Authors: Kelly Mccullough
Tags: #Computer Hackers, #Magic, #Fantasy Fiction, #Computers, #Contemporary, #General, #Fantasy, #Wizards, #Fiction
Codespell (6 page)
“Still trailing after the Raven,” she said to Cerice.
“You know my reasons,” said Cerice, though she curtsied deeply.
“And fault them just as I did when last we talked. Come home, child. You are a creature of order; we all know that.” She included me with a glance. “Your habits and your nature may war with your heart for a time, but what you are must eventually win against what you wish you could be. That’s true no matter what you’ve put on your life lists most recently. ”
I winced inwardly. I loved Cerice, but Clotho had a point, several actually. Cerice could hack and crack with the best of them, but that wasn’t where her greatest skills lay. Those were in programming: ground-up, huge-scale, hideously complex coding. She had a mind tuned for organization and fine control. She planned everything, always had, and probably always would despite protestations that the best things in her life had come from surprises.
I think it hit home for Cerice, too, because she didn’t answer Clotho back, just looked at her feet.
“Return to your proper place, Cerice.” Clotho’s voice was gentle, almost regretful. “You cannot live as a consort of chaos for long without tearing yourself apart. I don’t want that. You are my grandchild, and whatever words and deeds have come between us, I still love you. Fate needs programmers like you, especially now with Necessity so badly damaged by . . . recent events.”
That was gentler than I would have expected, considering it was through the agency of Shara, Cerice’s familiar, that Necessity had come to grief.
“I can’t,” whispered Cerice, still not looking up.
“You must, child. Your familiar is the key to accessing and repairing Necessity, and you are the one best suited to work with her and us to bring everything to rights. A job waits for you on Fate’s staff, an important job. You do see that, don’t you?”
“I . . .”
“At least talk with me. See what we need, what you can do.”
Cerice turned to me, her expression imploring.
“It’s your decision,” I said, “and your House. When you resigned your position, you didn’t renounce your family, and I would never ask that of you.”
Clotho looked sharply at me, and for the briefest instant I thought I saw surprise in her eyes. But that was impossible, she was a Fate, and even if it were
possible
to startle her, she would never betray herself so. Besides, while I might be beyond the direct control and monitoring of the Fates, Cerice was no power. They still held her life thread in their hands. I answered the expression anyway.
possible
to startle her, she would never betray herself so. Besides, while I might be beyond the direct control and monitoring of the Fates, Cerice was no power. They still held her life thread in their hands. I answered the expression anyway.
“I did not renounce my family either, Clotho, only one part of Fate’s policy.
My
family renounced
me
. Surely you remember that. You were there.” My words tasted cold and bitter, almost as cold and bitter as the memory.
My
family renounced
me
. Surely you remember that. You were there.” My words tasted cold and bitter, almost as cold and bitter as the memory.
“I remember,” said Clotho. “Do you remember who gave you the name ‘Raven’ when my sister took back your old one?”
I wanted to say “Necessity” since it was the Fate of the Gods who’d ultimately ordered it, but the words had come from Clotho’s lips at the time and I knew she had not begrudged them.
“I remember.” I grinned. “Though, with all the trouble it’s brought me, I’m not entirely certain I should thank you for it.”
She nodded. “Good enough. Cerice? Fates don’t beg. Talk to me?”
“All right,” said Cerice, slipping free of Zeus’s arm.
“There,” said Zeus, “aren’t families great?” He gave my shoulder a squeeze as he led me onward.
A few minutes later, Zeus was toasting me at the big table. A few minutes after that, I was being mobbed by everyone who wanted to get on Zeus’s good side. The toasts kept coming, and my glass acted like a horn of plenty—bounteous and bottomless. Zeus wandered off with the naiad somewhere in there. I saw Persephone again, and she smiled but didn’t approach me.
An hour went by, and things began to get blurry. Cerice didn’t return. I was somewhere between worried and miffed about that, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. More toasts. More time. Still no Cerice.
“Boss, wake up.”
Huh? That didn’t make sense. I hadn’t gone to sleep. What was Melchior talking about?
“Come on, snap out of it.”
