by P H Campbell
"Then I was attacked by a rape gang and beat the living shit out of them," Seren recalled. "They underestimated by determination and overestimated their ability to carry through. I met Trask, Majel's mate, who scraped up the remains of what I left behind and went on my way to get my food rations, and go back to the orphanage. But on the way I was hit over the head.
"I came to with a bashed in head, and was probably close to death. But my head suddenly healed and I figured out where I was and what was going on. I was about to be thrown into a blast furnace by three Electrian breeds. They were the remainder of the rape gang that escaped being beaten to mush by me earlier. My leg braces were gone, as was my staff. I had no way to defend myself, unless I had working legs. I focused on that with all the strength I had, and all of a sudden, I felt a strange flowing like feeling, and my legs worked."
"Just like that?" Torian asked.
"Just like that," Seren nodded. "Fully functional, fully developed, and a lot stronger than they'd ever been. My first steps without my staff went to kicking in the teeth of one of the Breeds who was trying to kill me. Once I had them down, I broke all of their arms and legs and left them laying there twitching."
The looks everyone gave her were telling, part horror, part disbelief.
"I did say the Borderlandians are a practical, pragmatic people, right?" Seren asked. "They were a gang of rapists and murderers who preyed on children and old folks. Sending them to the mines with broken limbs seemed to be a good way to make sure they couldn't do that kind of crime ever again"
"I ain't got no problem with it," Ronik shrugged. "Sounds kinda merciful ta' me. I'd've killed the fuckers."
Seren knew Ronik would have done just that. They usually put serial rapists and murderers into the mines in situations that ensured they didn't live long.
"I didn't think about things much after I dealt with the rape gang," Seren continued her narrative. "I was in a sort of shock, I think. I learned later that it was an after-effect of working magic. I ran into Trask again, who brought me to Majel, where I passed out, and found out the next time I woke up that another war had started and I would be Majel's apprentice."
"It cured you from being crippled?" Torian asked.
"And your head wound?" Cinder inquired.
"She had enough blood and brain matter all over her ta make me think she'd keel over and die right on her feet," Majel confirmed. "I thought it was hers, but she didn't have no wounds, 'cept the scars from her braces and some bruises on her fists."
"Electrian Breeds have very hard heads," Seren mentioned. "And the blood and stuff actually was mine. It was there when I regained consciousness. But I didn't fix my head wound. I did, however, cure my disability."
"Okay, how did that all happen?" Cinder wanted to know.
"Miralenda Gravtok did it," Seren replied. "Or, at least the consciousness within the inter-dimensional entity that used to be Miralenda Gravtok. Apparently, when she died, her memories and the essence of what was her had been absorbed by the entity. The entity still wanted to go back to where it had come from, but it had obligations to tend to before it could do that. Miralenda was working on the means to help it get back, and fix the genetic damage the radiation of its arrival caused, but she died long before she could implement that plan could."
"Wait, you're saying this woman's consciousness was in the entity?" Cinder asked. "And she was over four hundred of your years old when she died?"
"Yes," Seren nodded. "That's it exactly."
"It's not inconceivable, even if it's exceptionally unlikely," Dr. Treah remarked.
That she, of all people, was willing to swallow the myth that seemed so impossible to the others, lent Seren's account a greater level of credibility.
"I didn't know she was there," Seren continued. "I didn't even know I had magic. But every so often, I'd suddenly know things – things like memories and experiences – that had to do with what the magic was. That came from Miralenda. That went on for several years. I became a barmaid and a bouncer and worked triage when there was a war on. I could always tell when someone lied, too. It felt… strange. Like a sour taste in my ears."
"At about this point I began playing a bit of a bad role in her life," Morlendrus confessed. "I quickly discovered that Seren had magic, and of a potency I had never experienced before."
"Well, the details there aren't important," Seren admitted. "To make a very long and complicated story short, I eventually learned that I was created, with Miralenda's guidance and blessing, to be yet another conduit for the entity to carry out Miralenda's master plan to return the entity to its dimension and on the way, fix the genomes of everyone in The World so they'd start having Human babies again.
"The entity had Miralenda's genetic profile, and using bits from Walentia, and my genetic father, Padentrus, they created me, and got Walentia pregnant."
"It was not a planned pregnancy," Walentia added. "I tried to end it, but the magic interfered, and I carried the child to term."
"So this magic thing stopped you, and you worked magic?" Cinder was trying to keep score.
"The magic had some rules, one of which was that magic could not directly cause the ending of life," Walentia explained. "If one was to be killed directly by magic, it would end the life of the assailant as well as the victim."
"It also didn't like to be lied to," Seren added.
"And you're a genetic copy of that Miralenda person?" Cinder finally asked.
"The really fun thing is that I'm more than just a copy," Seren replied. "Miralenda had to feed me her memories of things, so that I'd learn what to do to get the entity safely back to where it came from, and fix what it broke in the meantime."
"That's why all of a sudden, everyone here's havin' babies what don't resemble their parents?" Ronik asked, having never been told what was going on in that respect.
