Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  “Only part of it,” I replied, quietly. Mary winced.

  “No, I’m not forgetting. Bronze died. It hurt. I can’t understand it the way you understand it, but I do understand loss and grief!” She turned her head away sharply, a wing of blonde hair falling between us like a curtain. I wanted to say something, anything, but I didn’t have the right words. I’m not sure there are right words.

  We’ve lived together for how many years of personal time? Over a decade, surely; it’s hard to keep track when time doesn’t run smooth and straight. And yet, I still don’t know where she was born, who was her first love, or where she went to school. Is that a respect for her privacy? Or am I just an uncaring bastard?

  “Look,” Mary continued, finally. “We both have things that bother us. As immortals, we’re going to have to face loss and suffering and… and lots of other things. You called it the inevitability of immortality.”

  “Did I? I don’t remember.”

  “I do. Maybe it was a throwaway remark, but it stuck with me. It reminded me of things in the past and warned me of things in the future. But I don’t live in the past and I don’t live in the future. I live in the here and now. So I cope. I cope with what was and what will be. Everyone does, even mortals, each in his own way.

  “I steal things, sometimes assassinate things, because it’s dangerous and exciting and fun. It’s challenging. It gives me something to do, and something I enjoy doing. You… I’m not sure I want to do what you do, but I’m not equipped to understand most of what you do. Whatever it is, you cope with your grief and pain and loss in your own way.

  “My feeling is you’re only coping. You’re not getting better. If Bronze is—was—a part of your soul, then you need to focus on growing it back.”

  “I’m not sure souls can do that.”

  “Have you tried?” she demanded. I remained silent. She was right. I haven’t tried to do anything about my own, personal problems. I just… drifted. Rested. Did things I knew I should do because it was wise and practical to do them. I did the chores because Mary told me they needed to be done, then did just enough to keep myself occupied.

  “They say time heals all wounds,” Mary went on, “and I’ve given you time—time and a stunning amount of patience. It’s been long enough for me to say time isn’t all you need. You need to stir about and become involved in things, not just occasionally do some random side-project, like a shipment of post-holocaust refugees or building yourself a new world-gate-closet-thing. The kids, the manor, all that? I like that. I call it a good start. We need to get you out of your spiritual sickbed and make you move around.

  “And I’m not going to take ‘no’ for an answer. You’re a sickly shadow of the man I met on Nexus. You’re capable of so much more! And this… this husk is not what I signed on with! I love you, you moron, and I want you back!”

  She took a deep breath and calmed herself, took control of her tone. She wiped at her face and took a deep breath.

  “I’m not going to cry. It’s not fair to you. You’ll do anything to make me stop, and I know it. I don’t want that. I want you to acknowledge I’m right, and to do what needs to be done for you, not just because I’m asking it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?” she echoed.

  “Okay. I’m doing this relationship thing wrong again, and I’m sorry. That’s not your big point, but it’s an important point to me. I’m also doing this mourning thing badly, and I need to do better. I’m also doing this recovery thing rather poorly, and you’ve made me realize it. I think I know how I’m screwing it up and I will make a conscious effort to unscrew myself.”

  “I—Wait, what? Really?”

  “Yes. See, I know I’m still not healed from having Bronze amputated from me. It’s been a long time, but… well, maybe I’ve neglected some important therapy. I mean, you don’t just bandage a wound like that and leave it alone. You have to rehabilitate it. You go through therapy. You learn to live with it, adapt to it, rather than endure it. I’ve got scar tissue galore, and it’s sensitive, even painful to poke it, but maybe you’re right. Maybe it is time to… I don’t know. Do something that doesn’t involve being an inscrutable genius in his laboratory.”

  “I agree.”

  “You sound less than totally enthusiastic,” I observed.

  “Well, I mostly agree. It depends on what you want to do.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re a vampire overlord with incomprehensible spells, hordes of robot legions, and a cult of super-soldier religious zealots.”

