“Because they’re not people anymore,” her mother said, “And showing everyone that every Immortal is the same? A featureless non-person that is nothing more than the desire and ability to kill for the Emperor? Creates . . . terror.”
Zaya pointed at the sphere again. “And the markings?” Every exposed limb was densely covered in lines and arcs of black ink.
“Binding tattoos,” Erida said quietly. “Done after the death of the mind and soul, to ensure that most summoners cannot easily remove the spirit bound to the body. The body is the efreet bottle. There are a handful of Magi powerful enough to remove a spirit from an Immortal. I am one of them. But it would be a wrestling match that would distract me from all other dangers.”
The tanks began to fire, and buildings crumbled. Single-family homes. Schools. Shops. Rome’s garrison rolled out, returning fire, but there were thousands of troops on the field, and the city was largely surrounded. Summoners with the Immortals began their work, summoning efreeti and stone elementals that tore themselves free of the ground, and began to march on the city, as the tanks continued to hammer away with lines of fire that avoided the colossal creatures. Zaya’s stomach churned. Most of the images were blessedly distant, but she could see the tanks rolling into residential areas, their treads rolling over rubble.
Helicopters, Hellene- and Judean-made, took to the skies inside the besieged city, dropping rockets filled with napalm loads on the various tanks, and firing round after round from miniguns mounted at their sides, on the Immortal troops. Bullets didn’t stop the Immortals, but they did slow them down, as they ripped the doors off their wrecked vehicles and used them as improvised shields, moving to cover. Always working in teams of two or three. The ones who were on fire were particularly horrible for Zaya; they kept moving. “Why won’t they die?” she yelped.
Napalm keeps burning, yes, but they will continue their advance until the body is irreparably damaged. The ligaments may be burned away, but the bones are connected by the resident spirit’s will, and it will heal the damage, given time, her father told her. His tone was detached, and almost admiring. They have had centuries to perfect their control of the human body, and are most skilled.
The cameras managed to focus on what looked like a command center near the edge of town. Clouds of gray-brown smoke wafted around it, making it difficult to see, but Roman soldiers were set up from sniping positions, it was clear, trying to deter the Immortal advance. A few times, using high-powered rifles, they were able to punch through the metal helmets, or the flak jackets, and an Immortal fell, as it ran beside a vehicle. Anti-tank rockets lanced down from the buildings, slamming into the advancing Immortals, lifting one clear off the ground . . . but then a djinn sailed into the fray, and Zaya could see some poor Roman sniper plucked off a roof and flung, probably a mile into the air. One of the tanks rumbled forward, through the most intense fire Zaya had yet seen, and rammed into the door with its forward gun, knocking it in. “This part, you might not want to watch,” her mother noted, clinically.
“Why?” Zaya blurted. Until now, everything had had a dream-like quality.
“Because the Persians will release footage of what the Immortals are going to do in there, and this network may or may not show all of it.” Her mother paused, and suddenly said, “Gods.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t a command center. They were defending a civilian bomb shelter.” Her mother beckoned to her, imperatively, and Zaya came over. Let her mother wrap her arms around her. “Do you want to hide your eyes?”
“No,” Zaya said, her voice small. She wanted to say yes, but . . . this was the world. It wouldn’t do any good to hide from it. And she was a daughter of the Chaldean Magi.
“Persian far-viewer networks have just begun transmitting from inside the city,” the news announcer noted, grimly. “We’re going to transfer to their feed, but we advise our viewers that what they’re about to see is graphic. Many of you have attended public executions in the past. Please be advised that the Persians release this kind of film to try to intimidate subject populations. It is usually against the policy of Roman news networks to show this kind of footage, but we here at INN believe it is important for everyone in the Empire to understand what we are fighting against.”
The far-viewer images now jostled and jarred. “Helmet-mounted cameras,” her mother said, grimly, her arms still locked around Zaya.
And they watched, as the camera looked down into the screaming face of a woman with her arms locked around her child, and a hand grabbed her by the hair, and then another hand, holding a knife, swung through and slit her throat. The camera stayed in focus as the child was yanked out of the mother’s convulsing arms, and the little girl, screaming too, and trying to reach for her mother, was all but decapitated by the same knife. Zaya shrieked and covered her eyes, unable to watch. This wasn’t at all like a public execution. She’d been to a couple of those. The criminal was walked out on a stage with a bag over their head, the charges were read, and then he or she was hanged or given a lethal injection or their head chopped off, whichever they, personally, had requested. Often, they’d been drugged for docility beforehand, she knew.
The crowd might cheer if the offender had been a particularly notable murderer or a rapist, but most of the time, it was deadly quiet, and then people went on with their business. There was . . . no struggling. Nothing like this.
The far-viewer went blessedly quiet, and she couldn’t hear the screaming and gurgling anymore. “It’s all right,” her mother said, in her ear. “They cut the broadcast.”
“How . . . how many . . . people . . . ?” Zaya’s voice was lost.
“Probably three or four hundred in the shelter. Rome needs to get a relief column there, now.”
