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== Worldbuilding ==
== Worldbuilding ==
{{Section stub}}
* The first [[babel]] attempts to prime [[human]]ity for the [[War in Heaven]].
* The first [[babel]] attempts to prime [[human]]ity for the [[War in Heaven]].
* Erasmus and the other pilots are [[posthuman]]s who use [[praxis]] to reach their past and ensure it isn't altered.
* Erasmus and the other pilots are [[posthuman]]s who use [[praxis]] to reach their past and ensure it isn't altered.

Revision as of 03:42, 13 June 2024

Error creating thumbnail: Read-only mode

Error creating thumbnail: Read-only mode

Newtons Sleep was the seventh novel in the Faction Paradox series and the only one published by Random Static. An ebook of the novel was later released on the Random Static website for free.

Publisher's summary

Don't tell her what it was like. Don't tell her how you had to dig your way out through heavy layers of clay to reach the fresh air, because that would distress her. Don't tell her about the box, because that would confuse her.

And don't tell her about the light, because that was sacred.

Lately cannonballs have flown their arcs, leaving the crystal sky unbroken, while on Earth their traces are all too visible. Yet though Heaven has never seemed so far away, the divine is terribly closer. War on Earth presages War in Heaven; the struggle between the holy houses of Christ and their eternal Adversary has erupted among the living.

These are the signs of the last days: in 1651, a dead angel is found in a tree in Lincolnshire and a nymph rises from the waters of Kent; in 1642, a dying man is miraculously healed in the grave; in 1665, uncanny skull-masked doctors descend upon a plague house; in 1683, the French secret service unveil mirrors that show the futures; in 1671, Aphra Behn -- she-spy and poetesse -- infiltrates a gathering of alchemists; in 1649, the English kill their king, and history begins...

Plot

Book One: The Rituals of the King

Chapter 0: The Waste Book

As above, so below, War on Earth has begun to mirror the actions of the War in Heaven - the struggle of the holy houses of Christ and their their eternal Adversary shape worldly events. In all things you may read the influence of the divine and of the damned.

A boy sits under a tree, dreaming of the near future, of books and writing, as something falls onto him. Not an apple as it would later come to be told, but some sort of unknown substance. As he examines the unknown substance, his mind flashes forward to the life his life would become, not mere books and writing, but coins, and a king who does not yet exist. He looks upwards and sees a tangle of limbs. Climbing the tree, the boy finds a man as black as night with no face, his head a solid sphere, with branches struck through him. No, not a man. An angel. He touches the angel, examining it, kicking it. The angel clings to him, envelops him, swallows him whole, and the boy once again catches glimpses of his life to be - parliament, coins, infinitesimals, optics. Looking at parts of his life, the boy is repulsed, but as he sees the entirety of his life he asks the angel what is to happen. The angel says that he has but one mission given by his creator, the destruction of the Adversary. All he must do is live his life, letting the angel live in his shadow. The angel insists that others would dare not strike him. The boy, willing to help, awakes, with all memory of what was found in the branches gone, left only with his dream of a perfectly ordered book.

Chapter 1: Killer of Sheep

Nathaniel Silver stands in the crowd on a dreary January morning, happening to be in Whitehall during the execution of Charles I. It is his duty, so he thinks, as one of the soldiers who fought and killed to make this happen to see this through. As the king is theatrically killed, there are cheers and wails, people will claim that there were portents of various types, falling stars, beached whales, the severed head talked for minutes afterwards. In later years Silver will write, along with his other works, that the last was certainly false, having not noticed it at the time. Finally, after spending some time in contemplation, he returns to his troop. As he goes, he carries with him three things as he ever does. The pain in his head from his old war wound, the scraps of paper with his thoughts and musings about life, and a small wooden box.

Silver travels out of London for a few days, though it feels like it stretches on for much longer. At last, in the twilight fog, he meets up with Sir Denzil Lynch - fondly ushered back to the latter's estates. Sir Denzil informs him of people appearing recently, in dribs and drabs, calling themselves Silverites, followers of his. Silver is surprised; he has no followers. But Sir Denzil insists that they call themselves such. The two dine at Lynch's manor, and Silver is introduced to his young daughter, Alice Lynch, Sir Denzil telling her that him and Silver are going to conduct an experiment together on this land. Silver thinks that Sir Denzil is underestimating the risk - that even though the fighting is over the two may very well be caught - previous experiments were tried and crushed. Silver brings up the possibility that he preaches blasphemy or sedition on accident, as it's easy to do. Denzil waves it off. He trusts that Silver is a good man on this earth, and so long as Silver is discrete these charges can be made to disappear. Finally, with trepidation, Silver relents, and the two negotiate terms for a settlement on Denzil's land.

As the pair begin to tour the compound granted to Silver the next day, Silver's self proclaimed followers arrive to great them. One of the Silverites in particular catches his eye, a woman named Ann Brownlow who he regards as quite beautiful. Not long after Sir Denzil began to raise walls around the compound, turning the compound into a stockade - Alice Lynch often coming to visit, to watch the group. One night, after a long day of work, the Silverites begin their merriment, stopped only for a few minutes by Nate elaborating on what he thought this commune should be - a place of love, and how in love no bad can come, no sin. He slips away from the party, wishing that Ann would follow, but instead Alice follows him. Upon hearing his disappointment, Alice tells him that she'd like to live in his world of love, and he confesses to her that he almost died in battle, shot in the head. As she falls asleep, he carries her back to the commune, expressing his trepidation at sharing with anyone what he truly experienced on that day. Heaven opening before him, cloaked giants reaching into his self and stitching him whole. As he goes to sleep he glances in the small wooden box he kept for what he was found clutching on that fateful day - a small egg that gave off a strange glow.

