Chapter 43 – Venera
The walk from Vanaheimer to Vanera took longer but was less mentally arduous than the walk to Vanaheimer had been. We knew to use the shuffling steps from the beginning; we knew what to anticipate; we weren't quite so light for the final quarter of our journey. Venera had only two portals, both on-and-off variety.
We set up camp on the far side of the second portal. This was the side closest to Earth and it seemed more legitimate that we should be on this side. I knew that Harry didn't want us to enter Venera. I was surprised to find that Odin felt the same level of caution. "The other worlds have had little contact with Venera in recent years. Partly it's more than a little unpleasant to visit: hot, humid, heavy, and with fetid smells everywhere. Partly, the Venerans discourage visitors and have rarely visited any of the other Covenant worlds. That's an arrangement which has worked well for all of us. The Venerans don't look like the rest of us. When Asgard had more scientists than it does today, there were heated arguments whether the Venerans derived from the same original human stock as the other Covenant worlds. Many thought that their unusual appearance was an adaptation, over the course of many millennia, to their unpleasant world. I've been around for quite a few millennia and have noticed little change in them. It would be best to limit our explorations to what our birds can tell us. Too disruptive and even dangerous for the rest of us to venture onto that world."
If it was that potentially dangerous to encounter the Venerans, with as provocatively large…, well what else would it look like other than a small army, that we had assembled,
then I didn't intend to stay here any longer than necessary. I dispatched one flight of ravens by each of the portals. I kept Fawkes in reserve. I readily admitted to Hermione that part of the incentive to explore both portals at once was that it limited the amount of boredom just lying around waiting for the birds to return. Hermione seemed to think this a minor weakness on my part. "My preference would have been to use what we learned from the first flight of ravens to better plan the second flight, but you're in charge."
Perhaps she was just annoyed that I had made that decision without asking my Muse for her view. That probably was a dumb thing to do. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Hermione already knew a lot more about Venera than I did. When I laid around or chit chatted at times like this, she tended to engage in serious discussion with Odin and, before that with Frijjo and Vili. She talked to Miomor even more than Dad and Prudence had. That reminded me to find out from Harry what Prudence was up to, now that the Wales school was closed, and others had decided she wasn't the optimal candidate to be Steven Lester's tutor. I laid back on the ribbon and messaged Harry. We were still out of time from Harry. All I could do was leave an encouraging message that the travel hadn't been too bad and that we were safely camped at Venera's door. I also asked my question.
Hermione came over and sat beside me. "Don't blame me. I thought it prudent to save some interesting things to discuss, when you found yourself in a bored, blue, funk like this. There aren't a lot of bits of joy on a trip like this. Even Cissy pronounced it 'not exactly a fun adventure'. Anyway, I've been saving the report from my professor uncles. The time device I brought back from the very old circle in the Cavern of the Goblins showed an age of 10,500 years, give or take five hundred years. Carbon-14 dating showed the scrolls to be 50 years old, give or take ten years. Isn't that remarkable? King Gobbledygook certainly thought it was. He is now hoping against hope that his family scrolls arrived in recent times through the same travel through time. I told him that I thought this unlikely. He is determined to travel back in time to search for them."
Oh! Did Hermione really think I was so unstable and given to moroseness that this sort of manipulation was required. I couldn't imagine what I might have done differently if given this information sooner, but still felt that she had somehow lessened this mission's odds for success by holding back this information.
As if reading my mind, she continued "You must admit that you can get moody. You also withhold information. I'm supposed to, as your Muse, impart facts and wisdom which you may not have at your fingertips and present you with alternative courses of action. You've been deciding without even talking to me."
"I know. I was just thinking that ten minutes ago. I am sorry. I think I got spooked when Odin was so frightened about any of us entering Venera. I didn't think there was anywhere Odin was afraid to go, although he did treat Hel very gingerly. I wanted to get in and out of here as fast as possible. I fear that I also acted to avoid two more whole days of waiting for the birds to return. I admit to feeling a bit funked. I guess I fear being shunted aside and losing the Quest entirely or being removed from it. Percy threw me off stride when he told Harry that we're too kill happy and his diplomacy is the approach Harry should support. I know Harry doesn't want us in as much danger as we've seen. Ron feels the same. I fear they are going to make us choose Questing or our marriages. Then I worry that I've become as much of an adventure junkie as Cissy."
"I think the lads have taken the Quest surprisingly well. I expected far more pushback, especially for this trip which could equally well have been performed by aurors, although I suppose Odin would not have been as helpful if we weren't here. Harry knows we need to learn a lot more. It will make all of us safer and strengthen our community. A clash of wills with Percy is inevitable. Your father jerked him around to give more power to Prudence. He wasn't in all that much less danger than we were on Vanaheimer, and I'm sure he worries about Callista. I think she's less of a fighter than I am. We wouldn't be here if Harry didn't support you as leader of this mission. I know it bothers you not to be leading the scout team. It's a lot harder to hide us than to hide the birds or Aagog. It's a far bigger incident if we get caught. Harry and Ron trust us. Part of that is trusting you to act as sensibly as you have. We should not be on Venera now."