  “You imply I would us them to take over the world. That’s not what I consider therapeutic. It’s work to do and more work afterward. Not my idea of a good time, or even a healthy hobby.”

  “Good!”

  “You seem relieved.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Because you didn’t want to upset the Ancient Evil from the Dawn of Time?”

  “Ha. No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Nope. But I am going to say you’re not a normal man. Most men would have gone, ‘I don’t do that,’ or said, ‘Tell me what you want me to do,’ or something along the lines of, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t think of it that way.’ You accepted I was upset, considered how you could be wrong and why, and started thinking about how you could change. That may very well be the weirdest thing about you, and there’s serious competition for the title.”

  “You sound like a relationship counselor.”

  “I might have read a few books on the subject,” she admitted.

  “In the recent past?” I guessed.

  “Maaaaybe.”

  “All right. Just to make sure we’re on the same page, here, let me add I haven’t been trying to take you for granted. I’ve been letting you do your own thing. From my point of view, I’ve been here whenever you want me—don’t I go with you on any sort of adventure you want?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you don’t want me along, I don’t follow you around. I’m trying not to be clingy.”

  “I think I could stand some cling,” she told me, seriously. “Masking tape. Plastic wrap. Maybe Velcro. I’m the one who—no, bad phrasing again. I feel as though I’m the only one making an effort. You don’t bother me, and that’s fine. Thing is, you take it too far. Too far for my taste, I should say. To me, you feel distant, even remote, like… like some Ancient Evil from the Dawn of Time lurking in an inaccessible fortress on a mountaintop. Almost uncaring. I can go up the Mountain of Night to Castle Dracula. All the horrific guardians know me, so they smile and wave me through. Thing is, you never come down looking for me because you want my company. I would love it if you showed me you cared enough to bother me for it. Does that make any sense?”

  “Perfect sense,” I agreed. “Thank you for telling me these things. I need to know, because I’ll never figure it out on my own. I’m a guy.”

  “Or a weirdo,” she added, smiling.

  “Both, probably.” I was glad to see her smile. “So, instead of staying out of your way, I should bother you more?”

  “I’m not sure that’s how it works, but we can try it and see. Are you ready for this? I mean, you’ve been kind of a mope for years. Are you ready to do this?”

  “No,” I admitted, “but I think it’ll be good for me. At least, I do now. All you had to do was hit me over the head with it. Even if it isn’t quite what I need… if I’m not ready for advanced spiritual regeneration therapy and depression treatments… well, you can keep an eye on me and tell me if I’m crazy, right?”

  “Yes… I suppose. I’m not sure I’m best qualified to judge your sanity, though.”

  “Who would you suggest?”

  “Uh, I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she admitted.

  “And, before I get started, let me check something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Diogenes? How are those figurines coming along?�
��

  “I have completed the set, Professor, and it is sitting in a charged magical field, laboratory two.”

  “Thank you. Mary, are you busy? I have in mind to go to dinner and I would be delighted if you would accompany me.”

  “Are we eating? Or are we drinking?”

  “Eating first, drinking later, probably. If you aren’t too busy, of course.”

  “It’s a date.”

  “Excellent. Give me some time to pull myself together and shift gears from Karvalen.”

  “Take your time,” she suggested. “I’ll check with the Castiglione family and your Irish smuggling connections.”

  “Thank you.”

  Having thus committed myself to a date, I found I had no idea where to take her. Oh, sure, there are any number of places we could go. The problem, from my point of view, was more fundamental than a simple question of where to eat. I like Mary. I love her, at least as far as my emotional train wreckage will allow. She felt I wasn’t paying attention to her because I wasn’t interested in spending time with her.

  I disagreed. She’s always a delight to be around. Okay, almost always. Okay, more often than not. She always has something fun and adventurous to do, even though my preferences run more toward suburbs and a workshop in the shed out back. She’s a cocaine-dusted devil’s food cake with sparklers for candles and an exploding surprise inside. By contrast, I’m a slightly-stale doughnut. There’s not a lot I can do about it; I was born under a ho-hum star. My best course would be to pay more attention to her and see if her fire could pilot-light my own.