As the year marches on into the harvest, Nate resolves to learn the art of butchery. All of his followers, save the infirm, were working the fields, and so he insists upon making himself useful and learning to slaughter sheep. Before the year is out, he and Ann marry. Some good news to water down the bitter taste of the poor harvest. Still, Silver holds out hope, they only had to live one winter. On the first of January, the first Silverite was found dead from disease. Within a week three others. Ann died on the tenth.

Nathaniel wallows in his misery, insisting that this is his fault, God has punished Ann and his followers for his flaws, his sin. Alice seeks to comfort him, tells him that she loves him, tries to kiss him. He shoves her away - she's too young and his wounds are too raw. That night he decides what he must do. Destroy the egg. But as the hammer arcs down it's lurched from his grasp. Three of the robed giants from before appear, angels cloaked in white. They tell him that they're not angels, though he refuses to think it, they're pilots and they wish to bargain. He begs for Ann back, be them Angels or Devils. They insist that this is something they will not do. But the two sides agree that he will learn about the world. Become a natural philosopher. In exchange for, at the end of his life, his soul. The egg is a distillation of their souls, and he may use it for this purpose through his life. The next morning he finds Alice outside his door and apologizes to her, expressing that the book he was working on must be rewritten, and her father will have to delay publication.

Nate redevotes his attention to the commune and to the book, but he cannot stop the end of the former. When spring comes, people slowly trickle away, unwilling to work for Sir Denzil to survive - a betrayal of their ideals. It slowly becomes a ghost town. In May, a friend of Silver's from his time as a soldier, Donald Taylor, comes to visit. At first Nate thinks he's there on the orders from Cromwell and mistrusts him. But Don is here just with a message, a warning for Nate that his book, already published in London, has drawn attention. Some are accusing it of blasphemy, some are frustrated that it doesn't pick a clear ideological stance. He warns Nate to be wary. He also suggests that Nate's current methodology, of observation, is outdated, that the modern day is the day of the experiment.

Mere days later one of Sir Denzil's men came to the commune to warn Nate that Denzil has been arrested for forgery - a brief stop before he flees with Alice to London. Alice insists that she wants to stay with Nate, but he agrees that she needs to leave. He waits in silence for the soldiers to come and pick him up.

Chapter 2: Mistress Behn's Holiday

Aphra Behn, languishes on the ship home, to her masters in the Service. Or. No, she dreams. She's dreaming of this voyage, and of something she's forgotten, a green pillar, with carvings, floating from the sea. The others in her dream, dismiss it, and she wakes up to find the much younger man she was in bed with leaving her alone and disappointed that night. In the light of day she strolls through Paris, until an old acquaintance of hers, Sir Samuel Morland, notices her and chases after her. Oh. Fuck. No, Aphra dances away, trying to avoid Sam, worrying that he might be her contact with le Pouvoir. Ah, but Morland catches up to her, steering to a nearby cafe where they toast his dead wife. The two discuss politics, talk bordering on treason, before Sam tries to pry out of Aphra her purpose in Paris. She relents slightly, admitting to be here on Service business as he suspected, just that she's delivering a letter.

Aphra treks back to her room to find two whores blocking her path. Confronting them, it becomes apparent that the pair is her contact with le Pouvoir. Aphra, placing herself in the mindset of Astraea - her patron and code name, is taken to a carriage and driven blindfolded to meet a man who names himself Monsieur Pantaloon. He takes the letter that is delivered, though expresses his disdain for the English and their failed rebellion, unleashing forces that will in a hundred years turn against the French in turn. Pantaloon and his retainers leave Aphra alone in the room, and she promptly decides to explore it, as any good spy would do, stumbling upon three shapes draped in cloth. Uncovering them she finds a trio of mirrors, and the candles snuff out, but light remains, flickering from the glass itself. The mirrors showed Behn possible futures. First a vision of the stagnant future of the Pilots' Coterie, second a future where humanity has been harnessed by the Great Houses to be disposable armies built to fight an implacable Adversary, and third a dream-like lost future of a humanity at peace. More varied visions appear of places beyond Earth and humanity, then the mirrors are filled by a nymph reaching out to her. Aphra is rudely awakened from her trance by M. Pantaloon, insisting she tell the Service that le Pouvoir has the windows of divination - they'll not be taken or duplicated. But as a response for the letter? He's amenable. He'll deliver the rat to her lodgings.

Aphra is taken back to her lodgings blindfolded, where she finds a man gagged and bound in her bed, other members of the Service present to take care of him. She asks who the man is, and learns they consider him one of the most dangerous men in the world. As she slowly sinks into sleep she remembers. She's seen him before, twelve years ago at Salomon's House.

Chapter 3: The Family of Eyes

Mistress Piper thinks back to the day she was married, and her dreams - for a respectable house and husband, a nice little garden. Perhaps children in the future. They married two years after the return of Charles II, had a nice house, and he had a nice job. But those times were past. Thomas is dying. Everyone is dying. Piper, herself half starved, treks to her front door, calling to the guard she hopes is nearby. She begs for food, says that it was promised to them. The guard says that there's nobody left to bring food, and he himself dares not break quarantine, so as she begs and begs, he walks away. Piper collapses, crying. The door opens and a trio of figures carry her to a chair, giving her food and drink. When she at last opens her eyes she sees that the trio are wearing masks of deformed bone. One of them, Cousin Hateman, examines Thomas and Piper, explaining that a thousand people have died in London from the plague today alone. She gives Thomas something to ease his suffering as he dies, but tells Piper there's nothing more they can do for him. They're here for her, the loa need her.

