“Oh yes.” Kanmi paused. “And I definitely prefer it to the bad old days. I wouldn’t have Himi if it were two thousand years ago.”
“Sacrifices to Baal and Moloch.”
“Yes. First-born sons were preferred.” Kanmi grimaced. “See, you say you’re Judean in public, and people might give you a look for being the stubborn sods who won’t use magic . . . but I say ‘Carthaginian’ or ‘Punic,’ and people look at me, and I can see them thinking ‘baby-killer.’ On the whole . . . conversion does sound pleasant some days. Pretty much why the boys, now that I have them in Rome . . . to Tartarus with Baal. They can go to Jupiter’s temple with the rest of the city.” He paused again. “Family.”
“Yeah.”
Silence. After another minute or two, Kanmi ventured, putting his hands on the cold stone of the balcony rail, “If it’s any comfort, your family is infinitely preferable to mine. At least you and your brother still are capable of speaking to one another. My brothers kept trying to drown me when I was younger.”
“I’m sure it felt that way. My brother used to joke about putting me in the well in a sack—”
Kanmi snorted. “No, I meant that literally. They’d take me to the pier and hold my head down under the water and laugh while I struggled. That stopped right around the time we all discovered I could do this.” He invoked fire around his hands, just for a moment, and afterimages danced in front of Adam’s eyes even after he dismissed the flames. “Of course, they still don’t think I’m doing a job that a man should do. For them, a man’s job is a full day of hard, backbreaking, physical labor. And when they get off work, they go to a taverna, drink to ease the pain in their muscles, and then go home to their wives, reeking of fish, sweat, and beer. I feel sorry for my sisters-in-law, to be honest.” He paused, as Adam stared at him. Kanmi hadn’t revealed this much about himself or his past in the whole of the last year. “And you know, the thing is . . . even if I could tell them some of the things I’ve done in this job of ours?” Kanmi turned and looked at Adam. “You know . . . entities, and things that would make their eyes bulge out of their very skulls? I wouldn’t do it.”
“Why not?” Adam was making rapid mental re-adjustments.
“Because even if I did, it’s not as if they’re ever going to admit, ‘Yes, you’re better than we are.’ And me telling them . . . would be like asking for their approval. Their approbation. In the end? Just plain fuck them. I don’t care enough about them to want to include them in anything I’ve done since leaving home.” Kanmi looked back down into the darkness. “Your family’s better than that. Your brother may not know who the fuck you are, but I think you can educate him. And he might respect you, once he understands that you’re a different person than he thought he knew. Your mother . . . eh. Mothers are mothers. They never really know who their sons are.” Kanmi’s tone held weariness and cynicism.
“And who am I, then?” Adam asked, dryly, “that they don’t know me, Esh?”
“You’ve been out into the darkness, beyond the fence line of reality, where most humans stay inside those bounds all their lives. You’ve wrestled with demons, with Matrugena. You’ve seen the forces that make up the universe bend at a man’s whim, with me. You’ve fought gods, with Caetia. You’re not the boy your brother remembers.” Kanmi straightened up, and looked at him, levelly. “Find a way to show your brother who you are, short of killing him, is my advice. Me? I don’t have any halfway measures. That’s why it’s best I don’t spend any time with my brothers.” A cynical grin. “Get some sleep . . . boss.”
___________________
Maius 7, 1955
Sigrun emerged from the bath complex on the grounds of the governor’s mansion at just past eight postmeridian. While some ancient buildings had had hot water piped to every room, this one, while palatial, even by Roman standards, only had indoor plumbing set up for the lavatories themselves, and small sinks. All other hygiene needs were dealt with in the baths. As for the baths themselves, she thought that the art on the walls inside—definitely from the Latter Decadent Period—was a bit of a reaction to the local culture. Even the women’s side of the baths had frescoes depicting various figures, male and female, female and female, male and male, and groups of three and more, in sexual configurations that seemed highly athletic, and, in some cases, judging by the incorporation of non-human mythological creatures like harpies and centaurs . . . probably somewhat painful, as well. Sigrun had shaken her head over those, and washed up as quickly as possible, escaping back to the main house. She’d been told that the building had originally been the site of the Palace of Herod, which had been torn down, all but the outer walls, and rebuilt as a gesture of goodwill after the meeting of Caesarion I with local authorities. That it had been built even grander on the inside hadn’t mattered much at all; the point was, it was no longer Herod’s Palace.
