Codex Born

22

Thank you, Nidhi Shah.

Thank you for compassion. For strength and intellect.

Thank you for helping and protecting those who need it. For acceptance and ambition in balance, and pleasure free of guilt.

For juice from the grapes we planted and harvested together.

For the magic of scent, of herbs and candles and food simmering for hours in the kitchen, the aroma seeping into every corner.

Thank you for the ability to stand among giants and not feel small.

Thank you, Isaac Vainio.

Thank you for wonder, and for curiosity.

For the beauty of Saturn’s rings and the Northern Lights off the shore of Lake Superior, waves of green reflected in the water.

Thank you for the joy and loyalty to be found from a simple spider.

For the love of books and stories that never stop imagining what might be possible.

Most of all, thank you for your stubborn faith that there is always a solution.

There is always hope.

SLEEP WOULD HAVE BEEN a kindness. My body needed all the rest it could get, and my mind yearned to escape the real world. But even more than dreams, I wanted that brief period of awakening when dreams and denial blurred together to soften the impact of the real world. Let me blanket myself in delusion and hide from my loss for a few moments longer.

The universe had been rather short on kindness lately.

“Isaac, look at me.”

Sunlight turned the leaves overhead to green glass. I squinted and shielded my eyes until they adjusted enough to focus on Nidhi Shah sitting cross-legged beside me. Lena stood behind her.

The grove was still crowded, but now it was the Porters who had gathered here, and most of them were staring at me. Pallas and Gutenberg stood at my feet. I spotted Whitney and John, but not Toni. Maryelizabeth’s arm was in a sling. A woman I didn’t recognize was leaning against a tree while another libriomancer regrew her leg.

“Lena—”

“I’m all right.” The exhaustion in her eyes suggested otherwise, but at least she was alive.

Nidhi touched my wrist, feeling for my pulse. “What do you remember?”

I had been Nidhi’s client, and I knew her therapeutic voice. This was something else. Calm, but she wasn’t trying to hide her grief.

“Enough.” There was a woman in bronze, and a name, but when I tried to remember, the syllables slipped from my memory. I brought my fingers to my head, touching the skin where Gutenberg’s pen had traced his spell.

Hot pinpricks scampered up my ribs. I looked down to see Smudge crouched on my chest. “Hi, buddy.” I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked at Pallas. “How are things in Copper River?”

“Contained, but not controlled. We’ve cut off communications with the outside world while we work on damage control.”

I nodded. “How many casualties?”

“We won’t know for at least a day,” said Gutenberg. He picked up a lifeless metal grasshopper and held it to the light. Rainbows shimmered along the edges of the iridescent wings. He touched one wing, which was sharp enough to draw blood, though the cut healed quickly. “What happened to the students of Bi Sheng?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

He pulled a book out of his pocket, and it was all I could do to keep from swearing. It was the same A. E. van Vogt book he had used at the library to read Guan Feng’s mind. “Is Feng—”

“Gone,” said Pallas. “Jeff was found unconscious in the library. He hasn’t woken up yet, but I’m told he will recover.”

Gutenberg tapped the cover, and golden tendrils grew from his scalp, reaching toward Lena and myself. I watched it all happen again in my mind. Deifilia battled Lena. The two ghosts attacked. Bi Wei stopped them from killing Lena, then fell.

I remembered seizing control of the tree and turning it against Deifilia. What happened after was unfamiliar.

I saw through Lena’s eyes how she had locked Harrison in place, twisting the branch around his neck and trapping him with his dying dryad. Then she ran to me. She argued with the students of Bi Sheng, while to the side, another man worked over Bi Wei’s body. A woman knelt to touch my face. The last of the wendigos dropped to the ground and fled.

“The two of you let them go,” Gutenberg said, enunciating every word.

“They helped us to stop Deifilia and the Army of Ghosts.”

