by Faith Hunter
“What’s sliced br . . .”
“Shut up. But if you spawn-brained idiots screw this up . . .”
“T-minus five minutes and holding. T-minus five minutes and . . .”
“As you just heard Mission Control say over the loudspeakers, we’re still in a launch delay here at the New Kennedy Space Center. We’ve called our technical expert, retired Air Force pilot Colonel Richard Wainwright, into the studio to explain the technical issues that have delayed the launch of SNN’s satellite, and to talk about some of the dangers that make this launch anything but routine. Colonel Wainwright, welcome back.”
“Thank you. Glad to be here.”
“So, what is Mission Control saying about the delay?”
“Actually, not a lot, Matthew. The countdown schedule has room built into it for any number of minor checks and corrections, so we have to assume that if they’ve actually put the launch on hold, it must be something mission-critical, something that could doom the satellite if it weren’t corrected before launch. There’s no primary propulsion system in the satellite . . .”
“No rocket.”
“Exactly. No rocket. But there are attitude jets—small steering rockets, used to keep the satellite in proper position once in orbit. If something went wrong with them, then the satellite could find itself in space but unable to function properly. Then there are the folding solar panels on the side of the craft. If they don’t unfold, or unfold incorrectly . . .”
“Get that spawn-screwing truck out of the shot!”
“But, Director Kelly, the technicians need to recharge the onboard batteries and . . .”
“I don’t care what they say they have to do; that’s their job. But they are not parking their truck in front of the network logo. Now you get that thing out of my shot or I’ll call on Azazel and his demon hordes to move the truck and then move every last one of you to whatever hole in the ground he fell into at the end of the War.”
“It’s 11:59 here in Central Florida—one minute from the scheduled time of the launch of the SNN satellite, but we’re still in launch delay mode. The technicians tell us that they can’t predict how long the hold will last, but there’s no likelihood of the launch being scrubbed. While we wait for the techs to give the go-ahead, we’ll take a break for some messages from our sponsors.”
“The following commercials are approved for all audiences by the Department of Information.”
“Smoother, faster acceleration? Check. Increase, longer-lasting el-power? Check. Redesigned, sleeker lines? Check. The new 2097 El-Ektra is the first . . .”
“We inter—uh—there you see the seraphs—uh—okay, as they speed out of the shot, let’s go back to a moment ago, when the septad of seraphs suddenly showed up and took their positions around the satellite in preparation for launch. There you see the six Aluf seraphs arranging themselves in a triangular pattern around the launch stack, while Ar-Ra’d, apparently the leader of this mission, presumably because of his associations with—uh—the clouds, is standing apart from them at one corner of the triangle. Uh—it looks like they bow their heads in prayer for just a moment, and then, they raise their arms, spread their wings, and the seven of them, and the satellite, accelerate into the sky.”
“While we wait for Mary McGowan and AAS Envoy Madder, Colonel Wainwright, what can you tell us . . .”
“The countdown clock was on hold. What Dark-bound idiot gave the go-ahead order to the seraphs? Who cost us a live shot I’d been setting up for two months? Whose ass do I have to personally kick straight into the nearest hellhole?”
Most of the humans standing between Jay Kelly and the newly-returned-from-space Ar-Ra’d drifted out of the approaching launch director’s way. At the sound of Kelly’s blasphemy, a kirk elder quietly signaled to a knot of AAS warriors, calling them from their station in the shade. Oblivious, Kelly stomped toward the seraph.
“You weren’t supposed to go up until everything was just right. There was a launch delay in place. Didn’t you see the countdown clock was stopped? Of all the stupid—the launch was delayed until we got things right. Why on Earth did you have to blow the goddamned shot by . . .”
