WebMage

by Kelly McCullough

  I wanted to scream. The last time I'd seen her I'd still been under the influence of the Cassandra curse, and now I was silenced. In all probability I wasn't ever going to get the chance to speak to her without a curtain between us. I had to try. Opening my mouth as wide as I could, I attempted a yell. Nothing came out. Atropos had done something to my vocal cords so they wouldn't vibrate. I felt tears of frustration start in my eyes. I turned away from Cerice and very calmly and methodically began to bang my head on the bars of the cage.

  "Ravirn," whispered a voice from somewhere near the level of my knees. "Where are you? I can feel the cage, but I can't see it." It was Melchior.

  "He's right here," said Cerice, "with me. In addition to apparently making us invisible, Atropos put another spell on his speech. He's pounding his head against the bars."

  "Tell him to stop it. I'll explain everything."

  I realized then that he must be outside the cage. Apparently, Atropos hadn't bothered to include him in the spells she'd cast on me, any of them. Not a surprise, I suppose. To her he was just a made thing, like a table or a chair. It was moot in any case; as much as I loved him, I didn't think there was much he could do to help. Neither one of us had any tricks left up our sleeves.

  Still, I'd never been happier to see him. I nodded vigorously at Cerice, pointed to Atropos, my throat, then Melchior. Cerice gave me a hard look, but knelt so the webgoblin wouldn't have to speak too loudly and draw attention. While Melchior brought Cerice up to date, I took a look around.

  The composite creature that was the Furies had wrestled their bundle into the witness stand. As soon it was in place, the chains fell away to reveal Eris. The Goddess of Discord was no longer dressed in the armor she'd worn when last I saw her. Instead, she wore a long, shimmering tunic of gold and black. It was in the traditional Greek style, as was her hair. She looked every inch the classical goddess. Once she was on the stand, the Furies reassumed their singular forms and moved to the judge's bench opposite the one occupied by the Fates.

  "By what authority did you command the Furies to bring me here?" declaimed Eris. Her voice was clear and ringing, and it was directed straight at the Fates.

  "By right of redress," said Clotho. "You have moved unfairly to tilt the balance."

  "Yes," agreed Lachesis, before Eris could respond. "Using my grandson as a proxy, you invaded the inner heart of our power in defiance of the ancient compact."

  "Are you referring to that callow boy I found in my cable closet?" asked Eris. She laughed. "Has the weight of your authority finally driven you into madness?" Her voice was incredulous. "Me, use a sprig like that? I think not." She turned to the Furies. "Surely you can't believe I'd stoop to such abject cradle-robbing."

  "The evidence was convincing," said Alecto.

  "Though we did find it odd," continued Megaera.

  "But then, odd is how we find you as well," concluded Tisiphone.

  "Do you have an alternate explanation for this?" asked Megaera, and the image of the Fate Core virus sprang into three-dimensional life in the air between them and Eris.

  "The colors and most of the signature are the child's," said Alecto.

  "And he has proved talented," said Tisiphone.

  "But," said Megaera, "when we unraveled the virus and looked at the source code, your hand was also apparent."

  "If you've a more entertaining hypothesis, we'd love to hear it," said Tisiphone.

  "Or a more plausible one," agreed Alecto.

  I wanted to know how the damnable thing had come to be rewritten in my colors as well. That was one question I'd never gotten an answer to. I turned my gaze on Atropos's webtroll Kalkin, who was standing behind his mistress, and so was quite close to where Cerice and I were imprisoned. I figured Atropos would have exempted him from the invisibility spell that covered me because he was such an integral part of her magic. But even if she had, I didn't expect to get any response out of him, so I was surprised when he met my eyes. Without moving his head he quickly darted his glance from me to Atropos and back again, then tipped me the slightest of nods. It wasn't exactly a signed statement, but I took his meaning well enough. Atropos had done a little jiggering.

  "Oh, the code's mine all right," said Eris, in response to the Furies. "But those aren't the colors I put on it. I've no need to suborn babies to get into anyplace that allows Atropos to write its security algorithms."

