Infinities' Edge

by Andrew Dobell

  ‘Just be careful,’ her mentor said, concern in his eyes.

  ‘It’s no bother, I’ll see you after,’ she said, feeling a bit more confident today than before. Amanda felt Gentle Water work some Magic upon himself, probably to watch and study the effect she was about to work.

  ‘Good luck, I will be waiting,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said and concentrated on working her Magic, and drawing the Magical energy the Magi called Essentia to her, and in a split second, shaping it, directing it, fusing it with her desire to cross through Acheron into the Abyss.

  Around her, the scene shifted and rippled, changing colour from the bright and vibrant New York day, to a dull blue, almost night time scene.

  The landscape around her looked desolate and empty, and very quiet. The ever-present sounds of the busy city, the hum of the traffic and the movement of the commuters had gone, replaced by a stillness that unnerved her more than she cared to think about. It looked like she stood in a faded and disused reflection of New York. A dead city. Around her, there were buildings that looked like they had been through a war with their crumbling walls and unfinished facades. Mist clung to the ground below her, obscuring her view of the street somewhat from her vantage point atop a ruined and blasted building that must have been the Abyssal reflection of her home.

  She couldn’t see anything moving here. The intersection before her house seemed quiet and still, so she started to make her way down through the half-destroyed building, scrambling down rubble that gave way beneath her feet making noise that sounded very loud in the stillness of this apparently deserted city. A minute or so later, she reached a doorway at street level and moved towards it. The mist from the street spilt in through the opening. It had a similar blue tinge to it as the rest of the environment and appeared thickest at her feet. Reaching the doorway, she looked outside, moving quietly and cautiously, and looked in both directions along the street. There appeared to be a few twisted remains of cars, like burnt out husks on the sides of the streets that were basically unrecognisable, and apart from a few places where the buildings had collapsed into the street, the roads were very quiet and empty.

  She stepped out of the building and walked towards the crossroads on her left, getting glimpses of the cracked and ruined ground beneath her feet.

  She kept to the wall of the building she had appeared within and moved slowly. Something seemed to move out of the corner of her eye, but on turning her head and looking, only an eddy in the mist that might have been made by something moving, or maybe not, gave any clue as to whether anything had been there at all.

  She’d stopped dead still on looking over the road at the apparent movement, and she could feel her heart hammering away in her chest. She’d never felt so on edge.

  Feeling sure that nothing was there now, she continued on and reached the corner of the building, leaning out to look left and right. Again, the roads appeared deserted, with only mist and detritus out in the streets with her. After a moment of thought, she chose to go right, crossing the road next to her and heading in what she assumed to be the direction of downtown in the real world, if this Abyssal reflection in any way matched the Material World New York.

  Taking another look around her and keeping low, she jogged over the road to the opposite building and started to walk down the street, keeping to the walls of the building on her right. Part way along that block, a shadow passed over the street and the buildings around her, causing Amanda to look up and see a huge thing flying or maybe swimming through the air above her. It looked black and huge, almost Manta Ray like apart from the mass of tentacles that trailed behind it and the other strange and curious appendages that it had.

  On reflex, Amanda backed up into the building next to her, through a huge open hole in the side of the building while she continued to watch the thing gliding above the buildings. It banked left but soon disappeared from view.

  Relaxing for a moment, she suddenly heard movement from inside the building she stood in and slowly turned to look into the darkness behind her. Something moved, she could see half shapes and shadows shifting and the sound of a deep rumbling groan that came from something with a throat. Even with her enhanced vision, she couldn’t be sure what this might be.

  Backing up towards the hole and the street, she kept close to the wall and slipped outside, keeping her eyes on the thing in the darkness. She could have sworn she saw several pairs of gleaming eyes open in the darkness a half second before she rounded the corner onto the street and quickly moved away from the building she had just exited.

  The temperature here didn’t seem too much different than it had been on her heated rooftop, a comfortable level of heat that felt neither hot nor cold, and yet, Amanda could feel the sweat beading on her temples. She knew it came from her growing fear and unease about the Abyss and the things within it, but she couldn’t help it.

  Moving further along the street, passing a couple more buildings, she quickly stopped short when up ahead something big lumbered out from a side road into the avenue she stood on. The creature looked huge, maybe twice the size of a human with massive powerful arms and shoulders. It stopped in the middle of the street and seemed to be contemplating which way to go, its face hidden from view for the time being.

  Amanda ducked down again and stayed low, watching the creature, when another walked out to stand by the first. The second one looked just as inhuman as the first but had a more upright stance as opposed to the first one's more stooped gait.

  Amanda had no idea who or what these were, so she backed up to a ruined entrance into the building she stood next to and moved inside, just out of view so that she could still see out into the street. She watched them until she felt satisfied she wouldn’t be seen by these two things for the moment, then she looked to her right and into the building. Although dark and dusky, this one appeared lighter than the first she’d ducked into. Looking up she could see up through several levels of the building due to a number of huge holes in the ceilings of maybe five or six of the floors above her.

