She closed her eyes. “Don’t say that.” Her lips worked for a moment, and then words failed her. “I still love you.”
The words hurt. “And I love you, neshama, but you’ve been systematically cutting me out of your existence. I have this impression that you’re trying to live two completely separate lives.” At least I’m not discovering that you have a lover, or happen to be a serial killer.
Sigrun opened her eyes suddenly angry once more. “Yes! Yes, I have been! Just as every soldier and every spy has had to do since time began!” Hard needles of rain began to slam against the windows. “Judea and Novo Germania are ten hours apart on the clock-face. I fight or protect my people in Novo Germania, sleep in the Veil, come back here, and spend the evening with you—”
“Wait. You’re sleeping in the Wood?” Adam frowned. “I trust Trennus doesn’t charge you rent.” A sudden flash of agitation. She and Tren have been keeping secrets. I was all right with the idea of them getting together after I died, but . . . they wouldn’t be sleeping together now, would they?
Sigrun’s look of discomfort only intensified his agitation, until she spoke. “Not precisely. I . . . inherited Hel’s domain. I think it’s technically Nith’s, but he ceded it to me.” She looked away. “I turned it from a hall of rotting bodies into a cloudscape. It’s . . . getting more comfortable.”
The rush of relief drowned under another wave of agitation and anger. “So you have, effectively, another home, entirely separate from this one.” He struggled to tamp down on the outrage. If she were an entity, of . . . course she’d have a Veil realm. They all did . . . didn’t they? And yet . . . . “You really have had one foot out the door for a while now, haven’t you? It’s like having a separate apartment that you haven’t told me about.” The comparison was petty, and he knew it.
“Damn it, Adam, what would you have had me do? There are twenty-four hours in every day. I have to cram two separate lives into the same day in the mortal realm. What does it matter if I do so by passing out in the Veil for four of your minutes every day? I can’t manage Lassair’s trick of splitting myself into copies. I can only be in one place at a time.”
“Four of your minutes?” he repeated, picking the words out of her sentence with almost forensic precision. “You have distanced yourself, haven’t you?”
Sigrun stared at him, and he saw the defeat in her eyes. But her defeat was his defeat, and this wasn’t a victory. He wanted to go on. He wanted to say, Isn’t the definition of a god, being able to be everywhere at once? but the words died on his lips.
Her shoulders slumped, and she said, quietly, “Listen to me. I am two different people. When I’m home, I’m with you. And when I’m at work . . . then I’m the entity. There is little difference between me and Kanmi when he went undercover.”
“The difference is, Kanmi’s wife knew what he was doing—”
“Bastet was willingly blind, until she was confronted with what and who Kanmi was,” Sigrun countered, sharply. “Minori was precisely what Kanmi was, and could accept him, and he could accept her. They were equals and companions and loved each other till the moment he died.”
“And what part of that are you applying to me? The willfully blind part? Or some of the other bullshit, Sigrun? I was a soldier, too, Sigrun. Exactly how do you figure that I’m not capable of hearing about what goes on in your life? You wouldn’t tolerate people keeping secrets from you, running around behind your back.”
“Because I’m not actually a soldier.” Sigrun smacked the flat of her hand against the glass of the window, as the gale howled outside. “That was a metaphor. I said that Min could handle Kanmi’s life because they were precisely the same thing.”
That stopped him dead for a moment. “And I can’t handle this because I’m not an . . . entity.” And that brought the tearing sensation inside his soul. I lost her the day I was born.
Sigrun exhaled, and bowed her head. “That part of my life is not your affair.”
Her voice was as gentle as she could make it, but the words still stung. And they weren’t true. “It becomes my business when it’s possible that hit-men—excuse me, hit entities—might walk through the door!” Adam slammed the side of his fist against the wall. “I’ve been carrying Caliburn, thinking that some grab-and-snatch team was coming for you, but a god—”
“Today was the first I had heard of that possibility, and you will note that we are talking now.” Sigrun bit the words off between her teeth.
“And aside from which,” Adam grated, “How the fuck do you figure that what affects you isn’t my business? We’re married. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. Period. You’re the one who uses the word witan, Sigrun. We two. I guess it doesn’t mean the same thing to you that I thought it meant.”
Sigrun turned her face aside, as if slapped, and he could see the emotions rippling across her face. The sky outside was almost night-dark now, and the entire house shook from the force of the wind. “Tell me this, Adam ben Maor. Have you informed me of every piece of information that crossed your desk at Judean Intelligence?”
Adam gritted his teeth. “No. Of course I haven’t.”
“And that was determined by what? My security clearance and my need to know.” She opened her eyes and stared at him levelly. “You didn’t need to know. Kanmi included Minori in his undercover work. He did not include Bodi, Himi, or Masako. His children’s feelings were all hurt by this, but the role he assumed was none of their business. And his excluding them from it was intended to protect both them, and himself.”
“That is utter bullshit, Sig. How did my not knowing protect me, or you?”
