Death's Handmaiden

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Oh, I’ve a lot less experience at flying,’ Nava replied. ‘I’m quite sure there are plenty of people in the Flying Club that are better than me.’

  ‘Well,’ Melissa said, ‘I haven’t actually seen you fly yet, but talent with sorcery is a factor in handling a Flight spell well, and you’ve got talent in spades.’

  235/3/25.

  What the world called spells were actually mental processes which magicians were able to make real, impressing upon consensus reality the personal reality of the magician. At least, that was what they taught in class. It made sense of one aspect of spellcasting: most magicians could only have a single such process in mind at a time. It was possible to expand this to two or more spells, but it took effort and training to manage more than one complex, reality-altering thought process at a time. Even those who could handle multiple ‘active’ spells usually knew more than they could hold in their mind at once and had to shuffle them around, bringing one to the front of their mind while losing access to another.

  Nava shifted Flight to the active portion of her consciousness and prepared to take off. Beside her, Melissa was probably doing the same. Or, as seemed likely, Melissa had swapped Flight in right after lunch in anticipation of going out flying that afternoon.

  Since this was her first visit to the Flight Club and she was being watched, Nava did everything by the book. She made a show of looking up and around to ensure that her take-off path was clear, stepped away from Melissa, and then lifted into the air. Actually, she shot into the air; she was almost fifteen metres up after barely a second. She came to a stop at two hundred and ten metres after seven seconds which mostly consisted of acceleration and deceleration, and it did not look like she had hit her top speed.

  ‘Wow, she’s fast,’ Melissa said to no one in particular. She took off and joined Nava in the sky, also taking only seven seconds to reach the same height. She took some solace in the fact that she had not hit her top speed either, but she noted that her acceleration did not match Nava’s. ‘I just bet you’re going to be better at aerobatics than I am too,’ Melissa said as she slid smoothly into a hover. She pointed at various obstacles which had been set up on the ground. Most of them were four-metres poles set five to ten metres apart which created zig-zag courses for the students to fly. There were a few poles with hoops mounted on top too.

  Nava watched a number of club members twisting and turning as they danced between poles or through hoops. While she knew the spell, she had never really had the chance to use it extensively, especially around other people. This was the first time she had really evaluated her skills against others. ‘It’s possible,’ Nava admitted. Sorcerous talent was, after all, a factor. You could not do without physical talent when it came to moving your body around, but when your propulsion system was a spell, talent with magic was talent with flight. ‘I suppose we’ll find out. Shall we?’

  Melissa grinned. ‘Sure. Pick a course and we’ll join the queue.’

  ~~~

  ‘How are you not tired?’ Melissa sagged onto the ground to rest while Nava hovered in the air a metre or so above and in front of her. ‘You have to have a really huge quintessence reserve.’

  ‘It’s… bigger than average, I guess,’ Nava replied, ‘but I’m replenishing it as I go, so that’s not really a factor.’

  ‘You know Gather Quintessence? Of course you do.’ Melissa grinned to show she did not mean anything by the assertion. It was just one of those things: Nava knew a lot of fairly advanced magic for her age. Then Melissa’s eyes widened. ‘But you’re flying. You’re flying and using Gather Quintessence.’ Now she narrowed her eyes. ‘You can have two active spells in your head at once.’

  ‘I can handle two at once, yes.’

  Melissa’s eyes got narrower. ‘More? How many?’

  Nava’s expression did not change, but the slight delay in answering suggested that she was weighing up her options. ‘Four.’

  ‘Four?!’ It came out as something of a shout and Melissa glanced around before continuing. ‘That’s amazing,’ she said in a more normal tone. Actually, it was more of an amazed, admiring tone. ‘I so wish I could do half of what you can.’

  Nava did not immediately reply, and Melissa was actually starting to get a little uncomfortable by the time her friend finally spoke. ‘You don’t. Don’t ever envy me, Mel. I’m not someone who should engender envy in someone like you. Believe me, it’s the other way around. I’m going to… I need a little time to myself. Come get me when you’re rested.’ Without waiting for a reply, Nava shot upward, becoming a speck of darker blue against the sky in a matter of seconds.

  Melissa watched the speck for a few seconds before looking down. What did Nava have to envy about her? Nava had proven better at aerobatics than Melissa, and the difference was down to magical talent. Technique-wise, they were about equal, but Nava could redirect her motion with greater precision and speed because she could manipulate quintessence more easily. Melissa was actually no slouch at it, but Nava could run rings around her if she had to. What had happened to Nava to make her so good at magic, but at the same time cause her to envy someone who was, in every measurable way, her inferior?

  ‘Then again,’ Melissa muttered to no one in particular, ‘maybe I don’t want to know.’

