Worldweavers: Cybermage (4 page)

“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.”

“T
HERE YOU ARE,”
H
UMPHREY
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.

“Wait,” he said, “I think I know what you mean. I can hear…stuff. There’s a crackle to it…and a hum, something that sounds rather like distant city traffic…and someone’s
singing
…”

“Wow,” Tess breathed as Terry’s hand made contact with the cube, and the Fire face’s shade marginally deepened into a hue that was almost pink.

“Your turn,” Thea said. “Same thing. Find the face that speaks to you.”

Tess reached out for the cube in the same way that Terry had done.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think I can taste something, right at the back of my throat, over by the Water face—but it’s faint, so faint…And I didn’t see it light up, the way Terry’s did.”

“Water is usually associated with sight,” said
Mrs. Chen, who had slipped back into the room. “
Usually
. But I think from what you’ve told me, Thea,
you
were the sight component of this grouping, and you’ve chosen to attach yourself to that unknown symbol instead. So that sense might have migrated.”

“But it was Fire and
Air
that lit up for me, before,” Thea said. “Not water.”

“As I said,” Mrs. Chen said, “it isn’t an exact science. Tess, if that seems the best fit…”

“No, wait,” Thea said. “If she’s unsure, let’s see if the other two have a stronger reaction to anything. Magpie?”

Magpie reached out with her right hand, biting her lower lip. “I’m not sure I know what—
oh!
”

“What is it?”

Magpie stood transfixed, her eyes wide, her hand hovering just above the Earth face of the cube. “I can feel…it feels like…tree bark, under my fingers,” she said. “And…silk. And…and…
feathers
?”

She touched the face, and it too changed color very subtly, shading into a coffee-with-a-lot-of-milk shade of white.

“Between you and Tess, Ben,” Thea said.

“I so don’t want to do this,” Ben said, staring at the cube. He had wrinkled his nose several times already, as though in anticipation of a sneeze that never came, his usual allergic reaction to the faintest whiff of magic. He did so again as he spoke, scrunching up his face into a grimace and shaking his head. “It’s like that infernal feeling when there’s a sneeze just
hovering
in the back of your nose, tickling, but you never quite sneeze and it drives you bananas.”

“Try it. I think yours is the stronger link,” Thea said.

Ben sighed and reached out for the cube. His hand hovered briefly over the Water face, but then he shook his head and glanced back at Tess over his shoulder.

“You were right, I think. This one does nothing for me.” He shifted his hand over the Air face, and then, suddenly, let go of an explosive sneeze that made Rafe, halfway across the room, jump and jolt a book off the professor’s shelf. “Oh, yes, I think this one’s mine,” Ben said, after he sniffed a few times and rubbed at his watering eyes with his free hand. His fingers touched the Air face, and it, too,
changed color into pale, pale blue. “I can smell ozone,” he whispered. “Like you sometimes can in a thunderstorm. And apples. Yes, apples.”

“I think that’s the taste I had,” Tess said, reaching out resolutely toward the Water face, which began to shade into a pale green as her fingers got closer, the color of shallow water over white sand. “Apples…”

She touched the Water face.

And everything went away.

Thea found herself standing alone in a thick, roiling white fog. She looked down at her hands, but she wasn’t holding the cube, not in this place, wherever it was. But the new gadget, the wrist-computer that Humphrey had given her, was still on her arm. She squinted at it through the drifting mist, flicked it on, and typed
Cube 1: white fog, starting place.
She didn’t have a clue where she was or what had happened, but it was obvious that she was no longer in the professor’s office holding an Elemental cube with her friends.

Speaking of whom…

“Marco!” Thea called out experimentally. Her voice
sounded muffled by the fog, unable to carry very far. But almost instantly there were several responses.

“Polo!” Magpie called out from somewhere to her left.

“Likewise,” Tess’s voice came floating from somewhere behind Thea.

“Where are we?” Terry asked.

“What did you
do
?” said Ben at the same moment.

“Oh, great, you instantly assume it was me,” Thea said, pitching her voice to carry.

“Your idea,” Ben said.

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Seriously,” Terry said, “where are we? I can’t see my hand in front of my face in this fog.”

“Don’t move, let me find you,” Thea said. “Whatever else happened, I’m still the anchor, so don’t drift off by yourselves. One at a time. Terry, keep talking.”

“I think your voice comes from somewhere over to the right of me, and you also sound like you’re in front of me,” Terry said.

“This fog muffles everything,” Tess said. “Feels like cotton wool. I can’t see anything past my nose.”

Magpie suddenly yelped sharply. Thea froze in place, whipping her head around, trying to place the sound.

“Magpie? Say something! What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

“Sorry,” Magpie’s voice came back from the fog, sounding shaken. “Something brushed past my face. Like wings. I couldn’t make out what it was. Could you hurry up?”

“Don’t move,” Thea said. “Terry,
talk to me
.”

“No, I think I see him,” Ben’s voice said. “Remember the colors that cube turned? I see a reddish area…it’s just off to the left and the back of me. I think that might be where he is. Terry, look to the right and ahead—can you see anything other than white?”

“Not…really…wait…Yes, I think so…. There’s a greenish—”

“That would be me,” Tess said. “I got green. Ben was blue. Magpie was…brownish.”

