Much to his surprise, Adam’s two sisters were hovering near, and the older of the two shyly handed him his kilt—they’d put it in the dryer for him, apparently. “Ah, thank you,” Trennus told them, testing the fabric. Good enough. Shouldn’t damage the books. He tossed it in, as well.
“You’re really a summoner?” the younger one asked, her eyes wide. She’d taken some time, in the past couple of hours, to go put some Egyptian kohl around her eyes, and had reddened her lips with Hellene lip-gloss. Even her cheeks were a little pinker now. Trennus thought it a rather odd reaction to the disaster zone outside, but he thought she might be afraid to be caught on camera by the news crews without having primped a little first. “I’m Chani, by the way. No one’s settled down to give any proper introductions at all.” She dimpled up at him.
The older sister cleared her throat. “And I’m Rivkah. Please excuse my sister’s forwardness.” She tipped her head to the side. “But . . . yes. I never thought I’d meet a summoner who was . . . one of the good guys.” Her Latin was excellent, while her sister’s was more heavily accented.
Trennus grinned, not offended at all. “You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve heard that from Adam.” He tightened the strings on his bag and tied them off, carefully. “As I keep telling him, knowledge is neither good nor bad. It’s the ends to which it’s turned that make it so.”
Chani regarded him, smiling a little. “So, because you’re a good summoner, you don’t deal with demons. Like that one out there.” She pointed vaguely towards the front of the house. “You don’t deal with gehenna and the fallen angels.”
Trennus blinked, and sighed. “Look, I’m the first to admit, I don’t know much about your religion, but the first thing to understand about summoning is that it . . .” he looked up at the ceiling, “both does and doesn’t have anything to do with religion at all. All spirits come from the same place, the same realm. The Veil, as we’re taught to call it. Beneficent, malefic, elemental, or disinterested. All the same place. Some of them started off bad, some of them started off good, and some of them . . . we’ve made malefic or beneficent, over the centuries. Because they’re . . . reactive to the people who summon them. We shape them, and they shape us. All bargains go both ways.” He saw Chani’s eyes go vague, but Rivkah’s stayed sharp and focused.
“So you’re saying that demons don’t come from gehenna?” Rivkah asked him, straight-forwardly enough. “That’s not what we’re taught.”
Trennus held up his hands, palms out. “I’m not here to tell you what to believe, or what not to believe. I’m just saying that every spirit I’ve ever spoken with has told me the same thing. They all come from the same realm. That creature out there comes from the same exact realm as my bound spirits. Your religion’s, ah, demons . . . might come from some other place.” He tactfully stepped around the topic. “Most people use the term demons to mean a malefic spirit, of any sort. It’s a fuzzy term.”
Rivkah advanced a couple of steps into the room, drawing Chani in her wake. “So . . . you mostly work with good spirits then?” she asked, hopefully. “Angels, I suppose?”
Trennus winced internally. This was the problem with dealing with people who had a limited frame of reference in these matters. Behind the two girls, he could see Kanmi in the hallway. Leaning against a wall and laughing, silently. “Again, I don’t know much about your angels,” Trennus replied, mendaciously. “But by and large, I bargain with beneficent and elemental spirits. Malefic ones, I wrestle with, bind, and try to push back out into the Veil.”
Two sets of blinks, and Chani asked, putting a hand on his arm, very lightly, “You wrestle with demons, then?”
Trennus looked down at her hand, a little uncertainly, but neither pulled away, nor reciprocated. These were Adam’s sisters, and it was probably just a friendly gesture. “I try to avoid it, if it’s not absolutely necessary. And most of the time, it’s a question of will, not physical strength. Though, yes, I’ve had to fight them physically before today.” His eyes widened a little more as Chani got just a little closer now, but there was still about a foot of space between them. It wasn’t improper.
“Are all the markings on your skin for your, ah, angels, then?” Little flicks of her eyes under the kohled lids.
