“I’m glad you can find some humor in all of this.” Seth’s voice had a fullness that marked him as a powerful, ancient deity. “Have you trained with a blade?”
“Extensively. With that and just about every other weapon known to the Covenant. My uncle insisted. According to him, the Spencer legacy is a martial one. Why?”
Seth’s eyes suddenly gleamed with an ominous light. “Because in addition to awakening you fully, I intend to bestow a soul blade upon you.”
She bolted upright at the startling revelation. “Only knights or Champions can wield a soul blade.”
“You’re partially correct. According to the laws of the Council of Wardens, if you’re part of them, you must be a knight or Champion to wield a soul blade.” Seth leaned back casually in his chair. “According to the laws of magic that create them, most Gods can bestow them, as can certain powerful demons, demi-Gods, and sorcerers. There’s no rule as to whom we grant these to, and anyone who can manage and is willing to take the risks, can use them. However, the Covenant does have some guidelines. Which I am electing to ignore.”
“You’re as bad as Jack.”
“You really can’t expect one of my kind to always follow the rules, can you?”
“Why are you giving me the blade?”
“For one, to give you a taste of what it is you think you desire.”
“I don’t understand.” And it made her even more uneasy.
“You will.”
“What about your second reason?”
“I have a very vested interest in keeping the universe operating status quo for right now which means those artifacts must be taken out of play and the conspirators found and apprehended. Of all the players in this game, you’re my safest bet. Consider the blade my marker.”
She didn’t like this, all these agendas, but that was business as usual for the Eternity Covenant when one played at this level. Raine was more used to linear objectives. She’d have to learn to get with the program if she was going to come out on top. She swallowed her reservations. Nobody worked for free, especially the Gods. “What do I owe you for this honor?”
“Do the right thing at the right time.”
Great. As far as marching orders went, that one was right up there with “go out and find the holy grail” or “fly to the moon by flapping your arms, and while you’re there, get me some green cheese”. “You realize how crazy that sounds. How will I know when the right time is to do the right thing? What thing?”
“You know, Jack’s Norse God ancestors and the Egyptians are not too far apart in some of their thoughts about life.”
Seth was right, Raine thought. He was far worse than Jack. “You’ve lost me.”
“The Norse have a rune, Hagalaz, that embodies chaos. Stories say their followers would engrave this rune on the prow of their longboats in theory it would take them safely through storms. Storms were chaos as well, and should chaos meet chaos, order would result. Without chaos, there was no order.”
Her training in ancient lore kicked in as she realized of where Seth was headed. “Maat and Isfet. Order and chaos,” she said. “The underpinnings of all Egyptian creation myths.”
“Exactly. The cycle of duality. If one is too strong, the world falls out of balance. Too far out of balance, and, in the metaphysical sense, it destroys itself. In the very real sense, the line fragments and the dimension collapses. We all cease to exist.” He sighed deeply, bringing with that sigh the sound of anguish of all the ages that survived, and did not survive, in the many struggles of Gods and men. “Even the Memphites with their tri-fold belief of harnessing divine magic, knowledge and word, understood this concept of dynamic equilibrium.”
She was in deep. So deep she thought she might not return. She had a very bad feeling about it all, and saw no way out, not at this late stage of the game. “I don’t want this awakening. It’s a dangerous thing. My Elven blood…”
“Is mixed with your human side, and you are the sum of your experiences to now,” Seth said. “I imagine to you Elves appear quite chaotic, like hedonistic anarchists. Such wanton creatures are to be despised, reviled, never emulated. Correct?”
He sounded just like her uncle. She nodded, uncomfortable and uncertain. She’d never conversed with a deity this long, this close, with so much hanging in the balance. She’d never dealt with these kinds of life-changing decisions, where answers were needed and no time was provided to study the facts, consider the options, weigh the outcomes.
“You’re afraid. Of yourself. Of what you’re capable of doing.” His voice turned hypnotic. “You’re scared of what you think you might become if you let yourself slip.”
