Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) by Ian Tregillis

Author:Ian Tregillis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2013-04-30T06:00:00+00:00

interlude: gretel

The fog does not dissipate. How curious.

It exists in every future, like a pearlescent shroud; every sequence of choices leads to the impenetrable primordial chaos. The birth cries of the new time line and its universe have yet to wreak a coalescence of discrete future possibilities. This is not the enraged oblivion of the Eidolons. Of that she is certain. It is the dull homogeneity of a trillion indistinct maybes.

Sometimes, late at night, if she strains her Willenskräfte in a way not done since those first feverish glimpses of the future, she perceives movement in the fog. She lies awake at night, watching it swirl, watching it engulf the distant threads of gossamer possibility. She drains whole batteries this way.

It is not moving closer. She is not worried.

She wants to see the entire web again. Wants to watch it glisten and sparkle, infinite in all directions. But the fog is opaque. She wants to watch the glorious coruscations as the future reconfigures itself. Wants to make it dance to the music of her whimsy. It does, but only as far as the fog. The fog does not succumb to her Willenskräfte.

She examines it merely to sate her own curiosity. She is not revisiting Raybould’s return from Berlin. She is not wondering what has taken so long. She is not wondering when they will be together again. He will be back soon. Of course he will. Because she planned it so.

The warlocks try to find him. She recognizes their work because the Eidolons’ attention makes the lines of future possibility thrum like electrified violin strings. They vibrate and bifurcate and tangle and thrum with the terrible music of uncreation until the entire tapestry threatens to shred into disparate pockets of unreality and she is cast into the void screaming screaming screaming into the between place outside the time lines where dark things lurk and they see her ohGodtheyseeher—

She must prepare for Raybould’s return to the farm.

He will return in six days four months two weeks. She will bring him lunch in the flower field breakfast at dinner in the forest. He will be furious violently enraged angry at her for sending him to Berlin. He will call her a bloody miserable bitch a bloody miserable bitch a bloody miserable bitch. He will be ravenous and she will take care of him. They will picnic among the butterflies huddle in the dark. She will bring him a coat because he is cold. He will be grateful and lay her down among the wildflowers shiver in the snow and ask about Olivia.

Olivia, freckled tart.

Olivia, who laughs like an overpriced courtesan.

Olivia is the most upsetting problem of all. But dealing with her is straightforward. That particular course is well charted.

Olivia will not be a problem forever.

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