Thaumatology 101

by Teasdale, Niall

  ‘Does it cook breakfast?’ Twill asked. She sounded unimpressed.

  ‘No,’ Ceri said, ‘that it doesn’t do.’

  ‘Then I’ll go do that while you go all gooey over your new love.’ She lifted off Ceri’s shoulder and buzzed out through the lounge door.

  Ceri looked at her tablet. She had never used the newest of MagiTech’s operating systems, the university was still on the previous version with no sign of upgrading. However, the new features were supposed to be pretty intuitive, so… She tapped the “Programs” icon in the corner of the screen and, sure enough, a window opened displaying a matrix of software icons. She located a package called “Doodle” and was rewarded with a simple white screen with icons at the top for line width and colour.

  Five minutes later, Ceri walked into the kitchen holding the computer, now bearing a rough image of the glyph she had seen in her dream. She sat down at the kitchen table, placed the tablet in front of her, and stared at it. It looked like an enchantment rune, but it was nothing she had seen in class. She was sure she had seen it before, but still could not really think where.

  Twill floated over from the cooker while her spatula continued to make sure the bacon did not burn in the frying pan. She looked down. ‘That,’ she said, ‘looks like one of the demonic scripts.’

  Ceri looked up. ‘Demonic? I didn’t know you knew any demon languages.’

  ‘There are lots of things you don’t know about me, Ceri,’ Twill pointed out. ‘However, you’re right, I don’t. On the other hand, however, I do know what their glyphs look like because I like to know what to avoid, and that just screams “walk away.” Try your father’s books.’ Ceri started to get up and Twill fixed her with a look. ‘After breakfast,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Ceri responded, sitting back down and flicking the tablet into sleep mode. Twill had told them she was eighteen, but what that meant to a fairy neither Ceri nor Lily really knew. The tiny fae certainly mothered the pair of them terribly, acting much more like a thirty year old.

  ‘Any more lip from you and I’ll starch your sheets,’ Twill said. She floated back to the cooker, examining the bacon. Two slices of bread floated out of the bread bin to be buttered by a knife with a mind of its own. ‘Offer some advice to some people and all you get is widderbegotten snark,’ she muttered quite loud enough to be heard. ‘No gratitude from some folks.’

  ‘Thank you for your suggestion, Twill,’ Ceri said contritely.

  ‘I should think so too!’ The bacon raised itself from the pan and arranged itself on the bread, and a second or two later Ceri had a plate with a bacon sandwich on it in front of her.

  Ceri took a bite from her breakfast. Twill knew how to make bacon sandwiches. ‘And thank you for this lovely breakfast,’ she said once she had swallowed. The swallowing was important. There would have been comments about speaking with her mouth full otherwise.

