She had never been to Kadal before. The planet was a distant port on the main shipping lanes, with four moons barely large enough to deserve names. It was also simply lousy with lizards. She stepped out of the Deep in an alley a block away from the tea house where she was to meet Bayle, and found her feet and ankles swarmed with small green geckos.
Oh, well. She always did the reading before she jumped to an unfamiliar planet, and she had known to expect the lizards. She just hadn’t expected so many of them! After a few cautious steps, she found they were quick to scurry out of her path, and she cautiously made her way into the city street, several lizards clinging to her robes. Most of the people she passed wore trousers with their cuffs tucked into their boots. They gave Tembi’s long skirts and bare feet a puzzled look, only nodding at her once they spotted her Witch’s paint. Along the way, some of Tembi’s lizards hopped off and new ones hopped on, and she laughed aloud as she realized that humans served as their public transportation.
She loved her life as a Witch. Strip away the drama and the infighting, the politics and the odd explosive device, and you were left with an entire galaxy. One step, and you were inside the Deep. Another, and you were on a different planet ten solar systems away. Without the Deep, she might have lived and died in a busted neighborhood on a throwaway world. Now, she was learning about the travel habits of the descendants of old Earth’s stowaway geckos.
What a life!
Except…
One of the locals glanced at her bare feet, and then her face paint. That should have been enough, except the wind chose that moment to give her headscarf a hard nudge, and it tore away from the tip of one of her ears. The local’s lips curled in disgust.
She tucked her scarf over her exposed ear, and gave it an extra tug to ensure it would stay put.
What a life.
Bayle was waiting for her at a small table outside the tea house, staring into her cup. By way of greeting, she said, “This isn’t tea.”
The plass mug was clear, and Tembi could see an enormous quantity of small flecks of…stuff…suspended in the liquid. It could have been a trick of the light, but the stuff appeared to twitch. “Is it drinkable?” she asked.
Bayle fluffed out a paper napkin, stared pointedly at the glass, and waited. After a moment, all of the slightly shivering stuff appeared in a small wet pile in the center of the napkin. “Now it is,” she muttered, as she balled up the napkin and tucked it aside. “Thank you, Deep.”
Tembi chuckled as she shook the last of the lizards from her robes, and took the chair across from her friend. “Odd planet?”
“They’re all odd. But some of them are more manageably odd,” Bayle said, as a lizard climbed on top of their table and began to lick its own eyeball. “So, how do we locate Moto?”
“Speaking of odd,” Tembi muttered, and caught her up on the events of the previous night. Bayle’s usual calm demeanor dropped along with her jaw at the right points in the story. By the time Tembi ended with, “The current plan is to make sure we can cure the mindfuck before we take him out of stasis,” Bayle was gasping like a fish left on a pier.
“I have questions,” her friend said. “Too many questions. I don’t… I can’t… I mean…!”
“I know,” Tembi replied. “But pick one and we’ll start there.”
Bayle waved her fists at the air until she decided on: “Fine. Do we have the time to follow this plan? If Moto knows something about the weapon, shouldn’t we wake him up and get that information? You and Matindi can work together to force the Deep to keep him from jumping, and once we have it, we can put him back in stasis.”
“I spoke to Kalais this afternoon. I found a way to get him some of Moto’s blood, and he’s already working to diagnose the mindfuck,” Tembi told her. “If it is a mindfuck, we can play it safe for a day or two. If it’s not, then we’ll decide what to do. Besides,” she said, as she handed her friend a data chip, “the Deep pulled what’s on this chip out of Moto’s robes. This is our job.”
The chip was small, round, and gray. Utterly ordinary. The type of chip you would step over if you found it on the street, assuming whatever information it contained wasn’t worth the minerals used to make it. Bayle tapped the chip against a bracelet, and began to thumb the air above the table as she scrolled through the data.
Or so Tembi assumed: the bracelet’s feed was cued to Bayle’s areotype, and she had it set so she was the only person who could see its projections. But Tembi had transferred the data to the chip herself, and she knew what part Bayle was reading when her blue eyes went wide.
When Bayle was finished, she thumbed off her drive and held out the chip to the open air. “Deep, could you return this to Moto’s robes for safekeeping?” she asked. The chip blipped out of their existence. “Thanks, Deep,” she sighed, and resumed staring into the depths of her beverage.
“Well?” Tembi asked.
“So that’s why you wanted to meet here,” Bayle said, her tone surprisingly mild. She refused to look at any of the people at the nearby tables.
Tembi nodded. “That was the last entry in his records that made any real sense. If something other than a mindfuck targeted to the Council hit him, it might have happened here.”
“We’re not qualified for this, Tembs.”
“We’re Witches,” she replied. “We’ve got immunity.”
