An Age Without A Name Page 15

  As a Crow Master of Nobles, after Occum and Shadow’s last bit of training, Caveworm’s subconscious gave him a chance to resist being cast out by a Crow Mentor. His new inner clarity gave him enough strength to sneer at the Law. Fighting the Law directly, though, was a fool’s game. The Law corrupted free will, and the harder you fought it, the more it altered one’s free will.

  However, there were gaps in the Law, as there were gaps in anything that left the victims more free will than a zombie. Quite a few gaps. For instance, Enkidu didn’t need to lay out exactly how Caveworm should obey Enkidu’s orders. This gave Caveworm far more leeway than Enkidu or any of the Hunters realized, and Caveworm had no interest at all in removing the Commander’s or Armenigar’s tags from those who held them.

  He had other plans. The Hunters had never before possessed a Crow Master of Nobles as a captive. However, they once did have a Crow Master of Hunters, and his name had been Wandering Shade.

  Perhaps it was time they had a second.

  The scars left by Bass, by betrayal, and by the Law created something new, and the new creation now filled the empty places in his mind where his old memories used to be.

  For a few minutes, Caveworm considered the possibility his mind might no longer be as stable as before. Huntress Hecate had re-sculpted his body with élan, and he doubted she bothered to use the proper safeguards to keep the élan from affecting his mind. As a Crow Master, if evaluating some other Crow, he would say that lost memories, torture, and fresh scarring of the juice structure would make a Crow even more susceptible to the mind-altering effects of élan.

  He dismissed the worry as spurious. He had both purpose and power, and a path to follow. He let the mad laughter escape his lips.

  Time for him to do a little teaching of his own.

  Dolores Sokolnik (3/16/73 – 3/17/73)

  Was she in too deep? It was a big question, and Del had been considering it for hours. She had responsibilities now, for Beth and her household, and for Modesty, too.

  Warm thoughts about Modesty sidetracked Del, and a smile tried to escape her control. She let it. Ever since the tagging ceremony, there hadn’t been any problems with Del’s love life. Modesty was voracious. Unfortunately, Modesty’s interest was due to fade as her juice level declined. Del wished she could come up with some way to keep Modesty juiced up that didn’t involve running through three prey Transforms in the process. Her only other option was to get Modesty to earn more triads for her household, and the earning would take work. In the meantime, though, Del enjoyed every minute of Modesty’s high juice.

  High juice was no help at all with her current problem, though, which was entirely different from sex. Neither was Amy any help. All Del got from her boss was a glare along the lines of ‘I’m too busy, so deal with it yourself’. Which, alas, was true. Crow VIPs from all different Crow factions kept appearing, and Amy ended up playing hostess to them, along with Thomas the Dreamer, Duke Hoskins and occasionally herself. This should have been Sinclair’s job, or even Beth’s job, but, well…

  “I will help you, but only if you subordinate yourself to me as an apprentice,” Duende Gemelo had told her. Translated – you’ll get help only if you let me tag you, and no, it won’t be mutual. Yet, the arrangement seemed appropriate, though both of them foresaw some rough patches ahead. The Duende would be teaching what he had thought of as ‘a man’s job’ and which was turning out to be ‘the predator’s work’ in actuality, when you extended the Duende – Bruja model to the Arm – Bruja arrangement.

  Yet another tag from a superior. Was this right? Well, Gemelo was well established and about the same age as a Transform as the Commander. However, he was a man, a Chimera and of a radically different Transform society, all of which triggered Del’s paranoia. In addition, any of the Duendes were charismatic enough to spin Del around and make her do foolish things. Charisma was the Duende strength, and putting herself under the control of a Duende felt unnatural.

  Del continued her run, three miles into her daily five mile session, running in circles around their HQ, the Forest Grove compound. The place was an abandoned farm with a little sign that said ‘Coming Soon, Applewood Crossing, Quality Homes for Young Families’. The sign was weathered, and the last few words had nearly worn away. Del guessed that Applewood Crossing would have to wait a few more years until the economy improved.