“We are being told that one detachment of Immortals has broken from the main offensive, and appears to be heading north. Speculation is rampant that this detachment might be a punitive force, being sent to the area around the Caspian Sea, where a number of nobles and Magi have their summer homes. Many of these nobles were instrumental in engineering Chaldea and Media’s break from the Persian Empire . . . .”
Zaya’s head came back up, and she swiveled to look at her mother. “That means us, doesn’t it?”
Her mother looked at her father. “What do you think?”
I think that I would delight in killing and eating as many of these Immortals and their spirits as possible. But I do not think I can do that, and protect all of you at the same time.
Zaya still huddled in her mother’s arms. She didn’t like hearing her father admit to uncertainty. “What . . . what do we do, then?”
“We wait to see if they are indeed coming,” her mother told her.
“But they’re only two hours away!”
“Tanks move a little more slowly than that. Zhi . . . go take a look, if you would?”
I go. Be safe.
They were all busy packing when her father exploded back into existence in the formal living room. All of you, to me! Illa’zhi called, and Zaya ran to him. He’d barely coalesced into his smoke-and-fire humanoid form; he only did full human when they were all completely alone. Zaya was used to his smoke-and-fire body, but she liked being able to see his expression when he went full human, too. The Immortals are less than a half-hour away. They left the tanks behind. Only armored personnel carriers and small ornithopters. This is a lightning-strike. They want to take us. Fury seethed in his tone, and Zaya pulled back a little. She’d never seen her father this angry before. He wanted to fight, and he was being denied.
“Then we must get the children to safety.” Her mother was absolutely calm as she carried Hedra into the room. “I wish Athim were here. One more trained sorcerer would be very helpful.” Zaya’s oldest brother was off in Athens, however. “I cannot leave, Zhi. The rest of the library—five thousand books and grimoires—still remain here.”
Yes. You will leave. All of us will. There are a thousand Immortals coming, and you ca
nnot defend your pages and your relics against so many. They are bogged down with a small detachment of Roman troops, including some jotun and fenris, at the moment. We have twenty minutes before they will be in range now, I think. Her father’s tone was fierce.
“What then, load Zaya and myself onto the carpet, and run?” Her mother was angry. “If these grimoires fall back into Persia’s hands, they will have a hundred thousand more Names to call on than they have now at their disposal—”
I had something better in mind. I will move the whole house. And all of you. Illa’zhi beckoned to Zaya. You, little one . . . you are my gravest concern. I need you to trust me, Fireflower. Give me your mind, and know that I will keep you safe.
“I . . . I don’t . . . understand, Father.” Zaya was shaking. All she could think of was that news report, and she kept seeing her mother’s throat cut, little Hedra’s head cut off. All of them dead, bleeding out over the pages of her mother’s books.
I cannot lift the house up in my air currents, and carry it away, like efreeti in ancient times were able to carry off the palaces of kings. It is not a question of strength, but of architecture, and distance. Carry a house made of stone a dozen miles through the air? Well enough. Carry a modern building, even one so well-built as this, through the air? The walls will buckle. When I set it down again, it would not have a foundation, so the whole building will crack, and sag in on itself. Not to mention, if I carried it off to the Wall, I believe that the Judeans guarding the way might see me as an attacker, and open fire. A touch of grim humor. No. I will take all of us through the Veil. And the house, as well. So that your pages and words will be safe, Shadeslore. I know you will not leave without them.
Zaya’s stomach lurched. “Through the Veil?” she asked. “But . . . only . . . inanimate objects . . . I know I read that . . . .”
Not true. God-born like Stormborn pass through it, all the time. Your mother is bound to me, and I to her. She will be safe. Your sisters and brothers . . . share my essence. Her father sounded regretful. When your mother and I made you, we made you . . . differently. I failed you. But I will not fail you now. I have . . . spoken with Lassair, the fire-that-creates. She will permit me to take you through the realm that her human servant builds in the Veil. You will be safer there, than in the deep places. And know that there is no time in the Veil. No matter how long you believe something is taking? You cannot die there. You cannot suffocate. There is no time for your body to be damaged. Her father picked Zaya up. Relax, Fireflower. Place your faith in me. I will never allow you to be harmed, in any way.
Zaya put her head on her father’s shoulder, and shot a miserable, terrified glance at her mother. Breathe, Fireflower. Just as your mother has taught you. Relax mind and body. Your fear makes this much harder.
She took deep breaths, forcing calm into her body. Felt her father’s will steal into her mind. She felt as if she were asleep, though her eyes remained open. Drugged, almost. “My first ward on the road leading here just triggered,” her mother said, her voice still calm, but a bit of an edge in it. “They won’t like having the poured-stone liquefy into molten lava around their vehicle, but that will only affect the first few. Wind defenses just triggered around an ornithopter, as well.”
I know. Stay away from the windows.