“That’s not the same thing as being qualified. You disarm bombs, and I teach classes in public relations. We’re not detectives. As sure as all the minor hells, we’re not spies. Moto…”
“…was more than Domino’s assistant,” Tembi finished for her.
Bayle nodded. “I know you want to do more to help the Deep and stop the war, but—”
Tembi pressed a finger against her own lips.
“Right, right.” Bayle nodded, and then immediately shook her head in the same smooth motion. “You and I aren’t qualified for… well…” She tapped her bracelet. “Tembi, Moto was trained, and look what happened to him!”
“I know,” Tembi said, as she opened the Deep. “C’mon.”
Still shaking her head, Bayle followed her into the jump.
One fairly heated discussion and a change of clothing later, they came out on the other side of Kadal.
It was darkest night here, or close to it. There were no happy lizards and no quaint tea houses a short block away. Instead, it was all stone and concrete, smashed into high and brutal walls that were lit in red, accompanied by a smell which rocked the two of them on their heels.
“Gods!” Bayle gasped, as she pulled the edge of her scarf free to cover her nose. “What is that?”
Tembi glanced in the direction of the blowing winds, and didn’t answer.
There was a gate before them, humming with caged electricity. It was after hours. The guard box at the gate was empty, a glowing sign telling all visitors to come back in the morning.
She ignored it and marched forward.
They had changed into business robes: Bayle was in blue and gold, and Tembi was wearing the dusky colors of an Adhama sandstorm. There were shoes (sadly) and their hair was wrangled beneath their scarves, with Tembi’s ears tucked safely away, and Bayle’s hands shrouded within her long sleeves.
They were Witches. They had immunity. But that had been true for Moto, too.
Tembi stood before the gate, tilting her face to best display her Witch’s paint. There was a clicking sound, and then the gate swung up, folding itself away within the edges of the building. A woman came out, tall in her Blackwing uniform but dwarfed by the sheer size of the gateway.
“Witches,” she said, her voice flat. “Welcome.”
“Lady Oliver of Atlantis,” Bayle replied, and then she nodded to Tembi. “Sir Stoneskin of Adhama, as honored by Camelot.”
The woman’s face snapped from annoyance to suspicion keen as razors as she realized her unwanted visitors were both Witches and nobility. “Welcome,” she said again, adding feigned warmth this time, and ushered them inside.
This was the guest entrance. All of the practicality of the building was hidden elsewhere. Here were nothing but the costumes of industry, with sales figures and products on display. They made durable goods here, after all, items that offered that handmade touch for the discerning buyer. Their guide chattered about production levels and shipping times and all the little details of moving products across the galaxy, a sales pitch that Tembi and Bayle had heard a hundred times before. This was what Witches did, after all.
“There are few on staff at this hour. We do have a guest suite,” their guide said. “If you would like to meet with General Carroll, we would be honored if you would stay the night.”
Bayle stared down at her, a tremendous achievement considering the other woman’s height. “Thank you, but there’s no need.”
Their guide nodded. It had been an empty gesture anyhow. “Would you like to speak to the night manager?”
“We would,” Bayle replied. “If they are all who are available to receive us.”
Their guide’s face showed nothing.
It took longer than it should have to reach the manager’s office. The old delaying tactic was in effect, the one where unwanted guests were escorted along empty hallways until someone in a position of authority could perform a lightning cleanup and finish cramming stimulants into their bloodstream. After several minutes of walking and strained small talk, the guide’s hand moved to her ear, and she gradually changed course to return them to an area near the guest entrance.
Then, the guide’s eyes went wide, and she changed course again. “Honored Witches,” she said, as she picked up her pace. “General Carroll has made herself available to you.”
“Yes,” Bayle said, as she paused to inspect a piece of art hanging on a nearby wall. “Would you know anything about the artist? This is of quite remarkable quality, especially for a planet such as yours.”
Their guide folded her hands together. “All of our pieces were donated by our residents,” she replied. “They are for sale. Would you like me to inquire about this one?”
Bayle’s hand leapt away from the painting as if it had opened a mouth and spit acid, but she said, ever so calmly, “That won’t be necessary.”
“Very well.” Their guide resumed walking. Tembi caught a glimpse of the woman’s self-satisfied smile in the reflection of a nearby window.
The three of them didn’t speak for the rest of their short trip. Their guide deposited them in an overlarge office with its windows obscured by heavy fabric curtains, and offered them drinks. Tembi and Bayle refused; Bayle took a seat on a chair with her back to the windows, while Tembi went to lift one of those curtains so she could stare across the lot below.
“Gods,” she whispered.
She had seen prisons. She had seen detention camps. This was different.
This was a block of stone and plass and metal, carved into buildings. All was black or gray, with the same red lighting that had greeted them at the guest entrance. There was no green or blue or orange, as nothing grew here. There was no brown; everything that had died or could give birth to new life had been scraped up and cast away. She doubted there were any other colors: someone with modded eyes had no doubt gone through and purged this place of all but red.
