Her brother escorted them to her father’s study, where ben Maor awaited. The story he unfolded was so outlandish that Aquila’s eyes widened, and she thought for a moment that surely, they would have to admit him to a mental hospital. “There’s a plot to sacrifice Baal-Hamon and distribute his power into twenty or so technomancers? You’re pleased to jest with us?” she asked . . . and saw the lack of any surprise on her new husband’s face.
“Not any more than I was joking when I reported the events around Hel’s death and Loki’s exile from the mortal realm,” ben Maor said, tiredly. “Nor about the deaths of Inti, the rest of the Tawantinsuyan pantheon, and Tlaloc.”
Aquila blinked, and her mind churned. Again, neither her brother nor Caesarion looked confused. “You both knew about this.” she said. It wasn’t a question, nor an accusation.
“Father told me a few things in the year before his death,” Marcus admitted, sitting down behind their father’s desk, looking uncomfortable in the old chair. “It was as if he knew the end was coming, and wanted to make sure I’d be ready. Almost everything he told me was disquieting, and has rather turned the way I look at the world on its head.”
Caesarion chose one of the backless stools in front of the desk, and then took her hand in his, so that it brushed the folds of his toga. “My father’s done the same. I was surprised to be included. I would have thought the information reserved for Julianus, the heir. But Hadrianus was included, as was I.” A shrug. “Why do you bring this to us, Commander ben Maor?”
“Because I do not have the Imperator’s ear.” Ben Maor raised a hand. “Actually, truthfully, I suspect that if I were to place a personal request for attention before his staff, I would have his attention in short order. I have . . . an unfortunate history of being where trouble is.” He grimaced a little. “But then his staff, and his secretaries, and half the palace would know that I had contacted him. And this must be kept as quiet and secret as possible.” He looked at Marcus and Aquila, steadfastly. “A man’s life depends on this. You both know him. Kanmi Eshmunazar.”
Aquila’s mouth opened and shut. She’d been terrified of the Carthaginian sorcerer as a child, but had, by her teens, grown to appreciate his rough sense of humor and plain-spoken ways. “Anything I can do, I will do,” she said, quietly. She couldn’t take her father’s Senatorial seat—that was her brother’s—but Aquila had been cultivating power in the assembly of the plebeians for over a decade. Mostly power-brokering . . . a little money spent in the right place at the right time . . . putting the right people in the same room together, and getting them to talk, rather than continuing to shout platitudes and slogans at one another. “What do you need?”
“I need for his operation to be sanctioned, run solely through my office, and I need the various Praetorian agents currently out there trying to bring in his head, quietly redirected into other tasks. Senator, you’re currently on the intelligence committee in the Senate . . .” he was looking at Marcus. “I’d take it as a very great favor if you could gently find other, more important things, for certain task forces to look into. There’s also the whole . . . witch-hunt fervor starting to stir. I know, it’s hard to watch the far-viewer and see summoners and sorcerers unleashing mass destruction on a battlefield . . . but we need our people willing to fight, and not concerned that they’re about to be investigated for doing their jobs. And their friends. And their families. And anyone that they might have ever come into contact with, since realizing that they had a gift for magic.” Ben Maor sounded tired. “This is something that’s reared its head again in the past ten years. I’d thought we were well past this, as a society.”
“I can’t promise anything,” Aquila said, tapping a finger against her lips. “But I can see if I can’t put together some social pressure directed at making sorcerers and the like more included in society as a whole. Most of them really do prefer the ivory tower of academia, however.”
“Don’t I know it,” ben Maor said, and rubbed at his eyes. “If your father were still alive, domina, a public speech from him on the matter would leash some of the rabble-rousers. Just as a few words from him, in the right ears, in the Senate, would have . . . at least seen us trying a diplomatic option before the inevitable renewal of hostilities with Persia and the Khanate.”
Marcus nodded, looking down and away. “I am not my father, Commander ben Maor. But I will do what I may.”
