Malcolm, I thought.
Then I let myself fall more deeply into that meditative state. The oracle pressed down on me with such force I instinctively fought back. No, the oracle said. I end. Helena ends. Now.
With a scream of equal parts fear and pain, I stopped fighting and let the oracle fill me.
Even in my immaterial body, it hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced, worse than touching the anchor’s field, worse than becoming the oracle. It felt like drowning in acid. I struggled to breathe despite having no lungs and wanted to flail and kick until I reached a place where there was air. Instead, I made myself hold still as the oracle scoured through me, tearing me apart.
Memories rose unbidden and dissolved, leaving only fragments. There went my high school stage crew experiences. The first time I rode a bike by myself. Fighting with my sister. Then people began disappearing. People I barely remembered meeting went first, followed by Wardens I’d helped with auguries. My ex-boyfriends Chet and Jason. Sydney the therapist. Rick and Ruby. The memories came faster and more painful now, as if they were being stripped away by a caustic substance.
Judy. Gone.
My parents.
Viv.
Malcolm.
The last thing I remembered was my final sight of the intelligent invader, its blood-red beady eyes fixed on me as I fell upward into its reality, and then my mind was blank nothing.
The black tide rushed toward her. It was composed of millions, maybe billions of creatures. She couldn’t remember what they were or if she had ever seen anything like them before. They were still distant enough that she couldn’t make out details.
Something filled up the corners of her empty mind, and she came alive. Color washed into the forbidding landscape, revealing it for what it was: clouds of unformed matter in every imaginable hue, gaudy and horrible. The oncoming tide never hesitated, but in an instant the creatures, too, were filled with color so profoundly wrong it made her want to end them.
Her body, immaterial and glowing, was a spot of purity within that horrible landscape, and she knew without looking at herself that she had grown—grown from what? She didn’t belong here, and she wanted to return to the place where she did.
Something tugged at her in all directions. She spun and felt a pull as if things attached to her were dragging on her body. With a thought, she brought them into being: golden chains made up of billions of glowing letters. Suddenly she was the brightest thing in that wrong, awful place. The wave of creatures paused, rippling backward. As if in response to their reaction, she grew again, the chains becoming wrist-thick. She flicked those chains, and the creatures surged forward as if she had challenged them instead.
She remembered, then, what she had seen of these creatures before. They fed on other creatures, drained them of their magic, fed again, insatiable and pitiless. They would feed on her if she did nothing.
Whatever those chains were, she was sure they could lead her back where she belonged. She ignored the oncoming tide and focused on the chains. They seemed to float in midair, though there was no air, and she let them drift, hoping if this was like an airless, waterless sea, they might find a current to lead her home.
They rippled, shifted, and gradually pointed up and away. She let them draw her along after them. The creatures were close enough now that she could make out their features, angular or fleshy or round, all of them bent on tearing her apart. If the chains were leading to an escape, it would come too late.
A memory arose, one so clear it felt as if someone else had put it into her mind: a hand, cupping water from a pool to drink. The same hand, flailing from the surface of the pool as if its owner was drowning. The images repeated, drinking, drowning, drinking, drowning. The creatures were so close the reek of their bodies, the same rot that permeated this space, threatened to overwhelm her.
She was pure magic. Let them drown in it.
She faced the rushing tide and drew on all those golden chains. They flared into painful brilliance. A surge of power shot through her, and her body burned with the light of a thousand suns, a golden mirror shooting rays of light in every direction.
For the first time in this dead place, she heard sound, the death screams of a million creatures. As the light faded, she saw the onrushing tide had vanished. A few creatures remained, but they fled, disappearing as fast as they had come. She felt the power continue to pulse through her, filling her with light. The golden chains spun around her in a dizzying display, all of them tugging in one direction. It looked no different from anywhere else in this hellscape.
She gathered the chains into a single thick rope and flicked them like a whip in that direction, willing them to strike. Dizziness claimed her, and once again the chains flared so brightly she could not bear to look at them. They jerked her forward, and then the world spun and she was falling. She threw out her arms and rolled, felt something collide with her immaterial body, and looked in the direction she had fallen from. Blank nothingness met her eyes, a gaping void in an otherwise normal ceiling.
Ceiling?
She remembered ceilings, and floors, and bookcases. She remembered thousands of books. She remembered people, a long line of people who had brought her questions she answered, or not. Why had she done that? Because it had been what she was created for.
Then everything happened at once:
…she fit herself between bookcases arranged at random in a way that nevertheless made a pattern to her, and knew each book and its limitless possibilities…
…she saw a blonde woman sitting beside the door and whispered to her, but the woman didn’t understand even though she had brought her here…
…she watched a bald man in a three-piece suit wander the aisles, touching the books as if looking for guidance, and she told him to change his destiny…
…she saw a woman in a long gown directing others in loading books onto shelves and felt the beginnings of a tug toward a new home…
…she felt the foundations of the store shake and shouted at a woman with vividly magenta hair to break the stone and save them all…
…she came face to face with a creature anathema to life on earth and—
—but that was here, now, and she lashed out with all her golden chains and bore the monster to the ground.
