And then, the impossible happened. What looked like a shooting star descended from the heavens in a white blur, and landed on Sotiris, slamming him into the ground. The leader didn’t even have a chance to scream. There was just a whump of impact and a whuff of expelled breath, followed by an oddly liquid crunch.
The two centaurs kicking Nikolaos were facing more or less the same direction as he was; they stopped moving. The two holding the woman’s battered body in place froze. And Nikolaos could now, dimly, make out that it wasn’t a meteor at all, as whatever had landed on Sotiris straightened up, resolving itself into a female form, covered in glowing marks that radiated the only light by which he could currently see. He had a baffling impression of wings at her back, or at least, of feathers, and of a spear in her hands. No words. Just a primal sound of rage, and the woman threw herself at the closest of those holding the captive, still. She became a blur, even as the two beating Nikolaos regained their wits and galloped forwards to defend their fellows.
Blood sprayed. Limbs went flying, then a head. One of his fellows, screaming, began to gallop away, past Nikolaos, his severed arm spurting blood, and a spear came out of nowhere, slamming through his chest to staple his torso to a tree. Too much weight, too much speed; the centaur, arrested in mid-flight by death, sagged limply on the spear’s haft, cracking it. Nikolaos jerked back as blood sprayed across his face, and looked up, dazed. Surely, disarmed, the woman was helpless. Surely now, this unexpected savior would be killed, or treated worse than the captive had been . . . .
Winds howled through the trees, and lightning forked down from the heavens, throwing every figure, every tree, into stark black relief against its brilliance. One of the two remaining centaurs collapsed to the ground, struck by the fire of the gods. The other had managed to get his arms around the woman, and galloped forwards now, slamming her bodily into a tree trunk. Nikolaos could just make out the confusion on his erstwhile companion’s face as the woman’s glowing body dissolved into shadow, moonlight, and wind, and blew through him. He couldn’t believe his own eyes as the woman reformed on the centaur’s back, reached out with glowing hands, and caught the head at the chin and base of the skull, and lifted and turned, just so. A precise, lethal neck-snap . . . or it should have been. There was so much rage and strength behind it, however, that the head unscrewed from the neck, and blood once more sprayed as the . . . goddess . . . screamed and threw the head aside. A wild Bacchant, a vengeful Erinyes.
A second later, and her form blurred into wind and shadow once more, and reformed right in front of him, where he stood, bound and covered in his own blood. Her spear, broken as it was, appeared in her hand, and he was looking down the blade and seeing nothing but death, come in the night, in fury and in vengeance. “Help her,” he said, sagging against the ropes. “Help her, then do whatever you want with me.”
Sigrun blinked. She stared up at the bound centaur, breathing hard as her mind caught up with the rest of her. She had a confused impression of bodies, body-parts, and death. And she had a target in front of her. Half of her mind said, centaur, kill him, kill him now! and the other half held back her hand. She wasn’t even sure at first why her hand was stayed, until she finally registered the ropes. Heard his mumbled words. Then, with a hiss between her teeth, she slashed the ropes with her broken spear, and ran back to her sister’s broken body. Sophia. Gods, Sophia, what have they done to you . . . .
Deathsense pulsed in her. Mortal wounds, for anyone but a god-born, but Sophia had always been physically weak for one of their kind. All of her gifts were gifts of the mind and spirit. But life still, somehow, clung tenaciously in that broken form. Sigrun turned her, gently, trying to see and not see the injuries at the same time. To look with the eyes of a nurse or caretaker, but she couldn’t. Couldn’t look at the swollen, shattered jaw, the missing teeth, the blood. The blood between the legs, the smell of the bowels. She reached out to take the wounds, and was stunned as Sophia actually batted her hand away. A low moan, clearly rejection, and Sigrun started to weep. “I’m sorry, Sophia, I’m so sorry I was late, please, let me heal you—”
“’o.” A hand caught her wrist, with almost desperate strength. “’La . . . air . . . .”