Piper sinks into sleep for some time, attempting to build up her strength, and dreams of a nest of black serpents covering her, the loa, and a rooster, come to protect her. She asks the rooster who it is, and it claims to be her, to be the house, to be the Golden Age of England. It says it too is a loa, but it will protect her from the others. She asks what loa were, not just in her dream, but out loud, waking herself up. Cousin Hateman and Cousin Amphigorey are nearby and answer - spirits that watch over and protect them, sometimes each side in the arrangement does favors for the other. Mistress Piper asks if they're witches, and the pair dismiss the idea - they worship nothing. Piper sleeps again to build her strength up once more.

Days pass, and Piper awakes to noise downstairs, which she creeps down to spy on. There's an argument over their current mission, supposedly simple, but with anomalies, the the Empire abandoning them, disagreement as to how to proceed. Piper looks down further to see a figure, unable to tell if it's a man or woman. The figure asks why they're not using [[[Nick Plainsong|the boy]] instead. The answer is that he's too perfect - already aware that there are great powers in play, so has already tried to contact them. As the group argues, the newcomer, Father-Mother Olympia, rushes over to Piper and grabs her, Piper feeling an invisible blade on her neck. With some thought, Piper looks at their shadows on the wall, and, without moving, separates them. Olympia walks her outside and explains that the group wishes to recruit her. Piper expresses shock, but eventually comes around to the idea, even as Olympia decides to leave the group. Piper goes back inside and works with Amphigorey and Hateman to dedicate herself to the Faction, finding herself in her dream once more. In her dream she kills the rooster and feeds it to the swarming snakes surrounding her, renouncing her old name and old life, the snakes whispering a new name, Little Sister Greenaway.

Book Two: At Salomon's House

Chapter 4: Annus Mirabilis

Nathaniel Silver rots in gaol, almost as an after thought, in association with Denzil Lynch. As he lies there, weeks pass, his egg is taken from him, he racks up debt and sickness, eventually falling to the floor half dead. When taken to the chirurgeons they discover a metal ball inside his head, lodged there from his time fighting. They take both it and Nate to show to the newly reinstated King Charles II. Charles delights in the novelty and lets him free.

A week after his release, his friend Don Taylor arrives, having been key in reinstating the monarchy. Taylor offers to make introductions to the Invisible College, since Nate still wishes to be a scientist. The pair head to a lecture where they watch a man unsuccessfully attempt to perform surgery on a dog. As they depart, walking through the streets, Nate expresses his distaste with these methods before a man runs up to him, screaming that Nate Silver has been haunting him, and shoves the Egg into Nate's grasp, insisting he must take it back, running off. Nate takes this as a sign that he's on the right path, the path of experimentation. The Egg encourages this, indeed, encourages Nate to experiment with the Egg itself; manipulating its shape, Nate finds that the Egg seems to be made of the same material in uniform consistency, uniformly malleable. Nate is given introductions from Don as to scholars he knows, and Nate begins to learn more about the subjects from books, consulting the Egg when he can and where to go next, growing his contacts and slowly expanding.

Of course, this was all too good to last; plague comes to London not long after. The Egg tells him how best to avoid infection - all around him people die and the streets empty, giving him cover for his experiments - dissections on corpses, learning physick from his work and from the Egg. One day, as he performs one of his surgeries, a young lad comes to watch him, expressing interest. He insists that he'd like to be the assistant of a magician like Nate, and eventually Nate gives in and accepts Nick Plainsong's help. Time moves on, a year or two pass, and with it, the plague; Nate deciding to end his studies in anatomy and turn elsewhere. The pair are unsure of where to move next - Nick insists on taking time to reflect in taverns with wine and women. As the pair carouse, they come across a harlot who is surprised to see Nate alive, Alice Lynch.

Chapter 5: The Third Day

Aphra Behn has tea with a friend, Carola Morland, who's come to ask Aphra to return to the Service on behalf of her husband, Sam. Aphra is reticent, but gives in as Carola seduces her. She's asked to go to a house in Cambridge and report on a gathering of magicians and alchemists. Sam finds it to be distracting people from their more important duties, and suspects the host, the Magus, of being dangerous. And so Aphra travels to Cambridge, all the while haunted by a vision of an otherworldly woman.

A few miles before reaching Cambridge her carriage halts - a man accosting it like a highwayman. The young man expresses his delight in meeting the spy they've heard so much about, and escorts her to Salomon's House. Plainsong, for it is Plainsong, leaves her alone in a room, bound and blindfolded. Hours pass, Aphra sleeps, waking to find her hood being removed by the woman from her visions - the nymph she met as a child. But no, the nymph isn't quite there, she's insubstantial, and fades out even as she arrives. Behn then yells for help, prompting others to come looking for her, Plainsong and two others, a man around Aphra's age, and one wizened and old. The old man, Salomon, rants at her, tries to frighten her, but the younger man, the Magus, expresses his apologies. Plainsong has acted without his knowledge - all are welcome. He unties her and offers to find her lodgings.

Chapter 6: Love in Many Masks

Nate stands on the stage in the house, thinking about how he'll address his compatriots in person for the first time. As he ventures towards the door to greet the visitors, he's ambushed by a frenchman, an M. Valentine, who offers the Magus a position with his benefactors, le Pouvoir. Silver turns him down politely and moves to stand next to Alice as others arrive. The pair see a carriage arrive, an emissary from the Faction of Paradoxes, who have petitioned Salomon for admission. Cousin Hateman is introduced, an emissary from the Eleven Day Empire. She asks permission to raise a shrine in her room for the duration of her stay, and, humored, departs. As she leaves, another guest is introduced, from Trinity College, Cambridge, Jeova Unus Sanctus. Nate turns to his companions and begs their leave, hurrying toward the newcomer.

