The Goddess Denied

by Deborah Davitt

  These were all thoughts that occurred to Sigrun later. Right now, she had exactly enough time to catch hold of a metallic scale with one hand as an anchor-point, and then, pivoting on the balls of her feet atop the long, scaly snout, thrust her spear home into the tiny eye.

  The beast roared and shook its head so violently that Sigrun was thrown clear. It flung itself away in a rage of agony, half-charging into the midst of the sorcerers it had been summoned to protect. Niðhoggr shook his head, snarled something that might have been gratitude at Sigrun, and swept by her in the air, tearing at the air with razor-barbed wings to land on the beast’s back, his mouth gaping wide as he clamped down at the back of the creature’s skull, and latched on with all of his limbs. The earth shook again and again as they fought, but now, Nith had the undeniable advantage, and the god-beast could do nothing but exhale vast clouds of green-yellow chlorine gas, and roll in the water, attempting to crush Nith without flipping onto its own back . . . a position from which it could never extricate itself, any more than a turtle could. Short of retreating to the Veil, as Nith could, the beast was trapped. And Sigrun did not see it even attempting to do so. Perhaps it cannot, she thought, dimly, and spun in air, heading directly for where Lassair still struggled with a god.

  The tower’s roof was already missing. Good. For once in my life, a fight in which I can actually use all of my abilities, Sigrun thought, wrapping wind around herself once more to deflect any errant projectiles, and called her spear to her once more. Baal-Hamon’s golden idol, the gaping mouth filled with flames, was easy to recognize. The other, a gold-covered effigy of a featureless man with the horned moon on his brows, was not. Sigrun brought lightning down, directly on that, feeling the iron beneath the gold, both practically an invitation to the levinbolts that coursed down now. I’ll melt the damned thing to slag, Sigrun thought, sweeping in past the fighting pair just as another bolt thundered down from above. Her feet hit the ground, and a flash of memory passed through her. Talking over their godslayer research with Erida. How the ancients had bound their gods to their idols, and then the namtar-demons had destroyed the idols, thus killing the gods. Namtar-demons. Nephilim. Egregori, or watchers, the angels who’d supposedly left Heaven to observe humanity. Her hands, still holding the spear with which she’d killed Supay, were already swinging back, and Sigrun took a step, pivoting and turning for maximum strength and speed, taking the idol’s head off at the shoulders, the steel head of the spear cutting through melting gold and softened iron with ease.

  Finishing her circle, Sigrun flicked the spear to try to clear the slag off the weapon, and watched as Lassair and her opponent paused in mid-battle, a sensation of horror coming from the dark figure. Desecration! the god roared in her mind. His eyes were glossy obsidian orbs, the only visible features in a matte-black face that lacked a nose and mouth. Sigrun winced and set herself, as if to receive a charge. You dare!

  “I am a battle-maiden of Tyr,” Sigrun taunted softly. “You will find that I dare many things. Perhaps you should test yourself against me, instead of against fertility spirits and mortal children.”

  For a split-second, Sigrun realized that she could see panic bleeding from him in swirls of yellow and orange, limning the air around him in othersight. She’d made a habit of blocking othersight as much as possible for seventeen years, but she was being pushed to her limits. She was thus caught off-guard, both by the fear in the god—an unexpected revelation—and by the realization that at the moment, she was open to the influence of damnable seiðr, and immediately tried to close herself down again.

  In that moment, Baal-Samem tried to flee. His shadowy form blurred, and de-manifested, but Sigrun had always been able to see de-manifested spirits, even ones as weak as the lares who occasionally mended her clothing and boots for her. He retreats to the Veil! Lassair hissed, her form settling into that of a woman with fiery wings and taloned hands.

  “Niðing coward!” Sigrun called after the god, hearing footsteps racing up the tower’s stairs, and feeling the ground tremble again as outside, Niðhoggr and the god-beast continued to fight. Masonry toppled outwards, and Sigrun could suddenly see Adam, Trennus, and Kanmi through where a wall had just sheared away, Kanmi blocking the falling bricks from hitting them with a wall made of his will. She could see the seiðr he was using, too, damnably enough, red-gold lines of force, marked out with mathematical precision in the air. Gods, make it stop. Past them, she could see Nith and the god-beast continuing to fight in the lake, black blood slicking the water like oil, while the sorcerers below were clearly gathering together and trying to regroup.

