In ten years, she’d have sprouts emerging from all over her body as her immune system fought a parasitic infestation common to elm trees. Doctors would be at a loss, and would recommend planting her in the ground to try to stabilize her condition. It had saved other dryads before, but her condition was too far along . . . and when she died, a tree sprouted and grew from her remains. It was a silent tree, a grave marker. One that her daughter, a genetic clone of her mother, would tend to once a week, until the world ended.
Sophia dabbled more paint on the wall, fleshing in the dark haunches of the centaur leader, as she saw, the city of Komotini, in the Thracian region to the northeast. Only lightly shaken by the earthquakes, it was ten miles inland, and thus, far from the tidal surge. Thousands of people from small towns along the coast would flood into the area, motorcars clogging the roads. The woman would be volunteering in a shelter, handing out paper cups of hot coffee, urging people not to burn themselves, and to move along, because the lines were growing longer. The carafe in her hand would slip and fall to the ground, spraying her legs with shattered glass and scalding hot brew, but it would be nothing to the pain in her body as she collapsed, writhing, on the floor. People would drag her away from the puddle and the glass, and call for paramedics, but she wouldn’t black out. She’d stay perfectly aware and conscious as her bones and muscles shifted. Distorted. Moved beneath her skin. As her hair fell out in chunks, and a fine, feathery down appeared in its place on her scalp—the feathers growing in would take a week. And for some of her kind, they would grow everywhere, but for others, they would stay localized. For her, they grew on the backs of her arms, like a fringe, and she wanted, desperately, to pluck them out, like errant eyebrow hairs. She would ask the nurses, repeatedly and weakly, for tweezers, and they’d always refuse, and adjust her IVs before leaving.
Efrosyni Zabat would endure the X-rays and the MRIs conducted by the best Hellene doctors in the country, as she and others like her were taken to Athens, to the university hospital there. Tests would show that the marrow was drying up in her bones, leaving her feeling initially weak and light-headed, as her red blood cell count dropped . . . and then there was abdominal pain, as her spleen enlarged, taking over the load. The structure of her bones, themselves, altered fundamentally; a human bone was designed to employ marrow as a means of shock absorption, and without that marrow, was terribly fragile. So the bone fibers themselves began to interweave, and became much stronger, as well as lighter. Calcium was actually leached from them by chemical processes. For a while, her doctors tried to inhibit this, but finally resorted to giving her massive doses of calcium every day.
Her back began to ache, and the doctors said that new bone structures were growing. This would take about three weeks, and she’d never be able to lie comfortably on her back again as wings sprouted. They were set a little lower on her back than she’d have thought, had anyone consulted her in the decision, and they measured a total of sixteen feet, when she, awkwardly, spread them for the first time. She promptly knocked over a table and smacked a doctor in the face with a leading edge.
The wings were covered, like her arms and head, with dark brown, faintly speckled feathers, and her nails had become talons. She covered her face and wanted to weep, but she knew that, of all the people on her ward, she was perhaps the luckiest. A man in the next bed over hadn’t had wings sprout—he’d had a membrane made of skin grow between his wrists and his ankles on both sides, and he was completely covered in feathers now. His feet had shifted form, becoming long, gripping toes, and he had talons that made it hard for him to grip a pen or a cup.
There were three morphologically distinct varieties of harpies. The most mutated were like the man in the bed beside hers. The median variety had the same wing morphology as Efrosyni, but had long-toed feet and talon-like gripping claws that replaced their hands, though all of them, fortunately, retained thumbs. And some of the least mutated, like Efrosyni, had even kept their hair, although it matched their plumage in coloration. Some of them would be able to go about life, almost as if nothing had happened.
Except, of course, everything had.
