After the Downfall

If the Grenye in Bucovin couldn’t find a better spy than a man busy drinking himself to death, they were in more trouble than they knew what to do with. But that thought led Hasso to another: “Can – how you say? – test Grenye? If magic works, ordinary, safe people. If magic does not work, maybe they have to do with Bucovin. Yes? No? Maybe?”

Velona thought about that. Her eyes glowed in an entirely human fashion. The way she showed she liked an idea was more drastic than he’d known from any other woman, to say nothing of more enjoyable. Was it sacrilege on a stool in the chapel? Not, he supposed, if your panting partner was a part-time goddess.

“What if someone comes in?” he asked afterwards, but only afterwards – he didn’t worry about that, or anything else, while she straddled him.

She only laughed. “You ask the strangest questions. No one would come near the chapel while I was in it. No one but you, I mean, because you don’t know our ways.”

“Oh.” How big a blunder had he made? A good thing she was fond of him, or even standing in the doorway might have been dangerous.

Velona had no trouble figuring out what he was thinking. “Don’t worry about it. You told me things I needed to know. I did and the goddess did. Who knows? Maybe she even led you here.”

Even though he’d begun to realize they didn’t always fit in this world, Hasso clung to the rational, orderly patterns of thought he’d brought from the one that bred him. “How can she did that if she is here with you? If she is here in you?” he asked.

By the way Velona looked at him, the question had never occurred to her. The idea that there could be a question had never occurred to her. “She is the goddess. She can do anything she pleases,” she said, as if stating an axiom of geometry.

How am I supposed to argue with that? he wondered, and then, Why do I want to argue with it? What would have happened to someone who argued about the Virgin Birth with a bishop in the tenth century? Hasso didn’t know, not in detail, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. He was sure of that. “All right,” he said quickly.

Too quickly. Velona knew he wasn’t in the habit of backing down. “You don’t believe it,” she said.

“I not say that,” Hasso protested.

“I didn’t say you said it. I said you believed it.” Velona turned toward the altar. “If the goddess wanted to make that rise up in the air, she could.”

It weighed several hundred kilos. If it was going to rise up in the air, the goddess had to lift it. If she didn’t, nothing this side of a massive block and tackle would. Hasso was going to make a polite noise of agreement and escape the argument when he realized Velona wasn’t paying any attention to him. Again, he had the feeling he was standing too close to where lightning had just crashed down. Power filled her. He watched it happen, as if he could watch a battery taking a charge. She pointed at the altar again, this time with an air of command.

And it rose about half a meter into the air.

That was impossible. Hasso knew as much. He also knew that what he knew wasn’t worth as much as he thought – convoluted, but true. Velona lowered her hand, and the altar descended, too. The stones under it creaked as they took up the weight again.

“You see?” Velona said. Did the goddess still resonate in her voice? Maybe a little.

“I see,” Hasso agreed. Did astonishment still resonate in his voice? He knew damn well it did. Fear- sweat prickled at his armpits. Velona was a hell of a high-powered woman all by herself. When you added in the other…

“If you see, what do you have to say now?” She sounded like herself again. Like herself, yes, but proud of what she and the goddess had done.

“Why she not do that to Bucovin?” Hasso asked. “Pick up, then drop and smash?”

Velona started to answer, then suddenly stopped. She looked very human then, human and confused. “I don’t know, Hasso Pemsel,” she said after that longish pause. “That is the goddess’ truth, and she keeps it to herself. I’ve prayed. All the Lenelli have prayed. The power to do that doesn’t seem to be there. Maybe she wants us to overcome the challenge on our own. Some people think so.”

“Maybe Bucovin has a power, too,” he suggested.

By the way she looked at him, he’d said something stupid. “Bucovin is full of Grenye. Grenye have no power. That’s what makes them Grenye.” Again, it sounded like a geometry lesson.

“Why Lenelli not beat Bucovin by now, then?” Hasso asked.

“Some of it’s bad luck,” Velona answered. “Some of it… Well, we’ve been on this side of the sea a while now. The Grenye in Bucovin have had all that time to learn to fight the way we do. And some of it… some of it, I can’t tell you the reason. That’s why I went to Bucovin – to try to find out.”

“But no luck?” Hasso said.

“Well, some luck,” she said. “I found you, didn’t I? If you’re not a gift from the goddess, I don’t know what you are.”

“I am a man,” Hasso said.