Inside, everything was a whirlwind of activity. “What’s the news?” Sigrun asked, slipping into a small conference room, where Livorus and her fellow lictors were already assembled, staring at a map of Jerusalem.
“There you are. Good. We were just about to get started.” Adam tossed her a quick smile. “All right. This is our current location. Governor’s palace, here, northwest side of Old Town.” He tapped on the map. “Here, still in the Upper City, to the west of the aqueduct, is the site of the efreet attack yesterday. The Grand Hotel Eytan.” Adam tapped the map again, to the southeast of their current location. “Here, at the Pool of Bethesda, is where the gardia found a large smashed urn, wrapped in the uniform shirt of a tribune, with old bloodstains on it. The urn had been tossed off of one of the surrounding buildings. They suspect from a window of the Hotel Chaya. They’re looking into who had rooms reserved all along that side of the building, but that’s going to be slow going. It’s outside of Old Town, so it’s ten stories tall.” Adam exhaled, sharply, and steepled his hands in front of him, clearly looking for self-control. “The falling urn also killed a passer-by on impact.”
“That would’ve woken the pazuzu up even more than the blood on the shirt,” Trennus muttered, leaning back in one of the rolling chairs around the conference table. “The blood on the shirt just gave it a target. The fresh blood . . . sacrifice.” Their Britannian summoner grimaced uncomfortably as the rest of them looked at him.
“Still, it takes a certain amount of luck to hit someone several floors down,” Livorus murmured.
“Not luck at all if you’ve got the right sorcery on your side,” Kanmi said, flatly.
“Or a spirit. If someone’s loosing a demon that was bound three thousand years ago, that speaks of . . . very deep knowledge in the ancient secrets. And you don’t want to take the chance of going up against a demon like that without several powerful bound spirits of your own,” Trennus said, his tone just as flat as Kanmi’s.
“So,” Sigrun said, quietly, “what we’re suggesting here is that the person responsible had probably planned this out ahead of time, as a contingency. In case the efreet didn’t kill Livorus. Or as a distraction, to cover his or her retreat. You suggested Magi involvement last night, Trennus.”
“It’s the answer that’s easy to leap to in this part of the world,” Trennus admitted. “The pazuzu is a Mesopotamian spirit. It was clearly housed somewhere for three thousand years. Which isn’t to say that its prison couldn’t have been taken as spoils of war by say, Alexander the Great and bounced from tribute collection to tribute collection for centuries. It could have found its way to the collection of a private individual who had no idea what it was. There’s no way to know without doing some extensive provenance work and back-tracing.”
“Or finding the person who dropped it to the ground and asking him or her some pressing questions,” Kanmi’s expression was hard.
“We’ll keep an open mind,” Livorus said, firmly, adding much more quietly, “There are people right here in Judea who wouldn’t welcome Chaldea or Media into the Empire.” Livorus paused. “Too much blood on both sides of the Wa
ll.”
Adam nodded, and moved them onwards. “The local gardia think that the efreet was loosed early. It was apparently bound inside a glass bottle that broke inside of a piece of baggage being handled by a bellhop in the lobby. The only survivor from the lobby was a maid who managed to duck into a stairwell for cover. The rest, the gardia and the Praetorians are piecing together from reconstructing what’s left of the burned-out lobby, and security camera footage.”
“I always forget that you have that available down here,” Livorus murmured. “I must admire its utility in the current situation, though I rather abhor the thought of a society where it might become prevalent.”
“I wish cameras weren’t needed, myself, sir,” Adam returned, evenly, “but I can foresee a day when Rome will adopt them, as well. It would cut down on crime.”
“A discussion for another time, I think.” Livorus waved it away. “If the goal at the hotel was truly assassination, the choice of method was ostentatious, with far too much potential for collateral damage and too many chances at missing the correct target. Our would-be ‘assassin’ left a bag to be collected here at the Hotel Eytan. Hastened away, either by foot or by ground vehicle, to the Hotel Chaya and . . . waited about an hour. He or she then loosed a much worse creature on the world and . . . then what?”
