Digital Magic

by Philippa Ballantine

  Aroha looked at her feet, for there’d be no university for her or any child of New Zealand at the moment. Even she, with all her gifts, couldn’t tell what the future held. Her heart was beating so loudly that she was surprised Daniel didn’t say something.

  The city slowly resolved around them; spaces of green and concrete that in their time would have been beautiful places. Aroha could tell that from the memories that still lingered here, and her heart ached for that loss.

  Now the city, from hills to the flat land full of skyscrapers, was a city of soldiers and everyone seemed to know Daniel. Their journey became a series of stops and starts. Each soldier gave new clues as to what was happening and Aroha plucked each clue up silently from each new conversation.

  The people had left the city when it became a target for the enemy, but had not returned since Utu and the enemy's withdrawal. Fear remained, of their fellow man and of what might happen.

  The army had moved in, both conscripts and career soldiers, one even joked to Daniel that it was, “just like WW Two but without the dances.”

  Everything around her said this city was not meant to be a city of war. They had stopped on the corner of two main streets, Willis and Lambton Quay from the ragged sign hanging off the tilting lamp post. Daniel was talking to a young woman, about his own age, with a tangle of golden hair that might have been her crowning glory in former times. Their voices were hushed like they didn’t want her to hear. She didn’t bother to tell them she could anyway.

  She wandered off a few steps to peer through the broken windows into the darkened interior of what looked like it might once have been a jeweler's. The shadows there crept with frightened memories.

  “Pretty,” a voice like crumpled paper whispered in her ear. Aroha cautiously turned around, knowing this was not some forgotten whisper.

  The old woman met her stare with one of her own. Though the face was sagging and had lost any expression, her eyes were as nimble and alive as any Aroha had ever seen. But the rest of her was another story. She’d never seen anyone made up of such a variety of clothes; a satin skirt two sizes too small, a lichen green scarf and a massive padded jacket that might have come from the Antarctic. She looked totally bogged down in the human world, but Aroha wasn’t fooled, there was a taste of the Folk about her. Nana had told her about the creatures that waited at places of power; sometimes they cursed, sometimes they blessed. Aroha took a step back.

  But the old woman seemed not to notice. “He’s waiting for you,” she said plainly in a voice that carried no emotion. “Hurry.”

  Aroha knew a kindly warning when she heard one. Daniel was still talking to the young woman, head bowed, when Aroha tugged on his arm.

  “We’ve got to go.”

  “How sweet, Daniel,” she stooped slightly to the child’s level. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  Aroha frowned. Couldn’t the woman see that she was far too old to be any such thing? But she wasn’t going to argue. Aroha hung harder off Daniel and let her voice rise into a whine. “We’ve got to go—now!”

  Daniel quickly said goodbye to his friend and hustled Aroha away. He didn’t ask what was happening, already used to the way things were around her. They hurried on through the street, under the blue walled buildings and through the desolation to the harbor itself. Things here were better, distance concealing the emptiness of the city. There were even a small number of sailing boats moored down by the harbor. Aroha didn’t really take much notice, for now she could see their real destination, the massive outcrop which filled the southern curve of the harbor.

  They walked silently towards the hill, around the bay lined with elegant single pines. On one side was the narrow beach, on the other the square squat shapes of houses nestled against the hill.

  “Mount Victoria,” Daniel told her.

  Aroha stopped, suddenly not so sure that she could do this. The images that the Folk had let her see froze her blood and made her mouth all dry. She plopped down into the only remaining park bench. It was a good spot, because she could look out to sea and not at the hill.

  Daniel sat down next to her, but didn’t try and hold her hand, or tell her it was going to be all right, he was smarter than that. Instead he said, “It’s all changed so fast.”

  Most kids didn’t know much about time, Aroha had observed; Sally probably hardly knew what day it was. But Aroha felt it differently. Like the time she and Nana had spent all afternoon picking blackberries. The sun had been so hot and those berries tasted warm and sticky-sweet. It was that moment she’d felt it first, real sadness knowing that the moment would be gone forever, and all she would have was memory.

