Unshackling Minori in his small, rather noisome tent, or at least, undoing the crude, makeshift manacle he’d crafted, and replacing it with a very loose rope. Kissing her hands as he did so, and feeling her touch against his hair and face like a benediction. “Can’t take the gag off,” he whispered against her ear. “That would leave you free to cast spells, after all.” He rolled his eyes slightly. She didn’t need words for her spells any more than he did, these days.
He pulled her down onto his sleeping roll, and wrapped his arms around her. Anyone who looked inside, would have seen nothing more than an aging couple, spooned into each other. “Just a few hours, till nightfall, Min,” he told her, softly. “Then another short drive, and . . . a whole lot of sacrifices, starting at the exact moment of the equinox, when the sun crosses the celestial equator.”
She stirred in his arms, and looked back over her shoulder at him. He nodded, once. Or so they think. Baal-Hamon . . . may not agree. I really hope he’s been listening to everything I’ve been saying today.
Martius 21, 1987 AC
They’d headed directly out of Egypt along the Roman-built highway, following the shore of the Mediterranean most of the way. They’d circled Oea, a massive port originally built by the Phoenicians in the seventh century before the ascent of Caesar, and for which they’d fought against the Hellenes for centuries. They’d then headed west, making for the ancient city of Tacape. It was a long damned drive, over twenty-nine hours in total. Adam had the advantage of taking shifts at the wheel with Sigrun and Trennus; he had no idea how Kanmi was managing it.
He has given himself to Baal-Hamon, Lassair whispered, sadly. The god sustains him, I think. He did it to protect Truthsayer and his children, but nothing says that he will not be forced to turn on us, in the end. Baal-Hamon is . . . capricious.
Coming from Lassair, who was whimsical on her best day, the term capricious was a little unsettling. Adam fixed his eyes on the road, and raised his eyebrows as Kanmi, far ahead of them, veered around Tacape. Huge chemical production plants ringed the outer edges of this port city, and a haze hovered over it, comprised of heat, humidity, and smoke. They are halting ahead. There is a camp there, Lassair noted, and they pulled over to the side of the road, feigning car difficulties, and Sigrun took to the air to scout a little.
They had to sit through the heat of the afternoon alongside that boiling road, and then they were able to pick up again at night, as Minori’s sense began to move once more. “Moving at night makes them less visible to planes, I take it?” Trennus muttered in the backseat of the motorcar.
“That, and they’re taking advantage of what they think is a break in satellite coverage,” Adam said, dryly. “Kanmi was able to send out, a few years ago, their movement patterns. They like to stage most of their attacks when they think there are no eyes in the sky. Since Kanmi got us that information, the Hellene and Judean satellite monitoring agencies adjusted the orbits of the satellites and got coverage from different angles, and so on.”
One of the worst parts of the whole infiltration business had centered on the danger of burning Kanmi. Therefore, they hadn’t been able to use large portions of what he’d gotten out to them, not in visible ways, at any rate. When information could be too readily traced to him as the leak, or couldn’t be confirmed through methods that they could point to in the press after a strike was foiled? The Praetorians in Africa had simply not been notified about that information. Adam had gotten past the urge to throw up every time a CPL strike went through that could have been prevented, but it hadn’t stopped him from wanting a drink or two when he thought about it.
Now, they veered sharply inland, driving through the last of the night. Sigrun had dozed lightly in the seat next to him until it was her turn to drive, and then Adam finally forced himself to sleep . . . opening his eyes at dawn to a different world than the warm, damp coastal area through which they’d been driving.
The Chott el Jerid could be both one of the most terrifying and the most beautiful places on the planet. Beauty was, actually, an insufficient word to describe it; sublime compassed it more completely, since something that inspired terror, wonder, and awe, was too separate from most human reality to be described by a word that could also mean merely pretty. Depending on how it was measured, and in what season, the shallow salt lake covered three thousand to four thousand square miles of the Sahara. In summer, the water evaporated, leaving subtle gradations of color in the silt left behind. Salt was the most pervasive chemical, but there were others, which tinged the sands faintly with foreign hues. The bank along which they were currently driving was dyed red, for example, by some form of iron oxide, and the shallow waters were vividly blue in contrast. Cones of salt, formed as nearby people dredged buckets of water and poured it out away from the lake itself, day after day, or dug for it in the dried salt pan in summer, dotted the shoreline like white pyramids.
At the moment, the lake was about eighteen inches deep, universally; as most engines in this part of the world weren’t combustion-based, but ley-powered, there was really nothing that would keep someone from driving or walking through it, except that the tires would be mired to the axle in short order. “Where are we, and what time is it?”
“We just passed a town called Kebili. Lots of date plantations. We’re turning southwest, off the Imperial highway. We’re about to get a lot more noticeable.” Sigrun shrugged. “You’ve only been asleep for an hour and a half, so we’re just past dawn. That can’t be enough, Adam.”
