“It always seems to be, when I actually want one,” Sigrun replied tiredly. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Himi. I’ve been working with him on his physical therapy on and off for months.” The young woman shrugged. “He’s to a point where he can walk rounds at the hospital, so his mood should be improving. Instead, after Bodi’s wedding, he’s angrier than ever. He won’t stop talking about how his father ran off and abandoned them. And that his mother was right, all those years ago. That Uncle Kanmi has a bad heart.”
Sigrun sighed. “That is the frustration and resentment and anger talking. Himilico is angry at the world right now. And his father is a very safe direction to vent that anger, because Kanmi isn’t here to retaliate for it.”
Latirian nodded. “The nurses have been using it as a motivator. ‘You have to walk, so you can take care of your family. Your father’s gone, so you have to get in five more laps in the pool.’”
Sigrun slowly shook her head. “Anger is a very good motivation, for some people.”
The younger woman laughed. “You’re one of them, aren’t you, Aunt Sig?”
Sigrun thought about it, and Sophia’s voice echoed in her memories . . . that’ll be hard for you, because you’ll be so angry. You’re really good at being angry. Why, you’re angry even now! “I suppose so, yes,” she admitted, quietly, then changed the subject back to more important matters. “Himi takes more after his father than he thinks that he does.”
Latirian looked distressed. “It’s eating him alive, Aunt Sig. He loves his father. Revered him, till this year. He was always upset about the divorce, still loved his mother, still argued with his dad . . . but this is breaking his world apart. He . . . needs . . . .”
“A stable center. Something so that the earth doesn’t just carry him away, like a landslide.”
“Yes.”
Sigrun picked up a fountain pen, and wrote, on a piece of foolscap: What do you know?
Latirian flushed, guiltily, and accepted the pen to write back: Mother doesn’t really shield her thoughts from us.
Sigrun sighed at that, and Latirian wrote, under that, May I tell him?
Sigrun thought for a moment, then took the pen back, and scratched out, Yes, but have Bodi shield the room in which you do. And do not tell either of them much. We may all be under observation. Tell them both that ceasing to act like a horse’s ass about their father overnight might endanger Kanmi’s life. Out loud now: “Could you burn this piece of trash for me, dear?”
Latirian picked it up, read it, and paled. Then the paper burned away into nothing in her fingertips.
The next day, Sigrun and Minori took a flight to Athens was by way of a jet from Hatasahl Air. And from Athens to Delphi, they took a ley-powered prop plane under the Hellene Air logo. As they landed and drove from the airfield to the temple, Minori looked around, in some agitation. “Do you think she knows anything?” she asked Sigrun.
Gods only know. “She might. The question is, if anything she knows will be currently useful, and if she’s in a humor to relate it to us.” Sigrun’s fingers tightened on the wheel as their car labored up the mountain road.
Delphi was a bustling Hellene town, thanks to the thriving business that was the Oracle. The town sat about a mile away from the sacred precincts themselves, and were a mix of classical tastefulness—white marble pillars, painted friezes above solemn porticoes, and the like—and modern tawdriness. Modern hotels built after the ancient model had marble-sheathed columns limned with neon lights at night, and dozens of shops lined the central market square, all hocking love charms and potions and promising to foretell the future for a cheaper price than the Oracle itself. Satisfaction guaranteed. There were stands selling pita bread stuffed with roasted lamb just outside most of these shops, and Sigrun’s mouth watered at the smell. On the other hand, the chances that that meat is actually lamb, is about as good as the likelihood of getting a true prophecy from any of these charlatans.
She got them through the worst of the traffic, and to the actual temple itself, a large complex of buildings, constructed in antiquity, and added to, over the centuries. There were Roman-style baths, including a frigidarium pool for the comfort of the seers, extensive kitchens, and the actual living quarters, where each Pythia had her own private suite. There was also an extensive, hour-long line winding its way out of the temple, filled with petitioners waiting to see a Pythia. Sigrun sighed, installed Minori in the line, and went to go see if anyone at the main desk would be in a mood to hear what she had to say. “My name is Sigrun Caetia, and I’m here to see my sister, Sophia Caetia,” she told the male attendant, calmly. He was probably in his twenties or so, with dark hair and surprisingly olive skin, hinting at some Lydian in his ancestry, perhaps. One shoulder and arm was bared by his chiton, and she could see, over the desk, that he chose to wear the garment bloused with a zone belt, so that the hem hit above the knee. Like a Pictish kilt, the folds draped widely enough that a man wouldn’t be accused of advertising if he spread his legs for comfort, but unlike a kilt, the garment could be made of either cotton or wool, depending on the season, and was usually left undyed.