  "So you admit violating the Fate Core," said Lachesis. She turned to the Furies. "There, guilty by her own admission. What more evidence do you need?"

  Evidence? I thought. Why was evidence needed? And why were the Fates deferring to the Furies? There was more going on here than I understood. Just then, fierce hands grabbed me from behind.

  "You magnificent idiot," Cerice whispered in my ear as she wrapped her arms around me. "Couldn't you think of a better way to free me?"

  With Atropos holding the key to my voice, I couldn't very well respond, but I wouldn't have had the time anyway before she spoke again.

  "So what's the plan from here? Sorry. I forgot that the cat has your tongue." She paused. "I also forgot that planning isn't your long suit. I assume the idea is to improvise."

  I turned my full attention to her and shook my head.

  "You do have something in mind then?"

  Again I shook my head.

  "Do you mean to tell me that your only plan was to trade yourself for me? Melchior didn't have that wrong?"

  The contortions her face went through as a series of emotions took her one after the other was quite impressive. "I'm not sure whether I should kiss you or strangle you. That's the most romantic thing imaginable, but it's not the brightest. Do you know that you're the single most maddening person I've ever known?"

  I shrugged. Then I pointed to what was happening outside the cage. While Cerice and I had been getting reacquainted, the Fates and the Furies had continued their dialogue with Eris. Things didn't seem to be going well for the Goddess of Discord.

  "I think a thousand years and one sounds about right," Lachesis said to the Furies.

  "As I keep telling you, she started it," said Eris, pointing to Atropos.

  "Said it you have," agreed Megaera.

  "Proved it, you have not," countered Alecto.

  "If you'd let me out to track down Lachesis's missing grandson, I might be able to do something about that."

  "If you could find him, that is," said Tisiphone. "We have hunted him for some little time now, and yet he remains uncaught."

  "Frustrating," said Megaera.

  "Surprising," said Alecto.

  "Entertaining," said Tisiphone.

  It was at that instant that I realized why Atropos had hidden us from outside eyes. It was for fear that I might be able to alter the outcome of this exchange. Without my copy of Orion, I didn't think there was much I could do, but I had to make some kind of attempt. I turned back to Cerice and pursed my lips as though whistling.

  "No go. I tried that earlier. Magic simply doesn't work in here."

  Then inspiration struck. There might just be a way to get out of this with my skin intact. Lachesis was beyond the reach of my arms, but not of my cane. I slid the stick through the bars and poked my grandmother in the ribs, hard. She didn't even flinch, but after a moment she did turn in her chair as though she were stretching. She focused her gaze firmly on me. Apparently Atropos had exempted the Fates from her spell of invisibility.

  "What do you want?" Her lips didn't move, but I could clearly hear her.

  Smiling wickedly, I pointed to my throat.

  "All right," she said, "but for my ears alone."

  Then she coughed once as though she'd swallowed something wrong. Somewhere in that cough there was the faint hiss of spell code, but it was well hidden. If I hadn't been expecting it, I'd never have noticed. And, since no one else paid it any attention, I had to assume it had passed unnoticed by the Furies.

  "I can blow this for you," I said, and though my vocal cords still felt as if th
ere was a fist clenched around them, I knew that she and I could hear each other.

  "Somehow that seems unlikely," said Lachesis. "You don't exactly have a lot of cards left to play, grandson mine."

  "I've got one. By my lights, you've broken your word to Necessity. Even with my throat sealed, I think I can draw her attention to me, and unless I'm very wrong about the way things work, that will also show me to them." I pointed at the Furies.

  "Then what?" asked Lachesis.

  "I tell them everything."

  "With no spell, you expect them to take your word over ours?"

  "What if I told you there was another copy?" I asked.

  "That might change things," said Lachesis. "Damn Eris's virus. If we'd had your thread to watch when we negotiated, we'd have seen the possibility. Very well. Keep silent about your copy, and we will free you and seek no reprisals against you or yours."

  "You'll stop Puppeteer, too," I said.

  "That's asking too much, I think," she replied.

  "It doesn't work," I said. "And you have Eris on the ropes. How much is that worth?"