I noticed it was very dark and opened my eyes. Flickering white on white. The marble head table, reflecting the torches that had taken over now that the sun had gone. I lifted my head and looked around. It hurt. A lot. The party was still going, but things had changed. The A-list had departed for other venues, leaving behind a motley assortment of centaurs, chimeras, harpies, and other less easily identifiable creatures. A sphinx had taken over bar duty.
“What happened?” I asked, putting a hand to my forehead. I don’t normally drink to excess, but when I do, passing out is very rarely on the menu.
Melchior rolled his eyes. “Three guesses. It’s probably time to go home.”
That made sense. “Where’s Cerice?”
“I don’t know,” said Melchior. “I haven’t seen her for hours. She didn’t come back from talking to Clotho.”
Oh. And Clotho was clearly not here. I put my head down again, and my shirt tore with a sharp
zripping
sound. It had turned into that kind of day. I reached for my glass.
zripping
sound. It had turned into that kind of day. I reached for my glass.
A second
zripp
.
zripp
.
I felt it in my shoulder, like someone had punched me. Alarm bells went off in my fuzzy head. Something was terribly wrong.
Another
zripp
, this one followed by a crack as somebody kicked me in the back of the ribs.
zripp
, this one followed by a crack as somebody kicked me in the back of the ribs.
Melchior was gone from the table in front of me, yelling something unintelligible and diving over the edge to land between the table and fountain.
Zripp.
Fire bloomed in my right elbow. Not broken, but very close. My brain finally caught up to the situation. Silencer. Gun. If not for the Kevlar lining in my leathers I’d have been leaking.
Fire bloomed in my right elbow. Not broken, but very close. My brain finally caught up to the situation. Silencer. Gun. If not for the Kevlar lining in my leathers I’d have been leaking.
I followed Melchior, going under the table rather than over.
“Did you see—”
He nodded. “Dairn.”
Why wasn’t I surprised?
CHAPTER THREE
“Now what?” asked Melchior, as another bullet struck near us.
“Good question.” I looked around. “How about this for a start?”
Rolling onto my back, I braced my booted feet against one edge of the table and pushed it over. An eight-foot slab of marble more than an inch thick, it was five hundred pounds if it was an ounce, but the children of the Fates are stronger than humans. That put a thin wall of stone between us and Dairn, and the next bullet ricocheted off it with a sharp crack.
“Any sign of the cavalry?” I asked Melchior.
“Nope. No rent-a-clops. No Athena. And no storm clouds.”
“Figures.” The last incident involving guns and Olympus had been caused by Cerice and me and the response had involved all three. “Why is it that security only shows up when I’m the one breaking the rules?”
“You’re just special, I guess. I suppose we might as well take advantage of that.”
He grinned and whistled the first bar of the magical program that opened the pocket of space-time where he’d hidden my weapons. But even as he was doing so, a loud whistled counterpoint came from the other side of the table, joining with and then overriding his spell. As the two tones merged into one, Melchior let out an odd warble. Then he went rigid, tipped over onto his back, and lay there emitting a short repeating loop of garbage binary.
Suddenly I was sweating. Melchior is an amalgam of creature and computer, with some of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Dairn had just exploited the computer side of the equation and induced a crash by adding false input to the program he was running. It was an incredible hack, especially since he’d done it on the fly. Well, at least I thought that was what he had done. I couldn’t be sure because I’d never seen anything like it.
“Come on out and play,” Dairn’s voice called. “Leave the doll out of it. Or are you too weak a hacker to live without your little crutch?”
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I reached behind Mel’s right ear to find the little wart there, his programmer’s switch. I gently twisted and pushed, holding it down until I heard the chime of a hard reboot. That would bring him back online, but it would take time. Time I wasn’t sure I had.
Things had gone downhill very fast, and I didn’t understand it at all. The Dairn I knew—call him Dairn 1.0—was no sorcerer, never had been. He couldn’t have hacked his way out of a stopped elevator using the “open door” button. Dairn 2.0 was a gods-damned programming wizard, and I didn’t know thing one about the upgrade process.
Dairn called out again. “Make a decision, Raven. Are you going to come out and face me, or do I have to come in after you?”
“Do I get a third choice?” I asked, stalling for time.