“Unknown,” Adam replied. “Here’s where it gets interesting. In terms of the timeline? The Chaldean representative was shot at, with a Judean-style rifle, over here at the outskirts of Little Nippon, well outside of Old Town, to the southwest. That occurred about at the same time we were fighting the pazuzu. Simultaneous with that, the Median emissary’s hotel, up in the Hellene district, about five miles north of the Chaldean attack, was surrounded by ghul, raised from a local ossuary.” He rubbed at his eyes. “Three summoning attacks, and one attack with a Judean weapon. All in the same day. Some of them with overlapping times.”
“It’s certainly possible that some Judean group does not in particular care for Erida Lelayn,” Livorus noted, dryly. “She’s the niece of the current satrap of Chaldea, Adadnirari the second. She’s related by blood to about five or six of the most important of the Magi, and is Chaldean nobility in her own right, as well as being a noted Magus, herself.”
Adam looked down. “There are groups,” he admitted, “who wouldn’t weep to see a Chaldean noble killed. But for the attack to occur at the exact same moment as a ghul attack on the Median emissary . . .” Adam leafed through his notes quickly. “Kashir Maranata? And at the same time as an attack on you, sir?”
“It does strain the limits of probability,” Kanmi noted.
“So, treat as a possible coincidence,” Sigrun said, quietly, “but also look for connections.” She flicked the wet tail of her hair off of her shoulder, and added, “I hate to point it out, but if the Chaldean emissary comes from a family heavily involved in the Magi, her people would likely be perfectly capable of raising precisely what we’ve seen so far. An ancient demon, a powerful efreet, and apparently a swarm of ghul.”
“Precisely so,” Livorus replied. “However, we’ll need to speak with the woman in question personally in any event to get negotiations started. You can tell me then if there are lies in her eyes, my dear.”
“Dominus, if she’s a politician, the problem will not be determining if she’s lying or not.” Sigrun’s lips quirked up at the corners.
“The problem will be ascertaining what she’s lying about at that exact moment?” Livorus returned her very faint smile. “Indeed, my dear. Indeed.”
By afternoon, they were out in Judea’s late spring heat, canvassing the convention center at which the air and space exposition was to be held. Jets and rocket boosters were being displayed in the parking lot, which caused a headache for people who might have wanted to use the area for their vehicles, but the outdoor venue at least allowed thousands of people to get close to the technology and see it first-hand. A Persian-built high-altitude ornithopter was actually on display was well; Sigrun had never seen one up close, and she eyed its bronze-toned wings, which were in an upswept storage position as it sat on the poured stone, with interest. “They say they’re better at low-velocity aerobatics than a jet,” Adam murmured in her ear as they passed, trying to fit in with the crowd for the moment. That was . . . somewhat problematic for her. Adam was wearing a small skullcap; between that, and his local-boy looks, he didn’t get so much as a second glance from the people around them. Sigrun, on the other hand, did. She was used to it, however. In Nova Germania and Novo Gaul, European Germania and Gaul, and northern Europa, she received stares because the people there knew a valkyrie when they saw one. Most other places, she got the stares for being overtly foreign-looking. About the only place she hadn’t been stared at, in her life, had been Raccia. It had been refreshing.
Adam nudged her in the ribs as they moved past. “These ornithopters always make me think of pteranodons, the way the wings pull up for storage.” He paused, and asked lightly, “Think it can outduel you?”
“It’s a large plane,” she replied, clinically. “It might be faster than I am . . . though I doubt it . . . but it can’t turn faster than I can. It does, however, carry those rotating barrel guns under each wing. Those . . . could prove uncomfortable.” She slid her smoked lenses down her nose, and commented, wryly, “No, it’s the jets that frighten me, Adam. They’re much faster than I am, and the air-intake on their engines could prove very problematic for me. I could be sucked in.” She considered it for a moment. “My best option in dealing with any of them, other than lightning, would be to disrupt the air currents around them.” A shrug. “Also, the missiles that they carry? If they start carrying radar systems that can lock onto me? Very much a problem.”
