The Goddess Embraced

by Deborah Davitt

  All of them denied it, but Nith exhaled a white cloud as Sigrun pointed at one woman, in her fifties and portly. “Lie,” Sigrun said, simply. “Come with me to your supervisor’s office.”

  The woman wilted, but managed to rally. “You don’t have any right—you don’t have any authority here! You’re not a Praetorian anymore, and we’re not even part of Rome—”

  Nith growled. The sub-harmonics worked through the floor, and made the glasses of water on every tray in the ward shake. Sigrun Stormborn has opted for a more civilized route with you, healer. I smell death on your hands. I smell its shadow on your soul. You hate those you tend. A hundred tiny cruelties mark out your days, all couched as kindness. You’re only doing it for their own good.

  “Your supervisor’s office. Now. And you may be grateful that all I will ask for is your job here at this hospital. Were I so inclined, I would visit the Praetorian headquarters that you think have so little power, and I would look into whether or not I could have your nursing credentials revoked entirely. I would look into your past jobs, and see if there were any patients or families who filed complaints against you. And I would make your existence the kind of misery from which you cannot wake. Because all I would use against you is the truth.” Sigrun’s teeth showed, but it wasn’t a smile. “Be grateful that I do not have time to indulge myself.”

  Twenty minutes after that, the nursing supervisor had placed the nurse in question on administrative leave, and the woman had left, carrying the contents of her locker in a small cardboard box. That was satisfying, Nith told Sigrun. But we have much larger worries. Rome’s gods are now hunting. And they do so in fear for their own lives.

  I know.

  If I may ask . . . ?

  You may always ask me anything you wish.

  You should not tempt me so. Nith paused. You were pleased at Sophia’s visions? At least, those regarding you?

  Yes. We are shifting her prophecy. Some things are worse, or appear to be. Earlier damage to Rome itself. The conflict between the pantheons . . . unforeseen. That worries me . . . but the personal shifts? They please me very much. Because if anything about that final, fatal vision changes . . . it all can change, Nith. It gives me hope. And even if hope is a trap and a snare . . . .

  . . . it is something we all need. I never knew that, myself. Not until . . . . He cut the thought off.

  Not until what?

  Until you came to my existence. He kept the thought formal as they coursed through the air. Would you return to the Judea house, Stormborn?

  A hesitation. No. Valhalla. I could shout this all to the others across time and space, but this requires discussion. And Prometheus’ information must be updated.

  Nith paused. Steelsoul is always glad to see you. There is time.

  Her voice was very quiet in his mind. Walking through the door is like walking barefoot on broken glass. It’s filled with memories. Terrible jokes about the fasces. Enemies like the pazuzu, the alu-demons, and even gods. I see him watching the first moon landing, the light of the far-viewer illuminating the wonder in his eyes. I see the intelligence and the love. And I have no idea where he has gone. She paused. I think it is as if . . . some of the life went out of him when Kanmi died. The guilt ate at him. He resigned his position as commander of the Praetorians . . . there was political pressure, certainly, but the job was part of him. Without it . . . . she paused again.

  He feels great guilt for all the deaths and destruction attendant on his decisions. Nith said it as gently as he could as they tore through the air. Do you yet love him?

  I love the man he was. I love who we were together. Her voice, which had been filled with hope a moment ago at the thought of Sophia’s broken prophecies, became subdued. The man he was at twenty-five, at thirty-five, at forty-five . . . perhaps even at fifty-five . . . would have seen this all as another adventure. He would have accepted me for what I am. Her voice became even quieter. The man I loved would have accepted my gift, and worked with me to repair this broken world. Oh, he counsels. He advises. He gives of himself to Caesarion and young Livorus. But if he were my Adam, he would have already packed his guns, and been ready to go do whatever needed doing. She paused. But the man I loved is gone. And people can say whatever they want about the correct course of action sometimes being to do nothing at all.

  He could feel sorrow ripple through her. I miss him, Nith. I miss my Adam. I miss the light in his eyes, his wonder at what mankind is capable of aspiring towards, and achieving. I miss the hope that was as much a part of him as his breath. I miss him so much. And I cannot bring him back.

  Nith exhaled. He had to be fair. He had to be true. Those parts of him still exist. He is, in his heart, the same man. He is merely . . . tired. Human lives are brief.

  He could feel her nod as a shift in the airflow around him. I know that. And that is why . . . I will care for him until he dies. Defeat in her voice. I can only ask him so many times. She sighed. No one in this world can have everything that they want. And so, I must choose. I never thought I would have to choose between him and the world.

  It seems to me, that he has made that choice for you, in part. He told you to go and be a goddess. Knowing, of course, that you would return. Nith forbore to mention that guilt was a worse fetter to carry than love. Love was silken and light. Guilt as heavy as the earth itself. And he knew that Sigrun was bound to Adam ben Maor at least as much by guilt now as by love.

  Yes. He did. She shook her head, creating subtle variances in the drag against the air. And that is why I hate walking into that house. Because every time I do, I am faced with his choices. Faced with the fact that he loves his mortality more than he loves me. She put a hand on Nith’s neck. Forgive me. I have wallowed too long. But you listen very well. Perhaps too well.

