Science and Sorcery
Christopher G. Nuttall
www.chrishanger.net
http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall
All Comments Welcome!
Cover Blurb
Years ago, the magic faded away and was gone. Now, it is back ... and the nightmare is following close behind.
Strange events are being reported all over the globe. Werewolves and vampires, magicians and sorcerers ... ordinary people are becoming monsters, or developing strange inhuman powers. But as the government, the military and religions struggles to come to terms with a radically reshaped reality, a dark force from the days before science is slowly working its way back into the world. If science fails to come to grips with sorcery, the world will plunge into a nightmare without end.
And time is already running out ...
[As a matter of principle, all of my self-published books are DRM-free. You may treat it as you may treat any normal paperback book. Download a free sample from my site – www.chrishanger.net; try before you buy. And if you like, please review.]
Dear Reader
This book is an introduction to a whole new universe. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you like my books, please review them on Amazon – it helps boost sales and convinces me to write more in certain universes.
As I am not the best editor in the world, I would be grateful if you email me to point out any spelling mistakes, placing them in context. I can offer cameos, redshirt deals and suchlike in return.
Have fun! And if you want a second book, let me know...
Christopher Nuttall
Dedication
To Larry Niven, whose ‘Warlock’s Wheel’ stories inspired Science and Sorcery and the Niven’s Wheel, and who kindly granted me permission to use the Wheel concept in this story.
The two universes are not entirely compatible, but if you like you can imagine the Warlock’s birth as taking place several hundred years after the defeat and entrapment of the Thirteen, when the magic started to fade away ...
Prologue
Awareness came back slowly, in fits and starts.
He was underwater. Of course he was underwater. Enchanter had taken him to where Great Atlantis had sunk, shortly after the war had been won, and placed him under the waves, right outside the tomb. And then...?
My name is Golem, he thought, as another fragment of memory returned. Enchanter, the greatest magician ever to walk the planet, had created him from mud and stone, imbuing raw material with the raw fabric of life itself. The magician had spent freely of his mana and knowledge to create Golem, calling him the greatest accomplishment of five hundred years of magical research. Golem the Guardian, he’d said, although none other than Golem himself had known what he was to guard. The Enchanter had known that it was sometimes better to let people keep their illusions.
“You will not live where there is no mana,” the Enchanter had said. Back then, it hadn't seemed like a real possibility. But Enchanter had known the terrible price civilisation was about to pay for defeating the Thirteen, if such powerful magicians could ever be defeated. “When mana returns to the world, you will be alive again. And thanks to what I paid to create you, even a low-level mana field will suffice.”
Golem opened his eyes and looked around. Atlantis had once been the greatest city in the world, until it had been destroyed in the war. Now, deep underwater, the ruins of the city were home to living creatures, none of them human. The remains of the population had rotted away long ago, those who hadn’t been consumed by the Thirteen. Even his eyes, perfectly adapted to underwater conditions, could see nothing beyond the remains of the once-great temples and fortresses. Carefully, Golem took a step forward and then another, unable to escape the sensation that he was walking across a tomb. How long had it been since the mana had faded away?
But the mana is back, he thought, as he crossed what had once been unbreakable walls, formed and held in place by the massed will of the Council of Wizards. If it were not back, I would not be alive.
The Enchanter had created and taught him when mana was plentiful and student magicians had no need to limit their consumption, just to conserve their power. Now, Golem discovered that most of the spells he knew simply refused to work. He could still feel the faint trickle of mana flooding through the water, spreading through the world itself, but there wasn’t enough to do more than maintain his life. But there would be enough soon, he knew. He could feel it in his clay bones.
There was no point in trying to swim, so he walked forward, knowing that he would encounter a landmass eventually. Or the mana would rise to the point where he could use it to fly up, out of the water, or simply teleport back to Enchanter’s fortress. Time passed – days, weeks, months – until he finally reached a coastline. Bidding a silent farewell to the fish that had followed him on his walk, he strode out of the water and onto the shore. High overhead, the moon peered down as it had done for centuries. And there were strange lights in the sky.
Golem’s eyes had no difficulty in picking out stars he’d known in his youth, before Enchanter had buried him under the waves, but the constellations were so different. Once, astronomers had charted the skies and astrologers had used them to read the future. Now...Golem knew enough about the slow passage of the stars to realise that thousands of years, perhaps longer, had passed since the death of magic, since he had gone to sleep. It was quite possible that no one even remembered Enchanter and his greatest creation. Golem looked down at the sand and then back up at the stars, knowing himself to be the loneliest being in the world. All of the people he’d known would be less than dust by now.
And if they had forgotten Enchanter, had they also forgotten his enemies?
The mana was back. How long would it be before the Thirteen were unleashed once again?