Nate welcomes Jeova, a correspondent of his who he's meeting for the first time. He considers him to be perhaps the most impressive of anyone here - it's as if he had an Egg of his own. Upon the two making their pleasantries they pull away from prying eyes to converse privately, and Jeova pulls out a copy of Nate's first work, The Cycle of Sun & Seed. He finds the book flawed, but with some truth, and he sees capacity for improvement. Seeing, at last, a kindred soul, Nate reveals to Jeova his greatest secret, the Egg, the philosophers stone, how it grants him divine insight. Jeova is firmly dismissive of the idea, the time for miracles is past, the Egg is only reflecting Nate's own thoughts back. The two carry on their discussion until Alice arrives, delivering the news of Aphra Behn's imprisonment. After Nate finds Behn lodging, he returns to Jeova, but walks in on him and Plainsong in the throws of passion. As he departs to his room, half shocked and half betrayed, Alice comes to him. Seeing the state she was in, she insisted that she wouldn't leave him, and she's always loved him, and the two spend the night together.

Chapter 7: Mumbo Jumbo

Littler Sister Greenaway steps outside of the Magus's door, keeping an ear to the spirits of the building as she did so. She passes by the room of Jeova and Plainsong, staying to the shadows as she moved to the room of Cousin Hateman. She enters to greet the whole of her cell, reporting to them on what had happened that day. They express their concern for the next day, powers on the horizon. Greenaway hands them the biodata dolly she's made from Nate's bodily fluids and trimmings. The group plans to summon a wall of loa surrounding Nate to lock out any outside interference. Mother Sphinx proclaims that the Great Houses are on their way in the next day or two, and the cell gets to work.

Chapter 8: Ghosts of Fleas

Nate awakes to find himself alone; disappointed, he meets his spy. He once more apologizes to her for Plainsong's behavior, allowing her the run of the house before departing. As he walks through the rest of the mansion he comes upon Plainsong and insists that he apologize, which Plainsong agrees to, before meeting Alice as she departs for London for the week. The pair say their goodbyes, Nate wishing he could leave with her; Alice saying she loves him as she leaves.

Nate rests before the ceremony. He walks out onto the stage, seeing the assembled crowd, Jeova, the Faction of Paradoxes, all of them. As Salomon introduces him he begins his speech, greeting them, how they're present to listen to the Magus. But he is not the Magus. He is Nathaniel Silver, a soldier who has a few connections. No, this conference is the Magus, and they all work together to share knowledge across the globe, as the Invisible College does, as the Royal Society does, but on a much larger scale, open to all. And in this spirit he shares with them his secret, his philosopher's stone. He asks the angels to join him, the stone swells, and Christs' pilots answer.

He drops to his knees as the room panics, thanks them for appearing, and one of them reaches out to burn him away. As he nears death, one of the members of the Faction rushes over and stabs the angel, before being shrugged off into the Egg, absorbed, vanishing. The angels say Nate broke their bargain, his life is forfeit, but the remaining members of the Faction arrive, insisting that it's not theirs to take. His life has been bound to the loa, and the actions of the Pilots declared war on Faction Paradox. The two sides began a duel as Nate collapses, the Egg deflating down to normal size. Nate attempts to retrieve his stone; Nick Plainsong snatching it just out of his grasp and darting off. Salomon Bendo enters the scene with a horde of Servicemen, no longer pretending to be a hunched over old man, ordering the detention of everyone involved for questioning - especially Silver. Uninterested, Nate slips out of the window.

Chapter 9: Ich Dien

Aphra Behn wakes up to the aftermath of the lecture, to scholars panicked around the house. Rumors fly, of spirits and windows to heaven, of Silver starting a fire. People are being detained for questioning, and Salomon enters, ordering her arrested, just to keep her out of the way. Salomon's servants inform her that he is one of the Five Masters of the Service; this entire situation was a setup. As Behn is removed to secure premises, her captor is incapacitated, Aphra's patron, her true patron, appears, a nymph who she swore herself to long ago. Larissa. Larissa insists that she must follow after Nate, capture him. Behn spies him dashing in between the shadows and manages to pin him down outside. Larissa appears again, observing him. Yes. Nathaniel Silver is the anomaly. She pulls out a needle, ready to excise him, but stops, realizing that while he is the anomaly, it isn't there with him. The discussion cuts short - the Service is upon them; he escapes through Behn distracting them, returning to Salomon's House where she learns that Faction Paradox has vanished as well.

Chapter 10: Behemoth and Leviathan

Little Sister Greenaway falls, untethered to concepts like distance or time, to any reference point at all. She falls, losing her memories of anything but of falling. Oh, but no, she sees at last, angels falling with her. And the thought of angels brings her back, to Faction Paradox, to Nate. She can't catch the angels, but she finds their origin and falls there, to a home built of old memories. Inside she finds an angel, or the flea faced creature who calls itself one, who lunges at her, attacking her. She fights it off; the two calling a truce, it insisting that it alone didn't wish to kill Nate.

The creature proclaims itself a Pilot, a creature from humanity's future, and is distressed to learn that Faction Paradox is involved. The pair exchange information, and they come to the understanding that Nate Silver exists when he shouldn't, that war powers have tampered with his biodata but he himself is nothing special, nothing unusual. And as they talk, Greenaway comes to a decision. The pilot is unable to leave, not having a corporeal form, but naming him the patron saint of pilots, Erasmus they made a pact, him riding her body as a loa.