"You're my friend as well as my Muse. Please tell me, have I become power mad? Am I the worst adventure junkie ever? Do I really try to over-compete with my husband and brother and take over what are properly their roles."?
"No, I've never thought that. You are an active person. Like Harry, you can't bear to delegate risks to others. You feel oppressed by the burden of responsibility for the lives of those who chose to Quest with you, which causes you to always want to be in the most exposed lead position. Hogwarts forced you to become a fighter rather than a student. It was worse your sixth year than any year Harry, Ron, and I were there. It's left a psychic wound that is hard to heal. Questing has made healing even tougher. I took hope from how much you, even more than me, rebelled at the whole idea of Questing, of having to name someone as the first to die position. That is still who we are. We seek knowledge, not power. We willingly suffer to help other innocents who need our help. We have always tried our best to do good. All our rebellions were revolts against being forced to do bad. I know you are trying to be a good Light Guardian priestess. Percy was very wrong to characterize us as killers. That was Frijjo, not us."
"Thank you, that makes me feel a little better. I should talk to you more. I should seek your advice as I did before. I've been forcing myself to think more and not lean on you for so much. It seemed the necessary thing to do. Yggdrasil and Odin have told me I must do that. That I use you as a crutch and that this stunts my development. I have been trying to figure out something very difficult. I am bothered by the purple diamonds. I've searched my Light Guardian knowledge and talked to Yggdrasil. You understand some physics. I don't. Yggdrasil tried to explain some possibilities to me, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me. It seems to me that going back in time doubled the number of purple diamonds. We still had the necklace with the smallest of the Vanir purple diamonds, then ancient Yggdrasil gave you all four diamonds, including that one. I put my hand into my pocket to check. I still had the necklace. I felt the diamond with my finger. How is that even possible?"
"I don't think it is. That has also worried me. Do you still have the necklace?"
I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to her. She pulled the two natural purple diamonds from her pocket.
"What if they never were natural?" I blurted. "You've made a lot of almost perfect copies. What if very long ago, somebody or something had that skill?"
The birds finally returned. Their condition was awful, and it appeared as though they barely made it back. Cissy reported that her bird had not returned. Flying on this world must be very difficult. We hastened to view the birds' memories, hoping to learn what had gone wrong.
They had found a pyramid near the portal we were camped next to and what looked like a huge, squat temple or government building next to the other portal. Both had a daytime stream of people, people who vaguely resembled our kind, streaming in and out of them. It was clear that two of them had spotted one of the birds, when it tried to sneak closer to get a better look at them. Unlike what the birds had reported from any other world, I didn't see a single native bird. Our birds had covered a wide area. They had flown over what looked like fields of ripe grain. Surely, they should have spotted a native bird. Perhaps there were none.
"We've got to get out of here, before somebody comes looking for us," I told the others.
Hermione and Odin did not disagree. We packed very quickly, while also policing our camp to make sure we left nothing behind. I felt relieved when we rounded a curve in the ribbon, which took us out of sight from either of the Venera portals. After that, we slowed our pace. I didn't even realize how fast we had been forcing ourselves to shuffle along, but we were moving a third slower than before. Not exactly fear, but the strong desire to avoid a needless battle, can do that. Nine hours of shuffle-marching brought us to the first of Earth's portals. It was an out-only port. As we began to sidle close enough to the portal to figure out where and when it might disgorge us, Barb grabbed my arm, telling me it was urgent that we speak.
"If the Vanir or the Vanerans choose to come to Earth, it is important that our defences be as strong as possible. This group may not be strong enough. What we need is a lookout an hour back along the path toward Venera. It must be someone who can raise an alert through our Black Stone or Yggdrasil. I just successfully talked to both. We are standing only about a year in our past, by the way. I propose that we start with two lookouts alternating twelve-hour shifts. I'm an auror. I know that I can handle that schedule and its level of boredom."
I conferred with Hermione and Cho. We all thought Barb's plan could make sense, provided we could get into Earth's present, so Harry could have a squad ready to reinforce those of us guarding the ribbon. Some wand arrays would be a plus. Possibly a small bomb or two. When I told Barb all of this and asked if she could recruit the second auror to alternate watches with her, she had a ready response.
"Of course, I can. Prissy will do it. She is honourable, loyal, and I outrank her. On the other point, I asked Yggdrasil to message Harry. He already knows of the need for a rapid response squad with wand arrays. He or Ron or the Director may think of the bombs on their own. I agree with you that we need to find an on-off portal into current Earth time. May I suggest that some of you investigate this portal, while others move on to other portals. An off-only portal like this one doesn't meet our needs, even though we do need to know where it could dump out invaders."
A quick group meeting met with nearly universal agreement. Cissy led a group of four to investigate the portal we were standing at, Barb began to walk to her sentry post, while the rest of us moved forward. Since her team wouldn't be able to exit and re-enter this portal, Hermione gave Cissy a camera to capture as much information for future identification as possible.
The rest of us had a few minutes' walk to the next portal, which was of the in-and-out variety. As we moved closer to the portal, it quickly became clear that we were overlooking Jerusalem. I recognised the scene from our visit to ICW headquarters. Yael confirmed my identification.