I
could
work magic without Melchior, but it would either be much cruder or much more dangerous, depending on whether I went for whistling my own binary or using the Raven’s still largely untested powers over chaos. I didn’t like either choice.
could
work magic without Melchior, but it would either be much cruder or much more dangerous, depending on whether I went for whistling my own binary or using the Raven’s still largely untested powers over chaos. I didn’t like either choice.
Dairn laughed. “Now there’s an idea I hadn’t thought of. You do have a knack for this stuff, cousin.” He whistled a quick self-harmonizing air in something closer to hex than binary.
The table I’d put between us shimmered and puffed into smoke. Dairn was standing about ten feet away, holding a .45 automatic casually in one hand. That would have been a perfect moment for the Olympian security force to arrive and explain Zeus’s policy on guns to my cousin, ideally beating it out on his skull in binary with their nightsticks. No such luck. He pointed the gun at my chest and gestured for me to stand. I did so, picking Melchior up with my left hand and my fallen drink with my right.
Dairn raised an eyebrow at me. “What are you planning to do, toast me to death?”
“No.” I righted the empty glass and it refilled itself, as I had hoped it might. “I could just use a drink.”
“Enjoy it,” said Dairn. “It’s going to be your last.”
“Thanks.”
I took a long sip, though I didn’t taste it. The cavalry hadn’t arrived, and Melchior was several minutes away from fully functional. I was on my own. Casually, as though I didn’t have a care in the world, I half turned.
“Opa!” I said, throwing my glass into the fountain as if I wanted to shatter it on the bottom.
It hit with a huge splash, and ripples moved away from the point of impact. I bit the side of my mouth, hard.
“Any last words?” asked Dairn.
I shook my head, afraid the blood would slur my speech and give him a premature warning.
“Then I guess it’s good-bye.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him raise the pistol to point at my head. The Kevlar wouldn’t save me this time. The ring of ripples had almost touched the wall of the fountain. I nodded.
“Good-bye, Dairn.” I said. “I’ll see you in Hades.”
Then I closed my eyes and spat into the fountain. The flash of the explosion was huge and blinding. If I hadn’t braced myself, it would have thrown me off my feet. Even then, the pressure wave hit me like a giant’s slap. I don’t know what it did to Dairn, but he didn’t shoot me in that instant, and I didn’t stay around to see how fast he’d recover. Instead, I leaped over the low side of the fountain into elsewhere.
It all comes down to chaos. My ancestors, the primal gods who gave birth to the whole Greek pantheon, were the Titans. They formed themselves from chaos, and chaos flows in the veins of their children and their children’s children unto the last generation.
A faerie ring is a very special sort of chaos magic, a hole punched in reality. The easiest way for one of the descendants of the Titans to make one is to create a circle and charge it with his own blood. The more perfect the circle, the easier it is to form a ring. Likewise, the more chaotic the nature of the sorcerer, the more powerful the ring. Few circles are more perfect than a wave created by an object dropped in water, and the Raven is a power of chaos. Hence the bang and the flash.
Haemun was waiting for me on the balcony of Raven House. Time does not run evenly from DecLocus to DecLocus, so I stepped from late night into late morning with the shift. The tropical sun beat heavily upon my shoulders, and I handed Melchior to Haemun so I could strip off my leather jacket.
“Is Cerice here?” I asked.
Haemun shook his head. I wasn’t surprised really. At the moment the only practical way to reach Raven House was via faerie ring, and Cerice had never used one on her own. Still, I’d had hopes. Haemun and I exchanged burdens as Melchior feebly began stirring.
“Can I get you anything?” asked Haemun.
“How about a virgin strawberry daiquiri?” I’d had enough of alcohol for a while. “Oh, and some shorts and a fresh shirt?”
“Certainly, sir. Might I also suggest some batteries for Melchior?”
“Good idea. Thanks.”
In the old days, Melchior had drawn most of his power from the omnipresent mweb itself, power the mweb servers channeled from the Primal Chaos, the driver of all magic. That was before the problem with Necessity and the tearing of the net. Now, as often as not, we spent time in DecLoci that had no mweb connection, and Melchior had to find alternate supplies. He preferred the chemical energy found in food but processed it much more slowly than the stuff from a direct electrical source. His movements were becoming firmer, more deliberate, so I carried him into the open porch that backed the balcony.
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