Wild Thing (13 page)

'Oh,' she said in a small voice.

'You visit Mr Shanahan, don't you?  Down in that small building near the pond.  I'm sure he'd be happy to explain it to you, if you told him you were interested.  I imagine he gets quite lonely down there.  On second thoughts, though, you may need to avoid talking about the new security system.  When people get new equipment, they'll often bore visitors by telling them all about the things the new system can and can't do.'

Oh!
she thought, as a brilliant idea struck her, then quickly tried to hide her excitement.

Tucking her in, then, he headed for her door.

'But,
Wild Thing
, best not to sneak in on me like that again: you don't want to give me a heart attack.  For a moment I thought an inmate had escaped: and the next moment I was being attacked by a wild animal!'

But he smiled when he said it.

He put the light out and closed her door, and she rolled over onto her side, hugging the memory of his departing smile to herself.

Chapter 12 

Having run the gauntlet of his weird neighbor – yet another new one – Sara was visiting Godsson again.  Taking off the cold wet towel and dropping it on the floor, she had a quick look at the cells on either side of his.  Nowadays she always checked – it was better, she'd decided, to
know
what was nearby than to ignore them and hope nothing bad would happen.

First though, of course, she dragged the chair up and held Bork up to each window, her red toolbox in her other hand.

The farther cell was empty, again. 
I guess they couldn't find someone horrible enough to put there to try and scare poor Godsson
.  Funny how at first his neighbors usually seemed just silly, or even nice.

She banged on the heavy glass of Godsson's window, and he got up from the desk he'd been sitting at, smiling when he saw it was her.  He made his usual greeting gesture. 
Could that be a spell?

'Hi, Godsson.'

'Hello, Sara.  What can I do for you today?'

'Oh, nothing.  I just came to talk.  How are you?'

'The same, Sara, the same.'

'Oh.'  She paused.  'Don't you get awfully bored in there all day?'

A funny expression crossed his face, like she'd said something wrong, but he just shook his head.  'I'm sure I
would
get bored, if I didn't have my work to do.'

'What work?'

'It's a secret.'

'Can't you tell
me
?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'Does it have anything to do with your father putting you in here?'

He paused, considering whether to answer.  'Yes, I suppose it does.'

'Something to do with the way he's testing you?'

Godsson smiled.  'He's not testing
me
, Sara.  He's testing
you
.'

'Me?  How is he testing
me
?'

'Well, perhaps not you specifically, but all the people who put me here, and, by extension, everyone who does not act to get me out.  Which of course means everyone, in the final analysis.'

Sara thought about this.  She frowned, tilting her head to one side.  'Do you mean, you'd like me to try and get you out?'

'No, Sara.  I want
everyone
to want me released.'

Godsson was often confusing.  But something he'd just said….  'You just said
people
put you in here.  But you always
used
to say your father put you here as a test.'

'Yes, Sara.  Both are true.'

Huh?

He smiled at her.  'My Father acted to magnify the cowardice of one man.  That man influenced others, persuaded them to share in his fears.  They, in turn, drew in others.  It is these fearful men who keep me here, but they are all, in effect, working according to my Father's plan.'

'Um, I see, I guess….  What are they afraid of?'

'
Me
.'

'Of
you
Godsson?'  she asked doubtfully.  'Why would anyone be afraid of
you
?'

'Because I am God's Son,' he answered, sounding just slightly annoyed by her question.

'Yeah.  Right.  They're scared of you
because
you're Godsson?'

'Yes.'  He chuckled.  'And because I learned how to bring people to rebirth.  Or as some crudely put it, I learned how to reboot people, load a new operating system for their memories.  A gift from Melisande.'

She was pretty sure Godsson was being silly again.  The Enemy of Mankind wouldn't have given him any gifts. 
And how could people be re-born?
  You only got born once. 
Plus
she was pretty sure people didn't have that system stuff in their memories.  She looked at him.  Maybe he was just joking with her.  It was hard to tell, with Godsson.  'Will you do some more magic?'

