Lady of Mazes

by Karl Schroeder

  "Give me a portable map," said Livia. The map appeared, pretending to be a paper object on the dashboard. She unfolded its half-felt leaves until it lay across her lap. Qiingi turned from the simplified outside view, leaning over her shoulder to examine the map. "Is that your land?" he asked. She nodded. "And those little torches?"

  Tiny winking lights were scattered across the map's surface. "Those mark where fighting is happening." There were hundreds scattered evenly throughout the manifold.

  "You've invaded us," she said in despair. Qiingi shook his head.

  "Your lands and ours have always been the same," he said. "Many of our people wander for much of the year, and they know that the lands they walk through contain other peoples, though they rarely see you. Livia, they are our lands, too."

  Livia shook her head, but she knew he was right. If the horizons were falling ... Where Raven's people had communed with life and nature for centuries in silent forest cathedrals and trackless meadows, suddenly they found themselves standing in or next to farms and towns full of blaring machines and swooping aircars. Mobs of people crowded up against them at every turn.

  "There have always been lands that are not strongly real for either of our peoples," Qiingi continued. "There, we encounter one another. These places are where we stage our raids, those of our young men happy to war with yours. But it is wrong for that war to be everywhere or involve everyone, as it now seems to." livia barely heard him, because the aircar had punched its way through a series of big puffy clouds and there, spread out below them in topographic relief, was Barrastea.

  The city was almost unrecognizable in this tactical view — but she could see that it was surrounded by a perfect ring of flickering light. The battle indicated was on a scale never before seen in Teven Coronal. "But this," she whispered. "This can't be your people."

  Qiingi saw where she was pointing. "No, not us," he agreed. "We stage raids. We defend ourselves. We don't — "

  The world suddenly spun around them. Her inner ear gave no sign of what had just happened; the war games submanifold wouldn't permit sensations such as vertigo or nausea. Livia found her awareness snap away from Qiingi, to the cloud of aircars through which they were suddenly diving.

  The sky was full of whirling icons, some the green of friendlies, some red. Something loomed close, was, for an instant, the vision of a tumbling, half-ruined car falling past. Then coming straight at her, filling the sky, was a giant eagle.

  Qiingi shouted something in Raven's dialect. There was no sound or sensation to the impact, only a squeezing pressure on her face as she was suddenly nose to nose with the dashboard, the sparking blue stuff of her angel having prevented her shattering her face on it. Just above her right ear, a huge avian claw was widening a hole in the aircar's canopy.

  Qiingi stood up in his seat, reciting something in a loud voice. He stood face to face with the eagle, whose beak was the size of his head. The eagle matched Qiingi's gaze, opened its beak and screamed. The scream came right through Livia's military consciousness and took root in her deepest fears. She watched herself whimper and shrink back. But Qiingi didn't blink.

  Then the eagle was gone, replaced by a cold gale and the sky and earth, sky and earth flipping by in rapid succession. Even as she realized they were in a spin the car righted itself and went into a more sedate spiral, aiming itself at the Great Library in the center of Barrastea. In this giant stone edifice were stored records and artifacts from all the manifolds Westerhaven had touched. Teven's history was preserved there; so it was fitting that this was where the founders had set up their command post.

  Something huge that was all angles blocked the sky. Livia had a confused glimpse of black wings with black eyes on them, a beak with faces carved in it — then they were past and had missed the compound. Treetops whipped by just under the car and leaves fanned up behind like spray from a boat. Barely clearing a low stone wall, the aircar slowed at last and bumped to a stop.

  "Out! Out!" Qiingi shoved her onto the grass as the black and red thing reappeared. It was nightmarish but recognizable as a living manifestation of a Raven design. Each part of its body was a separate creature, each so distorted as to be unidentifiable. It stood atop a row of trees and roared.

  Qiingi dragged her into the shadow of an archway. "We need weapons," he said in a reasonable tone.

  For the moment the monster wasn't moving, just roaring, so Livia looked around. The games submanifold swept into strong focus around her: the sky was separated into quadrants, with a giant circular compass rose centered on Livia herself. Different quadrants glowed different colors and different intensities depending on the disposition of forces under them, so that she could see at a glance how the battle was progressing. The sky was crisscrossed by lines showing advances, retreats, and logistics and supply.

  They were standing on the edge of Carewon Avenue, a long green mall that extended from the center of Bar-rastea to the outskirts. It would be a perfect funnel for enemy troops; also a good place for ambushes, dotted as it was with hedges and groves. As she looked down the length she saw people pouring out of distant side ways, running chaotically. Some were pursued by gigantic things that hopped from one person to the next, like a boy stomping on ants.

  "Don't move!" She turned in time to see Qiingi being forced to his knees by four Westerhaven youths. Belatedly she realized he must look like an enemy to them.

  Livia summoned all her authority and pushed aside the barrel of their squad leader's rifle. "Stop! He's one of ours."

  It took some convincing for them to lower their guns; the boys were shaking from what they had seen this morning, and were quite prepared to shoot anything non-Westerhaven. Although Qiingi looked like a warrior of Raven, the war games submanifold had marked him as an ally; that was the only reason he was still alive.