He looked up from his calculus’ spherical screen, blinking a little at her, and then frowning, as if in faint recognition. “I’ll need to see some identification . . . oh.”
That, as her Praetorian badge and ælagol identification unfurled in front of his nose. He sighed, and said, “Yes, you’re on the visitors list. Along with a Dr. Eshmu . . . .” His lips worked.
“Eshmunazar. I will go extricate her from the line.”
Sigrun was hard-pressed to recall the last time she’d been to her sister’s suite in the house of the Pythias. Probably in 1949, when she’d just been recruited by the Praetorians, and when Sophia had been a Pythia for two years. Curtains of multi-colored beads with bells hung at the ends of each strand separated the rooms of the suite, and the odors in the air that made Sigrun’s nose twitch. Incense. Sophia’s favorite perfume, an attar of roses and myrrh that was heavy and cloying. And underlying both, the heavy, primitive smell of human sex.
Sophia had painted murals on the walls in her first year here, and these . . . had been added to, over the years. Sigrun remembered the jarring, virulent shades of purple that outlined skyscrapers against a sullen red sky, with lead-gray clouds. Fire rained down from the heavens, and the ground, done in black, had red cracks worked through it. Sigrun hadn’t been able to identify the city last time; she’d thought it a dreamscape. But now the buildings had been reshaped, and she recognized the Odinhall, and the gargoyles on the buildings around it. Burgundoi. And now people fled the burning skyscrapers. They all had eyes, but no faces. No mouths, no noses, no ears. Expressionistic depictions of lost souls, they might have been, running and fleeing from monsters. These, too, were new. Ahuizotl, the monkey-like creatures from under the Pyramid of the Sun, ran through the streets, alongside . . . flayed human men. Some of them held guns. Some of them tore the faceless people apart with their hands. Some of them . . . crowded around, eating from the corpses in the streets.
On a countertop, in plain view, half a dozen glass jars with various pills in them, each with a prescription name on them—Sophia Caetia—and a description of the contents. Most of them advised Use as needed. There were also two small net bags beside an incense burner, which Sigrun discovered held some form of dried mushroom, and what she recognized as peyote buttons. There was only a single mirror in the room, over the headboard of the bed, and it had been, at some point, shattered, so only a handful of pieces remained in the frame. Tiny, glinting fragments of glass, too small to catch a full reflection of anything.
Looking at the broken pieces of mirror reminded her of . . . something. Sigrun stared at the floor, as if expecting to see the rest there, then down at her hands, half-thinking that she’d see blood welling from her fingertips. She couldn’t quite understand the sensation of panic that expanded up through her chest, the tightness to her own breath. There was a memory,
but she couldn’t bring it forwards in her mind. Something a very long time ago. Wearing a very long dress, and broken glass everywhere . . . .
“Oh, gods,” Minori whispered, breaking Sigrun’s train of thought “How does she sleep in these rooms?”
Jarred, Sigrun stared at the wall, and found a low footstool to sink onto, swallowing hard. The fragment of memory was forgotten as quickly as it had threatened to impinge on her consciousness. “I don’t know,” she said, simply, and put a hand over her eyes. “What I would like to know, is how anyone entering her rooms does not look around and tell her, ‘Sophia, I am worried about you. I think you may need help.’” She sighed. “And I do not know when she started avoiding mirrors. That is . . . something new. Her childhood room in Burgundoi was a domina’s delight. Medea decorated it in pink, and it had mirrors and dolls and lace everywhere.”
“Last I checked, there wasn’t a mirror anywhere in your house, either, Sigrun,” Minori pointed out, wryly. “It’s a little annoying when I come over, and wish to see if any further gray has added itself to my hair.” She smoothed a strand back, pointedly. “You’re both beautiful, and neither of you will so much as look at a mirror. It’s almost insulting to those of us who are mortal and doomed to age, my friend.”
