The Hidden Goddess

by M. K. Hobson

  Stanton said nothing. The magisters around him muttered among themselves, shocked. But Fortissimus pressed on:

  “You cannot deny, Mr. Stanton, that this has happened at the worst possible time. You haven’t been formally Invested. You’re no more Sophos than I am.”

  Stanton drew himself up. Now he towered over Fortissimus, his face terrible.

  “I was selected for the position of Sophos by Emeritus Benedictus Zeno, the father of modern credomancy.” He spoke very softly, but his voice rang and resonated through the office, resounding off the walls. The magisters stopped their muttering, but Fortissimus just smirked derisively.

  “You were the only one Zeno could choose,” he said. “And every man in this room knows why. You stole the power of this Institute. You stole it with blood magic, worked with Mirabilis’ blood as he lay murdered.”

  “Someone made very certain that fact was remembered tonight, didn’t they?” Stanton said. “Was it you who invited the Blotgates, Fortissimus?”

  Fortissimus lifted an eyebrow.

  “No one is blaming your old friends for what happened tonight, Stanton.”

  “They are not my friends!” Stanton bellowed, making a sharp movement with his fist that caused Fortissimus to pull back quickly. “I know who my friends are, Fortissimus. And I know who they are not.”

  Fortissimus did a strange thing then. He relaxed and smiled, the very act making him seem infinitely reasonable and Stanton seem hotheaded and rash.

  “Mr. Stanton,” he began calmly, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Please. Let’s not make this more difficult than it needs to be. Let’s review this calmly. It is true that Emeritus Zeno selected you, but mere selection is not enough. The power must be formally transferred. You have not been Invested with the power of the Institute. You can try to run it on your own merits, slender as they may be … or you can do what’s best for everyone and hand over the reins to someone who is better suited.”

  There was the sound of indrawn breath, and a long silence.

  “Someone better suited, Fortissimus?” Stanton said, his voice low.

  “I’m more powerful than you. I have an established base of cultors. I have a history of authority. You have none of these.”

  “What I have is the power of the Institute.”

  “Not formally, you don’t.”

  “And I’m sure that serves your ends admirably!”

  Miss Jesczenka’s soft, reasonable voice cut through the rising anger between Fortissimus and Stanton. “Perhaps it would be useful to consider how the Sini Mira technology was smuggled into the Institute in the first place.” Miss Jesczenka rose from Emily’s side and went to look at Fortissimus with a slightly puzzled look on her face. “Your men, Mr. Fortissimus, have been all over the Institute for the past two weeks. A very convenient arrangement for someone hoping to secretly install a device like the Nikifuryevich Ladder.”

  Fortissimus goggled at her, his mouth moving in silent outrage. “Surely … surely you’re not suggesting I had something to do with Zeno’s disappearance?”

  “There is an old saying about a shoe, and wearing it if it fits,” Miss Jesczenka concluded calmly.

  Fortissimus reeled back, looking around at the faces of the magisters. “And make my Agency the laughingstock of the magical community? We were hired to arrange this Investment, and Emeritus Zeno’s disappearance has turned it into a debacle of the first water! Do you think, Miss Jesczenka, that that will be good for my business? For my image? With the election only a few months away? What kind of idiot do you think I am?”

  “I have no idea what kind of idiot you are,” Miss Jesczenka said. “That’s why I’m asking.”

  Fortissimus thrust his red face close to hers.

  “Is that the best theory you can come up with?” he snarled through clenched teeth. “Undercut the power of the Institute until it was next to worthless, then undercut my own power to take it? Only the vaporous brain of a female could conceive such nitwitted lunacy. The minds of men are more rigorous, Miss Jesczenka. But then, I suppose expecting logic from a dried-up old maid is like expecting a pig to know how to play billiards.”

  “Get out, Fortissimus,” Stanton growled. “Your services are no longer required.”

  Fortissimus whirled on his heel and grabbed his hat from a table.

  “This is not finished, Stanton,” he said, looking at the magisters, fixing each one with a piercing gaze. “Any of you with a thimbleful of intelligence knows where to find me.”

