Codespell (19 page)
Authors: Kelly Mccullough
Tags: #Computer Hackers, #Magic, #Fantasy Fiction, #Computers, #Contemporary, #General, #Fantasy, #Wizards, #Fiction
“Like Necessity?” I asked.
“And blind Justice, and Nemesis herself. She and Justice claimed to stand for the right, but neither of them moved to help me. How could I feel anything but hate and contempt for them?”
“So, when the Furies took Nemesis down?”
“I rejoiced at her loss but not their gain,” said Persephone. “The Furies served the enemy I hated second only to Hades himself, Necessity, whose power bound me to spend three months of each year as bride to my abductor.”
“You didn’t keep track of what happened to Nemesis?” I know I would have, taking spiteful pleasure in the fall of my enemy, but I have a petty streak.
“No. If she had died and come to Hades, I might have sought her out to gloat. But she did not, and I—” A strange look crossed her face as she looked up past my shoulder, and she stopped speaking.
“Pardon me, yer goddess-ship,” said the voice of a rent-a-clops as I turned around. “But we been informed of a possible sit-u-ation here.” There were two, both wearing the informal caps that clearly said they weren’t on party duty.
“By whom?” asked Persephone, her voice shaking with rage. “And what situation? This is my home, and I have not granted you permission to enter it. I do not take such violation lightly. Zeus will hear about this.”
“I’m sure he already has,” said a second clops, and I recognized his voice—the one who had a personal grudge against me. “Especially seein’ as how Athena sent us down here on a tip that this jerk’s carrying, and Zeus don’t like that one bit.” He looked my way. “You wanna assume the position?”
I mentally relaxed for a moment and nodded, remembering that I’d hidden my pistol with Melchior right before the party and hadn’t asked for it back yet. As long as they didn’t search my goblin—which seemed unlikely, since he was still wherever he’d gone with Thalia—no problem.
But then, as I stood up to allow myself to be searched, another memory came along and washed away my relief. These were not the leathers and shoulder holster I’d worn to the party, but rather the ones I’d reconstituted from chaos after my mishap with the faerie ring at Castle Discord. The question became how paranoid my subconscious had been at the time.
I had a nasty suspicion now that I’d had nasty suspicions then, so I squeezed my arm against my side to check. Damn!
CHAPTER NINE
A raven’s shadow engulfed me for one brief moment as I contemplated a shift of shape and fight or flight, but I fought the impulse down. I would not bring chaos into the heart of Persephone’s refuge. She had earned her peace.
“Hang on one second, fellows,” I said, as the clops reached out to start patting me down.
I didn’t have a lot of options once I turned aside from magic. I could act terribly surprised when they found a concealed pistol in my concealed shoulder holster. The clops were dumb, but not dumb enough to buy that one. Or I could do what I did.
“Now that I think about it, I do have a pistol.” I put my hands firmly on top of my head, since I knew they wouldn’t thank me for getting it out for them. “It’s a .45 in a shoulder holster on the left side.”
“Oh, Ravirn,” said Persephone. “That wasn’t smart.”
“No it wasn’t,” said the second clops—call him Grudge. He’d drawn his own gun, an enormous Gyrojet—the rocket pistols were quiet enough that they didn’t technically violate Zeus’s law about thunder—and had it pointed at the side of my head. “Not one eensy bit smart.”
The other clops came around and leaned down—he was about twice my height and had the most appalling breath. He yanked my jacket open and roughly jerked the pistol from my holster. As soon as he had it out, he popped the clip then checked to see if I had one in the pipe. I didn’t. Apparently, I hadn’t felt
that
paranoid. Then gun and clip both went into a zippered bag, which he locked.
that
paranoid. Then gun and clip both went into a zippered bag, which he locked.
“I’m very sorry yer goddess-ship,” said Grudge, “but we’re gonna have to take our boy here fer a little walk up to the head office. You understand, don’tcha?”
“I do,” Persephone said very quietly. “Before you go, there’s something I want you to understand, too.”
“What’s that?” asked Bad Breath. He didn’t sound terribly interested.
“This man is under my protection. I owe him my own freedom, and I will not willingly see him imprisoned for any length of time.”
“Don’tcha think that’s up to Athena?” said Grudge with a snort. “Oh, and Zeus, of course.”