  Livia took off her shift and gave it to him. "Tune this to some Westerhaven clothes, Qiingi. And ... tie back your hair or something."

  As he hurried to comply she turned to ask the boys what was happening. "Who agreed they could raid Bar-rasteaT asked one, his eyes wild. "This is crazy!"

  "It's not a raid," she began, but before she could explain further the boys wavered and were replaced by ani-mas. Livia found herself facing the founders.

  "We got your message," said Lady Ellis. "It gave us a few minutes' warning. Thank you, Livia."

  "A few minutes?" said another of the founders. "Maren, it might as well have been nothing."

  "We always knew something like this could happen," said Lady Ellis. "Once we turned our backs on what we'd built ... "

  "It's the anecliptics," said another, fear in her voice. It was the second time Livia had heard this strange name. She raised a mask, partly to hide her astonishment at hearing the founders expressing doubt and confusion; while there, she asked, "What's an anecliptic?" of her Society. Nobody answered.

  Meanwhile her own anima said, "Wordweaver Qiingi, may I introduce the founders of Westerhaven." As they nodded to one another, Livia thought back to the party at the Kodalys. Lady Ellis had talked about her fears then; she had worried that they have found us. Could they be these ancestors, and were they the same as the mysterious anecliptics? These thoughts flickered by momentarily then were gone, unimportant as they were in the face of the current situation.

  Qiingi cleared his throat. "I have spoken to the ones who are doing this," he said.

  As usual, his understated style worked: the founders gave him their full attention. He briefly described Kale, and what the man had said. "I have been thinking about our conversation. I believe that the invaders think they are doing us a favor. They believe we are enslaved by illusions, and that they are freeing us from the ropes of a dream."

  "They seem to be primitives," agreed Livia. "They don't know that reality is always mediated. They see that inscape is a filter between us and reality ... "

  "But they don't see that when you're outside the manifolds you're just living with a different set of filters," said Elli
s and nodded. "Thank you, it's good to have some idea of their motives. But it may be too late to help us."

  Kale's words had been clear: he believed the people of Teven were using inscape to hide from the real world. But Livia had lived outside inscape; she had seen nothing there that she didn't see within it. It was the emphasis that changed when you changed the technologies mediating between you and the world. Before the accident, her angels, implants, and augmented senses had skewed reality one way; afterward, her clothes, hands and feet, and biological senses had skewed it another. Part of reality had been turned up, other parts turned down or shut off. But neither showed the total picture; one was not true and the other false.

  "We have to talk to them," said one of the founders. "Find a way to make them understand — "

  Lady Ellis shook her head. "It's too late for that." The other founders glanced at one another. Several nodded grimly.

  Livia dismissed her anima and spoke directly to Lady Ellis. "Ma'am, these beasts — the warriors ... How can we help?"

  "You have to reach us at the library," said Lady Ellis, pointing. "The Great Families are trying to save our heritage, and your peers are on the front lines. Unfortunately, we're faring badly. Now that the horizons have been blown, weapons that should only work for Raven's people or Westerhaven work in both. It seems as though Raven's warriors have been training to take advantage of the fact. Our own people ... it's swords against totem spirits, Livia. Our people don't know how to react, they're getting cut to pieces."

  "But surely we have better weapons," said Livia.

  "The big guns haven't made it to the front lines yet. You must understand, everything your generation and your elders know about the world led them to expect that rifles and grenades would not work against Raven's forces. But if their spirit-warriors are effective against us ... Chagrined, she added, "I tried to strengthen Westerhaven against this sort of possibility, but my efforts were too little too late, I'm afraid."

  Founder Whyte himself stepped forward. "For now, Livia, you must stay out of the fight. We've sent scouts to the borders of Westerhaven to verify that what's happening here is local, and not a general attack on Teven Coronal. So far the collapse seems confined to this area. That means if things go badly, we can always retreat to another manifold. Because you've got experience outside in-scape, we may need you to lead your peers to safety."

  Retreat, she thought, yes, that might be prudent. Wait — when had she started thinking impossible thoughts? To abandon the very reality that they had crafted for themselves over so many generations ... She could see the Great Library in the distance — the very heart of Teven, where her family and friends had spent their lives and passions gathering and preserving all the stories, paintings, sculpture, and music of Teven's mortal manifolds. Westerhaven was a celebration of all difference, it was the very soul of Teven. To abandon it ...

  She shook her head, trying to summon some argument that the founders would agree to. "But ... some of our people won't be able to journey to another manifold." How could they? Who could abandon all they held dear, which was what inscape would demand of the traveler?

  Ellis nodded sadly. "Those that can't will make a final stand with us. We'll defend the library. Those that can go will need a guide. That's where you and the other diplomats come in."

  "But — " The founders had vanished, leaving her standing in the open with the four amateur soldiers.

  "Come on!" They ran for the distant marble slab of the library. Thankfully, Raven's monster ignored them as it screamed into the air. As they ran Livia looked around through the war games submanifold and took stock of the situation.