“That’s all any of us can do,” the older man told her brother. “And so long as all of us do all that we can, all may yet be well.”
After he left, Aquila sighed and shook her head. “He’s gone so gray,” she said, quietly. “I remember him as . . . this . . . pillar of strength.” She didn’t like to think about it, but she was thirty-nine now, herself. Her two children by her previous husbands were adolescents. At least, this time around, I know I’ll be happy.
Maius 4, 1985 AC
Frigedæg was Freya’s day, and Venus’, as well—dies Veneris, on the Roman calendar. A propitious day for a wedding, except that this particular Frigedæg fell on the fourth of the month, and one of the participants was, nominally speaking, Shinto. The number four was considered unlucky by Shinto priests. The priests had decided, however, that because this particular date coincided with the day of Taian on the six-day weekly calendar used in Nippon, and because Taian was the most propitious day for weddings, that their compunctions could be safely ignored.
Minori had smiled politely through the negotiations, despite wanting to scream. Masako had just graduated college, and was going to continue on to do her thesis work in calculus-assisted casting. Solinus had a week’s window of leave from the military and the war on the Persian front that was now in its fourth year. They’d needed a priestess of Áine for the Pictish young man, and a Shinto priest for Masako. Technically, Masako could have invited in a priestess of Astarte, too, but she’d refused to have any of the Carthaginian gods represented. It had all seemed straightforward, until Solinus’ twin Inghean had, rather shyly, approached them all, and asked if it wouldn’t just be simpler if she and Rig happened to get married on the same day and at the same ceremony. Which had meant that they’d needed a priestess of Freya, too.
That had only been the start of the headaches. Then there had been all the wrangling about when one set of people would trade nine ceremonial sips of sake, and when both couples would break the traditional Pictish wheaten cake and have their hands tied with knotted cords of silk. At least the Pictish and Gothic tradition of ceremonial binding was identical . . .and then everyone needed to exchange rings.
So long as all of them get married, and only get married to the right people, I think everything will be fine, Lassair assured Minori, calmly, folding her hands over her pregnant belly.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
You managed Himilico’s marriage to my Latirian. And Bodi’s marriage to Jykke, as well.
But it’s not the same, Minori wanted to reply. I love the boys, but they’re not Masako. They’re not my little girl. And Kanmi isn’t here for this, and I am so angry at . . . well, not him, but the world. At Baal. At . . . all right, I’m a little mad at him, too, but I know it’s not his fault . . . .
Her own parents had flown out from Nippon for this event. They had seen Masako perhaps twice before, in person, but this was an important event. Minori’s father was ninety years old this year, and appeared exceedingly frail in his dark, formal kimono. But he still carried a sword at his side, and, grim-faced, remained standing through all the portions of the ceremony that required it. Her mother, only seventy-six, was a delicate, bird-like woman in a vivid, peacock-blue kimono, who spoke charmingly of how beautiful both brides were—and how shockingly young Rig’s mother appeared. “Surely, she cannot be his mother. Perhaps his sister?”
“They are sennin, mother.” The word meant immortal—kami-born—and was often interchangeable with xian, which was more often applied to sorcerers and sages. But then again, the Nipponese didn’t apply as man
y artificial distinctions to those who wielded power as Westerners did.
“Oh, yes, of course. That explains everything.”
Minori’s father had spoken to her, rather severely, about her absent husband, just last night. “He swore to me, that he would never make you unhappy. It is not happiness I see in your eyes, daughter. Under Roman law, you are allowed to plead for divorce from the courts yourself; I need not do so for you. How have you not divorced this man who has abandoned you and your child? Who could not even be here today, the day of his own daughter’s wedding?”
She’d closed her eyes on the rush of pain, and told him, steadfastly, “Forgive me, but I will not hear a word against my husband in this house, Father.” She’d gestured, and the air around them had stopped carrying sound. “I cannot speak of where he is, or what he is doing. I am sorry, Father, but I beg you to trust in him, as I do. Kanmi . . . does what he must. And I hope, every day, that we will bring him home, soon.”
