The Goddess Denied

by Deborah Davitt

  But all of his children with Saraid were, somehow, very dear to his heart. Maybe it was guilt on his part, for having neglected Saraid for so long, when he should have realized that she wasn’t motherly towards him in the least. Maybe it was because he wanted to make damned sure that they never felt like . . . second-class citizens. And they weren’t. Vorvena was light enough in her normal body that she could take to the air more easily than any of the others besides Solinus, who’d finally learned how to shape himself into a phoenix on command—after years of effort controlling what had, originally, been a reflexive ability. But while Vorvena specialized in flight . . . Maccis had the brightest imagination of all of Trennus’ children. Trennus knew that none of the others had ever dreamed of putting on a form of a creature dead for sixty-five million years. Maccis had sat down to try to figure it out from illustrations in a picture book when he was six.

  Basic strikes, basic parries. A little warm-up, using the live blades to get a feel for the weight. None of the other children besides Solinus had been interested in learning sword-fighting. Maccis, however, picked it up quickly. They slipped the scabbards back on, to ensure that the blades were bated; a wooden sword could never train the arm muscles for the weight of a claymore, in Trennus’ opinion. And he got to watch the quick grin flicker across Maccis’ face as he ducked under one deliberately awkward strike by his father, and carried through on an attack. “Good,” Trennus told him. “Everything all right at school?”

  A shrug. “The usual,” Maccis told him, laconically. “The other students have mostly run out of original insults. The work is fine. I’m taking advanced chemistry and advanced biology this semester. Could live without the art class that’s required.”

  “Try diagramming a plant as if for an antique herbalist’s manuscript,” Trennus advised, between strikes. “Your teacher will probably hate it, but you’ll see more of a point to it.”

  “She wants us all to do ceramics. The people at my table told me, in front of her, that I should make myself a nice dog-dish with my name on it.”

  Trennus missed a step, and scowled. “And she didn’t say anything?”

  “Of course not. When do the teachers at that school ever step in?” Maccis sounded annoyed. “I told her that I don’t like knickknacks, and she said that the assignment was for everyone.”

  Trennus signaled a halt, and gave his son a direct look. “Take your biology book,” he said, calmly. “Find something you’re interested in. The inner workings of a cell. The structure of a monkey’s brain. Make that out of clay. And if the teacher says that it’s not art, you call me in.”

  Maccis grinned. “I wouldn’t mind it so much if she weren’t so stupid about it,” he said, putting up the sword. “But art seems . . . kind of useless right now. She goes on and on about how art inspires, art lets us know that there’s more to life than destruction. I don’t see how twenty-five lumpy vases reinvigorate the human spirit.” He paused. “Nor do I see any point in porcelain cats, plaster dragons, or whatever cheap keepsakes people buy in roadside shacks.”

  “Utility, or nothing, eh?” Trennus chuckled under his breath. There wasn’t much in the way of decoration in his house. Lassair and Saraid both believed in the beauty of nature, and thus, they grew plants, indoors and out. Knickknacks weren’t an option with so many children. They were just something else that could be broken. Sigrun had a similar philosophy at her house, where the only keepsakes of her and Adam’s travels were paintings, pictures, and prints on the walls. No clutter, beyond a single glass perfume bottle that Trennus had been told had belonged to her mother. Part of a set, with a hairbrush and hand mirror that had been lost, decades ago. Minori liked fine lacquer ware and porcelain, but every item she owned, was used. Erida’s house was the only one his children were exposed to, that had art for art’s sake, and most of that consisted of family-owned antiquities, half of which were actually magical devices. “It’s not a bad philosophy. An uncluttered life is a simpler one. But she actually is right, when she says that art lets people have more to their lives than mere survival. But none of the things you mentioned are actually art.”

  “I know,” Maccis told him, rolling his eyes. “But try telling that to the people who churn out that crap.”

  Trennus tucked in Caranti and Deomiorix tonight, twin boys Saraid had borne in 1981—the same year in which Lassair had given birth to twin boys of her own. Lassair had a clone of herself putting the other young children to bed, and Trennus walked through the house, speaking with the various adolescents, until he reached his study. And blinked; there was a message on the answering machine, waiting for him. He pressed the play button. “Trennus, when you get this, call my satellite phone,” Minori told him. “I’m bogged down in Qin. The Indians and Mongols mounted a major offensive, and I can’t get a plane!”

  He stared at the phone for a long moment, wondering how he was supposed to help, and then shrugged and called back. Min was a friend, and Kanmi’s widow. If nothing else, he could lend a friendly ear, even as he propped a grimoire open on his knees and listened to the phone ring. “There you are,” Min said, sounding tired. “Have you been keeping track of the news?”

  “Not a lot being released by the Nipponese government. There were two more major eruptions, a nine point three earthquake, and a tsunami that slammed the west coast of the main island.”

  “Correct in all regards. What they’re not reporting—and pass this on to Adam, please—is that one of the mad gods was slain by Amaterasu—”

  “Good. Three down. Twelve to go.”

