Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel (24 page)

She
didn't know. It seemed familiar to her though.

"Wait,
no one move, I need to think." She focused her mind as hard as she could,
and then tried to feel what was going on. She forced herself to dump power out,
but nothing happened. Then, even though it hurt inside her head, she tried to
levitate. The feeling that she used to approximate a radiative wasn't there at
all.

It
was being wiped out, like when she'd been practicing curse breaking.

"Bethany,
can you feel any radiatives, or try to generate anything like that?" It
hadn't really come up before, but her friend just squeezed her arm a bit,
reassuringly, and got it a lot faster than Gwen had.

"Ah!
Very good, Gwen. The magic isn't out at all. The radiatives and spell
components are! No doubt that's why it can spread over such a wide area. Now,
why would anyone want to do that? If we can figure that out, we might be able
to find out
who's
actually doing it."

That
was anyone's guess. The only thing she knew for certain was that it felt like
the fabric of space was going to rip itself apart, and tentacles were going to
take her and Beth away for some hellish Japanese animation style treatment. The
naughty kind, no doubt.

Instead
they just all wandered around, bumping into things, until they got to the front
area of the hotel, where people were just sitting. As luck would have it, one
of the other guests was an older man that smoked a pipe, and liked to actually
use matches, instead of a magical fire starter. There was also an old, seldom
used, fireplace. Next to it was a stack of very old, but nicely dry wood too.
It meant they could make a small fire for light. It would raise the
temperature, but seeing was worth it, at least for her.

Opinions
might vary on that one, she knew, but most of these people weren't worried
about being attacked by unseen things from beyond the imagination. It made a
difference.

She
got to help with that, working with the pipe smoker, who was the only other
person there that knew how to work a match. She didn't really know how to make
a proper fire, but the older fellow did, and they had one going about ten
minutes later, with only a lot of huffing and puffing on her part. As soon as
that was done, Beth moved over to her and touched her shoulder.

It
was a strange move, but, she realized, it was comfort seeking on her friend's
part. She'd always had magic. Everyone, even the low-magic people there, were
used to having it around all the time. Except for her. They just didn't have a
clue what to do at all.

She
clapped her hands several times, trying to sound cheery, rather than scare
anyone. Sally made a little screaming sound anyway, but then laughed.

Gwen
did too.

"Right,
so, who knows an interesting story? Or has a song? Does the Western Kingdom
have an anthem? If so, I don't think I know it."

"The
Song of Winter?" This came from an older lady, from the sound of her
voice, who was off to the left.

The
woman herself started singing, and everyone started to at least hum along.
Except Gwen, who suddenly felt more lonely than she had, being left out. It was
an austere song too, and a bit gloomy. It made her think more about being
buried in snow with no hope than about the lights coming back. At least until
the end.

Then
everyone sang about persevering, even through the dark and cold. It was pretty
warm in the room, but other than that, it fit nicely. It also drew other people
to the door of the place.

At
first Gwen didn't like that, but it made sense. Nothing worked, and some of the
new people were trying to find out what had been happening. No one asked her
about it, but Clara talked them through what had been said well enough.

"So,
we're singing songs and telling stories. You should all come in. I think."

Gwen
shrugged, which had just as much meaning in the dark as it normally did, she
realized.

"Great
idea, Clara. Come on in, everyone. Or, better yet, let's move outside?" It
might collect a few others and as long as she didn't have to sing, it was fine.

She'd
never learned how. Her voice hadn't been right for it at all before, and while
Katherine
might have a good enough voice, people had always made certain that she was off
to the side of the class, playing a tambourine, when the time came for singing,
in school.

The
rest of the songs were livelier and they attracted some real school kids, who
knew more new songs. Teaching songs. A few that surprised her a lot.

"What
do you do when a bomb goes off?" One side of the crowd started, and the
other answered back, without hesitation.

"Use
your eyes and find the trap!"

"What
do you do when a bomb goes off?"

"Protect
the kids and make a plan!"

It
went on like that for a bit. It was a little off, as to what
she'd
have
actually wanted people to do, but they all knew it. Even the older people did.
Even Clara and Sally
did
, which shocked her. She didn't, and it was part
of the Kat Vernor protocols, which were named after her. Sort of.

There
were other songs too, but they couldn't let things devolve into drinking or
tavern stuff, so it was mainly popular tunes and another reprise of The Song of
Winter. Just as they finished that one again, the lights flickered a few times
and magic started working again.

That
got a cheer from the crowd, as if their words had something to do with it.
Normally that might have even been the case. A group of people working toward a
common goal had power here. This time though, the essential step, the
instructions, wouldn't work at all. It was just happenstance that did it, no
matter what it seemed like.

Gwen
didn't wait, jogging back inside, with all her people hard on her heals.
Bethany got to the Telestator first, and did exactly what Gwen had planned.
Only better. That part went without saying.

"Operator,
are you there?"

"Um,
yes. How may I direct you?"

"This
is Special Service Agent Bethany Westmorland. I need to find the extent and
area of this current magic stoppage. Can you check the local listing channels
and find out?"

It
was, it turned out, going to take a while. The woman was co-opted for the job
and set to the task, calling back to them every few minutes, while Gwen got a
map from the lobby, and marked out all the places that they could find that had
lost lights and Telestator service.

