“And what does your name mean again?”
“Gods only know. ‘He eats babies,’ maybe. I take your point. Masako is really pretty in comparison.” A pause. “And if it’s a boy?”
It won’t be, Sophia thought, and came out of the vision in time to walk back to her room and write a very nice letter of congratulations, sending it off with the evening post. It wasn’t until the next morning, when a night’s sleep had left her mind and god-born body all too devoid of chemical supplements, that she’d realized that she wasn’t sure what day it was currently. She looked at her calendar, and sighed. She’d known a week ago that she was going to send the letter eight months too early, but sometimes, she had the blissful luck of forgetting little details like this. And she knew that when they received the note in a couple of days, the fact that she’d told them that Masako was a perfectly beautiful name, and that they shouldn’t worry about boy names for forty years would simply annoy them both.
Another swirl of visions, as she swam through the pool in the temple’s frigidarium in high summer. Cool swirl of the water around her bare limbs, sunlight pouring in through the high windows above her head.
This time, she was in the Godslayer’s body, as he and Sigrun held the Summoner and Lassair’s new-born twins. A boy and a girl this time, both with coppery hair and this time, their father’s flame-blue eyes. Their first-born was now a pudgy toddler of two, and called Sigrun Aunt and Adam Uncle. Sigrun was already testing Latirian’s abilities, and helping Lassair come up with a plan for raising a child who was spirit-touched. No, Sigrun, they’re god-born. They’re all god-born. You and the others just don’t want to admit to it yet. Then again, the neighbors in Judea are having enough trouble dealing with a summoner and his spirit-wife living next door, without them having to deal with the fact that the spirit-wife is actually a fertility goddess who takes out her own trash.
Adam’s mild concern that he and Sigrun had been trying for a child of their own for three years now, without her ever quickening. A little ache in his heart when he put one of the infants over his shoulder, and wondered when he’d find out what it felt like to hold his own child. Flicker forward, and it was late at night, and rain was pattering lightly against the windows of their bedroom as Sigrun dozed off beside him. Adam got up and went to his desk. Pulled out a small ledger he was keeping. He’d been taking notes on this topic religiously since Tawantinsuyu, but he knew it had started earlier. He just hadn’t made the correlation at first.
Sophia looked at the columns in the ledger in fascination. Really? You’re scientific enough to take notes on the fact that every single time you have sex with your wife, it seems to rain, at least a little? Except when you happen to be outside. Of course, it also storms when she gets angry. And Sigrun hasn’t noticed yet, herself. Or she has, and just won’t admit it. I should tell her . . . no, I don’t see myself telling her. She said she wanted a mortal life. And I know I’ll respect that until I can’t respect it any more.
Shift of scene, as Sophia walked through a grassy meadow, hand-in-hand with a lover whose name didn’t matter, and whose fingers kept turning into bones and snapping off, only to turn back into flesh again. She took another pill when her lover wasn’t looking, and damned the constitution of the god-born that ensured that one was never enough, and none of them lasted longer than a half-hour anyway. Sophia lay back in the soft grass, and let her lover do what she wanted with her body. Responded when appropriate, and tried not to let her disgust show when she went down on a mouthful of rotting flesh. Tried, very hard, to focus on now, and for a shining moment, as her lover came beneath her fingers and tongue, the drugs and pure concentration let her be in now and not in then and the smells were good, and not putrid, and the skin was pink and soft, not desiccated and rotting.
And then, lying in the meadow, she was away again, this time in the Summoner’s body, as he and Lassair made love. Saw all the different configurations that a creature that shapeshifted as freely as breathing was capable of. You’re going to be fairly unshockable in a few years, Trennus, but in a way, you’ll never lose that otherworldly innocence. You’re not Actaeon, ripped to shreds for ‘looking on’ the moon goddess, ah, what a silly myth that is. A rare euphemism among our Hellene gods, when Actaeon probably actually tried to seduce the virginal moon goddess. All it is, is a cleaned-up version of Osiris being killed and Isis resurrecting him, or Tammuz being torn apart to bring fertility once more. Only because they didn’t mate before Actaeon was torn apart, Artemis doesn’t bring fertility. Just sleep with her silver arrows. You, on the other hand, Trennus, are the mate of a fertility goddess, but your sacrifice was gentler. You could have become Endymion, fated to ‘sleep forever’ but spewing your seed from your dreams into the moon’s willing womb so that she could birth children and people the world. But your Lassair is not the moon, not Isis, not Selene, not Artemis, savage and unkind. She is fire. Sophia felt free, in her visions, to think as she willed, though she knew Apollo, source of her visions, was probably not going to take the words about his sister very kindly. Then again, the vision was Apollo’s, and thus, those thoughts might actually be his, and not hers, and thus, she wasn’t responsible, was she? Of course, soon enough, Saraid will remind you that you were bound to her long before Lassair came into your life. And you’ll realize how much more she is to you . . . .
