Daniel

As the others pondered, talked among themselves, and beheld the sapphires, Daniel and Rana approached a five-foot slab of the Terminal protruding from the platform by half an inch. :You asked how Perses is watching you,: Rana sent. :Daniel, where do you think your power comes from?:

:‘Magic,’ right? We’ve been over this.: He hoped this would be another of her ‘freebies.’

:I can see what you’ve been told won’t cut it. You can’t accept ‘It’s magic!’ and stop worrying. So, Daniel, where does magic come from?:

She knocked on the slab, and it opened smoothly as if on well-oiled hinges. A gust of wind like a giant’s breath and a deep popping sound accompanied the reveal of a staircase leading into the dark interior of the Terminal. She descended, her webbed feet sounding wet on the clean stone, and he followed.

When he didn’t reply, she answered herself. :Lineage. Our bloodlines channel the primal Aspects of reality. Perses is your Progenitor, the ‘Adam’ of your people. That connection allows him to see you and the world through you.:

:That’s bad though—isn’t Perses evil?:

Rana shrugged. :Dunno, but he’s patient. We have more urgent concerns:

The last trickles of daylight shining through the opening above illuminated plain stairs and smooth walls. As Daniel adjusted to the dimming light of their descent, he noticed a golden glow ahead.

:Wait.: Daniel did some process of elimination with the Signpost’s list using a basic grasp of human mythology. :Signpost had two names for Lea.:

“We can speak openly. Yeah, she has two Progenitors for her Carambole and Charm abilities.”

“Her what?”

“The black orbs are caramboles, as in billiard balls.”

“Oh.” He’d guessed that from context and rather meant to ask about Lea’s ‘Charm.’ He supposed the name was a bit self-explanatory. “Don’t you have a bunch of abilities, though?”

Rana threw her rehearsed condescending smirk over a shoulder. “You’re complicating things. I favor Heqet and learned from my brother to draw on Gama Sennin—but everything comes from one Progenitor or the other. Lea has a talent for both Yin and Yang.”

He mulled it over, then blurted, “Could I start using my other Progenitor’s magic instead?”

Her brusque halt forced him to windmill his arms for stability. After a pause, Rana made her way to the end of the staircase and the chamber beyond. “That’s a dangerous line of thinking for three reasons. Worst-case scenario, imagine all the difficulties controlling your magic—not being able to eat or touch things—and add a whole new set of problems.”

A sobering thought.

“Remember, you’re naturally talented with Perses’ magic, but not the other, and have no teacher to train you. As for Her… I assume you’re not trying to make things worse. Whatever you do, don’t accept help from Kāli, the Dark Lady.” Daniel felt someone walk over his grave.

“What’s the third reason?”

She didn’t look back. “You need to ask? For a smart kid, you’re dense.”

“Just tell me.”

“Lineage. Your mom gave you this magic. Will you throw her gift away?”

Daniel bowed his head, embarrassed.

“Thought not.”

He followed her into the chamber and saw the golden light’s source. In the walls, ceiling, and running over the floor were roots—Or veins? Or maybe rivers?—of liquid glowing like molten metal. They seemed to flow, or did they pause and rush to the beat of a heart?

Rana strode into the heart of the room and waved an arm. “The Terminal’s blood.”

He’d thought he had an eye for destruction but now knew it must be true. Daniel could sense it, feel it, almost see it—the reason for this chamber’s vacuum seal. The flowing golden material destroyed the very air on contact. It didn’t drag him across the room like an open window on a spaceship but produced an unmistakable breeze. “You’re being careful, right, Rana? I’m thinking this stuff is super deadly; like we really shouldn’t touch it.”

“You worry too much… but don’t trip.”

The golden roots spiraled into branches bearing strange fruit on every surface of the chamber. These fruits were transparent orbs—the same as the ‘heart’ of a Taotie guardian. Daniel surveyed the room with its dozens of spheres ranging from marbles to basketballs. “This is where they’re born?”

She shook her head and pointed. “Where they’re made.” He followed her finger to a small, verdigris-masked creature. It had feathers on its upper half, spines on the lower, and held a quill. It wrote on an orb still connected to the golden roots. “A Taotie Scribe.

“Put in place long ago by the creators of the Charter and Treatise. The orb it’s writing on will be Signpost’s replacement someday; better start early, I guess. These, on the other hand,” Rana said as she plucked an orb from a nest of golden roots, “Are Cintamani—‘wish stones.’ Blank slates waiting to be imprinted with magic and law. Their potential makes them valuable.”

