The Goddess Denied

by Deborah Davitt

  Adam was not surprised at all when a shadow passed over the window of one of the conference rooms of the Praetorian building fifteen minutes later, and then an enormous white-silver eye peered into the second-story conference room. Sigrun walked back in, gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him, “Have Trennus drive you home if I don’t make it back by afternoon.”

  “I figured I’d just stay here until after sundown. I’ll be waiting on phone-calls, myself. Yes, I’ll answer them, rules or not.” Adam gave her a faint smile. In spite of all his concerns and worries, there were two huge threads of adrenaline coiling their way through his system. First and foremost, he had a chance to make things right: he had a chance to bring Kanmi home. Second . . . he had to admit it. He’d gotten somewhat used to sitting at his desk. Moving up to the commander’s office had at least finally gotten him one that wasn’t too small for his frame. But the concept of finally getting back out in the field was exciting . . . and a little frightening, at the same time.

  He’d kept as fit as he could. The daily run had become a daily jog, and, in the last year, a daily walk. He still sparred with Trennus, and he could hear all the younger agents muttering in baffled amazement, How does a man pushing sixty move that fast? and always corrected them, immediately, I’m not fast. I’m smooth. Smooth is better than fast. Fast is sloppy. Smooth is precise. Get fast out of your heads. But even that was taking its toll. He’d broken an ankle last year, a finger this year, and he just didn’t heal as quickly anymore. I’m good for one more stand. I have to be. There’s no one else who can use this gun. And I have to bring Kanmi home for Min, and his children, and his grandchildren. And, damn it all, for the rest of us. We’re all less without Esh the Bastard around.

  Sigrun opened the window, slipped the insect screens out of the way—a mesh made of finely-extruded metal—and jumped onto Niðhoggr’s back. She’d told Adam many times that she didn’t like experiencing the Veil directly, but since the dragon had . . . adopted her . . . the Odinhall no longer used its interface to pull her to them. She turned and waved, and Adam, half-heartedly, waved back. He almost wished he could fly with her, but after having seen what had happened to Erida’s fully-human servants on being pulled through the Veil? Adam would really rather pass. Though he did have an itch of curiosity about Trennus’ dream-realm there.

  He accepted a cup of coffee from Trennus, and called Marcus Livorus, and be damned to the early hour. He started pulling strings. Got in touch with the Legion forward command where Rig’s unit was stationed, and informed them that he needed one of their assets, but that it was a volunteer mission, and that he needed to speak with Rig Lokison on a secure line. That took a couple of hours to arrange; in the meantime, Marcus Livorus had apparently driven to the Imperial Palace in Rome, and requested an audience with the Imperator. That got Adam the phone call he needed . . . and the authorization to pull any and all assets he needed. “I don’t think having an entire legion at the ready is going to do me any good. I don’t even know the eventual location of the ritual anyway,” he said, crisply. “The situation’s developing, but so long as I have a satellite phone and the authorization to get people on the scene when everything . . . transpires? I hope that’ll be enough, sir.”

  He looked at a calendar after he hung up, and swore. Half a solidus says this is all scheduled to happen on the equinox. Martius 21 this year.

  Sigrun found herself flying over Burgundoi in very short order. Jerusalem was ten hours ahead of this port city on the Pacifica, so she went from dawn in one city, to about eight post meridian in the other. Nith’s dark wings caught the moonlight, and she looked down, seeing hundreds of motorcars on the roads, as people moved from restaurants and shops and cinema venues and gladiatorial fights and concerts to their homes, or from their homes out to other locations. “All right, let’s get this over with,” Sigrun told the dragon. At least when they just summoned me across the world, I flew through the interface they created for me, and I appeared in the construct room. With Nith . . . well, at least I can land on my own. “Thank you for the ride,” she told him, politely, as always, and started to lift herself free of his back.

  Nith turned his head, hissed in amusement, and dove. Sigrun clutched the beast’s neck, reflexively, remembering all too well the pain the last time she’d let herself be torn free. It wasn’t even remotely the same rate of speed; her mind understood that. Instinct and memory wouldn’t let her fingers or arms loosen, however, until the beast’s feet hit the stairs at the front of the Odinhall. The people still streaming in and out of the main doors, even at this hour of night, scattered out of the way, shouting and pointing at the dragon. And, at her, too, as she dismounted. Sigrun grimaced and muttered, “Showoff.” Going up the steps to the lobby doors, however, she paused, struck, turning back to regard Nith. “Wait. The first time I met you, you were in the construct room.”

  Nith reared his head, and she stared up at him, crossing her arms across her chest, trying not to be aware of the ring of faces and bodies around them. “You could have exited the Veil right in the construct room. Why did you not do so?”

  He snorted. “What, we didn’t have an appointment?”

  Hissing laughter, and then he launched himself skywards again, and Sigrun headed for the main doors, resigned to the fact that Nith, after two thousand years as Hel’s lackey, had clearly decided that he was not about to be banished to the shadows again now that Hel was dead. Or perhaps, he’d decided that he wasn’t going to let Sigrun lurk there, herself.