Trennus pulled his arm back now. Being touched by a woman felt . . . damned nice. Probably a little too nice, to be honest. “Ah, no. They’re all to do with my family and my tribe in Britannia. The bears on the forearms are for my clan. The serpents on the wrists mean I apprenticed with a ley-mage. They’re for wisdom. My father wears them with wings—as dragons, really—to show, well, his rank.” He avoided the word king like a plague. “The others were done at various points. When I became an adult. The stag on my back is part of my bargain with one of my spirits, but that’s not always the case. She’s also the spirit of our forest, so other people wear her image, too.” He shrugged.
“So, what does bargaining mean?” That from Rivkah, a little more pragmatically.
“Usually, it boils down to an exchange of services or energies. Little sacrifices, little tasks. The more limited the bargain, the more limited the task: give an offering of something of value to you and the spirit that has energy in it. Some spirits like libations of wine. Some like sugar. Some prefer the burning of sweet-scented oils. Burning is often favored because they can draw the energy directly into themselves.”
“Burning oils?” Chani asked, blankly. “Like olive or sesame oils in the Temple?”
Oh, gods, she’s ahead of the curve and doesn’t even realize what she just said. “Almost exactly,” Trennus replied, plastering a smile on his face. “The bigger the bargain, the bigger the service you need to perform. One of my spirits asks me to go home to Britannia once a year to hunt and kill a deer in her forest, so that she can partake of its blood and its life, and so that I stay bound to her forest, even though we travel all over the world.”
Slow nods. This was a familiar concept. “Like sacrificing a ram or a heifer,” Rivkah supplied. “That’s why dealing with spirits is frowned upon. It’s a perversion of sacrifices made to god.”
I wouldn’t say that, Lassair told them, as the phoenix leaped off the lamp on which she’d been perching, and landed on Trennus’ shoulder. I would call it a matter of scale. The gods are the sharks and whales, the leviathans that swim in our sea. But every creature of the Veil is a fish.
“You don’t exactly look like a fish,” Chani said, taking a step backwards, though Rivkah stayed precisely where she was, lifting her chin a little defiantly.
I could look like a fish if I chose, but I was speaking metaphorically. I cannot tell you what the other side of the Veil is like. Your minds do not understand a world without dimensionality, physicality, and time. If I put an image in your minds of that place, your senses would scream at you and try to render it comprehensible, but no two people would generate the same understanding. It is impossible. Lassair’s tone was calm, but there was a hint of challenge there, too, and Trennus didn’t understand why. Now she added, You seem uncomfortable with my phoenix form. I am fond of it, but here. Let me try another.
Don’t forget the clothing! This isn’t the baths in Rome.
Of course I won’t forget. Her thoughts were for him alone, he knew, as he felt arms encircle his waist from behind, and glanced down, a little apprehensively, to see a light ridge of flaming feathers extending up from the forearms . . . and a head worm its way under his right arm. Red hair this time, almost as dark-toned as a ruby. You see? Neither fish nor fowl nor beast. I am who I am, and nothing more.
Rivkah had pulled her hand away from Trennus’ arm as if burned when Lassair assumed her harpy-like humanoid form. Trennus cleared his throat. “Ah, so . . . welcome to Magic and Theology 101,” he said, wincing. “The biggest and most powerful spirits ask for sacrifices that are less tangible. More abstract. They ask for . . . mental effort from large groups of people. Adherence to certain principles. Codes of behavior. Routine, even daily sacri
fices—not eating certain foods, for example, to bind the group together, and to the spirit.”
Rivkah’s eyes widened. “That sounds like they think they’re gods.” She sounded absolutely horrified by that thought.
Behind them, Kanmi actually choked on his laughter. “Stop that,” Trennus told Kanmi. “They’re getting it in ten minutes, rather than spread out over the course of an entire semester.”