  Twill nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘Help yourself to coffee. I made it fresh.’

  ~~~

  Lily padded into the study and settled herself down on the chaise longe. ‘Twill said you were in here,’ she said, ‘and I wanted to see it for myself before I believed it.’

  The study was the other room on the middle floor and Ceri liked it slightly less than the lounge. It was where her parents had done their less practical work and she had spent long hours there watching them do just that. Twill entered it once a month to dust, but other than that it remained unused.

  ‘I needed to look something up,’ Ceri said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lily replied, ‘I can kind of tell.’

  Ceri was sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by books, most of them thick and bound in heavy leather. A couple had locks on them. She waved her tablet at Lily, still displaying the rune she had drawn. ‘I saw this in my nightmare. Twill says it’s demonic.’

  Lily yawned. ‘It’s not Devotik,’ she said. Ceri looked up from the text she was reading and raised an eyebrow. ‘What? I’m not allowed to know something? Dad taught me a few words once, and how to read the glyphs. That’s not one of them, far too complex.’

  ‘I didn’t know you spoke any demonic language,’ Ceri said.

  Lily grinned a little sheepishly. ‘Yeah well, it was my father. He taught me the numbers up to ten, “hello” and “goodbye,” “yes” and “no,” three totally vile swear words, some… anatomy, and the names of thirteen sexual positions. If you’d like to know what goes in where and what to call the combination when you’ve done it, I’m good, but I can’t even order a beer.’

  ‘Well,’ Ceri said as she pushed one pile of books away from her, ‘your dad is an incubus.’ Ceri had never met him; Lily had told her he would not come near High Towers, for which she was fairly thankful. She flicked a glance at Lily just as the half-demon yawned and stretched, her arms up over her head, her back arched off the little sofa forming a perfect bridge, before she relaxed back down. Ceri looked away before Lily could see her watching, pulling another book forward and examining it closely.

  ‘Sorry,’ Lily said, ‘I haven’t really woken up yet. Twill said she’d…’ She stopped as the fairy whisked into the room, a ball of white fairy-light followed by a tray with two mugs on it. ‘Twill, you absolute glory, you’re a life-saver.’ She plucked her mug of coffee from the tray as it approached her and took a satisfied sip.

  The tray moved on to settle beside Ceri. ‘Now that’s the kind of appreciation I should be getting,’ Twill said. ‘Have you found it yet?’

  ‘No, but…’ Ceri began, looking up at Twill. She faltered. Lily was lying half on her side, in a relaxed posture with one leg propped up. Her arms were arranged to give a full view of her body; a body which was naked and rather exposed… Ceri snapped out of it and looked back down at her books. ‘There are, like, a dozen distinct demonic languages and some of them have several hundred glyphs…’

  ‘You need to be more… artistic about it,’ Twill said. ‘Each of the pictographic systems has a style to it. You should be able to narrow the search by determining which group it belongs to.’ She flitted across to hover over a book. ‘Look, it’s clearly not this one because there’s no repetition enumerator at the top.’

  Ceri blinked. The tiny fae was right, of course. She pushed that book away, and then a couple more on the same class of ideograms. ‘Okay then,’ she said, ‘it’s probably not either of these. They both use ideogram pairs to form any word and the symbol is probably supposed to mean something on its own.’

  Twill lifted from the books, smiling in the same kind of way Doctor Tennant did when she was pleased with someone’s progress. Flitting across the room she quite calmly landed on the side of one of Lily’s breasts and folded herself into a lotus position. Lily gave her a slightly sour expression and then went back to drinking her coffee. Ceri, now thoroughly concentrating on the weeding out process, did not notice the exchange.

  Ten minutes later, Ceri looked up and blinked at the sight of Twill, still sat on Lily’s breast, now with her elbows resting on her knees in boredom. ‘Uh…’ Ceri said.

  ‘You’ve found it now?’ Twill asked.

  ‘No, but I think I’ve found the language. It’s… uh… I’m not sure I’m pronouncing this right, Ctholnaraeic?’ Her finger moved down the page, following the text. ‘Sorry, I’m translating from Latin… it’s probably the oldest of all demonic languages… hardly ever spoken… used in some of the most powerful of enchantments…’

  ‘It’s the language the oldest, nastiest demons use amongst themselves,’ Twill said. ‘They say you can still hear it in the Unseelie Court sometimes. Mostly it’s a dead language, seen only in written form, and then rarely as whole sentences.’

  ‘You trying to scare the crap out of us, fairy,’ Lily said, ‘cos you’re doing a good job on me.’

  Ceri turned a page in her book, grinned, double-checked her drawing against it, and started to read. Then she went white. ‘Want something to add to the scare? It’s called Blotherian. It’s the rune
of “betrayal, assassination, and the opening of hidden ways.”’

  ‘Not freaky at all,’ Lily said, ‘but it was a dream, right? I mean… Hang on, you said you were in the lab.’ Her body shifted slightly as though she was going to sit up, but she was stopped by the fairy sitting on her chest.

  Ceri nodded. ‘I saw that symbol glowing through the salt in the outer circle. It says here that it can be used to find secret doors and open locks.’

  ‘But if there was actually one of these runes under the salt of the circle,’ Lily said, ‘Shane the Pain would have noticed.’ She paused and her face darkened. ‘Unless he put it there, of course.’

  Ceri remembered her thoughts on the day of the accident. Some of the mistakes she had found in the code for the pulse generators had seemed almost deliberate. She shook her head. ‘I can’t go accuse him of sabotaging the experiment without proof,’ she said.

  ‘Then we need to get some,’ Lily replied.

