by Dakota Rusk
“And that’s who we’re going to see?”
“The one and only. We’ll tell him what Jocasta’s up to, and ask him to recall her from Parallel Prime. With any luck, that’ll solve the witch problem and the university can go back to sanity again.”
“I don’t know about that. I doubt Jocasta will give up everything she’s schemed for so easily. Especially since I’m not sure she’s finished yet.”
He gave me a wary look. “Uh-oh. What’s that mean?”
“Well, ask yourself: what does she gain by taking over Parallel U.? She and her little cult of followers. We thought she represented the whole of Parallel 17, but now it looks like she’s out for herself. And if that’s the case, Parallel U. makes a nice power base—to start with. But she’s got to have plans beyond that.”
He thought for moment; then shook his head, as if clearing water from his ears, and said, “We’ll figure it out later. Meantime, let’s jump. Come on, then; come to Poppa.” He held out his arms.
“Wait a moment,” I said. I slid off the stool and went to the door. When I looked out, I saw the other Fabia lurking about in the field beyond; she’d obviously recovered from her bout of nausea and come to investigate. I waved her over.
“Who’s out there?” Eddie said. “I thought you said it was just you.”
“Well…yes and no.”
He emitted a little puff of impatience. “Come on, Fabia. Quit kidding around. Either you’re by yourself, or you’re not.”
“Actually,” I said, “there’s a third choice.”
A second later, the other Fabia walked in.After he recovered from the shock, he scratched his head and looked very worried.
“This is bad,” he said. “It took me months to find the splinter Parallel 81 that gave us the alternate Merri. You’re saying Jocasta did that in a matter of days? You won that lottery, and the same day she just sat down and located a splinter Parallel 24 to send you to?”
“Yes, so that she could kill me there,” I added. “After I’d served her purpose by recording that video. It’s a pretty tidy plan; I’d never be missed, because there was already a Fabia Terentia living there.”
He seemed to be only half-hearing me. “Jocasta’s much, much sharper than I ever guessed,” he said. “She’s probably some natural born math-and-physics genius, hard-wired for that kind of thinking—only she’s never had the opportunity, growing up in the society she did. Now I’ve exposed her to all these concepts, and she’s taken them and run with them—maybe faster than I can.”
“It’s that difficult, then?” I asked. “Finding these ‘splinters,’ as you call them?”
“Like separating the silken strands on an ear of corn,” he said, “after the ear of corn isn’t there anymore.” He pounded the top of the desk. “We have to get moving. Whatever she’s up to, it’s probably well under way. And it can’t be good.” He looked at my twin. “I must say, you’re taking all this in stride. I wouldn’t expect even our Fabia to be this calm, going into a battle—and she’s seen a few.”
“Actually,” I said, placing my hand on my twin’s shoulder, “it’s simpler than that: she doesn’t speak English.”
He blinked. “No?”
I shook my head. “The Romans never left Britain in my parallel, remember? So English never developed there. The only reason I ever learned was that it was required for study at Parallel U. This Fabia never enrolled.”
Eddie slapped his forehead. “Well, there’s a complication for you. I guess that limits her strategic use to stunt double.” He let out a short, hyena-like bark.
Fabia looked at me and said, in Greek, “This small, hamster-faced boy is half-mad, isn’t he?”
“All mad,” I told her; “but in a good way. He’ll get this sorted, and get you home again. You wait and see.”
“All right,” he said, rising from his chair. “Let’s rock and roll. ‘Daimon Seed and the Warrior Nuns.’ Sounds like a punk band.”
As he stood up, I heard a loud clanking; I looked down and saw that his ankle was encased in a shackle, which was connected to a long, thick chain that ran the length of the room. I hadn’t noticed it before, what with all the cables and other detritus on the floor.
“Eddie,” I said, “you’re in irons?”
He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “The other witches aren’t quite as sharp as Jocasta. They consider me a magician, and apparently iron is the only element that can entrap a magician. So—” Here he shook his ankle and the chain rattled again. “—I’m sporting this stylish accessory this season.”
