Adam glanced across the room at his wife. She was wrapped up in her swan cloak—dies Martis had rolled around again—and had a baby perched in her lap. Shiori Matrugena had been born just two days before, and looked red and sleepy, swaddled in her yellow blanket. Across the table from Sigrun, Solinus and Masako had the shell-shocked, dazed look of new parents everywhere, and well they should. A tiny new person with wants and needs and desires of her own had catapulted into their lives, and they were surely not getting any sleep at all. These were the children that Adam had helped diaper, and then trained in martial arts. The children he’d shaken his head over, as Trennus had recounted, tiredly, Solinus’ latest spate of detentions, and as Kanmi had regaled them all with the brilliance of his daughter’s latest incantations.
They had definitely grown up. Solinus still wore his red hair clipped short, in defiance of Pictish norms, and was looking to add primi ordines to his existing centurion rank. But he often wore the sleeves of his fatigues rolled up to show his clan tattoos, and whenever he was off-duty, someone was sure to find him wearing a kilt. Masako had finished her thesis two years ago, just after her father’s death, and had entered into the Legion, herself, as a combat-caster. Minori had been distraught to watch her go so soon in the wake of Kanmi’s death, but she hadn’t said no. She’d been forbidden to use her combat-oriented skills as a young woman, herself, and wasn’t going to stand in Masako’s way.
The pair had even been assigned together; sorcerers and spirit-born were too damned valuable, and so long as they obeyed the regulations, no one really cared that they were married. Masako had reported a good deal of mutinous mumbling in the ranks, however, about how sorcerers had created the mad gods. That sentiment was echoed by dozens of groups all over the empire. Adam would have loved to call them extremists, but in truth, many of them were centrists, and nothing Marcus Livorus, Caesarion, or Aquila did or said in Rome seemed to be doing any good.
Adam moved over and offered his hands. “Here, let me see her for a minute,” he told Sigrun, and accepted the baby. Shiori was, in spite of her name, one-quarter Carthaginian, one-quarter Pict, one quarter Nipponese, and one quarter . . . whatever you wanted to call Lassair. Fire elemental with a side-order of valkyrie and Magi DNA. So, Cimbric/Chaldean. Shiori was a mutt, in other words, but she was probably going to be a beautiful one. Dark eyes, but her children would probably have the recessive trait for blue eyes passed along. A hint of Minori, around those eyes, too. More than a hint of Lassair in the face. Kanmi’s skin-tone, but a little lighter. And the fine pillow hair had a hint of Solinus’ red. “I just don’t see any Tren in here,” Adam said, after a minute, consideringly. “But, you have all your fingers and toes, and you’ve got enough magic in your blood to sink a ship, so you’ll probably do all right.” He considered her for another moment, and then passed her back to the proud parents.
Last week, in sparring, Trennus, who was a year his elder, but moved with the energy, grace, and power of a man half his age, had caught Adam’s thumb with a pant leg during sparring, and accidentally bent it back. Adam had dropped to the ground, put his hand between his knees, and sucked in his breath to avoid crying out as his stomach flipped. It had been broken, and Sig had insisted on fixing it—quietly, off to the side, where his dignity wouldn’t be compromised. But that, the aching knees, the occasional tweaked neck, and his pure lack of endurance anymore . . . were all reminders that he needed to take it easy these days. He could still practice. He could still work out. He just . . . wasn’t young anymore.
And Trennus’ children kept getting younger, or so it seemed. Young Maccis had a genuine talent for martial arts, and a gift for that hardest of skills to master—staying calm even when the teacher deliberately built up the stress levels. But just being around him made Adam’s nostrils twitch. Adolescent humans, particularly males, had a particular odor. He’d never noticed it when he was a young man, himself. He supposed it was hormones. That, and a healthy helping of wolf. He liked the youngster, he really did. But his boundless energy—like that of all his siblings, and the various other people who came to sparring practice, like Zaya Lelayn—had started to wear on Adam. Just need to pace yourself. That’s all. Let Tren do all the demonstrations.