  ~~~

  Etherstream was a quantum leap in wide-area, high-bandwidth networking. That’s what it said on the help page Ceri found while checking the settings. Etherstream devices connected to other Etherstream devices via a medium range broadcast over sub-membrane field space, rebroadcasting to other devices until the data was delivered to a base-station connected to the terrestrial Internet. It was all encrypted so that no one could eavesdrop on your traffic and perfectly safe. Or so the documentation said.

  Still, getting through to the Metropolitan’s public gateway proved easy enough. From there, her login credentials let her onto the staff system. Sheer curiosity made her go look at the data files from the day of the accident. Just over a terabyte of collected raw data sat there waiting to be analysed. Ceri grinned. There had to be enough there to find the evidence they needed. And it could not do any harm to take a look…

  Up in the study, she had plugged in one of the other devices she had found in Carter’s box. It was a fifteen terabyte network storage box with a little yellow note attached saying “I put a few books and programs on here you may find useful.” Well, she had not checked those yet, but the first use she had for the box was storing the data files from the experiment. Setting the download going, she set about the real reason she was in the system.

  Of course, she had no access to most of Shane’s records, but she went poking around to find out what she could. After twenty minutes of mild frustration and piecing together bits and pieces of files, she had a vague picture of her suspect, and the data download was eighty per cent complete.

  ‘He did a vocational wizardry course at the Metropolitan,’ she said.

  Lily had been watching her the entire time, leaning against the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee. She seemed determined to be somewhere in Ceri’s view at all times today. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that’d be enough to get him a position as a research assistant,’ she said.

  ‘It wasn’t. He worked as a jobbing wizard for two years and did an online course in Thaumatology. He got his degree a year early.’

  ‘Wow,’ Lily said though her voice suggested she was not impressed, ‘that work experience really must’ve helped.’

  Ceri suppressed a smirk. ‘According to this he got a two-one, but if he did, he’s forgotten a lot.’ She tapped the screen. ‘I found his thesis here.’

  Lily pushed off from the counter and walked over to stand beside Ceri’s chair, bending over to look at the screen. Her perfect breasts were right beside Ceri’s face. ‘Well,’ Lily said, ‘it’s over my head, but I’m kind of short, metaphorically speaking.’

  ‘Well…’ Ceri considered how best to put her summary of her co-worker’s masterwork. ‘I could’ve written this when I was fifteen,’ she said.

  ‘You’re a genius, hun,’ Lily said. ‘Try thinking down to normal peoples’ level.’

  ‘The course was run out of Cambridge,’ Ceri said. ‘They usually have very high standards. Unless he made up big marks elsewhere, this is barely worth a third.’

  ‘Cambridge?’ Lily said. ‘Cambridge, your main rival in the search for the T-Null? That Cambridge?’

  ‘Uh, yeah.’

  ‘So, Shane the Barely Capable, who happens to be a wizard and therefore useful to Tennant’s work, miraculously gets a good degree he doesn’t appear to merit from Tennant’s main rival, just in time to apply for the job as her research assistant.’ Lily paused dramatically and then added, ‘That about sum it up?’

  Ceri started to turn her head to look at her friend, found her view full of breast, and turned away, her cheeks colouring. ‘Uh… when you put it like that.’ She chewed on her lip for a second. ‘It could be coincidence,’ she said, not sounding convinced.

  ‘That’s one huge pile of… coincidences. Any idea who runs the course he did?’

  Ceri’s fingers flicked nimbly across the touchscreen. A few seconds later she was reading the Cambridge University website’s online courses section. She grimaced. ‘The course was designed and is operated by Matthew Barnes,’ she said.

  Even Lily had heard of Barnes, she had even met him once when he had spent an evening at the Dragon. Her lips drew back, showing her fangs. ‘Protégé magician,’ she said, ‘wizard, necromancer, and enchanter. He’s like Carter without the morals. Seriously, you look in his eyes and there’s nothing there. I’m sure he’s pacted.’

