Sato-Spider turned his-her eyes to the magic storm that was still whirling the trapped aircraft in its cyclonic funnel of destruction. Feet spread wide for stability, Sato-Spider raised six arms and channeled the power. The small part of him-her thrilled at the caress of the mana. It was terrified, amazed, gratified, and eager. The greater part knew the sensation of old. It directed the energy.
Crimson bolts shot from each clawed hand to converge on the surviving Firedrake, tumbling within the whirlwind. The arcane energy wove a cocoon around the gunship, isolating it from the hostile magic. In suddenly calm air, the rotors caught and the pilot regained control. Sato-Spider shifted the cocoon to shield the helicopter as it ran from the funnel, but though the crimson field could counter the effects of the magical wind it had not been configured to handle the storm's response to losing its victim. Bolt after eye-searing bolt of flashing from the gathered thun-derheads. Most missed the Firedrake, but enough struck to shatter it and send it burning toward the earth.
Sato-Spider snarled.
Direct action was in order. Clawed hands wove an intricate pattern of magic, gathering the strands of mana as they whipped through the storm. Tug. Slip. Push. Grip. The will was all.
First at the edges, then ever deeper, the energies began to twist and change.
Dancers twisted and stomped even faster, caught in the frenzy. The sprouting tree had glowed through the night, shedding light to replace that which the sky no longer offered. Sam sang louder, calling the dancers to follow the song. Faltering voices rallied and sang more strongly. The tree brightened now as the stars vanished behind gathering clouds.
Dancers were led before him. Knowing no other choice, he accepted them. The Dance was not yet over, no interruptions could be allowed.
Lightning flashed across the sky.
Sam gazed on many scenes, most of them blurred by the tears in his eyes.
It seemed to him that Janice stood before him. All of her: the girl he had hidden on the Night of Rage, the young woman he had last seen laughing as she went off to work, the ork form he had never known, and the white-furred giant all occupied the same space. She knelt before him and placed her hands on his head, drawing them down over his face and onto his chest before running them out to and down his arms. "I beseech you, Dog. Turn your eyes to my plight." "I will. After the Dance." She smiled at him sadly. "Face the truth, Sam." "No! It's not fair!"
"Yes. It's not fair, but it's my gift. You know it has to be that way." "You deserve better."
"That's not for you, or me, to say. The Dance will profit no one for personal gain, but it can redress wrongs. Hear my plea, Dog. Dance the steps that will free my soul. Set me against the betrayer who has joined the cause of your enemy, so that he will no longer plague the earth and her innocent children." "I can't." "You must."
Sam almost faltered. He felt the vibrations of his weakness shake the fragile structure of the Dance. The magic was founded on belief, conviction, and sacrifice. He had already accomplished so much. How much more was needed? How many more souls would he have to take onto his own? How could he take his sister's?
Wracked by the crash of his hopes he felt a tug, feather-light, at the edge of his awareness. Inu's voice barked in his head as he turned his vision outward to see the dark presence at the edge of the Dance. What he had refused to give freely was in danger of being lost through his weakness. All that had been gained could be lost. His jaw trembled as he looked into his sister's face.
Her hand touched him lightly on the cheek and brushed away a tear.
"It's the only way, Sam. The only way to save my soul."
He drew her hand to his lips. It was hot and cold at once. He kissed her hand, but was too frightened to look again at her face.
"Go," he said.
She was gone, and he howled his pain to the sky.
***
Sato-Spider was no longer simply a being of the mundane world. Eight eyes gazed on the physical as well as the astral. Spells and spirits were as visible as rocks and animals. Thus he-she saw the gleaming woman-thing that flew from the heart of the mana storm. The lesser part recognized the woman and the ork, but only the old arachnid knew the outer, white-furred shell that she had seen in the memory of her minions. The woman-thing recognized Sato-Spider, which was obvious when she spoke.