“Lassair?”
“’eth . . . .” The swollen eyes closed, and then a vomiting spasm broke over the injured woman, and Sigrun held her sister up, making sure she wouldn’t choke on the blood and the bile and . . . other fluids she brought up. Wiped her mouth tenderly, and then lifted her up in her arms. Sophia barely weighed anything at all.
She turned, and saw the centaur still there. Holding her broken spear in his hands. She hadn’t even been aware that she’d dropped it. Blood and bruises all over him. He handed her the spear, ducking away, looking . . . shamed. Guilty. But no guilt in him, not for this. Sigrun balanced the spear over Sophia’s body, and managed to put a hand on his arm. Took the worst of the wounds, and told him, harshly, “Call Saraid. You say her Name, over and over, until she answers you. And then she can decide what to do with you. Finish healing you, bring you to Judea. But while you call on her, you had best start walking. You do not want to be here when the bodies are found.”
She turned away, still cradling Sophia and whispered, “Niðhoggr . . . please . . . I need your speed again . . . .”
Wings blotted out the stars overhead. The centaur stared at her, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. “Domina . . . please. May I know your name?”
Why? Your friends didn’t know hers. Bitter thoughts. Unjust ones. He’d been wounded by them, the same as Sophia. “Sigrun.” They call me Sigrun Stormborn. But that’s not a name you need to know.
Nith landed beside her, and she floated up to balance Sophia over his neck, slipping a leg over, herself, holding her sister in place, and urged the dragon into the air. Moments later, they had once more torn through the Veil, and were over the night-spangled city of Jerusalem, coming in for a landing on Shar’abi street. Sigrun was already calling for Lassair in her mind, and the fire spirit burst out of her vine-entwined house in a blur. Latirian and Himi were, thank the gods, right on Lassair’s heels. Lassair needed only one look to make her own assessment. She would not let you heal her, Stormborn?
“No. I think she’s angry with me. And she’s right to be.” Sigrun hung her head, miserably aware that she could have taken all of her sister’s suffering, and healed it. Laid her down on the soft green grass in Lassair and Trennus’ yard, and slipped back, preparing to move away . . . except that Sophia, once more, clutched her wrist in total desperation.
Lassair shook her head, and slipped into Sophia’s body with a faint radiance, just as more people came out of both houses. Adam, moving slowly along the gravel path from their home. Trennus, leaping out the front door now, only to mutter, “Oh, gods, no, what happened?” as he approached. Himi using a small pocket-light to check Sophia’s pupillary action, Sophia jerking away from Himi’s gentle hands with an inarticulate cry, Latirian lifting up the legs, gently, and propping them up, for the moment, with a rolled-up cloak . . . .
Crowd of people all around her. Mostly the Matrugena children. Dim awareness of Nith looking in over everyone’s shoulders. Rain starting to patter down on all of them, though Nith raised his wings to keep them dry. Swarm of horrified questions, and then Adam’s hand closing on her shoulder. Finally, huddling there, as the red-and-blue lights of an ambulance finally arrived, sending the houses into stark relief. Answering, dully, the repeated questions of the gardia and emergency responders. Their disbelief that she’d managed to travel from Germania to Hellas to Judea inside of an hour was mitigated somewhat as Niðhoggr leaned down and impatiently snorted ice crystals on them.
Climbing into the ambulance with Sophia, who still hadn’t let go of her wrist. Himi and Latirian with them, Sophia flinching away from anyone male, even gentle Himilico. Staying with her in the emergency room. Lassair had done the best she could, stopping the internal bleeding. She’d concentrated on the worst damage, firs
t, and Himi told Sigrun, quietly, “Lassair prevented the need for a bowel resection, at least. Sophia won’t be stuck with a colostomy bag for . . . however long it would take her body, as a god-born, to regenerate the intestines. If she can even do so. We’re going to have to get an MRI done, a sonogram—if she lets any of the doctors do it, which . . . considering . . . .” he shook his head.