  “There was a second one present. Killed Tenjin, our god of poetry. Set off one of the volcanoes.”

  “Oh . . . gods.” Trennus closed his eyes for a moment. “And the people around there?”

  “The ones who survived the initial eruption were being turned into ghul. The other gods managed to work together and drove it out, but . . . there’s so much death there right now.” Minori sounded disheartened, and no wonder. “And right now, I’ve got three hundred people who are wavering between turning around and going home to help, and coming with me to Judea, and we’re stuck in an airport. Possibly for a week or more.”

  “Three hundred—do I want to know why?”

  “Amaterasu told me to start recruiting. I do not argue with my gods when they make personal requests of me.”

  Trennus’ mouth opened, and shut. He counted himself enormously fortunate that Morrigan, Taranis, Cernunnos and all the other gods of his own pantheon had left him strictly alone in his life. He revered them, of course, and made little offerings on the holy days, but past that, the lives of all his friends had been influenced greatly, and in Kanmi’s case, made much the worse, by their native gods.

  Of course they don’t bother you anymore, Lassair told him, silently. You’re bound to Saraid and to me. Silly.

  Trennus shook his head. The soul-bonds probably did mask him, very thoroughly. I’m invisible to them?

  Almost. They’d see you in the same room, physically, the way most others can see Adam, but . . . they usually can’t see his essence, the flicker of light inside.

  It’s strange that you and Saraid can, but gods cannot.

  He loves us. That does create a bond.

  All that, between heartbeats. Trennus sighed, and asked Minori, “All right. What do you need me to do?”

  “Get me out of here, and my people, too.”

  Trennus thought, rapidly. “The Qin government is a pretty effective bureaucracy. Can you find some less-than-ethical mid-level official and . . . I hate to suggest it, but perhaps bribe your way through? Get a flight up to Raccia, perhaps, and from there . . . er. Gods. You’d either go through Mongolian airspace, which is unwise, or through parts of Fennmark and the Baltics that are rife with lindworms. And mad gods.” No one was actually sure if any of the Fenno-Baltic gods were even still alive. Trennus had asked Lassair and Saraid if they had any inklings, and they’d given him wide-eyed, frightened looks. He couldn’t ask Sigrun; she
was pinned down on the Persian front, and who knew if her gods had told her anything of late.

  “I’ve already hinted around to a number of officials that I would be amenable to lining their pockets. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of ethics.” Minori’s tone was hushed, and she was speaking in Latin. “Our plane had to set down here near the Indian border, in spite of having Judean markings, and they’ve grounded all flights. No trains south, and motorcars permitted, either. We can’t get over the damned border. The best I can do is to take us all north, by train, into Raccia. Or back east, get to Siam, and try to get a flight to Australia, instead.”

  Trennus thought about it. “How many of the people you have with you are summoners, ley-mages, sorcerers, or god-born?”

  “Fifteen of the three hundred. Slightly over the population average, I realize.”

  “Damn it.” Trennus exhaled. “I could come to you and walk you through the Veil. But three hundred . . . they’d get lost. They’d go insane.” He thought about it a moment longer. “I’ll come there. I’ll take you and the others who are . . . magically-inclined . . . through the Veil.”

  “I can’t leave the others. They’re my responsibility.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. I’ll come anyway. Maybe I can talk to the local summoners, see if we can’t get some traction on this some other way.”

  He hung up, called Adam, and informed his old friend that he was about to circumvent several hundred pages of rules regarding international travel, and passed along Min’s information. He also gave Lassair a kiss. “You can’t come with me, I assume?”

  It’s very far to travel. I can’t be there and here at the same time. She hesitated. Also, the Qin gods may . . . take it amiss if I go there.

  He raised his eyebrows, and Lassair winced. I have grown too much, she admitted, softly. So has Saraid, but Saraid is . . . quieter, for all that so many now believe in her. The harpies and the dryads call her name now, before they speak that of Artemis, did you know that?

  Trennus felt a chill go through him. “So if I go, I’m going without either of you?”

  A whisper at the back of his mind, from Saraid, I will come to you, if there is need. But I do not think you will need my aid, Worldwalker. Saraid seemed to prefer that half of his name, and he didn’t blame her; Flamesower made him sound like Lassair’s property.

  He took a deep breath. “Then I’d better be sure to pack a few grimoires, eh?”

  They’d worked with the concept of moving a person bodily through the Veil over the past several years, after several very long and complex conversations between Zhi, Lassair, and Saraid. Zhi had successfully moved Erida’s house through the Veil, and all her servants. But the results to humans without a spirit-bond had been . . . unfortunate. Some had been lost entirely. Some had gone a little mad. And some had suffered physical mutations, particularly the unfortunate pedagogue who’d been covered in flower mouths . . . all of them whispering to her.

