Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the bartender, a huge bear of a Goth with long blond hair in a braid to the center of his back and a heavy reddish beard, leaned over the pair. His Latin was heavily accented as he told them, “I think you cannot handle your honeybeer and uisce beatha, yes? I think perhaps I cut you off.”
The follower of Aten laughed at the bartender, which showed how drunk he actually was. “We’re just having a friendly conversation, aren’t we, Porphyry?” He grinned, a white flash of teeth in a dark face. “The worship of Aten predates your Mithras by thousands of years. Why can’t you just admit it?”
Thunder rumbled again, outside. The storm seemed to be getting closer. The handful of Gauls and Goths in the room looked up a little uneasily. The wide plains that swept to either side of the river Aeturnus bred savage storms, cyclones that could sweep down unexpectedly, like the finger of an angry god, and carry whole houses up into the sky, shattering them and scattering the pieces over miles. The hooded man in the corner booth gave the window beside him a cautious glance.
The Mithraist scowled. He hadn’t liked, quite evidently, being told his god was just another face of someone else’s. “Atahuti, you can go to the well of ‘we had revelation before your people learned the secret of fire’ only so often. A revelation granted later is no less valid or real. In fact, I’d say it’s more real. Because the god who is light and creation reveals new things to us as we grow in our ability to understand them, and the universe that he created for us. Your Aten is a disc. Me? I know that Mithras isn’t the blazing ball of plasma that hangs in space. But I know he created it—”
“The disc is a symbol. Aten is the Creator behind it all. And thus, we end where we began. You’ll trot out the magelings that call themselves god-born again as your proof that your god is different, somehow, than the one true lord of the universe, and we’ll go back around the circle once more.”
“The god-born are worthy of respect. Every god-touched born is a descendant of Mithras, touched by his divine grace, whether they know it or not—”
White light, followed by a crash of thunder then, shaking the walls. Static electricity hovered in the air, making everyone’s skin crawl. For some reason, in the booth in the corner, Adam very gently put a hand on the bare arm of his female companion. “Easy, Sig,” he murmured. “You’re the one who wanted to stay off-duty.”
“They are being . . . extremely offensive.”
“I know. But the steak’s good, right?” Adam had caught the eyes of the Goth barkeeper move to their booth, and a couple of the more perspicacious customers tossed silver coins down on their tables, and headed for the shelter of their rooms. For her part, Sigrun cut another bite, scowling faintly, and they listened to the debate rage on.
“And still, you won’t admit that Aten is the true name of your god. You won’t admit that your understanding is precisely the same as mine—that there is a single Creator behind the entire universe—and that your priests have just corrupted his worship for political gain and their own power.”
“Atahuti—”
“Oh, it’s all right.” The Egyptian leaned back in his chair, gesturing expansively. “You, at least, are more advanced in your beliefs than so many others. You at least understand that there is only one true god, even if you mispronounce his name and venerate him falsely. You don’t look for a god that sours milk. You don’t look for household gods and spirits in every tree in the accursed forest. But you’re as stubborn as a follower of the god of Abraham when it comes to admitting the truth.” He chuckled. “At least you don’t act like they do. They act as if every last one of them was god-born, when in fact, everyone knows they have no god. He’s as dead as all the idols that Akhenaten smashed, two thousand years ago. That’s why they have no magic, and pray at the altar of natural philosophy, instead.”
This time, the flash of white light and the thunder coincided, and the noise was deafening. The grid here was ley-powered, so the lights didn’t cut out, but the walls of the hotel actually shook. Car alarms—newfangled and desperately annoying—started to go off in the parking lot outside, whooping and wailing like banshees. Had anyone glanced out the window, they would have seen rain sheeting down horizontally in the dim light of the streetlamps, lashing at the rounded hummocks that were the old-fashioned looking cars common here, the ones with footboards that swept up into the fenders, which beetled over their eye-like headlamps.
