‘I feel the danger has passed, as long as you keep your identity to yourself. You have a point, though—the proximity of Bangeesh might jog the wrong person’s memory. We don’t want that.’
Rosette sighed.
‘What about Treeon Temple?’ Nell suggested, her lips curving into a sensual smile. ‘They have an outstanding Sword Master there.’
‘Treeon? Where you trained? Who’s the Sword Master?’
‘An’ Lawrence,’ Nell said evenly.
‘What’s his chart like? Would he be a good teacher?’
‘The sun in the sign of Ceres, conjunct Saturn.’
‘Meticulous. Refined, strong and exacting?’
‘To say the least.’
‘Moon?’
‘Scorpion.’
She whistled. ‘Intense?’
‘Very.’
‘He’d like me?’
Nell murmured, ‘I imagine he would…’
‘And he’s from?’
‘From the east, Rosette—beyond the fields of Corsanon.’ She smiled. ‘He learned his art from the priestesses of Timbali, many years ago.’
‘Before the Corsanon wars?’
‘And during.’
‘Only initiates with great potential can train with Timbali witches. Isn’t that true, Nell? Either that or they’re descendants of the old monarchy…’ She looked at Nell’s lips. Her smile was twitching. ‘Is he of that line?’
Nell nodded.
‘Incredible! I thought they were all dead.’
‘They’re still around, alive and well, trust me. They continue to bond only among their own kind just as they
had before—all arranged in accordance with bloodlines and astrological favour. Kind of makes you think of breeding thoroughbreds, doesn’t it?’ she chuckled.
‘It does take the romance out of it.’ Rosette wrinkled her nose. ‘Is he married?’
Nell shook her head. ‘A free spirit, that one. Anyway, An’ Lawrence is from the ancient line, just like his mother and father before him.’ Nell muttered under her breath, ‘And demons if he doesn’t know it.’
‘Sounds like you two are well acquainted?’
‘Well enough.’
Rosette folded her arms across her chest. ‘There’s a story there, I can see. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going primarily for a sword apprenticeship.’ She picked at her scab again. ‘No point.’
‘Are you certain?’
Rosette’s face tightened. ‘I told you. I’m focusing on the bow, spells and stars.’ She closed her book and stacked the charts into a haphazard pile, fussing with her papers when they refused to order. ‘What’s the big push with the sword training, Nell? I’m not all that interested.’
‘You keep saying that. I don’t believe it, though.’
‘Why not?’ Rosette pushed her chair back and stood up, her hands shoved into her pockets.
‘Because
you
don’t believe it. I see how you look at that practice sword leaning by the door. I watch you transform when you pick it up and spar with Maka’ra or do the forms. I can see into your heart, Rosette, and your heart is with the sword.’
Rosette lowered her eyes. She thought of Nell’s friend, Maka’ra, who sailed across the Emerald Straits once a month from Rahana Iti. He was an island man with dark tattoos on his face and a mean sword arm. He and Nell seemed to have some spells brewing. They were always talking in hushed tones, or disappearing into the woods, but on each visit he would make time
to train with Rosette, teaching her a style of sword she’d never seen before. Her spirit ascended whenever she heard him striding up the path. Nell was right. She loved the sword. Pity she wasn’t better at it.
Nell got up and went to the door. She picked up her own bokken, a practice sword made of rosewood, the hilt carved with circular symbols and runes. She held it out flat with both hands, bowed to her stone altar near the fire and then lifted it overhead, swinging it through the air so fast Rosette saw only a blur. A whistling sound followed and Drayco jumped to his feet, back bristling. Nell’s eyes burned as she stared at her.
‘Pity you aren’t any better?’ Nell roared.
Do you hear what you are saying?
Nell didn’t wait for an answer to her mental query. She put down the bokken and returned to the table.
‘Magic isn’t a competition. Witchcraft, sword-craft, star-craft—none of it is about being good or bad, more or less, better or worse. It is simply about being. Sure, there are levels of competency, and tests and rituals and sparring, but ultimately the magic is energy, just like everything else. You play with it, or not. It is always there in abundance for you. Good or bad? You decide. Energy makes no such distinction.’
Rosette relaxed her face and slid back down into her chair. ‘Okay, Nell. I get it. And I do want to apprentice with the sword. I want it more than anything. I’ve just been afraid…I wouldn’t be good enough.’ She whispered the last few words.
