Worldweavers: Cybermage

by Alma Alexander

  Thea said the first thing that came into her head. “I’d forgotten it was so white.”

  “From what I heard of the commotion when it arrived, I’m surprised you remember it at all,” Rafe said easily.

  “Doesn’t look any different than at the office,” Humphrey grumbled, coming over to take a closer look at the cube. “Thea, what do you think?”

  Rafe looked a little startled, and Thea flushed a bright scarlet. What was she doing here with these adult mages, all trained in their craft? What could she possibly achieve here?

  She reached out toward the cube with one hand.

  “Hey,” Rafe said softly, “look at that.”

  Thea’s hand, hovering over the top face of the cube, made it brighten just a little. And a symbol came swimming to the foreground: a small equilateral triangle.

  She snatched her hand back, startled.

  “Fire,” Humphrey said. “That’s the symbol for Fire. There are other Element symbols on the other faces.”

  He gently took the cube out of its nest. “Fire,” he repeated, pointing to the faint outline of the symbol visible on the cube’s top face. “And then, going around, the next face has two wavy lines—Water. The next one has two straight lines, like the Roman numeral II—Air. The next one is a circle with a dot inside it—Earth. And that’s the circuit around the edges: four Elements.”

  “What’s on the top and the bottom?”

  “Which is the top, and which is the bottom?” Humphrey asked, turning the cube in his hands. “All I can tell you about the two remaining faces is that one of them appears to be blank, and the other has a symbol that isn’t used to identify any Element that we know of: a five-pointed star.”

  “Can I…hold it?” Thea asked diffidently.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Humphrey said, and held out the cube.

  Thea heard Mrs. Chen draw in her breath sharply somewhere behind her. She was dimly aware of Rafe, watching her with close attention. She reached out for the cube; Humphrey released it; and then the smooth, white, glowing thing rested in her own cupped palms.

  It weighed almost nothing. She felt as though she held empty air. But air with a light inside it, as the cube brightened in her grasp and light spilled between her fingers. The uppermost face held the triangle sign—Fire again—and that edged itself into a white brilliance. Thea could also see that the bottom face, which represented the Element of Air, was pouring brightness between the crack of her cupped palms. The other two Element faces glowed, but did not shine. However, one of the mystery faces had brightened also. It was the one with the star symbol, which she had held facing inward toward her body, and it shone bright enough to make the folds in her clothing cast sharp shadows of themselves.

  “You are an Elemental!” Humphrey said, and his voice was triumphant. “And a poly-Elemental, too. Look at those Fire and Air symbols!”

  “And the star?” Thea whispered, rapt in the wonder of what she held.

  “Damned if I know,” Humphrey said. “But you’re young; we have your entire lifetime to find out. At least we have an answer for what you are.”

  “Actually, what we have is another question,” Mrs. Chen said. “I’m far from certain that this should have been done in this way, Mr. May. If Thea is indeed not just an Element mage but one with poly-Element abilities, and you had any inkling about this, it should have been done under controlled conditions so we could establish parameters.”

  “Mrs. Chen,” Humphrey said, looking up with a wide grin, “the whole point of Elemental magic is that it functions under its own rules. What parameters? No two Elementals that we have today—and we have precious few as it is—function in quite the same way. And now we’ve got a brand-new one to learn from.”

  “And do you realize that you could have lost her by doing a stunt like this?” Mrs. Chen said. “Even if you knew she was going to pass this test, she could have had a combination of Elemental gifts that might have been wholly incompatible with the cube. It could quite easily have killed her in the backwash. I’ve seen Elemental magic at work, and it’s not something to treat lightly. Not at all.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Thea said, finally lifting her eyes off the cube. “What does the star mean? You really don’t know?”

  “Yes, and that’s another thing,” Mrs. Chen said. “That star. That was a wild card, even for Elemental magic.”

  “There is indeed truth in what you are saying,” Humphrey said, suddenly serious. “But there is more riding on the possibilities of this cube than you realize, especially now that I’m aware that it might be Tesla’s own work. And what we have done here, after all, is found the needle in the haystack that Thea’s gift has always been. Why was Thea not tested for Elemental magic long ago?”

  “You know that it manifests when it chooses,” Mrs. Chen said. “That’s the real test for Elementals. They just…start doing.”

  “Like I did,” Thea said softly.

  “The more I think about the cube and what those wretchedly fragmented tapes told us…” Humphrey hesitated. “This thing could be bigger than anyone knew. And it makes sense to me now why the Alphiri want it so badly…except they lack the capacity required to open something like this.”

  “But they have no way of knowing that, do they?” Thea said. “The Alphiri probably know it’s valuable, but they have no real idea why. They have no idea that even we are having trouble cracking it. It holds the very magic they’ve been searching for—but you need that magic to get at the magic.”

  “If you succeed in getting that thing cracked open, Thea, then you and this cube—and its possible contents—become the most valuable things that the Human Polity has possessed in a very long time.” Humphrey turned toward Mrs. Chen. “That was partly my reason for the whole behind-the-scenes approach,” he said. “I could not do this in public, in the blaze of inevitable publicity. In one sense I was working against the Bureau itself on this. Rafe, you never heard this conversation.”

  “No, sir. I certainly haven’t,” said Rafe instantly. “Not a word of it.”

  Humphrey flashed him an approving grin, and then turned his attention back to Thea.

  “Can you sense anything at all? Do you know how to open it?” he asked.

  Thea stared at the cube, which still glowed in her hands with a pale, milky light.

  “It’s…as though I’m missing vital senses,” she said at last, and let out the breath she had not been aware she had been holding. “I keep losing something—if I think I can see the cube clearly I cease being able to touch it, and it feels like I’m not even holding anything; it’s got a faint music to it, but the moment I think I hear that, then I lose a certain scent that it had just a second ago, and then that becomes the key….”

  “Some schools of thought have connected the human senses to the Elements,” Mrs. Chen said, nodding. “It’s never been direct—there are five senses and only four Elements in Elemental magic, so there’s been a bit of crossover and fudging—but there is a connection.”

  “It’s, like, too big for me to take in,” Thea said. And then her head snapped up and she stared at Mrs. Chen in thoughtful silence.

  “What did I say?” Mrs. Chen said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Senses,” Thea said. “Humphrey…I have an idea. But I don’t think you are going to like it.”

  Thea walked into the cafeteria of the Wandless Academy less than an hour after she had winked out of Mrs. Chen’s office. It was the tail end of supper, with a few stragglers still lingering over the shattered debris of their meals. Thea swept a glance across these scattered groups of students, and finally found the group she sought—four people sitting by themselves at one of the tables in the far corner of the room, looking variously curious, bored, mutinous, and mildly expectant.

  “You’re all here,” Thea said, as she reached the table. “Good.”

  “This had better be good. Terry said that you made it sound, like, life-threatening or something,” Magpie said. �
��I have plans—I’m already late.”

  “I’ve got piles of homework,” Ben muttered.

  “What is it, Thea? You sounded awfully mysterious on the phone,” said Terry.

  Magpie looked up, frowning. “The phone?” she echoed. “Where were you calling him from?”

  “Humphrey May was here earlier,” Thea said. “It’s a long story; I’ll fill you in on the details later.”

  “This is about that cube,” Terry said.

  “Terry, I’ve held it,” Thea said. “It’s…in some weird way, it’s alive. It has a presence.”

  “I remember it,” Tess said. “I was there. Humphrey May said he had no clue what it did. He did say it was an Elemental cube. I remember that.”

  “It’s Tesla,” Terry said suddenly. “It’s something to do with Tesla, isn’t it?”

  “He’s the only quad-Element mage known,” Thea said. “And they think he built that cube. They got other Elementals to try and get into it, but it’s locked down tight. It needs four Elements to open it. And I can really control only two.”