  ~~~

  There was a noticeable breeze at one kilometre above the school, but Melissa was dressed in her combat practice gear and barely noticed it. At this time of year, the weather was warming as the planet’s orbit took it steadily closer to its star and, on a bright day like this, a little wind was not going to make much difference.

  She had not seen Nava for over an hour. Her mysterious friend had vanished into the sky and, sure enough, had waited for Melissa to join her rather than getting bored and coming down again. It had taken Melissa about thirty seconds to get up there and another few seconds to spot Nava, and Nava was just hovering, floating languidly in the air as though lying on a cloud. It looked like she was staring down at the flyers below her, but when Melissa looked down too, there was little to see since most of the club’s activities were happening at low altitude.

  ‘It’s kind of pretty,’ Nava said as Melissa approached.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The campus. It’s funny, we’ve been here for a couple of months now, and I couldn’t tell you what half the buildings are there for without consulting my ketcom. We don’t go anywhere aside from our apartment blocks and the first-year teaching building.’

  ‘Well, mostly. I guess you’re right.’ Melissa was now looking down at the huge expanse of the campus and, yes, it was kind of pretty. There was a lot of white concrete, true, but it was bright in the spring sunlight and there was enough design to the buildings to make the view interesting.

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve come up this high just to look around. I got wrapped up in studying the layout.’

  ‘I… I’m sorry if I upset you earlier.’

  Nava shifted into a more upright position and slid closer. ‘You didn’t upset me. One of the reasons I like flying is that it gives me some alone time. I need my alone time now and then. Haven’t had much of it recently.’

  Melissa suspected that Nava was lying about being upset, or not telling the whole truth anyway, but it was really hard to figure out what Nava was thinking ninety-nine percent of the time. ‘Okay. Had enough for now?’

  ‘For now.’

  ‘Good. I want to get in another couple of tries on the obstacle courses before we have to give up for the day.’

  ‘Fair enough. We are going to have to work on your stamina.’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Melissa started down, grinning as she went. ‘Never mind. It’s a really old joke. Let’s go wrap ourselves around a few poles.’

  ‘Um, that’s what she said?’

  ‘Touché.’

  235/3/27.

  Students in the combat stream were introduced to practical exercises aimed at t
eaching you how to fight a lot earlier than those on the support stream. Mitsuko had got a lot more use out of her combat uniform than Nava had, though it was largely an unnecessary accessory when what you were doing was learning to use magitech weapons to launch spells. Well, whatever, it was a change from the dress.

  The exercise today was taking place on the firing range, an open area which could host shooting competitions out to a hundred metres safely. There was actually another range which could handle a kilometre, but it was smaller and only used by the fifth and sixth years. The first years were using spell carbines today at ranges from ten to fifty metres and Mitsuko was not having much trouble. She could hit a man-sized target ninety-five percent of the time at fifty metres with an aimed shot. They were not being taught to hip-fire a carbine at that sort of distance.

  The advantages of a magitech weapon like this were twofold. First, it improved your accuracy by, basically, giving you a set of sights to aim down to target your spell. Second, it came with a magazine containing a quintessence battery which could power your spell, and that meant you were not exhausting yourself firing off spell after spell in practical class. Mitsuko fired off the last ‘round’ in her ‘clip,’ popped the drained magazine out to show she was done, and then backed off the firing line to await another turn. She was happy: twelve spells on target, most of them close to the centre of mass.