As if through a heavy veil of gauze, Zaya was aware of the sound of bullets firing, pop-pop-pop-pop. Rattling off the sides of the house. Her vision expanded, and she realized that somehow, she was watching everything through her father’s eyes. A window across the way shattered, and she could see, dimly, a priceless antique vase explode into a thousand fragments, spilling across the hall. Her brothers and sisters, terrified sparks of orange-red light, clustered around her mother, a cool figure of solid violet. A network of fire laced through the whole house now, limning the walls, the floors, a fretwork of it, delicate and fine. “Zhi, now would be a very good time,” her mother said, her voice strained, wrapping herself, body and magic alike, around her children. Zafir was shaking, Zaya noticed. Hedra had started to wail. Nisane was huddled against her mother, arms locked around her leg, and Ramsin was bawling, unabashedly.
We go. Her father’s tone was strained, and Zaya saw the entire house turn into flame around her, and then . . . it . . . contracted. Flattened. Winked out. Her last awareness was of a rain of bullets racing through where they had just been, but they weren’t there anymore. They were . . . nowhere.
Hazy awareness. Her own senses were completely useless. There was no sight. There was no sound. There was no touch. The five human senses were all dependent on time. Time for light to bounce off of an object and strike a retina, and the data derived there to be interpreted by the brain. Time for an organic molecule to dance through the air and touch a scent receptor, and be analyzed by the brain, again. Electricity and chemical interactions. Time for sound to pass through air or liquid and resonate against the eardrum, or through the bones of a human body. Zaya didn’t understand any of this. There was no time to understand. But she shared her father’s awareness, for the moment, sheltering and enfolding her own. His senses were attuned to this place. They didn’t require time. They saw without sight. They heard without hearing. No time. No color. No sound. Just othersight, the awareness of other minds and energies.
She could feel Illa’zhi’s strain. She could sense, through him, hundreds of other . . . beings. . . crowding around them, startled and aghast, and then they . . . surfaced . . . for a moment. A forest. A beautiful one, filled with oak trees with branches so dense, they blotted out the sky, making daytime dusk. Zaya felt her father’s mind retreat for a moment, and she was able to take a breath, and realized that her mind, under his, had been screaming all this time. Screaming for air. Screaming for time. She raised her head, realizing her father still held her, but that the house was nowhere to be seen. She tried to ask where they were, but her voice wouldn’t work, and panic set in, just for a moment.
I am sorry, daughter, her father told her. There is time here. You will be safe, with your mother and siblings. I will bring the house through, first.
Zaya found her feet on the ground, and then her father vanished, and she tried to scream after him Don’t leave me, don’t leave me! but he was already gone. She stumbled, and looked up. Her mother and brothers and sisters were all there, looking dazed. A few of the servants, including her pedagogue, were sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth and holding their heads, and moaning. Some of the servants just shrieked and ran into the woods, and some of them . . . were just plain missing. They usually had a staff of twenty people. Zaya only saw twelve.
She scrambled to her mother, who wrapped her arms around her, tightly. It’ll be all right, little one. Just have to wait a moment . . . .
Zaya saw creatures moving through the forest. A huge wolf, white and the size of a horse, looked at them with calm, leaf-green eyes. Monkeys chattered in the oak trees. A swan preened itself in a vast lake, which was . . . surrounded by ivy-cloaked walls. What is this place?
This is the Vale. It is part of my forest. Worldwalker makes this place for me, and for Lassair. That came from the wolf. It is a place between. It is . . . safety. Harbor. Refuge.
And then the woods dissolved, and she was back in the formal living room again as the whole house creaked and her ears popped. The sunlight was coming in through the shattered windows at the wrong angles, and the world seemed entirely askew. “Where . . . where are we?” Zaya asked, looking around.
Jerusalem, her father said. His form was flickering in and out of existence, to her horror. An empty lot your mother purchased, years ago. Shadeslore . . . .
“Go!” her mother cried. “Go rest!”
Her father winked out, and Zaya reached out for him again, crying in earnest now. “Father!”
He didn’t reappear for two weeks.
The first day was a daze. Some of the servants seemed to have lost the ability to speak, but their eyes were . . . aware. And they were able to write out words of tha
nks for not having been left to the Immortals. Others, like the butler, were still missing, entirely Her pedagogue was the worst off, besides the missing. She could speak, but the older woman had flowers growing out of her flesh, and Zaya was mildly horrified that every flower was also a mouth, which murmured and whispered with everything her pedagogue said. At the moment, all of her mouths were whimpering in terror, and she’d wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to touch any of the flowers. Any time she did, the woman yelped in horror, and all the flower-mouths yelped with her.
None of the faucets or taps worked. When Zaya mentioned that, tentatively, to her mother, Erida gave her a look. “Your father is many things, my dear. A plumber is not one of them. The pipes don’t currently connect to anything.”
“Oh.” Zaya felt like an idiot.
People came to greet them, whom Zaya had met once or twice before, on their visits here to see Athim, but while she’d been introduced, they’d still been . . . strangers. A woman with copper-red hair and ruby eyes with sparks of blue instead of pupils, and who spoke like her father did, appeared on their doorstep about ten minutes after Zhi had vanished. You’ll have to be careful. The house might not be structurally stable. We can’t have it falling down on your heads now.
The Goddess Denied Page 81