“There have been times in my life when I’ve wished people would just invent a way for me to get by without sleep. This is one of them.” Adam pushed himself back upright, completely, and scrubbed at his face. “Think it’s about time to leave the car on the side of the road and continue by foot? If so, it’s definitely time to give the regional Praetorians another status report.” He’d been calling in by satellite phone every few hours as they traded one area of jurisdiction for another.
Lassair leaned forwards in the backseat. Truthsayer shows me, through her eyes, an encampment. They have just arrived there. A pyramid of salt, a very old one, on the southern shore of this lake. A tower, built atop of it, and into it, with steps carved out, to allow people to ascend. Images came with the words, the conical salt structure blindingly white in the morning sun, and over fifty feet in height, if Adam judged it correctly. The water in this area actually had a coppery tinge, so the sky, reflected in its still surface, looked as if it belonged on Mars. Two worlds at once, Adam thought, distantly. The world of man, and the world of the gods.
“Did she say whether Kanmi’s given her any indication on a timeline?” Trennus asked. “Are they starting the festivities before or after the actual moment of the equinox?”
She says they are supposed to begin the sacrifices at the moment that the sun crosses the celestial equator.
“Eleven-oh-two antemeridian, then,” Trennus said, checking his watch. “It’s just past seven at the moment. They’re set up, we can’t get in any closer by car . . . so yes. Let’s find ourselves a boat or something out there on the edge of the lake and commandeer it as quietly as we can. Don’t want the locals, if they sympathize with the CPL, running to the local headquarters and telling everyone that they saw foreigners.”
Adam nodded, and pulled out his satellite phone again. It was a comforting weight in his pocket, a connection to civilization, science, and the light of rationality. We should have smuggled one of these to Kanmi years ago. Although if he’d been found with it, he’d have been killed. And Baal might have turned it into a useless brick in his hand, anyway. “All right. Here’s the question. We’ve got most of the CPL in one location. We could go in ahead of time and just . . . arrest them all. They’re there, they have . . . drugged children and young people with them.” Adam grimaced. “Is anything actually gained by waiting till the moment they start sacrificing people?”
Trennus shook his head. Sigrun did, as well. Lassair made a face, and leaned against Trenn
us. Nothing is gained, except proof of their intentions. However, their attention is . . . firmly focused, currently, on their defenses. They will be distracted as the ceremony approaches.
“There’s also one other issue,” Sigrun said, tightly. “Any attempt to move reinforcements here with only four hours to spare? Everyone moved here will be local. We already have reason to believe that some of the local gardia have CPL sentiments; the CPL’s information has simply been far too good in terms of where to strike. The fact that they knew when satellites had coverage, alone, was telling.” She looked away. “If we make the call now, we potentially lose the element of surprise. That’s why we have, after all, only been notifying local Praetorians as we’ve passed through. A local Praetorian office here . . . .” She shrugged. There were over three hundred thousand Praetorians in the Empire, but they were spread out among a population of over nine hundred million. The closest city, Tacape, had a field office of fifteen agents. “We could call in just Praetorians, excluding local gardia, but what good,” Sigrun asked, quietly, “are a mere ten or fifteen more of us going to be, even if they arrive in time?”
Trennus cleared his throat. “The local Praetorians are probably all investigations branch,” he added, tactfully. “They’re used to counterfeiting, smuggling, kidnapping, maybe a few murders. They might have a few people who are close combat and sorcery specialists, but . . . .”
Adam shook his head. He’d been trying to keep Praetorians alerted all along their route, but they hadn’t had a final location until this moment. And now, they were about as deep out in the desert as they could be, fish dangling on the end of a very long line. “We’d be calling them in to die, is what you mean,” he said. “Fodder for the enemy’s cannons, and nothing more.” He shook his head. “I’d like to give our people more credit than that.”
“You have not been dealing much with the rank and file of late, Adam,” Sigrun reminded him. “I have. Mazatl, I can see here. But my oblivious Egyptian sorcerer, Gho, and Ayala bat Elior, my forensics specialist? No.” She regarded him steadily. “We have surgical strike forces in major capitals, yes. But Carthage and Oea are both many hours from here.” She shrugged. “In the end, it is your call, Adam. Whether or not we trust that local gardia have not been compromised, and whether or not we call for backup from local Praetorian offices.”
Adam sighed. It was his call to make, and he couldn’t see going in completely without backup. Not this time. He opened his satellite phone, and contacted the closest Praetorian office. “Ben Maor here. Ten miles southwest of . . . .” He glanced at a map. “Blidet, I think. We’re going to need backup sent to a location along the lakeshore. How soon can you get people in position . . . no. No local gardia. Only Praetorians.” He paused, listening to the person on the other end, and sighed. “I think you’ll find I have the authority, yes. Please put your superior on the line.” Adam turned and gave Sigrun a tired look, covering the mouthpiece. “Getting backup here is going to take an hour to arrange, at least.”
The sky overhead seemed to darken, suddenly, as if a cloud had passed over the face of the sun, and then there was a resonating thud as a pair of enormous black talons touched down on the road behind them. Adam could see this quite clearly in the rear passenger-side mirror, and just stared at the image, and the huge shadow in which the motorcar was now lapped, and then let his eyes move upwards. “Sig?”