Sophia hummed to herself. Efrosyni and her kind would see massive social changes. While unlike the dryads, males and females could mate successfully with humans, harpy females laid eggs. Males were thus valued as someone else who could guard an egg while it was in a commercially-made incubator, or tucked between two warm bodies in a bed at night. The females were just as strong as the males—a question of muscle insertion points—but tended to be a little smaller . . . and were faster, more agile, and vastly more aggressive in the air because of it. The ‘flying squirrel’ variant would probably have died out, in time, if the world wasn’t going to end first; they simply weren’t as well-adapted to flying, so much as gliding. The other varieties would thrive, and females would become dominant within the harpy subculture, overnight.
The coloration on each harpy varied wildly, some as gaudy as parrots, and others as drab as wrens. And some few—the rarest of all—were sirens. Their voices went beyond the range of any human singer, and they could easily double-voice notes, rendering songs in exquisitely beautiful ways . . . and could also scream in such a way as would burst a man’s eardrums or shatter glass. I can already see her, the swan-maiden disguised as the swan. Red eyes and black hair, replacing blue and white. You’ll be coming home soon, won’t you, lost one?
“Why do I always run out of ochre first?” Sophia asked out loud, as the far-viewer, behind her, changed scenes to Thermo, near Lake Trichonida, the largest lake in all of Hellas. She blinked for a moment, as she saw a young woman, screaming as she ran through the woods, tearing her clothing off as scales erupted from her flesh. She dove off the end of a dock into the lake’s cool waters, sucking in a breath and recoiling in shock as she realized water was pouring into her throat, but not through her mouth. Through gills. The woman screamed underwater, again and again, and then something else broke the surface of the water and sent up a column of bubbles. Dark shape thrashing in the water. She paddled closer, looking down to realize that webbing was growing between her fingers, letting her scoop the water more easily, and she shuddered at herself, disgusted and horrified . . . and then got close enough to see the face of a man, mouth agape under the water as at his throat, too, gills pulsed. “What’s going on?” the woman asked, but her voice was distorted by the water. She wasn’t even using exhaled air to shape the words, but exhaled water, re-circulated through the gill structure.
“I don’t know.” She could feel his voice along her sides. Could see the dazed confusion in his face as he, too, raised his hands to look at the webbing growing there, the silvery, iridescent scales growing along his arms and chest. Chunks of his hair drifted away on the light current. “I just knew . . . I needed to get to the water . . . .”
“Or you’d die.”
“Yes.”
In the weeks to come, scientists would help the new naiads and tritons get to hospitals. Saltwater or fresh, didn’t seem to matter, but they were now semi-amphibious creatures. Their skins needed to remain moist; too much exposure to dry air, and they’d crack open. Start to dehydrate, rapidly, go into shock, and probably die. Most, but not all, could breathe air as easily as water; most used their lungs as swim bladders for buoyancy. A handful had been changed so deeply that they no longer could breathe air at all, and needed to live in tanks of water, often at public aquariums, while doctors examined them. They had become . . . something quite different from all other animals on earth. No hair, but scales. Cold-blooded, amphibian, but still live-bearing and milk-giving. Anomalies.
Sophia’s hands shook, and she stepped away from the wall as the next set of visions assailed her. Mount Pelion. The traditional home of centaurs in myth and legend, where, depending on the story one favored, they had two different origins. One set of tales said that they were birthed by the nymph Nephele, when she was forced to assume Hera’s form, and the mortal Ixion raped her, or when their spi
rit-born son, Centaurus, deformed and alone, raped the wild mares that had roamed the mountain’s slopes. The mountain itself was only a three-hour drive to the northeast of Delphi, and was a wilderness preserve, in the main. The news report from the region focused on the campers and hikers who had been out in the preserve, only to find portions of the mountain face sliding away.
