Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(102)
“I’m no kind of weapon,” Jilo said, sure that at least one of them had lost her sense of reason. “I’m only a woman. A mother.” Her voice nearly broke, but she forced herself to remain strong.
“Oh, you are indeed a weapon, even more potent than that H-bomb these mad scientists have blown out their balls. But you are also a woman. And I believe you are an honorable woman,” Ginny said. “A trustworthy woman. That’s why I’m about to bet my life on my faith in you. If the others even dreamed that I might share this with you, they would kill me. No, worse than kill me, they would bind me, leave me in a permanent coma, no more than a seat for the power that has joined itself to me.” Her face hardened. She lifted her chin and pierced Jilo with a sharp gaze. “I once said to you that I hoped someday we’d be friends. I meant it then. I mean it now. I trust you, Jilo Wills, I trust you with my very life. Will you trust me?”
Jilo stared into the eyes of this woman, so complex in the way she seamlessly combined admirable attributes and detestable ones. Still, when Jilo delved to the root of her soul, asking if she could trust Ginny Taylor, her heart said yes.
Jilo nodded, and Ginny reached out and placed her fingertips on Jilo’s temples.
Images rose before Jilo’s eyes. Places, structures, some seeming to reach back in antiquity, others gleaming towers of polished glass. She saw them laid out together on a single plane, like the time separating them meant nothing at all. “We witches”—Jilo heard Ginny’s voice sound all around her, as if she had fallen deep into a well—“we built the machine, like the outsiders commanded.” Jilo could see strands of light, the exact shade of haint blue she’d grown up around, surge up from the different points of the field. They rose up, converging on a single point. She’d seen this point in many pictures. It was the Great Pyramid.
“But we were clever, rebellious monkeys, we witches. We made a plan. A plan to chase away the outsiders.”
“But what was this machine meant to do?”
“It was meant to strip this world of all life, of all magic, to beam its energy across the stars, through the dimensions, leaving Earth nothing more than a dead rock. And once we’d delivered them this planet’s very life force, we were to spread out among the stars, like some kind of virus, to find other worlds to devour. But we tricked them. Took advantage of their own technology to cast them out. We shifted our world, our whole reality, to a slightly different frequency, then wove a net of magic—what we call the line—to keep them out.”
Jilo looked on as the collected energies joined together in a large pool arranged before a large and monstrous statue. It was familiar to her, yet she couldn’t place it. After a moment, it dawned on her that this was the Sphinx, though its head was a jackal’s head rather than that of a man in headdress. This head, Jilo suspected the original, was much larger than the one she’d seen in pictures. It seemed to suit the body much better, both in size and in composition. Jilo realized the familiar human face must have been hewn from this canine head.
“I suspect that you,” Ginny said as Jilo watched the energy drain from the pool and coil up through the Great Pyramid, “are part of a planned assault against the safety net of magic we’ve woven. You have been created as part of the outsiders’ attempt to collapse the line.” The power shot up through the pyramid’s golden apex, but then turned, spinning in on itself, weaving a net of energy that stretched out in less than a blink of an eye to surround the entire globe. Then the light faded from sight.
“Not all were shut out by the barrier we raised. There were a few outsiders, functionaries and bureaucrats, here to see to the final stages of the operation. They were trapped within the boundary of the line. Most were captured. Executed. But a few escaped, and those few began working to create a new kind of witch, one to whom they could give magic—or take it away—however it suited their cause. I fear you might be one of their creations, no more to them than an appliance waiting to be connected to the power supply of their choice. Within each race, on each corner of the globe, throughout time, they have placed a weapon such as yourself in preparation to put their plan in motion. They intend to turn you all on when it suits them, cause the line to falter, and finish the job they set out to do when the witches first rebelled. I have no idea how this might connect to the Beekeeper, but I’m sure it’s why you caught her attention. It would seem that even among your peers, there’s something special about you. That you might have a pivotal role to play.”
“But that’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t help them. And if you witches still exist, certainly you must be capable of maintaining the protections you created.”
“Not all the witches want to keep the line. They resent that we’re not so special anymore, that we’re no longer the masters of this world the way we were when we served the outsiders. Some witches want to bring the line down, strip this world, and flee into the sky to join their masters. Help them spread the contamination of colonialism from world to world, star to star.”
“Well, they can’t make me help them. I won’t help them.”
“You must never practice magic,” Ginny said, her words a warning, “not even the charlatan tricks Mother Jilo has been peddling. Now that you’re connected to the Beekeeper, you’ll find her magic may just rise up in you even if you’re only attempting a ruse. And if that happens, you’ll begin to draw attention, unfriendly attention, to yourself.”