“No. Livorus called. We all need to report in this morning. He has a new assignment, and we‘re all slated to go with him.” Sigrun shrugged. “Sorry to catch you both before breakfast.”
“Not a problem.” Adam jerked a thumb in the direction of the locker room and bathing area. “We’re going to need to clean up first.”
“I can wait here.” Sigrun’s tone was indifferent. “Perhaps I will work on my spear forms.”
Adam could hear someone behind him mutter the blatantly obvious, “She could handle my spear any time . . . .”
Before he could turn and glare, however, Sigrun had turned her head incrementally, and looked down, in contravention of most male conventions. “No,” she said, without changing expression. “I’m trained in long spear and half-spear, Forsetti. You do not even qualify as a dart.”
The chorus of cheerful jeering that ensued—all at Forsetti’s expense—carried Adam and Trennus out of the room.
Forty-five minutes later, the four lictors were standing in Livorus’ library, hands behind their backs as they awaited the propraetor himself. Adam’s eyes swept over the shelves and shelves of leather-bound books, the old-fashioned scroll rack behind the desk, the sand table near the window that overlooked the atrium . . . there were maps on the sand table, all rolled neatly, save one, which looked like a close-up view of Asia Minor, the Caspian Sea, the Caucus Mountains, Judea, and the Persian border, and, at the extreme left and bottom, Egypt. His eyebrows rose, and he said to the others, quietly, “Eshmunazar? I have a feeling either you or I are going to be in for a homecoming of sorts.”
Kanmi looked away from his absent study of one of the books on a shelf, and followed the direction of Adam’s stare. After a moment, the sorcerer’s shoulders slumped. “Better you than me,” he said. “I’ve no desire on earth to see Tyre again.”
Adam chuckled, but he knew that trying to get Kanmi to say anything more on the topic was a lost cause. It was ironic, really; the sorcerer was usually the quickest of any of them to volunteer an opinion on something, so long as it was acerbic, querulous, or amused, but trying to get him to say so much as a word about his family or his upbringing . . . . There was a wall in Kanmi on those topics, and in close to a year of service together, Adam had never seen that wall breached. Not even after they’d killed a weakened god, or met a fully empowered one. You’d think that experiences like those would bring people together, Adam thought, his lips quirking up.
Seeing Tyr in the Odinhall had been a baffling and powerful experience, and one that had brought up all his previous thoughts on the topic of faith and certainty. In his estimation, there were only a few basic types of people in the world, when it came to matters of faith. There were people who were deeply insecure in what they themselves believed, and therefore had to shout to the world what they believed was the best. They joined a faith not because it was what they truly believed, but because it was the best club or gang to belong to. They wore its colors, ate of its bread and drank of its wine, and were absolutely determined to convince everyone else around them of the rightness of their particular path. Not out of charity, not out of faith, not out of devotion, not out of conviction . . . but because they would feel better and superior if they convinced others to join. Because it meant that they were right, the others had been wrong, and that validated their choices. The Atenist, on that long-gone stormy night in Ponca, had been a perfect example of that type: insecure, loud-mouthed, and obnoxious. This wasn’t faith, and it couldn’t be called certainty, either. Adam had no time for them.
Then there were people who had been brought up in a faith, and followed it for the same reason that they held whatever their political beliefs were: it was what their parents had done, said, and believed. Trying to discuss either politics or religion with that type was a lost cause, because no thought had ever been invested in either; whatever they had been told over the dinner table when they were six, was what they would believe when they were sixty, because they had never, in all the decades in between, ever met anyone or heard anything that challenged their worldview, or made them stop and reflect. This wasn’t really either faith or certainty, either. This was habit.
There were people out there who had inner faith, who didn’t need to flaunt it or browbeat others with it; they had a serene, inner confidence to them that Adam frankly envied, a balance to their demeanor that spoke volumes about their character.
