Ah. So a living body, stripped of its mind, its native spirit subjugated to one of these Nameless creatures. Empowered by the human sacrifice and possessed by the Aetheric spirit.
Adam shuddered. “Yes. I would rather die than become this thing, Nith.”
If we have changed the future enough, perhaps you will die. Or otherwise escape. Nith’s voice was thoughtful. Would not accepting a soul-bond safeguard you against this fate? An Immortal cannot be made of a spirit-touched, or a god-touched. Only a normal mortal.
“Technically, I’m already bound to my god. All of my people are. That should be protection enough. And yet Sophia’s been pretty consistent in saying that I will become this . . . thing.” Adam turned his head and spat. “I cannot imagine it.” His throat tightened. “Turn myself into a monster? Turn myself into some ravening beast that would look at Sigrun and just see a target.”
So your choice is, instead, slow suicide? Nith’s voice was annoyed.
“Believe me, I have, on occasion, thought of blowing my head off with Caliburn rather than let this happen. I still might.” Adam swallowed. “Suicide isn’t . . . permitted in my faith. But I’d . . . rather do that, than become an abomination.” If he was terrified of what would befall his soul if Sigrun bound him, he was just as fearful of what would happen to it if he chose to kill himself. But even oblivion seemed a better option than turning loose a weapon without a mind or a conscience, just . . . targets.
In Rome, and among my people, it has been considered the truest act of friendship, of love, to help another end his life when he has been unable to do so himself. Nith’s tone was distant and wary. Do you wish for me to perform this service for you, Godslayer?
“No. Not . . . not yet.” Adam wrestled with it. He wanted to live. He had a few years left. Time to do what he could do. “But if I become this thing? If I threaten her, or anyone else that I love?”
I will end you. There was no inflection at all in Nith’s voice. I doubt very much that the godslayer who ended Akhenaten could so much as scratch one of my talons, if the one made of stone fell to the pazuzu. His head turned towards Adam. They may have been very impressive creatures when bronze was the newest innovation. But we have all moved on from then. There is nothing that any of them could bring to this world that would be of the slightest use.
“You don’t think one of them could kill Jupiter?” Adam considered this for a long moment. Trennus’ running theory was that the godslayers were akin to Platonic Ideals. Perfect beings. Creatures that did not grow, because they did not need to grow. Who never changed, because they were already the essence of their Ideal. Which should have made each of them nearly omnipotent inside their domain. Undefeatable. And yet, they could be defeated. Or at least, their mortal shells could be crushed. “It might be unwise to underestimate them.” Especially if they are outside of time. On the other hand . . . Nith’s thoughts echo my own words to Zaya . . . .
No. Flatly said. Nor do I think they could end the mad godlings. I think there is a reason they have not been summoned in millennia. Consider this, if you are ever faced with the conscious choice to bring one into this world, Steelsoul: If they had any place here, they would already be here. The dragon’s tone shifted. Became a little kinder. However, if we have changed Trueseer’s futures enough, perhaps this fate will not befall you. You should ask her, with Sigrun there to remove the memories from her mind. There is no reason that you, like Trueseer, should live without hope.
Adam swallowed. Is that what I’m doing? Am I making Sig live without hope? He shook his head. “I . . . could ask Sophia. But if I do so . . . and she sees a difference, then Sig would have to . . . hear about all of this. I’ve kept it from her. I haven’t wanted to admit to any of it.” He looked down, then up again. “Do I have your word, Niðhoggr? If I become this creature . . . if I threaten those I hold dearest . . . you’ll end me?”
You have my word. I will even make it quick.
Adam hesitated. “And Sig.”
What about Stormborn?
“You’ll take care of her, once I’m gone?” The words hurt, but . . . he’d asked the same of Trennus, and honestly, of Nith himself, before. But asking Trennus in his fifties had been . . . pragmatism. It hadn’t had quite the specter of imminent death around it.
