"I have a spell! The alethiometer says it will work! On people with daemons, anyway, I have to come up with another version if I want to cast it on bears or zombies, but the alethiometer says it's a go any which way I ask it. I drew you a diagram, come stand in it and be immortal."
And then she stands at a particular point in the diagram and raises her arms to the sky, Path opposite her on the other side of the design.
She speaks.
"Yambe Akka, do not wake,
These mortals are not yours to take.
I name them now forever whole,
The two are one, body and soul -"
At that lines she points one hand at each of Adarin's - components, then crosses her arms over her chest.
"Yambe Akka, leave them be,
Yield your judgment up to me.
I name them young forevermore,
Their centuries are spoken for."
She rests her arms at her sides.
"Yambe Akka, disappear,
Your presence is not wanted here.
I name them everlasting now,
No fall, no end will I allow."
She stabs the deer at the last syllable and it dies and there is an altogether dramatic clap of thunder. The diagram vanishes. The herbs vanish.
Isabella hops up and down in place, beaming.
"I mean, with a caveat," says Isabella. "The wording's very dramatic, and it's probably some protection against some kinds of sudden death - the alethiometer thinks you'll be less susceptible to a few specific forms of harm - but it's mostly an anti-aging spell. You are as immortal as a witch now but not more immortal."
She practically tackles him. "The really hard part was the bit with the arm motions, the alethiometer was very clear that there was a fifth missing or lost or something part to witch magic that I had to incorporate but it could not be specific enough so I had to basically A/B test a million things but I have the spell now and you are immortal."
She makes sure the box that her portal bag leads to has plenty of the necessary supplies and then she flies them to the hub and through to Seattle and to her dad's house.
And then she draws the diagram on his living room floor because it's raining outside and it would just be washed away, and waits for him to come home from work.
Isabella makes a diagram and tells Zeviana and Lecasryn where to be and puts herbs on them and summons up yet another deer - "I may have to switch to cows or something else domesticated if this winds up in mass-production" - and then she performs the spell.
"Immortaaaaality! If I die now at least I am guaranteed to leave a pretty corpse!"
Isabella kind of assumed, but doesn't think it was that entertaining. She meanders back Adarinward and drapes herself on him. "I'm gonna find my mom and teach her the spell," she says. "And the queen. And then I am going to hire a public relations organization."
And Isabella gives her mom a copy of the spell - she ran off a few copies of the instructions before even waking Adarin - and then gives the queen a copy and has an excited personal conversation mostly about Charlie with the former and an excited technical conversation with the latter. The queen wants more copies to distribute to the clan and agrees that Isabella can of course share this with friendly clans immediately, though she'd like a few days to think about the less friendly clans. The fact that the spell applies only to mortals makes her more open than she might otherwise be, but it's still a significant decision.
And then Isabella flies her fiancé to the portal, to the hub, and to home, and starts researching public relations.
He's not sure how helpful he'll be with helping with public relations, but he will certainly try!
"I want to get this distributed efficiently in a way that either discriminates effectively in favor of decent people or is at least resistant to disproportionate exploitation by non-decent people," she explains while she researches. "Telling the clans works reasonably well because none of them are in such dire straits that they'll do it for favors if it goes against their better judgment and mooooost of them have okay judgment. I expect it to go mostly to witches' husbands and sons, which doesn't skew noticeably. But for everyone else I want some kind of nicely crafted - ad campaign, some way to funnel people in past witches who are willing to help."
"...Oooh. Okay, I will still need to advertise that, but I like this angle. The trouble is that it requires me to design a charity that arbitrary mortals can effectively contribute to so maybe I should see if I can co-opt an existing one. ...Or several. I could just drop on charities with a small army of witches like a ninja and immortalize all their volunteers. Participation goes up everywhere, nice people get immortal."
Isabella unties a piece of silk from her leg and ties it vaguely ninjalike around her head.
"That's not quite what I was thinking. It's mildly difficult to get the services of witches - I'll be able to get a period of help from a few witches from a clan each time I teach them the spell, I can be like 'I'll teach you my immortalizing spell if you do a one-year part-time stint with me immortalizing people' - adding to the plan more spells needing witches or worse me personally to cast makes it less workable. I'm thinking, anyone who is currently volunteering at a soup kitchen is probably more likely than a randomly chosen person to be nice, so I show up and surprise a soup kitchen, and then every soup kitchen in the country thinks maybe it's next. This gets lots of soup kitchening and some immortaling done without overtaxing my ability to call on the services of witches."
"The stampede is why it's a surprise, and two hours is well within the time frame I had in mind. Maybe I keep a few cooperative witches in reserve for second swings by each target to cast on anyone who is legitimately part of the intended scope but couldn't make it."
"I think that I might be a bit impatient about marrying you," he says fondly, snuggling his lovely fiancée. "I'm a bit bewildered, I'm not usually impatient about things."
He laughs. "Thank you, my darling. You're gorgeous," (kiss) "funny," (kiss) "incredibly smart," (Kiss, kiss, kiss.) "have an excellent scope of morality," (kiss) "fantastic drive to meet your goals," (kiss) "and also Path is the fluffiest, softest little owl. Of all time."
About six months later, when several thousand people have been immortalized and Isabella has had to hire a separate small staff just to pick candidate charities and sort through applications for special treatment from people who are not charitably associated, and the colony has expanded by another townful of people, and the portal network has expanded to cover much of Europe, and Isabella has made substantial but not yet quite alethiometer-verified progress on her resurrection spell -
there is a wedding.
