Edda

by Conor Kostick

  “Eventually we scattered. I think many of the survivors were hunted down. You’ve seen how remote and well hidden my own residence is. I only know for sure that Anadia lives because she rules the birds of the skies and one of them found me and brought me a message. The others, though? I suspect some of them are around, but it wouldn’t be easy to find them. And having contacted them, it would be quite a challenge to get them to work together.”

  “Hey, that’s interesting.” Milan was still staring through the binoculars.

  “What is it?” asked Gunnar.

  “Three of them have gone to the body. They’re picking up his stuff: his gun, his bags—even the ring, I think. Now they’re going back.”

  Cindella had reappeared, shaking her head, while Milan was speaking.

  “Anonemuss is really raging. I had to take him out of the library and out to the square for some air. He was kicking at the shelves.”

  “He was serious about helping us. I appreciate that,” said Athena.

  “Yeah.” Cindella gave a smile. “That and I think he was enjoying himself.”

  Jodocus came and squatted beside Cindella and Ghost. “So, what do you want to do now?”

  “You have twice said we have the option of attacking here?” Ghost doubted she could handle anything like the amount of energy that would be thrown at her if she fought this army, so she was impressed that the elementalist considered it a possibility.

  “It would hurt me and expend nearly all my stored elementals. But I could probably force a path through.”

  Athena gave an appreciative whistle. “That’s some power you have.”

  “But what happens if there’s an army on the other side, too?” asked Erik.

  “Then it will be down to you; I’ll be spent and in torment from the ruptured tattoos. How strong are you? You have good offensive weapons, but have you defenses against their projectiles?”

  “Well, I’ve—”

  “Not enough.” Ghost cut across Erik before he could talk about his amulet of protection from missiles and Cindella’s other magic items. It just wasn’t wise to reveal too much to a powerful and intelligent person like Jodocus, not until they were completely certain about him. “Most of us would be killed by even one accurate shot.”

  “Then we are going to have to enlist the help of Anadia. If her avian forces can destroy this army, then I can save my elementals for the other side.”

  “Erik,” said Gunnar, “you missed it, but while you were gone, Jodocus told us that this Anadia is another sentience that would try to harm humans. So Ghost admitted she wasn’t human and offered an alliance between the people of Saga and the domini of Myth. You and I are on dangerous ground here.”

  “It seems,” said Jodocus carefully, “that we have two humans among us: Erik and Gunnar. Well, firstly, Anadia need not know that you two are humans. Secondly, I think that the worst she can do is harm your avatars. Her powers are over the birds of this world, and they pose no threat to the humans behind the avatar. Just don’t give her any information about your home planet, in case of future developments.” He paused, looking around at the troops in front of the portal. “And thirdly, what choice do we have?”

  Chapter 14

  OF AVATARS AND MASKS

  In Penelope’s experience, important meetings took place in the west wing of Lord Scanthax’s castle, as it was there, on the first floor, that a series of rooms had been constructed to host a wide range of possible assemblies, from the full court to the small discussions held by the immediate advisors to Lord Scanthax, an inner council comprised of the more autonomous of his manifestations. Right now, Penelope was making her way across the bare wooden floor of the Great Hall, her footsteps ringing out harshly. This was the largest room in the castle, and walking across so huge an open space made her feel giddy. She wanted to run, to shout, to slide—anything to make the chamber feel less austere. Perhaps she should. The only witnesses would be the empty suits of armor that lined the oak-paneled wall opposite the windows.

  Although designed for celebrations and festivals, the hall was a depressing room. Each time she crossed it, Penelope felt as though the ghosts of all the sentient lords and ladies that Lord Scanthax had killed were watching her. And the pale light that came through the windows did nothing to dissipate the gloom. These days Penelope could script huge panes of glass. But five years ago, when the hall was built, neither she nor Lord Scanthax could make glass very well, and the windows of the hall were therefore constructed by fixing lots of small pieces into the lead. As a result the room was dim. Despite the fact that it was still morning and the sun was shining brightly upon the left side of the hall, the whole chamber was filled with shadows, and even the wood of the floor and walls, supposedly stained a copper color, appeared black.