"One in evil, now one in body. How does it feel to change, Gold Eyes? I hated you, you know. If you hadn't done her work for her, I'd never have had to worry about falling to the wendigo nature. Hugh Glass, for all his evil, was acting according to his nature. He was already damned by the time I met him. He infected me because of what you had done. But the metamorphosis wasn't as good as you thought; if it. had been, I wouldn't have been able to fight off the wendigo nature when it changed me. You're no better at making deals than you are at making orks."
Sato-Spider laughed and spoke in Spider's cluttering voice. "You are wrong, Janice Verner." The man-voice sputtered, "It cannot be at fault. The serum was as perfect as science could make it. Your transformation to an ork was as complete as if it had been in your genes since your conception." The insect voice concluded, "I do not build poorly."
"But you lie poorly, Spider. And you're worse, Sato-san. You lie as well as you choose your friends. See what your friend Spider has done for you? You welcomed her into yourself of your own free will, and now your soul is forfeit.''
Janice advanced toward him-her and the small part wanted to shrink away, but the large part stood firm. "You have not the power to defeat me." "I?" Janice smiled. "Of course not. But I'm not alone anymore. I have a family again."
She embraced Sato-Spider and he-she screamed at her touch. Spider fled, leaving her tool behind. Sato, twisted already by Spider, twisted again by the power flowing through the glowing being Janice had become. Sato shrank in upon himself, taking on ever more of the physical characteristics of the totem spirit to whom he had wed his soul. His memory, his very self slipped away, and he became a real spider, devoid of the humanity he had surrendered long ago.
The tiny arachnid scrambled away from the shining woman. Janice relaxed into peacefulness.
"God hold you in His hands," Sam said.
#**
Urdli looked down at the dismembered form of the avatar. The thing had let its attention waver and given him the chance to slip a mana thrust past its defenses. He'd been thankful for the chance. Had the avatar not lost its concentration, he would not have been able to stand much longer against it.
Once Urdli had wounded the avatar, he was able to call the stone to soften. Mired in suddenly soft rock, the avatar had been too slow to avoid Estios charge.
The physical attack had given Urdli the opening he needed to resolve the arcane battle. As the avatar's upper arms slammed into Estios, shredding his armor and body with hooked claws, Urdli had slipped a mana bolt past its defenses, slicing the limbs from its body. With that attack, Urdli severed the avatar's bond of similarity to its totem and threw it into shock, opening the way for the death blow.
"Impressive magic," Estios gasped, as he struggled to support himself on one elbow. His desperate attack had nearly cost him his life, but he would survive with sufficient medical care. He remained intent on his purpose. "Pull me over and I'll set the bomb up for the Dance."
There was no point in that. Urdli had beaten the avatar, and the weapon was now his. "No," he said with a smile. "No?"
Urdli was amused to see the confusion on Estios' face. "It is too useful," he said, letting his hand wander across the casing of the weapon. "The detonator in this weapon is active, the fissionable material unalloyed. Don't you understand? This bomb will work." "Of course." Estios coughed. There was blood in his spittle. "That's why we're here to destroy it." "Not we."
"We have to destroy it."
"As I said, not we." Urdli spun, casting a power dart as he did. No more should be necessary to finish Estios in his weakened state. The spell struck, flaring almost visible as it bore through Estios' hastily erected def
ense. The dark-haired elf went down in a sprawl.
Urdli dismissed the fallen elf and turned to thoughts of the bomb and the place it would have in his plans. His plotting was disturbed by a sound behind him. He turned to find Estios standing. "I cannot permit you," he said.
Urdli sneered at him. "So Laverty set you to watch me, after all."
"So what if he did? That's not why I can't let you take it." Estios made a weak gesture toward the bomb. "Such things don't belong in our world." "Do not oppose me. You'll die." Estios tried to laugh, but the sound devolved into a spasm of coughing. "I'm not afraid to die if it will matter." "It will not."
A strange smile grew on Estios' face. "You're wrong."
Estios stretched wide his arms, and Urdli felt the magic gather. There was a familiar feeling to the mana flow. Somehow Estios had managed to tap the same well that Urdli had used to break the barrier with which the avatar had warded the cavern. Such power was dangerous. Urdli strengthened his own defensive spells and cast a counterstrike against Estios.