"Hey, not everyone," Koreen objected. Since Koreen looked much more like a Human than the average Electrian – other than her unusually short for a Human stature – her child resembled her to a large degree. She got her hair from her father.
"I thought you knew," Seren mentioned.
"No," Ronik. "I knew it had somethin' ta do with th' Day o' th' Southern Sunrise, but never heard th' details."
"Day o' th' Southern Sunrise," Torian echoed the words in Common. "That sounds… ominous. So that's what you worked out with this Miralenda person?" She was looking at Seren.
"That's what happened when I implemented Miralenda's plan and sent the magic – the entity – back to where it came from," Seren acknowledged. "On the way, it spent an awful lot of energy fixing the reproductive genomes of everyone on the planet back to what they should have been before the entity arrived."
"So things were genetically put back the way they were meant to be before the radiation caused the genetic mutations that arose after they arrived," Torian was following the story.
"Right," Seren agreed.
"Could you do other magic?" Dr. Treah wondered.
"If I could imagine what I wanted clearly enough, and convinced the entity that helping me would be for the greater good, then I could have done anything that the magic could do," Seren replied honestly, if without a lot of detail.
"Like the Dome," Majel offered as an example. "Weirdest thing ya ever seen. There she was, standin' and yellin' at Morlendrus when all of a sudden, she looks up, shifts her staff to th' other hand, and held up her hand. Right then, th' cavern done collapsed, all, what do ya call 'em, ten kilometers across, and, I'd say, too many man-weights ta count, all crashing down on us, like ta crush us all ta death.
"Then it was like the sun rose, it was so bright. But ya could see her, outlined, like a shadow or an ink drawin', standing there and catching the sky as it fell. Th' rocks were set down just as pretty as you please and no one was even touched. Then, Seren done used both hands, lifted and pushed, and all them boulders and mountains of rock and even th pebbles done just floated up ta where they'd fallen from. Then they got rea
l bright, and real hot, and all of a sudden, there's this screeching sound and all the steel ya had sittin' around anywhere flowed together and up and covered up th' rock and cooled, instant-like. It's a dome, far as th' eye can see, steel and hard and nothin' got through it since that day.
"Then, the sun faded out, and when I could see, as I ran ta her, she waved, and then she passed out."
"The magic could exact a toll if you didn't understand the relationship," Seren shrugged. "I was still learning about it then." She looked at Majel and asked, "That was when I burned the sheets, right?"
"Like ta have cooked yer meal with yer bare hands," Majel nodded. "Made me a mite uncomfortable, ta be honest."
"So what happened after that Day of the Southern Sunrise?" Cinder was engrossed.
"I helped the Magentians, who relied on that magic's energy for their society to function," Seren replied. "Once I understood what Miralenda wanted to do, I could have done it any time, but it would have destroyed two societies at once – the Magentians, and the Borderlandians. Sending the entity back would take away all the "magic" it made happen in The World. The Magentians relied on it. So plans had to include being sure they didn't die out, and that the Electrians wouldn't be able to take over, since they'd not be all that friendly toward the Borderlandians. Like I said, racism is huge on my planet."
"It was pretty bad for a while, but things improved, thanks to Seren," Walentia explained.
"She was approached by the Magentian Council to take over the seat of one of them who refused to keep her seat once her magic was lost," Morlendrus added. "Seren became First Council of Magentus a year later."
"I take it, that's a high rank?" Torian wondered.
"It's the highest in Magentus," Morlendrus acknowledged, "though the council votes and hers is only one vote."
"And then about th' time she found th' Wethersfield, she figured th' world needed a more… unified system of dealin' with things, and became Chief Mediator of The World," Majel continued.
"Technically, she doesn't have any power in any one land," Morlendrus went on. "But if there's an international dispute or problem, she's in charge."
"The last problem for which they needed my services was dealt with by the Shade and the UGW, for which they have my undying thanks," Seren concluded.
"We were glad to do it," Dr. Treah smiled.
"So what happened to the entity that used to be Miralenda," Cinder wondered. "Did she go away with them, or something?"
"No, she wasn't from their part of reality," Seren shook her head. "They could go there, she couldn't. I don't pretend to understand it. I just know what the rules were."
"And you knew these rules from her memories, that she gave you?" Torian asked.
"I learned a lot on my own, but basically, yes," Seren agreed, though that wasn't entirely accurate. After all, Miralenda had spoken to her, and vice versa, too. Plus, the Twins had met her face to face. Seren half expected them to pipe up and say so. But they didn't join the conversation.
"The important thing no one is asking is can she still do what she did before," Cinder pointed out, then looked at Seren and grinned.
Seren signed. It was always a hazard who found out the things about her she preferred to keep confidential, but she also didn't want to lie.
"If the entity comes back, I figure I do, as would anyone else who could before, like Walentia and Morlendrus did," she told them honestly while not lying about anything else. "But since the entity spent so much effort getting home, and even more fixing what they broke when they left their home, I don't expect they'll be back… pretty much ever."
