Codespell Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  More praise for WebMage

  “The most enjoyable science fantasy book I’ve read in the last four years . . . Its blending of magic and coding is inspired . . . WebMage has all the qualities I look for in a book—a wonderfully subdued sense of humor, nonstop action, and romantic relief. It’s a wonderful debut novel.”

  —Christopher Stasheff, author of Saint Vidicon to the Rescue

  “McCullough handles his plot with unfailing invention, orchestrating a mixture of humor, philosophy, and programming insights that gives new meaning to terms as commonplace as ‘spell-checker’ and as esoteric as ‘programming in hex.’ ”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A unique first novel, this has a charming, fresh combination of mythological, magical, and computer elements . . . that will enchant many types of readers.” —KLIATT

  “McCullough’s first novel, written very much in the style of Roger Zelazny’s classic Amber novels, is a rollicking combination of verbal humor, wild adventures, and just plain fun.”

  —VOYA

  "WebMage contains a lot of humor and a highly inventive new way of looking at the universe, which combines the magic of old with the computer structures of today.”

  —SFRevu

  “Complex, well paced, highly creative, and, overall, an auspicious debut for McCullough . . . well worth reading for fans of light fantasy.” —Sci Fi Weekly

  “[A] fascinating world, somewhat redolent of Zelazny’s Amber universe . . . The interface between magical and computer technology definitely tickles my inner geek.”

  —MIT Science Fiction Society

  “This fast-paced, action-packed yarn is a lot of fun . . . weaving myth, magic, IT jargon . . . into a bang-up story.” —Booklist

  “McCullough has done a fantastic job integrating technology and mythology, and Ravirn is a wonderfully sympathetic protagonist.” —Romantic Times Book Reviews

  "Kelly McCullough has the hacker ethic and the hacker mind-set down pat . . . The combination of mythos, magic, and technology is great fun . . . Ravirn is the literary grand-nephew of Corwin of Amber . . . If you like the Amber books, you will certainly enjoy WebMage.” —Bewildering Stories

  “It has finally happened. Someone crossed the genres of sci-fi and fantasy to create a magical world that has modern (futuristic) computer hackers . . . McCullough has taken characters out from the darkness of mythology and brought them into the light of this modern digital age . . . out-freaking-standing.”

  —Huntress Book Reviews

  “The action kept me reading way past my bedtime . . . gripping and imaginative.” —Blogcritics Magazine

  “This is a wild, fun ride. It is perfect reading for any time.”

  —Rambles.net

  Ace Books by Kelly McCullough

  WEBMAGE

  CYBERMANCY

  CODESPELL

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  CODESPELL

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / June 2008

  Copyright © 2008 by Kelly McCullough.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-436-22131-3

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Laura, my heart and my muse

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, extraspecial thanks are owed to Laura McCullough, Stephanie Zvan, Jack Byrne, and Anne Sowards.

  Many thanks also to the Wyrdsmiths: Lyda, Doug, Naomi, Bill, Eleanor, Rosalind, Harry, and Sean. My web guru: Ben. Beta readers: Steph, Ben, Sara, Dave, Karl, Angie, Sean, Laura R., and Norma. Greek help: Philip. My copyeditors for WebMage and Cybermancy: Robert and Sara Schwager. My extended support structure: Bill and Nancy, James, Tom, Ann, and so many more. My family: Phyllis, Carol, Paul and Jane, Lockwood and Darlene, Judy, Lee C., Kat, Jean, Lee P., and all the rest. The Deathpixies—just because.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Zeus wants you!

  I flipped the invitation open again. A paper rendition of the big guy popped out and pointed his finger at me. It was tipped with a lightning bolt.

  Zeus wants you!

  For spring break. Summer has come early to Olympus, and it’s here to stay. At least that’s what I hear from Persephone’s mother, who has officially canceled winter. Call it global warming or call it Raven, whichever suits your fancy. In either case, it’s time to celebrate changing times in the pantheosphere. So come on up to the real eternal city for a party on the edge of forever.

