WebMage

by Kelly McCullough

  When I looked outside I knew we'd come to the right place. The sky was the unnatural uniform black of a computer astronomy program. Scattered across this depthless darkness were a billion stars. That was my first impression. Then I realized the stars were moving in a slow firefly dance and that each and every one of them was actually a perfect fourteen-karat golden apple. The view was almost hypnotic. It was also wrong somehow, too big. I stuck my head out the window and looked down. Where a moat should have been I could see only blackness filled with shining golden apples. We were on an island afloat in a sea of night. I felt a tug on my tunic.

  "Hey, Boss," said Melchior. "Why don't we make ourselves scarce?"

  "All right. But stop calling me boss. We're partners now, remember?"

  "Whatever you say, Boss." I turned a sour eye on him, and he grinned back innocently. "What?"

  "Never mind," I sighed, following him to the door he'd picked out.

  It was a small storeroom lined with shelves on which lay steel-sheathed shutters for the windows. Since the castle wasn't currently under threat of invasion, I didn't think anyone would be visiting us anytime soon.

  "So what now?" asked Melchior.

  "I really don't know. This was Cerice's idea. I've never been here before, and I haven't the foggiest notion where to find Eris's computer room. For that matter, I don't even know whether Eris goes in for the same kind of hardware the Fates use. I was kind of figuring we'd blunder around and hope."

  "I don't like that plan," said Melchior. "In fact, as your partner, I'm vetoing it."

  He said it firmly, but the look on his face was the sort of expression you'd expect from someone trying to defuse a bomb. Not a big surprise really. Our new relationship was only a few hours old. The habits of master and servant were going to be hard to break. For both of us.

  I was pretty sure that if I used the name-spell-execute command form, it would still compel Melchior to do my will. He might be a person in his own right, but the command imperatives were built into his firmware. He was extremely vulnerable to arm-twisting on my part. After years of treating him as a piece of stubborn hardware, I was going to have to work very hard to avoid steamrolling him whenever he disagreed with me. This was sort of a first test.

  "All right," I said. "What would you suggest?"

  He relaxed. "I hadn't gotten that far yet. I was too busy getting ready for the argument we were going to have when you decided to override me. How about we look for network and power cables?"

  I nodded. "Good idea. If this place is like most retrofitted castles, the conduits and things will be surface-run."

  We traced the Romex line that led from the overhead light to the back of the closet, where it fed into a junction box. The box was mounted to a large conduit that came in through the ceiling and went out through a rough hole drilled in the mortar between two stone blocks. A pale blue cable about the size of an ethernet line was tie-wrapped to the conduit every couple of feet.

  "Do you want to try to follow this out? Or do you think we could just run a vampire connection off it from here?" I asked Melchior.

  He climbed up the shelves and put his ear against the cable. He held it there for quite a while before shaking his head.

  "There's almost no traffic. It might make the initial insertion easier, but I wouldn't want a sudden spike in packet transfer to show up on a system monitor somewhere. Also, a vampire does funny things to data flow. If we have to go that way, I'd rather do it where the system is making enough noise to wash out any echoes."

  Melchior was smaller and stealthier, so he led the way as we moved out. A few minutes later we were standing outside the room that should back on the closet we'd been in if things were arranged in a geometrically rational fashion. Since Castle Discord was as far from the prime level of reality and the Fates as it was possible to get, I wasn't going to bet the ranch on the rules of spatial relations applying there. I'd been in a few worlds like that, and they irritated the heck out of me. A person could walk around what appeared to be a perfectly normal corner and wind up in an Escher print.

  I let out a little sigh of relief when the door opened into a large game room with the conduit we were looking for clearly visible on the side wall. The center of the room was dominated by a heavy felt-surfaced card table. Other distractions were set at various points around the room, including a pool table and an air hockey set.

  A faint smell of old smoke and stale beer flavored the air. The floor was entirely covered with a thick gold-and-black oriental rug depicting the monkey king cheating at dice with the emperor of heaven. The latter was shown in his warrior mode, with a mighty sword propped at his side. It would have taken a lot of moxie to cheat him. But then, the king was supposed to be one tough monkey.

