The Wager, Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Ου με πείσεις, καν με πείσεις¹

 

In a well-apportioned mansion in Dublin, an old woman ran a hand idly over her desk. “I do not see how helping an Englishman helps Eire,” she said, finally, “and I see no reason we should interfere.”

 

Aiobheal sighed inwardly; this conversation was going much as she had feared it might. But she had no choice but to persist; she was not strong enough to free Adam on her own. It had taken some time to gain an audience with the High Queen; The Morrígan would have to help her; if not, she had no time to find someone else.

 

“Highness, Adam White is not English. He is American.”

 

“English, English colonist, it matters not. It still has nothing to do with us.”

 

“He is prisoner of The Adversary, Highness. We have an obligation to fight evil, aye?”

 

“Aye, we do, but only when it affects an Irishman.”

The Wager, Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά (Πλάτων, Πολιτεία)¹

The city of Mopti stood on three islands in the Niger River. In the narrow streets of the dense city, vendors busily readied themselves for the tourists and townsfolk who would soon crowd the streets. Aside from being unusually beautiful, the young woman walking down the streets toward the port did not draw particular notice, despite not being African; those that did notice assumed she had come from the north on a trip to see the Inland Delta; many Moroccans, Algerians, and Egyptians did, and even a few Europeans would show up from time to time. Mali had been stable for almost two decades – enough time to begin to slowly break free from the stereotypes about Sub-Saharan Africa’s neverending political turmoil.

The woman walked a good long way, until she reached the outskirts of the city; she was heading toward a house on a corner of one of the islands, one that was well-appointed by the standards of the city. She reached the door around mid-day; she supposed she could have come here by a more direct route, but the walk had given her time to think. And it did not tire her. Nothing could.

She reached to knock at the door, when a slight hissing noise drew her attention. She turned to her left, and saw a nine-foot-long python. The great serpent drew itself up, until its head was almost even with hers. And then, it did a most peculiar thing.

It bowed.

The Wager: Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

 

Aνάγκᾳ δ’οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται¹

 

Queen Aoibheal of Thomond streaked through the morning sky, headed southwest, toward a smallish suburb of Houston, in the American state of Texas. It was, she thought, the absolute last place on Earth she would expect to be heading.

 

It was not that Aoibheal had never left Éire; like any Fay Goddess, she had been ’round the world and deep in the heavens and through the back beyond far more times than she could count. But that said, she had little reason to leave the southwest corner of the Emerald Isle these days. But the God who had asked her was persuasive, and she owed his family much.

 

As she traversed the turbulent jet stream, she mused on the conversation they had enjoyed, not long after dawn.

 

“Well, by Auberon’s crown, ’tis Eros!” she’d exclaimed, flying up to meet the eye of the beautiful giant. Well, to be fair, he was sized as a mortal human, and he offered quickly to drop to her scale; she demurred. She enjoyed the pretty god’s visage quite enough to entreat him to remain at his height. (Indeed, it would have been easier for her to join him at his height – she was Goddess of Love and Size, after all.)

 

“Your majesty, I have come to ask a favor,” he had said, and he had explained the convoluted dealings his mother, Aoibheal’s rival and friend Aphrodite, had been involved with – and that The Corrupt One had inserted Himself into.

 

“I cannot ask you to go,” he had said. “I cannot ask you to follow Adam White, to work to safeguard him. My mother would be furious if she knew I had asked you. And yet – I believe that the interests of love are best served by you doing exactly that. He is a good man, from what I can find. He honors his wife well.”

The Wager: Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς¹

She drew looks, even here, which did not surprise her; she was enough to make most anyone who lusted for men reconsider. Indeed, on a different night, in a different time, she might have tried to convince on of them to do just that, just for the fun of it. But this was not the night for trifling diversions, no matter how attractive the men making out with each other were. For one thing, she had serious business to attend to. And for another – well, loath as she was to say it, she simply would not be able to compete with the boy at the center of the floor.

 

He was beautiful – olive skin, jet-black hair done just-so, a dangling arrow earring catching the light. He wore a stylish shirt that managed to be loose-fitting and yet show off his toned physique – a gymnast’s build, strong and toned yet supple and lithe. Of course, if the shirt failed, his trousers were tight enough to make the same point, tailored to emphasize that there was a bulge in front of not inconsiderable size.

 

She smiled, watching him dance with a tall, dark man wearing a sleeveless white t-shirt and bulging muscles. It was unfair of her to drop in like this – he was working, after all – but she needed help, and there was nobody she trusted more.

 

She caught his eye, and smiled at the double-take, one of the few she’d absorbed that was not related to her beauty. He wouldn’t be expecting her, of course, not here, not now. But he was a man of good heart, and he would not turn her away. And so he brushed the man’s cheek with a kiss, handed him a folded slip of paper, and danced his way over to her, greeting her with kisses on both cheeks.

 

“Mother! What a lovely surprise!” he said, ebuliently, as he motioned to the bartender for drinks. “What brings you to South Beach?”

The Wager, Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Ποικιλόθρον’, ἀθάνατ’ Ἀφρόδιτα,
παῖ Δίος, δολόπλοκε, λίσσομαί σε
μή μ’ ἄσαισι μήτ’ ὀνίαισι δάμνα,
πότνια, θῦμον·

–Σαπφώ, Θραύσμα 1, “Ύμνος στην Αφροδίτη”

Iridescent-throned Aphrodite, deathless
Child of Zeus, wile-weaver, I now implore you,
Don’t–I beg you, Lady–with pains and torments
Crush down my spirit.

–Sappho, Fragment #1, “Hymn to Aphrodite”

The first thing Adam was aware of was nausea. He doubled over briefly, retching, but nothing came up.

That was when he became aware of darkness.

He struggled to put together what exactly was going on. He had a vague recollection of something…they’d been on the beach. Yeah, they’d been on the beach, and Stephanie wanted to go snorkeling, but she didn’t right away, but he said she should, and then that woman came up with the pen, but it wasn’t a pen, it sprayed something, and then….

…and then he was here. His head throbbed, and his stomach twisted, but he forced himself up into a sitting position, forced his eyes open.

He threw aside some fabric that was draped over him like a blanket, but that didn’t increase the light significantly. He was in a chamber. No – no, not a chamber. He could see on the ceiling the clear zig-zag pattern of a zipper. The light behind it was grayish and dim, so obviously whatever room lay beyond it was not lit up too brightly. Still, it told him he was in a suitcase, or a carry-on. It was too big to be a purse.