Author: Benedict Jacka
Category: Science
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Which isn’t to say that I haven’t wondered. I’m pretty sure that Arachne’s history is tied together with the dragon that lives in the tunnels deep below. Arachne referred to it as a “creator” once, which would explain a lot—I’ve met plenty of magical creatures in my life, but I’ve never heard of any other giant intelligent spiders with miscellaneous magical powers, which does raise the question of where Arachne came from. Arachne keeps her mouth shut on the subject, so wondering is as far as I’ve got.
“Oh, one bit of news,” I said. “Anne’s been checking on Karyos, and she says she seems to be regenerating just fine. In fact, it looks like she’s going to be coming out of her cocoon sooner than we expected.”
“That’s excellent.” Spiders can’t smile, but it was obvious from the warmth in Arachne’s voice that she was happy. “Do you have a date?”
“Two weeks to two months. The closer it gets, the more accurately she’ll be able to pin it down. You want to be there for when she comes out?”
“I’d love to.”
Karyos is a hamadryad, a magical creature bonded to a tree. When the tree grows too old, hamadryads undergo a ritual to rebond themselves to a new sapling, disappearing into a cocoon and reemerging sometime later. Unfortunately, in Karyos’s case, there had been complications. Long story short, by the time we met her she’d been insane and trying to kill us, and she hadn’t gone into her cocoon voluntarily. We still weren’t entirely sure whether the “insane and homicidal” part was going to carry over when she woke up.
“On that note, there’s a favour I’d like to ask,” Arachne said. “When Karyos is reborn, could you look after her?”
I looked at Arachne in surprise. “Me?”
“Would it be possible?”
“I suppose,” I said slowly. “With help. But I was assuming you’d want to be involved.”
“The world belongs to humans now, Alex,” Arachne said. “The time for my kind is passing. You’ll be able to teach Karyos more than I can.”
“Honestly, I hadn’t thought beyond wondering if she was going to wake up and go right back to trying to kill us.”
“If your friends used the seed successfully, that should not happen. And from speaking to Luna and Anne, I believe they did.” Arachne looked at me. “So?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll try my best.”
“Thank you. Now, other matters. How are you progressing with the dreamstone?”
“Well, I’ve been working on communication range. I still have a few issues with really long distances, but it seems to be getting better. I can use it to talk to Anne pretty much anywhere now. I can probably manage it with Luna and Vari too.”
“What about the subject of our previous discussion?” Arachne said. “Creating more general messages, rather than to a specific receiver?”
“Oh, right,” I said. The example Arachne had given was that of a general call for attention or for help, aimed at anyone able to listen. “I practised a little with Anne.”
“You need to be able to use it for people other than Anne.”
“Fair enough.”
“Have you been practising Elsewhere combat?”
“It’s kind of difficult to find anyone to practise with,” I said. “About the only two I can ask apart from you are Luna and Anne. Luna can handle Elsewhere, but she doesn’t like it, and I know it’s asking a lot from her to get her to keep going back there. And Anne, well, she’s got her own reasons to avoid the place.”
“And you’ve done everything you can to persuade them otherwise?” Arachne said. “You’ve pressed on them the urgency of the situation? Or, if that doesn’t convince them, you’ve searched for other teachers?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “No.”
“When I first met you, you’d spent days at a time mastering some new application of your magic,” Arachne said. “Or on researching a new magical item. The Alex I knew back then would have worked day and night to learn everything there was to know about the dreamstone.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “But back then I was pretty much a hermit. About the only people I’d spend time with were you and Starbreeze. And Helikaon, I guess, but eventually I pretty much stopped seeing him as well. Nowadays I have to be a politician.”
“Is it really your position on the Council that’s the issue?”
“It does take up a lot of time.”
“But back then, when you did have free time, you tended to spend it on training and study. These days, it seems to me that far more of your time and attention goes towards people. One person in particular.”
I threw up my hands. “Okay, fine. Look, this is the first time I’ve been in a really long-term relationship, okay? It takes up more of my attention than I’d expected.”
Arachne tilted her head, studying me.
“You think it’s a bad thing?” I asked.
“No,” Arachne said after a moment’s consideration. “While you were more focused on your work back when we first met, you’re mentally far healthier now. But that won’t do you any good if your enemies decide to have you killed.”
“I know it sounds weird to say it, but I feel less threatened than I did a year ago,” I said. “This war is actually pretty good for me. Levistus and the rest of the Council are too busy dealing with Richard, and Richard is too busy dealing with the Council.”
“Your enemies won’t stay busy with each other for ever,” Arachne said. “But on to other matters. It’s time we discussed the final use of the dreamstone: using it to enter Elsewhere physically.”
I leant forward in interest. Arachne had brought this up before, but she’d warned me off experimenting. “How?”
“The how is simple,” Arachne said. “Channel through the dreamstone, using it as a focus, as if it were a gate stone. Now that you’ve bonded with it, it should be easy. But before you attempt it, you must understand exactly what it entails.”
I nodded.
