“The moving parts don’t require a lot of ventilation in ornithopters, because of the power source. Just lubrication for the rotors and pulleys and everything else.” Adam was proud that the words were coming out as coherent sentences. “What about the people back there?”
“Depends,” Trennus admitted, quietly. “After the initial upwards explosion, there’s usually a pyroclastic flow. That can be magma, but the first thing they’re going to see, I would think, is lahar.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“Water and mud. All those glaciers, Adam. Flash-melted, and coursing down the side of the mountain, tearing the land free. It’ll pass down the sides like an avalanche and a flood combined, burying anything in its wake.” Trennus sounded somewhat ill. “That’ll mix with the ash already on the ground. Harden like cement. The volcano might alternate between tephra and magma for a while, or it might not expel magma at all. Result will still be the same. Everything in the path of the lahar will be entombed. Covered by ash. Or swallowed by magma.”
Kanmi admitted, after a moment, “Not that it’s something I never wanted to see this close . . . but damn if it isn’t beautiful, in a way.”
“Kanmi!” Minori’s voice was shocked.
“If it weren’t for the people in the way, and how close we are to it? Look at it. Look at the way the clouds are forming above us. Look at the way the gases respond to heat and convection. A natural system, chaotic, and ordered at the same time.”
“. . . I’ll admit that there is beauty in the savagery of it, but yes, the people, Kanmi . . . .”
Adam took his eyes off the instruments for a moment, and tried to figure out where on that mountainside the ushnu had been. He thought he saw the glimmer of ley-powered lights in a cluster, about two-thirds of the way up the mountain. “Do you think,” he said, after a moment, “that Mamaquilla will protect her people?” Inti died to protect them, in a way.
Sigrun’s voice rose through the ensuing silence, the first time his wife had spoken since boarding the plane. “I do not know, Adam,” she said, quietly. “She was desolated. She had lost her husband, and they had been together for a very long time. I am sure that part of her would be quite willing to let the world burn. Or at least, that part of it which had contributed to his death.” A pause. “I know I would be.”
Don’t say that, neshama. I know you better than that. You’d keep on fighting. Adam returned his attention to the flight controls.
Lassair’s voice now, quietly, I think she will protect them. In his memory. And will not allow his resting place to be covered over by the mountain’s rage. The spirit’s voice was tired as she went on, She gained much in that place, but she also lost much. She was gravely wounded by Supay. His club drained the life of any it touched, did it not, Stormborn?
“It felt as if my soul were a oyster being pried from its shell,” Sigrun confessed, sounding weary. “I am, however, in better shape than after the fight with Tlaloc. I cannot complain.”
Yes. But Mamaquilla was not a warlike goddess. She was badly injured. Her light almost went out, until her granddaughter gave her the use of her body. Lassair’s tone became poignant. It was a sacrifice of more than flesh.
Adam’s head came up, warily. He’d learned far more in one day about all manner of foreign gods than he’d ever expected to in a lifetime. “Inti said that he rode his host’s body lightly. And I spoke to the god-born whose body he shared, directly.” He checked their course and speed, satisfied that they were travelling at around a hundred and fifteen knots. Still, he didn’t dare get on the radio just yet, and he was doing everything right now with a compass and dead-reckoning.
Correct. Gods can manifest their own bodies . . . as I can do. But I believe it is easier for many of them, if they have a compatible host body.
“Speak the words, Lassair,” Sigrun said, tiredly. “God-born.” She paused. “So what you mean is, because Mamaquilla was so badly injured, Cocohuay needed to give her more than just her body to ensure her goddess survived.”
She gave her life and her spirit, and I do not think more than a flicker of her remains. Lassair’s voice was a dirge, for a moment. But what of her remains, I think, would counsel her goddess to protect their people. They have, after all, midwifed many of them into life.
“There was . . . quite a lot of energy,” Kanmi noted, quietly, after several minutes had passed.
Yes. Lassair hesitated. I think from more than Inti and Supay. I felt much come from . . . without.
“So . . . Mamaquilla absorbed it all?” Kanmi’s tone was distant. Professorial.
