The Goddess Embraced (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 3)

by Deborah Davitt

  Zeus had seemed to agree to that, but had noted, Will he not be aware of my treachery?

  What treachery, Father? You intend what is best for him, for yourself, and for the Empire, do you not? He wishes to control our allies with an iron boot on their neck. This is not the way of Rome and Hellas. There should be reason. Discourse. Mercury kept the cynical lilt out of his voice. Those had always been the ideals. And yet, how often had they had been trodden underfoot. The humans have shaped him. Take control, Father. Bring him back to himself, back to what you and he were meant to be. Good fathers. Stern, yes. Authoritarian, certainly. But wise. And for a moment, Mercury almost believed it, himself. That’s what made for the best lies. They had to be something that you could believe in, yourself. If Zeus had ever been that wise, stern, but kindly father, Mercury could have believed in him. But . . . .

  . . . energy being forced into her, even as her body was violated. No bargain, no agreement, just raw power, overwhelming her, and this was not how things should be . . . shame and humiliation. Being conquered, and being shown to be conquered. No, no, no, no, I don’t want this, please, stop, I don’t want you, I don’t want a child of yours . . . I would rather die than bear this child. I would rather die than see its face. Let it all pass from me . . . . I am done with this existence.

  Whispers of mother-self’s memory, which he usually kept at bay. Louder today.

  He’d wanted to meet Zeus where it had all begun, on Mount Kyllini. But the mountain cave where his form had been expelled from his mother’s dying avatar was only eighty-five miles north of Sparta. Too close to those few humans who were left, trying to hold a line against the monsters that ranged the hills of what had been a green and wondrous land. Instead, he’d chosen the island of Antimilos. It was uninhabited, and held the caldera of an extinct volcano. Mercury stepped out of the Veil there, and looked around at the barren ground. It would do.

  He shifted form. He had always found it vaguely amusing when humans had depicted him at crossroads as a smiling head atop a rectangular block of stone, and an uplifted penis jutting out. A herm, they’d called these protective idols. Later, they’d depicted the perfect union of male and female, breasts and vagina and penis, all commingled in one body, and had worshipped this joint god as Aphroditus or Hermaphrodite, though no god had these Names. But they had named this joint creation for him and for Aphrodite, who’d taken over Maia’s powers of spring and love. It was almost as if the mortals had somehow understood more than Olympus.

  It was rather exhilarating to assume the forgotten shape. It freed him, at least a little, from the shackles of human belief. He looked down, and adjusted the flowing cloth of his peplos over his breasts, and glanced up, as two more presences materialized beside him. Hecate. Prometheus. The ancient, primal feminine spirit of magic and night, and the masculine spirit, who had, above all, stood for rationality and the human ability to strive.

  Prometheus looked sorrowful and expectant at once. Maia always was so very fair. It is . . . good to see some part of her again.

  Do not expect to see this form again. I am what I am. But after today, I will be what I choose to be, and be damned to Zeus.

  Hecate inclined her head, her face hidden by her dark cloak. He comes. Be ready.

  Both of them faded from sight, shrouded by Mercury’s power, and Hecate’s own. He placed an image of himself, as he currently appeared, off to the right, some twenty feet away, and hid his current form, even from Veil sight. The sky overhead grayed, and a bolt of lightning slammed to the ground nearby, sending chunks of stone flying . . . and then Zeus was there, manifested. You are prompt as always, my son.

  He stopped, staring at Mercury’s double, the hermaphrodite. What is the meaning of this guise?

