Digital Magic

by Philippa Ballantine

  Rolling over, she looked at Ronan, to really examine him by the silver light of the cavern. It had never occurred to her before, but there were signs about him; a certain sheen to his skin and lifting of the ears that was so infinitesimal, but also very telling. Somewhere in there was Puck, a creature not of this world, who was ancient enough to be her thousand times grandfather.

  And yet, Ella smiled to herself, he had been very manly just recently. Man enough to give and receive pleasure, but then there had been more. Something she’d never experienced, not even with Doyle. A moment had come when they had seemed to be only one person and not two; a seamless memory, an infinite delight. Ella had seen inside the Trickster, had been him and felt his pleasure. It was a heady sensation, and probably an addictive one. Stories of women enthralled by fairy folk suddenly seemed to make sense.

  When had Ronan’s eyes opened? He might have been lying there, watching her watching him for a while. His eyes were definitely more violet than usual, the colour of ripe plums. His fingers brushed back a strand of her tousled hair.

  Ella bit her lip. It was easy for the Fey to be beautiful, but she was sure she looked awful.

  “The more I know you, Ella,” he said softly, “the more amazed I am. It’s as if there is something about you just lurking beyond my reach.”

  “Do you think I’m Fey?” she joked, while snuggling closer and burying her head in his chest.

  The sound of his silence was marred only by the slow thrum of his heartbeat, “No… there is something definitely not Fey about you—something I have seen but once...”

  He did not elaborate, but he’d certainly spoiled a perfect moment. As if his own words had disturbed him, he slipped from the bed and back into his discarded clothes before his new lover could protest.

  Ella closed her eyes; she could try to hold onto the moment a little longer, ferret it away in memory.

  When she opened them again, he was doing exactly what she feared, examining her, trying to understand her, think what sort of category to sort her into. Ella shrank under that scrutiny.

  Ronan’s gaze softened as he sat down on the corner of the bed. His hand found hers. “Ella, there is something in you which doesn’t want to be known. Remember how you ran away when we got back here?” She nodded miserably. “Well, that’s not normal. People who have your kind of power, or even Fey Art, they might be shocked, but eventually they would understand. Somehow, I don’t think you’re ever going to get used to this by yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean something, or someone, is blocking you remembering your past. Only there can you find out what sort of power you have. We shared each other, and that means you would have seen things from my past; emotions, sensations?” She nodded again. “Well, I saw nothing… not a thing. And that is not the way it's meant to be.”

  Once Ronan had pointed it out, she could feel what he meant. Panic was approaching her, but she could find no logical reason for it. In fact, she wanted to know herself. What did lie beyond that shocking moment? The thought that she might never know, made her angry.

  “Beautiful girl,” Ronan whispered, pressing his forehead against hers, “don’t get frustrated. The Trickster always has a few surprises tucked away. Come on.”

  He got up off the bed, went to the fireplace and began stacking up the few remaining logs. Casting a look back over his shoulder, he added, “Clothing is optional.”

  Ella stifled a laugh, but compromised on wanting to shock him and wanting to catch his eye; she pulled on her thick jersey and padded on bare feet to see what he was doing.

  Ronan whispered a word to the wood, a sharp quick phrase, said in a language that verged on familiar. Brightness leapt from that word and fire erupted where it fell. Cheeriness suddenly filled the room.

  Ronan smiled wryly. “Only a few words of Art remain open to me now, let us see if they are enough.” He tugged her hand, guiding her to sit between his legs and look into the crackling fire.

  “Now all I need is a little more of your blood, dear heart.”

  Ella let out a theatrical sigh, but held out her hand. “Go ahead, but you’ve nearly had your limit.”

  “You are generous as always,” Ronan used the tip of that same silver knife to prick her forefinger. Catching the tiny drop on his finger, he brought Ella’s wound to his mouth and sealed it with a kiss. The bauble of blood sat elegantly on his finger, like a tiny ruby. Ronan held it aloft in the light and whispered another word to it. It was said reverently like a prayer, but it was also filled with power.