  Her arrangement with Gemelo felt unnatural because it was unnatural. Yet, so was all civilization, for either of the predatory Transform varieties. Ma’am Keaton had said that you needed to break the minds of new Arms, not only to rip their former lives away, but also to open them up to working against their basic Arm instincts. “Hunting your prey in cities is counter to the basic Arm instincts. You’ll see, if you ever get to hunt out in what passes for wilderness these days.” Ma’am Keaton was right, as she nearly always was. Del had hunted, out here in the Oregon mountains, just to see. Hunting prey in cities was fake, ritualistic, and wrong – but fully necessary. Civilization was necessary.

  Life was full of compromises. Del decided she would need to live with another.

  “Juice, dross or élan, it makes no difference. You can’t really see it for what it is. You just think you do. That makes any form of juice, dross and élan manipulation magic for us Major Transforms, no matter how else we think of it,” Master Gemelo said. His voice was low and comfortable, and the accent made the words almost poetic. Del nodded, and concentrated on the élan manipulation her new master showed her, as an example of how a no-range predator like either of them ritually worked élan – or in Del’s case, juice. Ritual magic engaged the subconscious; it was magic not in a supernatural sense, but in the sense of ‘this is not actually under your conscious control’. The same way that a technophobe approached the use of automobiles and televisions. Or how any normal approached dream interpretation.

  “We need to find your symbols and figure out what has symbolic meaning for you. Once we find the symbols, I can show you how to use them. Then, practice, practice, practice,” Master Gemelo said, with a low chuckle. They were out behind the barn, and an early morning rain had left the air clear and fresh. Del was soaked all the way up to her thighs, and didn’t care at all.

  “This sounds too simple,” Del said. She sat on top of a pile of mostly rotted firewood, while Master Gamelo sat across from her on the bottom rung of a broken split-rail fence. “The Focuses can’t teach witchery – juice patterns – to beginning Focuses, and when they can, the training takes forever. Beth’s been teaching Bruja Modesty juice music for weeks, and Modesty hasn’t even gotten to the point where she can do anything real.” Real, in Del’s mind, meant combat applications. If pressed, she would admit she did have a little bit of a prejudicial opinion on the subject.

  Master Gemelo nodded. “However, Bruja Torres has already finished the initial instruction of Bruja Modesty in the Bruja skills. Symbolic magic depends on raw talent, not age as a Transform. We can only teach the skills to a few, but it doesn’t matter how old they are. It is more like the game of Go than the Focus’s juice pattern capabilities – very simple rules, allowing simple activities from the beginning, but much harder to fully master.”

  “How do we find what my symbols are?” Del asked.

  “That’s the hard part, and why you need me,” Gemelo said, then laughed. Del couldn’t help but laugh with him, at the Duende utter joy of life. When the Duende laughed, it wasn’t just a thing of the voice – his entire body laughed, from his bushy eyebrows, moustache and beard, all the way down to his furry bare feet. “Once you’re experienced, you’ll be able to find more symbols of your own. To start with, I’ll just read you and tell you what is powerful to you.”

  Did they meditate, or study? No, they went into Portland to go shopping. None of her current possessions counted, which didn’t surprise Del. Nor did the first things she found in a bookstore elicit any reaction from her. She couldn’t yet see what Master Gemelo said were her ‘strong reactions’. Sensing those
would take meditation and practice. “There, that book.”

  Del nodded, as they started to gather books. Aristophanes. Ovid’s “Metamorphosis”. Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Thought”. Pictures of Rembrandt’s paintings and Michelangelo’s sculpture. Sappho. Shakespeare. Dickens. Twain. Churchill. After they bought the requisite hundred pounds of books, they continued shopping, as Master Gemelo believed she needed religious or other iconic symbols. A slight problem, as she had never been very religious. Crosses didn’t do anything for her. Celtic knotwork did, though, as did carved figurines of frogs, toads and turtles. So did the scents of anise, chocolate and molasses.

