Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions (Death's Handmaiden Book 3) Read online

  ‘There’s confidentiality… But I’ll see what I can find.’

  ~~~

  ‘Well, half of what I can tell you, you could find out from the news feeds if you searched for her name.’ It was now dinnertime. Courtney had checked the school’s records and was reporting back on what she had found.

  ‘Yes, but it’s easier to just ask you now,’ Mitsuko said.

  ‘Yeah. When she was ten or so, Carina was viewed as a prodigy. Quite significant sorcerous capacity which seemed to be coupled with remarkable talent. It was to be expected, to some extent. Her mother, Ariana, was a noted sorceress. Powerful even among the Malkins. Her father wasn’t as strong, but he was no slouch. Carina was expected to surpass her mother.’

  ‘I’m assuming from the way you’re saying this,’ Nava said, ‘that something went wrong.’

  ‘You could definitely say that. She was kidnapped just after her tenth birthday. Her mother was killed trying to protect her and she was missing for fourteen days. No ransom demand. No communication. Nothing for two weeks. Then she was returned, basically unharmed. She was only ten, so when she claimed that “rituals” had been performed on her, the Malkin security people put it down as some form of molestation, though there was no evidence of sexual assault or anything similar. The thing was, when she came back, she could barely work a spell. Even now, she just barely scraped in on the capacity requirement for SAS-squared.’

  ‘Strange.’

  ‘That’s downright weird,’ Melissa said.

  ‘It gets weirder,’ Courtney went on. ‘Over the next few years, she seems to have constructed an elaborate fantasy as a coping strategy. She believes that some shadowy organisation was behind the kidnapping. She says they’re still watching her. However, she has the help of an invisible friend she refers to as Trudy and she now claims that she does have a lot of power, but it’s been sealed away so that this shadow group can’t get it. If she really needs it, she claims, she can temporarily unlock the seal. All that “destined guardian” stuff is probably part of her fantasy.’

  ‘She’s delusional?’ Nava asked.

  ‘She’s a chūnibyō,’ Melissa replied, grinning a lot as she did so.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Chūnibyō,’ Mitsuko said. ‘It’s a Japanese word. Literally, “middle two disease.” It used to refer to a supposed psychological condition common in second years at middle school. Essentially, it was the age when they had aspirations to be different in some way, to stand out in a relatively uniform culture. Some became delinquents, some chose to follow non-mainstream subcultures, and some believed they had special powers.’

  ‘That’s the version I know,’ Melissa said. ‘It used to be common in the animated series my brothers watched. Sometimes, the powers were real. Sometimes they were just fantasies the characters had, but people just thought they were deluded.’

  ‘And then,’ Mitsuko continued, ‘we discovered metaphysics and sorcery. Suddenly, there really were special powers that some people had. Chūnibyō became most associated with young people who believed they had power but did not, or that they had far more power than they did. It’s become less common than it was when metaphysics was first codified, but it’s a recognised condition which still occurs from time to time. If Michiko had ended up with no talent for sorcery, for example, she might have developed chūnibyō, thinking that she should be able to cast spells like her big sister.’

  ‘Okay,’ Nava said. ‘So we’re saying she’s probably delusional.’

  ‘You have a bad habit of reducing things to their simplest terms,’ Melissa said.

  ‘A bad habit?’

  ‘Well, it’s sometimes bad…’

  ‘But, yeah,’ Courtney said, ‘Carina Schwartz is probably delusional.’

  Nava nodded. ‘Okay. Of course, she did get kidnapped…’

  236/1/16.

  Mitsuko pushed away from the wall she was leaning against, right outside her classroom, as she spotted Nava and Melissa walking toward her. These days, Mitsuko waited for her housemates to arrive from the floor above because they had decided they may as well walk back to the house together. Unless they did not, obviously.

  ‘We need to go through the agenda for the next council meeting,’ Mitsuko said as Melissa arrived. ‘I figure we can do that at home.’

  ‘One of the joys of information technology,’ Melissa replied. ‘We probably need to discuss the fair soon.’

  ‘The Extracurricular Activities Fair? It’s more Francis’s baby… I suppose we should make sure he’s getting things ready for it.’ Mitsuko turned and led the way toward the exit.

  ‘And that Courtney has the security aspects sorted out,’ Nava said. ‘She lost a few key people due to graduation. Has she replaced them?’

  ‘A couple,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘She can’t replace her biggest loss. Finding a new Don Ilbert to handle forensics is not an easy thing.’

  ‘No. Really, they could do with some sort of training system.’

  ‘Easier said than done.’