  Some of her friends were dead. She had brief moments to contemplate the fact as they paused under bridges or trees, so the realization came and went in random waves of horror. Had she not seen death before firsthand, the knowledge alone might have paralyzed her; as it was, more peers were dying because they simply couldn't believe what was happening to them. They stood in intersections throughout the city, swords drawn, each facing down a charge by up to hundreds of warriors. First their angels, then they were cut down. Their own friends saw them die, and the shock froze them into immobility. They became easy prey for Raven's warriors — no, the ancestors' warriors. Livia found herself turning back more than once, shouting warnings, running to help people who were too far away. Each time Qiingi dragged her back, and they continued toward the library.

  She was just succeeding in shoving these terrible deaths out of her consciousness when Livia realized where they were; she instantly stopped running. The others crouched down behind a wall just ahead of her; some mythic beast was crunching over the earth no more than a few meters away. "Livia, get down!" shouted one of the squad. She didn't listen, didn't care.

  She was home.

  The canopies that slanted over the Kodaly estate were torn. Paths and stone sidewalks were clotted with debris; ways that had been at once public and private were now gutted out of human usability by fire and collapse. The shock of it filled her with a kind of cold; she watched herself running, like somebody else's anima, away from Qiingi and the others, through low archways and across parks full of flaming trees. They were running after her, yelling, but she didn't care.

  "We're safe, dear, we made it out!" Mother was saying. She and Livia's father floated alongside her, unscathed but not really here. Livia's footsteps faltered. "Let it go," said her father. "You can't save it. We need to defend the library."

  Then she came around one last corner and stood next to the statue of Feste. The park/ballroom lay before her, with her open-air bedroom visible in the coignes of the arch opposite. She could see the bed she'd slept in since she was ten; the footlocker open with a childhood's worth of arts and crafts spilling out of it; her clothes scattered and now torn under the talons of a beast like an unfolding flower of black and crimson, its petals grimacing faces and its claws the beaks of savage birds.

  It spotted her immediately. Livia swore, and cast about for somewhere to hide. Feste wasn't big enough. She began to back away, even as the monster raised its wings and prepared to leap on her.

  She turned to run and there came the beat of giant wings behind her. She drew her sword — little good that it would do —

  — And an explosion knocked her off her feet. Blocky pieces of monster hit the ground and one rolled to a stop next to her head. It was a claw the size of a table, and it looked surprisingly like it was made of wood.

  She sat up and looked back. The statue of Feste was gone. Black scorch marks extended across the grass, which was dotted with the strange gore of the monster.

  Someone reached down a hand to help her stand. She took it and got to her feet, then followed the hand up the arm and saw who it was.

  "Rene?"

  Rene Caiser was aged by fear and covered in soot, but his gaze was steady as he smiled at her. He had some sort of rocket launcher slung over his shoulder. "Follow me," he said as Qiingi and the others ran up. "The library's less than a kilometer."

  Strange, when you could bring back any moment of your life in full color and detail, relive every word of every conversation, hear the buzzing of the insects on any perfect day — strange, for the most important days of your life to be unrecorded. Yet, for Livia there had been times after the crash that were as vivid to her in memory as if they'd just happened. Others ... whole weeks had been lost, become mythological. She and Aaron had debated who did what and when, but it was pointless. Memory had shattered along with the bodies of friends in the crash, even as she saw the plans and dreams of the peers vanishing now.

  At ten years' age, Livia had begun seeing things. Mother was pleased; she explained that this happened to everyone as they approached the age where they could make decisions for themselves. What Livia saw were distant cities, strange flying signs that spoke to her, people who walked through walls, and everywhere words and ethereal conversations that poured and dove around her like the surging waves of an ocean. The visions were beautifu
l and overwhelming. But she quickly learned that she could summon or dismiss them, or parts of them, as she chose.

  One day she ran around the manor with a wand in her hand, pointing and going "poof" at this and that. When she caromed around a corner and met Mother, she pointed the wand at her and said, "Poof, you're a good cook!"

  Mother tried not to look annoyed. "Livia, dear, you can't change the real things of the world. You can only change inscape things, and hide or reveal real things. All you can really change is yourself."

  Livia thought about that for a moment. She tapped her own head with the wand. "Poof!" she said, "I think you're a good cook!"

  All her friends were getting into the vision thing. The boys were a little slower than the girls, so for a year or so she and her friends had it all over them in inscape. What was in, and what was out, was terribly, terribly important — not only how you appeared, but what appeared to you signified your place in the girls' nascent Society.

  Over time she came to learn that this was indeed a serious game. She was being shown a wider world than Westerhaven, a world of distractions and seductions so powerful mat they could mesmerize her for days and shake her sense of self and duty down to its foundations. She was being challenged. She was also being given all the tools she might need to construct as true a version of herself as she desired.

  She could choose to turn away from Westerhaven and embrace some other manifold that suited her character and ambitions better. It wouldn't even be necessary for her to leave home to do this; that other world would interpenetrate hers, its denizens becoming more real even as her childhood friends and family faded. She could live the rest of her life on these grounds where she'd been born, yet completely outside Westerhaven. Or, she could embrace the Societies she'd been born into and tune herself more and more in their direction. Accept this, discard that feature of the world until Westerhaven was all there was.