  Though Trennus, Saraid, and Lassair had opened a portal to the Veil to allow Loki to pass through in 1970, he’d largely been manipulating their powers. And that remained the same today. The spirits had to do the heavy lifting. As a result of their experiments, he’d been to their Woods several times in the past few years—physically. It was . . . energizing, really. He’d been a little terrified of what the experience could do to Adam, however, so he’d kept the offer for a dream experience there open, but hadn’t dared offer the physical reality. But Adam always smiled a little wistfully and commented that he’d only go if Sig did.

  Trennus had yet to venture out into the wild Veil in his physical form. Saraid had agreed to be his escort at least as far as Qin, but not back out into the mortal realm. Although, thinking of it in terms of distance and location was . . . also wrong. Trennus slung a pack over his shoulder, looked in one more time at each of the children, gave Maccis a pat on the shoulder when he found the boy hunched over a biology textbook and what looked like a diagram of a plant cell, and then headed into the courtyard of his house. “All right,” he told Lassair and Saraid. “Let’s get this part over with.”

  . . . And then he was there. His home away from home. No pushing, no twisting, not strain. Very smooth, he told Saraid.

  Practice helps, Worldwalker, she told him, assuming her wolf form under the trees. This way, I think.

  They ran out of the woods, acknowledging all the spirits who dwelled there now with waves and words. And then out into the actual wilds, where Worldwalker ran through a starfield, through a volcano’s heart, his mind completely calm. Through an underwater passage. His lungs ached, but he reminded them that while there was no air, there was also no time, or at least, only as much as he made for himself, while he was here. He and Saraid burst out of the water, and he gasped for air as the waves pounded on him. He looked up at the white cliffs in puzzlement; storm clouds loured in the sky overhead, restless. I think we’re going the wrong way.

  This is the direction Truthsayer’s scent seems to be.

  I trust your nose, wild-heart. They ran on, bounding up the cliffs with the ease of thought. Crossing seven leagues with every step, but Worldwalker slowed, and looked around. This land was overgrown and untended, but he could spot the remnants of fences around fields that had been left untended for what appeared to be years. Nothing but waist-high weeds in the furrows. Farmhouses, burned out, or whose roofs had collapsed. And not a spirit in sight, and in the Veil, that was particularly unnerving.

  This was a realm, though one far larger than that of a relatively weak Veil dweller, like the spider’s web, or the swan’s pond. This is like the dead place, the city of ash. Larger than his own Woods . . . though the Woods were growing . . . . Someone must have created it, for some reason.

  Yes. I have never seen this one before. But it must always have been here.

  Of course it has. They ran further, and Worldwalker again came to a halt, puzzled. A child’s playground, understood solely from the metal skeleton of a swing set, a few links of chain left behind, and the metal bars nearly rusted through. Buildings, or at least, the frames of them. Just the metal, mostly twisted, and poured-stone foundations. Burned, charred remnants of wood, and trees that had fallen around lay charred, as well. A few hardy weeds lived, here and there, attesting to the fact that life always found a way to go on.

  And yet . . . what was this place? The curves of the riverbank seemed vaguely familiar, but without trees and buildings, he was at a loss, at first, until they trotted deeper into the city. He spun, staring around him. The few structures that remained seemed familiar, too. An ancient keep, along the river, strongly built in stone, seemed to have survived what had happened to the more modern buildings around it. But the architectural style was unfamiliar, though its placement on the north bank of the river seemed fitting, somehow.

  Passing through the ruins, he found a wide square. This . . . this is Londonium. I used to come to Iceni Square for lunch when I was at the university here. But where his mind told him he should have seen a statue of Boudicca, there was, instead, a staggeringly tall column, with a weathered statue of a man at the top. Saraid flew him up, obligingly, and Worldwalker frowned. The sandstone features were too eroded to see, but the man had worn some manner of transverse crest like a Roman centurion, an odd cloak, fitted to his body, with sleeves and a number of brooches or . . . buttons, perhaps . . . down the front. He also leaned upon a sword. This isn’t Londonium, then.

  It is, and it isn’t. I smell death here. Everywhere.

  The city does look as if it’s been hit by bombs. Many, many bombs. Worldwalker could feel the presence of other spirits. Weak ones. Ones that insisted that this was the mortal world.

  In a flash, Trennus understood. This sounds like the physicists’ talk of other quantum universes. Ones in which causality and decisions made, have led them to fragment off. But the Veil cannot fragment, because it is eternal. And it cannot open onto every one of these quantum universes. If it did, spirits could travel between th
em, freely. And they would remember. They would remember everything that they saw and experienced in other worlds, and would be able to tell the differences, because the memories of one realm would not match the memories of other realms.

  Yes. Saraid’s voice was hesitant, however. This was not the mode of thought that the wilderness spirit usually engaged in. I wish Emberstone yet lived. I understand your thoughts, but I cannot add to them. She paused. What you say of spirits remembering other realms, if it were possible to cross to them . . . perhaps it is true. I do not experience pre-memory nearly as intensely as some spirits do. Some are more attuned to memories of things that have yet to be, than others.