The
others just stood around, looking nervous and like they expected everything to
shut off again suddenly. It took about two hours, but she was finally able to
send everyone off to bed, except Beth, who was holding the line open. A pattern
was emerging, and it wasn't a circle at all. It was a shape that looked a bit
like a compass rose. Pointed due north too. The East side was full and healthy,
and they were near the tip of the South, but the west was smaller, and not
flushed out at all.

It
was possible that they just didn't have the right information, or that service
was light in that area. Beth didn't think so, and pointed at it, as soon as
everyone else left, and the last communication came in for the evening.

"Look
at that. Three deaths, three branches looking full and strong. My bet is, when
the next girl dies, this field will turn the magic off in this area for a nice
long time. Why would anyone do that though? The world runs on magic, as tonight
neatly showed."

Maybe
it was prescience, or more likely Gwen was just used to thinking in terms of
narrative causality, but she looked at the page for a moment and traced the area
out with her finger, smearing the ink, just a tiny bit. It was red, and had
failed to dry totally yet. That meant she'd stained herself in the movement,
and it looked a little like she was bleeding.

"This
is a big area. Nearly the size of, um, this County. Rumford. If the magic goes
down inside of it, then it won't really be subject to the King's laws anymore.
No military force can really fight without weapons here. Not without a lot more
training. No one could stop a rebellion in that case, could they? True, it
would be primitive inside, but, seriously, there's a lot you can do without
magic, if you know how. Or, well, given everything, what if people are just
trying to make a safe place?"

"Sorry,
I don't take your meaning. How would a
lack
of magic be safe for
anyone?"

Gwen
looked at her buddy, and made a frustrated raspberry sound with her lips.

"So
asks the magical super-soldier that would be left helpless inside that thing...
But think, I wouldn't be, would I?
I
can fight, with hands and feet,
with weapons and bombs, since
that's
fresh in everyone's mind. I'm
betting there are other people that might have figured that out. It would take
someone with magic to make this happen, and maybe a lot of them. But... What if
they had relatives or lovers that they wanted to protect from people like
Debussey? In a space like that, she might not be able to act at all." Then
something occurred to her, and Gwen barely had to pause to realize it was
prescient. It was strong too, and gave her a headache. "And what if,
whoever is doing this is just starting here? If it could be given enough lives,
it might take over the whole continent, or possibly the whole world."

Beth
stopped too, and made a face.

"Crud.
I can feel it. Put me in state? Prescience, please."

"Beth,
would you-"

She
didn't get the rest out, before the report started to come.

"One
death per exponential growth, once the star is complete. One more takes the
Duchy, two past that most of the land in the West. Fifteen sinks the oceans and
twenty the world."

"Can
you tell where the action is coming from?"

Beth
stopped and stammered for a bit, and then, finally shook her head.

"No,
it seems to be with us. You and me. I can't find who." She sounded a bit
flat, but that was how she was in a state like this.

Gwen
tried for more clarity, since that sometimes helped, but nothing really did, so
finally she wrote it all down on her pad of notes and then got Beth back to
normal.

"So,
there's that. My guess is that we aren't far off of the next death at all. I
can't probe that, and I hope that I'm wrong, but..."There was no reason to
think that at all, was there? The effect had been so strong though, and waiting
shouldn't make it stronger.

They
both headed to bed after a while longer, since, like it or not, they were going
to be on a train in the morning. Gwen felt really glad they had good walking
boots with them. Hopefully that wouldn't really be needed.

She
didn't speak, even as they found their little room, and got ready for bed, the lights
going out, even if both of them feared what the dark held now. There was a bit
of a tremble there, in the dark, for her at least. It came from within, but she
knew that right there, just beyond the edge of reality, they waited. The Elder
Gods. Even when there was no magic working, she could feel them. They dripped
terror from their presence, like a candle did wax.

So,
she lay there in the dark, not able to sleep for a long time. That meant
thinking, even if it were a hugely bad idea. This whole land, in fact, their
entire world, was built on magic. Everyone used it all the time, even if they
had to pay for it. All real travel was done using it, and they functionally
didn't have medicine. They had magical treatment procedures, some very
wonderful healers, and devices that let you mend faster, which really helped a
lot of people, but they didn't do nearly as much with drugs and surgery was
almost unheard of at all.

If
this place was plunged into the dark ages, they wouldn't know what to do at
all. Even earlier that night, though a lot of people smoked, only one man had
the
quaint
habit of using matches. No one else had anything that could
start a fire and she wasn't really certain how to do that either. Something
about rubbing two sticks together?

She
hadn't been too worried about that before, but now it seemed like a major gap
in her education, didn't it? At any moment, those survival and wilderness
skills she'd never learned might be all she had. She shivered again, fear
running through her, since the magic not working would lead to the deaths of
millions. Maybe more than that.

What
kind of evil person would set that up at all? Why?

The
truth was, she didn't know and had no idea where to start looking. What Beth
had said, that it seemed to be with them, somehow, probably meant that one of
the people that had been on the train was responsible for it. It could be
anyone too.

They
just didn't know enough to be able to tell who that might be. Carter Palmer?
Well, he certainly had the magical ability and intelligence. His whole life had
been about radiatives though. It would be like her making a law outlawing
martial arts, forever.

Eugene
Hadley? Again, he'd been there, but his business was built, in part on magical
things. Of course, his business in slice-o-matics, or whatever they'd been
called, would go way up, if the magic all came crashing down. Probably not
enough to be worth destroying the world though.