  There were chandeliers, also of the primitive sort: large hoops of wood suspended from the roof by black iron chains on which were fixed a dozen candles. Very rarely—for important anniversaries or the presentation of medals—these chandeliers were lit so that the hall could fulfill its main purpose. On such days the chamber would be full of people from the castle and its environs. Most of those present would not have any independent consciousness; they would be servants and soldier units in attendance for decorative purposes only. But toward the far end of the hall, where a large wooden throne sat, would be gathered the full 212 manifestations of Lord Scanthax to witness whatever speech the lord had composed in honor of the anniversary of some supposedly glorious victory. These days Penelope felt sorry for the poor sentience whose execution or suicide was being celebrated—a life extinguished by the armies of a rival who had a distinct advantage in the scripting abilities of Penelope. Not that Lord Scanthax had taken all the credit for himself. No, Penelope had to admit that he had fully acknowledged her part in his triumphs. In this very hall she had been the recipient of a medal on three occasions and a sash on the fourth. For each of the ceremonies the room had been filled with cheers, applause, and congratulatory cries. But she had been young then. If the same ceremony took place today, she would not feel a sense of accomplishment or that she was appreciated by the people she worked for. Instead, no matter how full the room, she would feel only the emptiness and the dark. No matter how loud the applause, she would hear only one person clapping, and each handclap would ring out in her ears as a cry of sarcasm. The fact was—as she had come to appreciate only in the last year—her childhood had been manipulated to serve a creature who admittedly had gone to some trouble to keep Penelope’s human body alive, but not out of any sense of empathy for the poor abandoned child; she had been brought up by Lord Scanthax solely as a means to secure his victory and domination over the world of Edda.

  Having reached the stage, Penelope turned to her right and went through a pair of large double doors, leaving them open behind her. She was in a connecting corridor, one that was wide enough to host a display of captured ornaments from Lord Scanthax’s rivals. In the center of the corridor was a globe, mounted on an iron stand now black with age. The map was old, and not just in the sense that all the boundaries on it were long out of date; the very surface of the globe, some kind of polished hide, had turned a deep brown color with the passage of time. As she walked past the ornament, Penelope noted that it was just possible to make out the small mountain territory labeled “Scanthax.” It was obvious that he had placed that part of the globe so that it faced those who walked from the Great Hall toward the inner chamber, a reminder to everyone who passed of the tiny beginnings of his now multi-world dominion.

  On either side of the corridor were wall hangings. On her left the cloth depicted a hunting scene whose central figures were long since slain, though not necessarily by Lord Scanthax; his armies had killed only 117 other lords and ladies. The rest of them had eliminated each other. In the needlework images, the people looked like they were enjoying themselves; they were smiling to one another, each with one hand holding the reins of their mounts and the other outstretched as a perch for th
eir hunting birds. Around the hooves of their horses were eager and lively-looking dogs. It was very well done, and Penelope could see why it had been passed down from lord to lord, lady to lady, until eventually it became a prized possession of the sole survivor of Edda.

  Opposite the hunting scene, on her right, was a rather less idyllic depiction of a naval battle. The skill of the embroiderer fell far short of that of the person who had made the hunting scene. The limbs of the combatants seemed slightly out of proportion to their bodies and sometimes stuck out at odd angles. But that wasn’t the point. This was Westfell Channel, Year Six. It was this decisive victory at sea that had cleared the way for the invasion of Admiral Ekkehar’s island. The wall hanging was not here to impress you with the artistry of the needlework; it was placed thus to remind you of Lord Scanthax’s achievements as you moved from the Great Hall to the Feast Hall. Penelope walked quickly through the far doors and into the Feast Hall, another silent wooden chamber in which her footsteps echoed. All around the room, carved directly out of the dark, stained wooden walls, were seats, perhaps two hundred in all. Five times now she had seen the room set up for the strange ceremony where Lord Scanthax reset the levels of autonomy for his manifestations. For the ceremony, the least important manifestations gathered in the outer rectangle of seats. Another seventy or so seats were placed in a circle, and there the mid-level manifestations sat, to learn their fate. And in the center of the room was a wide platform on which were seated Lord Scanthax and his most powerful manifestations: Assassin, General, Admiral, Chancellor, and Engineer.