There were people who had certainty, but no faith, and those were dangerous, dangerous people. They were certain that they knew what the gods wanted, certain about the rightness of their path. Certain people were like Tototl, and they could take horrific advantage of the insecure, could fill the insecure’s hollow, echoing emptiness with their own certainty . . . but they didn’t actually have faith. Just a lust for power, and a construct in the mind that allowed them to grasp at it.
There were people like Adam himself, who’d been raised in a faith, but had learned to question it, to make decisions, learned to evaluate the traditions of his family and create his own understanding. He didn’t have the secure certainty of someone who believed exactly what everyone else around him believed, of following rules and traditions that had been handed down for generations, but he was content that his god understood his heart, his motivations, and his principles, and that he was doing the best he could with a world that had moved on, somewhat, since mankind had been first inclined to smelt bronze into swords.
And there were people like Sigrun. The god-born, who had absolute certainty in the existence of their gods, but who, perhaps deliberately on the gods’ part, seemed to have no more answers than any other mortal in some respects. Who seemed to have fewer choices than other humans, though more power.
Seeing the face of her god hadn’t shaken Adam’s faith in his own, but it had raised more questions in him than he’d had before. Why did some gods, like Tyr, appear to move and change as humanity, for lack of a better term, evolved? Why did some gods, like Tlaloc, remain buried in the past? Was it a matter of who worshipped them? Did the belief of humanity shape its gods?
That last one . . . kept him up at night, if he let himself think about it too much. Gods were supposed to be . . . gods. Unchangeable. Immutable. But if that were true, if the gods weren’t able to comprehend that in the course of six or ten or twenty thousand years that humanity itself had changed, or would change—or if the gods hadn’t, in fact, planned for that—then the world was really in trouble, wasn’t it?
And all that in addition to the monumental issue gnawing at the back of his head . . . the pure fact that he’d seen a god die. Actually, it had died at his hands. All right, there had been a lot of other people involved, but he’d struck the final blow, and they were . . . ninety-nine percent sure that the god was dead. All the way dead.
That was another issue that kept him awake at night.
He’d endured the yearly call from his mother and father after Yom Kippur; he’d explained, once again, that last year, he’d been in Delhi, and this year, he’d been in Tenochtitlan. There was a notable lack of any Judean temples or synagogues in each area; most Judeans were homebodies, really. There were a few enclaves of engineers and natural philosophers who’d settled in Hellas or Nippon or even Qin, maybe a handful here and there in the bigger cities in Novo Gaul and Nova Germania . . . but he couldn’t just walk down a street, find the right door, and participate in the day of atonement.
And, truthfully, what was he going to reflect on this year during the season of self-examination and contemplation, beyond what haunted him almost every night anyway? I killed a god this year. Oh, it was a foreign and idolatrous one, so that makes it better, somehow? That I’ve somehow gone against the natural order of things? All right, so he wasn’t a very good god, and his people are probably better off without him? I’m . . . somehow not comforted by any of this. Because some things shouldn’t be possible, and history’s shown that whenever gods have died—be they Egyptian or Babylonian or whatever else—something wor
se has almost always taken their place. Though what could possibly be worse than Tlaloc is beyond me. Adam had shuddered at the thought. Well, there’s always people. People could take his place. Certain people, driven into uncertainty. There’s a combination I don’t want to see.
The metaphysical issues were classified. The physical reality of countries outside of Judea was almost impossible to explain to his mother, though his father had merely told him, “I understand. You’re doing good work in places in the world where there are few others of our people.”
“I don’t see why you can’t take a few days leave and come home,” his mother had groused, when she’d been put back on the line.
Adam had put them off as politely as he could, and realized that, given any choice in the matter, he wouldn’t be taking leave in Judea for the next ten years. . . . and done his best to lose himself in the work. So he would be too damned tired to think at night, when he headed back to an empty hotel room or an equally empty apartment, and had no companionship but the incessant drone of his thoughts, all of which told him that Sigrun and Trennus and Kanmi were right. Nothing came from nothing. And that there was always a cost. He’d killed a god.
And there was probably going to be a price.
