Spellcrash (23 page)

By cutting a magical portal in the wall of the world and taking my whole self through it into cyberspace, I had finally achieved a lifelong ambition. I’d never felt more lost.

Turns out there were big advantages to entering the net the way I normally did. (1) An anchor.

My silver cord gave me a sense of place and a method for finding my way home. (2) Versatility.

When I traveled through the net in soul form, the only thing keeping me in any one shape or physical relationship to the datascape was personal choice. Here I was drowning in information. I had just decided to try to cut my way back out of the no-longer-so-wonderful world of data, when Melchior arrived.

“Idiot,” he said, as he fished me out of the wild turbulence and set me on the front thwart of a big oceangoing canoe.

Then he went back to paddling. The weirdest thing about the transition was that in the very instant I left the data sea, I felt dry again. Of course, I’d never actually been wet, since the whole thing was more of a metaphor than any kind of reality—a way for senses adapted to an entirely different sort of environment to cope with the utterly alien landscape of the datasphere—but, instantly, dry really felt
wrong
.

“Where’d you find this thing?” I patted the nearest scaly gunwale.
Scaly?

“I spun it out of moonbeams and cobwebs. Where’d you think I found it?” Melchior replied, with a definite “you moron” undertone. Then he sighed and shook his head. “I coded it. You don’t really think I’d be fool enough to physically follow you through a gate into electronic faerie when I had the option of entering the normal way and retaining all of my powers over the medium, do you?”

That was when I realized that Melchior had once again taken a Nagaesque shape, with his lower body gone all snakelike. In this case, a very flat sort of snake, as he had actually contorted his lower half to form the boat in which I sat. I grinned and started to look around. Now that the data hurricane no longer posed an immediate risk of drowning for me, the stormy sea of light had an eerie sort of beauty to it.

“Actually, that’s exactly what I thought you’d done,” I said as I slowly rotated in my seat. “I should have known better. I’m glad you’re less of an idiot than I am.”

“That really doesn’t take a lot of effort. Well, except in the anticipation. You know, figuring out the dumb thing you’re going to do before you do it, so that I have time to take mitigating action.

You completely surprised me with this one, or I’d have gotten here sooner. I’m duly impressed.”

“Thanks, little buddy.”

“Hey, what are familiars for if not to pull their lords and masters out of the drink when a piece of magic goes wrong?”

“I always thought you were there to fetch the beer and do the dishes.”

“I could always throw you back . . .” He tilted his canoe-self to one side, tipping me toward the edge.

“Sorry.” I raised my hands in mock-surrender. “I ought to remember that making fun of the guy steering the boat is always a bad idea. What do you think is causing all this turbulence? I’ve never seen a bigger data storm.”

“I don’t think it’s possible for there to be a bigger one,” said Melchior. “No other system in the whole multiverse would be large enough to contain it. As to causes . . .” The corners of his mouth turned down, and his eyes softened sadly. “I think this is the result of a sort of madness, the mind of Necessity at war with itself.”

“And Shara . . .”

“Is thinking with this.” He swept his arm in a wide circle that took in the rainbow sea of data and the churning light clouds above. “Or worse, she’s lost in it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Is there any way we can be sure that the Shara we talked to was the real her?”

“Why are you asking me? All that electronic-handshake, security-verification protocol, webgoblin soulgaze stuff is your department.”

He looked sheepish. “Normally, yes. But normally we’d either have had some kind of formal message protocol exchange before the meeting happened or snuck off for some personal electronic . . . handshaking and goblin gossip afterward.” I smiled at his slight hesitation before the word
handshaking
but chose not to tease him about it for mercy’s sake. Instead, I said, “But this time, Cerice made the arrangements beforehand, and there was no after, so none of that happened.”

“Exactly.” Melchior nodded. “It didn’t even seem strange to me under the circumstances. Since you and Nemesis fried most of Necessity’s remaining higher-order functions, Shara hasn’t had much time to go back to her body, and I’ve been pretty careful not to do or say anything that might make her feel bad about it. But that also means I’ve got no way of knowing beyond her actions whether we’re talking to the real Shara or not. And her actions are mighty suspi . . . Oh shit.”

