Chapter 2
Mother and Daughter
Goatha's eyes narrowed momentarily, and then refocused on the cacophony of noise surrounding them. She spun around and put her back to Bianca and darted out with her twin blades. Bianca drew her own knife and was immediately forced into a frantic defense as a wave of chaos assaulted her. This first brush was worse than what had nearly overwhelmed her before. She heard herself scream and laugh at the same time, while she thrashed wildly with her knife.
Flashes of magical energy coruscated around her and she realized distantly her mother was fighting with both steel and mana. She sought to change the analog she faced the Noise with and bring her own magical training to bear, but the concentration eluded her. The feel of her mother's back against her own became numb and tendrils of other thoughts started slipping into her own mind.
Bianca's vision faded and she felt bitter disappointment in herself. When her mother had not answered the summons, she had come here to find if she was in trouble or insane. She found her, and immediately increased her mother's burdens. She drove herself hard to live up to her mother, but always fell short. This was just one more time. Not that her mother expressed disappointment. It was not the way of their tribe to express much, either positive or negative. But she did not have the strength yet of her mother, and so she considered herself lacking.
But another face came unbidden. Her mother's husband: Moss. The man whose mind she fought to protect. He was not at all shy with his expression. He was quick with a “Way to go kid” when he approved of her actions. A rolling of the eyes, and a “Just like your mother,” when she confounded him. On the surface she cared not for his opinion. He was nothing to her. But this worm eating into her mind pulled at an inner truth. One she would never mention. More secret than her name.
The women of her tribe never acknowledged paternity. To admit such was to remove responsibility from the tribe for the child and place it on a single individual. When a child could be anyone's, everyone had to take care of it. When it was just a single person's, no one but that person did. Such children most often ended up exposed on the ice.
But this canker dug into her. It poked and prodded what she suspected. What she knew. For as often as Moss had mocked her for acting like her mother, there were many more times she had the urge to act in other ways. A flick of the head. A turn of phrase. As much as she rejected it, she saw Moss himself reflected in her. She clung fiercely to what she knew of the ways of her mother's people. Not because she ever knew them. They were dying primitives in a tundra desert. But to deny that Moss was her father.
There! It had dragged it out of her. Buried under all those layers, it had wrenched the awful truth she knew out and held it in front of her. And like when a knife is pulled from a heart wound, more and more came gushing out. His face. His laugh. His essence. But more than that. Her own face, when she was alone. Her own laugh, which never escaped her lips. Her own essence that was a reflection of his, which she repressed every day. It was there now, pouring out of her. All that was him that was within her was brought to the fore. She held it up and screamed it into the noise.
And then it stopped.
The force pulling these memories out of her relaxed. And she realized it was other than the Noise. That was gone entirely, but this force remained; slowly, slowly releasing. Letting the memories slide back into her. Gently preventing her slamming them back in as fast as she wanted, in her panic and shame. But tucking them back inside of her with a care she had never seen in the waking world.
She opened her eyes and stared into those of her mother.
“I'm sorry,” Bianca said. Goatha raised her eyebrow. “I distracted you.”
Goatha lowered her eyebrow and raised her up to a sitting position. She summoned water to her hand and tipped it into Bianca's mouth. “Quite the contrary. I was in difficulty. You gave me such aid as no one else could.”
They sat, in one of the larger workshops in Irontree with their backs to a plinth. Above them, encased in blue crystals was the solidified form of Moss. In stasis neither he nor the Noise within him warred. All was quiet.
“I regret that I had to break a taboo of our tribe to use what you brought,” Goatha said quietly.
Bianca swallowed. “I do not know what aid I rendered,” she said. “I was overwhelmed immediately.”
Goatha took a deep breath and drank deeply herself. “It is a battle of Will. Between Moss's Will and that of the Ancient. My fight is one to stop the cancer from destroying Moss's Will. In effect, it is to reinforce his Will.” She patted Bianca's thigh. “You, my daughter, as you have always known, also possess a fragment of his Will. You provided me with a template to create a pattern from, to amplify and apply, and to turn against it, dispersing it once more.”