  Looking back at the creatures in the street, they were pointing and motioning down the street Amanda stood in. She wasn’t sure why she did it, but she looked in the direction they were looking, back the way she came, to see another huge creature pulling itself from the building she had ducked into a short distance back up the street. Feeling suddenly exposed, she backed up further into the structure she stood inside and looked around. She wanted to get out of sight but had a moment of brain freeze until she looked up again through the holes in the floors above her. Suddenly knowing what to do, she decided to work some Magic to see what might work in the Abyss. She could just shift back into the Material world, leave this behind, but as scared as she might be, she didn’t want to leave yet. She wanted to see what these creatures did, maybe get a better look at them. She could cross back into the Material world at any moment after all, and the situation wasn’t desperate yet.

  Working carefully and gently, causing as few ripples to the local Essentia as she could, she worked her Magic and attempted to Port several floors up to the highest level she could see into.

  To her relief, her Magic worked as she had hoped it would, in fact, if she had to comment, she would say it had actually worked better than in the material world and had been slightly easier to do. She stood on the edge of the topmost hole and looked down, smiling. For some weird reason, she had felt a little scared to use Magic here, thinking that things might work differently somehow and she would have to learn to use her Magic in a different way. But that had been an utterly unfounded viewpoint and one she now knew to be false. Feeling suddenly happier and more confident that she would be able to survive here, she moved away from the hole. She stood in a room further into the building, away from the outer walls, meaning there were no windows. A doorway to her right would move her closer to the pair of creatures that had rounded the corner ahead of her in the street, and the room beyond looked lighter, which she hoped would mean ther
e would be windows in there.

  She moved slowly and quietly into the next room and suddenly jumped in surprise, her Aegis flaring from the sudden flush of Essentia she pushed into it.

  Someone else was in this room.

  The figure looked human at first glance and was crouched at one of the windows that looked out onto the street. As Amanda reacted in shocked surprise, the other figure in the room did the same, backing away from the window and pressed itself into the corner in clear fright.

  Amanda looked at the figure again, and taking a deep breath, started to calm down. She looked like a young girl, mostly human in appearance, with a few odd things about her. Her face seemed longer and her cheekbones more pronounced than a humans would be, and she had long elfin ears that tapered to long slender points up the side of her head, although one looked to be at an angle like it had been damaged once upon a time.

  She wore little better than dirty rags that hung limply from her very slender body but had nothing on her feet. Also, her left hand and forearm looked blackened and the skin on it looked to be flaking in a few places.

  Curious about this nervous creature, Amanda took a step forward with her hands out, her palms facing upwards.

  ‘Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,’ she said and she moved into the room. ‘I’m Amanda, you’re safe.’ Moving around the girl, Amanda realised that she was actually really quite small, maybe three to four foot tall, and not young as she noticed womanly curves beneath the elfin creatures’ rags.

  ‘H… human?’ the girl said in a light and sing-song voice.

  Amanda nodded and smiled. ‘Magus,’ she said tapping her chest to indicate she was referring to herself.

  ‘You… you’re a Magi?’ the girl said.

  ‘That’s right, my name is Amanda.’

  The girl glanced about the room, moving only her eyes before looking back at Amanda. She put her hand to her own chest then and said, ‘Bramble. I’m Bramble.’

  Edging around the room as she spoke, Amanda finally got close enough to one of the windows and looked down into the street. The creatures were all moving further down the street, away from the building Amanda was in. Amanda breathed a sigh of relief, they were safe for the moment.

  Amanda looked back at the girl as she settled against the frame of the window so she could keep an eye on the street. ‘Nice to meet you, Bramble.’

  ‘You’re a Magi?’ the girl repeated.

  ‘I am.’

  Bramble came away from the wall and stepped out into the room, looking Amanda up and down with a critical eye. ‘How did you… you know… get here?’

  ‘With my Magic,’ Amanda answered.

  ‘But, you can’t, you’re banned, aren’t you? Banished.’

  ‘We, the Magi I mean, are. But I am not anymore. People are saying I’m some kind of chosen one, and this is one of my abilities now. I don’t know. It’s all a bit strange.’

  ‘You crossed over to the Abyss. This is… special. This must mean something,’ she said as she walked about the room. Amanda noticed for the first time that the girl had rather beaten and ragged looking wings that sprouted from her back and looked like oversized Dragonfly wings. They drooped down, though, hanging limp like they hadn’t been used in a while.

  ‘Are you a… fairy?’ Amanda asked.

  The girl looked up, then down at her wings before returning her gaze to Amanda again. ‘I prefer the word Fae, but yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘You suppose?’

  ‘There’s not many of us left, most have been… changed, corrupted, like everything else here.’

  ‘The Archons,’ Amanda said flatly. She’d heard the stories of the corrupting influence of the Archons. How their incredible power and hate had changed the fragile balance in the Aetheric Realm that had once been called Arcadia. How their corruption had seeped into everything, twisting them, changing them. Like anywhere else, the Aetheric Realm had been home to good, bad and indifferent creatures, but this Magical realm, fuelled by Essentia in a way that the Material realm is not, could not resist the Magical power and the darkness of the Archons. And so, over time, Arcadia became the Abyss. Those creatures who were already closer to the darkness, only grew more cruel and powerful, while those who followed the light, found their world and their natures changing. A few resisted, but over time, the darkness would wear them down, dragging them into the shadows.