“So, Shiori passes inspection from Uncle Adam,” Solinus said, grinning. “How about you, Aunt Sig? Does she pass?”
“She’s beautiful,” Sigrun said, with absolute sincerity, and only a hint of a shadow in her eyes. “She’ll be amazing when she grows up.”
Adam went to the window, and tried not to think about Sophia’s prophecy. That the world would end, Caesarius 32, 1999. If that were true . . . Shiori here, this beautiful child, the product of all their friends’ love . . . would probably die when she was ten years old. Oh, yes, but Judea is the undying land, he thought, bitterly. Sophia, you damnable madwoman. I can’t fight anymore. But I can . . . train others to fight.
He paused, still looking out the window. “Sig?”
“Hmm?”
“Your apple tree is confused.”
Sigrun stood, frowning, and moved to stare out at a tree that had sprouted leaves in midwinter, and was just putting forth its first shy pink blossoms. Flowers in the season of death. “Perhaps it’s welcoming Shiori,” Sigrun said. “But I doubt it will bear fruit anytime soon.”
Sigrun was wrong. Three months later, the first perfect golden apples were almost ripe in their backyard, and Adam could smell their scent from half a block away. He liked sitting under the sapling; the aroma alone seemed to make the aches and pains go away. But he couldn’t quite muster the nerve to take one of the apples down and eat it. That definitely didn’t deter the Matrugena children, however. Once they’d seen birds eating the apples, they all asked Sigrun if they could have one, to share, and she obligingly took one from the sapling, and cut it up into thin slices. The smell of the fruit made Adam’s salivary glands kick into high gear. But it was god-touched fruit. As far as he knew, no purely mortal person had tried it, and there were plenty of things that birds ate, that were poisonous to humans. Beyond the potential for gastric distress, however, there was something else. It might not be the Tree of Life, and it might not be the Tree of Knowledge, but he had the lurking, faintly superstitious suspicion that he should not do so. But he did poke Sigrun in the ribs about it. “Not even a bite for yourself?” he teased, as she cut another one into thin slices, one for each of the children currently playing in their backyard.
“No.”
“Why not?” He rubbed a hand up and down her back as she scrubbed the knife, with the care of a surgeon, at their sink.
“Because no gift of Freya’s is worth the price,” she told him, simply, and he was stunned by how . . . old and empty her eyes were as she turned to look at him. “There’s always a price hidden somewhere, Adam. Nothing for nothing. Anymore, it seems simpler . . . easier . . . to accept nothing from anyone. No debts, not even social obligations. Nothing to repay. And no tricks. I’ll give, mind you. I’ll give of myself and my time. But I’ll take nothing.”
Stunned, Adam let his hand drop as she walked out, plate in hand, and put a slice of apple into each waiting child’s mouth. Her smile was so faint as to be invisible as she did so. He couldn’t tell her, Sig . . . it’s been forever since I saw you smile. Really smile. He couldn’t tell her that he missed the shy warmth in her eyes and face, when they’d started courting, the startled, unexpected laughter she’d break into when he said something outrageous—or the even more startled, embarrassed laughter Kanmi had evoked. The dark, I-want-to-disapprove-but-I-am-too-amused-on-the-inside looks the sorcerer had provoked. He couldn’t tell her that he wanted his wife back, not just the shadow of her quiet despair.
He tried to help. He’d let her sleep in, every now and again, and let her awaken to find a flower on the pillow beside her. He took over the cooking, almost entirely. Sig and he had usually taken turns at this chore, and he genuinely liked her cooking; food tasted and smelled better, coming from her hands,
but she didn’t like her own cooking. Something about not being able to taste anything, after smelling it simmer. So he took over that chore, letting her continue with the baking, if she felt like it. Though she’d confessed to him that baking bread wasn’t fun anymore, either. Most of the enjoyment was in spending time with Abigayil. Doing something we both enjoyed. Letting her talk. She was a good woman, and I miss her.