At that moment, Livorus entered the library, and four spines straightened just a hint more. The Roman waved at them all, gesturing towards the low-backed chairs in front of his desk. “Good morning. Thank you all for arriving so promptly.” He stepped behind his desk, and put on his glasses to peer down at the papers on it, blue eyes intent. “We’ve had a good two months of relative calm. I hope you’ve enjoyed them.”
Adam shrugged, and felt the others reacting in much the same way, scuffing shoes over the tiled floor. Livorus chuckled. “You are all far too much like finely bred-chariot horses. You’re only happy when you’re about to race in the Circus Maximus. Well, consider your chariot harnessed behind you. The Imperator called me to dine with him last night. This information does not leave this room—no need to look around. We’ve already been swept for bugs this morning.” Livorus leaned back in his high-backed leather chair, and looked at them all steadily. “You’re all aware of the Shadow War.”
The Shadow War had been going on for decades between the Roman and Persian Empires, conducted largely in the smaller border states and provinces between the two larger empires. It was a game of tit-for-tat. Assyria, for example, was a prime area for incursions by either side, for the area had been bisected by Domitanus’ Wall, which ran northeasterly through their lands to the Caspian Sea; the Caspian itself was part of the line of demarcation, and had been built primarily to hold the Mongols out of Asia Minor. Every port city along the Caspian was heavily fortified, in case either the Persians or the Mongols tried to make a landing on the western shore . . . and then the Wall picked up again slightly to the north of the sea, before petering out again near the Raccian border.
Armenia, which was claimed as a non-province subject nation by Rome, was another area frequently targeted by agents on both sides of the Shadow War. The city-states of Damascus and Tyre—Old Carthage and Western Assyria, in short—were also frequent targets for provocative attacks, as were areas of Judea itself. Adam had spent most of his time in the Judean Defense Forces stationed along the section of the Wall that ran from the Gulf of Persia northwest, paralleling the flow of the Euphrates. “You might say I have some small awareness of the conflict, sir,” he said, not changing his expression at all.
Kanmi grimaced. “I’d expected to be sent to the West Assyrian front for my four years. Just as glad I was sent to the Mongol border, instead.” His expression was stony. “A Chaldean Magi was sent to Tyre on a retaliatory strike for . . . some damned thing I don’t even remember . . . when I was sixteen or so. He summoned earth elementals that rampaged through entire port area. Destroyed docks, broke several levies. Killed a fair number of people when their houses flooded.”
Trennus looked up for that. “Huh. Odd choice.”
Everyone looked at him for a moment. Their summoner flushed. “I’m just saying, it’s a port city. I’d have summoned water elementals and made use of the ocean that’s right there, making them that much stronger. I can only assume he didn’t know any water elementals by Name.”
“Do me a favor and don’t introduce them to any,” Kanmi said, shortly. “They rousted out my entire school to go hunt the damned things down. The teachers considered it an excellent practical lesson, and we were all sent out with a full sorcerer . . . but all we could really do was disperse the forms they’d incarnated into, unfortunately.”
“That’ll temporarily banish them, yes.” Trennus shrugged.
“JDF protocol usually suggests killing the summoner.” Adam shifted. “No offense, Tren.”
The Pict gave him a quick smile, lifting his hands lightly. “None taken. Of course, you don’t necessarily need to have a summoner present for certain types of summonings.” He shrugged again. “You know the old legends of a djinni being kept in a lamp?”
Adam did his level best not to picture, yet again, the djinn towering a mile above the small border town near the wall, and the destruction it had caused. “I’m aware of them, yes,” he managed, tightly. Sigrun, to his surprise, reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, and he felt himself relax at that light contact.
“You can bind a spirit into almost anything if you’re strong enough. I personally like something as unbreakable and immovable as possible . . . .”
“. . . like turning a great deal of sand into rock around something large and unfriendly?” Kanmi’s expression didn’t change, as he gently reminded them all of what Trennus had tried, over half a year ago, on a god.
“. . . yes,” Trennus replied, after an uncertain moment. “Precisely like that. Gem-stones, for instance.”