No one even glanced at the windows, however. Their attention was drawn, instead, to the pellucid glow now filling the room, streaming from the table in the corner. The woman there still stared down at the surface of the table, at her largely uneaten meal. And under her skin, runes were now clearly discernable, glowing with white light. It stung eyes used to the low, flickering light of the sconces on the walls, and made it painful to look at her. The man beside her pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and moved in his seat, loosening his cloak from around himself. Readying himself to back her, if needed. “Sig . . . don’t,” he muttered, quietly. “Not worth it.”
“Yes. It is.” Her tone was flat. “They’ve been asked once to stop. I will ask them again. Politely.”
“Fair enough . . . .”
“Oh. . . . damnú air.” Someone cursing in a variant of Gallic spoken here in Caesaria Aquilonis.
“Scheiss.” A solid Gothic curse, that.
“Goddescild. Cildes Tiwas.” God-born. Child of Tyr.
The words were the same in a half-dozen dialects, as everyone in the room did their absolute best to turn invisible. The woman finally stood up, locked eyes with the pair at the bar, and then crossed the room to them on light feet. “I cannot help,” she said, in her lightly-accented, but perfectly understandable Latin, “but to have overheard your disputation. Perhaps I might be of some small assistance in improving your understanding.” Her teeth bared, a lupine grin, and her eyes held a steel-sheen coldness. “First, however, tell me this. Surely such learned men as yourselves must be priests, yes?”
Neither of the men moved. Back at the table, Adam had planted an elbow on the table, and now leaned his head on his fist, watching the encounter with mild amusement in his dark eyes. Oh, good. At least she’s talking with them first. Always the best option. Dialogue first. Doesn’t always work . . . but at least if you start with it, you’ve tried.
After a moment, the follower of Mithras shook his head, his eyes wide. “Ah . . . no.”
“No, but that does not mean I cannot read the holy books of my religion and interpret them for myself,” the follower of Aten, informed her, a little more staunchly. “The god-born do not have an exclusive hold on the truth—”
He’s not quite backing down from his assertion that they’re charlatans who simply have strong gifts in magic and use the pretense of the gods to hold onto power, but he’s at least not calling her a sorcerer to her face. It was actually rather fascinating to watch. Sociology in action; one person had stood up to challenge the man, one person with enough personal gravitas . . . and the entire balance of the room shifted.
“No,” the woman murmured, but the word still carried through the complete silence in the restaurant. “We do not. I have, however, been privileged to meet my god. My great-grandsire. I know who I am. I know why I am here. I serve him and I execute his will. I do not think you can say the same.” The word execute had a slightly portentous sound as it hung in the air, and she tipped her head very slightly to the side. “You should not speak so of the followers of the god of Abraham.”
“They say they have but one god, but everyone knows that the Holy of Holies in their Temple is empty. They have no god—” The follower of Aten’s words started off strong, but started to crumble, as he added, defensively, “And yet they act as if every one of them is god-born.”
Her not-really-a-smile had vanished at his words, and the sense of pressure in the room, as if the barometer were, in fact, pushing up increasing millibars of mercury, had become intense. “That is,” the woman told him, bitin
g off the ends of her words, “because it is said that their god considers them all to be his children.” She reached out and pushed their plates away on the surface of the bar, with a delicate finger—one suffused with a fretwork of shimmering runes under the skin. “Now,” she said, with careful precision, “you are both in violation of the just and wise Edict of Emperor Diocletian II, which says that every citizen of the Empire, and everyone resident in every province and client and subject state of the Empire, may hold to whichever gods they choose, but that none may force their gods upon another. And that all may venerate their gods in whichever way they choose, except for the sacrifice of humans.”
The Mithraist swallowed, and asked, tentatively, “Ah . . . in what way are we breaking the law?”
“Your friend here breaks it, in that he is proselytizing. To you, but also, in such a way that everyone else here must listen.” She stared the Atenist down. “I wished only for a peaceful dinner this evening, and not for learned discourse. It is time for you to be silent, or to leave.”