  As she looked back, Siegmar Tate took up the firing position and raised his weapon to his shoulder. He started firing and Mitsuko absently looked up at the screen above his position which showed the impact points he was hitting. Siegmar was not a bad shot, but she had watched him before and he was not as good as she was. It was talent rather than skill; Mitsuko was a talented sorceress and Siegmar was a less talented sorcerer. They were, she figured, about even on their actual skill with a magitech weapon, but she won out thanks to her greater ability to make reality do what she wanted.

  But not today. Today, Siegmar seemed to have improved, unless he was just getting noticeably lucky. He was matching Mitsuko’s scores without appearing to put any great effort into the task. He was not taking longer to aim or preparing his shots better. He was just better than he had been a week earlier.

  Mitsuko shrugged. Well, maybe losing at MagiTag to Nava had given him a kick in the pants. Negative reinforcement worked on arrogant men. Who knew?

  ~~~

  ‘What is the greatest challenge facing magical technology engineers at this time?’ Lambert Stenger asked.

  While Mitsuko was watching a sparkling performance on the firing range, Nava was in theory class, learning theory. Specifically, the theory behind magical technology, aka magitech. Humans just loved shortening things. Why the language hadn’t lost all its vowels to make it faster to say, Nava was not sure.

  Meanwhile, Rochester’s hand had gone up. That was pretty usual. Melissa’s hand went up half a second later. That was less than usual. Lambert had only one choice really. ‘Melissa Connelly,’ he said.

  ‘That would be the creation of magical devices which don’t require a magician to activate them,’ Melissa said.

  ‘That’s correct.’ There was no surprise in Lambert’s voice. It was impressive. ‘Can you explain why this is such a difficult problem?’

  ‘Because, as far as we know, it requires a living mind to interact with the quintessential field. With a few exceptions, machines on their own are incapable of utilising or even perceiving magic. While we can create devices which enhance spells in various ways, or even allow magicians who don’t know a spell to cast it, like with MagiTag weapons, we can’t build devices which can produce magical effects on their own because a machine needs a mind to influence the Q-field.’

  ‘And the exceptions?’

  ‘Uh, the most basic effect quintessence has is gravitational moderation. Artificial gravity and antigravity can be produced without a magician. And there are devices which can generate, um, noise designed to stop magic working within a certain distance. There are also sensors capable of detecting magic, but they don’t work on subtle effects or spells which only affect the perceptions, like illusions. Most “magic detectors” actually detect the effects of magic, rather than the magic itself.’

  ‘A concise and complete answer, Melissa Connelly. Very good. If anyone can actually come up with an answer to this problem, the world… the universe will change. Until then, magicians remain a vital resource. Without magicians, there would be no interstellar communications. Travel would be limited by the speed of light. Spaceships would need to carry huge amounts of fuel in order to travel between planets. In essence, without magicians, our modern society would collapse. With self-initiating magical devices, our society could advance immeasurably.’

  Nava held up a hand. Lambert nodded at her. ‘If current theory says that a sentient mind is needed to cast a spell, is there any proof, or even a suggestion, that it’s possible to create a machine to do it?’

  ‘A good question, Nava Ward.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Without a good answer.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘There is a suggestion that it’s possible. However, that suggestion is open to a lot of vagary and interpretation. Essentially, it comes down to unconfirmed observations and hearsay. In some cases, it’s nothing more than legend.’

  ‘Legend?’

  Lambert looked at Nava for a second. ‘Melissa Connelly, do you know what I’m referring to?’

  ‘Artefacts?’ Melissa replied. When Lambert nodded, she went on. ‘There are a bunch of stories concerning the artefacts left behind by the Harbingers. Originally, they were little more than tales told by spacers. Ancient ships which still functioned, seemingly with a life of their own. A lot of the legends make very little sense when you really look at them. Like, an ancient warship left defending an empty world which destroys everything coming near. Well, how did the story get back to us? More recently, we’ve found Harbinger sites, archaeological sites, and some of them have what appear to be devices on them which may be self-initiating. No one’s ever figured out how to make any of them work.’

  ‘That about covers it,’ Lambert said. ‘Do you see what I meant now, Nava Ward?’

  ‘I understand,’ Nava replied. ‘It might be possible. An ancient civilisation might have done it. But we have no idea how and only rumour to indicate that they did.’

  ‘But if you can crack the problem, you’ll be famous and probably fabulously wealthy.’

  ‘I don’t really want to be famous or wealthy.’

  ‘Well, you may be the only magician who doesn’t.’

