“I’ll try to persuade them otherwise.” Trennus’ voice was dry. “Are we ready?”
They hit the door of the tower slightly out of breath, but with spells already firmly in their minds . . . though Mamaquilla actually was the one who blinded the guards outside with a flash of white moonfire, and simply wrenched the locked door off its hinges with her bare hands. Trennus had an impression of flashes of muzzle-fire, red-yellow sparks, and impact, but Saraid’s shield caught the incoming bullets and dissipated their energy. His ribs and sternum might be bruised, but he’d live. He caught a glimpse of Lassair, curled on the floor in a fetal ball, her arms over her head as she tried to make herself less of a target, and a woman inexplicably in a wheelchair positioned outside of her circle. Past her, a huge man, with stone-colored skin sat on the floor, unmoving, and apparently oblivious to the firefight raging over his head.
Trennus’ first consideration wasn’t actually returning fire immediately. It was securing the hostages. He did fire a couple of rounds, to force the guards, reloading their muskets, to keep their heads down, and then pulled, delicately, at the ambient ley-energy, not tapping the lines directly. Step one, pull up the stone around Lassair into a half-shell, giving her cover . . . which simultaneously destroyed the circle that bound her. You’re free, he told her, but stay down till we’ve dealt with the guards.
Most of the guards threw down their weapons as Mamaquilla entered the room. Even in the dim red glow of the emergency lights, they obviously knew who she was, and dropped to their knees. One of them, clearly a summoner, panicked and drew a protective circle around his feet . . . causing the goddess to turn and regard him with a baleful white gaze . . . and Kanmi laughed, harshly, and fired his pistol at the man, even as he continued to incant charms to protect himself. Kanmi’s aim was true, and the summoner dropped to the ground, his chest a bleeding mass.
Once the room was secure, Trennus moved to Lassair, picking her up from the ground and cradling her tightly, feeling her arms snake around him, in turn. The woman in the wheelchair he glanced at, but disregarded for the moment. “Are you all right?” he asked her. He already knew she was, but he had to hear the words. Had to reassure himself, as he smelled the rose-and-smoke of her hair, felt the warmth of her skin.
Yes. Much better for your presence. Relief. Gratitude. Love. But . . . Truthsayer. She fades!
Kanmi was already moving towards the door Lassair indicated. He was dimly aware of the various guards on the floor, bowing before an angry Mamaquilla, and he flashed back, briefly, to the fate of the guards at Nazca, scalded by boiling groundwater and then drowned and encased in mud. He wondered, distantly, if any of these men would live out the day.
He doubted it.
Trennus, behind him, called, “Need help?”
“No.” Kanmi replied, tersely. If anyone is still in there, alive, and able to hide from Lassair? They’re fucking dead.
Kanmi kicked open the door, holding his pistol in one hand, and all the accumulated heat he’d pulled from the smoking Tholberg coils and the red-hot stone around Lassair’s feet wrapped around his other fist, warping the air, but otherwise invisible. The room beyond was only dimly lit, and he saw, first, a crumpled body on the floor. A table, past it . . . and Minori was strapped to it. Kanmi incanted, softly, for light, and a spark of it appeared overhead, giving him enough illumination to clear the room. Then he holstered his pistol and released the heat back into the ambient air. Made sure the body on the floor was dead before stepping over it, and felt something hit his shields as Minori raised a hand. He caught her fingers, saying, quickly, “It’s me! It’s me, Min, it’s just me, shhhh.” Oh, gods. Seeing her like this, her hands and feet purple from the constricted blood-flow, limp, her lips and eyes puffy and swollen, made his stomach twist, but he couldn’t see any actual wounds. “Gods, I am so sorry. We promised we’d protect you. I swore I’d take care of you.” And look what these bastards have done to you.
He started by unshackling her, and tried to help her sit up . . . and was rewarded by a low cry of agony. Kanmi froze and started using his other senses, running his hands along her arms and legs, first, checking for breaks. “Not . . . not there . . .” Minori mumbled. “All . . . internal organs . . . . He moved them. Twisted them.”