  It felt like that now. Once she went to that hill, all her normal child moments would be gone. Even if she got back to Nana, it would be as a different person.

  Daniel sighed, “You’re a quiet kid, aren’t you?”

  She couldn’t help it; it was such a silly thing to say. She grinned. “Sometimes.” But she didn’t want to be quiet, or sad, or scared anymore.

  Aroha slid off the bench and held out her hand to Daniel, “We better get going—he’s waiting for us.”

  “Who?”

  But she didn’t want to scare him either, so she just tugged him along after her, towards the hill.

  Ronan eyed the curl of metal and plastic lying in his hands doubtfully. He could feel Bakari’s amused look on the back of his neck, but at this stage he didn’t care. This was something totally new to him, and after nearly five hundred years he wanted to savor the feeling of newness. He admitted to more, to himself; the fact was, he was rather nervous about this whole thing.

  Bakari pulled the curtains so that no one would be able to peer in his living room windows, but all the same Ronan was concerned about how he’d look once he put this contraption on. He’d never even know if he was drooling.

  Bakari sat down on the floor opposite him and grinned like his face would split. “Not keen on this, are you?”

  Ronan tried to look casual. “I’ve just never been big on this Line thing you humans are all so in love with.”

  “Some sort of technophobe, then?”

  Ronan got the impression Bakari was deliberately trying to goad him. “I have no objection to technology—I just wouldn't cut myself open for an upgrade.”

  “Well, no one is asking you to,” Bakari fitted the tiny monofilament cable into the back of his neck. “The piggy backer just lets you see and hear what I do. You must have used one as a kid.”

  Ronan gave him a wry look.

  “OK... maybe you didn’t.” Bakari took pity on him and leaning over, uncurled the secondary wires to reveal a narrow piece of curved plastic, and then folded out a set of thin metal bands. He fitted the plastic over Ronan’s head so that the two nodules rested against his ear, and then adjusted the metal pieces so they ran horizontally across his field of vision. “Now, this isn’t the real thing, the quality is crap and you’re not going to get any other sensory input, but hopefully it’ll give you an idea.”

  “I don’t really see what this will achieve.”

  “As they say, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Besides, you asked the questions about the mask and Infinity Rose. Your way hasn’t got us any answers—only more questions.”

  They stared at each other for a second and Ronan was somewhat pleased to find the other didn’t look away. Whatever shock Bakari had got this morning hadn’t turned his world completely upside down; he was prepared to accept magic. If that was true, then maybe there was hope for the rest of his kind.

  “Fair enough,” Ronan said. “Show me the way.”

  Bakari attached a double adaptor to the length of his thin cable and inserted the Line to the piggybacker, then sat back and closed his eyes. The circle of metal and plastic came alive around Ronan’s head with the faintest of hums. He tried not to jump. The lengths of wire glowed white for a minute and then, with a hiss, everything went black.

  Ronan yelped, and would have torn
the thing off his head if Bakari’s slightly amused voice hadn’t reached him. “Relax. It’s all just a visual feed, you’re just seeing what I am. You’re not really on the Line.”

  The man was asking a lot, though he couldn’t really understand why. Ronan had seen the first faltering steps to technology; right from the first roaring, hissing steam engine through to this. And yet here was Bakari calmly asking him to relax and enjoy something that he was sure was the antithesis of everything Fey.

  He twiddled his thumbs, a habit he toyed with adopting now and then. Then his vision exploded into life and he barely managed not to exclaim again. Twice would be rather undignified. Sound and image flared around him. An effortless bright blue sky, the kind he didn’t think he’d seen for at least three hundred years, so beautiful it made his eyes water. It took a long time for him to catch his breath. His vision changed again, as though his head was moving, though he knew very well that it was not.

  “It’s me,” Ronan heard Bakari like he was right behind him. Shouldn’t there have been breath on his neck? “You’ve got no control, so just relax.”