  Lassair swung out one taloned hand and caught the god’s vanishing, evanescent form. Flamesower! Saraid! Do not let him get away! Sigrun’s eyes widened as Saraid suddenly manifested beside Trennus in the form of a full fenris wolf and latched onto the dissipating form as well. Trennus grimaced, reached to his throat for the device Kanmi had made for him, over a decade ago, and a binding circle etched itself into the stone floor around them. “I can’t believe I’m trying to do this,” Trennus said, and Sigrun could feel all three of them pulling, holding the god back, keeping him from entering the Veil.

  Sweat rolled down Trennus’ face, and Sigrun could feel that the sorcerers below were pooling their power. Drawing, heavily, on Baal-Hamon. The world around her was suddenly made of veils of light, connecting . . . everything. Surging lines connecting Kanmi and the other sorcerers to Baal-Hamon, still howling and bound in his idol. Lines of light connecting the other sorcerers to Baal-Samem. Kanmi’s dull red glow, banked down to ash, barely visible at all. Adam’s steelsheen soul, the oiled ice that was Niðhoggr, the double-blue of Minori. The three-fold knot between Trennus, Saraid, and Lassair, forming a triangle that bound Baal-Samem to this world, brown, green, flame-orange. And the shard of fallen night that was Baal-Samem, himself.

  Sigrun raised her spear, uncertainly. Could see the steelsheen form of Adam, raising the golden blaze that was the god-forged weapon, Caliburn. He was almost too bright to look on. “I can’t see him,” Adam said, his voice hesitant. “Even if I aim right, am I even going to hit him?”

  “Can’t . . . hold him . . .” Trennus gritted out.

  Sister, now! Saraid told Sigrun, and, all hesitation gone, Sigrun stabbed with her spear, directly into the heart of the unmanifested god.

  In othersight, her spear didn’t look any different than it ever had. No emanations of power. Nothing that made it special, or marked it as hers, beyond the runes of her name, carved into the shaft. Of course, her spear had been present for the death of Hel, death of Supay, and the banishment of Loki. It was now, very likely, something other than merely a piece of folded steel on a wooden haft. And it was in the hand of a god-born, and that, as she’d remembered while fighting efreeti with Zhi in Chaldea, made a difference.

  It’s not the weapon, something whispered inside her mind. It’s the will of the one who wields it. You are the weapon. And so is your will.

  Her spear caught the god’s heart, and Sigrun had just enough time to see a shard of night explode outwards, a vast black veil suddenly snuffing all the lines of light around her. The darkness blew back in her face like smoke, her entire world suddenly becoming nacreous black. The darkness shuddered, and after a moment, she could see . . . stars. Millions of them, all different colors, as if she were once more riding Nith through the Veil. Why am I seeing this? Am I in the Veil? Did the god drag me there, after all?

  And then she knew nothing more at all.

  Kanmi’s head snapped back, Baal-Hamon screaming in his mind, The bindings! Your masks shatter! I can see you all now, for what you are, foolish mortals, and you are mine! Forcing the god’s voice away, Kanmi incanted out loud, erecting barriers he’d learned how to build on the fly, decades ago. Energy bounced off of him and Adam, and he hoped, desperately, that Min had been able to shield herself in time. Now, Adam jumped to catch Sigrun as his wife toppled forwards, her spear falling out of her hands. “What just happene
d? There isn’t a mark on her!”

  “Your wife just earned the title of godslayer again,” Kanmi gritted out, and probed the area around him with his senses.

  “A lot of energy just hit the local ley-lines, but they’re handling the flow,” Trennus reported. “Not as much as there should be.”

  Lots of grounding points, I suppose. Either that, or Caetia ate Baal-Samem raw and whole. Kanmi nodded, shortly, moving to get a wall between him and the other sorcerers below. He could feel that a vast rush of energy, unsurprisingly, was rippling out from where they stood, the epicenter. What concerned him, however, was the invisible tug-of-war he sensed, ripping tides of energy pulling back and forth between Baal-Hamon and the sorcerers below. “Not good,” Kanmi muttered. “Not good at all.”

