took a coin out of a pouch around his neck, paid the driver, and called, in a booming voice, “Thanks! See you Sunnandæg!” to the driver, who waved and drove off.

  “You know,” Masako said after a moment or two of silence, pointing at the palm beside the bench, “my father used to say he used this very tree as cover during a demon attack. Right here.” The bees buzzed among the flowers planted around the bench. “I . . . wonder if it’s true.”

  “My father tells the same story. Yes. It’s true.” Solinus hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re mad at him.”

  Masako’s lips thinned to a line. “Something’s been wrong for a year. He and my mother have always argued about unimportant things. Spells. Data. Interpreting data. But I don’t understand the way they were arguing before my mother moved out. Both of their eyes still said I love you, but they said . . . horrible things to each other. Mostly about Himi. How my father was overreacting, how my mother didn’t care because Himi wasn’t really her son . . . it didn’t make any sense.” Masako was still bewildered. She’d seen her father cradling her mother’s hand as delicately as if it were a rare and wondrous butterfly, and then the shouting would start again. And then, this past week and a half . . . Uncle Trennus had brought his whole family back from Britannia, a month early—with the half-hearted explanation that Solinus, who was pursuing a higher level of Roman citizenship by volunteering for in the Judean levy forces, needed to re-adapt to the heat before boot camp. Uncle Adam and Aunt Sigrun were clearly furious about something, and her mother’s eyes had been red-rimmed for days. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Solinus blinked, rapidly. “What?”

  “Solinus, you can tell me. I know you can hear your mom and Sari’s thoughts a lot better than they probably want you to be able to.” Masako sat up, and put a hand on his arm, gingerly avoiding the freshly-inked tattoos, which were slathered in clear ointment. She hadn’t dared to touch him since they were children. They’d been playmates, and then, between summers, Sol had shot up half a foot in height, and he’d gone from being the boy who laughed at her because she had such a hard time with fire sorcery, the one who’d sat through Aunt Sigrun’s ‘god-boring’ lessons beside her, to . . . someone else. Someone who made her desperately shy and awkward, and who still smiled his old smile at her, but that she couldn’t . . . talk to, anymore. Not really.

  Solinus looked down at her, his relaxation fading, and his eyes growing concerned. He looked around, and that was all the confirmation Masako needed. He did know something. “Please, just tell me if he’s dead,” she whispered. “I have a right to know.”

  He leaned in close enough to whisper against her hair, “They don’t know. They’re worried out of their minds. My mother spent the last week looking for him, and she can’t find him.”

  Masako’s head snapped up, as reality kaleidoscoped around her, realigning into new patterns. That . . . that means they still care about him. “I thought they were mad at him,” she whispered.

  “I think everyone was supposed to think that. I don’t know a lot, Saki. I know that my mother’s so worried, her light’s gone dim. She felt like banked coals when she came home last night. But you don’t spend an entire week, twenty-five hundred miles from home, looking for someone, because you don’t care about them.”

  Masako pulled back, an inch or two, just enough to look up at him, her eyes wide. “Then what’s this all about?”

  “I don’t know that, either. I think he was doing something—something important. And he might have gotten caught.” The words were barely breathed into her ear again. “Don’t be mad at him, Saki.”

  Anger—a year’s worth of it, and bubbling confusion with it—leached out of her, to be replaced by a kind of numb fear. Now, she suddenly understood why her mother’s eyes were red-rimmed. And yet, her mother kept going. “We have to look normal?”

  “Right. So no one knows what we know. Which isn’t much.” He tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, lightly, almost as if he were afraid of touching her. Laughable concept. Solinus took after his mother in . . . stunning ways. While his older sister, Latirian, could fire off orbs and lashes of flame at a target, and heal minor wounds just by touching someone, and his twin, Inghean, could create and shape flame, could dance in a bonfire and not be singed, and flowers sprang up around her, whenever she happened to be in a good mood . . . Solinus could turn his entire body into flame. It had started with just his hands, when they’d been children. And with much patient teaching from Aunt Sigrun, he’d learned to spread that fire over his whole body. He could reshape that fire. Could turn one of his arms into a lash of it, and slap someone ten feet away, if he chose. He had to be careful where he was, when he transformed, because otherwise, everything around him would burn. He’d even been able to transform himself into a phoenix, once or twice, but that was apparently very difficult to do when he actually thought about it. If he just did it, reflexively, out of fear or anger, it worked. But if he wanted to do it, he couldn’t.

  And of course, all of it had gotten him into trouble at school. The early years, there’d been a lot of bullying going on. Masako had been driven halfway across town by her parents every day just so she could attend these schools, where the Matrugena children got the bulk of the teasing. In their shadow, she barely stood out, almond-shaped eyes and magical abilities, or not. Solinus had gotten more than his fair share at first, mostly because he’d get mad and react, and he’d been so regularly suspended and sent to detention that it had become routine.

  Uncle Trennus and Uncle Adam had spent hours teaching him how to fight with just his hands and his feet. And Aunt Sigrun and even Masako’s parents had spent just as many hours focusing on control of his talents. Of course, the bulk of the hazing had stopped dead after the whole . . . dragon . . . incident. People at school still moved to the other side of the hall when Rig looked annoyed about something. Whispers and rumors abounded. But no one knew for sure if he could summon a dragon the size of a five-story building. And no one wanted to find out.

  Masako looked up at Solinus now. He was one of her oldest friends, and he’d just broken
a rule for her. “Thank you for telling me the truth, Sol.”

  “Hey, that’s what I’m here f—” His words cut off as she closed her eyes, leaned up, and kissed him before her nerve broke.

  For an unnerving instant, he didn’t move at all, and then he slid a hand around to cup the back of her head, and began to kiss her in return. Warmth in the hand at the back of her neck, like sunlight on a warm day—noticeable, even in the sultry heat outside. Her eyes snapped open just as he pulled back, and she could see the first glimmer of flame along his hands and forearms. “Ah . . . sorry,” he offered, a little weakly. “I . . . you were just saying thank-you . . . .”

  Masako blinked, rapidly. “Well, yes, but . . . more than that, too?” Her voice was a squeak. “I . . . I’ve been trying to show you that I . . . kind of like you . . . for years.”

  “You have?” Solinus stared at her blankly. “You never—I thought you were scared of . . . you know.” He held up a hand covered in flame. “You . . . how was I supposed to know?”

  Masako shook her head rapidly. “No! I wasn’t scared of the fire thing! I . . . just thought . . . you’d laugh, if . . . you knew . . . .”