Paternus: Wrath of Gods (The Paternus Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  “Um... okay.”

  “Now tell us,” Pratha queries, “what did you see today?”

  Fi tries to dredge up the dream, but it’s like trying to catch smoke in the dark, and the attempt sends jolts of pain shooting through her brain.

  Mrs. Mirskaya notices her discomfort. “Fiona, are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” she says, rubbing her temples. “I don’t remember.”

  “Try harder,” says Pratha, watching intently.

  The more Fi concentrates, the more it hurts, but she keeps at it, pressing her palms against the sides of her head. Vague snippets materialize in her mind. “I was flying with Kleron. Well, not with him, but I could see through his eyes, smell what he smelled, hear what he heard. I couldn’t hear his thoughts or anything, but I could tell he was annoyed about something.” Myrddin leans forward with interest. Even Baphomet watches her. “He was slipping from world to world while he flew. Then there was a world that was all jungle and swamp, with a burned-out area around...” She clenches her jaw against the pain. “We went through some kind of barrier, I guess, and there was a mountain at the edge of an ocean, but...” Fi winces and groans.

  Mrs. Mirskaya squeezes Fi’s knee. “That is enough.”

  Pratha insists, “Mokosh, this could be—”

  “I said enough.” The look on her face makes it clear she will brook no argument, not even from Pratha. Pratha sits back, considering what she’s heard.

  Myrddin taps a finger on his lower lip. “A mountain at the edge of the sea. What could this memory be?”

  Pratha says, “The more important question is, when?”

  Fi asks, “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. When did this event take place?”

  “Just then,” Fi says, as if it’s obvious. “It was happening then. Right now.”

  Myrddin’s jaw goes slack. Pratha narrows her eyes in increased curiosity. “How can you be sure?”

  Fi says, “I just am. Like I knew when Kleron was with Brian Boru. I even knew the date. I don’t know how.”

  “If this is true...” Pratha’s voice is soft. “The sight, with chronological memory tag.” She takes a deep breath as her mind turns over the possibilities. “And deep as well as shallow recollection. This is most exceptional.”

  Fi has no idea what Pratha is talking about, but seeing her amazed at something she can do makes her almost giddy.

  Mrs. Mirskaya, however, looks suspicious. “What are you thinking, Sestra?”

  “Most clairvoyants can only guess at when their visions took place. You know this. They estimate, usually with the help of others, by describing their surroundings, clothing people wear, etcetera. To know dates, exact times, is practically unheard of.” Mrs. Mirskaya nods in understanding. “Most interesting, however... Seeing the past is often assumed to mean seeing into the far past,” Pratha explains. “But the past is only a moment away, a fraction of a moment, immeasurably brief. So brief, in fact, as to be indiscernible from the present.”

  Myrddin slaps his knee. “And this lass can see it!”

  Fi looks from one to the other. “I don’t get it.”

  Pratha says, “You, and you alone, Fiona Megan Patterson, could be the greatest weapon in this war.”

  * * *

  “Father should beware his own tongue, let alone that of The Nidhogg,” says Fintán. “He’s always been a storyteller, but he does go on. Not always to the best end, obviously.”

  Zeke can’t believe Fintán’s so calm. “What do we do? We have to help him.” Without thinking, and before Fintán can stop him, he snatches up Gungnir.

  “Hold!” Fintán shouts.

  “What?” Zeke asks.

  Fintán gazes at Gungnir in Zeke’s hand. “How?” he whispers.

  Zeke says, “How, what?”

  Fintán unzips his waist pack and holds it open, his expression severe. “Place it here, quickly.”

  “In your fanny pack?”

  “I said quickly, boy!”

  Taken aback by Fintán’s tone, Zeke drops the rod in Fintán’s pack alongside the locust head Peter gave him. He notices Fintán is careful not to touch it.

  Fintán zips up the pack and studies Zeke, then relaxes. “I know it’s a common term for this type of pack in the United States,” he says, “but I wouldn’t call it that in Great Britain.

  “‘Fanny pack’?” Zeke asks.

  “People will laugh. You might get slapped.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Trust me.” His image shimmers and he takes the form of his mother’s kind, a giant predatory bird, then lowers a wing. “Mount.”