So you have firmly decided to decline all offers. Sorrow in the voice, and conflict, too. You could take refuge in Worldwalker’s forest. The Nameless do not enter the Veil. You would remain forever untouched by this contamination.
The temptation was real. Very, very real. “I . . . I want to.” Adam admitted it. God, yes, he wanted it. He wanted to tell the prophecy, the godslayer, all of it, to go fuck itself. “But I can’t. For so many reasons. And if I go to Tren’s forest to hide . . . that would make me a coward. No. I’ll . . . face death. I’ll face the nightmare that hunts me from across the centuries.” He shook his head helplessly. A man is born to die. To everything there is a season. And yet every single one of my friends has become something more than human. Why should I not? Why should I not reach for the stars? Why should I not stand beside them in time?
. . . and yet, any choice I make, could, at this point, be the one that leads me to . . . it. Even, god help me, choosing not to choose. I’ve never been passive. And yet, knowing that this thing hangs over me . . . has made me passive in my declining years. And that’s the lack of hope Nith spoke of. “You love her, don’t you?”
Silence, cold and absolute, as if the dragon once more had been bound not to speak.
Adam shook his head, his throat tight. “It’s . . . all right. Min told me you almost took her head off once for putting Sig in danger out at sea, during the fight with the kraken. And I have the strong impression that you would never even speak of it to Sig. Not while I’m in the picture.”
I have told her that her heart cannot be divided in this war. She must be a goddess, Steelsoul. And she has not been human for a very long time. Nith’s voice was oddly gentle.
Again still, utter, and complete silence. Adam nodded, and looked down. “I know. And yet . . . I can’t let go.” If she left . . . I wouldn’t have any real reason to live. “When I die—and even if I become a godslayer, I expect that my soul will be gone . . . that’s dead, you understand me? Even if you have to kill me, it . . . won’t really be me. No guilt for you.”
Understood.
The door at the back of the house clattered open, and Sigrun darted out, each step verging on taking flight. “Nith! We have a problem! There’s been an attack on Crann Péitseog in Novo Gaul!”
Nith’s head swung up, and the dragon’s entire body went on alert. What kind of an attack?
“No one knows! Seismic disturbance, a fireball, and there are mad gods coming in off the ocean. We have to go!”
Adam’s mouth dropped open. Crann Péitseog meant peach tree in Gallic; it was a sleepy, mellow city along the Chattahoochee River in southeastern Novo Gaul. “That’s a geologically stable area. There shouldn’t be any earthquakes—”
“I know.” Sigrun had already pulled on her armor, including the visor that concealed her face and eyes so distancingly. She leaned in to give him a quick hug, however . . . and the cold radiating off of her chilled him to the bone. Then Sigrun vaulted up onto Nith’s back, her spear snapping to her hand as she settled herself in. Black-silver rider, black-silver mount. They were born to fight together. They were born to fight this war, just as she and I were born to create it, I suppose. “Be safe!” he shouted up at her.
I will try.
“I love you.”
And I love you, she responded, but he could almost taste the tears that soaked the words.
And then they were gone, where he could not follow. Damn it, Adam thought, and creaked his way back to the house. The cold had settled into every joint, and he was already regretting the night-time conversation, the impulse that had taken him out to look at the stars. He should have just watched them from a window, inside the house, where it was warm.
December 31, 1993 AC
It was the last day of the year as Nith took them through the Veil to Crann Péitseog, or what remained of it. The air in southern Novo Gaul was cool, but not cold, at this time of year. But as they appeared in the air near the city, all Sigrun could smell was ash, and as she looked down, she realized that she couldn’t pick out a single building that was still standing. The skyscrapers at the city core were nothing more than ruined, arthritic black fingers of metal, pointing up unevenly at the afternoon sky in accusation. Fires burned everywhere, a raging inferno on the western edge of the city, where the Chattahoochee River ran through the suburbs, though the river’s waters were barely visible through the clouds of choking black smoke. Spot-fires rose from debris all through the rest of the city.
