Zane straightened from nodding off and cleared his throat. “Very educational.” he said. “You can stop that now.” He drew in a very cold breath, and warning bells alarmed in his mind.
Then he knew. The house was too cold. He would not make it until morning.
Despite the shelter, the cold would invade, and he’d freeze to death. With eyes open to dark gray, he contemplated how long it would take for his Family to find him.
Worse came to worst, they’d hire one of the Blackthorns to track him—the FirstFamily GrandLord with great Flair and an equally great price, or one of that man’s distant cuzes with a minor gift. In any event, it would only be to find his corpse—and the Ivy artifact, of course. If D and D allowed them to leave with the brooch.
Zane’s whole body curled as he laughed. Now that his doom had come, he realized he didn’t want to die.
Why do you make those noises, Zane? asked the House.
“I’m dying.”
What!
“My lifeforce is being extinguished by the cold. Sort of amusing. You came to life yesterday, and I die today.”
No!
Zane leaned back, kept his eyes open to blackness. “I have no Flair,” he croaked. “Not even to call my Family. Not even to light a fire. I’m blind; I can’t teleport when blind. I can’t leave into a raging blizzard outside; I would not find my way home.”
No, no, NO! said the house. I will not let you die.
The House was full of ‘noes.’
I cannot have another death within my walls, another decaying human shell. It is terrible. Vermin come. They burrow into me and gnaw on me and bad stuff coats my walls.
That gave Zane pause. “Huh. If you prefer me to die outside your walls, I can stagger some meters down the street.” He coughed. It racked his body, lasting longer than he’d anticipated. Well, it wouldn’t bother him tomorrow.
No! I want YOU as my Family, the voice in his head sobbed.
Coughing again, Zane said, “There is a fireplace in this room. If you have wood or coal and you can light the fire, I might survive the night.” And maybe he should stop talking and just think words at the House.
This is why you mobile beings constructed me! I am failing in my duty!
Uh-oh.
Not your fault, Zane projected mentally to Debris and Detritus. You don’t feel the cold, didn’t know I needed more warmth than you can give me.
The ceiling split. Zane heard plaster break, felt chunks rain just behind him. A thump hit a few centimeters near him, and he coughed from the dust.
WOOD! cried the House. A beam, use it for fire!
Lady and Lord, Zane matched the moan of Debris and Detritus, why did you do that? I don’t want to hurt you.
It is done. The pain of the lost beam does not hurt me as much as my . . . fear . . . for you.
“Sorry,” Zane managed aloud, through numb lips. But he scrabbled toward the beam, got slivers as he found the broken edge, ignored his back pain as he hauled the thirty-centimeter beam to the fire.
Then he panted and rested. Even such a short exertion exhausted him. His mind fogged as he wondered how to light the beam. Too awful to make the House set fire to one of its bones for him.
Fumbling in the belt pouch his nearest sister had equipped and fastened on his belt herself, he touched various objects then found a bespelled firestarter that would work even underwater. No additional Flair needed.
He lit the beam, feeling ghoulish, and rolled to the fire, but began to sink into a sleep he knew he wouldn’t awaken from. Sor-ry, Debris and Detritus . . . just too late. I am glad of your companionship, though I am sorry I cannot spare you the distress of my corpse. He paused and listened to his slow and ragged breaths, the only sound he made. Debris and Detritus, I think if you REACH OUT mentally, you could contact other intelligent Houses and Residences. You are not alone.
I AM! You are leaving me alone! The entire House seemed to contract in the wail that trembled through Zane.
Not enough, the House wept in creaks around him. Not nearly enough. Please do not die, Zane. Please, fight. I do not wish to stay sentient if another one of my beings dies. I cannot bear it.
A child, no, baby’s cry, that Zane could not ignore. He couldn’t summon his Flair, but he could gather all the strength he had. We . . . will . . . work . . . together.
A pause in the lament.
How?