  She knew that the faction of Magi she belonged too took their name from the original name for the Spirit world. The Arcadians fought to destroy the Archons and restore Arcadia. During the dark years of their fight against the Archons, millennia ago before recorded history, Arcadia had served as their hideout, their safe haven and staging ground for their assaults on the Archons.

  The Aetheric Realm and its inhabitants had been their allies in the fight against the darkness, and one day they would return the Aetheric Realm back to its former state.

  Bramble looked down at her blackened arm. ‘The Archons,’ she repeated, mirroring Amanda’s tone.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Amanda said.

  ‘But if you’re here, you, a Magus, then… then maybe things will change?’ she said with hope in her eyes.

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘I think they will, I think this is a good sign,’ Bramble said, her face beaming with a huge smile.

  ‘I hope it is a good sign,’ Amanda said, mostly to herself as she gazed out over the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, noticing the strange flying demons soaring lazily over the destroyed city. She’d best be getting back, she thought, Gentle Water would be worried.

  - Haiti

  Nymira sat in an ornately decorated seat that was covered in bones, skulls and other Voodoo paraphernalia and waited as the man in the black suit walked towards her having been shown into the room. He wore a large black top hat, carried a black lacquered walking cane with a chrome skull on the top.

  From beneath the brim of his hat, the man’s keen eyes shone from the painted skull on his face that gave him a macabre yet beguiling look.

  ‘Mistress Nymira, I bring you news from the continent. The one known as Amanda, who took Lucian and New York from you is being called the Chosen One based on the Prophecy of Helene. They say she has been marked and already bears the signs spoken of in the text.’

  Nymira slowly lifted her body forward from the back of her seat and rested her forearms on her legs to sit forward and get a better look at Baron Samedi, her loyal servant from New Orleans. ‘Is that so?’

  Encounter in the Pit

  Pit Club, New York

  Jan 9th

  Eudoxia sat with her back to the wall in the soft leather chair behind the large modern desk that she had long since claimed as her own. The desk sat to one side of the large apartment beneath the Pit Club that she guessed had once been the private home of Lucian. In front of her, beyond the desk stood a number of soft modern sofas, each with a metal frame holding the cushions in place. The seats surrounded a glass coffee table while a huge flat screen TV hung above them on the wall to Eudoxia’s left. To her right, behind a frosted glass patrician, her huge bed lay empty, its sheets made and pulled neatly into place.

  Then at the far end of the space beyond the sofa’s, an expansive kitchenette with an island hugged the far wall with the apartment's main entrance on the left side.

  Eudoxia had decorated the place with a few of her own personal effects, most of which had an Egyptian theme, or failing that, a Punk Rock theme.

  She’d been called a girl of contradictions by a number of people in her time with her love of everything Egyptian and her Punky Rock style. Unlike many long-lived Magi who struggled to keep up with the changes of the modern world. It’s constantly fluctuating fashions and styles and the exponential growth of digital technology, Eudoxia bucked the trend and loved anything modern, adding the things she loved to her style and day to day life.

  She knew that it had been a trait that her mentor, Nefertiti, loved and found very useful
. At over three thousand years old, Nefertiti had barely registered that Digital technology had become such a huge and powerful thing, only the guiding hand of Eudoxia had changed that in any way. Even then, a Magus like Nefertiti usually preferred to do things with Magic anyway.

  Eudoxia sat forward and looked over the open dossier before her. She had been sent here to watch and find out a little more about Amanda after Nefertiti had encountered her in Los Angeles with her charge Shaitan.

  Eudoxia had come to know Shaitan a bit while he stayed with the Coven, but he usually kept to himself which made things slow going.

  She’d never really taken to the man and found him to be unpredictable and scary. He’d clearly seen things that few others had during his travels in the Abyss which had served to unhinge his mind somewhat to the point that he would now lash out at any moment. His two apprentices, before they had met with their sudden death at Nefertiti’s hands, had taken advantage of this and channelled these episodes into attacks on Arcadian Covens in Los Angeles.

  Predictably, it hadn’t been too long before they hit a Coven that caused the Council to take notice and do something.

  Nefertiti’s coven had no love for the council, but they were not Nomads either. They considered themselves to be independent and outside the war between the Nomads and the Arcadians. They pursued their own path and did their own thing. This didn’t go down terribly well with the establishment, but when you had a Magus as powerful as Nefertiti on your side unless you wanted World War Three on your hands, you let them get on with it.

  Nefertiti had many interests, both personal and business related. She loved playing the game of politics and using her influence to guide things to her favour, and she also had an interest in the legends and stories of the Magi. Something had interested Nefertiti about Amanda. Eudoxia didn’t know what it was, but her mentor wanted the redhead watched, and so that’s what they had done, to the best of their ability. They’d lost track of her a couple of times over the last few weeks, of being here, but for the most part, they knew where she would be at any given point in the day.