  Ben sat up. “What’s that?”

  “Apparently that’s the whole mystery,” Thea said, with a small self-conscious smile. “I’m an Elemental. A bi-Elemental. The cube says I’m a Fire and Air Elemental. And maybe something else.”

  “What else is there?”

  “There’s another symbol and they don’t know what it means, but it responds to me too. But I don’t know anything about that. The thing is…it needs all the Elements. In concert. I don’t have that.”

  “You’re a bi-Elemental?” Ben said, staring at Thea.

  “Or something like that,” she said, trying to turn it into a joke.

  Nobody laughed.

  “Look,” Thea said, “remember the time we all jumped into the rain forest?”

  “Yeah, when Ben stepped on a slug,” Magpie said with a grin.

  “You put it there,” Ben said.

  “Hey, focus,” Thea said. “Seriously, they need you. They need us all.”

  “We’re not Elementals,” Tess said. “None of us.”

  “Not individually. But together, all of us are. It’s like this: Mrs. Chen says there’s a link between the senses and the Elements. It’s something that is not completely understood, but it’s the best idea we’ve got right now. She says Earth equals touch, Fire equals sound, Water equals sight, and Air equals scent.”

  “But that’s only four—there’s taste. What’s that linked to?”

  “It’s not explored yet. It can all be wrong. But I’ve tried, and I can’t hold it all in my own head. I keep losing one thing when trying to latch on to another. I need you guys. You supplied all the other senses back in the forest. The five of us might be enough to match one Tesla. Just barely.”

  “When were you planning on this little experiment?” Ben asked.

  “Now. They’re waiting for us back in San Francisco.”

  “You’ve been flitting about again, haven’t you?” Tess said, grinning. “Well, I’m in.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Terry said. “I’ve been poring over some of those notes that Humphrey May left behind. It’s confusing and there’s a vast amount missing, but what there is…I want to know more. I’m in.”

  Magpie and Ben both hesitated, and then spoke more or less at once.

  “But I promised I’d go…”

  “I don’t want to go on this wild goose chase if…”

  They stopped, glancing at each other. Ben tilted his head in a signal that Magpie should go first. “Really,” she said, “but we do make plans sometimes, you know. You might have given me a few days’ warning. I need to organize my life before I can just flit about, lending you my senses.”

  “I don’t see why I should,” Ben said. “I’m the one who doesn’t quite fit in here, anyway. It was…different last year—the Whale, the Nothing—but then this summer you went off chasing ghosts, Thea, and you didn’t need us then.”

  “That’s not fair,” Tess murmured. “She did call us all in.”

  “Not really,” Ben said mulishly. “We weren’t a part of anything then, not together, and I—”

  “Oh, get over it,” said a sixth voice unexpectedly, in a tone of such exasperation that the five at the corner table all sat up sharply as though stung.

  The girl sitting at the next table suddenly scraped back her chair and whirled to face them.

  “You’re just put out because she hasn’t asked you properly,” Kristin said, pointing at Ben, who gaped at her in complete astonishment. “And you”—she turned sharply toward Magpie—“you’re just scared that you’ll lose your place in the hot set. And none of you has any idea how wonderful it is to have friends who are just your friends and whom you can just call up out of the blue and say, hey, I need your help with something weird, and you don’t ask questions and you just do. Because you’re friends.”

  “Kristin,” Thea began, but Kristin turned on her next.

  “To have someone you can trust,” she said. “Just like that.”

  “Good grief, what set you off?” Ben said. “Did that Faele that handed you the tooth spell make you prone to unexpected temper tantrums?”

