Wolf in the Fold, page 36
You can’t declare something to be true and make it so, she told herself. Can you?
You can do anything with enough magic, her thoughts pointed out. Master Wolfe has power to burn.
Frieda groaned as the iron giants pushed her into the chamber. “Emily?”
“Stay still,” Emily advised. She met Caleb’s eyes briefly. There was so much raw power in the chamber that doing the wrong thing could blow them all to hell ... she wondered, numbly, if there was any other choice. Master Wolfe wanted to push the limits as far as they could go ... all the way to godhood. What would he do, if he became a god? Emily didn’t want to know. No one could be trusted with that sort of power. She liked to think she could handle it, but ... she knew better. “We need to think.”
She looked around the chamber, cursing under her breath. The entire complex was glowing with an eerie bright light, one that passed through her eyes and burned into her brain. It was hard to see anything, hard to think clearly ... she gritted her teeth, trying to parse out the spellware worked into the chamber. It was incredibly complex, far more than any merely human mind could put together ... she couldn’t tell if it was because Master Wolfe hadn’t been human for nearly a thousand years or if he’d used some kind of magiwriter. Emily had been able to work one more effectively than Adam, for all that it had been his invention, and there was no reason Master Wolfe couldn’t do the same. She didn’t have time to untangle it ... she sucked in her breath as she realised, finally, where the power flowing from the nexus point was going. It was linked directly to the complex, rather than the dummy device ...
And to the godform, Emily told herself. She couldn’t think of any better term. It’ll be ready to go shortly.
Master Wolfe stepped out of the light. His body looked frayed, as if the spellware was already transferring itself to the godform. Emily hoped to hell nothing went wrong during the transferral process, Mimics had never been designed to remain in the same form indefinitely and Master Wolfe was a multiplicity, hundreds of minds swallowed and absorbed into a single collective whole. The old tales about the souls of long-gone sorcerers being trapped in artefacts suddenly felt very real, the madness they inflicted on anyone unwary enough to hold them a reflection of their own madness. Being trapped in an inanimate object for hundreds of years would be bad enough, she was sure, but if they weren’t copied over perfectly God alone knew what would be missing. Anyone fool enough to try it would be incredibly self-centred.
Caleb caught her eye, asking an unspoken question. What’ll we do?
Emily shivered. She had no answer. The chamber was draining them, the iron giants were right behind them ... she didn’t have the slightest idea where to begin dismantling the spellware even if Master Wolfe had been inclined to sit down and let her try. It was hard to tell where he stopped and the chamber started, let alone which part of him was transferring itself to the godform. She had to admire the sheer bloody-mindedness of a man who wanted to become a god. He’d already avoided the mistake that killed most necromancers – the lucky ones – and prepared himself to channel such vast powers. Her heart sank. How much of the nightmare taking shape in front of them was her fault?
Master Wolfe spoke, and the world shivered. Emily could feel things scratching on the edge of reality as his words echoed through the chamber, hunting for a way into the human world. His words shook the foundations of reality itself, statements of raw power so pronounced that she couldn’t make out the words even as they pounded her skull. Her earlier thoughts came back to haunt her. You could declare anything you liked and, with enough magic, you could make it stick. Emily knew how to turn someone, or even herself, into a toad; she knew how to lock the transformation so the victim remained an animal for the rest of their life. Master Wolfe was transforming himself on a far greater scale. He was lying to the universe with enough power to make his lies true.
“Enough,” she said. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, but she owed it to herself to try. “This isn’t going to work.”
Master Wolfe swayed slightly as he looked at her, his form blurring slightly. “You will assist me,” he said, quietly. “I have checked every last fragment of the spellware. I have calculated every last vector, every last channel for raw power. You and yours will be absorbed into my multiplicity and taken onwards, adding your knowledge and power to my own. It will work.”
His eyes met hers. “I will touch the roots of magic itself and become magic. I will become a god.”