  A dozen or so arcade-style video games alternated with windows on one wall. As I headed for the conduit, something about the windows struck me as odd, and I detoured to check it out. Looking out, I could see a brightly lit inner courtyard split between a formal garden complete with hedge maze and a broad green lawn. Swearing, I looked up.

  A golden apple sun centered the sky. While it was possible the day-night cycle was just very fast and I'd missed the change I doubted it. A quick glance into the hall confirmed it was still night outside the castle. My hopes for the insides of things matching the outsides evaporated. This could turn out to be an impossible task, and I said as much to Melchior.

  "It's not that bad, Boss. The cable's in the right place at least. It goes down through the floor here. Let's just keep following it."

  I nodded. We didn't have a whole lot of choice. Three flights down and twenty minutes later the cable had joined a bunch of its cousins and seemed to be heading for some sort of master junction. The hallway we'd been following turned a corner and dead-ended at a door. Judging by all the cables and conduits going inside, we'd arrived at Castle Discord's main communications hub. We were getting close, and I was getting worried. The ease of our run so far made each and every one of my vertebrae itch with nasty anticipation.

  Melchior checked the door. "It's unlocked," he said. But he didn't open it.

  I tried flexing my left hand to see if I'd be able to hold a dagger anytime soon. Nothing. While my fingers did move a little bit, the only way I could tell was by watching them. As far as my nervous system was concerned, my arm ended at the elbow. I loosened my rapier in its sheath.

  "Ready?" asked Melchior.

  "Ready."

  He turned the handle.

  Chapter Sixteen

  "Jackpot!" whispered Melchior.

  If the great serpent Typhon, who once defeated Zeus, had mated with a rainbow and given birth to a nation of snakes, their nursery might have looked something like the contents of that room. A seemingly endless quantity of cables and wires covered the floor. They came in every imaginable size and color, and I couldn't help feeling as though I was stepping into a serpent's nest. The feeling continued to grow as we went deeper. It seemed to me that the cables moved when I wasn't looking at them directly, and I found myself whipping my head around in hopes of catching them in the act.

  "We seem to have found the mother lode," I said. "Why isn't that making me very happy?"

  "There's something creepy about this place, Boss. There's all kinds of communications wire, but I don't see any network hardware. In fact…" He bent and started tracing a cable as thick as my arm. "Well, boot me from DVD and install Windows," he muttered after a bit. "Look at this."

  "What?" I leaned down to peer over his shoulder.

  His finger was pointing to a place where an ethernet line seemed to pass underneath a much larger cable. After a closer look, it became apparent that the ethernet didn't come out the other side. The cables flowed seamlessly into one another, like two strands of kudzu growing back together. Careful inspection revealed dozens of similar connections, and none of the more conventional sort. That's when I realized the room smelled wrong. Normally, a cable closet reeks of burned transistors and plastic insul
ation. The scents here were spicy and organic, like an outdoor market.

  "It's like someone decided to breed a network instead of building one," I said.

  "That's repulsive," replied Melchior. "The only natural way to crosspatch computers is with nice sanitary connectors."

  "I don't know that Shara would agree with you," I said.

  To my amazement, Melchior blushed, his cheeks darkening toward indigo. I seemed to have scored a hit.

  "That's not networking!" he said.

  "What's not networking?" I asked, as innocently as I could manage.

  "Uh…" He mumbled, looking at his feet. "Well… You see…" His head came up suddenly. "Hey! Wait a second. We're partners now. I shouldn't have to answer that."

  "Fair enough," I said. "Just make sure you're practicing safe software. Now, how about a return to our original intent. There aren't any hubs in here, and we've already been at this longer than I'd like. It looks like it's going to have to be a vampire connection. Would you care give it a try?"

  "No, I wouldn't," he said. "Not one little bit. Unfortunately, I think we're stuck. Let me just give a listen to a few of these lines and see if I can find a good one." He bent his ears to the snarl of cables. Moving them back and forth like a bloodhound wiggling its nose at a scent, he slowly checked out the lines one after the other. Five times he reached a point where he stopped, shook his head, and returned to the source. At last, with the sixth, he followed it farther until it hit a nexus.

