Codespell, p.14
Codespell, page 14
part #3 of Ravirn Series
“Who do you suppose built all those shiny new firewalls around the mweb servers? The ones that you said seemed to anticipate your best tricks? Maybe it was someone who knows you very well.”
The thought had never occurred to me—Cerice might be working with Fate at the moment, but that was because she was scared of what was happening with Necessity. I’d seen the worry in her eyes. She’d never sell me out that way . . . would she? I felt punched in the gut. I had to know.
“Melchior, Vlink; Ravirn@melchior.gob to Cerice@ asalka.trl. Please.”
“You sure you want to do this right now, Boss?”
I nodded.
“All right. . . . Searching for asalka.trl.” Seconds slipped past. “Contact. Waiting for a response from asalka.trl. Lock. Vtp linking initiated.”
Melchior’s eyes and mouth widened and streams of light burst forth, one green, one blue, one red. The beams met a couple of feet in front of his face and formed a translucent golden globe. It dimmed briefly, then brightened a moment later as Cerice’s image appeared in the middle of the globe.
“You made it,” she said in a flat and neutral tone.
“You don’t sound very happy about it,” I replied.
She bit her lip. “Of course I’m happy. I don’t want to see you dead. It’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
She looked away. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“But I think we need to talk,” I said. “We have things that need saying. Do you want to meet me somewhere?”
“Not right now, no. I can’t get away at the moment.”
“When then? Are you planning on coming back to Raven House soon? If so—”
“Stop.” She looked up again, her cheeks flushing. “I know what you’re doing, and I don’t much like it.”
“What I’m doing?” I couldn’t help sounding stung. “I’m not the one who checked out without any warning or discussion. Just poof, I’ll be back in a couple of days . . . maybe.”
“That’s not fair, Ravirn.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but it’s true all the same. You still haven’t answered the question. When are you planning on coming back?”
Cerice didn’t say anything for a long moment, and I felt my stomach drop a couple of inches. I was angry and scared and confused, but I still loved her.
“I’m not,” she finally said. “Planning on coming back, that is.”
My stomach fell the rest of the way out. I’d more than half expected her to say something like that, but even so it hit me hard. I opened my mouth, hoping to say something coherent.
“Wait,” said Cerice. “Not a word, please. Not yet. Let me finish. I’m not planning on coming back, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. It just means that what I’m doing here, now, trying to reach Shara, is very important to me. Necessity is in real trouble. If someone doesn’t do something, it could mean the end of everything. Don’t you see that?”
“Is it important enough to build Clotho a new firewall custom-tailored to keep me out?” I asked.
She opened her mouth. Paused. Closed it. Opened it again.
Spoke. “It’s important to everybody. Necessity has to be fixed. Things are happening to the multiverse that we don’t begin to understand.” Tears started in the corners of her eyes. “Can’t you see that?”
I didn’t point out that she hadn’t answered my question, because really, she had.
“Ravirn, please. You have to be patient.”
“I’m just supposed to hang out and wait until you find a way to fix the universe, then maybe you’ll come back to me? You do know that Necessity is the most complex computer system in existence, right? That it might take years to even find out what’s wrong? That she might be damaged beyond repair?”
“I’m no fool, Ravirn. I know what’s at stake. That’s why I tightened up the firewall. I had to convince Clotho she could trust me. I may be the only one who can get through to Shara and fix Necessity, and I’m going to need all the resources of Fate to do it.” She took a deep breath, then stood up very straight. “This is bigger than you and me, and I’m willing to pay the price for that if I must.”
Well, that put the ball firmly back in my court. Was I ready to make this good-bye? I loved Cerice a lot. Had for years before I’d ever figured it out. But I also frightened her and angered her and hurt her just by being the Raven. When Clotho had called Cerice a creature of order, she’d spoken the truth. Maybe it was also true that living with chaos—with me—was slowly tearing Cerice apart. Maybe it was time for good-bye.
I thought of a firewall built by my lover to keep me out. No, not maybe.
It was the right decision. I knew it was the right decision, but even so, I was having a hard time opening my mouth and telling Cerice. The whole thing hurt my heart, turned it heavy and slow like it was trying to pump liquid lead instead of blood.
I forced my mouth open. “I’m sorry” was all I could say.
“I know,” answered Cerice, the tears flowing freely now. “So am I. About everything.”
“Maybe someday—”
“Don’t,” whispered Cerice. “Better to do it cleanly.”