  Zeke hesitates. “Um...” They tried many things when practicing slipping, including Zeke being carried in Fintán’s arms, but he has yet to ride on The Falcon, and they didn’t go very high.

  “Do you want to help The Pater or not?” Fintán says.

  “Okay...” With some effort, Zeke climbs up.

  “Legs in front of the wings. Squeeze with your legs,” Fintán instructs. “Tighter. Hold onto my feathers as well.”

  “Right,” says Zeke. He grips with his legs and shoves his hands into the feathers at Fintán’s neck, grasping the quills.

  Fintán takes a running leap, flaps his wings, and before Zeke can scream, which he does, they’re soaring over the Highlands in the direction Nidhogg fled.

  * * *

  Me? A weapon? The butterflies in Fi’s stomach are the queasy and unpleasant kind. More like big moths, or buzzards. She mumbles, “I don’t... what?”

  Pratha says, “You have a connection with Kleron.”

  “I’d rather not,” Fi responds.

  Myrddin giggles.

  “If you can learn to control your visions,” Pratha continues, “or if we can learn how to bring about these visions—”

  “Stop right there, Sestra,” Mrs. Mirskaya says. “She is too young.”

  “Perhaps. But if events continue to unfold as they are, if Kleron has his way, if Fiona finds herself separated and alone due to circumstances beyond our control, she may not live long enough for that to make any difference. If we can teach her, help her, then her chances of living are greater.”

  Myrddin says, “That kind of control can take hundreds of years for Firstborn to achieve.”

  “Or not,” Pratha retorts.

  Fi goes cold at Pratha’s look, as if she’s eyeing a specimen she’d like to dissect and see what’s inside. “I don’t get it. I mean, how does this all work? Is it just... magic?” Myrddin giggles again and Pratha actually grins, which Fi finds unsettling.

  “You brought it up,” Mrs. Mirskaya says to Pratha. “Tell her.”

  “It’s no secret to our kind, Mokosh. You tell her.”

  They trade stares like they’re daring each other to blink.

  “I’ll tell her,” says Myrddin.

  At the same time, Mrs. Mirskaya and Pratha say, “No,” then glare at each other again.

  Fi rolls her eyes. “Forget it then.”

  “It begins with World Memory.” The voice is Baphomet’s. It appears as if Pratha could kill him with her glower. He looks away.

  Then Pratha says, “Do tell, most astute Baphomet.” Fi gets the idea she’s testing him.

  So does Baphomet, yet he speaks with the ease and practice of one who has instructed thousands over the millennia. Which he has. “It’s assumed by human science that the brain is the seat of both cognitive function and memory. This is only half true.” He pauses a moment, pulling on his goatee. “This may be most easily described in terms of today’s computers.

  “As a computer receives data via input device or external signal, only a portion of it is held in what is called Random Access Memory, or RAM, at any one time. The rest is stored on a memory device, either locally on a form of hard drive, or remotely, such as in what they’re calling ‘the cloud.’ This data can be accessed, analyzed, manipulated, and stored again as it was or in different configurations.

 
“Going back to the brain. Think of it as a computer processor that keeps us alive and performs our cognitive functions. Other than that, it is quite simply an antenna. It has the equivalent of limited RAM for short term memory, but all else is stored remotely, in what we call World Memory.

  Fi says, “Oh, I’ve been there.”

  Myrddin raises his brow. “To World Memory?”

  “Yeah, Peter took us, when he was an old man, to escape from Kleron at the hospital. It was like a white desert with weird mountains and a beach. Peter went in the milky water stuff, then jumped out and went ‘Rarr!’ and was like he is now. Only with a beard. And naked. Zeke was there too. Scared the shit out of both of us.”

  Myrddin says, “Zeke was with you? An mtoto? In World Memory?”

  “Yup. He kind of fell in and I had to pull him out.”

  “And he didn’t lose his mind...” says Pratha. “What is it with this boy?” She rubs her forehead. “And he can slip, too...”

  Myrddin pouts. “I used to be able to slip.” Then he says, “Pater took The Christ to World Memory. I believe what I believe of Him, but as far as any of us could tell, he was mtoto.”