“Oh, I’m aware. I’m aware that usually, they’d have been handed an entire reading list to plow through, and the smartest students would notice that every single religion has sacrifices to make, and ninety-nine percent of those sacrifices are exactly the same things that spirits request in their bargains with summoners. These two are getting a passing grade, though the existential horror in first-year sorcery students is always . . . oddly fun to watch.” Kanmi grinned from the hallway, just as Lassair tightened her arms around Trennus further. “The correct answer for your term paper, ladies, is ‘gods dwell beyond the Veil. Therefore, they are a type of spirit. Everyone can and will disagree on how long they’ve existed, and whether or not they created the physical world, but you can’t argue with the fact that humans deal with gods in precisely the same terms as they deal with spirits.’”
“Well, pagan gods can be spirits,” Chani said, uncertainly, her head whipping back and forth between Kanmi and Trennus. “Not ours.”
Kanmi nodded, smiling faintly. “I’m sure that’s true,” he told her, cheerfully, just as Trennus grimaced and made a stop now gesture behind the girls’ backs. “I wouldn’t think more about it, if I were you.” He looked at Trennus, and raised his eyebrows at Lassair, who immediately resumed her phoenix form, flapped to Tren’s shoulder, and tucked her head under her wing. “Ben Maor passed the word. We can finally get out of here. You packed?”
“Have been.” Oh, gods, just get me out of here before I get in any more trouble.
“Then let’s proceed to the getting the fuck out of here part.”
___________________
With the reporters having been cleared to the far end of the street, and with the several overturned cars and the very large demonic statue finally hauled out of the way, they were able to get their motorcade back up and rolling. The red and blue flashing lights of the gardia vehicles moved off first, trying to draw the media away, and Adam watched as Poppaea’s lictors, red-eyed at the loss of one of their own, moved Livorus’ and Kanmi’s children out to the cars. The youngest ones didn’t wake up as they were buckled into their seats.
Sigrun wasn’t even limping as she and the others formed up around Livorus himself, and got him back to his vehicle. “Onwards,” Livorus told them. Even his voice was deathly tired at this point.
The regional governor’s mansion was ancient. It had been built during the last Roman occupation, and had been maintained as a center of governance for about five hundred years; now, it served primarily as an embassy, and the position of governor of Judea was largely an in-name-only title. The building, still, had been updated frequently over the centuries. It had both electrical generators and ley-taps internal to it, one as a backup for the other—a rarity in this region. The palace had its own well, to avoid dependence on the local water supply . . . and it had Roman legionnaires and Praetorians from all across the Empire to guard it. This was as secure as they could get. It just smacked of forting up, and the whole point of this expedition was to look as if they weren’t here for any important reason at all.
Once their vehicles got through the gates, Adam got a good look at the JDF troops with assault rifles patrolling the outside perimeter, and could feel the crackle of heavy enchantments in the air inside, not to mention the grim faces and tight professionalism of the legionnaires who formed up around the vehicles in their camouflage uniforms. He exhaled deeply for the first time in what felt like hours. “Thank all the gods,” Trennus muttered, as they got everyone into the building itself.
Adam gave him a droll look. “I couldn’t help but overhear your little dissertation earlier. You still believe in gods, even though they’re effectively spirits?” He’d decided not to say a word to Trennus about his sisters. Tren had acted perfectly properly with both.
Trennus blinked, rapidly, and shook his head, as if rattling his brain back into place. “Yes. They exist. No one actually knows how old they actually are. They might well predate humanity. And I’ve done my fair share of bargaining with them.” He grinned, briefly, but without humor, a bleak look settling into his eyes. “No, Adam. I believe in them. Any sane man would, in this world. Whether they’re the most powerful spirits there are, or the genuine creators of humanity . . . they’re here. And so are we.”