Sophia closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see this. She didn’t want to see that there were still wild horses in the area. Not many, but a few. Just enough, really, so that the mad godling that was in the air above, and touched down here, saw them, saw the men. This wasn’t the work of random chance, the chaotic wave of Baal-Hamon’s dying breath. No, this was the work of one of his fragmented pieces of will, combined with the shattered remains of a human mind. The amalgam entity currently had little awareness. It had no real personality. But it had . . . malevolence. It wanted to see humanity suffer. It wanted to see anything and everything that had a body, had personhood, suffer. So it took the mares and the stallions and drove them towards the hikers and the climbers and the campers. It took the body of a man who’d fallen in an avalanche, and knitted him together with the stallion, with casual brutality. This wasn’t the transformation of a single body into something new; this was akin to the way in which the first fenris, like Ima, had been made. It was torturous, and it was done over the course of hours, while man and beast both screamed and fought, and the mad god enjoyed their suffering.
Oh, there would be some sane ones. She knew that, rationally. She’d seen them, after all. They’d call themselves the Chirons, after the tutor of Heracles. They’d have males and females, and they’d breed true among themselves. They’d be omnivores, still, but eat copious amounts of grains to fuel their equine bodies, and their teeth, to endure that amount of wear, would never stop growing, like some rodents’. She knew it all. And yet she couldn’t bear to look at the insane ones as they rampaged and spread down from Pelion and dozens of other wilderness locations. Gathering together into herds, wild tribes, and roaming the outskirts of civilization. Stealing food, squatting in barns, killing livestock, murdering and r—
Sophia turned and threw her brush against the far wall, splattering paint everywhere. Breathing hard, she picked up the palette again, and this time, settled in to daub the paint on the walls with her fingers. The paint was cool and slick against her fingers, and she had a sickening moment of realization. I’ll do this again. I’ll do this often. I’ll paint on the walls with my fingers, because they won’t trust me with a brush . . . .
On the Persian front, where jotun and fenris landsknechten and Roman legionnaires and foreign levies were holding the Immortals and the rest of the Persian army at bay, the news came in over field radios, and was passed along to the troops before dinner. The news commentators had agreed that, at a conservative estimate, close to two hundred million people had felt the results of the earthquakes—some as far away as the other side of the Alps, in southern Germania and Gaul.
Solinus, far from his loved ones, heard the news as it was relayed by grim-faced legion commanders. “This does not mean that the war here stops!” a tribune bellowed at the ranks. “We all have friends, family, and loved ones who might be affected at home, but you need to keep your minds here, where your bodies are, or people are going to die. We’ll get information to you all, as we have it. But right now, the order of the day is wait, watch, and stay calm. Dismissed.”
Solinus, in the relative solitude of the tent he shared with another junior centurion, closed his eyes as he lay on his cot. Mother? he thought, casting out his thoughts. He didn’t like to bother her, but he also knew that within a certain geographical range—and assuming there wasn’t the entire Sea of Atlas between them—she’d hear anyone who loved her, and that she, too, loved. Mother. Lassair. He shaped the Name in his thoughts with infinite care.
Solinus. The word was a whisper in his mind, and the young soldier went limp with relief.
Mother, is everyone all right? We’ve been getting horrible news here at the front. Is Masako—?
I do not know, dear one. I am in Africa.
You’re where the quakes started? Solinus paused, and exhaled. He’d only been seven years old when the Great Northern War had begun, Hel had perished, and Loki had sacrificed himself. Oh . . . gods. A god died.
Yes. Grief in his mother’s thoughts, dark and chill. And more. You will need to comfort your wife, when next you see her. Her father died, saving all of us.
Solinus’ stomach tightened, and he sat up on his cot. How—?
I am tired, Solinus, Lassair told him, with infinite gentleness. I will speak with you again, soon, however.
