Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles) (14 page)

“Świętowit is an old Slavic god of war and divination. There are slightly different spellings and pronunciations of his name depending on which Slavic country you’re in, but he was—or is—important to Polish pagans like ourselves.”

“And he had a white horse. Did he lose it or did somebody steal it?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Why is the horse important? Why isn’t Świętowit looking for him?”

“We are not sure Świętowit is still alive, actually. But we believe that the horse is.”

It appears that there are no quick answers to my questions, since I’m missing context. “You’d better start at the beginning.”

Malina turns to one of her coven with overlarge glasses and a thicket of frizzy, dirty blond hair tamed into a thick ponytail. “Roksana, you’re better at this sort of thing. Will you give her the condensed version?”

“With pleasure.” She smiles primly and swings her giant peepers in my direction. “To the northwest, off the coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea, there is an island called Rügen.”

“Really? Named after Count Rugen, the six-fingered man?”

“What? No. Named after the Rujani people, a Slavic tribe that occupied it from the ninth to twelfth centuries. The current name is a German corruption.”

“Oh.”

“On the northeastern tip of the island, at Cape Arkona, there was a fortified cult site called Jaromarsburg. They had a temple there to the god Świętowit. It was the last outpost of Slavic paganism before the Danish king laid siege to it in 1168 and defeated the Rujani. The Danes burned down the temple and the carved idol of Świętowit and forced everyone into Christianity afterward. The Rujani were eventually assimilated into the Germanic tribes nearby, and their language died out in a couple of centuries. But what happened to Świętowit and his horse is what we wish to find out. They disappeared.”

“You mean they were physically present at Jaromarsburg?”

“Perhaps not Świętowit himself. But his horse was, until—we are guessing—immediately before the Danish invasion.”

“And how do you know this if it was almost a thousand years ago?”

“The priests of Świętowit were using the horse to divine victory or defeat in battle. Had the horse been present before the invasion, they would have known about their imminent defeat and abandoned the site.”

“Forgive me, but I’m not sure that follows. Men have been known to be stupid on occasion and not listen to sense when their pride is on the line. That’s pretty much the history of every war ever.”

The witches stare at me until Klaudia snorts in amusement. She’s the sleepy-eyed sensual one with short, wild hair and a coppery tan. Her lips, soft and poufy like pillows, quirk upward, and they are so beguiling and infinitely kissable that I cannot look away until Malina says, “Klaudia! Stop that.”

“Sorry,” she says, as I blink and shake my head, free of the charm. “But it’s fun to play with the Druids.”

I remember Atticus warning me about their charms and telling me that something very similar had happened to him. I see the pattern: Malina wants me to know that her coven could kick my ass if they wanted, but she doesn’t want to communicate that herself. She has Klaudia do it with those movie-star lips of hers and then disciplines her—very mildly—to give me the impression that she’s the fair one who looks out for my well-being. It’s the friendliest of threats, brandishing a pair of delicious lips instead of a weapon, but it’s still a threat.

“Apologies, Granuaile,” Malina says, and then hurries on before I can escalate her message into a confrontation. “The reason we believe the horse is still around has something to do with Loki, which we thought you might find interesting.”

“Yes, you’re right about that.”

“We haven’t confirmed any of this, but it’s a mysterious pattern of absences, and we think you might be able to confirm it one way or another. After Loki escaped us, thanks to the strange interference of that Finnish god, we began a series of rituals to try to divine his connections to other pantheons. Do you know of the Slavic god Weles?”

“No, sorry.”

“How about Perun?”

“Him I know.”

“Weles is Perun’s nemesis, a sneaky trickster type. The parallel with Thor and Loki is quite clear, in fact. We are fairly certain that Perun is alive but not on this earth.”

“That’s correct. He’s a guest on the Fae planes.”