“I’ve spent my whole life proving to everyone I’m not that creature, I’m not tainted, that I can control myself. Now you want me to become what I’ve fought to avoid.”
“Humans. You are completely fascinating to me. So black and white. It is always either this or that, one or the other. There is so much more to reality, to existence and, to choice.” Seth smiled without any real humor. “If you’ve spent your life learning such control, don’t you think you can apply that to whatever wakes in you and ultimately use it to your advantage?”
The radical thought was seductive. From her distant memories came the sound of Uncle Hugh, all his warnings, all his lectures. Doubt pricked her conscience. “And if I can’t?”
“Then we’re all doomed.” Seth touched Raine’s arm like a soft desert breeze and her body relaxed beneath his magic. Gently, he moved up the sleeve of her grey cashmere sweater, exposing her bare skin to the heated air swirling around them both.
Raine sensed more than saw the God trace a shape on her bare forearm using his finger. Pain seared her where his graceful finger touched, but she didn’t cringe, didn’t move. She let it roll through her, and it dissipated, a drop of sensation in an ocean swell, swallowed, absorbed, reformed into something else.
“To use the blade to the fullest, you must embrace the chaos, meet it like Hagalaz meets the storm, like Isfet is transformed by Maat.” Seth laid her arm down by her side and touched her forehead with his smooth hand. “See with your blood, know with your soul, act with your heart. Remember, if you fail, not only will you die, the dimension will die with you.”
There was a sudden flare of pain again, and then the world around her vanished into darkness.
The air around Seth shimmered like a fall of silver dust and another God appeared standing beside him. In the visage of a strikingly handsome man with fair skin and long black hair was the Norse trickster; Loki, blood brother of Odin, the Norse All-Father, and one of the most dangerous and cunning deities to travel the realms and myths. He was dressed simply in faded jeans and an oat-colored fisherman’s sweater that clung to every well-shaped cut of his muscled body. Despite all his faults, Loki knew how to manage an entrance. “You should tell her the rest, Seth. The truth shall set ye free, or some other such bullshit like that.”
Seth raised a brow at the newly manifested God. “You’re late.”
“I had to convince the Tribunal of my sincere desire to avoid all involvement in the Warden’s latest scandal.”
“Did it work?”
“Sure. It’s easy to lie convincingly when you don’t think the rules apply to you.”
The air began to shift and two more Gods appeared. Odin, the one-eyed Norse God, materialized beside Loki, similarly attired, but far more wild-looking with his grey hair and beard flowing every which way, and a wide-brimmed blue hat shielding half his face in shadow. Bast, the slinky Egyptian Goddess of Justice and one of the leading Tribunal members, shimmered into being right beside him.
Bast stepped forward, not so much walking as gliding. “Do you think she’ll succeed?”
“Jack certainly helps the odds.” Seth looked to the assembled Gods. They were certainly an odd, desperate mix of conspirators. “How much should I awaken in her?”
They exchanged looks, then Odin spoke. “Go all the way, Seth. Jack’s righ
t, she’s no good if she’s only working at half-capacity. Besides, we have no idea what those two will face. This is too important to jeopardize.”
Seth nodded. Odin, more than any God he knew, had an ability to strategize and plan, and an unerring ability to understand and predict the actions and ways of mortals.
He laid his hand upon Raine’s forehead again and removed the blockages resting in the cobwebs of the far recesses of her consciousness. The magical energy surged forward like a tidal wave. The pure force had him hesitating. It had been a long time since he’d granted such a thing to a mortal, perhaps a hundred years or more. He only did it for priests pledging completely to him, and those were scarce in this age. She was pledged to none save the Covenant. Then again, he had little choice. He needed Jack as much as Raine, and this was Jack’s price. Seth drew his focus together and slashed away at the last tethers holding on to the sorcery. “It’s done.”
Odin nodded. “Good. We need to split up. No more meetings.”
“Agreed,” said Loki. “We can trust no one but ourselves. Even Salazar is a risk right now.”