The spell bounced harmlessly from the flowing wall surrounding Estios. Urdli shrank back from the heat and light. With that much power. Estios would overwhelm his defenses; he felt the potential gathering. In the face of such power, Urdli's command of the mana was pitifully weak. He would be blasted to atoms. If it was to be so, it would be so. He straightened, determined to take the blast valiantly. Estios tossed a pouch into the air, scattering the dust that the Dog shaman had said was necessary for the Dance magic. Estios swung his arms forward, the palms of his hands outward, and rippling waves of green energy shot forth.
But the magic didn't strike Urdli. Instead, it bathed the bomb in pulses of light that fluctuated hypnotically. The dust danced along the light bursts and settled to coat the weapon with a glittering skin. Urdli didn't need to be connected to the spell to know that the bomb was being rendered inert.
Estios collapsed, the last of his breath rushing out as he fell. The light faded and the cavern plunged into darkness.
The only sound was Urdli's curse.
The presence outside Grandmother's system leapt forward with the eagerness of a barghest unleashed. Like a barghest, it broadcast fear with its chilling, haunting scream. Hands full of data, Dodger froze as the blackness of cyberspace rippled with waves of crimson. As the rippling effect faded, three icons of massive armored samurai charged into. Grandmother's system. Their heads were bound with the rising sun headbands of kamikaze and they brandished drawn swords. With fierce brutality they advanced, slashing through icons and through datalines as they came.
Morgan turned to face the newcomers. She was still occupied with the system's ice, but that didn't seem to bother her. She appeared confident. One samurai, having advanced beyond his brethren, noticed her. That icon stopped attacking the system, raised his sword high, and charged. She whirled her cloak at him, then frowned when nothing happened. Repeating her gesture with more vigor as he closed, her perplexity turned to surprise as his sword sliced through her cloak with the sound of a high-frequency feedback.
In nanoseconds she was besieged.
Taking notice of the battle the second samurai passed near Dodger, on his way to aid his partner. Contempt showed on his face as he struck out with his hand.
When the blow struck Dodger's head rang, and his vision was ringed with swirling colors. Images danced within those colors, growing as they spun inward to fill his vision. He tried to force his sight clear, but individual images surged up to block his vision. Whirling color blinded him to the Matrix, and he raged at his helplessness. She needed him. He could hear her calling. It took great effort, but he took a step forward. His vision dimmed to deep gray, then finally cleared. He saw Teresa sidestepping the blow of a samurai's sword. He blinked; not Teresa, Morgan. The fight was a blur of interacting programs and progressed with a speed that left his head spinning, aswirl with images and afterimages. He felt a mite among giants, as out of place as deer on a metroplex street.
Like the deer he was only meat, not match for the technological wonders battling around him. He didn't even know what the samurai had used for an attack program. Baffled and stunned, he saw another samurai, another sword, another place. He'd been helpless then, too, but she had saved him. He ached with guilt, fear, and helplessness. Overwhelmed, he lost touch with the reality around him, and his memories came crashing down.
Meat, ever fragile, was always meat.
In that other time, as now, his fate had lain in the hands of his love. Then he had been unable to do anything. But here in the Matrix he was the Dodger, a wizard and master of cyberspace combat. He saw a chance as the struggling icons shifted toward him. He started forward, but the battle flashed past him with incredible speed and he was unable to intervene.
Grandmother's system was crashing, from the combined effects of the third samurai's uninterrupted destructive efforts and the side effects of Morgan's engagement with the first two. Alerted by the real-world effects of the Matrix events, one of Grandmother's guardian deckers materialized in the system. Dodger recognized the chrome spider icon of the decker he knew as Matrixcrawler. Though he'd known
the man's work for years and even met him at the virtual club Syberspace, he had never guessed that Crawler might be an agent of Spider. The icon and street name were not unnatural choices, and Dodger understood now their mocking significance.