  He would hate himself for the next words, and he knew it. You should speak these thoughts to him.

  I have tried. He tells me not to push for his final decision.

  Then tell him that you love him, but that you cannot wait forever. You cannot remain divided, Sigrun Stormborn. You must be either wholly a goddess, or wholly mortal, and soon. The battles we fight grow worse. And your mortal heart constrains you.

  . . . I am going to have to leave him, aren’t I?

  I did not say so. He may yet choose, either to join you, or to release you.

  She paused. If I could snap my fingers, and could bring my Adam back . . . I would do it.

  Unfortunately, even the gods do not have the power to change what is in a man’s heart, Sigrun. That is the conundrum of the mortal realm. Choices change the ones who make them. Time changes all things. And with those changes, we must abide.

  After a quick trip to Valhalla, Sigrun did agree to return to Judea, if briefly. In the skies over Jerusalem, there were now several dozen lindworms performing surveillance sweeps over the city, courier duty, and whatever else, so seeing a dragon overhead was becoming almost commonplace. Any lindworm, however, that happened to see Nith in the sky, immediately rose to fly and gambol around him in curves and arcs. He wasn’t displeased by this. He’d rarely had company in the air before, and certainly none before who were his shape. Their light voices rose in greeting, crying out Father, Father! and Nith raised his head to roar back in acknowledgement.

  You like that they call you that, don’t you? Amusement in Sigrun’s voice.

  There is no actual relationship, and I have done none of the raising. I have merely observed. I am, I think . . . a role model? Such had never precisely been his place before. But their belief in me is one of the finest things I have ever experienced.

  Are they shaping you?

  Perhaps in time they will. But not yet.

  He came in for a landing at the Judea house, and looked over the fence at the Matrugena house. The vines still shrouded the structure in mystery, but no one, currently, was home. Nith shrank himself to a size more suitable for a human domicile, and followed Sigrun in the door . . . and paused behind her as Steelsoul lev
eled the god-touched weapon of Inti at the woman once more.

  Nith growled, slipping forwards so that his body was between Sigrun and the weapon. I understand your caution, Godslayer. But we are who we appear to be. Once the weapon’s muzzle lifted away, Nith made his way to the living room, and curled up there, doing his best to be invisible. The far-viewer held no interest for him. The books . . . oh, how he had longed for books, for hundreds of years. A glance at the kitchen, where yet another argument was beginning, and he cautiously lifted down a book, trying not to leave talon marks in the cover. Set it on the coffee table, and tried to find a way in which to turn the pages without tearing them.

  Some thirteen hundred years ago he had stolen out of the Veil to learn the mystery of words. Over the course of five years of furtive outings, Nith had learned to read Gothic, at least as the language stood in Germania in the seventh century after Caesar. And Latin, too.

  Both languages had changed dramatically since that era, and Nith had to chisel away at the meaning. But the pictures were glorious. This book had images of the planets in it, and the beginnings of the Mars colony’s tunnels under the Cydonia massifs. He concentrated, and managed to turn a page . . . and then twitched, as if he’d been caught in disobedience, as Steelsoul entered the room, and stood, staring at him as if he’d never seen the dragon before. “I . . . didn’t realize that you could read.” The man’s voice was hesitant. “Lassair doesn’t.”

  The flame-spirit has chosen not to learn. I did. And others paid the price for my curiosity.

  “How so?”

  The one who taught me was a priest of Loki. It was the year 768 AC when I met him. He was a kindly old man, and more terrified of me than anything, at the beginning. I could not speak to him. I was bound. But I thought perhaps . . . in time, he might have been called a friend. Nith exhaled. When my progenitor discovered that I was learning letters, she flew into a rage. I had disobeyed her. And my punishment was swift. She ordered me to kill him.

  Steelsoul had stopped moving. “And did you?”

  Nith hated the memories. But he could see Sigrun in the doorway behind Steelsoul, and she deserved to hear these things. He couldn’t tell them that the forest around the tiny temple had smelled of pine pitch. He couldn’t tell them of the scent of terror on the man’s skin, or what his blood and flesh had tasted like. He couldn’t tell them that a dragon’s body couldn’t regurgitate, but that he’d tried to throw up anyway. Couldn’t tell them that he’d thought of that moment as he’d torn Hel apart. Or how much he’d rejoiced to do so at last. If he began, even once, to describe that . . . he might never be able to hold any of it in again. But he could state the bald facts. I was her tool. Her weapon. Her instrument. I tried to refuse, and her power flooded through my body. Controlled my limbs. She made me watch as my claws tore him limb from limb. I had not tasted food in several hundred years, and she made me eat his flesh.

  The horror radiating out from the Judean man was nearly palpable. “There must have been something you could have done—”

  What? Run away? I was bound to her. She could find me anywhere in the Veil. Anywhere in the mortal realm. I have not my grandsire’s gift of illusion. No. Nith carefully turned a page in the book, and stared down at it. I did not disobey her again for thirteen hundred years. I regret it, of course. My actions resulted in the priest’s death. The friendship lasted only five years. Emberstone would calculate that out as . . . one quarter of one percent of my life. In human terms . . . someone I knew for two months. Nith struggled with another page, and Sigrun slipped into the room, and deftly turned it for him. We leave marks on each other’s lives. But mortal lives . . . pass. A sigh. Even your languages pass. I cannot read these words. Too many changes. Too much time.