Oh, fucking Astarte. Kanmi checked her pulse, which was weak, and her skin was clammy. Shock. He lifted her feet, and put his hands on her, wrapping her in warmth with a spell. “You’re going to be all right, Min,” he told her, simply, keeping his voice calm. “Bastard who did this is dead?”
“Killed him . . . myself.” She opened her dark eyes, and managed to focus on him. “Air bubble . . . bloodstream. Embolism. Not . . . traditional.”
He registered that with a blink. Understood what it meant. “A crying shame I didn’t get here earlier.” Kanmi knew his face must have shifted. “Your way took far too little time. I’d have turned his bones to powder for this, Min. And I’d have helped you stand up so you could put a foot on his throat while he suffocated to death under his own weight.”
“. . . you . . . really . . . know what to say . . . to reach . . . a woman’s . . . heart.”
“Yes, that’s me. Smooth-talker.” Kanmi didn’t stop wrapping warmth around her, like a cocoon. Moving her seemed deeply inadvisable. She had internal bleeding, at the very least. Instead, he turned and called out the door, trying not to sound panicked, “Cocohuay! If you would, please?”
The god-born woman left her goddess, and moved to the smaller side office in which Minori had been tortured. Her luminous eyes widened as she took in the scene. “How can I help?” she asked, immediately, as Kanmi gestured to Minori’s prone form.
“You healed the guards at the tower in Nazca,” Kanmi said, bluntly. “We need Min here able to move. I won’t leave her here like this while we go off looking for the rest of our team. There’s no way to secure this place, and I won’t risk her and Asha being captured again.”
Cocohuay’s lined face crinkled. “Those were cauterized wounds and freeze-burns. I can try.” She stepped forward, and put a gentle hand on Minori’s arm, and murmured something fervent and under her breath in Quecha. Kanmi didn’t need to be fluent to understand, oh, by the gods. It was all in the tone.
A gentle blue-green radiance spread from her hands, and Minori gasped, wrapping a hand around Kanmi’s wrist, clutching him tightly. Kanmi didn’t move. Just let her hold on, as every muscle in her body tightened. It wasn’t unlike having watched Bastet in childbirth . . . but this seemed far worse. There would be nothing to show for all this pain. Finally, Cocohuay exhaled, explosively. “That is all I can manage,” the older woman said, sounding tired.
“Thank you,” Kanmi told her, simply, and put his free hand to Minori’s hair, feeling her body relax a little. “Better?”
“Hurts less.” Her voice was still low and raspy. She’d obviously done more than a little screaming, and Kanmi’s heart twisted. “Better, yes.” She looked at Cocohuay. “Thank you.”
“Can you stand?” Kanmi asked her. Part of him wanted to pick her up and carry her out of here, but it was probably important for her to be able to walk out of this room on her own two feet.
“Not . . . not sure.”
“Try. Please. If you can stand, you can walk out of here. You leave his body in the dirt, and spit on him if you want to in passing, but you don’t let him win, even a little bit.” Kanmi’s tone was fierce. I didn’t know you were this much of a fighter, doctor. “I won’t let you fall, Min, but if you can . . . walk out of here.”
Minori groaned and let him help her sit up. Slipped her feet to the floor, where broken glass crunched under her shoes, and staggered. Kanmi wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her arm over his shoulders. Only three inches separated their heights; this was easy. And so he steadied her as she emerged from the room, and he met Trennus’ and Lassair’s gaze from the south side of the tower. “Let’s get these two ladies to an ornithopter,” Kanmi said. “Then we can go afte
r the rest of the team. And anyone else around here in need of rescue.” He looked down at Minori. “Though you two pretty much rescued yourselves.” He settled her down on one of the nearby workbenches, and found there, much to his surprise, weapons. Minori’s small derringer. Ben Maor’s two pistols, still in their holsters, ammunition clips, and Caetia’s spear. Must have brought their weapons here to study the spells I put on the bullets and the spear, and what Min put on her own ammo. Kanmi wasn’t aware that he’d shifted to thinking of Dr. Sasaki by her first name, now. He just made sure she was able to sit there, comfortably, as he took possession of his teammates’ weapons . . . and handed her her own pistol once more, too.
Mamaquilla had turned away from the human guards, and was now studying the god in the center of the triangular binding at the heart of the tower. Apu? she said, softly. Apu, Lord of the High Places, mountain’s king, hear me!