  “None of us knows, as normals, what lies hidden in our minds,” Master Gemelo said. “As Major Transforms, we are a little better, because we can see the shadows cast by our hidden minds. We are creatures of juice and élan, and juice and élan react to both our conscious and unconscious minds.” The same as the hormones that regulated emotions – yet with all things transformed, the juice amplified the reactions, making them much stronger.

  When they returned to the Forest Grove compound, Master Gemelo had Del sit and relax her body as completely as she could. “Look at these, think of them. Touch them. Let’s see which is your strongest symbol. That will be your representation.”

  It took them nearly two hours, but they found Del’s strongest symbol, a carved frog, only slightly stronger than the scent of molasses.

  Del smiled, and quoted from memory the frog chorus from Aristophanes’ play:

  “Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax,

  “Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax!

  “We children of the fountain and the lake

  “Let us wake

  “Our full choir-shout, as the flutes are ringing out,

  “Our symphony of clear-voiced song.

  “The song we used to love in the Marshland up above,

  “In praise of Dionysus to produce,

  “Of Nysaean Dionysus, son of Zeus,

  “When the revel-tipsy throng, all crapulous and gay,

  “To our precinct reeled along on the holy Pitcher day,

  “Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.”

  “You are a very strange woman, Arm Sokolnik.” Gemelo laughed and shook his head. Del laughed as well. Ko-ax! Ko-ax!

  ---

  “Wake, Beth. Come back to us,” Del chanted, and put her frog figurine on Beth’s freckled forehead. “We need you.”

  She could have done this yesterday, save that she was too embarrassed by the idea of actually doing this ritual magic stuff in public. Master Gemelo made her practice with some small tricks first. She convinced Transforms to laugh at bad jokes – at least once. She glared at a couple of normals in a line and fingered the symbols in her pocket. The normals decided to give up their place for her. The biggest success was when she convinced Audrey and Frida, two of Beth’s Transforms, to quit squabbling over washing the damned dishes, without needing to terrorize them into submission. The last was what convinced her to move on to greater things.

  This was a mental trick. No magic involved at all. All the games were only to convince her unconscious to show some control with the predator effect, because her conscious mind remained clearly incapable.

  “Eventually, you’ll be able to use this with your other Arm capabilities, whatever those may be,” Master Gemelo said. “It will take time and practice, but you won’t need me. Come back in a few years, if you keep working at it, and I’ll have a few more advanced techniques I might be able to help you with.” The first thing Del thought of along those lines were healing, and second, the mix of healing and predator that formed the basis for Arm teaching techniques.

  Now she brought Beth back, but the juice work turned out to be far simpler than the explanations. She and Beth sat – and lay – out under the big pavilion, now with its sides rolled up, and all the Major Transforms and half the normals thought they needed to check out the proceedings. Del could swear every one of them thought they were entitled to an explanation.

  “No, ma’am, this is just a way of guiding my natural Arm talents,” she had told Amy.

  “Good,” Amy had said, once she squeezed the explanation out of Del. “We needed an Arm Shaman. The Crows shouldn’t have all the fun, you know.”

  Arm Shaman? Amy too was strange, and, worse, she had elaborate theories about Arm varieties, which the older Arm counted as sixteen. Del had the bad feeling she provided evidence for a five year old argument.

  A shiver in Beth’s juice structure signaled progress. Just a tiny shiver, but within a minute, Beth’s juice structure showed life again, stirred, frothed, and sparkled. In a moment, the structure looked like Beth. Beth opened her eyes and Del hastily made the frog figurine vanish. She would save explaining the symbolic crap for later.

  “Del? What happened to me?”

  “Well, you heard about what happened to Sinclair, and shut down,” Del said. She had thought about not mentioning Sinclair at all, but decided there would be no avoiding the truth. Start off with a bang, see what happens.

  “Who’s Sinclair?” Beth said.

  Oh fuck. More trouble.