I . . . do not think so. But she gained much today, while losing everything she held most dear.
“Kanmi?” Adam said, quietly. “Subject for another time.” He knew precisely where the sorcerer’s mind was headed. The mystery of the missing energy from Tlaloc had taken up a good deal of Kanmi’s thought processes for the past five years. Lassair had obviously been a grounding rod for some of it. Possibly Saraid as well. And Adam knew precisely whom Kanmi considered another candidate for absorption. Adam turned his head, trying to catch sight of Sigrun’s face in the darkened cabin, and, after an instant, realized that she had fallen asleep.
In an ornithopter, no less. I think I’ve just had my flying complimented. Either that, or it’s testimony to her exhaustion.
“Mmm. As you wish.”
The flight back across Tawantinsuyu was long; their ornithopter was a very small model, compared to the commercial air travel models that had taken them here in the first place. Five hours, and Adam only got on the radio halfway through their flight, identifying them merely as a scientific expedition that had been surveying Coropuna’s ley and geologic fields when the mountain had erupted. “I’ve got scientists and engineers aboard,” he said, and looked up. It almost wasn’t a lie.
“You saw the first eruption? Gods, people are going to want to talk to you when you land.”
“I’d like to get clearance for Machu Picchu’s main airfield. Can you get me on the right transponder beacon and tower frequency? I imagine there are a lot of relief flights heading out right now—”
“You have been off the grid, haven’t you? Not as many flights as you’d think. Coropuna’s a pretty remote area, and we’ve had massive earthquakes in Cuzco. Machu Picchu’s actually the best place for you to land right now. The airport at Cuzco’s a madhouse right now. Adjust your course, bearing . . . .”
Adam swallowed, hoped to god that Livorus was in Machu Picchu after all, and adjusted his bearing and speed. He could hear Kanmi behind him in the main area, getting Minori to lie down, stretched out across one of the bench seats, chiding her, gently, “Cocohuay may have healed most of the damage, but then you spent the afternoon in combat casting conditions, and then we all had to run half a mile to the airfield. Lie back, close your eyes, and let yourself rest for a bit. We’ll get you checked out at a hospital as soon as we can.”
There’s going to be a line, from the sound of it. Adam heard a little more shuffling, as Trennus and Lassair curled into each other, trying to sleep, as well.
The weather away from Coropuna had calmed. No more ice, hail, snow, or freezing rain. Just a few prevailing winds from the west, pushing them towards Machu Picchu, as if nature itself wished to hasten their pace. With the flying itself taking so much less of his attention now, Adam had to resist the gray edges of exhaustion that tugged at his eyelids. Easy enough to distract himself. He had a lot to think about.
First and foremost, he’d just killed a god. Again. It’s not like it’s a hobby, had been his half-joking defense every time Kanmi had called him godslayer in private in the past two years. He now carried a weapon he wasn’t sure he could get rid of, that had proven capable of killing a god—admittedly, a weakened god who’d offered himself up in self-sacrifice—but it was still a weapon capable of deicide. The only way, Adam decided, that he wasn’t going to get himself flagged as “too dangerous to be allowed to live” would be to lie his ass off about how Inti had
died. Or at least, just always leave it as “Inti sacrificed himself for the good of his people” and simply omit his own involvement in that, entirely. Sigrun wouldn’t lie. But she might omit, for his safety, and her own, at least to Rome and the Praetorians. To the Odinhall . . . Adam stifled a groan. Maybe that’s why Tyr had no objections to the marriage. He was keeping an agent more or less sitting atop the godslayer at all times, with Sig married to me. Of course, Sig is probably in just as much, if not more trouble now, herself. She took out Supay in single combat. Admittedly, there was an ungodly—hah!—amount of energy in the air. Otherwise . . . I don’t think a valkyrie could do what she did.
From the personal ramifications of what would happen when they reported in, in Rome, to the somber realization that they were going to be lucky to get out of Tawantinsuyu alive. An angry mob, could, rightly, tear them apart for having killed their emperor. How does it feel to be an assassin? Adam thought, grimly, his hands tightening on the controls. We’ll go down in history as that, if any of this ever gets out. God. No. Worse. He cleared his throat, slightly, and murmured, “Lassair?”