  "Here," he said, but he didn't look happy. "Did I mention I don't like this?"

  "Would it help if I requested it formally?"

  He canted his head to the side thoughtfully. "You know, I think it might."

  "All right. Melchior, Vampire." I paused for a moment, and when I went on, the word came out in a whisper. "Please." How odd that tasted in my mouth.

  "Executing Vampire," said Melchior, winking at me.

  His long front fangs changed from enamel white to copper red. Hunching, he took a thick rope of cable in his hands and lifted it, plunging his fangs through the insulating cover. Inside, the now-conductive points of his teeth made contact with multiple wires. Melchior was plugged into Eris's network.

  "Getting anything?" I asked.

  "Vif iv incre'ible," he mumbled. His eyes had gone kind of distant.

  "How so?"

  "There'f no ferver. Iff a difafofiated network. Amaving!"

  I translated mentally. Eris's system had no central computer. Instead it followed a distributed computing model with lots of smaller processors doing the work in parallel.

  "How many units?"

  "Av many av there are star'v in the fky. And it'v a biological fyftem, too. It's the moft bootiful ring." His voice sounded very odd, and I started to worry.

  "Mel, are you all right?"

  "Never better. My mind is exfpanding!"

  Not good. I'd heard the like at too many college parties, typically right before someone decided they could talk to the moon.

  "I think you should pull out," I said. "But first, can you see any signs of Eris's dragon virus?" I hated to ask him to do even that much, but it was the whole reason we'd come. We needed a copy of her source code to clear my name.

  "Dragonv, dragonv everywhere. Wheel Look at all the pretty dragonv."

  "Melchior, end Vampire. Please."

  "To end a vampire infert ftake A in cheft B, repeat if nefefary. Then remove head, fill with garlic, and plafe at crofroadv." That was it. I couldn't leave him there any longer, and it didn't sound like he was going to disconnect himself.

  "Melchior. Laptop." Again I paused. I didn't have the right to make it an order anymore, but I couldn't guarantee he would pay any attention if I phrased it as a request. Finally, I decided the moral overrode the practical. "Please," I said, and even I could hear the pleading in my voice.

  Nothing happened. I considered rephrasing it as a command, but that was an absolute last resort. I was pretty sure that if I used a command for anything less, the harm it would do our growing trust would be irreversible. Using my good arm, I awkwardly lowered myself to crouch beside Melchior. My knee and side twinged on the way down. If I lived through the next couple of weeks, I was going to have to find myself some nice quiet corner of reality with sandy beaches, cool drinks, and good physical therapists.

  Dragging my mind away from that imaginary beach, I placed my right knee firmly on the cable and hooked my fingers under Melchior's front teeth. No go. Though not as pointy as his canines, his front fangs were plenty sharp enough to bloodily redraw the map of my fingerprints. I reached for my dagger. It wasn't my first choice, but I'd left my Leatherman with my modern clothes back at the cabin about oh… I paused. How long had it been? It felt like a million years, but when I mentally added it all together, I came up with a total of less than forty-eight hours.

  By jabbing the point of my dagger into the plastic insulation of the cable, I was able to pry without bringing the edge into contact with any of Melchior's soft tissues. Pulling up gently but steadily, I started to slowly lift Melchior's fang contacts free. It was a very tight fit, and it didn't get any easier as I pried more and more of him loose. I'd expected the tapering nature of his teeth to make a noticeable difference, but it didn't. Even at the very end, it still held him tight. Too tight. With a nasty cracking sound, the tip of his left canine broke. The other one popped free with a sound like a video card slithering out of its slot. Then, even as I watched, the holes in the skin of the cable closed, sealing the lost tooth point within.

  I didn't like that at all. It was too much like my cousin Hwyl's rapid healing when he'd been injured by anything but silver. All those twisting coils, combined with a talent for regeneration, reminded me vividly of Hercules and the hydra. Trying not to think about it, I laid Melchior on his back and chafed his wrists. I was rewarded by an answering flutter of his eyelids.