Zane struggled with sluggish thoughts. Think or die.
You have Flair. As you were constructed, they gave you strength and energy throughout your lifetime until you became aware.
Yes!
If you can share a little of that with me . . .
I can! I WILL!
Right. I don’t know how we can share. Maybe if you run some energy down the beam in the fireplace—
We will work together! *I* know how we can share energy. My HeartStones—
And I WILL NOT hurt you further by messing with your HeartStones.
You cannot hurt me through them. I have much untapped energy that I can share!
Maybe he shouldn’t put his trust into a newly aware House, a baby, but he had nothing left to lose. Zane found himself clearing his throat, mumbling, “All right then. Tell me what to do.”
Stand up and face the fireplace! The order rang in his ears, reverberating oddly as if there was more than one being addressing him.
Nearly beyond him, he forced himself up, staggered, each step jarring his back, making his lungs bellow with breath.
Place your hands on the heads of the sculptures flanking the fireplace. Your reach is wide enough, a high snappish voice instructed, not the House’s usual tones.
Zane blinked, saw only blackness, but now that the House mentioned it, he could feel the irregularities of sculptures. He moved forward, reached out, and found the tops of the heads of two figures, one male, one female, in the same style as those on the front of the House.
Not just your fingers, curve your hands around the facial features of Debris and Detritus, too! A deeper voice intoned, but now the atmosphere around him seemed to seethe with energy. Heat rose from the fireplace as the beam crackled, burning.
He palmed the faces of the figures.
NOW!
Lightning sizzled, arcing through him, and he yelled. He’d tapped into the centuries-accrued energy of the House.
Pain zapped down every nerve, slid over his skin, sank to his marrow—raw power.
He screamed as the force filled him, overflowed, heard the shriek of the House, too. Definitely felt the whoosh of the beam as it zipped away from the fireplace, lifted to the ceiling, creaked into place.
He connected with the House; they melded together for an instant, and his own ribs shivered as the beam became whole, the burned end augmented with Flair and other . . . bits of wood left in the rooms. Plaster ladened the air as the ceiling mended to better than new.
He and the House groaned together. As the energies blew through him, he went toppling when his hands lifted from the statues of Debris and Detritus.
He crumpled, stunned.
I love you, said the House. I will always shelter and protect you, D and D said in the tone of a solemn oath.
Loving Zane? That was too damn quick, but he didn’t say so. Words formed slowly as darkness tugged at the ragged edges of Zane’s mind, complete sincerity, I will always cherish and preserve you. My . . . vow . . . of . . . honor.
The man, Zane Aster, Debris and Detritus’s Family, lay still. D and D stayed quiet himself so he could sense all Zane’s life indicators. He breathed, evenly, steadily. His muscles lay relaxed against the House’s mainspace floor, his body warm.
They had saved him. Zane would live.
D and D’s inner trembling receded. He felt as if he, too, could breathe. Odd that he began to think of himself in mobile entity—human—terms, but so it was.
Zane awoke to heat, and he felt that he lay in a patch of sunlight. Even with his eyes closed, he could delineate the ragged swa
tch of light on his body. He snorted. Eyes closed, right. From what he remembered of the evening before, he wouldn’t see anything with his eyes open . . . or straining all his Flair.
Both gone forever.
But . . . he felt that sunlight. And his normal senses fed information to him, his skin, his brain, with a nearly painful acuity. As if those senses had expanded, no, magnified. Expanded exponentially. He smiled at the alliteration and opened his eyes.
Not darkness, but gray. A wavery gray like smoke. He didn’t know what that meant other that he remained blind.
“I survived,” he croaked aloud. “We survived.”
Yes. We survived, the House whispered in his mind. The sunshine on my outer walls has heated them warmer today than many days lately.
“The storm has passed, and the weather is better.”
Yes, Zane.