Nell didn’t respond immediately. When she did, she reached across the table and patted Rosette’s hand.
‘Fear is instinctive, my dear. Just don’t forget that in your life you are the one creating how capable you are. If you want something with your whole heart, nothing can stop you. Do you want this with your whole heart?’
Rosette looked up. ‘I do.’
‘Then consider Treeon. There’s much you can learn from An’ Lawrence, and others there.’
‘Will they accept my application?’
‘I know the High Priestess.’
‘Is that in my favour?’
Nell cleared her throat. ‘La Makee and I have a history. It’s not a completely comfortable one. Still, we are on better terms now. Shall I compose a letter to her tonight?’
Rosette took a deep breath. ‘That means I would be leaving soon?’
‘In late autumn, before midwinter solstice, if you’re accepted.’ Nell squeezed her hand. ‘I know you’re restless, Rosette. I also know you love it here.’ She smiled. ‘It’s your choice. Stay or go—this year or the next. Like I said, you decide.’
‘What about my story? What will I tell them of my past? They’re sure to ask.’
‘My experience is, always say what is closest to the truth.’
Rosette looked around the cottage, her eyes resting on her familiar stretched out in front of the crackly fire.
You ready for a change, Dray?
I like to travel. See more of the world.
She laughed.
How do you know? You’ve never been anywhere.
The massive feline yawned.
Are you certain about that, Maudi?
Rosette’s eyebrows went up. She looked back at Nell and smiled. ‘Let’s write the letter!’
K
reshkali closed the door of her apartment and locked it. She was out of breath from the narrow flight of stairs and the change of temperature. The crossings sapped her energy, more and more each time. She removed her long coat and gave it a shake. The rain hadn’t let up nor had the relentless electrical storms that zapped above the city skyline. They never did. Earth’s climate was like an endless nightmare now. When a flash of lightning lit up the windows, she scowled at it.
What good is all this star-lore if I live in a world where I can’t ever see the damn things?
The smog and pollution were enough to block any view of the planets or constellations, but added to that were the clouds filled with acid rain. Daytime was no better. Solar shields had obscured the sunlight for so long that neither tree nor grass could grow any more. ASSIST still had worm-free electrical power, but they were the only ones. Their monopoly on the shields assured it.
And what good’s all the power in the world if nothing can grow?
Rotting husks from long-dead trees still lined the streets, their spongy branches occasionally dropping,
breaking open on the ground to release swarms of termites and cockroaches. If nothing else, the insects thrived.
I should have been an entomologist…much easier than turning tricks.
Kreshkali survived by selling her body on the streets. It wasn’t the most pleasant work, but it kept her hidden. It also connected her to the underworld and a wealth of contraband, including quantum computer texts, grimoire and other occult tomes. If she could elude ASSIST long enough, she’d find a way to destroy the worm and the Allied States with it. If it wasn’t too late to restore Earth’s ecosystems, it would mean freedom for herself and any who cared to join her.
But not you, eh, Jaynan?
She would have to move again. It wouldn’t take long for ASSIST to send more trackers, even if Jaynan hadn’t gotten a message through. Kreshkali closed her eyes, rubbing the back of her neck. She was on her own now.
I trusted you, Jaynan. I showed you the portal, gave you a new life…
After being trapped in a world choking on the entrails of its failing technology, polluted oceans and sadistic government, Kreshkali had found a way out. She’d discovered one of the portals to the many-worlds, and it still worked.
As a child, always in secret, she’d been taught about these doors, her instruction coming to an abrupt halt when her mother was ‘taken’. She was too young to recall the details, but not so young she would ever forget the look on her mother’s face when they dragged her away—entombed for being a ‘witch’. Kreshkali spat.
Raised half-heartedly by a distant relative, Kreshkali had educated herself with the aid of her mother’s secret
library. Hidden behind a wall, the shelves were arranged in ascending order, as if the woman had known her daughter would be learning on her own. Eventually Kreshkali came to study the physics of multiple dimensions in earnest, adding to the library black-market texts that had cost her a small fortune in water-credits to obtain. She’d also learned to practise the arcane arts and the mystery traditions—at great risk to her life.