“Despite the sayings people repeat unthinkingly, the enemy of my enemy may not in fact be my friend.” He waved a hand, and the tendrils faded away. “You’ve freed an enemy we cannot see. They carry madness within them, Isaac. What happens when the first of their number loses their battle against the ghosts?”

I looked at Nidhi. “I could refer them to a good therapist.”

Several of the Porters cringed. I couldn’t blame them. Sassing Gutenberg wasn’t a wise life choice. But he had taken my magic, and I found it hard to care what else he did to me.

“Toni Warwick was found unconscious at the edge of town,” Gutenberg said. “She told us what you had given her, but she was unable to guard them from Bi Wei and her companions.”

Bi Wei had survived. I wondered if he could see my relief. “Will Toni be all right?”

“Eventually.” He leaned closer. His breath smelled of peppermint. “What was done once can be done again. Tell me of the books, their titles and content.”

I frowned. I could see myself pulling the books from Beauty as we drove through Copper River, but I couldn’t remember the titles. Nor could I recall the names of Bi Wei’s companions. Even the content of Bi Wei’s book eluded me, though I had a vague memory of poetry…“I don’t remember.”

Pallas stepped forward. “Sir, it was through Isaac’s relationship with Jeff DeYoung that the werewolves came to assist us. Without his help—”

“I know.” Gutenberg raised a hand. “He stopped Deifilia. He captured August Harrison. He ended the attack on Copper River, and no doubt saved many lives, including some of our own. But he risked much more. Had he contacted me when he learned of Deifilia’s assault on Lena’s tree, we could have contained the situation.”

“Bi Wei and Guan Feng trust me,” I said. “I can try to reach out to them, negotiate a truce.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” said Gutenberg. “This is a Porter matter.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. When understanding hit, I felt like he had transformed me to stone, starting from my stomach and working outward.

Nidhi put a hand on my shoulder, as if to restrain me. “Independence—impulsiveness, really—is one of the qualities shared by many of your best libriomancers.”

“It’s also a quality shared by most of our fatalities,” Gutenberg snapped. For the first time, he sounded truly angry. “Bi Wei and her four companions have escaped, and the Army of Ghosts is awakening. Tell me, Doctor Shah, will you continue to defend him if it turns out he saved this town only to damn the entire world?”

I tugged free of Nidhi’s grip and stood. “The day I joined Die Zwelf Portenære, you made me swear to protect this world, to help us expand our knowledge, and to preserve the secrecy of magic.” I gestured at the oak trees towering over us. “I think that third part is pretty well screwed, but what about the rest? Bi Wei and the others knew about the Army of Ghosts, the danger you’ve feared for five hundred years. You tried to murder the only people who could have helped you fight them.”

I was yelling at Johannes Gutenberg. Oh, God, I was so dead. “How much knowledge have you burned because you were afraid it might be used against you? How many people have you killed because you were afraid?”

I swallowed and waited for him to transform me into a cockroach and feed me to Smudge. Instead, he simply sighed.

“I was young, and the world was different. Though people remain much the same. They say you learn from your mistakes. I’ve learned more than anyone else in recorded history. But the mistakes of the past do not excuse the mistakes of the present. Nor do they protect us from the consequences of those mistakes.”

I really didn’t like the emphasis on the word consequences. Neither did Lena, judging by the way she edged closer and shifted her stance.

“Isaac could still help us,” Pallas pointed out. “Even without magic.”

Gutenberg tilted his head in acknowledgment. “You assume it was my choice to dismiss him from the Porters, but Isaac made that choice before we arrived. Didn’t you?”

I straightened, determined to face this head-on. Locking my magic had been the first step, and it had saved me from madness. But Gutenberg wouldn’t stop there. Having determined that my memories were of no use to the Porters, he would take them from me as well. I would be erased from the Porter archives, and from the minds of my peers. No wonder he hadn’t worried about holding this conversation in public; when he was finished, nobody else would remember it.