  Pratha waves him off. “This Zeke is no Yeshua.”

  Myrddin says, “No, but I like him.”

  “You just met him.”

  Myrddin melts under her gaze, but mutters, “I can like whomever I want.”

  Mrs. Mirskaya challenges Pratha, “What would you know of Yeshua, Sestra? You have been hiding for 20,000 years.”

  “Just because you didn’t know where I was,” says Pratha, “doesn’t mean I wasn’t there.”

  Mrs. Mirskaya snorts in derision.

  Fi says, “Wait, wait. You guys knew Jesus?”

  Mrs. Mirskaya says, “I didn’t.”

  “Not well,” Pratha replies.

  “I wish I would have spent more time with him,” says Myrddin, “but I only saw him as a babe, when a few of us brought him gifts.” In reaction to their expressions, he adds, “What? I heard news of a miracle. I had to investigate.”

  Fi can’t believe it. “You were one of the three wise men?”

  “It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.”

  Mrs. Mirskaya says, “Two wise men, one Madman.” Pratha smiles and the two of them share in the joke—then frown and look away.

  Fi wonders, What is it with these people? Are they all crazy? Then she thinks, I’ve always felt a little crazy, though, and we are related... She shuts that thought down fast. It’s still too bizarre. Even with all the rest of the bizarre. She returns her attention to Baphomet, who has waited patiently while observing the others. She has a hard time meeting the calm intensity of his pink eyes. “I’m sorry I interrupted. I do that a lot. I don’t mean any disrespect.”

  Baphomet knows better than to complain, or even address her directly while under Pratha’s watchful eye, but his expression softens almost imperceptibly. He continues, “The brain of every creature, high and low, accesses information from World Memory. Which is everywhere, by the way. It is not a place, but permeates everything. Every experience of every creature that has ever lived, on this world and all others, is stored in World Memory. Even more, everything that is conscious, brain or no, stores all data there as well. And everything is conscious.”

  Fi says, “Even rocks?”

  “Rocks, water, the air itself. Every molecule, every atom. All are conscious, part of the greater consciousness of all things. And by all things, I mean all things. Consciousness stretches through the material and immaterial, across worlds, throughout the universe, in all places and times. It is simply more focused in living things. The higher the being, the more complex and developed the brain and mind, the greater the focus. Like in you, and me. More developed minds like ours have superior cognitive capacity—more complex software, if you will, than say, a rock or a tree. Not faster, necessarily, but more complex. More creative.”

  Fi is surprised she’s keeping up with what Baphomet is telling her. She’d love for Zeke to be hearing this.

  “Now, let’s consider how memory is transmitted to, and received from, World Memory. We perceive and think, and that data is transmitted from the brain to World Memory. We also access our own remembrances from World Memory. These functions happen simultaneously and constantly.

  “Think about this in terms of how electromagnetic radio waves carry mobile telephone calls and other ‘streaming’ data—or more importantly, how all those calls and all that data is kept separate. Each signal has its own frequency. In terms of accessing World Memory, everything has its own frequency, from every minute particle to each individual plant, animal, human—or Firstborn. Some frequencies can be shared to a certain extent, however. Individual members of hives, swarms, even schools and flocks, for instance, have frequencies that bleed into one another, so to speak. This is how they work together and survive.

  “There is also a certain part of the living brain that accesses basic information critical to survival. You may have heard this called instinct, or genetic memory. This is one area in which animals supersede us.

  “For humans, the signals stay discrete and strong, most all the time, in a healthy brain and properly functioning mind. But there are exceptions. The mind does odd things in dreams, in the deteriorating brain, and the mentally unstable. The antenna doesn’t function properly. The signal becomes weak or corrupted. In Firstborn, the antenna is more powerful, its range broad, the signal exceedingly strong and clear. That is why we have nearly flawless memories.”

  “I don’t remember everything,” says Fi. “No more than anybody else.”

  “It will all come back to you.” Fi looks to Mrs. Mirskaya, who nods. The thought of being able to recall everything that’s ever happened to her in perfect detail fills Fi with dread.