“Impossible,” it said. “It should have killed you.”
Not impossible, she said. It is what I was made to become. I see every possibility, even those about you and your kind.
“It doesn’t matter. We have already begun draining your world. You can’t stop us.”
You’re right. I can’t stop you. Even if you beg me to.
The monster took a step backward. “What?”
You sealed the cracks. You made this the one point of contact between my reality and yours. You made a fatal mistake.
She tilted her head to look up at the void. Its edges trembled. More plaster and paint broke free, but instead of falling to the floor, it was sucked into the void. The air in front of the hole shimmered with heat haze, not invisible, but like a rainbow-tinted oil slick, as if the true nature of the place beyond the void shone through.
Do you know what a firehose is? she asked.
“I’m not an idiot.” The creature’s voice trembled, giving the lie to its defiant words.
You wanted our magic. Take it. Drown in it. Then, when there is nothing left of you, I will seal your reality and you will drift forever, sterile and dead.
The monster snarled and leapt at her. Dozens of golden chains flew between them, binding it so it smacked into the floor, struggling and spitting vicious words in its own language. She snapped those chains upward, and they flung the creature into the void, where it vanished in an instant.
Now, she said, and detached the rest of the chains from herself. They, too, flew upward, but instead of disappearing, they clung to the mouth of the void and made a golden curtain defining its edges. She drifted upward, creating more chains and bringing them with her until she and the
y filled the space with light. There was power here, not just her own power but a source almost as large as she, a source she recognized from having lived beside it and within it for almost a century. She reached out to it, and felt it reach back until immaterial hand touched inexorable force.
Power surged through her, making her cry out in mingled pleasure and astonishment. She tilted her head back as that power flowed through her and into the other reality. As it flowed, it became visible as waves of red and purple and blue light, powerful and clean and reassuringly of her reality, a wonderful contrast to the bizarre, alien landscape.
Half in and half out of the monsters’ reality, she saw things impossible to perceive, as if some strange synesthesia worked its magic on her. She saw, in that dead, silent place, the screams of creatures tormented beyond bearing; she heard colors clashing and bleeding together as the landscape tore itself apart; she smelled peanut butter and had no idea what it really meant.
Then dizziness struck her again, and she fell, her immaterial body sinking into the floor. She dragged herself out of it and collapsed on the cream-pale linoleum, rolling onto her back. It wasn’t finished. She had to finish it or everything would start all over again and there would never be an end to the war.
The golden chains still waved in the void. The hole in the ceiling needed to be closed. With her last vestiges of power, she directed them to weave together. First one chain crossed the hole, then another, and then all of them wove a tight mat that quivered with golden light. Nothing would ever come through that hole again.
She lay back and examined the hole. The light was already fading, and the chains had taken on the appearance of painted plaster. She, too, was fading, her golden power dwindled to nothing. She rolled onto her side and came face to face with a dead woman. The woman’s dark blonde hair was dusted with chunks and crumbs of ceiling, her eyes were open, and she wasn’t breathing. She should know who the woman was, but her memory was fading as her light did.
The room went dim, and she saw nothing more.
29
I walked down a long hallway carpeted in plush red velvet, its bronze ceiling casting a wavery reflection of me with every step. Where my bare feet touched the carpet, the scent of lilacs wafted toward me. I couldn’t see an end to the hallway, and I knew without turning around there would be no end behind me, either.
The wall to my left was a single sheet of mirrored glass. I glanced once again at what was reflected there and said, “Elizabeth Abernathy didn’t know what she was creating. Though maybe that’s wrong, because she did originally intend for the oracle to be within a person.”
“So this really is what we were intended to be,” Helena Campbell said—or, rather, the essence of Helena Campbell, a remnant of her. Though she was the reflection I cast, we looked nothing alike. Maybe I was the reflection she cast. It was as likely as anything else.
“The oracle grew and changed over the years,” I said. “It had to reach a state where it could become human, or whatever it is that happened at the end.” I, too, was a remnant, all that was left of Abernathy’s after my—our—transformation. My memories of being the oracle had mostly faded, and it seemed as natural to refer to those memories in the third person as to think of myself as still the oracle.
Helena must have felt the same, because she said, “And Helena was the hands of the oracle. Why Helena? Because of her genetic difference?”
“Helena was an outsider to the magical world, and young enough to be mentally flexible. And she had a passion for justice. Anyone with those qualities would do. But the oracle…liked her. Maybe that was a cruelty, if it meant condemning her to that fate.”
“She had to choose,” Helena said. “I think, if she had been the wrong person, she would have chosen differently.” She laughed. “I don’t think she regretted it. And now, here we are, the two of us in one.”
“Here we are,” I agreed.