  Then without further explanation, he cast the droplet into the flames. The fire surged up, shucking off reds and golds to become something else entirely. These blue-white flames made them both blink as if they had looked too hard into the sun. It took Ella a long moment to see beyond her stunned eyes.

  It was like seeing into her very own nightmare. The dull dove grey walls were familiar, the muted light gave no detail, but Ella knew where they were seeing – all that was missing from this vision was the smell of disinfectant. It was the hospital complex and her first real memory. She was allowed no time to panic. The vision spun on its axis, skimming through the bland corridors with a speed that blurred all those painful memories. Now there were people in regulation white coats, people with importance and authority. Their faces though were a homogenous mass, the vision did not care to linger on them. It darted on, only to come to a sickeningly sudden halt in front of a large expanse of glass. Beyond was a figure in a hospital bed; bound to it, in fact. A dark head rested on a pure white pillow. It was a girl, no more than a young teenager really, but so motionless that it was impossible to think she’d ever thrown a tantrum, or snuck out at night. Somehow Ella knew that this girl had never stirred from her confinement. And her face was not an English one; her skin was the kind of chocolate brown that spoke of more sun than England had ever received. She was a child of the Pacific.

  Her guardians were watchful—and it was not concern for the girl that made them so, but wariness. Surely they couldn’t expect her to leap from the bed and hurt them, but Ella knew that was indeed what they were afraid of. The way they skirted around the bed, checked multi screened equipment, all said that. They were fascinated and terrified at the same time.

  And then the girl’s eyes opened, looked out into the flames. This should have made the captors excited, but it was not for them to see, it was only for Ronan and Ella.

  Those eyes were deep violet, the colour of electricity. They caught and held what they saw, imparting a plea.

  Come to me.

  A deep pang, terrible loss and melancholy all flowed through the fire and into Ella. She was on the verge of seeing, of understanding what it all meant, when the blood burned out and the magic passed. Ronan and Ella were left staring into the ashes of the smoking hearth.

  She could have sat there forever, examining the remains of that deep sorrow, but her new-found lover would not let her. He was accustomed to despair and knew it could not be allowed to dig too deep.

  “Come on,” he helped Ella to her feet. “The day has dawned and the Seed’s trap is sprung. We can begin.”

  Ella looked at him and knew exactly what he meant; they had to find that girl. Whatever message she had was waiting for them back where it had all begun—the hospital where she’d woken up. But it was too scary to talk about; it was enough that she knew she could find it. Ella nodded and took Ronan’s hand.

  She didn’t need to ask him how they would get out of the haven, for now she could feel the power moving through her. Ronan had woken an understanding in her, it seemed, shown her in his own way, how to live with Art and magic and even how to use it. She wasn’t afraid of it now, and it felt more and more natural to her.

  The earth was like a quiescent creature that could be felt just by the tips of her fingers. It knew her; it recognized something within her that even Ella didn’t. She moved her hand as if she was pulling aside a curtain, and the hill shifted, opening t
he passageway that was its best kept secret.

  Ronan led her out into the ring of stones, but to a scene quite different to the one last seen. The sun was sliding along the horizon, lighting up the bellies of the plump clouds. The air was sweet, cleansed of any memory of the Seed. Even the blood was gone, soaked into the forgiving earth.

  And it was all real to Ella now. It was not a dream—she had changed. In one night she had discovered her power, looked into the face of her past and found an ancient lover. She could never look at things the same way again, not even at Penherem.

  Ronan pulled her close to his side and kissed her lightly on the cheek, reminding her that she wasn’t alone. She smiled softly, but found her eye drawn to the edge of the forest. Penny Two Dolls was standing there, almost as though she’d been there all night, leaning against a tree, swinging her most ragged doll by one arm.

