Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2) Read online

  Late in the afternoon one of the patrols came back with word of a goblin band lurking in the underbrush, but a few arrows had sent them scurrying off. The men got a good laugh out of that, but privately I was a bit concerned. Goblins usually weren’t shy about pressing an attack, especially when they had the advantage in numbers. Was word of my group getting around enough that they’d recognized us? Or were they just a scouting party, hoping to come back with friends and catch us off guard?

  We made camp on a patch of higher ground that had been a tiny island before the river froze, and I cautioned Gronir to set a good watch. He nodded.

  “Always do, boss. Never know what might try to sneak up on us.”

  Well, if there was anyone I could trust to spot a stealthy attack it was his group.

  I was tempted to stay up late working on another project. My healing amulet could remove fatigue pretty well, and the list of things I urgently needed to make was endless. But Avilla was right that I couldn’t keep pushing forever. Lack of sleep does weird things to the brain, and there were other subtle effects my amulet couldn’t fix. I’d been feeling pretty fuzzy the last few days, and I had another long day ahead of me tomorrow.

  So instead I forced down a quick meal of cold trail rations, gave the factory stone one final check, and bedded down on the sled next to it. A little force dome would keep the wind off me and trap the heat from the vehicle’s warmth enchantment, and I’d long since gotten used to sleeping on a hard surface. I was out the moment my head touched the rolled-up shirt I was using as a pillow.

  Hours later, I started awake at an unfamiliar sound.

  The moon was down, and the partially overcast sky allowed only the faintest hint of starlight through. I held myself still, eyes and ears straining. Was there something on the sled with me?

  Yes. A dark shape bent over the enchantment engine. I could vaguely make out movement, and faint whispers of sound that I couldn’t quite identify. I tensed, and started to ready a spell.

  “Very nice, Daniel. You’re only the third man in history to create a device like this, and the first to use it for anything useful. That Greek fellow was only interested in theory, and the one in China never got past turning out party favors for his Emperor. Of course, you’ve got the benefit of cheating.”

  I choked. “Hecate?”

  “Indeed.”

  She turned, and crouched next to me. A faint silvery glow sprung up within the hood of her cloak, just bright enough that I could make out her amused expression.

  I hurriedly dispersed the attack spell I’d been building, and sat up. “Um, hello. This is unexpected.”

  “Good,” she smiled evilly. “With luck Asgard’s watchdog won’t be looking for me either. It’s annoyingly hard to get anything done with him watching from the sky all the time.”

  I frowned. “Watchdog? Do you mean H-?”

  She put a hand over my mouth with a hiss. “Don’t! If you say his name he might hear you. You don’t want to be spotted in my presence.”

  She must be talking about Heimdall, the god who was supposed to watch the Bifrost Bridge and warn when enemies were approaching Asgard. Keen senses were his main attribute in the mythology I’d read, so there was another point of rough correspondence between my world’s myths and this one’s reality.

  Why would Hecate risk being spotted by her enemies to visit me? I had a bad feeling about this. I rubbed my eyes, and tried to cudgel my tired brain back into operation.

  “Sorry. I’m still getting up to speed on how things work in this world. Um, I don’t want to be disrespectful, but it occurs to me that I have no idea what the proper way to address a goddess is.”

  “I leave grandiose titles to those who are insecure enough to need them, Daniel. Speak plainly, and I won’t take offense. Besides, after your latest success you’d have to work rather hard to upset me.”

  I stifled a yawn. “Success? You mean getting Cerise to Kozalin?”

  “No, Daniel. I mean that Cerise has just finished consecrating a chapel to me, and she’s currently leading her first acolyte through her dedication ritual. It’s too bad you didn’t take the terms I originally offered you, or you’d be off the hook in another ten minutes.”

  “Figures.” I shook my head. “Well, I suppose if I’m bargaining with a goddess I should expect to be outmaneuvered. Who did she talk into converting? One of the refugees? Wait, no. It’s Beri, isn’t it?”