I can tell them already what the damage is, Lassair said, coalescing beside Sigrun’s shoulder in her human form. The womb is shattered. I might be able to repair it, but considering the other damage . . . it might be best if your science removed it. She gently stroked Sigrun’s loose hair, trying to comfort her, but Sigrun was looking down at her sister blankly. I could regenerate it for her, later, as I helped you regenerate your spine. But . . . the body is the most easily repaired, of all her injuries. You understand that, Stormborn, do you not?
Himi grimaced. “There’s sure to be psychological trauma, but . . . with counseling, maybe from a priestess of . . . Freya or Venus . . . she should be able to recover.” He paused, and looked down at Sophia, who’d finally succumbed to a massive dose of poppy juice. “Shouldn’t she?”
Sigrun didn’t answer. She’d let othersight in, at last, and was horrified at what she saw in her sister’s spirit. All the fracture lines she’d seen before, had magnified and multiplied. There was nothing left that wasn’t shattered. Nothing left at all. This was death-in-life, damnation before the body itself died, and it was all her fault.
Adam took her home, around noon the following day. She fell asleep in the passenger seat, and awoke to realize he was holding the door for her. He couldn’t lift her out of the seat, not anymore. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and managed to stagger into their house. Eyed her broken, blood-stained spear on the floor, and didn’t bend to retrieve it. Sagged down onto a couch, and stared into space until he came over and put his arms around her. “She told me,” Sigrun said, her voice leaden. “She told me, years ago, that I wasn’t going to be in time. And that she . . . forgave me in advance.” Chill tears ran down her face, and she could hear rain slapping at the windows, propelled by a cold wind. “She wouldn’t let me heal her.”
He held her, letting his wife weep against his shoulder, as the storm outside grieved with her. He drove her to the hospital every day, as Sophia’s body began to recover. And then, after that, once a week to the asylum, where Sophia was remanded, when the doctors realized what Sigrun and Lassair already had . . . that the god-born woman’s mind was shattered. She spoke in little rambling scraps of discourse. Sometimes to the person in the room. Sometimes to people only she could see. Always past and future, prophecy and remembrance, commingled. Never about what the doctor was here to talk about. Adam found it even more unnerving than usual to be around her, for she always greeted him with a single word. “Godslayer!” And she never met his eyes. Just looked up, whenever she had to address him, above the level of his head.
They had to keep scissors away from her. The asylum staff had had to stop her from trying to cut out her own genitalia, once, and had put her in restraints after that until Sigrun had been able to get there. Had healed her, and spoken with her. The doctors reported that Sophia was always better, and calmer, when Sigrun was there, than at any other time.
Her only hobby, if hobby it could be called, was painting every corner of her room. She’d covered the walls within a month or two, and moved on to paper. The staff permitted this as a form of therapy. Adam was in particular confused by the papers Sophia pressed into his hand, at the end of one visit, but he looked through them when he got home, and . . . treated them as a kind of code. As if he might unlock the meaning behind the madness.
The first, was an image of a small girl, long, pale blond hair, just hints of red to it, Trying on clothing too big for her as she stood beside a free-standing mirror. Innocence and joy in the loose lines on this page. Then the next page . . . a woman in a black dress loomed over the girl in the next image, the mirror shattered, and the girl’s hands bleeding as she picked up the pieces of glass, tears streaking down her face. Medea? Sigrun broke a mirror when she was a child? This . . . well, it might explain why she doesn’t like mirrors, but I have no idea what it means.