He didn’t want to wake her, if she were asleep, but her mind responded, immediately, Yes? Do not fear, Steelsoul. My body rests, but I have learned to divide spirit and body better. You will not fall asleep while controlling this vessel.
“Thanks for that. I was a little worried.” Adam marshaled his thoughts. “You said that more energy than just Inti’s came back to the ushnu, right?”
. . . yes.
“Enough so that perhaps, when the system broke down, each of the entities in the other towers . . .” Adam decided to go back to that word. It seemed safer. “. . . dispersed?”
I think it very likely. Lassair’s tone was sad. There were also the remains of three in the one who bound this land.
“You catch any names?”
Yes. It was difficult, because they were so . . . fragmentary. One had been worshipped by his people under many different names. Three different cultures worshipped him as three different lightning gods, but all were the same creature. Catequil. Apocatequil. Illapa. Lord of Thunder.
“That would explain the lightning.” Adam nodded. “Who else?”
Pacha Camac. An earth-god. And Chasca Coyllur. Maiden-goddess of fertility.
“And the others? The ones in the towers?”
Mamaquilla wailed each name in my mind as the seals broke. Apu, lord of mountains. Kon, lord of rain. Urcuchillay, lord of beasts. Mamazara, lady of grain. We freed a few at Nazca, but they were all . . . lesser names. Lassair paused. I know what you will ask, Steelsoul. And it is true. The only greater god left in Tawantinsuyu is Mamaquilla herself. And yes, I believe she absorbed much of the power of her brother-husband, and the others who died. I am grateful for that. There is no one better suited to protecting and nurturing her people, than she.
Adam struggled with it. Grappled with it. All the dossiers and guidebooks to Tawantinsuyu had spoken of it as a land comparable in spirituality to India or Tibet. Hundreds of gods. Thousands of shrines. To go from that, overnight, into monotheism . . . a devastating social change, and again, it was, in a sense, his fault.
No. It is not. Lassair’s tone was emphatic. All fault accrues to the ones who bound this land, and the people in it.
Explain that to the people who live here, Adam thought, swallowing. He could envision holy wars raging across the entire western half of Caesaria Australis as a result of all of this.
The smell of blood and steel and sweat, mixed with apple shampoo and the hint of warm skin underneath, was his only warning, before an arm wrapped around his neck from behind, and a light kiss brushed his cheek. “Lassair woke me and told me to distract you from brooding on consequences,” Sigrun told him. “Let us leave that to people like Livorus, for the moment.”
“Is there anything else we could have done, Sig?”
“The die was cast before we ever came here.”
“And now you sound like your sister.” Adam felt the ornithopter rock as a buffet of wind caught the wings, and adjusted course. That had actually felt as if the sky had reached out to slap him.
Sigrun slapped his upper arm, without force. “I didn’t mean it in terms of fate, Adam. I meant that when we approached Sayri Cusi, he was already fully committed to this course of action. And that once Livorus spoke to him in such a way that he took offense . . . everything that you and I did, proceeded from that point.”
It would have made no difference, if you three had not gone to the one who bound so many, Lassair contributed. I would still have been a target. They would still have attacked, to try to capture me, so that I might heal the man’s wife.
“I thought,” Kanmi said, sleepily, from somewhere near the back of the ornithopter, “that we’d be waiting on the debriefing till we retrieved Livorus.”
“I’m wondering how we’re even going to do that,” Trennus put it, clearly having awoken. “It might not be a good time to show Praetorian badges. Some of the emperor’s people knew you’d gone with him to Coropuna, Adam.”
“So we go to the Praetorian branch closest by, grab every single officer there, even if it means taking them off disaster relief work—” Adam waved off the chorus of questions that rose at his words, “and get Livorus out of wherever he’s been put. Lassair, you can sense him, right?”
From up to two miles away, yes. He has a bright and distinctive mind.
All right, how do you do that, if gods can’t see the bound servants of other gods . . . .