  "Enough," she replied. "We can write a new Puppeteer later. Deal."

  "Oath to Necessity?" I asked.

  "Oath to Necessity," she affirmed. Then she smiled, before turning forward again. "You are shrewd, grandson, very shrewd. You may yet prove an asset to this house. Perhaps I might even be persuaded to reinstate you." Somehow, I didn't think so. Not after what I hoped to see happen next. But her last sentence almost changed my mind. It was the offer of home and family back. I'd been pretty certain my ploy would buy my freedom and at least a temporary guarantee of safety. I hadn't thought that the making of it might win back everything else I'd lost. It was more tempting than I'd have believed possible.

  For several long seconds, things hung in the balance. All I had to do to earn my family back was to hang Eris, our ancient enemy, out to dry. It wouldn't even be permanent, just one piece bitten out of an immortal life. Oh, and there was the little matter of my self-respect. I'd have to give that up too.

  Using the cane, I lowered myself to the floor of our cage. I reached through the bars and placed my hands on Melchior's back. He seemed a bit startled at first, flinching. Then I moved my fingers in a pattern I'd followed a hundred times before. For a moment I wasn't sure it would work. I hadn't built him for what I was doing, but then I hadn't built him for free will either. I held my breath while I waited. When Melchior suddenly looked back over his shoulder with an incredulous grin on his face, I let it out in a quiet sigh. We were in business.

  "The quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back," he whispered.

  In response, I typed Yes on his back. There was no keyboard, but his skin was sensitive enough, and he had a computer's perfect memory for everything that happened within the range of his senses.

  Melchior, I typed, Nine One One. I needed to make sure that he knew that whatever he did next was solely on his own recognizance. That was critically important this time. Then I added, DASD DUMP? I didn't make it a command. I didn't even make it a request. I couldn't. What he did or did not do next was a decision he had to make completely on his own. Anything else would abrogate my deal with Lachesis. More importantly, anything else would abrogate my deal with Melchior. The one that said we were partners, not master and servant.

  Melchior jerked like I'd struck him, and turned to look at me. But, of course, I wasn't there to see. There was panic in his eyes as they tracked blindly across my invisible face, and I really felt for him. I wanted to help him, to take some of the weight I'd just placed on his shoulders back onto my own. But I couldn't, not if I was going to let him be his own master. Watching his pain and indecision while doing nothing to alleviate it was as hard as anything I'd ever done, but after a time, his eyes calmed, and he straightened his back.

  "Executing," he whispered, turning away from me. He began to spew high-speed code as he marched straight across the room toward the Furies.

  At first, it was as though he were the only living thing in a statue gallery. Every figure but his froze as he made his slow progress into the center of the court. But it was a long spell and, one by one, the assembled goddesses began to stir.

  Eris reacted first. Perhaps it was because she recognized the notes of her spell, perhaps because she knew the secret of familiar self-determination. In either case, her response was a subtle thing. It started with a slight relaxing of her shoulders, an easing of a tension more felt than seen. Then came an infinitesimal lifting of the right side of her mouth, and the slightest bow of acknowledgment or thanks in Mel's direction.

  Next to move were the Furies. Alecto sat up a bit straighter, seeming to take a real interest for the first time. Megaera assumed a prim-and-disapproving expression, clearly unhappy about this interruption to the orderly progression of things. Tisiphone clapped her hands together and grinned like a child with a new toy.

  Atropos leaped to her feet then and whistled a long string of ugly-sounding code. In response, a miniature storm cloud formed in the air above Melchior, tossing and whirling in a dark-and-menacing way. Even from where I was, I could see Mel flinch and the bright beads of sweat that popped out on the back of his bald skull. But that was all. His spell recital neither slowed nor stopped. I couldn't have been prouder if I'd fathered him, rather than building him, or more scared. Atropos clenched her fist and a bright bolt of orange lightning shot from the cloud. But in the same instant, Megaera stretched out one seaweed-and-saltwater wing like an awning over Mel's head, and the bolt struck that instead of the goblin. A slight wince crossed the sullen features of the Fury, but that was all.

