Digital Magic (The Chronicles of Art Book 2)

by Philippa Ballantine

  “At this hour?” It was true, most of them would be either tucked up in bed, or perhaps sipping a glass of port by the fireside. Helen knew this as well as anyone, and the idea of intruding was an awful one. Besides, the thought was easy to read: they wouldn’t believe her. They all thought she was a bit of a joke.

  The woman hugged Helen impulsively, giving her a little of her strength, completing the healing that the satyr had begun. “They’ll come if you ask them, Helen, and I really do need you to do this. It’s more important than you can imagine.”

  A few days before, Helen Carew would have run squeaking at the very idea, but she’d learned something of her own strength since then. She understood her own value. “You can count on me, Ella.”

  No time now to stop and explain, her guest decided, not when she didn’t quite have all the answers, herself. Instead, she gave Helen a quick hug, then clattered down the stairs and outside. Pausing at the gate, she let her Fey Art dart ahead, testing the air for signs of the Seed.

  The night was crisp and clear, the stars sparkling, the trees brushing against each other. The muffled lights in the village houses somehow conveyed a sense of calm. Nothing stirred in the night to challenge a wakened Fey, fresh and full of her own power. All she had to do now was figure out her real name.

  “You know what you have to do?”

  Bakari was chewing his virtual nails in what he hoped was virtual nervousness. The sheer scope of Greer’s memory was becoming more daunting the longer he looked at it, and what Penny was asking was also becoming increasingly difficult.

  Her lips pursed together. “You do, don’t you?”

  “You made yourself clear enough.”

  “It’s pretty important that you are out of here when you do it.”

  “Yep, I know. If I do this right we might all get out of this alive.”

  Penny went quiet, suddenly childlike again. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and chewed her lip, as if she knew something he didn’t. A hollow pit opened up inside Bakari, a deep fear that all people knew—the fear of death and the unknown beyond.

  Abruptly, he didn’t want to know.

  “Right, well, I’m sure I can find something.”

  She touched his hand. “I know you can.”

  She was just a kid, but he felt reassured all the same. “Just go, okay?” he muttered.

  Just like that, she did, a slow dissolve like something from an old movie, disappearing into the ether. Now he was alone; alone in Greer’s mind, with no idea how he was going to do what the girl had asked.

  Penny and Alice were waiting for the woman at the gate, just as they had said they would. Around them was utter silence. The dimness of the gardens and forests felt safe and familiar, but once they set foot within the Hall, things would be different.

  Alice’s arm was around Penny, the child leaning in against her elder, but there was nothing frightened about the child. Her eyes were clear and dark, the velvet blue of the night sky, and in them were stars.

  The woman though could see nothing more about the two. They were as much a mystery to her as they had been to Ella.

  She paused, hesitant suddenly when only moments before she had been so sure. She was the healer, but she had no idea what she should do.

  Alice held out her hand to her and when the woman took it, she could feel the course rub of thick scars against her palm. Alice did not pull back, merely allowed a weak smile to flutter across her face. In all her time in the village, Ella had never seen Alice's hands. They spoke of a haunted and pained past.

  The woman looked down at little Penny and noticed for the first time that she had her two dolls, one jammed under each arm. She, too, was smiling.

  “It’s time to go in,” Alice’s voice was soft and low. “The Between is close, the chance for Healing near.”

  “I’m… afraid,” the woman whispered hoarsely. “I’m not sure.”

  Penny caught her hand and pressed her face to it, and Alice tightened her grip on her other. “All will be as it should.”

  She was not the same girl Ella had known, the woman could tell that. Something deeper echoed in her voice and there was none of her usual reserve in that gentle smile. It was both frightening and reassuring.

  “Is nothing what it seems in Penherem?” she wondered aloud.

  “Hardly,” Alice turned them back to their task. All three walked towards the Hall. It blazed with light, a golden star in all the darkness. Strangely, there were no security guards. The Hall had on a far different face now. In daylight, it was covered in tourists and reeked of nothing more sinister than curiosity. Now, an air of mystery and danger seeped out of every stone.