Her father’s eyes had narrowed. “He’s involved in the Persian war?”
“I cannot say.” She was grateful that that was where his mind had gone, however. Anywhere, but Carthage.
She took as many pictures as she could, especially of the grandchildren Kanmi hadn’t yet held. She had a trip scheduled to Alexandria in a few weeks. Information exchange, and a chance for Kanmi to detoxify his mind from the sewer in which he was swimming. Every time she left, he entrusted coded messages not to her, but to Lassair. Lassair could take them through the Veil, and place them in Adam’s hands without being stopped and searched by anyone watching Minori. Lassair had pointed out that it would be safer for everyone if she simply took Minori’s form, and went alone . . . but that wouldn’t serve the purpose of keeping Kanmi’s sanity afloat.
Fritti watched as Minori scuttled past, camera in hand. They’d held the dual ceremony outdoors, in a public park usually frequented by jotun and fenris, and they’d opted to set up the feast for it outdoors as well, on long trestle tables usually used by nieten occupants of the same neighborhood. She’d found a quiet table, away from most of the younger people, all acquaintances of the Matrugena clan, apparently. A few fellow university students for Masako, Inghean, and Rig—Rig had studied optics at the University of Jerusalem, something of which Fritti was inordinately proud, and which had actually enhanced his illusions ten-fold.
Having graduated, however, he had decided to volunteer for the Legion as a foreign levy . . . something that put him back on the grid as a god-born. Brandr had arrived on Fritti’s door-step when Rig volunteered for the Legion, clearly annoyed and a little pained. She hadn’t recognized him, of course. Sigrun had had to introduce him, and Fritti had flushed a little, realizing that this was the man who had been meant to be her trainer, once. He’d mostly recovered from Hel’s horrific attack on him, fifteen years ago, but he still stumbled for words, like a stroke victim. “W-why have you both h-hidden here, all this time?” he’d asked, as he handed Rig paperwork to fill out. “Everyone wh-who sees you here, knows w-what you are. S-sigrun’s had you living across the st-st . . .” he paused, clearly having trouble with the word, and finally grimaced and forced it out, “street . . . all this time.” Brandr had put his hands down on the table, and exhaled. “D-did you th-think w-we would harm you?”
Fritti had shaken her head, quietly. “I was afraid at first,” she admitted. “That my son would be taken from me. Trained. Turned into a servant, like Sleipnir, or imprisoned, like Jormangand.”
The bear-warrior had looked as if he’d been slapped, and Fritti winced. She didn’t know him, but clearly, he remembered ‘training’ her. She wondered if Loki had invented the memories entirely, or had set them up so that Brandr’s own mind created some of the illusions in which he’d apparently wandered for two years. That’s not my fault, though.
“W-we . . . wouldn’t . . . im-imprison . . . .”
Fritti sighed. “I know that now,” she’d told him. “I just wanted Rig to be free to make choices. And he’s made good ones, don’t you think?” She’d looked at her son, with a certain fond worry in her heart. She’d worry about him in the Legion, but . . . with his skills, he’d make an excellent infiltration specialist. And as he’d told her, What else am I going to do with all these illusions? Special effects for the cinema? Play games while the world burns around me?
She even liked Rig’s choice of wife. Inghean, Trennus and Lassair’s daughter, was cheerful and bright. She was currently taking her master’s degree in bio-engineering. She spent quite a bit of time talking about genetically modifying plants for better crop yields. “I’m tired of the people who say that’s going against nature,” Inghean tended to say. “When grafting was first invented, people went on and on about how it was against the will of the gods to take something from one plant, and cut into the flesh of another, and bind the two. And you know what? We have more and better food because of that, and the gods don’t care. Give genetically-modified crops a hundred years, and no one will say a thing besides ‘my, that’s delicious.’”