Emily shivered, then glanced at Caleb. Frieda wasn’t in a good state and Penny didn’t know her well enough to pick up on the silent message, but ... she hoped to hell Caleb realised what she was trying to tell him. Brace yourself. She shuddered as she realised what Master Wolfe had meant, as his form blurred again. They were all about to be eaten by the mimic ... she had wondered why he’d brought them to the chamber, but she knew now. Everything she knew was about to become his, from the truth of her origins to specialised knowledge she’d kept to herself, for fear of what would happen if it became common knowledge. Master Wolfe was about to learn about Earth, and by extension every other world in the multiverse. What would he do with the knowledge? Emily knew she wouldn’t live to see it.
“Are you not curious, Lady Emily?” Master Wolfe sounded unconcerned as the power spiked around him. “Do you not wish to touch the roots of magic itself?”
Emily pressed her bare skin against the mimic holding her. The soul magic was starting to sparkle ... there was something of Cat inside the spellware, a personality that had been copied and turned into a perfect disguise. If she had enough time ...
“There was a magician, years ago, who thought he could open a door into the higher planes,” Emily said. Void had told her the story, as a cautionary tale. She wondered, in hindsight, if it had been one of Master Wolfe’s experiments. “He unleashed things into our world. He was merely the first to die.”
“I am far more capable than any normal magician,” Master Wolfe told her. “Are you not curious?”
“Yes.” Emily was honest enough to admit she was curious. The locals accepted magic as normal and right, a part of their world that was as fundamental as gravity. She never had. There was no magic on Earth, at least as far as she knew, and the question of why there was magic here had always puzzled her. “But I’m also concerned about what’ll happen if you open this door.”
She worked fast, talking to distract him. “Do you know what you’ll unleash? Do you know what you’ll become?”
Master Wolfe smiled beneficently. “Every last variable has been checked.”
“How can you be sure?” Emily braced herself. If the soul magic didn’t come apart properly ... there wouldn’t be a second chance. “You have no conception of the higher dimensions as anything other than words, no understanding of what they’re really like ... no awareness of what you’re missing. You don’t know what you don’t know. There could be something above you, beyond you, that you haven’t factored into your calculations because you don’t know it exists. How do you know what you’re missing?”
She leaned forward. It had taken her years to adjust to the idea of magic being real. She could easily imagine an army from Earth storming the Nameless World, pitting machine guns and jet fighters and tanks against what they’d take to be a medieval fighting force, only to be turned into toads with a wave of a sorcerer’s hand. They couldn’t have accounted for such a possibility if they didn’t know magic existed, they certainly couldn’t take precautions against it ... how could they? They wouldn’t believe in it until they saw it and even then, they wouldn’t understand it. It would scare them ...
“Please,” she said sincerely. “Stop this.”
“Enough,” Master Wolfe said. His form blurred again – she thought she saw a multitude of faces in the haze – as he reached for her. “You will become one with me.”
Emily threw caution to the winds and triggered the spells she’d woven into the mimic. Cat’s personality came to the fore, letting go of Emily’s wrists as he came back to himself ... she pushed him back, hastily raising a shield as Master Wolfe stopped. The iron giants turned to face them ... Cat drew his pistol and shot the first with a runic bullet. It staggered and fell to the ground.
“Move,” Emily shouted. The other iron giants were moving with terrifying speed. “Get out of the way!”
Caleb shoved Frieda to the ground, stumbling as he lost his balance ... Emily yanked her virgin blade from her sleeve and hurried forward, cutting their bonds. Penny rolled over, eyes going wide as she saw Cat ... no, not the real Cat. The deception was uncanny. Emily knew the mimic was nothing more than a piece of incredibly complex spellware and yet it was hard to force herself to believe it. The iron giants kept coming as Master Wolfe stepped back, resting a hand against his device. The real device. Emily could feel it waking up, the pocket dimension’s gradients altering themselves to allow for the birth of a god. She reached for her magic and cast a force punch, hurling it at the nearest iron giant. The blast of magic faded away before it could reach the target, drained into the growing nightmare. She cursed under her breath. They were running out of time ...