“These things are those guys?” Daniel frowned. “Those walking, talking creatures? And they’re forced to obey a bunch of rules against their will?”

Rana looked him in the eye. “No. They follow the Charter because they are nothing without it. The ‘Charter’ is their brain, binding them by defining them. The ‘Treatise’ is their mind, their personality, and its flaws are the fault of careless coders. They have no soul, heart, or will of their own.

“Taotie don’t grow beyond their limits. They take in new information but can’t change their minds. If they can’t perform their function, they lose their purpose, and their minds crumble into violent madness.

“The Cintamani may wake and sleep, but if we leave these orbs here they’ll never leave on their own. When an orb is imprinted with magic without a Charter, it simply uses that magic until it faints from exhaustion. Repeat on waking. Cycle forever.

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“You’ve heard of caviar, and we had scrambled eggs for breakfast. That’s what these are. Unfertilized eggs. They have potential but, without the right stuff, they’re just protein. Cintamani are the backbone of the City’s economy. This is money to mages. We can trade them for information and favors. We need them to survive, Daniel.”

He needed to think about this, to talk, “The Taotie guardians are conscious, but not sapient—unable to use judgment—and the orbs are not even sentient. Rana, what if someone taught the Taotie to how to make choices—Defy their programming?”

She gave a dark chuckle. “That would be the end of the City…”

They looked like grapes on the vine, hanging there, waiting to be picked. To be given purpose. Daniel watched as she picked the fruit and piled them together. “The mages harvest these?”

“That’s what the roads are about. Mages travel across the stars gathering Cintamani from Terminals. They need a caravan of wagons to hold them all.”

She opened Pwyll’s Pouch with a slash of the sword necklace. “A demonstration.” Rana dropped in a Cintamani. To Daniel’s surprise, the orb bounced out of the pocket dimension. “There’s something funny about how these types of magic interact; the Cintamani don’t fit in Pwyll’s Pouch.” She held up a skull-sized orb. “I have a cheat.”

Rana breathed in deeply, and her chest rose. Daniel averted his gaze as his face grew hot. She brought the sphere to her soft, coffee and cream lips. Then she swallowed the Cintamani whole—her jaw and throat expanding to fit the orb and contracting as the orb went down, its glowing aura shining through the pale skin of her throat almost too fast for Daniel to follow.

He jumped in shock.

Rana scrunched her eyes and squeezed her fists like she’d gotten brain freeze, then relaxed to her stoic mask. She looked no different. Rana smirked at his stunned expression. “Told you I was gross.”

Daniel blinked, then smiled on the verge of applause. “You showed Physics who’s boss. I’m impressed.”

She frowned again. “The original Pwyll was a Cherubim, an Angel of Spacetime who carved the fabric of reality into pretzels. Batrachians just have big stomachs.”

“Who cares? I think it’s cool.”

Shaking her head like he’d never get it, Rana scooped up the other orbs in a slime net and headed for the stairs eating them one at a time. “Let’s get out of here.”

Daniel ran to catch up. “Hey, also, what kind of weird magic is Signpost using?”

“Mages and Taotie wield nine artificial Aspects—the Glyphs, the Letters, six Elemental Runes, and everybody uses the Terminal.”

“We’re all ‘magic users,’ so why is theirs so different?”

Rana spun around on the staircase and pointed at his heart, “What’s this?”

Daniel looked down at the familiar golden emblem, “A scythe.”

“What is a scythe?”

He’d asked Mary for help researching it, “It’s an agricultural tool used by farmers to harvest crops.”

“What is a sword?”

Daniel felt his heart sink as he guessed where she was going. “A sword is a weapon used to kill.”

She nodded and returned to climbing stairs, “There are hunting tools among the Progeniture, but no true weapons. Gaja used to say magic was a gift we were given to help one another.”

Daniel thought back to his memory/vision from last night. Gaja was the elephant woman, Lea’s adopted mother.

“How am I supposed to use my power to help people?”

“It’s just a theory, Daniel.” She shrugged. “Besides, you should figure that out on your own.” Ahead lay the exit and daylight.

The others waited on the surface, some more patient than others.

“Took you two long enough,” Kenta said, tapping his foot. “You weren’t playing seven minutes in heaven. Waste of time teaching Daniel how to harvest things he can’t touch.”

Rana furrowed her brow and cocked her head, not getting the reference, while Daniel’s cheeks burned.

“I actually prefer we use the buddy system,” Lea said, “Unlikely as an enemy hiding there may be.” The Libra and frog girl exchanged sendings and eyebrow waggles, likely tallying the Cintamani collected.