Ar-Ra’d’s movements were almost too swift for the eye to follow, as a golden sword appeared in his hand, he swung it at Jay Kelly’s head, and at the moment of contact a burst of light as bright as the sun blinded all the mortals in the area. Calmly, the seraph spoke, addressing the elder and warriors as if they’d addressed him: “We were asked to return the machine to its proper place among the stars when the arrangements were in order.” As their eyesight cleared, the mortals could see that Ar-Ra’d’s hands were once again empty—as was the pile of clothing lying on the tarmac, wisps of smoke still rising from the shoes. “We do not understand all your . . . technology, but we understand the heavens. The stars were right.”
Alone
94 PA / 2106 AD
Faith Hunter
I had been in Enclave. Sitting at a sidewalk café on the corner outside of the priestess’s home with my twin sister, Rose, reading aloud a poem written by a Pre-Ap poet named Henry David Thoreau. The language was formal and wandering, with images so intense it seemed to uplift me to some higher plane. I was reading a line about the full moon when my gift fell.
Hammered me.
All the mages and all the voices.
All of them.
In my mind.
The cacophony, the wild blast of need and outrage and want and love and lust and power. The voices in my head. The voices of every mage in Enclave. Desires, hatreds, petty angers. So little kindness. So little love.
Puberty and my gift descended like a seraph in battle armor, brutalizing me, sending me screaming, falling to the street. Moaning. Gasping. My mind invaded by voices shouting, demanding.
And then Lolo’s voice, soothing, a bitter tea at my lips. And then nothing.
When I woke, it was in an odd little bed that was rocking beneath me. The flannel sheets were rough compared to the mage-touched sheets I slept under in the priestess’s house. The clothes I was wearing were cotton, my socks knitted wool. Human-made clothes. Around my neck was a leather thong, the opal disc pendant lying on my chest. My mage attributes didn’t glow and I intuited a connection to the opal: I assumed it blanked them, making me look human, dull and ugly, keeping my secret from the human world.
There were handrails on the side of the bed. I levered myself over them and down to the floor to find myself in a private cabin of a sleeper car on a train. Outside of Enclave. Alone.
Six hours after waking, I was still here. Alone. I hated that word: Alone. And bored, with nothing to do but stare out at the world beyond the frosted glass as it rocketed by. For days more according to the porter, a tall, broad man with one blue eye and one brown eye. He also had the scar of a kirk brand on his face, but from the way the light diffused slightly around his cheek, I could tell he wore some sort of glamour. The branding was probably a response to the odd quirk of genetics that had given him mismatched eyes. Humans were afraid of anything different. Brandings were designed to be visible, as lessons to those who saw them. Facial scars could be horrible, and if the porter’s was still partially visible through the glamour, it must be worse underneath. The glamour could have been worked to completely hide it, but humans probably would have considered that a sin worthy of more punishment.
I was curious, but I didn’t ask. That would have been rude. And foolish. So I just tipped him well when he brought me meals and answered my few questions about our destination and the length of the trip and when and where on the train I could eat.
His name was Taft. And he didn’t ask questions, which I appreciated.
He withdrew as I stared out the window into the falling night, eating the excellent grilled cheese, spinach, mushroom, and tomato sandwich and drinking the tea—black tea with real cream. Not thinking. Not feeling. Just staring out at my new, frozen world, so different from the New Orleans Enclave, with its damp heat and the smell of
coffee and gumbo and beignets on the air. And the feel of creation energy dancing along my skin.
Beyond the ice-rimmed windows of the train were mountains and evergreens and the stark branches of leafless trees. Snow and ice covered everything. Everywhere. Except the vertical walls of rock the train passed between. The stone was cracked, split, splintered, and coated with an ice glaze, but so full of power that it called to me, called to my mage gift, the desire to work the energy stored in the stone heart of the world.