  I had reason to think of old times, Father. Mercury’s double smiled, and pushed the fair, ringleted hair away from his face. A coquettish flick of the eyelashes. Do you recall Orestes? Such a troubled family. You raped his grandmother, Leda, queen of Sparta, in the form of a swan. Had to be uncomfortable for the poor woman. And she promptly laid eggs. Half were mortal-born, the children of her husband—Clytemnestra and Castor. And the other two were god-born . . . Helen and Pollux. When Castor died, Pollux bound his spirit before it could leave his body, and they became two-in-one, and wandered the earth together, a schizophrenic little god. Mercury smiled. Of course, Helen was stolen away from her husband Menelaus, by the whim of Aphrodite. And Clytemnestra . . . Aeschylus told it so well. Here was a woman who was happily married to Tantalus, until Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus, decides that he deserves the sister of Helen as his wife. He murders her husband. Murders their infant son. Marries Clytemnestra, and rapes her nightly until she produces children. Orestes. Elektra. Iphigenia. Then Helen is taken to Troy, and Agamemnon must go help retrieve his brother’s wife. But however will he get the wind to carry his ships there? Why, he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. So Clytemnestra must watch the second of her children murdered at this butcher’s hands, and then he sails away for ten years, and leaves her in glorious solitude.

  Zeus frowned. Why dwell on ancient history?

  Because when Agamemnon came home, Clytemnestra murdered him in his bath, with the aid of her new lover. Mercury smiled sweetly. Then you and Apollo demanded that Orestes, their son, kill his own mother for the sake of justice. Because he had to avenge his father’s death. He had to avenge the killing of the man who murdered his eldest half-brother, murdered his mother’s first husband, murdered his sister before his very eyes. Mercury paused. You made me help him, do you remember? You ordered me to assist this young man to kill his mother. Even though he did not wish to do so. He only did it because it was his duty.

  Zeus snorted. You question my justice? These humans have been dead for thousands of years.

  I questioned your justice at the time. The more so, when the Furies began to pursue Orestes for the crime of matricide, which he only committed at your command! They tore at his body; they would not let him rest or eat, for his foul sin—performed at your order! With my assistance! And yet, where were the Furies when his mother killed his father? When Agamemnon slew his sister, his brother? Where was justice then? But then, justice was never for the victims, in ancient times. It was always for those who had power.

  Zeus shifted. Times have changed. Irritably now, Why have you taken that form!

  Am I not fair this way? Do I not look like my mother? The double slid his hands down over his breasts, lifting them up, while under his peplos, his erect phallus was clearly outlined, as well.

  The thunderer shifted again, clearly uncomfortable. You look as she once did. Even to my Veil senses . . . you look as she did.

  Mercury’s double smiled more widely, and held out his arms, as if offering an embrace. Then come and take the power of the dead goddess from me. Come and accept my homage.

  To his credit, Zeus hesitated. Not in that form. You look . . . too much as she did.

  Does your conscience irritate you, Father? Then you should cut it out. Here. I’ll help you locate it. Mercury’s smile became manic.

  Zeus stiffened, lunging forwards, and brought lightning down where the double stood. I am your bounden lord! I am your father! I will punish you for this insolence!

  You are not my lord. You are barely my father. And you will do no such thing. Orestes should have avenged his mother. He should have killed his father the moment that bastard’s ship docked. And then he should have freed Cassandra. Today, I do both.

  The double dissolved, and Zeus whirled, bringing lightning down all around him like a curtain, trying to hit Mercury wherever he happened to be standing. Mercury darted between the jagged lines that seemed to move in slow-motion, from his perspective. Any Veil spirit could shift their perception of time like this; he simply happened to be better at moving himself at the speed of his perceptions than most others were.

  Behind him, Prometheus and Hecate appeared. Prometheus shouted, You wrought your own destruction, thunder-lord! As Cronus
fell at your hand, as Uranus fell to Cronus, so too, will you fall at the hand of your own son!

  The moment of distraction—three thousand years of fear, all flooding through Zeus at hearing the titan’s hated voice once more—was enough. In an instant, Mercury was right up against Zeus, one hand to the thunder-god’s face in a parody of a lover’s gentle touch. Mercury smiled up at Zeus, and released all of the mad godling’s power inside of him, all that ravening hunger. And he did not wield it gently, but used it like a blade, cutting through Zeus. Found the cord that bound Zeus to Jupiter, and the cord that bound himself to both of them. Felt attention suddenly coming through that ethereal connection. Jupiter had just become aware of Zeus’ fear, but as fast as Jupiter might be, Mercury was faster. He snapped both cords, severing the links, and drove his power once more into Zeus, tearing the core of self out of the avatar.