I walked a few more steps in silence. Helena said, “I see now why Wallach had to be allowed to try, even though you knew he would fail. Once you couldn’t convince him to give it up, it was better he do it in Abernathy’s, and make that crack even more appealing to the invaders.”
“I wish things had gone otherwise. His plan was sound.” My regret over Wallach’s death was as distant as everything else, but still hurt.
Helena sounded less regretful than I felt. “But it would have left the invaders free to attack another reality. I prefer our solution.”
I nodded. Helena did not. Even though I had foreseen this, even though I’d known what it meant that we would end, I hadn’t been able to predict what it would be like when I was not the oracle, but a single entity with aspects of both myself and Helena. It was unsettling.
“So, what now?” Helena said. “Is there an afterlife for creatures like us?”
“I don’t know any more than you do,” I said. “I expect once we reach the end of this corridor, things will become clear.”
“That could take a while.”
I shrugged. “We don’t have anything better to do, do we?”
Again I walked in silence beside my reflection. “I regret not being able to communicate better with Helena,” I said. “Seeing into all times at once was hard to explain to someone who lived a linear life.”
“You was as clear as you could be,” Helena said, “and Helena did her best to understand. Besides, I think if I had understood better, I might not have made the right choice.”
“Did you make the right choice?” I asked.
Helena stopped walking, forcing me to stop as well. “Of course. We could not have stopped the invaders if I’d chosen differently.”
“The oracle only gave up its immortality,” I said. “Helena gave up her whole life. Her friends, her family, her husband. Her chance at having children and gaining immortality that way.”
“We owe her our existence.”
I smiled bitterly. “That might not be worth it, given that we appear to be dead.”
Helena sighed. “There’s no way to change that. I wouldn’t want our reality to die for the sake of one woman.”
“Would it die? The sacrifice has already been made. No, that’s not the death I’m talking about.”
Helena shot me a sharp look. “You mean we should die.”
I returned her look for look. “Are we any more deserving of life than she is? Considering, again, that we’re probably already dead and can benefit no one?”
“I don’t think it’s possible. Even if we die, there’s no guarantee Helena will live. She was killed by the oracle to make room for the two of us in one form. Our form.” She gestured to herself and managed to encompass me in the movement.
I shook my head. “But we have all of Helena’s memories in this form. She still exists, in a sense.”
“All right,” Helena said. “What are we going to do?”
“Something crazy,” I said.
I drew back my fist and smashed the mirror between us.
I drew in a deep breath and immediately started coughing and wheezing as I sucked about five pounds of plaster dust into my lungs. I pushed myself up on my hands, got to my knees, and forcibly tried to eject my lungs from my body. When I could finally breathe again, I wiped tears from my eyes, smearing more dust into paste across my cheeks, and sat with my back against the nearest bookcase.
Natural light filtered through the aisles, telling me it was still early evening even though with all I’d been through, it felt like it should have been later. I heard no distant screams and wondered if sealing off the invaders’ reality had drawn all the remaining invaders into it, or if the Wardens would be playing cleanup for the next several months.
It was a realization that came and went so swiftly my mind barely had time to put it into words. I just knew, deep in my bones, that this was the future. A future, maybe, but one I felt confident would not disappear. I got to my feet and clung to a bookcase as my knee
s shook. Dying had had more of an impact on me than I’d realized.
I closed my eyes and sorted through it all. I remembered everything. Being sucked into the invaders’ reality. Having my memories scoured away so I was empty and capable of truly becoming the oracle. Using the power of the oracle and Abernathy’s node to destroy all the invaders and seal off their reality. Walking down that corridor having a conversation with my reflection, who was also me. These were not memories that were likely to fade any time soon.
The door slammed open, and I heard running footsteps and a voice calling, “Ms. Campbell? Where are you?”
I staggered out of the stacks and once more had to hold onto a bookcase to support myself. Half a dozen Wardens in the bland fatigues that meant they were from the Gunther Node spread out through the store’s front, their guns held at the ready. They tilted them away from me when I appeared.
“Are you all right? You look—” The man leading the force looked like he’d decided against saying terrible.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine. But I need to go to the Gunther Node immediately. Lucia’s going to want to hear this.”
Lucia stared at me from across her desk. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
“Lucia—”
“All right, all right, I know you wouldn’t make something like this up, but—” She pinched her lips tight and shook her head. “You have to admit it’s unbelievable.”
“That the oracle had that kind of power? Or that I died and came back? Or—”
“All of it, Davies, all of it.” Lucia leaned back in her chair and put her hands behind her head. “And it’s just…over.”
“Not over. There are still a lot of invaders loose in our world that need to be destroyed. And…” Another flash of awareness struck me:
“Excuse me?”
I had a feeling this would be the hardest thing for people to understand. “I’m the oracle now. We’re the same person.” That was more or less true. I still felt more like Helena Campbell than a dual persona, but the oracle no longer spoke to me through my thoughts, and it was the best I could do to explain those flashes of insight.
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