“You say that so calmly, it makes my blood run cold.” Adam caught her elbow, and deftly directed her through a side-entrance into the convention center, proper, as they both flashed their identification at the guards there. “I really did want to be a pilot, you know, and picturing someone sitting outside my canopy window, waving, and proceeding to flip my plane end-for-end by altering the airflow over the wings? Bad image. Even if it’s you.”
“I cannot for the life of me picture you as a pilot, Adam,” Sigrun told him, taking off her glasses and letting her eyes adjust to the dimmer light inside the cavernous interior of the convention hall. Over a hundred kiosks had been set up, displaying different manufacturers’ wares, and she could smell rubber, metal, and the odd tang of plastics, a foreign and not wholly pleasant smell for her. Six long rows of back-to-back booths, occupying the poured-stone floor, and no less than fifteen total swinging metal doors leading into the actual floor-space. Most of them were already locked and blocked off by security, herding people in through one set of doors and out through the opposite side, but fire codes meant that someone could open any of these doors from the inside . . . and someone with the right knowledge might be able to do so without setting off the alarm. On the north and south sides of the wide, open floor, the exits led to various smaller conference rooms . . . one of which they were planning to use to pull in each of the representatives for the meeting. Subtly. “You know, Adam? This is a perfectly horrible position to put Livorus in. There are so many variables, my head spins.”
“I regretted suggesting it the instant we started looking into the actual arrangements,” Adam agreed. “Unfortunately, this was the only large public event during the time period to which everyone agreed.” He covered his mouth and muttered the words quietly, to avoid anyone reading his lips, and they got to work, checking entrances and exits. The route they’d take Livorus through the convention hall, which would, thankfully, be cleared, one row at a time for their party’s passage, by convention hall security. They’d have plenty of gardia patrolling as well . . . and JDF forces had been brought in to add to the manpower, as discreetly as they could arrange it. They were only visiting specific booths, the owners of which had passed background checks. Still, there were a lot of bodies in the convention hal
l at the moment, pushing and jostling. Probably about three thousand total, at the moment. Too damned many, and packed in like herring in a tin. Dizzying array of different cultures, too. Judean men and women in skullcaps and tichel, wearing a variety of business suits. Some of the men with long beards, and others, like Adam, clean-shaven, or nearly so. Hellene men and women, in business-wear as well, though a few women—booth attendants, meant to draw the eye—wore peplos, in shimmering white folds. A handful of Nipponese at booths, showing off finely-made control systems, with huge banks of switches and circuits that looked somehow magical to Sigrun.
They managed to slip by an endcap table, and Adam played the tourist for a moment, pointing up at a display that read The World of Tomorrow, Today in Latin, Hellene, Hebrew, and Nipponese. “Loke, Hidde, and Mertin Space Systems,” he read. “Gothic startup, I think? Look at that. They want to put a station at the Libration point between Earth and the moon . . . and use that as the way-station to the moon. That’s Phase One. Phase Two . . . build an actual underground colony on Luna.” He used the Hellene term for the moon; the Hebrew word was L’banah.
“Everything is underground?” Sigrun asked, dodging another body, and staring at the plans.
“Yes. For protection from radiation. Also, it’s easier to pressurize something that already has several tons of dirt and rock atop it, than to have to build a dome or something.” Adam just stood there for a moment, his dark eyes gleaming and a smile wreathing his face. “And as to why . . . ? Much easier to build ships for space, in space. That way, you don’t have to make them capable of atmospheric exit and re-entry. You can use them to go fetch asteroids, use them for raw materials. Build ships that can get us to Mars.” He pointed at another board. “That’s Phase . . . Five, I think, if I’m reading this correctly.”
“You think humans should go to Mars?” Sigrun looked across at him, and let her eyebrows arch.
“Yes. Absolutely. Everything we’ve learned as a species has come from striving. The side-benefit of learning to do one thing, is we learn so much more about other things along the way. We’ve learned a lot about medicine from learning how to make war more efficiently. Not really the best way to learn something, right? I’d like to see what we can learn from doing something really worthwhile. By exploring. By building a whole new world.” Adam paused, and looked at her, sidelong. “And . . . you were just seeing if you could get me to go off on a rant, weren’t you?”
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