The pair of them leave the conceptual space together, Greenaway finding herself stranded in a snowbank; the rest of her cell picking her up not long after. Days pass as she heals, unable to speak or move, her comrades initiating her into their ranks as a Cousin. At long last when she's able to form words she shares with her family the most important fact of what her and Erasmus has realized. The thing they're after is from the Homeworld.

Book Three: The Golden Age

Chapter 11: The Juggler

An aging architect, approaching 80, surveyed the laborers at one of his worksites, the death of one of them sanctifying it, priming it. In the commotion a younger man, no more than 40, walks onto the site. And so, the workmen bring the intruder, who claims to be an old friend of the architect, to meet their master, Nicholas Plainsong. The pair, Plainsong and Silver, venture into London, the ageless Silver knowing this will be the day that he dies. As they trek, Nate asks Plainsong about the events long past, Salomon's House, asking for clarity before death. Why he stole the egg. Nick admits when asked; it was at Jeova's asking - Jeova was jealous that the gift went to another when he could do far more with it. But Nick has since found other patrons, unconcerned with Nate - more concerned with his priming of the churches he builds. Soon there will be a purchase of time, and these churches are key.

The two enter a brothel, an old favorite of Plainsong's, who finds himself beset by the attentions of the various women. Nate finds himself largely uninterested, intrigued only by a woman in the corner who refused to join in with the rest, reading off the French tarot. He sits in front of Mademoiselle Machine and asks her if she had a card that represented herself; she had earlier flipped The Magician in recognition of him. She turns over the Ace of Swords, and the two head up to her room to fuck. In the afterglow, Nate opens up the window to the room, petals from outside begin to stream in, slowly at first, but faster and faster, enveloping him completely, erasing everything else.

And then time ran in reverse.

The pair fucked backwards, they went downstairs and Nate departed. Nate and Plainsong met up, walked back to the job site, and separated. Forty years of life, in reverse, back through France, through Salomon's House, through his time in London, through his time in the commune. All the way back to the battlefield, to the night where he died.

But time went back no further.

No, now Nate was strapped to a table, the Pilots standing over him, excising his physical self, extracting his soul from his flesh. As the Pilots looked on they saw his soul was stitched together with another, an extra forty years of life added onto his; he should have died on this day so long ago. Aside from that? Nothing at all bizarre appears. As the pilots express their confusion, as they try to understand this, the trap is sprung. A rush of darkness, of black ink, escapes from where the modification is made, devouring the Pilots, as Nate dies at last.

Chapter 12: The Public Burning

Gabriel Suarez died and was reborn on the fourth of January, 1643. Under questioning from the Inquisition neither he nor his wife were sure how this had happened, and due to a lack of evidence he was deemed innocent. However, to prevent him being used as a tool for wickedness, they removed his tongue.

Aphra Behn is in Tyburn as they hang Edward Coleman. As he dies for his Catholicism, Behn muses idly about how easily she could take his place. Her political views are well enough known to her friends, radical enough to place her in a similar predicament. At last she walks away, the twin silences of sympathy and her own complicity accompanying her as she treks to the House of the Infernal. As she comes to the brothel, she asks to see the Jesuitess, and is led to an almost carnival attraction. The proprietor tells of a creature who has the cunning and malignance of a Jesuit, but appears as a woman, all while having inhuman internal organs. Finally, the Jesuitess is shown, a pathetic, drugged woman who is unable to form a coherent thought, let alone talk. As the other guests depart, disappointed, Behn approaches the proprietor and makes an offer - she wishes to purchase the girl.

Chapter 13: Voodoo Honey

The nameless youth fell into the ice-filled river and drowned. On the way back to her house, to be buried, she came to, spending the next week coughing up water, mute. When she found her voice she was unable to recognize her surroundings, her family. Her family, convinced she had become possessed, sell her to a carnival where and became famous, touring Europe, speaking oracular visions in a dozen languages, never aging. Imitations cropped up in her wake until people were unable to discern the original. Finally, one day, she fell silent, though her body unable to die, just as it was as she emerged from the river.

In the next eight years, Cousin Greenaway becomes a courier for Nate's letters more and more, traveling with him to Paris, yes. But no matter the demands le Pouvoir make, scholars in England still wish to converse, and she carries his most secret correspondence for him. On her routine trips across the Channel her mind drifts occasionally to the timeships of the Great Houses. Hateman and Erasmus had both tried to explain them to her, and neither had made much sense. But neither did her relationship with Erasmus. Eight years on, and still she hasn't shared her loa with the other members of her cell. Is this betrayal?

Greenaway lands in London and departs to the Faction shrine. Over three days she surveils a building her cell has highlighted - the site of an Incursion. A Homeworlder without a ship who had stumbled into the nets cast by the loa. The group infiltrates the building where the Homeworlder is kept, trapped by Londoners. They enter the room to find the Jesuitess catatonic, freeing her from her stupor by destroying the totem of a loa that causes confusion.

The Jesuitess identifies them as House Paradox, and demands that she be freed or she'll destroy them all. Hateman asks for more information about her plans and situation first, but in doing so gives more information to their hostage. The hostage laughs at their attempt to bluff - she's unaffiliated, but reiterates her previous threat. As this occurs a crowd gathers outside, demanding the Jesuitess be brought out. Erasmus whirs to life inside Greenaway, telling her that there's a chance to get the Egg back, a path to reclaim it. It's close. As the Faction looks out at the amassed crowd they decide that the only way to escape with their prize is to kill those assembled. But Greenaway has another idea.