Sigrun had seen the destructive power of earthquakes, the loss of life, sanity, and even humanity impelled by the destruction of a god. But she had never seen anything like this. Lower, she told Nith, and he dipped down, letting her see that in this neighborhood, there wasn’t a single piece of timber longer than a foot. Almost every smaller building had been uniformly flattened, but the destruction was definitely worst to the west.
Worst, however, was the flash of warmth and power welling up in her belly and heart. She felt . . . giddy. As close to being drunk as she ever had in her life. And at the same time, her valkyrie senses, her deathsense, were screaming at her. What is wrong with me?
You know this feeling, Nith told her, grimly. You’ve experienced it in battlefields before. At night.
Sigrun’s eyes widened, and her stomach clenched. Death. She’d told Adam that she could feel the power welling up from beneath the ground of battlefields at night. Lives cut short, unjustly. And Nith was correct. This was the same sensation. Except it had never before been this powerful. How many people have died? Sigrun thought, horrified, as they circled around to the east. This time, they spotted a moving piece of debris, and Nith landed, and lifted half a wall away with a single paw. Sigrun leaped down, and pulled a young woman and a toddler free. Both were covered in blood, and the child was unconscious. Without a word, Sigrun put a hand to the child’s face and healed the shattered blood vessels in the brain. Put the little boy in his mother’s arms, and watched her sob in relief as the boy’s clear eyes opened.
Two miles to the west, however, they weren’t so fortunate. They found plaster-covered walls, one of which was actually still standing, though the other three had collapsed. Fire hadn’t spread to this area quite yet, and Sigrun stared at the white plaster, confounded. There were shadows there. Black shadows of human forms, splayed there in jumbled configurations, as if they’d been thrown against the wall . . . .
. . . and then nothing.
Voices filled her head, as the other gods assembled. Concentrate rescue efforts to the eastern side, Odin ordered the gods of Valhalla. Eir! Idunn! Sif! Jörð! You are healers. Do what you can with Belenus and Grannus for the humans. Freya, you and Loki will aid Toutatis and Damara. Put out the fires, and see what caused this. Freyr! Tyr! Sigrun! Niðhoggr! With me! Taranis and the Morrigan come, as do Agrona and Andarta. We defend the city and the outlying areas. The mad godlings come over the Sea of Atlas. I can sense their approach!
Words crackled through Sigrun’s mind, words from all the other gods in the alliance. Who could have done this—
—Not Vulcan, he was slain by Jupiter—
—There are other volcano gods—
—Too much destruction to have been an efreet—
All-Father! Sigrun said, imperatively. Send for Truthsayer, she who carries Amaterasu. I have strong suspicions that this was the work of human hands.
There was a moment of stark silence as all the gods quieted. I will call for her, Freya replied. But first, we must secure this place.
The day had already been a bad one. It only grew worse. Morrigan in her black raven cloak fell in beside Sigrun, and Sigrun inclined her head deeply in respect. Morrigan was actually what Hecate had once been: three war goddesses conjoined, Macha, Nemain, and Badb. Two other Gallic war goddesses rose into the air with them, Agrona and Andarta. And Odin, Tyr, and Freyr moved to Sigrun’s left side as she and Nith became the point at which the Gallic and Gothic sides met.
Her eyes widened as she saw no less than three mad godlings appear on the very edge of the eastern horizon, in the dim violet band where twilight now was thickest. How big are they? Taranis asked almost conversationally, as storm clouds, called by this lighting god, as well as Tyr and Sigrun, began to build overhead.
Big enough. One is the size of the godling that was over the land of the Picts. The other two are following it, warily. Jackals to its lion, perhaps. They are much smaller. That was Odin, squinting into the distance with his single eye.
We do not have the option of moving this land, or the people. We must destroy them, or drive them away.