And he tried to talk to her, haltingly, about what would happen when he was gone. “Look, I don’t want to be morbid about this . . . but . . . go stay with Tren, Lassair, and Saraid. Sit in a room in their house and let the kids and grandkids smother you for a while,” he told her. “Or move in with Minori for a bit. Don’t lock yourself away and brood. We didn’t let my mother do that. We didn’t let Min do that. And if you meet someone after I die . . . I’m all right with it. You’ll still be young. You’ll still be capable of loving, and of being loved.” He’d been brushing out her hair for her, a task that took about a half hour every night, and had the side benefit of usually making her relax like a stroked cat. Not tonight, however. Every muscle in her back was rigid when he touched her, and her lips had a mutinous twist to them when he turned the chair around. “Sig, are you listening to me?”
“I hear your words, but they are foolish, at best,” she told him, with a flick of temper. “I am older than you are, if you’ll recall. I do not require my husband to arrange a marriage for me once he has passed.” She stood and moved away to get undressed, before slipping under the covers, nude.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” Adam set the brush down on the dresser with care. He didn’t want to fight with her. Fighting meant failure. Fighting meant someone had failed to do their job.
“Then what is this about?” She’d pulled the covers up and rolled to face the wall.
And your wife will be your widow, ere you meet her again. Nonsense words. He’d thought perhaps he’d go missing behind enemy lines for seven years and be declared legally dead, when he’d first heard Sophia’s prophecy. Then again, Sophia had said that Sigrun would never marry. Ask your husband’s family how truly married you really are. Adam sat down on her side of the bed, and put a hand to her shoulder. Beside her smooth, clean skin, his hand looked a travesty, the veins prominent and skin wrinkled. “I want you to be happy again,” he told her, quietly. “I think you’re still happy with me, but I want to know that you’re going to smile again.”
“I’ll smile when the world isn’t trying to follow Hel into her realm.” Her voice was crisp, but she caught his hand and kissed the palm. Just as she had, a hundred times before.
He settled into bed behind her, and wrapped an arm around her. “Oh, I had a thought,” he told her, off-handedly.
“Hmm?”
“The godlings. There’s actually a pattern to their attacks. Well . . tendency, perhaps.”
She went rigid. “What is it?”
“They’re following the behavior patterns of predators, in a way,” he told her, and smoothed her hair back, so he wouldn’t inhale the wisps as he spoke against her ear. “Think about places they’ve hit, so far.”
“Hellas, repeatedly, in hit-and-run attacks. Chaldea, Media. Media’s crawling with ghul right now, by all reports.” Sigrun’s voice was disturbed, and Adam repressed a shudder. “Fennmark, the Baltic countries. There’ve been a few hits in the northern areas of Caesaria Aquilonis. A few reports from the Zulu and Bantu nations. Some isolated reports in India and southeast Asia. If there’s a pattern, I’m not seeing it.”
“How did the Sapa Inca start his little project of becoming a god?” Adam asked.
“He had Supay help him feed on small spirits at first, and then larger gods . . . oh. Oh, no.” Sigrun rolled to her back. “Trennus and Erida keep saying that whole populations of spirits are terrified, and refusing to answer summoning spells.” She shifted up onto an elbow, to look down at him. “You mean that they’re going after the weak and the infirm and . . . .”
“Low population areas,” Adam confirmed. “Marduk is one of only what, two gods left of the old Sumerian-Babylonian pantheon? He’s still worshipped in Chaldea and Media. That’s a population of a couple million, at the most. The Persians are almost all Zoroastrians. Ahura Mazda probably doesn’t like the godlings . . .” Adam grimaced. The dominant Persian religion ostensibly emphasized free will, and supporting creation through engagement in life, and constructive thoughts, words, and deeds. He liked it, on paper. He even thought, if he hadn’t been born Judean, that it mightn’t be a terrible philosophy to live by. But the Persian emperors, from the Achaemenids, to the Seleucids, through the Parthians, had been content to give lip service to the notion of free will, so long as everyone obeyed them, implicitly. They were autocrats, even by the standards of Rome. “. . . but would he extend any aid to Marduk?”
“No,” Sigrun replied, and then added, thoughtfully. “The gods of Fennmark and the Baltic states were greatly damaged when Loki was banished.” She swallowed, audibly. “You think them a target for the mad godlings?”
