The Goddess Embraced

by Deborah Davitt

  The fiery one knew what he must do. He must end the gods’ destruction, the games they played with mortal lives. He would destroy these chaotic ones. He could devour them in his flames.

  But memory . . . troubled him. He remembered the Adamant one returning to their changeless realm after riding the body of a human woman who had carried the child of a chaos-born man. The human’s words had rung through them all, as the Adamant one relayed the experiences of that life. It had changed nothing, of course. Could change nothing. They knew what they knew, and they were what they were, and they knew Fate, which the human woman could not comprehend.

  But the human woman had cursed the Adamant one, and all its kind. Saying that they did not have the right to choose for humanity. And that all they knew was destruction. Of course I know destruction. I am Fire. It doesn’t matter. How do I reach the chaos-bringers and make Fate true once more?

  And yet, as limited as the mind in which he found himself was, there was wisdom in it. If you do not understand something, go to someone who does.

  So Azar considered the thoughts in the mind of his simple host, and went to the only person that his vessel could think of, who knew everything . . . the shepherd’s mother. Who, choking in fear of what her son had become, told him that only one creature on earth understood Fate, and that was Prometheus the Fire-Bringer. Azar traveled deep into the mountains to the north. He had thought he would find one of his own brethren, a guardian of order, but instead it was another of the teeming hordes of chaos. And the titan lifted his head, and looked at Azar, and said, You never bothered to understand this world, before you proposed to judge it.

  We understand what we understand. We know the Fate of this world. Deviation cannot be permitted.

  You do not understand the humans. You do not understand that they defy Fate. They shape it. Even I cannot tell what they will do from one moment to the next. There is possibility, and probability, but never certainty. They change, and what changes here, remains.

  That they do so is an anomaly caused by the presence of your kindred. I require your assistance to remove your brethren, and prevent them from murdering thousands of these humans . . . .

  Zaya lifted her eyes from the text. She could feel warmth rising from the tablet, and flames were curling up from the letters, reaching towards her face, and she recoiled. These are two-key systems. There must be a lump of coal, part of the godslayer’s previous body, somewhere in the Archives nearby. Perhaps sealed in the base of a clay vase, meant to remain hidden and separated from the summoning ritual for all time. But now the entity feels a mortal vessel, in terror for its life . . . senses weakness, perhaps . . . and reaches for me.

  Outside the vault, there was a distinct thump, and she jerked towards the door, palming out her far-viewer sphere. It had a battery, if a small one, and she keyed it now to show her what was beyond the sealed fire door. Zaya licked her lips, and swallowed. Four arms. Wings. Breasts. Gray skin. That’s a daeva, and she’s carrying a human under one of her arms . . . probably her summoner. Zaya cursed however much time she’d been entranced by the tablet, dropped the far-viewer sphere back into her bag, and touched one of her rings. “Mother? We have a problem at the Archives. They’ve brought a daeva. I’m not sure if the binding wards in the inner vault will be strong enough to hold it.”

  No response. Her mother’s half of the communication ring set would hold the message until Erida was able to reply.

  She realized that she was still holding the Prometheus tablet, the letters alight with flame, in her right hand. Zaya keyed the last vault, forcing it down into the floor, completing the last set of binding lines, as the door burst open, kicked, and the daeva stood framed there, swords of light appearing in three of her four hands. The daeva’s face had a sort of sulky, pouty beauty to it—sensuous red lips, dusky skin. Firm, large breasts, uncovered, above a waist as lithe as a dancer’s. You have caused us a great deal of trouble, mortal, she said, stepping into the room, and then hesitated, looking down at the floor. And then laughed, taking a step over the lines.

  Zaya swallowed hard, and her heart rate, already fast, automatically keyed all of her defensive jewelry. Wards against fire and ice shimmered in the air around her. A small bubble of sweet air, pure oxygen, hovered around her mouth and nose, and another ward, this one intended to dissipate the kinetic energy of projectiles, manifested itself. Her attendant spirits remained invisible to her, though she was sure that they were all shrieking warnings to her father right now. That Illa’zhi had yet to appear meant that he was either dead, or locked in combat in such a way that he could not leave. And while she knew that her father loved her, she also knew he would never leave a task undone. It was not in his nature. “This is not your place,” Zaya said, her voice thin and shaking. “Your summoner is dead, or nearly. You are not bound to him. Leave, and you will not face destruction.”

  Laughter that cut into her like a thousand ice-rimed blades. You threaten me? You threaten me with destruction? Do you know what I am, you foolish, powerless mortal child?

  Zaya reeled. Suddenly, every thought she’d ever had, every sense of inadequacy because of her mortality, assailed her. She was just a human. She wasn’t spirit-born. Her father hadn’t valued her enough to make her the equal of her siblings. Maccis had never shared his spirit-born nature with her. She was nothing. She should reach out for power. She should become more than she was. It was the only way she’d survive the next ten minutes. She could . . . she could become fire.

  All the yearning to be more than what she was, to be the equal of her siblings, of Maccis, of everyone she knew, knotted in her chest. And she glanced down at the fiery tablet in her hands, and her lips started to mouth the word Azar . . . .