  ‘I’m aware.’ Exiting the building, Nava scanned the area out of habit. Chances were that there was nothing to see beyond the ordinary, but situational awareness had been drilled into her from a very young age. Today, there was something interesting. In a way. ‘Is that Carina?’

  Mitsuko and Melissa followed her gaze. The question was clearly rhetorical. Of course it was Carina. The strange girl was not exactly hiding, but she had moved off down an alley between the first year’s teaching building and a small utility building. She looked kind of agitated.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Melissa asked. ‘Is she… arguing with someone?’ As Melissa asked the question, Carina threw up her arms as if in exasperation, turned on the spot, and then resumed whatever argument she seemed to be having.

  Nava looked at the scene through eyes enhanced with See Invisible. Then she switched to the version which worked on spirits. ‘She looks like she is, but I can’t see anyone or anything there.’

  ‘She has problems,’ Mitsuko said. ‘It’s not really a student council problem…’

  ‘But you want to help,’ Nava said.

  ‘Well…’

  ‘I admit she has me at least a little intrigued. Tomorrow. After classes tomorrow, I’ll spend some time with her. I can at least hear what she has to say.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll open up to anyone else,’ Mitsuko said, nodding.

  ‘That’s probably true,’ Melissa said. ‘There is one other reason to listen to her. I mean, why did she pick Nava? None of us had seen her before she came to our table. Did she just walk into the refectory and pick Nava because she has white hair?’

  ‘Or did her invisible friend really send her my way?’ Nava asked.

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe she has some unconscious ability to cast Sorcerer’s Eye or something.’

  ‘That seems unlikely. I guess I’ll try to find out.’

  236/1/17.

  ‘How are you adjusting to life at the school, Carina?’ Mitsuko asked. Classes were over and lunch was being had, and Nava had suggested that the refectory would be a good place to meet. Carina had jumped at the chance, but now she seemed a little more subdued surrounded by people she did not know.

  ‘Uh, well, okay, I guess,’ Carina replied. ‘The school’s fine. It’s not much different from school on Grimalkin. Bigger. There are more people here. It’s the planet that I’m having more trouble with.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Gravity on Grimalkin is lower than here. Like, nearly twenty percent lower.’

  ‘You’re effectively carrying around an extra seven or eight kilos, just from your own body weight,’ Nava said. ‘If I’m guessing your weight about right. You’ll suffer from various coordination issues until you’ve adjusted to the new environment.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And it’s so cold here. The average temperature back home is three hundred and sixteen kelvin. Here, even in the summer, it only gets up to three hundred and eight. Now–’


  ‘We do have rather cool winters,’ Mitsuko agreed. ‘And the uniform doesn’t help.’

  For some reason, Carina looked at Melissa. ‘No, the uniform doesn’t help at all. But, you know, I’ve been through worse. I’ll tough it out. And I have Resist Cold to help. I bet you’ve been through worse too, Nava. Right?’

  ‘We can safely say that I’ve been through worse than a Shinden winter,’ Nava agreed. ‘The gravity here is a little weaker than where I grew up, however. Tell me, Carina, do you have any particular sorcery you specialise in?’

  ‘Well… Not really. I know a bunch of random spells. Uh, Analyse Magic, Armour, Complex Illusion, Magelock…’

  ‘Those are good support spells,’ Melissa said.

  ‘Fire Blast, Heal Injury and Cure Disease, Dispel Magic…’

  ‘You really seem to–’

  ‘…Light, Slice, Shield, Telekinesis, Gather Quintessence, Apportation, uh, Resist Cold like I said…’

  Melissa’s eyes were fairly wide. Then again, most of the others were looking a little surprised too. ‘You sure do–’ Melissa began.

  ‘Oh! And Flight. I almost forgot Flight. I have a permit, but do I need to get it renewed or anything here?’

  ‘You should join the Flight Club,’ Melissa said, sounding a little as though she had just been through ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer. ‘We can check you out and recertify if necessary.’

  ‘Great! I like flying.’

  ‘So does Mel,’ Nava said. ‘You know a lot of spells, Carina.’

  Carina’s eyes, and mood, dropped. It was like she thought she had given too much away. ‘I do? I guess I probably… Well, Malkins tend to learn every spell they can, you see. Malkins are big on sorcery. The whole clan, even the ones with no talent, are interested in it. That goes double for those who can cast spells. Uh, when does the Flight Club meet?’

  ‘Sunday afternoons,’ Melissa replied.

  ‘Which reminds me, Mel,’ Nava said, ‘you are going to learn rank one Gather Quintessence this year. Even if you can’t use it in parallel with Flight, it’ll cut your rest time by a factor of ten and give you far more time in the air.’

  ‘I know,’ Melissa whined. ‘I’ve been working on it.’

  ‘Work faster.’

  ‘Slave driver.’

  ‘Hm. If you think it would help, I can get my hands on a whip…’