  She hadn’t actually been in the construct room since being taken off the Northern War in 1973; though she’d dutifully reported in when Loki had appeared to Fritti at Rig’s wedding, and the content of the message he’d left for her. She hadn’t received any response, nor had she expected one. She’d reported, previous to that, the true nature of her sister’s visions, and her new understanding of the distinction between Apollo of Delphi and Apollo of Rome. That had gotten her a polite thank-you note, in Dvalin’s luminous rune-writing which had radiated light off the page. She’d tucked that away in a drawer somewhere, under a pile of travel receipts from the Praetorians to hide the unearthly glow.

  Now, Dvalin looked up from his desk, which for her, seemed to hover above a cloudbank. You’re expected, Sigrun Stormborn, the dwarf greeted her without preamble. Tyr, Odin, and Freya. Quite an audience. Mind your manners. We don’t need any more thunderstorms in the area.

  Sigrun tilted her head to the side, but after a moment, realized that the dwarf was teasing her. It seemed odd, given the gravity of the situation. Then again, how much time really passes in the construct room?

  About as much as passes in your friend’s ‘Garden of Continuity,’ Dvalin answered her unspoken thoughts, calmly. We’re all rather fascinated. A mortal, building a constructed realm in the Veil. Never been done before. I’d personally like to visit, if he’d give me permission. You will ask him, won’t you? I like to see how other people have surmounted the technical challenges I encountered in designing this place with Odin.

  Sigrun blinked, rapidly, as her worlds collided inside of her head. After a moment, flummoxed, she replied, “I will ask him if he, Asha, and Sari might be inclined to receive you as a guest.”

  Do. Dvalin was nothing if not succinct at times. Ah. They’re ready for you. Second door on the left, Freya’s work room. You know the way.

  Sigrun looked up as a series of doors appeared in the clouds, sighed, and flew to the correct one. She did, indeed know the way. Several years of Freya’s training had ensured that.

  Now, in Freya’s chambers, with the smell of apples and apple blossoms suffusing the air, she made her report, and braced herself. So many mortals having the same, or similar thoughts, Odin said, contemplatively, as his two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory, begged morsels from his hand, which he gave to them out of a covered bowl on Freya’s table. The world is rife with envy in this modern era. Always those who have some little power, wanting more. Those with no
power, craving it. I begin to wonder, if we should all withdraw from this world, as the god of Abraham has. With less power in the world to be envious of, to crave, people might turn aside from their self-destructive paths.

  Sigrun looked up where she stood at the center of the room, back straight and internally quavering, but did not answer. Speak your mind, daughter, Tyr told her. His avatar perched on one of Freya’s many chairs.

  “I think that if the gods departed tomorrow, and took all the god-born with them, there would still be magic in the world,” Sigrun said, slowly, wanting to bite down and keep the words behind her teeth forever. “If you took with you all seiðr, all magic, all the people who understand the uses of cosmic strings . . . ley . . . .” She paused. “Even without a single scrap of magic in the world, the people left behind would still want more. Crave power. They would still fight wars. The base reasons would remain: land, resources, power, and politics. Only the weapons would be different. Not the motivations.” Sigrun looked down at the ground. The words felt shameful, but as far as she could tell, they were true.

  There was a pause, and Tyr said, almost mildly, You wish to aid your friend?

  “Yes, æðeling. Very much so.”

  You understand that if you go, you must go without our imprimatur, and without our assistance? We are not permitted to interfere directly in the lands of other gods, nor to meddle with those who are bound to them. This is one reason why the issue of Tlaloc was so delicate. The issue of Inti was less so, because . . . so few of his brethren remained afterwards, and Mamaquilla feels bound to you and yours, for your assistance. Tyr was making a careful point here, Sigrun understood.

  Going to Mamaquilla for assistance with your . . . condition . . . was not apostasy, Freya said, plucking an apple from a bough over her head in her sunlit room. You wished not to be indebted. To stand on your own feet and use your own resources. I am not offended, though I was a little, at the time.

  Apostasy, the state of one who had left one faith for another, or who had been bound by one god, and now was bound by another, was considered akin to mortal treason under ancient law. An apostate was niðing. Honorless. Worthless. Dead in every way besides that of the body. There were young people in New Gothia who were looking to marry young Judean men and women. People they’d grown up with, met at work, socialized with, and so on. In order to marry into a Judean family, many were told that they were required to convert, or would, at least, have to see their children brought up in a faith not their own. In ancient times, they would have been cast out by their families and shamed, every face turned from them, every hand of their erstwhile community turned against them. Rome’s laws permitted people the freedom to change their religions, and strongly discouraged the subject nations of the Empire from enforcing the old apostasy laws. Sigrun, however, shuddered at the thought of being considered a traitor to her gods, and reflected, grimly, that Kanmi might well be hunted down by the rest of the Carthaginian gods if and when they were able to save him. Sophia’s words chanted through Sigrun’s mind: I know it’s no comfort, but when he dies in 1987? He’ll die saving you. All of you.

  Hel, Odin added, his tone sorrowful and angry at once, making Sigrun start sharply, argued that Reginleif should have been the one sent to Tawantinsuyu. Of course, her argument has been revealed as self-motivated. She wished that a valkyrie bound to her had gone to . . . acquire what she could, and bring the energies back for Hel to feast upon.