“I have no color, I’m white on white,” Thea said. “Stay
put
. I think I see that pink tinge, Terry. Keep talking. Put out both your hands. I’ll see if I can’t see something sticking out of the fog when I get closer.”

“Thea,” said Magpie, and her voice quavered, “there’s something out there. It’s brushing past me constantly, and I can’t see anything.”

“Hold it together,” Thea said. “I’m closest to Terry. We’ll head your way as soon as we hook up….”

She suddenly gasped as her outstretched hand brushed past something solid in the mist, which was shading into a pale pink around her, but the touch was instantly followed by a familiar voice.

“Thea?”

And fingers closed about hers: Terry’s hand.

They clung together for a moment, and then Thea shifted her grip so that she held Terry’s hand in a firmer grasp and stepped closer into the mist. Terry’s physical form materialized as the mist seemed to shred from around him; he looked reassuringly solid, real, familiar.

“Are you all right?” Terry asked, squeezing her hand.

“I think so. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I was expecting. Not this. Magpie, I’ve got Terry. We’re coming to get you.”

“Hurry up,” Magpie said, and this time Thea could hear tears in her voice.

“Hang on, we’re coming. Keep
talking
! Your
color is the hardest to find!”

Magpie started singing instead, something slow and sad, in a language none of the others knew. It was the song that led them to her in the end; they practically tripped over her. She had not held out her hands, as Terry had done—she had crouched down into a tight little ball, hugging her shoulders with her hands, her head laid across her folded arms.

Without letting go of Terry with her left hand, Thea dropped down on one knee beside Magpie.

“What is it? What did you see?”

“Birds,” Magpie whispered. “I think there’s birds. Can you hear it? I think it’s cooing. Like a pigeon. And that rustle of wings…”

“Hey. Sound’s
my
province,” Terry said.

“I felt them brush past me,” Magpie whispered. “Wings. Like they were…looking for something. Lost birds.”

“Magpie.” Thea shook her shoulder gently. “Come on. We need to get the others. Come on. Look, there’s no birds here now.”

“Is everyone all right?” Tess called out, her own voice developing an edge.

“Yes, we’re coming. Just keep talking.”

“Oh,
fine
,” Ben said, off in his own pocket of
mist. “Leave me till last.”

“I need you to bring up the rear,” Thea said. “You think the fastest of all of us.”

“Survival tactic,” Ben said, “except I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be surviving. Hurry up, would you?”

“Tess is over there,” Terry said, nodding in what seemed to be an arbitrary direction in the white mist.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Twins count for something,” Terry said. “Magpie, take my other hand. Thea, go forward…left…left…left…”

Tess stepped out to meet them from her own island of greenish mist as they came close enough for the mist to change color.

“I told you not to move,” Thea said.

“Twins,” Tess said, shrugging.

“Grab Magpie’s other hand. Ben? You said you could see the greenish mist pocket—can you still?”

“No…yes…well, it’s green and all other stuff…I guess you’re all there…should I just…?”

“No!” said Terry and Thea at once.

“Stay put. We’ll come and get you. Tess, stick out a hand, grab him,” Thea said. “Don’t any of you let
go, or we’ll just lose each other again.”

“Got him,” Tess said after a moment.

“About time,” Ben said. “Stuck in this completely impenetrable…”

“Actually,” Terry said, “I think the fog is lifting. I can
see
all of you now; when Thea first approached me, I couldn’t see her before our hands actually touched. But now…”

“I think you’re right,” Tess said, looking around. “I think…I actually grabbed Ben’s hand, and that’s when it started to—”

“Somehow we got split,” Ben said. “Even if we’re all still holding on to the cube, back in the professor’s office, here we got scattered—and just as it took all of us to get through the first barrier of that thing, it took all of us to get through the second. Some defenses, this thing’s got.”

“Terry,” Thea said, “does it feel anything like the Twitterpat holo to you?”

Terry turned a startled look on her. “It’s nothing of the sort. Whatever made you ask that?”

“I don’t know. All of this is weirding me out a little.”

Terry sniffed. “If that’s what this is, it is several orders of magnitude more sophisticated a
mechanism than what Twitterpat used,” he said. “That was built to interact with our own world on our terms—it isn’t real, but our world is. This actually feels almost the exact opposite—what the Twitterpat hologram might perceive
us
as. That’s an interesting idea, actually.”

“Never mind
what
it is right now. What I’d like to know is
where
—” Ben began, but Magpie suddenly gasped.

“Look,” she whispered. “Look down.
Look!
”

It was becoming obvious as the fog thinned that they hadn’t been so much
in
it as
on
it—inside a cloud, perhaps—because what revealed itself underneath their feet was a whole lot of nothing, and then what looked like the surface of the Earth, a very long way down.

Tess let out a small shriek, but that was all anyone had time to do because all of a sudden they weren’t standing still anymore but flying, or more precisely plummeting, down toward that distant ground.

“Dooooo somethiiiiiing!” yelled Ben, flailing uselessly around with his free hand as though he were trying to flap a nonexistent wing.

“I’m open to ideas!” Thea flung back, her hand clutching Terry’s in a convulsive grip.