  ~~~

  ‘The Key to Darkness,’ Carina said. She had an entirely straight face, all seriousness.

  ‘The Key to Darkness?’ Nava asked in reply.

  Carina gave a firm nod. ‘I’m almost surprised you’ve never heard of them.’

  Nava was not entirely sure how to reply to that. She was now alone with Carina, in the girl’s apartment. Carina had one of the mid-range apartments, better than the capsules Nava and Melissa had been in the year before, but not up to the standard of Mitsuko’s old apartment. There was a bedroom, a lounge, a space you could call a kitchen if you were charitable, and a shower room. There was not a lot of decoration; Carina seemed to have brought little with her from Grimalkin. The lounge had a bookshelf in it, but it was basically empty. The only thing on it was a framed photograph which showed a young Carina with two adults, presumably her parents, before her mother was killed.

  ‘When I was ten,’ Carina went on, ‘they kidnapped me and held me for two weeks while they performed tests on me. Magical tests. Rituals. They were trying to find out whether I was their chosen one, or something like that.’

  ‘I see.’

  Carina frowned. ‘People say that when they don’t believe a word I’m saying.’

  ‘I haven’t formed an opinion. “I see” is just a phrase used to convey that you should continue. I’m not disagreeing that others may have used it in the way you describe.’

  ‘Uh, oh. Well, I used to be this magical prodigy, you see. I was very advanced for my age. That’s why they were testing me. I think they decided I wasn’t ready and that they needed to wait for me to get more powerful.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know what they planned to use you for?’

  ‘Plan. Present tense. They still plan to use me to open some sort of dimensional portal. They’re a cult, if you like. They revere an ancient, dark… god, for want of a better word, which was imprisoned outside this world. They are the Key to Darkness because they intend to open the locks holding this thing back and set it free to plunge the universe into darkness. I suppose I’m the key, really. They want to use my power to open the gate and let it out. So… So, I sealed my own power away. I used ancient magic, not modern sorcery. Something I found in their lair. When I was freed, I could barely work a spell unless it was a real emergency. If my life is threatened or something, I can undo the seal and access my full power.’

  Nodding slowly, Nava gave the impression of really considering Carina’s words. She did give it some consideration, just not for the amount of time she appeared to. Ancient magic and elder gods trapped outside of reality, and a secret organisation bent on bringing ruin to the universe. It read like a bad Gothic horror and Nava would have entirely dismissed it if she had not known about the Harbingers. That ancient race had imprisoned a serial killer in a magical trap. They had transcended physical reality. Maybe they had somehow walled one of their worst criminals up within the Q-field, outside the world. She could not say it was impossible…

  ‘But they still want you,’ Nava said. ‘Why? And how do you know?’ Something touched on the edge of her consciousness as she asked. Something that made her stomach flutter for no reason.