  Below that were details: time, place, dress code, rules of conduct—the usual boilerplate for a divine party, banning duels and personal violence—and a personal note scrawled in a bold hand:

  House Raven will be expected to make a formal appearance.

  Zeus

  House Raven—that meant me, though I still
prefer Ravirn. Ravirn, the Raven. Persephone’s freedom and the end of winter. Zeus. A divine blowout where I would have a target painted on my back.

  Was it any wonder I had insomnia?

  OK, maybe that’s a little dishonest. It wasn’t just the card costing me sleep. It was the way I could read it in the dark—by the light of my eyes. My recent upgrade from demigod 2.0 to 2.5 or whatever version I was on at the moment had come with some dubious “perks,” including glow-in-the-dark eyeballs.

  Oh, sure, I could put “Raven, Chaos Power” on my business cards now, but inside I was still plain old Ravirn, a very young and very late entrant into the Greek pantheon. And a tired one. Did I mention I wasn’t getting enough rest? I desperately wanted sleep. Now, there’s a perk I could go for.

  Morpheus, Phobetor, Phantasos. We call these gods of sleep the Dreamers. Unfortunately, they don’t always call back, not even for family. The relationship’s distant, but it’s there. As the umpteen-times great-grandson of the Greek Fate Lachesis, I’m pretty much related to the whole damn pantheon. It didn’t help.

  I’d tried e-mail, voice mail, snail mail. . . . So far, nothing. I was starting to have serious thoughts about giving hate mail a go. For most of my life I’d thought of sleep as something of an annoyance—unnecessary downtime. Now that I’d come face-to-face with serious insomnia, I couldn’t wait for another visit from Morpheus and co.

  Damn my eyes!

  They used to look a lot like the rest of my immediate family’s. Which is to say, two of them, slit-pupiled, with all the usual bits in the usual places. Then I died. . . . No, not died actually. Ceased to exist, which was much better. Dying would have put me in Hades’ power, and the Lord of the Dead hated me as he hated few living beings.

  I blamed Persephone for that and a whole lot more. My invite from Zeus, the eyes, Hades’ attempts to kill me. When I’d rescued her from Hades the place, Hades the god had gone kind of nonlinear. He’d pushed me to the very edge of death, and I’d decided to try to take him with me, opening a hole into the place between worlds.

  Primal Chaos poured through into the here and now. It consumed Hades’ offices and a good bit of the surrounding underworld. I hurt him badly, though I didn’t quite destroy him. I couldn’t say the same for myself. Chaos is caustic stuff. It ate me alive—poof, Ravirn all gone. Actually, more like aieee! Ravirn all gone, but you get the picture.

  That’s one place where the Raven thing saved me. Ravirn 1.0 would have died. But 2.0—born of my conflict with Fate—had managed to imitate my Titan ancestors, creating a fresh body from chaos through will alone. Call it version 2.5. There were some changes in this newest model, most notably my glowing eyes. Chaos looks out at the world from the slits of my pupils now and lights my way with its tumbling infinitude of glowing colors and shapes.

  It’s a little disturbing. No, I’ll be honest, it’s a lot disturbing. Chaos burned away my body, and now it burns in my eyes. Cerice hates it. I glanced over at my lady fair. She was asleep, curled on her side with her back to me. I couldn’t see much beyond her ashen hair. When we slept face-to-face, she caught a flash of light every time I blinked. She didn’t like the new look, not one tiny little bit. I guess I couldn’t blame her, not considering how I felt about it.

  I felt . . . like getting up. I stretched and sighed. It was pretty clear the Dreamers had decided to skip my stop again. There was no point in tossing and turning until I woke Cerice. Sighing, I rolled out of bed. My silk robe, green and black—the colors of House Raven—lay over the back of a chair. I grabbed it though I didn’t need it in the warm tropical night. I also grabbed the invite as I headed for the lower levels. I wanted to look it over again.