  Then, pushing past the students who were massed around the entrance, he went out into the hall and slammed the door behind him. Silence reigned in the room for a long moment, a silence broken only by a low chuckle from Miss Jesczenka.

  “How hard it is to find good help these days!” she smirked at the men surrounding her. Some smiled back, but most remained strained and grim. “Gentlemen, it is clear that we have much work to do tonight. Perhaps Mr. Stanton can make his good-nights to Miss Edwards so we can proceed.” Miss Jesczenka nodded to Stanton, who nodded back before coming to crouch by Emily’s side.

  “How quickly can you be packed?” he murmured in her ear.

  “Packed?”

  “Yes. I want you to leave as soon as possible. Take Miss Jesczenka with you. The two of you can go to … Boston. You said you had a name there. This is a excellent time for you to do some research.”

  “Research?” Sudden anger made Emily stumble over the word. “You want me to go to Boston to do research? Emeritus Zeno and Komé have just been kidnapped!”

  “Exactly so,” Stanton snapped. “And the last thing I need is—” He stopped abruptly, closed his eyes, drew a deep breath. He composed his face carefully before speaking again. “I’m sure you want to help. But there’s a lot I have to do in a very short period of time, and I will be able to do it better if I’m not worried about you.”

  Emily said nothing for a moment, her eyes searching his face. Then she sighed heavily. Swim with the current, she told herself. Swim with the goddamn current.

  “Fine. I’ll go to Boston. But listen to me.” She dropped her voice low. “It was the Sini Mira. Their leader, the one named Perun … do you remember him? The man with the white hair, from Chicago? He came to the Institute last night, and Zeno met with him. He was asking about the rooting ball. He wanted to get information from Komé, find out what she knew about the poison … Volos’ Anodyne, he called it. Zeno said he wouldn’t allow Perun to speak with her. That must be why the Sini Mira kidnapped him.”

  “Have you told anyone else this?”

  “No,” Emily said. “What did Fortissimus mean, they know where to find him? They can’t believe a word he said, can they?”

  “If they do, I will change their minds.” Stanton pressed a swift kiss on her forehead. “Don’t worry. This kind of thing is always a danger with transitions of power. It’s certainly going to be harder with Zeno gone, but Fortissimus will back down. He knows that it’s not in his best interest to start an all-out credomantic war. Not now. You’ll come back in a day or two, and all this will have blown over. I promise.”

  “Mr. Stanton,” one of the magisters said. “Mr. Stanton, please, time is of the essence!”

  Stanton stood, helping Emily to her feet.

  “Go now,” he whispered in her ear. “Miss Jesczenka will follow along later.”

  And Emily went, the white satin of her train rustling past disconsolate students and the torn, trampled remnants of gold bunting.

  Well, I’m certainly not going down without a fight, Emily thought as she ripped the diamond-tipped pins from her hair and slammed them down onto her dresser.

  She’d leave the credomancers to play their games of power and hierarchy, but she was as much a practitioner as they. And she had something that none of them had. She shared, however unreliably, the same connection with Ososolyeh that Komé had. And if she could contact Komé through that connection …

  She owed it to the old Holy Woman t
o try to help her. The woman had sacrificed her life to speak for the earth, had left behind a daughter and a tribe and a family. Komé didn’t deserve to end up in the hands of Eradicationists who would do heavens knew what to pry information from her weakened, constrained spirit.

  Pulling off the fancy white dress, Emily let it fall to the floor in a frothy heap. She kicked off the now-tattered silk shoes and slid off the embroidered silk stockings. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, tucking her leg up behind her, absently massaging her sore ankle.

  To contact Komé, she would have to be close to the earth. The closer she was to the soil, the stronger her connection to the consciousness of Ososolyeh. And her rooms on the Institute’s fourth floor certainly didn’t fit that bill. Springing up, she threw on her old gray dress and a dark cloak. Hurrying out of her rooms, she moved quickly through the Institute’s dim, forlorn halls. She was sure that everyone was too busy to pay any attention to her, but she was also painfully aware that the whole air of the Institute was changing even as she moved through it. The walls seemed damp with gathering dread. All in all, the thought of getting outside onto the grounds seemed very attractive.