Bianca's mouth made a thin line. She said nothing.
Goatha rose to her feet. “Maintaining the affectations of our dead tribe is not important in the long run. Saving the three of us from peril is. Yet I know we both find it... against how we have been raised. Let us not speak of that part anymore.” She reached down and helped Bianca to her feet. “I take it there is a reason you came to bring me forth. Do circumstances require a swap?”
“Yes,” said Bianca. “It was at his request.” Goatha bent over the still form of Moss, encased in blue crystal while she waited for Bianca to continue.
“He halted his work on vegetation generation at, roughly, the level of efficiency when last you reviewed it.” Goatha turned to her and raised her eyebrow. “He had made a breakthrough on mana generation that changed the balance of things. With copious and easy power, efficiency is less important.”
Goatha rubbed her chin. “Power is never copious or easy. What was this breakthrough?”
Bianca picked up a wax tablet and drew a diamond. She added lines radiating from each point. She placed arrows along the square edges, leading away from the lower point and towards the upper point. “As randomly fluctuating magic enters and leaves along these two points,” Bianca indicated the left and right points of the diamond. “The polarizers here guide it so that it leaves, with a purified flux, along these points.” She indicated the top and bottom points.
Goatha's eyes traced the diagram. She followed the lines and verified that no matter what the input was, the output was consistent. When satisfied, she grunted.
“Moss has created a pattern representing this, and instantiated it magically, and in a variety of materials. These have been exposed to vortex energy and usable mana has resulted,” Bianca finished.
Goatha grunted again. “Seems simple enough. Even obvious in retrospect. At what stage are we in production?”
“Vortexes are wild energy. No matter how robust the material tried, sooner or later there is a peak fluctuation that exceeds the integrity of the pattern.” Bianca handed her the tablet. “Moss is good at theory, but he says you are better at application.”
Goatha nodded. “What materials have you used so far? What's the highest flux you've seen?”
“I'm not on that project,” said Bianca. “Eadwyn and Miasma have been working with Moss.”
“Still working on the Ævatars?” asked Goatha. Bianca nodded. “What progress have you made?”
Bianca sighed. “Activation is much smoother now. It can be powered directly from the strategic mana reserve. But I have not found an effective soul shield to prevent it adsorbing the soul of the rider.”
“Is it worth the effort?” asked Goatha.
Bianca wrinkled her brow. “The gods grow bold. They will test our strength soon. The reserve is low. The burdens on it prevent it being filled. Everyone frets and wrings their hands while we lay vulnerable.”
“Still bickering over reincarnation versus resurrection?” asked Goatha dryly.
“The Queen called a council of all interested parties to come to a conclusion on the matter,” said Bianca.
“What did Jesca do when they failed to come to agreement?” asked Goatha.
“A
fter a month she sent them home and made her own decision,” answered Bianca.
Both of Goatha's eyebrows went up. “There may be hope yet for Romitu. What did she decide?”
“That a soul should decide its own fate. If it wanted to be resurrected, so be it. If it wanted to be reincarnated, so be it. If it wanted to become a slave of the gods, so be it.”
Goatha rubbed her chin and thought about it. “She is the daughter of Scioni. I can see that displeasing everyone equally. How did they take it?”
“As you surmised, no one was happy. But no one was upset enough to protest too much either.” Bianca folded her arms across her chest. “The problems came in the implementation.”
“Power?” asked Goatha.
Bianca nodded. “Resurrection takes a lot of mana. It takes power to keep all those souls we recovered from the demons in their jars. All the ones we have resurrected have been insane. So we have to reincarnate them. But we do not know how to reincarnate a soul.”
“And they hope this will save them?” asked Goatha, handing back the wax tablet.
“That will only buy them time,” said Bianca. “Only Ævatars will save them.”
“As Moss learned, sufficient power negates the need for efficient use. If we can harness a vortex, we will not need an army of Ævatars.” Goatha shrugged. “But who can tell. I have my work. You have yours.”