  The main doors were flung wide and the silence beyond was oppressive. The woman paused at the last step. “We’re expected?”

  “Certainly,” Alice replied, her hand guiding the other forward. “This is the Unmaker’s doing, but we must go on.”

  The hallways were familiar. Ella had run down here in a panic only a week ago, but it felt like a century ago. Now the same body carried a lifetime of new memories.

  Her two guides turned her towards the southern wing where the arts and treasures of generations of Furlions were kept. The feeling of dread grew with each step.

  Something scuttled; a movement that sent shivers down the woman’s spine. Her bones still recalled Ella’s wound there. Movement caught her eye. One of the remote cameras situated at the entrance to the wing twisted and turned on them. Lights danced beneath it.

  Penny clapped her hands together, waving madly at the camera and generally capering about like she had just seen her best friend. One of her dolls, unnoticed, fell free of her pocket.

  Alice picked it up and looked down at it thoughtfully before tucking it into the waistband of her skirt, but she made no move to stop her charge’s relentless leaping. “Not far now,” she whispered softly. They moved on, Penny trailing in their wake, still flapping her hands madly at the camera.

  If the lights were on in the main Hall, they were dimmed here amongst all the glass cases and treasures. Only grayness fell about them.

  Something was different though; things had been moved, permanent displays were shifted from their usual places and shoved carelessly against the walls, all to make an open space in the centre.

  “Stay here,” Alice whispered and tugged the grinning Penny after her. The woman watched them duck and crawl their way through the maze of display cases and disappear into the grayness at the rear of the room.

  She was not just going to sit there and wait to find out what was going to happen. The weight of the atmosphere was too heavy. She had to move. Cautiously she inched forward, straining to determine what lay ahead. What had happened here? Her thoughts darted around. Could something have happened to Tania?

  She soon got her answer. Suddenly from the mezzanine floor the flood lights flicked on, and the whole central square of the room was illuminated. The woman blinked as the light reflected a thousand fold into her eyes.

  That was new. A huge slab of rock that might well have come from Stonehenge, save that it was made of thick crystal like a piece of permanent ice. It lay flat, an altar of magic that had no place in this world. The sheer enormity of its presence demanded all of the woman’s attention for a moment. For an instant, nothing else seemed to matter.

  “The Nexus,” she whispered, as another wave of understanding broke over her. It was the King Stone of the circle that stood at the centre point of the three realms. She couldn’t recall having ever been there, but the image of it was burned into her brain. An image rattled through the corridors of her mind; a dark haired bard pressed against it, a spear of evil piercing through him and into the stone itself. This was the sacrifice that had moved the realms apart. The King Stone should have stood upright within the Nexus, but here it was, laid flat out in the middle of Penherem.

  The stone was not empty. Shock had prevented her from seeing beyond the stone itself for a moment, but tied to its length wa
s Ronan. His face was turned away from her, but the woman could feel his pain. Standing above him, somehow taller in the flood of light. was a masked female figure, slender and dressed in flowing white robes though stained with blood on the edge. She knew the mask. Tania had called it the Winter Mask and it was her most important treasure. But who was under it?

  The woman crept closer, heart racing in her chest, while knowing this was not the moment to let fear rule.

  The figure before the stone also sensed her, for she stepped away from Ronan and looked straight at the other’s hiding place. “Come out, Healer,” she commanded.

  After only a moment’s hesitation, the woman rose from her hiding place. Curiosity won over her fear. It was strange to look into the face of stony perfection, a beautiful woman’s face with something so welcoming about it.

  “So, Healer, even you must obey the calling,” the voice behind the mask was familiar, and as if to confirm it, the white clad stranger pulled the mask away. Beneath, Tania’s face smiled back in that odd lopsided manner.

  The woman felt her heart go suddenly cold. Tania was her friend. She’d felt sorry for her, and somehow always imagined the villagers were wrong about the poor mad lady.