The creature at the center of the binding didn’t move. Didn’t look at her. He remained, listless and limp, precisely where he had been.
“Should I free him?” Trennus asked, his voice a little apprehensive. “I don’t know what will happen if I do. I had an hour to look through the seismology in Nazca, and this mountain seems a little more active than I like out of a volcano at the moment.”
No. Wait. He is unresponsive. Releasing him now . . . we will need time to draw him back from where he has gone. Mamaquilla sounded sorrowful. He has given in to despair.
At that moment, the tower and the ground shook, violently. “Not me this time!” Trennus shouted. “That’s coming from at least two miles down.”
Mamaquilla’s head snapped up. Inti! she cried, her tone joyous, and then horrified. What has become of you, beloved?
No audible reply, but the goddess looked somehow stunned. We must go to him. Now. Your friends are with my brother-husband. And Supay comes for them.
“Stay here,” Trennus told Lassair.
“No!” Kanmi snapped out. “Not secure—”
No, Lassair said, sharply. I will go with you. I will fight for Stormborn and Steelsoul, as best I can. I will not be separated from you again.
“I’m coming, too,” Minori whispered.
Kanmi turned back, an objection ready on his lips. She was a civilian. She was hurt, gods damn it all. Minori met his gaze, and, hands shaking, began to load her derringer. In spite of himself, the words died on his lips.
“I owe these people,” she said, softly, but determination clear in her expression. “I owe them vengeance.”
Yes . . . you sort of do, don’t you? But while he liked her spirit, it was her body he was worried about. On the other hand, they couldn’t take the time to evacuate the two of them, and this tower wasn’t safe. It took him seconds to make the decision, and he didn’t know if it was the right one. But not to choose was always the wrong course of action. “You’re with me,” he told her. “Don’t point that gun near any of us. That’s going to be your last resort. You’re all right to cast spells?”
“Yes.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Stick with that. Your aim will be better.” He squeezed her shoulder, very gently. “Stay behind me. You’ve never been in real combat before.” Then again, we’re looking to go free a god. Or attack him for doing . . . all of this. Tlaloc was one thing. This . . . . “We’re heading into an almost entirely unknown situation with a lot of variables.” Kanmi looked around. “Let’s go.”
He was carrying ben Maor’s and Caetia’s weapons for them. He wanted to make damned sure all their teammates were armed when he found them. The more so, because he had no idea what was going on, who precisely was involved in all of this. He didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle, he knew it, and it made him twitch. And then the weapons dissolved, the weight of the gun belts over his neck and the weight of the spear on his shoulder simply vanishing. Kanmi stared at his empty hands in consternation, and blurted, “How . . . what?” His own gun remained at his waist, in its holster. He hadn’t been disarmed.
Lassair answered, I believe Inti took them. I felt a power reach for them, and pass them into the Veil. It is faster for spirits to move through the Veil than through ordinary matter. There is no time in the Veil. Physicality doesn’t matter as much there, either.
All right, if that’s the case, why didn’t Mamaquilla just take us through the Veil to get us here faster? Kanmi demanded in his mind.
There is no time in the Veil. There isn’t even dimensionality, as you experience it. Lassair’s tone was grim. I do not know what would happen to a normal human pulled through the Veil. The Odinhall, for example, uses interventions to allow humans to perceive it.
Kanmi, still jogging, each step jolting through his frame, decided to think about that one later. The implications made his mind reel too much right now.
___________________
Under the ushnu, Adam and Sigrun had moved to opposite sides of the room, each taking a pillar for cover. Adam, still aiming at the tunnel entrance with his pitiful musket, tried to urge Inti into cover as well, but the emaciated entity was still heavily occupied with trying to keep the ceiling stable above their heads. Adam ducked around his pillar and peered out, his eyes widening as he took in the figures approaching.
Two of the rock creatures flanked the Sapa Inca, Sayri Cusi, like bodyguards; the hulking creatures were twice the size of the emperor himself, and the human bodyguards who trailed along behind the creatures looked dwarfed in comparison. And behind them? The vast, red-and-white creature that Inti had called Supay, the god of death. There has to be a reason Supay’s involved. I can’t imagine that he’s at all interested in watching the nation bloom. Whatever Tren has to say about death and fertility always going together . . . oh, harah. I’m speculating as to the motives of gods.