  “No,” Kristin said. “I get the temper from my mother. That’s probably how she managed to annoy the Maledicent who cursed me in the first place—by sassing her back when she shouldn’t have. Other people get to be pretty or successful or rich. My Faele gifts are snaggle teeth, and other useless stuff. Like, I can find things. Big deal. You should just see how grateful my grandparents are when I ‘find’ stuff they’ve mislaid—they just think I’m making constant fun of them—every time they start with ‘Where’s my…whatever…?’ and there I am, holding it in my hand. At least you guys might actually achieve something useful. But no—you’re sulking,” she said, pointing to Ben, “and you’re playing the homecoming queen”—the finger swung to Magpie—“and you are interested in the logistics of it, pure and simple, and aren’t even thinking about what it might mean.” The final point was at Terry, who looked startled to be included in this tirade.

  “I am so, interested,” Terry protested. “I’ve been working with—” He shut up abruptly, glancing around.

  “There’s too many secrets,” Kristin said. “You should all just trust each other.”

  She turned on her heel, her cheeks suddenly scarlet, and stomped away with her shoulders hunched around her ears.

  “She was eavesdropping,” Magpie said, outraged.

  “And then she has the gall to give us a lecture?” Ben muttered.

  But Tess, still staring at Kristin’s retreating back, looked thoughtful. “Who was that and what did she do with the Walrus?” she murmured.

  “It’s Kristin. Kristin Wallers. Those teeth really aren’t her fault.”

  Magpie turned to glance back at Thea. “Faele gifts, eh,” she muttered.

  “I’ve had a few of those,” Ben said, without taking his own eyes off Kristin.

  “If I could bring everyone back to the matter at hand,” Thea said.

  “Like I said, I’m in. And so’s Terry,” Tess said. “When do we leave?”

  “Right now,” Thea said.

  “You gonna use your gadget?” Terry said.

  “Gadget?”

  “Humphrey May gave her a secret agent toy,” Terry said.

  “Oh?” Magpie said, craning her neck. “Let’s see…”

  “You coming?”

  “Oh…all right,” Magpie said. “Come on, Ben. Your homework isn’t more important than my social life. Let’s get it over with. That’s what friends are for.”

  4.

  “THERE YOU ARE,” HUMPHREY May said. He was sitting in the armchair by the window, sipping a mug of steaming coffee, as Thea and her friends blinked into existence in the middle of the professor’s study. Rafe, engrossed in perusing the professor’s bookshelves, turned and gave them a grin and a small wave.

  “And who’s he?” Tess whispered into Thea’s ear. “You didn
’t mention there’d be perks.”

  Thea glared at her, and Tess dropped her eyes, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

  “Mrs. Chen just stepped out for a moment, but she’ll be right back,” Humphrey said, putting aside his coffee and getting up. “In the meantime…”

  “Is that the cube, sir?” Terry asked, eyeing the briefcase on the professor’s desk.

  “Yes, come and have a closer look. Thea, how did you want to play this?”

  “By ear,” she said. “Can I…?”

  “Pick it up. You know it isn’t as fragile as it appears,” Humphrey said.

  Thea lifted the cube out of its nest again, her touch gentle. She turned it over a couple of times until she found the blank face, and then took the cube between her two hands. One palm was flat against the bottom face, the blank face, and the other lay across the top face, the one with the star, which immediately brightened into a white glow at her touch.

  Magpie sucked in her breath.

  “What do you want us to do?” Terry asked, craning his neck.

  “There’s four faces. There’s four of you,” Thea said. “Back in the rain forest, each of you brought in one of the physical senses—Terry, sound; Magpie, touch; Tess, taste; Ben, scent. I have no clue which sense fits best with which of the Elemental faces, but I have a feeling it’s a question of…finding the face, the Element, that best matches your own contribution. I know I heard a sound the last time I held it, Terry. You go first. Hold your hand over each face. When you find the one you think responds best to you, lay your hand on it. Open palm, like mine.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Ben said, watching Terry begin to circle the white cube in Thea’s hands as though he were stalking it.

  “She’s the only Elemental in the room,” Humphrey said laconically.

  “But will you be able to stop things if—” Ben began, but then Terry halted abruptly, his hand hovering over the face with the Fire symbol on it.