“I am with you, Ayra.”
They climbed then and the land itself seemed to extrude more loose rock along the narrow path they must climb along if they were to avoid the silently sliding monoliths. Ayradyss slipped repeatedly, once turning her ankle painfully, but the wailing woman looped a strong arm around her and half-carried her onward.
Arriving before the rock face that held their portal, they saw that it was indeed guarded. Seen closer, the guardian lost rather than gained in definition. Its claws and fangs swam as if its mass distorted the space near it; its aura was a heat mirage dripping blackness and laughter.
“We are close enough,” Ayradyss said, pulling herself tall.
“The crusader is bringing up the cleric behind. I believe that he had to strike him on the head and blindfold him again.”
“I wish I had more faith in the Lady of the Gallery’s charm.”
The wailing woman’s expression was enigmatic. “I may have discovered another way to force the guardian to retreat—but I would prefer to reserve it as a last resort.”
By common consent, rather than by formula, they clasped hands. Sweet and pure, their voices blended over the words of the charm:
For a brief moment, Ayradyss thought that the Christian charm was working. The guardian drew into itself, becoming opaque, claws and fangs falling into solidity. But even as she thought it was beginning to retreat and her voice was rising into the final triad of the invocation, the guardian began to chuckle, each puff of noisome breath marking a return to its former deadly insubstantiality.
Behind them, Ayradyss could hear the crusader’s labored breathing interspersed with colorful curses and clanking as he dragged both cleric and chain up the slope.
“The alternative you mentioned,” she hinted to the caoineag, “might not this be the time to try it?”
The wailing woman turned her face away, but not before Ayradyss caught a glimpse of the poignant sorrow in her green-grey eyes.
“It may bring danger to you in the future, Ayradyss. Would you still have me use it?”
“If it is the only alternative to remaining here. As you have reminded me, my presence in Virtu is itself a danger to myself and to my baby. Is this a danger of the same order?”
“Not the same, but the charm is potent. It may draw the attention of the Lord of the Lost—or center it more fully if he is already aware of you.”
“Sing!” Ayradyss said, glancing nervously over her shoulder, although she knew that Death could come from any side. “I accept whatever risk this brings.”
“Very well.” The caoineag faced the guardian.
Hearing the initial wordless wail with which she opened her charm the guardian ceased its laughter. Watching for unseen enemies, Ayradyss hardly listened to the charm until she felt the words reach out and pluck at the sleeping places in her mind.
Angel of the Forsaken Hope,
Wielder of the Sword of Wind and Obsidian, Slice the algorithms from our Foe.
“No!” Ayradyss screamed. “Have pity!”
Her terrible eyes streaming tears, the wailing woman continued her chant. Ayradyss felt herself transforming into her otherself from the time of the Genesis Scramble—an otherself for whom she recalled the titles, but not the heady, ruthless power. As her swelling abdomen flattened and her mermaid’s tail formed the unborn baby kicked in protest. Ayradyss screamed again as her wings budded and then tore free in a shower of blood and numbers.
Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons, Cantress of the Siren Song,
Drown our enemies in the data-stream. Nymph of the Logic Tree,
Child of the First Word,
Give our antagonist to grief.
Transformation was swift and painful. Winged mermaid, she bore the Sword of Wind and Obsidian in one hand while dragon’s wings of bright mylar beat to carry her upward.
Looked at through her ancient knowledge, Ayradyss no longer found the guardian blockading the moon portal a thing of fear. It was rather humorous, pathetic even, huddled there in terror of her glory. Its component proges were easily unencrypted, routinely deciphered, rendered into code, into data bits, into nothing but loam for Deep Fields.
Raising the Sword of Wind and Obsidian, Ayradyss did this thing, and as the guardian fell into oblivion, she felt cold hands shoving beneath her wings, pushing her toward the rock wall.
A round, dark depth she barely recalled was the moon portal loomed before her. Reflexively, she tried to furl her wings, knowing that their breadth could not pass. She was not swift enough. Something—interface?—shredded her wings. Without them she could not fly; fish-tailed, she could not stand. Dropping the Sword of Wind and Obsidian, she curled her arms to protect herself as best she could…
Firm metal grips caught her by her upper arms and held her when she would have fallen onto the tunnel floor.
“Mistress Ayradyss?” Voit said, its mechanical voice managing to project authentic concern. “Are you injured? Do you require the services of a medbot?”
“No… Yes… I…”
She caught her breath, looked down at herself. Her body was human once more. Human as she had been before the caoineag had begun her charm, everything in place including the distorting, awkward, beloved swell that was her baby. As if to reassure her that he had not suffered from her unwitting transformation, the baby kicked out solidly.
“I am fine, Voit,” she managed at last. “Well, even. I was just startled. We had a rather more difficult time than anticipated.”
“Then there is no need to forward a report or request assistance?”
“I would prefer if you did neither, Voit.”
The caoineag was waiting in front of the moon portal, her face impassive, her hands folded in front of her as if she expected rebuke. There was not even a glimmer of triumph or superiority in her bearing. If anything, she seemed diminished and paler than was her wont.
“How…” Ayradyss stopped and rephrased her question. “Where did you find that incantation? How did you know what it would do?”
“Your many names, Lady Ayradyss. I have said before that what you have been binds you to myth in a way that others are not bound. The charm came to me in the dreaming channels as I rehearsed the charm taught to us by the Lady of the Gallery and fretted as to whether a Christian charm would be efficacious against a pagan creature.”
“It just came to you?”
“Not in a flash, more in a substitution. I found myself calling on the Angel of the—”
“Don’t say that name,” Ayradyss interrupted. “I fear its power.”
“It is your name.”
“It was. The Great Flux is the ancient beginnings of Virtu. I did not belong to myself then, but instead to the legions of one of the warring powers.”
“And you belong to yourself now?” the caoineag said with a pointed glance at Ayradyss’s pregnant belly.
“Now I am Ayradyss. I belong to that person. The other… belonged to another and to another’s needs. I had not realized how much I
dreaded a recall into that being until you—albeit briefly—forced me into that form again.”
“I understand,” said the wailing woman. “Once I was Heather, daughter of the laird. Now I am the caoineag. When I am caoineag no more, what will I be? Can I return to Heather? I long for my first self, but having seen you as what you were I can understand your reluctance to return to that—although it seems to me that your first self had great power.”