“Yes,” the boy said, his back straightening. “I am descended from Magi for seven generations on my mother’s side. I will not fail.”
“We’ll see.” Kanmi let his gaze bore into the boy. “You understand why your father died?”
“He abused his power.”
That’s learned by rote. “And you’re not angry about that?”
Athim’s lips compressed. “I was, at first. But . . . I only saw him . . . once a month or so. I know I was supposed to love him, but . . . Tishku was my nurse.” His voice wavered. “She used to look sad all the time. And sometimes, she’d have bruises. And after my father died, Mother said that my father used to hurt Tishku. And I loved her.” A quick glance at his mother, as if expecting a scolding.
“Continue to answer Master Eshmunazar’s questions openly and honestly,” Erida told the boy.
He looked down. “. . . I’m not sorry he’s dead,” Athim admitted, his voice muffled. “I thought for a while that . . . maybe Mother lied. But Tishku seemed much happier. And . . . Zhi showed me . . . in my head . . . some of what my father did.”
Erida’s head snapped towards the spirit, who held a hand up placatingly. Only what he could understand. More, when he’s older, if there is need.
Kanmi sighed, and looked at Min. And shifted into his halting, graceless Nipponese. “Not what we saw ourselves doing.”
“You wish to instruct him, husband?”
“I do not see how I cannot. Can you imagine if someone with as much anger as I have . . . wasn’t taught by the right person?” The language was a struggle.
Minori sighed. “Can we consider this overnight?” she asked Erida.
“Also, keep in mind,” Kanmi warned, “Even Masako here gets lessons with Caetia.” He looked at the boy. “And if you think I’m bad, just wait till you meet her.”
An hour or so of . . . lighter chit-chat. Shop-talk, mostly. Erida was dubious about the benefits of calculi-created incantations until she saw the first one printed out, and then she was . . . mesmerized. “And this is what your son does now?” she asked.
“Bodi, yes. He’s back from the fighting in the north for a bit, and is working for a Hellene technomancy firm, designing the software that . . . does the math for incantations.” Kanmi grinned. “I suspect he’ll be bored with that in a year or two, and might head back north again. He doesn’t sit still well, unfortunately.”
After that, they escorted their visitors to the door where, instead of an automobile . . . there was a flying carpet, rippling, about a foot off the ground. Admittedly, it was a modern model, which meant that it had a clear, resin-based window in an aluminum frame, attached to the front, to serve as a windscreen; this screen appeared to be completely removable, judging from the tassels used to tie it in place. It also had retracting seat-belts, which looped over from the side. Kanmi looked at the vehicle, and his eyebrows rose. “Really?” he asked Erida.
“One must keep up appearances,” she informed him. “Also, I don’t require a pilot’s license to operate this, can come and go as I please, and once I remove its accessories, it fits nicely on my study floor, as opposed to needing to go out to the garage if I need a quick escape.”
Kanmi shook his head. “It might be the only vehicle in existence that Caetia wouldn’t call a deathtrap. But I know for a fact that we’d have to staple Matrugena to it. You’d think that after all the flying we’ve done, all over the world, and after he’s traveled to Britannia every summer with his brood, he’d finally have gotten used to it, but no.”
He could tell that Masako wasn’t entirely thrilled with the idea of suddenly sharing the house with another child. She got plenty of socialization at school, not to mention Trennus’ increasingly large family. But she was quiet and reserved, and liked having time and space to herself. “Do you really have to do this, Papa?” she finally asked him, over dinner.
“I think we’re probably going to have to, yes.”
“We get the Magi library here?” Minori said, quickly. “We’d suddenly have a department of thaumaturgy that people will be lining up to study at. We’ll have to turn people away. We’ll need research assistants. Security, just to help control of the people coming to look at the old papers. For that alone? Yes. For keeping all of that out of Persian hands? Yes.” She looked as Masako. “And that would be enough, I think, even if we didn’t have a responsibility to teach.”
After Masako was in bed, Kanmi dug out Livorus’ direct line telephone number, and held the paper in his hand, consideringly. “What is it?” Minori asked him, as he started to chuckle.
“Eh, just a chain of thoughts that snapped in an amusing place.”
“Share,” she invited, coming over to sit on the chair beside the desk.
Kanmi snorted, and caressed her hair. “First, I thought: Gods, Min and I are the only people we know who are staying mortal. Well, other than ben Maor.”
“Oh, not true. We have friends, neighbors, and coworkers who are all perfectly normal humans.” Minori rested her head against his ribs. Kanmi stroked her dark hair, lightly flecked here and there with gray, and smiled down at her. “That’s not very amusing, though,” she added.
“Oh, that wasn’t the funny part. The funny part was . . . I always thought women were smarter about some things than men are.”
Minori looked up at him, her fine brows crinkling. “Oh?”