“We talk about ‘going’ or ‘travelling’ to Elsewhere, but when you visit Elsewhere in dreams, what you are actually doing is projecting,” Arachne said. “Your body lies sleeping, while your mind forms an image. This is why you do not suffer physical consequences for anything that happens there. It’s not safe, obviously, but it’s very difficult for anything you meet in Elsewhere to harm you. Most people who die in Elsewhere do so due to their own mistakes.”
“Because they get lost, or send too much of themselves, yeah. So—”
Arachne cut me off with a gesture. “Listen, Alex. You have a tendency to jump ahead when you think you know what’s coming. You need to understand this clearly.”
I looked at Arachne in surprise. I wasn’t used to her speaking to me this sharply. “Okay.”
“As you’ve become more skilled with Elsewhere, you’ve ceased to fear it,” Arachne said. “If asked, you would probably say that it’s dangerous, but not more so than some parts of our own world. You would be very wrong. Elsewhere is an incredibly hostile environment. You can visit in dreams in relative safety because only your consciousness is projected. Elsewhere is an immaterial realm, and it is utterly inhospitable to physical matter. If you travel there physically, your material form will react with the environment in a process that erodes both. Since there is much more of Elsewhere than there is of you, this does not end well from your perspective.”
“So . . . you get disintegrated?”
“More like dissolved. Imagine a sugar lump dropped into the ocean.”
“How fast?”
“Inanimate objects dissolve almost instantly,” Arachne said. “For living creatures, it depends on their level of consciousness. A plant would be gone in a minute. A dog or cat might last a quarter of an hour. With a sapient creature such as a human, it depends on their sense of self and their facility with Elsewhere. A strong-willed and practised visitor could in theory su
rvive for hours. But no matter how skilled or strong, the sugar lump is still a sugar lump, and the ocean is still the ocean.”
“Shields?”
“Do nothing. Or perhaps a better way to put it is that your sense of self is your shield. Anything you bring with you and hold close enough to your person has some limited protection. Clothes, jewellery, anything held in your hands. It doesn’t last though. Don’t take anything into Elsewhere unless you’re prepared to lose it.”
I sat thinking for a minute. “I see why you told me not to experiment.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ve got a question,” I said. “If Elsewhere is so horrendously lethal, what’s the point of going there?”
Arachne nodded. “Several reasons. First, the ability to gate to Elsewhere can be used as a travel technique. There are limitations, but in theory it gives you the ability to go almost anywhere. It’s also extremely hard to trace.”
“You’ve pretty much just described gating. Which every elemental mage can do already.”
“You’re not an elemental mage.”
I shrugged.
“There is more,” Arachne said. “When you travel to Elsewhere, since you are physically present, you are subject to the principles of Elsewhere just like everything else in that realm.”
“So the rules you taught me about combat in Elsewhere wouldn’t apply?” I said. “You can be hurt or killed?”
“Yes, though it’s more difficult. Your material form gives you some protection.”
“But basically, if someone else dreams themselves into Elsewhere and picks a fight with me, they’re invulnerable and I’m not.”
“Yes.”
“You’re making this sound worse and worse.”
“You aren’t thinking through the implications, Alex,” Arachne said. “While in Elsewhere, you are subject to its laws. All of its laws. Just as you can be injured, you can also be changed.”
“So someone can . . . change me into someone else?”
“Or you can change you into someone else.”
I had to stop and think about that. “How would that even work?”
“You know that Elsewhere is fluid,” Arachne said. “While you are there, your mind and body can, to a certain extent, be reshaped just as the dream-constructs of Elsewhere can.”
I sat thinking. It was a big enough idea that it was hard to grapple with. “Healing?”
“Feasible but dangerous. Altering yourself in Elsewhere requires you to draw back the shield protecting you and allow the realm to touch you directly, which means you are walking a fine line between change and dissolution. I would consider it a last resort.”
“Shapeshifting?”
“Again, possible but dangerous. Bear in mind that the ability to create a body does not imply the ability to create a working body. While in Elsewhere, you can hold things together by force of will. Once you return to our world, any mistakes will make themselves felt very quickly.”
“Maybe body modification?” I said. I was thinking aloud now. “That’d be easier than creating a new form from scratch. Reinforcement or enhancement or . . . hm.” I remembered a conversation I’d had with Anne. She’d explained that the problem with those kinds of life magic changes wasn’t creating them, it was maintaining them. “Would I need to understand bodies as well as a shapeshifter or a life mage?”
“In all likelihood, yes.”
Arachne was still watching me, as if she was waiting for me to come to the right conclusion. “Wait,” I said. “You said mind and body. Does that include everything relating to your mind?”
“Yes.”
“Including your magic?”
“Yes.”
I sat back.
“It is the primary reason mages have travelled to Elsewhere,” Arachne said. “Enhancing their own power, deepening their command over their magic. Adding completely new capabilities, gaining the power of multiple mages. All the power of Harvesting, without the side effects.”
“And it works?”
“There’s no reason it shouldn’t.”
I looked sharply at Arachne. “In theory or in practice?”
“Yes, that’s the issue.”
“Mages know about this?”
“It’s not widely shared knowledge, but yes.”