Chapter 14: Doctor Bendo – Cures All

Proctor Harrow was a sodomite, a viper in the nest of the settlement of New Beulah. When he failed to die after the first hanging, the Puritans took it as a sign to hang him again and again. Eventually Harrow escaped, running away into the forest, this tale only finding its way back into civilization through the tales of a French trapper who sold his account to le Pouvoir before he died.

Aphra Behn enters Dr. Bendo's wagon, bringing back with her rejection - the Jesuitess was not for sale. As she waits for her superior in the Service, a strange Egg speaks to her, urges her to take it. It insists that it should be returned to its rightful owner. Aphra dismisses the idea as Alexander Bendo enters. Bendo informs Behn that Faction Paradox has re-emerged, his sources suggesting that they plan to make off with the Jesuitess. He says he plans on making use of the chaos the crowd causes to steal the Jesuitess away and sends Behn off.

As Aphra returns to her bedroom she takes out the package she was able to purchase in the Jesuitess' stead - the shift she was wearing when they found her. She examines it and hears a knocking at her door. She finds an old woman who gives her name as Mother Sphinx, saying that she needs to be here - someone will be raising a daughter here. As they talk, Sphinx suggests to Aphra that she be invited in and given tea, and Aphra finds herself obliging. Aphra also finds herself bringing Sphinx the shift, which Sphinx examines, finding inside it a needle that concerns her - a device that "raises daughters". As time passes Sphinx fades out of of Aphra's mind, forgotten entirely when a window breaks - the Jesuitess had arrived to reclaim her property.

Chapter 15: Raising a Daughter

There were less reliable stories too. Suarez, Harrow, the nameless youth, all were documented by reliable witnesses, but there were others from rumor. Silver's study, maintained for him by le Pouvoir overflowed with documents; thirty six winters ago a wave of resurrections had washed over the earth. He finds that he isn't unique after all.

In the harsh morning light the Faction had fled, chased away by the Service; the Jesuitess sits in the building where she was kept, the building standing, though licked by flame. Upon finding her, the Servicemen take the Jesuitess, well, Cousin Greenaway, back to Dr. Bendo's laboratory.

Aphra Behn tries to fight off the intruder at first. Failing in this task, she instead opts to converse with the Jesuitess as the latter dons her shift. She finds the Jesuitess strangely interesting, and the Jesuitess finds something missing from her attire - the needle Behn had found before. She notices it on the kitchen table and leaps for it, missing it as Behn grabs it first. Behn asks her to stay just a little longer, but Alex Bendo arrives as well, not fooled by the Faction's deception. As Bendo tries to interrogate the Jesuitess, the latter springs towards the needle, prompting Bendo to shoot her. The Jesuitess seizes the needle. It flares with light. It's lodged into Dr Bendo. Both combatants fall apart, the Jesuitess drowning in her own blood, Dr. Bendo dying from a blazing wound. Bendo turns into ash and the needle drops, the Jesuitess struggling to grasp it once more.

Aphra passes out, dreaming of a daughter she never had.

When Aphra awakes, she finds an old woman, a nun, perhaps, standing over her. Her memory of the recent past has vanished, Mother Sphinx suggesting a plausible story of what might have happened - a burglar entered and left when Aphra put up a fight. Sphinx asks Aphra if she knows a Doctor Bendo; Aphra does, an alias for Johnny Wilmot. Sphinx thanks her, and leaves.

Greenaway is in the middle of escaping as the paradox washes over her. Erasmus tells her that it comes from something being physically inserted or excised from the Spiral Politic - a daughter event. Greenaway grabs the Egg from where it's stored in the laboratory and leaves, heads back to the rest of her cell. As her cousins bed for the night, Sphinx comes over and asks about the loa riding her. Greenaway gives his name - Erasmus.

Le Pouvoir finally ask Silver for his work. They wish to see the future, conquer the future. Nate doesn't think it's possible, but he will try. As he traipses Paris, he encounters Alice, back from London, crying and shaking. She hands him a box, telling him that an agent of Faction Paradox came to her with a gesture of good will. Inside is the Egg.

Chapter 16: Astraea, at the Dawn of Time

Eff frolics in the woods near her house. Playing her flute, she hears a loud splash in a nearby pool of water. Rushing to the edge she finds a figure struggling, a nymph in skintight armor. Eff begins to nurse the nymph back to health, attempting to communicate with her, receiving no response. Eff, dejected, returns home to find her father hosting visitors who she does her best to avoid. In the night she returns to the nymph with supplies, staying with her until morning. In the morning the nymph speaks.

The nymph explains to Eff that she followed Eff here - her paths were cut off and she had to find a new one - Eff's life, to her quiet place, to here. As Eff hears this story, as she hears her name from the nymph, she decides on a new one. Aphra. She's to be called Aphra. The nymph tells Aphra that she's hunting something - the worst creature to ever live, and she needs Aphra's life to be her path. Aphra agrees to help, pledging her life to the nymph, to be her servant, if she'll just stay with Aphra for one night longer.

But first Aphra returns home, finding one of her father's guests has covered for her the night before. He insists now that she owes him a favor. He hands her a letter to pass to another one of her father's friends discretely, and says that if she does it properly there might be more work coming her way in time, nobody would ever think her the type to engage in subterfuge. Aphra steals away again that night to meet the nymph once more. That night she dreams.

