Fated

‘Hi, Luna, it’s me.’

‘Hey, Alex.’ Luna’s answer was friendly, but there had been a tiny pause before she spoke.

‘Listen, can you do me a favour? Could you come around to my place some time today?’

‘Um …’

‘I know it’s short notice. I’ve found out something important about that cube of yours but I need you to run a test. Is that okay?’

‘Well …’ Luna hesitated, then her voice firmed. ‘Okay. I can come by now. About an hour?’

‘Great. See you then.’ I broke the connection and turned to look at the cube. I’d been up for a good four hours last night studying the thing. I still hadn’t figured out what it did, but I was starting to get a pretty good idea what it was.

Magic items are inherently difficult to create. By its nature, magic is tied to life, created by the exercise of a living, conscious will. Trying to make a permanent magic item out of an object is sort of like trying to make a permanent light source out of bits of wood. But mages are a persistent lot, and over the years they’ve worked out ways to get around the problem.

The simplest way is to use items which aren’t magical at all but which guide and direct raw magic in a specific form. These are called focuses, and they’re effectively tools built for a single purpose, like a hammer or a chisel. Energy channelled into them is shaped and directed in the same way that water follows the banks of a river, and given enough time they can even pick up an imprint of the personality of the user. They’ve no power of their own, but they’re useful in the right hands.

Another approach is to make one-shot items like the fog crystal I’d used the night before. In this case a mage casts a spell, then seals it in an item; typically you break the item to cast the spell. These are usually low-power effects, and their main function is to make schools of magic available to those who can’t access them normally. A skilled crafter can whip up a one-shot item in a couple of hours, and they do a brisk trade in the magical economy.

Sometimes, though, neither a focus or a one-shot will do it; you need something that’ll last and has power of its own. But to use magic, you have to be alive. The solution that some creative (and probably slightly crazy) mage came up with a long time ago is to make an item that is alive. The resulting creations are known as imbued items, and they can be extremely powerful and extremely dangerous.

Luna’s cube was an imbued item. It was too powerful to be a focus, and too complex to be a one-shot. It was complex enough that it even had protections against detection magic; there was a kind of null field around it that warded away active scans. I’d tried looking into the future to see what the consequences would be of forcing my way in, and decided quickly that I did not want to do it. This thing had a lot of energy, and it was quite capable of releasing it explosively if provoked. As yet, I hadn’t been able to communicate with it, and I wasn’t sure if there was any way to. Imbued items tend to be single-minded, and they usually don’t talk, making their own decisions based on whatever sensory input they have access to. I’d discovered the cube had a network of microscopic holes in its outer shell; that was what produced the sparkling effect when you looked into the depths. I had the feeling they were access points of some kind, and that the right signal of visible light might activate the cube, but any such signal would be extremely complex. Without more information, there was no way I could guess it.

One person, though, had been able to produce a response from the cube: Luna. I didn’t know why, but if she’d been able to get a reaction once, maybe she could do it again. At least, that was what I was hoping.

I checked my watch. Luna was due in forty-five minutes. I washed and shaved, then looked into the future to see what time she’d arrive. I paused, then looked again.

Luna wasn’t coming.

That was strange.

I looked a third time, then a fourth. As things stood, Luna wasn’t going to come to my door within the next hour, or any hour for that matter. Frowning, I pulled out my phone and called, but got her voicemail. I looked into the future, trying for a clue, and couldn’t see one. A thread of worry started to curl up from somewhere inside. Maybe she’d been in an accident?

No, that didn’t make sense. The one good thing about Luna’s curse is that it makes her near immune to accidents.

But it doesn’t make her immune to things done on purpose …

A new, unwelcome thought intruded. Maybe Luna wasn’t coming because she didn’t want to. The more I thought about that, the more likely it sounded. Ockham’s razor states that the simplest explanation is usually correct. The simplest explanation for Luna not showing up was because she didn’t want to see me. God knows I’ve had enough people flake on me before. I got up and paced, tense and nervous, glancing at my watch. Twenty minutes. Did Luna need my help? Or did she want to stay away?

Give a problem like this to an engineer, and he’ll give you an answer straight away: ‘insufficient data’. But in life, you have to make calls on insufficient data all the time. I forgot about my magic and listened to my instincts.

My instincts told me Luna wouldn’t have flaked after promising to come.

She was in trouble.

In two strides I was at my desk. I went through the drawers in a clatter, shoving handfuls of items into my pockets, snatched my cloak from the wardrobe, then ran downstairs and out the door. As I hurried down my street I pulled out my phone and dialled Luna’s number. It didn’t work. I swore and tried again. This time it rang. One ring, two rings, three rings … ‘Come on, come on,’ I muttered as I hurried along.

There was a click. ‘Hello?’

‘Luna, it’s Alex. Where are you?’

‘Um, five minutes away. What’s wrong?’

‘Luna, this is important.’ I tried to keep my voice calm. ‘I need to know where you are