  And indeed, once she was out in the warm, fragrant night air, she found herself breathing easier. She paused on the gravel path, considering her options. There were private copses where she could attempt a séance unseen. But then she thought of a much better place.

  She turned her footsteps toward the conservatory—the great white building of glass and steel in which Zeno bred and grew his beloved orchids. Pap always said that the objects that were especially beloved by a person had a connection to them. These orchids were sure to have some connection to Emeritus Zeno, and that would be useful.

  When she reached the conservatory, she pushed open the door and entered cautiously, listening for any sound of occupancy. As she’d expected, the large glass building was deserted. The smell of sand and crushed coconut shell and cork surrounded her as she wound her way along the narrow paths, past white-painted wood containers. The air smelled thick and loamy and earthy and damp; the plants had been freshly watered just after sunset, and some of the night-blooming varieties had just opened, releasing sweet, strange perfume.

  Emily found her way to a special growing bed in the very center of the conservatory. In this bed grew Zeno’s favorite orchid, his pride—the Dragon’s Eye orchid, a hugely tall vining plant that massed over a fifty-foot pillar of cork. Its blooms of chartreuse green and chocolate brown had a strange smell—a mix of sugary sweetness and animal rot. Zeno had once told her that the roots of this orchid extended far down into the native soil, hundreds of feet down, to the place where loam met bedrock. It was an excellent place to attempt to commune with Ososolyeh.

  Emily looked around furtively. Then, swiftly, she stripped bare, keeping her dark cloak within easy grabbing distance. It was doubtful anyone would come wandering out to the conservatory at this time of night, but it certainly wouldn’t help Stanton’s chances of solidifying his control of the Institute if his fiancée were discovered rolling around in the dirt naked. She found a comfortable place on the ground and arranged herself cross-legged.

  She had sought messages from Ososolyeh before, but never in such a formal way. There had never been any need. But now, with things tumbling all around them so abruptly, and with answers so desperately required, she had to make Ososolyeh speak to her, make the great consciousness acknowledge her and help her.

  But how, exactly? She tapped a thoughtful finger against her chin.

  During the Grand Symposium, a séance had been performed to bring forth Ososolyeh’s consciousness through Emily’s mind. She remembered exactly how it was done, and it seemed her best chance.

  She drew a protective circle around herself in the dirt, then closed her eyes, wishing she’d brought some candles with her, or at least some lavender and sage. She let the smell and feeling of the earth saturate her. She relaxed into the center of herself, finding the place where her spirit lived, small and round and bright, and she sent it outward through her skin, out onto the warm air of the night, down into the moist soil beneath her. She murmured rhymes to herself—cadent rhymes that stirred power around her, drawing the earth to her, drawing her to the earth and to the ancient consciousness that suffused it. Around her the orchids nodded and swayed.

  Ososolyeh. She murmured the Indian name for the living spirit of the earth, again and again, letting the word become a drumbeat in her mind. Ososolyeh.

  Distantly, she was aware of something touching her—something slithering up her leg and along her bare side. Her impulse was to pull away, but the power of the magic that was gathering around her was too great. From the corner of her eye she saw what it was: a tendril of the Dragon’s Eye orchid. It was sliding up her leg, around her bare waist, gripping her.

  She felt her mind floating away from her, away from the immediacy of time and reality, to the deep eternal place where Ososolyeh slept and stirred and dreamed. Her mind stretched, thinned, frayed at the edges. She felt herself soaring backward from the comforting reality she’d always known; she saw how little her life was, how it was just a small chamber in a vast chambered sphere—a sphere that was always turning. She felt her being growing larger and her self growing smaller. She saw everything—the Institute, Stanton, her life, everything that was important to her—become laughably insignificant. She felt herself growing.