“Interesting. Thank you. We are less certain about Świętowit. He may be alive but, if so, he’s on a distant plane. He might also be dead. Difficult for us to tell either way from what we’re sensing. But of Weles we get absolutely nothing. He has been hidden somehow so we cannot confirm whether he lives or not, much less his whereabouts.”

“Wait. The Slavic plane was burned by Loki,” I say. “Perun wondered how Loki could have gained access to it.”

Malina nods. “You see what we are thinking. Weles is working with Loki.”

“Loki has a kind of divination shield.”

“We thought as much. We cannot find him either. We are making guesses based on a series of holes where there should be something present.”

“So why would—oh! Maybe a quid pro quo kind of thing is going on. Weles wanted Loki to burn the Slavic plane and almost certainly wanted him to kill Perun. Partially successful there. And Loki hides Weles so that Perun and everyone else will assume he’s dead. But what would Loki want from Weles in return?”

Świętowit and the white horse, of course.”

“Hold on. Are you saying Loki wants the white horse because…?”

“You can ask the white horse if you will win or lose a battle you begin today and it will tell you.”

“Oh, shit!” I cry, as understanding dawns. “He’s using the horse to know when to start Ragnarok!”

“That was our conclusion also. It would be more accurate on matters of war than any other seer. So we want the white horse.”

“Yeah, I think we have the same interests here. We can’t have him endlessly bribing allies until he finds the right combination for victory. If Loki’s going to start something, let him be uncertain about it. Can you not find the horse in your divination?”

“Unfortunately not. It was a long shot to begin with since we didn’t know its name, but we assume Loki has shielded it also. Our best guess is that if you find Świętowit alive, he may be able to tell you where to find his horse. And if they are both dead, then Weles must owe Loki some other service.”

“Where would I begin looking for Świętowit? When was the last time you saw him?”

Malina’s eyes flick to Roksana, and I turn to her for my answer. “We have never seen him,” she says, “nor has anyone in living memory. He has either four heads or four faces on one head, depending on how he manifests. Pretty sure he’d get into the news if he’d been around recently.”

Her dry comment earns a laugh from the coven, but it is marvelous news to my hound.

But he only has one stomach, Orlaith. I’d be worried about four sets of teeth to brush. Or what if he got sick? Four stuffed noses. Ew.

Roksana continues, “I would suggest looking around Jaromarsburg, or speaking with Perun, if you have access to him. He may be able to provide you with some clues.” I nod, thinking I should talk to him in any case. He’d surely be interested to know Weles is likely allied with Loki. It makes more sense than Loki’s assertion that he went after Perun so Ahard simply because he despises thunder gods. There are a buttload of thunder gods in the world’s pantheons. Why single out Perun? He must have had cause. And thinking of causes, I had to question why they were so interested in this horse.

“This is more about giving the finger to Loki than finding the horse, isn’t it?”

The witches all looked to Malina to answer that one. She nodded once. “Both him and Weles. The Zoryas do not often spend much of their time on the Slavic plane but had they been there when Loki set fire to it, they would have been burned. It gives me nightmares. And to think we already had Loki in our power once…” She shook her head. “Well. I would like another chance at that. Or if I can’t have him, at least deny him whatever he desires.”

“All right, then,” I say, and look at Malina. “I find Świętowit or his horse, but preferably the horse, and either bring it to you or confirm it’s dead, and in return you give me a divination cloak.”

“Agreed, but with an amendment: If you find Świętowit dead or alive, we would like to know where he is.”

I extend my hand to her and say, “I accept your proposal.” She shakes it and I smile, because I have a bona fide quest. “If he’s on another plane, I wouldn’t be able to bring him here anyway. Bringing back the horse will be tough enough.”

Malina’s brows draw together. “Why is that?”

“I only have one other headspace in which to carry someone else when I travel the planes. Right now I’ve been using that for Orlaith. I need to memorize a body of work in another language before I can bring someone else along for the ride—it provides structure for the shift because people are put together in specific sequences like words are in literature. I learned how to speak Russian, but so far their literature is pretty dire and gloomy and I haven’t felt like memorizing any of it.”