  Ella frowned. The child somehow looked different as well, not so wide eyed and showing no signs of running off. Ronan’s breath was suddenly ragged and his fingers tightened around her.

  “Who is that?” he hissed.

  “It’s just Penny, local kid, no one can really control her at all. She runs about all over the place.”

  He took a step forward, “I imagine not. There is something…”

  But Penny’s eyes widened, perhaps with fear, and she abruptly disappeared, swallowed into the forest as if she’d never been.

  Ronan shook himself like he had just wakened. “This village just gets stranger and stranger. It’s almost as if the leftovers of Fey Art have been stored here.”

  Ella giggled nervously, but couldn’t deny her village’s strangeness—it was, after all, what had drawn her to it. “Do you want to chase her?” she asked, half joking.

  “Your business is more important, dear heart, so the wild children will have to wait. Let us get to this hospital.”

  She nodded in the affirmative, but when he took her hand and led her away, she couldn’t help feeling that she should have been running in the other direction.

  17

  Sacrifice

  “Do they know I’m gone?” Bakari asked Penny, while his toes kept cool in the pool where Ronan and Ella’s movements were being shown, like a grainy vid link. The forest which Greer had burned was as still as the grave, but no longer held any fear for him. Not with his present company.

  Penny cocked her head and smiled back enigmatically. Behind her the crisped trunk of a tree suddenly found new life and sprouted a vibrant green leaf. “They have to get to the girl quickly.”

  It was very strange to hear Penny’s voice, he thought. In all his time in Penherem, there’d never been a peep out of her. He’d assumed she was autistic or traumatized, but now, looking into her open face, it was hard to see anything but a brilliance and power he’d never seen. It could be just a weird avatar, and perhaps not even Penny herself. But then, he looked down at his own hands. He couldn’t access an avatar, so most likely no one could.

  Penny was abruptly at his shoulder. “There are no masks here, Bakari. Greer brought you here naked so she could hurt you more.”

  He shuddered. “I hate to think what she’s doing to my real body then. You know I might need it again.”

  Penny shrugged, as if that was barely a concern. “You could do…” she tilted her face upwards to very real looking sun, “But she has gone.”

  “I could go back, then.”

  She nodded slowly, her gaze never leaving him. Bakari got the feeling she was waiting for him to say something.

  “Oh, I get it,” he chuckled. “But what would I do then, I’m still manacled to the wall.”

  “Whereas in here…”

  He thought about it for a moment, using his Lining instincts, while reminding himself that this was nothing more than an elaborate construct. It was designed for one purpose, but if it was part of Greer’s system, there might still be ways out to the main Line.

  “Your friends are going to need help to get into the Complex,” Penny said, “or they will die.”

  She wasn’t joking, and Bakari didn’t doubt she knew what she was talking about. He watched her dance her dirtiest doll along a destroyed branch. Where its little feet passed, leaves erupted from unseen buds.

  If this was Greer’s construct, then that shouldn’t have been possible. He might have been able to do it with major cracking, but somehow this child needed none of that.

  “Who are you really, Penny?”

  She pouted at that, like he’d broken some sort of childish rule. “I’m the Child.” Just like that, as if it was a title and needed no further explanation. She moved closer and peered down into the pool where Ronan and Ella could be seen boarding the VFT for London. “She has given up the limp.”

  She was right about that, too. Bakari frowned. The slight hesitation in Ella’s step had been so much part of her, that without it she looked like quite a different person.

  “But it doesn’t matter,” Penny repeated. “They’ll still die. The Complex is too strong for them.”

  “Complex?”

  “It’s where she woke up. They’re going there for answers.”

  The girl’s cryptic answers were worse than no answer at all. Penny’s blue eyes didn’t leave his face, boring into him with dread certainty.

  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Bakari finally demanded. “I can’t get away from Greer.”

  She grinned back at him suddenly, but once again left it up to him to make the leap.

