Nothing. I do not know how I am alive. And you still have not answered my question. Why do you hide yourself from me?
I . . . did not come to free you from your chains. I should have. She huddled in on herself.
You did not stand with the others at Troy.
A foolish war, for foolish reasons. Zeus did not understand loyalty. If they had stood loyal to their children, their children would have remained loyal to them. Instead, they feared betrayal, for betrayal was all they knew. My children were loyal to me, as I was to them, and what did that ever get them, but the abuse of the other gods? My Medea, cast as a witch and a murderess, for the crime of loving a grandson of Poseidon and having worked to make him king . . . only to see him turn to another woman’s arms. Nothing but lies spoken of her, and of me. For the simple reason that we stood apart. Away from the grand court of Zeus and all that squabbling. Her voice was tired. But not to act, is sometimes the same as being complicit. I should have come to you. I should have protested your sentence. I should have protested your death.
He considered her for a long moment, and then helped her to her feet. That you feel regret is the sweetest balm in existence. Come. We have a long road to travel.
Why do you aid me? I . . . have nothing left to give you, in return. The creature devoured too much, and I am weak. Bitterness in her tone, but also . . . testing. Measuring. I did not anticipate this possibility.
I suspect that you gave me new life, Hecate. And I can feel that powers are gathering, where they will be most needed. Where a stand can be made. And it is there we must go.
The journey was long, but their bodies did not tire. She insisted on making him traveler’s garments with which to clothe his naked form, though even the height of his avatar would occasion stares. He found this odd, as he remembered a time when clothing had been precious and cherished, and often doffed for physical activities, lest it be ruined with mud and wear. So as they traveled, he absorbed from her the knowledge of how the world had changed, and all the marvels that had come to be.
But when they arrived at their destination, it was he who led her through the neighborhoods of the vast and teeming city, staring at the metal chariots in awe, and hesitated, at a crossroads, where the strands of probability tugged him equally in two directions. Though a crossroads was Hecate’s own most sacred place, she remained silent, allowing him to cast the die himself. One path led him to power. The other, to knowledge. And faced with that kind of a choice, Prometheus could only make one decision. He chose knowledge.
And knocking at the door of the house to which all strands of probability had drawn him, to a place of great knowledge and wisdom, he looked down past the servant that answered, and smiled at the young woman behind him. Greetings. I am Prometheus, and this is Hecate. I am here to speak with one who knows something of the egregori . . . the watchers from beyond. I believe I have an artifact here that . . . might relate to them. I believe that someone in this house, might know more about this topic than I do, however.
Zaya Lelayn stared up at a man close to the height of a jotun, but clearly wasn’t one of them, with blond hair, fiery eyes, and massive shoulders, and who wore a chiton and a cloak, and was barefoot. Her eyes moved over towards the black-clad woman with the hooded, hidden face, and her mouth fell open. She’d been put to bed with the stories of the Fire-Bringer, the god-slayers, the sack of Troy, and the fall of Akhenaten, since she could remember. “Mother!” she shouted, and ran to fetch Erida, at once.
Chapter 15: Shear
One of the common themes treated in science fiction dramas is the time-traveler, or the person perfectly frozen and taken out of his or her time. Sometimes, it’s a caveman frozen in a glacier who, through the intervention of the gods or science, comes back to life. Sometimes, it’s a traveler from the future, who has been, somehow, sent back in time. It’s almost always used by the author to hold up a mirror to our modern age, and extol the virtues of a by-gone era in comparison to the principles of the past, or to extol the principles that the author wants humanity to embrace in the future, and to decry the present day. The travelers from the past always regard our technology and magic with superstitious awe, and are presented as fumbling with the language and incapable of comprehending science . . . but we are meant to be reminded, through them, that science and learning mean nothing in the face of good, old-fashioned values. The travelers from the far-future usually denigrate our current technology, look down upon us as primitives, and brow-beat us with their more advanced science and more and ‘enlightened’ morality. (And by ‘enlightened morality,’ one may assume that whatever lesson they have for us primitives is the philosophy that the author wants us to embrace.) Once in a very great while, the far-future humans learn some good, old-fashioned value from us, and blink back off to a future that . . . probably doesn’t exist anymore, now that they’ve been here and interacted with us . . . and the travelers from the past usually die nobly, unable to cope with this era and its flaws, and being cut off from everything they ever knew and loved.
I love a good science fiction drama as much as the next man—Battle for Mars, with its electronic golems and bug-eyed aliens fighting the gods and humans of Earth, remains a favorite of mine—but I think that using the ‘man apart’ as a mirror can be overdone, and most writers who look at the past as a by-gone era of nobility and honor tend to gloss over and romanticize history’s viler tendencies. Humanity, in and of itself, has not changed that much in the past two thousand or four thousand or even six thousand years. Oh, we’ve advanced beyond stone clubs, bronze swords, and iron axes. We’re far more advanced now in how we make war, but also, commensurately, in how we work to save lives. Societies have changed, certainly. The communal hive-knowledge and accumulation of custom and belief have changed. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Western civilization has come to have a slightly stronger focus on the individual than those by-gone eras that most authors extol as the lights of virtue. I do not think any of these writers would truly like to live in ancient Athens, where a man could be put to death with hemlock for questioning, say, the morals of the current government. And I do not believe that in two thousand years, a human of that era would find a human of our own completely unrecognizable, or a mere brute beast. Their science and their magic may have advanced beyond where we could understand them, but they would still have hopes, dreams, aspirations, flaws, and virtues that we could recognize. That our ancestors, too, could recognize, regardless of the shape of the person—fenris, harpy, centaur, jotun, or ‘regular human.’ They could recognize us.