  Five seconds, Prometheus warned. Probability of failure increasing rapidly—

  Mercury released all the power of the mad godling. Poured it out of himself, into the devastated creature that was Zeus, and overwhelmed him. The shockwave ran through the ley-lines, and igniting the dormant volcano at their feet, and the earth trembled. No, no more destruction from you, thunderer, I will not have it! Mercury drank it all back in, and Zeus’ unleashed power as well. As he could feel Hecate and Prometheus doing. Felt the goddess’ hand on his wrist. No, not yet, not yet—have to be sure of him—

  He is dead, Hecate told him, peremptorily. We go now, or we die. A portal ripped open, and she and Prometheus yanked him through, and Mercury’s last glimpse of the mortal realm was of a lightning bolt descending, in slow motion, looking almost like plasma as it pooled its way towards the ground to resolve itself into the form of Jupiter—

  —and then through, and they were in Valhalla. Mercury blinked, looking around at the gods that he had, months ago, challenged and insulted, and resumed his more usual form. I find myself a refugee, he said, looking up at Odin, feeling Zeus’ additional power seething inside of him, and did his best not to vomit it up. I understand that you might be willing to grant me asylum.

  Odin looked grim. If you stand against injustice, then you are not a refugee, but an ally. And you are welcome here.

  ______________________

  Iulius 6-9, 1993 AC

  In New Caledonia, the Picts had been quietly reinforcing their borders since they’d been pulled through the Veil. Now, at the command of King Trennus and Queen Saraid, they watched as thousands of Gallic and Gothic residents and troops left their homes and posts and entered Pictish land in the wake of the Gothic and Gallic vote to leave the Empire. Newspaper headlines blared, Refugees Welcome Refugees in a pitiful attempt at humor.

  In Jerusalem, gardia officers set up barricades around Little Gothia, and stood there in their riot suppression gear, sweating in the sun. The Goths—jotun, nieten, lycanthrope, and normal humans alike—weren’t rioting. They were, however, packing up their earthly belongings, and preparing to leave the city. Peaceably, they said. Except that Emperor Julianus had decreed that the property of any resident of the Empire who failed to swear a loyalty oath was forfeit. If they continued to resist, they were to be exiled, or executed. Of course, mass deportation of millions of refugees would require both civil gardia and possibly military intervention. And no one knew where the exiles were supposed to go.

  One of the Judean gardia officers happened to be stationed at a barricade two hundred feet from where Brandr Ilfetu was helping a jotun family fill a flatbed truck with their possessions. It was not lost on any of the human men watching that the jotun wife had carried the refrigerator out into the driveway herself, and was now in the middle of a spirited conversation about the lack of electrical grid in New Caledonia, as she casually leaned an elbow atop it. “How are we supposed to tell the jotun you can’t take your belongings with you when you leave?” the officer asked, swallowing. He’d been out on patrol with jotun officers before. He’d also been to a jotun taverna with Brandr before. He knew that while the bear-warrior was a foot shorter than any of the jotun, the god-born man usually beat the giants at arm-wrestling.

  “With bullets, I suppose?” someone else replied.

  “Piss on that. Remember last year, when one of the minotaur gangs tried to shoot a jotun officer from the back of a moving truck?”

  They all grimaced. The jotun had caught a spray of blunderbuss pellets, picked himself up, and had run after the vehicle. And, on catching up, had leaped into the bed of the truck, throwing the minotaur from the vehicle. And as he’d been running, fenris howls had gone up like an unearthly chorus through the streets, as the pack had responded to the smell of trouble. The first officer shuddered. “People permit us to police them,” he said, quietly. “That’s the only way gardia have a chance. Human, monster, or whatever. We don’t get paid enough for this shit.”