  ~~~

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve never heard of the Harbingers,’ Melissa said.

  ‘Sheltered upbringing, remember,’ Nava replied. She was focusing on her dinner, but Melissa was not taking the hint. ‘I didn’t get read bedtime stories.’

  ‘The Harbingers aren’t fairy tales, they’re science. I mean, they’re scientific fact. We have archaeological sites and everything.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Rochester said. ‘We’ve never discovered the world they originally came from, but the Harbingers appear to have colonised a number of worlds in this part of the galaxy. In fact, many of the worlds colonised when humans left Earth have turned out to be old Harbinger colonies. They seem to have required conditions not unlike those we do. They also appear to have had the ability to terraform worlds more effectively than we do, probably utilising massive metaphysics projects which we can’t replicate.’

  ‘Essentially,’ Mitsuko said, ‘if we come across a world with a fully established alien ecosystem, it’s likely that it was a Harbinger colony. The development of multicellular life is extremely rare. In all the worlds we’ve surveyed, we’ve never found a world with complex organisms on it which cannot be explained by Harbinger activity. Except Earth, obviously. They imported modified versions of their home world’s flora and fauna.’

  ‘Was Shinden one of these Harbinger colonies?’ Nava asked.

  ‘No, it was
a bare rock with some bacteria which produced oxygen living in the oceans. That’s why the genetic diversity is… lacking in diversity. We brought plants engineered to live in the conditions here, but few animals. A few more species have been introduced over time, but you couldn’t describe Shinden as having a fully developed ecosystem. There are a few Harbinger artefacts on the planet. SAS-squared is one of various institutions around the Clan Worlds which handles their analysis and the items make their way into museums once that analysis is complete.’

  ‘Huh. So how long ago were these Harbingers around?’

  ‘The sites we’ve found date to between two hundred and two hundred and forty thousand years ago,’ Rochester replied. ‘It’s speculation, but they probably began their spacefaring phase around three hundred thousand years ago. Humans had barely evolved at that point and the Harbingers were making journeys to other star systems. They knew things about metaphysics, and possibly physics, which we cannot comprehend. If we could only ask them…’

  Nava gave a slight shrug. ‘If they were around to ask, I doubt they’d take kindly to another species taking over their colonies.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Mitsuko said. ‘I don’t subscribe to the idea that aliens would automatically be our enemies, but I don’t believe they would automatically be our friends either. If the Harbingers still existed, they would be our superiors in every way. If they wanted us gone, there would be no stopping them and, human nature being what it is, I’m sure we would mess things up royally before we even knew we were doing it.’

  ‘Still,’ Rochester said, ‘if we could… No, you’re right. If they were still around, we probably wouldn’t have made it off Earth.’

  235/3/28.

  Siegmar Tate was his usual, blustering self as he and a bunch of his cronies made their way along the refectory’s food counters. There were actually counters, more than one. Meat dishes were served on one, vegetarian dishes on another, and then there was a divided counter handling fruit, vegetables, and cheeses, though that latter option was only available at dinner time. Then you had the desserts and the drinks to round out the set. And Siegmar seemed to have a noisy and negative opinion about everything.