Or else they would not be human at all.
—Adam ben Maor, Commander of the Praetorian Guard, Judean division, Ret. Key note speaker at the 65nd Annual Air and Space Exposition, Jerusalem, Judea, 1992 AC.
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Caesarius 2, 1989 AC
Zaya peered around a corner into the parlor as her mother and father took over. Illa’zhi was in his full smoke-form, every movement thought-fast; Erida, by comparison, was the gracious hostess. “I’m afraid I’m not conversant with the etiquette of the gods,” she said, her eyes only slightly wide as she beckoned a servant in with a silver tray. “However, it’s difficult to go wrong with tea and cakes.”
Ahh, the laws of hospitality have not changed much, then. Excellent. The titan took a seat, cautiously, on the edge of a couch, staring around himself, while Hecate huddled beside him, wrapped in her black cloak, her face still shrouded by her hood. Zaya could feel a sense of presence from each of them, which, she realized, she had felt before. They felt a little like her father did. Like Lassair, or Saraid, or even Master Matrugena or Mistress Caetia. I do not see any servants with basins of water, Prometheus said. I assume that the custom of washing the weary traveler’s feet has passed, then?
“Ah . . .” Erida looked down, and Zaya craned her neck to look around the corner. Yes, the titan’s bare feet were caked with mud. “I can have one of the servants take you to a lavatory, where you can cl
ean up, if you wish.”
No matter. I can adapt to local custom. The mud shattered and fell off the titan’s legs, leaving a neat pile, which whisked itself into a corner. What is this thing you call tea?
She shook a little as her mother turned and beckoned her, impatiently, into the room. “Zaya, pour the tea for our guests.”
Zaya scuttled into the room, wishing that she couldn’t feel their eyes on her, and poured the hot beverage, her hands shaking. Her father whispered directly into her mind, as she handed over a paper-thin porcelain cup, imported from Qin, Fireflower, do not fear. You are my daughter. They have no claim on you. To harm you would be an affront to me. They are ancient, but one is weak, and the other is wounded. Be at peace.
The titan accepted the tiny cup in his vast hands, and sniffed at it, cautiously. She rather thought he was smaller than a jotun, which surprised her—she’d thought that titans were all twenty feet tall. A misconception. My brethren and I generally took forms approximately ten spans tall . . . eight of your feet, I think. Of course, humans have grown taller since last I was . . . awake. The average woman alive in Troy was just a little over six spans in height.
He heard me. Well . . . of course he heard me. They all do. I’m not properly sealed to my father. Zaya’s lips tightened, and she poured another cup, and tried to do the mental math, and came up with about four foot six, maybe four foot nine, depending on the definition of span. She blinked. I can’t possibly have done that right. That’s . . . tiny.
A question of nutrition, Hecate said, suddenly, pulling her cloak around her more tightly, and let her tea sit in front of her on the table. Humans are better fed now. Famine is infrequent. There has been interbreeding between tribes, as well.
Fascinating. And this tea is a manner of herbal broth, with lavish sweetening. This is a courtesy that might have been given to kings, and I thank you for it. He drank, raising his eyebrows. Zaya’s eyebrows crinkled; only one cube of sugar had been placed in the cup . . . and then she realized how rare sweeteners had been in the ancient world.
As her mother gestured her to a chair, Zaya found herself sitting beside the marble tablet that Prometheus had brought with him. It sat on the mahogany side table, the symbols on its surface glimmering in the afternoon light. It looked like Linear A to her; no one had translated that form of ancient Mycenaean. “It looks like the Phaistos Disc,” she whispered to her mother, realizing that her voice sounded loud in the silent room. “Is it like that?”
The . . . Phaistos . . . oh. I remember spirits and humans fleeing the eruption of the island of the Minoans. Some of them came to Crete, with all their belongings on their backs. Perhaps they brought your Disc with them, from Thera.
Zaya’s eyes went completely round. The eruption that had destroyed the Minoan civilization had occurred somewhere between fifteen to sixteen hundred years before the reign of Caesar. Speaking to a being who was over three thousand, five hundred years old made her feel about as small as a grain of sand on the beach, and as meaningless. Prometheus put his cup down. I think it might have something to do with the one who took my place in my chains. He was a creature of living flame. He could pass for human, if an oversized one, most of the time, but when in battle, he became raw fire. Liquid, solid, or even a cloud of starstuff, at times.
“You . . . actually did know a godslayer, then,” her mother said, almost breathless. “Please. Say no more. There are people who need to hear what you have to say. Let me call them.”
