She kissed my forehead. “You big idiot. You’re supposed to tell me these things.”
“There’s not much anyone can do about it,” I mumbled.
Penny squeezed me harder, “You really think that? Perhaps I should teach you a lesson.”
I had a good idea what that might be. Yes, please, teach me a lesson. I kissed her neck, “I might be willing to learn.”
She laughed and pushed me back, “Now you’ve given away your hand! Was all this to trick me into your wicked embrace?”
I shrugged and gave her my best boyish grin.
“Stupid never dies,” she said, repeating my old motto back to me.
“But sometimes it gets lucky,” I added. The look in her eyes told me that this was definitely going to be a good night. Then there came a gods-be-damned knocking on our door. Sonofabitch! I thought.
“Who is it?!” I asked in a loud voice, making no attempt to disguise my irritation. Since I kept a privacy ward around the bedroom my magesight couldn’t tell me.
“Dad,” said Matthew’s voice through the door. “I have an idea.”
“Tomorrow,” I yelled.
There was a pause, and then he said, “But you’re awake.”
“Go away!”
I waited, but there was nothing further said. After a minute I got up and looked out the door to be sure he had gone. The hall was empty. Grumbling, I went back to bed. It took a while to recapture the mood, but I am a stubborn man. Eventually, I succeeded.
Chapter 6
Matthew found me again the following morning. He tended to sleep late, so it was a surprise when he showed up for breakfast.
“Dad,” he said immediately.
“Ysh hmph?” I replied eloquently around a mouthful of sausage and eggs.
“I’ve been thinking about our problem.”
Swallowing, I paused long enough to say something else, “Our problem?”
“With ANSIS,” he clarified.
That was the last thing I wanted to think about, much less brain storm about. I was still groggy. “It’s really early…”
“Try this,” he said, handing me the mug he had in front of him.
I sniffed it. The aroma was earthy and dark, much like the color of the stygian brew within. It looked something like tea, if it had been concentrated until it was impossible to see through, but the smell was entirely different.
He saw my hesitation. “It isn’t poison. I’m not ready to be count yet.”
“Ha, if it was, I might drink it just to be done with the job,” I grumbled. I took a sip and immediately grimaced at the hot bitter flavor. “Why would you drink this?”
“It’s coffee,” he told me. “It has a kick to it. It will wake you up.”
I drank a little more, but the bitterness set my teeth on edge. “You like this?”
He grinned, “Karen liked it with milk and sugar, but I prefer it plain. I like the bite.”
We didn’t have plain sugar. It tended to run out quickly, but we did have honey. I added some and mixed in some milk. To my surprise the resulting flavor was rich and mellow. Properly doctored, I could see the drink’s appeal. “You got this from the other world?” My son was able to traverse the planes, in fact, he was the only one able to do so.
Matthew nodded, “I don’t have much left. I’m hoping I can locate the same plant here, otherwise I’ll have to make another crossing.”
That made me gulp, and consequently I choked. “Back to Karen’s world? They almost killed you.”
“Not to hers specifically, to another analog; someplace safer.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” I mumbled, though with each sip I began to understand better why he might feel it necessary.
Moira walked in then, rubbing her eyes and looking generally disheveled. Seeing the two of us, she spoke to her brother first, “Did you tell him?”
I put the mug down. “Just what are you two plotting?”
“Relax Dad,” said my daughter. “We’re on your side.”
“Side of what?”
“The war,” Matthew informed me.
“Is there a war on?” I asked.
“Now you’re just being obtuse,” said Moira. “He means the war between us and ANSIS. We know you don’t think it’s over.”
I closed my eyes. It was too early for this, and I could see the direction the conversation was heading. It would only end in trouble for me. Whatever they were planning would likely involve some danger, danger I was not inclined to involve them in. Danger that my wife would be even less inclined to involve them in. And no matter who won the argument, I would catch the blame for it. Force them to give it up and I’d have to worry about subversion or rebellion from my kids, allow them to do whatever it was, and I’d be on Penny’s bad side.
“It isn’t dangerous,” added my daughter.
Was she reading my mind? Moira had developed some unfortunate talents during her trip to Dunbar. While fighting the first battle against our new foe she had explored her special gift for manipulating the minds of her fellow humans. As a result, she was now extremely dangerous, to herself, and to others. She could also, with some effort, get around the mental shields of other wizards. I gave her a suspicious glare.
“I wasn’t reading your thoughts,” she answered, as if to my unspoken fear. “You’d feel it if I tried to intrude, but your block does little to hide your moods and emotions. Our idea won’t be dangerous, and it won’t upset Mom.”
With a sigh, I spoke, “What’s this about?”
“We know you’re trying to discover if there are any more of them lingering, so you can avoid another situation like the civil war in Dunbar,” explained Matthew. “But wandering around the world hoping to catch a glimpse of them is a fool’s game. You’re just one man.”