Flanking Supay were eight tiny creatures, no more than four feet in height, which also looked to be made from the rock itself. But while whenever the giants moved, their rocky outer carapace split and showed a red-hot core, these smaller creatures were cool and gray, hard to see in the dim light of the lanterns that the human guards carried. Their eyes caught that light, however, with gem-like sheens, though their faces were vaguely rat-like, with pronounced fangs, and their three-fingered hands held long, wicked claws the length of a sloth’s. So, those would be the supay, the spirits that Tren said were subject to their lord, Supay himself. Harah. “That’s . . . a lot of bodies. And here I am, with one bullet,” Adam muttered.
Sayri Cusi lifted a hand. “Is this how you repay my hospitality?” he asked, looking at Inti, his head cocked to the side, with that oddly girlish tone in his voice again. “You should not have left the circle, Lord of the Sun and Skies. You will cause great damage to the Land of the Four Quarters. And all out of . . . selfishness? Pride?” The honeyed words had a twisting, manipulative edge to them, and Inti, weakened as he was, swayed under their force. “Return to the circle, my lord. Let us continue to make our land bloom. Let us bring our people out of darkness.”
This time, Adam had an inkling of what was going on. God-fragment. Rather, a goddess-fragment. Probably one who was at least as charming as Lassair on her best days. He’s using her power . . . but there might be enough of her left that he’s . . . channeling how she might have spoken. But why would he have taken a goddess into him? Adam again flashed to the book of Egyptian art, in which it had been mentioned that Akhenaten had had himself depicted with both male and female attributes. Beasts and a beard, for example. The union of opposites, like yin and yang, embodied in one figure, like Aphroditus, but . . . incorrectly done. Aphroditus, for his/her adherents, is the divine figure of boundless creation. All the Sapa Inca’s works are . . . fruitless.
Sigrun, across the way, had surely followed the same trail of thought, and spoke now, her voice as harsh as a raven’s call in the wake of all that honey. “In eight years,” she said, bluntly, “your pampas have not bloomed. You can take the power of a dozen more gods. You can pour out the lives of a hundred, a thousand more humans on the groun
d. It won’t bloom any more in ten years than it has so far.”
Sayri Cusi hissed at her, “Silence, you whey-faced bitch!” as his various guards dropped their lanterns on the floor, and unshouldered their muskets.
Undeterred, Sigrun went on, from the cover of her pillar, “If you bury a live electrical wire in the ground, it does not make the ground bloom. Pouring energy into the earth will not make it fertile. You have power, Sapa Inca. Great power. But you have no idea how to wield it. You are like a man who has been given a fine sword, and tries to kill the ocean with it.”
Silence. This time, the word came from the red-and-white, grinning creature in the mouth of the tunnel.
“You cannot silence truth,” Sigrun shot back, and Adam could see his wife’s face. He knew the tightness of her lips, the tension in her shoulders, and the glimmer of rune-fire under her skin. Sigrun was terrified, but giving words their due. Words always came first. This was probably going to end in their deaths, but she was trying to stall. Trying to give Inti time to recover.
Inti now lowered his hands from the ceiling, where he’d stood all this time like Atlas, holding up the world. The gods glanced at Adam and Sigrun. I know the truth when I hear it, Sayri Cusi. Your intentions were pure when you first came to me, but they have been corrupted. I will not treat with you. You have given up that right.
“You cannot treat me with such contempt,” the Sapa Inca growled, his voice, for the moment, apparently, his own. “I have more power now than you can imagine, Lord of the Skies. I am a god now, myself. I am your equal. No. I am your lord.”
Borrowed raiment does not make you any more than a child crying out “Look at me! Look at me!” A costume demeans the one wearing it. A lie with no substance to it. Like this child of the northern gods . . . I prefer truth.
The Sapa Inca’s head rocked back at the god’s rebuke. Adam was awed. Inti wasn’t using power. He was simply using words. Adam shook his head. This is what a god should be. Altering ideas and perceptions with truth and ideas.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 114