“I almost tore down the pillars of existence to secure my own freedom,” said Persephone. “Without his intervention, I would have destroyed the multiverse and everything in it, yourselves included.” She rose to her feet, and anger flashed in her eyes. “I broke Necessity herself on the anvil of my will. Don’t make the mistake of believing that you’re tougher than she was.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Bad Breath, “or no, Ma’am.” Sweat popped out on his forehead. “That is, whichever one of them as agrees with you, Ma’am. Right, Charlie?”
Grudge nodded. “Sure thing, Ma’am.”
“Good,” said Persephone. “I’m glad we had this little chat.” She nodded at me. “Take care, Raven.”
“Of course, my lady.” I lifted my hands from my head to give her a deep bow. “I thank you, as does House Raven.” In this case, the Raven reference was a calculated thing on both our parts, a verbal reminder to my captors that I, too, was a power and not to be lightly trifled with.
“Shall we?” I asked my captors, bowing them ahead of me.
Grudge glared at me and pulled out a pair of cuffs.
“Do you really think those are necessary?” asked Persephone. “You were planning on going willingly, weren’t you, Raven?”
“Delightedly even.” I turned to Persephone one last time. “You will give my regrets to Thalia and Melchior, won’t you?”
She nodded.
“Oh, come on,” said Bad Breath, putting a hand on my shoulder.
With a sigh, Grudge put the cuffs away and fell in behind us. They were the soul of gentility from there to the front gate of the garden and few yards beyond.
The shove between my shoulder blades knocked me down when it came, even though I’d pretty much expected something of the sort. I landed on hands and knees, but didn’t stay that way for long. Grudge weighed seven hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce, and most of that landed in the middle of my back along with the sole of his size 22 cop boot.
“Little bastard,” he snarled, pressing me into the dirt. “Makin’ us look like idiots.”
“You didn’t need my help for that,” I said.
“Smart guy, huh?”
He put more weight on my back—it wasn’t much fun, but I wasn’t in any real danger either. I
am
a child of the Titans.
am
a child of the Titans.
“Look,” I said, “we both know you’re not seriously going to hurt me. At least, not right now, when the blame’s so easy to fix, and you can’t be sure I won’t be getting out and coming after you this time tomorrow. More than that, I have friends in some very bad places as far as you’re concerned. Persephone isn’t the only one likely to be annoyed if anything too nasty happens to me.”
“You gonna back that up with some names?” asked Bad Breath. “Or do we just have to take yer word fer it?”
“I’ll give you two,” I said, though I could provide more. “Eris and Tisiphone.”
“Discord and a Fury?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Let ’im up, Charlie. Even yer not stupid enough to buy that kind of trouble.”
“Can we at least cuff ’im?” asked Grudge.
“Sure,” said Bad Breath, bending and putting them in place. “Now, let’s bump ’im upstairs.”
When we got to the front gates of Olympus, I was forced to strip off my leathers and replace them with an all-too-short one-shouldered tunic in the style of the classic Greek shepherd boy and a pair of shapeless flat leather sandals held on by a string fancier’s own nightmare of strapwork. Apparently, Zeus’s classicist obsession continued unabated from my last visit to the city proper. For some reason, he’d decided that either you dressed as though three thousand years of history had never happened, or you didn’t get to walk the streets of Olympus. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to choose which option I preferred.
At this point, in addition to my leathers, I lost Grudge and Bad Breath. They handed me over to a ’clops wearing a loincloth, hobnail sandals, and a forced smile. It was pass me on or make the ultimate sartorial sacrifice of joining him in his Bronze Age dishabille. I think they were also grateful for the excuse to cut themselves loose of direct responsibility for me.
Smiler showed me the business end of a really vicious club and suggested that I not make the mistake of thinking he wouldn’t squash me like a bug if I made a break for it, then led me on up the hill. Since Zeus’s classicist obsession extended itself to paving the streets with white marble, and the flat polished leather soles of my sandals didn’t afford me the same traction as my captor, I decided running wouldn’t do me much good. Fifteen minutes later, I was walking down a narrow hallway toward a door marked by the owl of Athena.