Cinder recognized the evasion for what it was, but didn't call out Seren for a clarification. After all, the evasion meant she did still have at least some of the ability to do what she did before. There was no reason to prevaricate on that point since all it took was just a ready, straight-up denial to dispel any doubt. Seren was all about telling the truth, even if she wouldn't reveal secrets. Cinder had to wonder why Seren would conceal that, since in a negotiation like this, it would be a simple matter to just make it come out the way she wanted it to.
It was something to file away for future consideration.
"That's about it for me," Seren shrugged. "The rest you either know, or isn't for public consumption."
"Which I supposed, leads to me," Dr. Treah volunteered.
"You can confirm it with Lyle Dufour, if you choose, or any of my former shipmates aboard the Scoutship Talon, but I first learned of the UGW when I was a one thousand year old magical unicorn living on a planet that formed with immense crystals which created a resonant force one could control to produce unusual effects. One of which was turning myself into a Human to help facilitate the Scouts I encountered with discovering the hidden dangers of those crystals."
The others blinked at her.
"What's a unicorn?" Seren asked, having absolutely no problem believing in a transformation.
"It's a creature of myth," Treah explained. "I was a creation of someone else, given life, thanks to the properties of the planet upon which I was created, and the way it interacted with certain humans. That is the simplest explanation, if not a good one, to explain my origins. I changed into a human by personal decision and will to help save my planet from certain destruction.
"In almost every way, my experiences were ill suited to transitioning into a modern society. I studied and worked very hard to do so. I accepted a provisional position in the Scouts, and was eventually inducted as a full member, where we spent many years helping the people of the UGW. I then left the UGW for the medical corp, but I did train as a diplomat as well, since so often in wide-scale medical emergencies, I'm called on to deal with a diplomatic crisis."
"If I didn't know better, I'd say everyone was lyin'," Ronik remarked thoughtfully. "But I know Seren ain't, and I figure Cinder's got the truth, if not all of it, and so I'm willin' ta believe that someone can turn inta somethin' else."
"Yes, she's telling the truth," Seren agreed, incredible as it seemed. It also explained some of why Dr. Treah was so interested in "magic". The reason for the high intensity of that interest, though, remained a mystery.
"Seren always knows when someone doesn't tell the truth," Morlendrus added.
"Is that a magic thing?" Cinder wondered.
Technically, it wasn't done by magic, but Human magic had awoken the ability to do it.
"Some people think so," Seren replied, by not replying. "I don't see much of a difference myself."
"It is certainly a very handy talent to have during negotiations," Dr. Treah offered.
"So is that it? Cards on the table and done?" Looie asked.
"Oh, I'm sure none of us were overly generous with the details," Cinder remarked. "But I think we each understand that we've led some pretty weird lives. And yet, here we are."
"Each with different talents, each with different priorities, too," Seren added.
"No, we have the same priorities, just for different people," Cinder pointed out.
"I stand corrected," Seren allowed with a grin.
"We didn't put forward a very good impression," Cinder mentioned.
"Shit happens," Seren shrugged. "No one died, things got handled, injustices were fixed – hopefully. I've been in much worse situations."
"How did you know how to defuse that situation?" Cinder wondered.
"Everyone wants something," Seren replied. "Everyone has motives. If people do extraordinary things, it's usually because they've experienced extraordinary things. So you find out what they want, what's motivating them and what extraordinary thing they've experienced. Once you know all that, you can usually figure out a way to settle things, because you can understand them."
"So you have like four hundred years of memories of living, right?" Cinder asked Seren. "A lot of those years really harsh, bad, awful and horrific?"
"Yes," Seren simply agreed without elaboration.
"And you have a thousand years of memories?" Cin
der asked Treah.
"None harsh, bad, awful or horrific," Treah amended. "At least not from when I was in a non-Human form. Unicorns rarely associate with others. My concerns were mostly keeping Humans from coming into my Wood. I don't believe my life was in any danger at any point until I became Human. And I've never aspired to a leadership position, so have rarely taken a lead in controversy. Diplomacy isn't about being a leader, it's about being a listener. I'm a good listener."
"So, Seren's got several lifetimes of worth of memories of leadership, hardship, horror and a bunch of other life-changing things," Cinder concluded. "I think the playing field here just tilted a little toward unfavorable on my side."
"It was that way the moment you folks decided we had something you wanted," Seren pointed out. "We can pull out of our mess ourselves. We'll do it a lot faster and with a lot less dying with help, but unless we get another epidemic, which isn't likely since we have procedures in place to monitor that kind of thing now, we'll be able to restore the ecology, and get back the bugs and animals from the genetic material on the Wethersfield."
"An interesting perspective," Treah observed. "Is the hardship worth the delay?"
"It depends on the deal," Seren grinned back. "But the bottom line is that we can walk away and be no worse off than we were before. You need what we have more than we need what you have."
"But you can't protect your system from raiders," Cinder reminded her.
"Which is why we're here now," Seren agreed.
It was probably stating the obvious, but no one disagreed with Seren's assessment.
CHAPTER 8
Seren and the delegation had already received a briefing about UGC 0063-B. It was a large, relatively temperate planet, with a gravity about thirty percent above standard. It would take some getting used to in order for an unassisted person to walk around without feeling like one was carrying a fairly substantial load.