  “What do you mean?” Adam asked, lowering Sigrun to the floor as the earth shook once more. His eyes were wild, but he was checking the valkyrie’s pulse at her throat with steady fingers.

  “Every one of the sorcerers besides me was heavily bound to Baal-Samem as well as Baal-Hamon. They were using Samem to mask themselves from Baal-Hamon.” Kanmi ran a hand through his hair. “And now Baal can see them, entirely. He could reach them before, through their binding to him, but . . . now he’s seeing them for what they are.”

  Adam looked up. “Doesn’t sound like a bad thing. He’ll be able to get them back in line that way, right?” But ben Maor shook his head, obviously doubting the words as he spoke them.

  Energy seethed in the air around them now, and Kanmi, shaking his head, began to help, trying to reinforce Baal-Hamon’s will with his own. “Look at it from their perspective,” he said, gesturing intricately as he set up the first spell matrix. “They don’t want to be his anymore than I do. That’s why they set up the masks. So they could stay themselves. So they wouldn’t be subsumed, or consumed.” He poured himself into the spell, trying to redirect the energies around him. The sorcerers were pulling on Baal, trying to consume him; the god was pulling back, trying to assume control of them. “Really, can’t we all just . . . get along?“ Kanmi muttered, sweating, and incanted again. “The power shock of Baal-Samem’s death . . . increased the fracturing . . . in Baal himself.” It was true, too. Kanmi could see visible gaps between the fragments of the god, and it was making the already capricious, ancient deity, that much more . . . unstable.

  “Anything we can do?” Adam asked, looking around, clearly feeling helpless.

  “Kill more of those idi—” Kanmi’s teeth clicked shut as Baal-Hamon asserted control of him.

  No! They are MINE! I will not have them slain. I must consume them. I must draw my energies back from them. They each now have too much. They consume me, and this must not be allowed. I have ever agreed to be divided and to rise again. I have never agreed to be devoured alive. There was arrogance there, but also fear and pain and an almost childish pique. Baal was genuinely terrified of what might happen if he did not contain these sorcerers. He was being bled, and rapidly, and Kanmi tried to redirect the energies, again and again, trying to loop the bonds back to the god, without effect. Baal was beginning to fray.

  Out in the lake, Niðhoggr, still clinging to Dagon’s back, jaws still locked at the base of the god-beast’s skull, had been rocking his head back and forth, savagely worrying at the wound he’d inflicted. The sawing action had slashed through armored scales, flesh, and bone, punching home, here and there, into the brain cavity, but still the battle had raged on. At this point, however, the dragon finally shattered the vertebrae nearest the skull, and severed the massive nerve cord inside. Dagon collapsed into the shallow lake, already blackened with his blood, and Niðhoggr raised his head on his long neck and roared in triumph. Kanmi’s head jerked up at the primal sound, which thundered through the air and the ground alike, resonating in his sternum like thunder. “Oh, gods,” the Carthaginian sorcerer said. Please. Please let all of his power have been locked in his avatar. Let nothing else leak out and enter the system.

  It wasn’t. Kanmi could, distantly, sense all the other sorcerers in the area, including, he hoped, Minori, shielding themselves and those around them as the second blast-wave inside of two minutes hit. The rest of the tower fell around them, leaving them exposed and vulnerable atop a hill of salt that was held together mostly by magic and wishful thinking. “We’ve got to get down from here!” Kanmi shouted to the others, seeing Adam lift Sigrun into a fireman’s carry, immediately, over one shoulder, and then they all slid down the south face of the hill, away from the other sorcerers. The hill wouldn’t provide cover forever, and they were leaving the golden idol of Baal alone at the top of the salt pyramid . . . and the stress fractures in the god’s essence gaped hugely now in Kanmi’s perceptions.

  Stay. Baal’s thoughts whipped through Kanmi’s mind chaotically. You are MINE/they are all mine/in danger/they devour me/they DARE!/need harbor/need refuge/need escape/I will not end this way, this is not a sacrifice, this is THEFT/arrogant mortals, I will rend their souls—

  Kanmi rocked in place as if his feet had been rooted, though Trennus had ahold of his arm and was trying to drag him away. “I . . . can’t . . . .” Kanmi said, through clenched teeth. “He . . . won’t let me go . . . he . . . needs me . . .” Gods damn it all, I never wanted this! All I wanted was to go home!