The Egyptian stood, looking angry. “You don’t have the right to tell me what to do. I’m a citizen of the province of Egypt, and I am not subject to you. You god-born are arrogant, and your arrogance will be your undoing. You will not always be able to cow everyone you meet with a show of force. A new day is coming. One in which the power of the so-called gods will be in all our hands, every man and woman will be as a mage, and there will never again be common-born and god-born.” He lifted his chin.
The woman looked at him, wearily, and took a slim leather folder out of the leather poke tied to the belt loops of her denim jeans. At the table in the corner, the hooded man tensed a little, but Sigrun opened the folder carefully, showing only one half of the credentials therein. “I am a sanctioned ælagol.” The word meant, more or less, law-giver, but in context, meant she was an adjudicator. Fully empowered to arrest someone, under Imperial law, and turn them over to provincial authorities . . . or within the bounds of Novo Germania or Germania itself, to try, convict, sentence, and even execute people who had broken Germanic provincial law.
The other half of the folder carried her other credentials. Which didn’t need to be waved around in a crowded taverna or lounge. Too many eyes.
“I will give you one more chance. Leave,” she told the Atenist. “Sleep off the wine-courage that makes you speak so.”
The Mithraist slipped down off the barstool, and started to retreat, holding his hands up. He hadn’t, very evidently, wanted to get into this discussion to start with, and had been baiting the Ptolemaic mostly out of irritation all this time. “I apologize, domina,” he said, politely, using the current preferred Latin term of respect for a lady. “Boredom and a long day. I’ll leave now.”
She accorded him a slight nod, and he retreated, but the man at the corner table kept the Mithraist in the periphery of his vision. Just in case. He was watching the whole room now, with the blank, defocused gaze of a trained fighter. Seeing everything. Focusing on nothing in particular.
The Atenist, on the other hand, looked past the woman’s shoulder. Made eye-contact with the man at the table, and the Egyptian’s eyes narrowed, and a smirk crossed his face. Adam stiffened slightly, suddenly wary. He knew that look. The Egyptian suddenly smiled, without mirth. “Oh. I understand. The barbarian woman likes sucking circumcised c—”
At the table, the hooded man looked up at the ceiling. “Bad move,” he muttered. “Very bad move.”
Another clap of thunder shook the building. And before the Egyptian could even react, the tall woman caught him by the wrist with her right hand, stepping deftly in behind him and pulling smoothly up between his shoulder blades. There was no effort in her movements, and though the man resisted, her single hand remained rock-steady, forcing him forwards onto the bar with an ungentle thump. “All right,” she said, her voice tired. “That’s one count of proselytizing without a license to preach, and in a public establishment, at that. One count of disrespect towards an officer of the law. The first is usually a two solidi fine.” Two solidi would pay the rent of a one-bedroom apartment in most major cities in the Empire and thus represented a stinging rebuke to someone found guilty of a crime. “The punishment for the second offense is usually determined by the whim of the magistrate in question. By happy chance, I am a magistrate.” She paused. “Do stop struggling. You have no hope of freeing yourself.”
She produced her rarely-used shackles from where they rode at the small of her back, and clicked them into place around the first wrist, casually planted a knee against the Atenist’s back, and reached around to seize his other hand. At which point, he managed to turn his head and spit into her glowing face. “God-born whore.”
The man in the corner uncoiled from the booth at that point, taking two steps closer. “Sig—”
The woman let the Atenist’s left hand loose just long enough to shift position, still retaining control of his right. Her own left hand slid up, found the back of his neck, and she slammed his head, face-first, into the counter. Hard.
Everyone in the room winced at the dull thud, and the bowl of almonds beside the man fell off the counter, scattering its contents all over the floor. “I am going to take your current state of blessed silence as an apology,” she informed the limp, unconscious body, and finished shackling the man. She then started to lift his head by the hair to evaluate the damage . . . and the hair came away entirely in her hand, leaving her starting, nonplussed, at the wig in her hand, and the shaved pate beneath. And then she recoiled reflexively, flicking the wig away from her with a grimace of distaste.