Beyond the windows of the train car was this unfamiliar place, this impossible scenery. The scent of ice on the ground, snow in the air, the stink of the steel rails and wheels, steel-against-steel, all assaulted my Stone mage nostrils with each breath. Yet even here, so far from Enclave, the distance growing with each moment, there was the presence of mage magics. The engine was powered by mage might, bartered and paid for. The rails kept free of ice, also by mage power. Despite the cold outside, the window didn’t have ice covering it, except for a little frost in one corner. I touched the glass and felt the tingle of magic there too. The glass had been treated with a warming spell; the magics in the corner had begun to wear thin and would have to be recharged.
Mages were everywhere. We were nowhere. Humans used our magic but hated us for making it, for having access to it when they didn’t. Humans were vile. And if I slipped up, they’d kill me.
The stories we’d been told in Enclave of what humans did to unlicensed witchy women had been vivid and intense. Remembering them now left my mouth dry, my heart pounding, my breath coming too fast. My reflection in the window changed as my skin began to glimmer, to glow, shining through the working of the amulet. In my panic, I’d released my neomage attributes, my eyes mirrored in the glass with the gray-blue of labradorite, my flesh like pearls. Even my red hair glowed scarlet. And the scars on my legs were pure white, evidence of my damaged body and a childhood marred by danger and Darkness.
I stared at myself, terrified. If the wrong person saw me like this . . .
But I had been trained since the crèche to control my powers and myself. The simple mantra taught to every neomage child forced its way up through my panic. “Stone and fire, water and air, blood and kin prevail,” I whispered. “Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and kin prevail.”
I said the phrases over and over, breathing deeply with each repetition, each breath fogging a round spot on the window only to have the conjure evaporate it away. I kept it up until I was calm, until my fears weren’t somehow overriding the opal Glamour amulet’s pre-programmed conjure.
The mage glow faded to human-ugly. Tears blurred my reflection, making it waver. My Glamour amulet was a comforting warmth in my fist, my true nature protected once again.
As my body calmed, my hunger returned. I finished my sandwich and the tea and then drank several bottles of Mason’s Pure Godly Deep Well Water. Most local streams, lakes and wells were perfectly safe to drink from since the Apocalypse had eliminated diseases, overpopulation, and industrial pollution. But well-to-do humans still preferred expensive brand name water imported from trusted purified sources. And a neomage in hiding could piggyback on that affectation. We needed to know where our water came from, since some waters interfered with our elements. Well water was safest for me, and Lolo had probably ensured that the train was well stocked with Mason’s.
And once again the window drew me. I turned off the light, crawled close on the small couch, and studied the new world beyond. And for the very first time, in the dark, I began to experiment with my Stone-gift. All by myself. Because I was alone. I would have no teachers. Never would, ever again. I knew that—despite Lolo’s promise that she’d find a way for me to return.
But I still had the lessons I’d been taught in school. They would help. They could steer me.
Remembering the lesson of sight, I let my eyes fall out of focus. Within minutes, I figured out how to use mage sight. It wasn’t nearly as hard to achieve as I’d feared, but it was a lot harder to hold onto. Mage sight was disorienting, made worse by a vague motion sickness from the movement of the train car. But when I could hold onto it, I was able to see the foulness of allergens, of ice and metal and trees and even air currents, bright but sickly.
Beneath my clothes, my prime amulet was glowing softly, automatically protecting me from the effect of the allergens, the elements that I couldn’t use. But when we passed rock, I could see the might of stone, the granite glowing a warm and perfect blue/pink/lavender of might. The rock called to me. I hoped that wherever I was going I’d have access to stone. To the heart of the world.
A handful of pre-conjured amulets were in my pockets. I wasn’t sure what they did, but I had days to figure them out. They would need to be charged when I got . . . wherever I was going. To the mountain “city” where Lolo had decided to send me. Alone.
Alone with my worthless, dangerous, extra gift. A gift that allowed me to read the minds of mages. Any mage, all mages I was close to. Forced me to read their minds. Though the train car was warm, I shivered remembering the horrible things mages thought.