Seth admired the Norse. They were fearless, and very inventive in their interpretations and executions of the tenets of the Eternity Covenant. Jack, supposedly the son of Heimdahl, the Norse God with the keenest of senses, and the guardian who watched eternally for the Norse version of dimensional collapse, was so much like his ancestors it was disturbing. What might he have become were he in line to ascend? He put the errant thought out of his mind. “What now?”
“We wait. We see,” Bast purred. “Any more interference on our parts and we’ll be at great risk of discovery. The Tribunal will not be merciful towards us, even though we act with the best of motives.”
Speak for yourself. His motives were more about his own self-preservation at this point. He’d do whatever necessary to prevent a war with his nephew Horus, given the dire outcome. No one liked to cease to exist, especially Gods. Now, if he was assured he might win, that would be a different story. But all his own visions, so fevered and disturbing, indicated otherwise. He’d have to watch this game far closer. The assembled Gods had no real idea of what horrors would result if the mortals failed. Dimensional collapse was the best of outcomes. What Seth sensed coming was way worse.
Odin barked out one of his loud, caustic laughs and slapped him hard enough on the back to knock the air from his lungs. “You look worried, Seth. Either this will play out to our advantage, or, we go to war. We’re no strangers to those outcomes. If Ragnarok arrives, we’ll be there to hold the front line.”
Bast’s nose twitched, a sign of her dislike for the current company. “We don’t really know what the threat is, only the shape it seems to be taking, and the loss of balance it’s creating. We must avoid getting our stamp on this, for if we’re caught, we will be banished for certain. Erased from history. Bereft of our followers and our powers. We’ll have to trust the mortals to get the job done from here on out.”
Seth wasn’t big on the trust thing. “Trust’s good, but I hedged my bet a little. I gave her immortality.”
Bast hissed, and Odin laughed again.
“Don’t worry, Bast,” Seth said to his tiresome Egyptian counterpart. “It’s only temporary.”
Loki, who’d been uncharacteristically silent to now, joined the conversation. “What about Jack?”
Odin’s good humor vanished, and Bast looked away.
The Norse Chaos God obviously did not know the full of the story. “The binding spell was prepared by an outside party, and was far more lethal than anyone bargained for,” said Seth. “The Tribunal didn’t check that too closely, so when they acted on Kerr’s advice and implemented, they did some serious overkill.”
“The damage was extensive. God-granted immortality would most likely not take with him. It might even have the opposite effect, and kill him,” Bast interjected. “The binding was final, which is why he was so richly compensated by the Tribunal when the error was discovered and his name cleared.”
Loki’s features stayed neutral but something in his eyes turned menacing. “And still you cast him out? Even knowing you were wrong in your judgment.”
“He was too troublesome to risk having around. The rage, the desire for revenge, too raw. It was either him, or Kerr, and Kerr had more value.” Bast gave a languid shrug of her slender, gilded shoulders. “What do you care, anyway? The Tribunal paid the weregeld demanded by Odin. The debt was long since settled.”
Seth had a different opinion of the state of affairs, but he kept it to himself.
Loki brushed the side of Raine’s cheek with a finger. “You’re hoping she can rise to the occasion, and that Jack still thinks he’s a hero. I’d say we’re all doomed, but I don’t want to be a downer.”
The plan they’d hatched seemed suddenly so thin, ephemeral, to Seth. They were crazy. And desperate. The Gods, the game, the walls all around him pressed against him, making him claustrophobic. He longed for the open expanse and blessed ambiguity of shifting desert sands. “I’d love for you all to stay, but I can only hide the energy from Salazar and Jack for so long. You should all take off, before someone catches on to our little side game.”
Odin and Bast nodded in agreement. There was a brief alteration of the air, and then they were gone.
Loki lingered, staring down at Raine. The Norse God looked like he was thinking dangerous thoughts. It was only natural for a chaotic deity, still, with everything on the line, one should try and contain themselves.
“Can’t you take a hint?”
Loki roused and laughed softly to himself. It was a sound that put a chill into Seth’s blood. “Sure, brother, I can take all sorts of things. And, I can grant them as well.”