  Require safety/succor/harbor/body/AVATAR!

  “Oh no you don’t!” Kanmi shouted, and put every ounce of stubborn will he’d ever had into resisting as the full force of at least half of Baal-Hamon’s divided, fractured awareness crashed into his mind. Useless. Pitiful. I’m just a sorcerer, and he’s a god. An old god. A very old god.

  A memory, over fifty years old, surfaced. Being held down beneath the water by his brothers, his lungs burning with the need to breathe. It had been just as hard then, to cling to consciousness. It had been just as hard to fight against an infinitely superior force. I will not give in, I will not give up, I will not give in, I will not give up, I will not give in, I will not give up . . . . Minori’s face flickered in his mind, and Kanmi clung to that, too, old, young, in between. Masako’s. Bodi’s. Himi’s. I will not give in! I will not give up! “Adam!” Kanmi shouted, managing to wrest control of his tongue back, as energy and consciousness poured into him like the sea, drowning him. “Adam, shoot the idol! Shoot it! Shoot it now, before he takes me!”

  Adam ben Maor spun. He could see the sun looking at him out of Kanmi’s eyes, the dark irises now two blinding chips of light too bright for him to meet. “Shoot it!” Kanmi shouted, cracks forming in his skin, as a consciousness too large, and too fragmented, in itself, attempted to cram itself into his body, the only wholly-prepared vessel that the god had available as Baal-Hamon tried to save himself from being consumed. “Shoot it!”

  Adam slid Sigrun’s unconscious body to the ground, lifted Inti’s god-touched weapon in his hands, squinted a little . . . and found center-mass on the idol on the hill above them. Fired, double-tap.

  The idol had been lit from within by hot coals for over an hour; the iron inside was soft already, and the tears of the sun lanced through it, tearing the idol in half.

  Baal-Hamon, already fragmented, already torn between some sixteen points of contact, and bereft of the place into which the bulk of his vast essence had been contained . . . sundered. The salt pyramid by which they crouched shattered, white blocks shearing off its sides. Cracks appeared in the ground beneath their feet, and water from the lake began to pour through them, channeling away. Wave after wave of power buffeted them, but Lassair had her hands on Adam and Trennus’ shoulders, and Adam, on his knees by Sigrun, felt oddly comforted by that fact. Could feel her warmth stealing into him as she directed the energies away from their fragile, mortal bodies. The earth rocked and rocked, and Adam didn’t want to take a chance on standing, but looked up, and saw that the sky above had changed color. I’m standing on Mars, he thought, or as close to it as I’ll ever get. It’s a red sky.

  After about five minutes, the worst of the tremors seem
ed to be over, and Sigrun, thankfully, had managed to sit up, and though her eyes were dazed, and her expression vacant, she’d somehow managed to summon her spear back to her hands. That’s my girl. Never stop fighting.

  Kanmi turned, and Adam was stunned to see that he still had sun-shards in place of his eyes. It was worth a try, Kanmi told them all. Adam didn’t realize, until much later, that the words had been in his mind. Too much Baal. Too many of them.

  Adam shook his head in incomprehension, and Kanmi lifted a hand, pointing back, over his shoulder. The others weren’t prepared for this. His voice was strained, and he had to close his sun-bright eyes for a moment. They expected Baal-Samem to help protect them. They expected all their spell constructs to hold, and let them manipulate the power at a distance.

  A wave of concussive force hit the remains of the salt pyramid, and Adam could hear Niðhoggr roar in sudden pain and outrage on the other side of the hill. Kanmi did nothing more than raise a hand, and a dome of visible force appeared over them all, and the salt chunks rattled off the barricade. He opened his eyes once more. They’re going mad. I can . . . barely hold the part that’s in me . . . I think I may have gotten more than they did . . . but then, they weren’t fighting it. They wanted it. And now, it’s eating them alive. Kanmi sounded dazed. I can hear it. I can hear their minds buckling under the fragments of Baal’s personality, and all that power.