  Erida’s voice whispered in her memory. “If people think you’re powerful, they’ll avoid you. If people think you’re powerless? They’ll underestimate you.”

  “But I am powerless.”

  “Nonsense. I am arming you with the most powerful weapon in existence.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Knowledge.”

  . . . why am I even thinking about all of this right now? Because I’m angry . . . because I’m powerless . . . I’ve always been jealous of the others . . . but Maccis loves me for who I am. Sophia Caetia said he would die, consumed by fire. The godslayers destroy lives. The adamant one destroyed the lives of Ariadne and Aiolos, and the child she carried in her womb. Zaya’s left hand crept, unwittingly, to her own waist. That godslayer made Ariadne kill the man she loved. They do not understand humanity. All they understand is order. Their order, not ours. And they destroy everything that isn’t of them. If I save myself, but the cost is Maccis’ life? The life of our child? The lives of my family, and whoever else Azar thinks stands in the way of Fate? No.

  It had taken precious seconds for her to shed the insinuating threads of jealousy and spite. Zaya let the tablet fall, and the priceless artifact hit the ground at her feet. She wouldn’t invite the godslayer in. Zaya lifted her head, and held out her hands, displaying the rings on her fingers and the bracelets on her wrists. “Oh, I know who you are.” Her voice was thin. “Your Name is Nanghaithya. You are the daeva of discontentment. And while I have probably given you too much power in my life to this date, today, I abjure you. I am a daughter of the Magi. These archives are my charge. And this is not your place.”

  Another step, another ice-edged laugh. So you know my Name? What of it? You do not have the will or the power to use it to banish me. You do not have the strength or the wit to bind me. And when you are dead, I will take what is here, and bring it back to the one who has truly bound me. And we will defend ourselves against the mad ones. We will live, and you, and all of yours, will die. The words sank into Zaya’s skull, insinuating and twisting. Tell me which of these artifacts is the one that protects you from the mad ones. Make it easy, and perhaps I will let you live.

  Zaya shook. Her rational mind shouted at her that the daeva was making its way through the
bindings with agonizing slowness . . . but it was making progress. It would be on her in about four more strides. That it hadn’t lashed out at her with fire or frost or anything else . . . It needs you. It needs your knowledge. It wants to know all the information in the Archive. If it touches you, it will torture you for it, and you won’t be able to hold out. You’re not spirit-bound to anyone, not even to your own father. And she could feel her mind breaking under the assault of its words. Mother, Father, please. Come quickly. Come quickly. “The one I just dropped,” Zaya told the daeva, lying. “I was here to put it in the vault, to safeguard it.” Serves you right if your summoner reads it in close enough proximity to whatever item in the vaults is the second half of the two-key system, invites a godslayer in, and then kills you. Zaya backed away.

  You lie poorly, little one. The daeva moved closer. Against me, mortal, you can do . . . nothing. You only delay the inevitable.

  “You’re wrong,” Zaya said, her voice trembling. “I can do what any mortal can.” I can die, if necessary. I can die human. Free and proud. Forgive me, Maccis. I love you. I’m so sorry I never got to tell you. Never got to see the look in your eyes as you realized that there was hope. I’m so sorry.

  Zaya brought her right hand to the technomantic device on her left wrist, and triggered the last safeguards for this room. With the vaults safely tucked down below the surface of the floor, technomantic spell-stones embedded in the walls activated, and reduced the temperature of the air in the room to -297 degrees . . . the point at which oxygen reduced from a gas to a liquid. Zaya’s jewelry heated against her fingers and neck, trying to deal with the load as the air around her liquefied, and Zaya closed her eyes, praying to any god that happened to be listening that the spell-stones she wore would be enough. The daeva, screaming in pain, tried to leap for the Veil, but the binding circles on the ground slowed her . . . and the spells were already redirecting the heat stolen from the air into a secondary set of incantations. Lasers, channeled through corundum lenses, focused light through the freezing air, aimed at anything that bore an infrared signature in the room. Zaya, as the second in command of the Archives, wouldn’t be targeted by the lasers, but they scored into the daeva’s body. And because the oxygen in the room was liquefied at this temperature . . . and liquid oxygen is highly oxidizing agent, promoting flammability . . . the daeva, half-frozen, and riddled with holes, now abruptly combusted, as well.

  Moments later, Zaya looked up, surprised to still be alive. She scrambled past the blackened remains of the daeva’s avatar, knowing that the spirit could be summoned again; this was no true death. And then out, past the shattered door to get out of the frozen vault . . . and she swore, looking up. The daeva hadn’t just slipped through the Veil to get to this level. It had bored a hole down from the floors above. Carbon dioxide gas would be seeping through to this level, which should have been safely self-contained. Zaya wanted to weep. It didn’t seem fair. She’d survived what she thought should kill her, and now, she might well die of suffocation. The small bubble of oxygen around her head was maintained by a device with a single charge in its battery, and it was rated to last for about five minutes of moderate exertion.