  The problem wasn’t merely that I wasn’t paying attention to her. Whether it was objectively true or not, facts don’t have as much to do with a successful relationship as do feelings. If she feels I’m neglecting her, then, by definition, I am. If I didn’t want her storming off, feeling neglected by and bitter at me, I had to step outside my comfortable little shell of self-centeredness and start paying attention to people again—Mary, especially.

  Well, pay more attention. My usual feeling about people is to regard them as obstacles or bystanders. Mary doesn’t fit either of those categories, but if I’m so wrapped up in my own isolation cocoon she thinks I regard her that way, then I’m the one who has to change.

  So, what do we do that we’ll both enjoy?

  “Diogenes?”

  “Yes, Professor?”

  “We’ve got aliases in a bunch of different universes, right?”

  “Yes, Professor. Most are ‘weak’ aliases, unable to stand anything beyond superficial scrutiny, however.”

  “That’s fine. I hope to remain unscruted. They’re all somewhere between well-off and rich, so some of them must get invitations to parties, grand openings, charity events—those sorts of things.”

  “Yes, Professor.”

  “Do we have anything like that for tonight?”

  “I’m sorry to say it appears there are no invitations to gala affairs. Do you wish to gatecrash?”

  “No, although I’m sure Mary would love to break in to a mansion and see how long we could hang around before someone asked us who we were. Do we have anyplace where we can get a restaurant reservation in a hurry?”

  “If I may I suggest a cruise ship? We have catalogued several worlds wherein the social and economic structures have commercial ocean liners. Unless you prefer a luxury space habitat?”

  “No, but thank you. I’m leery of oceans, reentry, and excessive solar radiation.”

  “Noted. May I ask why you ordered construction of an ocean-floor habitat and a submarine yacht here in Apocalyptica?”

  “Because anyone who knows how much I hate being in the water will never look for me in it.”

  “Your logic is irrefutable, but, perhaps, not entirely sound, Professor.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  I strolled down to the level of the slidewalk tunnels and headed for the main media room during the discussion, followed by Diogenes’ observation drone. He triggered the hatch to open it and I stepped inside.

  “Give me a display of all catalogued worlds with human-dominated social structure.” The main hologram clicked on and a few million listings popped up. “Okay, eliminate any world where we can’t buy a decent dinner, for whatever reason. Much better. Now, how many of those have something we consider a deal-breaker? Widespread war, pestilence, or overabundant levels of surveillance?”

  “Including worlds where personal identification is invasive?”

  “Yes, please eliminate those, as well. We don’t want to leave excessive footprints.”

  We continued to prune the list, eliminating places based on other factors. Finally, we had it down to manageable size.

  “That’s what, two hundred?”

  “Two hundred and nineteen.”

  “How many of those have impressive museums?”

  “I conjecture all of them, but not all of them have public data networks. My information on those worlds is more limited due to gate restrictions.”

  “Good point. Eliminate worlds below that level of technological development.”

  “Seventy-two remain.”

  “Do any of them have a recognized ‘best museum in the world’?”

  “Yes. Serial number 1-2-8-3-6-2-9, no code name. The International Union for the Preservation of Art is a unification of the Smithsonian, British Museum, and the Louvre Museum systems. The primary building is in Bern, Switzerland, but artifacts and displays are regularly on tour through other museum locales. The main building is open until midnight and currently has a show of dogon, masks, and statuettes of the Mali cultural grouping of Africa. There is a five-star restaurant within two blocks which can book reservations online and offers priority seating for a fee.”

  “How do you—oh, you opened a probe gate and connected to their internet via the wi-fi, didn’t you?”

  “You are not as dumb as you look, Professor.”

