gone away completely. What the . . . I wrenched myself back into human shape, half-expecting to find the sword back in my hand. But no, it was still gone.
“Where did it go?” I whispered.
“That depends on whether I got Necessity’s spell right,” said Shara, her voice quiet and sad.
“Look at your palm.”
I did and found a circular patch of crystal about the size of a penny in my hand’s exact center. It looked as though someone had plugged the bullet hole the spinnerette assassin had given me with a slender diamond disk. I tapped it with the nail of my left hand. It made a dull clicking noise and, while I could feel the pressure of it all around the edges of the crystal, I couldn’t actually feel anything through the crystal. On the plus side, there was no longer any evidence I’d ever been shot.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Shara. “What the hell did you just do to me?”
“Gave you a tiny part of the magic of the Furies to go with the touch of Fury blood that now runs in your veins. In making you a blood brother to the Furies I suspect I’ve also given you a touch of their berserker madness, though that was not my intention. It may be that it’s necessary for this particular trick.”
“I’m getting really tired of people speaking in riddles and screwing with my life, Shara.” The anger had faded with my transformation into the Raven, but I could feel it welling up again.
The crystal in my palm began to tingle then, which made me angrier still. I wanted to hit something. Now! My anger flexed, and . . .
“Holy shit!” Occam was in my hand, somehow extruded from the crystal in my palm. “That’s the weirdest damn sensation I’ve ever felt.” Anger gave way to curiosity and . . . Occam went away, sliding through my palm into elsewhere. “I think I need to sit down now.” I felt light-headed and just generally weird as I collapsed onto a nearby couch.
Shara’s image rose from its projected chair. “Melchior, you’ll need a great deal of info about the software architecture of Necessity. Here it is.” She closed her eyes for an instant, and Melchior’s expression took on the abstracted look of a webgoblin receiving data wirelessly.
She turned in my direction again. “The only way for you to take the sword with you into the depths of the machine is for it be a part of you. Otherwise, you’d leave it behind with your body when your soul entered the virtual world. I am sorry, Ravirn. But I had to do it.” Then she vanished, leaving us alone with the empty vessel of her original body.
A moment later, Melchior’s attention returned to the here and now, and he shook his head as though trying to settle the contents within. “Wow, a lot there. Do you want to rest a bit before we go poke a finger in the hornet’s nest? Or would you rather just plunge straight in?”
“As much as I am a fan of getting things over with quickly, I think we’d better go back to Raven House and regroup. Wait—let me try something.” I returned to my feet.
I summoned up a touch of the anger I still felt with Shara. In response, Occam shaped itself into my hand. I pictured where I wanted to go and traced a sharp line through the air with my blade.
Nothing happened. Again. Ditto. Well, crap. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I began to get really angry again, and that gave me an idea.
I imagined the walls of reality as an arbitrary barrier put up specifically to prevent me from getting home. I made the distance between here and there my nemesis. With a yell, I lunged forward and really took a cut at my newfound enemy. This time I felt the sort of resistance I might have expected from dragging the sword through a foot-thick sheet of Jell-O. The edges of an eight-foot vertical slice in space and time bulged outward like the slit skin of an overstuffed sausage. Beyond lay my bedroom. Hah! Take that, reality!
“After you, Mel.”
As I followed him through, I imagined
“Where did it go?” I whispered.
“That depends on whether I got Necessity’s spell right,” said Shara, her voice quiet and sad.
“Look at your palm.”
I did and found a circular patch of crystal about the size of a penny in my hand’s exact center. It looked as though someone had plugged the bullet hole the spinnerette assassin had given me with a slender diamond disk. I tapped it with the nail of my left hand. It made a dull clicking noise and, while I could feel the pressure of it all around the edges of the crystal, I couldn’t actually feel anything through the crystal. On the plus side, there was no longer any evidence I’d ever been shot.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Shara. “What the hell did you just do to me?”
“Gave you a tiny part of the magic of the Furies to go with the touch of Fury blood that now runs in your veins. In making you a blood brother to the Furies I suspect I’ve also given you a touch of their berserker madness, though that was not my intention. It may be that it’s necessary for this particular trick.”
“I’m getting really tired of people speaking in riddles and screwing with my life, Shara.” The anger had faded with my transformation into the Raven, but I could feel it welling up again.
The crystal in my palm began to tingle then, which made me angrier still. I wanted to hit something. Now! My anger flexed, and . . .
“Holy shit!” Occam was in my hand, somehow extruded from the crystal in my palm. “That’s the weirdest damn sensation I’ve ever felt.” Anger gave way to curiosity and . . . Occam went away, sliding through my palm into elsewhere. “I think I need to sit down now.” I felt light-headed and just generally weird as I collapsed onto a nearby couch.
Shara’s image rose from its projected chair. “Melchior, you’ll need a great deal of info about the software architecture of Necessity. Here it is.” She closed her eyes for an instant, and Melchior’s expression took on the abstracted look of a webgoblin receiving data wirelessly.
She turned in my direction again. “The only way for you to take the sword with you into the depths of the machine is for it be a part of you. Otherwise, you’d leave it behind with your body when your soul entered the virtual world. I am sorry, Ravirn. But I had to do it.” Then she vanished, leaving us alone with the empty vessel of her original body.
A moment later, Melchior’s attention returned to the here and now, and he shook his head as though trying to settle the contents within. “Wow, a lot there. Do you want to rest a bit before we go poke a finger in the hornet’s nest? Or would you rather just plunge straight in?”
“As much as I am a fan of getting things over with quickly, I think we’d better go back to Raven House and regroup. Wait—let me try something.” I returned to my feet.
I summoned up a touch of the anger I still felt with Shara. In response, Occam shaped itself into my hand. I pictured where I wanted to go and traced a sharp line through the air with my blade.
Nothing happened. Again. Ditto. Well, crap. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I began to get really angry again, and that gave me an idea.
I imagined the walls of reality as an arbitrary barrier put up specifically to prevent me from getting home. I made the distance between here and there my nemesis. With a yell, I lunged forward and really took a cut at my newfound enemy. This time I felt the sort of resistance I might have expected from dragging the sword through a foot-thick sheet of Jell-O. The edges of an eight-foot vertical slice in space and time bulged outward like the slit skin of an overstuffed sausage. Beyond lay my bedroom. Hah! Take that, reality!
“After you, Mel.”
As I followed him through, I imagined
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