With all of their protectees safely in their beds, Adam knew he should be seeking his own. Every time he closed his eyes, however, he saw the events of the last day behind his closed lids. The efreet reaching up to the sky, the fires and smoke emerging from the hotel in its wake. The pazuzu landing opposite his childhood home, atop a roof that had belonged, years ago, to a family that had had three children . . . all around his age. Aharon, Ayelet, and Daniel. He’d been trying not to think, all night, if their parents still owned that house. Not to let himself imagine that they had been the ones running out the front door, while Sigrun had been distracting the huge creature that had crashed through their ceiling. He’d seen people. A few children. Probably too old to be the offspring of his old playmates, but . . . he could have asked his parents if the ben Keshet family still lived there. He hadn’t. He didn’t want to know, not today. Tomorrow . . . maybe. But not today.
His mind ground on relentlessly, showing him Sigrun landing against the hydrant with bone-shattering force. The pazuzu’s tail lancing through the car’s windshields and almost touching his sternum. Kevlar armor or not, he didn’t think he’d have survived that.
Usually, he was much better at calming his mind and sleeping, no matter what happened to be going on. But there were too damned many unknowns, at the moment. The Chaldean emissary had been shot. Ghul were being raised in the streets. All the things that Jerusalem was supposed to be clear of. All the things for which the Wall existed to protect the rest of Judea. And, of course, the constant background irritant that was his family. Adam swore under his breath, stood, pulled on his clothes, and went for a walk.
He found Kanmi pacing around on one of the balconies, much to his surprise. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Adam asked.
“Shouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but you have a wife here . . . .” Adam trailed off, at the cynical flick of Kanmi’s eyes.
The sorcerer shrugged. “Part of me can’t sleep, for thinking of what could have happened to them. I think I’d get past it and go to sleep, but Bastet wants to know, all of a sudden, about my entire career, and she’s apparently pissed at me. I’m not entirely sure why. It’s not like I’ve ever hidden what I am.” He shrugged again, and stared down into the darkness. “Get this. She’s angry that I didn’t tell her I had a field medic certification.” Kanmi raised his hands. “She’s a doctor, yes, but it’s not like this would have made for dinnertime conversation. ‘I had to amputate two legs and set three broken arms in the past six months on the Mongol border. How was your day?’” The sorcerer’s voice was acerbic.
“Sounds like that’s just standing in for everything else she’s mad about.” Adam shrugged himself now. He was no expert, but sometimes, people said they were angry about irrational things when the things they were really angry about were too big to be easily summed up.
“Oh, probably.” Kanmi exhaled. “I told her not to come on this trip. I told her . . . at least once a day, sometimes twice, that this was a bad idea. I couldn’t tell her why it was a bad idea. So now, I suppose, it’s my fault that she’s here, the children are here, and I apparently didn’t tell her it could be dangerous.” He shrugged, and pointed at the eastern horizon. “Sun’s starting to come up.”
“So it is.” Adam stared at the thin line of gold there, and there was silence f
or a long moment.
“You’ve got an . . . interesting family, ben Maor.”
“Tell me about it. There are reasons I haven’t been to Judea in three years. I spent last Passover in Rome, at a tiny synagogue in the Judean district in the Field of Mars.” Adam shrugged.
“You seem to get better holidays than Carthaginians do. I should convert. All we get is the spring equinox rituals. Which the priests of Baal-Hamon actually stole from the story of Tammuz’s torture and dismemberment and subsequent resurrection every spring, so that the crops will grow.”
“That’s something of a common theme in most religions in this part of the world.”
“I know. Egypt has Osiris being torn apart and resurrected. We have Baal-Hamon as Tammuz. Every year, my children get to make little gods out of bread, tear them apart, dip them in red grape juice to symbolize his blood, and eat the god to be one with him.” Kanmi made a face. “I sometimes think the northern tribes have it a little better. At least they’re just rolling eggs around in the grass to symbolize the return of the sun. It seems a little less . . . on the nose . . . with the whole sacrifice and blood thing.”
Adam snorted a little. “Well, nothing from nothing, like you all keep telling me.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 63