Penny punched an iron giant, ramming her fist through its protective wards and slapping the outer armour. Emily blinked – how the hell did she think that would be effective? – and then saw the rune Penny had cut into her palm, the blood fuelling the spell. The iron giant shuddered and then crashed towards the device, metal fists pumping the air as it charged. Master Wolfe made a throat-slashing gesture and the iron giant came apart, the sheer power he’d unleashed too much for its protections to handle. Emily was surprised he hadn’t tried to kill them all. He couldn’t be that desperate to add her to his multiplicity, could he?
I know things he can’t imagine, she thought, numbly. Caleb is no slouch himself and Frieda knows things I never told anyone else. He’ll want them too.
Cat – the mimic – snapped orders at Penny. “Get that door sealed!”
Penny glanced at him. “You’re not my master!”
“Now,” Cat snapped. Few masters tolerated open defiance from their apprentices under any circumstances and fewer still in the middle of a battle. “Do it!”
“Do it,” Emily echoed. She could hear more iron giants marching towards them ... she glanced at Master Wolfe, standing by the device, and shivered as she saw the smile on his face. The pocket dimension was expanding, putting miles between them and the device ... she cursed as she realised he was still connected to the godform, still transferring himself into the entity. He’d have to split his attention if he wanted to fight ... not that that would pose any problem for a mimic. It was just a matter of duplicating itself and then reintegrating later. “Hurry!”
Cat caught her arm, magic dancing around his fingertips as he hurled a curse at an iron giant. “What am I?”
Emily hesitated, unsure what to say. The mimic couldn’t be allowed to have an identity crisis, not now. She had no idea if they did under normal circumstances, as the deception became increasingly threadbare, but here ... Cat was far from stupid and the more he questioned the gap in his memories the more he would wonder who he truly was. What would he do, if he realised he was a copy and the real Cat was somewhere else? What would he do ...?
“My friend,” she said, finally. It wasn’t like Cat to ask questions in the middle of a fight. The first sign of looming trouble or ... Cat would have blown his top if Penny had questioned orders so openly. Most masters appreciated private questioning, but rarely – if ever – in public. “You’re my friend.”
Master Wolfe snorted, the magic shimmering around him. Emily could see the magiwriter blurring into the spellware ... he’d taken the concept and run with it, practically burning the device into his very soul. Emily cursed as she realised what he'd done. He’d given himself far greater scope for magical manipulation, taking ideas she’d introduced to Old Whitehall and developing them within a pocket dimension. The organic wards she’d sown needed months, if not years, to take root properly, let alone allow the development of a base for more advanced, practically intelligent, wards. Master Wolfe had done the development in a pocket dimension where time moved faster than normal, a neat solution she wished she’d devised herself. It might have taken years inside the dimension, but to him bare seconds would have passed.
“Cover me,” she ordered. Frieda was fighting too, but her movements were unsteady. There was no time to check her wound, to check she hadn’t suffered brain damage ... not that there was much anyone could do, if she had. “I need to think ...”
Caleb joined her, magic sparkling as he launched probes into the spellware. “I can’t get a lock on anything important,” he snapped. A dull thud echoed through the chamber as the reinforcements battered the doors. “They’re too complex for a lone mind!”
“Of course they are,” Master Wolfe said. He appeared to be hundreds of miles away, the distance between them and the device expanding to infinity. “You need to be one of many to handle such spellware, to understand the true nature of magic itself.”