There should have been a sky of midnight blue overhead. Instead, she saw the flat gray of a weather cage, the largest cage Tembi had ever seen, one that stretched across the horizon. Fresh air could come and go, while wind and weather were sucked down to nearly nothing as they smacked up against the cage. Nothing else could enter it.
The buildings below were stark gray cubes, windowless and featureless, the foundational idea of a building before an architect gave it a soul.
She saw no people. That was the only good part about the view, that she saw no people walking about the featureless yard. There were bright spotlights casting their beams about the yard, but there was no suggestion that any other human creatures lived in this part of the world.
Even though this gray space stretched all around her.
There was no end to it.
They were already inside it.
“Impressive, yes?” Another voice, this one unfamiliar. Tembi turned to see a woman—General Carroll? She’s wearing the correct rank insignia.—enter the room. She was taller and thinner than the guide, with moon-white skin, pale blue eyes, and platinum blond hair flowing past her waist. Her black uniform had three narrow red stripes starting at her left shoulder and running down her chest at an angle, as if the woman had been in a fight with a gigantic feline which had left her bloody.
And elegantly pointed ears which closely resembled Tembi’s own.
“The Sagittarius Armed Forces have fourteen Hawk-class facilities,” the blond woman said proudly. “This one is mine. Welcome to Camp Divested.”
“General Carroll,” Bayle said, standing. “Thank you for seeing us at this hour.”
“We always accommodate Witches,” the general replied, as she held out a graceful hand, palm up. Bayle covered it with her own, fingers held close together, and then moved to slide her hand back within the long fabric of her sleeve.
“Please, Lady Oliver, there’s no need to hide. I know our reputation, but Blackwings welcome all,” Carroll said, as she touched the tip of her own ear. She turned to Tembi. “I welcome you, as well, Sir Stoneskin. Are those the ears of a sister Tolkienite I see beneath that scarf?”
Tembi let the curtain drop as she turned to face the general. As she did, she pulled away her scarf, showing both her ears and her paint. “No,” she answered. “I’m from Adhama.”
The general’s eyes went wide as she saw Tembi’s golden birds. “I wondered if it would be you. Stoneskin is a common name among your people, but I’ve heard you are the only Witch who has taken it as her own,” she said, her words measured. “To what do I owe the honor of a visit from two of Lancaster’s most powerful Witches?”
“You honor us,” Bayle replied. “We are young and barely vested, and thus have little power of our own. We serve at Lancaster’s bidding.”
“Of course,” Carroll said, nodding. “I should not have presumed.”
There was more of this jousting, most of which Tembi barely followed. The three of them eventually found their way to a small table. Carroll served them drinks, bowing so her hair hung like a fine white shroud around her face as she set each cup on the table. Wine, blood-red wine, in crystal cups. Her movements were alien in their meticulousness. No energy was wasted as she flowed easily from one gesture to the next.
Tembi wondered how many people the general had killed with those same fluid motions. Surely she must have gotten those perfect hands dirty at some point? Or perhaps she was like Bayle and her battles were bloodless.
“We are retracing the steps of a fellow Witch,” Bayle told Carroll. “Moto Sanders, also of Adhama. His paint is of red flames.” As she spoke, she triggered her bracelet. A projection of Moto’s face appeared, visible to the three of them. He was calmer than he had been in the memory stored in the Crisp, and had black hair. He was also grinning, his dark eyes bright and seeming to shine out from within the projection.
Hey, Moto, Tembi thought. We’ll bring you the rest of the way home as soon as we can.
“I’ve met him,” Carroll replied. “Witch Sanders was bald, but those eyes? Unforgettable. We had drinks right here,” she said, as she tapped the tabletop. “He wanted to know if our shipping needs were being met by our suppliers.”
Tembi’s ears went up. Carroll spotted this, and smiled. “My race on Tolkien has similar mannerisms,” she said, as she moved her own ears to first indicate attention, then surprise, and finally distrust. “I’ve always found it lovely that your race and mine have parallel evolution in our communications. Do you feel as though you can never have a full conversation with the earless?”
“Sometimes,” said Tembi, as she moved her own ears to mirror distrust.
Carroll’s smile faltered as she nodded. “I see I must prove myself to you,” she said, now somber. “How may I help you find your missing Witch?”
“I don’t believe we said he was missing,” Bayle replied.
“An educated guess on my part,” Carroll said, waving one graceful hand to dismiss Bayle’s comment. “Am I wrong?”
“Witches never go missing,” Bayle said, as she pretended to sip her wine. “The Deep always knows where we are.”
“Ah,” Carroll said. Her smile returned, even as her ears called Bayle a liar. “Yes. The Deep.”