He could hear all the creaks and soughs of the House, some slight scratching of glass like branches on windows. But not on this level. Straining his ears, he realized the sounds emanated from one of the back rooms of the third floor.
His breath caught with a gasp that became a cough. But this cough didn’t emanate deep from his lungs, racking him.
No, he continued to feel good—in muscle and bone, skin and tendon. No frostburn or windburn on his face.
He simply had no sight and no Flair.
But his senses seemed greatly augmented, a conundrum. Something that had occurred when he’d linked with the House the night before? Or the continuing strange results of the underwater accident that had almost killed him and taken his sight and Flair?
Who knew?
Who cared about the why? He didn’t.
With an easy move, he rolled to his feet, stretched, popping joints. Yep, felt good.
“The room is warmer.” He turned toward the fireplace, could sense the dimensions of the open interior, the individual pieces of charcoal in the pile, glowing red or white.
His hands recalled the feel of the two carved statues on each side of the fireplace with enough detail that he could form the images, male and female, in his mind’s eye.
Slowly, he turned in place. His sight yet showed a dark flat gray. But the pressure on his skin, even through his clothes, told him where the columns were, the five tall rectangular windows in the back. He knew how far the ceiling loomed over his head and the dimensions of the doorway a few strides away.
Turning his palm upward, he commanded, “Lightspell!”
Nothing. Not a bit of Flair for him to draw on, the psi magic he’d felt pulse through his nerves all his life.
Blind and empty of Flair.
Zane? the House sounded nervous.
“I’m here,” he said absently, still taking stock. Trusting in this new awareness, he strode across the room, stopped a few centimeters before a column. Raising a hand, he brushed it over the cool stone and frowned; it seemed to him that the pillar was of a light-colored marble . . . but not white. Odd.
This whole thing was odd.
The strangest days in his life. He whirled and jogged across the room and through the door, down the short hallway, noting another door on his left that would be the front room with the bow windows he’d seen yesterday evening.
Pretty much his last image was of the house.
ZANE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Stopping at the front door, he lay his palm against it and linked with the House.
I FEEL you!
I feel you, too, he replied mentally. You and I worked together to save me.
You saved me, too, D and D said simply, I’m glad you didn’t die and rot on my floor. That is scary and nasty, and I couldn’t go through that again.
The atmosphere in the room trembled around him as if the air pressure suddenly dropped.
Zane grimaced. “I imagine so.” Such a young entity would have hidden his awareness from death and decay within his walls and perished if Zane had died.
Yes. We saved each other. He stooped and picked up the Ivy brooch-artifact, then added aloud, “I’m going to turn in this piece of jewelry for the reward, file a claim for you and your land so I will be named as owner.”
Owner!
“I don’t want the general public to know you’re sentient yet. Not with your unique qualities. I want no harm to come to you. And I’ll have to find out how other recently intelligent Houses became their own persons.” He paused. “I think they are all associated with a Family.”
You will be my Family? A tiny breeze scraped papyrus scraps around the room along with the equally tiny mental whisper.
“Absolutely!” He said it so loud it rang against the walls, more, so it sank into the House so D and D would believe him. “I’m also going to arrange the move from my . . . previous . . . abode to here, D and D. I’ll be back within a septhour, seventy minutes.”
You promise?
“My solemn vow of honor, and I have never given that to anyone before.” He paused. “Except for you, last night. You should have memories of all the circumstances of a solemn Vow of Honor. I would suffer if I broke it.”
I . . . care for you. You would hurt me if you betrayed my trust.
“I care for you, too. I’ll be back.” He paused. “One moment.” He strode back into the mainspace, no stumbling or staggering now. He knew his surroundings. Oh, there’d be no deep-sea diving and treasure hunting for him anymore, but he had Flair. Maybe not. Not Flair, but he had some sort of talent or gift that mitigated his blindness.
He touched the stylized face of the male, Debris, then the female, Detritus, the sculptures flanking the fireplace. Gave and accepted a blessing.