  ‘I know he’s a bit wild,’ Ceri said. ‘He’s got a rep for partying, dated a couple of pop stars. I don’t think Cambridge would put up with him if…’

  ‘Oh come on, Ceri!’ Lily snapped, straightening up and walking back to the counter. Ceri let out a slight sigh she hoped Lily did not hear. ‘His father’s Alfred Barnes. That family owns MagiTech, and MagiTech is one of Cambridge’s main benefactors.’ Whatever the truth was, things had fallen into place for Lily. ‘When Matthew came to the Dragon he had two bodyguards with him,’ she said. ‘Vampires. Both girls and fairly young.’

  ‘Daddy probably pays them to keep him out of trouble,’ Ceri suggested.

  Lily shook her head. ‘He’d got them bound,’ she said. ‘You know the way the human thralls of a vampire look? That was the feeling I got off these two.’ Her lips twitched into a snarl again. ‘He had real trouble with the idea that “no” means “keep your grubby hands to yourself” too.’

  Ceri chewed on her lip. ‘Okay, let’s say Mat Barnes set Shane up to mess up Doctor Tennant’s experiments from the inside.’

  ‘Which he did,’ Lily said emphatically.

  ‘Assuming that he did,’ Ceri said, indicating that she was still not entirely convinced, ‘we would need proof so solid it could actually stop a Null Thaumiton before we accused him.’

  Lily opened her mouth, pulling in a deep lungful of air to argue, and then sagged, her head hanging. ‘Damn,’ she said. Slowly she looked up at her friend. ‘They hurt you, Ceri. We can’t let them get away with this.’

  September 6th

  ‘We have a visitor,’ Twill said, flitting into the kitchen.

  Ceri and Lily looked at the fairy, and then at each other. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone,’ they said in unison. Lily giggled.

  ‘A woman,’ Twill said. ‘She reeks of magic, but she’s not a practitioner.’

  ‘Doctor Tennant?’ Ceri guessed. ‘Crap!’

  ‘I better get dressed,’ Lily said, bolting for the door.

  ‘What about me?! Ceri wailed. She was dressed in her usual over-size shirt.

  ‘Too late for that,’ Twill said, sounding amused, ‘she’s at the door.’

  Sure enough, there was a distant sound of knocking. Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. Ceri padded to the front doors on bare feet, opening an inner one, and then going on to the outer ones. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

  Tennant did not look like a woman on the verge of a momentous discovery. Her eyes were sunken from lack of sleep and she looked as though she had just pulled herself together from crying. Ceri frowned. ‘Doctor Tennant, hi. I’m, uh, sorry for the informal…’r />
  ‘You’re convalescing, dear.’ She sounded tired, too. ‘Would it be a terrible inconvenience if I came in?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Ceri stepped back and waved her employer through into the hall. She closed the door and followed after.

  Twill was hovering at the foot of the stairs, dressed in her toga-like dress. She regarded the doctor calmly and said, ‘You look like you could use a coffee.’

  Tennant did a slow blink. ‘That… would be very welcome,’ she said. Nodding, Twill turned and, vanishing into fairy-light, streamed off toward the kitchen. Tennant turned to look at the slightly sheepish Ceri. ‘You live with a half-demon and a fairy?’ she asked incredulously.

  Ceri shrugged. ‘Yeah, we kind of adopted each other. That was Twill. She’s the reason the house is clean. Um, up the stairs and to the left. We’ll go sit in the lounge.’

  Lily was standing meekly in front of the fireplace when they walked in. Dressed demurely, for her, in a short, grey, jersey-dress and heels, she stood there with her hands behind her back looking like a slightly-too-short catwalk model awaiting her cue. Ceri briefly wondered how the girl had got dressed so fast before realising that pulling on a stretchy dress probably did not take too long and Lily was almost certainly not wearing anything under it. ‘Good afternoon, Doctor Tennant,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’ A slight frown broke her cutely submissive expression. ‘You look terrible, Doc. Sit down.’

  Tennant took the seat Carter had occupied two days earlier. She really did not look too good. The “accident” had seemed to sap some of her confidence, like almost losing an assistant had shaken her. Now something else had happened which had been worse.

  ‘What’s wrong, Doctor?’ Ceri asked. Twill chose that moment to fly in with the coffee tray in tow. Ceri took her drink and sat down in the other chair while Lily once again perched on the foot stool beside her, though this time she seemed to be more conscious of doing it. That just made Ceri more conscious that she was doing it.