“The cardinal rule, for most men, is . . . don’t stick it in the crazy. Now, obviously, that doesn’t slow some men down. Sigrun’s sister? Ten different kinds of crazy, and there’s apparently enough of a queue to get into her bed that she has to have the men and women waiting for their turn take numbers.” Kanmi felt as well as heard Minori’s splutter against his ribs, and grinned. “But, then you look at Matrugena and ben Maor, and . . . damn, I don’t know which of them is more insane. One wrong move, and Matrugena’s looking at third-degree burns in a really sensitive region. One wrong word, and two spirits will split him down the middle like a wishbone. Ben Maor? I don’t know which mental image is worse: snowbank or electrical socket. Either way, it makes me cringe.”
Minori was shaking against him now, laughing helplessly. “Oh, stop, stop, you’re horrible!”
“I know, but my point is, ben Maor and Matrugena? They’re men. Everything looks like a good idea to us. Erida? What’s her excuse? A column of smoke and fire that can be two miles tall. ‘Well, they say size isn’t everything, but let’s find out for sure?’”
Minori slid off the chair, laughing so convulsively, tears leaked from under her eyelids. “You . . . you’re so bad.”
“I know. It’s why you love me, right? My only redeeming trait?” Kanmi waited for the laughter to die down a bit, and began dialing. The first three times, there was a busy signal.
When he finally did get through, Livorus sounded tired, and as if every day of his seventy years weighed on him. ”I have no comment at this time.”
“Ave, dominus. Kanmi Eshmunazar here. I hope this isn’t a bad time?”
A distinct pause. “Eshmunazar? I did not expect to hear from you today.”
“Is there a problem?”
“I will assume from your question that you have not turned on the nightly news as yet.”
Kanmi’s back straightened, and he covered the mouthpiece with one hand. “Turn on the far-viewer,” he told Minori, all amusement falling from his face. “Something’s wrong.” Back into the mouthpiece, he said, “No, we haven’t yet, sir.” The respectful sir came out of his mouth in spite of his reservations about patricians. Livorus had earned that word from him.
“You might recall the retracting roof that I had added to the Colosseum in the thirties? It collapsed today during a gladiatorial exhibition. Four hundred people hurt. Thirty dead already. I rather suspect metal fatigue and improper maintenance.” Livorus’ voice was grim.
“It’s also over forty years old, sir. They can’t possibly blame you.”
“Pray explain that to the people who have,
every year since it was built, protested to the sitting aedile that it should be removed because it destroys the ‘historic character’ of an ancient building. I personally rather enjoyed not being rained on while watching the games.” Livorus sighed. “What was the reason for your call?”
“We have to discuss the Chaldean situation, sir. When you have a moment.”
“I’ll pencil in an appointment for you in the morning. Use an encrypted line.”
“Yes, sir.”
Maius 3, 1976 AC
“I’m telling you, Sigrun, I don’t know what to do with him!” Fritti’s voice was exasperated. “He’s gone from being such a well-behaved boy, to having three fights this week. Considering the training he’s getting from your husband and from Master Matrugena, you’d think he’d be better at it.” Sigrun had reminded Fritti to call Adam and Tren by their first names dozens of times over the past six years, but Fritti seemed constitutionally incapable of doing so. They were each thirteen or fourteen years her senior. And since Adam was now commander of the Judean division of the Praetorian Guard, and Trennus had been promoted to chief counter-summoner, Fritti never seemed to be able to make the switch to seeing them as peers. “Instead, he’s coming home with black eyes and bloody noses. And he won’t tell me what the problem is.” Fritti sounded deeply upset. “Could you come over and talk with him?”
Sigrun sighed and looked at the clock. It was six postmeridian, and Adam wasn’t home from the office yet. She didn’t like them eating at different times; they were, after all, a married couple. Sharing meals was part of sharing a life. However, the job was keeping him at least until seven most evenings now, and then he still had to drive home. Her work took her all over the city, and disjointed her schedule badly most days now, too. Life was simpler when we scheduled who had which watch, and that was all that mattered. “Let me check in on my in-laws,” she told Fritti. “I’ll leave something simmering on the stove for Adam, and be right over.”
Maor was now seventy-six, and had a good deal of trouble with the stairs, usually having to stop at the first landing and pant for a moment or two. His ankles were thick with excess water, and Sigrun could feel mortality beginning to gather its dark wings around him. Abigayil usually helped him up the stairs, one hand on the rail, and one arm wrapped around his waist.
There were no rugs or small tables anywhere in the house now. They couldn’t afford the trip hazards. No small animals, either—not that Sigrun had ever been the sort to want a lady’s over-bred lapdog. But Maor needed a cane, and moved uncertainly now, at the best of times, and small nervous animals would have been a bad idea. Sigrun tapped lightly at their door. Abigayil, whose hearing was better than Maor’s, answered. “I’m going across the street to the old house,” Sigrun told her. “Fritti needs some help with Rig. Is there anything I can do for you while I’m going up and down the stairs?”
“You could take the trash out for me. There’s a dear, thank you.” Abigayil didn’t like using the stairs any more than Maor did, and Sigrun understood why. One wrong step, and fragile old bones would shatter like glass.
It was just hard, watching them, and realizing that Abigayil was Livorus’ age, precisely.
And thus, only five years older than Sigrun, herself.