  The Feast Hall was also used for celebrations of Victory Day, an annual event to mark the day that Lord Scanthax received news of the surrender and death of his final opponent, Lady Withermane. For the feast, tables were placed in front of each of the seats that ran around the outside of the room, while an imposing round table was assembled on the platform, capable of seating the remaining manifestations. Penelope always sat at the inner table, which was natural enough, given she was treated as a princess.

  The Feast Hall was another dark room, with the same old murky windows, currently allowing in pale light from the side of the castle opposite the windows of the Great Hall. Having walked the length of the Feast Hall, Penelope turned left and hurried on to another pair of double doors set in the far wall. They opened to a corridor whose wood-paneled walls were decorated with oil paintings in rather heavy-looking gold leaf frames. The pictures were all portraits. Several were of Lord Scanthax, of course, along with one each of his inner circle of manifestations. The artist was good; he had—perhaps inadvertently—captured the pomposity of General, the dourness of Admiral, the sinister gaze of Assassin, the scheming nature of Chancellor, and the solidity of Engineer.

  There was also a portrait of her. Penelope remembered sitting for Artist in her rooms. The likeness to her avatar was striking, and although she was currently in a hurry, Penelope paused to look at the picture. It had been a sensible idea to wear a blue velvet dress; it highlighted the violet in her eyes. The face that stared out of the painting was pale and seemed all the more so, framed as it was by her tresses of black hair. The avatar looked self-assured and dignified. And that, Penelope supposed, was one advantage of being present in Edda in the form of an avatar. She could lose control of her emotions and no one here would realize it from her expression.

  The doors at the far end of the corridor opened and Ambassador looked out. Rather guiltily, she hurried on.

  “Ah, there you are, Princess, I thought I heard you.”

  “Sorry I’m late, Ambassador. I was working.”

  “Oh, indeed, indeed. Apologies for taking you away from your difficult labors.”

  They were in the penultimate chamber of the complex, the one in which most of Lord Scanthax’s strategic planning took place. It was a very functional room. To compensate for the lack of natural light, there were eight lanterns fastened to plain iron brackets evenly distributed around the walls. A log fire was burning, too, bringing a certain warmth to the scene. Not that Penelope could appreciate the heat, but she did appreciate that this was a real room, one you could spend time in, quite different from the other rooms, which were heartless and empty for so much of the year. A large but simply designed table stood at the center of the chamber, with eight chairs around it. On the walls were frames holding up-to-date maps and on the side of the room opposite the fireplace was a great chest of drawers containing more maps as well as copious amounts of paper, ink, and quills.

  Here she was again, summoned to share in the most intimate of Lord Scanthax’s deliberations. In the past, she had felt honored. Now she felt uneasy and disloyal. Nervous, too, in case she revealed anything of her insubordinate state of mind to him. Somehow she had come to the point where all her previous desire to please him had turned to bitterness and anger. If Lord Scanthax realized that she was determined to escape his control, no matter what, how would he react? It was entirely possible that once he realized her loyalty had eroded completely, Lord Scanthax would rather let Penelope die than have her roam the worlds as she wished.

  “Lord Scanthax, Scout.” Penelope curtseyed to the two other manifestations in the room.

  “Princess, thank you for your time. We will not keep you long from your vital work.” Lord Scanthax’s voice was deep and gruff, befitting the sturdy character of his basic form. Even though the last battle was long over and bullets had superseded arrows many years ago, Lord Scanthax was still dressed in a chain mail hauberk with his sword strapped at his waist. Perhaps this was an affectation—an outward display of his military consciousness, or perhaps he never had a reason to dress any other way. Comfort and style were not priorities for Lord Scanthax. He gestured toward her. “Please, take a seat.”