Lena stepped in front of me and kicked at Gutenberg’s hand. He dodged and stepped back. Before Lena could follow up, I grabbed her in a bear hug from behind.

“Are you insane?” I whispered. She could have broken free with ease, but she held back, presumably to keep from hurting me.

She turned in my arms to face me. “He’s going to take your memories.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” Lena was crying now. “Think, Isaac. None of the Porters will even remember your name. I won’t remember you.”

I hadn’t realized until now what that meant. Whatever independence or freedom she had gained from being pulled between Nidhi’s desires and my own would be lost. “I’m so sorry, Lena.”

The other Porters were shifting and muttering uneasily, all save Nicola. They didn’t understand. Few among us knew the truth about how Gutenberg dealt with those he considered criminals.

Gutenberg sighed. “I don’t do this to be cruel, Isaac. You acted to protect your home, using the best judgment you could. I understand that. I hope you’ll understand I’m doing the same.”

I kissed Lena, then pushed her toward Nidhi. I watched Gutenberg raise his pen and approach once again. If he was going to rob me of everything I loved, he could damn well look me in the eye when he did it.

The touch of the pen was like a syringe jabbing through my skin. Cold tingled over my body. Every muscle clenched painfully tight.

Gutenberg jumped back, and for a second, I thought I saw the shadow of Bi Wei standing between us. He flung the pen to the ground as if it were on fire.

He studied me, eyes flitting side to side as if I were an enormous newspaper. “It would appear you’ve made a friend.”

I sagged in relief, and might have fallen if Lena hadn’t caught me.

“Very well.” Gutenberg retrieved his pen and tucked it back into his pocket. “Perhaps as you see the damage caused by the forces you’ve allowed to escape, you’ll change your mind about aiding us. In the meantime, we will be watching you, Isaac Vainio.” He turned to Pallas. “I’ve given the other Regional Masters a summary of what we’re facing, but we’ll need to gather and share as much information as possible. First, we need to make sure this site is fully neutralized, then do what we can to control the rumors.”

“Why bother?” Knowing Gutenberg couldn’t take my memories had made me bold. Or stupid. Probably both. “The students of Bi Sheng are free. You think they’re going to worry about keeping your precious secrets?”

“What do you suggest?” Gutenberg asked, his words deceptively mild.

“I lost friends today. Their families deserve to know why. They deserve the truth.”

“You don’t know what the truth would do,” he said softly. “I’ve seen how they respond to truth. I’ve lived through the Inquisition and the witch hunts. I’ve watched my loved ones burn.”

“Sir,” Pallas said, “whatever we do, we should act soon. I’ve called for healers, and can split the rest of our forces into teams.”

Gutenberg nodded and stepped toward the edge of the grove. He turned around to look at me, his expression unreadable. “Farewell, Isaac Vainio.”

The Porters did their best, but they couldn’t manipulate the minds of an entire town, let alone everyone who had seen or read about the story online. A photo of the dragon smashing its way into town had gone viral, and a six-second video of a wendigo at the ice cream shop kept popping up on various social media sites no matter how many times the Porters tried to take it offline.

Nor could they find and destroy the remains of every one of the hundreds of metal insects and other creatures Harrison and Deifilia had sent to attack us. They did their best to track down the wendigos, but I had no doubt we’d be seeing more “Bigfoot sightings” for months to come.

The Porters had trapped a fair number of wendigos, but they hadn’t found them all. Nor were any of the people they restored to human form associated with the students of Bi Sheng. I knew Harrison had transformed some of his own people, but Bi Wei and her friends must have hunted them down, saving their own and making sure they couldn’t be captured and used by the Porters.

None of which was my concern anymore.

I sat in the grass, my back against one of the outer oaks of Lena’s grove, and tried to read. I had picked up Gaiman’s latest, but I hadn’t managed to get past the first two pages. Not because of any problem with the writing, but because when I read his words, I felt nothing.