‘Civil war’ was what we called the fight with ANSIS in Dunbar. The ancient enemy of the She’Har was an artificially intelligent machine entity, one created by mankind on another world. It had come to our world and begun reproducing itself, and more problematic, it had started out by enslaving King Darogen of the neighboring nation of Dunbar. My daughter had responded by counter-enslaving part of the population, and the fight that resulted had been ugly and bloody.
She had won, at great cost to herself, and succeeded in rescuing me from my imprisonment. Then I had cleaned up what remained of the mess using lava to melt and fill in the hidden area beneath the city that ANSIS had been operating from.
Unfortunately, ANSIS was rather like a disease. It only took a small part of it to survive and start a new colony, or infection, or whatever one preferred to call it. If it had survived, it would be difficult to spot. So far as I knew, only a wizard could discern the difference between a normal person and one that had been forced to play host to one of the parasitic machines; hence my frequent traveling.
“I hope you aren’t asking me to let the two of you start patrolling,” I replied.
“That’s one idea,” said my son, “but it doesn’t really solve the problem. Even if we all patrol, that’s just a handful of people, you, me, Moira, the Prathions, Gareth Gaelyn, Karen—it’s a small group—the world is too big.”
Moira nodded, “But there are more options than just wizards. The dragons also have magesight.”
I held up a hand, “Only a few dragons have been bonded, mainly to wizards. The only ones not bonded to wizards are your mother’s and the Queen’s. You aren’t suggesting we ask Her Majesty to fly around looking for them?”
“No, that was just an example,” answered Moira. “The point, is that any spellbeast has magesight, and with a sufficiently complex mind they can spot an ANSIS controlled human as well as we can.”
This had actually occurred to me, but I hadn’t been in a hurry to press forward with the idea. There were several limitations, but the main one was that we only had one Centyr mage who could produce such spellbeasts, Moira herself. She could only make so many complex spell-minds in a given day, and they required ay
thar to survive. Each would slowly fade over time, putting a hard limit on how many she could maintain.
Even so, several dozen such creatures would be much more effective than what I had been doing.
“You really want to tie up all your time doing this every day?” I asked her.
“Actually,” put in Matthew, “she can do more than you might realize.”
Arching one brow, I looked at him curiously. “You know something.”
My daughter stood up, and before my eyes she split into two identical people. Both possessed her unique aythar, but while one had a body of flesh and blood, the other was composed entirely of magical energy. “Dad, I’d like you to meet Myra,” said the one that was solid.
Remaining still, I worked through the facts in front of me. One of the forbidden techniques my daughter had used in Dunbar had been spell-twinning. It wasn’t as inherently evil as possession and mind control, but it had a host of ethical and moral problems. A spell-twin was an easy way to produce a complex spell-mind, rather than creating something unique, the Centyr mage simply copies herself. The biggest problem is that both remain linked to the same aystrylin, the soul-seat, or wellspring of life. They draw on the same life, and eventually, unless they remain in perfect harmony, one takes control and destroys the other.
In Dunbar she had done this not once, but hundreds of times. She had told me that. Even worse, some of her spell-twins had seized control of the aystrylin in the host bodies they had possessed, effectively murdering and stealing the life of those they controlled. By doing that, they could remain alive indefinitely, but by some miracle all her twins had retained enough morality to return to their creator when the battle was over. Then they had fought within her, to decide which would survive.
Moira herself wasn’t completely certain if she was the original, or simply the final survivor of her creations.
All of this, as well as a corruption of her personality, was the reason the shade of her original mother, born over a thousand years ago, had insisted she must die. I had vetoed that option. But the cold shock of what I was seeing now made me doubt my resolve for a moment. “What have you done?!”
“Dad,” said Moira calmly. “It isn’t what you think. Myra isn’t new. She’s been with me since Dunbar. We’re friends. She helped me survive at the end. I just couldn’t do away with her.”
Softly, I spoke, “She’s attached to you?” Briefly, I considered an extreme response. Forcibly removing the doppelganger while she was separated from my child and destroying it before she could respond.
Of course, my daughter read my intentions despite my calm outer demeanor. She raised a shield to protect herself and her twin. “That won’t work,” said Moira. “Let me explain.”
“Myra isn’t bad,” said Matthew. “She’s been with her for over a month now.”
I glared at him, “You knew about this?”
He shrugged. “She’s the one who healed me after I came back from Karen’s world. Moira was worried she would be tempted to alter my mind. Myra is more like she used to be, before all the stuff she did in Halam.”
“She can help us,” insisted Moira. “The hardest part of producing spell-minds is mental. She can double what I can do.”
Myra stepped forward. “Take down the shield,” she told her twin.
Worried, Moira did as her spell-twin asked.
The spell-twin looked at me and said, “If you really think it would be best for me to disappear, I will do so—Dad.” Her features were determined, but sad.
Matthew and Moira both immediately protested, but I was taken by what she had said. “Dad?” Ignoring them, I addressed Myra, “She created you, not me.”
Myra shook her head, “I have no memory of that. From my perspective, I’m your daughter. I remember everything; the day you taught me to dance, the way you laugh, even bad things—like when we were both poisoned.