He laughed.  'I'm doing some right now.  That's how
we
can hear each other, but the microphones in my room can't.'  He tapped the solid glass in the window, which was as thick as the door itself.

'Oh.'  She hadn't thought of that.  'But I mean
real
magic.'

Now he really
did
look annoyed.  His expression hardened.  'Put your hand up against my window, Sara.'

A little unsure, she pressed her right palm flat against it, while he brought the back of his right hand up to match hers from the inside, but holding it a short distance from the glass.  She wasn't so sure this was a good idea….

With his other hand he began a series of complex gestures, his expression becoming steadily scarier.  Beads of sweat began to appear on his forehead.  She'd never seen that happen, before.  He kept the back of his hand against the window.  She knew there was an invisible magic barrier spell, ’coz he'd told her about it – a real, live Dragon had made it, he said!  It kept his magic locked inside.  She'd kind of expected his hand not to be able to touch the window.  But maybe his hand wasn't magic.

Keeping the back of it pressed flat against the glass, he flexed his hand in a kind of beckoning gesture; then twisted his hand as if tossing something straight up, or sideways, or… she wasn't quite sure, the twist hurt her eyes.  His eyes met hers, but he wasn't looking at her, more like he was
pointing
at her with his eyes.

Something about all this was feeling creepy, all of a sudden.

But she wasn't a scaredy cat.  Uh-uh.  She shook her head. 
I'm not scared.
  She wasn't frightened.  Not really.  She pursed her lower lip, keeping her hand pressed up against the glass.  Like a shadow of his hand, only smaller.

Then something happened: wisps of a sort of translucent shimmer began streaming in toward her hand from her side of the window, coiling up and around her arm.  Godsson dropped his hand from the glass.  A small part of her noticed him making his greeting gesture again, except real slowly, like he was tired.  But mostly, she was feeling the shimmer.  She stepped back, pulling her hand away, but the ripple in the air kept coming, following her hand, more and more of it.  She couldn't see where it was coming from, it was just
there
.  Gradually it grew more real, colder, kind of clinging to her arm even as it sort of swelled, beginning to droop from her arm.  And as it did, she started getting a bad feeling.  She was really scared now.  Like something awful was getting closer and closer to her.

She looked quickly behind her – but the beige-painted corridor was still empty.  Nothing was creeping up on her.  Fighting the fear, she turned back around, and suddenly the rippling air
blinked
, and she sensed three cold eyes staring at her.

It was too much.  She screamed, tearing at it, suddenly frantic, raking it equally with her nails, her anger, and the need to kill the horrible thing.  Something inside her seemed to shudder into life.  Her anger grew, the feeling inside burning hotter as she worked even harder to tear it apart, kill it.  It began writhing as though in pain.

Finally she stood panting, as the last wisps evaporated.  Nothing at all remained of it – only a few long weals on her arms left by her own fingernails showed it had ever been there.  She remembered Godsson and glared at him.

He looked dumbstruck.

'What was
that
!'  she demanded.

'You… my….' He looked surprised, maybe even shocked.  'You're not mundane at all, Sara, are you?'  he said.  'How did you-'

He gave her a look like he thought maybe
she
should be in a cell, too.  She ignored it.  'What
was
it?'

'Oh.  That!'  He shook himself, and managed a laugh.  'I'm sorry if I scared you.  It was only an illusion.'  He looked down at his feet.  'I became angry when you seemed to be saying I couldn't do real magic, and decided to frighten you.  I'm sorry, Sara.'  He looked up at her, his unlined face open and innocent.

'It sure
felt
real.'

'Well, yes.  The best illusions do.'

She still wasn't convinced it
had
just been an illusion.  It had sure felt real.  'You said the Dragon's barrier stopped your magic going through!'

'That's true.  And my magic didn't go Through.'  He smiled.  'It was just an illusion, Sara, not real magic.  Are we still friends?'