I knew there was magic here. Given Gaiman’s fanbase, I should have been able to touch this book’s magic in my sleep.

I sighed and set the book aside. Maybe I would be better off rereading an old favorite. Preferably something light. Pratchett’s Discworld series would keep me busy for a while.

Lena had somehow shrunk the surrounding oaks of her grove to a more reasonable height, and was currently clearing a section of the canopy, folding the branches back to allow us a better view of the stars and a distant comet that should be visible through the telescope later tonight. I had a new eyepiece for the scope that I’d been wanting to try.

I pulled a crumpled piece of green paper from the pocket of my jeans. The front was an advertisement for a book club that had met at the library over the summer. On the back, I had done my best to recreate the lines Gutenberg had engraved into my skull.

Sileo. Latin for I am silent.

“Any progress?” Lena asked as she emerged from the grove.

I shook my head. “It’s not a form of libriomancy I understand. If he had written a longer phrase, I might be able to find a source, but this is just a single word. It could refer to anything. I suspect the pen is as much a part of the magic as the writing. I’d give half my books to get my hands on it.”

I didn’t tell her about the e-mail I had received from Nicola Pallas yesterday. I hadn’t told anyone, though I had reread it until I memorized every word. I was certain Nicola had broken some rule or another in sending it, which was amazing all by itself. Or maybe there were simply no rules for a situation like mine, and she had taken advantage of that omission.

The e-mail had been short and businesslike. Pallas began by reminding me that I was no longer a Porter, and that any attempt to access Porter resources or data would be ill-advised. Because of my service to the organization, she thought it only fair that I receive my final paycheck. It would be deposited into my savings account at the end of the month, and that would be the last time they contacted me.

Then, at the very end of her message, she warned me against trying to undo Gutenberg’s spell, explaining that historically, almost all such attempts had ended badly.

I knew Nicola Pallas. She was far too careful in her writing to have used the word “almost” by accident. Just as importantly, she knew me well enough to know I would pounce on that word as proof that it could be done.

She had given me hope.

“I heard on the radio that a sparkler photobombed a live news broadcast down in Detroit,” Lena commented.

My lips quirked. For the past two days since the attack, I had been inseparable from my computer, reading every article and blog post I could find about the attack on Copper River, Michigan. Theories ranged from the outlandish to the mundanely predictable: mass hallucinations, government experiments gone wrong, aliens, and more.

The physical repairs to the town had undermined many of the stories. I had driven past the water tower, standing tall once again. I couldn’t find a single weld to show where the legs had broken. The restaurant remained closed, but the door and windows had been fixed.

It was the same throughout town, and the reporters who arrived in search of a story met with confusion and conjecture from people who remembered nothing of the past days. On the other hand, there were always people eager for attention who were happy to confirm whatever explanation the reporters wanted, so long as it gave them their fifteen minutes of fame.

The last article I read had taken the government conspiracy approach, claiming that Copper River was a test site for hallucinogenic weapons, and everyone who stayed would be dying of cancer over the next decade.

I told myself I wasn’t obsessing. I was trying to read past the stories, to find out what the Porters had been up to, and whether they had been able to track down Bi Wei and the others. With no access to the Porter database and no magic of my own, this was my best chance to reconstruct their movements.

I watched Smudge climb slowly up one of the oaks, stalking a firefly. I hadn’t been certain what would happen to him with my magic gone. How much did Smudge exist independently of me, and how much was his magic bound to my own? The first time I watched him toast a cricket, my relief had been overwhelming.

As had the envy that followed.

Lena slid down beside me. “What happens now?”

I pointed to the sky. “Later tonight, between Ursa Minor and Cassiopeia, we should be able to see—”

“Dork.” She kissed my ear. “You know what I mean.”

“I’ve still got the library job. I asked Jennifer to move me back to full time.” No matter what else the Porters had done to me, at least they had repaired my library. I had been going there since I was three years old. I blinked hard and waited for the tightness in my throat to ease.

I could feel the depression trying to pull me down and smother me, as it had done at random times for the past two days. Nidhi was ready to start slipping Zoloft into my drinks. She would have been happier if I was talking to someone, but I couldn’t exactly go to a normal therapist with my problems, and Doctor Karim wasn’t allowed to meet with me anymore, since I was no longer a Porter.

I had also been volunteering around town, trying to pitch in wherever I could. I had donated blood, run an impromptu story time for kids, helped out with a charity fundraiser for the “unexplained” deaths that had taken at least twenty-one people…anything to be useful. Anything to keep from feeling powerless.

When I walked past the cemetery and saw the freshly dug graves, nothing seemed like enough.

“I’ve got something I want to show you.” Lena sounded uncharacteristically shy. “Nidhi, too. A project I’ll need both of you to help with.”

Before she could say more, Nidhi emerged from the back of the house with Jeff and Helen DeYoung in tow. I was starting to get used to having an extra houseguest in Nidhi. I knew perfectly well she was staying because she was worried about me, and wanted to make sure I wasn’t suicidal. It wasn’t an unreasonable fear, but after coming so close to so many different flavors of death, I had no desire at all to go there again.

“Later,” Lena whispered.

Jeff and Nidhi waited while Helen navigated the deck with her crutches. She had taken on a pair of wendigos on the south part of town. I hadn’t been able to pry anything out of her, beyond, “You should see the other guys, eh?”

Jeff was in slightly better shape. The first time I saw him, he had looked half-mummified in bandages from the cuts he had suffered, but the worst of his wounds had scabbed over and were beginning to heal. By the time the next full moon rolled around, he should be good as new.

Guan Feng had slept undisturbed through the attack, and most of the creatures had abandoned the library to come after me. I had gotten the rest of the story from Helen, how the students of Bi Sheng knocked Jeff unconscious with a flick of their fingers, until one of the rescue workers found him curled up and snoring in the library the next afternoon.

“We brought cedar-smoked salmon,” Helen announced. She had become far friendlier when she learned I was no longer welcome among the Porters.

“And a thank you from Laci’s and Hunter’s families.” Jeff dug a pair of knitted mittens and matching hat from the pocket of his sweatshirt and tossed them to me. “For taking care of the bastard who attacked their kids.”

They were surprisingly soft, gray with a dappling of black spun through the wool. “Thank them for me.”

“They’d been saving the yarn,” Helen said. “Spun it themselves.”

I hesitated. “What exactly am I holding here?”

Jeff chuckled. “Nothing too weird. They brushed it from Laci and Hunter the first year they went through the change. It’s tradition, at least in these parts. You spin the fur into wool and use it for something special. Wear those, and any werewolf will know from the scent to treat you like family.”

“Thank you,” I repeated, humbled.

“Won’t be long until word gets out about us,” Helen said. “The Porters are trying to cover things up, but it’s like trying to put the egg back into the shell. There have always been rumors about Tamarack, but now folks will start putting the pieces together. Two families have left town already. The rest are stocking up on weapons and ammunition.”

“If the Porters can’t stop the signal, they’ll do their best to control it,” Lena said.

“Has anyone in Copper River figured out what you do—what you used to do, I mean—on the side?” Helen asked.

“Not yet.” Earlier today, after attending the first of what would be many funerals to come, Pete Malki had asked about the additional trees in my backyard. Several of my neighbors wanted to know how my home had survived the destruction that had taken out the rest of the street. Thus far, they’d all been willing to take my word that I was as baffled as the rest of them. “I’m sorry I can’t do anything for your leg.”

She waved off my concern. “I’ve had worse. Did I ever tell you about the time I was out hunting, and a black bear managed to creep up behind me? She was downwind, and I was recovering from a cold, so by the time I sniffed her, it was too late to run.”

I settled back to listen, though I wasn’t sure how much of her story to believe. I certainly didn’t buy the one Jeff told next, which started with a home-brewing project and ended with Jeff punching a moose.