Everything she did in this world was a potential crime against the Allied States. She was a witch, and for that she’d be killed. Growing up, her main goal in life was to not get caught—not be taken like her mother. That was before she’d found the box. Hidden inside a great tome, a Cantonese-English dictionary, was a message from her mother, written twenty years before. It told of her inheritance, of Docturi Janicia and her charge to continue the work—to find a way to delete the worm and bring the quantum sentient back, if he still existed. There was a horary chart, a map to the portal in the sewers under Half Moon Bay, and there were pages of drawings about the genetic changes in her DNA. She’d found the portal and she’d crossed over to Gaela, but in all her searching, she’d discovered no trace of JARROD.
Had he survived?
She didn’t have the resources or the methodology to build another quantum sentient, even with his backup CPU. If JARROD was gone, that was it until she could find the original Richter journals. Rumour had it they’d all been destroyed at the turn of the century, before the major plate shifts. Her lips twisted into a half smile. Journals or no, she’d need a more sophisticated laboratory than her apartment kitchen to build a quantum computer—not to mention a steady power supply.
She lit another candle, shaking her head. Her only consolation was that no child of hers would ever see her dragged away. She damned ASSIST and the Allied States in her mind. She’d learned the hard way not to do it out loud.
The Allied States—the remaining lands of North America, fragments of the Euro-community, and a few settlements in what was left of India and Japan—competed with each other for every scrap of food and every drop of water left on Earth. The only thing that held them together was military-enforced domination and the threat of attack from any nation not bound by the original constitution. Its governing body had declared martial law at the end of the last century and controlled both the gangland cities and the impoverished outposts, while within the fortresses of ASSIST—a now impenetrable institution from inside or out—no-one knew what went on. The worm still threatened any new software or global wire devised. She suspected ASSIST wanted to keep it that way, at least for now. Would they also be working on the problem of drinking water and lack of sunlight? There might be a way to find out. She looked at her chronometer and noted the exact time. She would draw up the horary chart later, when she was certain she hadn’t been followed. The witch-trackers were an immediate threat, and they were on her trail.
The study of quantum theory had been prohibited, along with the practice of astrology and other occult arts, especially by women. The gender biases prevalent up to the twenty-fourth century had returned in full force. Women were held responsible for the downfall of civilisation, again. Like Eve, Janis Richter was being cited as the new Pandora—the source of all evil on Earth, a plague to mankind. Her line must be stamped out, at any cost. Females found emulating her in
methodology, knowledge or action were put to death, cruelly. The search for her descendants continued. Kreshkali’s guts twisted at the thought.
An updated version of Sprenger and Kramer’s fifteenth-century work,
The Hammer of Witches,
had been revived in the twenty-fourth century resulting in mass persecutions, burnings and hangings. Millions of women had been executed in the past fifty years alone—after heinous torture—for nothing more incriminating than reading a book on herbal medicine or feeding a stray cat.
A peal of thunder boomed as rain lashed against the windows. Kreshkali yawned, knowing she needed to work. The only thing of any real value on Earth any more was purified water, and she sold her body to get it. Her credits were currently depleted, even with her recent trips to Gaela, but she had to sleep before getting back to the streets. She’d turn a few tricks before dawn sent everyone scuttling for shelter. But first she needed a nap.
She struggled out of her boots and stripped, tossing her clothes onto the back of a chair. Running her hands through her short, spiky hair she let out a sigh, tensing as a fist pounded on her door. She looked again at the chronometer.
‘Yeah, what?’
‘Kali! Get out here. I got you a client.’
‘I can get my own fucking tricks, Jimmy.’
‘Not like this one. I’ll give you sixty percent.’
‘What’s he worth?’
‘Three pints—high quality.’
She tilted her head to the side, working the knots in her left shoulder.
‘I’ll do him. Give me five.’ She yawned again.
‘Want to know what he asked for?’
‘Naw.’
She flopped down into the narrow cot and closed her eyes.
Five more minutes.
Kreshkali read the text aloud, her voice resonating through the empty apartment.
‘If the Entity wavers at the door, Collect both waters pure as mist. Close your eyes against the teeming horde, Of the sea-devil’s avid twist. Add high blood and bottle tight With Luna behind the solar lot. Will the double helix bond right, And keep open the Ring-Pass-Not?’
She bookmarked her place, grabbed her coat and headed to the jetty.
She looked over her shoulder as she neared the seawall. Footsteps echoed behind her, but that was only of mild concern. She’d be out of this shit-hole in a matter of hours, and when she returned she’d have enough water to stay off the streets for a month, giving her time to study and unravel the mystery of the portal Entity.