The next series was far rougher in style. Like a crime scene illustrator, or a composite sketch artist, Sophia showed him, in detail, the bodies of five centaurs. One was crushed into the earth, the body shattered. Adam’s eyes narrowed under his heavy brows. He’d seen a lot of dead bodies in the past forty years. This one looked as if a missile had hit it, but failed to explode. Then one of a centaur with both arms lopped off, and missing its head, which had rolled . . . ten, fifteen feet away. Blood splatter clearly marked on the trees around it, and the grass, caught in the moment of collapse. The next, running away, missing half an arm . . . and then impaled by a long spear, thrown as if it had been a javelin—thrown, he knew, because there were lines around it, showing direction and force. Adam’s frown deepened. In all the years he’d fought beside Sigrun, he’d seen her throw the spear twice, that he could recall. The longspear wasn’t designed for throwing, and made a piss-poor ranged weapon. She had lightning for that, or a gun, when she remembered to use it.
The fourth, caught in the moment that lightning slammed down on him from above, his face a mask of pain. The fifth . . . wait. That’s not what a beheaded corpse looks like. She’s showing me muscle fibers. She’s showing me . . . the head’s been torn off? Adam’s eyebrows crinkled over this silent testimony, and encountered the last in this series—a battered, wounded centaur, bound between two trees, as Sigrun freed him. He hadn’t asked any questions when Sigrun had simply told him that she’d killed her sister’s attackers. His wife had killed five or six lindworms singlehandedly once—mostly with lightning, by her own admission—so he’d assumed that she’d done more or less the same thing here. The decapitation . . . that tallied with Sigrun’s normal combat methods. The lightning did, as well. The rest didn’t match her at all. Well, she was emotionally involved. Normally, in combat, she’s very controlled. That’s probably all it is. Though why she never mentioned the sixth centaur . . . who’s bound and injured in this last image . . . I’ll have to ask her. Though I already know what the answer’s going to be: It doesn’t matter.
God damn it, Sig.
Chapter 17: Weathering
The amazing thing about life is its very continuance. In the face of fear, people defiantly go on with their daily lives. In the face of war, people continue to have children and watch them grow up. In the face of destruction, life creates more life. Eastern religions revolve around this balance of opposites, creation and destruction. And yet, some faiths hold that destruction only begets more destruction. I don’t know about that; I’ve never seen a mad god wiped out by raw creation, or even flat-lined, like a sine-wave dampened by an opposing oscillation.
But I do know that I see hope in the face of every young child, in the tight-gripped fingers of young lovers passing in the street. Because while every life is a recapitulation of the evolution of the human race . . . starting off as mindless, mewling creatures, becoming cavemen, and then learning the trappings of civilization . . . each and every person holds within them the potential to extend the curve of our ascent. To continue our journey, both into the future and into the stars.
That is what I say, when people ask me why I think there is still hope for this world. It’s simple, but it’s true. In spite of a number of years spent in gardia work . . . I still have faith in individuals. I still think that, given a choice, the majority of humans will try to do the right thing. Perhaps just out of enlightened self-interest . . . but they’ll at least try.
At least, that’s what I usually say. Days like today? It’s . . . very damned hard to say there’s much hope for the human race, when I see what was done to Sophia Caetia. And I cannot even comfort myself with the idea that centaurs aren’t human. They are. They’re just as human as the nieten and the fenris and the dryads and the harpies and the leonnes
of Carthage.
And that more or less brings me to the question of ‘what is a human,’ which has always been simple for philosophers and scientists to answer before our current day. Humans have always been us. We stand upright, we hairless apes. We have forward-facing predatory eyes and teeth that tear meat as well as teeth that chisel fruit and grind grain. We have opposable thumbs. And we alone of all the animals can think and speak.
But today? With so many other kinds of speaking animals, what is humanity?
The answer is simple. Humanity is a choice. It’s one we make every day. And those who choose not to be human, but embrace only the monster? Well, they give me pause for the future of the world. But they don’t make me fear for humanity. Humanity is the choice of continuance and generativity. Monsters only choose destruction. And should be repaid in kind.
—Adam ben Maor, private journal, Aprilis 11, 1991 AC.
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