As Smiler raised his fist to knock, a voice called, “Enter,” and the door opened. A moment later, I got a shove that sent me sprawling through the door to land at Athena’s feet. Well, the large empty space in front of her desk actually.
“Bother,” said a woman’s voice, as the door closed behind me. “I do wish we could train a bit of the thug out of them.”
It was a bland voice, in the middle of the normal feminine range with no apparent accent. Neither sexy nor off-putting, it held nothing that gave me a mental picture of the speaker. In short, it was completely ungoddess-like. I took advantage of my position to dart a glance under the desk before I stood up. I could only see the speaker from the knees down and didn’t find anything unusual there either, just a rather ordinary pair of woman’s legs and feet wearing the same sort of strappy sandals I had on.
When I lifted my head over the edge of the desk, I found that the voice and legs matched the rest of the woman perfectly.
Plain
was the only word that fit. She was neither short nor tall, slender nor overweight, ugly nor beautiful. Her coloring was on the dark side of light and wouldn’t have distinguished her in any crowd with a significant northern Mediterranean contingent. Her straight hair was a brown short of black and cut to hang just past her shoulders. Her eyes were dark but not compellingly so, and her figure was feminine but not distracting.
Plain
was the only word that fit. She was neither short nor tall, slender nor overweight, ugly nor beautiful. Her coloring was on the dark side of light and wouldn’t have distinguished her in any crowd with a significant northern Mediterranean contingent. Her straight hair was a brown short of black and cut to hang just past her shoulders. Her eyes were dark but not compellingly so, and her figure was feminine but not distracting.
She wore a two-shouldered and much-better-tailored version of the tunic I’d been given. If I’d had to guess her age from her appearance, I’d have placed her somewhere between thirty and fifty—too old to draw attention as young and too young to be marked out as old. In most situations, she’d have been invisible to a substantial portion of the population. She looked nothing like any goddess I’d ever seen or heard of. In short, perfect camouflage. Athena was a
very
dangerous goddess, even more so than I’d always assumed.
very
dangerous goddess, even more so than I’d always assumed.
Several seconds ticked past after I’d gotten to my feet and while we each looked the other over. Finally, she gave a tiny nod.
“Sit down,” she said, and I did, fully confident that the chair that wasn’t currently there would be by the time I finished the motion.
It was. I nodded back as I crossed my legs—still uncomfortable with the brevity of my tunic.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome. Though I must say I’m surprised.”
“By what?” I asked.
“You’re considerably smarter than I’d expected, given the reports and the reason you’re here.” Her expression didn’t change a jot as she spoke, remaining apparently polite and open while revealing nothing.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, a number of things. You haven’t shot your mouth off yet, which is practically miraculous given everything I’ve heard to date. You surrendered peacefully to the clops and even warned them about the pistol. Most remarkable of all, you never for an instant doubted that I am who I am. In fact, you barely looked surprised.”
“Is that unusual?” I asked. “I mean, I was told I was being brought to see Athena. There’s the owl on the door, and not only did the clops make sure I went down on my knees before you, but he also didn’t hesitate to leave me alone with an apparently unarmed woman who’s only two-thirds my size.”
“You’d be surprised how many come through that door, look around, then ask why they got routed to the secretary of the goddess rather than the goddess herself.”
“I’m sure it has
nothing
to do with all those sculptures and portraits of a tall imposing woman in silver armor complete with Attic-crested helmet. Likewise, I’m sure that you’ve done nothing to encourage that image of yourself.” I didn’t bother to mention that as a goddess, she could assume whatever appearance she wanted—we both knew it.
nothing
to do with all those sculptures and portraits of a tall imposing woman in silver armor complete with Attic-crested helmet. Likewise, I’m sure that you’ve done nothing to encourage that image of yourself.” I didn’t bother to mention that as a goddess, she could assume whatever appearance she wanted—we both knew it.
Another tiny nod from Athena. “See, you
are
smart.”
are
smart.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.
Nothing in her expression gave her away in the slightest, and I made a mental note
never
to play poker with her. Of course, considering the way even old Cerberus had outplayed me, it might have been wiser to shorten that to
never
play poker.
never
to play poker with her. Of course, considering the way even old Cerberus had outplayed me, it might have been wiser to shorten that to
never
play poker.
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