  She did so, as did Lord Scanthax and Ambassador. Scout, however, remained on her feet near the map currently on display in the frame; it was of the five known worlds and the gates between them, set out from left to right in a linear way that matched the sequence of their discovery:

  Among the usual pots of ink, papers, knives, wax, and other small items on the table was a handgun of a similar type to the rifle that Penelope was working on. Beside it was a cruel-looking dagger and a gleaming silver ring.

  “Here.” Noticing her curiosity, Lord Scanthax pushed all the strange items on the table in her direction. “Please, take a look.”

  “We obtained them at Gate Three,” said Scout, tapping the center of the map with her finger. “Just over two days ago. The officers concerned sent a messenger at top speed to bring them to us. We thought it best to inform you about the new gun and the unusual properties of the ring, in case it was relevant to your scripting.” Scout was a small woman, dressed in plain farmers’ clothes: a belted tunic, trousers, and boots. Her color scheme was deliberately dull, just variations on brown. Unlike the other powerful manifestations, however, Scout did often change her look. It was part of her role, after all, to blend in with whatever environment she was investigating.

  “The dagger is magically sharp; it will cut through anything. And the ring is magic, too: invisibility.” Ambassador picked up the ring, checked that Penelope was watching, and, with an elaborate gesture, put it over his extended index finger. He disappeared.

  “Oh.”

  A moment later he reappeared, the ring not quite touching his fingertip. Then he was gone again. Back. Gone.

  “I see. Very useful.”

  “Dangerous,” muttered Lord Scanthax, and Penelope turned to him. “What if a group of assassins have these? What’s to stop them from coming here and killing us?”

  “Well, what stopped whoever owned it?”

  Lord Scanthax looked at Scout, who shrugged. “This ring came from a Saga person, who approached Gate Three from the Myth side, moving slowly, until our rifle units spotted him and shot him.”

  “He wasn’t invisible?” asked Penelope.

  “No, Princess.”

  “Strange.”

  Ambassador matched her
shrug with one of his own and put the ring down beside the dagger.

  “You want me to work with this?”

  “We want you to know of it. But the gun is the priority.” Lord Scanthax leaned forward and scooped up the pistol in his large hand. “This is a powerful weapon. Suppose a hundred people from Saga had a gun like this and a ring like that. They could walk invisible all the way to the castle and then destroy every one of us. Once I and all the manifestations were extinguished, your own life would be at an end, too.”

  Penelope could understand his anxiety, but the scenario just described by Lord Scanthax raised concerns of her own. “That reminds me. When can you give me control of the systems keeping my human body alive?”

  Ambassador gestured toward the gun that Lord Scanthax was holding. “It will be done as a reward for your learning to script weapons like these.”

  Penelope nodded. True enough, that was the deal—although it might be some time before she could deliver on her part of it, and she needed control over the life-support system as soon as possible; not because she really took seriously the idea of an invisible group of assassins making their way to the castle from Saga, but because she had plans to leave Edda and search for the avatars of humans in the other worlds. Lord Scanthax would thwart such plans so long as he had control of her physical body.

  “Very well.” She changed the subject. “Here’s another mystery that I’m sure you have thought about. How does it come about that a person from a high-technology world like Saga has magic items that look like they come from Myth?”

  Again, Lord Scanthax looked to Scout for an answer.

  “Well,” the woman began in her quiet voice, “we were discussing it earlier. There seem to be a number of possibilities. The worst case is that Saga has both sophisticated technology and powerful magic.” From the corner of her eye, Penelope saw Ambassador give a glum nod. “Another possibility is that the person from Saga was simply fortunate enough to find the ring or be given it as they journeyed through Myth.” Scout glanced at the map. “There are still many pockets of indigenous life remaining in Myth. Perhaps they met one of the last lords or ladies of that world and formed an alliance.”