  Beth followed Del into Amy’s office, a decrepit old room in the abandoned farmhouse, and sat down. The chair creaked under her slight weight. It was an old wooden folding chair that had seen too much travel. Del took a position just to the right of Beth, and one step back. A guard’s position, though she couldn’t exactly guard Beth from Amy Haggerty.

  The glass in the room’s single window was broken, the wallpaper partially peeled away, and the floor creaked and sank whenever a person walked on it. The air was sweet, though, with the smell of new grass and apple blossoms drifting in through the broken window.

  “So, everything back to normal?” Amy said, from behind her small camp desk. With her black bomber jacket off, her bulging Arm’s muscles showed clearly through her t-shirt and along the length of her bare arms. She fiddled with her knife, her eyes hooded and blank. Stress. Not a time that Del wanted to be delivering bad news. Orders, though.

  “Not quite,” Beth said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to be acting a little flaky for a while.”

  “How?”

  “You know this Sinclair person that Del thinks I had this relationship with?”

  Amy nodded.

  “Well, it seems I’ve walled off my memories of him deep in my mind. It hurts to think about him,” Beth said. “So I don’t.”

  “It was more than just ‘a relationship’,” Amy said. “You’d brought him into your household, and he was helping you stabilize a bunch more Transforms.”

  Beth took a deep breath. “Yes. That seems to be the case. Not that I remember. Del is of the opinion that since Sinclair and I didn’t tag each other, our relationship wasn’t stable enough to last through the stress we put it through.”

  Amy looked at Del, and Del braced herself, back straight and chin up, nearly at attention. “Another of your bright ideas?”

  “Ma’am,” Del said, chewing on her lower lip. A real natural expression. She didn’t even realize she had done it until afterwards. Maybe she really was making progress at becoming more human. “We’d thought mutual tagging was a necessary pre-condition to resolve the basic problems of trust and cooperation between different forms of Major Transforms. Now that I’ve seen how strong a role the juice has played in Beth and Sinclair’s emotions, I believe that mutual tagging is also necessary to combat other relationship problems that involve love, such as the stress of separation.”

  Amy studied Del for a few moments. “I’ll take your word on this. Are your memories gone for good?” Amy asked Beth.

  “I don’t think so,” Beth said. “They’ll probably just pop back on their own, once this Sinclair person reappears.”

  Del caught the hint of skepticism on Amy’s face, and realized Amy didn’t buy Beth’s glib explanation. The older Arm didn’t respond, though.

  “Ma’am,” Del said. “If we have time later today, Bruja Modesty wou
ld like to make a presentation to the group’s leaders regarding her death sentence. She has something to show everyone, a contribution that in my mind proves she’s matured out of her previous self-absorption.” Her intimate time with Modesty had stiffened Modesty’s spine and adjusted their relationship in several useful ways. Modesty remained dominated, but not as much as before. She was up to offering suggestions, for one. She had also become less mouse-like with the other Major Transforms.

  Amy shrugged, and the knife disappeared. “Well, I’ve got some announcements to make, myself, and the Crows say they’re going to be back this evening, as well. After dinner?”

  “No problem,” Del said.

  As Del and Beth left the boss Arm’s office, Del wondered why Amy now smiled.

  ---

  For the first part of their presentation, Del drew juice from Bob Hilton, about two points worth. The draw was about as pleasurable as eating yesterday’s oatmeal, but from earlier tests, Del knew the more she practiced this method, the more pleasant it would become. Bruja Modesty held onto both Del and Bob, strengthening Bob’s juice structure as Del drew. Then, once Del had drawn those two points, Modesty cut the contact between the predator and her prey.

  Del didn’t scream, cry, or become violent, but it took work. The cut-off was one of the most unpleasant parts of the entire business, and even so, the chop was better than it could have been because she started out with a high juice count. The lower her numbers when the draw stopped, the more painful when Modesty did the cut off.

  Time for Modesty to present. Del sat in a chair in the corner of the crowded farmhouse living room and attempted to pretend coherence. The combination of juice inflow and interrupted draw made Del feel like laundry run through a wringer washing machine.