You know your duty, Enchanter’s voice seemed to echo out of time. I created you to save the world.
Golem took one last look at the stars and stepped forward, heading towards the lights in the distance that suggested a human town, or city. There would be answers there about this strange new world, and about the early impact of mana. And then he would seek allies who could help him to complete his mission. The Thirteen had to be stopped.
Or the entire world would be trapped in a nightmare without end.
Chapter One
New York, USA
Day 1
“Damn girl,” Dawn said. “What’s wrong with you?”
Katie Sheehan rubbed her eyes. She wanted to go back to bed, or at least to somewhere quiet where she could sit down and rest, but Dawn had insisted that they go clubbing. Her friend wanted to enjoy her single life in New York City and thought that Katie should enjoy herself too. Dawn meant well, Katie knew, but it hadn't been a very good day.
“Tired,” she said, feeling dizzy. Maybe she was coming down with something, maybe something bad enough to justify spending two days in bed rather than at work, slaving away beside an asshole who took credit for her work while leering at her every time he thought she wasn’t looking. She wanted another job, but it wasn't easy to find anything else in the current economic climate.
“Well, come onto the dance floor,” Dawn said. She lowered her voice, mischievously. “There are some hot guys out there.”
Katie rolled her eyes. Dawn was popular with the guys – and a single glance at her chest was enough to tell her why. Blonde and bubbly, wearing a shirt that looked as if it had come out of a Hooters bar, Dawn caught the eyes of every man in the room. Compared to her, Katie felt more than a little dowdy, even if she wasn’t quite overweight. Guys rarely looked at her if she was standing next to Dawn.
Her head spun again as the familiar resentment – at her boss, at Dawn’s looks, at her life – boiled up inside her mind. She caught the side of the table as red fire seemed to burn through her brain, bringing with it a rage she had never fully understood. The room seemed to fade out for a long second, just before the sudden burst of temper faded away into nothingness.
Dawn caught her arm. “Do you want to go home?”
“Yeah,” Katie said. All of her senses seemed to be going crazy. She could smell everything in the hall, from cigarette smoke to the musky stench of guys on the dance floor. The flickering lights were slowly driving her mad. “Please get me out of here.”
The light of the full moon blazed down at them as they stepped outside and started to walk back towards their apartment. Neither of them had enough money to call for a cab, even though they knew that walking home could be dangerous. Katie’s mind was too busy spinning to care; her ears were recoiling under the constant bombardment of noise from New York, the city that never slept. She had never realised just how loud the city was, or just how confining it could feel. The massive towers and skyscrapers seemed nothing more than the bars of a cage.
“That bastard probably slipped something into your drink,” Dawn said, as they turned the corner and stumbled down an alleyway. “Or maybe you just drank too much.”
Katie shook her head, although in truth she had no way to be sure. She hadn't drunk more than two glasses, but she hadn't been paying close attention when the bartender mixed the drinks. He could have given her anything. But she knew what it felt like to be drunk and this was different. Her entire body seemed on edge, waiting for something that was advancing towards her...and yet she had no idea what was happening. The light of the full moon splashed over them and she felt a sudden surge of rage. Her hand gripped Dawn’s arm tightly and her friend let out a yelp.
“Katie,” she snapped. “What is wrong with you?”
The rage faded away, back into Katie’s mind. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She felt sick, and tired, and yet there was something running through her mind that would not let her rest. “Can we just get home...?”
She smelled them before she saw them, four young men carrying knives and lurking in the alleyway, waiting to see what would walk into their grasp. Katie opened her mouth to warn Dawn, but before she could put the strange set of sensations into words it was already too late. The gangsters had moved into position to prevent the two girls from running, their face twisted with greed and lust. Two young and pretty girls...their scent changed as they realised they could do more than just mug the women. Katie sensed their arousal and recoiled in fear, before the fear was swallowed by rage. How dare they even think of violating them?
The lead gangster slapped Dawn with his hand, breaking her lip. Katie sniffed the blood and felt a sudden wave of rage and bloodlust that refused to fade away. Instead, she opened her mouth and screamed as her body started to change, becoming something else. There was a moment of horror as she saw hairs growing out of her hands...
...And then the bloodlust swallowed her completely.
***
Officer Mathew Coombs heard the screams and started to run, cursing his supervisor under his breath. The NYPD’s latest round of budget cuts had put a number of policemen on the streets alone, without backup, something that meant they had to deal with any problems on their own. He hit the emergency beacon as the screams grew louder, torn from male and female throats, while drawing his pistol from its holster. Anything that could make someone scream like that had to be dangerous.