  The girl had expressed her admiration for Cerise more than once, and I knew that being essentially helpless wore on her. Even when surrounded by armed men, she was always worried that something would slip past the guards and get her.

  “I would never give away the identity of my worshippers,” Hecate replied piously. “Secrecy is part of our sacred bargain. You’ll have to ask them yourself when you return.”

  “I suppose I will,” I agreed. “So, what brings you here? I don’t imagine you risked a personal visit just to tell me something I would have found out anyway in a few days.”

  The dark-haired goddess turned serious.

  “True. We have much to discuss, Daniel.”

  She sat down next to me, taking advantage of the cover offered by my little force dome, and I wondered for a moment if she felt the cold. She wore the same leather skirt and tunic as when I’d first seen her, when she appeared in my hospital room to make the bargain that had gotten me here. But the heavy cloak was new, and there were gloves on her hands.

  Modern religions talk about gods as virtually omnipotent beings, but in the Greek myths they were often more like humans with super powers. Which one was Hecate?

  “This war is going to change everything,” she said contemplatively. “Loki was a threat to Odin’s power before his imprisonment, when he only had his family and a few allies to call on. But now Gaea stands with him as well. Together they’ve somehow broken the seals on Tartarus, and released the horrors Zeus left chained there when he defeated the Titans. Many of them will fight with Gaea, and so will her countless children.”

  “But Odin is a ruthless bastard, and he had plenty of time to prepare for this day while Loki was chained in torment. Asgard has bred an army of young gods to use as cannon fodder, and forged an arsenal of god-slaying weapons. They won’t die easily, if at all. Whoever wins this war, there will be very few survivors.”

  She paused for a moment, and held out her hand. A snowflake settled onto the dark leather of her glove and sat there, unmelting.

  “I don’t think Loki can reverse the Fimbulwinter,” she went on. “The magic he called on could be sealed again if he dies, but that won’t undo the changes that have already been made. The sea and air flow differently now, and they’re settling into a pattern that will be difficult to change before it runs its course.”

  She paused at my muttered curse, and raised one elegant eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “I know about ice ages. If he managed to start a real one that means we’re looking at a hundred thousand years until the next interglacial, more or less. ”

  A faint smile creased her lips.

  “I’ve always marveled at the insight of philosophers. You remind me of the time Eratosthenes flummoxed Diana by measuring the distance to the moon with nothing but a few sticks and a sharp mind. How do you know about something that last happened before humans invented writing, Daniel?”

  “I can’t take credit for that one,” I admitted. “But there are half a dozen ways to measure how severe winters were in the distant past. Tree rings, ice cores, pollen counts in buried soil samples, that kind of thing. Your translation spell gives you an explanation of ideas like that as soon as I mention them, right?”

  “A decent one, yes. Well, you are correct. Europe will be frozen for long ages even after this war is over. The monsters that survive it will finish off the so-called victors, and hunt humanity here to extinction. Then they will grow hungry, and seek prey further afield.”

  Her eyes grew haunted.

  “I remember the last age of ice, Da
niel. I was a young woman when the Winter Court was driven into shadow by the return of summer, and the Titans broke free of their frozen prisons to reclaim Europe. I saw the abominations my father and brothers locked away in Tartarus, and the lesser things they tamed to their service. I stood at Zeus’ side after Cronus fell, and we scoured the land clean of the monsters that remained. The ungols are the least of the things that we sealed in those days.