To keep their guests occupied while Zhi got Lassair and Saraid and Sigrun’s attention from across town, Erida turned on the Judean-made far-viewer. It was a square, boxy thing, which Zaya knew her mother despised. Two-dimensional color images, and the channel that came up happened to be a news station. Zaya was thus able to watch as Prometheus’ mouth dropped open, and the titan stood, and cautiously walked to examine the device. Peered behind it, at the tangle of cords that connected it to the wall. I sense no magic here! he said, after a moment. Only electricity . . . and . . . light? Yes. Light waves. Ones not visible to the human eye. It captures them and . . . makes images of them. He sounded dazed. How does this device even function?
My apologies, Hecate said, grimly. He has not been awake since the Trojan War. He studied the traffic and street lights in Meggido for a half an hour once we finished crossing the sea.
But they are marvelous! There is no more true night anymore, not where there are humans, at least. And they do not even realize how dark the darkness was, that they have never seen! Most of them do not understand what the blackness of the new moon truly makes of the world!
Zaya stared at Prometheus. This was nothing like she’d thought meeting a god or demigod would be. He was as filled with wonder, in a way, as a caveman might have been at the modern world . . . but he was also not overwhelmed by it. He clearly understood the principles behind some of the technology. And he was delighted by it.
It took about a half hour for the others to make their way across town, and Zaya was crowded to the corner of the room as her mother’s friends appeared. Minori Eshmunazar gave her a little hug, smiling up at her, and then gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You look overwhelmed, Zaya-chan. Welcome to the wider world.” Masako was there, too, with her daughter Shiori over one shoulder. Dr. Eshmunazar looked around at the others. “I hope no one objects to my bringing Masako. It’s about time I started bringing her in on this. I’m fifty-nine this year, and she’s my heir, and Kanmi’s. I’d have brought Bodi, too, but he’s on the Wall at the moment.” Her expression had turned sad, as it always did when she mentioned her late husband, and the others all murmured, immediately, that they had no objections.
Master ben Maor was there, too. Zaya liked the old man, even if he was very intimidating. He was a good teacher, and had her feeling slightly more capable of defending herself during the sparring classes she took with the Matrugena children. Of course, that feeling of confidence and competence dissolved every time she stepped off the mats. He was also the only adult she knew, other than servants and teachers, who had no powers at all. He wasn’t a sorcerer, ley-mage, summoner, or god-born. And he’d worked with people who were, for over thirty years, and remained, somehow, integral and respected. She had no idea how that was possible, but she assumed it had something to do with his ability to kill someone with his bare hands.
It hadn’t yet dawned on her that knowledge and wisdom could trump raw power. That power was meaningless, without the understanding of how and when to use it best. He gave her a pat on the shoulder as he passed, and took a seat in the room; she could see that he’d come armed, surprisingly enough. A gun nestled at the small of his back, and she couldn’t fathom why. He was retired, and old, and . . . what was a gun going to do to a god, anyway?
Introductions were made, all around. Lassair and Saraid had taken humanoid forms, at least for the moment, as they flanked Trennus Matrugena, and Prometheus’ eyes widened as he took in their faces. I am honored to make all of your acquaintances, he told them, and squinted a little at them. And this is one who is high priest to both of you?
“No!” Master Matrugena said, sharply, shaking his head so vigorously that his braids danced, and Zaya found a nook between two bookcases and slid her way into it, hoping to avoid being noticed at all. “Most certainly not.”
I am not worshipped, Lassair replied, cheerfully. I would far rather have love than worship, anyway. It’s more powerful, and certainly more enjoyable. She patted her burgeoning waistline and smiled. Zaya caught the tired expression that flickered across Master Matrugena’s face like a shadow at Lassair’s words. The expression of mild annoyance that flickered across Mistress Caetia’s. But she didn’t understand either.
Maccis’ mother, Saraid, cocked her lupine ears slightly as she regarded the titan. I do not ask for worship, but many people know my Name now, and may call on me for aid. I owe them all the help I can provide.
I . . . see. Prometheus sounded puzzled. He turned to Mistress Caetia. And you are
. . . ?
“Sigrun Caetia. Valkyrie, granddaughter to, and servant of Tyr.” She nodded in respect to both the titan and the hooded goddess.
Tyr . . . I . . . think I remember that name. Or Tiwaz. Something like that. Prometheus looked puzzled. Him, someone named . . . Woden. A mischievous spriteling called Loki. He held up his hands, about six inches apart. And you . . . are servant to this Tyr?
“If they are the same entity, then yes.”
A servant. He repeated the word carefully.
Mistress Caetia appeared puzzled, but nodded again, politely. “It is my duty to stand as intermediary and intercessor between my gods and humanity. To provide the power of the gods, as needed, to administer justice, to protect humans, and to serve the gods.”
If you are the servant, I shudder to meet the masters. Prometheus sounded dazed. Hecate, there are four beings in this room who could have destroyed Zeus when I last walked this realm. There are three mortals here who could have vied with him for power. And there is one mortal here carrying a weapon that I can sense is lethal to spirits, though its true nature is as hidden as its wielder. I can only sense the weapon through the lines of probability that warp around it. He paused. What has been wrought on this world?
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