At the moment, they were quibbling, the sacrificed godling and his goddess, about . . . oh, how Sophia wanted to laugh . . . how the children should be educated. Trennus wanted to send them to school, but that would require them to travel less. Britannian schools could handle the spirit-touched, but then again, he’d been educated by pedagogues, himself, at home, as the son of a king. Judean schools, which were stronger in math and natural philosophy, would have difficulty accommodating the children . . . . “They could be picked on,” Trennus said, clearly worried. “Then again, they need to see more people than just you, me, and our friends.”
They’ll be fine, Sophia wanted to tell them. They’re going to have at least seventeen other brothers and sisters before the end comes, anyway, so don’t worry too much about teasing.
Somehow, unaccountably, she’d wound up deviating from her routine. Sophia realized it dimly, as she walked along a rocky path and stared around herself, numbly. This was where it was going to happen. She crouched down in the dust and vomited, tasting the bitterness of the pills she’d taken an hour ago. This was where she was going to meet the centaurs. Oh, it wasn’t going to be for a very long time, but she also knew she couldn’t escape. She couldn’t avoid this fate. She couldn’t escape the fact that it was going to drive her mad. No. Madder. She already knew she was well past the edge, but she also knew it was only going to get worse. Sophia looked around at the cliff-wall. Sigrun will come for me. She’ll be too late. Oh, gods, she’s going to tear them to pieces. There will be nothing but death, and then she’s going to pick me up, and I won’t let her heal me. The healing of the god-born will be enough for me, and these are wounds I won’t permit her to take. Not ever. She’ll pick me up, and fly off with me, still covered in their blood, and take me to Judea, and I won’t be able to stop speaking prophecy anymore. It’s going to happen. It was always going to happen. Has it already happened?
Suddenly, frantic, Sophia pulled up her dress, and checked between her thighs. No. No blood. No ravaged flesh. No pain. She was safe . . . for now.
It was hard to know what day it was. There was a hint of a chill in the air as she swam in the frigidarium. Another of her lovers had broken up with her, and she’d just smiled, almost in relief, and told him, kindly, that it was all right. She’d always known they weren’t going to be forever. And it was a relief, not to see his rotting skull anymore. She knew she was capable of love. She knew it. But she never saw herself falling in love with anyone at all. Which meant that it would never happen. There was no one in any world who would be strong enough not to let her destroy herself.
. . . going to the Odinhall for yet another
‘interview’ with Reginleif. Sigrun thinking that she’s being kept on a very short leash, and that it might take three or four decades before they’ll let her off the rope again. Don’t worry, sister, in about thirty-six years, there won’t be any leashes at all anymore. Or any gods. Or people, for that matter.
Reginleif giving Sigrun a faint smile, near the end of the ‘education’ session. “You know, you and I are more alike than you know.”
“Why is that?” Politeness in Sigrun’s tone, and nothing more. Sigrun thought of Reginleif as one of the best teachers she’d had in the Odinhall. Tough, but always fair. A little condescending, but that was to be expected when someone two hundred years old was teaching a bunch of hormonal eighteen-year-olds.
“Because you have a mortal husband. So do I.” Reginleif lifted the locket she wore at her throat, and opened it, showing two pictures. One was an old-fashioned daguerreotype, a young man in his twenties. Blond hair, at least it seemed so in the sepia-toned image. A Frisian, possibly. The picture next to it was of an old, old man. “My Joris was born in 1892. I think the same year as your father, Sigrun. He just turned seventy-one. Oh, how I used to love to kiss those lips. Do you know, he has dentures now? Walks with a cane?” Reginleif’s voice turned bitter. “Time is a thief, Sigrun, as you’ll discover with your mortal lover. It’s a dishonorable foe who robs people first of dignity, and then of life.”