Livorus is not bound to any particular god. He underwent initiation rites to Mars when he entered the Legion, and he donates charitably to the temples of Jupiter, Mars, and Apollo, but he only attends services once a year or so, when required by his duties in the Senate. He is not blood-bound or soul-bound. He makes . . . limited sacrifices. Lassair paused. The ones that I could not see properly at Nazca, were blood-bound to Supay. They had made sacrifices, human or animal, with their own hands. They were consecrated to him. Bound. Sealed. Their minds were blank to me, I think, because they belonged wholly, to Supay.
Adam blinked, and the ornithopter dipped a little, as they entered a turbulent area. Sigrun scrambled for the co-pilot’s seat, and buckled herself in, even as Trennus groaned, audibly. Adam had rarely entered into individual, mind-to-mind conversation with Lassair. So, out of courtesy, he continued, out loud, “Fair enough. That doesn’t explain why Inti and Mamaquilla said they had a hard time seeing me. I’ve never performed blood-sacrifice in my life.“
“But Lassair can see you.” Trennus put in, and then groaned again as the ornithopter dipped and swayed.
You are a different case, Steelsoul. Your brother? I could barely see him. The same was true of many other people in your land. It was a very quiet place, for me. Few spirits. And thousands of silent minds. Lassair paused. Your people do not sacrifice blood, it is true. Even animal sacrifice is rare in these days. But you make smaller, daily sacrifices, instead of large sacrifices once or twice a year. And all of you perform those sacrifices, not just a handful of priests. You are all sealed to your god. And because the sacrifices are daily, it increases the number of times you think of him, in terms of worship. It binds you more closely, than a human who makes sacrifice a few times a year, and barely thinks of his or her gods in the interim. Your god is very clever.
Adam winced. He wasn’t sure he was entirely comfortable talking about his faith so analytically. “All right. Then you can see me more clearly, than, say, my brother, because I’m not particularly strict in my observances?” He paused. “Actually . . . is that why Tlaloc—” an apologetic look at the others, for using the name, “didn’t seem to pay attention to me?”
In part, perhaps. But you also have a Name, Steelsoul. It rings out in the air around you. I am not sure that even if you performed every sacrifice, daily, with perfect precision, that it would entirely hide you from me. I know that Name. Other do not know that Name. Also, you hold me in affection. That makes a difference
. It opens your mind and spirit to me, in part. Lassair paused. Stormborn is much the same. Her Name rings out. Declares itself, and what she is.
“This is all a conspiracy to get me to go to temple and bow in Baal-Hamon’s direction more often, isn’t it?” Kanmi muttered, and everyone chuckled
You give faith and trust to none. You perform no sacrifices to gods, curry favor with no spirits. You are . . . open to others, yes. And you have a Name, which lights up the air around you.
“And you know what? I’m all right with that.” Kanmi’s tone was cynical. “I’m not going to start bowing and scraping just to try to cover my ass.”
You would not be you if you did so. I would think that you had lost your Name.
This time, Minori’s laughter was the loudest of all.
They made it to the airport by seven antemeridian. Adam was grainy-eyed by that point, and exceedingly grateful to have tower directions. On the ground, they were on edge, and Adam had to remind himself not to pull a gun as a handful of reporters surged towards them, begging to know what they’d seen at Coropuna. It took everything he had to respond, politely, “We were in the air, and it was dark by the time the eruption took place—”
“Yes, but did you see the source of the sun rising at midnight, the beam of golden fire that has been reported? Scientists have triangulated it, and say that Coropuna itself was the most likely source.”
“Did a ley-facility explode?”
“No.” Much to Adam’s surprise, that was from Minori. She pushed her way forwards, looking haggard, and Kanmi moved right with her, a hand just behind her back, in case she needed support, but not touching her. “I’m one of the scientists with this, ah, expedition. I can say, without room for contradiction, that ley-power was not the cause of Coropuna’s eruption. There may have been human factors involved, but ley-energy remains safe to use, so long as people do not make radical alterations to the existing grid.”
“And you are . . . ?”
Minori threw Adam a quick, apologetic glance. “Dr. Minori Sasaki.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 121