I was about to ask him what that last bit was supposed to mean when I realized that he’d stopped looking at me and started looking past me. I pivoted on the thwart in time to see a whole series of shark-toothed, green dogs’ heads rise out of the water in front of the boat, each mounted on a long serpentine neck.

“Tell me that’s not Scylla,” I said.

“Well, it’s sure as hell not Charybdis,” replied Melchior. “Though, technically, you’re probably right. It’s not the physical Scylla, just Necessity’s very own internal electronic version of same.” He canted his head to one side. “On the other hand, since Necessity is the goddess that runs everything, and all the major powers are defined and delimited by her internal files, you could make a pretty convincing argument that this is the
real
or Platonic ideal of Scylla and that the flesh-and-blood version is just the shadow on the cave wall. In either case, that is the thing that slagged my connection earlier—it just opened its mouth and out came a firebolt that went straight through the server and into the real-world cable.” The monster slid farther out of the data sea, exposing a deep, scaly chest at the junction of six snaky necks.

“Mel, you’re babbling,” I said over my shoulder since I didn’t dare take my eye off eScylla, or whatever it ought to be called.

“Yep, terror will do that to a guy. Babbling, that is.”

“You did okay with this thing last time, or you wouldn’t be here. Why are you so worked up now?”

“Because last time I didn’t have the complete version of you along for the ride. Alone, I could just go with the sprinting-for-the-exits strategy and not worry about anything but putting one metaphorical foot in front of the other as quick as ever I could. I can’t do that now without leaving you behind.”

“Ooh, good point.” And one I hadn’t thought of despite being the one who was going to be responsible for getting us both cooked if I couldn’t come up with an exit strategy here sometime real soon. “Any thoughts on how to solve that problem?”

“Nope, just the babbling. I think this one’s yours.”

“Got it,” I replied. “Good to know. How about this?” I held up my sword hand and willed Occam to appear. Nothing.

Damn. Terror ? the anger necessary to summon my Fury blade. Not a surprise, really, but a guy can dream. The sea monster leaned down closer, eyeing my raised hand in a way that I found quite alarming. Unfortunately, my fight-or-flight reflex had opted for the better part of valor, at least for the moment. Wouldn’t you know it? Stupid adrenal gland, always calling the wrong shots, and, ooh, hey. Work that!

I growled at my own stupid reflexes some more, and, presto chango, there was my sword. Of course, when I held it up in front of the eScylla, it looked more like something you’d use to hold olives in a drink than a monster-slayer. But that was okay. I wasn’t planning on applying blade to monster, just to the empty space between us. When I tried, I was reminded that I needed more than terror to make the gates work, too. That and . . . Now what was the thing doing?

It came in closer, but shut all six mouths as it did so. Closer still. It seemed to want a look at Occam. One nose leaned down close enough for me to touch it and sniffed at the blade. Then it snorted and, finally, sneezed hard enough to knock me over backwards into the bottom of the canoe.

Mel rolled his eyes. “Good one, Boss. That’ll show it. By the way, is there a reason you’re not cutting us an escape hatch?” eScylla’s nearest head retreated back toward the others and barked something rather seal-like. Then they all turned inward and started barking at one another, forming a sort of committee of one, complete with what sounded like long-standing feuds and alliances.

“Actually, yes,” I said to Mel. “I’m curious. Oh, and I think I just figured out how this turns out.” I have to admit that fear had given way to fascination not long after the thing sneezed. After a lot of deliberation, all six heads turned my way again, nodded once, then sank beneath the data sea.

“I don’t get it,” said Mel. “What was that all about?”

I laughed. It was kind of nice to be a jump
ahead
of my familiar for a change.

“That was the official security-system determination that I am the funniest-looking Fury that ever lived and thus have the full run of the place.”

“Ohhhh.” Melchior nodded and smiled. “That
would
explain things. And, frankly, I have to agree. You are one funny-looking Fury. The rest of them are all kinds of hot, and you’re more—

how should I put this?”

“Carefully, Mel, very carefully. Your job security is hanging by a thread here.”

“Said the man in the very tippy canoe.” Melchior lurched and lowered one side of the canoe, and I almost went back into the water.

“Okay, point, set, match. The familiar wins this round, and I am forced to admit that I am
not
a fabulous Fury babe.”

Then we both broke out giggling. There is something about not having to fight a giant angry sea monster that makes you giddy. Once I’d recovered what little dignity I owned, I climbed back up onto the thwart.

“You know something, Mel. I’m getting really tired of this whole saving-the-world gig.

Honestly, if the way back to Tisiphone didn’t lead through Necessity, I’d vote for scrapping the whole project and heading for greener pastures right now. I’m really not the Hercules or Achilles type.”

“You know, that’s what all the girls say, too. He’s no Hercules, nor even a Perseus. I think it’s the hacker physique. You really ought to work out more.”

“Hey, this deathly pallor takes a lot of effort to maintain in the face of my surfer-lifestyle choices. Do you know how much sunblock I go through?”

“The pallid paladin?” asked Melchior with a grin.

“Something like that.” I grinned back, then looked around and sighed. “Problem is, none of this gets us any closer to the point where I hand Necessity’s headaches back to Necessity.” I looked out over the endless, storm-tossed sea of light again and felt utterly overwhelmed. The scale was beyond anything I’d ever tried to deal with before. Both in terms of the underlying system and the problem. It made the Fate Core and [http://Hades.net] Hades.net look like pocket calculators. For a brief time in the Norse MythOS I’d become all-knowing in the Odin mode, and it had very nearly destroyed me because I didn’t have the divine capacity of a true god. No matter how much I might need to, I simply couldn’t hold a system this large in my head.

“I hope you have some ideas, Mel. Because this is way too much for me. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“We could start by getting out of the primary database and into one of the subsystems.”

“Good idea—break the problem down into manageable chunks. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re really just the flashy front man for Melchior Inc.?”

“Hey, if that’s true, I’m going to take a nap. You can wake me up when there’s a massive victory I can take credit for.” Melchior just looked at me. “Right. What was I thinking? Did you have a specific subsystem in mind? Or is that my department?”

“Actually, I might,” he replied. “Do you remember what Shara said about the subroutine for minor world-remerges?”

“That there was some kind of internal edit war going on? Yeah. That’s a great idea, Mel. Make it so.”

He rolled his eyes, but then shifted his shape, becoming the feathered flying Meltzalcoatl once again. This resulted in my splashing down in the data but only very briefly—as he scooped me out with the end of his tail a moment later. The feathers tickled.

As we flew along, I started to wonder about the state of my being within the datascape and the nature of the gate that had brought me here. I couldn’t really be the physical me I was in the waking world—that just wouldn’t work. Yet I felt very much me and not at all as I did when I entered cyberspace in soul form.

So, given phenomenal godly power, how would
I
have arranged my arrival in the world of the electronic? What would I have made of me? A sort of ensouled avatar? A self-aware subroutine?

A simulation? A virtual machine running a miniature Ravirn OS?

It was a hell of a spellcoding problem, and it occupied me pretty completely for the next ten minutes or so of subjective time while Mel negotiated both the physical distance from system to subsystem and all of the security checkpoints. I still didn’t have an answer at the point when Mel set us down amidst a sort of data river delta or coastal swamp where the “water” once again glowed in all the shades of the rainbow as it meandered toward the data sea we’d just left. I did feel that I was starting to get a better handle on the minimum programming conditions.

“What do you think?” Melchior asked me a few minutes later.

I jerked my attention back from staring out over the tangled threads of the data channels and realized I hadn’t spoken since we landed.

“Sorry, Mel. Not what I’m supposed to be thinking; that’s for certain. I’ve been pondering the nature of being.”

He canted his head to the side and frowned puzzledly. “Far be it from me to criticize, Boss, but this seems an awfully odd time to go all existential.”

“Not like that. In terms of cyberspace and the Fury gates.” I quickly outlined the issue as I saw it.

By the time I finished, he was pinching his lips together with his right hand and looking very thoughtful. “That is a poser. I . . .” He looked suddenly down, and my eyes followed.