In a brilliant flash of silver sparks, Loki vanished.
A knock on the door startled Seth.
“Is everything okay in there?” Ramon’s voice called from the other side.
A few minutes ago, Seth might have said yes. Now, that was debatable. Loki, that treacherous bastard, was up to something. As usual. Damn tricksters. “Close enough for government work.”
Why couldn’t there be truth to the myth where Loki was tied to some tree enduring poison serpent spit for all of time rather than roaming the realms free and easy? Trust the early Christians to come up with inventive, eternal torments, and insert them into what was considered heathen myths. Seth sighed. The good old days were long behind any of them now and only the uncertain future awaited. “Tell Jack he can take his surrogate home. She’ll need to sleep it off for a few hours, then she’ll be ready to rock and roll.”
* * *
Kerr watched his paladin as he worked his way through the challengers on the practice field. Like the old days, Hugh wore the simple white gambeson and tabard. His only armor consisted of leather gauntlets on the outside, and leather garments beneath the arming coat. His head was cloaked with a quilted hood, his stark face invisible to the assembled opponents. The big knight cut through the opposition effortlessly, channeling his anger at his niece’s audacity and betrayal, using it as a weapon against all that stood before him. Hugh was unstoppable and ruthless, a force of one that was equal to the power of legion. It was like this back in the days of the Crusades, when Kerr first took notice of Hugh and his twin brother, Edward.
Edward and Hugh were both Templar Knights, devoted beyond reason to their cause and God, and favored by His hand. Both were believers in the preservation of order and the protection of those less fortunate, less powerful. They fought for the ones who could not fight for themselves, and when they fell, it was for the purest of a cause: defending a helpless church full of simple villagers against a small army of soldiers with orders to slay them all as potential conspirators with the Christian Devil, the slippery Lucifer.
Kerr had just lost several of his own immortal knights in a nearby fight with a demon lord and his unholy army. They were en route to aid the brothers, and when his force finally arrived, they were too late. Kerr saw the
brothers fall, recognized their value, and gathered them up before their own God knew they were dead.
Kerr laughed to himself as he walked along the gallery, his hands clasped behind his back, his robes flowing softly over the well-worn granite stones that formed the floor. The Norse had a saying: “May you be drinking and feasting in Valhalla three days before the Christian God knows your dead.” That’s how it was back then, he realized. You had to get to the dead before their chosen Gods, Christian or otherwise, if you wanted to get good recruits. The Gods liked to claim their own, especially heroes like the Spencer brothers. There had been a mighty dispute in the halls of the Tribunal the day Kerr collected those two warriors, and in the end, he’d won. They were his finest soldiers, or so it seemed.
How sad that in the end, Edward turned. At least Hugh, after going rogue and avenging his brother’s death, had remembered what was important and returned to his vows.
By the time Kerr reached the border of the training field, Hugh had vanquished every knight that stood in challenge. Kerr smiled as his paladin joined him on the sidelines.
“You are stronger than ever, Hugh. I wouldn’t be here without your unwavering sword at my side.”
Hugh drained a water bottle in several large swallows and pulled back his hood. His face was a mask of torment and rage, but his eyes were steady and distant. “You should have let me kill Jack fifty years ago. We wouldn’t be in this position.”
“His Norse family would have come for blood, and I doubt we’d be standing here today.”
Hugh cursed and spit on the ground. “We could take them.”
Kerr appreciated his associate’s zealousness and his confidence. Like many warriors of his ilk, he tended to have a straightforward approach most times. Hugh, however, also possessed a level of cunning that surprised many. It had surprised Kerr when that unfortunate business with the elf bitch took place, and it had surprised Edward as well. In fact, it was then Kerr realized how valuable Hugh could become. “We’d have played into their hands. They’re a chaotic lot. Most of them aren’t even affiliated with the Covenant, and though they do not stand against it, I am certain they operate in hidden ways to undo the good we have all labored so long to preserve and protect.”
ImmortalIllusions: The Eternity Covenant Book2 Page 6