At the moment, Inghean was looking at Rig, a happy smile wreathing her face . . . and Fritti watched, in amusement, as the seeds with which they’d pelted the couple began to grow around Inghean’s bare feet, sprouting into an abundance of flowers around the bench on which they sat. Fortunately, they were deep in Little Gothia at the moment, and there were only a handful of Judeans present, so no one was likely to be offended by the fact that Inghean’s good moods tended to improve the liveliness of plants around her. “It’s like watching something grow in stop-motion photography,” Adam had muttered periodically, over the years.
Fritti turned and scanned the crowd. She really should be mingling, but it felt good just to sit in the sun, feeling the light breeze touch her face, and rest. Most days, she was still technically a refugee coordinator, which more or less now meant, community outreach specialist, in and around a little work at the hospital. She worked the job and not the clock, which made for long hours. So it felt good not to be dealing with people. She caught sight of Sigrun and Adam, sitting by themselves, in the shade of a tree, keeping an eye on the youngest Matrugena children . . . Saraid lounging with them, in fenris form, beside Dr. Larus Sillen, who was panting white frost in the Maius sunshine, while his lycanthrope wife, Linnea, adjusted his glasses for him, gently. Fritti chuckled under her breath; Linnea had been one of her discoveries, a jotun woman who wanted to study astronomy, and so she’d set up a meeting with the university to try to get the young woman a proper education . . . and the rest had rapidly become history. They’d fallen in love, and Linnea had petitioned Saraid and Lassair to . . . modify her.
She was, as such, the only jotun on record who’d become a hveðungr. And, because she had been a brunette before the transition, she was the only hveðungr or fenris in possibly the entire world, who happened to have a tawny sable coat. And she was doing doctoral work on radar telescopes. Not too bad, Fritti thought, happily.
As she turned to look the other way through the crowd, however, she stopped moving. Stopped breathing, in fact. There was a very tall man under another nearby tree. Taller than even Brandr, but shorter than a jotun, and with none of the bulky proportions of the giants. Long, dark hair, waist-length and blowing lightly in the breeze. His skin held the pallor of an invalid, as if he’d not seen the sun in some time. In spite of the pleasant spring weather, he wore a dark traveler’s cloak, which concealed most of the rest of his form. And while he leaned against the tree with his left shoulder, in his right hand, he carried a naked sword, tip driven into the ground . . . almost like a walking stick. She’d only seen his true face once. But it had haunted her dreams for over two decades now, first in anger, and then in regret. Radulfr. Loki.
She leaped out of her seat, keeping her eyes locked on his form, and headed straight for him. Looking away would be a mistake. He’d disappear if she looked away, even for an instant. She could see recognition in his face, even a trace of . . . welcome. Longing, perhaps. And then s
omething impacted around the level of her waist, and she looked down in time to realize she was about to trample someone’s child, tripped, stumbled, almost fell . . . and when she looked up again . . . he was gone.
Fritti bolted for the tree, not caring if everyone around her stared. She found a cut in the turf, sure enough, where the sword had clearly pressed. There was a folded piece of paper there, which she picked up, before rapidly scanning the crowd again. Then she darted through the wedding guests, dodging around a couple of jotun who were in attendance, whose massive bodies blocked her view. Rig, having seen her run to the tree, caught up with her. “Mother? What’s wrong?” He looked down at her, his gray eyes confused, and then glanced around for any threats.
“Your father was here,” Fritti said, and kept going, combing through the crowd. She was almost frantic now, the note clutched, unread, in her hand. “Why is he hiding? Why won’t he let me talk to him?” Of course, the last time I spoke to him, I was . . . angry. I called him a liar. I called him a thief. I told him I’d loved nothing but a lie, and that I hated him. There might be reasons he doesn’t want to talk to me. But is he still here? Is he just watching, unmanifested?
The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2) Page 78