He ran into the alleyway, pulling his torch from his belt and shining it ahead into the darkened scene. The screams faded away and were gone, just as he caught sight of something moving ahead of him. There was a snarl, almost like an angry dog, as he flashed the light down and saw a horrific scene of carnage. Four bodies, maybe more, were scattered on the ground, their throats torn out by...what? Matt had heard of humans being attacked by animals, but he’d never seen anything like it. And yet he found it impossible to believe that anything human could have inflicted so much damage. All four – no, there were ten legs, so five – bodies had been torn apart. One of them was very clearly a woman.
“Dispatch, I need a forensic team out here now,” he said. There was a very faint growl, coming from somewhere in the darkness. A chill ran down his spine as he grasped his pistol tightly. “And I need armed backup. I say again...”
The growling grew louder and he shone his flashlight towards the source, catching sight of a giant wolf half-hidden in the darkness. Time seemed to slow down as he stared at the creature, unable to comprehend exactly what he was seeing. It was huge, easily twice the size of the largest police dog in the NYPD, with strange green eyes that seemed to peer at him, almost as if they were hypnotised by the flashlight. And then he saw the blood staining the animal’s snout. He had no doubt that he was looking at the creature that had killed five civilians as easily as a man would squash a spider.
He started to inch backwards as the wolf prowled forward, keeping his pistol trained on the beast’s head. It was growling, very faintly, a sound that sent primal fear running down his spine. The hand holding the pistol started to shake and he caught himself, just as the creature opened its mouth and roared at him. A moment later, it sprang right for his throat. Acting on instinct, Matt opened fire, hitting the beast several times. It’s immense bulk crashed into him and sent him flying backwards, just before it hit the ground with a thunderous crash. Matt staggered to his feet and groped around for the flashlight and pistol – he’d dropped both when the creature had hit him – hoping and praying that the beast was dead. If it had killed five humans, it probably wouldn't hesitate to add a sixth to that number.
The flashlight was lying on the ground, still burning brightly. Matt stumbled towards it and picked it up, turning it on the beast as he heard sirens howling in the distance. But the beast was gone. Matt started forward, waving the flashlight around, and almost jumped out of his skin as he saw a naked body where the beast had fallen. It was a young girl, barely out of her teens – and clearly shot to death. Matt was familiar enough with bullet wounds to know that they’d almost certainly been caused by his pistol; besides, he hadn't noticed anyone else shooting...
His head started to spin in absolute disbelief. He’d shot at a wolf-like creature. He’d hit a young girl.
What the hell was going on?
Carefully, he recovered his pistol and knelt down beside the girl, taking her pulse. She was gone, beyond salvation by anything he could do. There was no sign of any ID, or of her clothes...she seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Matt tried to collect himself as a small army of policemen appeared at the end of the alleyway, some of them carrying spotlights to illuminate the crime scene, gasping in horror as they saw what had happened. Very few of them had ever seen anything like this.
A hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up to see McLain, his immediate superior. “Matt, what the fuck happened here?”
“I wish I knew,” Matt said. They wouldn’t believe a word of it. How could he blame them when he wouldn't have believed a word of it if someone told him what he’d seen? “I wish I knew.”
***
The interrogation room was small, brightly lit and effectively a prison cell. Matt sat in one chair, rubbing his eyes with his hands. It was 2am and it seemed that half the NYPD had been awoken to deal with the nightmare he’d seen, if not created. He’d already made his report to McLain and two of McLain’s superiors; as he’d expected, they didn't believe any of it. The whole story was starting to look like Matt had gunned down an innocent girl for no clear reason, something that would reflect badly on the NYPD.
He looked up as a door opened, revealing a tall black man carrying two mugs of coffee and a single cardboard folder. “I’m Jeff,” he said, as he put one of coffees down in front of Matt. He didn’t give any rank or title, which suggested that he was part of Internal Affairs. The men who policed the police – fiends
in human form, as they were viewed by the regular police – all had the same sense of arrogance and entitlement, as well as a conviction that any copper who didn’t want to talk to them had something to hide. “Tell me what happened today.”
Matt sighed and repeated the story, again. Jeff listened quietly, without saying a word, no doubt comparing it to the stories Matt had told the earlier interrogators. By now, the Mayor would have been informed and the NYPD would be bracing itself for a media storm. A cop shooting a young girl would sell more papers than anything reassembling the truth. It had reached the point where Matt had started to question his own sanity. But he’d seen the other bodies. Nothing human could have done that to anyone.
“They rushed the bodies to the morgue,” Jeff said, when he’d finished. “I’m afraid you definitely did kill the girl, Matt. We pulled your bullets out of her body and checked them against your gun.”
“I know what I saw,” Matt said, quietly. But had he really seen what he’d seen? Maybe it had all been an illusion caused by a hallucinogenic gas. “I don’t understand what happened...”
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