“How does it protect you? In the same way it protected Kanmi’s children! If they didn’t know anything, they were at less risk of being kidnapped and interrogated!” Lightning flashed overhead, followed immediately by thunder. “As for how it protects me? For the sake of every god there is, Adam, you’re in Judean Intelligence! You’re also a senior aide to a Roman governor, and my people are on the verge of splitting away from the Empire. I have a seat in the great hall of Valhalla.” The words shook him to his core. She didn’t say them cavalierly, but with deadly seriousness. “If I told you what was spoken of there, you would have to report it to either JI or Caesarion, or both—if they even believed you. Would you have told them, Adam? Or would you been crippled by the conflict of interests?” The words were rapped out, sharply.
“I guess we’ll never know, because you never gave me the chance to make the choice.”
“Correct. I never let it become an issue. I never forced you to choose between me and your country, or between me and your god. That’s the choice I’ve lived with for decades. You. Rome. Or my people.” Tears welled up, but she didn’t let them fall. “And because I never forced you to choose, somehow, I am in the wrong.”
“You are in the wrong, Sig, and don’t try to turn this into some kind of guilt-trip.”
“I stand by my choices. A marriage cannot stand a vast inequality of stations. And you’ve made it clear that you wouldn’t enter the Veil and stay there, no matter what we told you—”
“All I have ever heard is that spirits leave the Veil for this realm because this is where things are real. How could I possibly stay there—”
“Because then I wouldn’t have to watch you die by inches!” That was a wail, and Adam stopped moving. He almost stopped breathing, in fact, as Sigrun went on, tears streaming from her face and dropping to the tile floor, where they shattered, “I knew you would never accept any artificial lengthening of your life. Health, maybe. Extending your life that way, you’d permit. But—” she shook her head.
“If you wanted to help, why didn’t you make me young again? So I could fight at your side?” Instead of feeling increasingly useless . . . .
“Oh no, you can’t have it both ways, Adam ben Maor. If I’m wrong to give you health unasked, then how could I be right to give you your youth back, unasked?” The riposte was thought-fast.
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br /> Adam stopped dead, and replayed the words in his own mind, running a hand over his hair. His current work was . . . fine. Helping Judean Intelligence and advising Caesarion were worth occupations. But if I were forty years younger, I could fight. I’d be out in the field with . . . . He stared at Sigrun. I wouldn’t be in the field with her, would I? He cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Because you’d have said no and we’d have had this exact fight last year.”
“You don’t know that!” His temper spiked again.
“Yes, I do!” It was the voice she never used on him, the voice of the law. It clanged back against the walls with echoes of steel, and whispered in his mind with sub-harmonics of night and shadow. Sigrun closed her eyes, visibly controlling herself. “You’ve always been so proud of being human, Adam.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, hardly audible over the sound of the rain slamming into the windows. “You said, ‘Look at what we mere mortals can do,’ when they landed on the moon. And you said it again when they landed on Mars. In your inmost heart? You know that you’ve killed gods. And you did it as a mortal man. Oh, with Caliburn it’s far easier, but you’re still proud of it—”
“I’m not proud of having killed anyone! Killing is the last option—”
“You’re proud that you, a mortal, have challenged gods and won!” That was a shout. “And rightly so! You’re proud of your humanity, you’re proud of your mortality, and you have every right!” Her voice broke. “But gods, if I offered you immortality, and you told me no, I’d hear that no every day for the rest of your life, Adam. What difference does it make if I offer it now, or if I offer it on your deathbed, except that I don’t have to live with your no for ten or twenty years?” Her shoulders shook. “So yes. For once in my life, I took the easier path.”
He was back on his heels, and didn’t even know what to say. He put one hand over his face. If he were a hero in one of the science fiction books he loved to read, and his wife had revealed to him that she’d been transformed into an alien, the hero would have tried to find some way to live with her. Accept her for what she was. Compromise. Except that compromise in that case didn’t involve the hero’s soul. “Sigrun . . . neshama . . . you could have asked.” His voice was gentler now, as he struggled with it. Reached out a hand to brush the freezing tears off her face. Tried, once more, to bridge the chasm between them with words that seemed as frail as spidersilk.
She raised her eyes to his, and pale moonlight surrounded her. Not blinding, but enough to obscure her form. And when the light faded, she was still Sigrun, but . . . different. Her black swan-cloak swept to the floor, and was as glossy as a raven’s wings. No one in their right mind would have called it a chicken-suit, for stars moved in the folds—red Aldebaran, orange Arcturus, blue-white Alcyone, all drifting and moving, subtly winking in a night sky more beautiful than any ever seen on Earth. Her hair was loosened, suddenly and gloriously, waving past her hips, and crackling with electricity as a cold breeze curled through the room—the very breath of the north.
Her body was wrapped in armor made of glossy black scales, form-fitting. What little skin was exposed was covered in traceries of moonlight rune-marks. Her spear appeared in her hand, limned in blue fire; her left hand rose, and a shield made of pure seiðr surrounded her fist with a golden glow . . . and she considered it, her expression distant. “Minori tells me I perceive seiðr flows as golden, because I do not see them as part of myself.” The light around her hand fluctuated. Shimmered. And turned moon-silver.