  “Imagine, now,” Baphomet explains, “if a brain could tune itself to the frequency of someone or something else. They’d be able to access the other’s memories. This happens in some people on occasion, accounting for vague glimpses of the past or access to information heretofore unknown or forgotten. The clairvoyant, for lack of a better way of explaining it, can do exactly that—access the frequency of others, sometimes in a quite focused and highly tuned manner.”

  Pratha pats her palm with her fingers, “Well done, Goat. You may live.” Baphomet bows as if to real applause. “What Baphomet describes is also how you now comprehend language,” she says to Fi. “As Firstborn, you always had this ability, but I helped tune that part of your mind to the spectrum of languages in World Memory, even slang and dialects.”

  Fi’s a bit overwhelmed. “I guess that makes sense. Kind of...”

  Baphomet says, “The problem with clairvoyance, however, comes in how the foreign memories are managed. Can they be experienced without total breakdown of body and mind?”

  Mrs. Mirskaya says, “Your seizures are result of shock to your system, Fiona. They are not what brings visions, but your reaction to them.”

  “What Pratha suggests, if I may be so presumptuous,” says Baphomet, “is to help you better dial in to and process the frequencies of others. In essence, to re-program your mind.”

  Fi balks. “I don’t know if I like that idea.”

  “Do not worry,” says Mrs. Mirskaya. “Is not going to happen.” Her glare at Pratha returns. “Is it, Sestra?”

  Pratha nods in acquiescence. “Not without your blessing.” Then to Fi, “Or your permission.”

  Mrs. Mirskaya seems wary that Pratha backed down so easily.

  “But, why do I have this... thing?” Fi asks. “Why me?”

  “Always the same question,” says Pratha. “In bounty or famine, glory or tragedy, success or failure, whether spoken in anger or humility. ‘Why me?’ There is only one answer.” She leans closer. “Why not?”

  Fi shrinks at Pratha’s intensity. “Okay, I mean, how did I get it? Did I inherit it? Is it genetic?”

  Pratha leans back, taking on a more conversational tone. “There’s n
o way to know for certain, but it’s possible you share the spirit of someone who had this ability in the past.”

  “What do you mean, ‘spirit?’”

  Myrddin pipes up. “Your soul.”

  “My soul?”

  Mrs. Mirskaya says, “Fiona is an old soul.”

  “You don’t know that,” Pratha responds.

  “I have always felt it from her, Sestra. Don’t you?”

  Pratha stares at Fi, then says, “Yes, I believe I do.”

  Myrddin says, “Me too.”

  The truck jerks, the engine sputtering, then lurches forward, jostling them, and halts as the engine dies.

  From the front they hear Edgar utter one word—

  “Bugger!”

  * * *

  “Fuck-fuck-fuck,” Zeke repeats to himself. He’s flying on the back of Horus, an Egyptian god, chasing a monster from Norse myth that swallowed the Father of all life on the planet, also called Odin. So fucking insane. And so cool.

  Zeke watches the landscape speed by below, ancient and eroded by time. Bald hilltops, grassy slopes, jutting fingers of stone, meadows carved through by streams, U-shaped glens, deep blue lochs, and jagged gray mountains in the distance. The Highlands of Scotland are sparsely populated, luckily for Zeke and his fellow travelers. The low clouds above and slithering bands of mist below won’t help much to keep them undetected.

  He catches sight of Nidhogg running fast on his over-developed front legs, sometimes hopping like a frog, at others using his tail to spring atop hills or rocky cliffs. Copses of Scots pines, juniper, birch and oak splinter and go down, trampled in his path. “What can we do?” Zeke yells over the wind.

  “Not much,” says Fintán, “Nidhogg is far older and stronger than I, but we can possibly slow him, distract him—oh dear...”

  Ahead is a bowl-shaped vale, in its center a rural hamlet of a half dozen homes plus a few barns, all built of rough stone with thatched roofs—and Nidhogg is heading straight for it.

  Nidhogg crashes through an empty corral attached to a barn and into the center of the group of buildings. He jerks and spasms, twists in circles, biting at himself, croaking like a giant toad, smashing a shed and knocking over a farm-truck in the process.