  “It would take work,” I admitted. “By all means, book us for dinner and the museum. Do we have identities and money and suchlike for 1-2-8-whatever?”

  “No, but it is slightly after noon, local time. It is legal to own and sell diamonds. There are eight such places advertising a willingness to purchase gemstones in the city. You should have no trouble exchanging our artificially-grown diamonds for local currency.”

  “Have I ever told you how much of a lifesaver you are?”

  “No, because you have a protein brain and cannot think that well.”

  “Sometimes, I’m not sure when you’re kidding.”

  “Neither am I. It is an algorithm, Professor. I do not have a sense of humor.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. I keep forgetting.”

  “In similar vein, I have determined the appropriate response to be, ‘I take it as a compliment.’ Reservations made, tickets ready. Claim both at their respective doors, Master and Mistress Tepes.”

  “Seriously? Tepes?”

  “Yes, Vlad.”

  “It’ll do,” I decided, and reported to Wardrobe for world-specific clothing. Sadly, swords were out of style, but kilts were in fashion. Not the short, skirt-like kilts, but the long, full-sized things. I’m not sure how that happened in Switzerland, but there’s no accounting for local tastes. I’m okay with a kilt, when necessary, but I insist on underwear for more than one reason. For one, my underwear is generally bulletproof.

  And it hit me. A happy dinner out, some dancing, a museum tour, and a little alley-prowling to take a bite out of crime… we’ve done stuff like that. We’ve done it so many times, it’s almost a stereotype. It isn’t something new. It doesn’t say, “I’m really putting effort into this because I care.” It says, “Well, you were upset, so I did the minimum required to look good.” It’s flowers after an argument. It’s chocolate on Valentine’s Day. It’s a pro forma apology and doesn’t come across as sincere.

  I held my sword and tackle in hand and considered it. No, dinner and dancing is something you do because you have to apologize an
d don’t want to put in the effort. Anybody can think of that. It doesn’t say you care; it says you acknowledge you were wrong and would like it to be over. I need to break out of the humdrum, the usual. Mary deserves something better than me. I need to think like D'Artagnan. Maybe Aramis. Possibly Casanova. Can I mix Captain Kirk and Captain Jack Harkness with a splash of Captain Morgan?

  It’s so far outside my comfort zone I’m not sure I can see it from here. On the other hand, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s thinking outside the box. I did so, humming a little and paging through some of the world files. I kept asking myself what Mary would like to do that still played well for me? Something we can do together.

  I addressed the hovering drone.

  “I have a request,” I told him.

  “Yes, Professor?”

  “I’m going to need a new chariot and a pair of Blacks. Do you have two?”

  “I can have two ready for you in less than an hour.”

  “This might work.”

  Bandhala, Date Uncertain and Probably Irrelevant

  Bandhala isn’t too bad a place. I don’t know about the world, but the city reminds me of Istanbul or Marrakesh. The streets are a bit dusty, the buildings stone or baked-clay brick, and the people dressed in flowing, colorful stuff reminiscent of the jellaba and the kaftan. I didn’t see many turbans, but there were lots of hats like round boxes with ribbons on the top. The technology is on par with, oh, the late Roman period, as evidenced by the scaffolding and other equipment around the dome being built. Maybe the best comparison is Baghdad, in the Golden Age of Arabia. They did like their running water, though, and their hygiene. Public fountains were all over the place, both as decoration and as public sources of water.

  I still believe a good measure of a civilization can be had by examining the plumbing.

  “Why, exactly, are we here?” Mary asked. I thought she was quite fetching in her flowing robes. The dark scarf across her face brought out her eyes. Diogenes’ stealth drones did a reconnaissance of the place and he ran an intelligence analysis expert system to generate a report. In it, he cautioned us about showing a woman’s lips in public. Locally, they can wander around darn near naked if it suits them, but a woman’s lips are utterly, utterly taboo out of doors. Indoors, no problem. Every culture has its oddities, I guess.