Anatopsis - Chapter 1
In the latter half of the Universe's most recent outward explosion, when things were slowing down a bit but not yet falling apart, when alive was still an exciting if not completely safe thing to be, there was a planet with which you are familiar. In its youth, it had been bright blue, like a marble, but had since turned the color of badly mixed paint. And if you were to draw near, you would in fact see that its waters were comprised of a mish mash of pigments—rust, algae, methane, phosphorus—all whipped together by the tremendous waves and whirlpools that plagued this planet's surface. This was not a hospitable place, not the sort of world upon which one would expect to find life. And yet, there was one small spot of life left: a gaudy eye of land, its pupil grassy, its iris glinting with steel and glass, the lids speckled with castles and moats and lined with twin blue rivers.
On the southern lid of this island, in a magnificent castle atop the hill, there lived a princess named Anatopsis Solomon. Anatopsis—or Ana, as she preferred to be called--was the daughter of a witch, descended from a long line of witches, and there would be nothing especially unusual about this except that her mother, Queen Abigail Solomon, happened to be chairperson and president of Amalgamated Witchcraft Corporation (or AW, as it was more commonly called).
If you picture Ana's mother as the old-fashioned, cackling-but-colorful sort of witch one finds in fairytales, you will be dangerously mistaken. She was a modern witch—shrewd, calculating, commanding to the last degree. She presided over a board of twelve witches and warlocks, directed thousands of employees, both magical and ordinary, and worked day and night to maintain her reputation as the most powerful woman in the Universe.
To the casual observer, Ana appeared to be a perfect copy of her mother. She was blessed with her mother's beauty—the long flaxen hair, moon-white skin, and green eyes so essential for beguiling friends and enemies. She had also inherited her mother's aptitude for all things magical. By the age of two, she had read her first Magic Primer; by three, she had mastered all of the Counting Spells; and by the age of five she could set a cat to running in circles so tight it would explode with static electricity. In short, she was a prodigy.
The similarities between mother and daughter ended there, however. For whereas the Queen interchromafied her hair a necromantic black and kept it perfectly coiffed, Ana's hair resembled an unraveling rope. And whereas the Queen never behaved in any manner that did not suggest pride, dignity, and complete confidence, Ana was moody and unpredictable. One moment she might be shouting and flying about the castle with an old sword, whacking the heads off the gargoyles; the next she might be glowering and melancholy, a princess trapped in a windowless tower. And whereas the Queen believed there was no question that Ana would follow in her dear mother's footsteps, Ana had no interest at all in the family business.
"I want to be a knight errant, like Father," she said, one morning a few days before her thirteenth birthday. She and her mother were seated at the long, polished witchadder table in the dining room. Ana's ice-blue dress was already stained with melonfish juice and crumbs of newt bread. "He gets to travel and meet lots of interesting people. He doesn't sit at a desk all day worrying about his net worth or which employees don't like him."
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