I nodded. “You’re right. Good-bye, Cerice.”
“Good-bye, Ravirn.”
Then she was gone. I looked around for Eris, expecting her to twist the knife while the wound was still fresh. She was gone as well.
“Where’s Discord?” I asked, trying to ignore the creaking I could hear in my own voice.
“She bugged out the second you said ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
“I wonder why. I would have expected her to stick around and gloat.”
“Could be that’s it,” replied Melchior. “She really does like you in her own twisted way, but she has to poke and prod. Maybe she left to keep herself from hurting you.”
I wanted to scoff at that. But there was a chance he was right and an even bigger chance she was listening. I had seen the pain in her eyes when she talked about never being able to stop being Discord for even an instant, and I didn’t want to hurt her either.
“Boss?”
“What, Mel?”
“I’m sorry, too.” He sounded very small and sad, and I impulsively picked him up in my arms.
“Do you think I made the wrong decision?” I asked.
“No. It was really only a matter of time once you accepted the role of the Raven. Eris was right about that. You’re a power. Cerice isn’t. Sometimes, it’s not about what anybody wants, it’s just about what is.” He shook his head sadly. “I just wish Shara were still around. Cerice is going to need a friend.”
“It’s good to have friends,” I said, giving him a squeeze and setting him back on the table. “Thanks.”
“Anytime. So, now what?”
“I don’t know, Mel. I just don’t know.”
From the day that Atropos had first tried to use me as her tool to crush free will, my connections to the Houses of Fates and my childhood had been cut away one by one. With Cerice gone, the only thing I had left from those days was Melchior. The old Ravirn’s life was just about gone at this point. A part of me wondered how long it would be before there was nothing left but the Raven.
Forever and a day, answered another part, very firmly, and I nodded. That was the right answer. The Raven might define what I was, but I resolved in that moment that I would never let it do the same with who I was.
“Huh,” I said, noticing something else. “That’s funny.”
“What is?” asked Melchior.
“The ruffled-feathers feeling is gone.”
“Ruffled feathers?”
I nodded. “I felt it for the first time in Hades, a sensation like my feathers were all amuss, and they wanted to stand on end. I’ve felt it again a couple of times since, most recently while we were in the mweb server before Nemesis showed up.”
“You do know that you didn’t have feathers then, right?”
“Of course I do. I think that’s part of why it feels so strange.”
“Having imaginary feelings about imaginary feathers, and that’s only part of the strange. . . . You feeling all right, Boss?”
“When you put it that way, it does sound kind of nuts.”
“Kind of. Uh-huh.” He rolled his eyes in opposite directions and made a “crazy” gesture beside his ear.
It was only in that instant that I realized he was trying to distract me and jolly me up. The realization sent me right back to thinking about Cerice.
“Oh, go to hell, Mel.” I paused after I said it. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hades the place is not Hell, and Hades the god is not Satan, but I can’t help seeing a lot of overlap. Especially at times like this, standing on the outer shore of the Styx and looking across the black water to the kingdom of the dead.
Hades is a walled island surrounded by the endless loop of river that is the Styx. Both lie within a giant cave somewhere under Mount Olympus. The island’s sheer stone walls climb from the water’s edge like a gray granite curtain. Above the visible walls rises a second set built of enchantment, and those reach all the way to the roof of the cavern.
There is only one break in the barrier, a narrow gate in a place where the wall bends in away from the river to expose a black stone beach. I could just see it from where I stood. Velvet ropes led from Charon’s dock to the place where Hades Security Administration employees—the living dead— operated a checkpoint. You have to stand in line and go through a life detector to get into Hades, though at least they don’t make you put all of your belongings on the belt to be x-rayed. Other than that, imagine the worst airport experience you’ve ever had, then double it, then remind yourself that you won’t be catching an outgoing flight. Of course, that last has its plusses if you hate flying as much as I do.
Not far from the checkpoint, a cave within the cave burrows deep into the rock of that bleak shore—Cerberus’s den. I eyed its dark maw askance. Where the heck was the old dog? Usually when I arrived on the banks of the Styx, he knew it within seconds and came across the water to greet me. Today, I’d already waited a good fifteen minutes without any sign of him.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “It’s not like he gets vacation days. Do you suppose he’s sick?”
“Is that even possible?” asked Mel. “He’s one of the true immortals, a great power, if not one of the poles. Maybe we should Vtp him?”