“Them. Hellas makes sense, too—”
“The Hellene gods live in symbiosis with their Roman counterparts, Sophia says—”
“Yes, but the Hellene gods never exit the Veil. They’re not here to defend their worshippers. And their Roman counterparts are rather busy with Rome itself at the moment. And the single agreement by which all nations abide is that gods cannot go into the territories of other gods.” Adam poked her shoulder, very lightly, with a fingertip. “So without some sort of an agreement, strong gods cannot actually go to the assistance of weak ones, yes? And the weak ones may not even agree, for fear that they will lose their worshippers’ belief to the strong gods, and the strong ones . . . like yours . . . can’t just go traipsing into someone else’s territory, because if they do . . .”
“They think that the gods of Rome will turn on them, for attempting to convert the worshippers of another god.” Sigrun’s voice was hollow. “So the mad godlings are eating spirits and little gods.”
“And getting bigger. I ran the idea past Zhi this morning. He said, and I quote, ‘That tallies with what I observed in the one I devoured, which had grown substantially since its birth. And it is precisely what I would do, were I bent on dominating the world.’”
“Comforting.”
“Isn’t it, though? I’m going to write it up for Judean Intelligence in the morning, and throw it in the hopper with all the other reports. I can’t wait till someone applies this to Judea.”
Sigrun thought about it. “It means . . . well, it could mean one of two things, really.”
Adam nodded. “It could suggest that our god is here. Present somewhere, just not manifesting to us. He should be at least as powerful as Baal was, in terms of age,” Adam looked up at the ceiling and mouthed a silent apology, “though with fewer worshippers. But we’re . . . all very tightly bound to him, as people have noted to me before. And he hasn’t been throwing his power around the way Baal did and some of the younger gods do. He’s been saving it. It could mean that Judea is sitting on the biggest landmine of divine energy on the planet, and the mad godlings look at it and go . . . ‘No, thank you. I need a bigger mouth.’”
The stifled snort from Sigrun was his reward. “Or,” she told him, after a moment, sobering, “there is another possibility entirely.”
“Yes.” He sighed. “It could be that there is absolutely no divine energy in Judea whatsoever. That the mad godlings look at our land and go ‘not even worth playing with.’ I’ll accept that it’s possible, but Mamaquilla and many other gods have noted that I’m . . . a little unnoticeable to them. Because I’m bound to my god.”
Sigrun ran a hand down his face, gently. “I don’t doubt that he exists, Adam. I just don’t think he cares.” Her voice was oddly compassionate. “You’re the one who’s told me that he gave your people an instruction manual, and has allowed you to learn and grow on your own. I think that’s laudable, in a fashion. But shouldn’t a fath
er occasionally be there, if only to listen, and give advice when asked?”
Adam closed his eyes. “And now, you’re almost as comforting as Zhi,” he said, dryly. “I thought I had it all figured out, how Judea would be safe.”
“Oh, Judea will be safe. Sophia says so.” The irony in her voice was mordant.
“Stop. Now you’re killing me with comfort.”
Iulius 32, 1989 AC
Argos, as cities went, was a sleepy town in the Peloponnesian region of Hellas. Said to have been the birthplace of the god-born Perseus, centuries past, it has been shunned during the Persian wars, when its city elders refused to send money, men, or supplies to the rest of Hellas. It had remained more or less an ally of Athens until the coming of Rome. Like Athens, it had a small cult dedicated to Prometheus, but Athens was the only city where the titan was truly venerated.
But what Argos had, or claimed to have, was the last resting place of the Fire-Bringer. They and Opous had a rivalry in this regard, which had intensified since 1969 AC, when the last two-thirds of Aeschylus’ Prometheus trilogy had been published and disseminated in the West. But even with the cachet of having the tomb of the Fire-Bringer here, tourism money was hard to come by these days, and every visitor was greeted with the hunger of a pack of wolves, vendors almost chasing them down the walkways of the market district, calling after them, "You drive a hard bargain! Fine! Only five denarii!"
The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2) Page 103