“The Magi are the ones who pioneered that form of sorcery,” Kanmi offered, immediately. “They came up with storing spells inside of crystalline matrixes. Probably as an off-shoot of storing djinn in rings and bottles. And once you store energy and a pattern inside a stone, it’s just a hop and a skip to modern technomancy.” He paused. “All right, it’s a hop and a skip that took eight hundred years, but you get the point.”
Trennus nodded, enthusiastically. Adam raised a finger. “What does this get us?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Just that there might not always be a summoner nearby to kill,” Trennus replied. “You can confine a spirit into gems, bottles, metal containers, even common rocks, if they’re prepared the right way. Once you’ve bound them, you can put them somewhere for safekeeping, if you don’t want them getting loose again.” Trennus shifted. “Salt water, by preference. It’s close to blood in terms of its chemistry, and it’s . . . something of a buffer element. I won’t bore you with the specifics, but it works.” The big man slid his glasses further up his nose. “Now imagine, if you would, binding a spirit into something that’s fragile, deliberately. A medallion, for example. A jar. A glass bottle. And then having someone transport it and break it where a very angry malevolent spirit can do the most harm.”
Adam winced. He’d heard of the tactic being used, but since the person transporting the object would probably be the first thing that the demonic spirit would turn on, it wasn’t used frequently. At least, not by people who knew what they were carrying. “They’ve occasionally distributed bottles along the Wall,” Adam said, tightly. “Ones filled with alcohol and rags. They set fire to the rags and throw them at soldiers there. And once in a while . . . some bright summoner fills the bottles with other things, too. It’s the sort of trick you don’t get to pull on your own people more than once . . . unless you get them to volunteer for it.” He grimaced again. What enraged spirits could do to a human being, if they were powerful enough to incarnate, wasn’t pretty. Just think about those monkey-dog things under the Pyramid of the Sun . . . or rather, I should probably try not to. Their eyes were too damned human. He cleared his throat, and tried again. “Which is to say, yes,
I’m aware of . . . some of that. And you never really know what you’re going to get, along the Wall.”
Livorus had been listening to the byplay patiently, and now looked around his study. “The latest round of hostilities really got its start back in nineteen-thirty or so,” he said. “East Assyria began to agitate for re-unification with West Assyria, and demanded the return of lands historically held by their ethnic group in Armenia. West Assyria declined to be reunited on the wrong side of the Wall; while they made it clear that they would greatly appreciate being able to communicate with families on the other side with more ease, they didn’t actually wish to become a part of the greater Persian Empire once again. The subject nation of Armenia also declined to have Persia directly on their doorstep. Again.” Livorus sighed. “East Assyria began to send magi against the wall, as well as staging attacks along border towns. This was very likely in response to pressure from within Persepolis to act as a cat’s-paw. It all probably started because Rome had just formalized a new set of trade agreements with India, on Persia’s eastern border. It . . . escalated.” Livorus looked away, his expression distant. “Sometimes, it seems as if the West-East Assyria issue raises its head every single time Rome does something that Persia does not like. As it was, at the time, there were attacks as far west as Damascus, Megiddo, and Tyre.”
“I barely remember this,” Kanmi admitted. “We had to evacuate my primary school when a series of fire elementals were unleashed in the neighborhood, however.” He frowned. “I was about six.”
Livorus shrugged, faintly. “I’d just rotated off of the northern borders, trying to keep the Raccia-Mongol conflict from spreading south. My entire legion was, perforce, moved to West Assyria and planted more or less atop the Wall for the remainder of my years of service. I was ordered to cross the border no less than three times in that time span for retaliatory strikes.” He rubbed at his nose. “It is never a comfortable sensation, to be leading the mission that might turn the ‘shadow’ war into a real one. And of course, there was the whole Gazaca incident, in which dozens of Persian magi slipped across the border and set up shop, hidden among the civilian population of that border city.” He sighed. “Concealed by sympathizers, and by those too frightened to tell them no, they conducted assaults all through Western Assyria.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 50