Sigrun, staring at the pictures. Swallowing hard. Sophia urging, silently, Don’t be swayed, sister, don’t be swayed. But of course, Sigrun was. How could she not be? “It’s not something that I look forward to seeing,” she admitted, softly. “I try to treasure every single moment with my husband. His time is finite. Then again, so could mine be. We can still die, Reginleif. All it takes is one wrong step in combat, and we’re gone, too.”
“Yes . . . but so long as we are skilled, and lucky, it’s not inevitable for us.” Reginleif sounded bitter. “And all for an accident of birth, we cannot stand beside them in time. They cannot stand beside us.”
Not an accident, Sophia thought, just as Sigrun said, “Accidents happen. It is what we do about them that matters.”
A glint in Reginleif’s eye. “Oh yes. Yes, indeed. You see, Sigrun? We aren’t so very different after all. What do you think we should do about our . . . circumstances?”
Sigrun blinked. “Personally, I . . . do not plan to outlive Adam.” She swallowed. “It will depend on the situation, but I will probably put our affairs in order and follow him to whatever afterlife there might be for such as we are.” Unspoken, Sigrun’s internal doubts: if there even is an afterlife. So strange to hear such things from a god-born, but Sigrun had many questions, after the incidents in Nahautl and Tawantinsuyu. Questions she wasn’t about to ask Reginleif, or even admit to having.
“And if there were a way to extend their lives?”
“Would that not be unjust to the rest of the mortals?” Sigrun plainly thought this was another test.
“Ah, yes. The fine sense of justice inherent to the daughters and sons of Tyr . . . .”
The vision ended there, and, suddenly awake, Sophia started. “Oh . . . oh no,” she said, out loud, realizing she was in her room, sitting up in the dark, and feeling a loose arm fall from her shoulders as her bed-partner . . . whatever his name was . . . mumbled a complaint. “It can’t be that time already. Oh, gods.” She stumbled out of bed, and made her way to her desk. Turned on the light, and stared at the calendar. No. I’m in time. I’m just in time, as I always was going to be.
She picked up the phone, and dialed from memory. She hadn’t spoken to Sigrun in two and a half years, and she’d ached to do so. But she’d known she wouldn’t speak to her sister again, until it was time.
In Judea, Sigrun cursed, and picked up the phone as she woke up. “Waes hael,” she snapped out in Cimbric, not bothering with Hebrew or Latin. Anyone who wanted to talk to her at three antemeridian could simply deal with the fact that she wasn’t going to speak anything but her native tongue until she was properly awake. It didn’t help that she and Adam had spent the entire day baby-sitting for Lassair and Trennus. Adam was a natural with children. He’d had two younger siblings, and it obviously made a difference. Sigrun was not.
“Waes hael, Sigrun.” For a wonder, Sophia’s tone was completely sober.
“What’s wrong?” Sigrun asked, immediately, her mind clearing in an instant.
“You need to get on a plane for Cimbri-on-the-Caestus. Now.”
“Why?”
“Our father is dying.”
___________________
For a stunned instant, Sigrun couldn’t think at all. “But I just spoke with him last week,” she said, helplessly.
“I know. He had a cough then. It was viral pneumonia, and he was getting treatment for it. Unfortunately, he picked up a strain of bacterial pneumonia to go with it.” Sophia’s tone was . . . crisp. As if she were reading from a medical report. “The doctors have him on a lot of antibiotics, but it’s not going to work, Sigrun. He’s going to go into systemic shock in about twenty-four hours. You need to be there.”
Sigrun swallowed. “Thank you,” she whispered into the phone, and hung up, moving out of bed and hauling on clothes numbly, even as Adam sat up and asked her what was wrong. “It’s my father,” she told him, simply, and turning on a light, looked around the room aimlessly. She’d packed her bags a thousand times, at least, to go on this mission or that. Suddenly, she had no idea what to put in a suitcase. “Sophia says he’s going to die tomorrow. I . . . need to be there.”