I rolled up my sleeves. “Never mind; I’m sure between Fabia and me, we can get you out of that. It may take a while…”
He waved off the idea. “Don’t worry; I’ll just leave it behind when I jump.”
I blinked in surprise. “But—won’t it come with you? The way our clothes and shoes come with us?”
“No; I can calibrate the coordinates to exclude certain properties—like specific metals.”
I still wasn’t convinced. “But if you exclude iron, what happens to the iron in our blood?”
He gave me another spectacular smile. “I’ve really underestimated you, kid; you’ve got a mind like a steel trap. But rest easy: I can—and have—made allowances for trace elements.”
I looked at him in the sheerest wonder.
“Hey! Snap out of it,” he said, waving his hand in front of his face. “Man, you mean you’re still not used to hanging with a boy genius by now?” He grabbed me around the waist, then motioned the other Fabia to join us. “Tell her to hop on the Daimon Seed Express,” he said.
I turned and extended my arm to her. “We’re leaving.”
“Another jump?” she said—and I could see that she was actually excited.
“Another jump,” I said, and I could feel that my own heart was burdened by a sense of dread.
That, I realized, was the difference between the other Fabia and me. She still hadn’t lost her innocence to the greedy grasp of experience.
Eddie triggered the Hopper; and as we faded from Parallel 39 I heard the iron shackle clatter to the floor, now suddenly—and I hoped permanently—empty.
20
The city where I grew up—Indium—is like every other city I’d seen up to that point. In the great Graeco-Roman tradition, it was built on high ground, which was first cleared of all vegetation—though in Egypt, that was simple enough. All the cities I’d ever known had sprung up from bare earth, in defiance of nature—as a cleaner, starker, more harmonically integrated replacement for the chaos and disorder of the natural world. Cities were humanity’s refuge from the wilderness.
So I was entirely unprepared for Parallel 17’s concept of a city. We materialized just on its outskirts, but in the disorientation of the first few moments, I was pretty certain we’d just landed ourselves in another forest. We were surrounded on all sides by tall trees—two hundred feet tall or higher—grown so close together, and with their topmost branches and leaves forming so dense a canopy, that light barely managed to seep through.
But as my wits came back to me, I could see that this was no mere forest. Actually, I could smell it before I could see it; there was the unmistakable odor of human society—the heady mixture of sweat, tanned leather, cooking meat, and the various perfumes people used to mask all of the above. And then I heard it as well: the low-level murmur of bustle, of conversations, of music—bells chiming, bone flutes, voices raised in song.
And only then did I see it: the latticework of bridges, walkways, and weighted rope pulleys that supported a system of giant tree houses high above our heads; houses expertly crafted to nestle in the crooks between the massive trunks and broad, sweeping branches. I noticed, too, that what I’d thought was sunlight seeping through the blanket of leaves was actually the glistening illumination of thousands of tiny orbs, strung from tree to tree and glowing in different colors—red, purple, yellow, blue.
It all seemed to extend for miles, though of cours
e the wood was so dense we couldn’t see very far. But instinctively I knew that this was an actual, genuine city—built not at the expense of nature, to stand triumphantly in its place, but to coexist with it, to nurture it and be nurtured in return.
I looked over at the other Fabia and she, feeling my gaze, looked at me. Her eyes were alive with excitement; and so, I knew, were mine. This was my first real visit to another parallel; my only other jumps had been back home to Parallel 24 (and to the splinter Parallel 24, which was identical) and to Eddie’s bleak prison parallel. I shot Fabia a happy, hopeful smile that she instantly returned.
And then, having smelled, heard, and seen this strange new world…I felt it. A chill enveloped me, like a cold, damp hand closing around me; I wrapped my arms around my chest. “This—this is Britain, you said?” I asked Eddie.
