Infinities' Edge

by Andrew Dobell

  Looking around the basement, she certainly felt a little sorry for Matt, his place had been trashed, including his impressive looking computer system. She looked back at him and caught him staring at her. He looked away, probably a little embarrassed at being noticed looking at her.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  He looked up at her, smiling.

  ‘Your place, it’s seen better days.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s been ransacked.’

  ‘You want to maybe come stay at mine, for a bit at least?’

  Matt’s eyes lit up and he smiled up at her. ‘Yeah, sounds great, where do you live?’

  ‘New York,’ she said.

  ‘America?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  Matt looked about him, at the ruined room and seemed to think a bit before looking back at her.

  ‘Actually no, it isn’t, it’s kinda cool actually. Can you give me half an hour to gather a few things?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ I’ll be in your front room,’ she said, and Ported upstairs and found a place to sit and wait.

  She listened to him move about the house, pop in and out of rooms and gather up his things. She let him know he could come back at any time to get whatever he wanted and before too long he was ready, standing with two hold-alls in his hands.

  Amanda stood up and walked over to him. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

  ‘This will feel, a little strange,’ she said, and before he could answer, they were suddenly stood in her front room in New York.

  Matt staggered backwards and shook his head, dropping his bags. ‘Jeez, will I ever get used to that?’

  ‘You will,’ she said. ‘You want to take a moment? Here, sit down.’

  Matt let her guide him to the nearest chair where he dropped into it and sat back. After a moment, he looked over at her. ‘So, we’re in New York now?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said and indicated the nearest window that revealed the skyscrapers outside.

  He didn’t move from the chair, Amanda guessing he still felt a little strange from the Porting, but he looked out of the window from where he sat before sitting back in his seat again.

  ‘So, you called me Sophia before, right?’

  ‘Sorry, yeah. I thought you were someone else. You look just like her, though, I think.’

  ‘I look like this Sophia?’

  ‘It was nearly twenty years ago now, I was just out of uni and doing some travelling and while I was on the Island of Tarut, I met a girl, she called herself Sophia, and… Jeez, it sounds so strange.’

  ‘No, no, go on, I want to know,’ Amanda said.

  ‘She was Pregnant, heavily pregnant, and she took me to a hotel where I helped her give birth. Well, helped is maybe too strong of a word, she did the hard work.’

  ‘She gave birth?’

  ‘…to a baby girl.’

  ‘About twenty years ago?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s right, she’d be about your age….’

  Amanda smiled up at him.

  Matt’s mouth opened in shock. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? You were that girl, and Sophia was…’

  ‘…my Mother. I think so, from the little I know,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Oh my god, that’s incredible,’ Matt said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s pretty freaky. So, go on, what happened after?’

  ‘We left the hotel, and she said her goodbyes and thanked me before walking off, but I couldn’t just leave her, I had to help her. So I followed her and found her in the middle of a section of wasteland where she seemed to float up into the sky with the baby, I mean you, and that’s when the earthquake hit. In fact, I think she caused it.’

  ‘I’ve read about this. There're stories of a red-haired woman saving people’s lives, appearing all over the island simultaneously and making sure no one died.’

  ‘She saved me. I got caught in the fissure, and she flew me out of there. I passed out and the next thing I’m in the middle of emergency services and ambulances and the chaos of a disaster scene.’

  ‘And you never saw her again?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘No, I mean, I thought you were her, but, obviously not. So, do you not know your mother?’

  ‘I’m an Orphan. I was left on the steps of a convent school in Ireland and was raised by the sisters there, I never knew my parents. I’ve found out a little more recently, but, I still have more questions than answers.’

  ‘I’m sorry, that’s must be tough,’ Matt said softly.

  ‘It’s okay, you don’t miss what you never had. Anyway, look, I’d like to talk to you about this again sometime, but let’s get you a room and I can introduce you to the others,’ Amanda said brightly.

  ‘Others?’

  ‘My Coven. Don’t worry, they’re all friendly.’

  - The Bowsman, Aetheric Craft, in Geosynchronous Medium Earth Orbit.

  ‘Thankyou Trevelyan for delivering this, you’ve been amazing, so you have.’

  Trevelyan smiled back at the woman before him. ‘Always a pleasure,’ he said.

  With a brief working of Magic, he appeared in the alleyway behind Amanda’s Brownstone House in New York and looked up to the sky. He couldn’t see her ship, hidden away up there, but he smiled all the same before moving round to the front door.

  Infinities Edge

  New York

  Jan 19th

  ‘Come in Trevelyan, come in, it’s lovely to see you again. What's the craic? Is it a social call?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not, I’m here on Council business, but hopefully, you will be interested in this,’ he said.

  ‘Well do come in,’ she said, feeling curious as to what this latest calamity might be. She led him through to the front room and they sat down.

  ‘I just want to say thank you again for everything you did yesterday, I really was in a bit of trouble which I had no idea how to get out of.’

  ‘Seriously, it was my pleasure, I only wish we’d found out earlier, and maybe the whole thing could have been prevented from ever happening,’ he said.