Her gray eyes glowed now as she looked back at him, unbearably bright, and frozen tears crept once more down her cheeks. This is the death who weeps for all mankind, he thought, dazed, as her whole body became faintly unsubstantial. The empyrean glory of her light reflected off the prosaic pots and pans hanging in the kitchen. And in spite of her light . . . shadows. Shadows everywhere, dancing and moving as she shifted in place. And the ambient temperature had dropped twenty degrees in an instant. “This is who I have become, Adam. This is who I am. I am still Tyr’s daughter. I am still justice. But I am also vengeance, magic, the storm, night, death, and darkness. I cannot be stayed. I cannot be denied. I am the antithesis of everything you believe in. Your priests would look on me, and call me the embodiment of your god’s Adversary. And I have accepted it.” She looked at him, and he could see the pain in her eyes. “Be soul-bound to me, Adam. Give me your spirit, and I’ll give you a piece of mine. You’ll be young again. As immortal as any god-born. And we can be together until the end.”
Adam ben Maor stared at his wife, and slowly sank down into a chair at the table. Never in his life had he so clearly felt himself to be made of lumpen clay. Never before had she looked so transcendently beautiful. She had ascended. Gone where he could not, could never reach. And yet she was offering him her hand. Offering to help him climb that mountain with her. And for a wild instant, it was the only thing he wanted. He wanted to seize her hand and let her to pull him to her, in all her glory. Let her suffuse his dying body with her light, and live. Love her, forever. Be loved by her, forever. Go all the places they had ever dreamed of, fight all the battles that needed to be fought. The word yes trembled on his lips, and dreams raced behind his eyelids.
He swallowed. And said, carefully, deliberately, as the rain pattered more gently now against the windows, “God-born can still die.”
“Yes. We can.” Her voice was soft.
“What happens to a god-born when they die?”
“I think that they become a part of their god.” She looked off into the mid-distance. “Little portions of the essence of everyone who believes in a god go off and become one with the gods they believed in, but a god-born or a god-touched, someone bound to a specific god? They become one with their god, I think. That’s how the oldest gods become so powerful. Millions of spirits, over thousands of years.”
“No consciousness?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t died yet.”
He swallowed. “And what happens to my soul, Sigrun? What happens if I accept your offer, and here I am, life eternal, so long as you happen to stay alive. We’ve both seen gods die, Sig.” He stared at her. “I’m sixty-four, so forgive me for dwelling on my mortality, but if and when you die, I’ll die, too. No eternity.”
“There are no guarantees for anyone.” Another tear slipped down her face. “Not even the gods.”
He stared down at the ordinary, everyday wood of their kitchen table. He knew every scratch, and had refinished it twice with his own hands. “On the one hand, I’ve been raised since I was an infant to believe that if I followed a code of behavior, and believed, I’d . . . live after death. I’d be aware.” He looked up at her, a little blindly. “And on the other hand, there’s you. Youth. Health. But no guarantees that it really will last forever. And the possibility of oblivion.” Adam closed his eyes. If he said yes to her offer, he’d be betraying a god he barely believed in anymore. He’d be an apostate. Any chance at life after death, gone. And yet, if he said yes, he’d be with her. If he died, he wouldn’t be aware of it, but he might become . . . a part of her. But he knew it was wrong. If not wrong for her, then wrong for him. It was an easy way out . . . but god, it was tempting.
She shook her head, silently, and then said, her voice so soft, he could barely hear her through the rain. “I know that your faith tells you that you must have no god before your lord. I know that you cannot love another god. And so I knew that you would choose your silent, absent god over me.” Despair. She looked down, and her light died. The regalia vanished, and she was once again Sigrun. A Sigrun curled in on herself like an old woman, but with a young face. “If not my offer, take Tren’s. No soul-binding. You’d be young in the Woods, Adam. And the Woods . . . now that they’re there? They’ve always been there. You could guard that realm, Adam. Protect that safe haven between realities. You’d be like Heimdall. The one who guards the way between.”
I’m doing this to her. I’m making her beg.
Tren’s Woods . . . would be a chance to be with his friends, the people he loved, forever. No more pain, no more sickness, no more waiting for death. A challenge, in keeping the Woods safe . . . . Adam hesitated, and ran a hand over his head, fingers tangling in his long tail of hair, giving it a hard tug. This was reality. This was . . . not just his life, but his soul. “I’ve given you my entire life. I’ve given you my heart. I’ve given the work of my mind and the work of my body,” he said, aching. “I can’t give you my soul.”
“And that is why we have never had this conversation,” Sigrun told him, quietly, turning away. “You can’t believe in me. I love you, Adam. A part of me will always love you. You choose to remain mortal. You’ve made that choice every day, and in every way. That choice was taken from me, a long time ago. I accept it now. And I accepted that it meant that someday, we must part.” She raised her head and looked at him. “Whether it came the day you died, or the day you discovered what I am, didn’t matter much.”
The Goddess Embraced (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 3) Page 57