“Okay, then that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Let’s say it works, and you really can use Elsewhere to add on powers as you like. Then where are the mages who’ve done it? There should be a whole bunch of immortal invincible archmages running around. I’ve seen the mages at the head of the Council and the Dark leaders like Morden and Richard. They’re powerful, but they’re not gods.”
Arachne nodded. “I only know of a few cases where mages have attempted a transformation such as you describe. In every case, nothing was heard of them thereafter. It is possible that their transformation was a success, and in the process they chose to create a new identity. But as you say, one would expect beings of that kind to make their presence felt. In my judgement, the most likely probability is that they ceased to exist.”
“Because it’s impossible?”
“The opposite. Magic is an intrinsic part of its user. The kind of person you are determines the type of magic you can employ. So to change one’s magic . . .” Arachne shrugged. “I suspect it runs into the same issue. The ability to imagine is not the same as the ability to create a working model.”
I sat thinking for a minute. “It sounds like a trap,” I said at last. “Something that’s just appealing enough that no one can resist looking at it and which you can’t back out of once you start.”
“That’s probably accurate,” Arachne said. “A less sweeping but more feasible use of Elsewhere is in conjunction with imbued items. Since they’re alive, they can be brought into Elsewhere, at least temporarily. While there, they can be changed or shaped just as a person can.”
“So you could do . . . what?” I said. “Enhance them . . . No, that’d run into the same problems. Change them? Make them accept you as a master?”
“You’ve told me several times that you’ve always run up against the same problem with imbued items. You can resist their control, but you can’t make them do what you want them to. Elsewhere would give you the power to affect them directly.”
“And it works?”
“After a fashion. It’s been attempted, and survived. However, there is the obvious drawback.”
I sighed. “Of course there is.”
“As I said, imbued items function in Elsewhere just as a person does. Which means that any item you bring there is placed on the same footing as you.”
“Oh Jesus. So it could try to change or control me.”
“Weaker imbued items would probably not have enough strength of self to be a significant danger,” Arachne said. “On the other hand, the ones you would most likely be interested in are unlikely to be the weaker ones.”
I thought of the most powerful item I owned, the monkey’s paw. I’d got a look at what was inside it, just once. I imagined confronting that thing in Elsewhere and shuddered. “With some of the imbued items I’ve seen, that might actually be worse than the wiping-yourself-out-of-existence thing.”
“Quite possibly.”
“The more you tell me about this, the more it sounds like a trap,” I said. “You’ve just basically told me that if you go to Elsewhere, you can get literally anything you wish for. Except that when you look more closely, it’s got somewhere between a high chance and a one hundred percent chance of getting you killed.”
“If it were easy, everyone would have done it.”
I sat thinking for a little while. “So what’s your advice?”
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Arachne said. “I don’t have any.”
“But you’ve just told me—”
“This is not a
choice I can make for you,” Arachne said. “If you take this path, it will lead you beyond the point where I can guide you. But there is one thing I can do. Here.”
Arachne reached behind her and picked something off one of her tables, manipulating it delicately with one foreleg. She handed it to me and I took it, looking at it curiously. It was a small wrapped package, about the size of a hardback book. “What is it?”
“If you ever reach the point where your situation is truly dire, open that,” Arachne said. “It may be of some help.”
I hefted the package. It wasn’t heavy—maybe the weight of an orange. “A new item?”
“You’ll see.”
“You could just tell me.”
“Should you ever open it, you will understand why I am not telling you.”
I eyed the package. It was neatly wrapped in red paper, tied with a ribbon.
“Yes, Alex, I know you can divine its contents. Please don’t.”
“Fine.” I set it down. There aren’t many people from whom I’d take that on faith, but Arachne is one of them. We talked for another half an hour, then I left. Once I was back in the Hollow, I put the parcel in a drawer.
* * *
The Saturday after my conversation with Arachne found me, Variam, Luna, and Anne all together in the Hollow. Officially it was a birthday party for Luna—she’d turned twenty-eight three days ago, but Anne and I had been called in all day to the War Rooms. But at last we’d been able to take a break, and it had been an enormous relief to finally relax. We’d spent the day under the spreading branches, laughing and telling stories. Anne had cooked on a barbecue, and we’d eaten and drunk as the afternoon turned into twilight, stars coming out above one by one as the sky faded from blue and green to purple and gold. At last Variam and Luna had left, Luna stifling her yawns and holding Vari’s hand, and the gate had closed behind them, leaving Anne and me alone.
I woke later that night, opening my eyes to look up at the ceiling. Moonlight slanted in through the windows, pale beams hanging in midair with dark shadows between. I turned my head to see that Anne was still asleep, her hair a black halo against the pillow. I propped myself up on one elbow and looked down at her for a little while, watching the slight movements as the covers rose and fell with her breath. Loving someone is a warm feeling, like having a small well-banked fire burning steadily inside you, and I’d been surprised at how strong it had grown. I leant over to kiss Anne lightly on her forehead, then slid off the futon, moving quietly so as not to disturb her. I dressed, and walked outside in silence, drawing the door closed behind me.