Nidhi brought chairs out from the house, and Jeff eventually retreated to the kitchen to heat up dinner. Lena grabbed a six-pack of beer a short time later, along with a two-liter bottle of Cherry Coke for herself.

By the time the sky grew dark, I had been thoroughly briefed on gossip about half the werewolves in Tamarack. I had shared a bit of salmon with Smudge, who apparently felt it was horribly undercooked, but otherwise approved. I thought it was delicious, and even went back for a second helping. It was the first real meal I had eaten since losing my magic.

Eventually, Helen tapped her husband on the shoulder, interrupting his tale about a rather acrobatic foursome he and Helen had participated in when they were younger. I had no idea whether or not they were embellishing or making the whole thing up. I was fairly certain the bit about the hammock was a lie, based on simple physics. Either way, it was definitely making me blush. Meanwhile, I could see Lena taking detailed mental notes.

“We need to start heading back,” said Helen. “Now you call us if there’s anything you need, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, climbing to my feet. “And thank you.”

They both seemed to understand that I wasn’t talking about the food. Each of them hugged me in turn, then did the same with Nidhi and Lena.

“Try to stay out of trouble for a while, eh?” Jeff said as he left.

“Not really part of my skill set,” I called back, earning a laugh from them both.

Nidhi stood with her arms folded, studying me. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, because she turned to go back inside.

“Wait.” Lena jumped to her feet and ducked into the grove, to her oak. She crouched at the base of the tree, reached into the roots, and pulled something from the dirt.

When I saw what she carried, I backed away. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes and no.” She extended the book to me.

I thought at first that Bi Wei had left her book behind, but I couldn’t imagine her taking such a risk. When I took the cloth-bound tome, I saw that the cover text was slightly different, though I couldn’t read it.

The writing inside was identical to that in Bi Wei’s book, at least the beginning. I turned to the middle, where carefully formed Chinese characters were replaced by English. “This is your handwriting.”

“I found it in the roots of my tree,” Lena said. “They made it for me. I think it was a gift from Bi Wei. When I pulled her from her book, she must have seen more of my thoughts than I realized.”

Nidhi pressed close, reading over my shoulder. I turned the page and read, “The oak is ever divided…”

Lena stared at the ground. “I’m not saying it’s good. I never claimed to be a poet.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Jeneta would—” Only I was forbidden from talking with her.

“They used these books as an escape,” Nidhi said. “A way to survive in a time of war.”

“I want the same thing,” Lena said. “To survive.” She took the book back and held it almost reverently. “I’m not done with it yet, and I don’t know if it will work, but I want to try.”

Lena’s nature couldn’t be rewritten. Gutenberg had said so himself. Then again, Gutenberg had said a lot of things that turned out to be untrue or incomplete. If these books could sustain the students of Bi Sheng for so many years—if they could give them a foundation even now to stave off the madness of the Army of Ghosts—who was to say it couldn’t do the same for Lena?

“I’ll need you both to read it,” Lena continued. “Each day, if you can.”

“Of course, love,” said Nidhi.

“Twice a day on weekends,” I promised.

“Thank you.” She kissed each of us, then returned the book to the safety of her tree. When she returned, her eyes were somber. “When do you think the Army of Ghosts will return?”

Not if, but when. “They’re awake now, and they’ve planted their seeds in Bi Wei and the others. If the ghosts can’t take control of them, they’ll look for another way into our world.”

And when they got here, they would certainly remember who had derailed their plans. Twice.

I thought of the armored woman I had seen in my madness, and my hand went to the shock-gun in my pocket. Technically, I should have turned that in when they kicked me out of the Porters.

On the other hand, screw them.

“This isn’t over, is it?” asked Nidhi.

I peered through the telescope and adjusted the knob until the stars came into sharp focus. “The world is about to discover magic. This is only the beginning.”