  "Wha' happen?" he asked, blearily.

  "I was going to ask you that," I replied, reclaiming my dagger. "You went more than a little strange on me after you vampired that cable. Also, you've lost a tooth tip."

  "So that's what hurts," he said, rubbing his mouth.

  "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I'll code you a new one later."

  "It's not too bad," he said. "It can wait." He tried to sit up. It didn't work very well. "Wow, I am pretty woozy." He shook his head. "Eris's system doesn't have a core."

  "You mentioned that," I said. "You claimed it was a multiprocessor-distributed network."

  "It is. The biggest one I've ever seen." He shook his head. "My awareness just kept expanding as it took in more and more nodes. I couldn't stop either. It was like a null command error. Once I'd started, my processing resources were committed to finishing the set, and there was just no way I could hold it all. I'm not sure if this is a hallucination or not—toward the end, my personality was getting awfully diffuse and fragmented—but it seemed to me that every one of those golden apples dancing around in the night sky out there was a separate floating-point processor."

  "Of course they are," said a new voice from behind me, "Macintosh server-series, every one. A different interface for a different user." It was a smoky alto of a voice, a throaty growl that put an edge on her meaning at the same time it shaved one off her consonants.

  "I can see the commercial now," I said, without turning. "The Goddess of Discord uses a Mac, why don't you?"

  As I spoke, I tried flexing my numb left hand again. I still couldn't feel anything, but as I watched, the fingers went through a rough approximation of the motions I was trying for. Using my body as a cover, I transferred my dagger to that hand. Melchior saw what I was doing and gave me a subtle wink. He would be ready.

  "Why are you here?" asked the goddess. Her tone seemed light, but there was a weird undercurrent, like a breath of madness.

  "I don't suppose you'd believe I was an itinerant network administrator?" I asked, as airily as I could manage.

  "I think not," she responded, and the dange
r swelled in her voice.

  "A seller of beauty products?" I climbed to my feet, back still turned.

  "One more try," she said, and the menace in her tone brooked no further flippancy.

  "Data thief?" I tried.

  "Better. What kind of data and why?"

  "Does it really matter? I didn't find it, and I don't think I'm likely to get the chance now."

  "I am not known for my tolerance," said the goddess. "Quite the contrary in fact."

  "Well then," I said, and I slipped my dagger hand from its sling. "I'd better find another tack. Melchior, Nine One One. Please." That would tell him I wanted him to act on his own recognizance.

  "Executing," said the webgoblin.

  Drawing my rapier, I whirled. There was no way I could fight Eris with magic. If we headed down that road, I was doomed before I started. But it was just possible I might be able to keep things on a physical plane if I acted quickly and didn't give her room to think about it. Not that I actually expected to defeat a goddess. Her immortality was the real thing, as opposed to the demideity I'd inherited. We were like the sun and the moon. Eris's light came from within. Mine was a reflection of the Fates'. The absolute worst I could do to her was an injury that would rapidly and inevitably heal. In return, she could render me very permanently dead. I just hoped that by running a sword through her, I might distract or disable her long enough to make a break for it.

  As soon as my turn brought Eris into view, I lunged. She was taller than I, six-four or six-five without the heels. Her clothes, contrary to my family's tradition, were mostly modern. Black jeans that looked like they'd been shrink-wrapped onto her vanished into shiny thigh-high boots, also black and sporting four-inch, ankle-breaker heels. Above the waist she wore a gold poet's shirt, so sheer it was more like mist than fabric, with a black lace bra underneath.

  As I extended my blade, I mentally revised my chances upward. She seemed to be unarmed. My thrust was good, the point of my sword plunging straight for the place between her breasts. But Eris brought her left hand up almost lazily. Before the motion was half-completed she held a parrying dagger and, in the instant before my steel made contact with her flesh, she brushed my blade aside. The next moment, her right hand, now also full of sharp and steely death, came around in a casual swing that brought her blade slicing toward my eyes.