  Sigrun shifted minutely. She strongly thought that Hel’s plan would have been a great disappointment to the goddess, had she known ahead of time what was going on in Tawantinsuyu, and been able to send Reginleif in Sigrun’s place. I would wish the pair of them joy of the headaches and the periodic bouts of double-vision that are Supay’s bequest to me except that one is dead and the other banished from this universe. I would have given it to them, freely, if either had asked, and if it were possible to excise this, like a tumor, from my head.

  Freya’s head had snapped up; Sigrun could see it out of the corner of her eye, and did her best to sublimate her rebellious thoughts. For a terrible instant, she thought Freya would speak, but the goddess settled back, and began to cut the apple in her hand with a knife that looked to be made of moonlight, so fine it was.

  And then there was Loki. Tyr’s voice was sad. One of our own, and we misjudged him. I, the aspect of justice, misjudged him. But we could send our own, to tend to our own. In the lands of the Carthaginians, you will be our agent, but not our hand. As you have been before.

  Sigrun nodded, a surge of relief coursing through her. They would permit her this. She could stand with the others. She could stand with her friends. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  There was a long pause. They had not yet dismissed her, but neither did they speak. Sigrun swallowed, and to her surprise, words fell out of her mouth. “May I . . . may I ask a question?” she asked, and swallowed a little at her own temerity.

  Have I not always taught that being able to ask the question is a sign that you are likely ready to know the answer? Tyr replied, his tone still mild.

  Sigrun nodded rapidly, her eyes still downcast. “How can Apollo of Delphi’s forward-memory be so clear—so horribly, terribly clear—but your own vision of the wyrd before us all, be so . . . tangled?”

  She could feel them all exchanging glances. A good question, Odin said, and he tapped at the patch that covered his missing eye. I can see much, valkyrie. But I do not see what Apollo of Delphi will see in the year in which your sister has spoken. He exists both in the Veil and outside of it, at all times, because he is two-in-one: Apollo of Rome and Apollo of Delphi. I exist in only one place at a time. I prefer this. I prefer to be singular, and not dual or tripartite. It limits me, but I am stronger for being one, and not many. I see many signs leading to a great war, valkyrie. But I do not see an outcome, or an end. My vision merely goes blank in a time of fire and blood, and then . . . black feathers, dancing on the wind. A face, and I know I must go with that being, or everything I have ever fought for will be for nothing. The god accepted a slice of apple from Freya, and bit into it with every sign of enjoyment. Most of us are not as forward-looking as I am. Loki was, but he is lost to us. And the Norns’ vision has become confused. They see every future doubled now, or even tripled, with differences for many individuals. And they were forced to admit that even their ancient prophecies are now suspect, in the wake of Loki’s . . . disappearance.

  Tyr nodded. All I see is darkness and blood. Pain. A taste of metal in my mouth, and the sensation of a hand, taking mine? And being carried. His tone was calm and stark. We are as blind in this matter as mortals are, daughter. And thus, we must make our decisions as mortals do: by virtue of our knowledge at this time, and based on our judgment.

  And then we must hope that we have chosen correctly, Freya added, and handed a slice of apple to Tyr.

  Sigrun’s stomach roiled, and she wanted, desperately, to find someplace safe to vomit, away from this shining set of rooms. She forced her gorge down, and shook, quietly, wishing she had never asked the question.

  Odin and Tyr stood to leave, and still, Sigrun had not been dismissed. She winced, internally. This was not unlike being a servant to two masters. She knew what duties she owed Tyr; she understood his service perfectly. It was part of her. Freya, on the other hand . . . she owed the respect due a goddess of her people. She owed her respect, and a debt of gratitude for teaching her how to suppress the accursed othersight—though not nearly completely, a voice whispered rebelliously at the back of her mind. The truth was, she didn’t know how to comport herself with the goddess. Freya wasn’t Tyr. She was far more unpredictable.

  Freya cut the last slices from the fruit, and laid them on a golden plate before her on the table. Setting the knife down, she sat back at her ease, the core still in her hands. Three years in the northlands, trying to retake our people’s home from the grendels, the ettin, the lindworms, and the mad, she said, mildly. Did you ever wonder, valkyrie, wh
y we kept you there so long?

  “I considered myself privileged to be serving three months on, a week off,” Sigrun replied, staring straight ahead. “Most of the Imperial forces served six or nine months at a time before rotating away for a year. And the jotun and the fenris served unstintingly.”

  Of course they did. They were fighting for their home, in their home. Freya’s eyes were wide and calm as she toyed with the apple core. The smell made Sigrun’s mouth water, and she realized she hadn’t had anything to eat since the telephone rang at three-thirty antemeridian. But I specifically requested for you to be kept there. I wished to ensure that you would be tested to your limits. I wished to force you to use the gift of seiðr within you. You used it, to the letter of my commands, on the fenris that you found, and any mad jotun you happened to find. But even when faced with nearly impossible odds . . . as if deliberately flouting me . . . you insisted on using nothing but that with which you were born. I would know why, valkyrie.