Sigrun blinked, and was about to respond, but she heard the click of the outer door, and footsteps before the beads and bells chimed and rustled behind her. Sigrun had already turned to look over her shoulder before Sophia walked in, her long, curling blond hair tousled and loose, a white peplos pinned at her shoulders with gold brooches and tied at her waist with a silken cord. This left the sides of her breasts, her ribs, hips, and thighs exposed, and she wore golden, serpentine bracelets and a gold torc at her neck. Sigrun could feel Minori stiffen beside her, and understood why. The last time Minori had seen Sophia, she’d been clean of the drugs, and much more conservatively dressed. Sophia was beautiful in a way that actually competed with Lassair. But she’s a broken mirror, Sigrun thought, her heart aching.
Sophia smiled at Sigrun in her usual dazed, glassy manner, and said, easily, “Oh, no one criticizes my paintings, Sigrun. Why, the girl I had in here last night told me how innovative I was, to make art that was so real and meaningful, and not just to cater to the hoi polloi who think that art should be pretty.” Sigrun’s eyebrows shot up. Sophia had been outside the room when Sigrun had spoken the words. Now, Sophia frowned slightly. “What was her name again? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I won’t see her again.” She moved over to embrace her sister now, and Sigrun wrinkled her nose slightly. The perfume didn’t quite mask all the other scents on her sister’s skin. “And Minori. So good to see you again. I’ve been expecting you. And about the mirrors? I know what I look like now. The problem is, I don’t see now in the mirror. I see my own corpse, prepared for the pyre, most of the time. Sometimes, I even get to see the flames dancing over my skin. Better to avoid those images, don’t you think?”
Minori recoiled, an expression of pure distress on her face, and she flicked a glance at Sigrun. Sigrun’s lips had pulled tight, and she nodded to Minori. Yes, I know. Mad. Mad as mad can be. With occasional stable periods. Gods. If there were anything I could do . . . . Sigrun paused, and her stomach churned. She’d helped unmadden fenris. She’d helped unmadden jotun. But always, before, Lassair and Saraid had been there to do the heavy lifting. Sigrun had just . . . untangled skeins. I could make her worse.
As Sigrun debated, mentally, Sophia settled down at her full length on a divan, and began flipping through a notebook filled with pages, frowning slightly. As she did, Sigrun realized that the notebook was actually a calendar. Each year was condensed to two pages, with the year at the top of each, in large, block letters. From her angle, she could clearly see that 1999 AC was the last year listed. Everything after Caesarius 32, 1999 AC was effaced with heavy lines in black ink, or the pages had been torn out. Various dates were circled, and notes had been scribbled here and there. One, in 1991, was circled in red ink, but Sigrun could only make out one word from across the room as her sister flipped past it: Centaurs. “Here we go. October 10, 1981. The Truthsayer and the Ascendant come to consult with the Watcher.” Sophia smiled. “You’re here about the Archmage?”
Sigrun nudged Minori with her elbow, where the younger woman sat, wide-eyed. “Go on,” Sigrun told her.
Minori brushed her silvering hair back out of her eyes. “Where is my husband, Sophia?”
“At the moment, he’s Mercury,” Sophia said, dreamily. “I can’t see him at all, because of that.”
Sigrun watched the expression on Minori’s face shift from hope to bitter anger, in a heartbeat. Welcome to my reality, Sigrun thought, tiredly. “He’s Mercury?” Minori asked, sharply. “What precisely does that mean? He’s trapped in a thermometer? He’s a messenger of the gods?”
Sophia looked up, clearly confused. “Oh! No, no, no!” She actually laughed a little, and Sigrun could feel Minori stiffen further. “I mean that he’s so close in orbit around the sun right now, he’s like Mercury, transiting its face. I can’t look directly at him right now; I’d go blind.”
And that would be a bad thing? Sigrun thought, but didn’t say. “How about looking at where he’ll be when he’s not transiting the sun, then?” she asked.
“Well, that is the trick, isn’t it, Sigrun, hmm?”
Minori inhaled and exhaled for a moment, visibly trying to calm herself. “This . . . this means that he’s alive.” Hope was back in her face, blazing like a star, and Sigrun reached out, carefully, and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. She didn’t want to see that hope crushed.