Tired, I turned on the lamp and slid into the bed that Taft had made for me when he brought my dinner. The sheets were cold, and I pulled the heavy coverlet up. I withdrew the letter I’d tucked into my shirt, unfolded the single sheet. The note was dangerous to have, and I’d read and reread it so many times already that I almost had it memorized anyway, but I hadn’t been able to destroy it. Not yet. It was written in Lolo’s crabbed penmanship and with her Cajun phrasings.
Thorn.
When you wake, you be far from other mages, as safe as I might manage. You should still have you memory, but if not, know this. When you gift descend, you develop a condition I am calling mind-openness, allowing you entrée to all other mages’ mind. It was more clamor than anyone could handle, especially a mage so young and inexperience. Thus, I have you on a train, sending you away to safety, for now.
I sending you to a human man named Lem in Mineral City. No one there has ever seen a mage. They won’t know what to look for. They won’t expect one to arrive via train. You weapons case is in luggage with you chest. It will arrive with you, never fear, along with other necessities. In the sleeper compartment is enough to get you to Mineral City, including amulets and a Book of Workings. You recharge the stone and keep you mage attributes muted. The simple spells you need to survive be easy to follow in Book of Workings. If you have question, answer in the Book.
Tell no one what you are. Not even Lem.
Know that I begin search for a cure for you mind-openness. Practice you savage chi and savage blade. You and Rose will be battle mages, together, a weapon against Darkness.
Learn how to use and control you Stone-gift.
I send supplies.
Lolo
PS: destroy this note
What Lolo hadn’t said was that I was now rogue. From the bitter taste in my mouth and the carpet fibers on my clothes when I woke up, I figured out that I had been drugged, smuggled out, and sent away. A mage away from Enclave, without a visa, without ID. Without protection. If discovered, humans would have the right to rape me, torture me, and kill me.
If there was a sin in being out of Enclave, it wasn’t mine, as all children are innocent, but that wouldn’t stop humans if they learned what I was. Humans were inherently bitter and violent. Everyone knew that.
Yet Lolo was sending me to a human. What kind of man was Lem? Was he a better human than others of his kind? How did Lolo know him? Or of him? Not that it mattered.
I was in so much danger that I should have been immobilized by fear. But I had survived being trapped in a nest of devil-spawn. I had the scars to prove it. I could survive this too. If I was careful.
I refolded the letter and hid it away again. Tears threatened, tickling beneath my lids. Missing Lolo. Missing Rose. Alone.
“Stone and fire, water and air, blood and kin prevail,” I whispered again. “Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and kin prev
ail.”
The train rocked me, soothing in its own way. I slept at long last, clutching the opal amulet.
Morning broke and Taft woke me with a three-tap knock. I pulled the coverlet over me against the cold and for the modesty that the human would expect me to feel. He took my breakfast order, and fired up the water heater in my shower alcove. I had no idea if I would be able to use the shower. If the water the train had taken on at the last stop was collected rain water or river water, water that had been in recent contact with air, I might be in trouble. Everything about living with humans was going to be difficult.
I was in luck. When I tested the water with a fingertip, the shower water didn’t drain all my energy on contact.
Refreshed, I put my red hair—human drab—up in a big messy bun and dressed in clean human clothes in somber greens and blues instead of the vibrant shades I was used to. It was no secret to the world that mages had flamboyant style, whereas humans were chaste and dull and unimaginative. I made my own bed. I knew it was Taft’s job, but I figured he would be busy with all the old humans who had boarded at the dawn stop in Opelika, Alabama, a day outside of Atlanta. There must have been twenty, all self-important humans, all traveling in the sleeper cars.
I could tell Taft was harried when breakfast was late. As he opened the door, I could hear a human woman demanding, “More towels, more wash clothes, and hot tea. And hurry up about it, you genetic abnormality.”
Her words made me angry. She was insulting the man who was waiting on her, which seemed foolish, cruel, and unnecessary. If it had been me, I’d have cooked something slimy into her eggs and given her salt instead of sugar for her tea. But then, I’d been called impulsive all my life.