  Emily struggled against panic, focusing on the drumbeat in her mind. But she was being stretched so broadly, so thinly, that she felt herself tearing in a hundred tiny places. She fought to keep her edges together. She had to be able to find her way back. She could be lost here forever, so easily.

  She focused on Komé, remembering the old Holy Woman’s friendly brown face and faded black tattoos, remembering her coarse salt-and-pepper hair and her smell of smoke and moss.

  Komé, she called, against a shuddering eternity of wind and emptiness. Komé, where are you?

  But no answer came, only the tiny echo of her own insignificance. She felt time jumbling in boulders around her—huge eras like pebbles, eons like cliff-faces. Here she was less than nothing, a moment’s flitting thought, an article of a sentence elided quickly then forgotten. She was nothing, Komé was nothing, they were drops in an ocean immeasurably vast. Despair coursed through her. It was like one grain of sand trying to find another. It was impossible.

  Emily struggled to disengage, to find her way out. And then, panic seized her utterly. The vast sphere had turned; she could not remember the way back to where she had been. She was lost. Around her there was only eternity and indifference. Her heart shrieked in fear. She would be lost here forever.

  Be still.

  Images of rocks, quiet things, old things that understood silence.

  Do not fear.

  Images of water lapping at the shore, calm and implacable.

  Watch.

  And then, he was there.

  A brown-skinned man, tall and well formed, with eyes black as dead embers. He was arrayed in magnificent ceremonial garb, with a beaded headdress from which long spikes of iridescent blue feathers swayed in a glimmering halo. His face was smudged with glossy red and black paint. He wore huge hoops of gold and jade in his ears. He was naked, save for a heavy loincloth beaded with jade and shells. His feet were drenched in blood to the knees. On his breast, a brilliant mark glowed with divine radiance; it was the shape of a hand, fingers outstretched.

  He was not alone.

  Beside him stood a being, female in form, but nothing like human. She was not made of flesh. She was made of something cold and hard and glossy, something brittle and cutting—it was glass. She was made of black glass. Her tenebrous edges were sharp as razors; frosty light streamed through her. Her face was hidden by a mask—a twisted sneer, two massive ivory fangs curling out from it.

  Together, they stood atop a stair-stepped pyramid of skulls. Blood dripped down the sides of an altar, heavy-rimed with frost. Bodies were piled all around
it, hundreds of thousands of them.

  The woman—the thing—stroked her hands over the man’s bare flesh. Her caresses left welting trails of blood, more brilliant than any shade of red Emily had ever seen.

  Xiuhunel, the black glass woman whispered, her voice rich with vast longing. Beloved.

  The seams of blood on the man’s body welled, and his flesh fell away from his body in strips. But beneath the first skin was another skin—a far different one. It was the skin of a young blond man with blue eyes. Only the mark of the hand remained, shimmering and burning. And then the black glass woman flayed the flesh from that man’s body, and then he was another man, and another, and another …

  Soon, we will be reunited.

  When the twelfth man fell to pieces, all that was left of him was something gelatinous, something red-brown and glistening, like a lump of meat. Orange light pierced it, knifing outward with supernatural brilliance. Light so bright it hurt even to imagine it.

  Do you see, beloved?

  Spread out before the pyramid, as far as the eye could see, stretched a frozen ocean of blackness—stinking oily blackness that bubbled and churned. Voider than void, colder than cold, deader than dead.

  It is your world.

  It is the world we will make for you.

  Emily woke shivering and choking, her overstretched mind collapsing back in on itself like a punctured balloon. Her heart was racing. She could barely breathe.

  Her face and mouth were smothered with leaves. Tendrils of the orchid were moving over her arms and ankles and cheeks—the only exposed parts of her body. The rest of her was buried in the soil of the garden, black loamy grit and stubby white roots holding her firm. Leaves and vines were crackling up around her, tying her down, binding her fast. Struggling in panic, she broke free, tearing juicy, verdant greenery from her body. She pushed leaves and roots from around her mouth and nose; sitting up, she tore plants up with her.