  “But the heroes who accomplished those deeds are gone now. The hecatoncheires will fight and die with Gaea, but what about the others? Will the decrepit gods of Egypt rise up to do battle with the dathnai when they go seeking cities to devour? With the Jade Emperor’s court send out heroes to put down the pestilence dragons? Will young Coyote cross the seas to trick the Court of Nightmares back into their prison of dreams?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. They will tend to their own affairs, as always, until a threat comes to their own doorstep. Then they’ll find that they aren’t strong enough to fight alone. Egypt will fall, and then all the lands of Persia will follow. The Great Beasts will take the seas and skies for their own again, and the mortal races will be reduced to savagery everywhere except the great kingdoms of the East. Their gods may be strong enough to protect them, but they care nothing for the suffering of foreigners. They will secure their own borders, but nothing more.”

  She fell silent then. I contemplated her words, wondering how to respond.

  “Should I be making plans to move to China, then?”

  “Perhaps,” she said softly. “But I will not abandon the lands of my birth, and there are others who will stand with me. Hestia. Prometheus, if we can free him. The Summer Court of the faerie, and the spirits of land and sea. There are many hidden powers who might be persuaded, once the need to hide from the Aesir has passed. With luck, we might even create an alliance strong enough to seal the doors of Tartarus again and banish the Fimbulwinter.”

  “And then there is you. I only caught glimpses of your world, Daniel. But I saw enough to know that if the gates of Tartarus were opened there, your people would destroy even the strongest of the Great Beasts. Millions would die, and the war would shatter your nation. But I would have no doubt about the outcome. Can you recreate that power here?”

  “Not alone,” I told her. “It took millions of men working for centuries to build the civilization you saw. I don’t suppose you could send me back for a shopping trip? I’d kill for a copy of ‘The Way Things Work’, let alone a stack of engineering and chemistry references.”

  She shook her head. “No. There is a treaty that was negotiated in ancient days, between the Titans and the beings who dwell beyond your world. Sneaking into the neutral zone once was risky enough. If I make a habit of it I will be noticed, and the consequences would be dire.”

  I sighed. “Then I’m going to be limited in what I can do. If we had more time I could probably spark an industrial revolution, but it would take a century for that to really go anywhere. I think I can duplicate some key innovations using magic, but the results won’t be the same. In the short term I can build a secure strongpoint, and put together a small force that can cover long distances quickly and bring a lot of firepower to bear. Beyond that, I’m not sure yet.”

  “If you can do that much already, I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish once you’ve truly mastered your magic,” she replied. “Will you work with me, Daniel?”

  I considered that.

  “Hecate, I had a pretty suspicious run of bad luck just before you showed up. Did you have anything to do with that?”

  She frowned. “What sort of fool would give you a good reason to look for revenge just before endowing you with the power of a demigod? It was the other way around, Daniel. In a world of teeming billions there’s always someone who has just lost everything. I simply worked a scrying to find me a man with the set of abilities I needed, who was in a situation where he’d be open to a bargain.”

  “Oh. Well, that does make a bit more sense. I apologize if that was unduly suspicious of me, but all I know about you is a bunch of distorted mythology.”

  “I’m not offended, Daniel. It’s wise to be cautious when dealing with elder powers, and I suppose I qualify from your perspective. You hardly know anything about me, and the things you do know have to look pretty bad. I’m surprised you haven’t asked about the soul sacrifices.

  I shrugged. “I figured that would be pushing it. It’s not like you have to justify yourself to some mortal who doesn’t even know anything about this world’s metaphysics. Besides, from what I understand you’ve been fighting a guerrilla against the Aesir for centuries. War is always an ugly business, and insurgencies are the worst kind of war.”

  She gave me a considering look.

  “Yes. The one good thing about this disaster is that it means the long war is finally coming to an end. But I have no champions left to call on, and I won’t be able to act directly until it’s too late to matter. Will you work with me to save what humans we can?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I’ll happily agree to that much. For that matter, they don’t have to be human. I’ll help any group of survivors that’s willing to work with me, as long as they aren’t crazed human-eating monsters or something.”