  “Masks beneath masks,” Tania whispered and that face, too, faded. In its place was the face Ella had dreamed of days before; deep scars were all that were left where the eyes had been, but the hair was still fine and white.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am like you—a seed planted by my Master. You are the hope of the Fey for this realm and I am the hope of their enemy.” She dangled the stone mask lightly from her fingertips. “Ronan knew me as Greer, but I have always been Tania in reality. I have been waiting a very long time for you to arrive.”

  “Have you?” The weight of Tania’s regard was frightening.

  “Yes, for without you, I cannot accomplish my task. Silly to think I had not noticed that you’d been here for so long. Perhaps I was blind. Or blinded,” she chuckled to herself. “But nevertheless, you are here now, and it is time.”

  “Time for what?” The woman tried to filter through her still chaotic past to find answers she felt were vital.

  “You really do not know? All the better.” Tania pushed the mask once more over her face. Holding out her hand imperiously, she commanded, “Give me the greenstone mere.” Her voice, when it came from between those stone lips, was far different. It was deeper, and echoed down the other woman’s bones. The Healer could feel the Art within the voice, but had no idea how to fight it. The person who should have trained her had been killed in the green hills of Aotearoa and she’d spent her whole life in a borrowed body.

  Her body twitched, and then obeyed Tania’s command. She stepped up next to the King Stone and placed the still piece of greenstone into her enemy’s hands.

  “Ponamu,” Tania’s voice was full of desire, “the last gift of human magic.” She smiled coyly and tugged the other woman over to look down at Ronan.

  His eyes were dark and distant, focused on a far off place. Tania brushed a curl back from his eyes. “Now all the pieces are in place, dear friend: the last of the elder Fey, the gift of human magic, and even this part of the Nexus.”

  The woman heard her only dimly, for somewhere in her internal battle a certainty was forming, a rumble of identity.

  Tania did not notice, for she was already lost in her own haze of victory. “When a Fey is slain with human magic, the ancient alliance will be destroyed, and with it the magic that has imprisoned my Master.” She thrust her once-friend away from her to stumble and fall in a boneless heap on the floor. The woman who had been Ella was of no consequence now.

  “The time of healing, will now be a time of destruction,” Tania whispered.

  Then the room was filled with a massive attack of noise; drums rattled, guitars squealed as the air was tormented fiercely enough to shake the glass in the cabinets.

  Tania’s mouth opened, but her scream was drowned out. Her once-friend looked out from her tangled hair and blinked. Hovering a few feet off the ground, Bakari looked down with real satisfaction. It was obvious that this was his chaos. With a theatrical gesture, he cut off the music and smiled rather thinly at Tania. She, in her turn, had pulled back the mask and was staring at him with undisguised shock. Her lip trembled as though she was going to speak.

  Bakari looked down at the woman he’d known as his friend. “Are you okay, Ella?”

  She managed a nod, a little jerky and uncoordinated. He looked different, two dimensional somehow.

  “Ah, this?” he waved his hands. “All thanks to the display systems—I’m on the Line,” he gave Greer a look of pure disgust. “Thanks to her.”

  Their enemy’s mouth pulled back in an ugly smile. “And that’s where you’ll stay, too.” She stepped back close to Ronan. “Now don’t bother me.”

  The woman’s legs scrambled, but found no purchase on the floor. Her nerves were still fried by whatever Greer had done. “She’s going to kill Ronan. Bakari, help him.”

  “He can’t do anything,” Tania/Greer shot back, already raising the mere to strike. “He’s been dead for hours. He’s got no body to go back to.”

  From the mezzanine floor came the hiss of the Unmaker’s Seed, a rattle of claws on the parquet. Such a creature would be enjoying the emotional pain as if it were a play put on for its amusement.

  Bakari’s digital face blanched, and a ripple of distortion passed through him. It must be a great shock to have the truth revealed in such a manner. The woman knew better than anyone that the body was an important part of identity. However, she underestimated her friend.