Paul and Cassie ignored everything, too focused on candle reflections in the sapphire and cave echoes, respectively. Wendi rested in something like lotus position, though she sat in the upturned palm of her own enormous right hand while balancing with her left palm flat on the floor. The dignified effect was somewhat spoiled as she swung out of the pose into a one-armed and then one-fingered handstand.

As Daniel’s vision adjusted from underground to daylight reflected on sapphire, something drew his attention. It couldn’t be. Daniel approached the wall to dispel an overactive imagination. He squinted, then rubbed his eyes, but it didn’t go away. “Wendi…”

“What’s up?”

“Can you come here?” he said. She landed on her hooves and strolled over. “See anything?

“No.” The red devil girl shook her head. “Why are you looking at where I punched?”

The crack shouldn’t be visible to human eyes. Yet he’d seen the microscopic fracture from yards away. The base of a tiny protruding sapphire smaller than his pinkie nail had a fissure partway through one side. Wendi’s magic had found an imperfection. Sapphires didn’t have crystal cleavage… but the stone could be parted at a flaw.

“Wendi, can you punch this bit with your left hand?”

“Sure.” She didn’t question the excuse to hit something.

Another crack along the base. The surrounding gemstones of the seamless jewel wall were immaculate. This might be the cavern’s singular vulnerability.

“Daniel, is this wise?” Lea questioned. Her tone said no, and he preferred not to anger the beautiful girl. He stepped back.

Then Rana put a hand on Lea’s shoulder. “What’s the harm? Let them get it out of their system.”

The Libra girl sighed, “I suppose you are right. I do not want to be ‘bossy.’ Although, we are leaving as soon as you two are through.”

“Right!” Wendi saluted and threw another punch.

“No, it has to come from this angle to work,” Daniel said. He directed a total of six devil punches to spread the fissure around the minuscule crystal’s hexagonal base. Then he projected magic through his fist into a strike.

His power broke against sapphires like a wave on the rocks. Daniel had busted through steel blast doors and smashed walls, but his magic came to nothing against the enchanted mineral.

Kenta groaned. “What is his obsession with breaking things?”

The problem with his magic was density. He’d never considered it previously but juicing up his attacks always made them bigger. How could he go small?

“Have you tried grabbing it?” Paul asked. The candle boy looked over Daniel’s shoulder and reminded him, “That’s what you did with Lea’s vault door.”

The idea was crazy, and yet… “Thanks, Paul.” Daniel leaned into the wall of sapphire, braced his legs, and wedged his thumbnail into the fracture at the jewel’s base.

Gripping the sapphire between his thumb and forefinger, he pulled with his whole body. Muscles tightened. Magic surged. He saw the fissure widen by micrometers.

Sweat beaded. Teeth clenched. His vision fell beneath the realm of light. He saw the atomic structure, he saw the scalenohedral crystals tear, and he saw the flaw—a grain of silica nanometers wide. He felt power leaving him. The magic didn’t bolster him like when he’d freed the others. Daniel realized he lacked the conviction and desperation of yesterday. He’d picked this fight on a whim.

As his strength waned, his skin tore, and his thumb bled. Daniel’s corrosive blood seeped into the crack and, the moment before weakness took him, he felt a snap.

Pain. His body ached, and his hand was ground meat.

“Show me.” Rana was at his side with a healing coin. Daniel held up bloody fingers. She hosed off the digits with clean slime to inspect the damage. The slime boiled on his skin, leaving no residue as it evaporated. “He broke his thumb. Hairline fracture.”

“Congratulations.” Cassie golf clapped with her wingtips.

“Did you use all your magic?” Kenta asked. Daniel gave a reluctant, sleepy nod, not having anything to spare. The Kaminoke gave a disparaging headshake and made for the portal.

Paul looked to Rana, “Need any help?”

“I’ll have him healed in a few minutes,” the frog girl replied as the pulsing tendrils of the coin’s regenerating aura reached for Daniel’s hand. The others vacated the chamber. Wendi gave him an affable pat on the back as she left.

Daniel smiled and opened his palm. There sat a 1⁄10 carat sapphire, its base a conchoidal fracture, but its cut edges dazzled with irresistible brilliance.

Rana stared in astonishment. :A Tartarus Sapphire. That’d be worth a lot of mani to the right person.:

:Does this pay off my debt?: Daniel sent. Then he cringed in embarrassment as he, too late, recognized the implications of offering a girl jewelry. Thankfully, her mind seemed to run in other directions.

The frog girl considered. :Keep it. I’ll hold onto the favors.: