Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (13 page)

“And you are…?”

Looked like I’d have to play that card after all. “I’m Kay Walker, Alliance Ambassador for Earth. I believe my family owns this building?”

That got their attention.

“Robert Walker’s grandson?” The guards exchanged glances.
So
he
didn’t come here,
I thought, with some relief. My father left an impression few people forgot.

“Yes. I need research for a project I’m working on, and Central isn’t being very accommodating. I’m sure you understand.”

“Yes… of course.” They wore awed expressions.
Yeah. They’ve definitely never met Lawrence Walker.

And there probably wasn’t anyone here who’d met Robert Walker, either. He was commonly known as the Alliance’s founder on Earth, though in truth, he was just the council’s leader and the one who all the media attention had focused on. He’d been the first to take advantage of the possibilities offworld offered to Earth, and had an uncanny knack for finding the best opportunities before anyone else did. On Klathica, for example, he’d pioneered the first magic-based human enhancement drugs, and on Alvienne, it had been a Walker-owned company who’d funded the cure for a plague that had wiped out a fifth of the population.

Robert Walker had been an opportunist and a clever one, too. Not that I knew what he’d been like in person, seeing as he’d died before I was born. But he’d left a rather more impressive legacy than my father, who occasionally showed up at the various factories, laboratories and Alliance branches once every decade or so just to maintain the Walker reputation. As for me, I’d rather walk unarmed into Cethrax.

“Damn,” said Simon, staring around at the glass-and-chrome reception area. We followed the guard who’d met us outside into an equally bright hallway, lit with fluorescent ceiling lights. The walls were see-through on either side, showing labs containing gleaming Valerian tech.

“What even is this stuff?” Simon openly stared through the nearest window.

“Supposedly research into the fundamental forces of the Multiverse,” I said. “It works better on a world with magic, that’s why he didn’t set it up on Earth.”

“Your grandfather?” I heard a dozen questions behind the words, and sighed inwardly. The guard leading the way seemed to be listening, too.

“Yeah, I’ve never been here, though. He died four years before I was born. The main branch is on Klathica.”

“What the hell is that?”

We’d passed through a pair of open blacked-out sliding doors not unlike the doors to the front of Central—glass reinforced with adamantine—and into another lab. Each corner of the room was taken up with a strange device consisting of two contained black-walled metal cage-like things. One contained an odd-looking dark blue cube covered with dials, and the other contained a hover car, caught in the middle of a metal ring. As we watched, it faded out, becoming transparent, then faded back in just as quickly.

Bloodrock
. Someone was using magic-based sources here, all right. Was this even legal? I watched, slightly mesmerised, as the car faded and became an outline, rotating on the spot.

“Kay Walker?”

I spun around. Mr Helm’s face poked out from the top of a thick layer of shell-like, magic-reinforced black clothing that covered him from head to toe. Like a mad scientist’s version of a suit of armour. Given the volatile substances he was experimenting with, he probably needed it.

“Hey, Mr Helm,” said Simon. “You remember us?”

“I never expected to see you two again,” said Mr Helm. “I suppose the Walkers
did
sponsor our laboratory from the start… any donations would be most welcome.”

I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, and I was less convinced whatever in the Multiverse he was doing to the car was legal by the second.

“We came here to ask you a couple of questions,” I said. “About your research… what you lectured us on in our fourth year at the Academy.”

“So you do remember.” Mr Helm’s eyes gleamed. “I didn’t detect a great deal of enthusiasm, I admit… Academy graduates rarely show an interest in the metaphysical components of the Multiverse.”

“That’s because you need a PhD to read the textbook,” said Simon. “What’s that?” He indicated the floating, half visible car.

“My current project,” said Mr Helm. “A means of transportation through the Passages… or otherwise.”

“Invisible?” asked Simon, with a not-so-subtle glance at me.

“Camouflage is the technical term,” said Mr Helm. “But yes—it is a precautionary feature, due to the unsafe nature of the Passages. The problem we’re having is the effect transfer—the person
in
the car would have to be in a certain position for the chameleon effect to pass over to them, too. With the help of some new research, we’ve certainly managed to make progress… thanks in no small part to the Alliance.”

Well, crap. Could he have got the idea from
Earth’s
Alliance, and the Chameleons? Word did tend to spread quickly, and Valeria’s Alliance had confiscated all the bloodrock those Cethraxian goblins had been carrying around.

What does that matter now?
“Not that it isn’t interesting,” I said. “But I had a question about something else. You said in your lecture—something about the substance the Passages are made of, and the reasons why it’s not possible to create a direct shortcut across Earth—or any world.”

“Any particular reason for that?” His discerning eyes searched me. Lying might work, but wouldn’t get me answers.

“Cethrax,” I said, and Simon turned to stare at me. “Their Passage doorways aren’t constant, like the others. You’ve probably heard the trouble the Alliance has had recently with Cethraxian foot-soldiers running havoc across the worlds. Why is their world an exception?”

Mr Helm blinked. “I suppose that’s a valid concern for an Ambassador… have they been giving you a lot of trouble?”

“You have no idea,” I said. “So why do doorways randomly appear to that world? It has something to do with their semi-corporeality, right?”

“You clearly know
some
things,” said Mr Helm. “The Valerian term for the material the Passages are made of is ‘auros’—that’s the standard one, anyway. I am no magic-wielder, but I have heard from certain people gifted with magic that every world has a slightly different… the terms vary, but the Earth equivalent is a radio wave, is it not?”

I nodded. “Radio signals. And when there’s more than one world, you can sense them both, overlapping… that’s what I heard,” I added, figuring telling the guy I was a magic-wielding amplifier was a bad move. He’d probably want to lock me up and study me.

“Yes… a doorway can be created by a magic-wielder with awareness of those
signals,
because only they can sense exactly the right world they want the auros to connect to. The same goes for those world-keys the Alliance has. There are so few of them precisely because there are so few magic-wielders with the gift. But it
is
possible. The problem that arises when creating pathways across the
same
world is that the signals are usually muddled. The doorway will be stuck in an endless loop—or, depending on the strength of the source used to power the world-key, self-destruct. The exception is Valeria, because our world has a stable level of magic.”

I can create a world-key with this auros. Because I can sense the signals.
“But it doesn’t explain why an open doorway can’t be created on Earth directly into another world, rather than through the Passages.”

“Because Earth is low-magic,” said Mr Helm. “You’d need two worlds at second level or higher, and a suitable source on either side of the doorway before you could even begin. The Passages also works as a safety net. Most magic disperses into there. If you link two worlds directly, and one is at a higher level than the other, the Balance tips and both are adversely affected.”

That’s what happened on Vey-Xanetha. Cethrax is second level… and the two were linked before. Across the chasm.

“Cethrax is an exception,” I said. “Why?”

“That,” said Mr Helm, “is a mystery even I don’t have the answer to. Cethrax is known to be magically unstable, though the actual inhabitants are mostly magicproof. I would hazard a guess something happened there a long time ago—perhaps one doorway was opened, or several, and the change in the magic level adversely affected the whole world until the doorways became a permanent fixture. Magic always has a counter-reaction.”

Too true. I’d figured from what we’d seen on Vey-Xanetha that humans had once lived there, and had probably been the monsters’ playthings. No other species could use magic, at least according to the Alliance’s records. Maybe opening the door to Vey-Xanetha was what had wrecked Cethrax. No wonder they didn’t like humans.

“I hope that was helpful,” said Mr Helm.

“Yeah, it was,” I said. So I could create a doorway myself, if I picked up on the right signal…

“Do doorways always open at random?” I asked. “Because I’ve been on offworld missions before, and it always struck me as odd how it rarely opens into the middle of the ocean, say. It always seems to link to inhabited areas. On some worlds, anyway.”

“That,” said Mr Helm, “is because auros is drawn to other magic sources. If there’s one source in a whole world, any doorways will tend to cluster around it—or within a few miles of it, at least. It’s not an exact art.”

So that was it. If Passages were drawn to sources, no wonder there were so many here in the city. Neo Greyle’s hover-tech practically shone with magic.

“Art?” said Simon, walking around to the other side of the car. “Thought it was nature. Or wacky Multiverse nature, anyway.”

“On some worlds, magic is seen as an art form,” said Mr Helm. “There are patterns, as there are in nature.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve ever spoken to the Klathican branch?” If anyone knew about sources, it was that place.

“I cannot say I find their Embassy staff particularly accommodating,” said Mr Helm. “I do know they speak highly of your grandfather there.”

I bet they do. He gave them a crap-ton of funding.

“I’m interested in magic sources,” I said. “Off the record, mind.” Maybe I was deluded to think the guy wouldn’t rat me out to the Alliance, but the constant hum of the hover car reminded me he was playing fast and loose with their rules himself. Once, I’d have said the last thing I wanted was my name getting out on Klathica, the world my family’s name wrought the most influence on. But that was before.

“Sources… even the definitions aren’t consistent,” said Mr Helm. “It was at first thought there were three—antimagic, enhancement-magic, and base magic—auros, that is. Then scientists began to realise there were subtle differences in sources, depending on which world they were found on. In high-magic worlds, antimagic thrived. Mid-range worlds were the source of new discoveries—sciras, for instance, and lustre. I did write a paper on the subject,” he added.

Yeah. I should have known he’d have all the names memorised if he knew auros, the rarest of them all. But it still came as a shock to hear them spoken so casually by a stranger.

“What’s bloodrock, an enhancer?” I asked, watching the car rotate out of the corner of my eye. Simon didn’t seem to be able to look away from it.

“Yes, that’s what it would be under the old classification. The name is translated from the ancient language of Klathica, where it was the first source to be discovered…”

Simon cleared his throat loudly. “That’s interesting and everything, but the point is, we need to know about this arros—”

“Auros,” I said. “It’s called base magic—why?”

“Because there’s nothing else like it in the Multiverse,” he said, “and on some worlds, it’s caused conflict beyond imagining. Thairon, for instance.”

I nodded. I didn’t particularly want to get into a conversation about the world my father had spent the past five years on.
It had auros?
It couldn’t have anymore, because all doorways had been closed off. That was the only reason I wasn’t wrapped in constant paranoia he’d make a sudden reappearance.

“I apologise, I’m boring you. I did write my thesis on the improbability factor of Passage doorways.”

“Sounds fascinating,” said Simon, walking around the car’s other side to inspect the rest of the lab. “What’re the cages for? Human lab rats?”

“Of course not.” Mr Helm looked affronted. “We’ve never actually locked anyone in there… not without their permission, anyway. It’s an experiment into unbreakable cages. Seeing as Valeria has had a lot of trouble with criminals lately, the Enforcement Squads are hoping to make these bars mainstream in containment facilities.”

“Yeah,” said Simon, tapping the side of the cage. “Isn’t that just reinforced adamantine?”

Even coming from Simon, the word triggered a reaction. My fist clenched. “We should go,” I said. “Thanks for your help,” I added to Mr Helm. “I might have to check out your thesis.”

“As a matter of fact, I uploaded it to the Alliance’s database to read online—you can find it on your communicator.”

I nodded. I needed to replace mine, but that could wait. My mind was racing. Doorways were drawn to sources… and Ada had a source
inside
her. But maybe I was making connections which weren’t actually there out of sheer desperation.