  ‘Hindsight is always twenty, twenty,’ Amanda said. ‘But thank you, I won’t ever forget what you did.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will be sure to keep reminding you,’ Trevelyan said.

  She laughed. ‘So, Council business, what is it this time?’ she asked.

  ‘Ever since the incident on the atoll, we have been monitoring that island, checking in on it from time to time to make sure it’s left alone, only to discover that there’s been some activity there recently after checking it the other day. We followed it up and looked into it and we think, from the sources we spoke with and from our own observations that there seems to be a team of Inquisitors there, and I think they have entered the Time Device,’ he said.

  ‘The Time Device? That’s not good,’ Amanda said.

  ‘The existence of that machine will always be a threat. I think we will need to do something to deal with it once this latest crisis has been averted.’

  ‘You want me to go there?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘After what happened last time, with the confrontation there and the energy blast,’ he said, pointing to her tattoo, ‘I think you’re the best person for the job.’

  ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence,’ she said.

  ‘Anytime.’

  The fact that the Council had come to her literally the day after the events with the Legion and after finding out that she had indulged in relations with a known Nomad, spoke volumes about how much Trevelyan, and by extension, the Council still thought of her. She felt an upwelling of pride within her chest and a growing determination to do a good job and to show them what kind of person she really was. After how she had treated her friends recently, she had been trying harder to forget this whole chosen one thing and to get back to her usual self.

  ‘Can I take anyone with me?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course, that’s totally up to you, but you
need to get there fast, okay?’

  ‘No problem,’ she said.

  ‘Amanda-san, here you are. Oh, Sensei Trevelyan, it’s great to see you again, is everything okay,’ said Yoh as he suddenly walked round the corner. She’d been in the kitchen with Yoh and Howie when the doorbell had sounded and she had gone to answer it.

  ‘Good morning Yoh, yes, everything is fine, thank you. Amanda and I were just discussing something. In fact, you might be the perfect person to help us on this,’ he said. ‘What do you think Amanda?’

  ‘Certainly. The Council have detected a team of Inquisitors on the atoll and they suspect they have gained entry to the Time Device,’ she said.

  ‘As in, right now?’ Yoh asked.

  ‘I believe so,’ Amanda said.

  ‘That is correct,’ Trevelyan answered.

  ‘Then we had best get there and see what we can do. What about Liz and Gentle Water?’ Yoh asked.

  ‘I’m not sure where they are. We’ll leave word with Howie for when they get back and they should follow on.’ Amanda said. ‘Thank you,’ she turned and said to Trevelyan.’

  ‘Good luck, I’ll see myself out, we’ll talk soon,’ he said and smiled.

  ‘Sure,’ Amanda said but noticed a slightly sad expression on Trevelyan's face just as she Ported to the back of the house and into the Kitchen. Something about that expression didn’t seem right, it felt almost as if he were saying a final goodbye to her. She pondered it for a brief moment more, but quickly put it to the back of her mind and skipped up to Howie.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Somethings come up, Magi stuff, and we need to go and sort it so we do. We shouldn’t be long, but if Gentle Water and Liz come back, just tell them we’ve gone to the Atoll on Council business to deal with some Inquisitors, okay?’

  ‘Sure, I can remember that babe,’ he said and pulled her in for a lingering kiss. His powerful arms lifted her up off her feet and pawed at her bum until he let her go.

  Amanda had spent time with both Maria and Howie last night, although she wanted to keep things separate going forward and not get her relationships all tangled up. Seeing him and having him stay the night had been a very welcome distraction after the incarceration and torture by the Legion.

  Talking to him about what he had been up to brought her right back down to ground level again and would be a useful reminder of what she was fighting for going forward.

  She smiled at him as he let her go. ‘See you later, she said and turned back to Yoh, who had busied himself by taking an interest in the far wall rather than watch Amanda and Howie kiss.

  ‘Let's go,’ she said, as she gathered the local Magical energy to her and concentrated on the beach of the distant Atoll. With her destination in her mind, she used the gathered energy and projected her desire to be stood on that beach with Yoh beach into the Essentia.

  With a whip crack of displaced air and a flash of light in her vision, she suddenly found herself stood on the Atoll beach next to Yoh.

  Going from the relative dim interior of her home to the bright sunlit tropical beach caused her to squint as her eyes struggled to adjust to the powerful light. She took a moment to herself as she blinked away the tears that had appeared in her eyes due to the blinding light, but after a few seconds they started to get used to it, and before too long she was looking up the beach to the activity in front of her.

  Not too far ahead of her, a team of men and women, although mainly men, were moving a few crates of equipment up the beach. They all looked to be dressed in tactical gear with weapons strapped to their bodies. Dropping her sight into the Magical spectrum, she quickly saw that these weapons were infused with Essentia. But that wasn’t all. Almost overwhelming the other Magical signatures she could see where the powerful waves of Temporal Magical that radiated out from the direction she knew the Time Device to be in, which meant they were inside the thing, and maybe even powering it up.

  As she watched, the last of the men moved the final crate into the treeline and disappeared from view, leaving Amanda and Yoh, who were crouching behind some rocks along the beach, alone on the white sands.