Adam sat up as if he’d been jabbed with a needle. “She’s sure?” He paused. “All right, that’s a stupid question. Of course she’s sure. Let me call Tren and Lassair and get them to pick up their children. We need to catch a plane.”
He helped her pack, took over all the duties of calling the Praetorians, arranging for a leave of absence, and getting the plane tickets sorted out. Sigrun was infinitely grateful. Her mind didn’t seem to want to work. Her relationship with her father had been distant for the past thirty-five years, since he’d married Medea. And before that, he’d always been at work. But when he had been around, she’d idolized him. He was a gardia member, a representative of the law. He had dozens of stories about chasing bank robbers from when he was young, and once he’d been promoted to full detective, he’d sometimes told her stories over dinner about tracking down murderers. Cimbri was a large city, and its trade revolved around the slaughterhouses that processed the bison and cows and pigs of the plains to the south, and redistributed them across the continent. It tended to be, as her father liked to say, a tough beat.
He’d taken her on hunting trips when she was young, though. He’d taught her how to take down a deer with a musket or a bow. He’d taught her how to gut and dress the carcass, and when they’d come home, he’d taught her how to remove the skin, and they’d taken the hides to a local tanner and had them prepared and turned into a little cloak for her. She’d been . . . eight. Perhaps nine. He’d taken her to Germania and Gotaland, when she was fourteen or so. A skiing trip. Medea had been along for it, but had refused to go out in the snow, preferring to sit by the fire in the hotel and drink tea. All the little things came back to Sigrun now, and she sat in the plane, a lump at the back of her throat. Hoping against hope that her sister was wrong.
Sophia wasn’t.
Twenty-four hours later, Sigrun was in a hospital in Cimbri. A pleasant enough room, with a view of Lake Caestus, shimmering under the setting sun in the distance. She listened to her father’s labored breathing as he struggled for air. She held his hand, trying to give him whatever healing she could, but she knew better. A valkyrie always knew. And death was in the room with them. Adam sat beside her, a gentle hand on the back of her neck, and Medea sat on the other side of the room, holding Ivarr’s other hand. Sigrun could see in the woman’s face that she genuinely grieved. It made Sigrun thaw, at least a little, towards Medea. She’d never really registered that Medea’s
feelings for Ivarr were real before, and she was ashamed of that realization.
Adam murmured, in quiet Hebrew, “Should we have brought Lassair? She can heal things that you can’t, mami.”
Sigrun shook her head. Her mind had already flitted to Lassair, and retreated back again. “She’s the first to say that she’s not good with water in the lungs. Like Kanmi in Jerusalem, years ago. This is . . . too far gone. Perhaps if Sophia had called a week ago . . . I don’t know.”
She covered her face with her free hand, even as Medea lifted her head and gave them a reproving look. “It’s rude to speak so that others can’t understand you,” the Hellene woman told them, sharply, and went back to holding Ivarr’s hand. Smoothing the long hair back from the pallid face.
Ivarr regained consciousness, once. Long enough to give Sigrun a dazed, uncomprehending look, just as Sophia finally slipped into the room. “Ragnhildr,” he murmured, between wheezing breaths. “Ragnhildr, I’ve missed you so.”
Sigrun shook her head a little. “Not Ragnhildr. Sigrun, Fæder.” She glanced up at Sophia, who looked completely focused. Not even a little drunk or drugged. “And Sophia, too. Your daughters.”
Ivarr smiled a little, but it was an evident effort. “Sigrun. You look . . . so much . . . like your . . . mother.” No recognition in his eyes as they flicked to Sophia. Only a glimmer, when he glanced at Medea. “Be brave, little valkyrie. Be strong.”
He closed his eyes again, and, about two hours later, the monitors attached to his chest began to ping in alarm, informing everyone that his laboring heart had surrendered to the inevitable. They didn’t need to do so. Sigrun already knew.
Medea remained stone-faced, a single tear trickling down her face. Sigrun swallowed, hard, and fought down the tears. She would not weep in front of her step-mother. She laid her father’s hand down on the bed, and stood. “Thank you,” she told Sophia. “Thank you for telling me before it happened.” She reached out her arms, hesitantly, and Sophia stood, immediately, and returned the embrace, wrapping her arms around Sigrun. It was the first time the sisters had embraced in at least eight years.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 131