Sophia blinked. “Alive? Of course he’s alive. He’s not going to die until, well . . . .” She shrugged, and busied herself with her calendar, looking away.
Minori’s entire body shook, and the smaller woman clasped her hands in her lap, as if she were afraid what she might do with them if she released her grip. “How do I bring him home again?”
Sophia looked up, and though her eyes were glazed and distant, her lower lip trembled for a moment. “You don’t. I’m sorry, Truthsayer. The good news is, I can tell you when you’ll see him again. Your future stays easy to read, all the way to the end. And though you’ll carry a piece of the sun inside of you, you won’t be . . . eclipsed by it, or burned alive by the flames, as the Archmage is and will be.” She offered a tentative smile. “Alexandria. 1984. He’ll contact you, and you’ll go to him, and he’ll explain what’s happened to him. You’ll be the only thing that keeps him sane, Truthsayer. The only real thing in his entire universe. And I know it’s no comfort, but when he dies in 1987? He’ll die saving you. All of you. He’ll be a hero. Admittedly, it won’t help in the end, but . . .” She shrugged. “Nothing really will, now will it?” She looked up at her nightmarish cityscape on the wall.
The tiny, high-pitched sound emanating from Minori was a wail, barely held behind the woman’s clenched teeth, as a tear welled out of each eye to course down her cheeks. Sigrun tightened her hand on Minori’s shoulder, trying to let the woman know that she wasn’t alone. Trying to give her some of her own stubborn strength. But she knew it was useless. She wasn’t much of a comfort, and Minori’s strength was all her own. “How can you say that?” Minori demanded, after a moment. “How can you say that he will die, and that his death will be meaningless?”
Sophia blinked, rapidly. “Oh, not meaningless,” she said, vaguely. “If none of you had been born, the end would have come sooner. But of course, all of you were always going to be born. All of you were always going to do what you’re going to do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be who you are. The main thing is, when the world ends, some of you will get to see what comes after. And some of you will be reborn in flesh, and some of us will be reborn in spirit.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry. I see his eyes alive in a dead face. That’s better than most people around me get. They’re all just dead, and don’t even know it yet.”
Sigrun rather thought that Sophia was trying t
o be comforting. Trying to express her vision in words that they could understand, for a wonder. Something in Minori seemed to snap, however. “Don’t worry?” she repeated, her voice scaling upwards. “Don’t worry! He’s never coming home to me, you’ve told me what year he will die, you think there’s no way to save him, and you tell me not to worry! You . . . you . . .” Minori slipped into Nipponese for a moment, a torrent of foreign syllables that Sigrun couldn’t follow at all. Sophia sat up, looking distressed, and then sighed and turned her face seconds before Minori lunged forward. Sigrun’s hand on her shoulder kept Minori from being able to reach Sophia properly, but her hand still impacted on Sophia’s cheek in a ringing slap.
“Minori!” Sigrun got both hands on the sorceress’ wrists now, to slow down any casting she might do, at least. “Sophia probably did not mean it like that. I think that she meant to be of help. Let me take you outside.” She didn’t quite put Minori in an escort lock, but she did use more of her strength than she’d ever employed on one of her friends before, making sure that Min wouldn’t turn on Sophia. And once Minori was outside, and Sigrun was sure that the woman, leaning against the wall of the building, was calming down, the valkyrie went back in, and found her sister, leafing through her calendar as if it were a photo album. “Look,” she invited Sigrun, brushing a hand over a page with infinite care. “Here’s where Bodi and Jykke have their first child in 1984. One half Cimbric-nieten, one quarter Nubian, one quarter Carthaginian. She’s going to have her mother’s blue scales, hawk eyes, and dark brown, wavy hair. Not to mention, the sorcery will breed true. Latirian and Himi will get married the same year. He’s going to try to talk her out of going into combat medicine, but that’s what she’ll be doing, when the war comes. No one better for it.” Sophia smiled fondly, and added, “Minori will have pictures of the family in her handbag when she goes to meet Kanmi in Egypt. He’ll weep at how much he’s missed. Can you imagine that? The Archmage, weeping in a café in Alexandria?”
The Goddess Denied Page 71