"Yes, of course it's Jerusalem. That must be why the ICW is here. I can tell from little changes that we are within five years of the present we left. I suspect you want to try leaving the ribbon here and seeing whether you can get back onto the ribbon-between-worlds from here, especially since you'll be making more frequent visits to the ICW. We don't want to leave the ribbon here - way too many people and security cameras on the Temple Mount, not to mention soldiers. You mentioned travel by local ribbon. Can we go somewhere less conspicuous."?
I thought we could. Never having done that before, I couldn't be certain. We moved closer to the portal, searching all around us for a local travel ribbon. None of us saw one. As we moved almost right up to the portal, Hermione called out: "I think I see another ribbon beyond the portal. It looks like we can just climb through the portal."
Yes, it did. And, yes, we could. We turned right as soon as we stepped onto the ribbon, since this seemed to lead away from the heart of the city. After a short while, Yael shouted "here, this looks like a nice deserted spot."
I looked all around us. It seemed deserted and this was about as dark as streets got around here. We hopped off the ribbon. Yael moved us into the shadows and around the next corner. I followed her as soon as I had fixed our departure point from the ribbon clearly in my mind. I had no sooner turned the corner that I ran almost smack into two soldiers, who demanded to see my passport.
"She's with me," Yael boldly declared. "She has a passport, but her identity is a state secret."
The soldiers looked worried. Yael handed them a card. They dialed their cellphones. After a short discussion out of our hearing, the soldier with the cellphone returned and told us that we could be on our way. We turned to walk back to the ribbon, but the soldiers were following us. We stopped to let them catch up. As Yael asked "well?" I performed a silent "Off!". Yael searched pockets, quickly finding a printed sheet of paper, which must have been what she sought. "Their daily update. I think we are within a day of the proper time"
Hermione and I Obliviated and Confunded them and we were ready to be on our way. "You can't leave them here like this. They're defenceless," Yael objected.
"If I reverse the 'Off!', won't we be right back where we started, with these two demanding our passports?"
"Can you reverse the 'Off' from a distance?"
I thought I could do that magic from three hundred feet away. I didn't know how much farther was possible. I did know that we needed to prop them up against a wall if I was to have any chance of hitting them from that range. We did that moving them up against a building, then crossing the street and walking perhaps five hundred feet to the next corner. When we reached the corner, I pointed my wand back at them and used a spell assisted by Little Ba'al's circle. We wasted no time fast walking back to the point where we had left the travel ribbon.
I told Yael that I wasn't certain that we could side-Apparate her onto the travel ribbon or from that ribbon to the God ribbon. Odin had anticipated that we would be unable to do this with a nonmagical British soldier, but I thought that even though we hadn't yet taught her to Apparate, that she was magical, so it would probably work. If not, she could travel to ICW headquarters or her office. We would fetch her when we returned.
We side-Apparated Yael onto the ribbon, then all three of us linked arms and Hermione Apparated us back through the portal and back onto the God ribbon-between-Worlds. Cissy was waiting for us. That was the first half of an important experiment, successfully completed. I excitedly told Odin what we had done. He just said "stupid!" and walked away. He turned to face us again and told me "it's a good thing you are so lucky."
Cissy excitedly approached us. "We didn't leave the ribbon. The portal is above a narrow, flat plain with mountains all around. I took pictures of the mountains, as well as the plain. I think Hermione's professors should be able to identify the location by computer. I saw a smaller, probably local, ribbon right beyond the portal. I could have reached through and touched it but was afraid I couldn't get my arm back.
"Dangerous thought, correct decision," Hermione sort-of praised her judgment. As we continued our explorations, we discovered that Earth also had in-and-out portals at what Hermione assured us was Mount Olympus in Greece and at Hogwarts. There was a final out-only portal located at what Hermione described as "the sacred Hawaiian mountain with the telescopes, I don't remember the name.' That gave Earth more portals than any other world.
We set up our garrison just on the Venera side of the first Earth portal, the in-only portal on the plain surrounded by mountains. Hermione, Cho, Cissy, and I had to return to the Hogwarts pyramid to meet with Harry and his government, before we traveled on to Unicorn World turned into Dark God World. We requested that Odin not come with us and he agreed. This was partially for confidentiality if government secrets needed to be discussed and partly because we wanted to tell our story ourselves, without corrections from Odin.
Odin drew Hermione and me aside for a brief chat, before we departed. I'm sorry, if I seemed abrupt before, but there were dangers you didn't realize and should have asked about, after I warned you of the dangers of side-Apparation. I know you considered that Yael would be fine in her own capital city if you couldn't get her back onto the God ribbon. It was wise to test that on your own world. What you didn't know is that the results can be grotesquely worse than just leaving her behind. You and Hermione are both very powerful Witches and I'm sure you tied into a circle or your Black Stone to give yourselves maximum magical strength and odds of success, but... Yael is magical, but not strongly magical and with very little magical training. You and Hermione could have arrived on the God ribbon with a Yael arm for each of you and poor Yael standing back on the local ribbon wondering what happened to the rest of her.."
Oh!