  ‘Come on,’ Amanda said, and started to jog along the treeline up the beach.

  ‘What’s the plan? How are we dealing with these guys?’ Yoh said.

  ‘Not sure yet, I’m kinda making this up as I go along,’ she said.

  ‘Excelle…’

  The way Yoh’s voice suddenly cut off, brought Amanda up short and she had the sudden feeling that Yoh wasn’t by her side anymore. She stopped and looked behind her. Yoh was less than ten meters away, but he was frozen in mid-air, halfway through a step with his mouth still open and half way through the last word he’d said to her. At the same time as Yoh had stopped moving, so had everything around her. The sea had stopped lapping against the beach, the leaves of the palm trees had stopped moving in the breeze. The world had frozen and everything now sat in silence.

  The only explanation for this was Magic, Time Magic so powerful that they could freeze time and yet allow Amanda to keep moving. Separating her from the timeline that had just been paused.

  But she hadn’t detected anything, no Magic at all.

  She spun around, looking about her, trying to see if anyone were close by. If anyone were trying to hurt her maybe.

  She looked around her a few times and peered into the tree line she stood next to and into the distance, but saw nothing. Turning back to Yoh, she stepped back in shock to see… something, hovering in the air beside him.

  It looked like it had a body of billowing blackness, like a cape made from some kind of energy that fluttered lazily in the wind, although Amanda could not feel any moving of air around her or see any folds or anything in the cape. It looked more like a hole in reality really.

  She could make out a head atop that cape, surrounded by similar blackness and lit by a non-existent light source from above.

  There also seemed to be a glow coming from behind the apparition that had a curious stretching effect on the world around it.

  ‘What the feck…’ she said in surprise.

  ‘Amanda, don’t be alarmed. I mean you no harm,’ the thing said.

  Her immediate reaction to anything like this was always to boost her Aegis and to ready herself for attack, and this was no different, but she found that her Magic didn’t seem to work. She did everything as normal, but nothing happened. In fact, she found she couldn’t sense any Essentia or even see any as her Magical sight had also failed her.

  She looked back up at the creature that hovered before her. ‘What are you?’

  ‘You and your kind know me as Weaver,’ it said. The voice sounded masculine, deep and melodious, with an odd pitching effect that gave it a curious otherworldly quality.

  ‘You’re… a Weaver?’ she said, suddenly feeling very cautious with a growing fear in her chest. The Weavers were a well-known phenomenon in the Magi world, and they were the main thing that kept Magi from using Time Magic more than they otherwise might do. The Weavers were known as the protectors of the Time Line. They stopped anyone from using their Time Magic to affect history and change things. They stopped anything that played with time too much and were known to be ruthless and unforgiving. The worst rumour being that they were able to erase someone from the timeline entirely, changing reality so they never existed, but there was little proof of this ever happening.

  She had no way of confirming if this was a Weaver, with her Magic not working as it normally would do, but everything else about her situation seemed to fit with the stories she had heard about these creatures.

  ‘I am,’ it said.

  ‘And you’re not here to harm me?’

  ‘I’m not,’ it said. ‘Quite the opposite. I need your help.’

  ‘My help? What can I do to help you?’ she said, feeling even more surprised, but also not quite believing that she could do anything to help a creature as powerful as a Weaver.

  ‘More than you could ever know, but for now, you only n
eed to prevent a Paradox, by going back in time to deal with the Inquisition.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Amanda said.

  ‘Mary Damask is sending her team of Crusader Knights through the Device to 750AD, and their plans might tip the delicate balance of the scales and create a Paradox. Only you can stop this.’

  ‘Me? I’m sure I’m not the most qualified to do this. Why me?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘Because you’ve already done it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I cannot force you to do anything, but if you do not agree to this, it will create a paradox of catastrophic proportions and could lead to terrible consequences. This act that I do now is merely to close the circle, and it all rests on your choice, here, now. Will you help me?’

  ‘But of course, what can I do?’ she said. She still felt afraid, but as the Weaver spoke, she started to become more and more excited about what she was being asked to do. She felt like she had a million questions, though, such as what did he mean by having done it before? Time Travel was always one of those concepts that toyed with your mind, with the idea of a Time Paradox being particularly mind bending.

  She remembered Gentle Water had once explained it to her, and the memory of it came flooding back to her. They’d been sat before the fire in her Ireland cottage one night during her early training before she had ever met any other Magi and he’d been talking about Time Magic to her.

  The example he gave her went something like, if you went back in time and killed your mother or father before they conceived you, then you would never exist, and if you didn’t exist, then you couldn’t go back in time to kill your parents, but if you didn’t go back in time to kill your parents, then you would be born and you could then go back in time and kill them, but if you did that, then you wouldn’t exist… and so on, round and round.

  There were plenty of ideas surrounding time travel and what you could and couldn’t do, and it seemed like, with their Magic, a Magi could, potentially, create such a paradox. Theories suggested that the fallout from such a paradox could potentially destroy the universe and the timeline, but no one really knew because the Weavers existed outside of time and prevented such things from happening. Or so it seemed to the best of the collective knowledge of the Magi.