He nodded. “It’s essentially where Greenwich would be. When I hopped to all the different parallels, to tell them about the Terminus Engine, I kept to the same geographic location. There wasn’t a compelling reason to change it.”
The other Fabia now came up and huddled against me for warmth. “Where are we?” she asked. I told her, and she said, “But it’s the winter solstice—we’ll freeze here.”
I turned to Eddie. “We came from Egypt. We’re not dressed for this.”
He wasn’t either—he wore only a windbreaker over his loose cotton shirt—and he now seemed to feel the cold himself. He zipped up his jacket and said, “Then I guess we’d better get on with it.”
We trudged towards the tree city; there were paving stones leading way, also brightly colored. It wasn’t long before we reached a few armed sentries; but rather than challenge us and bar our way with their spears, these tall, strapping women greeted us kindly and asked us our business.
Or rather, I’m assuming that’s what they asked, because I couldn’t understand anything they said. I did recognize the language they spoke: Celtic, just like the Britons in my own parallel. But beyond that, I was lost.
Eddie surprised me by having something of a conversation with them—though at one point they seemed astonished by something he said, and looked at each other and laughed. He was apparently making some very humorous mistakes. Even so, he eventually got through to them, and they motioned us to follow them.
Eddie held out a hand and spoke a bit more, delaying them; but after he did so, one of the sentries set aside her spear, dashed into a small hut at the side of the path, and returned carrying two fur-lined capes, which she gave to Fabia and me.
“How do you say ‘thank you’?” I asked Eddie.
“No idea. Just smile pretty and bow your head. They’ll get the idea.”
“You can babble on in Celtic for five minutes, and you don’t know how to say ‘thank you’?” I asked as we followed the sentries into the city.
“I only know what I managed to pick up from the witches who held me captive. ‘Thank you’ isn’t anything they ever said to me.”
I blinked. “You picked up enough Celtic to talk to these women, from just a few months with a bunch of people who hardly ever spoke?”
He shrugged. “Language is like mathematics; it’s just a system. Once you get a few of the principles down, it all falls into place.”
“Maybe,” I said; “but if it’s a system, it’s an inexact one—totally the opposite of mathematics.”
He snorted. “So I found out. I thought I was telling them I wanted to see High Priest Peragon; then they started laughing at me. Apparently I’d told them I wanted to eat High Priest Peragon.”
As we trekked along, the two sentries occasionally looked over their shoulders at Fabia and me. Finally one of them jerked her thumb at us and asked Eddie something. When he replied, they looked blank for a moment; then started laughing again.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“They wanted to know if you two are sisters,” he said. “I told them, ‘No, they’re the same person, different timelines.’ ” He smirked. “I guess they thought I was screwing up the language again.”
For the rest of the walk—which took a good ten minutes—Fabia and I eagerly compared notes on everything we saw. We passed through a bazaar where a large throng had gathered, all in colorful robes and shawls and hoods and carrying elaborately decorated baskets. There was a pair of acrobats; one juggled balls of fire, another unsheathed daggers. Another performer was accompanied by two placid, red-furred apes dressed like elegant ladies, and who had the crowd in stitches. There was an animal trainer putting a pack of wolves through some very intricate movements—mirror-image figure-eights, for example, precisely timed so that the smaller wolves would pass directly beneath the underbellies of the larger ones. Naturally Fabia and I, as lion-tamers, were most interested in this attraction and wanted to linger, but Eddie grabbed our elbows and pulled us on. It was uncanny the way the same things excited our interest (though there was an exception: one of the sentries wore a mosaic raven clasp on her cloak, which dazzled Fabia but made no impression on me).
We came at last to a small clearing marked by perimeter stones taller than we were; and in the midst of the clearing stood the thickest tree we’d yet seen; its circumference was easily as vast as the Gell-Mann Library. A series of steps spiraled around its width, and we were motioned to mount them, which we did—one sentry in our lead, the other coming up behind.
Up we climbed, through a complex of open-air reception rooms and archives and what looked like law courts, all built out on the network of enormous branches.
