Strange Attractors (40 page)

‘Are you saying Temple Los Loma isn’t in the same reality as the rest of Earth?’

Did you think it was, Nell?

She clutched the railing. ‘Great Sphinx,’ she whispered. ‘I did.’

Most of the beings on Earth have been consuming energy and making choices based on their own needs. Most are thinking about their small life span, not ten life spans or ten million life spans ahead, or behind.
The Watcher chuckled.
Can you imagine it? ‘Pass me the salt, dear.’ He’s about to comply. ‘But how will that affect my great-great-granddaughter?’
The Watcher continued to laugh.

‘Good to know you think it’s funny.’

You would too, if you could see it from here.

‘That’s what I came for, a larger perspective. I’m making choices and considering how it will affect hundreds of years into the future.’

And?

‘And hundreds of years into the past.’

Well done. Now instead of hundreds, do billions.

Nell choked. ‘Without Jarrod, it’s…’

Are you certain you are without him?

She loosened her cloak, the sun beaming on her upturned face. A hawk rode the thermals above her. ‘Sphinx, I’ve got a world about to explode, a daughter about to give birth, a witch about to nab the spell, a man about to start a war, a Lupin about to break all the rules ever made and a quantum sentient nowhere to be found. I’m not certain of anything and I don’t feel like playing games.’

Worried about the entropy, are you?

‘You aren’t?’

Hardly.

Nell felt fit to scream.

Nell, if it’s entropy that’s upsetting you, seek the energy outside.

‘Outside what?’

The closed system, of course.

‘
Outside
the closed system?’

Where else? Energy only becomes increasingly unavailable within a closed system. If you remember that consciousness has no dividing walls, no doors and no doorkeepers, if you remember that consciousness doesn’t need them because it is an open system, you’ll see how to reverse the ‘law’ of entropy. That’s what you are wanting to do, isn’t it? Turn the entropy wheel around on old Earth?

She nodded. ‘I do.’

Nell, relax. Consensus reality is egocentric for a reason. You are in the Borderlands. The spaces on the edge.

‘The Borderlands?’

It’s a metaphor, Nell. Loosen up.

She unclenched her fists, rubbing the backs of her knuckles.

Remember the first rule.

‘The first rule?’ Nell asked.

The first rule of magic, the first rule of physics, the first rule of the universe. The only rule that really counts in such instances.

‘Everything is energy?’

That’s the one. Keep that in mind, and get outside the notion of closed systems. Consciousness is open, and ‘enlightenment’ is simply realising it. Are you ready to move on?

A carp jumped out of the water, its orange and black scales shimmering as it flipped in the air, caught a moth and dove back under the ripples.

Sphinx?
She called to him silently, though she knew he was gone. The luminous surface of the water sparkled like laughter. Nell closed her eyes and began the journey back up the layers of her mind until she could hear the Three Sisters squawking in the redwood branches overhead. ‘How far?’ she asked them, looking to see the progress of a red-tailed kite. It was heading south when she began her meditation. She couldn’t see it now.

A short cloud and one tall tree.

She smiled, brushing the leaves from the hem of her skirt. ‘That’s less than a minute.’

The sisters took off, zipping past, heading back to the cottage.

‘What else can you see, my lovelies? Any sign of Drayco prowling about?’

They cawed and jeered and swooped.

None of the temple cats are here.

Nell frowned, about to ask more, when the words of the Watcher echoed in her mind.

Observers are not conscious of anything outside of consensus reality.

‘Indeed, they are not.’ Nell dropped to one knee and sprang into the air, morphing into a black falcon, the leaves and loam rising about her as she shot away towards the cottage.

Rosette stared at her soup, spoon hovering. Her mouth watered, the rich aromas of tomato, beans and chilli wafting up, making her whole body smile. But she couldn’t take a bite. Not yet. Nell was making a point and she hadn’t got it yet.

‘It’s not like it isn’t your third helping,’ Nell said.

‘I know, but I’m still hungry, and you’ve set a hard task.’

‘It will be hard, if you see it that way. Come. Let go. Nothing is accomplished through struggle. Nothing magical, anyway.’

Rosette let her shoulders relax. This wasn’t a simple summoning. She needed more than a conjuring of the Elementals to achieve the desired results.
All this because I complained of the soup being too hot! That will teach me to comment.
‘I need a hint, Nell. Please?’

‘A hint?’

‘Just point me in the right direction before I faint from hunger.’

Nell sighed. ‘There are three ways you can cool your soup down. Think of the obvious first.’

‘That would be time,’ Rosette said. ‘Given enough time, the soup will reach the same temperature as everything around it.’

‘That’s the easiest way, if you have the patience. The universe does it for you.’

Rosette wished she did have patience, yet part of her
was exhilarated. Nell was giving her opportunities to demonstrate her skills. She was on her way to passing her apprenticeship. She could feel it. She straightened, focusing. ‘I could also hasten the process by slowing the soup down.’

‘Explain.’

‘Heat is molecular motion. If I slow the motion with an inertia spell, it will cool faster.’

‘Excellent. There is one other way. Can you imagine it?’

She couldn’t, and the strain of trying was tensing her up again. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Drayco wasn’t around to help, and she didn’t want to tap that channel. Nell would sense it and this was about what she knew as a witch, right here, right now. She took another breath and closed her eyes.

She and Teg had talked about something like this, a problem of energy conservation versus energy consumption. He had been studying these ideas on a quantum level, fascinated by the world of the very small. His time with Kreshkali at the library of Temple Los Loma helped because he…She stiffened, her mouth gaping open.

‘Got something, dear?’ Nell asked.

‘He’d had time to consider physics from a philosophical view!’ She finished her thoughts aloud.

‘Are you talking about Teg?’

She nodded. ‘He’s brilliant with the word puzzles, and the mind puzzles too, don’t you think? We talked about this but I didn’t get it then.’

‘And now?’

‘I’m catching a glimpse of the third way.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

She was about to explain but shook her head. ‘I’ll just do it. The process will explain itself.’

Nell’s eyebrows went up. ‘Well said.’ She leaned back, taking a sip from her mug.

Rosette allowed her awareness to surround the soup, visualising the bowl until it became a vast landscape, seeing the contents as tiny particles of energy. They were all moving about in wild gyrations, some faster than others. The quicker ones were the hottest, the more languid ones cool. She imagined a wall splitting the terrain in half and in the divider she visioned a small door. Rosette smiled, rubbing her hands together. This would work.

In her mind she allowed some of the molecules to come together, forming a tiny entity, a guardian of the door. She instructed the guardian to let the faster-moving energy pass through one side of the divider and the slower-moving energy to the other. The tiny guardian cackled, clearly enjoying the task, swinging the door open and closed as energy exchanged places. Soon all the faster molecules filled one side of the bowl, the slower filled the other. She thanked the imaginary being, giving a little nod, and drifted back up into her normal awareness, the landscape of the bowl retreating until it was no longer a red sea but a dish of soup on the table.

Nell whistled. ‘Done and well done, my brilliant daughter! Who would have thought!’ She got up from her chair to take a closer look.

‘You didn’t think I could do it?’

‘Break every law of thermodynamics? Of course, but you’ve gone about it in an extraordinary way. I’m very proud.’

‘Thermodynamics? I thought I was defying entropy.’

‘That too, my dear. That too! You cooled the soup without dissipation. Inspirational!’

They both looked down at the bowl. Half of her soup was on the boil, bubbling like lava. The other half was frozen solid. Nell beamed and toasted Rosette but as their mugs clanked she frowned. ‘Makee, what are you playing at?’ she whispered.

‘Nell?’

‘Makee has spent a great deal of time on Earth,’ Nell said, tapping the side of her mug as she held it close to her lips.

‘I thought she was helping us settle the environment.’

Nell dipped her spoon in the boiling side of Rosette’s soup. ‘I think she might have been helping herself, and I’m getting an idea of how.’

‘The mountains?’

‘All the new volcanic activity might well be Makee’s doing.’

‘Why would she? If we have to evacuate Temple Los Loma, it will only make our presence in Gaela stronger.’