The chrome spider skittered toward the lone samurai. The crystal web of a capture program spun out of the spider's abdomen into waiting forelegs that stretched it before casting. Without turning to face his attacker, the samurai swung his sword back one-handed. The gleaming blade struck the web-holding legs just below their first joint, lopping them off cleanly. The samurai spun, catching the hilt of his weapon with his second hand as the sword whistled on its follow-through. Without even a nanosecond's pause, the blade changed direction and buried itself in the spider's head. Energy crackled from the point of contact in lightning forks, the chrome crisping to black where the blade touched it. The blackness spread in a haphazard jigsaw pattern, and the spider icon fractured along those lines. The samurai returned to his destruction of the system while the shrinking chrome fragments of the spider faded behind him.
Matrixcrawler had been a topnotch decker, and he had apparently achieved surprise. Yet the samurai had struck before Matrixcrawler could attack. Dodger had thought that only Morgan could function that well in the Matrix. What kind of program could react so quickly and be so devastatingly accurate and effective?
"A Semi-autonomous knowbot," Morgan's voice told him. Despite her battle, she had excess capacity to speak to him. He was worried that she sounded winded. He had never before seen her pressed.
"They're too powerful," he said.
"They are more advanced than predicted."
Dodger was astounded. "Predicted? You knew about them?"
"Yes. They are what I was."
"They're AIs?"
"Not in the sense you intend. They are directed bundles of expert systems endowed with limited discretionary capabilities, but designed to make informed and human-standard rational decisions in pursuing designated objectives. Thus they display apparent intelligence." Her voice cut out. Dodger could see her frantically dodging a coordinated attack by the two samurai. "Additionally, they have the capacity to simulate learning."
"Can I help you?"
"It is too dangerous for you."
Dodger thought so, too, but he did not want to stand idly by while the SKs eliminated Morgan. They were forcing her back. He took a step forward and ran into a wall, Morgan's wall.
"Let me go. You need help."
"For myself, there is no requirement to observe your dysfunction."
The samurai pressed her hard. "You're diverting capacity that you need."
"There is a growing probability of accuracy in the observation you express. Lacking certainty, you will be prevented from exposing yourself to harm."
"While you let those things kill you."
> "For myself, there is no death."
"Dysfunction then," Dodger screamed. "I won't let you kill yourself trying to keep me locked up."
"You cannot prevent it."
A samurai's sword caught Morgan's outstretched arm and sliced it off. Unlike the spider, her icon didn't fragment, but she was clearly injured. She moved more slowly and the second SK closed in. Her slowness proved to be a feint on her part. She lunged in and darted away. As she retreated, pieces of the samurai's armor fell from his body and evaporated. But it was clear to Dodger that Morgan was not moving with her accustomed speed.
"Morgan, if I promise not to interfere, will you drop the wall and use your capacity for yourself?"
Her answer came with the detached relief of a tired fighter. "Affirmative." "All right. I promise. Save yourself." Released from the diversion of capacity, her icon speeded up. The increased functionality allowed her to strip the second samurai of more armor without a sacrificial ploy. Having weakened him, she slipped in again and dispatched him. Against a single SK whose measure she had taken, there was no contest. She let the samurai attack, sidestepping at the last moment. The SK stumbled off balance. She swirled her cloak over him and he vanished.
Slightly ragged, she appeared at Dodger's side. Together they watched the remaining samurai ravage Grandmother's system. Two more of her deckers tried to face the SK and had their icons discorporated for their trouble. Dodger felt sure that the meat on the outside was devastated as well. "Shouldn't you stop it?"
"Why? These SKs are hunter-killers, programmed for destruction of Grandmother's system under an operational program code named Crimson Sunset. This SK performs the task set for us by Samuel Verner-Sam-Twist. The others attacked myself according to a secondary set of instructions. This SK has failed to register myself. The need to interfere is unverified." Dodger watched the samurai continue his destruction. The SK operated with a sublime smoothness that he found disturbing almost as disturbing as Morgan's knowledge of them. "How do you know so much about them? I Ve never heard of SKs."
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