  Bakari’s hand appeared in view, but not his normal hand. This one ended in a broad expanse of long, dark feathers.

  “Ah, yeah,” Bakari said. “On the Line you can choose how you look. It’s called an avatar.”

  “And you are?”

  “A raven.”

  Ronan felt his insides freeze, while his distant body reacted with shock. The raven was an ancient symbol of his people, but most of all, the creature of the one Fey he loved above all others. It could not be coincidence that Bakari had chosen this bird as his form.

  “Did you say something?” the human asked, perceiving some sound that Ronan had not been aware he was making, perhaps even her name.

  “Ah… I just thought it was interesting that in this world you can change shape like we Fey.”

  “It’s not real, you know,” Bakari sounded perplexed. “It’s just on the Line. An avatar gives you some protection here. This is one place you don’t want to be yourself.”

  Ronan did not comment, keeping his doubts to himself. For the Fey, the real and the unreal were often interchangeable.

  Bakari’s odd bird-hand was moving now, sketching a strange shape in the air, and where it moved a trail of silver followed. Within a second a gleaming box hung in the air, in which odd animalistic shapes moved. Ronan blinked: one could almost have been a lion. Bakari took the cube and tossed it high and this time there was a roar, something direct from the veldt. The cube disappeared in a blaze of light but from it, in one heartbeat, Ronan saw a large feline shape speed off to the horizon. He felt his first twinge of jealousy.

  “A seeker program,” Bakari explained. “It’s dangerous to go out on the Line without something watching your back, and that one’s the best I’ve got. If we want to find out about Infinity Rose, then we’re only going to have limited time.”

  The hand disappeared and suddenly with the sound of beating air, they were flying—and it was magnificent. Ronan laughed out loud with joy. He had lost many of his shapes over the years and hawk had been the first to go. Now he wished that he could feel what Bakari was feeling; the rush of air, the joyous freedom of the emptiness around him. He savored the moment.

  But it changed quickly, almost as quickly as things could change in the Fey Realm. The smooth air disappeared and there were now clouds around them. In an instant Ronan felt like he was lost, unable to even see the ground. And then in the distance he saw something gleaming and glinting whiteness against all the darkness; the shape of a lion.

  Bakari twisted his wings, beating against the currents that seemed bent on ripping them apart. Even though he was just an observer, Ronan’s heart was beating fast.

  “Is this normal?”

  “Well, not unusual,” Bakari dived and the sound of wind filled their ears. They were moving very fast, following the disappearing form of the lion, or rather the program, Ronan reminded himself.

  The clouds thickened around them, so that all was darkness. But then it was like they had broken through a wall of some sort. The clouds evaporated into brightness and they were standing on a verdant green stretch of grass. It stretched from horizon to horizon with only one feature, directly in front of them.

  The thick wall of hedges was as big as a city block, made up of a patchwork different plants which loomed large over them with what Ronan could only have described as menace. The only entrance to this ordered hedge maze was a gateway of utter darkness.

  “I know I’m going to keep hearing myself saying this,” Ronan found himself whispering, “But what is that?”

  “Infinity Rose,” Bakari replied, while his raven head craned up to where the hedges grazed the sky. “This is the Line interpretation of their system. The clouds were the outer defenses, easy for a competent operator, but this…. this is another type of defense.”

  Ronan was suddenly catapulted back in time to when he had ridden with his cousin, she who was both fierce and lovely and more powerful than he could ever dream of being. They had looked into the Between Worlds and even she had been awed by such strength. He heard the same angry fear in Bakari’s voice, the sound of someone not used to being bested, facing something they were dwarfed by.

  Ronan uttered fateful words. “There must be another way to find out these things. Let’s go back…”

  “Hey,” Bakari snapped, “did I say I was beaten?! We just have to be careful.”

  Ronan sighed. He really should have known better.

  The golden white lion waited at the entrance, its sides heaving slightly like it had run across the plains. There were bloody gouges in its sides.