  “Really? That’s unexpected. You aren’t going to insist on saving your own kind first?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not that… tribal, I guess you could say? My first obligation is to the people who already depend on me, of course. But beyond that I have to prioritize who I save based on what they can contribute to our future survival, and I’m trying to think of the long term here. More craftsmen and soldiers would be good, but I imagine other races have unique abilities they can bring to the table. There are a lot of problems I can’t solve with my own magic.”

  “I see. So, if I told you there’s a group of nature spirits near Kozalin who keep petitioning the gods for help?”

  “Can they help us grow crops indoors?” I asked. “If the winter isn’t going to end food supplies are going to become a serious problem in a few months. I can make greenhouses, and even supply artificial heat and light. But space is going to be at a serious premium, so anything that lets us grow more food on less land will save lives.”

  She nodded. “That’s well within their powers. You’d take them in, as long as they agree to help you and abide by your word?”

  “Sure. I only draw the line at beings that are too alien or too ornery to actually cooperate with us. But there are only so many hours in a day, and I suspect there are more groups out there praying for help than I could possibly save.”

  “Most of them pray to either Asgard or Loki,” she pointed out. “I’ll happily leave their fate in the hands of their own patrons. But yes, this needs to be managed carefully. There are a lot of lesser powers who still have bands of worshippers scattered around, and every boon I arrange is a chance to forge a new alliance or rekindle an old one. But I won’t risk the rebirth of my own cult by overburdening you.”

  “Thank you. Although I have to wonder why having worshippers is so important to you?”

  “That isn’t something we normally explain to mortals,” she chided me. “Which ought to be obvious if you think about it for a second. But under the circumstances I think it would actually be a good thing for you to know, as long as you promise not to spread it around. It’s going to come up soon enough.”

  I blinked at her in surprise. Hecate was trusting me with secrets? Wow, she really was desperate.

  “Alright. I’ll keep it quiet, if you want to tell me.”

  She nodded. “It’s an essential aspect of modern divine warfare, Daniel. Extinguishing the essence of an immortal is so difficult we used to think it was impossible. That’s why measures like imprisonment or devouring used to be such common ways of dealing with enemies. If you could detonate a nuclear weapon in Asgard you’d probably discorporate most of the Aesir, but they’d just reform their bodies and come after you for revenge.
”

  “But we need some kind of anchor to the material world in order to reform a body here, and Odin discovered that it’s possible to sever those anchors. Get enough of them, and your enemy can’t come back.”

  “So worshippers are an anchor?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Family, worshippers, homeland and implements. Those are the common ones, which everyone uses. Demigods need a lot of strong connections to have even a chance of reviving themselves, but those of us with more strength can make do with less. So when you find yourself fighting the sons and daughters of the gods, destroy everything you can find that could give them a connection.”

  “So that’s why Odin didn’t just kill Loki,” I mused. “They’d have had to hunt down his children too, and that would have just started Ragnarok early. But wait, why would demigods be coming after me?”

  “Do you think you can keep killing Gaea’s creatures forever without drawing notice? You’re already a nuisance, and if you turn Kozalin into an impregnable citadel you’ll attract even more attention. It’s an important target, and they’re going to have someone significant assigned to capture it. If you wanted to be inconspicuous you shouldn’t have settled so close to a veil anchor.”

  “Wait, what? What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “You didn’t know? Odin hid the Bifrost behind a veil of magic powered by the faith of his worshippers, and anchored by nine of his greatest temples. If Loki wants to get Gaea’s children and Hel’s legions into Asgard they have to capture enough anchors to break the veil. So at some point they’re going to stage a serious attack on Kozalin.”

  I groaned. “Damn it. It would have been nice to know that before we came all the way here.”

  She shrugged. “This is Ragnarok, Daniel. Nowhere is safe, and if you want to recruit strong allies Kozalin is the best place you could have reached. Unless you’re going to abandon that gaggle of refugees you’ve been carting around, and flee south with just Cerise and Avilla?”

  “No. I promised to protect them, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll just have to work fast, and make sure we’re ready when the attack finally comes.”