Solinus sagged back on his cot, covered his face with his hands, and swore, quietly and repeatedly. Uncle Kanmi . . . his father-in-law . . . had been a large piece of his life, until his disappearance. He was one of Solinus’ father’s best friends, and had been at the house several times a month, for . . . most of Solinus’ childhood. He’d been there for the god-boring lessons, he’d been there to make birthday parties that much more fun with real magic. The mere fact that he had gone missing had been part of the reason why Solinus and Masako had finally realized that they were . . . stupidly crazy about each other, in fact. I’m going to need to apply for some hardship leave so I can go . . . take care of her. Be there for the funeral, if there is one. Gods. Except I can’t apply for that until I hear that her father is dead through official channels. Damn it. The more personal concerns kept his mind occupied for a few minutes, and then Solinus quietly reflected on one more thing: Rome just got gut-punched. The entire Mediterranean has been hit. Close to two hundred million people affected, all at once. Whole cities leveled, and needing to be rebuilt . . . .
. . . Rome can’t afford to fight wars on multiple fronts right now. Not and rebuild the center of the Empire. The Northern War . . . they’re going to pull all their troops out of there and leave the petty kingdoms up there to twist in the wind, aren’t they? Reinforce Germania’s borders, and let the dice fall as they may. They won’t even have a choice. There’s only so much gold in the world. Here? Chaldea and Media are valuable. They’ll keep fighting, but . . . all the fighting going on in Nahautl and Quecha, thanks to idiotic governors and stupid petty kings? The Senate will vote to let them all handle their own messes for once. This . . . could get really ugly. Especially if the Senate decides, ‘Chaldea and Media aren’t worth it. We need to focus on the Empire’s heart.’ But we gave these people our word, and they gave us their trust. He looked up at the ceiling of his tent. Shit.
At noon that day, around a crater lined with yellowish-tan glass, human figures walked out slowly, carefully, feeling the ground splinter and break beneath their feet. They made their way to the very edge of the crater, where a single pillar of white salt stood. The two tallest figures, male, stood on either side of a small, gray-haired woman, their arms wrapped around her, holding her up. “This . . . this is where he was standing,” the woman said, quietly.
Three other women, and a tall young man followed behind them. A woman with pale copper hair, bound back in a braid, leaned on a spear, her expression bleak, while the woman with the luxurious red-gold hair wept openly, and the white-haired woman, with the wolf ears and tail looked down at the ground, and said nothing. The young man simply shook his head, quietly. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell Masako,” he said, quietly. “I thought . . . I might be able to give her good news.”
The small woman pushed away from her escorts, and slipped and slid her way to the pillar of salt. She wrapped her arms around it, and pressed her lips to its cold surface . . . and it began to crumble away, revealing what was trapped inside. Bones. Carbon-black, as from being burned, but perfectly preserved, when they should have been vaporized by the blast wave . . . as, indeed, all other flesh in the immediate vicinity had been. The woman screamed, and clutched at the bones as they fell, and dropped to her knees, scrabbling for them, and the others all lunged for her, catching her hands
as she sobbed once more. “Minori!” the valkyrie finally said, wrapping her arms around the smaller woman so that the sorceress couldn’t move. “Minori, listen to me. I never, ever want to put stock in any of my sister’s prophecies. I don’t want to believe a single one of them. But . . . just this once, I will. Kanmi told me, years ago, that she’d told him to have his bones buried in Jerusalem. So that he could live again.” Sigrun’s entire face spasmed. “I . . . I don’t know if I believe that, Min. But if . . . if there were ever any man . . . stubborn enough . . . to come back from death . . . it would be him.” Her voice was hoarse.
Minori rocked back and forth, little hitching sobs tearing their way from her, as the others carefully, reverently, wrapped up Kanmi Eshmunazar’s bones in Adam’s travel cloak. They could hear engines in the distance, and looked up in time to see desert trucks, with Praetorian markings on the sides, approaching. “The cavalry arrives,” Adam said. “Too little. Too late.”
“They wouldn’t have done any good even if they were here, Adam,” Sigrun told her husband, quietly. “All they would have done here, is die. Now, they can do some good. They can get the young people to safety. They can . . . take pictures. Put up crime scene tape.” A half-hearted snort of laughter, with an edge of tears.
The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2) Page 95