  Bakari's head shook from side to side. “My best seeker, and it has never been this beaten before. Hopefully it should still have enough juice to get us through this thing.”

  The lion seemed to have a proud look in its eye and Ronan felt a stirring of another ancient memory, yet every time he tried to put a finger on it, it fled like a frightened child. The answer was there in the lion’s eye. Of that he was sure.

  Bakari’s hand appeared from his wing once more and he sketched another shape, this one curved like a sickle. It flashed out from his fingertips and hovered around the lion.

  “New instructions for the program,” he explained.

  The lion raised its great head and turned, about to enter the maze. The air came alive, like a thousand tiny lightning bolts, and then the animal was gone.

  “Crap!” Bakari hopped forward on his raven’s feet to examine the entrance more closely, but not too closely. Then there was more sketching of elaborate shapes in the air, but he didn't stop to explain this lot.

  “That’s it,” he said finally. “There’s a remote killing field. Only personal avatars are getting in there.”

  Like all human magicians, Bakari was falling into jargon. “In something vaguely understandable to old ears, please,” Ronan requested bluntly.

  “Any program gets killed in there. Only a Liner has any chance of getting in, their signal is stronger.”

  “So, in we go.”

  “Easy for you to say; not your arse on the Line.”

  “Yes, I dare say that probably helps.”

  Bakari went into the maw with a soft chuckle. It was dark inside, darker than Ronan had ever seen the world, for his people were as sharp eyed as cats. Then that silver light bloomed, as Bakari sketched another cube and the lights brightened. Now he could see about with that faint grayness he experienced in cat form. Inside the gate, there was still nothing but the greenness of the dense hedges.

  “Did I ever tell you about my mother?” Bakari said calmly, like they were having a pint at the Green Man, but his head was scanning to the right and left in the hedge maze. He took the right, though why was impossible to tell. Ronan remained silent, not wanting to disturb whatever precarious decisions were keeping them alive.

  “She believed in magic: all the old style stuff. It used to break her heart that
she lived in a run down duplex with neighbors whose favorite occupation was beating their children.” Bakari had stopped at a hedge end, and the sounds of a waltz could be faintly heard. Ronan didn’t know how normal or abnormal that was, but Bakari went on.

  “She couldn’t ignore that: couldn’t bear to hear children cry. She said it was killing the earth’s magic. So she always called social services. Even went round there and bailed this monster up, on his front door step.” Bakari crept around the corner, bent low.

  “A brave woman,” Ronan commented, trying to sound as relaxed as his friend.

  “The bravest and the best,” Bakari’s voice was rough with still powerful emotion, “and she didn’t regret a thing, even when that man set fire to her unit, even when she was dying slowly in the hospital.”

  What could he say to that? Ronan had never really known his own mother, she’d been as distant and as loving as the moon. So he said what he really thought. “You were lucky to feel that love, my friend. Not everyone does.”

  “I know that,” Bakari said. “But it doesn’t make not having it now any easier.”

  The waltz had become louder, until Ronan could even identify it, Moonlight something-or-other. It reminded him of his time in Paris before the Second World War, when his powers were stronger than they were now, and he had somehow still managed to retain some of his Fey arrogance.

  Bakari was standing up, looking along the open length of this part of the maze. At the end was all purple glow; a thousand glittering pinpricks of light spun and twirled around a figure that was in turn spinning and turning. It was a tiny woman, small enough so the top of her head would only reach Bakari’s chest, dressed in a sparkling white dress. She was beautiful enough to make Ronan think of the dances and balls in his cousin’s realm, when the Fey King ruled. Her lustrous black tresses were piled atop her head and pinned with silver bands and exquisitely made flowers. Around her ivory pale throat hung a thick string of diamonds, which served to show off her softly moving neck.

  And she was dancing, gently and beautifully—her eyes never leaving Bakari. Everything about her was flawless. Ronan heard his friend sigh, for he was seeing the manifestation of his dream of magic. He took a step forward and there was a rustle. When his hand came into view, it was not covered with feathers—it was his own.