  At some point in that sequence Clotho must have moved as well, because when I looked from Melchior back to the Fates, she was no longer seated with the other two.

  Where she had gone was anybody's guess, because she was nowhere to be seen.

  The last individual to react was Lachesis. My grandmother spun in her seat to glare at me. "What?" she screeched. "How dare you? You'll burn for this, Ravirn." A quick burst of code spilled from her lips, and suddenly the cage was no more. She rose to her feet slowly and angrily, whistling as she stood. I could feel the hair on my arms and the back of my neck rising to stand on end as she continued to spout complex harmonies, building a terrible spell of punishment.

  "Oath to Necessity," I called, and as I did so, I felt my vocal cords slide back to their normal configuration.

  She ignored my words and pointed both hands at me in a terribly deliberate manner, sending a stream of flame straight for my face. It stopped when it hit Tisiphone in the chest. I hadn't seen her cross the intervening distance, but suddenly she was there.

  "Naughty, naughty," she said, but her voice sounded different from the way it normally did, as though it were coming from a great distance. "Mustn't violate Oath to Necessity. We don't like that."

  "How dare you?" snarled Lachesis. "It was he who violated the oath, not I."

  "That's not how Mother sees it," said Alecto, from across the room, and her voice too, seemed strangely distant.

  "What do you mean?" asked Lachesis.

  "Necessity hears every oath taken in her name, whether you invoke her or not," said Megaera, in the same faraway voice.

  "I don't understand," said Lachesis. "I didn't violate my oath. He did."

  "I'm afraid not, Grandmother," said I. "I promised to keep quiet about Orion, and I have."

  "Then what is the spell your goblin is spouting over there?" she asked.

  "Oh, that's Orion, all right. But he's doing that on his own. I just pointed out to him that if he wanted to take independent action, he happened to have a copy of Orion in his DASD memory. I left it there after I made a duplicate crystal."

  "His actions are an extension of your own," said Atropos, stepping up beside Lachesis. "He's your creature."

  "No," I replied. "He's my friend. I'm profoundly grateful he was willing to act on my suggestion, but the action was his. I'd think the reaction of
the Furies would have been indication enough of that. Didn't your encounter with your former familiar, Ahllan, teach you anything?"

  "Oh, Khemnos spouted some nonsense about seeing her acting on her own, right enough, but that's foolery. I assumed that you or Cerice had salvaged her and stashed her somewhere for your own purposes."

  "Afraid not," said Melchior, who had just finished with the spell. "Neither one of them is bright enough for that." He'd just deliberately discarded the secrecy that provided his kind with their best protection against the whims of Fate, and he was shaking all over, but his voice was firm.

  "I'll kill you all," said Atropos.

  "That would be a violation of Fate's word to Necessity," said Eris, from her place on the witness stand. "I'd advise against it."

  "As would I," said Megaera.

  "It would be unwise," agreed Alecto.

  "But such fun," said Tisiphone, smiling hopefully.

  "Now," said Alecto. She was holding up an eight-sided memory crystal. Puppeteer. Emerald green, and filled with gorgeous traceries of gold, it was the thing that had started this whole mess. "It's time for the verdict."

  "Not that there's much to decide," said Megaera.

  "Perhaps someone will dispute the judgment," said Tisiphone, hopefully.

  There didn't seem to be any takers.

  "Our judgment is in favor of Discord," said the oddly distorted version of the tripartite voice the Furies used when they spoke for Necessity. "She was acting in accordance with her mandate as an agent of chaos. Eris, you are free to leave." The gate of the witness stand sprang open. Eris bowed to the Furies and stepped to the floor of the temple.

  "Thank you," she said. "I think I'll stick around for a bit."

  The Furies ignored her. The second she was absolved she ceased to exist for them.

  "Atropos," said the Furies, turning their attentions to the Fate. "We will take the Puppeteer spell and nullify it. However, you have done nothing against your mandate. You are also free to leave."

  Their duty to Necessity done, the Furies seemed to shrink, relaxing back into their separate personalities. A moment later, they unfurled their wings and rose into the air.