  I will show you the words, Sigrun promised, silently, and put a hand lightly on his shoulders.

  Hours later, after dinner, with Sigrun occupied in the kitchen, muttering under her breath about hiring a maid and a cook . . . Adam walked away, rather than snap at her. He didn’t need a caregiver. Not yet, anyway. His knees, hips, and back all twinged as he picked up his cane to go outside. The temperatures had dropped into the thirties, and it was damp. But he knew that if he complained, she’d use her powers on him, and he’d feel better . . . and worse, at the same time. Because he was accepting her power, but . . . not all of her offer. God damn it.

  His favorite thinking spot was the back porch, where he usually still had a good view of the stars, in spite of the trees in the yard. The heavens were blotted out tonight, however, by Nith’s bulk. “I take it you had a point earlier?” Adam asked, limping over to the dragon, staring up at him. It was so much easier to deal with you, when all I saw was an oversized, highly intelligent pet.

  I made my point. It is up to you to interpret it. Nith’s tone was neutral.

  “All that talk of how a human lifetime is nothing to you.” Adam had had hours to stew over it. “So humans mean little?”

  No. Your lives are simply . . . sorrowfully brief. I have lived for two thousand years, at least. If the world does not end, I might live two thousand more. The seventy years of the average human span is slightly more than three percent of my life’s total. Three percent of a human’s seventy years . . . is a about two and a half years. Nith paused, and said, with some force, Sigrun may yet live as long as I have. She is no longer a mere god-born.

  “I’m aware of that.” Adam’s voice was tight. “You heard the argument, I take it.”

  I attempted not to listen. Nith lowered himself slightly, and eyes larger than Adam’s entire head stared at him now. What is the game that humans play with their motorized vehicles? The one where the drivers turn and race towards each other, and the one who turns aside first to save his life—both lives, really—is branded the coward?

  “Chicken, I think you’ll find.” Adam felt his eyebrows arch. “That seems a non sequitur.”

  Not really. You are, Steelsoul, engaged in a game of ‘chicken’ with your own principles.

  Adam’s temper spiked. “How precisely do you figure that?”

  You believe that humanity is the pinnacle of creation, and you are proud of your species, your part in it. You believe that you have a soul, separate from your spirit, your consciousness, and that it can be destroyed by wrong actions. Nith’s voice was calm. And so, you refuse the gifts offered to you by Sigrun, by Worldwalker, and by me. If you do not accept them, you and your principles will collide, ending in your certain destruction. The dragon paused. It seems as if you are waiting for someone else to make the decision for you. To take it out of your hands, and force the gift on you. So that you may have immortality, and your principles will be uncompromised.

  Adam’s fists clenched. “That’s not true,” he replied, but the words snuck into his mind, and whispered there, mockingly. “That’s a lie.” He looked up at the beast, and realized, not for the first time, that there was no possible way in which to fight it, save Caliburn, and even Caliburn, he wouldn’t give good odds. I could find Jormangand and tell him that Nith stole his lunch. That’s about it.

  I do not lie. But I assure you, Steelsoul Godslayer, that I weary of your hesitation. I weary of the shadow you have cast on my friend’s heart. So if you do not wish for someone else to choose for you, so that you will remain pure in your heart . . . why then, do you hesitate?

  Adam swore. Arguing with the dragon was like fighting the most skilled fencer in the world. No openings. No way to retreat. No way out, except the truth. “Sophia told me I was going to become a godslayer,” he finally admitted. The words sounded loud in the garden. “Not just . . . not just Tlaloc, Inti, and Baal-Hamon.” He stared up at the stars, feeling the cold and the damp seep into his mortal bones. “She meant one of the old ones. The one that killed Akhenaten.”

  The dragon’s head swiveled, and the eyes, twin, white-glowing moons, stared down at him. You have not told Sigrun this?

  “No.” Adam shivered a little. “Akhenaten was no prize. He undoubtedly dese
rved what he got. But I have no desire to become this . . . thing.”

  And this relates to your refusal how?

  “. . . as far as I’ve been able to ascertain from Lassair’s vision of the rocky creature that first attacked the pazuzu, and died of it—”

  I fail to understand how a godslayer could have died to that petty, feeble thing. I had no difficulty cowing it enough to make of it a servant to Sigrun.

  “You what?” Adam almost swallowed his own tongue, and spent the next minute coughing.

  I converted it from a threat to an ally, if a reluctant one. Emberstone was most emphatic about the statue having been found in Tyre’s harbor. The godslayers must have been weak by today’s standards, if that poor creature killed one. Nith’s tone was ruminative.

  Adam got control of his lungs. This spoke volumes of the growing gap between him and Sigrun. She had servants. She was binding creatures to her. Forming alliances, as Trennus had, to secure her . . . power? “Leaving that aside for the moment, it looks like each godslayer is a . . . ghul. Worse. An Immortal.”