While the Morrigan, Odin, and Tyr held the attention of the largest godling, Freyr, Agrona, and Taranis took on one of the smaller ones. Which left Sigrun, Nith, and Andarta, a relatively weak team, for the last one. Seiðr was Sigrun’s defense and her best offense, for the entire sky was filled with tendrils of power, and Sigrun could only guess that the bodies of those on the ground, buried by rubble, might well be rising as ghul to attack any rescuers. She heard a scream from her right, and looked over to see Freyr trying to tug Agrona’s form away from a tree-thick tendril that had plunged through the war-goddess’ heart. Freyr lifted his hand, and the radiance of the sun surrounded him, and Sigrun felt the pull of gravity from him, as he tried to replicate the tactic used with success by Tsukuyomi in Nippon, as well as Minori and Kanmi during the test of the hydrogen spell.
But it was too late. Agrona died, and her power went off like a shockwave . . . most of it being sucked down by the godling that had destroyed her, but enough escaping to buffet the rest of them. The other godlings turned, clearly drawn by the pulses of energy being emitted by her corpse, and Freyr shouted, and his glow became far too bright to look on safely.
Pay attention! Nith snapped, and rolled, neatly dodging another set of tendrils by inches.
Sigrun got her mind back on their target, and shouted to Andarta, Try to hold it pinned! I need it to stop moving for a moment, before I can unspin it!
I can’t . . . hold it . . . Andarta’s voice was strained. It’s trying . . . to move towards . . . Agrona’s power . . . .
The giddy warmth of the power rising from all the lives lost in the ruined city beckoned to Sigrun, and for a moment, she hesitated. Then she swallowed her gorge, and used it, lashing out at the mad one, pinning it herself, even as Nith exhaled, catching tendrils that had just flickered briefly into physicality, freezing them. If I’m holding it, you have to kill it! Sigrun told Andarta. She thought, distantly, that Trennus would be far better as this kind of wrestling match than she was . . . and then Andarta leaped in, trying to hew her way through the tendrils, towards the core. Off to their left, Taranis and Freyr shouted, and tore their godling in half, resulting in another shock wave.
For an instant, the remaining godlings swayed towards each other, as if ready to fight, consume each other, even as they absorbed the released energy of their fellow. Sigrun thought that should give Andarta an opening, as the war-goddess chipped away at the tendrils and the heart, by turns . . . but the influx of fresh energy had renewed the creature, and Andarta screamed as she was surrounded by tendrils. In! Sigrun told Nith, and he obeyed, as they dove in through the tendrils that lashed at them. Sigrun had to drop her hold on the godling in order to reinforce their shields, and Andarta screamed again as a dozen long filaments wrapped around her. Then Taranis and Freyr were there, holding the creature between their combined powers, and Nith got his talons on the war-goddess and tore her away, as Sigrun sliced and cut with seiðr, trying to ensure their safety as the dragon banked towards freedom and clear sky.
Try to move them aw
ay from the city! We’re endangering any survivors! Odin called, suiting actions to words as he, Morrigan, and Tyr spun their godling east, trying to move it back out towards an ocean that was hundreds of miles away, or at least towards less occupied land.
It was brutal, and it took hours. At least when night fell, Sigrun went ephemeral, and thus was slightly less in danger of physical attacks by the tendrils . . . if still very much in danger of the energy drain. But still, night was hers. The power from the death and destruction of the city filled her, sickeningly, but night steadied her. She unspun the one that Taranis and Freyr held pinned . . . releasing its energies, which the large one, the ‘lion,’ drank in eagerly. And then they all converged on the lion, which filled half the sky. Andarta found herself once more wrapped and this time, the goddess died before they could reach her. More food for the mad one. Tendrils latched onto Nith, onto Sigrun, to be cut away by his claws or her spear, or lanced away by Tyr’s lightning, or Freyr’s radiance.
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