Muffled titters of anxious laughter ran through the crowd, as the rain outside pounded against the windows. “Taunt a god-born? Fool,” Adam heard in Latin from the table to his right, and caught sight of a couple of Gauls raising their tankards in the woman’s direction, in salute. He moved over behind his partner, and lifted the man’s head now, himself. The nose was shattered. He’d broken enough noses and jawbones in his life to recognize the signs. “And here I thought you were merely going to be testy with him.”
Sigrun grimaced. “I have logged over eighteen hours in a plane and quite a few more in a crowded motorcar in the past two days. So I might be ill-tempered. But I wasn’t going to throw him through a window, if that was your concern.” She accepted a rag from the barman, and wiped her face clean, before tossing the dirty rag on the Atenist’s back. “That creates far too much paperwork.”
“And leaves far too much of an impression on people’s minds,” Adam muttered. He was already quite certain that everyone in the lounge would be talking about this incident when they went home, or headed to their conferences, or even spoke on the telephone with friends later this evening. And they were supposed to be keeping a low profile.
He was thus somewhat relieved when the barkeep and one of the waiters lifted the shackled Atenist and took him outside for the moment, while, in the distance, he could hear the blare of approaching sirens. They resumed their seats in the corner, Sigrun steadfastly ignoring the stares of the other diners as she began picking at her bison steak once more. After a few minutes, the barkeep came over, and settled two mugs of honeybeer on the table in front of them. And when Sigrun reached for her poke to pay, the bear of a man leaned down and murmured to her quietly in some twisty dialect of Gothic.
Whatever he said caused the woman to flush and shake her head. She removed five denarii from her poke, and tried to pay the barkeep, but he lifted his hands away, refusing to take the coins, and walked away, grinning toothily. “What did I miss?” Adam asked her, as he went back to flicking items out of his salad. He’d caught æðeles ides, one of the few Gothic phrases he knew—noble lady—but nothing more.
“He thanked me for removing an irritating pest, and said that as I had served in place of an exterminator and provided the evening’s entertainment, that dinner was on the house.” Her tone was irritable.
Adam chuckled. “He did not say that.”
“Th
e entertainment part, he did not, correct,” Sigrun acceded, with a sigh. “He was far too polite to say it.”
“But it was on his mind?” he needled.
“. . . of course it was.” The woman rubbed gently at her eyes.
“I can’t take you anywhere, can I, Sig?” He offered her a forkful of his salad. “Want a bite?”
“All that I wanted,” she muttered, glumly, “was to eat a quiet, peaceful meal without anyone here in Ponca knowing that we are here. A steak on the government’s denarii. Then go upstairs to my room, take a bath, and sleep, before going back on duty in the morning. It didn’t seem like so much to ask.”
“We’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow,” Adam acknowledged, and then gave her an amused look. “I did tell you not to bother. I deal with idiots like that one all the time. The ones who think we don’t have a god, just because there’s no idol in the Tabernacle of the Temple. And I’m fully capable of taking care of myself.” He quirked a quick grin at her, and took off his heavy cloak, finally having warmed up enough to do so.
The cloak had concealed a lean frame, one well-trained in the defensive arts developed in the mountains of Judea. The leather harness over his shoulders carried an artifact rare in this part of the world: a revolver pistol, tucked at the small of his back. A Velserk .45 caliber, in fact, with six bullets loaded and ready to go. Such weapons were currently almost unknown in Nova Germania and Novo Gaul. While almost every house had a smoothbore musket or a blunderbuss, available for hunting or self-defense, they all only held one round of ammunition, and the best small arms generally available were single-shot, muzzle-loaded pistols called derringers.
Of course, most people in this area of the world also had their bullets enchanted by a local sorcerer or technomancer if they thought they were in danger of being attacked by local gangs, robbers, or just someone with a grudge. There was absolutely nothing magical about the Velserk, however. It was resolutely, and charmlessly, a mechanism of metal.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 2