I certainly couldn’t knock on his front door. As long as I stayed on this side of the water, I stood on Olympian ground, the domain of Zeus. If I so much as touched a toe to the water, I entered the realm of Hades, and the god had promised me I would die if I ever did so again—die and belong to him, forever.
“Maybe we should try a Vtp,” I said. “Melchior, Vlink; ravirn@melchior.gob to cerberus@kira.pix. Please.”
“On it. Searching . . .”
I kind of tuned out the normal routine of electronic call and response. At least I did until Melchior tugged on my pant leg.
“He won’t answer.”
“Won’t?” I said, instantly worried, “or, can’t?”
“Won’t,” said a new voice, raspy and rough but female. “He’s bein’ a big dummy.”
“Hello, Kira,” I said. The webpixie had just flown across the river to join us.
“Hello back, and ter yer as well, blue boy.” She bobbed once in the air to each of us.
I don’t know many webpixies, but I do know Kira is not like the other children. The Fates invented webpixies as lightweight computer substitutes for the nontechnical members of the family.
Unlike webtrolls and webgoblins, they’re supposed to come across as light and fluffy visually as they do on the programming front. They all stand around six inches tall with dainty dragonfly wings, little pointed ears, and waist-length hair—the classic storybook fairy. Mostly they wear Tinker Bell dresses or miniature Robin Hood suits and wander around acting all glitter glam.
Not Kira. Kira goes naked, and her wings are tattered and torn. The effect is something like a miniature punk-rock Fury, which suits her character perfectly—call her style “death pixie,” or perhaps pixigoth. I’m not sure whether something went horribly wrong with her basic personality programming or whether it was something else—the influence of her former master maybe. Dairn was never much fun, even before he became Nemesis. Whatever the reason, the hovering pixie had more of the angry bumblebee about her than the faerie butterfly.
“What’s up with Cerberus?” I asked.
“The big dummy’s moping something fierce.”
“Still broken up about Persephone?” asked Melchior.
“Dave is. Bob’s upset because Hades hasn’t been playin’ fetch all the time now that she’s finally gone or somesuch. I think he figured that with Persephone off ter the races, it’d all be beer and skittles and Hades rompin’ with the doggies. Silly beast. Personally, I’m just as glad himself hasn’t been around much. He’s a chilly one, he is. Makes my gizzard cold, if yer know what I mean. Brrr. Just Brrr.”
“Right there with you,” I said. “But that’s only two of three.” Or four. It depended on how you counted the collective entity that governed the body. “How’s Mort?”
“Hangin’ in there, I guess, but it’s hard fer a dog to keep his chin up with the rest o’ his pack’s all lyin’ about makin’ boo-hoo noises. Doubly so for Mort, as he’s pretty much stapled ter his pack mates.”
“Maybe we should come back another time,” said Melchior.
I nodded. Considering my own less-than-cheery state, it might not be the best idea in the world to hang around with a depressed dog pack.
“Don’t yer think it,” said Kira, flitting forward to hover in front of my nose. “The great doofus needs ter get out o’ the kennel and into the light.” She gave me a shrewd look. “I’m thinkin’ you could maybe use a mood booster as well, from the long face yer wearin’. Stay right here.”
She turned and warbled something at Melchior in hex—way too fast for me to get the details—then took off for the far shore.
“What’s up?” I asked Mel.
“I’m supposed to get the beer and pizza. You’re in charge of cards.” He screwed his face into a pretty good likeness of Kira’s, and intoned, “And no arguin’ neither.” Then he shrugged and started whistling a codespell called Order Out.
Not too long after that, I was sitting cross-legged on the ground with a big tablelike slab of basalt between me and the world’s scariest guard dog, while drinking good, dark beer and gnawing on an oversize slice of the meat fanatic’s delight. We started with seven pizzas and four kegs, of which I got about three pieces and a pitcher. Not bad when you considered the competition.
Cerberus is a big dog. His bulldog’s body isn’t quite as tall as an elephant’s, but it’s probably twice as wide. His heads from left to right are a Doberman, a rottweiler, and a mastiff—respectively, Bob, Mort, and Dave. Any of the three could bite me in half without stretching. Currently, all three were wearing identical silly doggy grins.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had anything quite like this beer stuff before,” said Bob. “Is it supposed to make my lips tingle? ”
“You don’t have lips,” said Mort. “You’re a dog.”