Then he turned and walked to the front door, said the phrase he’d only given members of his Family before, but then, this House was his Family, now. “I love you, Debris and Detritus. I’ll be back shortly.”
I love you, Zane Aster of the House of Debris and Detritus. I will wait.
Zane chuckled and slid aside the bars, unlocked the door, and stepped into a cold, clear day. No doubt the sun shone, a white star in the deep blue sky; pain flickered.
Zane? asked the House.
“I’m all right,” he murmured, though no one walked along the street for blocks. He couldn’t see the sun or the sky, but he knew that. He took off down the street with a long stride. Someday he might learn how to teleport again; for now, he could walk the few kilometers to the GuildHall and turn in T’Ivy’s brooch, file a claim for the House.
And he knew he’d left something behind after all.
Despair.
The House hummed to himself, a jaunty song his Family, Zane, had taught him. He tided himself up as much as possible, found a button from Zane’s jacket. He swept it into the pile of other small and interesting items next to the fireplace pillar of Detritus. He dusted and cleaned the entire house using the stored Flair he’d learned to tap.
His Family returned, as promised, within the septhour and pounded on his outside wall, to the right of his door. The House felt the warmth of his living flesh, and through that flesh the joyful emotions of the man. Then he felt a . . . brightness on the wall next to the door. A metal plate that someday he might be able to modify enough to see the street. Fascinating!
What is it? he asked his Family.
Zane said, “It is a name plate, designating you as an individual and an intelligent House.”
Oooooh!
“It says ‘Debris and Detritus House, Aware this Month of Willow, 424 Years After Colonization, Zane Aster Family.’”
YES! trilled the House, then welcomed his Family inside.
Like smoke rising, the minor gods, Debris and Detritus, removed themselves from the statues of the fireplace, their attenuated essence twined into the bedrock beneath the House, separating themselves from the newly intelligent being. They had helped the House become sentient, but now they wished to be individuals.
They’d linger, though. Rest and wait and grow stronger for a few decades.
Then they’d leave this sanctua
ry and run free.
About the Story
* * *
Celta is a planet of magic, telepathic animal companions, and romance . . . currently there are fifteen books in the series (including a novella collection). Throughout my Celta series, I’ve had walk-on (walk-INTO) characters of intelligent houses, sometimes minor, sometimes major secondary characters, arranging from the amusing to the grumpy to the obsessive. In this story, I wanted to show a House Becoming Aware.
* * *
Robin D. Owens
6
Small Gods
ChandaElaine Spurlock
“You bastard,” Moira crossed her arms against her chest and leaned away from Tony to sneak a quick glance at her watch.
“Who took the jam out of your donut?” Tony tightened his grip on the pole as the train braked for the platform at Tottenham Court Road station.
The bifold doors sprang open with a hiss, and Moira stepped onto the platform without so much as a glance in Tony’s direction.
“What?” Tony stumbled out of the carriage and into the path of a man in a tailored suit. The video feed on the suit’s tablet flickered.
“Watch where you’re going, mate! You . . . uh . . . ” The words evaporated on the man’s tongue under the heat of Tony’s stare. “Sorry. My fault.” He slipped past Tony with a watery smile, his hooded eyes fixed on the cement platform. “Didn’t see you there.”
Tony raised his right eyebrow and leaned forward, the charcoal gray lapel of the man’s suit gripped tight in his right hand. “I think you did.”
He wrenched himself from Tony’s grasp, sprinted down the platform, and flung himself past the rush hour crush onto the train moments before the doors slid shut.
“Stop doing that to people. Not his fault you weren’t paying attention.” Moira frowned into the depths of her brown leather handbag, her cheek brushing the knuckles of her left hand as she gave the bag a violent shake. She popped up from her excavation, right arm buried elbow deep in the brown leather, only to be lashed in the face by her hair as the train pulled away from the platform. “Did you get his wallet?”
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