She dreams of a house in the mountains, a house with caverns below it filled with machines and ships and strange rites. Her cousin who told her he had a name when he didn't exist - Lord Yellow Dog of the Thirty-One Cuts. And her own name echoing through the house. "Larissa, Larissa, Larissa."

Aphra wakes. The nymph wakes. Despite Aphra's begging, the nymph leaves, walking towards the lake and vanishing. Aphra returns home, disappointed, but optimistic that her life can have meaning.

Book Four: As Above, So Below

Chapter 17: In Antic Jerusalem...

Eff dreamt she was from another world, memories of the one beside her bleeding into her mind.

Everyone is dead. Across the entire field, everyone is dead. She hears the death throws of a ship echoing across the battlefield as she skitters along, looking for the needle. She finds the needle in the hand of a dead trooper and retrieves it, walking towards the mother of her order. Her mother gasps, orders her to use the needle. Eff cries, she can't end her mother's life. Before she can use the needle, her mother passes away, and a shadow falls. The crucified man looms.

Her mind goes back to when she first joined the order, when she first met her mother. She's asked to be her mother's mnemonic, her little book, to keep her records perfectly. Eff is let in on her thoughts, and sees her descent into obsession with the coming war - constantly taking trips to hunt the enemy. Eventually her mother takes her down into the order's basement, to its dungeons, to see their only prisoner. A man with a globe for a face, inky blackness covering him, draining all color. The crucified man suggests that he be sent to infiltrate another culture, rewrite it to better fight against the enemy. The mother dismisses this idea, insisting that their enemy would notice but listens to him still.

Eventually, listening to the crucified man's suggestions for some time, her continued worry about the war convinces Eff's mother to bring him to a barren outpost and bond with him, desperate to know what he knows. He can't escape without a ship, and if need be, she can be destroyed with a weapon she's brought with her. A needle that erases its target from history completely, erasing him as well.

As the ship dies Eff attacks the crucified man, losing, pitifully. He tells her to return, to tell others that he'll destroy the enemy, and they'll forgive him. He doesn't need a ship - he throws himself into the sky and vanishes. Eff scoops up the needle and waits, heals, until others arrive, those who come to pick a battlefield clean in their pseudoships. She has to follow. She can't return while the crucified man still lives.

Chapter 18: The Uses of Pleasure

Aphra Behn paces on the deck of the Queen Christina, no wind in the ship's sails on its trip from France to London. At the Ratcatcher-Serjeant's suggestion, she decides to bring food to their prisoner, the Magus. As she enters his room, he remembers her from those years prior at Salomon's House, though she aged and he stands unchanged. As the Magus eats and stretches his legs, the pair discuss a few things, the constants of his worldview. Liberty, leveling, love. Love becomes a topic of some disagreement between the pair, and as they discuss it they give into lust. Certainly not love.

Aphra returns to the deck, finding rain and wind awaiting her, as well as a female figure across the grey backdrop, Larissa.

Chapter 19: The Terror in Paris

Aki lives in scrubland on the far side of the world, the sun beating down on her and her shapeshifting companion, Lizard. Aki dreams of the bone people coming for her, taking her away, making her the Grandfather's hand. She waits and waits, but nobody comes.

Greenaway's cell begins to fray in the years after the Homeworlder, tensions rising as progressing failed to be made with Nathaniel Silver. Hateman chides Greenaway for her complacency, comparing her with Aki, who they gave up for Greenaway, a recruit with so much potential, never chosen. Greenaway returns to Paris to find men pouring over Nate's notes, Silver nowhere to be seen. Interrogating them, she discovers that the Service has taken him back to London - le Pouvoir gave him up once the mirrors were made.

As Greenaway considers her situation, Erasmus suggests to her that she retrieve the egg, leading her to le Pouvoir's storage vault, where Greenaway fights through wave after wave of guards, slowly making her way to the room where the mirrors that see the future rest on three obelisks. Greenaway closes herself inside and watches the visions, marveling. She commits herself to her task, and one by one, breaks them, breaks what so many men with steel and sinew failed to dent.

The shattered points of light that made up the mirrors come together and first form the egg, then sink into her as Erasmus calls to it. As le Pouvoir's guards burst into the room she vanishes, back to London in a heartbeat. She enters the Faction's base of operations to find her cousins missing - only their shadows trapped on the wall. A voice calls out to her, "Cousinnnnnnnnnn Greeeeeeenaway" - her world fading to black.

Chapter 20: Outside the Cathedral

The Queen Christina lands; Silver is shackled and taken ashore - taken to the site of the new St. Paul's Cathedral where he meets with his new benefactor and old friend, The Master of Service, Jeova Unus Sanctus. Jeova apologizes to Silver for the affair at Solomon's house - it wasn't something he was aware of then, and nobody in the Service is willing to admit to now. The whole matter is seen as an embarrassment, though it did put Silver in the bad graces of many for some time. But no longer. Not only is Silver welcome back in England, Jeova wishes him to join the Service; he sees in him a kindred spirit - someone else who has heard the voice of heaven clearly.

As they talk, Jeova's clerk walks in, Nicholas Plainsong. He bids Jeova continue, and so he does. There is war in heaven. Man has been called to make common cause against God's adversary, and they need a general, someone to train humanity for the fight generations in advance. And Jeova thinks it's Nate's task. He was brought back by God and resisted two temptations - false philosophies he ultimately rejected. That of the beings he called Christ's pilots, and his own, with The Cycle of Sun & Seed. But the time has come for war, not for peace like Nate wished. Jeova offers to exalt him, make him the head of the Service, Master of Masters.

Silver contemplates the offer, and says that he'll consider the request when Alice Lynch is brought to him. He needs time, to think, to rest.