  “You want me to leave the construct?” The thought gave him shivers. Maybe in here he could be naked without an avatar, but out on the Line, without any protection, there would be nothing to stand between him and another Liner’s attack. He needed his gear.

  “You defeated Greer without any of that,” Penny reminded him.

  She was just like any other female, using a man’s own pride to get around him. But while Bakari recognized that, he couldn’t help feeling she was right. “But... well, you know, this construct looks pretty sturdy. How would I get out?”

  She gave him a scathing look, which looked very odd on a child. “It’s your magic, not mine.”

  Bakari’s hand went instinctively to the spot behind his ear where the Line connection was, but there was nothing there but smooth skin; it felt very alien indeed. But perhaps what the girl meant was that he still had his Line controls inside him, even without his gear. Thrusting away all his disbelief, Bakari sketched the command cube. Even though all the logic he knew said that it shouldn’t appear, it did. It hovered just under his fingertips, looking just like it had been summoned from his gear.

  Bakari couldn’t help letting out a little grunt of shock. Everything he’d ever known about the Line, or had ever learnt, had just gone out the window. Penny Two Dolls was grinning, hugging her dolls close and twisting about in excitement.

  “You’re a real know-it-all, kid,” Bakari smiled back at her, “but I’m very glad you’re here.” She blushed and ducked her head.

  “Now let’s see if this thing works like a real one.” He rolled the cube in his hand, playing with the intricately carved surfaces. It seemed to be exactly the same, all the symbols and depressions on it identical to the one he’d made himself. The control cube was the Liner’s main tool and, like all real professionals, Bakari had spent years perfecting his to match his needs and preferences and connecting it to his various hand-constructed bots.

  He couldn’t spot anything that was out of place. Somehow having the reassuring weight of the cube in his hand made everything feel a lot better. It must have been the same for swordsmen in the past when they were reunited with their own sword. With the cube, Bakari was once more in control of his world.

  Penny whispered something that ran up the back of his virtual neck. He turned around, “What did you say?”

  “You are the Nubian prince from Abu Simbel.” Her eyes were glowing, he wasn’t crazy—they were two violet circles.

  How on earth could he trust her? She mi
ght be the same Penny from Penherem, but then how could that be? She could just as easily be part of the system itself. Bakari could not afford to lose faith. If he couldn’t accept she was here, then he couldn’t be sure of anything. Liners had gone mad before, losing their grip on what was real and what wasn’t—it was an easy thing to do without an avatar.

  But for all that the words disturbed him, they also made no sense, so he put them behind him. For now the control cube was enough, and he had to hold onto its reality.

  His fingers knew the pattern; what Bakari wanted was transport and all it took was a bit of artistry. A handful of the clear digital water was all he needed: its pattern would carry them beyond the lines of the construct. After being thrown into the air, Bakari’s cube demanded change from the water, urged it to conform. In the air it spun like miniature cyclone, twisting like candy floss, and expanded into a giant sphere of water as tall as Bakari. It was confirmation that his expertise had transferred even without his gear.

  Holding out his hand to Penny, he asked, “Coming?”

  Without hesitation she slipped her cool hand into his and looked up, all wide-eyed confidence. “Your blood runs true.”

  Bakari’s mind flashed back for a moment, seeing that same trust in his mother’s eyes, the same belief in him. She had never had the Line, but perhaps if she had, things might have been different.

  He coughed uncomfortably. “Yeah… alright then.”

  Another manipulation of the cube and the surface of the bubble opened to let them in. Since he wasn’t quite sure if this would work, he tried to cover his worry by explaining it to Penny. “See, if this is part of Greer’s construct, it might be easier to use it to get out.”

  Penny nodded, but gave the distinct impression that he could have been reading off the back of a cereal packet.

  “Well, that’s the theory. I’ve never actually been inside someone else’s construct, especially without an avatar. If things go wrong...” He stopped before he could give voice to his vast fears.