  Perhaps it was because of the time he’d spent on the Line, or a part of the Fey nature that had brought him back, but the horror washed through him and did not carry him away.

  “You know, Greer, you’re really starting to annoy me.”

  She took no notice. Instead she raised the greenstone mere high, confident that neither of her opponents could do anything to stop her, breaking the alliance.

  Then Penny’s blonde head popped up above one of the display cabinets. She waved cheerily at Bakari, while the unnamed woman who had been Ella clambered to her hands and knees, sensing that something was about to happen.

  Her friend’s image moved, throwing back his arm, as if hurling something at Greer. She reacted as if it had been acid, dissolving into remembrance. The woman caught her agony.

  The sky outside the office window was as brown as bark, but somewhat less inviting. Tania watched the sludgy movement of the clouds and through ears half closed listened to the drone of her assistant.

  The view from the penthouse could have been York/Birmingham, or Sydney/Melbourne—but it just so happened, today, to be London. So much of England was now covered by this sprawling, heaving megacity that it had become synonymous with the country as a whole. This ever-hungry beast was swallowing up England. On her ruby red mouth a small smile appeared, her pointed little teeth gleaming. Tania’s mind did not hear what her secretary had just told her. So long, so very long on in this world and every day longer than the last. Every single one of those days had been spent alone.

  That was, until Anthony. A child, after all that time—she’d stopped expecting it. His auburn curls, his wide blue eyes had somehow made the world feel a better place. When he pointed at a racing cloud across the sky, or a squirrel chewing on an acorn, and laughed, she could feel the weight of all her days falling away. So long in this human realm and everything had long ago lost its taste, until Anthony showed her the way to enjoy it once more.

  But once he was gone, darkness had closed in. Tania felt her heart shrink in her chest, her pain taking over all that he had brought her. She’d watched him grow, learn, marry and then die—it was a full life, but it was not enough!

  Her fist clenched at her side while her secretary droned on.

  All that was left now in this world was pain. That, and service to her Master. Why did that not bring any relief? Wh
y was her heart so empty?

  Tania fell to her knees and the world seemed to tilt with her, going suddenly crazy. The woman who had called herself Ella could finally move, and as she crawled to her feet, she saw that there were plenty of others who now could also. On the other side of the King Stone, Penny and Alice were up and running. Incredible as it was, the little girl and the woman sprinted towards Tania.

  They barreled into her, catching her about the waist, knocking her to the floor and dissolving into a tumbling mass of legs and flailing hair. In between it all there were flashes of the greenstone weapon. Alice’s hands wrapped about Greer’s, wrestling with her for her hold on the mere. Penny had her arms wrapped around Greer’s leg and was hanging on like a limpet.

  Bakari hovered overhead, waving his hands frantically but unable to do anything. He called Penny’s name and then the woman’s. “Ella! Do something!”

  Her legs were slow to recover. She felt herself scrambling to get to the fray; it felt like it took an eternity.

  Then the three struggling women cried out as one. It was a sound of such infinite pain that everything froze in its tracks. The nameless woman felt that agony go through her and saw that there was now blood splattered in a fine arc across the King Stone. It took only a heartbeat for her to know that it wasn’t Ronan’s; it was Penny’s.

  The child stood up, her two dolls cast away and for the first time forgotten. She was holding her hand to her head and looking at Tania and Alice, lip trembling. The child that had barely spoken a word began to sob. Tania, who had disregarded the illusion of her perfect face, could not cry, but she dropped the Winter Mask from her fingertips. It shattered on the floor, breaking into a million sharp little pieces.

  The nameless one felt time cease, replaced by nothing but golden light. It was almost like the Earth rivers she had ridden, but there was the taste of Fey about. The rest of the world had receded and there were only the three female forms. Tania was no longer fighting them, she was moving to them, taking Alice by one hand and the wounded Penny by the other. A howl ran through the world, a thrum of power that battered every sense and left the nameless one hollow and gasping.