She thought about that for a while, then an idea struck her.  'We are if you tell me about your secret work.'

It was his turn to pause.  'Well… I will tell you what it is, but not any details.  Provided you promise to never tell anyone else: not of this conversation, nor of the Illusion I just cast.  Especially your uncle.  You must promise not to even tell them that you visit me down here.  Is it a deal?'

'Um, okay!  Now, what's the secret?'

'I can only tell you this: that it is the Final Redemption.'  He looked very solemn.

'I don't understand.'

'You will, Sara.  You will.  I promise you.'

She didn't let the matter rest there, but no matter how she argued, she couldn't get any more details from him.  Eventually she wrapped herself back up in the heavy, sopping towel and stalked off, deliberately not looking back.

-

Godsson hardly noticed, thinking both about what she'd done, and about how utterly oblivious she was to anything beyond herself.  She was a good example of humanity's terrible flaw.  Self-centered, erratic, emotional.

An impeccable animal, really.

But perhaps that gave her a special place in the great plan.  As first fuel for the Redemption.

But how had she dealt with…
it?
  How could she have harmed it?  Such creatures were unknown to this world.

His eyes swept the physical bounds of his room, then deeper senses washed against the cell's Imaginal barriers – those drains and cutoffs that broke the circuit, that earthed the truths that mages called spells.  He smiled, imagining their reaction if they knew he'd managed to… avoid those Barriers.  At least in one “direction.”

Crossing to his sleeping pallet, he slipped into a state of deep meditation, then let go of his
self
and sank into the dissolving chaos below the Imaginal to work a more subtle kind of magic.

Hours later, with his Self re-formed, he sat up on his simple camp bed, surprise echoing through his mind as he mulled over what he'd learned.  He recognized the hand of Harmon's craft, and recognized the patterns of Sara's essence.  What he had
not
expected was to find traces of Dr Alex Harmon's influence in the depths that he had thought only
he
and the dragon lord could visit; to find connections from Sara into that primal chaos.  And especially, one strong connection to something that did not exist.  Not yet.

But what a wonderful opportunity.  Perfect, in fact.  Though even for him, it would be a challenging piece of work.  Still, now he saw a very clear path forward, despite his incarceration.

-

That night, at dinner, Sara carefully questioned her uncle, mindful of her promise to Godsson.  'Keepie, are ghosts real?'

Harmon raised his bushy eyebrows.  'Why, do you think you've seen one?  Here, in the Institute?'

She rolled her eyes.  '
No
.  I was just thinking about the unvisible thing, is it-'

'
In
visible.'

'Huh?'

'Not
un
visible. 
In
visible.  You were thinking about the
invisible
thing…?'

'Yeah.  The
in
visible thing.  Is it a ghost?  The spirit of a dead person?'

'No, Sara.  Spirits – we call them
organic
incorporeal beings – are not ghosts.  They are not spirits of dead people, but something incorporeal – that is, something non-physical, something Imaginal – either embodied in a location, or drawn into being through a magician's will acting
upon
a location.  There is still argument about which interpretation is correct.'

He noted her eyes had gone slightly glassy at his explanation.  Indeed, she actually shook herself when he stopped talking, and he frowned, mildly irritated. 
She's only a child,
he chided himself.

'Can you make spirits?'

'“Summon” them, we say.  No, shamans summon spirits.  Mages such as myself, with the appropriate procedures, summon
inorganic
incorp-.'  He stopped himself as she started fidgeting.  'Ah, if I learned the appropriate spell, I could summon “elementals.”  They are like spirits except they are tied not to locations but to what alchemists called elements: fire, water, earth, or air.'

'Are they dangerous?'

'They can be.  Yes, any kind of spirit can be dangerous.  It depends purely on its potency.  How big it is.  Small ones are easily dealt with, by anyone, mage or no.  It just requires courage and force of will.  Larger ones, though, are certainly dangerous.  Each in its own way.  So much so, that magicians have developed special means to get rid of them.  To Banish them.'