“I didn’t call him!” she said, sharply, and got out of the car. Adam could hear her calling up to the dragon in her native tongue, “The gods said that I was not here as their agent, Niðhoggr! Your presence here could start a war between the gods themselves!”
The dragon brought his head down, tipping it so he was, effectively, looking under himself at the length of his long neck . . . upside down, relative to the rest of them. He snorted, once, spattering the windshield with frost. “I think he’s saying that the war’s already begun,” Adam said, quietly.
He does not speak to me, but that is more or less the meaning I derive as well, Lassair agreed. Her tone was dispirited.
They hopped out of the car, once Adam had received assurances that backup was on the way, and should be there in a couple of hours. Three at the most. Very comforting. They propped up the hood to simulate an emergency with the engine—ley-batteries could fail, and few engines this small could tap a ley-line directly—and began to walk, following the lake shore. Each of them had a canteen, and Sigrun and Trennus were both rapidly slathering themselves with sun-cream as they walked. Nith, after taking a couple of patient strides along with them, his wings lifted to shade them, snorted—the ice crystals really burned, sometimes—and lifted himself into the air, vanishing, presumably back into the Veil.
“At least we’ll stand out less now.” Adam turned his head, and spotted two huge-eared fennec foxes, trotting away rapidly on the other side of the road. The wildlife can’t possibly use the salt lake for a water source. How does anything survive out here?
They walked out into the lake itself. Lassair was enormously uneasy at doing so, and actually opted to demanifest, overlapping herself with Trennus to mask him. It’s not just that it’s water, she said. It’s the salt, too. Contact with this makes me feel numb, and I don’t even want to consider being immersed in it, like the statue to which you bound the pazuzu. But any spirit’s ability to perceive the rest of you will be greatly reduced while you are in the salt water. It . . . dampens you.
Trennus’ form was hard to look at, when either spirit overlapped his body. Lassair gave him a nimbus of pale golden light, and an unearthly and decidedly feminine beauty that Tren found excruciatingly embarrassing. He tended to prefer it when Saraid provided him with shielding; the deer antlers had been supplemented, of late, with a suggestion of a shaggy pelt and fangs. Infinitely preferable, Trennus had once told Adam, with a hint of a smile. I’m not the sort of man who should ever try to look like a woman. At my height and weight, it’s fairly ridiculous. “Kanmi is going to laugh at me, when we find him,” Trennus murmured. Clearly consciously trying to buoy everyone’s spirits with the thought that they would find Kanmi, and bring him home today.
The silty bottom sucked at their shoes, and eventually, they did find a shallow-bottomed boat . . . but it was overturned and abandoned. Sigrun pulled it up from the sand with a grunt of effort, and they paddled along in that, instead, for a while, bailing almost as much as they paddled. Finally, they could make out, in the distance, a cone of salt with a tower built into it. “They’ve shored up the sides with magic,” Trennus commented. “It feels like they glazed the sides . . . but a very long time ago. This site is probably several hundred years old.”
They were still a mile or so out, and Adam took the opportunity to really look over the defenses. There were rusting pieces of machinery scattered here and there along the shore and even out in the water around the salt structure. “Salt extraction equipment?” he muttered.
“Probably.” Trennus sounded dubious. “It all looks like digging gear to me.”
Adam swept the shore with his binoculars, quickly. He could see people stationed at regular intervals around the tower, armed with small cannons, and what looked like rocket-propelled grenade launchers. “They’re ready to deter aircraft. I’d better call in again and tell the Praetorians not to come in by air.” He did so, using Sigrun’s body for cover as he extracted his satellite phone and made the call.
“Keep bailing,” Sigrun muttered. “Sooner or later, those guards are going to notice us out here, and acting like lost tourists will be a short-lived ruse, at best, once they see us close at hand.”
In between bailing sessions, Adam took other, furtive peeks at the location. There appeared to be lines incised into the shore around the tower—each leading to a hummock of uplifted earth. The lines appeared to be filled with metal of some sort, a precaution that reminded him, strongly, of Tawantinsuyu, and the binding of Inti. Wires were being set up at the moment, unrolled from the top of the mound down into the water, north of the s
hore, and being spread out like an enormous web. “Tren?” Adam asked, acutely missing both Minori and Kanmi at the moment. “What can you tell me?”
“Other than that is one very large binding circle they’ve built there?” Trennus grimaced. “We’re on a ley-line intersection here. Not surprising. A lot of ritual sites are built where there are strong confluences. They look to be using the wire, but they’re not, apparently, bothering with Tholberg coils or anything else this time. They’re using the lake itself as a . . . giant dampening field, or storage bank, is my guess. It’s probably not going to be healthy to stand in this, very shortly . . . but the metal in the wires should conduct everything more precisely to the individuals. They’re probably hoping that the lake can take the overload, so that they won’t be . . . overwhelmed.” Trennus sounded dubious of his own analysis.
The Goddess Denied Page 87