Chapter 21: A Wedding

Aphra Behn treks through London, trying to stay close to Silver, eventually losing him. In the foggy night Larissa comes to her. Larissa senses her enemy now, knows where it is, options unfurl in front of her. The pair depart towards where Larissa knows it to be.

Jeova, Nate, and Nick depart from St. Paul's, towards an old church, burned down in the fire - the local headquarters of Faction Paradox. Moving inside, Plainsong explains to Nate that the Faction has been spying on him for years, intending to use him as a weapon against heaven. He shows Nate a bound figure with a skull face - Cousin Greenaway, they call her. Removing her mask, Nate is reunited with Alice Lynch.

Greenaway's, no, Alice's mind reflects back to her time in captivity, how Plainsong tormented her, took out his rage on her for her betrayal. Erasmus pointed her to a tool Plainsong holds on his wrist - a loa-cast, how her cell was trapped, how they can be freed, using the remnants of the Egg still remaining in her. But she can't escape the here and now, Nate's betrayal, his sorrow. But no malice. No curiosity. Nate simply walks away.

Plainsong stands there, expecting Nate to rage at him for this; Alice exhales the last of the Egg at Nick's face. Nick raises his arm to shield himself, and the Egg surrounds the loa-cast, shifting the world with it. The Egg drops from his arm, the loa-cast broken, Greenaway free, her compatriots free, Jeova fleeing, and the Service springing into action.

Silver walks away from the abandoned church, reflecting on what had transpired, as Aphra Behn arrives, a companion in tow. Jeova rushes out of the building, and Behn's companion springs on him, wielding a silver wand as if to stab him. As the pair grapple, the needle tossed to aside, black ooze seeps from Jeova, reaching towards the other figure, emitting sound, saying that the woman is to be its path home, its new host. Hearing this, Aphra picks up the needle that has fallen and lodges it deep inside Jeova.

Chapter 22: Last of the Magicians

Above the great powers reacted to this shot, this movement in the war, in different ways. Faction Paradox too busy to respond, on the run from the Great Houses. The Remote uncaring. The Celestis unable to hear. And the Great Houses slowly, inexorably, turning towards it to respond.

Below the world collapses as Jeova fades. The Faction cell has successfully routed the Service, turned them away, and Silver watches on in horror as the sky collapses down on the world. The Faction calls upon their loa, but even they cannot hold back the tide, the world torn asunder. And so Silver, desperate, approaches Jeova, and praying to God, pulls out the needle that is lodged within him. The world falling still.

Chapter 23: Newton Sleeps

This felt like America to Aphra Behn, a new world unlike any she had known. Nate cradles Jeova off to the side, and Aphra bends over Larissa, who begs Behn to end her life, to stop the blackness from escaping. Aphra is unable to do this, unwilling. But she finds a minute imperfection in Larissa's suit and tears at it, more and more, ripping it open. Without the shift, Larissa can't travel, can't escape, and neither can the parasite within her. The parasite attacks Behn using Larissa's body, strangles her. Nate attempts to help and is swatted away for his trouble.

The parasite notices Alice Lynch, the only member of Faction Paradox not working to heal the world, and turns its attention towards her - she can leave this world behind. Nate Silver picks the Egg up off the ground and tells it to help Alice - a cocoon of light envelops Alice and Larissa. Inside Greenaway notices Larissa interwoven with a man made of blackness, a globe for a head, stitched into her, draining her. The crucified man threatens Alice, says that its current host is wasting away already, and it needs a new one. Alice pulls herself away, and Larissa and Alice fall out of the cocoon. The Egg shrinks down, before growing back into a tree and then a man with a globe for a head, shifting colors between white and black and grey, before finally collapsing and shrinking into a dull pebble, inert.

As the members of the Service slowly begin to clean the mess, Larissa offers to work with Faction Paradox, now that she's stuck on Earth. And on the banks of the Thames, isolated and alone once again, Nate Silver takes one last look at the needle he removed from Jeova, tossing it into the water.

Chapter 24: Glory

Aphra Behn is dying. And thinking of her life, the political affairs of the country, of constantly changing Kings for poor reasons, never a respite? She's glad to no longer be involved. As Aphra contemplated her situation, her maid entered, telling here that there's a man outside, a priest. Aphra at first lacks interest, but relents, allowing him to come in, and is delighted to find not a priest, but Nate Silver. Silver comes and sits beside Aphra, and the two talk of love and loss.

At last, long last, Aphra Behn asks Nate Silver to carry her to the window sill, and, looking out into the sunlight day, she dies.

Characters

Worldbuilding

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Notes

  • This book was the first for the small New Zealand publishing company Random Static.
  • The cover won the 2009 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Artwork.
  • The author acknowledges Fiona Moore and Tat Wood for thoughts and comments on the first draft.
  • In January 2009, Random Static decided to release Newtons Sleep as a free ebook. This release was without any Faction Paradox series branding, which was deemed an unhelpful distraction to a book that "stands up perfectly well as an SF novel in its own right."[1] The ebook is available here.
  • Obverse Books began publishing this story in 2011.
  • Mademoiselle Machine is implied to be Time's Vigilante Ace long after the Virgin New Adventures, with "Machine" being what "McShane" sounds like in her bad French accent. Among various hints, Machine relates to Nate Silver on preferring to use a short nickname instead of a real name, the tarot card representing Machine's naked soul is the Ace of Swords which depicts a hand holding up a sword (as Ace did in Battlefield), and a young girl in the streets near The Cunicularii is seen imitating the revving of a motorcycle.

Continuity

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Newtons Sleep e-Book
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