It's mostly American custom, because Adarin doesn't feel much fondness for his own and is of the opinion that Isabella's parents should feel at home with it. The one thing about Kystle weddings he does keep is that at the end of the ceremony, he and Isabella let two little golden candle holders (complete with lit candles) out onto the water. They're actual gold (alloyed with other metals), because they are absurdly rich by now. They are allowed to flaunt it a little.
Their rings are miniaturized magic mirrors with the strongest spells for 'do not ever break from distance apart or being hit' Adarin can manage. He's fond of having them the minute they're on. Useful, thoughtful, pretty, with just a large heaping of gooey romantics on the side.
Then they're married.
He keeps giggling at the wedding reception.
It is two months (and many portals and a staffing overhaul and numerous immortalizations) later when -
Well, this time it's at least a civilized hour, not six in the morning. It is in fact two in the afternoon.
"I DID IT THE ALETHIOMETER SAYS I DID IT I HAVE IT RIGHT THIS TIME GODDESSES ALL I HAVE IT" hollers Isabella from her workroom upstairs.
"Oh goddesses a list of herbs as long as my arm and the poem's soooo long and I have to tweak the scansion to incorporate the resurrectee's name on a per-occasion basis and there's two different parts where I have to sacrifice things, not just one, although I'll be able to do birds this time it doesn't have to be deer, and the diagram will be so fucking huge but it will work."
"She will want to be here if we're resurrecting dad. Which I want to do first," says Adarin, grinning. He takes the list and reads it over. "Think I can ply your clan to hand over herbs if I throw cool magic things at them? I can make another portal bag, I could grab Ana while I'm there."
Adarin makes a spell for teleportation, teleports to just outside of clan lands, and then starts looking for either Ranata, his sister, or someone who could direct him to either. He officially does not care about nudity right now, he is about to get his father back.
"Isabella made a spell for resurrection, Ranata's getting the herbs, we're getting dad," he says. Then he notices her nudity and his eyes snap shut. "Aaaugh I feel like I should be traumatized but I don't care we're getting dad back, come on why are you sitting get dressed we have to go."
"Got it," he says, writing it down in his book of cheat sheets. "Here, trade you."
Herbs and book are transferred, they exit clan lands, and then -
- there they are, outside his and Isabella's house.
Isabella makes sure her poem's last verse scans.
And then she recites it.
This one mostly doesn't rhyme.
She starts with her hands clasped together over her heart.
"I call all my goddesses now to behold,
To aid me as I bring life to the dead.
Reclaim what was taken and heal what was harmed.
Return what was lost and salve all its grief."
She falls to her knees, each hand on the opposite shoulder.
"I call all my goddesses now to assist,
Obey me as I call forth who once died.
I restore in new flesh, unwithering, hale
In face familiar, in comfortable skin."
She kills a goose that she had ready in a smooth, fluid motion that ends with her arms both outstretched forward.
"I call all my goddesses now to retrieve
The missing, the lost, the mourned, the deceased
Who shall wake, live, all again, now at my hand
Who shall cease to be ceased at my command."
She stands up, fists clenched and raised to the sky.
"I call all my goddess now to comply!
Veron Antem Barkett no longer hers -
I call all my goddesses now to give back
The life that I summon with herb and ash!"
The second goose dies bloodily in her hands as she collapses deliberately to the ground, knife plunging into its heart.
The ash scatters. The herbs vanish. There is a high almost electrical whine and a cold wind -
He puts her down, looking at her affectionately, and then gets to explaining to his dad what is going on.
"Dad, so, um - this is my wife, Isabella, she can resurrect the dead as of this afternoon. You are the first person she has brought back."
"Anecdotally, several clans of witches have gone ahead and started earlier and larger batches of children than they otherwise might have since I figured out the immortalization and they can expect to keep their sons, which means more daughters too, which means more witches to help with mass-production! Being able to resurrect too will only help."
"Hey," she says, realizing something else. "Can you resurrect Luzia's son? And her husband, pretty sure she misses her husband, too."
"Luzia can resurrect them, she's in my clan and will have the spell presently," Isabella points out. "And that would probably be less confusing for them. I cannot, of course, guarantee that you will get along with your girlfriend's husband when there is no prior arrangement of polyamory."
"Okay. Then she's probably going to. As to what happens after, I dunno. There could be fallout with dead husband, I guess. Dunno what I'd do then. I'll figure it out when I get there. I just figured I should ask, because - girlfriend. She misses them, I'm pretty sure."
"So, I know Zeviana is not really in a position to offer you a guest room; it would at best be a guest camping site," Isabella says to Veron, "but Adarin lives here with me, and if you would prefer that to a hotel, you can stay here while we find you a nice place on Earth, or you could go live on the colony world, or whatever you want to do."
Isabella descibes the task to the staff person - "help my father-in-law find a house in Seattle and while letting him look at said houses ensure he is not run over by a car, also just sort of roll with it if he does not know what something is okay?" - and then hangs up. "We can go get you a hotel room now."
Isabella and her party are waved through the portals without having to display tickets or passes, and then they are in Seattle.
He get a brief explanation of how everything in the room works. He catches on pretty quickly, asks for access to newspapers or the internet, and from there starts figuring things out himself. The television is helpful. He will need to go shopping for things besides the (kind of culturally strange) clothes on his back, because while he's alive, that's literally the only thing he's got besides the love of his children.