White Mage

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 41

  Dreaming Away

  Bianca floated.

  And she dreamed.

  The dreams were not insightful or prophetic. Just dreams.

  She and Lilly were having tea with Rose. Lilly had a box of pastries from the Via Michael. Rose did not drink or eat. Later she said goodbye to Lilly and went with Rose away to a black tower on an island.

  In another dream Eadwyn came to her with a problem she couldn't work out. Bianca couldn't either. Jacques appeared and was able to figure it out by adding a precise selection of anchovies and freezing them solid.

  She dimly wondered, once or twice, if she was in stasis, but then her mind wandered on to other things.

  Her mother visited her a lot, but said nothing. Her Father on the other hand, spoke at length. A small green monkey sat on his head, pulling his hair. But he paid no notice. She didn't understand anything he said, but he was just making idle conversation so it didn't matter. Odd, though, that she had no problem thinking of Moss as her Father while dreaming. And that his meaningless prattle was so comforting. But her mind wandered away from that, too.

  Her most lucid thought came shortly after waking up. She felt relaxed and realized it was the first time she had felt so in a very long time. Possibly years. With that thought in mind, she fell asleep once more.

  The first buffet hit her in a long dream about running over rooftops. It surprised her, and she lost her train of thought. The slates of Romitu faded away into the slabs of the Outer Waste. She walked there for a while, looking for the green oasis that Moss said he had made. Instead another, stronger, buffet hit her, and she sat down heavily.

  Around her it was noontime in Irontree. But they city was at a small scale. The parapets of the Academy were at eye level for her. She paid it no mind, her concern growing. She levered herself upwards, holding on to the smokestack in the forge for support. Another buffet hit, and she held on to the iron tree tightly to keep from falling.

  But the tree, now life sized, was one in Oak Grove. Green filtered sunlight streamed down, unnaturally bright. She looked up, shielding her eyes against it.

  Then she was thrown around violently again and found herself at sea. Ice floes crashed around her from her tribal homeland, though the water was warm. The light shone even brighter above her and it was only a moment before an extremely violent buffet shook her.

  She was sucked down into the water, but for some reason it was brighter. The concussive force of the buffeting was continuous now, she felt herself being pounded from all sides. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, and she couldn't see from the brightness.

  And then it ended. Her limbs flailed about her and she felt many times her normal weight. She coughed something from her lungs with a guttural grunt. One set of bonds remained across her chest, but it was soft and resilient. She felt around her and pushed her wet hair from her eyes. Blinking in the brightness she looked up into the face of her mother.

  She stopped struggling and smiled, and her mother smiled back. She let herself be hugged close and put her head on her mother's breast. It was unusual, she thought distantly. Neither often smiled and never showed tenderness. But it felt nice right now.

  Goatha rocked Bianca and hummed a song. It was not a song of their people. They had none. It was some rhythmic nonsense that Moss used to sing when Bianca was a baby. Neither had ever asked him if it was from his childhood, or something he had made up.

  “I am alive,” said Bianca, after a time. She wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question.

  Goatha rocked for a while longer and then said “Yes, my child.”

  Bianca let it go on a while longer, and then felt herself getting cold. She didn't appear to be wearing anything. She lifted her head from Goatha's breast, but her eyes still weren't focusing well. “Cold,” she said.

  Goatha paused and drew a short grey cloak over her. It smelled of her father. Bianca snuggled into it, with no reserve for propriety. It warmed her as she dried. She took a deep breath and released it, and looked up to her mother's face again. “What happened?” she asked.

  “What do you remember? “asked Goatha, gently.

  Bianca wrinkled her brow and thought. She had her dreams. But she was sure there was something else. “The Ævatar,” she said finally. “I was in the Ævatar.”

  “Yes,” said Goatha. “Yes you were.”

  With that confirmation the memories came flooding back. “We lost,” said Bianca. “We lost and I shattered my Soul shield.”

  “No,” said Goatha, just as simply. “We won. You shattered your Soul shield and we won.”

  Bianca sat up, confused. “No,” she said. “I'm quite sure. We almost won. But I remember the horns, and all the gods rallied against us.”

  “Yes,” said Goatha. “They did. But you shattered your Soul shied. The Ævatar took your Soul and... woke up.”

  Bianca stirred uneasily. “I don't remember that bit.”

  “That is good,” said Goatha, with a trace of her usual skeptical tone returning.

  Bianca turned to her. “What happened?” she asked again.

  “The reports are scattered,” said Goatha. “We still don't have all of them and they are hard to reconcile. The Ævatar fought the gods and won.”

  “But... how?” asked Bianca. “They had me. I had no weapons. There was no mana. How?”

  Goatha released her arms from her and shrugged. “We're still trying to work that out,” she said. “As near as we can tell, it summoned its own vortex, wrapped it in a rectifier field, and internalized it.”

  Bianca's mind wrapped itself around the possibilities. She could see that such a thing was potentially possible. She didn't know how but the direction of their research could lead to that. If so... “That's nearly limitless energy.”

  Goatha nodded.

  “What... what did it do?”

  Goatha looked past her. “It destroyed them. All the gods that came against it. It pursued those who fled the field. It summoned back those that escaped to their own realm.”

  Bianca shook her head. It was staggering. One creature, with so much power. It had been hers to command and she had barely held against one, then three, then eight gods. But all she had been able to do was knock them about. Parcel them up to be collected and dealt with later. “What, precisely, did it do?” she asked. “Did it just kill them? Are their souls out there awaiting resurrection or rebirth? Are we back to square one?”

  “No,” said Goatha. “There is no sign of the souls of the gods.”

  “Did it annihilate them, like with Scioni?”

  “We're not sure,” said Goatha. “Someone saw the Ævatar... eating the heart of Sky Father. So maybe.”

  Bianca shuddered. She was not quite back to her imperturbable self. It was a great victory, but it was still monstrous. “Where is it now?” she asked suddenly. “What did it do afterwards? Is it still loose?”

  “It is back in the lab,” said Goatha. “When it finished, it finished. It went back to sleep. After time, we moved it back to the lab and began your recovery.”

  “My recovery...” said Bianca. “I was in it the whole time? It didn't eject the operational sphere?”

  “No,” said Goatha. “You were in it. Your essence was dissolved in the fluid. Up till now we had assumed that you were in command of it. We weren't sure you wanted to come back. Or knew how to.”

  Bianca had coldness in the pit of her stomach. She didn't remember any of the fight. Had she been in command? Would she have done such things? The ruthlessness was not unlike her. Goatha was looking at her, searchingly. “But you got me back. I am back. This isn't just a vision or something?”

  “This is your body,” said Goatha, carefully.

  “My body?” said Bianca, hand to her breast. “But is this me? Am I a recreation? A simulacrum?”

  “This is your body,” said Goatha. “Your Will. Your Animus.” She did not continue.

  “My Soul?” asked Bianca.

  �
��We were unable to recover your Soul,” said Goatha. “It is still in the Ævatar.”

  Bianca clutched her chest. “My Soul? It's gone?”

  “Yes,” said Goatha, sadly. “We could not separate it from the Ævatar. We had to amputate it to recover the rest.”

  “But... I don't feel any different,” said Bianca.

  “Neither did Lilly,” said Goatha.

  “Then... can I still do magic?” asked Bianca. She concentrated, and felt within her. But there was nothing. “No,” she said, slumping. “No mana reservoir. Nothing.”

  “I'm sorry,” said Goatha.