‘Maybe she’s hoping to keep us distracted, for one, but there’s more to it. I’m just not sure what it is yet.’

Rosette drained her mug. ‘The sign of the Archer can get a little like a megalomaniac, yes?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes. Their propensity for expansion can sweep them right over the edge.’

‘Is there any coming back? From that edge?’

‘If she can imagine it, there is.’ Nell’s eyes drifted to the window before she turned her attention to Rosette. ‘Eat. I know you’re still hungry.’

Rosette blessed her little guardian and stirred the soup, the boiling side whirling over the ice, melting it fast with a few quick strokes. She blew on it, taking a mouthful. ‘Just one more question,’ Rosette said after she had swallowed. ‘If La Makee did make the
mountains around Temple Los Loma boil, what did she freeze solid?’

Nell clicked her tongue. ‘I don’t know but I intend to find out.’

Kreshkali rode at the gallop, hood flung back, cloak trailing behind her. She wanted to reach Temple Dumarka in the most expedient way and, at the same time, stay clear of the portal. She’d felt something there when she left Temple Los Loma, like eyes that vanished the moment she searched for them. If someone was lurking in the depths of the corridors, she thought it best to circumnavigate them, whoever they were.
Nell had felt something too when she took Rosette to Dumarka.
She ducked under branches heavy with last night’s rain.

Being in two places at once had myriad advantages but it also created some problems of cognisance. Not everyone could keep hold of their objectivity while living two lives, especially if there was much crossover. Having different identities helped with integration of the experiences, like friends telling each other about their day—easy enough. But the level of detachment it took was taxing at times. ‘Was that what did it, Makee?’ she asked aloud. ‘Did it make you snap?’ Something had to explain the High Priestess’s madness.

Kreshkali shortened her reins, keeping the mare collected as she cantered towards the Dumarkian Woods. Shape-shifting would have got her there sooner, and in better form, but Kreshkali didn’t want to leave her energy signature behind. If there was a tracker in the corridors, Makee or otherwise, why leave a trail of crumbs to follow? The closer she kept her powers, the harder she’d be to find.

When she’d left Teg and the scouts, she’d flown
high, following the Goregan River to its outlet on the North Seas. It snaked beneath her, a shimmering light, the fringing willows mere tassels of green far below, the farmlands a patchwork quilt with crops and orchards crisscrossed with brown dirt roads. On reaching the coast, the waves looked like thin white threads hugging a motionless shore but as she rode the thermals down, the sea came to life. It crashed hard against the cliffs, the offshore wind blowing froth from the peaks.

She back-winged onto a large twist of driftwood and shifted to her human form. It took her a day to reach the township of Dumarka by foot, following the sandy coastline to the west. She stayed the night in the local inn, buying the horse first thing in the morning. No one had followed and she felt confident her journey to the temple was not being tracked.

The sun warmed her face and the smell of pines filled the air. She turned down the forest road that wound its way to the temple—a place that never existed in her time save as ruins when she crossed over from the sewers under Half Moon Bay. ‘Not then, but you are certainly here now,’ she said, marvelling at the sight.

She took in the magnificence of the temple grounds. The bridges arching the stream, the close-clipped grass and the wide steps to the temple courtyard made the dark woods look like a mythical realm. Flags whipped in the wind, lashing the sky with purple and red streamers identical to the illustrations she’d seen in the ancient textbooks. The archives had it right, for the most part. What she hadn’t remembered from the depictions were the high towers on either side of the gate. Perhaps Temple Dumarka was more prepared for assault than she had imagined. She had only one thought as she eased her horse to a halt.
Goddess of the woods, please don’t let my visit be their ruin.

Playing with history was risky business. One never knew when the best intentions would change the course of a river, a child’s life or a world’s destiny. She dismounted, studying the woman who approached. She wasn’t dressed like a guard but wore leggings and boots. A rag hung from her hip pocket.

She reached for the reins. ‘I’ll mind your mount,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’ Kreshkali patted the horse’s shoulder. ‘Easy on the water, please. We’ve ridden hard this morning.’