Five minutes later, Sigrun found Rig across the street, glumly perched on a bench under the cypress tree, covering his face against the slanting western sun. “Aunt Sigrun,” he said, looking up. Sure enough, a large purple bruise covered most of one gray eye, and the swelling almost sealed it shut. “Mother called you?”
Sigrun tipped her head to the side, studying him. Body-language spoke of weariness, a little defiance. Agitation. The little glances past her, however . . . yes, directed at Trennus’ house. Interesting. “She did. Before I fix your eye, I need to know if you deserved it or not.” Sigrun looked down at him steadily. “Did you start the fight?”
“. . . sort of?”
“I trust there’s going to be a better explanation than that.” Sigrun paused. “Every other time you’ve had a problem at school, you have made yourself invisible and sent an illusion of yourself running away for the bullies to chase.”
Rig grinned at her. “That’s a good trick, isn’t it?” He sobered, and sighed. “There’s a group of boys at school,” he said, shrugging. “All of them are . . . pretty big already. They have the lockers around Inghean’s, and they keep . . . messing with her. Grabbing her bag, taking it off her shoulder. Grabbing her arms, keeping her from making it to her next class.”
Sigrun grimaced. Public school was not something with which she had, personally, ever dealt. “They are new, I take it?”
“Well, it’s the middle-tier school, Aunt Sig.” Rig kicked out his legs. “Everyone’s new this year. I mean, it’s the end of the school year, but she’s been dealing with this all year. And this week . . .” Rig sighed. “They started calling her a whore. They said her mother was a whore, and that she must be a whore, too, and that they’d pay her a denarius to . . . you know.” He looked down and away.
“Give them satisfaction?” Sigrun’s tone was very cold.
Rig grimaced, but there were no lies in his eyes when he looked up at her again. “Yes.”
“So you decided to hit them.”
“The first time, yes. The last two times, they jumped me on the way home. They figured out my illusion after the first time. Managed to get their hands on me when I was invisible. I didn’t move away fast enough.” Rig grimaced again. “Inghean and the others, they can take care of themselves, but they’re not supposed to burn the people who bother them. Solinus was suspended so many times at our last school, the principal was just going to kick him out entirely. Inghean can’t throw fire in school, either.”
“Off school grounds, they’re free to defend themselves,” Sigrun pointed out, but she understood the perils of that, all too well. Someone who had a black belt in a martial art, for instance, was held to a higher standard than a random person in a bar fight. They were supposed to understand control, and how not to do damage. How not to kill. Sorcerers, ley-mages, and god-born were held to similar standards. And one of those standards was don’t use your powers on ordinary mortals, or at least, don’t be the one using a gun in a fist-fight.
“Well, I didn’t want to hide behind Solinus. And he doesn’t need more detention than he already gets.” Rig squirmed on the bench, and then muttered, “Besides, my father was . . . who he was.” He looked up at her. “I shouldn’t be hiding behind anyone. I should be able to . . . stand up for myself. If I open my mouth in the school, I should . . . back it up outside, right?”
“Your father was a god who never felt the urge to stand in pitched battle in his existence,” Sigrun muttered, quietly, looking up at the palm tree. “He always used his mind to get around it.” The world’s gone mad. And I’ve gone mad with it. She sighed. “Nevermind. I understand. How many of these boys are there?”
“Four or five. It depends on the day.” Rig winced as Sigrun’s fingers touched his face, lightly, and then sighed in relief as the pain went away. Sigrun herself barely felt the bruising as it appeared around her own eye. “You’re not mad?”
“I am angry with them, not with you. I will speak with Trennus and Lassair about this. Lassair has been away from home in the north this past week, else I think we might already have heard some reports of children running screaming and terrified as a phoenix manifested and attacked them.” Sigrun considered her own words. Lassair was probably aware of the bullying, but was actively taking steps not to be the solution to every problem for the children. Trennus had much the same notion, but . . . this was probably more extreme than either of them realized.
She could intervene directly, and save Trennus the hassle of dealing, yet again, with the parents of children who probably thought the very things that their children were expressing. She could walk up to the house of each of the bullies, flash her Praetorian badge, and tell the parents that the boys were needed for questioning in w
hat was, arguably, assault on a minor. Certainly sexual harassment. Arguably, soliciting unlicensed prostitution. If they were Judean, and past the age of thirteen, and had been bar mitzvahed, they could, under Judean law, be treated as adults. Admittedly, there was a little legal gray area there, because adulthood in the Empire as a whole was generally considered to start at the age of sixteen. But still . . . no. It was all Rig and Inghean’s word against the aggressors’. Best not to use the badge for this, though the humiliation and the force of law were potent weapons to wield. “I’m going to arm you, Rig,” she told him, instead. “That way, you can take care of this yourself.”
“I’m . . . pretty sure I can’t take a gun or a knife to school, Aunt Sigrun.”
Sigrun arched her eyebrows. “Not that kind of armament. I mean to give you a weapon that only you can use, and cannot be turned against you. I mean to arm you with fear.” She sank to a crouch. “Make a dragon for me, Rig.”
The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2) Page 58