  ‘Well, the seal isn’t perfect, apparently. It… leaks. I’ve got more powerful, even though all my power is supposed to be locked away. With the seal, I’m nothing like what I am without it, but I still have enough capacity to get into SAS-squared. I think they’re watching me because they believe they can break the seal, or that it’s going to break on its own. No, I know they’re watching me because I’ve seen them. Trudy has too, so it’s not just me.’

  ‘And what do they look like? Any distinguishing features?’ The stomach flutter subsided as though it had not been there, but Nava had felt it, and it was making her think along some unpleasant lines.

  ‘They’re almost always men, but… Well, they’re just people. They use sorcery to stay hidden. Invisibility. Illusion. They must use Escape Detection and Scryguard too, because whenever I’ve caught one in the open, there’s never been any evidence that they were there. I don’t see them often, but I see them. I’ve been seeing them more since I came here. It’s either that they’re worried that I’ll join up with you, or they think being here will break open my seal.’

  ‘I see.’ So, Carina’s watchers were human. But there was that feeling and… ‘Who exactly is Trudy? She’s not a student here, I assume?’

  ‘No, she’s…’ Carina’s cheeks coloured. ‘She’s my invisible friend. She turned up after the kidnapping. No one else can see her or hear her, but I know she’s not just in my imagination. She’s taught me sorcery! How can she teach me spells I’ve never seen before if she’s just my subconscious? No one believes me.’

  Nava stared at the girl for a second. ‘Let’s say I do. Or that I accept the possibility that she might be real. What does she look like? What does she talk to you about? Aside from sorcery.’

  Carina regarded Nava as though she did not entirely trust what she was saying, but she answered. ‘She’s a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen from the look of her. One hundred and sixty-three centimetres tall. Slim. Long legs. She’s got a lot of blonde hair that she always wears in twin pigtails. Blue eyes. She’s cute. Really cute. A-and she always wears this sort of rainbow-coloured outfit with a two-tiered skirt and a hoodie. The, uh, hoodie has ears on it. And she wears blue pumps with high heels.’

  That was about as far from a description of a Harbinger as Nava could think of. Then again, it also did not seem like a description of the majority of young women these days. ‘That’s certainly a little unusual,’ Nava s
aid. ‘Then again, I could possibly imagine Mel in an outfit like that.’

  ‘Oh, no. Trudy has a really unthreatening chest and Melissa… Uh, anyway, she talks about all sorts of stuff. I mean, what I’ve been doing during the day. She likes to talk about people. I mean, like, um, what people do. The way they behave and why. I think she spends a lot of her time watching people. She looks fourteen, but she talks like someone a lot older. She used to help me with my history homework. The clan history stuff, you know?’

  ‘I didn’t grow up in a clan. I never had to study clan history.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I did. Trudy would help me with some of it and she’d talk like she was there sometimes. She’d say things about the people in the history texts that just aren’t in the texts. She’d make them sound like people instead of some old guy that died before I was born. She’s really good when it comes to the animals and plants on Grimalkin. It’s like she knows them right down to their genes. She knows just how they’ll behave in any situation.’

  Nava tilted her head a little, affecting a quizzical posture. ‘Grimalkin has indigenous life forms? It was a Harbinger colony?’

  ‘You know about the Harbingers?’ There was an extra spark of interest in Carina’s question. ‘Trudy knows loads about the Harbingers.’

  ‘This school is tasked with examining a lot of Harbinger artefacts,’ Nava replied. ‘My old metaphysics teacher was an expert in them and those who created them.’

  ‘I guess you could say the same about Trudy.’

  That was very interesting. ‘Hoshi took over from him when he had to leave the school last year. Perhaps she’d be willing to show you some of the artefacts they’re working on, if you’re interested.’

  ‘Wow! Yeah. Of course. I think Trudy would like to see them too.’

  ‘Mm. What does Trudy have to say about the Key to Darkness?’

  Carina’s brow creased and she pouted. ‘She doesn’t think they’re real. Or, she says she’s seen some of the watchers, but she doesn’t think they’re what I think they are. She’s tried to talk me out of it a couple of times. Well, she did, early on, but she’s kind of given up, I think. She says there’s insufficient evidence for her to agree with my belief but cannot find sufficient evidence to disprove it either.’