The rain had eased, as it often did around dawn. There was a sliver of rose light on the horizon, illuminating the skyscrapers—an illusion of sunrise that wouldn’t last. The darkness and the thunder, and the acidic rain returned, as always, along with the savagery of each new day. She cursed as she stepped in a puddle, the water soaking her boot. The seawall was two streets ahead—almost there.
She’d left her last trick with his pants unzipped. A vial of pure-grade water—her fee—was resting safely in her coat pocket.
This time it’ll work.
The obscure words of the Draconic Tablets rolled over in her mind.
Her first two attempts at deciphering their meaning and weaving a spell that would create an interim firewall in the portal had failed. She knew the spell was possible, though—in fact, necessary—if she was to preserve the portal’s waning integrity. It was a temporary fix, but it would keep her from getting trapped on either side. She had business to attend to in both worlds and she needed to keep the doorway open.
The spell had to be conjured during the black of the moon—just minutes before it turned new—and it required several drops of fresh, clear, unpolluted H
2
0 from both land and sea.
The seas hadn’t been pure for centuries; the once crystal waters of California, with its legendary tubing green waves and endless kelp forests, were gone, along with the iron-blue depths of the Atlantic seaboard and the turquoise lagoons of the Pacific Rim. All the way from the Mediterranean to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef the oceans had become a cesspool teeming with sea-devils.
Nothing’s impossible,
she reminded herself.
She took the next side street and squeezed through a gap in a chain-link fence. She had to climb over rubble left from the last quake and avoid a squatters’ camp. People still lived in the slanting shanties that remained, even with walls destroyed and their lives exposed like a twentieth-century movie set. The damage must have been from last year, she thought as she climbed over the rocks. There hadn’t been any major rips through this city since Santa Barbara had gone under.
A dog barked from somewhere within the warrens, followed by the sound of glass breaking and a woman’s shriek.
Good morning, California. Rise and shine!
She could smell the ocean, its fetid waves pounding against the granite seawall, eating away at mortar and rock. Her tongue tingled with the acridity of it. She gritted her teeth and approached the tideline. Waves tumbled in, vomiting their contents—leaving fresh devils in the pocks and crannies. Perspiration beaded on her forehead as she watched the ebb and flow of each set, counting the seconds between.
Go!
She dashed forward as the brown water sucked out, draining away to leave only a few puddles. She squatted before one, careful not to let her bottom drop too low, and pulled the stopper from the glass tube. She dipped the vial into the turgid soup, scooping it up almost full. It swarmed with tiny organisms as she held it up towards the pale daylight. She drove the stopper in and ran before the next wave crashed.
She kept running until she reached the chain-link fence.
‘Where you rushing to, Sugar?’
The hairs on the back of her neck stood out. She heard the flick of a cigarette lighter and turned around. Smoke billowed above a shadowed face.
‘I’m clocked off, buddy,’ she said, walking away. ‘If you want something, talk to…’
‘I’m talking to you, bitch.’
She heard a trigger cock and turned to see a gun levelled at her chest.
Her face relaxed and her shoulders softened. She let her eyes lose focus as she took a slow, deep breath. Without warning she struck, her kick connecting with his right arm, knocking the gun to the pavement where it fired into the empty street.
The heel of her left hand drove up under his chin, dislocating his jaw and sending him sprawling backwards. She jumped after him, catching his neck
between her forearms before he hit the ground. With a twist, she snapped it.
‘Said I was clocked off, arsehole,’ she mumbled under her breath, letting the body drop.
She glanced around before disappearing into the gloom.
In her apartment Kreshkali re-read the incantation by candlelight. The book was actually a text on quantum DNA transmutation and reality shifting, but its language had been couched in a poetic vernacular that Kreshkali found difficult to understand. The few surviving works on quantum magic, as well as hyper-dimensional space, astrology, tarot and numerology, were all written this way, to keep the knowledge occult—to keep it safe.
So well disguised not a witch alive has a clue what it says.
She knitted her brow. This text, the one she’d paid so dearly for, was particularly meaningful to her. She knew the author had defected from ASSIST centuries ago. He was Luka Paree, a man whose work with quantum communication in DNA broke new ground. She smiled at his image on the back jacket, worn thin but still visible. He was a handsome man, Janicia’s lover.
She rubbed her thumb across it before reading aloud. ‘If the Entity wavers at the door, collect both waters pure as mist.’
She had the pure water from land. She just needed to deal with the polluted sea water. The technique, she discovered, was woven into the spell itself.