“This must be some kind of bureaucratic tree,” I said to Fabia, who was just ahead of me; “the place where the High Priest governs.”
“I had the same thought,” she said over her shoulder; and, well, of course she did.
We reached the top and came onto an expansive Great Hall—there’s no other word for it—where the tree’s gargantuan branches had somehow been trained to vault over the floor like the beams of a church. On either side sat rows of benches, dozens of braziers to keep the place warm, and a multitude of scurrying clerks, gaudily dressed clerics, and mysterious men and women in white robes; they watched us impassively as we were brought across the room to a long table, where a surprisingly youthful looking man sat flanked on either side by huge hunting dogs.
The sentries spoke briefly to this man; then turned, smiled, bowed to us, and withdrew.
We stood for a moment, none of us certain what the protocol was for who should speak first.
In the event, the man at the table stood up. “You’re from Terminus?” he said in English.
I heard Eddie sigh in relief—apparently at discovering his fractured Celtic wouldn’t be needed. “In a way,” he said. “We’re from Parallel University. My name is Eddie Mason. This is Fabia Terentia and…well, Fabia Terentia. I take it you’re High Priest Peragon?”
“I am,” he said with a hearty grin. “And I take it you’ve come to fix our Terminus Chamber, which I’m told hasn’t functioned in months. Not,” he added quickly, “that we anticipate having much use for it. We’ve rather scaled back our dealings with Terminus of late.”
Eddie grimaced. “Actually, I came to this parallel seven months ago, to deliver the news that the Terminus Engine had been declared unsafe and is permanently shut down. I also came to announce a new, portable means of traveling between the parallels, which I personally invented, and was willing to share, given enough time to produce sufficient units.”
Peragon gave Eddie a reappraising look. “You’re a prodigy, then? I salute you. We honor such persons in our own societies…those who become powerful sorcerers while still bloodless maids or beardless youths.”
“Um, not a sorcerer, actually,” Eddie said. “And I do have a beard. I’m reliably told you can see it. Look.” He rubbed his chin.
Peragon ignored this and said, “But, hold, please; if you brought this news seven months ago, why do I hear it only now?”
Eddie dropped his hand with a little defeated sigh. “Okay, High Priest. Th
is is where I give you the bad news. Do you want to sit down for it?”
Peragon remained standing, but looked harder at Eddie.
“Rrrrright,” Eddie said. “Here it is. When I arrived here, I asked to be taken to someone in authority. And I was led to a priestess named Jocasta Foxglove.”
The merest hint of darkness flickered across Peragon’s face. “We know this priestess well,” he said guardedly. “Her coven hived from this one, and has established itself some seventeen miles hence.”
“Oh, I know,” said Eddie. “I made sure to steer clear of it when I came back.”
The hunting dogs grew suddenly restive. I knew—as must Fabia, standing beside me—that they were reacting to chemical changes in their master. It seemed High Priest Paragon was growing anxious.
“And why did you do that?” he asked.
“Because Jocasta Foxglove responded to my news by taking me captive,” he said. “She stole my Veil-crossing device and used it to imprison me on a different parallel, where I was forced to produce copies for her. In the meantime she herself went to Parallel Prime and, through means of deception and coercion, took over the administration of Parallel University. Most recently, she tried to engineer the murder of my friend, here.” He nodded his head at Fabia; I loudly cleared my throat and he said, “Sorry; the other one.”
Peragon’s jaw actually dropped. “You say—you say that Priestess Jocasta has actually left the Great Mother?”
It took me a moment to realize he meant the Earth—or rather, this parallel’s Earth; and Eddie seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Yes,” he said. “She’s got a Foster Mother now, and I don’t think she’s entirely respecting her.”
Peragon glared at us for a long time while his hounds fidgeted and whined. Finally he barked a command that quieted them, then sat down in his chair again. All around the room, the courtiers and clerics and others in attendance had fallen completely silent—even though it was doubtful more than a few of them could understand what was being said.