“Szymborska!” Berta blurts out, and the faces of the other witches light up.

“Yes!” Roksana says, more excited than I’ve seen her. She nods so enthusiastically that I fear for her neck. “You should learn Polish and read Szymborska!”

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Wisława Szymborksa was a Polish poet, and a Nobel Prize winner,” Klaudia explains. “She wrote about small things, details in life that carry great significance. The English translation I saw in America was a good one. Maybe you should try that, and then, if you like her work, learn to read it in Polish.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Malina says. “Szymborska isn’t a dire nihilist.”

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll definitely look into it.” I rise to my feet, eager to get on with it. “I’ll meet you back here when I have something. I’m sure I won’t have to tell you when—you’ll probably know that before I do, haha.”

They laugh politely, but Malina stops me after a couple of steps. “Before you go, Granuaile, might you have any idea about when Mr. O’Sullivan plans to make good on his promise to rid Poland of vampires?”

“Oh, he’s working on it,” I say. “That’s for sure.”

“We know he’s been eliminating vampires elsewhere,” she replies. “But he’s not doing it here, where he said he would.”

“I haven’t seen or spoken to him for a while, but I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten and I’m sure he has a plan.”

“Do remind him for us the next time you speak, won’t you?”

“I will,” I promise. “See you later, Sisters. Enjoy your picnic.”

Orlaith asks as we return to the tree.

Germany. You know they have sausages in vending machines there?

I
didn’t tell Oberon how worried I was about him as I ran the bathwater. I just reminded him not to lick his chops until I said it was safe and to let me know if he felt any pain. I’d had to trigger my healing charm already to combat ichor poisoning; a couple of Diana’s bone splinters had cut my skin, and the insidious stuff had entered my bloodstream. Trace amounts like that I could take care of, but if Oberon ingested a mouthful I’d be hard pressed to deal with that.

Sam and Ty had one of those detachable showerheads with a ringed metal hose that visually suggested a steel caterpillar. Turning the water on full blast to get the most pressure I could, I told Oberon to close his eyes so I could focus on his snout first.

he protested, and squirmed as the water assaulted his snout and began to sluice the ichor away.

“Keep still, buddy. We have to get this off you quickly.”

“It’s worse than that.”

“I’m working on it, Oberon.”

“All right, we’re heading back in time to seventeenth-century France, at the court of Louis the Fourteenth.”

“What?”

fourteen times
?”>

“I don’t think he was embarrassed about it. He was the king.”

The court of a king is littered with pages waiting to do small errands for the nobility. You’re tripping over them quite often, and someone has to train them how to get out of the way and conduct themselves properly. That task fell to the father of our heroine, who trained his daughter with all the pages of the court to fence and take insult and give it right back. Her name was Julie d’Aubigny, and she was married very young to a man named Maupin, who was sent to the south of France for work while she remained in Paris. She was known as Mademoiselle Maupin after that, a famous opera singer, lover, and duelist.

She often dressed as a man but did not disguise her face or do anything else to pretend she was actually male; she sang for her supper in local taverns and participated in fencing exhibitions with a man she traveled with for a while. But when she tired of him, she began a torrid affair with a young woman, and eventually her lover’s family found out and decided to solve what they saw as a problem by sending the young woman to a convent. Mademoiselle Maupin did not give up, however—she was in love. She applied to this convent in Avignon herself, taking her vows and reuniting with the young woman. She immediately began plotting their escape and came up with a simple plan: Set something on fire. What she set on fire was the body of another nun—already dead—in the bed of her young lover, thereby covering their escape. They had another three months of passion together before their own flame flickered out and the girl returned to her family. Mademoiselle Maupin, in the meantime, was charged with arson and body snatching, the penalty for which was to be burned alive. She never faced those charges, though—she got pardoned by Louis XIV later, thanks to her connections at court.