  So as one, they nudged the barricades out of the way, and stood quietly to the side as the trucks began leaving the neighborhood. Silent onlookers to another mass migration.

  For the military troops, it was a far messier situation. The loyal legionnaires—the Romans, the Hellenes, the Judeans, the Carthaginians, the handfuls of Nahautl, Quechan, and Tawantinsuyan troops who’d remained in the service, had stared in horror as their fellow officers and enlisted had started packing up and leaving in the past two days. Most tried to do so under the letter of the law: they applied for leave. But when some sixty percent of a fighting force all applies for leave at the same time, commanders will have to say no . . . .

  And then the orders from Rome were sent by secure channels around the world: Gothic and Gallic levy forces will remain at their posts and each soldier will reiterate his or her oath of loyalty to the Empire. If they do not, they are to be treated as enemy combatants, and detained. If they resist, you are authorized to open fire on them.

  As such, there were thousands of legionnaires walking off the front lines, if they could. Usually with the guns of their peers and friends pointed at them. Many of those who were staying, begged their comrades, Don’t go. You’re not just betraying the Empire. You’re betraying us. If you leave, you’re no longer my brother. You’re leaving us here to die on the Wall. In the jungle. On the front-lines . . . .

  We’re not betraying you, was the inevitable, agonized reply. But we also can’t stay here. If Julianus pulls his head out of his Imperial ass, we’ll be back.

  And in a few cases, the triggers were pulled at the command of officers on the spot, and the fights that broke out all across the Empire were covered with glee by Persian news channels.

  Just as Governor Caesarion was grappling with the orders regarding civilians, a Judean legate burst past a dismayed secretary and stormed into his office, waving a piece of foolscap in one hand. “The emperor has gone mad,” the legate shouted. Marcus Livorus and Adam ben Maor, both already in Caesarion’s office, looked up, stunned. “He’s ordering us to detain or shoot all the deserters. It would be the biggest mass execution in history. I don’t have the men to carry out this order. And if I do, it won’t just be civil war in Gaul and in Caesaria Aquilonis. It’ll be civil war here!” The legate, red-faced with agitation, suddenly seemed to remember to whom he was speaking, and calmed himself. “Ah . . . governor . . . I’m begging you to speak with your brother. There is a possibility that he was pushed into the order by . . . overzealous senators.”

  Caesarion rubbed at his face. “You’re welcome to sit in on my call with him. But I do not know if he will hear me.” A tight grimace crossed his face. “He’s still refusing to accept my oath of loyalty long-distance. I suspect that he wants to rescind my office as governor of Judea and he cannot actually do so unless I return to Rome.” A faint smile replaced the grimace. “Thank the gods for outdated laws, and for how difficult some of them are to change.”

  The conference call did not go well. “You still refuse to travel to Rome to offer your oath of allegiance?” Julianus began the conversation. “You made your last excuse on the grounds
of the danger of the journey. You served in the Legion. Where is your vaunted courage, Caesarion?”

  “The situation in Judea requires my direct attention,” Caesarion temporized. “We’re on a war footing here, after all.” He cleared his throat. “I would like to address your orders, both to the civil authorities and to the Legion troops here, regarding the Goths and Gauls . . . .”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. I am ordering you to return to Rome to offer your oath of allegiance. If I have to, I will have you detained and brought to me.”

  Adam ben Maor’s eyebrows went up, and he shook his head, slowly. Caesarion visibly reined in his temper, and replied, “Certainly, brother. You know that I am loyal to the Empire.” He went on, in as diplomatic a tone as he could manage, “Your orders regarding the Goths and Gauls?”

  “My orders stand. The civilians must either renew their oaths of fealty, or will be dealt with as traitors and rebels. As for the military . . . the ones who are leaving their posts are deserters. No latitude can be given, Caesarion. You were in the Legion. You must understand this. Desertion is a capital offense. Once enough of them have been shot or crucified, the rest will fall in line. Crassus used decimation against an unsuccessful legion to motivate his troops. It worked.”