  Raven House is a great sprawling structure built mostly of green and black marble and aqua-tinted glass. The style is a surprisingly harmonious mix of nouveau-tiki and classical Greek. It sits on a mountainside overlooking the half-moon of Hanalei Bay on a version of Earth that hasn’t yet produced any human neighbors to spoil the view. As far as I’d been able to determine, I had the entire Island of Kauai to myself in this DecLocus. That’s Decision Locus for the less technically inclined, the designator the mweb uses for the data tags that keep track of all the infinite worlds of probability.

  At least that’s how things are supposed to work. My little conflict with Hades had done even more damage to Necessity —the goddess in computer shape who maintains our physical reality—than it had to me. The system had gone seriously out of whack, with repercussions the pantheon was still discovering. Technically that’s all Persephone’s fault, but I suppose I have to shoulder some of the blame. If I hadn’t broken into Hades the place in order to bring my dead friend Shara back to the land of the living, the virus Persephone wrote to take over Necessity would never have gotten loose.

  “Sir?”

  I tried not jump out of my skin when a quiet voice spoke up from behind me as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Yes, Haemun.” I turned to face him.

  The satyr served as Raven House’s resident staff. He claims he’s a product of my subconscious mind, but I have my doubts. I don’t think I’m twisted enough to have put a soul patch and the multiverse’s ugliest Hawaiian shirt on a man-goat with the voice of Don Ho. I really don’t.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Some slippers? A midnight”—he stopped and checked his watch disapprovingly—“ 3:00 A.M. snack. A drink?”

  “How about that last, a mojito. I’ll be out on the balcony. ”

  “Lanai,” he corrected me. “This is Hawaii after all, even though it lacks Hawaiians. We should endeavor to use the local syntax wherever possible, don’t you think?”

  “Fine, I’ll be on the lanai.” That was another thing. Would my subconscious really act so difficult?

  Haemun headed for the back of the house, and I headed for the front. The main balcony looked out across the bay. There were a number of lounge chairs scattered around, and I took one of these, whistling the brazier next to it alight with a quick burst of binary. That way I could pretend to read by something other than the light of my eyes. The heat felt nice, too; it was chillier outside.

  The invitation really was gorgeous. A complex multilayered thing with cutout and pop-up effects, it mirrored the Parthenon when fully unfolded, complete with a visiting deity in the shape of the pop-up Zeus.

  “Hmph, dead trees. How antiquated.” The little blue webgoblin hopped onto the arm of my chair, tapping the card with a sharp claw. “You’d think Zeus would get with the times. CEO of Pantheon Inc., and he can’t even send an e-mail.”

  Melchior. Bald, blue, bad attitude, and about the size of a cat, at least in webgoblin shape. He’s smaller as a laptop, and quieter, too. Familiar and friend, he’s been with me for years. The relationship has changed quite a bit in that time, from master and servant to partners.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re just jealous that I get real mail and you don’t.”

  He sputtered at that for a moment before regaining his momentum and theatrically rolling his eyes. “Jealous? Of you? Right. You just keep telling yourself that while I tote up the list of deities who want you dead but don’t much care about me. Hades, Atropos, Lachesis, Clotho—”

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “Those last three are all Fates. They should count as one.”

  “Maybe for someone who isn’t actually related to them. But Lachesis is your grandmother and still out for your blood. That takes special effort, and it should get equally special consideration.”

  “Hey,” I protested, “that’s umpteen-times great-grandmother, and it’s not like she’s actively trying to kill me.”

  “Not that you know of.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. He might have a point. The Fates are subtle, and I couldn’t be sure they were off the case just because nobody had taken a shot at me in the last few days. I groped around for something else to say. I hate losing arguments with my familiar. He’s a foot and a half tall, and I bu
ilt him—that should give me some kind of advantage. My eyes fell on the card in my hands, and I thrust it at him.

  “Zeus likes me.” I refrained from adding a “so there” or sticking out my tongue. I might be feeling childish, but no way was I going to admit it to what amounted to a laptop with acute gland problems. “He’s throwing me a party.”