  She’d shut the elevators down as part of the lockdown process. She’d either have to run up the stairs to the top floor, through four levels filled with choking carbon dioxide, or get the elevators and the ventilation system back on line again. Her fingers danced over the controls on her wrist as she headed for the front lobby area, trying to keep her breathing slow and even. Holding her breath as long as she could, as she struggled to get the elevators running . . . and then swore, as the overhead lights flickered and died. We just lost electricity, on top of everything else. The elevators won’t run without that. That leaves the stairs . . . with their doors locked and sealed, and controlled by electricity that I don’t have . . . the ventilation system . . . which is also electrical . . . . She could feel her heart thumping in her throat now, as fear-driven adrenaline poured through her body. Zaya struggled to control her thoughts. Fear would make her breathe more rapidly. She could literally fear herself to death.

  She gave the ceiling through which the daeva had tunneled a considering glance, and then shook her head. She’d have to move bookshelves to climb up to the ceiling, then drag more shelves, and climb some more. She’d burn all her oxygen that way.

  Her best bet was going into her office, setting the ventilation system to turn back on when electricity returned, and staying very still, until either the power came back on, or her parents came to her. If she controlled her breathing, and was very lucky . . . she’d live.

  On the floor inside the godslayer vault, she could still see the Firebringer tablet, its words ablaze. Inviting. Beckoning. It was seductive, in a way. She could almost hear it whispering, Come here. Read my words. Say my Name. And I’ll save your life.

  She paced back into the vault, and stared down at the tablet, which blazed more fiercely, as if in recognition, undeterred by the carbon dioxide in the air. When Zaya picked it up, the flames licked eagerly at her hands, and her lips thinned as she looked down at it. No. Perhaps Ariadne lived, in spite of her desire to die, and gave birth to Aiolos’ child on some distant island . . . it’s possible. Perhaps I’m descended from them, across the millennia. There’s no way to tell. No way to find that answer in all the world. But I’ve seen what I’ve seen. I know what I know. And I know that you’d destroy everyone I hold dear. My life for theirs, godslayer. It ends here.

  She raised the tablet high, and threw it as hard as she could into a wall, shattering it. And then swallowed, hard, as she saw the pieces inching back together again. Healing as if the priceless artifact were a living thing. So much for my grand gesture.

  Zaya turned her back on it, and trudged back to her office. She set the ventilation system to start cycling oxygen back in, as quickly as possible, once power came back on, anyway. And then, tears slipping down her face, she sat down to write a letter. Dearest Maccis. If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. Sounds melodramatic, I know. There are some things I’ve wanted to tell you, but haven’t had the chance. I don’t know if knowing this is going to be a burden to you, but . . . the doctors tell me that we were going to have a child. I’d have liked a Chaldean name, for the record.

  You have been the best thing in my life, since we were children. I miss the long, innocent afternoons in the summer. I miss talking about going to Mars . . . Zaya coughed, and realized that the words were dribbling more slowly from her pen. She concentrated harder, and kept writing. The godslayer tablet lit up for me. I could have been Azar, the fiery one that Prometheus knew. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t take the chance . . . Her thoughts meandered. The godslayers are a trap, Maccis. Nothing but a one-way bargain, with something that believes it’s perfection . . . uninterested in what humanity is . . . just what they think we should be . . . tell my mother . . . her gifts of knowledge . . . let me understand . . . that we should be proud of who we are, who we make ourselves . . . .

  The pen slipped from her fingers, and Zaya put her head down on her desk, her vision skewing. She was just sleepy because of the pregnancy, that was all. It . . . didn’t matter if she took a little nap, did it? I’ll only sleep a little while. Just until someone comes. That’s all.

  One of Erida’s rings had alerted her that a message was coming through, but she hadn’t responded; she and Zhi had been tearing a mad godling apart between them, and the Chaldean magus had no time to listen. She was a supremely gifted sorcerer and summoner, with decades of experience, and a powerful spirit to back her . . . but even so, there were at least a dozen of the small godlings surrounding them at the moment, in this latest wave. Why did they pick tonight to attack the edges of Judea in force? she wondered as she set the incantation’s parameters in her mind, and released it with a flick of her fingers, destabilizing the closest mad one, diverting its energy into the earth itself, which began to superheat below them. Better a glass-covered section of desert in t
he morning, Erida thought, than a mad godling free to rampage, or another god dead, with earthquakes or whatever else attended the death.

  They are hungry, and they are desperate, Zhi told her, grimly, racing forwards to grapple with another of the godlings. Accepting the tendrils that bit into his cyclone form as a matter of course, as he began to tear off parts of the godling’s energy, and feed on the creature, himself. There are the spirits of the humans left in all the troubled lands, but would you graze on grass, when there is venison just over the next hill? There might be hunters there; the deer might be protected by game wardens . . . but if you hungered, would you not take the risk?

  It made sense. Erida grimaced, setting up another incantation, held securely at the heart of the storm that was her efreet lover. Still, Zhi was beginning to slow. He’d absorbed too much from the mad ones today. He might run into the danger of overloading himself, shortly. Outside of the howling vortex that enveloped her, she could sense Kanmi and Minori’s incantations, pulling on gravity, a force that Erida herself usually did not choose to use. And there was Mercury, ducking, dodging, weaving. Pulling the mad gods apart, cutting into them with pure will.