Emily focused her mind. The spellware seemed simple, almost crude, but every time she looked closer she saw more and more complex pieces of magic, tiny atoms that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye and yet collectively built up something far greater. She couldn’t help thinking of it as a body, something seemingly simple ... that was exactly what the godform was, she reminded herself, a body for Master Wolfe to wear as he ascended into godhood. It was too complex for anything less than a ritual to take it apart and no collective of magicians, no matter how powerful, could make such a ritual work. It required coordination on an impossible level. She loved Caleb, and Frieda, and yet there was no way they could work together so closely ...
She gritted her teeth. It was a risk, and she would be staring madness in the face, but they were running out of time. The godform was growing stronger, impressing itself into the local dimension and bending reality itself to be born.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, her mind whispered, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
“Take your magiwriter off,” she ordered Caleb. They weren’t going to lose. They couldn’t. Everything was at stake. “Here goes nothing.”
Emily closed her eyes, and bilocated.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It was different, this time.
Emily felt her awareness stretch as she split in two, her mind spinning as she realised she was in two places at once. Bilocation was always dangerous because the two tried to become one – normally, the two selves were separated by several miles to keep them from reintegrating – and there was no time to gather herself, to focus her mind to ensure the two bodies could co-exist without trying to merge back together. Her awareness spun from body to body, as if she was in one place one moment and the other the next; she gritted her teeth, directing one of her to move to the far side of the chamber while the other remained where she was. There was no time to worry about her sanity, or anything. She had to work and work fast.
Hack the spellware, she told herself. The sheer staggering complexity threatened to overwhelm her. She understood how Master Wolfe had done it – he was a multiplicity, capable of doing a hundred separate things at once – but she couldn’t duplicate his trick for herself. And hurry!
She took Caleb’s magiwriter and shoved it towards her other self. She took the magiwriter from herself. Her perspective shifted violently, her thoughts blurring together ... she was looking at herself, looking at the world from two different angles. It was insane ... her mind yammered as reality bent around her, threatening to pull the two selves back together. They were touching and they weren’t touching and ... she bit her lip hard, feeling as if she were trying to tear herself in two. She was, technically. She’d heard horror stories about people who had permanently split themselves in two, both convinced they were the original and both technically correct.
“I can’t think,” the Cat-mimic said. “Emily ...”
“Remain focused,” Emily snapped at him. They might just have an edge ... Cat had inserted chat parchments into the wards, parchments Master Wolfe might not have bothered to remove. He’d known Cat was on his side all along. If they could use them ... “Get the wards up, target them on the iron giants!”
Penny let out a curse as the door crashed open, the first iron giant lumbering into the chamber and reaching for her. Cat swore too and reached for the wards, the magic shimmering around him as he blasted the first iron giant. It staggered, trying to fight an irresistible force; it held for a handful of seconds and then went flying, knocking down a bunch of others as it was hurled down the corridor. The sheer weight of the wards was just enough to tear through their defences as if they were made of paper. Cat’s face flickered as he stepped forward, the mimic trying to reassert itself. Penny looked pale as she glanced from Cat to the door and back again. Emily understood. Cat wasn't Cat, and the entity wearing his face could switch sides – again – at any moment.
Emily raised her eyes and looked at Master Wolfe. He was floating in the centre of the chamber, raw magic surrounding him as the magiwriter he’d designed and built himself rewrote reality to allow for the creation of a godform. The presence was growing with every passing second ... Emily swallowed, hard, as she realised he was literally building himself up from scratch. It was just like the wards she’d designed ... she met his eyes, just for a second, and saw bright intelligence staring back. His mind was expanding too, behind a protective barrier that kept him safe ... she could feel his awareness growing stronger, his mind increasingly reshaping the world around him. It was just a matter of time ... her only edge was that he’d adjusted the flow of time within the chamber, ensuring that he might not be aware of what she was doing until it was too late. Or perhaps it was the other way around. She’d read stories about people who could stop time, from the thoughtful and philosophical to the erotic and the horrible. If he managed to find a way to move outside the flow of time, they were dead. There was no way to stop an enemy who could freeze time itself.