“I use the name ‘Myra’, because it saves confusion, because I know that in reality I’m only a recent addition to this world, but it still feels weird. You’re the only father I’ll ever know, and if you don’t want me, then I don’t want to exist anymore,” she finished.
“What in the world?!”
Penny was standing in the doorway, Irene and Conall following behind her. Moira and Myra turned to face her at the same time, and almost in unison said, “Mom.”
Looking at Matthew I rubbed at my temples. It’s way too early for this. “Go tell Peter to cancel whatever is on my schedule for this morning. Then make me some more of this—what did you call it?”
“Coffee.”
“That’s it,” I agreed. “More coffee.”
The next two hours were mainly chaos and confusion. Probably Moira should have made her revelation to both of us at the same time, but apparently, she hadn’t really intended to do so initially. Either way, a lot of explaining had to be done, and even though I had few minutes head start on the facts, I had not even come close to knowing how I felt about those facts.
Discovering one has a previously unsuspected daughter, who is also identical to the daughter you raised, is a disconcerting feeling. In truth, I was pretty sure they didn’t even have a name for the feeling yet. That’s how uncommon the experience is.
Penny took longer to understand the situation, but once she did, she seemed to resolve her feelings on the matter much quicker. Myra was her daughter too, and that was that. The two were embracing and crying while I was still staring at my feet, trying to decide what was the right thing to do.
Matthew spoke to me, his words coming at a steady pace, even as the rest of the family struggled with the news. “So, with two of them, we can produce a lot more spellbeasts to search for ANSIS. But I think we can do more. If we use a variation of the immortality enchantment on them they will last longer.”
Numb, I reacted, “We already agreed we wouldn’t use that enchantment anymore.”
“Not the original one,” insisted my son. “A variant of the one you made for the dragons. We can modify the conditions so that it has a time limit. That way they won’t last long enough to develop problems, but Moira and Myra won’t have to spend every minute of every day creating and maintaining them.”
In the background I heard Irene crying as well, and then Conall made a joke. The others were laughing and crying simultaneously. There was also some hugging.
“If we use flying forms,” continued Matthew, “they can cover a lot of area. You won’t have to keep going out on pointless hunts. Instead, we can plan for what we’ll do when we do find them.”
I focused on my son’s face, “Doesn’t it bother you in the least, suddenly having two of her?”
He grinned, “It worried me at first, but the new one is nicer.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. Then I looked at my wife, some marital sixth sense warned me that she had come to a conclusion and was hoping to catch my eye. I could see a question on her face. She was waiting for an answer.
“We already have a dog,” I responded. “How bad could an incorporeal daughter be?”
Penny smiled.
Standing up, I located Humphrey. He had been running around during the discussion, excited by whatever was going on, though he didn’t understand it. I couldn’t help but feel that despite my supposedly superior intellect, Humphrey and I were in the same boat. Gathering him up, I took him outside. We needed a walk.
Chapter 7
It was during my walk that I remembered that I hadn’t told Penny anything about my conversation with the Queen. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to bring it up now, but waiting would do no good. I had been married long enough to have learned that lesson, even if I didn’t always heed it.
When I returned to the house I found my wife waiting for me. Everyone else had left to pursue their own day. Penny gave me a wry look as I came in, “Done hiding with Humphrey?”
I did my best to look shocked. “We needed some time to bond.”
She looked down at Humphrey, who was wagging his little tail
and gazing up at us with hopeful enthusiasm. “At least you have a good excuse now,” she opined.
“Excuse for what?”
“For your quiet time. You always do that. Whenever you get overwhelmed you run off to think—always alone,” she replied.
It was true, I couldn’t argue that. “As opposed to you—you talk it out with everyone in the room. I don’t know how you manage it. I can’t think straight with everyone talking around me.”
“And what great insight did you come up with while you were walking Humphrey?” she asked.
“The same one you already came to, before I even left,” I said. “We have an extra daughter now.”
“No getting around it,” she agreed. “It’s still weird, though.”
I kissed her cheek. “That’s what you get for marrying a wizard.”
“I was tricked!” she complained with a twinkle in her eye.
“Bespelled and enchanted, my dear,” I corrected, then my tone turned serious. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”
Penny put her hands on her hips, “Same here. I hope your news isn’t serious. I don’t think I can handle many more shocks today.”
“Maybe you should go first,” I suggested.
“What’s yours about?” she asked.
I shrugged. “The Queen, how about you?”
“Lynaralla,” she replied, “but I think Ariadne might be more important. You go first.”
“I invited her to live with us,” I blurted out.
Penelope Illeniel’s eyes went wide. “What?!”
“Just some of the time,” I clarified. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
She spluttered, “How? Why? Are you insane?”
“Most likely,” I answered. Then I told her about my visit with the Queen of Lothion, describing Ariadne’s isolation and depression, as well as my proposed solution. The look on her face told me that my wife had some serious reservations, though.
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