Bayle had spent enough time with Tembi and Moto to understand the nuances of eartalk, but she didn’t take the bait. “Retracing Moto’s steps is an internal matter,” she said. “There’s no need to concern yourself with our reasons.”
“Of course,” demurred Carroll. “As I said, he came here to discuss shipping. How we move our goods off-world when Lancaster refuses to trade with us. Even though you choose to make those same services available to the Sabenta.”
“We are not here to discuss policy,” Bayle said. “Representatives from the Blackwings have already petitioned Lancaster to open the Deep to them. I’m sure they will petition us again. Your position is well represented.”
“Of course,” Carroll repeated, her tone flat as she went to refill her glass from a matching crystal flask. She glanced at the Witches’ glasses, ears dipping slightly towards distrust as she noted how the other women had only feigned companionable drinking. “I am merely repeating what Moto and I discussed. He agreed that the situation was…not wholly fair.”
Tembi found herself nodding. Fair play? Yes, that sounded exactly like Moto. The Deep had been opened to the Sabenta only after the Blackwings had murdered them by the hundreds of millions. Now, when the Blackwings came to purge their planets, the Sabenta could call on the Witches to move non-combatants off-world and out of danger.
Moving Sabenta refugees and clearing bombs out of public places. That was the sum of the Deep’s involvement in the war. It didn’t touch ships outfitted with weapons. All of the Sabenta’s fighting forces used FTL drives, as did the Blackwings. Exactly the same, except the Blackwings didn’t have any refugees. The Sabenta might outnumber the Blackwings ten to one, but the Blackwings had old money and could keep all of the fighting contained to Sabenta worlds. Any Sabenta who couldn’t escape in time was either killed or—
Tembi’s eyes drifted towards the heavy curtains.
Not wholly fair, indeed.
Carroll spotted this. “Would you care to add something, Witch Stoneskin?”
“No.” Her voice sounded cold.
“Where else did Moto go while he was here?” Bayle asked quickly. “I assume there was a tour of your shipping facilities?”
Carroll nodded. “I wasn’t able to take him myself, but a member of my staff showed him around our facilities. Would you like to take the same tour?” She sighed as she made a show of checking the clock on the wall. “It would have to be in the morning. The buildings are closed for cleaning at night, and are dangerous.”
And if we come back in the morning, whatever she’s hiding will be gone.
“A generous offer,” Bayle said. “We might take you up on that at a later time. For the moment, all we need to know are the details of your conversation.”
“We spoke of the war, of course,” replied Carroll. She peered over the edge of her wine glass, the reflection giving her blue eyes a small bite of red. “And how Lancaster’s decision to aid the Sabenta instead of us reflects the priorities of your faith.”
Bayle said nothing, did nothing. In the language of diplomats, this apparently was a breathtaking insult, as the general recoiled.
“Shall I be frank?” Carroll asked, placing her cup upon the table with unnatural grace. Somehow, the red hue of the wine stayed fast within her eyes. “I know you cannot speak of these matters with outsiders, but it may help if you know where I stand. I told Moto of my disgust with your leadership. You could do so much good, but you pretend it is prohibited.”
Tembi felt pressed to speak. “The Deep doesn’t like it when we use it in war,” she said. “It’s…” She searched for the words, and they crashed into her head, as suddenly as if the Deep had dropped them there. “It’s scared of war.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” Carroll said sharply. “There is no such thing as the Deep. Here,” she said, as she gestured towards the windows. The curtains slid open, exposing the gray world of the detention facility. “This is reality. It is flawed and cruel, and if you have a problem with it, you should say so. Instead, you hide behind the image of a divine creature with supernatural powers, a religion like any other.”
Tembi laughed, a chest-bursting sound that took all three women by surprise. “The Deep keeps the entire galaxy moving!” she exclaimed. “There’s…how can you just deny it?”
“Lancaster and its Witches keep the galaxy moving,” Carroll replied. “How? Technology, in all likelihood, augmenting your native telekinetic skills. Don’t worry, Moto didn’t tell me.” She paused. “We did agree that Lancaster should never have chosen sides. You should have stayed neutral. The galaxy could have lived with your continued neutrality, though we would have hated you for it. When you joined yourselves to the Sabenta, you showed that your faith isn’t constant. Your services can be bought.
“We—” she said, and it was clear she meant the Sagittarius Armed Forces and their allies. “—want to know your price. With your help, the war and all the suffering it has caused would be over within the week.”
“Tembi,” Bayle said, as she stood. “We will get no more information from General Carroll.”
“Go,” Carroll said, dismissing them with a wave of her flawless hand. “I had hoped you came to me tonight with an answer, but you children are useless. Tell your parents that the message I gave to Moto hasn’t changed. We will pay whatever price Lancaster demands to end this war.”